Mountain Climbing Metaphor for the Four Worlds of Tefillah

Mountain Climbing Metaphor for the Four Worlds of Tefillah Consciousness Articulating new identities of the broad divisions of the prayers. 1) ASSIYAH Ordinarily, the world of Assiyah is variously seen as: our action-oriented world; the final station of the creation, beyond which there is no more concrete creation; the world of the material and physical universe; the realm of the angels called "wheels" due to their mechanicalness; the place of the doing of Mitzvot; the place where evil (In the 1995 ALEPH Kallah Workshop Proposal Form a number of activities are grouped according to the four worlds. In this formulation, the actions associated with the world of Assiyah are: off campus hiking; recreation; social action; and political action.) What if we were to see the first section of davvenen as being more than just body and action oriented? (Associating Assiyah with the "body" and equating that with materiality, bare weight and mass, seems highly reductionistic - after all, the body is plastic, sensitive, intelligent, holy, sacred, permeable, and so on.) Lately I have been thinking of the PRAYER SECTION of the Davvenen which corresponds to the world of Assiyah in a slightly more narrative mode. I offer the following parallel for the Assiyah section of the Davenen: The preparing for and beginning of a mountain climbing At the beginning of a trip we lay out all our chosen belongings and take an inventory of our supplies: we rethink the entire map of our proposed journey (see p. 60.8 60.9) ; we organize; we remind ourselves of our mission within the framework of our personal history; we review present and past technologies used in the climb; we gather energy needed to fulfill our mission by visualizing the end of the journey. The morning blessings lists all of our faculties, physical strengths and abilities; the Tallit and Tefillin ceremonies is our gear, our mountain-climbing equipment; the basic foundation prayers such as Adon Olam and Yigdal suggest the cosmic foundation, the map for our climb; the Akedah suggests the historical framework for it; and the spices and sacrifices of the Temple are the past technologies used for the climb. It seems to me that the prayer section we associate with Assiyah could function as a rich environment with experimentation along these guidelines. Lately I have been asking participants to make Tai Chi Chih like (deliberate, slow, circular, repetitive) movements in different shapes so as to movement-mime the creation of the world from nothing. For example, to move the arms and hips in the shape of a figure-eight is to signify the Infinite Light, the Ayn Sof before the creation of the world - It is the basis and reason for our desire to climb back up and have a "peek" experience.) Forms such as this fit this new definition of the Assiyah section of Davvenen as well as that of Assiyah being purely physical action. In this way, Assiyah can be seen as a reenactment of the beginning of all time rather than a mere awakening from sleep. (This recapitulation of creation I consider my new definition only a "slight" shift because Adon Olam and Yigdal both convey these themes of the beginning beyond time and space. To view Assiyah as only a physical awakening and not a primal one shuts out traditional themes present within the prayer section. 2) YETZIRAH Ordinarily, the world of Yetzirah is variously seen as: our emotion-oriented world; the world of flow and fluidity; the world of the feeling and sensual universe; the place of Devekut (emotional cleaving); the realm of the middle angels of fire and ice; the place where evil is In the 1995 ALEPH Kallah Workshop Proposal Form, the actions associated with the world of Yetzirah are: socializing; sharing, and process group; pastoral counseling.) Yetzirah is a place of relationship; the whole paradigm is that of twoness, of doubledness. Everything has a valence, nothing is neutral. There is a lot of twinning in this place. The letters that have dots in them (Bet, Gimmel, Dalet KaJt Pay, Resh, Tav) live here each with their split personalities, sometimes pronounced this way, but with a dagesh, that way. They are called the "doubles" in Sefer Yetzirah and that to me personifies this place. Everything is mirrored and split. This split is paralleled by the descent and ascent of Psalm 30; the yearning and noisy churning of the Halleluyah section; the section split of Barukh Hashem L'olam Amayn v'Amayn which neatly divides this section; and Moses' song at the sea again describing a roller coaster ride of near destruction and triumphant salvation, mirroring Psalm 30. In Yetzirah, the light of oneness doesn't shine so clearly as in B'riah in which we have the declaration of the Shema. There is more duality - as a matter of fact, everything is split into positive and negative. The PRAYER SECTION of the Davvenen which is said to correspond to the world of Yetzirah may be thought of as roughly corresponding to the actions associated with the early stages of a mountain climbing trip. In this second section of Davvenen often called Pesukei Dezimra we find the intoxication of the series of hyperboles that begins with the Barukh Sheh' amar leading into the prayers of praise, of thanks, of joyful noise with instruments, of yearning, and memories of nature peak experiences and our tribal historical peak experiences, culminating with the hyperbolic Yishtabakh At the early part of a mountain climbing trip we find ourselves in the valleys and foothills, drawing closer and closer to the mountain which we begin to climb. We ache and yearn to get to the top; we remember past victories; we celebrate the beauty of each changing vista; we sing out with limber hearts, vibrating and responding with flow and flush. 3) B'RIAH Ordinarily, the world of B'riah is variously seen as: the blueprint-oriented world of the architect; the early station of the creation, beyond which is less selfawareness and more self-as-God-awareness; the world of the mathematical and mentally creative; the equations behind all things; the molecular and Sefirotic interplay giving new combination possibilities to all things; place of visioning; of the angels which burn up daily in fiery passionate awareness; of the archangels Michael and Gavriel; the place where good preponders over the evil; In the 1995 ALEPH Kallah Workshop Proposal Form, the actions associated with the world of B'riah are: article study; text study; storytelling; intergenerational storytelling; and skills workshop. Lately I have been thinking of the PRAYER SECTION of the Davvenen which is said to correspond to the world of B'riah as roughly corresponding to the transformations associated with peak of a journey. In this third section of Davvenen we find the blessings of light, the preparations of angels and centering on love before the Shema, the unending ringing of the Ekhad of oneness, mountain top of the prayers; the V'ahavta underlining, the stamp of Emet; the refocusing of our personalities around the Ezrat and Mi Kamokha, and the focusing on God as center and Tzur in an otherwise swimming landscape. These seem to me to At the center of a trip we climb right to the top of the mountain and pause there, raising our arms in triumph, peering at the vast landscape circling around us in a perfect 360 degrees. 4) ATZILUT While ordinarily, the world of Atzilut is variously seen as: the world of pure beingness; the original garden of Eden of the creation, beyond which there is no more apprehensible creation; the world of the most abstract spirituality, home only to the greatest saints and Tzaddikim; the container of the light of the Or Ayn Sof; the place where evil is unknown; and so on, (see p. 60, 60.7, In the 1995 ALEPH Kallah Workshop Proposal Form, the actions associated with the world of Atzilut are: silent meditation; niggun swap; dance; and guided meditation. Lately I have been thinking of the PRAYER SECTION of the Davvenen which is said to correspond to the world of Atzilut as roughly corresponding to the actions associated with a deepening experience of being on the mountain top. In this section of Davvenen we find the illfiilt• After attaining our goal and looking all around us, there comes the welling up of inner prayer, the response to meeting the presence and having our minds expanded by our attainment. Having gone beyond our own selves and exceeded our vistas, we can more easily communicate with the great abstraction that is the whole, the uni-verse. In the Amidah prayers, we thread back and forth between talking to God and just letting God open our lips and speak through us. Before, in the saying of the Sh'ma in B'riah, we could not really talk to the Holy One, but just about the Holy One. Thus, the Amidah represents a combination of the experiences of B'riah and Yetzirah; of being in a duality relationship with the Divine, and also of being in a unitary relationship with the Divine. In the "CLIMBING. THE MOUNTAIN" metaphor, then, all the prayers succeeding the Amidah are gentle ways of reconstituting the self prior to entering the conventional world again. They represent the downhill trip .