Arizal's Meditation for Friday Afternoon, Requires Immersion in a Mikvah

Taken from Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's "Meditation and Kabbalah" - with gratitude

Balaam – Why is Evil Given So Much Power?

Previously we learned the story of reincarnations of Cain, Abel, Jethro, and the family of Abraham, leading to Balaam and Balak. They had great powers, Balaam being a prophet equal to Moses, and Balak – a magician who exceeded even Balaam. Why were they granted such powers?

Balak is called the son of Tzipor, and Jethro's daughter, whom Moses married, is called Tziporah. In some spiritual sense, Jethro is the father of Balak. Jethro's place in the spiritual hierarchy is very high: he is in the foundation of the Supernal Mother, and he is also the spiritual essence of Cain. The Foundation of the Supernal Mother is the name of God “Ehyeh” (אהיה). If you spell this name four times: two times with the letter yud 161 + 161 (אלפ הי יוד הי, אלפ הי יוד הי), once with aleph, 143 (אלפ הא יוד הא), and once with hei, 151 (אלפ הה יוד הה), you get the gematria of Jethro, 616 (יתרו).

Balak, who was in a sense Jethro's son, is thus also derived from Supernal Mother. Next to him (and in the spiritual universes, "next" means in some way similar) is Leah, who represents the Rulership coming out of the Supernal Mother, extending until her feet. The lights that extend from the Supernal Mother to Leah, rooted in Zeir Anpin, Cosmic Man, are four, all expansions of the name of God Adonai(יהוה), and the numerical values of the expansions are 72, 63, 45, and 52, which together constitute 232, the gematria of Balak (בלק).

Leah, whose daughter was called Dinah, which means "Judge," represents the harshest judgments. Her feet (symbolizing the final purpose) push against Rachel's head. The word "push" is (בולקים), and this is the root of Balak. Thus, because of their need for making spiritual progress, the spiritual forces give birth and prominence to evil, which is granted big powers on the way to the final good.

Art: Jacopo Tintoretto - Two Prophets

Chukat - You have to make the good out of the bad

“You have to take the good out of the bad because that is all you have got to make it out of” from “All King's Men” by Robert Penn Warren seems to ring true, but it is hard to understand how the good can come out of the bad. In fact, Warren's book is proof that this is not possible. However, mystics are all talking about the same things, and it must be true in some other worlds.

In many respects, the Red Heifer features the opposite side, “the back” of the good. This is not the complete bad, only second best, but it is the “back” of it compared to the real thing.

The Red Heifer is burned not in the Temple, but on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple. The person supervising the burning is not the High Priest but the one next to him; in the original formulation in the times of Aharon, it is not him, but his son Elazar.

As we learned before, the Red Heifer is the “back” of holiness, and as such, it can lead to complete purity – provided that it itself is completely annihilated, and only its ashes remain.

The “Malchut,” or Rulership is the lowest Sefirah, and it represents the “back” of the highest expansion of the name of God (יהוה), when it is spelled with the letter yud, thus forming the name whose gematria is 72 (יוד הי ויו הי). If we then take the “back” of that name, substituting each letter with the previous one (טהג דט הטה דט), we get the name whose gematria is 62. If we continue and take the back of the other three expansions, with gematrias of 63, 52, and 45, then their “back” expansions, totaled, give the gematria of “parah adumah,” Red Heifer.

Thus the Red Heifer is all composed of the secrets of the “back,” or second best, and perhaps for that reason, it escaped the understanding of the first among the Sages, King Solomon. The reverse order of things is reflected in the description of the cow, as follows, “cow” is Rulership, “red” is Glory, “pure” is Foundation, “without a blemish” is Strength, and “which never had a yoke on it” is Understanding.

Art: John Frederick Herring, Jnr. - A Bull And Cows In A Wooded Landscape

Korach – Cain Acknowledges that He Was Wrong

As we learned before, Korach was a reincarnation of the bad part of Abel. Moses, who was Abel's complete reincarnation, kept Korach in check, until the soul of Cain attached itself to Korach, after which Korach felt himself empowered to rebel against Moses.

Moses' counterpart, Jethro, was the reincarnation of Cain. That is the meaning of Jethro being the head and priest of the Midianites – who represent Cain. At this time, Jethro threw Moses in prison for ten years, and Tsiporah was the one to saved Moses. Later, when Jethro made peace with Moses and aligned himself with him, the soul of Cain left Jethro and attached itself to Korach. That is the meaning of “and Korach took” - he took the soul of Cain.

Now Korach and his followers “rised up against Moses” - parallel to Cain rising up against Abel. Further, God said to Cain, “The blood of your brother and of all his unborn descendants scream against you from under the ground.” Parallel to this, Korach went down under the ground. While there, every month Korach and his followers proclaim, “Moses is true and his Torah is true, but we are false”- in parallel to what Cain had said that there is no Judge and no Judgment, when he killed his brother.

Art: Pierre Louis Cretey - Cain Slaying Abel

Shlach – It was the season when the first grapes begin to ripen

“God spoke to Moses, saying, 'Send out men for yourself to explore the Canaanite territory that I am about to give the Israelites.' ... It was the season when the first grapes begin to ripen.”

Why did the Torah say, “And those days were the days when grapes begin to ripen?” Why “those days were the days?” The answer is that the words “those days” refer to the special days that we already know about, the six days that correspond to the six directions in the spiritual image of Zeir Anpin, the Cosmic Man, or in some sense the Humanity. When he has only six spiritual components, the days of his youth and immaturity, without the influence of the intellect, he will receive from the Supernal Father and Mother.

All the six days and the six directions were mixed in the Tree of Knowledge, with which Adam made his mistake, and this accords well with the opinion that this tree was the vine. Wine is connected to Rulership, and it was also there that Adam made his mistake – by his attempt to fix it and take its first fruit before the proper time.

Sources: Rabbi Daniel Frisch, Moshe Cordovero, Mikdash Melech, other commentators.

When the spies tried to pick up a cluster of grapes, the cluster, sensing their bad intentions, refused to be picked up. The spies then asked Joshua and Caleb to lift the cluster, which they were able to do. Being upset, the spies decided to kill Joshua and Caleb. Joshua spoke to the cluster and told it, "If you are the cause of our death, we will not inherit the portion of the land in which you grew." The cluster then relented and allowed itself to be carried by the other spies.

Source: Meam Lo'ez.

Art: Raphaelle Peale - Still Life With Grapes And Dish

Behaalotcha - When You Come to Light up the Lights

God spoke to Moses, telling him to speak to Aaron and say to him, 'When you light the lamps, the seven lamps shall illuminate the menorah.'

To explain this, Rabbi Yehudah quoted from the Psalms, “Mighty sun is like a bridegroom coming out of his marriage canopy,” and to explain this in turn, he said, “Happy are those who learn the Torah of God, which is the Tree of Life.” One who grabs it inherits this world and the World to Come. To grab it and go higher on it, one needs to learn it and constantly meditate and repeat it to remember – because this is called “grabbing.” The gematria of “The Tree of Life” is 233, and this is the same gematria as “Remember.”

Now, the Tree of Life is the Spiritual Man, Zeir Anpin, who inherits his mind from Supernal Father and Supernal Mother, and he transmits this light to the whole creation below, and that is the mighty sun which sends his light to his queen, the Female, Nukva, and in doing so illuminates everything. Through their contact, they light the lights of the Female or the Rulership, and that is the meaning of "When you come to light up the lights."

That, in turn, is compared to the Torah, which is called “Beauty” - because beauty is ideal proportions and perfect balance. In spiritual words, it is achieved by studying the opposing tendencies of Kindness and Judgment and by finding a new entity, Beauty, where both Kindness and Judgment are equally balanced.

Art: Winslow Homer - Sunlight And Shadow Oil Painting

Naso – The Spiritual Makeup of the Tribe of Levi

"God spoke to Moses, saying, Also take a census of Gershon's descendants by families."

Levi, the son of Jacob, had three sons, Gershon, Kehat, and Merari. They were to play a unique spiritual role in the community of Israel and therefore were not to be counted together with the other Jews. That is because the tribe of Levi represents the spiritual quality of strength and strict judgment. Why is this so, and why is it important?

Levy represents the middle matzah at the Seder, and it is the one that gets broken. Strict judgment should never be allowed to act with full force. That is why Abraham, who represented Kindness, was asked to bind his son Isaac, who represented Judgment. Similarly, the tribe of Levi was broken into two parts, the Kohanim and the Levites.

The Levites carried the Tabernacle pieces - the quality of Strength – and in the Temple, they sang, which also represents Strength. How so?

The words “song” (שיר) is connected to the name of God Elohim, representing Judgment, because the letter ש is the same as the gematria (300) of Elohim spelled אלף למד הי יוד מם. The letter יר is 200, and that is Elohim spelled א אל אלה אלהי אלהים.

Power itself extends in five directions, represented by letters which change their shape at the end of the word – מנצפ"ך. Each of the three families, Levi, has five aspects of strength. All three are connected to the spiritual entity of a Cosmic Female, which also represents Strength in the Woman-Man relationship. The first of the family of Levi is the brain of the Female, which is formed before all else, which has an indelible influence on her. The second aspect of strength comes from her relationship with the Cosmic Man, or Zeir Anpin. The third one is what gives her the power to conceive and give birth. The letters מנצפ"ך taken twice give the numerical value of the family of Gershon גרשון, who started the count. Thus this count helps and advances the development of the spiritual entities of the Cosmic Man and the Female, of which we all form a part.

Art: Raphael - Portrait Of A Pregnant Woman