Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar;
Here is a mystery.
Ezekiel: 1:4: “I looked, and lo, a stormy wind came sweeping out of the north, a hugh cloud and flashing fire, surrounded by radiance; and in the center of it, in the center of the fire, a gleam of amber.
The word Ezekiel chose for “gleam of amber” is chashmal. This is one of the few times in Hebrew where the root word is not a trilateral root. It actually is made up of four letters – chet, shin, mem, lamed. This word is used only three times in the Old Testament, all in Ezekiel all in the same context (1:4, 1:27 and 8:2) all giving a definitive description of what Ezekiel saw as the center of the manifestation of God or as we Christians would interpret, Jesus.
The LXX renders this in the Greek as “electrum.” It is used in Revelation 1:15 in the same context. This is the word where we get electron and electricity. Thousands of years before mankind knew of an electron or electricity, that is what Ezekiel used to describe what he saw.
Electrum, however, is a modern term used to describe a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, whose colors range from pale to bright yellow like the sun. It was a precious metal used in ancient coinage. Today it is used as an excellent conductor of electricity. The Hebrews recognized gold to symbolize the light or glory of God and silver as His holiness. Both are combined in one element in electrum.
The ancient sages, without understanding electricity, somehow understood the nature of electricity when formulating the word chasmal. It is a compound word meaning silence (chash) and speaking, clinging (milel).
This is the mystery of prayer. For one to connect to the chashmal (electricity) of God, one first must be silent (chash) to cut away (mal, from the word milah same root as milel) the kelipos. It is then that you can speak to God (milel). Chagiga 13b
Kelipos means shell and as Rabbi Yaacov Yosef characterized, kelipos are foreign thoughts during prayer. During prayer kelipos (shells), which contained divine sparks waiting to be redeemed and elevated, are broken down during silence releasing the divine presence or the shechinah. In other words silence before God will crack the shell of foreign thoughts releasing the shechinah.
Do you ever find it difficult to pray? Perhaps you need to just sit in silence for a while, perhaps a long while. In the Toronto Blessing they called it soaking. During that time of soaking you break through the kelipos to release the Chasmal.
We are very hurried in our culture, we want everything now and we are hurried before god when we go to prayer, sometimes to quickly. I remember how Pastor Arnott described the process leading up to the Toronto Blessing. He and his associates just spent hours laying on the floor in silence, soaking he called it. Then one day it happened.
Pastor Arnott and his associates tapped into the deep hidden mystery of Ezekiel and Chasmal. What they did was nothing new, it is as old as time itself. Pastor Arnott just stuck a modern word to it because we have no other word. He calls it soaking.
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