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The
Arts and Sciences
Kabbalah and Psychology |
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Four
Dimensions of Faith
Part 2 Health, Faith And Creativity The root of the Hebrew word for health – "b’riut" - is b’ro, meaning "to create". Health is best achieved through creative endeavor. The product of that endeavor expresses the quality of faith that underlies it. Creation, the "handiwork of an artist" of the Holy One, demonstrates faith in the interdependence and root compatibility of the physical and spiritual realms: 'In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth' - thereby expressing His faith in the harmony that can be achieved between the soul (the "heavens") and the body (the "earth"). The Ramban, in his commentary on the Torah, interprets the term bara as specifically expressive of creation ex-nihilo, the generation of created being out of total nothingness - thus denying the doctrine of eternal matter. Kabbalistic sources, while accepting the principle of creation-ex-nihilo, challenge its identification with the verb baro by suggesting that the act of creation depicted in the first verse of the Torah describes what is in actuality the second stage of Creation: the introduction of the realm of rectification. According to the Kabbalah, Creation necessitated the articulation of two distinct and antithetical realms. The first, which was truly created ex-nihilo is referred to as the - the un-rectified 'realm of chaos'. Synonymous with the universal "formlessness and void" described in the second verse of the Torah, the realm of chaos was intended as a prelude to the elaboration of an additional realm - the 'realm of rectification' - which is responsible for the meaningfulness and order which we discern throughout the universe. At the moment that the realm of rectification was introduced into Creation, the universe was far from being a "blank slate". If anything, it was a slate which had been written upon illegibly and which was awaiting the hand which would inscribe upon it a more meaningful formulation. The collateral realm of rectification emerged for that purpose: in order to impose order upon the amorphous and chaotic reality which preceded it. Consequently, the term bara used at the beginning of the Torah to describe the appearance of the realm of rectification cannot be said to deal, as the Ramban suggests, in ex-nihilo realities alone. The identification of b’riah with recification results in Creation taking on the character of a therapeutic intervention. As a mechanism aimed at restoring order to a prior realm of chaos and fragmentation, b’riah explicitly serves as a vehicle for rehabilitating and advancing the b’riut, health, of the universe. Somewhere beyond even the primordial realm of chaos which emerged ex-nihilo, there exists an immutable yet hidden design for the universe which dictated that chaos precede rectification in the unfolding of the cosmos. Harbored in this design is the consummate image of Creation which, from the very inception of being and for all time thereafter, serves as the model toward which the realm of rectification aspires. This design, the Divine creative Will, can only be affirmed through one's faith. By cultivating faith, the deep unconscious root of one's soul can access this uncorrupted core of Divine Wisdom and draw from it the inspiration needed to overcome the chaos and despair which oftentime pervade one's inner world.
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Improve
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Part 2: 
