58 Spirituality Studies world) is a good miracle of a loving, good creator (see Wittgenstein 1965). The suffering that was seen and experienced when awareness opened to the movement from Gevurah and Tiferet now reveals itself as necessary for the miracle of the very existence of the spatiotemporal world and everything within it, like a newborn’s first cry. To create the spatiotemporal world, Gevurah must continuously enact its divisionary and finitizing function. An incomplete spiritual development, still shaped by a relatively narrow metaphysical and ethical view, sees this necessary function – the first cry of the newborn – as an existential injustice. However, with the broader and more correct metaphysical perspective of Chesed, one sees the essential and inevitability quality of what is partial, broken, temporary, ephemeral – that which is created and perishes, that which is born and dies, that which is in constant flux within time and space; one perceives and experiences that without these (hurting) qualities, none of the spatiotemporal beings could exist. One then experiences Chesed – love and compassion for all spatiotemporal beings, as expressions of Being through their unique and perishable forms. Important remark: This change in attitude from the suffering of Gevurah to the bliss of Chesed should not and cannot play any role, for example, to be the goal, in encouraging a person to grow their awareness of the movement between Tiferet and Gevurah and in acting in accordance with it. One is not truly aware of Gevurah if one expects the sweet bliss that may follow. Moreover, like all forms of awareness, this awareness is not a fixed, constant, or passive state of mind. One does not possess them forever. And in order to be in them, endless spiritual work for its own sake – that is not intended towards any external results beyond it – must be done. Among others, Chesed is manifested in the ability to forgive and, on the contrary, in the courage to confess and stand bare before one’s own weaknesses and faults (which is a combination of Gevurah and Chesed). It is echoed in the figures of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, who, while wounded by their people’s faults, pleaded with God for mercy on them. In modern texts, it appears on a smaller scale in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, where Raskolnikov’s heart suddenly opens at the end of the novel, after years of suffering, to Chesed, love, and a deep appreciation for Sonya. A note on authenticity: It can feel fake and empty to claim a state of Chesed without truly experiencing the suffering of Gevurah in some form. Genuine Chesed embraces reality along with its necessary limits and whatever causes suffering, with love and compassion. It is a direct encounter with Beauty and Goodness, fully aware of the inevitable pain. 5.6.1 Interim Summary. From Malchut to Chesed Let us summarize the spiritual development so far: 1. Awareness of distinct physical entities arising from raw matter (Heb. Tohu Va-Vohu) to identifying light, trees, fingers (Malchut to Yesod); 2. Awareness of distinct immaterial identities, such as Lincoln, friendship, WW2, language, the “I” (Hod to Yesod); 3. Awareness that neither material nor immaterial entities, nor the “we” or “I”, can serve as the telos, the sources of meaning; the experience of their limitations before eternity, Netzach (Heb. “Victors”) (Hod to Netzach); 4. The acceptance of a coherent worldview, and a concrete teaching and a way of life that harmonizes and rationalizes the previously revealed tensions of the spatiotemporal world (Netshach to Tiferet); 5. Awareness of the limitation of the accepted way of life and the need for a leap and the breaking of the common harmony and rationality of Tiferet despite suffering (Tiferet to Gevurah); 6. The unexpected grace of loving-kindness toward all that has been encountered after or while experiencing and witnessing the above suffering (Gevurah to Chesed). The next phase of our attention arises alongside the experience of Chesed and love; however, since reaching the phase of Chesed ignites an inner abundance of love, it spreads in all directions. Oriented not only to the spatiotemporal world and existence, its fire also directs upwards, asking, longing, searching for the source beyond the scene of the spatiotemporal universe’s existence. This kind of love is expressed through the right kind of curiosity, in existential-metaphysical questions that are at the same time intellectual and emotional. They derive from a deep and not
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