Spirituality Studies 53 Arik Segev The organic metaphor leads to another principle for the upward journey. In contrast to, for example, Plato’s ascent to the idea of the Good, the spiritual-educational path here is incremental. That is, the ascent of consciousness and attention from one movement to the next level, if balanced, should not negate the awareness and attention previously given to the earlier movements (at least, it should maintain a living memory of them and an ability to re-attend to them). Thus, in what follows, I will describe the phenomenological changes that occur in consciousness while growing awareness (experiencing, conceiving, revealing, etc.) of more mediums of Being. Another core assumption is that each Sefirah’s name and position in the structure are not arbitrary but carry deep and meaningful insights into the life of the spirit and its development (Matt 1997, 39–41). The last principle, before describing the stages, is that the characteristic of each stage will be ascribed to the movement between every two sefirot on the way up rather than to each Sefirah as an uncontextual essence. The main reason is that I see the model as dynamically illuminating aspects, even essential ones, depending on where we came from and how the new broadening of awareness influences also the “place” from which our awareness last originated and its previous point of view. This focus on the movement also allows me to bypass the dispute over whether to count Da’at or Keter in the model (see Steinsaltz 2025, 110–112 [3]), thereby retaining both, which are necessary in my reading, and staying with the typologically important number ten. Regarding the direction of the movement of Being (not of the consciousness) between the Sefirot, although sometimes my description below suggests one direction and sometimes the opposite – sometimes I may say “awareness to the movement between, say, Hod and Netzach,” and sometimes “awareness to the movement between Netzach and Hod” – it should be noted that if the metaphysical structure of the Ten Sefirot has the meaning I assume, then the movement goes at once – the same movement (!) – to all directions. Roughly illustrated, it is akin to an ambivalent emotion. For example, one may want to live but also be anxious about living because of death, which is part of their existence. The same mental event of awareness of life flows in both directions simultaneously. 5.1 Stage 1. Malchut to Yesod Malchut (Heb. “Kingdom”), in itself (as if without affinity to Yesod, Heb. “Foundation”), represents one inseparable matter (Steinsaltz 1989, 149). It is a totality of material wholeness within which differentiation and identities have no meaning. In this sense, no spatiotemporal consciousness or awareness of being exists. It is “a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2), akin to the degree of awareness of a plant, tree, or fetus. The verse, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3), marks the emergence of awareness: the first differentiation, light versus darkness, and the first identities that consciousness perceives. Therefore, the first step in spiritual growth toward wisdom is consistently increasing awareness of the movement of Being’s emanation between Malchut and Yesod. This awareness reveals an aspect of Being that is experienced as a distinct sensible object: light, darkness, sky, earth, water, sound, an apple, a hand, a mother, a father, a tree, a giraffe, a bicycle, a car, etc. [1]. These distinct-sensible entities are limited to the spatiotemporal manifestations of Being, but they still have something of the essence of Being; they have some amount of existence, of realness. It should be remembered that awareness is not a binary mental state of being aware/ unaware, but rather exists along multiple scales, including duration, accuracy, level of attention, depth of detail, and so on. Countless variations of such awareness exist; however, this article does not aim to catalog them. Therefore, the first and obvious stage of awareness of the meaning of Being is that there are distinct sensible entities. 5.2 Stage 2. Yesod to Hod The second stage of spiritual growth deepens awareness of the movement between Yesod (Heb. “Foundation”) and Hod (Heb. “Splendor”), entering the realm of distinct immaterial entities (I interchangeably use terms such as distinct inorganic entities or distinct immaterial identities). This dif-
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