Kabbalistic Secrets of Personal Mastery - Rabbi Eli Deutsch

Today, we're going to discuss the concept of Sefirat Omer in terms of how we go ahead and are involved in our personal work, our personal refinement during this time period. Let's first understand the Kabbalistic concept of what we mean by the Sefirot. The Sefirot are attributes by which Hashem created the world. Now, this is beyond us. It's a big concept in Kabbalah, but what we're going to do is discuss how this shows up in our lives because one of the foundational concepts in Kabbalah is that Kabbalah is from the word The word Kabbalah is from the Hebrew word makbil, which means parallel. Because one of the foundational principles of all Kabbalistic thought is that everything here in this physical world is a parallel to a deeper spiritual reality. And so, when we see concepts in macro, we have to understand that they apply in micro. When we see concepts in the spiritual, we should understand that it applies and it manifests itself and expresses itself also in the physical. And similarly, we're going to discuss this here as well. The rabbis teach that it says in the Torah that Hashem created a person b'tselem Elohim, in the image of God. Now, classically, this is referring to the fact that just like God has free will choice, so also the human being has an aspect of free will choice. Just like God has a a true and a higher concept of speech, so also the human being has the capacity for a certain level of complex speech. Just like Hashem creates the world, so also the human being is a partner with Hashem in creation by completing the purpose of what this world is created for. These are the classic interpretations. However, in Kabbalah, there is an additional interpretation to this, which is that What does it mean that Hashem created the world b'tselem Elohim, in the image of God? What it means is there's this Sefirot system, these attributes by which Hashem created the world. And so, just like Hashem created the world with this system, so also this system is at play within the human being. That the human being also has these attributes or an element of these attributes going on within him and within her. So, let's discuss a little bit about this concept of the Sefirot. The Sefirot originally were often referred to as midot. You can still find it now a little bit, but back in the day, before the times of the Arizal, this was primarily referred to as the midot. Now, what do we mean by midot? Midot or midos have two definitions in English. Definition number one is that midot is characteristics or attributes. And definition number two is measurements. So, now, what does one have to do with the other? What does attributes and characteristics have to do with measurements? So, the answer to that question is quite simple. It's that our characteristics, our attributes, need to be measured. That if all of the time we're just one thing, so then where is our humanhood? Where is our self-mastery? I'm a prisoner to that particular middah, to that particular attribute, right? And let's understand whatever our characteristics are, the way they show up, the way these midot show up, present themselves externally as characteristics. But that's the external manifestation of midot. What's the internal manifestation of midot? That's what's underneath our characteristics, our emotions. So, this is really all about emotional intelligence. And so, as we make the move at this point, during this time of Sefirat Omer, as we transition from the freedom of Passover to the dedication of Shavuot, what we're looking to do is to take that massive high, that massive freedom that we had, that macro freedom that we had on Passover, and plug it in to the nitty-gritty details of our life, of our our personality, and of the difference the the different aspects of our personality in order to go ahead and have a mastery over ourselves, a mastery over our domain, a mastery over our emotions. And we come along and we take that, and with that refinement, with that ownership of self, with that personal mastery, then we go ahead and apply ourselves to the Torah. Let me explain what I mean. In Pirkei Avot, it says Derech Eretz Kadma l'Torah, that being a human being, being a mensch, being a decent person, being a person who is refined, who's dignified, being a person who's able to place mind over matter, philosophically precedes the Torah. So, what does this mean? It means that yes, the Torah is about holiness, and yes, it also, of course, it also includes midot refinement. But philosophically, being a a human being means having a certain mastery of self. Right? And then when we go ahead and have that mastery of self, then we can take that self-mastery and self-ownership and apply it to what the Torah is teaching. Rabbi Chaim Vital, student of the Arizal, said that when a person has an ownership over their midot, when they have a mastery over themselves and over their emotions, so then for that person, the Torah flows smoothly. That when the Torah comes along and says, "Thou shalt not steal," so even if there's that thing that I see that somebody else's and I want to take it, so I want to extend of of myself in that moment to take it, but if I have a mastery over myself and then the Torah tells me, "Thou shalt not steal," so then I'm able to feel that desire within myself that wants to extend and take that thing, I'm able to feel that come up, and nevertheless be able to allow that to calm that down, and then pick up that middah that's all about holding myself back from something that isn't for me. Now, what if a person doesn't have a mastery of self? And the Torah comes along and tells them, "Thou shalt not steal." So, what happens? They want to They want to take that thing. But the Torah tells me not to. But I want to. But the Torah tells me not to. Okay, now I'm in a fight with the Torah. Now I'm in a fight with God. And so, that's one level. Definitely, if a person that's where they're holding, that's the reality, okay, so we respect that that's where the person is at. But if I'm able to master myself and become a person of consciousness, I'm able to oscillate from one middah to the other, from one attribute to another. And you find that this is actually what's going on in the Yom Kippur prayers. When we do that part called Vidui, that part called confession, where people hit themselves over here. Uh if you look over there, what we're confessing to is not a list of 613 commandments that we messed up on. That's not what's there. As a matter of fact, there's only a very few a very small amount of actual straight-up thou shalt not sins that are listed in the Al Cheit. That's That's not what's there. If you go through it, you see that what's actually there is where it's saying that we're that we're confessing to things that we messed up that have to do with a particular attribute within ourselves that wasn't refined. Go through it and you'll see. We say Al Cheit Shechatati l'fanecha, I'm confessing for a sin, for a mess-up that we messed up in in front of you, God, that has to do with a certain issue, a certain attribute, a certain emotion. What does that mean to say? It means to say that yes, we can mess up, and yes, that's called an aveira, a sin, a transgression, but what's really underneath that, what really was the issue within ourselves that opened up the door for us to messing up, wasn't the mess-up itself, was what's going on within us underneath that caused us to fall in that particular case and to mess up. And so, as we go ahead and work on this, hopefully we come to a place where we're able to shift from, you know, we've all had the experience where where we've said, "I'm angry." So, what would be more refined and more real is if we were to say, "I'm feeling angry." Let's recognize the difference between I'm angry and I'm feeling angry. I'm angry, there's a certain loss of self. There's a certain a lot alignment identification with the middah, with the attribute, with the emotion. There's a loss of independent self. I'm feeling angry. Okay, so now there's a feel There's a feeling that I'm feeling, but there's still a me, and there's a feeling. And even a higher level than that, a true master, maybe, would say something along the lines of, "The feeling of anger is coming up for me." So, where there really I'm able to identify There's a feeling I'm able to identify that's coming up for me, and that's okay. I acknowledge it. It's there. It's okay. And then But then I'm able to I exist independent from that feeling. So, I'm able to go ahead and experience that feeling, acknowledge it, but then I decide how I respond. I decide what I choose to do. We all have people in our lives who express themselves in a manner of, "Well, you know, if they say that thing to me, then I'm just going to react like that, because that's just who I am. We have people like that in our lives, and sometimes we we tolerate them sometimes just cuz that's the situation, but that's certainly not somebody who you respect, because they have not mastered themselves. They are They're at least in that moment, they're being a victim of their circumstance. They're being enslaved to their emotion. Right? Well, the mastery of self is that to the extent I'm able to over have a feeling, but then make a conscious choice, so there's a certain freedom in that. There's a certain consciousness in that. Very famously, one of the great uh self-help gurus, Stephen Covey, very famously wrote that the a person that the measure of a person can be seen in the space that they put between stimulus and response. Right? This means you have stimulus, something coming into a person, a situation, a circumstance, the way someone treated you, whatever it might be. And a person who isn't developed will just automatically, whatever the stimulus comes in, I react this way. That's it. But a person who's more developed, a person who has a certain higher level of consciousness, a certain mastery of self can be able to Okay, there's a stimulus that comes in. I create There's a space there that I'm able to exist in where Okay, just cuz certain things happen to me, I then can create that space where Okay, but hold on a second. How do I want to respond? Who do I want to be? How do I want to act? What kind of person do I want to be? What is the proper thing? What is the godly thing to do in this moment? Right? This is being a human being. In In Judaism, this is called being a human being. The truth is this is this the beginning of spirituality, because spirit This is the assertion of the human spirit. Right? The society around us The society around us puts in the back of our mind, certainly in the Western society around us, puts in the back of our mind that a spiritual person is someone who's like at the top of a mountain. Maybe they have long curly hair, and there's wind blowing through the hair, and it's like it feels like they're about to flow off float off in the clouds. Uh but really, according to Judaism, the beginning at least of spirituality is the ability to assert oneself clearly based on who they want to be and what they want to be. One of the words one of the terms for God in the Torah is HaTzur, the rock. That doesn't sound too uh flowy, right? But what does it mean? It's about sturdiness. It's about I know who I am, or I know the clarity of the path I want to go on. I know what's real. I know what's true. I know what's good, and I follow that up in a strong and passionate way, no matter what the the stimulus from the outside is coming in. That is the beginning of spirituality, the beginning of this this the a person who is being a human being. >> [clears throat] >> And this is the concept in Judaism of da'at. Da'at is often defined in English as knowledge, but it doesn't mean knowledge the way we say the word knowledge in English. Knowledge in English, usually what we think of is like, "Okay, I don't have that much information about history. I read a textbook about history, and now I have more knowledge about history." That's not how Judaism uses the word da'at. The way Judaism uses the word da'at is like, for example, the beginning of the Torah where it says, "Vayeida Adam et Chava ishto." And Adam knew his wife Eve, and they had a kid. That doesn't mean that they he exchanged the information with her. Right? What it means is obviously it's an intimate experiential coming together of two into one. That's what we mean by da'at. Da'at means the concept of connection, of a deep connection. And And so, in terms of da'at, connection to oneself, that means the concept of consciousness, as opposed to a person having a feeling and just going with the flow and not being attached to themselves. Da'at is the concept of being conscious, consciously being aware of oneself. Concept of self-awareness, consciousness, this is the concept of da'at. And so, as we head into this time of Sefirat Omer, what it's all about is can I take this consciousness and apply it to the sefirot, apply it to my middot? Can I go ahead and go into chesed and gevurah and tiferet, etc., with an aspect of consciousness, as opposed to being pulled into whenever I feel like I want to do chesed, or whenever I feel like my gut reaction is the concept of gevurah? So, while of course we all have different things that we're more inclined to, but the developed person is the one who can come from a place of consciousness and choose, "Okay, which attribute do I want to go ahead and engage with and utilize at this particular moment? What is the correct one to use here and now?" Right? So, the person who's developed is the one who's able to oscillate from one attribute to another based on what the time and situation calls for. And that's a person ultimately who's truly serving Hashem. The one who constantly chooses, "Okay, what does Hashem want from me in this moment? To pick up what chesed or to pick up gevurah? To pick up the trait of extending of myself, or to pick up the trait right now of holding myself back?" When a person comes from that place, so then all of their giving or holding back is conscious and godly and of service to Hashem. Whereas, if a person goes with the flow of whatever they feel, so then how much of it is really about being aligned and looking to connect consciously with Hashem versus Well, this is what feels good at this particular moment. And so, the importance here to understand what is the the bigger picture of the inner work that we want to be involved with during Sefirat Omer is about getting about getting consciousness uh is about applied consciousness, taking our awareness and clarity and self-knowledge and going ahead and integrating that into our middot, into our attributes, into our emotions, in order that we should be a master over our middot instead of our middot being a master over us.