Today is three days of the Omer. Tiferet of Chesed: The Six and Four of Wands

Tiferet is the Sephira at the center of the Tree of Life, and it holds and balances the tension between the endless flow of love from Chesed and the boundary setting restraint of Gevurah. To open ourselves to Tiferet means being willing to open to the negative expression of Gevurah that lives within us—the harsh judgment and criticism, the desire for a strict adherence to law. Because Tiferet balances Chesed and Gevurah, this judgment and strictness is balanced by the love and mercy of Chesed. And since today is Tiferet of Chesed, the that balance is weighted towards love and mercy.

Still, for this love and mercy to be authentic—to be true, since one of the qualities and names for Tiferet is Truth, I want to emphasize that we have to be willing to be open to the painful negative Gevurah that lives within our hearts.

This mix of emotions is one reason that Tiferet corresponds on the human body to the heart. So that doing this work is like doing “open-hearted” surgery on ourselves.

Because this evening is the eve of the holiest day on the Christian calendar, Easter, I want to point out another correspondence of Tiferet. In Christian Cabala, Tiferet is the sacred heart of Jesus—because for Tiferet to hold the boundless love of Chesed for all creation, it also has to hold the pain of sacrifice, the severity of Gevurah.

So what does any of this have to do with the Six and Four of Wands? Let’s start with the hidden Christian symbolism in the Six of Wands. But first, what, you may ask, am I doing writing about Christianity and Easter in a very traditionally Jewish Kabbalistic practice. For one thing, I’m sure you realize, using tarot to count the Omer is hardly traditional. But I believe there is beauty and truth (by the way, besides truth, another key word for Tiferet is beauty) in every wisdom tradition. And when it connects to the heart of this practice, I’m more than willing to bring it in.

So, in the Six of Wands, the rider on the horse is wearing a wreath. But so is the top of the staff he carries. Then notice that the staff the rider is carrying is the only staff that crosses another staff, so the wreath on top of his staff is a crown on top of a cross—a reference to the Crucifixion. The willingness to bear the pain of the world to feel the love of the world. As the old song goes, “you can’t have one without the other.”

The other day when I wrote about the ritual of breaking the matzoh during the Passover, I noted that Rabbi Eliyahu deVidash, a 16th century kabbalist has to say on the of brokenness in his work Gates of Holiness:

“The Zohar teaches that the human heart is the Ark. And it is known that in the Ark were stored both the Tablets and the Broken Tablets. Similarly, a person’s heart must be full of Torah, and similarly, a person’s heart must be a broken heart, a beaten heart, so that it can serve as a home for the Shekhina [one of the guises of the Divine Feminine in Judaism]. For the Shekhina only dwells in broken vessels….”

It is only when we can hold our broken heart and offer it up, it is only when we can accept our own pain and emotional vulnerability that we can feel the deeper well of love that underlies it all, that boundless love that flows from Chesed.

Today I am certainly feeling my broken, hurting heart. So many people I know are critically ill with COVID-19. Their family can’t call them or see them. People are dying alone and are being sent for burial without even the ritual goodbye of a funeral.

I spoke with a friend of mine who works on the front lines in a hospital. He comes home every night and cries for all the pain he has witnessed. But the next morning he gets up and goes back to work trying to save people as best he can, even at the risk contracting the virus and of sacrificing his own life. This is the image of the hero on top of the horse to me. This is the tension of love and pain held in Tiferet.

And it leads me to consider the ways in which I am willing or unwilling to sacrifice myself for a greater cause. I have to examine if there is any way that I use my empathy in a defensive way—appearing to be compassionate while holding myself above those in need of help. And am I willing—or even able—to hold my own suffering with compassion?

These are some of the questions that come up for me in today’s Omer count. What are the questions and issues that arise for you?