Hod she’b Yesod
Day Five of Week 6:Humility in Connection
Arrogance divides people. Preoccupation with your own desires and needs separates you from others. Humility allows you to appreciate another person and bond with him. Bonding that is just an extension of your own needs is only bonding tighter with yourself. Healthy bonding is the union of two distinct people, with independent personalities, who join for a higher purpose than satisfying their own needs.
True humility comes from recognizing and acknowledging G-d in your life. Am I aware of the third partner - G-d - in bonding? That this partner gives me the capacity to unite with another, despite our distinctions?
There is something special about the number forty – it is a symbol of radical change in awareness. It rained forty days and nights during Noah’s time; Moses was alone atop the mountain for forty days, and we wandered the wilderness for forty years.
In Jewish mystical tradition, there are four worlds. In each of the worlds there is a Tree of Life with ten sefirot. Four Trees yield forty sefirot. We are cautioned against studying Kabbalah before the age of forty. This is not a measure of time as much as a measure of awareness. We are to be well-grounded before such study can be of true meaning.
Perhaps the forty days we have already spent on our journey this years are symbolic of such preparation. Perhaps we are all more ready now than ever before to receive that which awaits us at Sinai.
The journey is never an easy one. In the true wilderness we are met by the crucial issues in our lives. We are also met by the deeper goals which unfold with each step. The wilderness is the place of transforming our resistances into blessings.
On this fortieth day, in the week of Yesod, we welcome the sefirah of Hod, the Glory of the sensations of perceptions. We wish to realise those forms of sensation within ourselves which can support the expression of the Being Who dwells within us. The channel of Light connects the pubic area and the left hip. The receptive side of the Tree strengthens our ego self now.
Hod is the sefirah of physical beauty. This is not only a superficial beauty, but the inner beauty we experience as holiness. It is this deep beauty, in which form expands to more fully celebrate the Energy offered it, that we celebrate today.
There is profound beauty which awakens within me now. I feel the blessing of this form as renewed confidence. Fuller abilities to realise my unique path unfold for me now. I express this realisation through every thought and every action in my life.