THE CABALA OF FIRE

A towering wildfire jumped firefighters' perimeter lines and moved into the city of Colorado Springs, forcing frantic evacuation orders for more than 32,000 residents and destroying an unknown number of homes; the fire doubled in size overnight to more than 24 square miles.

While Colorado burns, Florida floods; when the two components of heaven, fire and water, separate they cause chaos – Shamiyam/Heaven is a combination of Ash/Fire and Maiyin/Water. What distinguishes these two primal elements: water holds together while fire tears apart.

There are 32 paths of wisdom, as taught in the Cabala; and, the gematria of Lev/Heart and Coved/Liver are both 32 – the head, heart and liver correspond to the three sections of the body derived from the Tree of Life built on three triangles. The power of speech is dumbfounded.

There are 24 books in the Torah, also divided into three sections: the Five Books of Moshe, the Prophets and the Written Text – speech is the Oral Torah. Fire and Water the represent Chesed/Kindness and Gevorah/Severity – both possess the power to perpetuate and destroy.

The body thinks in the head, feels in the heart and acts from liver, producing speech. Thinking of so many families and communities uprooted from their homes left, in ruin: the heart is compelled, awakening the liver into action – in the end, America is a community of people.

THE CABALA OF SEVERITY

Beekeepers from Minnesota and across the country have asked the federal government for a temporary ban on one the most widely used pesticides until its effect on bees is clear.

The land of Israel is commonly known as the Land of Milk and Honey; the Cabala explains, Milk epitomizes Chesed/Kindness while Honey symbolizes Gevorah/Severity – in small amounts honey is sweet, but too much honey is poison. A small amount of severity goes a long way.

Herod, the freed slave who Rome placed as king over the Jewish People 2000 years ago, was renown for his cruelty. Once, Herod put his eye on a beautiful Jewish woman who, rather than be taken by the king, killed herself by jumping from a rooftop but the king took her anyway.

Herod put the young woman into a cauldron of honey to preserve her body from the disintegration of death, even though nothing stands before death – the most severe human experience. Another example of the severity of honey is the bee that stings and sometimes even kills.

To kill bees on a massive scale requires a substance even more severe than honey – pesticides. By poisoning the bees, the kindness derived from the plants cannot be realized. The proper balance between Chesed/Kindness and Gevorah/Severity is essential to life on Earth.

White as Snow

The heaviest snow storms for decades have struck the eastern US, paralyzing air and road transport, and bringing Washington DC to a standstill.

In the Midrash-Book of Metaphor says that the angel Michiel, angel of kindness and angel Gavreil, angel of severity, come together and make peace with one another through white hair–the sign of elder. The Cabala explains how snow originated beneath the Kesay HaKavod/Seat of Honor which hovers upon creation.

The idea of a seat indicates how the Creator is humbled to be lowered into creation. Beneath the Kesay HaKavod/Seat of Honor is snow which when melted through the power of prayer becomes water–the Torah is compared to water that comes from a very high place to a very low place without changing.

Physical snow is a sign of Chesed/Kindness from the source. That such a large amount of snow should fall on the nation’s capitol perhaps is a sign from heaven as is the turning of the President’s hair to white is a sign Gevorah/Severity being sweetened.

This unusual amount of snow on the nation’s capitol closing down institutions and keeping everyone in their place is reminder of God’s kindness for our country–a country like no other, peopled from every part of the globe.

Obama Goes South

At the fifth Summit of the Americas, Latin American leaders are expected to press President Obama on the global economy and U.S. policies on Cuba and on drugs.

In the Cabala is noted the fact that most of the world’s population exists in the north and that two-thirds of the world is made of water—these sages did not know this from science, but from an intricate understanding of creation. They explain how this world is the second in a series of seven worlds and being second means Gevorah/Severity which is located in the north.

There are seven worlds, likened to the seven continents, which relate to the seven emotions, the lower segment of the Ten Sefirot; it is wildly accepted within the Torah that the emotions ultimately are more important than mind.

Surrounding the Shema Yisroel proclaiming God’s omnipresence in creation, before and after, is the word Ahavta/Love You. Be sure, the president will not be judged by his intellect as he travels south, but by his emotions.

The Hard of the Hard

HOUSTON — Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday rejected $555 million in federal stimulus money that would expand state unemployment benefits.

In Cabala the number five is commiserate with severity; there are five parts of the mouth which produce speech: the lips, the teeth, the tongue, the pallet and the throat—there are also five letters in the Hebrew alphabet which change their form when ending a word, they are known as the Five Severities. Three fives also has a meaning since one is a point, two is line and three a triangle—the first expression of unity and strength.

In Texas, known to be a hard place run by hard people where they top the states in the number of people put to death by the state has shown their true colors—the green and greed of money—by taking first from the most vulnerable.