From Tzarah to Retzeh

This Shabbat exists to give us the power to transform

Michael opens the lesson saying, plainly, that this moment, this Shabbat, exists so that each of us gains the power to transform all negativity into Light. He locates that power in an ancient scene: when Moshe asked the Creator to teach him the secret of prayer, the answer wasn't a complicated technique.

It's literally the secret of Pinchas

This Shabbat is called, in Hebrew, Nesot Pinchas, and Michael notes that the expression itself already carries the secret: the ability to receive the gift, the power, to transform merira le-mitka, bitterness into sweetness, in the Zohar's own words.

Everything taught throughout Shabbat, Michael says, has been leading here. If there's a single thing to take from this lesson, it's this tool, the most powerful the kabbalists have ever given us.

The central meditation: place the difficulty into the word tzarah

Tzarah represents any kind of difficulty, lack, illness, an obstacle in a relationship or at work. Michael asks that, over the next three weeks, every time something difficult happens, the person meditate on this ancient word.

And then we ask: transform this into retzeh

Retzeh represents the state in which we're fully connected to the Light's desire, fully connected to the Creator's Light. After placing the difficulty in the vessel of tzarah, the next step is to ask the Creator's Light for the strength to transform it, to rearrange those same three letters into retzeh.

Michael is direct about what this is: a literal fixing of the letters. Not a new word, not a new idea, the same raw material, rearranged.

Yud · Hei · Vav · Hei: the complete revelation of the Light

Michael reminds us that the Tetragrammaton's four letters represent the complete revelation of the Creator's Light, what we feel when a relationship goes well, when business thrives, when life flows. Whenever we simply want to draw Light, he teaches, the way is to meditate on these four letters.

When we don't feel 100%: the three other combinations

There are moments when we don't experience that full revelation, and Michael teaches that this happens because, without realizing it, we're connected to one of three other letter combinations: one representing being in front of the Light, another behind it, and a third where we're completely displaced from it, in a different place.

He uses a simple image: there are clouds and sun in the same sky. Sometimes we're under a cloud with the Light right in front of us; sometimes the Light is behind us and the cloud is in front. These three combinations, shown below, share the same numerical value as the forces tied to judgment, the same experience of not feeling well.

The work of these Three Weeks: making the Light shine directly

In these three weeks, Michael teaches, we meditate so that the full Light of the Tetragrammaton shines within these three fragmented combinations, transforming the moments when we're in front of, behind, or displaced from the Light into the experience of full revelation, with no judgment at all.

Use it, use it, use it, and you'll see miracles

Michael closes without half-measures: if we truly use this meditation throughout the next three weeks, we'll see the ability to transform any kind of lack, challenge, or difficulty into the full revelation of the Creator's Light, and we'll see miracles.

And he leaves a promise beyond the three weeks: "From these three weeks, the whole year shines." The work now isn't just to get through this period, it's what sustains the Light through the following twelve months.