Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:

Every year my family has the same meal for Passover, and uses the
same Haggadah. We agreed we’d like to up the ante on our spirituality
this year. Do you have any suggestions for something we can do,
preferably together, to go deeper into the meaning of the season?

Searching

 
Dear Searching:

Every year in spring mystical Jews do a practice called The Counting of
the Omer, which if you Google will net you a variety of prompts for
daily meditations. The process lasts the seven weeks between
Passover and Shavuous, and is said to prepare us for receiving the
divine word at Sinai. The holidays are the book ends of 49 days of
daily heart searching based on the kabbalistic Tree of Life. You can
Google that too or go to my other website, kabbalahglass.com/about/.
The spheres on the Tree of Life are said to be aspects of divinity and
self. The structure is a set of stacked triangles that operate in triads: a
characteristic, it’s opposite, and a balance point. The top three (or four
depending on your mystical lineage) are pretty much out of our range.
But the bottom seven make a handy paradigm for looking at
everything from the order of the cosmos to a problem you’re wrestling
with. I’m condensing two thousand years of mysticism here, so bear
with me.

 
The first triangle is about unconditional love, discernment, and
compassion. In relationship terms, I love you madly forever take
whatever you want, Eeek you have no boundaries I need time and
space for me, and Let’s work on something that’s good for us both.
The official names for these are chesed, gevurah, and tipheret. The
second triangle is about your life force, what energizes you, how and
where do you aim it, what’s possible? In creative terms, It’s your mad
idea of a project Eureka!, your proofread final last draft/completed
exams/signed documents/etc., and the possibilities that come from
becoming an author/doctor/CPA/homeowner/whatever you’ve been
wanting to manifest. They’re called netzach, hod, and yesod. The last
is malkuth, the kingdom of here and now.

 
Week 1, which starts sundown on April 15, is a whole week meditating
on chesed. How you love. How you’re giving, open, and loving. The
next six week after are committed to each of the next traits. The
fullest version of the process looks at each aspect of each trait, which
is why it’s easiest to find a site to send you prompts for daily
meditations. You can do them individually in a journal and discuss as a
family each night at dinner. Once you understand the paradigm you
can apply it to many life issues.