Insights into Rabbi Ashlag's Kabbalah podcast

The prophet Zechariah  has a vision of the end of days, when the Lord will be One and His Name One.  As part of this vision he says the verse,  וְהָיָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֹא יִהְיֶה אוֹר יְקָרוֹת וְקִפָּאוֹן: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that there shall not be light that is precious and frozen” (Zech. 14,6). The Sages of the Talmud  (Pesachim 50a ) discussed what these words...

“Make for Me a sanctuary so I may dwell within them.” (Exodus 25,8) Rabbi Ashlag teaches us that the Torah is both a way and a destination. Its essence is beyond all human understanding, being one with the essence of God and with the soul, in the inner meaning of the phrase from the Zohar, “The Torah, The Holy Blessed One and Israel (the soul) are one.” Thus the Netivot Sha...

A friend of mine sent me a chart this week of the ten Sephirot that she had received over the internet. Although this chart wasn’t exactly wrong, the image it invoked for me, was as if one were to reduce a statue carved by Michelangelo to a line drawing, without shading, omitting the play of light and shadow. To avoid such a representation it is necessary to go back to the definitions of the...

When we start to learn the Kabbalah of Rabbi Ashlag and we learn that most of our desires are driven by our will to receive for ourselves alone, which separates us from the Creator it comes as a shock. But when we turn to our good deeds, we find to our dismay that they also are tainted with our own ego-driven desires. In fact the more we look, the more it seems to us that whatever we do we simply...

We could  approach Torah just through our mind, trying to understand it intellectually—learning the mitzvot , and fulfilling the commandment of learning the Torah. Although we all have to start our learning of Torah through our mind, many just leave it at that. But Rabbi Ashlag, the great Kabbalist, teaches that just learning the Torah intellectually does not in fact fulfi...

When we have explored every avenue but we still can’t do something, we feel only a miracle can help us. Something that is within our power, even if it is hard is not considered a miracle. Before we start on our inner work, the notion of giving unconditionally in order to be in affinity of form with the Creator sounds good. We feel we could do it; we only have to want to. However, when we try...

The purpose of learning the Kabbalah is to learn a new language.  I don’t mean learning the vocabulary of Sephirot and other technical terms, I mean the language of connection with the Creator. We start off in this world learning the language of receiving. When we are born into this world, the life school of the physical world is set up for us so we learn the language of the ego. But sa...

What are we really looking for? This question stands at the center of our lives, our hopes, our dreams. It is the motivating force that drives us forwards. Yet when we consider it deeply we see several things: Firstly, that what we felt was important to us when we were younger may not be what we want now. Secondly, we may have attained what we thought we wanted, but although we were pleased when w...

Why did Avraham break off from his communication with God and turn to give hospitality to wayfarers? This tiny detail in the life of Avraham Aveinu, has a profound meaning for us today. Many of us who learn the Kabbalah in different ways may sometimes find conflict between our thirst for spiritual knowledge and the demands of family, and others, who need our attention in the little details of life...

When we receive in this world, unless it is for the benefit of the other or because we have earned it in some way we feel shame or embarrassment. The Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag portrayed this problem in his work Matan Torah . It is like a rich man who sees a poor man in the market place and gives him all possible food, drink and money. Every day he gives him more gifts adding to that w...

“And your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.” This sentence not only changes reality for Abraham but also for us. As the additional letter to Abram’s name making it Abraham is actually made up of the same letters meaning ” in the creation of” heaven and earth. What does Abraha...

…this is the inner meaning of “Let us make Man b’tzalmeinu in our image, k’dmuteinu like us ” (Genesis 1:26 ). The light is called the “ tzelem ” and the darkness is called “ dmut “, such that Man will be created from both of these forces: both soul and ego. The Sages tell us that the entire work of creation is included in the declaration of the first day, “Let there...

Just as the children of Israel were given the clouds of Glory to protect them in the wilderness so we are given the mitzvah of the succah which shares the same essence as the clouds of glory the attribute of faith, as In our own lives we go through our own inner wilderness. The inner meaning of the succah is taking shelter in faith. The clouds of Glory have the same essence of that of Aaron the pr...

The choice is set before us. How to choose? There is the way of service to God versus the way of the ego. But these choices have consequences. In the Temple service on Yom Kippur this choice was demonstrated to the Children of Israel through the special sacrifice of the two he-goats. The one whose lot fell to Azazel shows the way of suffering, which is consequent on the use of the will to receive...

What do we hear when we blow the shofar? Do we hear a cry to battle or do we hear a call for repentance? The Zohar teaches us that the shofar in its essence is the sound of compassion. It is the sound of the Malchut joined with Binah , the Sephirah of compassion. On Rosh Hashanah we start the year’s cycle all over again. The original energy that  came into the world at creation is prese...

One of the problems of the work of the month of Elul is the language of confession, sin and repentance. We want to get closer to God. We understand this as being the message of the month of Elul.  But the emphasis on looking at areas in our lives where we have messed up and the feelings of shame this arouses, is difficult for us all. The Sages, however,  see the feeling of shame as somet...

The essence of the month of Elul is “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.” Yet this doesn’t square with it being the month of Teshuvah, repentance. Or does it? It’s a time for repairing relationships till they reach the level of love they had before we messed up, whether they are relationships between ourselves and our fellows or ourselves and God. It is a time of Tesh...

Love your neighbor as yourself: To what extent do we need to go? What stops me? Do I even understand what it means to love my fellow, who I may not even like, unconditionally. The truth is that in our normal ego-ruled consciousness we don’t even know what these words mean, let alone being able to put this into practice. In this talk we find out that our awareness of the soul and the language...

Where is God? Why can’t I sense His presence? This question troubles us throughout the year, but is given added poignancy on this day, Tisha B’Av , the day of the destruction of the Temple. Rabbi Ashlag teaches us that the destruction we need to focus on, is the destruction of our own inner sanctuary for God’s presence. So says the Lord: “A voice is heard on high, lamentati...

The fasts and festivals of the Jewish year seemingly remember historical events. But in truth they are prisms with which to view the inner processes of our present. This period of the three weeks of the destruction of the Temple 2000 years ago teaches us how to rebuild our inner Jerusalem today. Rabbi Ashlag teaches that the inner meaning of Jerusalem is the point of holiness within our soul where...

The seventeenth of Tammuz, is a fast day which commemorates many tragedies,but they all started on the day when the children of Israel made the golden calf just six weeks after they received the ten commandments on Mount Sinai. On this day Moses broke the first tablets of stone that had been written by God . What went wrong? To our eyes the making of the golden calf seems foolish . Why did they do...

The works of the Kabbalah are often technical with language that seems foreign to us. What are they really talking about? Why is it that purity of heart and loving-kindness help us understand the material in question, why isn’t intellectual aptitude enough? Rabbi Ashlag wrote introductions, essays and letters to his pupils, which use language with which we are familiar. So we think we unders...

The work of lighting the Menorah that Aaron was given in the Mishkan , is shown to be a metaphor for the work of the mitzvot that we do. However the western candle shone with more light than the oil light allotted to it, and this was seen by the Sages as miraculous, testifying that God in His mercy does not reward us strictly according to our deeds but gives us of His light, His bounty despite the...

The light of the Torah is one. The vessels with which we receive the light of the Torah are called the garments of the Torah. However, to access the light of the Torah we need to add in the ingredient of faith. Faith that the Torah itself can bring us back to the good way. A discussion on the correct way to approach our study of the Torah taken from one of Rabbi Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag’s...

Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag is known as the Baal HaSulam, meaning the “Master of the Ladder” ( Sulam) . The Ladder refers to the steps one needs to take in order to come to dvekut , affinity of form with God. The reason we are separated from God is due to the will to receive for ourselves, which is our regular state of consciousness. This is the consciousness of “night” . It i...