49 Gates of Light: A Course In Kabbalah

By Rabbi Yonassan Gershom

49 Gates of Light is a seven-week course for exploring the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This is not just another book "about" kabbalah. It's a set of 50 daily experiential lessons, designed to help you apply the principles in your own life. Each day, you will have a Hebrew mantra to chant, a story or teaching to study, and something active for you to do. The lessons are color coded to correspond to the Rainbow, the Seven Days of Creation, the Tree diagram, the Omer, and the pattern on the B'nai Or prayer shawl designed by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. This makes it very easy to learn the Tree of Life diagram and see how it connects with the world around you. Although this book is designed to go with the "Omer" period on the Jewish calendar (the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks), it can be used anytime, as a set of personal lessons on Kabbalah.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257232352

Book preview

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The Tree of Life Diagram

The lessons in this book are based on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, a diagram developed by Jewish mystics and later adopted by many non-Jews. It depicts the flow of energy from the Mind of the Creator (God) into the universe. It is a way of graphically illustrating the interaction of ten dimensions of consciousness, both in the macrocosm (universe) and the microcosm (individual human personality.) The levels on the Tree are called Sefirot (sfee-ROTE, singular sfee-RAH)), which means numbers in Hebrew. However, they are more than numbers. The Sefirot are archetypal representations of various energies, or attributes, such as Mercy, Justice, Balance, etc.

The Tree is like a template or map that can be used to diagram an infinite variety of ideas. For example, one might use it to diagram biblical characters and the qualities they represent, or the Ten Commandments, the Jewish holy days, etc. I have even seen a Kabbalah of Star Trek version, which places the various Enterprise crewmembers on the Tree according to their duties aboard the starship. Once you understand what principle each of the Sefirot represents on the Tree, you can be very creative!

There are several different ways to read this map, depending on how you look at it. The most common ones are:

The Lightning Flash

This is the best-known way of viewing the Tree, and will be the model we use for the lessons in this book. The realm of God (Source of All) is depicted as above and the realm of creation is below. The teachings (Torah) flow down from God in a zigzag pattern of increasingly denser vibrational levels, until they reach the physical earth plane. On the personal level, we can visualize the Cosmic Light flowing from the Mind of God downward into the soul, mind, emotions and physical body.

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The Three Pillars

Another way to understand the Tree is the balancing of opposites. The right pillar represents Creative Force (yang/male) and the left pillar represents Creative Form (yin/female) with the central pillar as their balance (androgynous). It is important to remember that male and female are used here as archetypal energies, not as actual men and women. Each of us has both male and female qualities.

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Seven Levels or heavens

This way of viewing the Tree corresponds to the seven chakras (energy centers) in the human body, as taught by Eastern yoga. Three of these levels are formed by combining the two Sefirot that are on the same level, and keeping them in balance.

Jacob’s Ladder

With Jacob’s ladder, we climb from level to level, up the central pillar of the Tree, from the physical to the more spiritual planes. In reality, both of these processes -- bringing down blessing from above and sending up prayer energy from below – occur simultaneously. The angels in Jacob’s dream, going up and down the ladder from earth to heaven, symbolize this process.

Colors on the Tree

Through the centuries, several schools of kabbalah have developed different systems for placing colors on the Tree. This book uses the system designed by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, which places the seven colors of the rainbow on the seven lower Sefirot. (The upper three Sefirot are still undifferentiated white light.)

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Trees within Trees

Each Sefirah has an entire Tree within it, and the Sefirot on that Tree also contain a Tree. This is the diagram for Chesed, the purple Sefirah on the main Tree. Within it, you can see how the seven lower Sefirot receive the Lightning Flash flow of energy within the Sefirah before passing it on to the next large Sefirah. (Because we are using only the lower seven Sefirot in this set of lessons, the upper three are not shown to save space. Normally the entire small Tree is shown within the larger one.)

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Four Worlds

In addition to Trees within Trees, there are also Trees stacked on top of Trees, so to speak. In each of the Four Worlds, or levels of consciousness, there is a complete Tree, overlapping Trees above and below it. These Four Worlds are (according to their Hebrew names):

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Atzilut (Aht-zee-LOOT) -- World of Emanation (spirit). This is the highest level, where the Divine Light is just entering Creation. Here the soul touches God, experiencing Divine Oneness.

Briyah (bree-YAH) — the World of Creation (mind.) This is the level of thinking, where thoughts take shape and begin to create new ideas.

Yetsirah (yet-SEE-rah) — World of Formation (emotions). Also called the astral plane, the level of feelings, devotion, and charismatic energy.

Assiyah (ah-SEE-yah) — World of Action (physical body). This is the earth plane, the physical world where we carry out the actions that are conceived on the higher levels.

These four levels are also on each individual Tree, as three triangles and the material world at the Sefirah of Malchut.

Rabbi Isaac Luria (16th century mystic) taught that these four levels correspond to different parts of the Jewish liturgy. We first prepare in Assiyah (physical level) by washing, dressing, putting on our prayer shawl, etc. Then we arouse Yetsirah (feelings) through chanting Psalms and songs to awaken feelings. Next, we go to Briyah (intellect) for the Shema, where we learn to speak of these teachings at all times. Then we rise to Atzilut (soul level) with the Silent Amidah prayer. The Alenu prayer brings us back down to the earth level again, after which we ground ourselves with refreshments. Thus, every Jewish prayer service is a journey up the sacred mountain and back down again into daily life. Most other liturgies and ceremonies also follow this same pattern. Think about the ones you have participated in. How do they fit?

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It is important to remember that the spiritual Light that flows through the Tree is not God, but is merely the vehicle that God uses to bridge the gap between Creator and creation. This light enters on the soul level and flows downward through all the other levels. Think of it as an electrical system, with God as the generator, the light as the electricity, and us as the bulbs.

In some of the neo-pagan versions of kabbalah, there is an attempt to remove God as transcendent Creator from the system. Once, in preparation to speak at a Theosophist group, I gave them a set of handouts to duplicate in advance, including one with God at the top and arrows showing the energy flowing from God into the top Sefirah. Came time to hand out the diagrams in the class, I was horrified to see that somebody had whited out the word God and the arrows. I had been censored! Nevertheless, God is part of the system.

More on Male and Female in Kabbalah

When kabbalah texts speak of male and female, it does not mean literal men and women. Using the electrical analogy again, it is like the poles of a battery. The positive (male) pole passes on electrons, and the negative (female) pole receives electrons. Positive and negative here are not moral judgments. They are technical terms. If our ancestors had known about electricity, they might have used this imagery to describe the Tree. Instead, they used the most common set of opposites visible in nature: Female and Male. (Eastern traditions call them Yin and Yang.)

The Female side of the Tree is on the left and consists of things that create Form or contain, like the womb receiving sperm. Gevurah, which represents the Left Hand of Justice, is seen as female because it provides logic, structure and rules. This is the exact opposite of Western gender stereotypes, where women are supposedly not as logical as men. Again, we are not talking about female humans here.

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The Male side of the Tree is on the right, and consists of things that are expansive and intuitive. Chesed, which represents the Right Hand of Mercy, is male because it reaches outward to forgive. Again I stress: This does not mean that men are more merciful than women.

Another way to see male and female is to think of the cup and the wine. The cup is female and the wine is male. When you make Kiddush (sanctify the Sabbath or a festival), you balance male and female in the Kiddish cup. This cup-and-wine imagery occurs in many spiritual traditions. Sigmund Freud, who claimed everything was based on sex, was not so far from wrong — if you think in terms of kabbalah.¹

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The Upper Three Sefirot

By now you are probably wondering: What about the upper Sefirot, the ones in white? What role do they play? The three upper Sefirot are in the realm of pure spirit. They do not need purification during the Omer period in the same way that the lower seven do. On the soul level, we are all pure.

There is a prayer in the Jewish prayerbook that says, The soul which You (God) have given me is pure (Atzilut); You have created it (Briyah); You have formed it (Yetsirah); You have breathed it into me (Assiyah). These are, in a nutshell, the same Four Worlds we have already discussed.

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Keter-Chochmah-Binah, the upper triad on the Tree, is the level of pure soul emanation. Keter (Crown) is the entry point of the Holy Light from God. It is also Adam Kadmon, the androgynous First Human. Chochmah (Wisdom) is Adam, the First Father. Binah (Knowledge) is Eve, the First Mother — both still in the Garden of Eden.

Da’at (pronounced dah-‘AHT) is knowledge, but a different kind from the pure Light of Binah. Da’at is like a glass prism that separates white light into the rainbow spectrum. It is also the symbol system used by a tribe or group. So, for example, the Da’at of Judaism is the Torah; for Christians, the Gospels; for Muslims, the Qu’ran, etc. For secular people, it might even be a fictional world like Star Trek or The Wizard of Oz.

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