Many of you might have seen a Kabbala diagram, and may have wondered what these brilliantly colored circles and zig-zags are about. Even if you have never seen a Kabbala diagram before, it is a good introduction to understanding the Divine attributes which make up all of our personality traits, good and not so good.
Any personality, according to Kabbala, is comprised of a combination of 7 traits. All of our thoughts, actions and feelings involve a mixture of these different attributes. An ideal act is a balance of these traits, whereas a mistake can be the result of an excess or an imbalance. For instance, to give is an expression of chesed or kindness, and is generally considered to be virtuous. However, to give a child candy whenever he or she demands it is an excess of chesed and needs to be tempered with gevurah, or discipline.
The Seven Character Traits are as follows:
• Chesed—Kindness
• Gevurah—Vigor or Discipline
• Tiferet—Beauty, Harmony, Compassion
• Netzach-Victory, Endurance, Determination
• Hod-Humility, Devotion
• Yesod-Foundation, Binding, Connection
• Malchut- Majesty, Dignity
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Currently, we are in the Omer period, the time between Passover and Shavuos when offerings of barley were brought to the HolyTemple. This time consists of 49 days, which corresponds to these 7 traits and the way these 7 traits exist as sub-headings. For instance, Day one of the Omer was Chesed (kindness). Day Two was Kindness as it requires Discipline (i.e. not giving your child candy before dinner because you care about his or her nutrition). Day Three, Kindness and it requires Harmony (i.e. the art of knowing when to punish and when to be lenient). And so on. Gd willing, tomorrow, we will talk more about the trait of kindness.