[Background: According to Kabbalistic tradition, each of the 7 weeks of the Omer corresponds to a different one of the 7 lower sefirot, qualities or aspects of God, and provides an opportunity for us to focus and work on that quality. Last week’s sefirah quality was hesed, loving kindness, and this week’s sefirah quality is gevurah, strength, power or courage. In this essay, we will consider some aspects of gevurah.]
After Pesach, after the initial quick leaving of Egypt in the exodus, the Israelites enter a longer process of transformation – of leaving an old enslaved self and stepping into a new freer self. This is terrifying work. Before them is an unknown and unfamiliar desert with an uncertain future. They are not sure where they are going or who they really are and they are still not fully trusting of God or of themselves.
The first week of the Omer, last week, the first week after we step out of Egypt, out of what is familiar, out of the old, perhaps out of the tight but comfortable womb we were used to, that first week – we receive hesed – loving kindness – overflowing love to hold us as we emerge, like a baby born into the world, embraced and carried and held.
In the second week, though, which is what we are in right now, we begin to grow another capacity – gevurah – strength, power, might, courage, the fledgling ability, like a toddler, to begin to step out on our own, to feel our own strength.
Gevurah actually has two sides – there is the side of power, might, and strength and there is also the side of restraint, holding back and limitation. Ezehu gibor, hakovesh et yitzro, Pirke Avot says – who is a gibbor, a person of gevurah, of power, one who exercises self control, restraint, the ability to hold back. When God created the world, God did it through gevurah, through restraint –through tzimtzum – by making Godself small, contracting and restricting the self to make room for creation – for us – to emerge.
This restraint aspect of God’s gevurah in the world is what makes space for us to learn to walk on our own, for us to gain our own power, our own gevurah. God’s gevurah as restraint allows for our gevurah as empowerment. We become strong because God makes room for us to come into our own power.
In this way, divine restraint is actually an expression of deep love, of wanting to make room for us and to empower us, of wanting us to come fully into our own. It is an expression of God’s abiding faith in our capacities to be ourselves in all our power. Rabbah Emunatekha, we say each morning – great is Your faith, God, great is Your faith in us. God has perfect faith in us, in our ability to become who we are supposed to be, to step forward into an uncertain future with courage and strength, to take on our own power. Let in that faith. Let yourself soak it in and feel it in all your bones and in your heart. God believes in you. God’s gevurah, God’s restraint, is an expression of God’s belief in your gevurah, in your power.
There may be fearful parts that don’t want you to step forward into yourself, by yourself, that want to rely on someone, on God, on a person, anyone, other than just you. That’s ok. See those parts clearly and notice their fear, their doubt, their mistrust of you to handle the situation, their desire for external support. See them and hold them in their shakiness. Let them feel the strength that courses through you that is not just yours but does come from God. Let them feel your gevurah, your courage, and be held in that courage, your own courage that is a part of the gevurah, of the courage of God and the universe. You are holding them in something larger that is not just you, but it is also you; it is funneled through you in particular. You have that capacity. Let the shaky doubting parts sense your true capacity.
Gevurah as restraint does not mean that God has abandoned you. Even in restraint, there is divine presence. It is the presence of a parent who stands behind the door or peeks from behind the curtain to watch while her child disappears from view or the coach who stands on the sidelines of a game and encourages and gives guidance. There is support in God’s gevurah; it is restrained, but it is steady and strong and sure; you can count on it always being there, on the sidelines, rooting for you, believing in you, picking you up when you fall down. The restraint comes from a place not of abandonment, but of belief in you and your ability to be empowered, to stand on your own two feet, with support, of course, but on your own two feet.
Just as God empowers us through restraint, we can embody the divine aspect of gevurah as restraint to empower others. There are people in our lives – children, students, mentees, clients – who need us to step back, to restrict ourselves a little bit in order to make room for them to come more fully into themselves. We can do this out of love, out of a desire to empower them, sending out the message that we believe in them, that we believe in their capacity to be themselves, to step into their full potential and power. We are practicing gevurah as restraint, and we are helping them to own more gevurah as power, stepping out of the way, as God does, to make room for them to come forward and shine.
May we continue, with God’s support, to grow into our own gevurah, both as restraint and as power.
Photo by Gustavo Fring at Pexels
