The Zohar speaks to the last days of Jacob. Having reunited with Joseph it says that he asked this favorite son to put his hands over his eyes as he separated from his dying body. The text then goes to reveal the metaphysical levels of the eye. The white is associated with the oceans which are the source of physical…
There are tears of Joy and tears of grief. In the Zohar when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and then embraces his younger brother Benjamin, it says in Torah text that he kissed his neck and cried. Were these the tears of joy brought on from reconnecting to a loved one? Or were they…
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…