[Avodah] Sefirot Ha`omer

[Lisa Liel via Avodah]

Lama li kra?  It seems pretty clear on the face of it.  Hesed 
she'b'Gevura means that you're doing Hesed by means of Gevura.  Your 
intended result is Hesed.  The way you're achieving that Hesed is by an 
act of Gevura.  So let's take R' Aryeh Kaplan's understanding of the two 
Middot, where Hesed means going above and beyond what is required, and 
Gevura is restraining yourself, and here are a couple of examples.

You're at the grocery store, and there's one box of Wacky Macs left on 
the shelf.  You see a mother with a bunch of her kids coming down the 
aisle, and the kids are beginning for Wacky Macs.  So you don't take 
it.  You're limiting yourself in order to do something nice (but not 
required) for the mother.  That's Hesed she'b'Gevura.

You're at the grocery store, and you've taken the last box of Wacky 
Macs.  You know you shouldn't eat it, because it's all starch and fat, 
but you can't help it.  You're standing at the checkout line, and 
there's a mother behind you whose kids are giving her a hard time 
because they wanted Wacky Macs, but the store is out.  So you decide 
that this will help you keep your diet, and you offer the mother the box 
of Wacky Macs.  You're doing something nice (but not required) for the 
mother in order to limit yourself.  That's Gevura she'b'Hesed.

It's a thin line, sometimes.  Figuring out what the actual action (or 
inaction) is and what the purpose is.  Means and ends.

As far as Tiferet, while you can see it as a synthesis of Hesed and 
Gevura, which is nice if you like the thesis-antithesis-synthesis 
paradigm, it's really the point of balance between them.  Where you 
aren't refraining and you aren't overdoing.  Another term for Tiferet is 
Tzedek.  Meaning doing what you're supposed to do, or what you're 
allowed to do: no more and no less.

I think that one of the reasons there aren't books that cite primary 
sources about this is simply because there aren't any.  There are 
primary sources about what the meaning of each of the Sefirot mean, but 
the combination should be fairly clear.

That said, I know it isn't.  When I was a camper as a kid, we had 
discussion groups about whether we were "Jewish Americans" or "American 
Jews".  I was 12 the first time we did it, and it was a mess.  The next 
time, I think I was 14 or 15, and I already realized what the problem 
was, although the counselor leading the discussion didn't.  It's a 
matter of definitions.  If you look at it in terms of language, one of 
those words is the noun, and the other is the adjective.  The noun is 
what you *are*.  The adjective just modifies it.  So "American Jew" is 
putting being Jewish first, and "Jewish American" is putting being 
American first.  But a lot of the other kids (and the counselor) were 
looking at it from the point of view of which *word* came first in the 
phrase.

And theoretically, I suppose, you could interpret X she'b'Y in the 
opposite way from what I've described above, but I'm not sure there's a 
real nafka mina, because we cover all the combinations. It just seems to 
me that the first week, we deal with the concept of *doing* Hesed, with 
all 7 possible intents, since these 7 Sefirot are fundamentally Sefirot 
of action (and interaction), as opposed to the first three, which are 
Sefirot of mind.  But can you say that the first week, we talk about the 
concept of *intending* Hesed, with all 7 possible methods?  I suppose.  
It's not the way I look at it, but absent primary sources to determine 
which way is right, I suppose it's possible.

Shabbat Shalom and Moadim L'Simcha,
Lisa

On 4/13/2017 11:24 PM, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote:
> Every year I would like to get deeper into the combinations of sefirot 
> (or middot) that appear in siddurim with the counting of the Omer, and 
> every year I get lost and confused. For example, what is the 
> difference between hesed shebigevura and gevura shebehesed? If tiferet 
> is a synthesis of hesed and gevura, how does it differ from either of 
> the above? And so on and so on.
>
> There seem to be a thousand books and websites that explain the 
> sefirot and their combinations in modern terms, but I haven't found 
> any that quote or even cite primary sources. Where might one look for 
> such sources?
>
> Mo`adim lesimha!
>


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