Nineteen days of the Omer 5777
Today is nineteen days, which are two weeks and five days,of the Omer. Hod of Tiferet / Emet / Rachamim. Splendor / Humility in Beauty /Truth / Compassion.
DuringShabbat services today, Rabbi Mordecai Finley reminded me that "Tiferet" means"Beauty." And that I have spent much more time meditating on thissephira as Truth / Beauty than I have about Compassion.
Whateverword you use to describe an emanation is ultimately synonymous with the otherwords used to describe it. The purest aspect of truth is beauty, pure truth iscompassion and completely selfless compassion is truthful beauty.
Similarly, Hod means Splendor. (Humility is Anavah inHebrew.) Typically, you choose one or two related definitions for a singleemanation and focus on that, rather than trying to collapse seemingly oppositeideas, like humility and splendor.
Whenever Ithink about splendor, my mind immediately imagines sparkles. Perhaps it is theinfluence of my 3.5 year-old (or of the 3.5 year-old within me). When you stripaway your material concerns, when you lift your head from your phone and lookaround at the physical world, when you close your eyes and imagine existencebeyond material reality -- are you struck by how elevated that Truth is? Thatis the Splendor I seek.
I thinkabout the holy splendor of being in the presence of a Torah scroll, of beingnext to it while it is being read. I think about the holy splendor of thousandsof years of Jews reading from the same scroll three times a week, theconcentrated and consecrated energy that flows around, from, and toward theTorah -- the splendor of deep compassion that allows us to pray for the healingof others, and the souls on the brink of the passage from this world to thenext, while the Torah is out among us.
For yearsI have struggled to understand why prophecy is associated with splendor. Ithink I have finally meditated my way into understanding that truth. May we allfeel the splendor of deep truth, marvel at the splendor of pure beauty, andchannel the splendor of selfless compassion.