Nesira: Conscious Detachment

Sawing Conscious Detachment 1. :,-,"'C.:I, Nesira, means "sawing" from the word -,'C.:i,nasar,to split wood, to saw, or make a rough grating sound. Nesira is a Kabbalistic term describing a process that takes place within the depths of the Universe's energy field right before Rosh Hashanah. This teaching is based on the following Medrash about the evolution of reproduction. Rabbi Samuel bar Nahman said: The Holy One created the first human with two fronts. Then, the Holy One sawed this creature in half and thus each creature became two beings (Adam and Eve) each with its own back. Someone objected: But does not Scripture say "And God took one of Adam's ribs?" Rabbi Samuel replied: Mitzalotav may also mean "Its whole side" and so do we find this usage elsewhere." Gen. R. 8:1 ~- Some say that th~ feeling of awe and high exc7tement_ (or downright anxiety) that many notice durmg the Ten Days of Awe is directly related to the withdrawal caused by the Infinite One's distancing. These abandonment feelings fuels our prayers with passion and crucial meaning. The Nesirabegins to be reversed at the time of the blowing of the Slwfar on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, which, as promised, reverses the departure of the Holy One and draws back God's interest and participation, to be completed with the Shofar sounding at the end of Yom Kippur. 5. Hassidic thought suggests Nesira to be a part of our Teshuvah process. If Devekutsignifies be~ng joined to God and refers to a perpetual bemg-with-God, an intimate union and conformity of the human and the Divine will Nesirah is a conscious stepping away from th~ state of being merged and commingled together. Just as God is said to split away in order to carefully evaluate the state of the world on Rosh Hashanah, we also, in our process of Teshuvah, must take a step away from our ordinary life, from how we have been, even with God, and with all of our relationships, including our most precious and intimate ones. Even our closest ~artners understand around the High Holyday time that we need to do a little conscious separation and evaluation, that a little brooding is part of the process. 2. Neither side of the creature which had two f~onts could see the other side; they could not kiss, or make love. The scars of this primeval operation are still with their descendants; we each have backs, and many of them have ~erration marks (the knobby bumps on our spine) JU~tas you would expect to find resulting from bemg sawed. The operation described here is reminiscent of a cell splitting into two, and also says something about each of us having a back, a shadow side that we cannot ourselves see. _3._According to the Kabbala, a sawing and sphttmg takes place every year within the energy field of the whole world: Erev Rosh Hashanah is a time ~f ?istancing by the Holy One. The Ayn Sof (Infm1te) has to separate itself through the detachment process called Nesira, where the Sacred eagerness and creative Force within creation is temporarily rescinded, and the momentum is interrupted. N esira is a pattern built into the universe, an annual (and temporary) withdrawal-for-redirection. 6. The Nesira part of Teshuva asks us, "In what way have I stepped out of the rushing and busyn_ess? How have I made the time and space to notice where I am? How have I created a little withdrawal for myself in order to redirect the course of my life, the direction of my choices?" and so on. May stepping at least one step away from our busy cycles help us gain the perspective we need to truly do some Teshuvah, to make our lives more of a blessing.