Kabbalah Laam – Issue #13

Editor’s Note

The thirteenth issue of Kabbalah Laam is dedicated in its entirety to love. From the beginning, love of man was the adhesive that connected the people of Israel. For as long as we kept it, we thrived and prospered. But when unfounded hatred prevailed, we declined to ruin and exile. Today, as the people of Israel is at a crucial junction, we need love of man like air. Gladly, the great Kabbalists adapted the wisdom of Kabbalah—the method that teaches how to reach love of man—to our generation.

The growing need to reinstate the love among us is the reason for the current emergence of the wisdom of Kabbalah among the masses. When we reach out our hands to one another and unite, we will be on the highway to another life—one of love, perfection, and eternity. And to make it happen, we only need to want it.

Love Is the Way

Throughout human history, we can see that everything that love built, the ego destroyed, and vise-versa. Abraham the Patriarch developed a method that will keep us whole, and all we need do is study it.

Eli Vinokur

He went down the ship staircase and looked to his right and to his left with evident misgivings in his eyes. Patrick, a confused ten year old boy who grew up in a little village in 19^th century Ireland, looked about him in bewilderment. After the long voyage, Patrick’s most vivid impression was of a myriad people running about speaking many different languages.

In this medley of languages, Patrick could make out “his group.” They stood there, a group of Irish immigrants, headed by a “veteran” Irish immigrant. Beside them stood a group of Italian immigrants; behind them stood the Russian speakers, and a little further in the back were the Polish group, the Ukrainian, and so on. It seemed as if the busy Ney York harbor had been turned into a giant parade ground with all kinds of immigrant groups scattered across it. “So this is America, the promised land,” Patrick thought, and looked around in wonder…

Some 150 years ago, a fascinating process began, which significantly affects what has been happening in the world since. Millions of immigrants from the world over—Jews, Asians, Africans, and Europeans left their countries and moved to America, penniless. All they had was hope of a new and better future.

They came from different nations, and language gaps; cultural and religious differences ignited frictions among them, but the need to survive forced them to reach social and economic arrangements. In time, their country has become the strongest superpower in the world—The United States of America.

The Uniting Element

6,500 miles from the United States, and almost 150 years earlier, Europe was in turmoil. The Roman Empire, which until then dominated the lion part of Europe, went down, and several local tribes took over the deserted areas. On the land they conquered, these tribes built what we now know as the European countries: Germany, England, France, Spain and other countries. Each of these countries had the common origin as a natural uniting element.

But unlike the European countries and unlike the U.S., the Israeli nation was neither based on economic rentability, nor on common origin. The story of our nation is intriguing and different from the story of any other nation.

Abraham's Method

The origin of the gathering of the people of Israel into a nation is a spiritual one, beginning 5,000 years ago, in ancient Babylon.

In ancient times, humanity lived like one big family, where everyone cared for everybody else and ties of natural reciprocal love and mutual support prevailed among its members. Indeed, for many years life in ancient Babylon proceeded uninterrupted and peacefully. Then, all of a sudden a fateful change occurred, which took matters in a completely different direction.

Within a relatively short period of time, the members of Babylon became increasingly self-centered, and ignored the needs of their neighbors. It was as if an egoistic gene had been injected into the veins of the early Babylonians. This growth of egoism produced harsh consequences such as exploitation of others and hate.

But one man, whose name was Abraham, saw the Babylonians drifting apart and could not accept the verdict. He decided to go against the wind and search for the force that makes the world go around.

Abraham discovered the Upper Force, the Force of Giving, and using that spiritual attainment, he developed a method to overcome the ego and achieve love of man. Abraham knew that if the Babylonians kept their ties of love atop their evolving egoism, they would be awarded eternal and true bonding with each other. Hence, he began to disseminate the method in the masses. He gathered a group of students and taught them the way to achieve love of man. In time, the group that Abraham started had grown into a nation, which we now know as the people of Israel, built on the basis of love of man.

When the Ego Breaks Loose

All through history, love of man has been the key to the success and prosperity of our nation. For as long as we managed to maintain the love and bonding among us, the people of Israel thrived in its fullest spiritual and physical glory. The height of our success was at the time of the United Kingdom of Israel, when the First Temple was built, and all of Israel’s tribes lived in mutual love.

But when the ego erupted once again, the unity was interrupted, and separation spread within parts of the nation. These parts became self-centered and lost their bonding with the rest of the nation. In the end, the spiritual division produced physical division, the First Temple was ruined, and the people scattered in all directions.

When the people recognized that it was the division that caused the exile and the ruin, the people of Israel revived the love of man. In consequence, the Israeli nation returned to Israel and established the Second Temple.

But the strengthening of the ego did not stop there. It broke out once more, and manifested in even deeper hatred and separation, which spread in all parts of the nation. The spiritual decline was so spread out that it led to the ruin of the Second Temple.

Even among Rabbi Akiva’s group of Kabbalist students, the famous motto, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” had been turned into unfounded hatred. This eventually caused the death of 24,000 of them in a terrible plague. Thus, the people of Israel lost the love of man, was exiled from spirituality and from the land of Israel for 2,000 years, and its hardest time yet, commenced.

The Dream has Not Yet Come True

Today, even though we have returned to our land, the spiritual exile is still continuing. We have built a magnificent country, but reality shows that the dream of the Kabbalists of a united nation is still far from realized. Even if during crises and hard times we unite, it is only temporarily, like brothers in arms, but we cannot rely on outside pressures to unite us.

Transient ideologies and national interests that change all too quickly cannot unite us. We must understand that we must make drastic changes in our connections with each other, and this change can only come from within!

The Way to Get to the Top

So how do we become a united nation, based on love of man, as we once were? There is a special point in the heart of each of us, which calls upon us to realize our existence as a nation of love. This point is emerging today in the form of concern for the nation and for our unity. Indeed, unity and love are the only keys to our success, but the means to achieve them is the ancient method, developed by Abraham.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the method by which we can reinstate the love on which our nation was established, and by which it survived all these years. Today, the Kabbalah is emerging and is becoming more pertinent than ever. Disseminating the Kabbalistic message among the people is the way to restore the love among us, and elevate us to the height of happiness and wholeness.

Love at First Page

The year was 1940. WWII was demanding lives, the Jewish settlement in Israel was divided, and Baal HaSulam’s heart was bursting. He expressed his cry on the pages of the paper HaUma (The Nation), the first ever Kabbalistic paper. Even though the paper was shut down after only one issue, it made a big mark on history.

By Aviram Sadeh

Hence, it is a must condition for every nation to be closely united within, and that all of the individuals within it will be attached to one another out of instinctive love.

--Baal HaSulam, HaUma, 1940.

The story about the first Kabbalistic paper in history, HaUma (The Nation) begins almost sixty-seven years ago. On June 5, 1940, the 4^th of Sivan, 5700, according to the Hebrew calendar, a new paper was printed in the land of Israel. It was a paper of love; it was also the first Kabbalistic paper in history. Accompanying its publication, an awe inspiring fact in itself, is a fascinating story.

The greatest Kabbalist of our time, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, Baal HaSulam, the man who was not afraid to dream, and to realize his dreams, began his Editor’s Note, which was then called “Our Aim,” with pointing out the paper’s goals. He said that this paper was to be “inter-factional, and wishes to bridge and to unite all the factions that were then in the land of Israel. Baal HaSulam wrote, “This paper, HaUma, is a new creature on the Jewish street, a paper whose framework is inter-factional … a paper that can serve all the parties together, despite the differences and conflicts among them.”

Baal HaSulam’s Outcry

In the year 1940, WWII was in full fledge. Jews were persecuted everywhere. The ring around them was tightening, and harsh sentences were being forced against them. In many countries, they were sent to the death camps.

And in Israel, Baal HaSulam was shouting, his voice becoming hoarse. He was feeling his brothers’ pains and wished that someone, anyone would listen. His heart was exploding, and he would not stand aside and quietly accept the suffering of the Jewish people. He understood that the only way out of the predicament was to restore the unity that had always been the basis of the nation. He was desperately searching for ways to rejuvenate the love of man, which is the blood of life that runs in the heart of the people of Israel.

At that time, groups of refugees began to gather in the land of Israel, weary from their tormenting journeys. Baal HaSulam saw, and could not sit still. He tried to change the course of events. He began to speak with the leaders of the nation, the divided Jewish population in Israel, and stated his outcry. In the end, he had decided to do what no man has done before, in hope that a substantial change would happen.

In 1940, 67 years ago, an orthodox Jew decided to publish the first Kabbalah paper, intended for the whole nation!

Baal HaSulam understood that our world is operated by the Upper Force, and that the only way to change things was to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah, which explains how this Upper Force manages everything. He had hoped that by disseminating Kabbalah, we would be able to change our fate for the better. He knew that the time for it had come.

Despite the conservative nature of the time, and the problematic location—the heart of the Jewish settlement in Jerusalem—Baal HaSulam did not fear. He went with the wisdom of Kabbalah to the general audience and tried to disseminate it to any person on the street. He turned to the people around him with one, clear message—we must unite!

With this aim in mind he also went to meet all the leaders of the Jewish settlement of the time, Ben-Gurion, Shazar, Arlozorov, Yaakov Hazan. They were very different people from Baal HaSulam: they were secular and he was orthodox; they were socialists, and he came from a very different background. But all that did not matter to him. He met with them to try and speak out the pain that was burning in his heart, to tell them that the people of Israel must unite, that the wisdom of Kabbalah must be the basis for this unity, and that this was the only way to save the people of Israel. Although they were deeply impressed with him, none of them acted along with his ideas.

Regrettably, the direction that Baal HaSulam promoted in those years did not succeed. After only one issue, the first paper in history that attempted to spread unity, bonding and love of man was shut down. Opposers to the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah in masses blocked Baal HaSulam’s way. They made all kinds of complaints to the British Mandate and made them close down the paper. In doing so, they prevented the change that Baal HaSulam was trying to promote.

Spiritual Education – the Only Hope

The return of the people of Israel to its land made the great Kabbalists, including Baal HaSulam and The Rav Kook, very hopeful. They were convinced that after all those years of separation we would succeed in reinstating the spiritual bond that had been our adhesive through the generations. Baal HaSulam wrote in HaUma that “our only hope is to fundamentally rearrange the education, to rediscover and rekindle our natural love, to revive the national muscles that have been inactive within us for two millennia. Then we will know that we have a natural and sound basis upon which to be built anew, and continue our existence as a nation.”

The “spiritual education” that Baal HaSulam had been speaking of is a fundamental and practical upbringing for the love of Israel. He explained that only by means of the wisdom of Kabbalah will we be able to transcend our egoistic nature and the divisions among us. This is the reason why the wisdom of Kabbalah is emerging today before anyone who seeks it.

HaUma, the first Kabbalistic paper in history, was freely disseminated to everyone. But as previously stated, in the land of Israel of 1940, this caused substantial resistance. After all, the wisdom of Kabbalah had been kept secretive for generations. The opposers to its dissemination did not understand that the Kabbalists themselves were the ones who hid the Kabbalah through the generations because they waited for the right time. That time was to be a time when Kabbalah would be the only means that could unite and build the Israeli nation.

Even back then, Baal HaSulam knew the time had come. This is why he made every effort to hurry and disseminate the wisdom to the masses. He had hoped that disseminating the method and the Kabbalistic message would unite the people and thus make it elevate spiritually.

In his mind’s eye, Baal HaSulam had hoped for a social life based on the laws of equilibrium and reciprocal giving that exist in nature. He knew that if we build our society according to these spiritual laws, we would become equal to the Upper Force and achieve sensations of perfection and eternity.

Today, we need the love of man like air. The Jewish public is divided and we cannot find the way and the will to unite. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the only means that can bring the splintered pieces together, and restore the good days to our dear people. This is the reason why the wisdom of Kabbalah is appearing among the masses.

Those among us who feel the “spiritual clock” tick, feel the need to change. If we reach out our hands to one another and unite, we will be awarded with a different life—one of love, perfection, and eternity. When we will it, it will happen.

Love, Love, Love

The most complete term

True love exists only when a person’s love is so great that he or she feels the others’ needs and cravings as if they were one’s own. When a person rises to such a spiritual degree, one feels the real and most complete concept of love.

Unconditional love

When one loves another without wanting any personal benefit in return, this is considered “unconditional love.” It is a very high spiritual degree, and the way to reach it is through studying authentic Kabbalah books. During the study, a person awakens upon oneself the impact of the Upper Light, and gradually steps on the path that leads to the sensation of love that is not dependent on anything.

A web of love

In our world, we know couples that live well together, “like love birds.” But in spirituality there is no specific pair of souls that were made for one another. Rather, all souls are made to bond with one another in a bonding of true love. When they do that, they will discover the Upper Force among them, the force of love and of giving.

Egoistic love

Many people love fish. But they love to eat them, not romantically. Egoistic love is like love of fish. It is the sensation of pleasure and satisfaction that one derives from the exploitation of another.

Motherly love

Unlike love of fish, the love of a mother for her children is natural love. The mother perceives her child as an inseparable part of her, and the child becomes more important to her than her own life. Hence, the mother naturally does all she can to satisfy the needs of her offspring, and places them above her own needs. When her child is happy, she is overjoyed with satisfaction.

Love out of fear

Our love is always connected with fear that we might lose it. According to Kabbalah, there are two kinds of fear: corporeal fear and spiritual fear.

In our world, a person is always concerned about being loved by others. One is afraid that without their love, he or she might be hurt. In spirituality, however, the individual loves others without any intent for self-benefit, and one’s only fear is that one’s love will diminish or even stop.

Measured love

To rise to spirituality, we must come to love others in the exact same measure that we love ourselves. But how do we know the measure and the form in which we have to love others? We are born with a nature of self-love so that we can learn how much we love ourselves, and thus know how much and in what way we have to love others.

The burning desire

A person who progresses on the spiritual path and learns from Kabbalah books develops a powerful internal desire to bring the whole nation to a state of unity and love. This was the hope of all the great Kabbalists, and this is what they worked for.

They Say there Is Love in the World

The Creator created a “training plan” for us, which teaches us to abandon our egoistic desires in favor of another’s. When that happens to us, we will be able to truly love.

By Gilad Shadmon

The purpose of the Creator in creating man was to bring man to perfection and eternity” (Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), article no. 2).

Countless stories and poems have been written about love. But who among us really knows what true love is all about? We all want to be loved, to feel safe and wanted, and live in peace and quiet. If we remember the happiest moments in our lives, we will discover that those were the moments when we loved. We want to love and give to our partner or to our children wholeheartedly, but we don’t always know how to go about it. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains the reason for this profound need to love and to feel loved, and how we can obtain eternal and perfect love.

The Desire to Love

We all originate from one soul, which was created by the Creator. This soul is called “the soul of Adam ha Rishon (The First Man).” Kabbalists explain that the Creator’s nature is one of pure love and giving, whereas the nature of the soul of Adam ha Rishon is the desire to receive delight and pleasure.

The Creator created the soul out of His love for it; hence, the inherent desire in the soul is to love. As a result, the greatest pleasure that the soul can experience is the pleasure of loving. But how can the soul realize its desire to love the Creator?

The “Training Plan”

To allow the souls to love the Creator, the Creator planned a special “training program” for them, to develop the desire to love in them. First, the Creator divided the soul into many pieces, called “particular souls,” and hid Himself from them. Next, all the souls received egoistic desires, meaning a desire to receive love, and then they clothed in people’s bodies in this world.

Kabbalists explain that the Creator loves us all the time. But it is hard to notice it in our day-to-day lives because He is hiding Himself from us. Other people, however, are not hidden from us, and thanks to that, we can “practice” love of others among ourselves. Through our relationships we can learn to transcend our desires to receive love egoistically. When we do, we will come to the end of the training program and acquire the Creator’s nature.

At this point, we will return to the perfect state, where we are all united as one soul, and we will be awarded the highest pleasure, which the Creator wanted to give to us—the pleasure of love and giving. At that time the Creator will reappear among us and we will be able to return His love, because we have already learned to love each other.

The souls learn to love the Creator through the love among them

Like a Newborn Baby

The training that the Creator had planned for us contains several phases by which we learn how to reunite with the rest of the pieces of the soul of Adam ha Rishon. We can compare the evolution of the desire to love to the way a baby grows up. In the beginning of our way, we feel that we are the center of reality. We need love and attention just like a baby. As we grow and develop the desire to love, we learn that it is worthwhile to cooperate and establish bonds of love with the environment because thus we can achieve what we cannot achieve by ourselves.

The more our desires grow, the more we sense that we can enjoy by exploiting others to our benefit. It seems to us that we can be happy if we manage to control other people and use them for our personal benefit. But when we reach the final stage of evolution, we discover that what we lack most is the ability to love and to give unboundedly, like the Creator.

As Parents Love Their Children

One of the greatest pleasures we know of is raising children. We often hear statements such as, “my children are my whole life,” or “I’d do anything for my children.” Indeed, despite the difficulties and the sacrifices entailed, most people want to have kids and devote the bulk of their time and energy to them. It is the love and the giving to the children that grants the greatest satisfaction of all.

If we had loved the whole of humanity as much as parents love their children, our lives would be much simpler. But as we all know, this is not how things are. So what do we do? How do we develop love for others as if they were our own children? Those who really search and don’t give up, discover the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method that enables us to achieve true love.

Achieving the Creator’s Nature

Today, when the wisdom of Kabbalah is exposed to the masses, all the souls get their chance to learn how to achieve love of man. Any person who chooses to rise to the inner call in one’s heart, can come and learn the wisdom of Kabbalah, and experience love.

Through Kabbalah, one comes to know the desires of the rest of the souls and learns to love them unconditionally, just as the Creator loves the soul of Adam ha Rishon. Thus, together with the rest of humanity, we will succeed in achieving the Creator’s nature and love as He loves.

When we all learn to love each other, we will unite, and live as one soul. In that state, we will return to our perfect state and achieve a perfect and ever lasting bond with the Creator.

Our Allegories

(Kabbalist Sayings about Kabbalah)

“One can bend oneself and enslave oneself and follow anything. But with love, no enslavement and subjugation in the world will help.”

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

“The whole of evil is only self-love, called ‘egoism,’ since it is opposite in form from the Creator, who has no desire to receive anything for Himself, but only to bestow.”

--Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

“It is only possible to love in the same measure that you make within yourself a place cleansed of self-love.”

--Rav Michael Laitman, A Thousand Questions about Kabbalah

“The essential axis in the Torah is love thy friend as thyself. The rest of the 612 Mitzvot are its interpretations and qualifications for it.”

--Baal HaSulam, “The Revelation of Godliness”

“When one reaches love of man, one is then straight in the form of Dvekut (adhesion), which is equivalence of form with one’s Maker. Along with it, one transcends one’s narrow and painful world, which is filled with obstacles, toward a vast, eternal world of bestowal upon the Creator and upon the creations.”

--Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

“When all the people in the world unanimously agree to annul and eradicate the desire to receive for themselves within them, and will have no other desire but to bestow upon their friends, all worries and harmful ones will be banished from the earth, and each will be secured a complete and healthy life. In the end, each of us will have a whole world to care for our needs.”

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Book of Zohar”

“Let our hearts see the merits of our friends, and not their faults.”

--Noam Elimelech, “A Prayer before a Prayer”

“Each item in the 613 Mitzvot in the Torah revolves on the axis of the one Mitzva, ‘love thy friend as thyself.’ This axis can only be sustainable within the framework of a whole nation, whose members are all willing and ready for it.”

--Baal HaSulam, “The Revelation of Godliness”

“It is upon the Israeli nation to qualify themselves and the people of the whole world to develop until they assume this sublime work of love of man, which is the ladder to the purpose of creation, which is adhesion with the Creator.”

--Baal HaSulam, “The Bond”

“I am filled with love for God. I know that what I ask, what I love, is not called by any name. How can there be a name to what is more than everything, more than the best, more than the essence, more than being?! And I love, and I say, ‘I love God.’”

--The Rav Kook, Orot Kodesh (Sacred Lights)

“I love everything. I cannot not love people, all the peoples. I wish, from the bottom of my heart, for the glory of everything, and erection of everything. My love for Israel is fervent, deeper. But the inner desire spreads through with its power over everything. I have no need to bend that emotion of love; it stems straight from the depth of the sanctity of the wisdom of the Godly soul.”

--The Rav Kook, Mar’eh Cohen

“A person from Israel who wishes to be awarded the light of life in earnest, needs to agree to plant oneself in the assembly of Israel: to think Israeli, to feel Israeli, to acquire the special knowledge that is unique to Israel.”

--The Rav Kook, Orot (Lights)

“Our whole work is to reveal the love within us, every single day.”

--Baal HaSulam, Pri HaCham (Fruit of the Wise), letters, p. 35

“Hence, turn away from all the false engagements and set your hearts to think thoughts and innovate proper innovations to bond your hearts literally as one. And the verse, ‘love thy friend as thyself,’ shall actually be realized in you.”

--Baal HaSulam, Pri HaCham (Fruit of the Wise), letters

“The whole desirable end for the Creator from the creation He had created is to delight His creatures, so they would know His greatness and His Trueness, and would receive all the abundance and pleasantness He had prepared for them.”

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Book of Zohar”

“I shall remind you still the validity of the love of friends at this time, for upon this depends our right to exist, and in that is our measure of soon-to-come success measured.”

--Baal HaSulam, Pri HaCham (Fruit of the Wise), letters

The Man who Saw Everything

Old Hillel (1^st century BCE)

He knew the laws of reality and understood that it was easier for us to love ourselves, but he wanted to teach us to love our fellow person. Old Hillel was the Kabbalist who sought to rekindle the light of love and showed us the way to it.

Oren Levi

“That which you hate, do not do to your friend” (Old Hillel).

“At the break of dawn, in the midst of the Kabbalists’ delving in lessons about spiritual development, the winter sun would sneak in through the tiny wicket in the roof, and caress their heads with its warmth. But that Sabbath morning, the house remained dark. Shemaiah, the head of the Sanhedrin, said to his friend, presiding judge Avtalion: ‘My brother, every day the house is lit, but today it is dark…’”

--Yoma, 35b.

The two went out and looked at the wicket. A man was lying there, motionless. They rushed to the roof and found a frozen man, covered in a pile of snow. They immediately brushed the snow off him, dried him, and sat him down in front of a fire to warm him. When he came to, he told them what had happened.

“My name is Hillel,” he said. “On a regular day, I earn half a dinar (name of a currency) a day. Half of the money I give to the sustenance of my family, and with the other half, I pay to enter the seminary. Yesterday, I couldn’t find work, and I had no money to pay the entrance fee. My heart would not let me leave without hearing your sublime words, so I climbed on the roof and listened. This was the beginning of Hillel’s spiritual path, the man who was to become Old Hillel, one of the greatest Kabbalists of all times.

Babylon All Over Again

“Where there are no persons, try to be a person.”

--Old Hillel

The days were the days of the Second Temple, when King Herod reined the land, in the 1^st century BCE. The group of Kabbalists that was first formed by Abraham the Patriarch on the basis of love of man had long since become a nation. But now they were approaching a crisis; they were in the midst of a spiritual decline that had been going on for several centuries.

The value that had always been the center of the nation’s heart—love of man—was falling apart. Self-centered pursuit of wealth, power, and honor was gaining strength, the high priesthood had become a political office, and unfounded hatred was corrupting every good spot.

Old Hillel, who was born in Babel, and who became the head of the Sanhedrin, felt that the sin of Babylon was repeating itself. The ego was once more luring us into separation, he felt, and not a man like Hillel could sit by idly. Like a father who is teaching his young son, and gently showing him that it is unwise to put his hand in the fire, Hillel would say, “Be among the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace” (Mishnah, Avot, Chapter 1).

Toward the Perfect State

“An old is only one who has acquired wisdom” (Kidushin 32b).

Old Hillel was called “old” because of his Godly wisdom, not because of his 120 years of age. In the article, “Love of Man and Love of God,” Baal HaSulam writes that Hillel is considered the rabbi (teacher) of all the Tanaim, the sages of the Mishnah, and the Halachah (Jewish law) was determined by him.

According to the Kabbalah, the term Halachah stems from the word Halicha (walking), referring to a person’s “walking” toward the Creator. Along the spiritual path to the Creator, a person corrects the 613 egoistic desires that comprise one’s soul, using 613 spiritual forces called “lights.” These internal corrections are called keeping the 613 Mitzvot (commandments).

Halachah leads a person to the perfect state where all of one’s desires become similar to the Creator’s will, to love and to do good to everyone. In that state, a person feels the endless abundance that the Creator wants to give His creatures. This is the spiritual degree that Hillel reached.

To determine the Halachah, Hillel had to know the system of the Upper Worlds through which the Creator leads everything that happens in our world. The laws of the whole reality, spiritual and corporeal alike, were therefore known to Hillel, and the laws that he determined resulted from it. This system of laws is called “the system of the light of wisdom,” and a person who discovers it is considered one who has acquired wisdom. Hence, in Kabbalah, such a person is called “old.”

Now that we know a little more about Hillel’s source of wisdom, we can understand what led him to answer the following concise answer: One day, a foreign man came before Hillel and asked him, ‘teach me the whole Torah while I am standing on one leg.’ Hillel immediately replied, ‘That which you hate, do not do to your friend. This is the whole Torah and the rest are but interpretations; go study’” (Shabbat 31a).

That Light that Reforms

That man’s request of Hillel was to teach where the Mitzvot, the corrections of his egoistic desires, will lead him. According to Kabbalist Rabbi Baruch Ashlag (article no. 10, Tashmaz (1987)), Hillel’s reply was based on a simple principle: love of man leads to love of God; hatred of man leads to hatred of God.

Love means bonding and hate means separation. As long as we hate one another, we are also separated from the Creator, the source of all love and pleasure, said Old Hillel. He was connected through and through to the Creator’s “center of command.” He knew that we are created egoistic, and that we are unable to love one another. But Hillel also knew the special force that can change our nature and allow us to finally stop hating and start loving one another—the Light that reforms, hidden in the writings of the Kabbalists.

When Hillel nurtured the desire for spirituality that had emerged in him, and continued to research himself and the world, he discovered that the Light that reforms reveals to a person the picture of the spiritual forces that act in nature. A person who discovers the spiritual forces understands that they are forces of love that create reciprocal bonds among all parts of creation. Such a person feels like an integral part of the harmony and perfection that surrounds the whole of nature with love. He or she doesn’t want to do what is hateful to one’s friend, and truly begins to love others.

This is what Hillel wanted to teach us, and this is why it is said, “When the Torah was forgotten from Israel, Ezra came out of Babel and established it. When it was forgotten again, Hillel the Babylonian came and established it” (Sukkah, 20a).

Building a New Nature Within

“If I am not for me who is for me? And when I am for me, what am I?” (Old Hillel).

In the days of Old Hillel, students of Torah knew that there was only one purpose to the study: to elevate them above their egoistic natures, and build a new nature within them, a nature of love and giving, similar to the Creator’s nature. The sages of those days described it in the words: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice” (Kidushin 30b). In other words, the ego, which is the evil inclination instilled in us, can only be revoked by the Light of the Torah, which leads to love. The spiritual ruin that occurred some generations later, and the subsequent exile, made us forget this truth for almost two millennia.

The only means that enables us to rekindle the light of love in Israel is the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is why Baal HaSulam writes that “Kabbalists obligated each person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah,” and unequivocally determined that redemption depends on the spreading of the study of Kabbalah in the masses, as it is written in Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah does not preach morals. It explains how the system of bonds of love among our souls is built, and evokes a desire to be in that system. In the end, it makes the student sense that system. The spiritual state is called “the next world,” and every person must reach it while still alive in this world. It is the sensation of love, perfection, and eternity that we were created to perceive. This is also what Hillel meant when he said that love of man is the goal of our existence in this world, and this is what he referred to when he said, “If not now, then when?” (Avot 1, 14).

How Good and How Pleasant It Is for Brethren to Dwell Together in Unity!

The Book of Zohar teaches us that a connection is of value only if it is made with spiritual intent. About true friendship compared to a seat of the scornful.

“It is written in The Book of Zohar, ‘How Good and How Pleasant It Is for Brethren to Dwell Together in Unity!’ These are the friends, when they are seated together and are not separated from one another. At first they seem like quarrelsome people, who want to kill one another, and afterwards they return to being in love and brotherhood. The Creator, what does He say about them? ‘How Good and How Pleasant It Is for Brethren to Dwell Together in Unity!’ The word Gam (Hebrew: also, appearing in the Hebrew text), indicates that they include Divinity with them. And moreover, the Creator listens to their words and feels contentment and He delights in them.”

--Zohar, Acharei Mot, items 64-5 (with the Sulam commentary).

“How Good and How Pleasant It Is for Brethren to Dwell Together in Unity” is one of the most touching verses in Psalms. Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi) teaches us that this verse, which has become a well-known song, engages entirely in true love among people who want to reach spirituality.

In fact, all of the Kabbalah books, and especially The Book of Zohar, describe the relationships of love and giving that exist among the souls. To understand what is said in The Zohar, it is important to know that the book does not engage in abstract forces, acting “somewhere out there,” but about us. Rashbi explains to us about the system of relationships that should exist among us, as friends who love each other and as a united nation.

Bonds of Love

The brothers that The Book of Zohar speaks of are called “friends,” meaning simple people, like you and I, who decided to bond among themselves with a common goal—to achieve the spiritual world. They understand that to achieve the spiritual sensation called “for Brethren to Dwell Together in Unity” they will have to transcend their egoistic considerations and love one another. The Zohar says that such friends “are not separated from one another” because they have a common desire: they long to achieve spirituality, to know the sublime reality where only love and unity exist.

Along the spiritual path that the friends experience together, each of them regards the friends as the most important people in one’s life. Such a person knows that only with their help will one be able to overcome one’s inherent ego and rise to the degree of love. At the end of the road, when one has reached that sublime spiritual level, and is bonded with the friends, one discovers the Creator through this bond.

“How Good and How Pleasant”

Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai tells us that in the beginning of the spiritual path, the friends seem like quarrelsome people who want to kill one another. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, spirituality is also called “life.” One who refuses to prevail one’s egoistic considerations is like a person who wants to kill one’s friends, because this person prevents the rest of the friends from achieving spirituality, life.

But The Zohar teaches us that these states, too, are considered, “How Good and How Pleasant,” because they are an important part of the spiritual path. At this stage, the friends still haven’t overcome their egos. They feel that they still haven’t reached the perfect state, but they still feel great joy at being seated together. After all, they have bonded with a common goal and are hopeful that they will overcome their egoistic thoughts and achieve love together.

The verse, “How Good and How Pleasant,” relates to life’s goal, to achieve love and spiritual bonding.

“Nor Sat in the Seat of the Scornful”

In the verse, “for Brethren to Dwell Together in Unity!” the word Gam (Hebrew: also, appearing in the Hebrew text), represents Divinity. The Zohar explains that Divinity is the whole of the souls working out of love and yearning to rise together to awareness of the Upper World. When we unite and want to discover the Dweller—the Creator—in the bond among us, that bonding is called “Divinity.”

Additionally, the word Gam implies that if we yearn to reach mutual love and truly bond, the ego that is currently separating us will join in that love that will be among us. In other words, personal considerations will not hinder us from achieving spirituality any longer.

But for us to reach that, we must come to a state where the bonding among us occurs only because of a spiritual intention. This is why the greatest Kabbalists emphasized that bonding among us must stem only out of the aim to achieve bonding with the Creator, meaning achieve the quality of love and giving. Only then will we be considered as dwelling together in unity, together with the Creator.

Kabbalists added and said that the study of Kabbalah, too, should stem from the same intention. But if people study Kabbalah and want to bond without the intention to achieve the spiritual goal, this is called in Kabbalah, “a seat of the scornful.”

This difference is so crucial that King David decided to begin his Psalms with the verse, “Happy is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful.” For us to be able to be seated together as brothers, we must be assisted by the path paved for us by the great Kabbalists. With the wisdom of Kabbalah we can learn how to bond and unite among us with ties of love, and achieve “as one man and one heart,” the sought after bonding with the Creator.

Questions and Answers

In issue #11 you wrote that not every person has a soul. How is that possible?

It is written in The Book of Zohar: “Come and see, when a person is born, he is given a Nefesh (spirit), …if he is rewarded more, he is given a Neshama (soul)” (Zohar, Mishpatim, p. 4, item 11).

Every person is born with a spiritual spark called Nefesh. If one develops that spark through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, one will be awarded with acquiring a spiritual sense called Neshama, through which one will perceive the Creator.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that in the end, all the people will achieve a spiritual degree where they sense the Creator through a spiritual sense called a “soul.” To stress this, Kabbalists sometimes call the Nefesh spark, “a Neshama.” For example, in his article, “The First Degree with which One is Born,” Rabbi Baruch Ashlag writes: “Anything that is spoken of, is always spoken of with relation to its highest form. And since the highest form of man is the degree of Neshama, hence, for the most part, the spirituality of man is always referred to as Neshama.”

Any person can reach the highest spiritual degree. When one does, he or she will experience eternity and perfection. The Ari writes about it: “Any person can be a Moses, if he wants to purify his deeds, since he can take another spirit, from the height of Yetzira, and a Neshama from the height of Beria” (Shaar HaGilgulim, p. 11).

Quotes

“Here before us is a clear law (Halacha), that in all 612 precepts and all the writings in the Torah there is none that is preferred to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself,’ because they only aim to interpret and allow us to observe the precept of loving our neighbor unreservedly.”

--Baal HaSulam, “The Revelation of Godliness”

“But he must acknowledge in his soul that the Creator chases him just as much as he is chasing the Creator. And he must never forget that, even during the strongest longing. And when he remembers that the Creator chases and yearns to cleave unto to him as much as he does, too, he will always progress from strength to strength with yearning and craving, in a never ending Zivug (spiritual unity), which is the complete perfection of the soul’s power, until he is rewarded with love.”

--Baal HaSulam, Pri Hacham (Fruit of a Wise), p. 19

“Let our hearts see the merits of our friends and not their faults. And let us each speak to our friends in the upright way, which is desirable to you. And let no hate rise from one over one’s friend. And strengthen our bond with love for You, as it is known and revealed to you…”

--Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, “A Prayer before a Prayer

“We must know that love is bought through actions. By giving presents to one’s friend, each gift is like an arrow and a bullet, making holes in one’s friend’s heart. And even though one’s friend’s heart is like a stone, still, each bullet makes a hole. And from the accumulation of holes, a hollow is made, and the love of the giver enters that hollow. And the warmth of the love draws to it one’s friend’s sparks of love, and then from the two loves, a clothing of love is made, and this clothing covers them both.”

--Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, Dargot HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), Part 1, article no. 776

“We see that there is one thing that is common to all—the spirit. It is said, ‘A concern in one’s heart, let him speak of it with others.’ This is because with regard to feeling high-spirited, neither wealth nor erudition can be of assistance. Rather, it is one person who can help another… It turns out that each and every one must pay attention and think, how he can help his friend, uplift his spirit, because regarding one’s spirit, anyone can find a needy place in one’s friend, which he can fulfill.”

--Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, “They Helped Every One His Friend”

“Love thy neighbor as thyself (Leviticus 19:18), Rabbi Akiva says, ‘This is a great rule in the Torah.’”

--Midrash Raba, Chapter 24

“I wish the whole of humanity could be placed into a single body, so I could embrace them all.”

--The Rav Kook