A Rose Among Thorns: A heartrending saga of family, friendship and love

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Until this point we were explaining the two states of malchut in terms of the sefirot. The next step is to see what this means in terms of man's soul. The verse states: "And the Lord created man in His image." ( Gen. 1:27) The great kabbalistic principle derived from this is that just as G‑d has ten divine attributes so does the soul. And furthermore the workings of the soul's sefirot can be paralleled to the mechanisms of the sefirot above. From this comes the guiding principle expressed in the verse: "And you shall walk in His ways" ( Deut. 30:16). As the Rabbis explain: just as He is merciful, so we too must be merciful; just as He is full of loving-kindness, so too must we be full of loving-kindness, and so on. The name Y-ah is used in reference to spiritual energies above nature. This divine energy will be given to the student as he delves into the supernal secrets.

Rabbi Chezkiah opened [his discourse] and said: "It is written: ' As a rose among the thorns, so is my beloved amongst the daughters'. (Songs 2:2) Who is the rose? This refers to 'Knesset Yisrael' - the Collective soul roots of Israel, malchut. (For there is one level of a rose and there is another level of a rose.) Just as a rose, which is found amidst the thorns, has within it the colors red and white, also Knesset Yisrael has within her both judgment and loving kindness. Just as a rose has in it thirteen petals, so too Knesset Yisrael has within her thirteen paths of mercy which surround her from all her sides. ( Zohar I, Intro. pg 1) All the things that G‑d creates in the lower realm…are expressions of their spiritual roots, forces, and divine archetypes in the upper realms…

Christ’s Representation

Malchut is the lowest sefira, which is the vessel that receives from all those above, and brings them to expression. The reason that it is a manifestation of kingship is that the unified workings of the sefirot together show G‑d's hallmark in the underlying creative power and providence, and hence to His sovereignty and rulership. In terms of the soul we can explain malchut as self-realization, i.e. the vessel through which the aspects of the self establish themselves. Was moved to higher ground The Bishops | Photo: Screen grabbed from Youtube Did this piece make your day?

Rabbi Chezkiah…": The commentary Damesek Eliezer explains that the Zohar chooses to start with a lesson by Rabbi Chezkiah because his name hints to us a message: "Chezkiah" can be read as " chazak Y-ah" which in Hebrew means "strength of the divine name ' Y-ah'". The message is that when a person embarks on the voyage of traversing the vast ocean of Kabbala he is assured divine assistance.The word " Shechina" derives from the Hebrew word " shachain", which means "dwell". This helps to explain the English term "Presence", as the Shechina is the state of G‑d's Presence manifest in the world, i.e. His Imminence. The kabbalistic teaching is that there are two general areas where this occurs; the upper realm and the lower realm. The Rabbis teach that G‑d created the world because He wanted to dwell in the lower realm. He created the spiritual realm as a pathway to reach the lower realm. So much so that He wanted His Presence to be manifest in the lower realm in the same manner as in the upper realm. In this way His omniscience becomes apparent everywhere, thus revealing His absolute unity. The above lines were meant to introduce who that ‘rose’ is referring to. The phrase, “the greatest gift of God,” provides us with the key. For what or who else could be God’s greatest gift to mankind other than His only begotten Son? We’ve already known the answer to this from the book of John. And as we move further, the song will make it even clearer for us. The following lines summarized the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

One thing I didn't like was Sassy getting together with Daniel; I just never believed their love. They didn't seem to know each other for that long before becoming totally infatuated with her and I found it hard to believe that she wouldn't ever et over someone she knew for just a few months and even within that time barely spoke to for half of it because of the misunderstanding they had.

Here’s the thing – afflictions have the potential of drawing us closer than ever to Jesus. Often, it is only when we are experiencing a severe thorn in the flesh that we realise our need for the Lord and admit our dependence upon Him. We cry out to Him and ask Him to heal or release us, but sometimes He simply says, “No….. but I am with you and that is all you need.” From the verse we see that in a sense both states are equal: "As a rose…so is my beloved..." - this teaches us that one should not withhold himself from serving G‑d, even when he is not inspired. G‑d knows that one goes through ups and downs, and He derives pleasure from our service in both states. Despite losing her mother at a young age, Sassy has grown up surrounded by although poor, she is happy. So Sassy is devastated when her father marries wealthy widow Elizabeth Bonner. Social climber Elizabeth despairs of a step-daughter who is more at ease with servants than those above stairs, and is jealous of Sassy's growing beauty which threatens to outshine her own daughter. It is of great significance that the start of this section of the Zohar, which is a commentary on the Torah, should begin by quoting not from the Torah, but from the Song of Songs of King Solomon. The space in between the Cherubim in the Holy of Holies in the Temple is the place of the closest, most intimate relationship between G‑d and His People; this level of relationship is expressed in the Song of Songs, a love-song pouring out the intimacies of the heart. By opening up its revelation of the Supernal mysteries with this quote, the Zohar hints to us that this relationship is its driving theme. With this we can understand why the Zoharic system of giving over its knowledge revolves around the masculine-feminine relationship. This same relationship pervades the Song of Songs in its every verse. The inner level of the Torah which expresses itself in the form of song… For there is one level of a rose and there is another level of a rose": The Arizal was the first person to really reveal the deep secrets of the Zohar from an understanding of its esoteric text. He explains as follows: this phrase hints to two states of malchut; a higher state and a lower state. Before we can understand this explanation of the verse, we must explain briefly the concept of the Shechina: G‑d…wanted to dwell in the lower realm. He created the spiritual realm as a pathway to reach the lower realm…

In my day, the gallant thing to say to a woman who found herself seated between two men was, “Ah, my dear, you are surely a rose between two thorns.” The Spiritual Realm is beyond "place". However, as discussions about the nature of this realm include this concept, "place" needs to be understood. Within this context, closeness depends on similarity and not distance. When the intensity of the revelation in malchut rises toward that of bina, this is called " malchut ascending to bina". This is the higher state of malchut that the Zohar is referring to, and this gives us a first step in the understanding of spiritual space. I am a passionate champion of the Christocentric or Christ-centred Principle, an approach to biblical interpretation and theological construction that emphasises the centrality of Jesus opened": This term issued frequently in the Zohar to indicate that the teacher opened himself up as a vessel to experience the spiritual. After this he trail-blazed to open up a new pipeline of Torah which he poured forth through his lesson. Malchut is alluded to by the term Knesset Yisrael (which also connects with the Shechina, as mentioned above), and therefore the student can absorb the idea of malchut through the filter of the Collective soul roots of Israel. In terms of this discourse, this is meant to bring out to us that the revelation of the divine Kingship depends upon Knesset Yisrael. All this is symbolized by the rose.

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The Apostle Paul uses the illustration of a thorn in his flesh to describe a troublesome condition that the Lord made use of to keep him humble and grounded; ‘ To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh…’ (2 Corinthians 12:7). Paul pleaded with the Lord three times to have it taken from him but Jesus’ answer was, “ My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (Verse 9). The villains of the piece were great as well, Elizabeth the step-mother and Thomas's American wife, without feeling at all stereotypes or wooden. The relationship between Sassy and Clara, her neighbour, was perhaps one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen portrayed in any format. Clara became the mother that Sassy lost, the supporter and wise adviser; but Sassy also became a pillar of support for Clara, in her time of grief but also in her time of loneliness with her husband away at work during the day and her sons away (or dead). Of course if I said that today to anyone under fifty she would probably think that I was strange to say the least. In the Song of Solomon the young woman refers to herself as a rose of Sharon (SS 2:1). Some commentators understand the Song of Solomon to be an allegory of Christ and the church and so, in this context, they see the rose as representing the Lord Jesus. Certainly, when Jesus was nailed to a cross between two criminals He was the epitome of a rose between two thorns. His Presence above is manifest in bina and is therefore called the " Upper Shechina" or the "Upper Rose". His Presence below is manifest in malchut or the "Lower Rose". There is no end to the theological debate that has ensued over the centuries as to what Paul meant when he wrote that his ‘thorn’ was a messenger of Satan sent to torment him, but I won’t attempt to deal with that in this short article. My view is simply that Paul had some sort of affliction that God used redemptively to keep him humble, and the devil used to torment him. There has also been endless speculation as to the exact nature of Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Some say anxiety over his pre-Christian past; others claim it represented his critics such as the ‘super apostles’ of Corinth; yet others claim that Paul was an epileptic or that he suffered from migraines. It is all just speculation, but I believe there is reasonable evidence to show that Paul was probably suffering from deteriorating eye sight (Galati ans 4:!3, 15 6:11).