Chokmah
The God-name associated with Chokmah is
Yah.
Chokmah is the
second Sephirah. This is the highest Sephiroth that mankind can directly
experience (though only a few very special people have done so).
Chokmah means "wisdom". It is G-d's first expression in the wholly external universe.
In essence Chokmah is "being". It is the source of all ideas.
Though Chokmah is below Kether it is still essentially unknowable. While it is the
first external step towards physical creation it is still only an
undifferentiated idea.
Chokmah receives it light from Kether. It takes
the potential infinity of Kether's point and structures it into
undifferentiated thought.
Chokmah's structuring of Kether's power is the
first step in the creation of our bounded universe. The limitless potential of
Kether is now delimited by Chokmah.
Chokmah can be represented by the
straight line. The potential of the point is constrained by having direction
imposed upon it. In Kether we have the potential for expansion in all
directions. Through Chokmah that expansion is directed in just one way -
towards the created universe we inhabit.
Chokmah is associated with the
number 2. It is the archetype of all separations and opposites. It is also the
archetype of all reconciliations. Chokmah represents the first separation of
creation from the G-dhead, but it is also the final reconciling step on the way
back to our Source.
In Chokmah is found the basis for the apparently
antagonistic relationship between body and soul. But it also shows us how the
two parts of our being can be united in pursuit of the Highest.
All
thought, at its root, emanates from Chokmah. How this thought is made manifest
in the material world is determined by both the lower Sephiroth and by the
extent to which we are rooted in the physical at the expense of the
spiritual.
In all we do we should strive to emulate Chokmah. we should
look up to the Divine (Kether from the position of Chokmah), take that energy
that is given to us and disseminate it into the world (Chokmah disseminates to
the lower Sephiroth).
But for the most part we are imperfect creatures.
we do readily appreciate or understand the interplay between the soul and the
body. The soul strives to attain to the Divine "I", the Nothingness of Kether.
The body seeks to satisfy the personal "I", the ego.
Kabbalah does not
advocate the destruction of the ego in order to achieve realisation of the
Divine "I". It does, however, teach that the balance between body and soul
needs to be restored.
We need the ego as we have to operate in a
material world. But the ego is only a tool to help us do this. The ego-centred
individual, however, accentuates his or her corporeality at the expense of the
Divinity within the soul.
The misguided mystic concentrates on the soul
at the expense of the body.
Judaism has never advocated the monastic or
masochistic aesthetic way of life. It recognises the need for the dynamic
balance that the spiritual person can only achieve while living in the material
world.
Chokmah is seen as a masculine Sephirah. here again we have the
primal 2. Chokmah plays the male to Binah's female. In the same way that the
male impregnates the female, so Chokmah finds its expression in
Binah.
Chokmah is pure undifferentiated thought. All it can do is move
outwards.
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