Welcome to the official Kabbalah Blog of the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute. Here you will find all the latest Kabbalah articles, videos, audio, news, features, Kabbalah books and Bnei Baruch website updates and content additions.
Humanity needs to develop awareness of its global unity, and through that awareness, experience universal love.
This simple message should be conveyed to every person: There is no future without unity. We need to fill the air with this message before we slide down to continuous military conflicts because the situation is getting worse all the time. So let’s get started.
Continue reading “No Unity, No Future, No Love—Simple as That!”
Numbers 19:1-22:1
This Week’s Torah Portion | July 10 – July 16, 2016 – 4 Tammuz – 10 Tammuz, 5776
The portion, Hukat (The Statute), deals with Israel’s continuing journey, with the Mitzva (commandment) of the red cow (heifer), the laws of the impurity of the dead, and the episode known as Mei Meriva (waters of Meribah [Heb: quarrelling]). In the episode, the children of Israel complain about the lack of water, and the Creator commands Moses to speak to the rock. However, instead of speaking, he strikes the rock. Moses and Aaron are punished for this act by being banned from entering the land of Israel. The people of Israel reach the land of Edom, and the king of Edom forbids them to pass through his territory.
Aaron dies, and Elazar, his son, succeeds him as the high priest. The people of Israel continue to complain about the difficulties along the way, and the Creator sends snakes to bite the people. Moses makes a copper snake and shows it to the people, and anyone who sees the copper snake is healed.
The people of Israel reach the boundary of the land of Moab and sing “the song of the well.” The people fight Sihon, King of the Amorites, and Og, King of the Bashan. Israel wins and inherits their land.
This story details the primary correction in the corrections of the souls. Because our souls are initially the desire to receive, to enjoy, in order to correct it we must invert the intention of that desire toward bestowal. We must correct our souls to have the aim to bestow, to love others, by which will resemble the Creator. This will endow Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator—which is the purpose of creation—to each and everyone in the nation. This is why we need to mingle and become integrated with the force of bestowal, called Bina, and with the force of reception, called Malchut.
Connecting the two forces—the two Sefirot just mentioned—results in four options: Malchut in Malchut, Malchut in Bina, Bina in Bina, and Bina in Malchut. When Bina is inside Malchut, it is the evil force because Malchut governs Bina, and when that happens, all the evil forces emerge.
While these forces may occasionally appear as good, they appear so only to lure and entice a person, leading toward the evil. It is a special Klipa (shell/peel), cunning and shrewd, which is in Malchut. This is how Malchut acquires Bina and uses it. This is also why it was said that evil can exist in the world only if it initially appears as good.
At first, the only forces that exist in man are the still, vegetative, and animate, meaning Malchut at the degree of still, vegetative, and animate. This is a straightforward will to receive. A person who possesses the power of Bina within the will to receive becomes very clever and very shrewd. Such a person knows how to appear as giving to others, as serving them, while in fact that person takes from others and uses them as much as possible. This is how the negative forces operate when the force of bestowal is “taken captive” by the force of reception.
Continue reading “Hukat (The Statute) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion”
The world is gradually transitioning from reception to bestowal, & thus all of our systems need to become ’rounder’.
If a person goes out to the nations of the world and organizes them in a circle, they take on a form that resembles the upper. This circle is made of several people (let’s say ten) who unite equally as each one sees the other as higher than himself. Our mission is to draw the nations of the world to such discussions and roundtables, and to bring them to the form of the upper, which means to the force of love and bestowal. We have to bring them as close as we can to the upper force, to bestowal, by making them resemble it. The more we expand this circle and create more identical circles that connect, the more the upper force can be revealed.
Continue reading “A Closed Circle of Goodness”
The key to solve any problem is to be internally holistic.
How can you change a person? How can you make his recognition, his understanding, his perception of the world, and his attitude to the world as general and holistic as all the systems?
First people must be educated integrally. Its goal will be to teach a person certain habits, to feel to what extent his connection with others is good and desired and brings about mutual understanding and the right decisions and a totally new feeling of the self, and to feel the society and nature in a new way.
A person will begin to feel the general picture of the whole global integral system he is in.
Continue reading “You Can Have Holographic Consciousness”
Numbers 16:1 – 18:32
This Week’s Torah Portion | July 3 – July 9, 2016 – 27 Sivan – 3 Tammuz, 5776
The portion begins with the story of Dathan and Abiram, and 250 of the presidents of the congregation who rebelled against Moses and Aaron with what seemed like a just argument: Since the entire nation is holy, Moses and Aaron should have the same status as the rest of the people. The reply they received was that although they are all equal, Moses and Aaron are the leaders that can be in contact with the Creator. Following the mutiny, the ground swallowed the 250 presidents of the congregation, as well as Korah and his company, and the people suffered from a plague until Moses asked the Creator to end it.
The end of the portion debates the question of leadership in the nation. A test was held between all the staffs (rods) of all the leaders, and the only one that blossomed was Aaron’s staff, which signaled his unequivocal leadership.
We can interpret the explanation of the Torah (Pentateuch) on two levels—the level of this world and the level of the hidden, spiritual world. On the level of our world, the story of Korah is very relevant even today.
For thousands of years, our world has been developing through our egos. 3,800 years ago we lived in what is now known as Ancient Babylon. This is when Abraham—the quality of Hesed (mercy)—rose, as well as the priests that followed him, who are also from the quality of Bina, Hassadim.
Abraham discovered that the whole world must develop and achieve a state of unity and connection, and shared his revelation with the Babylonians. While many followed him, they were only a handful compared to the majority that rejected his ideas. Abraham had to flee from Babylon, chased by Nimrod, the king of Babylon.
Abraham established a method for correcting human nature. Today we call that method, “the wisdom of Kabbalah,” whose purpose is to elevate man from the depth of egoism to the level of bestowal and love.
This ascent is in fact the goal of our development—to rise from the level of this world to the level of the spiritual world. Spirituality is bestowal and the love of others, by which we acquire eternity and wholeness. This is the meaning of the text in this portion, as well as in The Book of Zohar, which talks about freedom from the angel of death.
Continue reading “Korah Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion”