"No one is a greater tyrant than your friendly neighbor. Or fellow workers at the office. Or friends at the gym. The mere anticipation of their scrutiny arrests all growth before it can even germinate. "Why have you changed your way of life? Was everything you did until now wrong? Why do you feel a need to be different?" The most tyrannical regime could never be as oppressive.

"The secret is, they may never even make a comment. They probably don't even care. So where do all those intimidating questions come from?

"They come from your own little tyrant inside."

From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe | Chabad.org | Thought for the Day

Psalm 120, which proclaims: "When my suffering was upon me, I called and God answered me," mentions a thornbush or rotem. The rotem is the teacher of humility. Some people believe that the rotem is the thorn-bush that burned without being consumed in the days of Moses. Moses turned aside to look at the bush, but them hid his face, for he did not want to look at God. It is written of the thorn-bush that it was the most humble of all plants, and that is why the Shekhinah chose it to dwell in.

Psalm 121 says: "I will lift my eyes to the mountains. From where will my help come? My help is from God, maker of heaven and earth." This psalm could be associated with the myrtle. Esther, the Persian Jewish queen who saved the Jewish people from persecution, had the Hebrew name of Hadas, myrtle. As Esther was a guardian of life, spreading good deeds, so too the good smell of the hadas restores the spirit, spreading fragrance everywhere. The sweet-smelling myrtle is often used during Jewish rituals ending the Sabbath, to renew the soul as the Sabbath departs. This psalm repeats the word-root "shmor/to guard" six times, just as we wave myrtle leaves in six directions on Sukkot to ask that the Divine presence care for and protect the world.

Psalm 122 says: "I rejoiced when people said to me: Let us go to the house of the Tree of Life. Our feet were standing in your gates, Jerusalem: Jerusalem rebuilt, a city bound all together, where the tribes, the tribes of God made pilgrimage." Pilgrimage reminds us of the etrog, the good-smelling, bright yellow citron that Jews use on the harvest festival of Sukkot, is the teacher of fertility and union. It is said to represent the human heart, and it also represents the fertile womb. Combined with a palm branch, myrtle, and willow, the etrog represents unity: the unity of Jews with one another, the unity of the four worlds and four directions, and the oneness of creation.

Psalm 123 proclaims: "Look, as the eyes of slaves are on their lord's hand and as the eyes of a maidservant are on her lady's hand, so our eyes are toward the Tree of Life our God, until God shall be gracious to us." This psalm teaches of the reed. When Moses' mother Yocheved placed her baby son in a reed basket, Miriam watched over the basket, hiding in the reeds (suf), until an Egyptian princess found it and rescued her brother. The reed teaches us to be patient and work toward what we envision.

Psalm 124 proclaims: "If God had not been with us, the waters would have flooded us." This psalm represents the willow. The willow is the teacher of need. The willow, or aravah, is one of the four species used on the pilgrimage festival of Sukkot. On the last day of Sukkot, known as Hoshana Rabbah, celebrants beat the leaves off the willow so that they may receive Divine grace during the coming year, and so that their harvest may receive abundant rain. Some say that the willow represents the lips in prayer.

Psalm 125 says: "Do good, o Tree of Life, to the good, and to the upright in heart." Palm trees are often described as "upright" in the Hebrew Bible. The palm is the teacher of justice. The prophet Devorah, known for her wise judgment, sat under a palm tree while hearing cases. Tamar (whose name means palm tree) was a woman who took justice into her own hands-when her father-in-law Judah refused to allow his third son to marry Tamar and give her children in spite of his agreement, she veiled herself and seduced Judah instead-thus giving rise to the line of King David and of the Messiah. This psalm shows us that we cannot let the scepter of the wicked rest upon us, but must choose to be immovably righteous.

Psalm 126 cries: "Our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues with joyful song. The one who walks weeping and carrying the bag of seed, shall come back in joyful song, carrying the sheaves." This hints at the sweetness of the fig (te'enah). The fig tree is the teacher of return, or teshuvah. The fig tree is the tree that gave leaves to Adam and Eve as garments when the first couple went into exile. Later, when Noah and his family, exiled from their homes, went onto the ark, they took fig saplings with them (Genesis Rabbah 36:3). The fig is a witness to the tears of exile, but also is as sweet as the joy of return--the fig fills the mouth with its sweetness as joyful song fills the mouth with music.

Psalm 127 announces: "If God does not build a house, it is vain for builders to work on it." The cedar, or erez, is the teacher of sturdiness. Solomon's temple was built of cedar, as was his palace. A psalm says that the righteous "shall flourish like a cedar in Lebanon." This means that they shall be sturdy over time. If we do learn calm strength, like the cedar, we will give a gift not only to ourselves, but to others, who will be able to depend on us and learn from us.

Psalm 128 says: "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the corners of your home." The vine (gefen) is the teacher of blessing and abundance. Jewish festivals are consecrated by blessing a cup of wine, and Jewish tradition regards the grape as a bringer of joy. The Sabbath also begins with the sanctification of wine. Sitting under one's vine and fig-tree is the ultimate expression of peace and prosperity. In the Song of Songs, the vine blossom is a sign of spring. The vine teaches us to celebrate our blessings and to open our hearts to goodness.

Psalm 129 rumbles: "Many have been my troublers from my youth, but they did not overcome me." This strength relates to the oak (alon). The oak is the teacher of groundedness. When wind and rain come, they do not destroy the great oak. The oak is able to persevere in spite of troubles because of its roots-so too, we need to cultivate our roots in order to stay upright. The oak teaches us to stand firm when inner and outer weather blusters around us.

Psalm 130 calls: "My spirit leans to God more than watchmen to the morning, watchmen to the morning." The Hebrew word for almond tree (sha'ked) means "watcher. The almond is the teacher of leadership. In Israel, the almond tree's flowering is the first sign of spring. In the Bible, God made the high priest's scepter flower like an almond tree to show that he was the spiritual leader of the people. A leader's role is to watch over others, but also to watch over him or herself to avoid arrogance.

Psalm 131 teaches: "Have I not focused and quieted my spirit, like those who nurse from the mother?" This psalm evokes the terebinth. The terebinth, or pistacia tree, is the teacher of the cycle of life and death. The terebinth's name, elah, can be a word for "goddess," and the elah represents the mystery of God's hidden womb. In the Bible, the terebinth is often a place of burial--Rebekah's nurse Deborah is buried beneath a terebinth, and Absalom, David's son, is killed while his hair is caught in a terebinth tree. Yet angels also reveal themselves beneath terebinths (Genesis 12:6, Judges 6:11). The elah contains the mystery of the tree that is cut down and regrows again. In Isaiah 6:11, we are told that the people shall be cut down "like a terebinth whose stump remains, and in its stump shall be a holy seed." Every spring, plants that seemed dead come to life again. So too, we are mortal, yet the mystery of life is reborn in us.

Psalm 132 proclaims: "Your priests will wear righteousness and your kind ones will sing with joy." This recalls the pomegranate, which decorated the hems of the priestly robes in ancient times. The pomegranate is the teacher of the indwelling of God. The fruit itself is an abundant globe full of bright red seeds, like a world full of life. In this psalm, God announces a desire to dwell among human beings, nurture the hungry and care for the needy, establish a just government, and "clothe its priests in deliverance." These are all ways of acknowledging the Shekhinah. The pomegranate reminds us that we are always filled with seeds of light, and that our lives can be God's resting-place.

Psalm 133 says: "How good and how pleasant it is when kinsfolk dwell together. It is like good oil on the head." The olive, which produces oil, is the teacher of peace. In the mythic tale of Noah, a dove brought an olive branch to announce that the waters had subsided and life on the earth would be renewed. Olive oil was also used to anoint kings, consecrating their monarchy and blessing them that they should have a just and peaceful reign. In Psalm 133, the olive oil represents the peace of friends dwelling together. The olive tree teaches us, even after conflict, always to rededicate ourselves to the forces of life and peace.

Psalm 134 calls: "At this moment bless the Tree of Life, all you who serve the Tree of Life." This signifies the apple tree (tapuach). The apple is the teacher of beauty. Its sweet-smelling blossoms last only a few days, but they are a joy to the senses. The apple tree shows us the glory of the present moment. The Shekhinah Herself, the presence of God, is called the "field of apple trees"-the source of all the world's beauty. The apple teaches us to be present in the moment-not merely to understand, but to be.

—Rabbi Jill Hammer, Tel Shemesh Director

GTD is the popular shorthand for "Getting Things Done", the groundbreaking work-life management system and book by David Allen that transforms personal overwhelm and overload into an integrated system of stress-free productivity.

Synagogue 3000 is a catalyst for excellence, empowering congregations and communities to create synagogues that are sacred and vital centers of Jewish life. We seek to make synagogues compelling moral and spiritual centers – sacred communities – for the twenty-first century.

We all use a Mikva at some point in our lives. Most of us, though, are unaware of how a Mikva is constructed and maintained. This week we shall begin a series of essays that will outline the basic rules and logic of Hilchot Mikvaot. The series will be based on a number of sources including the three volume work Mikva Mayim by Rav Yirmiyah Katz. We will begin with a discussion of the parameters of a community's obligation to create Mikvaot.

Source: The Building and Maintenance of Mikvaot - Part 1

Prominent Emergent Christian theologian Brian McLaren (A New Kind of Christian) has met with Synagogue 3000's leadership three times in recent months to discuss shared concerns, particularly surrounding attempts by younger Christians and Jews to express their spiritual commitments through social justice. "We have so much common ground on so many levels," he notes. "We face similar problems in the present, we have common hopes for the future, and we draw from shared resources in our heritage. I'm thrilled with the possibility of developing friendship and collaboration in ways that help God's dreams come true for our synagogues, churches, and world."

S3K and Emergent will convene pioneering rabbis, pastors, artists, and leaders who are reaching out to the unaffiliated and others who are not attracted to mainstream congregations. An open discussion with leading clergy in mainstream synagogues will address the relationship between the congregational establishment and emerging groups. An evening lecture program will feature emergent scholar Ryan K. Bolger (Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures), in dialogue with two renowned experts on Baby Boomer religion, Steven M. Cohen (The Jew Within) and Wade Clark Roof (A Generation of Seekers).

S3K Senior Fellow Lawrence A. Hoffman, (Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life, forthcoming 2006) stressed the importance of building committed religious identity across faith lines. "We inhabit an epic moment," he said, "nothing short of a genuine spiritual awakening. It offers us an opportunity unique to all of human history: a chance for Jews and Christians to do God's work together, not just locally, but nationally, community by community, in shared witness to our two respective faiths."

According to Emergent-U.S. National Coordinator Tony Jones, this meeting has historic possibilities. "As emerging Christian leaders have been pushing through the polarities of left and right in an effort to find a new, third way, we've been desperate to find partners for that quest. It's with great joy and promise that we partner with the leaders of S3K to talk about the future and God's Kingdom."

Not only are many Jewish religious communities looking to the experiences of Christian innovators, especially in the context of worship that engages the unaffiliated, but they are seeing a similar paradigm shift from the Baby Boomer individualistic seeker mode to an emergent Generation X/post-GenX search for spirituality in community. S3K Director of Research Shawn Landres, himself a GenXer active in an emergent Jewish congregation, said, "We hope to learn from their experience and also to build bridges by engaging and challenging one another."

Synagogue 3000 is a catalyst for excellence, empowering congregations and communities to create synagogues that are sacred and vital centers of Jewish life. Its purpose is to make synagogues compelling moral and spiritual centers-- sacred communities--for the twenty-first century. From offices located at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and the Hebrew Union College in New York, the S3K staff has created a national congregational leadership network and is developing a synagogue studies institute. The S3K Leadership Network comprises two
working groups, one on Spiritual Leadership and the other on Emergent Sacred Communities.

Emergent gathers reflective practitioners and engaged scholars for conversation and missional action around the issues of Christian theology, practice, spirituality, justice and church life. The network developed in the 1990's and includes a wide range of Christian leaders from progressive evangelical, mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic backgrounds.

Dear Shir-Yaakov,

As you may know, Synagogue 2000 recently completed a year of strategic planning to envision the next iteration of our work concerning the synagogue of the 21st century.

[...]

We are thrilled to invite you to join our Working Group on Emergent Sacred Communities. This Working Group is a select group of fewer than a dozen emergent Jewish leaders who are committed to the establishment of transformative spiritual communities unbound by conventional expectations about what a synagogue is “supposed” to be.

First, you’ll meet one another, discuss the motivations and challenges of building new sacred institutions, and work to identify the key factors that distinguish your communities from synagogues, minyanim and chavurot, and stand-alone “happenings.”

Second, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in dialogue with national leaders in the Christian Emergent movement who are leading similar revolutions in the church world; we hope that you’ll learn from one another and find new allies and areas of common ground.

Third, you’ll meet with the members of the S3K Leadership Network’s Working Group on Spiritual Leadership to discuss the relationship between the synagogue establishment—the “battleship” synagogues—and the emergent context. Are emergent institutions “stealing” members and money? Are traditional synagogues stifling innovation? Are there other models for cooperation and progress?

While the literature of Kabbalah is vast, certain themes are persistent. Kabbalah is founded on the idea that the commandments of the Torah are given for the sake of restoring or healing the whole cosmos and reuniting it with the Infinite. As such, Kabbalah is the primary thread within Jewish tradition that imagines a purpose for the Jewish covenant, and hence, an intention within the divine will, that embraces the more-than-human world, beyond both Israel and humanity. As Seth Brody wrote, "The kabbalist goal is to become a living bridge, uniting heaven and earth, so that God may become equally manifest above and below, for the healing and redemption of all" (1993: 153).

Two fundamental kabbalistic principles provide a strong foundation for Jewish ecotheology. One is that "there is no place empty of God," (leyt atar panui miney) that is, the presence of God can be found in every single creature and being. The other is that "the whole world is blessed because of us" (kula alma markhin binan) that is, the actions of the righteous bring blessing to the whole of creation and to the earth and all its creatures, as well as to God. Moshe Cordovero (1522-1570, Palestine) elucidated the meaning of this principle in his work Or Nerav ("Sweet Light"):

Being involved in this wisdom, a person sustains the world and its life and its sustenance. And this is what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai [the main protagonist of the Zohar] explained in saying that "the world is blessed because of us" . . . for involvement with divinity causes cleaving, and when the human cleaves to the One who flows/guides the world, he causes the flow [of divine energy] necessarily, and . . . causes to flow upon the world a great flow (1965: 32).

One of Cordovero most popular works, Tomer Dorah ("The Palm Tree of Deborah"), sums up the human task as follows: "This is the principle: he should cause life to stream forth to all" (from the Hebrew, 1969: 21; see also 1974: 82). While there are many approaches to understanding Kabbalah, if one focuses on this principle, one finds a fertile ground in which to root contemporary Jewish ecotheology.

In addition to this foundation there are also several areas in Kabbalah which may be drawn upon for developing an ecological ethics, including views regarding the ethical treatment and moral standing of other animals and other species, the contemplation of the natural world as a revelation of divine presence, and the extension of the idea of God image from humanity to creation itself.

On the cosmological level, a number of characteristics of Kabbalah are equally significant for contemporary ecological thought. The holographic complexity that characterizes most kabbalistic texts is resonant for any theology of Nature that attempts to account for contemporary science. For ecofeminism, the Kabbalistic emphasis on balancing or uniting male and female at all levels, and the acknowledgement of the feminine aspect of the divine, are also intriguing, even though these texts generally maintain gender hierarchy. Finally, the sensuous way that Kabbalah understands cosmogony is echoed in the significance attributed to playfulness in contemporary ecopsychology.

Sefirotic Play

The Sefer Bahir ("Book of Brightness," ca. 12th century), the earliest articulation of what later came to be called Kabbalah, declares in a parable that when the king began building his palace (that is, when God began creating the world), a spring gushed forth. When he saw the spring, he said, "I will plant a garden, then I will delight (or "play") in it, and so will all the world" (5, Kaplan 1989: 3). Creation is seemingly both God act of delight or play, and a gift of delight to all the creatures.

The playful garden that the king planted is described later in the Bahir as the Tree of Life. This Cosmic Tree is defined in later Kabbalah as a particular pattern called the Sefirot (singular: Sefirah), which are together the image of God, or what Gershom Scholem (1991) called "the mystical shape of the Godhead." The Sefirot are regarded alternatively as divine attributes, essence, emanations, instruments or vessels; different perspectives are emphasized by different kabbalists.

The kabbalists in general found God by tracing back the pattern of God unfoldment (to borrow David Bohm term) through the levels of emanation, from one Sefirah to the next, and from one world to the next. These levels represent the way in which divine energies such as love and judgment, male and female, hidden and manifest, and so on, are balanced and made manifest.

Everything has within it the essence and image of those supernal levels. The unifying concept in Kabbalah is that the structure of each "holon" manifests the Sefirot and so bears witness to the image of God. ("Holon" is Ken Wilber term for the way the nature of every being reflects the whole of what he calls "the Kosmos.") At each level and within each entity, the kabbalists saw the pattern of the Sefirot, in a manner that we might call fractal or holographic.

*Holism

Kabbalah embraced a holistic view of the universe which called for the expansion of divinity into the physical world. Kabbalah represents the theological science (in the medieval sense of the term) that draws all the worlds, including dimensions of God and Nature, into one realm, one whole. "Implicit [in Kabbalah] is a notion of sacred cosmology. . . . The kabbalistsfaith involves a hierarchy of worlds that are ontologically higher than the material world" (Krassen 1999: 137). The work of the kabbalist is to draw the higher worlds into the lower and to unite the lower with the higher.

This tendency is most pronounced in the radical cosmogony that some texts propose: The universe is regarded as the shards of an original creation that shattered while it was still in the realm of the divine, carrying "sparks" of divinity into what became the physical realm. Each of these sparks is some part of the divine that has been alienated from its root. Human beings provide the vehicle to repair this brokenness and reunite the sparks with the whole. Equally important, the process that begins creation is understood to be a contraction of God, called tzimtzum, which makes space for the world to emerge. Isaac Luria (1534-1572, Palestine) in particular used images of birth to describe this process, suggesting quite literally that the universe or Nature is somehow commensurable with God in the way that a child is with its mother.

These tropes teach that the human purpose in Creation is to unify all realms of being with and within the divine. The kavanot or opening incantations that kabbalists added to their prayers expressed this purpose: "for the sake of the unification of the Holy One and the Shekhinah." One of the most beautiful expressions is found in the remarkable opening prayer of the original Tu biShat seder (a kabbalistic ritual meal in honor of the Mishnaic New Year for the trees, interpreted as the cosmic Tree), which is found in the book Chemdat Yamim ("Treasure of Days", 17th cent.):

O God who makes, and forms, and creates, and emanates the upper worlds, and in their form and pattern you created their model on the earth below; You made them all with wisdom, upper ones above and lower ones below, to join together the tent to become one . . . . And this day is the beginning of your works, to ripen and renew . . . . May it be Your will that the merit of our eating the fruit, and meditating on the secret of their roots above, you will bless them, flowing over them the flow of desire and energy, to make them grow and bloom, for good and for blessing, for good life and for peace . . . . And may the Whole return now to its original strength . . . and may all the sparks that were scattered by our hands, or by the hands of our ancestors, or by the sin of the first human against the fruit of the tree, be returned to sustain in might and majesty the Tree of Life. "Then the trees of the forest will sing out," and the tree of the field will raise a branch and make fruit . . . (translated and abridged by the author; for a complete translation see Krassen 1999: 148-151).

The purpose of wisdom, i.e., Kabbalah, is to both recognize and reestablish the pattern of the divine image, called here "joining the tent to become one." One way to understand the holism of Kabbalah in modern terms is to consider the idea of the "more-than-human world." This terminology was coined by David Abram to keep reminding us that "Nature" is not "out there" but also within, and that human society is part of the natural world. Conceptually, both God and Nature are more-than-human; in certain moments, the distinction between the two is dissolved in the overwhelming power of being. This happens in Kabbalah through the sanctification of the world around us by holy acts. Every deed is an act of compassion for creation, as well as a fulfillment of tzorekh gavoha, the "need on high," in the divine realm.

*The Earth or Cosmos as Divine Body and Image

There are several themes in Kabbalah that relate to the idea that Nature as a whole participates in divinity. Shekhinah, the "indwelling presence" which is the feminine dimension of divinity, is also called "the image which includes all images," that is, the images of all creatures above and below (Zohar 1:13a). The Shekhinah, as the source of all divine shefa or overflow that reaches the lower worlds, is the image of God that is closest to the earth:

REliezer said to him: Father, didn they learn above that there is no body and no substance? He said to him: My son, about the world-to-come it was said, for that is a supernal [i.e., purely immaterial] mother, but below there is the body of this world, which is the Shekhinah below. (Tikuney Zohar 70,131a)

The Shekhinah in some sense represents "Nature." The Kabbalah conception of Nature, however, is vastly different from both science and Gaia-spirituality. Compared to classical scientific determinism, Nature in Kabbalah is potentially free and self-willing. But, unlike what one finds in the neo-pagan celebration of Nature as Mother-Goddess, Nature Shekhinah must become united with the worlds above and hence with the transcendent. Hence Nature is creative but it is not self-creating. According to some texts, this unification ends with the feminine being re-absorbed into the masculine, while others depict the feminine attaining equal stature, "eye-to-eye" with the masculine.

Whatever these images mean on a practical level, they imply an ambivalent relation to the natural world, which is insufficient in itself and needs to be redeemed. For this reason, Elliot Wolfson (2002) doubts whether Kabbalah has value for ecotheology. Seth Brody, Daniel Matt, Arthur Green, among others, however, find these tropes to be powerful grounds for creating an "eco-Kabbalah."

Kabbalah conceptualized the cosmos as both tree and as Adam Qadmon ("primordial human," sometimes translated "divine anthropos"), thereby connecting the divine image, the tree, and the cosmos itself through Adam. While some texts connect Adam Qadmon primarily with the upper or originary realms only (especially with the crown Sefirah, Keter), others see it as the macrocosm which inscribes the divine image onto the whole of creation. The former dualistic perspective (discussed below) and the latter holistic perspective can sometimes be found in the same text. This complexity suggests that a wholesale adoption of kabbalistic cosmology into a theology of nature cannot work without a rereading of the texts.

Nevertheless, there were particular authors who consistently emphasized the inclusion of the earth and the creatures in the divine image. Yosef ben Shalom Ashkenazi (14th cent. Spain), for example, calls this "the secret of Adam HaGadol (the great Adam)," explaining:

The human being should be called a small world, for in his form he is like all [the creatures of the world] the human, formed of "the dirt of the ground" [Gen 2:8], included in himself the seal and structure and likeness and image of all ten Sefirot and all that is created and formed and made from them (1974: 36).

The earth itself includes the seal and structure and image of God that became part of Adam. God image in Adam not only unites the whole of creation, but also carries within itself each created species and individual, that is, the entire diversity of creation. Isaiah Horowitz (1562-1630) similarly taught that God purpose in creating humanity was to unite the diversity of creation with God image: "he end of the thing[Eccl. 12:13] is Adam, who was created last . . . . Adam was created at the end so that he could include everything in his image and likeness" (1996: 216).

*God Image in the World

If the Sefirot are the soul of the world, then the substance of creation is sometimes treated as the body: "The ten Sefirot . . . are clothed in ten things that were created on the first day, and these are: skies and land, light and darkness, abyss and chaos, wind and water, the measure of day and the measure of night" (Tikuney Zohar 70:120a-b). At the same time, the pattern of the Sefirot at the highest level is the guarantor that every subsequent level is also an image of God. For example, the Sefirot, the angels, the animals of the Ezekiel chariot (human, lion, eagle, and ox), and the four elements are seen as manifestations of the same pattern at different levels (Horowitz 1996: 152).

Kabbalah also uses the letters of Yod Heh Vav Heh (which spell the holiest name for God, also known as the Tetragrammaton) to represent the structure of the Sefirot. Seeing these letters in a thing expresses the idea that God image or presence is manifest through that thing. For example, in Tikuney Zohar (a series of meditations on the first verses of Genesis, written in style of the Zohar) each limb of the human body is an image of this name; each human being as a whole person is understood to be an image; and the diversity of humanity as one species is also an expression of God image, mapped on to YHVH (146a).

This trope was not limited to the human realm. The human species as a whole is further seen as one letter in the name formed by the spectrum of animal species represented in the chariot. Similar correspondences were drawn with respect to the bodies of other creatures like birds and fruit trees, and to other dimensions of the physical and supernal worlds like the colors of the rainbow, thereby relating various senses, spectrums and dimensions to YHVH. In general, those creatures which were seen as uniting the upper and lower worlds represent an image of God in the world, along with those symbols of human culture whose explicit purpose was to create unification, like the Torah and the Mishkan or Tabernacle.

On the largest scale, the four letters of the name YHVH were seen as corresponding to the multi-level process of emanation, becoming well-defined in the Kabbalah of Moses Cordovero according to four worlds or stages of being: emanating (Y), creating (H), shaping (V) and acting (H). From this perspective, the entirety of creation, embracing all the levels, is conceived to be an image of God. While in general all creation is in some sense part of God, some texts emphasize that the lower creatures are essentially part of God name. For example, the Zohar (in a later strata) explains:

In the secret of the ten Sefirot, all is included in this image of Heh. In this secret were created and fixed all these lower beings, and for this [reason] it written, "Elohim said: Let us make/NH in our image as our likeness" [Gen 1:27] literally "let us make/N the letter Heh, with all these that are existing below and are united in her, in her image, truly. (Zohar Chadash, Sitrey Otiyot Beishit, "Secrets of the Letters of Creation")

When the physical dimension of being is not conjoined with the higher levels, then the final letter of God name, the Heh, is as it were missing, and the image of God is diminished. While Kabbalah mostly focused on specific manifestations of the Sefirot and God image, the image of God ultimately embraced the breadth and diversity of creation.

*Rabbinic Roots and Modern Branche

Many elements found in Kabbalah are rooted in classical rabbinic texts. The raw material for kabbalistic cosmology includes the midrashic idea that the upper beings or heavens were created in God image, as well as the idea that the human body is a complete microcosm of the earth. A second-century esoteric teaching, a tradition known as Shiur Qomah, delved into ("The Measure of the Body") and held that God body, was similar in structure to the human body but measured in the ancient equivalent of light-years. This tradition provided a critical element that allowed Kabbalah to make a connection between God image and the physical cosmos. Even the expression "there is no place empty of God" is Talmudic in origin.

The classical texts, however, never made a connection between the structure of the cosmos, the human microcosm, and the image of God, and they explicitly stated that the lower beings or the creatures of the earth were not created in God image. Kabbalah, on the other hand, penetrated the boundaries between heaven and earth and between upper and lower realms, projecting the image of God, either directly or through various analogues, onto the "lower beings."

Contemporary scholars such as Green and Seth Brody understand these texts to be the product of imaginations that embraced the diversity of creation; a paradigmatic text from the Zohar related to this theme has been translated by Matt (1996: 134). Krassen explains,

Nature is neither a source to be exploited for utilitarian benefits nor a sentimental vestige of the past to be romanticized by poets and naturalists. It is rather an ultimate link in a chain of divine manifestation that directly emerges from the divine source of life (137).

Others scholars like Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, doubt that the intention of Kabbalah goes beyond the play of textuality and linguistic interpretation. While the author of this essay supports the former view, in either case, Kabbalah provides a powerful model for any contemporary theologian wanting to express the religious meaning of our encounter with the diversity of life. Applying these principles to ecotheology, as Green and Arthur Waskow do, if the image of God is an image of the diversity of life, then God image is diminished every time human beings cause another extinction.

*Dualism and Repairing the Cosmo

According to some cosmologies, especially within Lurianic Kabbalah, the human of the Genesis story is born into an already shattered universe. This perspective led some kabbalists to a dualistic understanding of creation in which the connection between the earth and imago dei is rejected. For example, in one Zohar passage, we read, "Adam Qadmon, even though his body is made from dirt, it not from the dirt here . . . .Adam Qadmon has nothing from this world at all" (Zohar 3:83a).

This cosmology could be characterized as a "dual earth" theory, where the element from which the primordial human is created is entirely derived from an anti-physical (or ante-physical) earth. Nevertheless, even though the image of God is not expressed through the originary physical universe, our human bodies still have the potential to express the divine pattern, and this can only happen in completeness in the physical world. (This position radically divided Kabbalah from medieval Jewish philosophy.) In Lurianic doctrine, this is called raising the sparks to their root in divinity and purifying them from their materiality, and is called berur hanzotzot. Through this process, the original brokenness of creation could be repaired; this is seen as the purpose of our existence. Thus, whereas rejection of the natural world is a possible consequence of Gnostic dualism, even within the most dualistic interpretations of Kabbalah, the purpose of humanity is to be engaged with the physical world and to bring redemption to the entirety of creation.

*Ethic

Because Kabbalah saw the redemption of the cosmos as something that could happen through every interaction with the world, some kabbalists developed an acute sensitivity toward other creatures, asserting for example that only one knowledgeable in Torah and engaged in the deepest contemplation of raising the sparks should be allowed to eat meat.

One of the foundations of kabbalistic ethics is that all creatures deserve and require respect. One seminal concept in Kabbalah is the idea of reincarnation; for many kabbalists this included the possibility that human beings could reincarnate as animals. But the seeds for this idea of respect are independent of the concept of reincarnation and can be found already in the classical rabbinic idea that everything has a place and one must despise nothing in the world. Cordovero, who developed this principle further than any other kabbalist, wrote:

One should train himself . . . to honour the creatures entirely, in whom he recognizes the exalted nature of the Creator who in wisdom created man. And so all creatures, the wisdom of the Creator is in them. . . . It is evil, too, in the eyes of the Holy One if any one of His creatures are despised. It is therefore written: "How great/rabu [diverse] are your works" [Ps. 104:24] [this means] very important/rav. . . (Cordovero 1974: 78; see also 71, 83-5).

Cordovero stressed that showing mercy and respect and bringing beneficence upon every aspect of creation is what it means to become like the Creator: "One mercy should extend to all creatures, neither destroying nor despising any of them. For the Supernal Wisdom is extended to all created things silent, growing, moving and speaking [i.e., mineral, plant, animal and human]" (Cordovero 1974: 83).

The wisdom of the Creator is found in the pattern of the Sefirot. When a person imitates this pattern, they allow the influx of divinity to reach each and every being, according to Cordovero. He wrote that this principle has strong practical implications:

One should not uproot anything which grows, unless it is necessary, nor kill any living thing, unless it is necessary. And he should choose a good death for them, with a knife that has been carefully examined, to have pity on them as far as possible (Cordovero 1974: 84; see also 78).

Differing broadly from normative halakhah or Jewish law, Cordovero understood other creatures not in terms of human need, but rather in terms of the need of each living thing to fulfill its divine purpose. Human use must "elevate them higher and higher . . . for [only] then is it permitted to uproot the plant and kill the animal . . ." (Cordovero 1974: 78).

This deep understanding of ethics extended even to the interpretation some kabbalists gave to the prohibition against idolatry. Yosef Ashkenazi, who was quoted above, explained that the sin of idolatry is that it separates the worshipped thing from the divinity that comprises the whole:

Since all the existences, from the upper ones and the lower ones, all of them are tied into his great, mighty and awesome name, blessed and holy be, therefore he warned [Israel] to not worship them in separation from his name only in the name of YHVH [as] one . . . (1984: 148, 41b).

Here as elsewhere, the unity of being, which is concomitant with the presence of divinity in all being, is the root of the extraordinary proto-ecological sensibility displayed in Kabbalah.

*Contemplation and Ritual

Kabbalists reconciled the unity of being with the diversity of creation by seeing every aspect of the world as simultaneously cloaking and revealing the divine. They found the Sefirot and the letters of God explicit name everywhere, and reached the spiritual dimension of things by engaging with the traces of the divine in the physical world.

This engagement happened mostly through the projection of language and text onto the world, and thus focused on ideas at least as much as it focused on phenomena. However, the Lurianic doctrine of raising the sparks also focused the mystic consciousness on the depth within real physical things. Elevation of the sparks required direct contact with the physical world, through ritual, and through mystical intentions any physical act. It engendered a deeper respect for the intrinsic value of other creatures and things than one finds in normative Judaism.

The implication of kabbalistic theurgy (ritual or magic which operates on or affects divinity) was that proper intention and consciousness could reveal the divinity underlying all phenomena and unify phenomena with their source. The potential to create a phenomenology of holiness was made manifest by Chasidism in the eighteenth century. These ideas also inspired many Jewish thinkers, both in the Renaissance and the early modern period, to use Kabbalah to reconcile theology and science.

Some modern kabbalists gave full expression to the power of contemplating and understanding nature that is hinted at in Kabbalah. Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935, Palestine) wrote:

Contemplate the wonders of creation, the divine dimension of their being, not as a dim configuration that is presented to you from the distance but as the reality in which you live. Know yourself and your world . . . find the source of your own life, and of the life beyond you, around you, the glorious splendor of the life in which you have your being. The love that is astir in you raise it to its basic potency and its noblest beauty, extend it to all its dimensions, toward every manifestation of the soul that sustains the universe . . . (1978: 207).

For Kook, the meaning of Kabbalah was found within the lived experience of the natural world. He wrote that from the knowledge of God, "there radiates . . . a love for the world, for all worlds, for all creatures, on all levels of their being. A love for all existence fills the hearts of the good and kindly ones among creatures, and among humans" (1978: 226). Kook theology may even be called biocentric, in the broadest sense, as further evidenced by his encomiums on the theory of evolution. Kook gave a directive to his students to embrace the natural world in the words quoted above, a directive that may be realized in part by contemporary work that unites Kabbalah with ecology.

*Conclusion

Looked at over the course of its entire history, Kabbalah is a process which has led to an increasing embrace of the more-than-human world as divine in all its aspects. No particular text or moment in the history of Kabbalah completes the manifestation of this potential, but the trajectory of Kabbalah evolution points in this direction. The cosmogonic, ethical and spiritual dimensions of Kabbalah are all fundamental to any ecotheology or theology of Nature in Judaism.

/David Mevorach Seidenberg, Man Study Circle (Berkeley, California)/

*Further Reading

Ashkenazi, Yosef ben Shalom. Moshe Hallamish ed. Perush Larshat Beihit (Commentary on Creation in Genesis). Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984 (Hebrew).

Brody, Seth. "Human Hands Dwell in Heavenly Heights: Contemplative Ascent and Theurgic Power in Thirteenth Century Kabbalah." In R. Herrera, ed. Mystics of the Book: Themes Topics and Typologies. New York: Peter Lang, 1993, 123-158.

Cordovero, Moshe. Or Nerav (Sweet Light). Jerusalem: Kol Yudah, 1965 (Hebrew).

Cordovero, Moshe. The Palm Tree of Deborah. Louis Jacobs, trans. New York: Sepher Hermon Press, 1974.

Cordovero, Moshe. Tomer Dorah (Palm Tree of Deborah). Jerusalem: Or Yiqar, 1969 (Hebrew).

Elon, Ari, Naomi Hyman and Arthur Waskow, eds. Trees, Earth and Torah: A Tu Bhvat Anthology. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999, 113-162.

Green, Arthur. EHYEH: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2002.

Green, Arthur. "A Kabbalah for the Environmental Age." In Tikkun 14:5, 33-40. Revised in Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, ed. Judaism and Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002, 3-15.

Horowitz, Isaiah. The Generations of Adam. Miles Krassen, trans. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.

Kaplan, Aryeh, trans. The Bahir. York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1989.

Kook, Abraham Isaac. Abraham Isaac Kook. Ben Zion Bokser, trans. New York: Paulist Press, 1978.

Krassen, Miles. "Peri Eitz Hadar: A Kabbalist Tu Bhvat Seder." In Ari Elon and others, eds. Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu Bhvat Anthology. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999, 135-153.

Matt, Daniel C., ed. The Essential Kabbalah. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996.

Matt, Daniel C. God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony Between Science & Spirituality. Woodstock VT: Jewish Lights, 1998.

Matt, Daniel C., ed. & trans. Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. New York: Paulist Press, 1983.

Scholem, Gershom. On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead. Joachim Neugroschel, trans. New York: Schocken Books, 1991.

Seidenberg, David. "The Cosmic Tree and the Human Body." In Ari Elon and others, eds. Trees, Earth and Torah: A Tu Bhvat Anthology. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999, 263-275.

Seidenberg, David. "Crossing the Threshold: God Image in the More-Than-Human World." Doctoral Dissertation. Jewish Theological Seminary, 2002.

Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava. "The Textualization of Nature in Jewish Mysticism." In Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, ed. Judaism and Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002, 389-396.

Wolfson, Elliot. "The Mirror of Nature Reflected in the Symbolism of Medieval Kabbalah." In Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, ed. Judaism and Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002, 305-331.

See also: Eco-Kabbalah; Judaism; Hassidism and Nature Mysticism; Perennial Philosophy; Vegetarianism and Kabbalah; Vegetarianism and Rav Kook; Judaism and Paganism; Wilber, Ken.

Not only was she down to jam, she invited me to join her on stage, to perform a few songs at the Mima'amakim 6th publication party, from which I've just returned.

I recorded our rehersals. They're very rough, and uncompressed (they're 10-30MB .wav files), but I want to share them nonetheless:

• Kankan 1
• Kankan 2
• Something Will Come
• Don't Walk In Front of Me
• Statue

We did three songs together at the show (Something Will Come, Kankan, and Don't Walk In Front of Me) and Jake Marmer invited me up to beatbox on his song Zion Train.

The show was an amazing mix of talent. I'm really glad I was there. I remember what I love about NYC: the people and the culture.

Basya and I had met at Guitar Central downtown earlier in the day; I went planning to buy a looping pedal, but decided instead on a MIDI controller and headphones. I think this was the wise choice, as the former is a performing tool, and what I bought will help me with song writing and a demo.

I beginning to liberate the musician in me....

First Voice: Deuteronomy 32:11
Like an eagle waking its nest,
hovering over it's young.

Devarim 32:11
קִנּוֹ
יְרַחֵף
Second Voice: Leviticus 11:13-14
...the eagle, the ossifrage, the osprey.
The kite, the vulture family.

Vayikra 11:13-14
וְאֵת הָעָזְנִיָּה
לְמִינָהּ
Third Voice: Saturday Morning Liturgy
...and our hands as outspread as eagles of the sky,
and our feet as swift as hinds.

‏Shabbat Pesukei DeZimrah
Veyadenu ferusot kinishrei shamayim
Veragleinu kalot kaayalot

One response from a progressive Rabbi with Conservative Ordination:

As for basic texts--get Anita Diamant's New Jewish Wedding for simple explanations. You can also try the book Lifecycles for creative wedding ideas. There's also a book called the Cretaive Jewish Wedding Book with old and new traditions (Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer). Also look at the weddings, ketubot, etc. on www.ritualwell.org. For mysticism, there are some great passages in the Zohar; try 8a, 48b, 215a for starters.

For questions--it's nice to ask the couple how they met and what they love about each other, to see if you want to weave some of their story into the wedding. You might want to ask what are the most meaningful parts of the wedding to them. Make sure you get all the Hebrew names and dates so you can fill in the ketubah properly. Also, let them explore the wedding ceremony as fully as they can....

The following came from an Orthodox rabbi (I loved receiving these two emails back-to-back):

As far as book go, it depends if you are looking to do a halakhic wedding or not. The best book for a halakhic wedding is called Hanissuim K'hilchatam. To my knowledge it doesn't exist in English translation, but maybe you could learn through it....

In terms of questions to ask them, I will forward you a marriage registration sheet that I made for couples whom I marry and you should ask them to fill it out.

Here are some areas you need to look into: 1. The witnesses for the tennaim (if you are doing a tennaim), k'tubah, kiddushin, nissuin and yichud need to be male, sabbath observant people. B'dieved, i any of the witnesses are not kosher the kiddushin still take hold, but it's ideal to have super kosher witnesses.
2. Make sure the groom is not a cohen. If he is make sure his bride to be has not been divorced and is not a convert. If he is and they are, call me. 3. Make sure that the groom is the one purchasing the ring, and that it is without Jewels. A simple gold ring is the best. You should ask to see it before the wedding. 4. Make sure the couple signs a prenup before the wedding. You can order a copy from the RCA. It needs to be notarized by a notary public, and teh couple's lawyer should look it over before the wedding.
5. Get some dummy copies of all neccesary documents. If they are using teh traditional nusach you can purchase very nice dummy copies from the RCA for about $20. If they are using text other than the traditional nusach you can dowload copies online.
6. Make sure you know the Hebrew names of all parties involved directly with the wedding. 7. The Sheva Brachot under the chuppah should halakhically be said by men, though translations can be said by women. The sheva brachot at benching can be said by women in Hebrew. 8. Ask the couple for some family heir loom kiddush cups to use at the wedding. It's ideal to have two cups, one for kiddushin, and one for nissuin. 9. Ask the chattan if he wants to wear a kittel, and if he wants to daven mincha with vidui the afternoon of his wedding. 10. Find out if there are any step parents. Sittuations can get sticky when there are tense family dynamics. For example, the chattan may not want his birth mother under the chuppah because she stirred things up when he was young and he harbors resentment. You need to be aware of all the sticky family dynamics that can arise. 11. I personally don't do a wedding unless the Kallah has gone to the mikveh first. If you want to talk about timing her tvilla with me give me a call. The easiest thing to do is to have the kallah go on birth control a few months before the wedding so that she will not menstruate at all near the wedding date. Then she can go to the mikveh the Friday or Sat. night prior to the wedding.
12. You need to identify who the witnesses are to the exclusion of all others (this is called yichud haeidim). This can be done by asking the chattan who his witnesses are. If you are not using kosher witnesses this is irrelevent.

It is logical that consecrated items are not excluded from the prohibition for indeed they alone are subject to the stringencies suggested by the mnemonic PaNaK I'Kat, which stands for Piggul, Nossar, Korban, me'Ilah, and Kares, and forbidden to an onein.

The context and meaning of this sugyah aren't so important to what struck me: that onein is identical in consonants to Onan (ayin-nun-vav-nun). Onan, son of Judah, is famous for his death due to onanism, ie, spilling his seed — understood to be the source of the prohibition against masturbation.

Gen. 38:9 But Onan knew that the seed would not be his; so it was, that whenever he would come to his brother's wife [Tamar], he would destroy [it] onto the ground....

What is the connection between mourning and masturbation?

The loss of a loved one leaves us with an emptiness, a longing, a sense of absence. Individuals, complete identities, entities return to the earth, seeds without casings, essence without form, light without a vessel.

The petit mort of male orgasm, without the receptivity of a partner, can be likened to Onan's existential refusal to take Tamar, his deceased brother's wife, in levitical marriage. Rashi brings the Targum Yonatan, who states haben yekarei al shem hameyt, the son, the biyan, the manifest building that the union would have created who what been called in the name of the dead, ie Er his older brother.

Er is the aspect of skin, recalling the fall of Adam and Chava, who before their knowing had skins of light. Trees has the taste of the fruit; there was no separation between light and the vessel, form and essence.

Er means angel in Aramaic, and recalls Hanoch who walked with God. Er, Onan, and Hanoch were all taken out of their bodies by God directly. The onein, like the onanist, experiences an existenial loss where they become removed from ritual obligation, an ex statis in the truest sense, where a part of their etzem and identity are returned to the ground, leaving no perceived future growth, potential, or potency.