Weekly MMM - Sukkot is the Holiday of Connection

Mystical Musical Meditations in Jerusalem

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Sukkot - The holiday of connection

 1.    The first half of the new year’s holidays center around a universal, kabbalistic principle called “gvurot”. The second half of this period after Yom Kippur until Simchat Torah, operate on the opposite (partner) principle referred to as “chassadim”.

   

2.    A contemporary, Kabbalistic work, “Leshem Shebo v’Ochlama’” defines these two cosmic principles as follows:

     a.   “gvurot” are disconnection

     b.   “chassadim” are connection

When either of these primal processes, which are at work in every process in life, function without the participation of the partner process, they remain totally hidden. 

When they do join together, but in a disproportionate way, they produce a state of dis-harmony. Thus, too much gvurot or disconnection energy elicits chaos, with no order and a lack of staying power. When there is too much chassadim energy, the effect is endless, unchecked expansion.

When combined together in proper proportion, there is harmony and balance.

3.   The prevalent energy between Rosh Hashanah until and including Yom Kippur, is disconnection, disconnection from all that was keeping us out of sync with Hashem and our world and ourselves.

The work involved disconnecting ourselves from our present state of inertia and status quo, and re-examining our lives - past, present and future - and making any adjustments necessary to bring us back into sync for the upcoming year.

 4.    After Yom Kippur, all the way until the end of the holidays, we are occupied mainly with chassadim.

We are occupied with connection, a connection phase is what is needed, after a disconnection phase, in order to provide for a harmonious year where our projected vision of ourselves becomes sweetened and balanced and maximally connected to Hashem and to the world and to ourselves.

5.    Connection characterizes the rest of the holidays.

We connect with Hashem in a bond of loving trust, by sitting in the sukkah with a heart filled with trust that Hashem always provides all that we need in life.

We connect and unify with the people of our life, by waving the lulav (the palm branch) and the other three species (the etrog/citron, the hadassim/myrtles and the aravot/willow branches) which represent the main character types, all bound together in unity.

We connect to joy and happiness, an annual joy.

We receive a vaccination celebrating the newborn clarity that we have achieved in the first part of the holidays, a celebration of knowing who we are, and who we desire to be.

    

6.    In light of these connections, we will now engage in a few connection meditations, which I hope, with hashem’s help, will open our hearts to bond and connect lovingly and harmoniously with Hashem, with people in our world and with ourselves. 

I also hope that these meditations will serve as an inroad, an initial step towards  rectifying the fallout in consciousness of Adam’s partaking of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, his/OUR  premature desire to be disconnected and work his/our way back to connection. I believe this is dealt with in our annual connection /disconnection dynamic we are discussing. May we merit to truly get ourselves back to the garden.

Sukkot Connection Meditations

1. Connecting with Hashem

Step into a sukkah in your mind's eye or in real life. It could be your sukkah or someone else’s, and slowly sit down, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Allow yourself to be.

Cuddled and embraced by the Divine Presence, like a newborn baby, allow yourself to feel safe and warm and loved.

Allow yourself to feel that all of your needs are being taken care of by the most loving and trustworthy being.

Allow yourself to feel a growing sense of wellbeing.

Allow yourself to feel a sense of profound trust in Hashem, and trust that whatever kind of challenge you find yourself in, Hashem will come through for you in the best possible way.

Allow this trust and this love and this warmth to permeate your entire being in a steadily increasing manner, until it’s overflowing.

Allow yourself to feel a fusion with Hashem, your thinking fused with His, so too with all other your other faculties. Go through your entire psyche in this manner.

2. Connecting with People

Imagine yourself being in a room with the people that you most enjoy being with. Experience the special feeling that you feel for each person. Experience what every person brings out in you, whether it be a sense of humor or a sense of adventure or a sense of empowerment, etc.

Imagine yourself in a room full of strangers. Even though you know no one, allow your intuition to sense one special aspect of each person. Allow yourself to feel the emotions that these people evoke in you as well as the special parts of yourself that are awakened by each person there.

Imagine yourself in a room full of people that you don’t know, experience your separateness and  your awareness of being different than everyone there, a different being with a whole different awareness now.

Allow yourself to “step into the shoes” of one of the people in the room and see things the way they see things, through their perspective. Go deeper in this way of seeing things until everything that person does, says and feels is perfectly clear to you. Do this for everyone in the room until you feel at one with the entire room. After this, extend this awareness beyond the room to more and more people in your life until this exercise becomes a mind state, a consciousness, a way of being with people, a way of loving and connecting with everyone. 

 3.  Connecting with Yourself

 Step outside of yourself. See yourself as others see you. Choose different people and see how they see you. See how the way you perceive that they see you affects the way that you see yourself. Notice how much you are affected by the image that others project on you.

Stay outside of yourself. See yourself in all your various modes of being and enjoy the show! Allow yourself to deeply appreciate why you say what you say, and why you feel the way you feel. Allow yourself to totally identify with yourself and to love yourself with a love that is full of compassion and understanding and hope and encouragement.

Now go back inside of yourself and feel joy! Feel joy for all that makes you exactly who you are!   Feel joy for all you have done and do and will do. Feel joy for your ability to cope in the way that you do, and your ability to see in the way that you do and your ability to do all that you do. Allow yourself to be filled up with a sense of joy and love and gratitude for all that makes you who you are, and for the Ever-present gift of life in all its wonderful manifestations, all the time.