Beginning The Bahir Study

So I have begun studying a new book of Kabbalistic wisdom calling The Bahir. (Yes, I'm still studying the Sefer Yetzirah and The Zohar too -- I swear, I might as well just learn Hebrew!) I've joined in a group study at the Exclusively Kabbalah Yahoo! Group to tackle the project with a good handful of very diverse people in religion, belief, career, etc. and so far it's been fascinating. The scripture is really moving too, so from time to time I'll be posting my own interpretations here as well as others possibly.

For instance, The Bahir begins with the following:

1. Rabbi Nehuniah ben HaKana said: One verse (Job 37:21) states, "And now they do not see light, it is brilliant (Bahir) in the skies…[round about God in terrible majesty]." Another verse, however, (Psalm 18:12), states, "He made darkness His hiding place." It is also written (Psalm 97:2), "Cloud and gloom surround Him." This is an apparent contradiction. A third verse comes and reconciles the two. It is written (Psalm 139:12), "Even darkness is not dark to You. Night shines like day -- light and darkness are the same."

I found it so fitting we started this on the Equinox, during the time of Malkuth's balance between night and day, light and dark, good and evil. One of the guy's in the group explained that when all is balanced, there is no good and evil, light and dark; all things become simply "correct."

"He made darkness his hiding place. ... Cloud and gloom surround him."

"Hiding place" is what jumps off the pages at me here. To me, it's about that which we perceive to be "darkness, cloud and gloom" actually being our greatest connection to the "light" of His Brilliance. It's hard for us mortals to remember when we've fallen into the black cloud that it has its silver. We forget that He resides in the darkest moments of that journey, in that fall. Perhaps there is no falling from grace, only falling into grace. We can run from darkness all we'd like, but when you run from something, it doesn't ever go away, does it? Turn around or return to that same spot and it's still right where you left it. So maybe the strongest way to connect to the light is through facing that darkness.


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