This week has been the week of Tiferet in the counting of the Sfirat HaOmer. How does one define Tiferet? It is most often translated as beauty or harmony. In Kabbalistic understanding, it is the connecting line between the upper sfirot and their revelation in this world, and it is the coming together of the right and left side (kindness and judgement) in the unfolding of Hashem's plan in this world. Of course, that's a very simplistic understanding but it will suffice for now, although I am sure that there are plenty of people who have NO IDEA what I've said up until now. Hopefully by the end it will fit with something I will say here and will have some relevance to somebody at some point in life. With all of that said and done, let me attempt to explain.
There are various places in which we see the phrase 'renew our days as the days of old.' This phrase has always struck me as odd. How can our days now be like the days of old? Those are the old days; we want the new days! Well, I guess it must be like a circle. Of course it's like a circle. What exactly happens when you go around a circle and get back to your beginning point? Is it the exact same place you started or is it somehow different?
I am currently reading a book by Fritjof Capra called 'The Web of Life.' The general theme of the book is concerning the general interconnectedness of all things and how this manifests itself in the world through patterns of living systems on all levels. There is a large section of the book dealing with something called 'feedback loops.' Anyone with any basic computer programming knowledge is familiar with the term. The premise is a little hard to explain but I'll try. One type of feedback loop is a circular pattern that starts at a source, follows through a process and utilizes the information of the process to send back to the source with any necessary corrections along the way thereby regulating itself. In other words, it is a circle that gathers information along its route and feeds back into its self. Capra points out how these types of patterns are found throughout the natural world. So we see that sometimes you can go around a circle and have things be a little different than where you started.
According to Kabbalah, when Hashem created the world, each sfira was initially functioning on its own. All ten existed, but they were not relating to each other. There was no integration of parts, no harmonization of the aspects of creation until things began to unfold to the lower worlds. The term for that point in creation is referred to as 'Adam Kadmon,' primordial man. This was the time of 'the days of old;' 'Renew our days as the days of old.' In Hebrew, 'old' is called Kedem, as in Adam Kadmon.
It seems to me that in a very strange way, the days of old have been renewed. The days of old consisted of individual entities functioning separately without relating to each other. If one were to look around the world today, that is exactly what he would see. But it is not in some higher world of sfirot; it's down here in our world. Everything is separate. People are separate; we are not relating to each other in the harmonious, beautiful way that reflects a deep connection with the Divine. Yet we have come full circle back to the beginning. But perhaps creation is one giant complex feedback loop. We have gone full circle and as we really approach the end that is the beginning again, the time has come for the creation its self to process the information the creation has learned along the way. Then what is the self-regulation that must be made in our system?
There are six different directions in the physical world: up, down, left, right, back and forth. Shabbat, that's the seventh one that is in the middle and holds all the other ones together. We have gone around the circle and we must now connect to the place in the middle. The only way to do that is through the beautiful, harmonizing line of Tiferet. The time has come to stop being so separate. The time has come to pull our strengths together in harmony with the Divine. It is only when we work together that the circle will be complete and we will be able to join together, in beauty, in harmony, in the middle, in Shabbat. In Kabbalat Shabbat we say about Shabbat, 'last in action, first in thought.' We are at the end. The world has become too pulled apart. It's time to arrive to that place in which was originally intended from the days of old. May they be renewed soon in our day through the most beautiful art, the most harmonious music of interconnections amongst Hashem's creatures as have never been seen before. Good Shabbas!