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...

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, we can begin to understand why these stories are important for us today in living our own lives. In this...

We all experience our thoughts as being our own. They feel like ours. We don’t usually consider where our thoughts arise from, and we either dismiss our thoughts or act on them automatically, without particularly questioning whether this is what we really want to do. But Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag, the great master Kabbalist, teaches that our thoughts do not originate from us, they come to us from G...

I live in tsfat but today I am traveling to Jerusalem. I am  looking forward to seeing my sisters ,  my daughter-in law and my little grandchildren, who all live there. I hope to travel on the buses and enjoy the new light rail. Today Jerusalem is a city filled with life just as the prophet Zecharia prophesied 2000 years ago. Thus says the LORD of hosts: There shall yet old men and old w...

and what is the Torah? 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, 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...

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.  However, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai teaches in the Zohar that the Torah is not a history book. Rather, it is a book of instruction that deals with our present day relationship with the Divine. Just as a person wears...

The archetype of exile is the Children of Israel’s servitude in Egypt. The Sages teach us that this exile was in fact a spiritual exile, even more than it was a physical exile. Indeed if the spiritual enslavement hadn’t happened the physical servitude would have been impossible. Rabbi Ashlag, in a letter to his students, explains how the slavery of the Children of Israel by the Egyptia...

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 comm...

In Genesis Chapter 12, the Torah relates: “And there was a famine in the land, and Abram descended to Egypt to sojourn there because the famine was severe in the land.” Genesis 12:10 What sort of famine are we talking about? If we take the Torah in its literal sense, then we mean that not enough rain fell or for some other reason the crops did not grow and there was not enough for people to eat. B...

The story of the two brothers Cain and Abel is written in Genesis. This is what it says: “And Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruits of the land, whereas Able brought from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat. And God paid attention to Abel and to his offering, but to Cain and his offering he paid no attention. “   Genesis chapter 4 And we all know the tragic endin...

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...

On the night of Shavuot 1948, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag the great Kabbalist gave this teaching: When we think about the giving of the Torah which took place at Mount Sinai, we’re not talking about a historical event, which took place only at one time and is not taking place now.   But according to the principle that once a spiritual event has happened in spirituality, it is eternal, and all sp...

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? In this podcast we are going to look at this question in the light of the teachings given by th...

Most of us try to push away the dark side of ourselves by denying that it even exists, or we cover it up with fear, shame, and guilt. Feelings that are too painful for us to penetrate. We feel that we are somehow split in two. We often feel that the face we show to the outer world has very little to do with our inner world. When receiving praise or appreciation, we think to ourselves, “if only peo...

The story of Joseph and his brothers is a story filled with passion, anger and reconciliation. Most of all, it is a story that describes the search for and the development of the quality of brotherhood. Interestingly, although other brothers have been described in the Torah, the quality of brotherhood has not, until now, been one sought for. Ever since Cain and Abel, the most that any pair of brot...

Why is it important for ourselves to know what we are made of? What we really are?  Can such knowledge help us live our lives in an authentic way, and not just live our lives on a superficial level? The truth is, if we don’t know which aspects of ourselves are positive, supportive to our path, and helping us to fulfill our potential, or conversely, which are holding us back and are self-destr...

Many people contact me and ask me if Judaism has a spiritual path. What they have in mind is the connection with the soul. The spiritual wares of other religions, for example, Zen or Tibetan  Buddhism, Hindu Yoga, or Sufism from the Islam tradition seem somehow to be more accessible than is the Jewish path.  These paths advocate meditation, ascetic practices, or other techniques designed...

Drawn to the study of Kabbalah from a very early age, Rabbi Ashlag understood the Kabbalah’s unique integrating function of heart and mind, of feeling and thought, of faith and of service to God.  He penetrated the technicalities of the Torah of the Ari, showing that the Sephirot and their pathways are simply the pathways of love between God and ourselves. Kabbalah is a part of the oral tradi...

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 o...

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 are...

When the Holy Blessed One gave the Torah, the bird did not sing, the eagle did not fly, the ox did not low,  the Ofanim did not stir, the Seraphim did not praise,  the seas stopped their motion, no creatures spoke, but the world was silent, Then the voice came forth, I am the Lord Your God.” ( Midrash) This is the incredible moment which we experienced when we united as one at Mount Sina...

I remember when I still lived in my parent’s house in London, my father, who was a religious man, taught us that it was forbidden to learn Kabbalah. Because at that time the Kabbalah was still concealed from the general community. But now we can find Kabbalah everywhere. What has changed?  Rabbi Ashlag in his great introduction, the Panim Meirot uMasbirot, writes: The general opinion is that...

A podcast from the Zohar The Zohar teaches us that when we act in holiness, that is in giving unconditionally, we cause blessing and holiness to flow back to us. If God forbid we act or speak negatively, with only our self-interests involved, we bring a spirit of uncleanness into the world. With this in mind, it examines the differences between words and actions, words being more inner draw an inn...

The code of Jewish law, known as the Shulchan Aruch, states that we need to prepare the prayers of the High Holy days in advance so that when it comes to the actual moment to pray on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we are fully prepared and familiar with the prayer. Of course, this sounds totally reasonable. After all, when preparing for an important meeting we often go over in our mind precisely wha...

This piece of Zohar is traditionally read studied during the night of Shavuot when we stay up in the night studying the Torah in order to prepare for the Receiving of the Torah on the festival of Shavuot. “Rabbi Shimon was sitting learning Torah throughout the night. This is the night when the Bride (that is the Malchut) joins with her Husband (God). All the companions who belong to the Bride’s ho...