Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.11.15
Posted on March 11th, 2015
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The Huffington Post published my article: “The Simple (and Unwelcome) Solution to Anti-Semitism”
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The next level of our development is called the upper world.
Question: But doesn’t natural evolution happen outside of our desire without being contingent upon freedom of choice?
Answer: Freedom of choice is given only in the choice of the way in which we go towards the goal. But the soul must be developed in every person.
This is like in a school in which there are children who learn well and enjoy life. And there are those who don’t want to learn who are punished and suffer. But ultimately they also finish school: either due to their good desire or through punishments and suffering. So we can also go and develop our soul in all kinds of ways, but the result is already determined from the start.
Question: Does this mean that I must develop my soul during this life in this world? Isn’t this some kind of abstract concept existing somewhere in the next world?
Answer: We develop the soul in this world because the soul is the power of bestowal and love, connection with others. So it is possible to develop it only at a time when I am an egoist, and it is up to me to overcome my ego and approach other people. Only through this activity, through this yearning, do I develop within me a new power of unification and connection with others, a power that is called the “soul.”
Question: Does this mean that the development of the soul is simply the development of new characteristics?
Answer: The soul symbolizes the development of new altruistic characteristics. The soul is the power of bestowal in a person that doesn’t exist in him now when he is an egoist. At the present time there is only a tiny nucleus in us, a potential force that can develop into a soul. I can develop this potential so it will develop into an active force. To the degree that this potential is actively realized, I begin to discover a new world before me.
With this new characteristic I will see a new world. Even today I see this world through my characteristics, within my ego, while the higher spiritual world can be seen with the characteristic of bestowal. Just as today we see only this world as real and live in it with our bodies, we begin to live in the spiritual world with our souls.
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From the Radio Program Israeli 103FM, 2/1/15
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The Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther) 1:1: And it came to pass in the days of Achashverosh, the same Achashverosh who ruled from Hodu to Cush, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. So begins Megillat Esther, the Book of Esther. The Hebrew word “Megillah” is derived from the word “Gilui” (disclosure) and “Esther” means hidden. Esther is the queen’s name, the wife of Ahasuerus. Megillat Esther symbolizes the revelation of the concealed, implying that although something is revealed to you, you should remember that it all remains in concealment.
The Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther) 2:5, 2:7 – 2:20: He raised his cousin Hadassah, also called Esther, for she had neither father nor mother. The girl was of beautiful form and beautiful visage, and when her father and mother died, Mordechai adopted her as his daughter. Now when the king’s order and edict became known, and many girls were gathered to Shushan, the capital under the charge of Heigai, Esther was taken to the palace under the charge of Heigai, custodian of the women.
The girl found favor in his eyes and won his kindness, so that he hurried to provide her with her cosmetics and meals. [All the while] Esther did not divulge her race or ancestry, for Mordechai had instructed her not to tell.
Esther belonged to the Jewish people who had a connection to the upper force and if she had told the truth about her origin, it could have harmed her relationship with the king.
And the king loved Esther more than all the women and she won his favor and kindness more than all the virgins;
She obtained grace and favor in his eyes because she revealed a certain part of her spiritual potential in her relationship with the king.
Then the king made a grand feast for all his ministers and servants, “The Feast of Esther.” He lowered [taxes] for the provinces and gave presents befitting the king. And when the virgins were gathered a second time, Mordechai was sitting at the king’s gate.
Esther would [still] not divulge her ancestry or race, as Mordechai had instructed her. Indeed, Esther followed Mordechai’s instructions just as she had done while under his care.
Mordechai (Mor Dror) is the upper force, a very serious force which is totally concealed. Esther fully continued his line.
… Mordechai was sitting at the king’s gate.
This means the gate of the upper king, the upper force of nature. Sitting represents the state of lowliness, of smallness. Therefore, Mordechai waited patiently for the opportunity to pass on the attribute of the upper force to all the people on earth. The population of Babylon in those days was actually all of humanity.
The Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther) 3-1, 3:5 – 9: After these events, King Achashverosh promoted Haman, son of Hamdata, the Agagite and advanced him; he placed his seat above all his fellow ministers.
There must be a very big desire in order to reveal the upper force, the Creator’s greatness. First it stems from the ego, then it is corrected and the revelation of the Creator is received in the corrected desire. Mordechai didn’t have that desire. He was in a state of smallness, sitting at the king’s gate, so it was necessary to include the ego in him in order to raise him to the next level. The ego that is added to Mordechai is called Haman.
When Haman saw that Mordechai would not kneel or bow before him, Haman was filled with wrath. But he thought it contemptible to kill only Mordechai, for they had informed him of Mordechai’s nationality. Haman sought to annihilate all the Jews, Mordechai’s people, throughout Achashverosh’s entire kingdom. In the first month, which is the month of Nissan, in the twelfth year of King Achashverosh’s reign, a pur, which is a lot, was cast before Haman, for every day and every month, [and it fell] on the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
Haman represents the universal ego. He had to kill the desire called Mordechai, which constantly threatened the ego. He planned to annihilate and destroy all the Jews since the Jewish people are actually a conduit for the Light and the attribute of bestowal. If they began to bestow unto all the other nations they would certainly be able to correct them and turn them into altruists, and turn them into an upper nation too just like them; a nation that wouldn’t serve Haman anymore. Haman knew that he couldn’t correct himself and so he had no other choice and was obliged to act against Mordechai.
Haman said to King Achashverosh, “There is one nation, scattered and dispersed among the nations throughout the provinces of your kingdom, whose laws are unlike those of any other nation and who do not obey the laws of the King. It is not in the King’s interest to tolerate them. If it please the King, let [an edict] be issued for their destruction…”
Each of the nations that lived in the 127 provinces of the Babylonian empire had a territory of its own, but the Jews dispersed among all the nations and didn’t have their own land. However, they still attributed themselves to one particular tribe called the nation of Israel.
This is the reason that Haman said: “There is one nation, scattered and dispersed among the nations throughout the provinces of your kingdom” which means that they were not connected to each other. The ego separated them and made them feel repulsed by one another. They couldn’t be a nation since all the other nations were defined by their origin and had a whole earthly egoism, which the Jews didn’t. They differed to such an extent that they spoke Aramaic among them and not Hebrew, their mother tongue.
In the time of the First Temple, the Jews were on a spiritual level and spoke Hebrew, but when they fell to an egoistic level that was much lower than the other nations they actually lost their language, the language of bestowal and of mutual love, and began to speak Aramaic, a language that is the reverse of Hebrew. What is more, every nation felt that they belonged to one social class and every nation respected the king and bowed to his idols, while the Jews had no idols, no respect for the king, and no proper mutual social relations among them. They were the greatest egoists who didn’t get along with one another at all.
Question: If the Jewish nation was separated to such an extent, what danger did it pose for Haman?
Answer: Haman felt that the time for the awakening of the Jews to unity was approaching. It is said that Haman was a great astrologist. He saw according to the signs, which means according to his inner feeling, truly what the Jewish nation actually is. Haman is the opposite side of a Kabbalist, of the one who bestows. He realized that something was about to happen that would bring the exile of the nation of Israel to an end and that they would return to their land, which for him meant death. They had to destroy him on their way back since it was impossible to rebuild the Second Temple without killing and destroying Haman. Therefore, he had no choice but to destroy them, not out of wickedness, but according to the clear and accurate laws of nature.
The Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther) 3:10 – 11, 3:13: The king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, son of Hamdata, the Agagite, persecutor of the Jews. The king said to Haman, “The money is yours to keep, and the nation is yours to do with as you please.”
Achashverosh (Ahasuerus) thought of how to raise the nation of Israel. He realized that they must be frightened and thus forced to unite and connect since their power is only in unity and in ascending to the upper level. But this was possible only with the help of Haman. The Jews had to be terrified of their ego and destroy it so that they would turn it to altruism, and only then would be able to rise. They couldn’t rise without Haman.
The Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther) 4:1 – 2: Letters were sent with couriers to all the provinces of the king: to annihilate, murder and destroy all the Jews, young and old, children and women, on one day—the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar and to plunder their possessions. Mordechai knew all that had occurred, so Mordechai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ash. He went out into the city crying loudly and bitterly. He went up until the king’s gate, for it is improper to enter the king’s gate wearing sackcloth.
Mordechai had to tell everyone what was about to happen and to awaken both the good and the evil forces in order to properly reveal the way humanity should follow. Therefore, He went out into the city crying loudly and bitterly. He wasn’t the unnoticed old man who sat quietly at the city gate anymore. He actually began to be active.
“Crying loudly and bitterly,” refers to the revelation, the call, the connection, which he recreated between the Malchut and Keter. Until then Mordechai was in a state of smallness (Malchut in Bina), but now when he changed into a state of greatness, a state of revelation, he connected the two opposite points of the Creation, Malchut and Keter, through Bina. It says: Mordechai tore his clothes. Clothes is the state a person hides behind. By tearing his clothes, Mordechai puts an end to his previous humble state. He wants to be revealed.
The attribute of Mordechai is the attribute of Bina, complete bestowal. It has nothing to do with the ego and cannot do anything by itself. There is a need for this connection now. The ashes are the very last egoistic level. When he puts ashes on his head Mordechai raises this level above himself, which means that he places himself below all of creations, below everything. These aren’t just nice words but a real spiritual action; an action that he performed so that he would be able to convey the great force of correction to everyone through him. Thus he prepares himself for the state of disconnecting from the ego and to the ascent to the attribute of Bina, when he could convey all the upper Light called Mordechai (Mor Dror), a great Light, through him.
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From a Talk about Purim 2/19/15
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The king responds favorably to the proposal by Haman and informs him of his decision to destroy all the Jews throughout the kingdom.
Mordechai conveys the message to Esther about the need to go to the king with a plea for mercy. However, Esther sets a condition and through Mordechai, she turns to her people with a call to connect and unite. She is then ready to turn to the king with the request for mercy and pardon for those condemned to death. The fate of the Jews depended solely on their unity.
This Is How We Win
There are many “Hamans” throughout the world. Every nation has its Haman, the main hater of the Jews, and woe to the Jews if they forget this.
The condition that transforms the Jews into a people is the condition for which they stood at Mount Sinai: their readiness to join together and answer positively to the call for unification. That is how this happened in the days of Purim 2,500 years ago. The king remembered that he owed Mordechai for saving his life. Esther drafted Mordechai’s request before the king and the Jews were saved. Much later, King Cyrus of Persia, Esther’s son, helped them return to the land of Israel and build the second Beit ha Mikdash (Temple).
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From the brochure about the holiday of Purim, 03/2015
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Question: In the future society built upon spiritual laws and operating as a single body, will any personal goals remain with any person or will there only be collective goals?
Answer: Everything that is relevant to our physical bodies will be arranged in the simplest way because all of the desires and goals connected to corporeal existence belong to the animate level. Clearly everyone requires nourishment, sex, and family, and you arrange for all of this, yet no more than necessary.
After all, nothing will interest you besides attaining the goal in the group, in your society. There, within the society, you will feel your life is on another level, on a human, spiritual level. So our physical life will be very simple.
Question: In the new world will there be scientists, teachers, and musicians? Let’s say that I am a violinist, will I have a personal goal?
Answer: Your goal will be to play the violin as beautifully and well as possible in order to be integrated into society and to cause connection between people. After all, if you bring benefit to the general connection and strengthen it, you will achieve your personal goal—living within everyone.
Question: Is our goal to feel ourselves connected as one person with one heart?
Answer: This is not a goal but a means. The goal is to feel the source of life and feel that I am useful to everyone when I love others as myself.
Question: The goal of a violinist is to become the best performer. What will be his goal in the corrected world?
Answer: It will also be to become the best violinist! Yet today for you the meaning of “being the best” is getting lots of money and respect. So the ego pushes you to be the best with a personal pragmatic goal.
However, in the world of tomorrow, you will yearn to become the best violinist not for the ego, but from love of others. What motivates you is not self-love at the expense of others but the desire to serve people. Everything is completely different: from the beginning of the work to its end.
This approach makes it possible for you to feel all of creation through the heart and mind of society. And then you will see the upper world. You won’t feel the animal world like you do today; a world that is perceived through the five senses since our bodies belong to the animate level. The new world will be felt through the five collective senses that are built after gathering all the desires and passions of friends.
So you will feel the world on a higher level. Instead of the usual seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, senses that are called: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut will be created with you.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/29/14
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Chapter 5: Pariahs
The Roots of Anti-Semitism
The World’s Medics
Imagine you have found a series of exercises that heal cancer and prevent it from ever returning. Imagine you had told the world about it, as did Abraham in Babylon, but you were rejected because the exercises were monotonous and tiring, and no one really felt unwell.
Now imagine that years later, billions of people around the world have cancer. They vaguely remember that you said you had a cure, and in their desperation they turn to you, begging you to save their lives. But you have forgotten all about it. You know the cure exists, you know that many people said it was a powerful remedy (Segula), but since you feel strong and healthy, you see no reason why you should relearn those exercises, much less teach them to billions of people. Can you imagine how the world would feel about you, what people would think, and what they would do?
This is precisely where we Jews stand in relation to the world. The world is beginning to feel unwell, and people are beginning to search for a way out of their plight. They know we are the chosen people, and that we are the ones meant to bring redemption. People may not know that redemption entails changing their nature to bestowal, but they know that redemption is desirable.
Such verses from the New Testament as “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews,”[i] and “What advantage has the Jew? …Great in every way. First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God,”[ii] are only two of countless mentions of the Jews’ unique position and role, as depicted in Christian writings. When we do not carry out our mission, we inadvertently draw toward us anger and hatred, which translate into what we now regard as anti-Semitism.
That we are different and unique is documented in history, in the pages of our scriptures, in those of Christianity and Islam, and in the writings of myriad scholars and statespersons. Below are a few of the countless excerpts from well-known individuals expressing their views on the uniqueness of Jews:
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the UK during World War II: “Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.”[iii]
Lyman Abbott, an American Congregationalist theologian, editor, and author: “When sometimes our own unchristian prejudices flame out against the Jewish people, let us remember that all that we have and all that we are we owe, under God, to what Judaism gave us.”[iv]
Huston Smith, a religious studies professor in the United States, author of The World’s Religions, which has sold more than two million copies: “There is a striking point that runs through Jewish history as a whole. Western civilization was born in the Middle East, and the Jews were at its crossroads. In the heyday of Rome, the Jews were close to the Empire’s center. When power shifted eastward, the Jewish center was in Babylon; when it skipped to Spain, there again were the Jews. When in the Middle Ages the center of civilization moved into Central Europe, the Jews were waiting for it in Germany and Poland. The rise of the United States to the leading world power found Judaism focused there. And now, today, when the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward the Old World and the East rises to renewed importance, there again are the Jews in Israel…”[v]
Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, author of Anna Karenina: “What is the Jew?…What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed, persecuted, burned, and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish. What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?!
“The Jew is the symbol of eternity. …He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear. The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”[vi]
Indeed we are the symbol of eternity, as Tolstoy said, because the Creator’s quality of benevolence is in our “spiritual genes.” And yet, we will not be left in peace until, as in the example with the cancer and the healing exercise, we consciously elevate ourselves to the spiritual level and raise the whole of humanity immediately thereafter.
As has been stated and quoted above, now is the time of the general correction. At such a time, events become inclusive, global. Such was the case with World War I, and even more so with World War II, the atrocities of which are embedded in our collective memory to remind us who we are, and what we are meant to accomplish.
To avoid such cataclysms in the future, we need to take a closer look at some suggestions and statements given prior to, and following the Holocaust. The next chapter will highlight those statements and their pertinence to our lives today. Once we know what has been said, we will be able to appreciate what we need to do to help ourselves and help the world.
[i] New Testament, John 4:22
[ii] New Testament, Romans 3:1-2
[iii] Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews (UK, Simon & Schuster, 2007), 38.
[iv] A Book of Jewish Thoughts, ed. J. H. Hertz (Oxford University Press, 1920), 131
[v] Professor Huston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 1989).
[vi] Leo Tolstoy, “What is the Jew?” quoted in The Final Resolution, p 189, printed in Jewish World periodical, 1908.
World Kabbalah Convention, Day One, Preparation for Lesson 1
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World Kabbalah Convention, Day One, Lesson 1
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World Kabbalah Convention, Day One, Prepartion for Lesson 2
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World Kabbalah Convention, Day One, Lesson 2
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World Kabbalah Convention, Day One, Lesson 3
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