The lifebreath of man is the lamp of YHVY
Revealing all his inmost parts.
“My own suggestion is that we must go far beyond any transformation of contemporary culture. We must go back to the genetic imperative from which human cultures emerge originally and from which they can never be separated without losing their integrity and their survival capacity....Our cultural resources have lost their integrity...What is needed is not transcendence but “inscendence”...”
(Barry, T. The Dream of the Earth, 1990[1988], pp. 207-208).
Walking on the ocean floor (Bay of Fundy at low tide), 2023. Photo by Ariel Kiel.
הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם. וְאַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהוּא קָטָן מִמֶּנּוּ. שֶׁכֵּיוָן שֶׁאֵינוֹ חָס עַל כְּבוֹדוֹ וְלוֹמֵד מִן הַקְּטַנִּים, נִכָּרִים הַדְּבָרִים שֶׁחָכְמָתוֹ הוּא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם וְלֹא לְהִתְיַהֵר וּלְהִתְפָּאֵר בָּהּ:
“Holy, holy, holy!
GOD of Hosts—
Whose presence fills all the earth!”
רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן שַׁמּוּעַ אוֹמֵר, יְהִי כְבוֹד תַּלְמִידְךָ חָבִיב עָלֶיךָ כְּשֶׁלְּךָ, וּכְבוֹד חֲבֵרְךָ כְּמוֹרָא רַבְּךָ, וּמוֹרָא רַבְּךָ כְּמוֹרָא שָׁמָיִם:
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: כְּשֶׁחָלָה רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר נִכְנְסוּ תַּלְמִידָיו לְבַקְּרוֹ. אָמְרוּ לוֹ: רַבֵּינוּ לַמְּדֵנוּ אוֹרְחוֹת חַיִּים וְנִזְכֶּה בָּהֶן לְחַיֵּי הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא. אָמַר לָהֶם: הִזָּהֲרוּ בִּכְבוֹד חַבְרֵיכֶם... וּכְשֶׁאַתֶּם מִתְפַּלְּלִים — דְּעוּ לִפְנֵי מִי אַתֶּם עוֹמְדִים. וּבִשְׁבִיל כָּךְ תִּזְכּוּ לְחַיֵּי הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא.
On a similar note, the Gemara recounts related stories with different approaches. The Sages taught: When Rabbi Eliezer fell ill, his students entered to visit him. They said to him: Teach us paths of life, guidelines by which to live, and we will thereby merit the life of the World-to-Come. He said to them: Be vigilant in the honor of your counterparts... and when you pray, know before Whom you stand. For doing that, you will merit the life of the World-to-Come.
“Being careful with kavod is often understood to be common courtesy, but, R’ Eliezer reveals this is a middah which leads us to olam haba, and as such is a middah of inner quality because such are the things which bring us to olam haba: olam haba is the deepest and most all-encompassing inner world, and we only merit at arriving there, after we have achieved pnimiyut (inner reality?). What then is the pnimiyut of being careful with kavod?
As we have said at the opening to this chapter: the value people give to sanctity and pnimiyut expresses itself by the kavod (dignity and honour) people feel for them. Sanctity demands kavod. This explains why being careful to respect our friends is a way of life which leads to olam haba, since it demonstrates the person belongs to pnimiyut. Now we can understand the gravity with which Chazal treat k’vod ha’briyot (dignity for others), so much so that they decreed: Great is human dignity, as it overrides a prohibition in the Torah (B’rachot 19b)”
(R' Shlomo Wolbe, Alei Shur II, Section 2 va'ad 4. translated by Gila Caine)
"What we have lost, in particular, is the journey of soul initiation — a psycho-spiritual undertaking that connects us in the most profound way to both the Earth community and the source of our deepest humanity. This journey, if revitalized and reclaimed, can transform everything for us, individually and collectively.
This loss is our single gravest human and planetary crisis because the journey of soul initiation is the path to true Adulthood — to becoming a cultural visionary and evolutionary — and true Adulthood is essential to a genuinely healthy, mature culture. This journey will be a core element of any future society capable of growing a flourishing culture in partnership with all other species and life processes of Earth."
(Bill Plotkin, The Descent to soul, 2021)