Merkava - 9th class

Chesed- The Power of Giving

The Orientation of Chesed and the Body to the Sefirot of the Head

Allow me to take you on a very short guided tour. Our objective is to cross the bridge that bridges the head with the body. Look around you. "All you see are introspective eyes (a take off from an old Simon and Garfunkel song- Mrs. Robinson)." That's the nature of things here in the head. Actually, the highest sefirotic traits are those that are characterized not so much by looking inward in introspection, but rather looking upward, beyond the human realm into the Divine spiritual, transcendent realm. This naturally leads to the lower sefirotic consciousness inside the head of introspection. Here one asks, "who am I? What am I meant to be doing here in this lifetime?" Once these crucial issues of one's connection to the Divine and to oneself are thoroughly clarified and internalized (these issues basically make up the essence of the first four sefirot: keter, chochma, bina, and daat), then one is ready to cross the bridge bridging the head and the body. In short, your clarified internalization fills your heart with so much joy and energy that you are inspired to use your body to carry out your vision and give it over to others. Your chesed power has been aroused!! This arousal process is a crucial step in the universal process of bringing anything to full actualization. At this juncture, not only do you connect inspiration to actualization but also you move into the most important shift of the sefirotic process. You now redirect your focus. You no longer look upwards to interface with the Divine or inwards to clarify your own calling. Now you look outwards. You reach out to make your vision come true and you reach out to give it over to others. All the rest of the body's sefirot are solely concerned with fine tuning this reaching out of yours. These lower sefirot seek to fine tune with the most sophisticated energizing or emotional intelligence - your ability to actualize and to give over. Although this isn't the place to elaborate, nevertheless we'll mention in passing here that the many "sevens" in life and nature such as the music scale, the days of the week, directions etc... are also parts of a unit only reaching completion when all seven parts are expressed, thereby fine tuning that realm.

The Source of Chesed

Where is the source of this power of chesed? It's source is found in the tzimtzum creation process. This process, when properly understood, proves to be the source of all other Kabbalistic and life dynamics. The first step is G-d's omnipresence. He is all there is. He is infinity!! The second step is that the Infinity desires to reach out to the other outside of Himself. To enable this reaching out, G-d, so to speak, gets Himself out of the way, giving rise to a void. The third step is that this void is filled in with all created beings and the giving is then effected. So too, when you enact your chesed faculty, you first inspire it by tapping your own infinitely inspired vision. Next you make room for the other person to exist and this motivates you to actualize and give over your vision.

Four Experiential Expressions of Chesed: Giving, Attraction, Emotion, and Love

At this point, I feel driven by the chesed drive inside of me to give over this idea in less of an abstract and theoretical fashion. I'm driven to give it over in real experiential way. There's a number of different expressions of this. We'll look at four areas of chesed experience: giving, attraction, emotion, and love.

We'll start with the idea of giving based on an article by Rabbi Eliezer Dessler (of blessed memory) in his work "Michtav Mieliyav." He points out the following main points:

1. Giving and taking are the roots of all "midot" or character traits.
2. Everyone's personality is inclined either to one or the other and most people are drawn to taking.
3. The divine side of ourselves, which is the realm of our good inclination, expresses itself as a giver (one of the characteristics of the third level of the soul, the neshama, is oriented to be a giver. This is all rooted in the prime cause of G-d being the ultimate altruistic Giver in everything He does).
4. The bad inclination is inclined to be a taker.
5. The drive to either be a giver or a taker is expressed in every thought, word, and action.
6. When one gives to another person, one plants one's own being in that person and just as one naturally loves oneself, so too does he increase his love of another person the more he gives of himself (ie., plants more and more of himself).
7. Therefore, one gives in order to make love flourish and this principle is the formula for success in all interpersonal relationships including marriage and parenting.
8. Becoming a giver is perhaps the best way to emulate the Creator (this is the main focus of the classic work "Tomer Devorah," the Palm Tree of Devorah).
9. The Litmus test of a tzaddik, righteous person, is that he is so much of a giver that even what seems to be an act of taking is actually giving.
10. The pure giver is one who is happy in his lot and realizes that he needs nothing materialistically. It's all a free Divine gift. This realization makes his heart overflow with love, deeply inspiring him to give all that he has and is to others.
11. For those who haven't yet reached these pure giving levels, besides simply doing acts of giving to arouse and internalize a deeper giving orientation, one can also arouse through one's creative and artistic imagination or expression the pain of other people and the drive to give to them and help them.

Next, a few words about attraction. The type of attraction we're talking about is attracting others and being attracted to others. This is a very exciting mindset to be in. It's wonderful for all interpersonal relationships. The only setback, and this is a major setback, is that the attraction, or excitement, wears off and then the relationship faces a potential crisis - to be or not to be. Should you commit to devote yourself to this person when "the thrill is gone?" (a reference to an old blues song describing a broken romance because the thrill or attraction is gone). Or perhaps you should "dump" this friend or this spouse for another thrilling new (but soon to fade) attraction? Needless to say, a lot of marital strife could be overcome by getting this issue solved!!

The world of emotion is an entirely different realm which we now plunge into in this phase of our sefirotic, grand tour. We've already toured the spiritual realm in dealing with the sefira keter. We moved into the intellectual realm of the psyche in dealing with chochma, bina and daat. Now, when we set our sights outwards towards relating with people outside of ourselves in all the rest of the sefirot, we deal with emotional intelligence. Emoting is a different way to engage the cosmos. It's non verbal; you can't quite explain it. You can only feel it. But, this feeling is incredibly powerful and influences ourselves and others in ways that often surpass both the spiritual and the intellectual. Like I mentioned, It's an intelligence. It requires all the other lower sefirot to be fine tuned. Emotion is often neglected in today's educational systems. Nevertheless, it¹s a reality. It's proper health and functioning needs to be aligned with the rest of your personality. We had a group for about a year and a half which met on a weekly basis. We sat in a darkened room in various corners of the room, set the stop watch for forty-five minutes and everyone began to emote and scream and cry and feel in ways that they could never do in any other setting. The results were amazing. Among other achievements, we began to feel our emotion in all areas of life. Many of us reported demonstrating open displays of emotion in public when being informed of good or bad news. It was like awakening a dead part of ourselves.

The final chesed experience that we'll deal with at this time is love. The Rambam writes that in order to deeply aquire this trait (which is one of the 6 constant mitzvot) of loving Hashem, one needs to have experienced true love that occurs between a man and a woman. The word is "lovesickness," which describes a state of being where one cannot get their mind off of their beloved. They eat, sleep, walk, talk, and dream of their beloved one. They're literally sick over it. You know what I'm talking about. We've all been raised on thousands of songs, movies, books, etc. describing this mindset. The Rambam says channel this love to love of Hashem. And, for that matter, one should channel this love for love of our fellow man and love of everything holy. Additionally, we're taught by our Sages that this type of love (which is the inner motivator of all the other chesed experiences we've discussed ie., giving, emotion, attraction) is the basis of all of the 248 positive mitzvot that the Torah commands a Jew to fulfill. And all of it is rooted in the infinite altruistic love which the Creator has for His creation and which is constantly activating it all. "The world is built on chesed" - it's our challenge to plug into this reality of love and channel it properly!!

Exercises To Internalize Chesed

At this point we can point out that the essential point of chesed is the giving motivated by overflowing, altruistic love. There are a number of different practical tools and exercises we can use to internalize chesed:

1. Daily giving- "A chesed a day keeps the doctor away."
2. Emotions- refer back to our crying group description. Another idea is to keep a journal and document the five to ten feelings or displays of emotion you had that day and try to increase the quantity and quality of healthy, emotional expression.
3. Radical acceptance- it's a wonderful display of chesed to not only give in an altruistic overflowing way but to allow others to express themselves in this way. Simply accept with no conditions attached and with radical love and nurturing. Do this first for yourself and then for others and then for Hashem in His providential relationship to your life!!
4. Emulating Hashem's benevolence- emulate Hashem by being benevolent in an absolutely altruistic and unconditional and overflowing way. You'll soon find yourself being the most popular and "attractive" person around.
5. Love of Hashem, love of fellow man, love of holy things- access an earlier time of being in love and channel this experience to loving Hashem, your fellow man, and all that is holy!