Your Light Has Come

The Prophet Isaiah in Chapter 60, the last chapter in Deutero-Isaiah, opens his prophecy with these powerful words:

Rise up in splendor! Your light has come, the glory of YHVH shines upon you. See darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples, but upon you YHVH shines, and over you appears his glory.

Kabbalists believe that there has always been a Being with the fullness of matter and energy. They believe that for an infinitesimally small time Ten Centers of Sentient appeared within the Body of this Divine Being, called Ain Sof Aur, Neverending Light. These Sentient Intelligences cried out that Ain Sof Aur gave them every thing and they could give nothing back in return. Within that infinitesimally small time, Ain Sof Aur, withdrew from the center of His Being and created a perfect vacuum and into that vacuum He sent forth a Single Ray of His Divine Being into the center thereof. He formed from his own being the Ten Intelligences into a single Being named the Primeval Adam, the Ancient of Days, the Archangel of the Presence.

The Gospel of John begins with a description of this event. It says:

In the beginning was the Logos ... The Logos to the Greeks was the Divine Creative and Controlling Power. This idea of a Supreme Creative and Controlling Power separate from G-d is the essence of Kabbalistic thought.

John continues: And the Logos was with G-d ... While declaring strongly the separateness of the Creative and Controlling Power, the Gospel declares that is was with G-d before all time and into the beginning. The Logos and the Ten Intelligences are the same. We are simply using a separate nomenclature.

But then John goes on: And the Logos was G-d ... In what sense was the Logos G-d. First, the Logos is begotten from the Being of G-d and therefore carries the "DNA" of Godhood. Second, the Logos has the intelligence of G-d in that the 10 Intelligences were part of the Sentient G-d and know every thing that He knows. Third, the Logos is the active part of G-d because G-d remains outside of the Universe. The Logos is therefore Omnipotent, Omniscent, and Omnibenevolent, while it is not Eternal. But unlike G-d, the Logos is dynamic. It is the element of dynamism that gives the Logos its importance, because G-d does not act in this Universe. Only His Proxy, the Divine Logos acts in this Universe.

John continues: "He (meaning the Logos) was in the beginning with G-d. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be." Kabbalists believe that Ain Sof Aur and the Primeval Adam formed the Archangels in their glory and that Adam and the Archangels created the Universe and all that is in it. Literally, they believe that all things came to be through Adam and without Him nothing came to be.

Then John says: "What came to be through him was Life, and this Life was the Light of Mankind; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

As we celebrate the coming of the Seventh Light into the World, in the being of Yeshua ha Meshiach, let us remember that long before His coming, the Light was here in the presence of G-d and that same light still shines on us. Your light has come.