The power of story.

[Lou Gold]

This is a repost from the music thread. I'd love to read your personal take on the power of story in your own life. Are there stories of special importance or significance to you?

Here's an archetypal legend that I truly love about what is named as the "Child Jesus of Prague." This story plays a large role in my life.

At one time Santa Teresa de Avila sent an ornate small statue of the Child Jesus to a rich patron of the Catholic Church in Prague. It was given to the church and installed in its own altar. It exhibited some healing powers and gained a following. Later, during one of the religious wars associated with the Reformation, the church was badly damaged, the altar was destroyed and the statue vanished. A priest who loved the image dug through the rubble for weeks and finally found the image, which had lost its right hand, the hand of agency and blessing, the hand of spiritual power. The priest was sad because he couldn't fix it. He thought of hiding it. Then a voice "of God" said, "No don't hide it. Place it in full view at the front of the church and pray to the Holy Mother for help", which he did. The next day a passing craftsman saw and took it, returning in a few days with it fully repaired. He and the priest then built a new altar and installed the image which soon exhibited many times more healing power and today is still venerated as a major iconic miracle-producing image.

The archetypal lesson is that societal childhood trauma must be revealed so it can be healed, become creative and release even more power. In an emerging modern psychological/medical model, this would be called by someone like Gabor Maté, The Wisdom of Trauma.

It's also related to the Magical Child meme, drawing on the work of Piaget and popularized by Joseph Chilton Pearce.

In an aesthetic rather than analytic fashion the Brazilian painter Petrônio Bax portrays Menino Jesus de Praga as embedded in the deep sea, which is an archetype for the unconscious, the amniotic fluid of the Mother, and a deep dive into the psyche.

[Lou Gold]

The American photographer Jerry Uelsmann has a visionary photomontage of the child within...



One of the limitations of analytic idealism in my limited view is, although offering an excellent critique of physicalism, it does not offer a compelling story of meaning and purpose in the here-and-now. Of course, it makes it analytically allowable for a liberation or salvation into a 'beyond' offered by major religions. The challenge, it seems is to me, is to link this with the here-and-now in a practical and appealing way. Perhaps the Uelsmann image presents the story of cracking open the hard rock of physicalism in order to heal the separation of above-and-below allowing a healing rebirth in the now.

[Shaibei]

This is a repost from the music thread. I'd love to read your personal take on the power of story in your own life. Are there stories of special importance or significance to you?

Yes, Chasidic masters tend to use stories which echo Kabbalistic metaphors, that bypass the conscious mind to penetrate the will. Some of these stories resonates with me throughout my life, but if i need to pick a story i would pick this real one:

http://www.nishmas.org/stories/the%20ho ... chback.TXT

[Lou Gold]

This is a repost from the music thread. I'd love to read your personal take on the power of story in your own life. Are there stories of special importance or significance to you?

Yes, Chasidic masters tend to use stories which echo Kabbalistic metaphors, that bypass the conscious mind to penetrate the will. Some of these stories resonates with me throughout my life, but if i need to pick a story i would pick this real one:

http://www.nishmas.org/stories/the%20ho ... chback.TXT

Dear Shaibei,

Thanks for this classic story of how to go about repairing our broken world. Tikkun olam!

One of the things that I see and like in the Uelsmann image above is that the "rock in our hands" may be seen as a hard uncaring mental shell also known as "metaphysical materialism," which obfuscates and blocks our ability to see opportunities for remembering, restoring, renewing, repairing, replanting, rebirthing and more. Or, in the words of Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."



Leonard Cohen seems to me as a classic example of a JewBu or Jewish Buddhist. This theme may also offer a bridge between the non-dualist (above) and dualist (below) in dynamic ever-evolving process.

[Shaibei]

Dear Shaibei,

Thanks for this classic story of how to go about repairing our broken world. Tikkun olam!

One of the things that I see and like in the Uelsmann image above is that the "rock in our hands" may be seen as a hard uncaring mental shell also known as "metaphysical materialism," which obfuscates and blocks our ability to see opportunities for remembering, restoring, renewing, repairing, replanting, rebirthing and more. Or, in the words of Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

Thanks for the deep words. The 'crack' is what opens the eyes to that which is is beyond perception, even spiritual perception. This is the point of faith through which man comes to transcend himself. All life is a teaching of this matter.

[Shaibei]

Leonard Cohen seems to me as a classic example of a JewBu or Jewish Buddhist. This theme may also offer a bridge between the non-dualist (above) and dualist (below) in dynamic ever-evolving process.

Yes, his character seems to be something like a JewBu, something like the saying "There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart". Sure, parallels can be found between Kabbalah/Hasidism and Buddhism/Hinduism.

[Lou Gold]

The visual theme of wisdom or healing power revealed through trauma, vulnerability or "breaking open" is also common in the wounded and pierced Sacred Heart imagery of Christianity.

[Shaibei]

The visual theme of wisdom or healing power revealed through trauma, vulnerability or "breaking open" is also common in the wounded and pierced Sacred Heart imagery of Christianity.

I'm sure. There is an interesting discussion between Jung and his disciple Neumann about the "feminine aspect" of God.
The places in the Bible where the image of God is a comforting woman or the image of wisdom in Proverbs as a woman, are interpreted in Kabbalah as the symbol of this aspect. Symbols and words can only point to these realities and not beyond. That is why Jewish sculptures and paintings are a novelty of the twentieth century, and I would argue that the highest art in Judaism is music, not painting or sculpture. Although, a modern Kabbalist once said that there are in Rembrandt's paintings the light of the seven days of Genesis.

[Lou Gold]

The visual theme of wisdom or healing power revealed through trauma, vulnerability or "breaking open" is also common in the wounded and pierced Sacred Heart imagery of Christianity.

I'm sure. There is an interesting discussion between Jung and his disciple Neumann about the "feminine aspect" of God.
The places in the Bible where the image of God is a comforting woman or the image of wisdom in Proverbs as a woman, are interpreted in Kabbalah as the symbol of this aspect. Symbols and words can only point to these realities and not beyond. That is why Jewish sculptures and paintings are a novelty of the twentieth century, and I would argue that the highest art in Judaism is music, not painting or sculpture. Although, a modern Kabbalist once said that there are in Rembrandt's paintings the light of the seven days of Genesis.

I thought that the relative absence of Jewish visual imagery was an effort to avoid the idolatry of objectification. No? But, yes, music as a stimulant of the senses is a powerful alternative, which is difficult to objectify. It gives us feelings.

Regarding the "feminine aspect" I love Proverbs 8:22-31 where Wisdom tells her story. I only know the standard English rendering. Several lines really stand out for me:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
...

then I was beside him, like a master workman;
and I was his daily delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the sons of men.


Do you know any special Kabbalist interpretations of these lines?

[Shaibei]

I thought that the relative absence of Jewish visual imagery was an effort to avoid the idolatry of objectification. No? But, yes, music as a stimulant of the senses is a powerful alternative, which is difficult to objectify. It gives us feelings.

This is true. My knowledge of art is quite minimal but I guess before the twentieth century few are the works, if any, that try to resonate anything through art like the image above . So if we're talking about portraits of historical figures or their sculptures, these images can become a concrete idol with no transcendent reality to point to, then indeed, from Judaism's perspective a person can only be a tool that expresses the divine truth and aids its fulfillment, not the divine essence itself. (That's why IMO Kabbala is not idealism even though it has idealistic aspects resembling various idealistic perceptions . I'm referring to the different versions of idealism known to us)

Regarding the "feminine aspect" I love Proverbs 8:22-31 where Wisdom tells her story. I only know the standard English rendering. Several lines really stand out for me:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
...

then I was beside him, like a master workman;
and I was his daily delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the sons of men.


Do you know any special Kabbalist interpretations of these lines?

I mentioned Neumann. Several Israeli scholars have pointed out various connections between articles he has written and Hasidic literature to which he was exposed.
In his article "The Place of Creation", Neumann writes about the work of art as an act of unity. He uses the Kabbalistic unity between 'Kether' (First aspect of God) and 'Shechinah' (last one), as well as the marriage of Krishna and Radha (as symbols!) reflecting this unity.
This unity, as one of the last Kabbalists puts it, is the unity between divine perfection and the "ever-evolving process," to use your words, and it is the "delight of God", when the worldly will is redeemed from his blindness, "rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men".