Holiday Spice
Don’t you just love the environment at Christmastime? Even as a young child, I still remember it: the chilled air, the smell of pine, colored lights and the expectation of something wonderful. My brothers and I decorated a tree, made lists, left out milk and cookies and believed, without a doubt, in the wisdom, justice and mercy of Santa Claus.
Santa was the smiling giver of good things to those who did good. Santa could see every person in the whole world, all at the same time. And he knew everything too, including whether you had been naughty or nice.
I believed in God as a child too, and I knew that God was somehow different from Santa Claus, but I wasn’t quite sure how. So it wasn’t until I was about eight years old and I found out that “Santa” was a lie that I looked deep inside myself and attempted to separate the truth from the fiction.
Finally coming to what I intuitively knew to be true, I decided that God, unlike Santa, was very real. He’d made the world. He’d made the sun, the moon and the stars, He’d made the animals, and all of nature. And he’d made us, me and my brothers. He was the Creator, the Maker of all things. And God was magical too, because not everyone knew He was there.
As a grown-up I’ve been blessed to discover the science of Kabbalah and to have one of the most revered teachers, the great Kabbalist of the 20th century, Yehudah Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) verify my childhood insight. As he explains in his article, The Solution: “There is nothing more natural than coming into contact with one’s Maker, for He owns nature. In fact, every creature has contact with his Maker, as it is written, ‘The whole earth is full of His glory.’”
As this holiday season unfolds, consider that the delightful (but untrue) myth of “Santa Claus” can be transformed into a true metaphor of the Creator, who really is omnipotent and omnipresent, the maker and giver of all good things on earth.
Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah allows us to discover the Creator and how we can receive and share His many blessings. I invite you to learn more.
By Wendy Barker
