6 small changes

Every week there is a batch of leaflets produced by Daf Hashavua leaflets delivered to my places of worship. It contains 4 short essays that are linked to the Torah portion of the week. Last weekend the editor Rabbi C. Gross included an article titled: "Change does not Come Easy"

In this article Rabbi Gross quotes the verse:

"A man or woman shall separate himself/herself (yaflee) by taking Nazarite vow of abstinence..." (Bamidbar 6:2)

A Nazirite is someone who has taken a vow to abstain drinking wine, cutting one's hair or coming in to contact with a corpse. This time period is 30 days.

"Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra (d.1167) suggests that the word yaflee actually means 'does a wondrous act'. Based on this, according to the understanding of Rabbi Yerucham Liebovitz (d. 1936) the Torah is giving us some useful advice about how to approach changing our life habits..."

The act of wonder is changing one's habits in a small way. It's considered ground-breaking and praiseworthy.

Anyway... it's about time I made some New Year resolutions as it's almost June. So I figure there are about 6 changes to make habits between now and 2014.

Three habit changes that are active/doing, e.g. add 231 gates meditation to daily practice, do 30 minutes of calligraphy practice twice a week and attempt to visit the Inner Library once a week. Three habit changes that are passive/stop from doing, e.g. stop going to bed after 2 am, no longer spend excessive time surfing the web, only buy a new book on Kabbalah in Hebrew once I have finished the previous one.

Study Update

Five years ago, I read quite a few books on theoretical Kabbalah (Gershom Scholem, Moshe Idel, Aryeh Kaplan), religion, philosophy, history. Once I started meditating a couple of years ago, my focus of reading shifted to a just one book with advice on practical Kabbalah meditation – Sefer Yetzirah.

However, it felt as though there were gaping holes in my knowledge and as I delved further those gaps came to light in full glaring Technicolor. So now my study schedule looks like this…. And this is just the beginning:

• Sunday – free time for any book not touched in ages.
• Monday to Thursday
• Torah with Rashi or Ramban commentary on the way in to work
• Mishneh, started with Nezikim 6 months ago and just finished Makkot
• Sefer Yetzirah, RaMaK commentary on the way in and out of to work
• Rabbi Abraham Abulafia on Kindle (via Calibre) from PDFs uploaded by Amnon Gross   
• Shabbat
• Jewish Law
•  Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, Mishneh Torah
• Jewish Philosophy
• Guide to the Perplexed, The Kuzari
  

My plans for future study include:

• ·         Go through the whole of the Prophets and Writings, preferably with multiple commentaries
• ·         Study all of Mishneh once (expected duration 4-7 years)
• ·         Study all of Gemmarah once (expected duration 7 years)
• ·         Study all of Abraham Abulafia’s works (expected duration 7-14 years)
• ·         Study all of Shulchan Aruch and Mishneh Torah (unknown duration)
• ·         Study major works of Musar and Chassidus (unknown duration)
• ·         Study the Zohar  (unknown duration)
• ·         Study the works of Maharal of Prague, Rabbi Eliezer of Germizah, Rabbi Chaim Vital, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, Rabbi Yoseph Gikatilla (unknown duration).
• Continue to read works by academics including Moshe Idel, Gershom Scholem, Jim Davila, Rebecca Macy Lesses,… there are about another dozen or so other authors whom I would be eager to keep reading…. Then there are the new up and coming academics to consider…

Please note many of these books can be done in parallel. The main thing is to make time to study.

Pirkei Avot chapter 2, verse 7:

5. Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community; and do not trust in yourself until the day of your death. Do not judge your fellow until you are in his place. Do not say something that cannot be understood but will be understood in the end. Say not: When I have time I will study because you may never have the time.

I play a game with myself where I try to steal as much time as I can to study (and meditate). My travel bag has a number of books and Kindle, my phone has numerous MP3s and every minute of my 1 hour commute each way is spend reading books or listening to MP3s. Even on Shabbat morning in synagogue there are small gaps in which some study can be done – this is how I completed Maimonides “Guide to the Perplexed” in 10 page gulps and Yehuda Ha-Levi’s “The Kuzari”.

Worldview Necrosis

This is one of those posts that I’m not sure about putting up… but here goes…

Long term readers of this blog will (hopefully) be aware that I like to challenge my worldview.

A worldview should in my opinion not be something static with foundations cast in stone, but rather something that evolves over one’s life with part or all being knocked down and built up again to keep it resilient and alive. If a person does not explore and test their worldview, one potential outcome is that it becomes rigid and ‘turns to stone’.

However, exploring and pushing the boundaries of your worldview is not without risk. Pushing your comfort zone can lead to fear, anxiety, depression, feelings of euphoria and feeling disconnected from the world. But that’s not the worst of it.

One outcome that I’ve considered a potential outcome is worldview necrosis. This is where a person becomes so enamoured with their worldview that they try to mould, shape, hammer and squeeze everything that they come across that grabs their interest to fit their worldview. But the centre does not hold and things start to fall apart, necrosis sets in and even this can be woven in to their decaying worldview.

A (hopefully) light-hearted illustration of this is a story I heard many years ago…

In a Hebrew hall of study a bird flew in one day and started circling the cabinet in which the Torah scrolls were stored. For three days the bird circled the ark pausing only to sleep at night. Eventually one of the students could not contain himself any longer and rushed over to his teacher.

“Rabbi!” he said bursting with excitement. “This bird has been circling the ark for three days.”

“Nu?” the rabbi replied looking up from his books.

“Perhaps it’s a Gilgul?” the student asked, referring to a reincarnated soul that has come back in an animal form.

The rabbi sighed, looked at the bird and replied: “Perhaps it’s just a bird.”

All the dots can be connected. That does not mean that they always should be connected. As it recommends in chapter 1 of Sefer Yetzirah, test them… explore from them… Experience for yourself and see if theories hold up. If they don’t, knock them down and move on.

Races of Angels

There's a number of posts recently about the nature of entities such as angels and elementals on a number of blogs. Since I can't resist jumping on the band wagon, here is a quote from Maimonides' Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah chapter 2 verse 7:

2:7.

The different names with which angels are called reflect their [spiritual] levels. Thus, they are called:

1) The holy chayyot, who are above all the others;

2) the ofanim;

3) the er'elim;

4) the chashmalim;

5) the serafim;

6) the mal'achim;

7) the elohim;

8) the sons of the elohim;

9) the keruvim;

10) the ishim

These ten names which are used to refer to the angels reflect their ten [different spiritual] levels. The level above which there is no higher level except that of God, blessed be He, is that of the form called chayyot. Therefore, the prophets state that they are below God's throne of glory.

The tenth [and lowest] level is that of the form ishim. They are the angels who communicate with the prophets and are perceived in prophetic visions. Therefore they are called ishim, because their level is close to the level of human knowledge.

The note to this section states:

These ten names which are used to refer to the angels reflect their ten [different spiritual] levels - We do not find such a listing of the different levels of the angels in the Talmud or Midrashim. The list mentioned by the Rambam is found in the Zohar (Vol. II, 43a), although in a slightly different order.

The Sages of the Kabbalah explain that all existence is an expression of the ten sefirot (emanations) of Godliness. Though these sefirot relfect different qualities of God, and thus transcend entirely the levels of the angels, we do see a certain commonaility between these mystic teachings and the Rambam's conception of the spiritual realms. (See also the Guide for the Perplexed [Vol. II, Chapter 4], which mentions ten levels of spiritual existence).

My personal opinion is that the list of ten races of angels is interesting, I don't think that the list is meant to be in any way exhaustive in terms of non-human entities that we can interact with. Also, the letters of of the Aleph Bet are angels too. Personal experience is the best teacher in my opinion. As Jack put it:

Go out, have an adventure... See what you live beside. Magick is about living, and seeing differently. At least sometimes, anyway.

Boundaries and Practice

Don't worry, this is not a blog post about crossing boundaries or being transgressive. Mainly because I don't understand what the word transgressive means.

Every week my wife and I study a small snippet from the Shulchan Aruch (literally Ordered Table, i.e. code of law) and the last section we studied detailed the different categories of domains. Such as the public and private domain.

In a recent email discussion the topic of boundaries also came up. Seeing as I don't believe in synchonicity, I thought it would be useful to blog a couple of my thoughts on this topic.

* The personal boundaries that we have in Western society is something that I find quite peculiar.
* In my worldview, the world in which we live is very porous in terms of its contact with other realms.
* In fact our bodies too are very porous, entities can and do penetrate your being
* Our minds extend beyond the limits of our head and as the Rambam says, you are where your thoughts are
* If this is the case, who am I and where are the limits of my being?

This question is one that has been on my mind for awhile. I don't have an absolute sense of where my boundaries are and my recent experience of channeling power highlighted that this is tied in to my lack of sense of boundaries. I do not know how much power I can channel. It feels like a lot, but it might only be a small amount.

So in order to answer this question, I will be re-doubling my efforts to meditate on a regular basis and do a series of mini-projects to channel ever greater amounts of power. My untilmate goal is to be able to channel power to an entire city, Detroit to be specific.

I have no idea why I feel drawn to that city or what my connection to it is other than a desire to bring regeneration and rebirth. It's just a feeling and before I attempt that - I need to know my boundaries better and become stronger. Wish me luck!

April Update

Passover was early this year. I had numerous ideas about what to post on April 1st, but none of them materialized in time, this too is for the best.

The past few weeks and months I've been slowly progressing my study of Sefer Yetzirah ((Book of Creation). It's a slow process because it's about experience based learning from what I understand. The other question that has been on my mind is: am I doing enough in service to help others, the land, my tribe?

The thing is.. what motivates me is a sense of wonder and awe at learning the metaphysics of creation (for want of a better term). Learning to date has involved reading, walking, plenty of meditating, a little experimentation and mostly reflection. I do some work in service for others, but also (what I call) tinkering... trying to figure out how things work. I admit that it's not as a mature attitude towards magic as I perhaps should have and thank Heaven the fallout of my misadventures has been relatively light.

Recently I had a conversation with Rabbi Bar-zel Arieh Tzion and he brought together some ideas which prompted this post and the question of: do I have the right balance between learning (aka tinkering) and service?

Rabbi Tzion pointed out that one name for prayer in Hebrew is Avodah, which literally means service. The service of the lips has replaced the service in the Temple. He reminded me of the section in Yehudah Ha-Levi's Kuzari which highlights the importance of praying with the community, it's not just about your own prayers but praying for the benefit of everyone. Rabbi Tzion then expanded that idea by pointing out that Halacha, the Hebrew word for Jewish Law comes from the verb to walk. Halacha is way of of life, a natural way to interact with the worlds both physical and spiritual. And finally he tied those two ideas in with the idea of Tikkun Olam, which means rectification of the world. We're co-creators Rabbi Tzion reminded me, formed from a Divine spark that enables us to heal a fractured world.

When I asked Rabbi Tzion if I had enough knowledge and skill to help others he replied: "Even a shmuck like you gets it right once in a awhile." It's the first compliment he's given me in the past 3, which is not that hard considering he's been ignoring my attempts to contact him for the past 3 months - with one exception. That one exception being my recent power overload, he stopped me from digging myself in to even more trouble. SO perhaps there is hope for my journey to becoming a responsible member of the magical community after all.

Mis-adventures in Magic - part 5: Lightning Sprites

You know when you're getting a certain reputation when a fried sends you a Facebook message that says:

"Should we blame the unseasonal weather on your messing with Sefer Yetzirah?"

It's been pretty cold in Britain recently.

I'll keep the write-up of this mis-adventure in magic brief:

• Spent some time listening to music produced by Tesla coils over the course of a week on Youtube
• Meditated about lightning moving as if alive whilst walking on my daily commute
• Got distracted by thinking about an apartment where I used to live
• Accidentally overlaid the image of living lightning forming a cube around the apartment
• Got a call a week later from the people in the apartment, the fridge died
• Got a call a week later - the cooking top cracked and caught fire
• Asked for help on how to undo the damage I had inadvertently caused
• No issues reported since reversal of the visualization

Please note that I have paid $450 for a new fridge and $500 for a new cooker top. I'm very fond of the people in the apartment, I whole-heartedly regret my mistake.

Another simple letter meditation

 This meditation is based on Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation), Chapter 1.

1. Clear your mind.
2. Cycle through the letters of the Aleph Bet
3. Pronounce the sound of the beginning of the letter... for example
1. Aleph: Ah
2. Bet: Beh 
3. Gimmel: Gi-h
4. Dalet: Dah
5. Heh:  Heh
6. Vav:  Vah
7. Zayin:  Zah
8. Chet:  Cheh
9. Tet:  Teh
10. Yud:  Yoh
11. Kaf:  Kah
12. Lamed:  Lah
13. Mem: Meh
14. Nun:  Nu-h  
15. Samech: Sah
16. Ayin:  (A)ah  (A) means gutteral, from deep int he throat
17. Peh:  Peh
18. Tzadi:  Tzah
19. Kuf:  Ku-h  
20. Resh: Reh  
21. Shin: Sheh
22. Taf:  Tah
4. So the whole chain in one go is:
1. Ah - Beh - Gi-h - Dah - Heh - Vah - Zah - Cheh - Teh - Yoh - Kah - Lah - Meh - Nu-h - Sah - (A)ah - Peh - Tzah - Ku-h - Reh - Shih - Tah
5. Once you are able to go through the sounds of all the letters in quick succession, then start with the 2nd letter Bet and finish with the first - Aleph.
1. Beh - Gi-h - Dah - Heh - Vah - Zah - Cheh - Teh - Yoh - Kah - Lah - Meh - Nu-h - Sah - (A)ah - Peh - Tzah - Ku-h - Reh - Shih - Tah - Ah 
6. After that start with the 3rd letter Gimmel and finish with the 2nd letter Bet.
1. Gi-h - Dah - Heh - Vah - Zah - Cheh - Teh - Yoh - Kah - Lah - Meh - Nu-h - Sah - (A)ah - Peh - Tzah - Ku-h - Reh - Shih - Tah - Ah - Beh 
7. The ultimate aim of this meditation is to be able to use each letter as a starting letter to cycle through the rest of the Aleph Bet from Aleph to Taf, Bet to Aleph, Gimmel to Bet.... Shin to Resh, Taf to Aleph

If this seems like a boring meditation... it helps if (1) you are familiar with the Aleph Bet and (2) you can visualize the letters as you cycle through them.

Simple Letter Medtiation

This meditation is based on Rabbi Abraham Abulafia letter meditation.

1. Clear your mind.
1. My preferred way of doing this is to count 1 to 10 and then 10 back to 1 a number of times until my mind still enough to only focus on the numbers. 
2. Cycle through the letters of the Aleph Bet and combine each letter with the 5 vowels in the following order: o - a - e - i - u
3. With each letter plus vowel combination, you need to move your head as if you are drawing (or etching) the vowels with each letter:
1. o - move your head from facing forwards to looking upwards (the return to facing forwards)
2. a - move your head from right to left (the return to facing forwards)
3. e - move your head from left to right (the return to facing forwards)
4. i - move your head from facing forwards to looking downwards (the return to facing forwards)
5. u - move your heads forwards and backwards 
4. For example.... for Aleph
1. Ohhh - move head up
2. Ahhh - move head right to left
3. Ehhh - move your head left to right
4. Ihhh - move your head down
5. Uhhh - move your head forwards and back (repeat)
5. For example...
1. Bet: Boh, Bah, Beh, Bi-h, Bu-h 
2. Gimmel: Goh, Gah, Geh, Gi-h, Gu-h
3. Dalet: Doh, Dah, Deh, Di-h, Du-h
4. Heh:  Hoh, Hah, Heh, Hi-h, Hu-h 
5. Vav:  Voh, Vah, Veh, Vi-h, Vu-h  
6. Zayin:  Zoh, Zah, Zeh, Zi-h, Zu-h  
7. Chet:  Choh, Chah, Cheh, Chi-h, Chu-h  
8. Tet:  Toh, Tah, Teh, Ti-h, Tu-h  
9. Yud:  Yoh, Yah, Yeh, Yi-h, Yu-h  
10. Kaf:  Koh, Kah, Keh, Ki-h, Ku-h  
11. Lamed:  Loh, Lah, Leh, Li-h, Lu-h  
12. Mem: Moh, Mah, Meh, Mi-h, Mu-h
13. Nun:  Noh, Nah, Neh, Ni-h, Nu-h  
14. Samech:  Soh, Sah, Seh, Si-h, Su-h  
15. Ayin:  (A)oh, (A)ah, (A)eh, (A)i-h, (A)u-h  (A) means gutteral, from deep int he throat
16. Peh:  Poh, Pah, Peh, Pi-h, Pu-h  
17. Tzadi:  Tzoh, Tzah, Tzeh, Tzi-h, Tzu-h  
18. Kuf:  Koh, Kah, Keh, Ki-h, Ku-h  
19. Resh:  Roh, Rah, Reh, Ri-h, Ru-h  
20. Shin:  Shoh, Shah, Sheh, Shi-h, Shu-h  
21. Taf:  Toh, Tah, Teh, Ti-h, Tu-h  

Cycle through all the letters of the Aleph-Bet in order at least once. Once you get used to doing this and can do it with your eyes closed, go around the letters several times.

I have done this on and off for a couple of years and I'm only conscious of the sound of the letters in my ears and a vague sense of what letter is coming next. I would not say that my mind is blank but rather that I am on the precipices between the conscious and unconscious mind, or at least that is how it feels.

I have yet to do this meditation with combination of letters. I.e. combining Aleph with all the letters (and all the vowels), then Bet with all the letters, etc.

Please note that Rabbi Abraham ABulafia specifies how many breaths you can take between each letter and letter group (when combining letters). I'll leave it up to you to track down those details as to be honest... I can't remember them.

Finally... it took me about 2-3 week of doing this meditation every day to feel any effects. By effects I mean improved concentration, memory, awareness and ability to visually engrave and carve the Hebrew letters in my imagination.

Misadventures in Magic - part 4: Simon Goes Boom

It's not been that long since I hung up my wizard hat.

I thought that this break in magical growth, experimentation and learning might be in the order of years, but a few short weeks ago I got the bug again and started meditating.

The thing about my regular meditation is that:

1. They are pretty basic letter meditations
2. The aim is not to still the mind, that is just the starting point
3. Beyond being totally absorbed in meditating on the letters, I'm still trying to learn what to do next

With regards to 3. not knowing what to do next - I had thought to build a mental star-gate and go exploring with my favourite mystic. So to make this a reality I picked up Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) and started working through each of the verses in Chapter 1 meditating for longer and in more depth than before.

Perhaps the warning signs of feeling worn and stretched should have given me pause. But instead of the effects of over-doing it (i.e. going too fast & hard through SY) manifesting in a gradual manner - my body sort of shut down.

Within the space of a day I lost my appetite almost entirely, slept for 24 hours in a 48 hour period and when I went to get something off the floor - spent the next couple of hours gathering sufficient strength to get back in to bed. Now you might think that this is all a bit melodramatic and that is exactly what my wife said.

However, I caught a glimpse of my psychic fuse box to see which breakers had blown due to channeling more that I could handle. The brief vision I had was of a row of doors all standing wide open. At first I did not understand what that meant and then it dawned on me... I'd blown every fuse and was almost entirely drained of energy.

Rather than rush to recharge my energy levels as quickly as possible, I decided instead to let them recharge naturally. Slowly but surely my physical strength started to come back and by re-introducing regular meditation I started to feel more like normal within a few days. It was truly amazing to see how regenerative the body in terms of healing itself and recharging itself.

Anyway, lesson learned is: walk, run and then try to tear a hole between dimensions. On the plus side, I now understand the limits of how much I can handle / channel and that not remembering much from a meditation session is actually a good thing. It can be a sign that conscious mind has got the message and is letting the unconscious mind do what it needs to whilst the conscious mind is busy carving letters.

Some video diversions...

At the weekend I was involved in a discussion of Jewish history between 4th and 6th centuries CE, that led to a discussion about the rise and fall of empires. The main speaker at the informal gathering mentioned that he believed empires often had a late surge before they declined.

This finally led to someone very special to me recommending that I watch the following video.

Normally I'd just pot a link on Facebook, but the speaker's emphasis on learning reminded me of RO's comments on ability to learn in a recent blog post.

Educate yourself... all the time! Learn how you learn best and play to your strengths.

This video below is just for fun. It reminds me of how it feels sometimes to meditate on the Hebrew letters... Sefer Yetzira (Book of Creation) 1:6

Ten Sefirot of Nothingness
Their vision is like the "appearance of lightning
Their limit has no end
And His Word in them is "running and returning"
They rush to His saying like whirlwind
And before His throne they prostrate themselves

Ambassador Rant

Last week we had some repair work done in the house. During a chat over tea and biscuits, the chap I was talking with said: “This is the first time that I have spoken to someone of your faith.”

It occurred to me that the conversation that we were having about religions, history, Europe, politics, belief, etc… all of it was shaping his worldview. Every word that I chose was leaving some kind of impression as a representative of my faith.

I was an ambassador.

Not one by choice, but simply through circumstance.

This got me thinking…. Every person who labels themselves as belonging to a certain group, community, movement, etc. is an ambassador. YOU are an ambassador. All of the time!

Unfortunately it is human nature to judge a group by interactions experienced with just a small number of people -whether that is in person or over the internet. It’s not fair, learn to live with it.