Rabbi Nachum Shifren

The ocean, according to the Kabbalah, is derived from the highest spiritual source. It represents an absolute unity with the divine. Those individuals who merited supreme spirituality were termed "fish of the sea."

One hot August night nearly twenty years ago, my friend and mentor, Lifeguard Lt. Thomas Zahn, called suggesting we take a pre-dawn paddle to avoid the "heat." At 4:30 in the morning the water at the Santa Monica Pier sparkled under a bright summer moon. I recall a moment before sunrise, smelling the off-shore eucalyptus breeze out of the Santa Monica Canyon and watching Tom readjust his chin on the board. He squinted toward me and in a hushed tone, lest he disturb the water, said, "It's like a life force, isn't it?"

Years later, after much investigation, I managed to find out why Tom perceived this vitality and why the surfer "feels" different. I found some of the answers in the holy Zohar - an esoteric work of the great mystic Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, of blessed memory. The ocean, according to the Kabbalah, is derived from the highest spiritual source. It represents an absolute unity with the Divine. Those individuals who merited supreme spirituality were termed "fish of the sea." Because of the all-pervasive quality of water in enveloping "created beings" therein, these "fish" never know anything other than the secrets of the universe, residing as they do in a "world of unity" as opposed to land beings who dwell in a "world of separation."

Does this sound familiar? This world of separation, being cut off from the life force symbolized by the ocean, seems to plague many of those seemingly "land-locked" individuals, yet they appear to be oblivious to this mystical world the surfer takes for granted.