7. Methods of Healing

The Power of the Physician

The process of healing, according to Kabbalah, is accomplished through the inter-involvement of the physician’s eyes, hands, and mouth.

The Physician’s Eyes

The model physician in the Torah is the priest (kohen), who diagnoses (and heals) by sight.[1] In Kabbalah, the innate power of the priest’s soul derives from the sefirah of chochmah (“wisdom”), which, as mentioned above, is associated with the sense of sight.

In Kabbalah, the consciousness of the sefirah of chochmah transcends death, as it is written in the Book of Job: “They shall die, but not with wisdom.”[2] This is interpreted to mean that wisdom cannot coexist with death; only when wisdom departs may death ensue. Furthermore, the priest is not permitted to come in physical contact with death. For this very reason, he is the ideal physician: a physician who believes only in life, and is unwilling to sanction death. This is supported by the famous statement of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch[3] that the Torah allows the physician to heal, but not to pronounce, in despair, a terminal prognosis.[4]

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Of course, all mortals die. Even of the Messianic Age, it is written, “the youth of a hundred years will die,”[5] that is, even though longevity will be such that a person a hundred years old will be considered a “youth,” death will nonetheless persist. But it is concomitantly clear to one who believes in God and the Torah that our Divine soul, “an actual part of God,” is not subject to death. The soul lives on after the death of the body, and, when so judged, returns to this world in another body. In the End of Days, the soul will once more descend to earth and live forever in the resurrected body in which it lived in this world.[6]

In Kabbalah, the 45^th of the 72 three-letter mystical Names of God[7] (which is spelled samech alef lamed) is read as an acronym for the Talmudic phrase, “the end of man is to die” (sof adam lamut).[8] Human mortality is indeed a Divine phenomenon. The phrase “the end of man is to die” alludes to the verse at the end of Ecclesiastes: “The end [sof] of the matter, all having been heard: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole man [adam].”[9] From meditation on “the end of man,” we come to fear God and keep His commandments, and thereby to merit eternal life (this being “the whole man”).

Often, it is indeed the moral responsibility of the physician to prepare a patient for the passage of his or her soul from this world to the next. In this situation, the physician takes on the task of a rabbi, a priest of old, as seen in the Torah where the priest serves the function both of the doctor and the rabbi or teacher. Here, his connection to God and belief in the eternal life of the soul come to their peak. Here becomes manifest the paradox characteristic of Jewish faith: to concentrate on life alone, never to lose hope and despair, while simultaneously knowing that God is one, equally present with us in either of the two worlds, this or the next.

This is the simple faith that the eyes of the physician radiate to his patient in the most difficult moments of his care for him. In the words of King David, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall not fear evil, for You are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me.”[10]

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It is explained in Kabbalah and Hassidism, as has been noted above, that disease results from a lack of selflessness (bitul), the inner experience of chochmah. When our body is healthy, we are not aware of it—it is merely an intrinsic part of our overall selves. Only when the body is ill do we become aware of it as something possessing a distinct existence. Thus, overt self-awareness is an indication of disease, whether latent or potential.

The emotive correlate of chochmah is chesed (“loving-kindness”).[11] In Kabbalah, the priest is identified with chesed.[12] The physician/priest observes his patient, and reflects upon his ailment, with love. The physician’s energies of selflessness (chochmah) and love (chesed), projected from his eyes toward the patient, join to begin the healing process. The physician’s visual diagnosis—based on and permeated by selflessness and love—effectively transmits the healing power of selflessness and love to the ailing person.[13]

In particular, it is the physician’s selflessness that endows him with the wisdom and insight to properly diagnose his patient, whom he loves. It is his love that transmits the healing power of selflessness to his patient.

Traditional medical diagnosis begins with observation of the patient prior to examination, alluding to the power of the eyes as the gateways of healing.

In this context, we may suppose that the various diagnostic examinations available to the modern physician as technological extensions of his physical eyesight—x-rays, CAT scans, etc.—serve to compensate for the weakening of his spiritual eyesight over the generations. Nevertheless, while they may well aid in diagnosing a condition, they certainly do not project the healing power of love that do the eyes of the physician.

The Physician’s Hands

In the Five Books of Moses, the Hebrew root of “healing” (refuah, r-p-h) appears fourteen times, the numerical value of the word for “hand” (yad). These fourteen appearances divide naturally into two groups of ten and four: ten appear in various thematic contexts,[1] while the remaining four all appear in the context of the disease of tzara’at (and are all in the past tense and the passive form—“was healed”[2]).[3] This natural division into ten and four further alludes to the relationship between the root of “healing” and the word for “hand,” inasmuch as the numerical values of the two letters that spell the word for “hand” (yud and dalet) are 10 and 4, respectively.[4]

The first of these fourteen appearances is in the verse, “And God healed Abimelech.”[5] We are taught that “everything follows [the lead of] the beginning,”[6] which implies that every phenomenon in the Torah is defined by its first appearance in the Torah. Indeed, the numerical value of the subject of this verse (the word for “God,” Elokim), in reduced numbering, is 14, the value of the first four letters being 10 and the value of the fifth, final letter being 4.[7]

As the word for “hand” (yad) also signifies “strength” and “ability,” all this suggests that there is healing power in the hand of the physician.

In particular, the word for “hand” is used idiomatically five ways in the Torah. These can be seen to correspond to the four letters of the Name Havayah and the upper tip of the yud, as follows:[8]

the Name Havayah	sefirah	meaning of “hand”	example
י upper tip of yud	keter	prophetic inspiration	“…and the hand of God was upon him.”[9]
י yud	chochmah	point [of wisdom]	“You open Your hands…”:[10] “do not read ‘Your hands’ but ‘Your yud’s.’”[11]
ה hei	binah	intellectual grasp	“…as far as the hand of his intellect can grasp…”[12]
ו vav	midot	manifestation of emotion, strength, and ability	“…the great hand [chesed]…,”[13] “…the mighty hand [gevurah]…,”[14] “…the uplifted hand [tiferet]…”[15]
ה hei	malchut	place	“…you shall have a place [lit., ‘a hand’] outside the camp…”[16]

In Kabbalah, the verse, “With wisdom [chochmah] God [Havayah] founded the earth”[17] is seen to imply that all four levels inherent in the Name Havayah, corresponding to its four letters, are included in chochmah, which corresponds in particular to the first letter, the yud of the Name Havayah. The name of the letter yud, the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, itself is cognate with “hand” (yad). And so, all of the four/five idiomatic usages of “hand” are derived ultimately from the soul’s faculty of wisdom, the healing power of the soul, as explained above.

To manifest healing power in his hand, the physician must imbue his hand with the consciousness of the Name Havayah, which refers in particular to God’s attribute of mercy or compassion.[18] Mercy originates in keter, corresponding to the upper tip of the yud, which possesses thirteen individual attributes or channels of mercy, channeling God’s infinite mercy from the unfathomable, unconscious depths of keter to the beginning of consciousness in chochmah.

The conscious expression of mercy begins with opening the hand to give, opening the concealed point of wisdom (whose origin is in the “concealed [unconscious] mind”—mocha stima’ah—of keter) to shine its light to the patient. In Kabbalah, the verse “You open Your hands…”[19] is interpreted, “do not read ‘Your hands’ but ‘Your yud’s’”[20]—a direct allusion to the yud of the Name Havayah. This is similar to the x-ray power of the eyes mentioned above.

The hand continues to grasp, intellectually, the origin of the disease, thereby lifting it out, as it were, from the patient. This process of spiritual surgery corresponds to the higher hei of the Name Havayah.

Next, manifesting the heart’s emotion of love, the hand sutures and soothes the wound. This corresponds to the vav of the Name Havayah.

Finally, the hand concludes the cure, restoring the affected area to its primal state of health, smoothing the skin. This last stage corresponds to malchut, the final hei of the Name Havayah (as explained above), until the place of the wound becomes unknown.

In the Bible,[21] we find an explicit reference to the power of the hand to heal. Na’aman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a leper. The king, having heard of the wonders wrought by the prophet Elisha, sent Na’aman to Israel to be healed. Elisha told him to immerse seven times in the Jordan river. In anger, Na’aman walked away, saying,

“I thought he would come out to me,

and would stand and invoke God, his God, by Name,

wave his hand toward the place,

and cure the affected part.”

Na’aman’s servants calmed him and convinced him to try the simple advice the prophet had given him. Upon immersing seven times in the Jordan, he was cured; his skin returned to that of a babe.

From this story, we see that it was customary among nations of old to heal by the power of the hand. The prophet was surely not an ordinary “healer,” and in order to sanctify God’s Name, instructed Na’aman simply to bathe in the Jordan, just as he was accustomed to bathe in the rivers of Damascus.

Nonetheless, there is a deep relationship between the Jordan River and the healing power of the hands. The name Jordan, as written in Hebrew (yardein), is an intertwining of two two-letter words: “hand” (yad) and “sing” (ran). The “singing hand” is the hand of the musician playing an instrument. When desiring to arouse the prophetic spirit, it was the prophet Elisha who called upon a musician to play music, and then, “the hand of God was upon him.”[22]

Thus, we may infer that listening to the music of the Jordan River, immersing in it, and integrating it into one’s soul confers healing power upon the hands of the physician. The song of the Jordan River is that the Land of Israel was given by the hand of God to the people of Israel.

Above, in the first part of this book, while describing the Kabbalistic models pertaining to the hands and the fingers, we began discussing the properties of sensitivity and balance, the cornerstones of rectification in the worldview of Kabbalah. These properties are of greatest importance to the physician in diagnosing and treating his patients.

By means of the sensitive touch of the fingers, communication is established between the physician and the patient. Traditionally, the laying on of hands was an intrinsic part of medical diagnosis and treatment. This is especially the case with regard to surgical therapy.[23]

While modern diagnostic and surgical technology, requiring much less physical contact between doctor and patient, is certainly helpful to the modern physician, the price of the physical distancing of patient from doctor is the decrease in doctor-patient interaction. It is commonly said that technology has impeded the development of the art of medicine in modern times. It is generally felt that the physician of the past had better-developed diagnostic acumen than that of today’s physician.

As we have seen, the proper balance of “touching and not touching” is an innate characteristic or sense that relates to the hands. In the practice of modern medicine, proper balance must be maintained between diagnostic and therapeutic technology and hands-on contact between doctor and patient. In diagnosis and treatment, the physician must learn to rectify the sense of balance innate to his spiritual and physical hands.

In abstraction, not only the balance of physical “touching and not touching” relates to the hands, but the deep sense of balance, with regard to the physician’s expression of empathy with the condition and suffering of his patient, pertains to the spiritual hands of the physician as well. In order to practice medicine objectively, the physician must often consciously distance himself from his patient, lest his emotional involvement in the patient’s plight overwhelm him and incapacitate him.

In Kabbalah, the inner sense of balance, with regard to one’s expression of empathy with another, is seen as a property of the third, hidden “hand” (vested in the torso, or heart, and reaching upward to the head), the hand of tiferet, between the two revealed hands of chesed (the right hand) and gevurah (the left hand). Tiferet is the sefirah most identified with the discipline of medicine.[24] Its inner experience is compassion (rachamim), or empathy with another. The essence of balance is a property of da’at, the inner soul of tiferet. By the power of da’at, one knows when and how to extend the expression of his third hand, outwardly, to the other, and when to contract it, inwardly, to himself.

In the physician’s third, hidden hand, lies his “sixth sense,” a sense that cannot be learned from the textbooks, but comes only with experience and practice to a soul gifted with an innate affinity toward healing. Indeed, medicine is an art as well as a science.

In medical practice, there is often a dichotomy between the textbook solution to problems and the “practical” solution, between what is learned and what is applied. Surgeons are fond of saying, “we could train a monkey to be a surgeon,” meaning that the technical aspect of surgery is not overly complex. Far more crucial and difficult is the physician’s judgment—his da’at—regarding whether to operate or not and when to stop or proceed in a surgery; when to extend his hand and when to contract it.

The Physician’s Mouth

The letters of the Hebrew word for “healing” (refuah) permute to spell the phrase, “the light of the mouth” (or peh). The physician’s sympathetic advice and reassurance to his patient radiate healing light and energy.

The Torah begins with the account of creation: “In the beginning, God created….” In Hebrew, the verb “to create” is cognate to the verb “to be or make healthy.” According to Kabbalah, there are indeed two stages of creation: first, creation ex nihilo, and then, a “healing” of the ailments inherent in the initial state of creation.

God created/healed the world with ten utterances of His mouth. The first explicit utterance[1] is recorded in the third verse of the Torah, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” God’s very words, “Let there be light,” became light. Light was the first “sound” state of reality to emerge from the mouth of God, healing the previous “ill” state of reality: “The earth was unformed and void, and darkness was on the face of the abyss….”[2] With the goodly light of His mouth, God healed all of reality. And so is every man, and the physician in particular, instructed, “Open your mouth, and let your words shine light.”[3]

Seven different Hebrew letters are used in the twenty-three-letter verse: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light”; three (alef, vav, and reish) spell the word for “light” (or) and the remaining four (mem, yud, lamed, and hei) are numerically equal to the word for “mouth” (peh).[4] Thus, the entire verse is, in essence, the healing power (refuah) of “the light of the mouth” of God.

In Kabbalah, the origin of the mouth in keter—the origin of the soul’s power of expression in its super-conscious will—is the twelfth of the thirteen attributes of Divine mercy, all of which are rooted in keter, as noted above. Of this supernal “mouth,” it is said, “knowledge is concealed [ganiz] within the mouth.”[5] This concealed knowledge—da’at—is itself the concealed light (or haganuz) of creation. Da’at is the power to connect, as in marital union.[6] By the power of da’at concealed in his mouth, the physician connects to his patient.

While instructing the patient what to do and what not to do, the words of the physician calm, reassure, and encourage the patient to follow his instructions with the implicit promise that surely, with the help of God, he will be well. The positive words spoken by the mouth of the physician become positive thoughts in the mind of the patient. As we have seen, positive thinking creates positive reality.

King Solomon, the wisest of all men, said, “If there be anxiety in a man’s heart, let him suppress it, and a good word will turn it into joy.”[7] According to the sages of the Talmud, the Hebrew word for “let him suppress it” has two additional meanings: “let him ignore it” and “let him articulate it.”[8] According to the reading, “let him articulate it,” this verse portrays, in particular, the dialogue between a patient and his physician. First, the patient articulates to the physician the anxiety within his heart, the symptoms of his illness. The physician responds with “a good word,” which, in itself, has the power to heal by turning the anxiety in the heart of the patient into joy.

Eyes, Hands, and Mouth

Each one of these three members of the physician’s body—his eyes, his hands, and his mouth—projects spiritual, healing light and energy. The physician must devote himself to Divine service in order to refine these three members of his body, so that they become conduits to transmit healing powers. Each must be refined independently and they must learn to function together, in harmony.

As explained above, we refine our eyes by guarding them to see only good and positive facets of reality, to envision God before us constantly. We refine our hands by emulating God by opening our hands to give charity.[1] We refine our mouths by guarding them from evil words and by speaking words of Torah, which are a source of life[2].

In most general terms, the relation between the eyes, the hands, and the mouth of the physician is that the eyes see the disease, the hands treat the disease, and the mouth calms and reassures the patient.

The spiritual light projected from the eyes, as explained above, is one of pure love; the spiritual energy in the hands expresses compassion; the light of the mouth projects trust.[3] In Hassidic thought, love (ahavah), compassion (rachamim), and trust (bitachon) are the lights and inner experiences of the three sefirot—chesed, tiferet, and netzach.

The Ba’al Shem Tov teaches, as noted earlier, that any complete process of spiritual growth or, indeed, any complete act of rectification, must proceed through three stages: submission, separation, and sweetening. Since true healing is a spiritual as well as a physical process, the consciousness of a true healer must also proceed through these three stages.[4]

3.	sweetening	mouth	reassuring, healing words
2.	separation	hands	treating illness
1.	submission	eyes	diagnosing illness

We have seen above that the two extreme stages of submission and sweetening correspond to the two states of chash (“silence”) and mal (“speaking”). Chash characterizes chochmah (as our sages say, “silence is a fence for wisdom”[5]), the source of the sight of the eye. (Chash also means “sense,” the foremost sense of external reality being the sense of sight, as explained in Hassidism.) Thus, chash, “submission” (here in the sense of true selflessness, the inner experience of chochmah), refers, in particular, to the eyes of the physician. Mal refers to the mouth of the physician. The intermediate stage of mal (“severance”), characterizing the rectified brit, relates to the sense of touch in the hands of the physician. In Kabbalah, the sense of touch is identified with the sense of marital relations, the function of the brit. (In the terminology of our sages, the male brit itself is referred to as a “finger.”[6])

The eyes of the physician project a selfless feeling of love for his patient. In compassion, the charitable hands of the physician provide the patient with what he needs, separating the “poor man” from his state of poverty. Finally, the good and reassuring words of the physician (the “light” of his mouth) “sweeten” the consciousness of the patient, filling him or her with hope and confidence.

All three energies—from the eyes, the hands, and the mouth of the physician—apply, whichever method of healing the physician employs, as we shall see next.

Contemporary Medical Practice

Contemporary medical practice may be seen to employ four general methods of healing: homeopathy, allopathy, osteopathy, and naturopathy.

1. Homeopathy

The underlying principle of this healing system is known as the “law of similars,” where one paradoxically uses either the disease itself or something similar to the disease as the cure. This principle, long known to mankind, finds its explicit expression in the idiom of the sages as healing “like by like.”[1] Furthermore, the sages teach that this is the method employed by God Himself, who “sweetens [that is, heals] bitterness with bitterness.”[2] “Like by like” implies that the cure lies within the disease itself, meaning that the disease is merely a foreign “shell” of evil containing within it a kernel of good.

2. Allopathy (conventional medicine)

This healing system is based upon the logic that the way to fight off disease is by using an opposing force that confronts the illness head on. Human intelligence then proceeds to employ scientific methods to extract from nature chemicals whose properties are intended to counteract the symptoms and overt physical manifestations of a given disease. The disease is considered to be no more than its physical manifestations, which are seen to be negative in essence and must be fought off in their entirety. (Only in most recent years is conventional medicine beginning to recognize the relation of the psyche to the body and that there is more to disease than that which meets the eye.)

3. Osteopathy

According to this healing system, which includes Western chiropractic and Chinese acupuncture and acupressure, the body is rectified without any medicinal intervention, but only by the hands (or needles) of the physician balancing body energies and realigning the body to its proper state. Osteopathy treats the muscles and penetrates to the nervous system by treating the spinal cord.

4. Naturopathy

This system of healing through herbs and other resources taken directly from nature reflects the belief that God, the Creator, surely provided a cure, in the natural realm—the creation of His hands (as noted above, “to create” in Hebrew is cognate with “to heal”)—before He made possible a disease.[1] This system presupposes that there must be something in our world that can serve as a natural cure for every disease, something that does not require human manipulation to alter its state. This sense, which reflects a deep appreciation of the great, latent potential inherent in the earth, is alluded to in the verse in Psalms that states, “Truth will sprout out of the earth.”[2]

“Truth” in Kabbalah is the ultimate healing power, applying even to the revival of the dead. The word for “truth,” emet, is read, “alef [the first letter of the alphabet, alluding to God, revives] meit [‘the dead’].”

Furthermore, the effectiveness of the natural method of healing is suggested by another verse found in Deuteronomy that, “man is a tree of the field,”[3] implying our essential connection to nature and nature’s power to heal our ailments. In addition to herbal remedies, naturopathy, more than the other methods of healing, emphasizes the importance of proper diet and nutrition, physical exercise and healthy lifestyles in general.

Of these four methods of healing, the three—allopathy, osteopathy, naturopathy—are all under the direction of mortal reason. Only homeopathy transcends mortal reason, with the paradox of healing bitterness with bitterness, and is the bridge between the other levels and the fifth level—pure spiritual healing, employing Torah-inspired methods—that we will discuss in the next section.

The various systems of healing can be seen as corresponding to the letters of God’s essential Name Havayah, as follows:

י upper tip of yud	pure spiritual healing	employing Torah-inspired methods
י yud	homeopathy	applying the law of similars
ה hei	allopathy	fighting disease “head on”
ו vav	osteopathy	aligning the body
ה hei	naturopathy	tapping the resources of nature

The implication of homeopathy that cure lies within the disease itself and that the disease is merely a foreign “shell” of evil concealing within it a kernel of good is a Divinely-inspired insight into the nature of reality in general and the human condition in particular. This insight corresponds to the wisdom embodied in the point of the yud of God’s Name.

Allopathy, that is, conventional Western medical practice, is based on the pattern of mortal reason (in contrast with Divinely-inspired insight) that corresponds in Kabbalah to the first hei of God’s Name.

Osteopathy, as noted above, treats the muscles (the physiological system that corresponds to the sefirah of tiferet) and even deeper, penetrates to the nervous system (the system that corresponds to the sefirah of da’at, the inner “soul” of tiferet) by treating the spinal cord. Tiferet—the torso, which corresponds to the vav of God’s Name—means “beauty,” referring in particular to a beautiful body. In the words of the Zohar, “beauty [tiferet] is the body.”[4] A “straight” or “upright” body (the work of the chiropractor) is a beautiful one.[5]

Naturopathy, with its emphasis on finding the cure in nature, corresponds to the final hei of God’s Name, which refers to the level of Divinity inherent in nature itself, that is, the healing power contained within every created being, to heal both itself and others.

Four Methods as One

As the four methods described above correspond to the four letters of God’s essential Name, Havayah, and as “God is one,” the ideal physician is one who knows how to employ all four methods of healing, recognizing their common Divine source, the healing power of God.

In general, in less severe instances of disease, it is wise to begin with natural means, and if not sufficient, to proceed up the ladder of the four methods. Of course, the accomplished physician will know from experience which method is best for which disease.

As the letters of the Name Havayah correspond to the sefirot, which in turn correlate to the physiological systems, it would appear from our above analysis that:

• Diseases related to the respiratory system (associated with keter, the upper tip of the yud of the Name Havayah) or to the bone marrow (associated with chochmah, the yud of the Name Havayah) might well be treated by homeopathy.
• Diseases related to the blood (associated with binah, the first hei of the Name Havayah) might best be treated by conventional medicine.
• Diseases related to one of the physiological systems that correspond to the emotive attributes of the soul, in particular those related to the muscular system (associated with tiferet, the central attribute amongst the emotions, the vav of the Name Havayah) would best be treated by osteopathy.
• Diseases of the digestive system (associated with malchut, the final hei of the Name Havayah) most certainly should be treated, initially, by natural methods, beginning with diet.

To summarize:

God’s Name	sefirah	method of healing	diseases related to
י yud	chochmah	homeopathy	respiration and the bone-marrow
ה hei	binah	allopathy	the blood
ו vav	midot	osteopathy	the muscular system
ה hei	malchut	naturopathy	the digestive system

Healing and the Soul

In a Hassidic discourse, one of the great Kabbalists of the 19^th century, Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac HaLevi Epstein of Homil, outlines six levels of healing, which can be can be understood to correspond to the five levels of the soul, plus the soul’s very essence. These levels of soul are named and experienced as follows:

	level of soul	experience
6.	etzem haneshamah	essence of the soul	“an actual part of God”
5.	yechidah	“single one”	unity with God
4.	chayah	“living one”	awareness of God
3.	neshamah	“breath” of life	intelligence
2.	ruach	“spirit”	emotion
1.	nefesh	innate life-force	physicality

We will now describe how these levels of soul correspond to six levels of healing.

1. Healing at the level of Nefesh

The first level of healing, lowest yet most fundamental in the six-rung ladder of healing, is that employed by an expert physician, whether that physician is a conventional practitioner or a homeopath, osteopath, or naturopath. The skilled and accomplished practitioner (especially the one that knows how to use and unite all of the four methods of healing described above) knows the proper way to treat any specific ailment of the body.[1]

The physician’s expertise relates to the natural level of the body, the physical level on which the body “lives,” meaning, the life-force of the soul as it clothes itself within the body.

The correct treatment for a given disease possesses the power to contact this lowest level of the soul—the nefesh—and draw it into the body. At this level, however, the consciousness of the physician is primarily, if not solely, directed to the body and its ailments; he or she is not necessarily consciously aware of the connection of body to soul.

The soul—the nefesh—is connected to the body through the blood. In the Torah[2] we find it explicitly stated that “the blood is the soul [nefesh].” The Hebrew word for “blood,” (dam) is related to the word for “likeness” (demut) as used by the Torah in describing the creation of the first human being:

God said:

“Let us make man [Adam] in our image,

as our likeness [kidmuteinu].”[3]

The very name of the first human, Adam, is cognate to the word for “blood” (dam). The name Adam can be read “I shall become blood,” alluding to the power to draw the nefesh into the body by means of the blood, the function accomplished by the expert physician. (While in the phrase, “I shall become blood,” “I” refers to the nefesh, implying that the focus of consciousness is that of the nefesh entering the blood to animate the body, the physician focuses primarily on the body, drawing into it, whether consciously or unconsciously, the life-force of the nefesh by its entry into the blood.)

To continue: If Adam is seen to allude to the expert physician, we may envision the three principal characters in the story of the Garden of Eden—Adam, Eve, and the snake—as alluding, allegorically, to the doctor, the patient, and the disease, respectively.

The name Eve (Chavah) is cognate in Aramaic to the word for “snake” (chiviah), implying that having been seduced to sin, or bitten by the snake, she became infected with the disease represented by the snake; she is thus the patient figure. From the snake itself, the essence of the disease, may be extracted the remedy or medicine to heal the disease, in accordance with the homeopathic “law of similars.” For this reason, the snake has universally become the symbol of medicine, as in the episode of the “copper snake,” which Moses placed on a pole to heal those who were bitten by snakes, as explained earlier.[4]

2. Healing at the level of Ruach

The second level of healing acts through the power of “charms,” called in Hebrew, segulot.[1] Although in its origins this was a most authentic science, over the generations it has degenerated to a large extent and has become identified with various superstitious practices.

Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac of Homil describes in his discourse how this works. For example, by drawing the form of a man on a wall, the master of charms may spiritually influence and physically affect the pictured man by manipulating or altering the picture. In this way, a good master can heal a diseased patient.

The wisdom employed at this level is “suggestive” in nature. An act done here “suggests” that a similar act will happen there. The power of suggestion relates in Kabbalah and Hassidic thought to the emotive attributes of the soul, the level of ruach (“spirit”).

While at the first level of healing, the body was affected directly by the soul (at the level of nefesh) by means of the blood, here, the body is affected indirectly. The charm touches the level of ruach, which thereafter affects the body indirectly.

The master of charms is a true “spiritualist,” address­ing the human spirit. The process of healing is indeed a spiritual happening; it impinges on the self-conscious emotions of the soul. In Kabbalah, this level of consciousness is identified with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Here, good and evil are mixed together, for which reason this level of healing is most susceptible to misuse, albeit often unintentional.

When the emotions are aroused constructively—by Torah-inspired associations (charms) projected from the physician to the patient[2]—the ruach becomes sufficiently energized to affect and heal from above the body to which it relates.

All methods of healing that seek to employ vital energies projected from healer to patient belong to this level of healing. The intellectual basis for such methodology and techniques is referred to in Kabbalah as “the [intellectual] power of association,” more literally: “the power of imagination.” From this it is clear why so many so-called “healers” nowadays play solely on the imagination of the patient.[3]

3. Healing at the level of Neshamah

The third level of healing acts through the power of the Names of God that are inscribed within an amulet (kameia) carried on the body or retained in another conspicuous place.

The Names of God have the power to draw Divine influx to the super-rational aspects of the soul, producing a supernal, Divine experience that strengthens the soul and provides it with sufficient power to heal the body.

In particular, this method of healing relates to the third level of the soul, the neshamah, the pure intelligence of the Divine soul of man, that is, the soul’s ability to perceive God’s presence directly in the world and to sense the Divine breath of life entering its being.

The level of neshamah is initially super-conscious in the psyche of the human being, for the initial, innate state of consciousness is solely that of nefesh (physical consciousness) and ruach (spiritual consciousness). The Divine life-force or vitality of the soul’s pure intelligence infinitely exceeds its innate spiritual state of consciousness, for to be conscious of the spiritual dimension of reality is still far from being aware of its Divine inner core.

The Divine Names address the neshamah and bring it into a state of conscious awareness and experience. The person feels that God is always with him or her. King David in Psalms says, “God is your shadow, on your right-hand side,”[1] meaning that God is always there to protect the individual and heal all of his spiritual and physical ailments.

The master healer who makes use of Divine Names must be an expert Kabbalist. He must know the exact nuance and power of each Divine Name, and when writing an amulet, must, in a state of sincere humility and selflessness, meditate on all the intentions prescribed by Kabbalah with regard to the specific Divine Name, together with the name of the patient, praying all the while to God that his remedy be effective.

We are told that in an amulet written to heal an ailing patient the Ba’al Shem Tov would inscribe his own proper name alone. By this he affected the patient’s consciousness at the level of the neshamah. The patient became aware that his or her soul was connected to the soul of a tzadik, a true holy man. The tzadik draws into the consciousness of all souls connected to him an awareness of God’s absolute unity and goodness which can heal all flesh.

4. Healing at the level of Chayah

The sages in the Talmud describe the fourth level of healing:

If one’s head aches, he should delve into the study of Torah…if one’s body aches, he should delve into the study of the Torah…[1]

and:

Whoever delves into the light of the Torah, the light of the Torah enlivens him.[2]

To draw physical vitality from the light of the Torah, one’s soul must be bound to the Torah, the word of God. The light of the Torah is God’s transcendent light, the infinite light that “encompasses all worlds.”[3] At this level, the soul experiences itself as one within the presence of God. This is so, for “the Torah and God are one.”[4]

This consciousness is at the level of the chayah, “the living one,” the awareness of the light of the Torah as “our life and the length of our days.”[5] The power of the reinforced bond of the soul to the Torah suffices to draw healing force into the body.

This level of healing is analogous to the law that an impure (sick) body of water instantly becomes purified (healed) when brought to “kiss” (that is, to contact) the waters of a pure mikveh.[6] In the same way, when the soul touches—“kisses”—the pure waters of the Torah, it receives sufficient life-force to heal the body.[7]

However, in the above-quoted saying of the sages, the reference is to a relatively minor condition such as a headache (“if one’s head aches...”), implying that the ailment referred to here is not one that has mortally impaired one of the vital, inner organs, but only an “ache” (even if the whole body may be affected by it: “if one’s body aches...”).[8] This suggests that when the vital, inner parts of the body have been mortally impaired, the “kiss” of the light of the Torah is not sufficient to miraculously heal them (that is, return them to their previously complete state of being).

5. Healing at the level of Yechidah

Although it may be physically impossible to heal a mortally ill body, even by the Divine light of the Torah, nevertheless, it is possible for one’s own soul to assume the role of the body and to “replace” it by enacting all of its physical functions in its stead. The body remains mortally ill as before, but somehow the person continues to live.

This is healing from the fifth level of the soul, the yechidah, “the single one.” Of this level it is said, “as though the Holy One dwells within him.”[1] This phenomenon makes the body appear to be functioning normally although it is virtually dead. The transcendent sanctity of God is separate from the physical body; thus, the body is in no way affected by the presence of God dwelling within it and “living” for it.

The soul-level called yechidah—“the single one”—implies “singularity,” as reflected by its ability to function independently in the body.[2] In Hassidic thought, this is the level referred to as “essential life” (chai be-etzem) in contrast to “bestowing life” (chaim lehachayot), which describes the level of chayah. Rather than bestowing life to the body (when this is physically possible), the yechidah “lives,” in its essential state of life, for the body.

6. Healing at the level of Etzem HaNeshamah

The sixth level of healing is the one for which we reserve the word “miracle” in its truest sense. Though many of the above levels of healing appear to be supernatural, it is at this level that the mortally ill body itself undergoes a miraculous, existential metamorphosis; the physical body becomes reborn.

Almost every physician in clinical practice has witnessed miraculous cures that defy all known laws of medicine. These experiences serve to humble the practitioner and remind him or her that all healing is truly supernatural, an act of God. Such experiences reinforce the physician’s awareness that his or her principal role is that of God’s emissary to heal the sick.

The resurrection of the dead is the ultimate healing process.[1] We are taught that at the time of the resurrection, bodies will rise from the grave in exactly the same state of being and physical condition as at the moment of death. Then, instantaneously, they will be healed.

The state of the first moment of resurrection, alive though ill as at the moment of death, corresponds to the fifth level of yechidah described above. The state of the second moment of resurrection, the rebirth of the body itself, corresponds to the sixth level, the revelation of the essence of the soul.

At this level, all manifestations of soul (i.e., the five previous levels from nefesh to yechidah) and body are one. The essential life of the soul and the eternal life of the body are the same.

An example of this sixth level of healing is the miracle of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, as related in the Book of Daniel.[2] When they were thrown into the furnace by order of the Babylonian king, the fire did not burn their bodies, though it did burn those of others around. The state of the body in fire is a physical analog to that of mortal, terminal disease. For the body to survive and emerge unaffected exemplifies the power of spontaneous rebirth.

This is the revelation of the Divine “Holy of Holies” of the soul, above the level described above with regard to the yechidah—“as though the Holy One dwells within him.”  The Divine “Holy of Holies” imbues the soul of the would-be martyr (the consciousness of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah) with the power to metamorphose the physical body.

This level corresponds to the “actual spark of God” within the yechidah of the Jewish soul. This spark derives from the essence of the infinite light that preceded the primordial contraction (tzimtzum). The primordial contraction conceals the essence of God’s infinite light, thereby excluding, from the perspective of creation, the possibility of an absolute miracle such as that described above. Nonetheless, the “actual spark of God” vested within each Jewish soul allows for the manifestation of such a miracle. This manifestation is the ultimate secret and purpose of the presence of the Jewish soul in creation.

In summary:

	level of soul	level of healing
6.	etzem haneshamah	essence of the soul	miraculous Divine power
5.	yechidah	“single one”	presence of God
4.	chayah	“living one”	light of Torah
3.	neshamah	“breath” of life	Names of God
2.	ruach	“spirit”	charms
1.	nefesh	innate life-force	contemporary medicine

8. The Healing Power of Prayer

Drawing Down Healing Power

During the time when the Kingdom of Judea was in flower, one of its exemplary kings, King Hezekiah, became deathly ill. And the prophet Isaiah came to tell him that his illness was terminal:

“Thus said God:

‘Instruct your household, for you are going to die,

you will not get well.’”[1]

But rather than despair at this verdict, Hezekiah began to pray from the depths of his heart.[2] Almost instantly came God’s reply:

“I have heard your prayer,

I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you.

On the third day you shall go up to the House of God,

and I will add to your days fifteen years.

And I will save you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria;

and I will defend this city for My own sake,

and for My servant David’s sake.”[3]

The sages teach that King Hezekiah learned to pray even after the decree of death was pronounced against him by the word of God from the example of his ancestor, King David, the author of the Book of Psalms, “the sweet singer of Israel.”[4] King David articulated his absolute faith in the power of prayer to elicit God’s mercy even in seemingly hopeless situations, saying: “Even if a sharpened sword is placed on one’s throat, one should not despair of praying for God’s mercy.”[5]

Modern, scientific research has verified that which has been long known to mankind—prayer to God is potent; it possesses the power to heal. Or, expressed in words of faith, heartfelt prayer draws down healing power from above.

In Kabbalah, we are taught that there are five levels of prayer for the sick, which correspond to the four letters of God’s essential Name Havayah and to a fifth, transcendent point represented by the upper tip of the yud.

We shall now examine how these levels of prayer draw down healing power. Our examination will begin at the lowest level.

The Prayer of the Sick Person

The sages teach that “a sick person’s prayer for himself is more potent than that of others for him.”[1] Who more than the patient himself can experience and identify with his suffering and trepidation? His own prayer issues from the depths of his heart. With all of his soul, he turns to God as his only hope for recovery.

In Kabbalah, we are taught that the suffering, afflicted soul—the soul in a spiritual state of exile—corresponds to the sefirah of malchut, which in turn corresponds to the final hei of the Name Havayah.[2] The more connected a person is with the attribute of malchut, the more potent is his prayer for himself. To connect with malchut, the sick person identifies his own personal suffering with that of the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, and the entire “congregation of Israel,” both of which are appellations of malchut.

In Kabbalah, the sefirah of malchut represents God’s immanent light in creation, the Shechinah, as well as the Divine “womb” or “body”[3] from which all souls of Israel are born into reality. At the level of malchut, one’s “I” becomes identified with the collective “I” of all Israel (“the congregation of Israel,” keneset Yisrael) and with that of the Shechinah itself. When one’s “I” suffers, one experiences the suffering of “the Shechinah in exile.”

The Prayer of a Wise Man

Elsewhere, the sages teach that “if there is a sick person in one’s home, one should go to a wise man and ask him to beseech [God] for mercy.”[1] Here we see that the prayer of a wise man (talmud chacham) possesses the power to arouse God’s mercy for the sick more than the prayer of others, including the sick person and those closest to him or her. (Of course, every individual’s prayer for another is potent, as acknowledged even by modern science, and the closer one is to the sick person, in heart and soul, the more potent is one’s prayer.)[2]

The ability to arouse compassion for another depends upon one’s connection to the sefirah of tiferet, whose inner experience is one of compassion for the other. The sefirah of tiferet corresponds to the vav of the Name Havayah. The archetypal soul who corresponds in Kabbalah to the sefirah of tiferet is that of Jacob. It is he who arouses mercy on “the congregation of Israel,” as personified by his wife Rachel, the archetypal soul who corresponds to the sefirah of malchut. (Upon first meeting Rachel, Jacob lifts up his voice and cries, thereby arousing great mercy on “the congregation of Israel.”[3]) Jacob is also the archetype of a wise man, the Torah-sage.[4]

From the higher perspective of tiferet, the suffering of malchut is seen in a different, deeper light. This perspective gives tiferet the ability to arouse mercy on malchut. Nonetheless, even this higher perspective on reality and the prayer it inspires are considered part of the “revealed” levels of Divinity (corresponding to the letters vav and final hei of the Name Havayah) in contrast to the “concealed” levels of Divinity (corresponding to the letters yud and first hei of the Name Havayah), which we will examine next.

The Thought of a Tzadik

Hassidism teaches[1] that a true tzadik, a holy man, as opposed to a wise man, by the power of his thought alone—without necessarily expressing his thoughts and emotions in prayer—is able to miraculously heal the sick by Divine grace.

In his concentrated thought on the suffering soul of others, the true tzadik connects his own soul to them, extends his hand to them, and lifts them out of their pain, redeeming them from illness.[2]

Thought (in contrast to speech) corresponds to the “concealed world” of binah, which in turn corresponds to the first hei of the Name Havayah. Thus, the tzadik’s power of thought is effective at this concealed level.

Every Jew has the inner potential to become a tzadik, as the prophet Isaiah states of the future: “Your people are all tzadikim.”[3] Therefore, in a certain sense, this level pertains to each and every Jew. Especially important is the Hassidic teaching with regard to the power of thought in relation to oneself (or in relation to those for whom one is deeply concerned) mentioned above: “Think good and it will be good.”

The Priestly Blessing

Above this level is the power of the Priestly Blessing as uttered by the priests (kohanim), which was explored in Chapter 2 in our discussion of the hands:

May God bless you and guard you.

May God shine His countenance upon you and be gracious to you.

May God turn His countenance toward you and grant you peace.

Here, the intention and verbalization of the priests draw down Divine energy and healing power from an even higher level than that inherent in the tzadik’s thought.

God’s will, as expressed in the Torah’s precepts—including the commandment[1] that the priests lovingly bless the people by uttering the Priestly Blessing—derives from the level of chochmah, the yud of the Name Havayah. In the Zohar, we find the statement, “The Torah issues from chochmah.”[2] The inner experience of chochmah is one of true and absolute selflessness. This state of selflessness is indeed the seminal essence of the love which the Children of Israel experience towards each other, with which the priests bless the people.

The Priestly Blessing begins with the letter yud. Of its fifteen words, each of the first thirteen possesses the letter yud. These thirteen yud’s of the Priestly Blessing are understood in Kabbalah to correspond to the thirteen attributes of Divine mercy. These attributes originate in the sefirah of keter, but are revealed to the world by the faculty of chochmah, the first letter of God’s Name, the yud.

When blessing the people in the Holy Temple, the priests would utter God’s ineffable Name Havayah as it is written. (In any other place and context this is strictly forbidden.) The Divine power thus elicited derives from the level of chochmah—as stated in Proverbs, “Havayah is in chochmah”[3]—the level of the “World of Emanation” (Atzilut), which is God’s “private domain” (the Holy Temple above), and which is called in Kabbalah, “the secret of the Name.”[4]

Outside the Holy Temple, where the Name Havayah may not be pronounced as it is written, and especially in the time of exile when, due to our sins, the Temple has been destroyed and the souls of Israel have been dispersed to the four corners of the earth, the potency of the Priestly Blessing to heal is surely less than it was (and will be) in the time and place of the Temple. Nonetheless, even now it is an explicit commandment of the Torah for the priests to bless the people by uttering the words of the Priestly Blessing at given times of the year. These times depend on whether one is in the Land of Israel or the Diaspora and vary with the customs of the different Jewish communities.

In essence, even now, the potency of the Priestly Blessing to heal depends upon the degree of faith (in the infinite power inherent in God’s commandment to utter the Priestly Blessing) and love with which the priests bless the people, and on the degree of faith and love with which the people turn to the priests to be blessed.

Before performing the commandment to bless the people, the priests pronounce the following blessing:

Blessed are You, God, our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with the sanctity of Aaron and has commanded us to bless His people Israel with love.

From this we see clearly that the most essential spiritual component of the blessing is love. The numerical value of the word for “love,” ahavah, is 13, alluding to the 13 appearances of the letter yud in the blessing—the power inherent in the blessing to arouse the 13 attributes of Divine mercy, as explained above.

Infinite Patience

Above the two concealed levels and the two revealed levels, there exists a fifth, transcendent level. This is the level of “infinite, Divine patience,” corresponding to keter and the upper tip of the yud of the Name Havayah.

Here, one simply waits, with the power of infinite patience, for God’s salvation. One neither prays with audible words nor thinks conscious thoughts. One simply trusts that all of God’s ways are good. Such complete faith in Divine providence transforms one’s general state of consciousness into one of joy—“joyful in suffering.”[1] In complete silence, one is drawn upward to reach the level of absolute oneness with the Eternal. Paradoxically, while at this level of perfect faith there is no end to one’s patience and perseverance, this is also when “the salvation of God comes in the blink of an eye.”[2]

In summary:

	Name of God	sefirah	level of prayer
transcendent level	י upper tip of yud	keter “crown”	silence and patience
concealed levels	י yud	chochmah “wisdom”	blessing of the priest
ה hei	binah “understanding”	thought of the holy man
revealed levels	ו vav	midot “six emotive attributes”	prayer of the wise man
ה hei	malchut “kingdom”	prayer of the sick person

Forms of Prayer

Although we have referred to all of the levels of connecting with the Divine as “prayer,” only the first two, which correspond to the two revealed levels of the Name Havayah, are indeed explicit prayer to God. In a broader sense, however, any spiritual state that arouses Divine mercy to heal the sick, or fill any other human lack, is regarded as a form of prayer.[1]

Indeed, we see from the above description of the levels of prayer that these include not only explicit prayer, but also thought, blessing, and silence. In Hassidic thought, the basic difference between prayer and blessing is that prayer is an “ascending” service (reaching upward toward God) whereas blessing is a “descending” service (God’s grace descending to earth).

At the first, lowest level—the prayer of the sick person—one’s eyes and heart turn upward to God, beseeching His salvation. Standing in prayer before God, one feels oneself situated “below,” striving to reach upward to heaven.

At the second level, the prayer of the wise man for the sick person, the prayer ascends to God while, simultaneously, the wise man (who is situated “above” the sick person) intends to draw down healing power from above. Thus, relative to the first level of ascent alone, the second level is “ascent for the sake of descent,” that is, for the sake of drawing down healing power.

At the first level, one prays to God that He effect the descent. The sick person is only able to humbly beseech, not to pull the necessary strings. At the second level, the wise man, in his heartfelt prayer, joins together with God to draw down the healing power.

At the third level, the power of thought is an intermediate state between explicit prayer from below and blessing from above (the fourth level). It is the “telepathic” linking of souls as equals, because “all Israel are friends.”[2] In Hebrew, the root of the word for “friends,” chaver, means “connected” or “bound together.”

At the fourth level, the spiritual act of blessing, in contrast to prayer, obeys a dynamic of “descent” from on high. Here, the priest “stands,” so to speak, at the spiritual origin from whence the blessing’s Divine energy derives. He “commands” the blessing to descend from on high to the soul that he blesses. In the Holy Temple, when blessing the people, the priests would actually stand higher than them, on the dais.

At the fifth level, silence is yet a higher state of equality. In silence, one neither ascends nor descends. This, paradoxically, is the ultimate origin of all blessing and healing power. For this reason, God’s essential Name, Havayah—of which it is written in the Book of Malachi:[3] “I, God do not change”—is referred to as “the Name of mercy.”[4]

To summarize:

5.	silence	at one with God	neither ascent nor descent
4.	blessing	above, at spiritual origin of Divine energy	descent from on high
3.	power of thought	telepathy between equals	“horizontal” influence
2.	prayer of the wise man	prayer ascends to God while healing power descends	ascent for the sake of descent
1.	prayer of the sick person	below, reaching up	ascent

The Healing Power of Teshuvah

The sages teach: “Great is repentance [teshuvah], for it brings healing to the world.”[1]

Above, we saw that the apex of prayer to God is reaching a state of inner silence—when one’s eyes are turned upward to God and His impending salvation, which “comes in the blink of an eye,” and one’s heart is full of joy, “being joyful in suffering.”[2]

The apex of prayer is the origin of the soul’s service of true and complete repentance, teshuvah. Literally, teshuvah means “returning” to God. Illness is the physical symptom of one’s being distanced, estranged from God. Teshuvah is coming home. And so, teshuvah is the ultimate healing power of the soul.

As we saw above, illness and disease derive from a spiritual state of deficiency or emptiness, and since the Hebrew word meaning “sick” (choleh) has the numerical value of 49, this indicates that the sick person lacks the fiftieth gate of understanding. We can thus conclude that “to heal” is “to fill” or “to complete” one’s consciousness by reaching the fiftieth gate of understanding.

The power in the soul to fill all states of spiritual and physical emptiness must derive from a place of consummate “satiation,” a place in the soul where all is present, nothing lacks. This is the super-conscious level known as the higher “crown” (keter elyon), which, upon entering the consciousness, is known as the fiftieth gate of understanding. The soul’s conscious aspiration to reach this level is the spiritual service of teshuvah.

The truly understanding heart is the heart that knows and desires to return to God,[3] and thereby to be healed. In the words of Isaiah:

And his heart shall understand,
and he shall return and be healed.[4]

As with regard to all that happens to us in life, illness is a gift of God. While relating to a spiritual lack, and resulting from the soul’s having blemished one of the four letters of God’s essential Name, Havayah, illness, in and of itself, cleanses our souls, thereby arousing us to return to God. We fill our lack by sincere teshuvah, committing ourselves, with love and awe of God in our hearts, to abide in full by all of the commandments of the Torah and to devote every moment of our lives to shining God’s light and bringing God’s teachings to the world. We thereby draw down healing light and energy from the higher keter (corresponding to the upper tip of the yud of the Name Havayah) to fill all of the deficiencies within the four letters of the Name Havayah, and thus to rectify all of the blemishes and illnesses of our bodies and souls.

This healing power derives from the soul’s keter, that level of the soul that always remains whole, that never lacks and is never blemished. As we return to God, healing the blemishes that we have caused in the four letters of His holy Name, so does He return to us, to heal all of our spiritual and physical illnesses.

In the words of Isaiah:[5]

I create the speech of the lips:

“Peace, peace, to the distant and to the near,” says God,

“and I will heal him.”

The root “to create” in Hebrew (b-r-a) means, as well, “sound health.” And so, “I create the speech of the lips” may be read, “I make healthy by the speech of the lips.” The “speech of the lips” refers both to the sincere words of confession of the returnee (ba’al teshuvah) as well as to the healing power present in the speech of the healer, the “light of the mouth” described above.

The sages interpret God’s words—“Peace, peace, to the distant and to the near”—as addressing the ba’al teshuvah, one who was distant and has become near.[6] He has returned to God, and so will God return to him and heal him: “says God, ‘and I will heal him.’”

Supplementary Essays

1. Right and Left[1]

The left hemisphere of the brain (binah) is seen in Kabbalah to oversee and give life-force to the heart, which tends toward the left side of the torso. (Physiologically, both the circulatory system, centered around the heart, and the respiratory system, centered around the lungs, are controlled by the brainstem. The relationship of binah to the heart and chochmah to the lungs is thus not meant to be confused with this. Here, we are referring to a more spiritual influx of energy and life-force than the physiological control of the vital organs by the nervous system.)

Binah is identified with the body’s blood and gevurah, the “branch” of binah on the left axis of the sefirot, with its circulatory system. The heart is part of the circulatory system but also part of the muscular system, which is identified with tiferet, on the middle axis of the sefirot. From this it becomes clear why the heart is positioned in the middle of the torso (tiferet) tending to the left (gevurah, the “branch” of binah).

Similarly, the right hemisphere of the brain (chochmah) is seen to oversee and give life-force to the lungs. Of the two lungs, on the right and left of the torso, the right lung is larger, comprising three lobes, while the left lung is smaller, comprising only two lobes. The life-force that descends from the right hemisphere of the brain (chochmah) to the torso extends to both its right and left sides, for chochmah is a more all-inclusive source of life-force than is binah. In the imagery of Kabbalah, this life-force is referred to as spiritual “moisture” that descends by way of the trachea from the right hemisphere of the brain to the lungs. “Water” is the spiritual element associated with chochmah, the right hemisphere of the brain, while “fire” is the spiritual element associated with binah, the left hemisphere of the brain. In the body’s physiological systems, this corresponds to the “hot” blood, as noted above. (The life-force from the left hemisphere of the brain [binah] descends to the heart via the circulatory system [gevurah] in general and the jugular vein in particular.)

We will see that the lungs, the major organ of the respiratory system, relate to the soul’s superconscious, the sefirah of keter. And so, chochmah, while overseeing the workings of the lungs, thereby connects to its own source, the sefirah above it, keter. Chochmah corresponds to the yud, the first letter of God’s essential Name, while keter corresponds to the upper tip of the yud, essentially one with the yud itself.

Generally, we see the right hemisphere of the brain in control of the left side of the body and the left hemisphere of the brain in control of the right side of the body. This phenomenon is explained in Kabbalah to reflect the principle of “inversion” (achlifu duchtaihu), pictured as two hands crossing, the right hand placed on the left leg and the left hand placed on the right leg. The body possesses different energy levels. At higher energy levels, this phenomenon becomes manifest, while at lower energy levels, the right controls the right and the left, the left.

2. Three Planes[2]

Another way in which we can visualize the basic division of the powers of the soul into three, and three into three, as mirrored in the human body, is to see the body as made up of spheres. Here, we first envision the human stature as being divided into two primary components, head and body: in the sefirotic terminology of the Kabbalah, “the higher three”—keter, chochmah, and binah—and “the lower seven”—chesed to malchut. The last of the seven, malchut, the mouth, ascends in the human stature to serve as a third, intermediate level between the head and the body.

In the sphere of the head, three great circles are apparent, each defining a circular plane of the sphere. The eyes define the horizontal plane; the ears define the vertical plane from right to left; and the nose (and the mouth) defines the vertical plane from front to back.

These three planes correspond to the three sefirot of the intellect: chochmah (“wisdom”), binah (“understanding”), and da’at (“knowledge”):

The eyes, through which the sense of sight is manifest, correspond to chochmah: the inner wisdom of the soul is spiritual sight. The ears, through which the sense of hearing is manifest, correspond to binah: the inner understanding of the soul is spiritual hearing. The nose and the mouth, through which the senses of smell and taste are manifest, correspond to da’at: the inner knowledge of the soul is spiritual smell and taste.

In the mouth itself (the intermediate level between the head and the body), the teeth define the horizontal plane, the plane of wisdom; the lips (visualize the circle formed by open lips) define the vertical plane from right to left, the plane of understanding; the tongue (visualize the circle formed by the turn of the tongue into the throat) defines the vertical plane from front to back, the plane of knowledge.

In the body, the torso (rotating around its axis) defines the horizontal plane, the plane of wisdom; the arms (raised up and down) define the vertical plane from right to left, the plane of understanding; the legs (walking or bicycling) define the vertical plane from front to back, the plane of knowledge. (In the idiom of the Bible,[3] we find the tongue “walking,” for, as we see here, the motion of the tongue and the motion of the legs define the same coordinate.)

As the three planes descend in the body—from the eyes, which define the first and highest of the three planes of the head, to the plane of the legs, the last and lowest of the three planes of the body—physical motion, which is life’s most basic dynamic, becomes more pronounced. Physical motion begins, albeit most subtly, in the eyes (in Hebrew, the two-letter sub-root of “eye,” ayin‑nun, inverts to spell “motion,” nun-ayin), yet reaches its manifest height in the legs.

3. Six[4]

The three basic models of Kabbalah—the model of four, the model of ten, and the model of twenty two—possess a clear, abstract mathematical interpretation which we will observe by analyzing them as a sequence, a progressive quadratic series “led” by the number 6 (arrived at by the mathematical process of taking “finite differences”).

4	10	22
	6	12
		6

This series is symmetric (symmetry being one of the most fundamental phenomena of nature), i.e., the three numbers 4, 10, 22 mirror-image themselves as the three previous numbers of the series:

22	10	4	4	10	22
	-12	-6	0	6	12
	6	6	6	6

The sum of 4, 10, and 22 is 36 = 62. The original 36 (the 4, 10, and 22 to the right in the above array) correspond to the 36 righteous individuals in every generation. But in Kabbalah, we learn that just as there are 36 revealed righteous ones, so are there 36 hidden righteous ones, each set of 36 reflecting, in perfect symmetry, the light of the other.

One of the most basic teachings of Kabbalah is that every rectified set of objects possesses the property of “inter-inclusion,” appearing as a hologram where each element of the set reflects and manifests in itself all of the others. Thus, the inter-inclusive, perfected reality of 4 is 16 = 4²; that of 10 is 100 = 10²; and that of 22 is 484 = 22². Together, these three numbers total 600, or 6 times 10². We again observe the role of 6, here in relation to the inter-inclusion of the ten sefirot, our beginning point.

In mathematics, 6 is the first “perfect number,” i.e., a number that equals the sum of all its divisors, not including itself: 6 equals the sum of its three divisors, 1, 2, and 3. (The next such number is 28, followed by 496, 8128, 33550336….) 6 is the number of directions or vector forces in three-dimensional space, the number of sides of a cube. In the Torah, the world was created in 6 days, the first word of the Torah, breishit, possesses 6 letters, and of the 28 letters of the first verse of the Torah, the letter alef appears 6 times. Of the 613 commandments of the Torah, there are 6 constant commandments, the “duties of the heart.”[5]

4. Basic Colors[6]

The fact that yellow appears between blue and red on the color wheel and green is the midpoint between blue and red on the spectrum lends support to the conception that yellow-green is the fundamental color.

The three primary colors plus the three secondary colors plus the six intermediate colors between them give a total of twelve hues. As explained elsewhere, these may be seen to correspond to the twelve months of the year:

Nisan	yellow-green
Iyar	yellow
Sivan	orange-yellow
Tamuz	orange
Menachem Av	red-orange
Elul	red
Tishrei	violet-red
Marcheshvan	violet
Kislev	blue-violet
Tevet	blue
Shevat	green-blue
Adar	green

Nisan begins the Jewish year, as it is written, “This month shall be for you the head of the months; it is the first for you of the months of the year.”[7] Its color is yellow-green.

Elsewhere, it is explained that red is the most basic, all-inclusive color (both in the Torah and in common parlance, as when referring to the fact that someone’s face has color, for example). The explanation of this is that the three colors white, red, and yellow-green are three stages in the development of color: White is the abstract totality of all colors together, as can be seen from the fact that if we spin the color wheel quickly enough we see white. Red is the first, generic manifestation of the phenomenon of actual color; if there were only one color, it would be red. Yellow-green is the beginning (and source) of the differentiation of discrete colors. Red is thus the simple, uncompounded (pashut) color, while yellow-green is the fundament of compounded (murkav) colors.

This threefold development (abstract through simple to compound) is an exquisite example of the meaning of the division of the sefirotic tree into right, left, and central axes, each of which expresses its respective phase of this development.

Moreover, these three stages reflect the three stages of the maturation of consciousness, referred to in Kabbalah as “pregnancy” (ibur), “nursing” (yenikah), and “intellect” (mochin). Pregnancy is an abstract state of infinite possibility; birth, childhood, and youth are characterized by simplistic, one-dimensional thinking; maturity is the ability to appreciate and blend divergent opinions and views.

Sight and Shabbat[8]

The power of sight corresponds to the life-giving spirit of the body and to the fifth, transcendent level of God’s Name—the upper tip of the yud. But here, the upper tip of the yud is seen in the inner point of the second hei. As Sefer Yetzirah[9] reveals, “the end is wedged in the beginning, and the beginning in the end.”

In the Zohar, the eye, the power of sight, relates to Shabbat.[10] In Hebrew, the word for Shabbat is composed of three letters: shin, beit, and tav. The letter shin is formed of three lines (three vavs, each with a head, a yud, at its top) rising out of a common base. These three lines allude to the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so the letter shin is referred to as “the letter of the patriarchs.”[11] The two remaining letters of the word Shabbat, the beit and the tav, spell the word bat, “daughter,” which also means the “pupil” of the eye.[12]

The shin of Shabbat thus alludes to the three colors of the eye around the pupil, while the beit and tav of Shabbat allude to the pupil itself. On Shabbat, the day that alludes to the revelation of the World to Come, the rectified eye of man—which reflects all three patriarchs together with King David—envisions the Divine light of this holy day, alluded to in the word Shabbat, which in the Zohar is taken to be a Name of God. Shabbat, when seen as a whole, manifests a light that infinitely transcends that of its component letters.

To summarize:

Shabbat	God’s light	power of sight	keter
shin	Abraham	white of the eye	chochmah
Isaac	red of the eye	binah
Jacob	colors of iris	midot (and da’at)
bat	David	black pupil	malchut

6. Implications of Nakedness[13]

The term used at the beginning of Sefer Yetzirah for “the brit,” maor, derives from the root in Hebrew whose primary meaning is “nakedness.” The first act of Adam and Eve following the primordial sin was to cover their nakedness. So, too, did Shem and Japhet cover the nakedness of their father, Noah.

The mitzvah of circumcision given to Abraham is, paradoxically, to remove the covering of the foreskin from the brit, thereby stripping off its foreign clothing and rendering it “naked.” This “awakens” in the super-conscious of the Jewish soul the “memory” of the bliss of man in the Garden of Eden, before his fall, when he lived “naked, without shame.” Only then can the Jew begin to “walk humbly with God.” As God said to Abraham upon commanding him to circumcise himself: “Walk before Me and be perfect.”

Regarding King David, the sages relate[14] that when naked he came to realize that then he possessed only one mitzvah—the “sign of God” inscribed on his very flesh—his circumcision. Thus, the mitzvah of circumcision renders a Jew “naked” yet “covered” by the Divine clothing of God’s will—the essence of every mitzvah.

The root of maor also implies an “awakening” or “arousal.” Before circumcision, the Divine soul is dormant in the body, in such deep slumber that it is unable to awaken itself.

God made Adam fall into a state of deep slumber in order to sever from him the body of Eve. The sages teach us that during the dialog between Eve and the snake, Adam was asleep.[15] In sleep, an impure spirit may take hold of the extremities of the body, the fingertips, and the brit. Adam’s sleep was actually the beginning of a spiritual process that ultimately resulted, on the physical plane, in the “stretching” of the impure foreskin over the holy organ of procreation.

The commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah relate the word maor to the verse: “as the embrace [kema’ar] of man and companion.”[16] This idiom refers to the forms of the cherubim in the Temple constructed by King Solomon. The image is one of husband embracing wife, as is said in relation to Adam and Eve (and all of humanity to follow) upon their creation, before their sin: “...and he shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.”

The root of maor also means “to pour.” The commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah understand this to allude to the pouring forth of creative life-force and sustenance from yesod into malchut, as in the union of husband and wife.

The more general meaning of the word maor, as used in this sense, is “to be involved” (or more literally, “to be tied into”). Thus, we can understand that the effect of circumcision on the Jewish soul is to evoke its power to “involve” itself with its task to rectify physical reality. In each true involvement inheres a procreative act.

This is further supported by the fact that the Hebrew word brit meaning “covenant [of circumcision]” is related to the words barah, “to clarify” or “to rectify,” and bara, “to create.”

In Psalms[17] we find that the sub-root of maor (ayin-reish) means “to destroy a foundation [yesod].” It also appears throughout the Bible in the sense of “desolate” and “barren” (without children). As is common to Hebrew roots, this root also possesses the opposite sense, “[to construct or found] a city.” Just as we shall see with respect to the “word of the tongue,” that “death and life are in the hand of the tongue,” so do we see with respect to the “circumcision of the brit” that destruction and construction, of yesod in particular, depend upon it.

7. The Thirty-two Pathways[18]

Sefer Yetzirah opens with three statements, mishnayot:

•         With thirty-two wondrous pathways of wisdom, God...created His world with three books: “scribe,” “book,” and “story.”

•         [There are] ten ineffable sefirot and twenty-two letters of foundation…three mothers, seven doublets and twelve simple units.

•         [There are] ten ineffable sefirot, corresponding to the ten fingers, five opposite five, and the single covenant is placed in the middle, in the word of the tongue and the circumcision of the brit.

The first mishnah of Sefer Yetzirah introduces the 32 pathways of wisdom; the second mishnah divides the 32 pathways into two groups of 10 sefirot and 22 letters, which further subdivide into three groups of 3, 7, and 12 letters. In the third mishnah, the text begins to deal with the ten sefirot explicitly, and continues to do so throughout the rest of the first chapter.

These first three mishnayot themselves follow the order of the three sefirot of the intellect: chochmah (“wisdom”), binah (“understanding”) and da’at (“knowledge”). The first mishnah opens with the 32 pathways of chochmah, the right hemisphere of the brain. The second mishnah analyzes and divides these 32 into subgroups, a process dependent upon the intellectual faculty of binah, the left hemisphere of the brain. The third mishnah presents a concrete, physical model for the ten sefirot, thus employing the faculty of da’at, the middle, posterior region of the brain, which serves to concretize the abstract intellectual cognition of chochmah and binah.

It will have been noted that the process of division into subgroups takes place in two stages: first the 32 pathways of wisdom are divided into 10 sefirot and 22 letters, and then the second category or division of 22 letters is further subdivided into three sub-categories of 3, 7, and 12. We thereby arrive at the final division of the original 32 into four subgroups of 10, 3, 7, and 12.

This process of division alludes to the process whereby the four letters of God’s essential Name, Havayah (the first of the three basic models of Kabbalah described above[19]), become manifest. It is written: “For by God [yud-hei], God [yud-hei-vav-hei] formed worlds.”[20] The sages interpret this to mean that the World to Come was created with the yud, the first letter of the first Name of God appearing in this verse (Kah) and this world was created with its second letter, hei. The creative process God followed in creating this world is depicted in detail in the second Name of God in this verse by the three letters hei-vav-hei in place of the original one hei. (The meaning of hei-vav-hei­ as a word is “the present,” i.e., this world.) Thus, we see that God’s Name was first divided into two components/letters yud-hei, and then further subdivided as yud-hei-vav-hei.

The four subdivisions of the original 32 pathways of wisdom (all levels are initially contained, in potential, at the level of wisdom) correspond to the four letters of God’s Name in order: the ten sefirot to the yud (chochmah), whose numerical value is 10; the three mother-letters to the first hei (binah, the mother-figure); the seven double-letters to the vav (the emotions), which means “a hook,” to link two parallel aspects of reality (thus creating an impression of “duality” or “double-ness”); and the twelve single letters to the final hei (malchut, symbolized by the moon and its twelve months).