The great kabbalists of the past thousands of years kept this wisdom with the foresight that one day it would serve as a catalyst for personal and global change. My hope is these words awaken your heart to improve, to elevate, to be better today than you were yesterday - so we may all come closer to a world with no more pain, no more suffering, and even as the Bible and the Zohar promise, no more death.
Every day we experience some form of offence from others. It is natural to become upset when a friend does something that is hurtful towards us. Our reaction to this type of behavior is often to lash back or do something that will hurt them in return. Even when we have the ability to refrain from acting out of vengeance, it is difficult to let go of our injured feelings. Yet there is a powerful reason for us to not only refrain from reacting negatively, but to completely let go of those hurt feelings.
One the most important things to understand about our lives is the law of cause and effect. The way we behave – be it through good actions or less good actions – determines what will come back to us. As we behave, so the Light of the Creator behaves with us. The kabbalists base this teaching on a verse in Psalms, “The Creator is your shadow.” This important teaching can reveal and explain much about our lives.
We have all done, and unfortunately often continue to do, actions that we know we should not. We behave selfishly, we become angry, and knowing the law of cause and effect, it is clear that due to our actions we have created challenges for ourselves that will manifest in our lives. There is, however, a way to make sure that we are protected from the repercussions of our negative actions.
If we are able to let go of others’ negative actions towards us, then, because of this behavior, the negative effects of our own actions cannot come back to affect us. When we are wronged and we are willing and able to let go of that hurt, this is the kind of energy we draw into our lives — the energy of forgiveness. Hence, even though we have committed a negative action, we will not have the resulting negative energy come back to us because we are willing to let go and forgive others for anything negative that we perceive them having done to us. As a result, any negativity that is meant to return into our lives will be held back, and we will be protected.
Once you understand this teaching, you begin to limit your negative feelings and reactions towards others. Next time somebody does something hurtful towards you remind yourself, “If I am able to let go of this feeling of hurt, I am drawing upon myself a shield of protection from a negative action that I have done.” And if you continue practicing this you will find yourself beginning to see these “hurtful” circumstances as opportunities to draw protection, until it becomes second nature to let go of any type of negative reactions towards others.
Every day, week, and month has a different energy. By learning and knowing the unique Light and gifts that are available in specific times, we can avail ourselves of the unique Light and gifts that are available. Learn about the Light, blessings, and healing that we will draw during the month of Taurus (Iyar in Hebrew) in this lecture recorded on the New Moon of Taurus.
The kabbalists call this month Iyar, spelled Alef, Yud, Yud, Reish. These letters are a coded message that reveals the month’s internal energy. The word Iyar is actually an acronym for Ani Hashem Rofecha (I, God, am your healer).
During Iyar, therefore, we receive the gift of true and lasting healing.
As the Rav has repeatedly made clear, our first understanding in this month must be the knowledge that we do have the ability to heal ourselves, not only on the physical level but also emotionally, and certainly spiritually. True, we might need assistance and we might go to a doctor to help us in the healing process, but real and lasting healing power originates inside each of us.
Ultimately, to bring about permanent healing, we need to connect with healing Light, and the knowledge that we can heal ourselves is the connection for bringing the Light of healing permanently into our lives.
We must always remind ourselves that every form of chaos — including illness — is an illusion and will not last. This is the most important awareness we need to have when facing any sort of chaos in our lives. We must persevere based on our consciousness that chaos is only a physical manifestation and therefore temporary. Its disappearance may not come quickly or easily, but in the end, the illusion that is chaos will vanish.
Many people who come to The Kabbalah Centre study for years. Others are here for much shorter periods of time. People come and go, but whether someone stays or not, it is important to remember what lies at the core of The Kabbalah Centre’s work — and at the core of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Ultimate fulfillment is our destiny. Chaos is not permanent.
This is a tremendous gift for us during the month of Iyar. The Gates of Heaven are open, may we take advantage of all that is available.
The month of Aries offers us the gift of lessening the grip of the ego, allowing us to grow closer to the Light of the Creator. If we truly desire to be close to the Light, and to be vessels through which it can flow, we must clearly understand that everything we do is only through the power of the Creator. We must maintain this awareness no matter how important or powerful we become in the material world.
What are the qualities of a powerful personality, a successful leader, or a great teacher? It would seem that total confidence in oneself is necessary for inspiring the confidence of others. Yet Moses, who is surely the Bible’s greatest example of leadership in action, seems to have been extremely hesitant to undertake the role that the Creator designated for him.
When the Creator told Moses, “Now go, and I will send you to Pharaoh,” Moses replied, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” He was convinced that there must be others more suited than he for the mission of liberating the slaves. The sages even tell us that, before accepting this mission, Moses argued with the Creator for seven days.
Moses, of course, did eventually appear before Pharaoh. Yet he made it very clear that he was only acting as an instrument of the Creator, and that he had no stature or power on his own. He said, “The Creator has sent me to you saying let my people go, that they may serve Him in the desert.” But Pharaoh refused, and challenged Moses with a mocking question:
“Who is the Creator that I should listen to him?”
Surprisingly, Moses did not confront Pharaoh at this point, nor did he ask him to change his decision. Instead, he said to himself, “I have done my duty.” Before Moses would take the next step in the struggle for liberation, the Creator had to command him all over again in almost the very same words: “Go and speak to Pharaoh, the King of Egypt…” It was as if Moses, one of the greatest leaders in all of human history, was fleeing from responsibility and from the stature that comes with it.
In order to understand Moses’ actions, we need to put aside any conventional understanding of humility and reluctance to serve. While it is true that Moses was humble and was convinced that others were more capable than he, on an even more basic level Moses saw himself as purely an instrument of the Creator. He felt that he could do what the Creator had commanded him to do, but he could do no more. On his own, he had no more power or initiative than any other tool. He was like a rake or a shovel in the Creator’s hands. This is how Moses saw himself, and this is the fundamental explanation for what seems like extreme reluctance to assume a leadership role
There is no doubt that Moses felt the pain of the enslaved nation. He even said, “I would die to relieve your pain.” He also knew that the time had come for the nation to be redeemed, and that he was chosen to be the redeemer. Moreover, the Creator had told him if he would not redeem the Israelites, nobody else would. Yet Moses was certain that he himself did not and could not do anything on his own. It would always be the Creator who took the nation out of Egypt. Moses realized that his mission was to be a tool for the Creator to use.
Moses was always aware that he did nothing, and that it was the Creator’s Light that accomplished all the great miracles through him. Had he let personal pride or ego creep in, the pure flow of the Light would have been blocked. It was because Moses remained a pure vessel for the Light, and a pure instrument for the desire of The Creator, that he became a great messenger, a superb leader, and the liberator of his people.
This month, when we understand this lesson as Moses did, we can truly connect to the Creator’s Light. If we allow ego to get in the way, it will hinder the flow of Light to us, and through us to the entire world. Conversely, the more we emulate these traits of humility, the more good work and healing we can bring into the world.
The gates of happiness open when Pisces begins. We need to take advantage of this, not only because we want to be happy, but because we want more Light. We want more abundance. So at the beginning of Adar, we need to say, “This is the month that I’m going to dedicate myself to simple happiness.”
As we create a vessel for happiness, all the other blessings and abundance will come. But it can happen only after we create the vessel.
All of us want to have joyful lives, but to be joyful is a choice we must make, a switch we must activate in our minds. There are many practical steps we can take to hit this switch, and they all involve finding the excitement and the beauty in the permanent and lasting gifts of the Light.
Practice starting each day with gratitude. As you open your eyes in the morning, focus on one thing you are grateful for. Choose a permanent aspect of your life when you do this, not some fleeting bit of excitement from the material world. Allow yourself to sink into the positive feelings that come up.
Most importantly, don’t get out of bed until you find something to be grateful for. As you go through the day, think often of this gratitude, keeping in mind that a new awareness of joy will not happen by itself. Of course, the negativity within us will do everything possible to keep us in a reactive state. So be tenacious this month about thinking thoughts of joy and happiness.
When you need extra support, there is no greater spiritual tool to cleanse darkness and negativity than The Zohar. As Rav Chaim Vital writes, whenever anyone came to the Ari with a problem, whether it was jealousy, selfishness, anger, or anything else, the Ari would always say, “Read a certain number of pages in The Zohar every day. If you do that continuously and diligently, that darkness will vanish.”
The more you do this, the more blessings you will see manifesting in your life.
When most of us look at the world, we believe that things exist. Trees exist, nature exists, we exist, and our family exists. Everything remains intact until something negative comes along and changes it; everything has a shelf life. A tree can last for hundreds of years. A human being can last for 80, 90, 100 years. Things in our world exist, until something happens that discontinues their existence.
But this is not true.
The kabbalists teach that the reason for our existence is what we call the Light of the Creator. This source of energy sustains everything in this world. Therefore, things do not exist because they have some innate ability to do so, but rather because this Light of the Creator is being infused anew into all beings and objects every second of every hour of every day.
The tree that stands for hundreds of years does not do so because it has that innate ability, but rather because every single minute a flow of the Light of the Creator comes into the tree and allows it to exist.
We do not live from one moment to the next because we have some inherent ability to live, but rather because the Light of the Creator constantly enters and sustains us. We live the next second not because we lived the previous one, but because the Light of the Creator comes into our body, into our soul — in every moment.
It’s important to understand this, because if you don’t know and live this consciousness, it will be very difficult to change anything.
Using a simple example: When you are baking a cake, you gather all of the ingredients together, mix them and put them into the oven. Once the cake is baked, you might want to add more salt, or more sugar or maybe some flour– but you can’t. Once it is done, it is done.
If we look at ourselves, our world and all that is around us as just existing– not as being continuously created anew over and over– then we cannot change anything. The individual cannot change simply because he is. Our relationship with others cannot change because they already exist.
We cannot truly change any aspect of our lives if we live with the consciousness that most of us have, which is that things just are.
However, when we’re able to change the way we view the world — the way we view nature, the way we view ourselves, the way we view our lives and those around us — and know that nothing truly just exists, but rather is constantly renewed by the Light of the Creator, then, of course, everything can change. Whether it’s disease, negative relationships, something disagreeable about ourselves, we can change every moment because every single second is brand new.
If you’re able to understand and live with this consciousness, then you have the ability to change everything.
How do you come to this consciousness? Practice.
Practice looking at the tree; know it does not exist now just because it existed before. Understand that it is being infused with new Light in this very moment.
Look at yourself and know that you’re alive right now, not because you were alive a minute ago, but because in every breath you take there is a new injection of the Light of the Creator into you.
Look at your children and know that they exist because in this very second they are receiving fresh Light — not because they existed yesterday. Begin to train your mind in this consciousness: Creation occurs anew every second; nothing exists because it existed before; everything in the world is constantly infused with a new spark of energy from the Light of the Creator.
With this consciousness you are able to change everything and anything, because you know that the universe is created anew again and again, so then all is universally changeable. Everything can be changed in every moment.
One day a man onboard a ship walks by one of the cabins and notices a man drilling a hole in the floor. He shouts, “What are you doing? Are you crazy?!” The man looks up bewildered and says, “This is my cabin, and I can do whatever I want in it.” The other man becomes irate. “You fool, a hole in your cabin will sink the whole ship.”
This seems like a simple story, but The Zohar uses it to clarify a deeper secret of life: we’re each responsible for one another.
This is a two-way street and includes two basic lessons for life. First, we must realize that our actions, both negative and positive, influence many other people in ways we can’t begin to imagine. On the other side of the coin, we must realize that other people’s actions, good or bad, directly influence our lives.
This is why we have a responsibility to help others grow and improve. We are truly all in the same boat – we all sink or swim together.
This understanding of our basic need to help others develop spiritually is one of the aspects that separates a person who is living Kabbalah from one who is browsing. That’s not to say there is anything wrong with testing the waters, but it’s important to always be pushing oneself to the next level so that spiritual inertia doesn’t set in.
Often we focus only on ourselves and our own spiritual growth – disregarding the rest of the world. Truth be told, we must help others in their spiritual development because we cannot fulfill our purpose and goal in this world without assisting others. A hole in another’s cabin floor will sink our ship as well.
We each find ourselves in different positions in life. But regardless of how big or small our sphere of influence is, the Creator gave us each our unique domain wherein we can impact others. We must understand that this gift of influence comes with responsibility: The greater our sphere of influence, the greater the responsibility.
Have a wonderful Aquarius. May the actions you take, and the words you speak, reveal Light for many lives.
Frequently things in life are exciting in the beginning and then they lose their excitement over time. Most people are more in love on the first date than they are 15 years into marriage, or more enthusiastic about a job in the first week than three years into that job.
And that’s the reality of this world. Most of our new and positive experiences in life are fascinating and we are grateful for them in the beginning, but then as time goes on, we lose appreciation. We lose our excitement for our gifts; they get old. And most of us accept this reality. We believe that this is the way life is. Things are always more stimulating at the beginning, and then the energy wanes, and you’re lucky if you’re able to have some positive experiences much later into a marriage, work or any experience in life.
Yet the truth is that there is another way. Our blessings are meant to remain as filled with excitement, joy and warmth as on the first day. Everything that we have in life, every gift — marriage, family, work, friends—are meant to be as energizing, as fulfilling on the hundredth day as they were on the very first day. So we have to try to understand, why do our gifts get old?
Before we can answer that question, we have to first understand where our gifts come from. The kabbalists teach a very important basic principle, which is that all of our gifts– whether physical, emotional or spiritual– have one source. The joy we feel in the food that we eat, in the beauty that we see, in the love that we experience, every single aspect of that fulfillment, joy, or excitement that we feel, has a source. And it is called the Light of the Creator. It is the Light of the Creator that infuses the energy into all the gifts that we have in life.
If you understand that, you also realize that if you detach these gifts from their source, they will no longer have that energy, that excitement, that newness. For instance, if you’re using a lamp and it’s connected to electricity and the bulb is strong, it can stay lit for hours and hours. But if you detach the lamp from the electrical socket, suddenly everything goes dark.
This is true in the blessings and gifts that we all have in our lives too. If we detach them from their source— and now we understand their source is what we call the Light of the Creator—just as the lamp, they go dark, they get old, they lose their excitement, they lose their fulfillment.
We all know that when you have bread or cake straight out of the oven, it’s nice and warm. We all enjoy eating that bread. It’s much better when it’s warm, straight out of the oven. A day later? Not as good. A week later– terrible; you can’t even eat it. We know that when something is initially created, there is that warmth, there is that energy in it that we all enjoy much more than we would three days later.
If it is true that the source of all of our blessings, the fulfillment, the joy that we feel in any of our blessings is the Light of the Creator, then we know that when we detach them from their source— just as one unplugs the lamp from the electrical socket — a process of deterioration begins; of less joy, less excitement, less fulfillment. So the question we have to ask ourselves is: What is it that we do that detaches our blessings from the Light of the Creator? If we can learn to stop doing that, if we can learn to keep our blessings connected to their source, then they should stay warm, they should stay exciting, even more exciting on the 10th day, on the hundredth day, than on the first day.
And the answer is simple. When we take ownership of our gifts, when we begin to see and feel that they are ours, we are, with that consciousness, detaching them from their Source, from the Light of the Creator.
In this world, if I want to give somebody a gift, I have it in my hand and I give it to them; it is passed into their hands. It has been completely detached from me, the giver, and received completely by the receiver of that gift. And that is what most of us do, to one degree or another, with all of the gifts that we receive from the Light of the Creator.
When we have a relationship, a job, money, or physical objects and we forget that their source is the Light of the Creator, when we take ownership of them, they have become detached from their Source and they lose their energy. They will get old, and that is why most of us experience less excitement in the 10th year of marriage than on the first date; and why we enjoy a job less in the third year than on the day we first started, because we have– through our consciousness of ownership– detached them from their Source, from the Light of the Creator.
So what do we do? Now that we understand that all of our gifts can and are meant to be as warm, as exciting, as fulfilling, always, as they are in the beginning, what do we do? Well, the answer again is simple. To the degree that we can, we need to look at every single gift that we have— be it our spouse, our friend, our children, our money, our physical objects, our spiritual blessings— and consistently remind ourselves that they are not ours; they have a Source and the Source is what we call the Light of the Creator. We have the ability to use these gifts, they come into our hands, but they do not, and we do not, through our consciousness of ownership, detach them from the hand of the Light of the Creator. Only then do they have the ability to remain warm and exciting and endlessly fulfilling forever.
Sometimes it breaks over us like a slow-moving wave, other times it strikes as suddenly as lightning. The cause may be hidden or all too obvious: someone says the wrong thing or says nothing at all. In an instant we’re red-faced, unable to speak, perhaps close to violence. Overcome, we not only forget who we are, but we literally become someone else.
It’s called anger, and this month we have the opportunity to transform the hold it has on our lives.
The Zohar says that there is not much worse than acting out in anger. When a person loses control and reacts angrily towards someone, “he tears and uproots his soul because of his anger and causes a foreign spirit to dwell within him.”
Chances are you will be tested often this month in the relationship and work areas of your life. When you appreciate the danger of becoming angry and take steps to work through it, you will find it easier to soften your judgments with mercy.
Thousands of years ago the kabbalists revealed the secret that anger is the spiritual cause of illness because it severs our connection to our source of life – the Light of the Creator.
The great kabbalist and original founder of The Kabbalah Centre in 1922, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, shed enormous light on the insidious nature of anger. He revealed that our anger is not us, but rather a negative entity that has insinuated itself into our consciousness which manifests as a voice telling us to react.
We must disassociate ourselves from this entity and realize that the person we are angry at is not our enemy – the negative entity within us is the enemy.
Rav Ashlag clearly teaches us that we need to use anger to our advantage. Yes, there is a positive side of anger, what the Zohar calls the Anger of the Sages. This type of anger comes from our soul, and it helps us to reclaim our power. The focus of this anger needs to be directed toward the negative voice in our minds telling us to hurt another with words or actions.
This month, when someone cuts us off on the highway or insults us with a remark, rather than reacting with fury, we can instead be furious with the voice in our minds that tells us this person is bad and deserves punishment. That’s the only way we can accomplish what we came to this world to do, and this is the greatest gift of this month.
Every day we experience some form of offence from others. It is natural to become upset when a friend does something that is hurtful towards us. Our reaction to this type of behavior is often to lash back or do something that will hurt them in return. Even when we have the ability to refrain from acting out of vengeance, it is difficult to let go of our injured feelings. Yet there is a powerful reason for us to not only refrain from reacting negatively, but to completely let go of those hurt feelings.
The kabbalists call this month Iyar, spelled Alef, Yud, Yud, Reish. These letters are a coded message that reveals the month’s internal energy. The word Iyar is actually an acronym for Ani Hashem Rofecha (I, God, am your healer). 
Sometimes it breaks over us like a slow-moving wave, other times it strikes as suddenly as lightning. The cause may be hidden or all too obvious: someone says the wrong thing or says nothing at all. In an instant we’re red-faced, unable to speak, perhaps close to violence. Overcome, we not only forget who we are, but we literally become someone else.
Michael Berg is the co-director of The Kabbalah Centre and editor of the first-ever contemporary English translation of The Zohar... 
Blog Posts Feed (RSS)