Speak.

THE BIG IDEA

Do you know your spiritual status and how best to maintain it?

According to this week’s Torah Omens, it is a favorable time to get your cosmic duties in order.

So, if you believe there is some order to the universe, and you have a specific role to play within it, use this week to locate  and affirm your personal spiritual responsibilities and identify the consequences of misalignment and wrong action.

Do you consider yourself a descendant of the high priest that requires (near) physical and spiritual perfection, a member of the collective that marks consciousness through with holidays, festivals, anniversaries, and sabbaths, or are you a spiritual pioneer that has created a system of spiritual assignments for yourself? This is an excellent time to check in on your practice, honor the fire, and take note of how you are doing.

Spiritual hierarchy and their corresponding responsibilities are tricky to contemplate. Use the fires of Lag Ba’omer on Thursday night to mark the mystical that has been revealed within the universe. Strengthen your inner investigation, by tapping into this week’s Kabbalistic association with Hod (consensus and humility) to help you get deeper into the meditation. 

DEEPER DIVE

Imagine a tribe of people, oppressed as slaves, rescued by a cosmic force that rained frogs, killed first borns, and split a sea, is wandering in the desert. This tribe, like the modern reader, does not possess the capacity to understand how the frogs rained, the first borns were killed or the sea split, their freedom was not earned by a collective enlightenment, rather, it was gifted to those who trusted enough to follow specific spiritual orders when they arrived (ie. the Pascal lamb offering on the 14th of Nissan). 

The physical liberation of this tribe came before their capacity to understand cosmic revelation, requiring them, and the generations that follow, to sublimate logic and follow the spiritual instruction given to them in the desert (called Torah) that can sometimes feel like endless restrictions. 

Emor, which means Speak, furthers and emphasizes the restrictions placed on the tribe in several ways, beginning with the additional restrictions placed on Aaron and his descendants who are the designated priests assigned direct service to God.

Priests (Kohanim) are even more regulated than the rest of the tribe requiring near perfection from them to serve. For example, a descendant of Aaron who is a dwarf, or has 2 limbs of different length, is forbidden from service (but they still eat from the offering), presenting the mystery of a spiritual hierarchy within the spiritual hierarchy. 

The requirements placed on them are made known to the entire tribe, (and anyone reading this spiritual text), inviting anyone needing the service of these Kohanim to know whether or not they are living up to their spiritual duties. The priests are god’s human service people, not gods themselves, and thereby are accountable to both God and the people they serve.

Spiritual law, however, is not meant to be endlessly oppressive, higher consciousness is meant to be celebrated, pointing to sacred marks in time, like birthdays or anniversaries, designated as holy days of renewal. This week we are asked to consider the divinely marked calendar in which consciousness was directly revealed, and the way the beneficiaries of that consciousness (the freed slaves) are meant to mark those days for all time.

Imagine knowing exactly how to please your partner every year when special days rolled around, how to do exactly what he/she/they wanted for all time. These festivals are in addition to the creative rhythm of resting every 7 days which is forever uninterrupted.

The final meditation of the week’s narrative involves the shadow side of obedience, namely the contemplation of consequences and wrong actions. The Torah offers an example of a half Israelite, half Egyptian that used the name of God (and cursed) during a fight. With this story, and his fate, comes a set of metaphysical principles from which we can learn how to offset damages and accidents for all time, the most famous (and most often misappropriated) being “ an eye for an eye.” It feels important to note that through thousands of years of Torah interpretation that phrase has always been understood as the monetary value of eye, or tooth, or thing that was damaged, and not an exacting revenge. 

Still, the one who cursed the name of God was stoned, so clearly some offenses are intolerable. I do not claim to understand the balance, but it feels important to contemplate, what can’t be tolerated (ie. killing another human or cursing in God’s name) and what offense simply needs to be offset (property damages).

INNER WORK GUIDE

This week brings up questions our spiritual obligations and the way we approach the power and spiritual responsibility that comes with them. This is a good time to examine the way you understand cosmic balance and order in your own life.

You might want to investigate questions on spiritual responsibility and right action:

Are you born to be the one that sets the spiritual example? 

Or

Are you the one from which we learn the spiritual lesson?

(for a bonus)

A few questions on marking time:

How do you mark and honor time? Do certain days have special meaning?

How does it feel to know what is expected of you on that day - and do you appreciate the repetition?

That’s it for this week. Happy Lag and Shabbat shalom!

xx hava.