I see a red door and I want it panted black.

Words from one of my favorite rock n roll songs that I always thought was political, but it’s not. It is, according to Mick Jagger, about a young girl’s funeral. That’s good enough for me. It’s a dark song. I’m the dark and brooding type, so it works.

But I started to sing this because of the door. I suppose I could have sung Paul McCartney’s (Wings) Let em In, but that is just so upbeat! You know, because of Paul. Paul is a bit of an optimist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It was a good thing he was actually. It was a great balance for the Beatles and it made for the most perfect songwriting duo known to mankind. I was just more of a Lennon fan myself – for the very reason that Paul was a bit too much of a fluffy cloud.

But anyway, that door. Dalet is the door to the house, or rather, the opening to the house. If you’ve been following my blog, I’ve been studying the Hebrew letters and the Kabbalah.

The Dalet also represents the poor man that the Gimmel is running after to give charity to.

That sounds pretty funny that you would have to chase someone down to give them money, doesn’t it?

Remember I said before about how I have certain people in mind when I think about the Gimmel? Well, this might sound strange, but I think about the part of my relationship with my brother that has been strained in the past – although lately it has been quite healed – but I have thought about him as a Gimmel and about me as a Dalet, but not in the same context. I don’t think of him running after me. That’s not it. It’s hard to explain. …Trust me, he’s not running after me to give me any charity.

Like I said, it’s hard to explain, but what I can say is this: there’s actually a verse in Matthew that goes: “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Now whether you are a Christian or a Jew, or nothing in between, there is something to be said about that. I think about that verse a lot, as a “poor man” and as someone that usually runs away from charity! Ha! Yet, here I am in Joshua Tree on this quest, because of the charity of my friends and supporters. A charity of sorts anyway.

And speaking of mitzvahs, and the Dalet, here we go, right? Trust me, this ties together I think — into the poor man, the rich man, and in my mind, which has the bigger ego.

The Dalet has a lot to do with the consciousness of the ego, because many times in life we think that when we achieve big successes, it’s all about us. It’s all about how powerful we have become on our own alone. And we forget about this free will thing. That goes right out the window. We don’t give God any thought when these great things happen, yet we sure get pissed at him when the bad stuff occurs. (How could God let this horrible thing happen to me?!) 

We seem to acknowledge the God presence in times of struggle. I know I have noticed looking around for God during those times, probably every time. That’s when I need it.

The Talmud describes a situation where one man is carrying a heavy object and another man appears to be helping him by placing his hands under the object, when in truth the first man is carrying all the weight. The second man is referred to as “a merely apparent helper.” So are we, explains the Ba’al Shem Tov, in relation to God. Ultimately, all one’s strength comes from Above. Free choice is no more than the expression of one’s will to participate, as it were, in the Divine act. One merely places one’s hands under the weight carried exclusively by God.

Okay, I’m almost done with all this religious stuff. Well, I am done. I just wanted to say that I went down the biggest rabbit hole today when studying because I didn’t know what the Zohar was. Now I do!

Now for what I did in the studio today. Nothing!

Okay, I did some sketches, but not many! It was really a study day. Here are a few. I worked on a watercolor for a long time, but I don’t know how I feel about it yet.

Okay, this is me, signing off. See you tomorrow.

LOVE!

It was some kinda day today. Or maybe I should not say that.

I did not get as much done as I had hoped to, but I wonder if I’m going to be saying that every day. (Probably so, Joe.)

There is a friend I have in mind and I hope she is reading this blog entry tonight because I couldn’t help but think about her the entire time while studying today, while I was studying about the Kabbalah anyway. At least I did that! Other than that, I only got about five drawings – sketches really – done, plus a few photographs. No video footage today unfortunately.

I was studying and meditating on the letter Beit, which comes next in the Hebrew alphabet, and is also the first letter in the Torah, opening Genesis.

Most of you probably know, and I have known for a long while that Beit mainly means House, I did’t know how in depth – of course – all this gets.

And I hope all of you know that I am not giving out lessons here. I am merely learning these things and just writing out my stupid interpretations of how I  perceive this stuff, as some of it is a little poetic to me. None is quite literal. Although, I’m sure many do  take it literally. I do not. I am, and always have been, pretty secular, as a Jew. Only in the last decade have I become a little more serious about this religion. Or rather, “a little more interested,” might be a better way to put it.

My true calling for it was nostalgic; an early family connection that I missed very much when my grandma was still alive. I missed the traditions mostly. I missed when the family was closer and like a network of loving women. Since then, I felt lost, and sad. Once I found the right synagogue, I think that changed and my interest deepened.

But back to Beit,  the house business. Genesis begins with a BIG Beit.  God had specific intentions about his house and our house. It was the original intention as a matter of fact and that’s why  Genesis starts out that way, because it’s, of course, more than just a house,  it’s what dwells inside  the house.

You have to look at it in terms of God being a house. A really big, powerful and loving house. And you are a house too. And yes, the temples were/are the houses where we connected to God, but not really. We are the ones that dwell inside them. But what about when the Temple was destroyed?

The Torah details a description of the Tabernacle and its vessels: “They shall build me a Temple and I will dwell in them.” Not “in it,” but “in them” – in each and every Jew. Not the temples. I see it this way.

This following paragraph is for my friend. I’m cutting and pasting it right out of The Channels of the Creative Consciousness:

Beit is numerically equal to the word “ta’avah,” which means “desire” or “passion” (412). In general, “ta’avah” connotes a negative human property. However, in several places “ta’avah” denotes the positive passion of the tzadik, the righteous man. One passage in Proverbs states: “He will fulfill the passion of the tzadik,” and a second says: “the passions of tzadikim are only good.” The “ta’avah” of G-d, the “Tzadik of the world,” is altogether above reason and logic. At this level one cannot ask “why.” As expressed by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi: “About passion, there can be no question.” As G-d is the essence of good so His passion is “only good.”

Some more connections leading back to this letter – it has everything to do with FREE WILL, being able to make choices between right and wrong, what is best to bring happiness to your personal house. It even talks about how your house also represents your partner. Beit  is the second letter in the alphabet, so its Divine number is two. Being after Aleph,  and the two being you and your mate for life, this is the kind of partnership that is next to the one you have with God.

Okay, enough with all that, here are some of the pictures I took today that I LOVE the most!