By Diane Black
How does life unfold?  What brings us to where we are now?  Did the path that we chose create our space now?   My interest has always been in the mythological realm; the extraordinary world of imaginings.   Perhaps it began when living in San Francisco as a small child, there were so many museums with the large marble statues from the age of myth.  In my adult life, I continued to explore a variety of realms, when Kabbalah began reappearing in my consciousness. 
I had been studying various pagan traditions.  Witches Qabalah was a book which caught my attention.  The Kabbalah was such an all encompassing conceptual framework that many traditions had begun using it.  Later, I began taking classes from a nondenominational group that incorporated a variety of sources:  some from Judaism, some from pagan authors like Vivian Crowley’s The Woman’s Kabbalah, and  Western Mystery School traditions. 
My studies had a synchronistic flavor and suggested a deconstruction of the ego.  Perhaps one form of deconstructing came from looking beyond the earthly realm and into the unlimited nothingness.  Many of the previous traditions that I studied were so earth oriented that the Kabbalah took me beyond “Z.”  It was beyond my mind’s ability to comprehend the depth and breadth of time and space.  Layers were peeling away with a hint of more to come.  It was reinforcement that my path was the right one for me.
It led me towards a class called “A Taste of Kabbalah” taught at TMCC by Rabbi ElizaBeth Beyer.  I took the class and fell down the rabbit hole.  Suddenly I had the words to describe my experiences.  The language used in the class related to my physical earthly soul, known in Judaism as the nefesh.  The language of kindness, social justice, and good deeds as the acts of repairing this world knows as Tikkun Haolam.  Ancient teachings say that we are born with the Yetzer HaRa and Yetzer Tov which translates into the evil inclination and the good inclination or to put it in modern metaphysical language we are born with choices.  We have the choice to make difficult decisions or not.  Virtually the same things that we are taught in the Secret, What the Bleep Do We Know, and numerous other books that teach us the power of our words and deeds with the ability to retrain our thoughts.  These teachings are grounded in ancient mystical teachings by the Sages.
There is a mundane level of the teachings which offer concrete ways of living in the “now” with integrity.  Hmmmm  – that was nice and there is also the mystical components that have far reaching ability to give us a star map to the divine.  As deep as we go seems barely a ripple in the depth of the vast sea of knowledge.   I began studying Hebrew and attending some of the Friday night services where the feminine face of G-d is included.  The Shekinah, or in my view Gaia, was welcomed into the service.  That was very beautiful and surprising.  Isn’t the “Old Testament” patriarchal?  Perhaps not.
Now I belong to Temple Beth Or which is a new, vibrant synagogue with quite a diverse group of congregants.  You do not have to be Jewish to be welcomed.  Just imagine stepping into the Kabbalah in a service.  Just imagine that people are welcomed despite their sexual orientation, background or race.  Just imagine learning that the first letter in the Hebrew Bible is Beit and the last letter is Lamed.  The two spell Lev which means the heart.  For without the heart there is no wisdom and the Torah is based on studying with the heart.  Check us out www.TempleBethOr.us