Death to death

Today is the 17th of the Omer, 2 weeks, 3 days. Tifferet of Tifferet.

As we mentioned yesterday, many people believe beauty is achieved by culling anything which is not beautiful. The Jewish approach is more complex than this. Tifferet, beauty, represents a balance. Beauty depends on Composition. Combined in the right formula, anything can be beautiful. A great example is the Ketoret incense we offer in the Holy Temple. Some of its components had a pleasing aroma, others a foul one. But the correct composition of the Ketoret achieved an even more pleasant smell.

This teaches us something important about Man, and by proxy about the world. A person is made up of good and evil, in the right measure, a person may be righteous, but if s/he is poorly composed s/he is wicked.

God created the world with evil in it, does that make the world unbeautiful? Is the final geulah a culling of all that is evil and ugly in the world? Or is it a recomposition to a beautiful balance where we may recognize what seemed initially ugly or evil to be an essential component of some greater beauty?

We say death will be swallowed up forever, but is death a proxy for 'evil', or for 'ugliness'?

ps. Today is the two year annivesary of my Father in Law's passing, may R' Meir Benayahu ben R' Yitzhak Nissim be remembered as a blessing to the world and all those in it.

today we celebrate minimalism

Today is the 16th of the Omer, 2 weeks 2 days, Gevurah of Tifferet.

What is Gevurah (withholding/might) of Tifferet (beauty/balance) about? It is the harshness of cutting away the excess to reveal something beautiful. It inspires minimalism.

Making anything of beauty requires removing the un-beautiful.

This is the belief of the modern world.

Tomorrow we will go deeper towards what the revelation of Judaism brought into the world. A step beyond minimalism or the culling of all that is non-beautiful.

gathering the days

Why do we count the Omer: "Today is 12 days of the Omer" and not "Today is the 12th day of the Omer?"

The Bnei Yissachar (as well as R' Avraham Azulai in Ma'aseh Hoshev) explains that each day of the Omer a new level of HaShem's light is revealed, in addition to the existing levels revealed on earlier days. So with each additional day of the Omer there is an additional day of light shining upon us.

In other words, on the 12th day of the Omer, 12 days worth of light are being revealed, hence "Today is 12 days of the Omer."

a little bit of knowledge

With the days of Gevurah ahead of us in the counting of the Omer, I feel myself falling into a deep heaviness. Today I felt helpless to raise myself up, even knowing full well that if I want it and push for it, nothing can keep the Jewish Neshamah down.

Then I remembered the Torah lesson I fear most. The Baal Shem Tov explains that sometimes HaShem turns His countenance away from us, HaShem (figuratively) hides from us. Other times though, He even hides the fact that He is hiding from us. In other words, sometimes we don't even realize He's hiding from us. This teaching scares me more than any other, because what do I do if I feel close to HaShem? How will I know if He isn't really hiding far from me, and I don't even know it?

So when I realized that I was feeling distant from HaShem it brought me great joy. At least I know that right now He isn't hiding the fact that He's hiding from me!

There's still a ways to go and the whole week of Gevurah, might, will be a challenge, but a challenge with a silver lining, for if we manage to harness this divine might and channel it into serving HaShem, then we have gained immeasurably.