Existential Emotions

A heavenly head joins an earthly emotion. From the intangible realm of thought we descend and thereby congeal our thoughts into the density of emotion. Reprogramming the head of the year–the alternations of consciousness that are inscribed on Rosh Hashanah and sealed on Yom Kippur–still remains at high altitude. The novel possibilities of time, of a new soul to time, have to be cleared for landing. Though a person may catch sight of a theoretical option for change and improvement, this does not automatically mean that we feel it. Emotional response and emotional integration have a time of their own. In the Hebrew calendar, the time of ‘taking to heart’ entails a unique set of observances which are collectively bundled as the Holiday of Sukkot.

While a multitude of models exist for our conceptualizing of the Sukkot festival, one of most all embracing deals with existential emotions or the ontology of feelings. This model suggests a fourfold set of reflections on the nature of emotive experience. Corresponding to the four letters in the Tetragrammaton, the essential Divine name/identity Havayah which means ‘Being,’ these four levels (one for each letter of the name) take inventory of our spectrum of emotions. The letters of the name function as modes of Being (Havayah) which contextually acquire a specialized sense (in this case, they are the placeholders for emotive structures played out as aspects of Sukkot performance.

The first of these relates to the letter Yud. Subtract the letter Yud from the Tetragrammaton and all the remains is Hoveh which means the ‘present tense.’ Trapped in a steady state universe–the stasis of what’s present–we would begin to feel the deep fatigue of the overly familiar. When we get used to feeling something for a prolonged period of time, we become desensitized to it. We may even cease to feel it entirely. Emotionally comatose, only the infusion of something new–the injection of change as the shock the restarts the heart–can help us to feel again. The problem is further compounded when the fatigue or ennui is for or from Being itself.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel everything anew at each and every moment?  When we add the Yud back into the Tetragrammaton, we once again reconstitute Being in its entirety. Only now, this Divine name has the grammatical connotation of hithavut which means to ‘continually bring into being.’ The first ontological mode of Being is the destabilization of Being itself through the force of Becoming. The conceptual hinge represented by the Yud is the Becoming of Being. (Note: in Kabbalah the Divine Name which is beyond Being is Ekiyeh ‘I will be’ [a statement of Becoming] which relates to the tip of the letter Yud. Insomuch, as the Yud is enrooted in its tip, we could refer to this level as the Being of Becoming).

Our general experience of the Yud could be described as the attunement to the process of continuous recreation–something from nothing–at each an every moment. Since we are now only considering emotion, it follows that the engendering of time that comes along with this flow that brings all into being, has the effect of a perpetual reawakening of emotion, the constant fanning of feeling on account of our intuition of constant change.

This emotive constancy born of registering existential becoming is alluded to in the word for Sukkot [סכות] which equals 486. The number 486 also happens to be the equivalent of the spelling out or milui of the word lev meaning ‘heart.’ How is lev spelled? Lamed Beit. If we write the names of those letters out in Hebrew then we have to write Lamed (30)-Mem (40)-Dalet (4), Beit (2)-Yud (10)-Tav (400) = 486. This spelling out of the letters of a word is interpreted in Kabbalah as an insight into the expansive meaning of the concept that it expresses. In other words, the expansion of the heart, the fullness of feeling, equates with Sukkot as the general name for the festival. Thus, as an overarching concept, Sukkot is trying to expand the heart.

To assist us in feeling more, in feeling to the fullest, this Holiday will have to weaken our sense of permanence or sameness of the world. The seed (also symbolized by the Yud) of Being is Becoming, which destabilizes Being itself. To internalize this feeling of destabilized Being, to drive home the fragility of all existence, we have to begin by acknowledging the process of continuous recreation.

In Sefer Yetzirah (1:1) we learn that the world was created (and is recreated continually) with 32 wondrous paths of wisdom. While 32 is the plain numerical of the word lev (heart) when it is not spelled out, wisdom or chochmah refers to the faculty of soul that experiences or intuits continuous recreation. Thus, to have a subtle feeling for the constant surprise party which is the reality of our innermost existence, means to have attached our consciousness to this level of chochmah or wisdom. Also, we are reminded  that the Yud of the Tetragrammaton embodies this property of chochmah according to Kabbalah.

Looking at the expanded heart once more, the letter Lamed–Beit spelled out (Lamed-Mem-Dalet, Beit–Yud–Tav) can be rearranged to spell lev tamid which means the ‘continuous heart.’ The pathways with which God creates/recreates the world are the intuitions of our heart of hearts–the heart that never stops feeling, the unceasing experience of all things coming to be taken to heart.

In Part Two the other modes of Being and their attenuating existential emotions will become our subject of focus starting with the phenomenon of dwelling in the Sukkah.

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/taken-to-heart-part-2/ 

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