Abstract
The Ten Kabbala’s Sefirot is an abstract model in Jewish philosophy that represents the mediums through which God may reveal. This study provides an account, in terms of Kabbala’s Sefirot, of the spiritual and educational meaning of the changes that the conscious and the way of life undergoes while a person is on the spiritual-educational path. The context of the description is the educational need to justify the practice of Study-for-its-Own-Sake (SOS). More generally, the article aims to give a concrete understanding of what spiritual and educational development means. Additionally, it provides an explanation of the distinction and inner relations between intellectual virtues and moral virtues. After describing the educational and spiritual practice of SOS, the article describes the educational way “upwards” to the Sefira of Crown (Keter), which involves encountering the metaphysical essence of reality, and “downwards,” which involves the ethical realization of the metaphysical understanding back in the Kingdom (Malkhut). One of the key aspects of this description is that it is incremental. Each movement from one spiritual station to another – ten upwards and ten downwards – continues to be present while the effort to continue to pave into the next spiritual move stretches the spirit to more dimensions.
Presenters
Arik SegevHead of the M.Ed. Program in Educational Leadership Development, School of Advanced Studies, Kaye Academic College of Education and Sapir Academic College, Israel
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2024 Special Focus—Spaces, Movement, Time: Religions at Rest and in Movement
KEYWORDS
Spiritual-educational development, The Sefirot, Study-for-its-Own-Sake, Intelectual and Moral virtues
