by Gahl Sasson
"Understand with Wisdom.
Be wise with Understanding."
-Sefer Yetzirah, The Book of Formation 1:4
To Moshe and Naomi Sasson, my beautiful parents.
Many of us, especially at our age, misunderstand time and try to defy it. I happen to be living in the City of Angels, which is ironically the center of time-defiance in the world. Here people desperately try to erase their wrinkles, lie about their age as if it were their income tax, dye their hair, and come up with extremely creative gimmicks to create the illusion of youth.
Why? Who is responsible for the bad PR of time and age? Let's look at the correlation between how we perceive time and how we treat our elders and our parents. In more nature-oriented traditions, among them some of the tribes of central and southern Africa, individuals who manage to survive to reach an older age are considered to be blessed and fortunate.
They become the Elders, the wise ones, to whom everyone else can turn for counsel. The passage of time in one's life is regarded in a positive way and celebrated with special festivities; wrinkles are a privilege, silver hair a blessing! The Elders in these cultures become storytellers, and the story they tell is of their own life.
In our Western culture, we value what is fresh and new, which encourages vigor, creativity and technological advancement. But the consequence is a certain disposability in our culture, and a celebration of youth that forces youngsters into success before they know how to handle it. We actually deprive them of youth, in a way. Later we wonder why so many of our youngsters dive into drugs or suffer fatigue syndromes.
So what is the value of time, why is age so important?
Let's take a look at the kabbalistic Tree of Life, with its 10 spheres or sefirot. This Tree is a magnificent symbol of the blueprint of creation. Each sphere represents a bank of symbols and controls a certain archetypal energy. It is said that God created the cosmos using this Tree, so let us find where God concealed time on it and try to understand His intentions.
On the Tree of Life, time and age are associated with the sphere of binah, or understanding. Binah is located at the top of what is called the restrictive, or structural, side of the Tree, suggesting that time is connected to restrictions, discipline, persistence and patience. We already know that time is a difficult energy to handle. Interestingly enough, this sphere is also called Ima - Mother. It is time that allows us to see how much we have developed and grown. Because of time we can reflect upon our lives and say: "I have improved so much in the past three years." Through pressure over time, the coal becomes a diamond. Time helps us heal; there is no greater healing force in nature. Time and age also soften us; they make us wiser.
Time allows us to reflect back and understand what we have done and integrate the knowledge into our lives. Time is a dance between the soul and the body, a dance that has a rhythm (the days, seasons, year) and a melody (our memories).
Right opposite the sphere of binah is the sphere chochmah, or wisdom. This sphere is also called Abba - Father. (The word "abbot" in Latin and English comes form this Hebrew word.) Wisdom is located at the top of the "expansion" side of the Tree. Wisdom expands us, but it is useless without the discipline of understanding. So the organization of the Tree is telling us we all need a Father (wisdom) and a Mother (understanding) to be complete. We must allow time to change our body, mind and spirit in order to be wise and complete. Thus the evidence of time on our bodies is actually a sign of wisdom.
The Tree also associates each sphere with an organ of the body, allowing us to fathom a connection between body and spirit. Understanding and binah occupy the left hemisphere of our brain, while the right hemisphere is connected to wisdom, chochmah. Recent scientific studies have shown that the right hemisphere controls our sense of self and identity. This has been common knowledge in Kabbalah for millennia. Our identity is provided by our Father (Wisdom); biologically our gender is determined by our father, and also we assume our father's last name, and that last name gives us our identity. Father is the code name of wisdom, and wisdom is represented in the sphere of the right hemisphere, the sphere of identity. (It is always beautiful to see how science and mysticism walk hand in hand)
The Crown of the Tree of Life, its topmost sphere and associated with the will of God, is located just between and above wisdom and understanding, connecting the two. In our brain, the Crown is called the corpus callosum, and it is the structure that makes a path between the right and left sides of the brain. People who balance their right hemisphere (spiritual, imaginative and spatial information) and left hemisphere (words, language) in their daily lives have a better chance of understanding and being wise about the will of God. These individuals do not have to work so hard to attain their goals; they simply follow God's will and make it their own.
But any of us can put wisdom and understanding together. We need only work on the relationship between our "father" (wisdom) and our "mother" (understanding). That is why the Sefer Yetzirah tells us to be wise with understanding and to understand wisdom. Of course, this takes... time!
An example of how this works is in the experience of abused children. As children, they are terrified by their abuser's power and their own dependency. But in time, the abuser grows old and weak, while the frightened victim grows into a powerful adult. Now healing is possible. Age and time strip the abuser of his powers and give them to the victim. With time, love and mercy can transform anger into forgiveness, hate into understanding, pain into wisdom. So next time you detect another wrinkle or notice another silver hair, look at it as a sign that you are getting one step closer to attaining Wisdom and Understanding. And whatever your age is, know this: There is always someone older than you are out there, more wrinkled than you will ever be, and that is God.
Gahl Sasson is a certified astrologer, professional musician and writer. He teaches classes in astrology, Kabbalah, and mythology, and holds private consultations using Hebrew names and astrology. His last article in OLAM was "Surfing OLAM - A Mystical Journey into Four Hebrew Letters."
