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Ending to Begin

The end is wedged in the beginning; the beginning is wedged in the end” is one of the earliest teaching found in the Kabbalah. It is a wonderful guide in our appreciation of how events unfold,how life has a way of coming full circle and how important intention is to outcome. In Kabbalah teaching, the seed is what we call beginning and if we want to plumb the depth of our understanding, we need to reveal the “seed” level—the ultimate source of all that manifests.

“It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us —that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The first and final bullets of a chapter in America’s history were fired in Charleston, S.C. The first bullets were shot to defend the cause of a perceived way of life (slavery) and instigated civil war; the final bullets were shot to defend a perceived way of life (racism) and instigated civil debate about the removal of the confederate flag.

Abraham Lincoln’s ending words of the Gettysburg address are wedged into the ending of nine lives in Mother Emanuel Church and are wedged in a new beginning for Charleston, S.C. By a vote of 94-20 representatives of South Carolina House approved the removal of the confederate flag from its grounds.

During the debate, which extended into the early morning hours in the South Carolina House, Representative Neal Collins, a Republican from Pickney County, called upon his colleagues to take action to remove the confederate flag. “As much as I respect the flag,” he said, “It’s time for our state to use this opportunity to heal.”

Neal Collins is yet a young man of 33 years of age. He is well aware that in voting for the removal of the confederate flag his end is wedged in his beginning. “This might be two terms in one for me—my first and my last,” he said. May he find comfort in his convictions and in the second clause of the above Kabbalistic teaching that: the beginning is wedged in the end. Mr. Collins, along with 93 of his colleagues, planted a new seed, to remove a symbol of a perceived way of life in order to create the space for a new birth of freedom for all.

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