The Zohar has much to say about dreams and how and who interprets them. When Pharaoh learned that there was a reliable interpreter, he had Joseph quickly released from jail to hear his understanding. Joseph (whose Sephirot color is purple associated with Yesod, connections) here explains to Pharaoh that he is not the source of…
The Zohar speaks of Joseph as the progenitor of our people in that his children became our tribes and it says in the Zohar that this was through the combination of the powers of the sun and moon joining together to pass through him (in Kabbalah cosmology these are the Sephirot Keter and the Nukva, the feminine aspect of…
Who protects us? The Zohar speaks about angels being around us to guide us. Jacob being our third and, in many ways, the more significant in our heritage is shown here as described in the Zohar is a combination of his forefather patriarch Isaac (represented by red) and Abraham (represented by blue). A color associated with Jacob is yellow in Kabbalah…
Where are we? Really. Here Jacob, now on the run from his threatening brother, has come through Charan known as a place of wrath. He sets before him on top of rocks, connecting the depth with the heights, four sets of sacred stones suggesting the four directions. It is here where he will lie as the sun sets and it is here where…
Though this parsha concentrates on conflictual brothers, the Zohar also pays attention to Isaac here re-digging wells that had been destroyed by enemies of his father. Isaac doesn’t get much attention. As his father Abraham is associated with bright light, Isaac is associated with the darker stormy perception, also necessary for survival, and were it not for…
It’s said all life is seeing. But seeing what? When Abraham sought to find an appropriate place to bury his treasured wife Sarah, he found the cave Machpelah and offered to purchase it from the Hittites who were idolaters. When they looked into the cave, all they saw was stone. When Abraham looked, according to…
How do we treat strangers? in our time it seems we are becoming more and more suspicious of the “other.” But the man honored by all the major religions had his tent open on all sides and greeted every stranger as an equal even washing their feet. The Zohar speaks of two trees next to Abraham’s…
What is beauty? The Zohar says that when Abraham and Sarah came to Egypt only then did he noticed that she was beautiful. What had he seen before this? He had seen their internal spiritual beauty. This transcends physical beauty. But here in Egypt, a culture submerged in imagery from its architecture to its sculpture…
Why don’t we listen to the truth? Are we so self-absorbed that we can’t acknowledge what is in front of us? Here Noah according to the Zohar was warning his neighbors that their destructive and immoral behavior would bring down their existence. They paid no attention and continued their perverse activities of violence and sexual promiscuity. Even…
This is the first of a new set of visual responses to Torah using the Zohar which is spiritual commentary on Torah and more. When we read the first Aliyah of this first parsha in the Torah, we have such a positive feeling of creation. And it was good. Remarkable. A miracle. (see below) But two Aliyah’s…