Friday 28 June 2019

Gate 117: Zayin-Lamed (זל)

The 117th gate of the 231 gates is זל, Zayin Lamed.

ז - Zayin - Weapon, Sword, Arm, Strength, Will, Choice, Desire, Actively impacting the world, Marriage, War, Wife, Husband, Crown, Completion, To Act

ל - Lamed - Ox Goad, Staff, Prod, Go Forward, Tongue, To Learn, To Teach, Secret Heart of Eve, Tower Soaring in the Air, Heart that Understands Knowledge

זול - zûwl - to shake, to shatter, figuratively to treat lightly, lavish, despise
לוז - lûwz - to turn aside, to depart, be perverse, depart, froward, perverse (-ness)
אָזל - âzal - “I will” + ״זל״ - go away, disappear, fail, gad about, go to and fro, yarn, be gone (spent), be exhausted, evaporate, to roll, to spin (in the sense of rolling, but used in weaver), to take away, to troll or trowl
הלּז - hallâz - “the” + “לּז” - this or that, side, that, this
נזל - nâzal - “we” + “זל” - to drip or shed by trickling, distil, drop, flood, cause to flow, flowing, gush out, melt, pour, pour down, running water, stream

Literally, Zayin-Lamed, the Weapon (or Arm) and the Ox Hoad, figuratively, to cut and to prod, to move away and to move forward.

This gate is about shaking things up, separating things, defining things by difference, distilling and filtering, spinning something into something new.  It’s about change, being changed, creating change.  In this context, Zayin is about being active and Lamed is about learning.  Both create change.  To stop moving or stop learning, either is to stay the same.  This gate is a call to do the opposite.  Keep learning, keep moving, keep changing and causing change.  It is the gate of the Catalyst, for through it, all things change, with the strength Zayin brings and the prodding forward by Lamed.

Zayin (7) + Lamed (30) = 37.  Other words that add to 37 include ones meaning to perish, grow old, standard or banner, professional, flame, and Yechidah, which is the upper soul, the Godself, which holds the Threads of Fate.  37 reduces once to Yod (10), and twice to Aleph (1).  Yod, the Hand, is that which gives and received, the seed from which things grow, the single point, the centre which is the circumference of all, it is creation and desire, the beginning, which is also Aleph (1) which it reduces to.  Aleph, like Zayin, is strength, but a strength of beginning where Zayin is a strength of changing. Aleph is the ox, which pulls the plow, it is the silence before creation, the separation of above from below, sky from earth, the Mirror of the Outer Dark.  It is Air, which is the middle pillar, and Beriah, the World of Creation.

Beginnings and endings, creation and growing old.  Seeds producing life, flame creating heat, beginnings and growing from beginnings.  Change.  Change of creation, change of growth, change of old age and perishing.  Change, action, movement.

The lesson of the 117th Gate is that it is necessary to act and to learn, necessary to change.  Stagnation, like in a pond, kills.  Life is in the change.  Embrace change, embrace action, embrace learning.  We are in the World of Action, the world where change begins, rippling up through the worlds, as below so above, as above so below.  Be always learning and always acting.

FFF,
~Lorekeeper

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