Above and Below Perfectly Balanced
by reaperofthefield
“Come and see: the world above and the world below are perfectly balanced” (Zohar 2:176b).
“All those firmaments, one upon the other, are like skins of an onion. Some below and some above” (Zohar 3:10a).
“As rungs diverge, you discover a pistachio cluster, until they link to their suitable sides” (Zohar 1:177b).
“There is a visionary mirror [Shekhinah] reflecting supernal colors [the upper sefirot], envisioned in that visionary mirror; there is vision within vision, and vision within vision, one above the other, all poised on specific rungs, presiding, called night vision. Through them spread all dreams of the world, these resembling those above” (Zohar 1:196a).
“Who am I? I am a mustard seed in the middle of the sphere of the moon, which itself is a mustard seed within the next sphere. So it is with that sphere and all it contains in relation to the next sphere. So it is with all the spheres – one inside the other – and all of them are a mustard seed within further expanses. And all of these are a mustard seed within further expanses. Your awe is invigorated, the love in your soul expands” (Moses Cordovero, Or Ne’erav 18b-19a, quoted in Daniel Matt, The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism, p.22).
“There is nothing – not even the tiniest thing ['from the horns of buffaloes to the eggs of lice' (BT Shabbat 107b)] - that is not fastened to the links of this chain [of being]” (Moses de Leon, Sefer ha-Rimmon, quoted in Daniel Matt, The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism, p.26).
“The rabbis taught: The creation of the world was like the creation of humanity, for everything that God created in the world, God created in man. The heavens; a head. The sun and the moon; eyes. And the stars are the hair on the head” (Otzar ha-Midrashim, Olam Katan, 406).
“And what is the way that will lead to the love of Him and the fear of Him? When a person contemplates His great and wondrous works and creatures and from them obtains a glimpse of His wisdom which is incomparable and infinite, he will straightway love Him, praise Him, glorify Him, and long with an exceeding longing to know His great Name” (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah, 2.1).
“We owe to the scientist Benoit Mandelbrot the concept of fractals: the discovery that phenomena in nature often display the same pattern at different levels of magnitude. A single rock looks like a mountain. Crystals, snowflakes and ferns are made up of elements that have the same shape as the whole. Fractal geometry is the scientific equivalent of the mystical ability to sense the great in the small: ‘To see a world in a grain of sand / And a Heaven in a wild flower, / Hold Ifinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour’ [William Blake]” (Jonathan Sacks, Koren Siddur, p.xxvi).