A Glimpse of Radiance

A glimpse of radiance
Column: Kabbalah.info
Rav Michael Laitman ReligionAndSpirituality.com
April 23, 2007
The Book of Zohar (radiance) is the most mysterious, and at the same time most significant, book of Kabbalah. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that The Book of Zohar, written 18 centuries ago, was made for our time. Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) opened it to us and rekindled what has long been forgotten from our hearts. "The depth of the wisdom in The Book of Zohar is locked behind a thousand doors." — Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), "Preface to the Book of Zohar" Since the dawn of humanity, unique individuals have climbed the spiritual ladder and achieved the highest level of bonding with the Upper Force, the Creator. We call those people "Kabbalists." Through this bonding, they came to understand that the whole of reality, from the highest spiritual worlds down to our world, is founded on love and bestowal. They realized that there is nothing in the world except for this Force, and that everything that happens in reality was made only to bring humanity to permanent existence with this sensation. Kabbalists have searched for and found the answers to every question they asked — the purpose of our lives, the structure of the world, and how we can determine our destiny. They wrote about what they discovered in books such as Raziel Hamalaach (The Angel Raziel), Sefer Yetzira (The Book of Creation), Etz Chaim (The Tree of Life), and others. Of all the books, the most seminal, mysterious and profound is The Book of Zohar (The Book of Radiance). Its author is the great Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi). The Book of Zohar describes the hidden system of the Upper Guidance. It depicts the worlds, the great powers that govern them, and how one who chooses to study Kabbalah affects his or her own fate and that of humanity. The Zohar also explains how every event cascades from the Upper World to ours, and the dressings it acquires here. But what makes The Zohar unique is the fact that it was not written for its contemporaries; it was rather intended for a generation that would live two millennia later — our generation. Removing the covers "Our generation stands at the very threshold of redemption, if we only know how to spread the wisdom of the hidden in the masses." — Baal HaSulam, Messiah's Horn The 20th century brought unprecedented changes. These opened the door to a whole new phase, which the greatest Kabbalists have been describing for centuries in their writings. The greatest change of all is that in this century, Kabbalists state that studying Kabbalah is not only permitted, it is a must! It is written in The Book of Zohar itself that the wisdom of Kabbalah would begin spreading from the year 1840. The great 18th century Kabbalist The Vilna Gaon (GRA) wrote in his book Kol HaTor (Voice of the Turtledove) that the process of the revelation of the Kabbalah would begin in 1990. In his book Even Shlomo (Solomon's Rock), Chapter 11, he even stated that redemption depends primarily on the study of Kabbalah. The great Kabbalist the Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi in the land of Israel (then called Palestine), explained that "the great spiritual questions that were once resolved only for the great and the excellent must now be resolved to various degrees within the entire nation" (Eder HaYaker ve Ikvey HaTzon, p. 144). But it was Baal HaSulam who turned the words of the Kabbalists from a vision to a tangible reality. He clearly saw that the time had come to allow everyone to study The Book of Zohar. He claimed that by studying The Zohar, the whole of humanity would rise and attain the spiritual world. With this vision in mind, Baal HaSulam devoted himself to composing a comprehensive, accurate and systematic interpretation of The Book of Zohar. His goal was to unveil the book to the public and make it suitable for the souls of our generation. In the introduction to his commentary on The Zohar, he explained why he wrote it: "I have named the commentary HaSulam (the ladder) to indicate that the function of my commentary is as the function of any ladder. If you have an attic filled with abundance, you need only a ladder to climb it, and all the bounty in the world will be in your hands." Accelerating the spread of the wisdom All the Kabbalists dreamed of our generation, when all of humanity could discover the wondrous things they already had. They prayed that through reading the authentic sources they had left for us, we, too, would achieve bonding with the Upper Force, as did they. In his commentary on The Book of Zohar, Baal HaSulam threw us a rope, "a life buoy." In doing so, he paved our way to a future of abundance and prosperity. Baal HaSulam called upon us to give greater weight to engagement in the wisdom of Kabbalah, and accelerate the spreading of the wisdom. He knew that only the wisdom of Kabbalah could elevate the world to the spiritual realm and into the eternity that Kabbalists had been experiencing throughout the generations. Webster's Dictionary defines a generation as "a group of individuals born and living contemporaneously (at the same time)." In Kabbalah, however, a generation is a spiritual phase. According to great Kabbalists such as the Holy Ari, our generation — our spiritual phase — began in the 16th century. The longer we wait with the spiritual ascension our generation is meant to achieve, the greater will be our discomfort. The spiritual realm, which determines what happens in our world, will increase its pressure on us until we decide to achieve this realm for ourselves. In the words of the great Kabbalist Rabbi Avraham Azulai (in his introduction to the book Ohr ha Chama (Light of the Sun)), "I have found it written that the above decree to not openly engage in the wisdom of truth was only for a time — until the end of the 1490s. From then on ... the sentence has been lifted, and permission was given to engage in The Book of Zohar. And from the year 1540 it has become praiseworthy to engage in great numbers since it is by virtue of this the Messiah King will come, and not by another virtue. It is inappropriate to be negligent."

Why am I looking for something spiritual?

Why am I looking for something
spiritual?

Why do I want something more or different than what everyday life offers? Kabbalah phrases this question like this: How does the desire for the higher force emerge?
Humanity has developed over many lifetimes; first resembling beasts, with desires only for food, family, sex and shelter; then developing through stages of wealth, power, honor and knowledge.
At the first stage of development, desires for food, family, sex and shelter are a person’s only desires. Even a totally isolated individual has these desires and tries to fulfill them. Desires conditioned by society’s influence (desires for wealth, power and honor) emerge at the next stage.
Afterwards, the desire for knowledge appears. Sciences flourish as we set out to discover where everything comes from, to find our roots. This desire for knowledge, however, still only resides within the framework of our world.
Only at the next stage does a human being desire to know the real source, one’s essence—the meaning of life. “Where do I come from?” “Who am I?” “What am I?” These questions cause discomfort and trouble a person.
Human beings are naturally egoistic. All of our desires are self-motivated and crave fulfillment. They pressure us, literally controlling our every move. The height of egoism in our world is the desire to be filled with knowledge about something above us.
What is the source of desires and how do they appear? The source of desires is suffering. Passing from one type of desire to another happens only under the influence of suffering. If I am in a balanced state, then I feel comfortable and everything is just fine. A new desire then appears, and I feel that something is missing. Now I want to experience something new, so I start trying to fulfill this desire…and this process keeps repeating itself. In other words, I am always running after new pleasures.
We are born on this planet, we live and we die trying to satisfy our countless desires. Only after many lives do we reach the state when one desire is all that remains: the desire to attain our source, the meaning of our lives. Once this final, ultimate desire appears, everything else seems unnecessary and meaningless. A person gets depressed, feeling emotionally and spiritually empty, as if nothing in this world can bring happiness. Life seems pointless and lacking something real…“What is the purpose of my life?” “Why do I exist?” These are the questions that bring people to Kabbalah.

"What is Kabbalah?"

What is Kabbalah?
Although its origins are rooted in deep antiquity, from the time of ancient Babylon, the science of Kabbalah has remained virtually hidden from humanity since it appeared more than four thousand years ago.
This very concealment has sustained Kabbalah’s undying allure. Renowned scientists and philosophers of many countries, such as Newton, Leibniz, and Pico della Mirandola, have investigated and tried to understand the science of Kabbalah. However, to this very day only a few know what Kabbalah really is.
The science of Kabbalah does not speak about our world, and therefore its essence escapes people. It is impossible to comprehend the invisible, the imperceptible, and that which has not been experienced. For thousands of years, humanity was offered a wide variety of things under the name “Kabbalah”: spells, curses, and even miracles, all except for the science of Kabbalah itself. For over four thousand years, common understanding of the science of Kabbalah has been cluttered with misconceptions and misinterpretations. Therefore, first and foremost, the science of Kabbalah needs to be made clear. Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag defines Kabbalah in the following manner in his article The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah:
This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and effect, in fixed, determined rules, weaving into a single, exalted goal described as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.”
Scientific definitions may be complicated and cumbersome. Let’s try to examine what is being said here.
There exists the upper force or the Creator, and governing forces descend from this upper force into our world. We do not know how many forces there are, but this is actually unimportant. We exist here in our world. We are created by some upper force that we call “the Creator.” We are familiar with various forces in our world, such as gravity, electromagnetism and the power of thought. However, there are forces of a higher order that act while remaining hidden from us.
We call the ultimate, comprehensive force—“the Creator.” The Creator is the sum of all of the world’s forces and the highest level in the line of the governing forces.
This upper force gave birth to the upper worlds. There are five worlds in total. The so called Machsom—a barrier that separates the upper worlds and our world—follows them. From the upper force—the Creator, also known as “the world of Infinity”—the forces descend through all the worlds, giving birth to our world and human beings.
The science of Kabbalah does not study our world and humans in it, as traditional sciences do. Kabbalah investigates everything that exists beyond the Machsom.
Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag says that “this wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and effect, in fixed, determined rules...” There is nothing other than forces descending from above in accordance with precise laws. Moreover, these laws, as Ashlag writes, are fixed, absolute and omnipresent. Ultimately, they are all directed so that one can reveal the ultimate governing force of nature while being in our world.
Until a person fully reveals this force, until one knows all the worlds one has to climb, obeying the same laws as the descending forces, and until one reaches the world of Infinity, such a person will not leave this world. What does “will not leave” mean? This person will continuously be reborn into our world, evolving from one life to the next until reaching the state where the desire to attain the higher force emerges.
Next article: How does the desire for the higher force emerge? (or, Why am I looking for something spiritual?)

"Kabbalah Today" uses mass media to hasten final redemption

JPost.com » Jewish World » Jewish Features » Article
Apr. 22, 2007 2:35 Updated Apr. 23, 2007 9:44'Kabbalah Today' uses mass media to hasten final redemptionBy MATTHEW WAGNER


Ushering in the end of days might seem an ambitious goal for a tabloid, but the publishers of Kabbalah Today aim to do just that.
Widespread dissemination of Kabbalah, Judaism's esoteric teaching on the origins of creation, will get all of humanity over the last spiritual hump separating it from final redemption, according to members of Bnei Baruch, an organization headed by ontology professor Michael Laitman.
"Right now we are in a stage in humanity where everyone should make the final correction," says Chaim Ratz, executive editor of Kabbalah Today.
"So far more traditional methods managed mankind's basic egoism and self-centeredness," says Ratz, who grew up on Kfar Blum, a secular kibbutz in the northern Galilee. "But today we have reached such extreme levels of egoism that the traditional methods simply do not work."
According to Ratz, man's most basic drive, the pursuit of pleasure, is also the source of all of humanity's problems. And Kabbalah is the cure.
"Kabbalah has the power to eradicate egoism and transform an individual into a more community-wise, altruistic human being," he says.
Ratz says Bnei Baruch's Kabbalah is based on the teachings of Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag as explicated in The Sulam (the Ladder), an exegesis on the Zohar, Judaism's central mystical text.
However, unlike Ashlag and his son Baruch, who strictly followed Orthodox Jewish practice, members of Bnei Baruch are not obligated to do so.
"At the center, we keep the halacha," says Ratz. "And Prof. Laitman says that doing so helps improve the positive impact of Kabbalah's teachings. But it is not essential. Whatever works for you is legitimate."
Close to 400,000 copies of Kabbalah Today are distributed for free in English, Russian and Hebrew in Israel and America either once or twice a month.
The Hebrew edition of Kabbalah Today, called Kabbalah Le'Am, which is published every other week, is distributed at intersections, street corners and coffee houses, and as an insert in Haaretz.
A few thousand copies of Kabbalah Today in English are distributed in Israel. Circulation is about 50,000 in Mexico, Canada and the US. Around 65,000 Hebrew editions are put out in Mexico, Canada and the US, most as an insert in the US edition of Yediot Aharonot.
Bnei Baruch's approach deviates from traditional Jewish conceptions about the study of Kabbalah.
According to Rabbi David Batzri, whose father, Yitzhak, heads Yeshivat Hashlom, a respected Kabbalistic Yeshiva in Jerusalem, there is a prohibition against the widespread dissemination of Kabbalah.
"Kabbalah contains many secrets that must not be revealed to the public," says Batzri. "It is for men who have learned the tradition Jewish texts such as Talmud and the Shulhan Aruch for many years. "Only at the age of 50 may one begin, except in very rare cases."
Batzri, who says he is unfamiliar with Bnei Baruch, does agree that at the end of days more and more people will begin learning Kabbalah.
"That is because they will be spiritually prepared to so. But you can't put the wagon before the horse," he says.