Kabbalah for Everyone Lesson 7: Memaleh and Sovev: Finding G-d Within and Beyond

PDF Worksheet https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/x2tyitbgce3vgau5jdk0z/Lesson-7-Sovev-and-Mimaleh.pages?rlkey=pw1kjroso872vevz9hp74yh2w&dl=0

How can an infinite G-d be present in the ordinary details of our lives? Kabbalah teaches that we experience Divine energy in two ways: Memaleh, the light of G-d that enters our world in a form we can understand and absorb, and Sovev, the Divine presence that remains larger than anything we can fully comprehend.

In this lesson, Rabbi Yisroel Bernath explores how these two spiritual forces shape our faith, our growth, and our everyday lives. Some moments give us clarity, direction, and practical understanding. Other moments leave us in awe, reminding us that life and G-d will always be greater than our explanations.

True spiritual growth requires both: the inspiration that expands us and the practical vessel that allows that inspiration to become part of who we are.

Key Points

• Memaleh is the Divine light that enters our lives in a way we can understand, absorb, and apply.
• Sovev is the Divine presence that surrounds and transcends our understanding without ever being absent.
• G-d’s hiddenness does not mean G-d is gone; sometimes concealment creates the space we need to grow.
• Inspiration becomes transformation only when we build a vessel through habits, choices, mitzvot, and healthier actions.
• Without practical structure, spirituality can remain vague and temporary.
• Without mystery and wonder, spirituality can become limited to the size of our own understanding.
• Healthy spiritual growth requires both clarity and awe, grounding and expansion.
• The purpose of a spiritual experience is not to escape ordinary life, but to return to it more awake, compassionate, and purposeful.
• Some truths are meant to be understood, while others are first meant to be honoured and lived.
• The surrounding light fulfills its purpose when it inspires inward change.

#Kabbalah #Memaleh #Sovev #FindingGod #chassidus #chabad  #JewishWisdom #mysticism #Faith #JewishSpirituality #KabbalahForEveryone #KabbalahForLife #kabala #chassidut #ChassidicTeachings

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning, everyone. It is a beautiful day. It's so nice to be together. And today we're going to continue this conversation that we've been having. Kabbalah for everyone. This is the seventh conversation, though each one obviously is completely unique. And we're going to go over what I think, well, one of my favorite Kabbalistic ideas. I don't want this idea to remain an abstract mystical concept. So I'm going to try to unpack it the best I can. I'm also taking feedback from some of you, making sure that these ideas are simple enough. I don't know if I want to use the word simple, but easy enough to understand, but not watering them down. So I'm going to try to find that balance a little more today for those of you for whom that's important. I want us to understand what this means in our relationships, what this means in our struggles, in the ordinary moments of an ordinary day. That is what we're most interested in. The question that I'm going to propose is one that may sound lofty, which is why I really want to make this effort to connect it. And that is, how can a finite human being have a relationship with an infinite God? And I'm focusing on finite and infinite. How can a finite human being have a relationship with an infinite God? How can I be living through an ordinary Wednesday morning when I have bills to pay, dishes to be done, there's traffic, there's text messages, there's work, there's family, there's responsibilities, and still, still believe that God is present. Or maybe I'm gonna ask it a little deeper, if I may. If God is present, why don't I always feel it? Kabbalah introduces two expressions to describe the way divine energy enters our lives. The first is called Mimale Koalmin. All of this is in your worksheet if you have it. If not, you can download it after the class. Mimale Koalmin means the divine energy that fills all worlds. That's the first, Memale Koamin, the divine energy that fills all worlds. The second is Save Koalmin, which is the divine energy that surrounds all worlds. So we have a divine energy that fills and a divine energy that surrounds. Now, these aren't physical directions. I'm not saying that God is inside the world or fills the world like water fills a glass. And then there's another part of God that's outside like air surrounding a balloon. God is not a physical being. Actually, one of the issues that people had many years ago with studying Kabbalah is because we're using metaphors, and especially using physical metaphors on a on a on a on God, there was a concern that the simplicity of it would cause people to think that God is a physical being, and that would be idolatry. And so we're using these as metaphors because if we use the actual words, then we wouldn't understand them. We wouldn't be able to relate to them. We're trying to figure out a way to relate to some of these very, very complicated ideas. So God is not a physical being, and God is not located in one place and missing from another place. These words describe two different ways in which we experience God. If you've ever been involved in film or written a script for film, you may know that the most important element of writing a film script is deciding what is called the POV. The point of view. The viewer who's watching the film, what will be the point of view they will be seeing the film? Through whose eyes? Through the protagonist? Will they be just a bystander? Will they be the, you know, through the villain? There's so many different ways of looking at any particular situation or any particular story. And so what we're talking about here, the POV that we're talking about here in our story, is our experience with God, not God's experience with us. How do we relate? How do we interact with a higher power? Sometimes divine energy enters our awareness in a way that we can understand, in a way that we can absorb, and in a way that we can make it part of our lives. That is called Memale, Memale Koalmin. That is the God that that fills the world. And sometimes sometimes we encounter something divine that's just too great. It's too grand, it's too awesome in the real sense, not in the teenage sense. It's too incredible to fully understand it. We we feel it. We're moved by it. We may even be changed by it, but we can't completely explain it. We can't put our finger on it. That's called Sovev. So I'll begin with Memale. Memale is that divine energy that enters the world and is measured and is personalized. It's divine energy translated into the form that we can receive. The language the Kabbalah often uses is the language of a light and a vessel. So I'll use that. The light represents the energy, it represents the truth, it represents the inspiration. And the vessel represents our ability to receive it, our ability to understand it, to live with it. Think about sunlight, beautiful sun, morning sun. Sunlight can warm us up. It could warm up the whole room. It could help a plant grow. But if you try to bring the full power of the sun directly into your living room, you would no longer have a living room. The light must be filtered. And we're not filtering it because there's something wrong with the sun. There's nothing wrong with the sun. We're filtering it because we, the recipient, must be able to receive it. Another example that Kabbalah gives is the relationship between a teacher and a student. Very common metaphor in Kabbalah. Imagine a teacher who deeply understands a complicated idea. The teacher may see the entire picture all at once, the connections, the questions, the answers, the subtleties. And the student is encountering the idea for the first time. And if the teacher gives the student everything exactly as it exists in the teacher's mind, the student will become overwhelmed. The teacher will be speaking, maybe the student will be nodding, and absolutely nothing will be happening. So what does the teacher do? The teacher slows down, maybe chooses simpler words, maybe chooses an analogy, explains one step at a time. The teacher is not abandoning the truth, just translating the truth. And that translation is an act of love. The teacher is saying, I care enough about you to bring this idea into your world. That is Mimala. Now let's explain this in God's world. God allows divine truth to enter our world in ways that we can receive. Through the wisdom of Torah, through the structure of a mitzvah, through the beauty of creation, through the love of another person, through an unexpected moment of clarity when it clicks, through a conversation that that calms the heart, through a prayer that suddenly stops being words on a page and becomes my own voice. That is divine light entering your vessel. That is divine light entering my vessel. That is holiness becoming personal. That is what we call Mimale. And I think there's an incredibly practical lesson here. I don't know if you can relate to this, but I think of this in my own life. I often want more light. I'm looking for light. I want more inspiration. I want more light. But I don't always build a vessel to be able to hold that light. I want a life-changing experience. A life-changing class. I want a life-changing prayer. I want a life-changing relationship. I want a life-changing year. It's beautiful. But what am I building to hold that change? What practice did I begin? What boundary did I create? What habit did I change? What truth did I write down? What kind what conversation did I finally have that I didn't want to have or that I was avoiding? What action have I taken? Inspiration is powerful. It's incredible. But inspiration alone is not transformation trying to paint a picture. I see inspiration as a visitor, and the vessel gives it somewhere to stay. You may hear an idea and feel deeply moved. That may even happen here. But until that idea changes how I speak, until that idea changes how I respond, how I treat another person, then the idea hasn't fully entered me. It's near, it's touching, but it hasn't become part of me. And mimale means that the light has entered the vessel. The idea has become a practice. The inspiration has become a decision. The spiritual moment has become a way of living. Now I want to turn our attention to the second expression. Save. Save refers to divine light that remains beyond our ability to fully absorb. It's light that's not shrinking to fit the size of our minds. It remains larger than us. Now, I don't think it means it's distant. It means that it's present in a way that cannot be contained. There are experiences in our lives that we can't completely understand, but we know they're real. You know what I think is like that? Love. Love is like that. You can explain some things about love. You can describe what people do when they love each other. You can study the psychology of attachment. You can even measure changes in the brain. But after all the explanations, love itself remains larger than explanation. You know what else I think is like that? Music. You can explain notes, you can explain rhythm, harmony. Guess you can even explain sound waves. But it doesn't explain why a certain melody reaches somewhere inside of me that ordinary language cannot. You know what else is like that? The soul. The soul is like that. You can describe a personality, you can study behavior, you can understand patterns, but there is something at the center of a person that cannot be reduced to a diagnosis, to a resume, to a list of characteristics. And God is infinitely more than anything the human mind can define. And so sove is the recognition that reality is larger than what I place into words. Reality is larger than what I place into words. It's the divine light that I can't possess intellectually, but I can still encounter. I'm trying to think of how to explain it. Sometimes we meet God through understanding. Sometimes we meet God through wonder. Sometimes we learn something and then it finally makes sense. That's Mamale. Sometimes a teaching opens a doorway, something so vast that we become silent. That is Sovev. Sometimes we feel God through an answer. Sometimes we feel God through the depth of a question. Sometimes we feel God in a moment of clarity. And sometimes we feel God when life becomes mysterious, and we realize that we are standing before something greater than ourselves. We're standing before something awesome. And I think this is an important part of understanding what Kabbalah calls simtsum. We've spoken about this before, but I'll reintroduce you to this idea of simtsum. Simpsum, I guess in English we would say t-z or I M T Z U M. Simpsum. Say that ten times fast. So simtsum is often translated as uh a contraction or a concealment, which I don't know if it really means anything when we say that. But what it means, what it doesn't mean is that God disappeared. It means that the divine presence became hidden enough for a separate world to appear. So imagine a parent teaching a young child to walk. The parent steps back, and to the child, the parent stepping back may feel like distance. But the parents right there. The parent hasn't abandoned the child. The parent is creating space for the child to take their own step. So the parents apparent withdrawal is actually a deeper form of presence. Because we're close enough to protect, but hidden enough to allow growth. Close enough to protect, but hidden enough to allow growth. And maybe just in this metaphor, if I can paint this picture, we're right behind. So you can't see me. But you have to know that I'm close. And I think this is exactly in the same way, the hiddenness of God. It does not mean the absence of God. Sometimes God is most deeply present precisely in the space where we are being invited to grow. This means that God is both. Within creation and beyond creation. God is present within every detail of our lives, and at the same time, God can never be reduced to those details. God is in this world. But God is not limited by this world. The infinite is not threatened by the finite. God does not become smaller by entering our lives. And God does not become absent simply because we can't see or understand the entire picture. Now that we got the abstract, I want to bring it into our lives. There are two common spiritual mistakes. The first mistake is believing that only what we can explain is real. I sometimes think if I can't define it, if I can't diagram it, if I can't prove it, if I can't teach it back, maybe it's not true. I don't think Kabawa's asking us to stop thinking. Actually, I would say quite the opposite. We are meant to learn. We're meant to question, to explore, and to understand as deeply as we can. And we are also meant to recognize that reality is larger than the human mind. Not everything holy arrives first as an explanation. Sometimes it arrives as awe. Sometimes it arrives as a longing. Sometimes it arrives as gratitude. And sometimes as someone whose presence makes you want to be a better person. Sometimes it arrives as a song that you can't explain but you can't forget. Sometimes it arrives when we stand beneath the hoppa at a beautiful wedding. Sometimes it's while sitting beside a hospital bed or watching a child sleep. Or sometimes it's while lighting the Shabbat candle and knowing that the small flame in front of you represents something eternal. There are moments when you know that there's more in the room than what my eyes can see. There are moments when I know that there's just more to the world, even though I can't see it. That is Sovev. Sovev is a presence too deep to fit inside an explanation. And there's another spiritual mistake. The second mistake, something I've definitely done in my life, is chasing wonder without creating change. I love the wow. I love a powerful class. I love a moving song, a mystical experience. I feel uplifted, inspired. We feel, at least I feel, as though like my entire life is about to change when I when I experience that. And then another morning comes, the alarm goes off, someone says something wrong, the traffic is terrible, the coffee spills, and apparently enlightenment has left the building. The surrounding light touched me, but I didn't give it a vessel. The purpose of inspiration is not simply to give us a spiritual high. The purpose of inspiration is to create a spiritual life. We are spiritual beings living in a physical world. That's who we are. Save must eventually inspire Mimale. So the goal is not to choose between Mimale and Savev. We need both. Because without Mimale, without the light that fills the world, spirituality remains vague. It sounds beautiful, but it never becomes practical. Without Savev, without the light that surrounds the world, spirituality becomes small. We start believing that God is as only as large as we can understand. Without Mimmalah, without the light that fills the world, the light never enters us. Without Savev, without the light that surrounds, then we can never grow beyond ourselves. We think we're the greatest thing that ever happened since Sliskala. Mimmala gives us grounding. Save gives us wonder. Mimala helps us live with God. Save reminds us that God is infinitely greater than our experience of God. And a healthy, at least in my opinion, in Kabbalah's opinion, a healthy spiritual life requires both. We need ideas we can understand, and we need mystery that keeps us humble. We need practices that keep us grounded. And then we need moments of awe that remind us why the practices matter. And Kabbalah teaches that when the light enters the vessel properly, the vessel is strengthened and transformed. And when the light is too powerful for the vessel, the vessel may become overwhelmed. And I think it's hard to see this spiritually, but I definitely see this emotionally. Sometimes I have tremendous insight, but I haven't yet developed the emotional capacity to live with it. Sometimes I discover something true about myself, but I need time. It clicked, but I just it needs to marinate. It needs support. It needs guidance. It needs patience before I can fully integrate it. We live in this world of instant gratification, but with growth, with change, we can never rush it. The fact that you understand or that I understand something intellectually does not mean that my heart feels it. I can understand something, and my heart is not caught up. And the fact that I know what I should do does not necessarily mean that I'm immediately ready to do it. I can know what's right and not be ready to be able to do what's right. And that's okay. I'm not an angel or a perfect being. I am a struggling being trying to be better in this world. The vessel must grow, but it has to grow slowly, and it has to grow honestly and grow patiently. The goal is to become the kind of person who can hold more truth without becoming overwhelmed by it. To be able to hold more love for another without losing myself. To be able to hold more responsibility without becoming resentful. To be able to hold more holiness without believing that I understand everything. But at least this is my lived experience. That sometimes I need to recognize that some light is not meant to be possessed. It's meant to be honored, but not lived. Some things in life are meant to be lived before they're understood. If I just wait to understand everything, I'm going to be waiting a long time. And that's why I think questions are so important, because questions are not a sign of spiritual failure. They are signs that we have reached the edge of what our current vessel can contain. And now I need to help that vessel expand and grow. And I will do that through the process of questioning. And that is questioning for the sake of understanding and growing, not questioning for the sake of the conversation, which has somehow become the way that we question today. I want to be the uh, what do they call it, the devil's advocate. I don't even know what that means. I don't know what I don't know the devil, and I don't know what advocate that devil has. But questions that are wholesome for the sake of growth are the most beautiful thing in the world. So I want to ask you, if you can kind of think of this, focus on this. Where in your life, and I ask myself the same question, where in my life do I need memale? Where do I need clarity? Where do I need structure? Where do I need one practical step? Maybe I've been inspired, but I feel stuck. Maybe I've um I've I've learned a great deal, but I haven't turned that learning into a habit. Maybe I need an honest conversation with someone, or a healthier boundary with someone else, or an act of generosity. Maybe I need that. Or one decision that can bring divine light into the details of my life. Maybe that. And then I think of where in my life do I need Sovev? Where do I need to stop trying to control everything? And not just my experiences. I want to try to control the experiences of the entire room. Where do I need to try to stop that? Where do I need to accept that not everything could be understood right away? Where do I need to make room in my life for wonder? Where do I need to remember that life is not only a problem to be solved, but also a mystery to be lived? Maybe I need to remember that God is not only useful, but God is holy. And that faith, which is such a triggering word for me sometimes, faith is not only about receiving answers, but it's also about developing the courage to live meaningfully while some questions remain unanswered. So let's move into the last part of our discussion today. I want to make this very practical because I could suppose that you leave this class and say, Rabbi, that was beautiful. I loved it. Wow. And that would be Soviv. The idea surrounded you, it lifted you, it expanded you. Or suppose you leave this class and decide, tonight I'm gonna do something differently. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to take three minutes before looking at my phone right when I wake up. Or this week I'm gonna reach out to someone who feels alone. Or I'm gonna stop myself once this week before responding in anger. Or I'm gonna create a little space for my soul one day this week. That's Mimale. The light entered the vessel, the inspiration found a home. The surrounding light gave birth to an inward light. And for me, if I had to distill this lesson into that idea, this would be the deepest idea of today's lesson. That the purpose of awe is not to remain outside of me forever. The purpose of awe is to help me become a larger vessel. The purpose of a spiritual moment is not to take me out of ordinary life. It's to help me return to ordinary life differently, more compassionate, more humble, more courageous, more aware that every ordinary moment in my life contains something extraordinary. I don't know where that image of God being an old man in a cloud with a gray beard happened. But the God or my God is not only found beyond this world, my God is found within this world, within my conversations, within my decisions, within my struggles, within my mitzvahs, within this beautiful class, within a small act that nobody knows, but changes me. So here's my my practical exercise for you tonight. You can do it anytime, but I was thinking of doing it at night before going to sleep. And just kind of taking a minute, I like to journal before I go to sleep, but taking a minute to ask what touched me today that I could understand? Maybe it was a lesson, uh a conversation, something clicked, a realization. A moment of gratitude would be beautiful. That's the light of Mamale. What what touched me today that I could understand? And then ask what touched me today that was bigger than my understanding? Maybe it was beauty, love, loss, wonder? Maybe a coincidence that felt more like not a coincidence? Or a moment that you sensed that life was deeper than what you could explain. That's so vive. So what touched me today that was then that was bigger than my understanding? And then asking one final question. What is one vessel that I can build tomorrow? That vessel can be an action. What small action can I take? What what practice can I begin? What truth can I bring into my behavior? And I think this is how these ideas, this is how Kabbalah becomes life. Somehow somebody said that spirituality is supposed to is about escaping the world. It's not. It's not either about pretending that we understand everything, but by learning to experience spirituality, by learning to experience God within the world and beyond the world at the same time. This is Mamala, this is Sovev. To find God in what we understand and to remain open to the God that we don't yet understand. And I will finish today with my blessing to you, to all of us. May God bless us that the light we can understand should truly enter us. May our learning become action. May our inspiration become transformation. And may our faith become kindness, courage, patience, and purpose. And may the light that is beyond our understanding, may it humble us without frightening us. May it expand us without overwhelming us. May it remind us that even when we can't see the entire path, we're never walking alone. Our parent is just behind us. May we become strong vessels for divine light and open souls for divine wonder and living homes for God's presence in this world. And may each, may God bless each of us with clarity, with depth, with joy, with healing, and with the courage to be able to turn our inspiration into action. I thank you for this beautiful time together until we meet again. Have a beautiful day.