Spirituality Studies 63 Arik Segev only one building block) of semantics – the source of meaning, content, and identity. It is a deep-rooted knowledge of the meaning of Being: of the totality of Reality, Truth, and Good. This discovery reveals the origin of our ability, both in the spatiotemporal world and in the transcendent realm of possibilities, to encounter “entities”, identities, and name them realistically, perceiving within them the spark of the Good of Being, the beautiful manifestations of Being. It is this power that enables human consciousness to find entities that are both stable and identical to themselves, as well as in ever-changing forms: a tree, a person, a city, a river [8]. This tension is inevitable. Without it, Being would not have been able to manifest Himself in the material spatiotemporal world. 5.10 Stage 10. Chochmah to Keter Finally, awareness of the initial movement from Keter (Heb. “crown”) to Chochmah marks the final stage of spiritual ascent. In the Tree of Sefirot, Keter stands at the top, above and between Chochmah (right) and Binah (left), traditionally depicted as divine will, the highest manifestation possible of what lies beyond all manifestation: Ein-Sof (Heb. “without any limits”), the infinite source from which Being emanates. Keter is the origin of the movement itself, and in a way, the very movement between all the Sefirot, that is, the radiation, the corona between the Sefirot. It is from where all beings hang down. We can identify Keter with the motion of Being’s emanation or Will between the Sefirot, namely, its mediums. In each different Sefirah, the form of His manifestation shifts in accordance with the Sefirot it connects. As described above, from below upward, this movement appears as: (1) undivided material (Heb. To’hu va-Vo’hu – “formless matter”), (2) distinct-material-entities, (3) distinct-immaterial-entities, (4) experience of helplessness in creating meaning and awareness of Netzach, (5) ideal laws that harmonize the revealed tensional aspects of the spatiotemporal world into a reasonably good logic, ethics, and way of life, (6) the incoherency of these harmonious laws – their immanent tragic limitation and the need to overcome them in Gevurah and find new covered horizons within them, (7) the love, endless generosity, and compassion for reality even though its limitation, (8–10) the realm of all possibilities of being and their value. However, this movement is of singular essence. At this stage, the apparent phenomenological differences between the Sefirot are revealed as only aspects of a unified, complete whole. Being as a whole is disclosed in the sense of the Hebrew word Havaya (הוויה ), which means something of the combination of essence + presence + existence + active-creation-of-being. Therefore, in its various forms, the movement of Being’s emanation that derives from Keter, and which is an extension of Keter, is what continuously creates and sustains all that is. In this sense, Keter represents the divine “will” – the infinite potential, the infinite “eros” of Being to manifest itself. The highest expression of the spiritual elevation lies in refining and perfecting the capacity to remain aware of the movement of Being’s will in its ten different manifestations, in the most intricate detail, and for the longest possible duration. This awareness is enacted through: (1) Da’at, by expanding good, true, just, and beautiful formulated possibilities, contemplating and practicing them; (2) Tiferet, by creating and perfecting concrete principles of spatiotemporal ways of life that balance life in our spatiotemporal world, help educate individuals, communities, and nations: distinct-immaterial and material entities or identities; and (3) Yesod and Malchut (Heb. Shchinah) to perfect as much as possible the world of matter: placing every thing in its right place before the One Wholeness.
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