52 Spirituality Studies 5 The Ten Sefirot as a Framework for Spiritual Development and Growth God (Heb. Ayn) is categorically beyond any possibility of an encounter. Nevertheless, we have access to God’s tools and buffers. As part of God’s creation, they are part of us. Therefore, fulfilling our own potential to encounter them depends upon our will to know as deeply and as long as we can the true meaning of Being, and let it govern and regulate our lives. In other words, the Ten Sefirot symbolize aspects of Being that, in principle, can be at least partially experienced, conceived, and revealed by human consciousness (Shneur Zalman 1973; Matt 1997; Steinsaltz 2006, 27; Steinsaltz 2025, 43). Therefore, for spiritual-educational purposes, we can describe the model as depicting how awareness may gradually grasp the true meaning of Being, thereby governing and regulating life, and hopefully becoming wiser little by little. This is an ethical demand because the uneducated, “natural” or immediate worldly mode of awareness and attention (see above) conceives or experiences only narrow and partial aspects of the whole movement of Being. Nevertheless, because of this unawareness of the other modes, the aspects that we attend to (and believe we are aware of) are revealed to us in a distorted way. Therefore, there is an ethical demand. The more a person or culture is skilled in using their spiritual or existentially educated mode of attention and perspective, the more they are willing and ready to correct their worldview and life in line with the true meanings, and the more they conceive and experience broader and deeper aspects of Being. Illustration 2 The Spirit’s Educational Path Upward * Should be read from bottom to top Malchut Chochmah Chesed Netzach Binah Gevurah Hod Keter Da’at Tiferet Yesod
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