DALET ד
Dalet דלת means door. Developmentally, dalet originated from a pictograph for a hanging door in a tent.
Vrata
The Semitic root of the word is דלה /dal/, which means humility, lowliness, to be poor. It describes someone who “lowers himself,” who is humble, just as the door of a tent is lowered. The verb to hang is /dall/ דלל. In the Kabbalistic sense, humility, devotion, and lowering oneself are precisely the conditions for the transition from one spiritual environment to another, from darkness to light.
In Kabbalah, we define humility as the awareness that you have nothing of your own. Doors also have these properties – they have nothing of their own, they only separate two spaces. In a theoretical sense, however, Dalet refers to the Sephiroth Malkuth, or our world, which has nothing of its own, as it receives everything from the other Sephiroth through Yesod. In other words: man has nothing of his own, he receives everything from the Creator. If we are aware of this and act accordingly, we are humble. Only in this way can we step through the doors that limit us from spirituality, or only in this way can we progress from one level to the next. At each new level, we get a new piece of ego, which we then have to "process" appropriately - transform if we want to progress.
Дл /dal/ also means poor – someone who has nothing of their own and is therefore humble.
Malkuth belongs to King David, who is written דוד. His name begins and ends with dalet ד. Although David was a king, he was humble, completely surrendered to the infinite creator. Such qualities of royal sovereignty must be achieved in Malkuth by every Kabbalist.
The concept of a door - dalet communicates the ideas: to move, to hang, to enter.
In the aleph-bet, the poor dalet ד is preceded by the rich gimel ג, who gives to dalet. The danger lurking in this concept of the “poor” is our laziness and our acceptance and even approval that the goods of the material world are not important. Let us be consistent in the Kabbalistic definition of the poor – this is not someone who has nothing, but someone who is aware that everything he has is not his, but comes from the Creator. In practice, this means that he will have to return what he has to the Creator. On the other hand, he will be able to receive even more (i.e., he will receive wisdom) only when he receives with the intention of giving, which is achieved only through transformation.
That someone is "poor" in a spiritual sense also speaks of the fact that someone cannot decide for themselves how much of the material world they will dispose of, manage - but will leave this decision to the creator. In practice, this means that we must develop our potential in a material sense as well!
We are "poor" because we do not own the right to not develop our own potential.
With this definition, we can already get a taste of what the language of Kabbalah means. The concept of a poor person in the material world has a completely different meaning in spiritual contexts. It does not mean that a poor person has nothing, but that you have to be poor – to realize that everything comes from the Creator – if you want to get everything.
Of course, the choice of the word poor for such a spiritual state is much more appropriate in Hebrew, since the words poor and door have the same origin. Door/poor = passage into spirituality.
BITUL
If we compare this picture with the first one, where there is a door, we will recognize the identical shape - ד. What does this little addition do - we call it a tag, protruding from the horizontal line of the Dalet? The Dalet represents humility, which is achieved through the process of bitul, which means the annihilation of the ego. However! We cannot, nor should we, completely annihilate the ego. The little dot represents a small amount of ego, which everyone must be aware of and “feed” this particle. If we do not feed it, if the ego does not get its little piece, it will take everything. Calculating the ego is a Kabbalist virtue!
From the theory we know that to enter spirituality (altruism) it is first necessary to reach the state of giving with the intention of giving, and the final stage of altruism is receiving with the intention of giving. Giving with the intention of giving is therefore a transitional stage, it is "unnatural", because man is a desire to receive, so giving with the intention of giving takes place only in one segment of our desires. That is why I say that there must be a small piece of ego that keeps us in our essence: receiving. Because of this, spiritual transformation is a gradual and complex and relatively complicated process!
Bitul is a spiritual state associated with the continuous flow of Chokmah (the Sephirah of Wisdom). This state is achieved when we annihilate the awareness of ourselves as an independent being capable of self-sustenance. Bitul is the experience of nothingness (AIN) within the omnipresent infinity.
We mainly recognize two levels of bitul:
Bitul b'metziut (existential annihilation)
- this is the absolute form of bitul, where the individual loses the sense of independent existence. Here we have direct and constant contact with the sephira chokma, we feel the creator's omnipresence. This bitul is connected to the spiritual world of asilut.
Bitul hayesh (annihilation of something)
– it is a lower form of bitul, where the individual is constantly involved in the annihilation of the outer layer of his own being – the annihilation of the ego. This is achieved by a focused effort to constantly re-create reality, including the re-creation of himself according to the principle of yesh min ain – something from nothing. The individual begins to realize that there is no independent reality that would be tied to the individual's being "something" - everything is an illusion within the person. The individual considers himself to be an independent being, but in direct dependence on the creator; which is the difference with existential bitul. Bitul hayesh is the annihilation of something, the ego in the three lower worlds: beria, yetzira and asia.
The "danger" that lurks in the concept of bits is the imagination, which is a product of the ego, that convinces us that we are already selfless, that we have annihilated our ego and that we perceive the creator's omnipresence and oneness and that we understand the rules that govern these levels. In reality, this only increases our ego.
Bitul, the negation of the ego, is an entry into spirituality that does not happen with some "imaginary" weekend workshops on the topic of (pseudo)spirituality. Such imagination can cause doubt, suffering, distrust in Kabbalah - this happens more often with teachers who promise quick results and who are (probably) themselves in an imaginary state of selflessness, i.e. they have not experienced real bitul.
Extreme forms of imaginative bitul lead to fanatical, religious sects.
Less ego, more wisdom, more light!
The two types of bitul arise from two levels of perception of the creator. In the higher perception, “above” is something (jesh), and “below” is nothing (ain), or is nothing. In the lower perception of the creator, “above” is nothing, or is nothing above, and “below” is something.
It often happens that an individual first experiences an imaginary higher bitul (existential), which only inflates their ego, and then, if they are lucky, they decide on Kabbalah and start with the lower bitul, and then gradually reach the true higher bitul.
If we participate in a carefully designed learning system, we will avoid the side paths on which our imaginary-spiritual-ego would grow too long. What would it mean if the ego grew too long? The answer is very simple: such a strengthened ego would resist transformation with all the more force, which would mean more suffering or even stagnation on the path of spiritual transformation.
MEANING OF THE NUMBER 4
Dalet is the fourth in order in the alef-bet, so its gematria is four.
4 directions in space; east, west, north, south.
4 seasons.
4 types of creation; minerals, plants, animals, humans.
4 forces: gravity, electro-magnetic force, strong and weak nuclear force.
4 fire, earth, water and air.
4 tetragrammaton יהוה.
4 levels of understanding Torah: pshat, remes, drash, etc.
4 spiritual worlds: Azilut, Beriah, Yetzira, Asia.
Mars
Dalet je ena od sedmih "dvojnih" črk, z njo je bil ustvarjen Mars, ki pripada mesecema hešvan (Škorpijon) in nisan (Oven).