WES Counts the Omer: April 20, 2017
| Chesed | Gevurah | Tiferet | Netzach | Hod | Yesod | Malkhut | |
| Chesed | April 11 | April 12 | April 13 | April 14 | April 15 | April 16 | April 17 |
| Gevurah | April 18 | April 19 | April 20 | ||||
| Tiferet | |||||||
| Netzach | |||||||
| Hod | |||||||
| Yesod | |||||||
| Malkhut |
Day Ten: Tiferet of Gevurah, Beauty at the Heart of Strength
In a conversation some time ago, someone who was asked about balancing work and a personal life instead talked about finding harmony in all of her life. Perhaps that can give us insight into what we might mean by beauty at the heart of strength. Perhaps we might look for harmony so that our strength and our restraint are part of an integrated whole, not experienced as abrupt curbs to our actions.
As a child growing up, I was always very aware that where my friends compartmented their lives into schooltime, playtime, Jewish (or Christian) time, etc., my life was much more integrated. I went to a progressive school that encouraged students to question everything and I was a part of a denomination within Judaism that glorified asking questions. I was a liberal American Jew and a liberal Jewish American. Spending time with my family was often as much fun as spending time with my friends and, sometimes, we laughed more.
Perhaps a way to find beauty at the heart of our strength is to see restraint as maintaining our integrity at our core, so that we do not allow our enthusiasms to carry us off into actions we might later regret. The Tiferet of Gevurah, then, might play its role in helping us to maintain being the best us we can possibly be.
Susan R. Schorr
Day Ten (2016): Tiferet of Gevurah, The Beauty of Boundaries
Sometimes in a craft or art class, the teacher defines certain parameters that have to be observed to meet the assignment. Yes, you could create great beauty in many different ways but just on that day, you have to play according to a set of rules imposed on you. And, it has been my experience, these classes are extraordinary opportunities. The discipline imposed permits me to go deeper, to be a little freer than sometimes I feel able to do or to focus in a way that I never normally do. I expect this is how the rabbis and sages of our tradition felt when they tried to create midrashim (teaching stories) that filled the gap between two Torah verses to help us understand the text in new or deeper ways, or made the connection between verses in different books of the Torah in a way that illuminated both.
Perhaps today might be a day to look at your boundaries–at the limits you have imposed on yourself, or that have been imposed upon you—as a way of getting to know yourself a little better. There is the great beauty of the integrity that resides in the depths of who we are. Instead of thinking about all of the disparate facets that combine to make us unique, perhaps today, we might look at the wholeness of who we are that lives within those boundaries.
Susan Schorr
Day 10 (2015): The Tiferet of Gevurah, Harmony in Strength
How do we find harmony in strength? Perhaps one way to approach it is to think of the ways that sometimes we have to balance being strong with holding back. According to the Kabbalists, the first step in the process of creation was tsimtsum, God needed to pull back, to withdraw a bit, in order to create a space in which creation could happen. In the same way, sometimes we need to withdraw a bit and not try to muscle on through. I know a cleaning lady who, when something doesn’t move, will just shove harder. But sometimes the sofa you are trying to return to its usual place, from where it was moved to make room for the seder tables, needs to be gentled back. With a strong shove, you may break its frame. The challenge is to find the right harmony between strength in pushing forward and strength in pulling back. And, of course, there is always the temptation to give up the whole project and decide that the sofa really looks better at that odd angle along the far wall of the room.
Susan R. Schorr
Rabbi Min Kantrowitz on the second week of Gevurah in Counting the Omer: A Kabbalistic Meditation Guide
In this second week of counting the Omer, we encounter each pair of sephirot for the second time. This time, instead of focusing on how each sephira influences Chesed (lovingkindness), the focus is on how each has an impact on Gevurah (strength of discernment, constraint). …
Instead of thinking of Gevurah as an overpowering and rigid force, consider Gevurah as the type of strength that assesses a situation and then responds appropriately. It is the strength of David, not of Goliath. Gevurah discerns right actions, rather than blindly condemning or acting judgmental.
Source: Kantrowitz, Rabbi Min. Counting the Omer: A Kabbalistic Meditation Guide. Santa Fe, NM: Gaon Books, 2010.
From Rabbi Simon Jacobson’s Daily Omer Meditations
Day 10 ― Tiferet of Gevurah: Compassion in Discipline
Underlying and driving discipline must not only be love, but also compassion. Compassion is unconditional love. It is love just for the sake of love, not considering the others position. Tiferet is a result of total selflessness in the eyes of God. You love for no reason; you love because you are a reflection of God. Does my discipline have this element of compassion?
Exercise for the day: Be compassionate to someone you have reproached.
Source: http://www.meaningfullife.com/torah/guide-personal-freedom/
Amichai Lau Lavie, Counting the Omer. Fifty days, fifty fragments: one a day, one solid journey, posted April 17, 2012 on the gather the broken blog. gather the broken is a shared omer counting 5772, drawings from Jacqueline Nicholls, commentary from Amichai Lau Lavie.
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
day 10 of 50
Amichai: Spirals happen when a circle breaks its perfectly complete orbit and deviates ever so slightly a fraction of a movement to create a curve, a tiny turn that will form, eventually, a spiral and so on and on again. Is this the secret of the seashell, the origin of the movement of the sea itself?
The circle has to break for the spiral to happen.
the regulation rotation of our everyday routine both craves and fear the sudden subtle curve that will evolve into a different pattern and spiral our existence into other realms. Order and Chaos in a perpetual dance. the mystic spiral inside each and every one of us in our fingertips and probably in everything we know.
This count, from 1-50, like a spiral dance, attempts to set some order on the chaos, mythic journey up a mountain, curve by curve. Tonight is ten. the heart of order, tiferet of gevura, the eye of the spiral, the courage to change.
From Rabbi Yael Levy’s Daily Omer Teachings
Enduring Strength
The strength to go forward
The ability to see beyond ourselves,
Beyond our immediate circumstances
Knowing that our actions unfold
Beyond anything we can ever see or know
Practice for today: Perform an action aimed at bringing benefit to others.
WES Community Omer Journal 