A Kabbalistic Approach to Personal Health and World Rectification

By: Ya’akov Gerlitz

World is composed of sparks

According to the teachings of the ARI Hakodosh the world is composed of sparks, called rafach. There is nothing in the world that is not made up of, or contains, these sparks. These sparks originated before the creation of our world and blew apart during its formation, falling into our world and embedding themselves and forming the created matter from which our world is made of. These sparks allow matter to exist. In fact, it is because of these sparks that matter exist. As the Kabbalists say "if there is matter there is rafach."

Our job in this world is to collect these sparks and to return them from where they came from. The point to stress here is the knowledge that all the things we do are designed to extract these sparks from creation and return them to our own bodies and the world of Tikkun (rectification. A term used to describe the world as it is in the state of being rectified). The ARI teaches that the essence of health is the bringing of sparks back home into the person. Our souls need these sparks and each soul has its particular sparks that it needs. This is the reason for many of our desires and attractions, which in reality is a desire to find and elevate these sparks.

Sparks are not uniform. The Ari called people "sparks" and neshomot were also called "sparks." Moshe Rabbeinu is a spark as is your neighbor Joe. Yet the spark of Moshe Rabbeinu is much more exalted than the spark of Joe (no matter how much of a nice guy Joe is). The same is true for inanimate objects such as books. If we compare a computer book with a holy sefer, the sparks that sustain the holy sefer are much more exalted than the sparks keeping the computer book in existence.

There are many ways in which to elevate and liberate these sparks with Torah learning being the most powerful way. Spiritual digestion, called birrur, is the spiritual analogue of physical digestion of physical nutrients. By making a bracha on kosher food and subsequently using the energy we derive from it in the service of Hashem, we elevate and liberate these sparks. All mitzvahs elevate sparks. Even walking in the street thinking good thoughts is a mitzvah and elevates the sparks all around you, including the stones of the street and the scents in the air.

Healing as gathering sparks (Disease as spark deficiency)

Birrur is the essence of healing. Birrur means separation, which in our case has the connotation of distillation and digestion. In the Amida, we say the bracha "... healer of the sick of the nation of Israel." The ARI teaches that the first letter of each word spells out the word rafach (sparks):

Rofeh = Reish
Chola =Chet
Amo +Yisrael = Ayen + Yud which have the numerical value of the letter = Pei

The healing of Israel is through the ingathering (on the personal and national level) of the refach, or sparks. The ARI taught that the middle paragraphs of the Amida are related to the ten sefirot. The paragraph that ends with the blessing "...healer of the sick of the nation of Israel" is related to the sefira of tiferet. The essence of the sefira of tiferet is that of "harmonizer" and "balancer." It is located between the sefirot of chesed (kindness) and gevurah (strength). This shows that healing is ultimately about bringing in the sparks. A sick body is craving its missing sparks. Due to a lack of sparks in the soul the body lacks vitality. When a person is sick he needs the power of the sparks to heal him. In essence illness is a cry for the appropriate sparks to achieve wholeness and harmony. By isolating which sparks are needed we can diagnose and prescribe the appropriate treatments including which diet, herbs and lifestyle modifications to take. Everything is dependent on knowing which sparks the person needs and knowing where in the physical world his sparks are located. But there is a problem with isolating sparks, because sparks are very non-specific. Sparks are very difficult to classify or systematize. The only way to differentiate them (currently) is in an experiential manner. To use the example above with the holy book and a computer book, experientially I know that the holy book is more exalted than a computer book. Healing requires a high level of specificity (imagine if a healer did not know how to make a specific diagnosis or how to specify a particular treatment). It is not impossible to create specificity with sparks, but it is very difficult. More work is needed to develop such a system. In the meantime we can teach people how to recognize experientially which sparks they need and which sparks make them feel complete and healthy. At the very least this consciousness will help a person make better decisions in his life and shed understanding on his behavior. Herbs heal because they have sparks. By knowing which sparks are in which herbs we can create herbal prescriptions. Through acupuncture we are strengthening the body's ability to digest food, transforming nutrients and ultimately liberating the refach within the food (see the Rambam on fish and meat later in this article).

Brain-birrur-body connection

When the brain is involved in birrur, either through concentrated thought or learning Torah, the physical body's process of separation becomes activated and starts the separation of the sparks from the physical/profane into the spiritual/holy. Not only will this activation be initiated in the spirit, it will also activate the body's own birrur mechanisms by starting the digestion process. It can even result in the activation of the intestines leading to the evacuation of the bowels. This happens because it is through physical digestion that refach are brought into the body, vitalizing and nourishing it. The process of thinking (spirit) initiates the process of separation in the digestion (matter). There are two types of birrur. One causes "spark ascension" to the world of tikkun, and the other causes "spark descension" deeper into the klipot (the realm opposite of holiness). If one were thinking and speaking words of Torah during a meal this would cause, in a most powerful way, the sparks to be liberated upward. But, if on the other hand, the thoughts are not of a holy, pure nature or they are done in a hurried unrelaxed manner not befitting a Torah scholar this can cause the sparks to descend into the klipot. This may be one of the reasons why thinking and studying during eating is bad for digestion. If the thought process is not of an elevating manner the birur will cause the sparks from the food to enter the klipot and will hinder digestion by initiating digestion prematurely, causing food to sink deeper into the intestines before they have the time to begin to digest in the stomach. This will lead to the production of untransformed food in the intestines and the production of phlegm and turbid matter which will not only causes physical heaviness but also mental sluggishness. Conversely, everyone knows the pleasures of a Shabbos meal replete with multiple courses and words of Torah and the satisfaction such a meal brings to a person.

In essence the body is a distiller

The whole body is one big distiller. Every thing we eat and breathe is transformed into something else for use by the body. Food is transformed into blood, blood is transformed into neural impulses, breast milk and hormones. Air is transformed into oxygen molecules. Carbon dioxide is transformed out of the body. Sweat, hormones even semen and other bodily fluids have to come from somewhere and they too, in turn, need to go somewhere. As King Solomon said, "there is nothing new under the sun," meaning that except for Hashem Himself, who creates the world "something from nothing," all other physical processes are transformations of existing matter.

Spiritual digestion

Sparks are extracted via a kind of spiritual digestion. Not all sparks are digested as easily as others. For example, the Rambam says that if you eat fish and red meat during the same meal you should eat the fish first because it is easier to digest. Not only is fish easier to physically digest than red meat, but the sparks located in fish is easier to spiritually digest than the sparks of red meat. By eating fish first the digestion is primed and "warmed up" for the extraction on the courser sparks located in the meat.

Digestion and spiritual digestion is the key to health

The body is the machine in which the soul uses to gather and distill the sparks from our world.

Nuclear reactor birrur

The nuclear way of starting this birrur process in the body is through the study of Torah. When you take a piece of Torah and learn it and intellectually digest it, making it practical in your life where it becomes relevant to you, etching it in your memory, you have made what in talmudic terms is called a kinyon (ownership). At this point you have reached the ultimate refach-extraction-body- empowering exercise you can do for yourself. This is the method of study that is espoused by the Rebbe's of Lubavitch. After learning Torah (this lends itself very well to the esoteric teachings), isolate yourself and delve into the subject just studied, think over what you have just learned, understand it in your deepest self and find new concepts and clarity. This is a very powerful technique to personalize your Torah learning and make it essential for your health.

Spark manipulation

Sparks defy identification. the Kabbalists see the whole gamut of human life, function, and birrur as the manipulation of sparks. This idea of spark manipulation is based on the world outlook that we, as Jews, are "spark liberators." Sparks are ultimately liberated through simcha. What is simcha? If you rearrange the Hebrew word for "thought" (machshova = mem, chet, shin, bet, heh) you get the word "in happiness" (b'simcha = bet, shin, mem, chet, heh). Simcha in Judaism is not just a state of mind of being present in the past, present and future, it is also being present in the world of Tikkun and being in the service of Hashem. It is being "maximally" present and ready to rectify the world and being a partner with Hashem in making the world a better place. It is not complacence or acceptance of the status quo. The Arizal was happiest while in a beit midrash, and he would leave sweating. While learning he was liberating the sparks in the study of Torah. Every doubt, every unclear thought, everything that muddled the understanding of a piece of Torah is a spark trapped in a klipot waiting, begging to be liberated. Some sparks are bigger nuts to crack than others and hence, the "battle" we engage in to understanding the Torah and to be "partners" with Hashem in bringing down the Ohr Ein Sof, the Heavenly light. Thought is what initiates the birrur process and this thought has an aspect of happiness as we have just seen. We do not need to know, or identify, the nature of sparks in order to manipulate them. Just like we cannot know Hashem (to know Him would be to be Him), but can relate to Him in a functional manner, so too can we relate to sparks in a functional manner, elevating them and bringing tikkun and light into the world.