Sending and Receiving the Angels

Reflection II: The Thirteen Petalled Rose by Adin Steinsaltz

For introduction and background please see previous blog, "A World of Angels."

Steinsaltz continues:
"The real difference between man and angel is not the fact that man has a body, because the essential comparison is between the human soul and the angel. The soul of man is most complex and includes a whole world of different existential elements of all kinds, while the angel is a being of single essence and therefore in a sense one-dimensional." (p 9)

I recall how Walter Wink (Naming the Powers, Unmasking the Powers, Engaging the Powers) speaks of angels as power entities. They represent spiritual forces at work in the world. He cites the angel which confronts Balaam (Numbers 22) and the contention of the angels of Persia and Michael, the chief angel of God in Daniel 10. These spiritual powers are one-dimensional serving good or evil according to their programming. According to Wink, however, the angel of a nation, or the angel of an institution can be "converted," can change its mind. In other words the relationship between angels as spiritual powers and humans in history goes both ways: angels affect humans, and humans affect angels. This is the substance of prayer according to Wink.

Steinsaltz adds an interesting twist to his analysis. He contends that humans by their actions on earth actually create and send angels into the worlds. Remember that Steinsaltz has described four interrelated, overlapping and yet distinct worlds: the world of action, the world of formation, the world of creation and the world of emanation. Angels are primarily creatures of feeling and belong in the world of formation. He writes:
"More, precisely, the person who performs a mitzvah, who prays or directs his mind toward the Divine, in so doing creates an angel, which is a sort of reaching out on the part of man to the higher worlds. Such an angel, however, connected in its essence to the man who created it, still lives, on the whole, in a different dimension of being, namely in the world of formation." (p 11) In this way angels are released to the world of formation. And these angels can then be sent on missions to the world of action. The angels created and released into the worlds can be good or evil. The human acts which create them determine whether they are angels of mercy, healing, hope or demons of suffering, violence and despair.

""Each angel has a well-defined character which is manifested in the way it functions in our world. This is why it is said that an angel can carry out only one mission, for the essence of an angel is beyond the existing many-sidedness of man. The particular essence of an angel can be evinced in terms of different things and separate forms, but it remains a single thing in itself, like a simple force of nature. Because even though the angel is a being that possesses divine consciousness, its specific essence and function are not altered by it, just as physical forces in the world are specific and single in their mode of functioning and do not keep changing their essences. It follows, then, that just as there are holy angels, built into and created by the sacred system, there are also destructive angels, called 'devils' or demons,' who are the emanations of the connection of man with those aspects of reality which are opposite of holiness." (pp16-17)

The connection, relationship, transportation between the world of angels and the world of action is intriguing. As one is aware of one's actions, even one's thoughts and feelings, having significance beyond one's immediate world it is certainly a call to mindfulness and mitzvah! As one is aware of the potential for words and deeds to take on lives of their own, to inhabit the future in spiritual ways, it is both sobering and hopeful--sobering that the consequences of our lives have such depth and hopeful that we indeed stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, the great ones as well as those more feeble. May we in the world of action take heed of the angels sent to us, and the ones we are sending.

P Moe 2-8-06