Boulder Jewish News Arts, Culture, Events, Lifestyles, Holidays, Synagogues, Education
Samuel Ben-Or Avital, author of “The Invisible Stairway: Kabalistic Meditations on the Hebrew Letters,” will be holding a seminar on authentic Kabbalah, starting October 22 in Boulder, CO. The seminar, entitled Gathering the Sparks: Authentic Kabbalah and Practical Wisdom, will run October 22, 29, November 5, 12, 19 and December 3, six Fridays from 10 am to 12 noon. This series will focus on the Hebrew letter Ayin.
In the seminars, Avital presents a wide range of Kabbalistic knowledge. He explains that his purpose is to present tools for students to explore and understand the Kabbalah for themselves. He views Kabbalah as tradition that is “personal, practical, and universal,” and is available to all who have “a sincere heart desire to learn.”
Avital explains that the Hebrew letters in particular are one of the most basic keys to properly explore the Kabbalah’s “mysteries.” In his seminars, Avital delves into the spiritual meanings and discoveries contained in each letter, what each letter stores within her story. He describes the letters as the “blueprint from which the stuff of creation is created, formed and made,” explaining that “Each verb has built in its essence a nucleus and a root to plant and build oneself within “the world.” Each letter contains and symbolizes a spiritual power or energy.”
Avital grew up with a family background steeped in Kabbalah. He was born in Sefrou, near Fez in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, from a family which traces its roots to 15th Century Spain and before, as he explains it, “carrying from father to son in an unbroken line the ancient, beautiful and practical wisdom of the Hebrew Science of the Kabbalah.”
Samuel later became an accomplished performer of and teacher of mime and physical theater. He developed the BodySpeak™ method, a system of body work that address the whole human organism within and without, uniting thought and action, and integrating all aspects of a human being into one perfectly functioning and balanced whole.
Samuel studied extensively in Paris, France with Marcel Marceau and Etienne Decroux. He is the founder and director of Le Centre Du Silence mime school in Boulder, CO. Next year the school will celebrate its 40th anniversary (1971-2011). Notably, the school has sustained for 40 years without support or grants from any institution in the world.
As a mime, Avital teaches his students to “make the invisible visible” and the “abstract concrete” and to “communicate obvious universal truths without using of words.” Avital is also the author of five books, including “The Invisible Stairway: Kabbalistic Meditations on the Hebrew letters.”
Avital shared some of the meanings of the letter Ayin, which will be covered in the upcoming workshop: “The Letter AYIN ( ע ) = 70 symbolize Sight, Light and what to see, observe, and sense. AYIN will assists us HOW and WHY to SEE the world from inside out and from outside in. And how it can indicate to us in a concrete way, what to do, how to be, the meaning of being, and when and how that BRIGHT SIGHT is activated by the purity of one’s own thought.
Our sages in Mechilta, Shemot 19, 9. observed that: “HEARING is not COMPARABE to SEEING.”The verb of AYIN – עין – suggests a fountain “MA’YAN מ ע י ן flowing and emanating watery light and lighted water from the “Garden of EDEN-BEING.”
Also the word EEYOUN – ע י ו ן which means observation, deep seeing and learning, contemplation, teaches us how to use this EYE technique (the EYE Compass exercise) in order to clarify and clear our brains from early toxic thoughts (memes or klipot) that have clogged our brain cells, and how to reverse the broken state to the restored state of being.
At the workshop, we will explore the hidden code, insight, that this Hebrew letter reveals, and learn to see ourselves and the world from another the “AYIN perspective” that could, in turn, guide us to advance toward changing the “broken” way of thinking now to a “restored” way of thinking, and thus balance our lives on all levels and activate the inner guidance that inspires us to help the other and to restore oneself.”
For more information on the Gathering of the Sparks Seminar, or to register, please visit:
