Bimahot

As a practising Jewish mystic, I often cerebrate if common objects used in worship become “imprinted” with spiritual “strength”. Consider objects used everyday in a shul filled with prayerful and spiritual elevation. Does all that spiritual activity embed itself in these objects? Take a bimah, for example, like these very old bimahot found in an old European synagogue.

Photo Credit: Center of Jewish History

A bimah is used by individuals in during prayer to hold their siddur (prayer book). The cantor's bimah, or podium, is larger that those pictured above and located in the centre of the sanctuary. Here, the Torah scroll, a truly sacred object, is rolled out and read aloud for all to hear. Working under the assumption that artefacts “absorb” prayerful and spiritual elevation, the cantor's bimah would be the most “elevated” bimah in a given house of worship.

The great Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz wisely summed up an underlying concept in Jewish mysticism in this manner: “The observed universe around us is only a part of an inconceivably vast system of worlds”. Most of these worlds being spiritual; they occupy the same place as the physical universe we perceive, but we cannot normally sense them.” Rabbi Aryeh Kaplin further observed that, according to Jewish mysticism, that “these worlds are highly coupled, that is, what actions you do in this physical world is reflected in many other worlds.” Moreover, with the Divine spirit which has been gifted to all of us, one may observe and even effect these otherwise undetectable dimensions in a conscious, purposeful manner. A prime example of this concept being employed is the practise of Ma'aseh Markavah with which the mystic seeks to perceive these other, mostly spiritual worlds.

My mental ruminations that a bimah may “absorb” prayerful and spiritual elevation, is based on the above concepts, that our actions and prayers alter the nature of one or more of the spiritual worlds. In analogy, we “record” a person's spiritual outpourings employing the spiritual dimensions as our media. The bimah is the “recording device”. Using the practice of Ma'aseh Markavah or other methods, we should be able to recall or “play back”, the original spiritual outflow through the bimah.

Imagine the bimah of the great Rebbe Elimelech Weisblum of Lizhensk, one of the founding rabbis of Hasidic movement! What spiritual beauty and wholeness must it hold. If we consider that a “haunted” artefact is simply an object which is a sort of spiritual recording device, like the bimah of an intensely spiritual person, then we may understand the mechanism by which it functions.

In conclusion, concious, concentrated, and purposeful direction of spiritual activity is one of the ways a “haunted” artefact may be created.