Insights into Rabbi Ashlag's Kabbalah podcast

When we come to Tisha B’Av, now, in 2015, we truly need to ask, Why are we mourning? For Zion is repopulated and the city thronged with people. Yet when we consider what the presence of the Temple meant 2000 years ago before the destruction we begin to understand what this day of  mourning is really about. “Make for Me a Sanctuary and I will dwell within” ( Exodus 25,8) says...

When I learn the work of Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag, the Baal HaSulam, I am struck by the joy and the love that is embedded in his work. Listening to some old recordings of him giving a lesson, we hear his voice ringing out with joy. He was clearly a man of both deep understanding and of rich feeling. Our feelings actually originate with the very Thought of Creation, whereby the Creator desires to g...

One of the qualities of Torah is its beauty; and its wonders, the inner beauty of a life led according to Torah. Sometimes we hear a teaching and we feel, ” Wow, that is beautiful,” and this fills us with joy. This is not a superficial feeling or something we should ignore, but a real appreciation of the beauty of the Torah. The holy Zohar teaches that the Torah, the Holy Blessed One a...

The Zohar that we traditionally learn on the festival of Shavuot is called, “The night of the Bride”. In beautiful imagery, it pictures the community of Israel joining together with God, as Bride and Bridegroom under the wedding canopy, at the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. The night of Shavuot is spent studying the Torah, rectifying the vessel so we will be fit to join with God a...

Blessed be He who keeps His promise to Israel.  (Haggadah) Following the redemption of the children of Israel at the Red Sea when they saw the enemies drowned on the shore the Scripture states, “And Israel saw the great hand which HaShem had wrought in Egypt. And the people had awe of Hashem and they believed in haShem and in Moses his servant.”   Exodus chapter 14. In a rema...

We are living in turbulent times; on the one hand the light of redemption is undoubtedly getting nearer and with it an increasing consciousness of the light of God in the world. Equally, the destructive elements of the world seem to be growing in strength. This is not the first time, the Jews have faced these huge polarization of energies. They did so at the time of Purim 3000 years ago. Rabbi Yeh...

We all find ourselves making good resolutions— intending to live, from now on, according to our deepest values. Yet when faced with the choice in actual practice our actions very often fall short, and yet again we find that we seem unable to follow through. There seems to be a disconnect between our ideals and our practice. We try different tactics but none of them really seem to make much of a di...

In a letter which Rabbi Ashlag wrote to his students whilst he was away in London, he bemoans the fact that some previous students had fallen away from the group. In looking at the question as to why this had happened, he shows how outer change actually follows a prior inner change. This we learn from the story of the exile in Egypt. It was an inner change in the spiritual consciousness of the chi...

Many of us go through difficult times in our lives, times of loss and sadness. In such times our connections with God can be painful. We ask Him where He is? Is this what He really wants? That we suffer? We wonder, why is He acting like this towards us, towards me? David, the sweet singer of Israel, actually had a life polarized in its extremes. It was certainly a life in which, as well as joy, he...

Zohar Toledot, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai: The real truth is, Jacob never deceived anyone. He was incapable of deceiving anyone.  The Scripture testifies that he was Ish Tam a man of innocence, and thus we say in Micah 7, “Give us the truth of Jacob.” The Torah gives us the bare record of the events in the early lives of Ya’acov (Jacob) and Esau,on the surface jacob seems to be...

The fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob make up the Merkavah , a Hebrew word meaning “chariot” . In our modern language we could translate this as a vehicle for the light and love of God, receiving it and passing it on to others. Being their children, we also have within our potential, the vessels they brought to the Merkavah . The act of the Akedah, the binding of Issac, was the most im...

And God spoke to Abraham. Since the flood, silence. God had not revealed himself to mankind again. What was He waiting for? On the finish of the Creation, the words of the Torah are, vayhal  Elohim, “and God finished”  But the Holy Or HaChaim, Rabbi Ibn Atar, tells us that these words also have the connotation of God “yearning” for Man.  What was He year...

Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag teaches that through the light of the Torah we can come back to the way of affinity of form with the Creator. This light is most easily accessed in the stories of the revelation of God to our forefathers; stories whose energies can be found within ourselves. The epic story of Cain and Abel appears on the surface to be a rather sordid story of fraternal jealousy and murder....

The Torah states “In succot (booth)s you shall dwell for seven days all citizens of Israel shall dwell in booths. In order that your generations all know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I took them out of the land of Egypt, I am the Lord your God.”  (Leviticus 23, 42-43). But surely it was only natural that the Children of Israel would construct some type o...

We spend the day on Yom Kippur praying. But will our prayers be answered? Do we know what our real needs are? The Sages of the Talmud gave us a clue: “Rabbi Elazar said that when the Temple was destroyed all the gates of prayer were closed; but even though the gates of prayer were closed the gate of tears is never locked.” Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag asks the seemingly simple question....

Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag teaches that the language of the Kabbalah and much of the Talmud is dealing with relationships between spiritual roots, albeit using words familiar to us in our everyday speech. A literal interpretation thus causes distortions of understanding. A classical misunderstanding applies to the saying of the Sages of the Talmud relating to Rosh Hashanah, The Talmud states that on...

“…and He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you” ( Deuteronomy 7,13). The Creator’s desire is to give all blessing and goodness to us. Actually this is all He does, as He is good and does good. However, the Scripture continues, “And you will eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless the Lord, your God, for the good land He has given you.” How do we bless...

Jerusalem: the city of David, the epitome of beauty.  In the Kabbalah, Jeruslam is a representation of the soul, also called the Shechinah , the in-dwelling presence of God within us.  By looking at the concept of the city, as the source of governance, the focal point of the country, we can see how the soul also needs to be our own governing center. In these three weeks, culminating in T...

We all have moments of connection with our soul, with the Divine within us,….and we all have moments when we feel sad or depressed or spiritless. How do we keep ourselves from falling into the grip of the will to receive for ourselves alone and ending up separated from our soul, from God? Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the compiler of the Zohar, discussed this question more than 2000 years ago. Gi...

The Torah is the great repository and record of our connection with the Divine. Its very words are vessels which hold within them the Divine revelation, as it was, as it is, and as it will be. Its very essence is one with the Divine. It is both the garments for the Divine, and it is one with the Divine who is clothed within it. Of all the vast and varied creation, it is only Man who has the abilit...

All over Israel people are gathering to recite psalms or offer up prayers for the safety of the three kidnapped children. The outpouring of prayers from all sectors of the community, secular as well as religious is unprecedented. In the face of worry and anxiety for the safety of the three boys, we turn naturally to prayer: Prayer as song, prayer as whispers, prayer as hopes voiced in words. Using...

Rashi, the great commentator on the Torah teaches us that when the Children of Israel stood together at Mount Sinai to hear the word of God and to receive His revelation, they stood there “as one man with one heart.” How did they achieve this extraordinary state of unity? 600, 000 people; each one with his own characteristics and attributes. What bonded them together? Furthermore, why...

The song that Moses and the Children of Israel sang after their deliverance from the Egyptians  at the Red Sea is a song of the joy of redemption. It is a song of great beauty. The  Sages of the Zohar, known as “the Companions”, discuss its inner meanings in detail. In this lesson, we will focus on  the inner meaning of one of the phrases of this songת ” God i...

And God  said to Avraham , “I am the Lord, who brought you forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.” Although it is clear from the text that Avraham believed God, he still had a question. On the surface he is asking for some surety that he will indeed inherit the land. But a closer  look at the text shows that this was not his concern. He was more c...

“It is a natural law for every created being, that whatever is to be found outside the framework of his own body, seems to him to be empty and completely unreal.” Surely not! But remember that the word “body”, as used in the Kabbalah, is synonymous with the word “ego” or our desire for self-benefit. Then this sentence by Rabbi Ashlag, taken from his work Ma...