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July 4th, 2022 and the Spark of the Soul in Medieval Jewish Mysticism
July 03, 2022
This year’s 4th of July Celebration feels more like Hong Kong’s 50th anniversary remembrance this weekend than it does like previous fourth of July celebrations over the years. And
for essentially the same reason.
In China it is the communist party’s lust for power and in America it is 50 years of the Koch brothers' lust for power along with that of the fanatical wings of Evangelical and Roman Catholic ideology with Opus Dei at the helm. Such lust for power from the Supreme Court has thrust upon our nation an egregious theocratic agenda that tells all women (regardless of faith tradition)
what they can and cannot do with their bodies, blurs the lines between church and state, and disempowers the EPA, thus spreading climate change and endangering every being on our planet.
The Koch brothers, who have made their billions on fossil fuels and spent heavily on killing environmental legislation by establishing their own version of jurisprudence for fifty years are now at the top of their game with this Supreme Court that they, along with Opus Dei, fashioned.
July 4th is often celebrated with “sparklers” as well as sky-filled fireworks. Many cities are cutting back on their celebrations because fireworks are in short supply due to China’s shutdown, etc. and many Americans are not in the mood for celebrating this particular July fourth thanks to the unprecedented threats from the once
“supreme” court of the land.
It may be a time this season therefore for pausing to look inwards a bit for what Eckhart and other mystics call the “spark of the soul,” that fire of God inside us all, a fire that establishes our center as an image of God but also ignites our moral outrage in the face of injustice. [See DMs for June 9th, 10th, 11th]
Eckhart invokes the expression “spark of the soul” on many occasions. It is central to the medieval Jewish tradition as well and is found in the Kabbalah and the Zohar. The word zohar actually means “radiance, splendor, brilliance” and designates “the hidden power of emanation,” according to Jewish mystical
scholar Daniel Matt.
Matt says, “The spark of emanation flashes again and Keter, the aura, transmits the impulse to Hokhmah, the point of Wisdom.” Does the spark of the soul awareness lead us to Wisdom and therefore to the divine feminine?
The sparks touch and even ignite Wisdom herself who accompanies creation, and so the sparks play a role in the unfolding of creation—might we even recognize them in the “original fireball”? Sparks play a role in the creation of all things, including the elements of the universe–fire, air, water, and earth, “from which evolved the states of
mineral, vegetable, animal, and human,” Matt writes. The sparks precede the cosmic forces and feed them.
To be continued.
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Queries for Contemplation
Do you sense that now is a time for a deepening and an igniting of the “spark of the soul” experience in people of all religious faith? And the ushering in of Wisdom that accompanies
it? An increase of the “image of God” awareness in us all that stands up to the idolatry of money and power?
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times, pp. 193f.
While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann,
Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward
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