Holy Constellations

What was Jacob's aim when he conceived his twelve sons?

He contemplated the universal Soul of all creation to bring down a part of that Soul into each of his sons.

The Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira) discusses The Creation in terms of the three fundamental aspects; Space, Time and Soul. The entire creation is for the sake of man and is structured accordingly. Man has twelve fundamental soul-functions: speech, thought, motion, sight, hearing, action, coition, smell, sleep, anger, taste and laughter. There are the twelve corresponding divisions of space and time. The twelve divisions of space are the twelve constellations (of stars) through which the sun moves in the course of the solar year. The twelve divisions of time are the twelve months of the year. Each sign of the Zodiac and its corresponding month is uniquely characterized with the associated soul-function[1].

The twelve divisions represented through six dimensions in space, time and soul correspond to the twelve diagonals on the tree of the Sefirot. (When the Sefirot are diagrammatically represented as a "tree" of ten points, there are twenty-two connecting lines, seven of which are vertical, three horizontal and twelve diagonal.) Jacob's twelve sons revealed, to perfection, all of the essential qualities of the inner soul for whom God created the world of Time and Space.

Each of the twelve was unique according to his respective orientation on the tree. They were all personalities of tremendous power, as illustrated in the many Bible stories that refer to them and their illustrious descendants in later generations. Each of the tribes received its own blessings from Jacob and later from Moses according to its unique trait. The tribes had their own emblems. Many of them are associated with animals (such as Judah with the Lion, Joseph with the Ox, Issachar the Donkey, Dan with the Serpent, Naftali with the Deer and Benjamin the Wolf.)

The Bible is testimony to the heritage of these founding tribal leaders. Following the 3 patriarchal generations from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob the roots of the future nation of Israel were finally and firmly established. The record is preserved and the mystical and spiritual analysis backs it up in every sense. By looking at examples, like the story of Jacob, we can unfold its deeper context by reviewing the inner meanings through word context,grammaticall commonality, letter substitution and gematria of each word in the Hebrew Torah. The Torah was handed by G-d to Israel through Moses as a complete code contained in the stones of the 10 commandments, in the teachings and in the writings of Moses, but for the most part the knowledge and energy of Torah was transferred by G-d to the souls of Jewish people.

It is said; "The nations heard and trembled, fear gripped the inhabitants of Philistia. Then the chieftains of Edom were terrified; the mighty men of Moab panic stricken and the inhabitants of Canaan melted away". Israel's departure from Egypt and the subsequent events ofrevelationn was immediately attributed to a power much greater than anything these kings could possibly imagine, after all Egypt was the most powerful nation on earth and Pharaoh its highest god. Like Pharaoh, these rulers were intellectually defeated.

Was Israel's liberation the cause of fear that came over kings and rulers of the land?
Was Israel redeemed by the power of their Omnipotent G-d?
Was their a mystical magic that can bring such a Liberation to so many people?
What would become of any ruler who did not suppress this power?

The magic of this liberation is to be found following the immediate departure from Egypt, during the 49 days when Israel was formed into the nation it ultimately became. Those 49 days are known as The Counting of the Omer, the deepest intellectual pursuit to the inner depths of our souls. This simultaneous process of meditation, prayer andrevelationn struck fear in the hearts of kings and rulers and brought a newfound intelligence to the world at large.

There are many meaningful insights that come from the deeper analysis of each of the tribes and the roles that they played in the development of the nation of Israel and the world, each of these insights are obtained through an understanding and perception of the Holy Sefirot, the engine room of our soul.

[1] (Sefer Yetzirah ch. 5)