The Backyard Professor

What the Kabbalah Does That Is So Important For Our Understanding It

I believe this article is interesting because Leonora Leet in her writings (late 1990's to early 2000-2004) says precisely as much, that what we need is the re-mythologization of our scriptures. That is, we have lost the spiritual, and we need it back again. Notice that the God of the Philsophers (the one who is supposed to be Spirit only as opposed to a physical embodied God) is ultimately unsatisfying. This is a small part of a very fine article by Faierstein.Morris M. Faierstein "God's Need for the Commandments" in Medieval Kabbalah

Conservative Judaism, vol. 36 (1), Fall 1982, p. 45-59.

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Perhaps the most significant innovation of medieval kabbalistic thought was the reintroduction of mythic thought into Jewish theology. The monotheistic revolution of the Bible, which was a reaction to the mythic world of the ancient Near East, was thought to have eliminated mythic categories from Jewish consciousness. The few vestiges of mythic thought which found their way into biblical literature could be explained away as metaphors.

The founders of modern Jewish scholarship in the nineteenth century sought to perpetuate and propagate the view of Judaism as ethical monotheism for political and polemical reasons.

Data which challenged this stereotype were suppressed or dismissed as abberations of folk religion.

Raphael: The Archangel of Healing

A good friend of mine, Brett Noel, shared this with me recently, and I think it's an interesting approach, so I share it with you the readers:

My interest in the Archangel Raphael came in a round about way. I've been pondering the idea of Satan being bound for a thousand years as we are told in Revelation 20:1-3:
1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent,

Journal Honors Moshe Idel, One of Judaism's Premiere Teachers

This was an exciting heads up, so I share it with you all as well. Take advantage of this.

http://www.jsri.ro/new/?Archive:JSRI_volume_6%2C_no._18%2C_Winter_2007_-_Essays_in_Honor_of_Moshe_Idel

Ezekiel's Heavenly Chariot Ideas From Other Traditions

Here is a sample of what I mean when I say understanding the meanings of the Tarot symbolism are spiritually enlightening for us. The wacky way of misusing it these days for fortune telling and all the crap the Tarot is abused by now is way off base, even according to one of the true Tarot geniuses who ever walked the planet, Paul Foster Case.

Daniel Matt's 4th volume of the "Zohar" (the most scholarly, interesting, and powerful translation and commentary for our day) is a delightful text to...

What the Devil? Lucifer, the *Light Bearer*

In browsing through Nibley's The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, I found something else that is pure Tarot philosophy, and is hence another demonstration, in my personal opinion that the Tarot is not witchcraft or Priesthoodless, Godless devil tom-foolery, or what have you. Labeling it does not demonstrate it is what the label pretends it to be.

Nibley on p. 254f (this is in the 2nd edition), noted that the Opening of the Mouth ceremony of the ancient Egyptians is like an awakening...

Electricity as Spiritual Fluid

Years and years ago as I was making my way through the “Journal of Discourses,” I found a most remarkable essay by Parley P. Pratt, “Spiritual Communication,” (April 7, 1853) wherein he noted that the dead are not really dead as if they have ceased to exist, but are rather “organized intelligences” made of element we call “Spirit.” (JD Vol. 2:8). Electricity he calls a “subtle fluid or spiritual element is endowed with the powers of locomotion in a far greater degree than the more gross or solid elements of nature.”

In the Kabbalah this “electricity” is “cosmic electricity, ....

Zohar and Just How God Creates

"One might think that the Kabbalah, concerned as it is with higher states of consciousness, would have an ascetic impulse. However, although asceticism was present in some kabbalistic movements, the dominant trend is that sexuality is holy; that sexual union embodies, actualizes, and reflects the fundamental dynamics of cosmic and even theological processes; and that union must be actualized to maintain the flow of the shefa, the divine effluence. For the Zohar, the masterpiece of Kabbalah, God, creation, the balance of energies in the world—all are understood through the prism of the union of opposites, a union reflective of and expressed in sexuality. This is no mere metaphor: the world of the Zohar is a dynamic universe in which energies are always combining, breaking apart, and then combining anew. Human agency, including sexuality, is an essential part of this process: the process of God itself. We are not meant to return to God by leaving the body behind.....Rather, the Zohar says that we are meant to imitate God, who creates, manifests into separation, and unites the separate back into One.....Exactly how those energies are united will vary from individual to individual, since all of us contain both masculine and feminine aspects. But in general, manifestation, separation, and union are not just the ways of the birds and bees; they are the imitation of God."

- Jay Michaelson (God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness and Embodied Spiritual Practice)

The Sword of Binah & the Law

A Ditty from Joe Steve Swick III:

Most mystics are aware that Manifestation requires limitation/restriction, and that another name for limitation is law. Mystics understand the wisdom in acting in ways that are congruent with the general principles upon which the physical universe is constructed, as those principles apply to our individual vehicles. Now, some rules can be bent, and others can be broken. And, adversity being a fundamental quality of the physical world, some folks who live by the rules still end up with their fair share of challenges. With this as a caveat, I’d suggest to you that no honest mystic is going to argue against the general principle that if we expect (for example) good health, that this necessarily requires our living lives congruent with the laws upon which good health is predicated. The longer we depart from such laws – i.e., “fail to obey” – the greater our likelihood of degradation of health; while the closer we live to such principles, the greater our likelihood of better health. That is to say, “there is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of the world (i.e., a Spiritual law in the World of Causes [“heaven”], which governs the World of Effects [“the world’]), and when we obtain any blessing . . . it is by Obedience to that [Spiritual] law upon which it is predicated.” Understanding these spiritual laws and how they affect us on a personal level here in Malkuth is a matter of discrimination. Those who study Tarot recognize the operation of what is called the Sword of Binah, held by Justice in Tarot Key 11: we either choose to use this Sword it to cut away the superfluities of our lives, or we are eventually cut by the Sword – and that can hurt...

Fun With the Prime Number 37 - So Many Things, So little Time!

The number 37 is prime, that is divisible by only 1 and itself. 37 does not divide by 2 or 3 or 4, etc. (Yes Kerry, we all get the point get on with it already) Ahem! Well, so, when each of the digits, when raised to its triplet, its highest concept, is divisible by 37 and in increments of three, then it gets interesting very, VERY fast……….. Here’s what we end up with

1X37=37 (ain’t math grand? GRIN! Call me genius of the first caliber would ya?)

3X37 = 111

6X37 = 222

9X37 = 333

12X37 = 444

15X37 = 555

18X37 = 666

21X37 = 777

24X37 = 888

27X37 = 999

The total of 1 + 3 + 6 + 9 … +... 27 = 136.

136 is the value of Isaiah 41:4 – “I am Jehovah, the First, and the Last.”

136 also is the value of Psalm 118:16 – “The right Hand of Jehovah.”

What does all this mean? It means Kerry is having fun with math and Gematria, but hey, what a way ta go eh? Lol……………

Well, and then we find that the Hebrew "Qol" = voice = 136

and we find that Numbers 22:37, "The truth, indeed" (Hebrew ha'umnam) = 136

Genesis 18:5 - "your servant" (Hebrew 'avdekem) = 136

And Joe Steve Swick III adds - 136 = "I will give thanks unto the LORD with all my heart" (Ps. 9:1).

136 is also the mystical number of the 16th Path (Chokmah-Chesed; Vav). It
is the sum of all the numbers (1-16) on the magic square of . . . ?

;-)

The number 37 has the most amazing outstanding astonishing and outright outrageous associations gematrically in the scriptures that you can ever imagine, and in fact, far surpasses what I ever expected to find. I shall share more tomorrow………. Yer gonna love it man.

Joe Steve Swick III adds more: Well, for starters it is the value of YeChiYDaH, the Name of Kether,
indicating God's fundamentally indivisible nature.
It is also the value of KeBVDaH, as in Psalm 45:13: "The King's Daughter is
all-glorious within." This hints at the concept of the Divine Feminine, the
Daughter in Malkuth.

The "Yearly" Gematria Lesson

Just having some fun with several internet friends and decided I'd share this here also. This is me on the lighter side of life........ it's just so enjoyable exploring things is all.

Hey, I'm working on some Gematria from two books I just acquired that are
really quite fun, and then I found myself relooking into Case and Fideler,
and run across something in Fideler I had not realized before. Or else I
did, and in a "half-himer's" moment (Alzheimers comes after age 80! GRIN!)
promptly forgot it. But anyways...

Fideler notes on page 250 ("Jesus Christ: Sun of God" Quest Books, 1993), that
the Egyptians saw the Nile as the exact counterpart of heaven and the year
incarnate. This is appropriate since in the Greek gematria,