Kabbalah Blog

I am not Jewish but I clearly remember the first time the reality of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism hit me. It was a history lesson in high school and our teacher had just shown us the movie “Schindler’s List.” My youthful innocence and naiveté vanished that day. I realized the extent of the evil that can exist and the questions began to nag me: How could this have happened? What drives civilized societies to such hate? Could it happen again? And why specifically the Jews?

I had many Jewish friends through my university years and upon graduation, my first manager and many of my work colleagues were also Jewish. I always looked at them with curiosity. What is it about them that spurred such hatred just a few short decades ago? What was the reason for it? What could stop it? I found it unsettling that my Jewish friends didn’t seem to have answers to these questions and many were in denial about the existence of a special treatment toward them.

My curiosity persisted and I found answers that made sense once I encountered the wisdom of Kabbalah. I share what I learned with you here with the hopes that if these questions have arisen in you too, you will know that there is reason for Anti-Semitism. And there is also a method that is designed specifically to banish Anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred from the world.  

This is especially relevant today given the unprecedented rise of anti-semitic incidents worldwide. Gravestones being vandalized at a Jewish cemetery. Anti-semitic notes left at the doors marked with a mezuzah at condo buildings. Jewish students feeling repressed at university campuses across Europe and North America. Swastikas spray painted on residence doors, sidewalks and cars. Bomb threats at Jewish community centers. Economic sanctions against Israel. UN resolutions that make zero sense. It seems the pendulum is swinging back toward hatred of Jews and the proof is both plentiful and alarming.

Why is it happening again?

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that the hatred of Jews is ingrained in the people of the world. We are living at the cusp of human development when people’s ego or self-love is at an all time high. It is causing huge rifts in the relationships between people in all spheres of life, including between couples and family members, among work colleagues, political parties and countries. In such a conflict-stricken world and unable to do anything to resolve their differences, people are awakening and looking for the culprit and the solution.

What do Jews have to do with all this, you ask? Everything.

Jews are descendants of those who once implemented Abraham’s method, also known as the wisdom of Kabbalah. This method teaches people how to unite by rising above their differences. In essence, Jews are the owners of the solution that people the world over are so desperate for.  However, the Jews themselves are not embracing it and worse yet, are not passing it on to the nations. This is the sole reason for the hatred the world feels toward this tiny fraction of the world population and the cause of all its troubles.

History has already shown what could be the outcome of such oblivion and lack of responsibility toward the world. Unless we act quickly to implement the wisdom of Kabbalah and help the world overcome the huge ego that is ripping it apart, all signs indicate we will see history repeat itself.

If we do manage to implement the method and teach it to the world, good times await. “When Israel have unity, there is no end to their attainment,” writes the book, Noam Elimelech (The Pleasantness of Elimelech). “The prime defense against calamity is love and unity. When there are love, unity, and friendship between each other in Israel, no calamity can come over them,” adds Rabbi Kalonymus Halevi Epstein in Maor VaShemesh (Light and Sun).  

by Veronica Edwards

We resist people that want us to change and especially those that demand change. Change under such conditions means that I have to give up something that I very much treasure: my self-importance. If the demand for change persists, if it’s really in-my-face, and especially if it goes against my core values, then what starts out as irritation can quickly become full-blown hatred.

You can find many examples of this in everyday life, but nowhere is it more evident than what is happening in America today, in the political and ideological landscape defined by the liberal left versus the conservative right, where each side stands firm on its views, across an ever-widening political divide that increasingly forebodes violence and riots.

Here it’s important to understand our nature: Conceding to any demand for change brings us such a sensation of lowness that our ego can’t tolerate it. We don’t feel any reward in sacrificing something for the sake of others—especially our righteous indignation—and so we oppose the ones demanding change.

In the America of today, this has taken the form of significant anti-change protests, unrelenting accusations against the other side (including efforts to delegitimize the Trump presidency), along with an explosion of hate crimes and inexplicable murders.

Interestingly, at the same time, we have also seen a significant rise in anti-Semitism, for example, vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers, schools, synagogues, and Anti-Defamation League offices. This may give one pause to consider if there is there a connection.

Indeed, there is a connection. But to understand the connection, we have to step back and take a look at the ancient past of the Jewish people.

The Jewish people, specifically those in Abraham’s time that implemented his teaching of correction, achieved a spiritual state that enabled them to fulfill the main spiritual law of loving another as yourself; meaning, they acquired the ability to relate to others as if they were relating to themselves.

Just as we, in our current nature, operate according to an automatic inner program, egoism, that always chooses what is good for us, they acquired an additional program, altruism, that superseded any thought of self in favor of others. The benefit to this was, and still is, enormous: the attainment of oneness with the resulting sensation of belonging to an eternal, whole, and perfect system, that is, eternal life filled with enormous spiritual pleasures.

In order to share this blissful state with the rest of humanity, it was necessary that the people of Israel lose the sensation of oneness, descend once again to the level of separateness, and then become, as you may have heard, ”a Light unto the nations.” Now, in our days, by uniting once again above all their differences, Jews will become both an example and the means for the rest of humanity to achieve the exalted state of oneness.

This is important to understand because it explains the connection between Jewish opposition that leads to disunity and separation and the rise in anti-Semitism.

This is because once the Jewish people achieved the state of oneness—loving your neighbor as yourself, in complete contrast to our current nature—and with this attainment becoming their unique spiritual heritage, they became directly responsible for the happiness and well-being of the rest of humanity. And because non-Jews subconsciously recognize this dependence on Jews for their personal well-being, they automatically respond in negative ways whenever Jews bring about disunity.

This, then, is the root cause of rising anti-Semitism. In such a manner, even unknowingly, Jews evoke it upon themselves, and it will transform into positive support only when they accept their unique role and demonstrate to everyone the benefits of oneness in love and unity above all differences.

By Brenda Jones