Four Worlds Shabbat
“Four Worlds” Shabbat at TBZ By Reb Natan Margalit and Deborah Chassler
On December 17, 2005, Reb Moshe and Hebrew College Rabbinical School Professor Reb Natan Margalit led us in a “Four Worlds” Shabbat service. Four Worlds? Isn’t one world enough? What about a “traditional” Shabbat service? Do we have to try something different? Yet, this fabulous Shabbat morning service was well-received by a big crowd at TBZ. After the service, one congregant remarked, “I could use the whole thing repeated again because, you know, it takes a few times to sink in.”
The service was both spiritual and didactic, successfully bringing together content and structure with plenty of quiet personal time to develop a kavannah (intention) that grew out of what we were learning. Reb Natan gave a general introduction to the Kabbalistic “four worlds,” explaining that, in Kabbalistic thinking, G!d is not separate from the world, but is hidden within the world – it is just that there are different “garments” or “lenses” that give us different perspectives on G!d. He used the example of a glass of natural apple juice: at the bottom it is very thick and pulpy, but as you get higher, it gets clearer. In this world, we see through the lenses of physical “doing” (the World of Asiyah); emotional “relating” (the World of Yetzirah); mindful “knowing” (the World of Briyah); and pure “being” (the World of Atzilut).
| Manifestation | World | |
| Being |  |
World of Atzilut |
| Knowing |  |
World of Briyah |
| Relating |  |
World of Yetzirah |
| Doing | |
World of Asiyah |
Reb Natan gave a short introduction to each “world,” and got us in the mood with a niggun, or a chant-meditation. Reb Moshe followed with sections from the service, along with explanations. The service proceeded through the Four Worlds, starting with the World of Doing, which is expressed through the morning prayers of thankfulness for our very lives and our bodies, the first service of the morning, the Birchot ha-Shahar. The World of Relating is reflected in the Pesukey de-Zimra (the song of praise) section of the service, and the World of Knowing by the Shema and its blessings. Full of quiet purpose, we prepared for the silentAmidah by meditating on the four-letter name of G!d — Yud-He-Vav-He — and by simply sitting and breathing, we saw ourselves in Atzilut, the World of Being. Reb Moshe explained that in this uppermost World, our prayers could be seen not just as praying to G!d, but asbeing G!d. (Reb Moshe’s teacher, Reb Zalman Schacter–Shalomi, talks about davvenology, the Four Worlds and the uppermost state of Holy Consciousness, where “an individual’s I–AM is identical with the Cosmic I–AM. . . It is not we who pray; rather, God prays in us, in accordance with the prefatory prayer, ‘Yah, open my lips and let my mouth tell Your praise.’”)
From these heights, we began to climb down, from “Being” to the World of Knowing and its associated Torah study. Reb Moshe and Reb Natan introduced and explained a kabbalistic interpretation of the story of Jacob wrestling with the “angel” – showing how the stories of the Torah can be read, not simply as events from the past, but as teachings with essential psychological and spiritual lessons about our own lives. Reb Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl (1730-1797) taught that Jacob’s limping invokes our own inability to see holiness in the world, and his healing becomes our healing.
From “Knowing,” we proceeded back down to “Relating,” connecting the service to the rest of our lives through the Aleinu prayer. Finally, back in the realm of “Doing,” we celebrated the physical world with food: a delicious Kiddush!
MORE INFORMATION
Would you like to share your thoughts on our “Four Worlds” Shabbat? Do you have links to further readings? Please contact the Synagogue Practices Committee with your comments!