Insights into Rabbi Ashlag's Kabbalah podcast

The Crossing of the Red Sea was an extraordinary event, a miracle, described in detail in the book of Exodus. The waters parted to allow the Children of Israel to cross on dry land for precisely the right amount of time required to get across safely and then they returned to drown their implacable enemies. This is the ultimate miracle, an event that breaks the boundaries of nature. To our surprise we discover that the parting of the waters to allow a people to cross is not a one -time event. There are two other instances: one when the waters of the River Jordan parted to allow the people of Israel to enter the Promised Land, and there is a further instance described in the Talmud. This leads us to ask what conditions are required to enable the boundaries of nature to be breached and we look at the survival of the Jewish people and the establishment of the State of Israel from this perspective.

The Torah is not a history book. The outer events of our forefathers’ lives are recorded in the Torah. But the meaning of these events and the intentions of the protagonists are recorded in the inner aspect of the Torah, the Zohar. It’s when we put the inner intentions together with the events that we begin to understand why these stories are important for us today in living our own lives. In this shiur we will look at one example in which Yaakov teaches us how to handle our own selfishness and ego, before we going to do a mitzvah and how we need to relate to it after the mitzvah by looking at the story of his relationship with both Laban and Esau.

We think it is ourselves that think our thoughts, but Rabbi Yehudah Leib Ashlag tells us that this is a delusion. In actual fact it is God who sends us our thoughts in order to communicate with us, giving, uniquely and intimately, his love to each one of us. Whether our thoughts are positive or negative they all come from him. And thus we actually have an open channel of communication with the Creator of all the universe . This should bring us to feel great joy and thanks.

When travelling in Jerusalem today, we see a thriving city. The elderly sit with their staffs in their hands and the children play in the streets, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah made 2000 years ago. So why should we mourn on Tisha b Av today? The Zohar teaches us that the inner meaning of Jerusalem is the point of holiness in our heart. On Tisha BAv we need to take stock and mourn that the consciousness of God is so low on our own personal agenda and on that of the world. It is our mourning for the consciousness of God in our lives that helps us realize how much we desire and long for the rebuilding of our inner Jerusalem.

The Zohar teaches us that the essence of the Torah, the essence of God, and the essence of the soul are one. But we cannot attain the essence of God directly —even the essence of ourselves, our soul, also is hidden from us. So the one aspect of this godly essence that we are given as a gift to grasp and to attain, is the Torah. When we learn , immerse ourselves, in the Torah we are connecting directly the Holy blessed One, and with our own soul. And this is the great gift that we are given every Shavuot , to renew our connection with the Divine essence. But we’re not just a soul, we are also made up of the body. These two components, while they need each other , also oppose each other. Our body aspect ,our egoism tells us, “whatever you do, to better yourself in the material sense, or whatever actions you take which increase your importance are good. “ Whereas the soul, says, “whatever we can do in giving unconditionally, whether to God or to our fellow human being, is good, because such actions bring us close to God. Our body aspect is more familiar to us: it starts to grow the moment we are born , whereas our soul incarnates later. The voice of the ego is strident , fitting in with the messages we get from the society around us and the media, whereas the soul whispers and we have to strain to hear its voice. So how are we going to want to contact the soul? How are we going to decide that the yetzer hara, our evil inclination, is really our worst enemy ? How are we going to want the Torah the connection with our soul? In this podcast we study a beautiful article of Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag in which he shows us that it is God who came down on Mount Sinai to show us the reality of our own egoism , so we will want to receive the Torah again with all our heart.

When we first look at the Haggadah, it seems to be a collection of somewhat disconnected paragraphs, with the overall motif being the story of the Children of Israel coming out of Egypt. But when we use knowledge gained from the Zohar and the teachings of Rabbi Ashlag we discover that the Haggadah is really a meditation on the inner meaning of exile and redemption, as the Haggadah oscillates from light to darkness and back to light again. It is not describing events of 3000 years ago, but relates to our own inner exile and the redemption by God for each one of us on this holy night. One of the most enigmatic parts of the Haggadah is the story of the four sons. We will use this part of the Haggadah to hear the voice of God calling to us and to examine our possible responses.

Rabbi Ashlag, in a letter to his students, points out the cause of the exile of the Children of Israel in Egypt. He shows that this very same cause operates in ourselves today causing us to become disempowered. It is our disconnection with the soul within us that enables us to become easy prey to fears and worries. When we reconnect value the soul within us as our own inner Sage, we reconnect with the God within us, and we leave our inner exile and come to our state of redemption.

Before the story of Joseph and the brothers, brotherhood does not seem to have been an important value in family life. In the selling of Joseph as a slave to Egypt, both Joseph and his brothers discover they have lost something precious and now have to work hard to regain it. But the gain is far greater than they imagined. In discovering brotherhood they lay the foundations of discovering the common humanity that binds us all together.

There is a famine in the land, and Abraham decides to go down to Egypt, taking Sarai with him. The Zohar teaches that the famine was a spiritual thirst for the light of God. In which case why go down to the consciousness of Egypt, known as a source of spiritual pollution? Why does Abraham ask Sarai to say she is his sister not his wife? This most peculiar story, found in the early life of Abraham takes on a new dimension when looked though the inner dimension of the Zohar, and tells us much about how we too, need to handle the different aspects of good and evil found within ourselves.

Both Cain and Abel are elements within our consciousness. The Cain within us is the part that wants to use our intelligence to try to fulfill the greatest desires a person has, to know God. Although it puts on the cloak of giving, underneath it really wants to receive. Abel on the other hand is the part of us that truly wants to give from the heart. Although from we stumble into the will to receive for ourselves alone, the Abel part of ourselves offers our turning back to God in faith as its gift, and feels itself blessed to do so. This is the gift that God heeds.

The word with which the Torah opens is Bereishit. This word is one of the most discussed words in the Zohar because it contains within itself the sodot, the inner meanings of the origin of creation, the inner meanings of the nature of creation, and of creation’s ultimate destiny. In this short piece we will consider one aspect only: the word ברא bara creation itself. What actually was created? The holy Ari teaches us that prior to creation, reality is entirely filled with the limitless light of God, His goodness. Since this goodness contains all that is, the only new creation that can possibly be, is a state of emptiness. So the word ברא implies emptiness. It describes a state of consciousness in which we are outside of the consciousness of light. It is a state of longing, a state of being incomplete. If our natural state is one of being filled with light, then the state of creation is therefore an unnatural one. Indeed, this is how we experience it. We all experience periods in our lives of dissatisfaction, of loneliness, of alienation; episodes when we ask, “What is my life about?” Sometimes these states of consciousness are short-lived, but sometimes these feelings of emptiness and of longing seem to characterize most of our lives. We sometimes try to deny these times, to fill them up with something to distract ourselves from our unease. But this is because we do not realize their potential. By understanding the word ברא we discover that this essential emptiness is actually the essence of creation. We need to harness the power of creation that is inherent in these difficult times.

How did the Children of Israel reach the incredible spiritual state of “As one Man with one heart,” that enabled them to receive the Torah on Mount Sinai. If we were able to reach that same state, would we be able to stand at our own Mount Sinai and hear the voice of God speaking directly to us? Rabbi Ashlag assures us that the answer to this question is “Yes!”

Seder night is the night in which the greatest light of God, the light of redemption, comes into the world. It is the night in which God delivered the children of Israel from Egypt. And this energy, this great light comes into the world again every year. How will we receive it? How will we relate to it? As we start the Haggadah we say , This year we are slaves, next year we will be free. In this podcast we ask the question how and in what way are we in slavery now and what do we need to do to get free?

The Scripture says : God said to Moses, “ Come into Pharaoh.” Rabbi Ashlag teaches us that discovering the core of our inner egoism, which is inside each one of us, ultimately helps us transform it. Furthermore, the knowledge that it was God who created the darkness within us, and there is no one else to blame, is actually the knowledge that sets us free. By approaching the darkness within us we can ask God to accompany us and help us redeem it and ourselves. From a letter of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag

On the surface, the story of Joseph and his brothers appears to be a family drama. But on examination it’s a process of development of a new quality in humanity’s consciousness—Brotherhood. This quality of mutual acceptance and the willingness to give to each other, even suffer for each other, is the basis of "All Israel are guarantors for each other" and is the prerequisite for the complete fulfillment of the Torah.

Our essence is not something we can sense directly or feel, but then neither can we sense an electron directly. It doesn't make it less real. Our essence has actions that affect our lives and our choices. Our essence is eternal

Many people ask is Judaism a spiritual path. This is because Judaism does not resemble other religions in the way it deals with spirituality. In other religions, there is a separation between the physical world and the spiritual world. But Judaism sees the world as a whole. It sees the physical dimension of the world as being, in itself, spiritual. This wholeness is seen when we look on all aspects of the Torah as integral parts of a whole.

Rabbi Yehudah Leib Ashlag, whose 66th yahrzeit falls on this Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish Year, not only penetrated and opened the Torah of the holy Ari and the holy Zohar but showed us the pathways of love that form the heart of Judaism.

When we look at the mourning on Tisha b’Av, we are actually mourning the disconnect with our spiritual source. Destruction of the temple in Jerusalem meant that the direct revelation of the light of God was no longer available to the people as a whole. Gradually living without the direct revelation of God in our lives has become the norm. We need to remember that this is not normal, and each one of us needs to mourn and long for a direct connection with the Creator in our mind heart and soul. This is the rebuilding of Jerusalem within ourselves.

Our world, both politically and culturally is in turmoil. Our value systems are being turned upside down. Freedom of speech in the West is no longer guaranteed. Our economic systems serve only a few with the majority suffering under huge burdens. And, in more than one country, democracy itself and the freedom of the individual are under attack. All this was true before, but now added to that is the Coronavirus crisis and the latest riots in the US and the world. Where are we heading? Times of chaos are definitely uncomfortable for us: and we are the individuals who are destined to live through them. But such times also provide opportunities for us to reassess our values and to make new decisions in the directions that we, as individuals, as families, and as communities want to go.