winter lodge/ sparks of kedusha

We are now deep into the “black lodge” of the winter month of Tevet. In native traditions this is the time to light the fires of the oral wisdom tradition and warm the heart and mind with the legends and stories. In the Torah parsha for the week we are uniting as a people deep down in the land of Mitzriyim/Egypt all seventy children of Jacob. This is the beginning of the united sacred tribal people going into the depths to bring up the sparks of kedusha/holiness and join the sacred ohr/light with the fecund darkness of the material creation. The powerful King, Judah and the righteous dreamer of prophecy, Joseph come together in this part of the story as these aspects in the individual on the path of initiation must join in order to keep to the path of the ancient temple tradition. Here with the descent into the material of Egypt we also have according to the oral teachings, the birth of Yocheved at the gates of entering Egypt, she is the mother of Moshe Rabbeinu, the redeemer of Israel from the Mitzryim. Torah is always teaching us about the movement of polarities. The exile is just beginning historically when the seeds of redemption are being planted also. In history the siege of Jerusalem by the King of Babylon is remembered on the tenth of Tevet as in the summer the 17th of tammuz remembers the siege by the Romans. The Sepher Yetzira, the primer of kabbalah, gives a Hebrew letter to every month and this month of Tevet we have the letter ayin whose value is seventy. It has been the work of the 70 souls who descended into mitzryim to raise the sparks that unite the 70 nations of the globe into the covenant of peace, the Bris Shalom, as is mentioned in the haftorah for the week. As we began Chanukah we counted 40 days from the appearance of the new comet in Peretz, the constellation of the breaker. We will make a count of 70 days during this month of Tevet as we keep the hidden lights of Chanukah, the Ohr Haganuz, the light of redemption/geulah, alive in our beings. The tribe for the month of Tevet is Dan and we see in this parsha that of all the brothers he has only one son, named Chushim. His symbol is the serpent who knows the underground paths of the Earth and so from this often maligned tribe we have only one child born, whose name contains the very same letters of moshiach-chet-shin-yod-mem; = mem-shin-yod-chet. The serpent in Hebrew, Nachash, also has the value of 358 which equals the value in gematria of the word moshiach. From these depths of the material weaving of the creation we will find the light of the geulah for a healed Earth. As above so below.