Today is eight days of the Omer, which are one week and one day of the Omer. Chesed of Gevurah: The Four and Five of Wands.

We have come to the week of Gevurah, and boy do I know it. Gevurah has lots of shadings to its constellation of meanings. It’s the place on the tree that splits off to the Sitra Achra, or as Obi Wan Kenobi might say, the Dark Side. It’s the Sephira of Strictness and Severity, Harshness, Constriction, Might and the letter of the Law. Oh, and then there’s the other name of Gevurah—Pachad, which means Fear. And then there’s also Din, which means Judgement. Sounds rough, huh?

Well I start with the things I don’t like because I’ve always had my issues with Gevurah. It took me a long time to understand the positive side of this energy—and those positives include Restraint, Structure, Strength, Boundaries, Courage, Organization, Justice and Discernment.

Then there are some qualities that can go either way depending on the situation and how you take it: Discipline, Limitation, Power and Control.

And then there is one quality that transcends it all: Awe.

So right now, with social distancing in place and having maintained this for the last 41 days, I’m feeling severely constricted. The boundaries I’m living within feel very harsh to me today. Nevertheless, I am keeping the discipline. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not reacting in ways that aren’t particularly healthy.

Good that we start the week with Chesed of Gevurah, because this energy needs to be balanced by the love and mercy of Chesed. We can think of Gevurah as holding back the overwhelming blast of love that is Chesed as a necessary check. And this is true in the other direction—Chesed is a necessary check on the unmitigated severity of Gevurah.

Last week we saw this very same combination of cards on the second day. On the eighth day however, these cards are in reverse order, and that makes all the difference. It’s a subtle difference in the shadings of energy, but it’s an important distinction—and that ability to be discerning in this way is in fact one of the good qualities of Gevurah.

Today is about the love that underlies the structure of our lives. The love that powers our strength and our ability to set good boundaries, and to take control with courage out of a sense of service.

In my book, Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation, I used the example of the humble traffic light to show how as a society we set limits and create laws in the service of love—of protecting everyone.

When I look at the Four and Five of Wands, I see the open space of Love that Chesed provides as being the motivating energy for Gevurah. So that the figure on the left hand side in the image in the Five of Wands, the man who seems to be holding his staff out as a way of getting the attention of all the others is the one who is trying to bring loving structure to a situation of disorganization. Indeed, the Five of Wands is a card that shows one of the negative expressions of Gevurah in the lack of structure. But because today is Chesed of Gevurah we can see the figure holding out his staff as acting out of Chesed.

This is an example of the corrective and guiding nature of Gevurah as spoken of in Psalm 23. In fact, today, this verse feels like the mantra I need today:

גַם כִּי-אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת לֹא-אִירָא רָע כִּי-אַתָּה עִמָדִי, שִׁבְטְךָ וּמִשְׁעַנְתֶּךָ הֵמָה יְנַחֲמֻנִי

“Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

Seeing the man on the left in the Five of Wands I know I must call on my inner Moses to rally all my complaining inner Israelites, straining against the discipline of the journey. Indeed, metaphorically speaking, we’re on the trek through the desert. Imagine that long line of ancient Israelites—men, women, children, and the “mixed multitude” of people who went with them. Plus, animals, tents, and belongings. Without the discipline of Gevurah holding everyone together, people would have wandered off in all directions.  

I need to remember this, because today I am experiencing the structuring quality of Gevurah as stricture.

One question I have to look at today is how I can reconnect with the love that is the principle that give order, the benevolence that underlies the boundaries I must observe. Certainly, this practice is one way to reconnect and heal my relationship to Gevurah in my life.

And I will look for specific disciplines I can add to my day as an expression of self-love, love for others and for the Divine—disciplines I know that I will chafe at sometimes, but that I can remember the underlying motivation for.

What are your questions for today?