refrain from doing
exercise your self-restraint
trust the unfolding
cultivate boundaries
protect what’s most important
find flow in structure
This is part of a series exploring the seven lower Sephirot (spheres) of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. These spheres are the seven core emotions that drive human interaction.
During the seven-week period of counting the Omer, each week is dedicated to exploring one of the seven Sephirot. Each day is dedicated to one specific element of that week’s trait.
Welcome to Week 2 of our journey through the Tree of Life.
This week is dedicated to exploring the trait of Gevurah.
The literal translation of Gevurah is strength.
Strength comes in many forms: physical or muscular strength; fortitude to persevere; the will to win.
But Gevurah strength is not about pushing through or carrying on at all costs.
Here are some of the themes that Gevurah includes.
Restraint and Restriction
Gevurah is the strength of restraint, restriction, and rules.
It’s often translated as discipline, although it’s more accurate to say it’s the strength of self-control.[1]
It’s also sometimes translated as being about rules and laws.
The Art of Creating Space
Gevurah is one of my favorite topics to explore because it is ultimately about something that is at the core of my mission and purpose: creating space.
Gevurah is the strength to create space and to hold space.
Gevurah is what helps us create space for the deep work, for the work that matters. It’s what helps us nurture our passions.
And it’s how we help others grow.
If you do everything for someone else, even if out of love, you don’t serve them. You don’t give them a chance to make their own mistakes and have their own experience.
Structure For Flow
Gevurah is the counter to Chesed. Chesed is described as flow; Gevurah is the structure that allows the flow.
Just like the river banks that allow the river to flow, Gevurah is the vessel that channels Chesed and directs its energy.
Without a bucket you can’t catch the rain. Without Gevurah, you cannot receive Chesed. Without guidelines you can’t focus your Chesed as you give.
As Rabbi Simon Jacobson explains
Gevurah is the channel through which we express love. It gives our life and love direction and focus. Gevurah concentrates and directs our efforts, our love in the proper directions.
Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder offers that Chesed is about stepping in and acting while Gevurah is about holding back and allowing.
Chesed is the point and the goal — we want to be involved and forward-moving, present and engaged. Gevurah comes to ensure the accuracy, effectiveness, and sustainability of Chesed. It is the temper, not the goal.
Gevurah is ultimately about establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries that serve our goals help us preserve what’s most important.
Holding Back
“Who is strong? One who overpowers his (Yetzer) inclinations. As is stated, ‘Better one who is slow to anger than one with might, one who rules his spirit than the captor of a city’” — Ethics of the Fathers
The word Yetzer is connected to the word Yetzirah, which means formation. Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder writes that controlling the Yetzer is about holding back from manipulating what is before us.
Gevurah is therefore the capacity to not create. It’s the capacity to wait, to allow.
As Marcus Freed writes in his book The Kabbalah Sutras,
Gevurah-strength is the power that comes through conserving and directing our energy. Just as we build muscle through lifting weights that restrain us and weigh us down, Gevurah channels energy through restriction and holding back.
Suppressing the Tendency to Self-Sabotage
As the quote from Ethics of Our Fathers indicates, Gevurah is also the power to overcome yourself and your habitual tendencies.
The biblical archetype is Isaac, who overcame his own will to allow himself to be bound to the altar so that his father Abraham could sacrifice him.
Gevurah is therefore also about how we suppress the desires that might otherwise lead to self-sabotage.
- The word discipline is often misused. The root of discipline means “to learn,” so it’s not discipline unless you’re learning from it. In this context, self-control is more accurate. ↩
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