Grasping the Light of the Creator

✦  This page is a synthesis of Michael Berg's lecture Shabbat Sukkot: Blessings from the Hands of the Creator, on the Kabbalah Centre's OneHouse. It is only a map: listen to Michael Berg directly.

1 · Key Points

• Sukkot is not a time for new wisdom. It is a time to meditate on what is available, because, as the Rav reminded us, the level of our consciousness is the level of Light we receive.
• At no other time of year does the Or d'Chasadim, the Light of Mercy, shine as completely as on Sukkot.
• The sukkah is the Holy of Holies. What the High Priest did once a year, on Yom Kippur, each of us can activate for seven days.
• The four species (Dalet Minim) represent, according to the Midrash, the Light of the Creator itself. Holding them is holding the Light.
• Usually we draw the Light from below. On Sukkot, anyone, in any spiritual state, can grasp it.
• Through the na'anu'im, the shaking of the four species, we weaken the opposing force for the next twelve months.
• We ask for the blessings to come from the Creator's hands, which are endless, not from ours, which are small.

2 · In Short

Michael Berg opens by saying that Sukkot doesn't ask for new information. It asks for meditation. The Song of Songs describes what happens in these days as an embrace: the Creator brings us into the innermost chamber. In the physical world, the closest place to that was the Holy of Holies in the Temple, open to a single soul, a single time each year. The kabbalists teach that on Sukkot each of us, with the right meditation, desire and consciousness, enters that place for seven days, and the effect of every thought inside it isn't ten or a thousand times greater, it is a billion times greater. It doesn't matter who we are or what our level is. What matters is how aware we are of where we are.

The Midrash reveals the secret of the four species: the etrog, the lulav, the myrtle and the willow each represent the Light of the Creator itself. That's why, on the Shabbat of Sukkot, when we don't use the physical tools, we hold them at an even higher level. During the year we draw the Light through prayers and actions. Only once does the Torah tell of a human being who grasped the Creator: when Moshe prevented the destruction of the Israelites. To grasp is to have the ability to say "no, this is how it will be". The Ramban calls this the deep secret of the four species, and Rav Naftali of Ropshitz says what seems impossible: on Sukkot a person takes the Light of the Creator in their hands and can do with it whatever they desire. At the same time, the Rosh teaches that by shaking the four species we weaken the opposing force, which wakes up before us every day. And, like the child in the candy store who preferred the owner's big hands to his own, we ask V'hasi'enu et birkat moadecha: may the blessings come from the Creator's hands.

3 · Drawing or Grasping

The heart of the lecture is a difference that is small in form and enormous in consciousness.

4 · Phrases for Contemplation

5 · Takeaways

6 · Action Plan · 5 Moments in the Sukkah

Sit in the sukkah knowing where you are: inside the innermost chamber, with the Light of the Creator within reach of your hands. Chag Sameach.