Bechirah Chofshit, Unspellbound

I dreamt.

A witch was carrying me like a mother bird [1] in her arms, flying through the air, taking me someplace. She was trying to lull me to sleep with the peacefulness of the flight. But, I only pretended to fall asleep as she carried me to some mysterious place – to see where she was taking me and to see what her intention was.

When she thought I was asleep, she entered a big mansion of a house [2] and deposited me on a bed in an upstairs bedroom. It was daylight outside. She was going to steal a drop of my blood [3] via a finger pinprick while I slept unaware (she thought)! Like hell! I thought.

I stopped pretending to be asleep and asked her what she was doing. “Oh,” she said, discombobulated by my sudden wakefulness, “I just want a little drop of blood,” she faltered. “For tests,” she lied. I knew what she was really thinking. She thought that by getting a drop of my blood, she could bind [4], control and put spells on me.

“No,” I said, “I’m not going to give you a drop of blood.”

She dropped her friendly facade and told me to get out of the house since I wouldn’t give her any of my blood. She didn’t think I’d make it back safely to civilization, as she had astrally flown me through the air to the magical place. Walking, the monsters outside on the house grounds would get me, she thought with unfounded certainty.

Ha! I made it back. And the only creature who dared approach me as I walked back to civilization fled from me when I made a snarling face at it.

There’s a Jewitch on the loose! was the news I heard flying through town, when the witch realized I hadn’t been “taken care of” by the estate’s guard monsters.

I woke up.

Footnotes:

[1] Tzaftzaf צפצף can be interpreted to mean “chirp like a bird” and in the context of meditation, has been likened to the forbidden practice of necromancy (Meditation & The Bible, R’ Aryeh Kaplan) . In other words, through “repetition” of some sound or action, the witch sought to cast a sleep spell. צפצף is also related to prophetic vision and tzofeh צופה, meaning “seer”. The midrash and Talmud speak of a person near death whose soul “presses” (tzaftzaf) to leave the body and ascend. Redemption is also written to “break forth” (tzaftzaf, Shir Hashirim Rabbah on 6:10).

[2] Pharaoh comes from the word per-aä, which literally means the big house, i.e. the palace.

[3] The witch in this dream, who initially acted “motherly” but ended up wanting to steal a drop of blood, represents the epitome of galut (spiritual exile). R’ Yitzchak Ginsburgh teaches: “The blood relates to the sefirah of binah, the mother-principle–‘the mother gives her child the red [the blood].’ The final and most extended exile, that exile referred to by the prophet as ‘the sick exile is the exile of Edom’, from the word ‘red’ (adom) and ‘blood’ (dam).” In other words, a true “mother” gives her blood to her children, she does not take blood from them.

[4] She was trying to bind my lifeforce to her will through a drop of blood. This may be one reason why Torah law forbids tatoos.

The Essence Of Teshuvah In The House Of David

Tzedek, tzedek we have pursued … Devarim 16:20

In my previous entry, I wrote:

In the first dream “half” in the karmelis, the deathly-white spider was ripped in half. In this dream “half”, in our private domain, the “baby”, where the value of baby in hebrew is equivalent to “the shadow of death” [1], irretrievably disappears. Consequently, the two “halves” of the dream represent a progression whereby “death is removed” from our experience together.

The hebrew word for “half” is חץ, from the root חצץ, meaning to “separate” and “walling off”.

This morning’s dream ח-לום was split into halves [2] צ-צ. The first half of the dream was likewise internally split in half by the presence of a thin “dividing wall” which protectively [3] “walled off” ח-ומה the space of the karmelis (where we were) from the reshut harabim (where others were). So, here I have a “halves within halves” – like a holograph containing the essence of the idea of “two halves”.

In kabbalah, we come across the idea of “halves” in analyses of the letter shin. With a gematria of 300, the letter shin represents 300 arrows, where in battle with Pharaoh Necoh [4], one “sharpened arrow” (חץ שנון) killed King Yoshiyahu, a righteous mashiach from the House of David.

From this data, we can see that the idea of “half” is connected and pivotal to the House of David and to mashiach ben David. In other words, one must pass the test of the splitting the shin to survive as an anointed one of the House of David. Moreover, splitting the shin into “halves” is the critical assay regarding fitness with respect to the transition from ben Yosef (Yesod) to ben David (Malchut). In other words, if the “halving” is successful, mashiach ben David from the House of David lives. If not, he dies.

In my dream, the shadow of death (in the baby symbolism) is dealt death forever (irretrievably). Not my bashert, who lives.

Footnotes:

[1] The gematria of baby תינוק is 566, the same gematria as “shadow of death” צלמות (Tehilim 23:4).

[2] Tzedek elyon and tzedek tachton (Sha’are Orah, R’ Yosef Gikatilla); and the “bodies” of tzadik and tzedeket in the Presence of the Shechinah.

[3] See Chozeret B’Teshuvah (fn. 3) regarding chemah/chomah and davah/hod. The dream immediately followed anger arising from being within a public place.

[4] R’ Yitzchak Ginsburgh, The Hebrew Letters, on the letter shin (p. 320)

Nesi’at Hafachim

Dealing Death To The Shadow Of Death

There is no reshus harabim in this world, but there will be in the future to come … Resh Lakish

In the next half of the previous dream, my bashert and I were in our private home, a reshut hayachid [1], together. I was washing the dishes in the kitchen sink. He was wandering about the house doing other things.

While I was washing the dishes, a baby old enough to hold a bottle of milk on its own, was sitting in a baby seat on the floor behind me, nursing on a bottle of milk. (I didn’t bottle feed any of my kids in real life.)

My bashert wandered into the kitchen. I was finished with the dishes and turned around to see the baby seat overturned, and the “stuff” that had been with the baby (blanket, bottle, etc.) scattered in the corner. The baby had disappeared irretrievably into thin air.

Oh well. We can always make a different baby [2].

In the first dream “half” in the karmelis, the deathly-white spider was ripped in half. In this dream “half”, in our private domain, the “baby”, where the value of baby in hebrew is equivalent to “the shadow of death” [3], irretrievably disappears. Consequently, the two “halves” of the dream represent a progression whereby “death is removed” from our experience together. A progression from reshut harabim to karmelis to reshut hayachid is also evident in the dream. The dream was distinctly separated into two “halves”; the first half having both the reshut harabim and the karmelis in it, and the second half only having the reshut hayachid in it. I’m still thinking about what this detail might mean.

Footnotes:

[1] Interestingly, in the previous dream, there was a thin wall which separated the “karmelis” (located on my left) from the community home (located on my right), which in my mind, was a reshut harabim. The idea formed in my mind that it was a reshut harabim. This article helps me to understand why I saw it that way (as a reshut harabim). A detail of my dream which I didn’t mention previously, but which was nevertheless present, is that the main room was open on both ends (Resh Lakish). The main room in the previous dream was mefulash – open at the “up” and “down” (Netzach and Hod, Sefer Yetzirah 1:13) positions in space (relative to me).

[2] kruv, “is from Aramaic and means “as a baby.”

[3] The gematria of baby תינוק is 566, the same gematria as “shadow of death” צלמות (Tehilim 23:4).

Cosmic Rendezvous

Part of my dream this morning:

I was with my bashert. I can’t recall seeing his face, but I knew that he was my bashert.

We were in a side storage area off the “main place” where the other people were located in the dream. The storage place was also like an alternative reality [1].

The area was somewhat “secret” in that it wasn’t in a public area. It was more private, separated from, yet adjacent to, the main area. The main area wasn’t our private home. It was more like a community home, making the storage area something of a karmelis [1].

My bashert and I were sneaking some time together there, away from people. But, there was a huge white spider עכביש the color of death [1] in the place. I couldn’t relax, even though the spider was not seemingly “after me”. But, I wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t after me. I kept thinking – if I let it out of my sight, it will jump on me. The thought made me nervous, very nervous. I couldn’t concentrate with it lurking around.

Ok. My bashert grabbed the huge deathly-white spider and tried to flush it down a toilet. But, the spider kept escaping the bowl and jumping out. I just couldn’t deal with a huge deathly-white spider roaming about. I couldn’t concentrate on having a rendezvous with it around.

Ok. My bashert grabbed the spider for the last time and ripped it in half with his bare hands. Then he flushed it down the toilet and out of my world.

Now, I could concentrate on our rendezvous together. Ok, now.

Footnotes:

[1] Samhain (sundown October 31 – November 1) marks the time when the veil between worlds is the thinnest. Thus, this dream notes the “adjacent reality” (the karmelis) separated from “primary reality” by a thin wall.

[2] Interestingly, spiders eat each other when grown in the same environment. For this reason, spiders are not “farmed” for mass manufacturing of silk even though a fiber of spider silk can remarkably be stretched 4-6 times its length without breaking. (see link above)

Rectified Binah & My Sephardic Connection

I dreamt.

I was in a cafeteria line (seder) gathering up a meal (shulchan oruch). There was a cauldron [1] of beef [2] and noodles [3]. I tried to dip with the cauldron’s ladle [4] to get a portion of mostly noodles for myself. I tried to get mostly noodles (since I like noodles) and just a little bit of meat (since I’m not a big meat-eater).

Everytime I attempted to do it, nearly all of the noodles would fall off the ladle spoon and alot of meat would somehow manage to work itself up onto the ladle spoon. I would dump the spoon and retry again. This would happen each time I tried, so that I each time I ended up with mostly meat and very few or no noodles on the ladle spoon. That meat had kavanah! by golly!

The people behind me in the line were getting impatient. Ok, fine! I dumped the next ladle full of meat onto my thin paper [5] plate. It looks like I’m going to have to eat meat.

Next, I came to the soda fountain. I filled my large styrofoam cup up with ice, then with cola. As I started to put my cup of sodapop onto my cafeteria tray, all of the cola in my cup disappeared. The ice [6] remained. Only the cola vanished. I filled my cup up again with sodapop. Again, the cola disappeared. Ok, fine! I’ll drink water.

I filled up my cup with water. The water didn’t disappear. I moved on down the line and found a seat at a table in the cafeteria.

I woke up.

Footnotes:

[1] The cauldron symbolizes the Divine Feminine principle, the power of transformation and the “place” where Divine Knowledge and Inspiration (Hashra’ah) are brewed. See Samhain as the Scholars’ Festival for women.

[2] Ashkenazi custom (Vilna Gaon) prohibits roasted meat at a seder, but Sephardi custom does not necessarily prohibit it. This detail of my dream suggests that I may also have some Sephardic ancestry (through my paternal Native American ancestry perhaps, or even through my maternal Jewish-British family line, the Grunwalds, since I’ve only assumed the entire Grunwald clan to be Ashkenazi because they came from England). It could also mean that my bashert has some Sephardic ancestry as well.

[3] Noodles are usually found in kugel dishes over pesach and shabbat. Also, lokshen (noodles) is a Yiddish term, where Yiddish is an Ashkenazic phenomenon. Consequently, given the “pot roasting meat” over “noodles”, the dream is deliberately pointing out a Sephardic connection to me (see fn. 2).

[4] A ladle is likened to a Torah scholar. Sanhedrin 52b, perek dalet mitot. (see fn. 1 above)

[5] Samhain (sundown October 31 – November 1) marks the time when the veil between worlds is the thinnest.

[6] See Zohar #301. “If water is poured on them (the ice, like in my dream), the ice absorbs it. By the waters turning into ice, they have become a vessel to receive additional waters.” In my dream, the ice remained as a vessel upon which water was accepted, but the sodapop was rejected and disappeared. Consequently, this detail of the dream speaks to the purity of my “ice vessel” to accept only pure water (of Atzilutic Torah and shefa) and to discern correctly (as ice “originates” from Binah). In other words, the dream is confirming that the Binah acting within my dreams is rectified Binah.

Possessing The Sea & The South

In my previous entry I wrote:

The word בבי”ת in the Kook version is ‘בב in the Kaplan version. The stand-alone accented letter is a funny looking chet in my Kaplan version, a beit in the Kook and a hei in Devarim (the quoted verse). I have used the accented beit as it is in the Kook version here in my excerpt, for reasons I will explain in my next post.

Now I will explain. A few nights ago, I dreamt.

I was on the sea (malchut in the world of atzilut) in a small boat, like a fishing boat, I think. Nevertheless, I was on the sea. Near me, almost on top of me, was an enormously powerful water fall. It was greater than Niagara Falls. In fact, the falls began “outside” the scope of my dream. The water “fell into my dream” from a place beyond my dream vision. I knew this even in the dream. The source of the powerful falls originated in the darkness beyond the edge of my vision.

I was situated slightly off center towards the right (corresponding to the south) of the falls (facing them). Had I not been, the powerful mass of falling water would have landed right on top of my head, sending me “underwater” into a powerful current. The falls were awesomely gorgeous and good, but it would not have been good for such power to land right on top of my head.

Anyway, for this reason, I choose the letter beit because I was “at” (a meaning of the letter beit as a prefix) the waterfall which “possessed the Sea and the South”.

שנאמר ומלא ברכת ב’ ים ודרום ירשה
Sefer HaBahir, verse 3 excerpt

Traditional interpretation: “Because it is written (Devarim 33:23): The filling is G-d’s blessing possessing the Sea and the South.”

My Date With Satan

I had this dream 10-15 years ago.

I was in a burning house. It was completely engulfed in flames, except for the small space where I stood in the center of it. All around me was fire. The house was burning down, with me dwelling in it. I was trapped by fiery flames.

Suddenly, an opening appeared through the flames above me. HaSatan was looking down through the flames directly at me. He was completely red (אדמה תמימה, Bamidbar 19:1) and had two little horns (יי) on his head like the classic Moses sculpture by Michelangelo. Oddly, even though I wasn’t religious at the time, I wasn’t afraid of him at all. He symbolized hope (התקווה) to me – my chance of escaping being burned alive in a burning house. His face was kind. His silent expression elicited in me hope, not hate or fear.

I looked up. He reached down through the flames and plucked me up [Zecharyah 3:1-4] out of the burning house. And then I woke up.

The instrument of Hashem’s deliverance was HaSatan – who would’ve thunk it?

The Battle For Jerusalem

Pardes Dressed In Blood

I dreamt.

I was at the shul in town, which in the dream, was both a shul and a house. In reality, it is a former church building.

I was there attending what I thought was going to be a shul service with my “baby” [1]. The other women were in the kitchen, quietly doing dishes and intensely doing things, like one might do for pesach. But, it wasn’t pesach. I wasn’t sure why they were doing what they were doing. It all had a “stepford wives” feel to it – as if they didn’t know why they were doing what they doing either. They were just doing it because that’s what they had been told to do.

The rabbi peeked in a window checking up on them, for the men. Everyone was towing the line. But me. But, I was tolerated and I was just about to learn why.

Outside on the shul grounds sat some kind of contraption one of the men had built. It killed people in gruesome, violent ways – chopping off heads, piercing, smashing, etc. In the wooded area off to one side of the grounds, was a secret place. In the place were magazines about children in adult ways. An opened page showed a baby with adult breasts pasted onto its chest. Ohmygosh! I had to get out of there, fast. I “saw” that a man in the community had built something from “parts” of babies! [2] I was totally freaked out. Everything there was bloody in my eyes now.

I hurried back into the shul-house and picked up my baby sleeping quietly in the bassinet, trying to hide my newfound fear of whatever was going on there. It was dangerous to arouse suspicion that I now “had a clue”. The ritual preparation taking place was not for pesach, but it was for something important. Important, gruesome and terribly gross. Even ignorant of exactly what ritual was about to transpire, I knew it was not good. At all. And my baby was to be the next victim!

I grabbed up my baby and when I got onto the “porch”, I ran for our lives. A man and his wife became alerted as to my escape and came out onto the porch to try and catch me but I was too far gone for them to “retrieve” me. It was at this point that I saw the couple.

It was an elder couple, well respected in the community. I didn’t recognize the forms in the dream though. They didn’t look like anyone I’ve actually met in shul. They were well dressed, grey haired, fit and professional looking. Their appearances were well kept.

When the couple saw that I had irretrievably escaped, the man said in a “commanding” exasperation, “I am going to finish my work!” Apparently, my baby’s “part” would have been the finishing touch on his “work” made of parts cut out of babies. “Yes!” the wife responded, with her back to him as she stood in front as they both watched the path of my escape, “finish it!” But, she hadn’t fully realized what the man had meant by saying it.

The man, standing behind his wife, pulled out a knife, pierced her from behind with it, and cut out her heart as she stood there in horrified shock before she fell to the floor dead. She had thought “someone else” would be her husband’s victim, as the babies had been. She had been a passive participant in her husband’s “work”.

The act on the man’s part reminds me of a movie I once saw about Jack the Ripper, where near the end of it, a man ritually cuts out a woman’s heart as part of some Masonic ritual [3]. The man’s act was like that. I’ve also read once (in a ritual abuse article) about a Satanic ritual that does the same thing.

I could see that the ends of the blood vessels in the hole where the woman’s heart had been actively came together and formed a “sign”. The sign was similar to a swastika, but it was also a “more evolved” form of a swastika.

The man took the heart he had cut out of his living [4] wife and went to finish his “work” [5]. As he worked in the hidden place, I saw a host of large black bugs the size of large rodents that eat human flesh “arrive” on the shul grounds. The man was doomed. A host of marching dogs materialized too. He was about to be destroyed.

I woke up.

Though I walk through a valley of the shadow of death, I am not harmed … Tehilim 23:4

Footnotes:

[1] kruv, “is from Aramaic and means “as a baby.”

[2] The gematria of baby תינוק is 566, the same gematria as “shadow of death” צלמות.

[3] As the poor man murdered in Israel, as described in the link, was descendant of a high-ranking family which helped found the Order of the Knights Templar, this poor female kabbalist is the 6th great grandniece, through my mother’s father, of American founding father and statesman Benjamin Franklin, a freemason. So, they want my pure heart and and would spiritually cut it out of me alive to get it. No wonder I can’t get a decent job and have been economically destroyed over the past decade. I have never supported the liberal line that Jerusalem should be under “international” control. I’m known to be too much of an Israeli at heart in this area. May my poverty shine like a badge of honor in heaven among the angels and into the eyes of Hashem!

[4] not as a burial ritual, the heart was cut out while the oman was alive

[5] The work: “A spokesman for Militi Templi Scotia, the Scottish Knights Templar, admitted to the Sunday Post, ‘We are currently involved in an attempt to remove control of the holy sites of Jerusalem from the Israeli government. We believe they should be administered by the United Nations and are working with the UN and Nato to achieve that goal’.”

Zehira Ila’a & Radical Refocus

no angels or sheidim need apply …

Likely as an answering observation to Chaim A.’s multiple email inquiries regarding shin-daleds, Jack-O-Lantern’s entry regarding Selichot Of Darkness, a recent anonymous comment on my livejournal regarding a dream earlier this past year about a spider and shem hameyuchad, and recently beginning new study of Sefer HaBahir, I dreamt.

I אנוכי was in the middle of nowhere (see chalal hapanui), riding as a front seat passenger in a car (i.e., chariot, vehicle) with my mother (who was driving) and my grandmother (who was in the middle of the back seat), traveling at night (see pachad Laylah, Tehilim 91:5) down a deserted country road. Trees of a dark forest lined the road.

Suddenly, the headlights went out and no longer illumined the road upon which we were traveling. It was completely and absolutely dark תא outside of the vehicle. Not a trace of light penetrated the night to light even the outline of the road.

My mother brought the vehicle to a stop (see Sefer HaBahir and “radical shift in focus“). During the stop, the car remained on the road – I could still “feel” (see noge’ah v’eino nogeáh) the road beneath our feet (the wheels of the car), even though we three (ש) inside the car could not see the road. My grandmother mentioned that someone had suggested that there were demons in these woods (like lions and tigers and bears?) and that was the reason for the current absence of light. The demons were outside, she thought.

Ridiculous! I don’t see any demons. Besides, if demons did really exist (which I didn’t believe they did), they couldn’t come near me anyway, so just forget about demons. There aren’t any – just call me Dorothy-Matat (see zehira ila’a, the source of kedushah & the malach “matat”). We can get through these woods!

Here’s the plan, I said to my mother and grandmother – if I go out (see kohenet and 4-headed shin of messianic consciousness) את of the car and step into the darkness תא, I’ll be able to uniquely see אתתא the road. You’ll both be able to see me (for some reason, like the light of the shechinah directly illumines the kinneret, I could “draw” out – given that את comes to add and through Yerushalayim draws out – light from the headlights to illumine me as I walked down the road). I’ll walk down the yellow line in the middle of the road and you (my mother) can drive the car behind me down the road. In this manner, we’ll get through the darkness, back to civilization and home.

And that’s what we did. I got out of the car, saw the yellow line in the center of the road, and walked upon it. The light of the headlights came out and illumined me as I walked. My mother drove and followed in the car behind me and we got through the dark forest, back to civilization and back home uneventfully.

Right before I woke up, I was a visitor in a hospital where my grandmother was getting an EKG and a checkup. “Dr. Dave” came through the door – he and his new family were doing well now, he said. He asked me if I remembered him and seemed pleased that I did. Oddly, there had been a sick physician in the dream of the same night immediately preceding the aforementioned spider dream. He was doing well now since that first dream.

I woke up.

Express in truth, whatever the soul reveals; for with each spark of truth, torches of light assemble, illuminating the whole world, and from such fragments of inner truth will the Great Truth emerge. [Rav Kook, Lights Of Holiness 1:168]

Soferet, Ba’alat Magiah On Retzuah Shel Tefillin

If a pair of tefillin was not worn regularly, it is necessary to bring it to a scribe at least twice in seven years to have it checked. Jewish Gates

I dreamt.

My “husband” (whose identity was unknown) and I were moving into a big old mansion of a house of many rooms (see batim) in a small town. The house reminded me of the kind of big old house one sees in scary movies.

It was a huge house with many unique characteristics, nooks and crannies, and hidden places, but it was also a very modest house. It was just big, spacious, unique and full of many rooms. And mostly empty of furniture at this time.

I was going through the house while my husband was away, deciding who would have what room and how to utilize the wondrous spaciousness of the place. The kids each got his or her own little kingdom – in other words, along with the bedroom, each child received extra adjoining rooms around it into which to “expand” his or her domain.

The oldest son got a place of many rooms upstairs, and a rather secluded room in the back of his space, where he could play his loud music, that nobody else in the family liked, just as he pleased and without annoying everyone else. Likewise, the other children got places to fit their unique needs and desires. Everyone would be happy.

There was so much space and so many rooms, allowing me to do this for my kids. And after I finished finding the right rooms and space for my children which brought each joy, there were still many more rooms and much space than I could assign. There was room left for the whole family to expand into. We could even take in guests and boarders, with so much room.

Oddly, I couldn’t decide with certainty (see unstable chaos) on which room to take for myself and my husband. (I had to wait until I woke up for it to become clear – see stable chaos– as to why this was so.) The two rooms I considered (see knot and mochin of Leah) first as a single unit wouldn’t do at the moment, as I saw these rooms didn’t have finished roofs (see tevunah) over them yet and would get wet when it rained [1]. Those two bedrooms were together [2] still being built simultaneously (see the one compartment of the tefillin shel yad).

As I was considering these two rooms together, I saw that outside the windows a lion was lurking. So, the unfinished rooms weren’t really safe either.

In the meantime while the roofs were being put on, there were 4 other bedrooms (see the 4 compartments of the tefillin shel rosh) to choose from for my husband and I to dwell safely in (see syag). In the dream, it was a given that my husband and I would need at least two bedrooms (see challah and niddah) for niddah times. And besides, we each needed our own space to expand (2 by 2 = 4, see totafot) into as well as did our children. We had 4 bedrooms (see ul’totafot) we could presently use, plus a big resting room (see hadlakat haner) like a library or personal den [3] where we could relax together.

During all the meandering through our new house, my children came home from school, each happily exploring his or her newly given domain. They were so happy!

The little town, like a small New England town perhaps, liked us too. There were only a few Jews in the little New Englandy town, including us, but we were really wanted there. It felt so good. They liked us. They loved us, in fact.

I explained to my children how we would work the holidays. It was okay to be happy for those of other beliefs. It was okay to say merry christmas to their schoolfriends. It was ok to accept and love their friends as they were.

And their friends did likewise. In my dream, it was truly a situation where everyone appreciated everyone else for his or her uniqueness. I loved this place! Even if there were only a handful of people who were Jewish like me. I absolutely adored this wonderful little town in my dream. We were all going to be truly happy here.

A guest came to our house after my husband came home. He was a friend of my husband’s. I ignored him mostly because he was there to visit my husband. But, the guest wanted me to examine (see megihim) his arm, since I was a nurse and it was hurting him. It was his left arm.

He took off his sleeve [1] and I observed that the arm and hand appeared to be badly “coming undone”. It was red and swollen yet white [4] and shrunken (see tefillin gassot) at the wrist area like something had been too tight there, squeezing out all the blood (see lifeforce and nefesh). I scanned (see mishmeret STa”M) the arm more closely.

The muscle was windingly coiled (see retzuah) around the arm like cords coming loose and getting ready to fall off [5]. The cords of muscle (see lion syndrome and tiferet) reminded me, even in the dream, of the arm tefillin. His arm was in bad shape. All the muscle was about to fall off. The hand was badly inflamed. It looked burning hot, but it was so raw I dared not touch it lest I make it worse. I didn’t have the training or tools to treat his particular ailment myself (da’at, the axis of self-consciousness). He needed to go to the hospital (of divine delight, ta’anug of keter).

I told my husband and his guest that the guest really need to go to the hospital to get his arm and hand medically treated by trained experts at the hospital. It was in seriously bad shape, but if he went now, it wasn’t too late to fix it. If he didn’t get the arm treated right away, it might require amputation [5] to keep whatever was wrong with the arm from spreading throughout the entire body.

I woke up.

Footnotes:

[1] Tefillin can be damaged by sweat, and Mezuzos by damaged by sun and rain. “Any loss of the squareness may affect the halachic status of the tefillin and therefore if the inner cover on the shel yad gets lost, one should replace it immediately lest the slight daily rubbing of one’s sleeve against the bayis damage its shape. Likewise, the author cautions against prolonged exposure to heat, sunlight or moisture.” Jewish Observer book review, reviewer R’ Lasbish Becker

[2] “The knot of the tefillin of the head is the intermediary between the tefillin of the arm and the head, and the knot is where the mochin of Leah are. And, the tefillin of the arm is where the mochin of Rachel is.” R’ Eliezer Berland @ Shuvu Bonim. In the dream, the knot is intact and the “roof” (tevunah, comprehension) is being built.

[3] Rectified din if associated with the voice of the shofar, from the same root ספר as sofer (סופר) and soferet (סופרת) – where in this dream, I am a soferet examining the “place” of the tefillin shel yad.

[4] “Harav Moshe Feinstein was asked: How much whiteness on the Tefillin straps renders them invalid? He is quoted (Guide To Practical Halachah, pg. 158) as answering: ‘For what is needed for the Shiur, we are stringent – even if a tiny drop is not black the area must be repainted. Beyond that, the amount does not matter unless it is really noticeable.'” R’ Doniel Neustadt @ Torah.org

[5] “Reb Elazar Ben Yaakov said that whoever has tefillin on his head and on his arm, tzitzis on his garment, mezuzos on his doors, is assured that he will not sin, as it is stated, ‘And a three-ply cord is not easily severed.'” Chazal

artistic credit:
graphic made from woman with tefillin @ Leonard Nimoy Photography