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Kabbalah Today – Issue 6

Kabbalah Today - Issue 6

Editor’s Note
Days of Do or Die
A glance at last month’s news reveals a startling picture: floods, fires, quakes, terror, corruption, and a nuclear radiation leak are just some of the issues that made the headlines. It seems we are approaching days of do or die.

And indeed, there is a lot we can do for ourselves, but we must resolve to do it. According to Kabbalah, things do not happen by chance; they occur to show us the direction towards happiness. The faster we follow the signs, the sooner we will achieve this goal.

This issue of Kabbalah Today discusses why we are unhappy, but mainly what we can and should do to change that. The items in this issue present the solutions Kabbalah offers from multiple angles. It is our sincere hope that reading this paper will provide you with renewed sense of strength, hope, and faith in the good future of humanity.

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Kabbalah Today Issue 5 Podcast

Listen to the Kabbalah Today Issue 5 podcast by clicking on the Flash player’s button below:
[audio:http://files.kab.co.il/audio/eng_2007-07-06_bb-newspaper_kabbalah-today-05_compilation.mp3]

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A Kabbalah Today Issue 5 podcast compilation has been created containing the following playlist (the links are to the articles in the paper, containing the audio files for the articles alone):

– What is (and is not) Kabbalah?
– Creation, Evolution and Beyond
– Baal HaSulam on Our Perception of Reality
– Contradictory Phenomena
– Kabbalah Icons: The Rabash

Click here to download the podcast (MP3 | 36.55mb)

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Kabbalistic Terminology: “Spiritual Degree” “Sefirot” “Bad”

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What is a Spiritual Degree?

Two things make up a spiritual degree: a desire for something and the intention to use it for the Creator. (p. 91 “The Reality Cycle” in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)

Sefirot
What are the Sefirot?

The whole business with the Sefirot may sound confusing, but it is less so if we remember that they stand for desires. Keter is the Creator’s desire to give Light (pleasure); Hochma is our reception of the pleasure; Bina stands for our desire to give back to the Creator; ZA is our desire to receive in order to give to the Creator; and Malchut is our pure desire to receive, the actual Root of the creatures – us. (p. 89, “Before the Big Bang” in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)

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Bad

There is no bad in Kabbalah; it’s all a question of how we relate to the situations we’re in. Pharaoh is considered an evil force. But Kabbalists inverted the Hebrew letters of the name Pharaoh and found that it really means Oref H (the posterior side of the Creator). In other words, Pharaoh is really the Creator goading you harshly to progress to spirituality because you are not pushing yourself fast enough. If you push faster, you will find that Pharaoh is your friend. (p. 141, “Letters, Numbers, Names” in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)

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Misconceptions of Kabbalah – Numerology

We are continuing the “Misconceptions of Kabbalah” posts with this one on numerology…

PART OF AN ENTRY SENT BY MARY DARE: I thought the Kabbalah had something to do with Numerology. Since I had never been good with numbers, I stayed away from it…

Numerology and Kabbalah

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah
FROM THE BOOK: The term numerology did not exist in authentic Kabbalah; contemporary scholars linked the two. Although numerology is not an accurate term to describe Kabbalah’s treatment of numbers, there is probably no better word to use if you want to translate the Hebrew term Gimatria into English.

Gimatria, in simple terms, describes a Kabbalist’s experience of the divine. In Kabbalah, the ego performs Yihudim (unifications) with the Creator. The shape of Hebrew letters depicts such unifications through dots and lines over a white background. The dots and the lines symbolize the states of the Kabbalist, who perceives the Creator. The white background symbolizes the divine light, the Creator.

In Hebrew, each letter of the 22-letter alphabet is assigned a specific number… The correlation between letters and numbers created a way for Kabbalists to describe to each other what they experienced in a concise and accurate manner. For example, the word Nega (affliction) and the word Oneg (pleasure) have the exact same letters (in a different order) and, therefore, the same numeric value. The inversion in the order of letters indicates that when affliction is corrected (from egoism to giving), a person experiences pleasure.

p. 11 in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD and Collin Canright.

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