In terms of Kabalah

I wanted to mention a small point about Isaac Luria  [האריז''ל the Ari ]and the famous system of  the Reshash [Shalom Sharabi]. We know that the Reshash did base his interpretation of Isaac Luria on that essay called Derush Hadaat [דרוש הדעת essay concerning Intelligence] which does not show up in any of the writings of the Ari himself. And I have on occasion found things in the Ari concerning Daat that do not seem to go along with that Drush Hadaat. But on other occasions I find things in the Ari that seem to indicate clearly what the Reshash was saying.
 A good example of this concerns the pitcher (כד) of water that Rebbecca lowered into the well when she met Eliezer, the servant of the patriarch Abraham. In one place the Ari says the crown of "Girl" (כתר דנוקבא) has only two pitchers--the two lower thirds of the glory of Man (שני שלישי התפארת של זעיר אנפין). In that place the Ari is talking clearly about the vertical direction. In another place he says the two side pitchers are taken away and she is left only with the middle one. Unless you say like the Reshash you are stuck with an open contradiction.

But the main thing that I think Luria is trying to get at does not seem to come through learning Kabalah.

While  for me learning the Eitz Chaim עץ חיים gave me a good orientation, but still when I got to Israel, it seemed to me that the actual experiences of attachment with God came not through learning Kabalah, but rather by talking with God in  a forest. I was in Safed at the time, so there were lots of areas to wander around in those days.  Even I was hoping to spend more than one day --and make it an over nigher. But  I never did. My drive for serving God was I am sad to say highly limited. I saw the importance of Hitbodadut {conversation with God} but   and of fasting also. But never had the kind of drive that Bava Sali had when he did fasted for weeks  On one hand I felt a responsibility to come home to my wife at night so she would not feel alone. But that tuned out later to be  false reasoning. She would have done a lot better in life if I had gone all out towards the tzadik direction instead of my general lukewarm approach.  

I know that many Jews and gentiles are interested in a taste of the Divine Light.

I know that many Jews and gentiles are interested in a taste of the Divine Light.
Clearly this explains the popularity of Yoga and Eastern religions. Personally I was never attracted to Eastern religions except as an interest in the philosophy that underlies them.  My search was a kind of philosophical quest that was triggered by my study of Plato and other philosophers and writers [like Kant and Spinoza] during high school.

Yet without intending it I found a interesting path towards the Divine Light that I think it is worthwhile to share with others. It seems that the Divine Light depends to some degree on the concept of world view. For me  learning the Old Testament in a rigorous way was important in forming my world view. I think that world view does not just affect how people act but also how they are acted upon.
The next step involved learning Musar. The Talmud is situation specific. It does not address world view issues. For that one needs Musar [works of Jewish ethics written during the Middle Ages].
The next step in the Eitz Chaim [tree of life] of Isaac Luria. I can't account for the power of this book but it definitely opens a gateway into the divine for people that are properly prepared [sadly it also opens a gateway to hell for those that are not properly prepared.] Then next step was coming to the Land of Israel.

If you put all these four steps together the result should be a powerful influx of Divinity
Christians in general think that Kabalah has something to do with magic.This accounts for the reason many Christians consider it to be evil. and it also accounts for the reason that many people look into it anyway when they are in need of something that they think magic can help them with. However the type of Kabalah that I am referring to here --that of Isaac Luria is a map of spiritual worlds. It is a academic discipline and has nothing at all to do with magic.
And in fact this magical part of religion --whether in the religious world is in fact something I highly disprove of. A further problem with Kabalah is most authors of books of Kabalah after Isaac Luria are in  secret shabatians [followers of Shabati Tzvi.]. This sadly includes books that are traditionally associated with the Hasidim movement of the Baal Shem Tov. And even when the authors are not secret followers of the Shatz they still includes many basic ideas that were originated in the writings of Natan the false prophet of the Shatz. The Gra put that whole movement into חרם and I think the laws of חרם still apply to it an its evil essence in fact became revealed in time. [The Cherem however was very specific and would not apply to the Baal Shem Tov himself or his great grandson Reb Nachman nor to some of the disciples. Look up the actual excommunication to see the exact details]

It has become the current and popular opinion of the Jewish religious world to believe in Pantheism [or what they would claim is called "Panetheism."] Belief in this is presented as if it is a some deep secret by which if one believes in it can bring about miracles. [This makes orthodox Judaism a kind of fraud, since they are  not teaching authentic Torah.]

The Gra גר''א [the Geon from Villna] also thought that Pantheism was something that some Jewish cults got from other sources and not from the Torah and were trying to convince people that it is a Torah principle.

The problem here are far as I see it is that some people are not accountable to any external validation. They can define things and conceptions as Torah concepts as much as they like with no worry if Torah or reality agrees with them. The main thing is that other lunatics  should agree with them.
Nor do they need to worry if logical reasoning agrees with them. [At least some philosophers before the twentieth century used to be concerned if their conclusions could be supported by logical deduction. ]

What the Rambam [Maimonides] tells us in the Guide for the Perplexed is that the belief system of the Torah is Monotheism. This really was clarified by Saadia Geon in his book Emunot VeDeot but the Rambam spends much more time explaining this in his book.
The Hindu system is Pantheism, and if people want to be Hindu, then that is their option. But it is not an option to lie to people about the belief system of the Torah. 

The main obstacles to learning Kabalah are  the books that purportedly  give simple introductions to Kabalah.
I can't go into the many ways of learning Kabalah in the wrong way right now. But I will spend a few minutes trying to convince people to learn it the right way.

Obviously the first step is the have a solid background in Talmud and Torah. But after that the basic step is the Eitz Chaim [the book called the Tree of Life, עץ חיים] of the Ari  [Isaac Luria (האריז''ל)].
This is an extremely simple book, and easy to understand on the very first reading. All the introductions to it only make what is simple sound complex. And usually they are trying to expand their own agenda in the name of Kabalah. All kabalistic ashkenazic books have this serious flaw, and are because of this less than worthless.
Where the Ari gets difficult is when you get to the Eight Gates and try to apply its world view to the verse of the Torah. [Later note: I was trying to say that how the Ari applies his system to any particular verse of subject is  things get complicated. My advice for this problem is to first learn all the writings o the Ari in order from the beginning to end. That is the Eitz Chaim, Pri Eitz Chaim, and the whole set of  the Eight Gates. Altogether that is about twenty books. The way to do that is to have place marker and to read a little every day until you turn the page. Put in the place marker and the second day start from where you left off. It takes some time but eventually you get through it. And don't take any Kabalah classes for heavens sake. Not only will you learn nothing from them but they are traps to entice you into different cults.  ]

However I should mention the Reshash (רש''ש) (R. Shalom Sharabi). He has a pretty good system, but it seems to me that it should be reserved for a fourth year or graduate kabalah student.
The Reshash  is not the simple explanation of the Ari. And the simple explanation (not like the Reshash) of the Ari is how the Ramchal (רמח''ל) [Moshe Chaim Lutzato] understands the Ari and also  Yaakov Avuchatzaira. And it is largely based on an essay that he brings that is not a part of the canonical books of the Ari. (דרוש הדעת)
If you do not have the Eitz Chaim, or want a different approach, the Mavo Shearim (מבוא שערים) is a parallel version of the same, and also pretty good. Personally, I think nothing can compare with the Eitz  Chaim as a masterpiece of power and beauty.
 Incidentally, the system of the Ari is a highly evolved Neo Platonic system as so it is not to be expected that any Protestants can understand it. You need to have intuitively a Platonic world view in order to understand Kabalah. Also the Protestant bias against the very idea of keeping mitzvas stands in the way of understanding Kabalah. [Understanding spiritual light that doing mitzvahs as cause to bring into the world is a basic function of Kabalah. If.If you think as Protestants do that mitzvahs are worthless relics of a bygone era then there is no way they can understand what the kabalah is trying to accomplish.]
Now, I know the Rambam is highly Aristotelian and it does sees a mystic understanding of the Rambam is possible as we see in Avraham Abulafia. However in this essay here I am referring on to the Ari.

[Also I should mention that it is in fact in the Reshash that you find the two systems of Plato and Aristotle combined. In the  view of the Reshash all the higher worlds of the Forms become horizontal Universals contained in "things in themselves." (Dinge An Sich)]


Also I should mention that university Kabalah is Medieval Kabalah  and has nothing to do with the Ari'zal (Issaac Luria). It is an interesting subject in itself, but it is not what I am talking about in this essay. Gershom Sholem [The Professor at Hebrew University that made medieval  Kabalah into a respectable academic discipline] and his followers simply were doing work in a different area than the kabalah of Isaac Luria and Moshe Kordovaro.
It does seem to be likely that Hegel did some amount of borrowing from the Ari and put it into rational and philosophic terminology. Actually Hegel seems mostly to be like the Reshash with his triadic system. But I can't imagine Hegel had heard of the Reshash. But Hegel certainly did borrow from the Ari. So maybe it is just that both Hegel and the Reshash both came to the same conclusions based on the Ari. Though Hegel to it in the direction of Metaphysics

  Just in case Christians are reading this who want a definition of repentance, let me clarify. Repentance means this: There are  laws in the Old Testament. "Sin" is defined as not keeping any one of those laws. "Repentance" is deciding to get back on track, and start keeping that law.
  It has nothing to do with playing cards or drinking alcohol. These might be bad things, but they are no including in the definition of "repentance." [To know how to repent you have to focus on any particular law  that you suspect you might not be keeping, and rigorously clarify exactly what it is forbidden and what it is not, --(and you aren't allowed to add or subtract from that definition).
   For example, after my wife left me, I  could find no girl friend or wife. [On the subject of girl friends: see the Book of Chronicles, Book I, chapter two [2:46] and four concerning Caleb ben Yefuna  (כלב בן יפונה). He is the only person in the entire Bible that it says the unique phrase, וימלא אחרי השם "He walked completely after God." He had two girl friends. So it can not be a sin.

  Instead of getting mad at young adults that are interested in sex or ignoring the issue, I recommend getting married early. Jews in Morocco and Yemen were generally married at very early ages.

  Now on a more urgent issue it is mentioned in that chapter that doing repentance/teshuva is connected to the Divine name  in Exodus "I will be".  [This is mistranslated by Christians to "I am"] [It does  not mean "I am." If I want to say, "I will be in the store," I say 'Ani Ehye Bachanut"אני אהיה בחנות מחר . If I want to say, "I am in the store," I say Ani Bachnut. אני בחנות]

"What is wrong with America"--posted here from my other blog because of its importance.

What is wrong with America is this. Money influences the news, and the news influences public opinion, and public opinion influences public policy. [People do not make up their own system of values. They  get it from somewhere in their environment. You can see this in yourself. Are your values completely original, or did you pick them up from someplace? With no more authority to parents, where do you think people are picking up their opinions from?]
 While capitalism is not bad in itself, this system is insidious.

There is no question that the few people in the world that still believe in freedom and in the the American Constitution will find themselves in a deadly war with Islam. [The number of people that believe in the American Constitution is getting less every day. How many people do you know that Believe in freedom of speech--or that it is more important not to offend Muslims or Blacks? How many people do you know believe in the second amendment --the right bear arms? How many people do you know that think that powers not given to the federal government  are powers that it does not have, and if it tries to assume these powers, revolution is in order. For example the power to force you to buy insurance. Do you believe that now you have a right to publicly and politically advocate  revolt against the Government of the USA because it has usurped power? Or are you afraid of a audit on your taxes if you do.]




It will be instructive for people to learn how Islam destroyed the communities of the Zoroastrians in Iraq and Iran. It is the same method they are using in Europe and in the USA. First they start with a few good benign Muslims moving nearby. As long as they are small in numbers, they act exemplary. Then the numbers grow, and the youth are sent in to do theft and rape. Then the community starts to feel harnessed. This process goes on until the community is destroyed.

Rosh Hashanah in Uman.If Reb Nahman had said anything that would have indicated that he wanted people to come to his grave site on Rosh HaShanah do you think that Reb Nathan would have omitted it?

This was certainly assumed by Reb Nathan his disciple. However this has been a source of ambiguity. We see things that imply it. First of all his well known promise to people that would come to his grave site and say the ten psalms that he specified. (note 1) ["I will pull them by their hair out of Hell."]
However in the five  books of Nahman we do not find any specific connection between Rosh HaShanah and his grave site. He never took  two two witnesses saying to come to his grave on Rosh HaShanah like he did for the Tikun Haklali (note 1). 


If Reb Nahman had said anything that would have indicated that he wanted people to come to his grave site on Rosh HaShanah do you think that Reb Nathan would have omitted it?(note 2) We know  Nahman from Breslov wanted people to come to his grave to say the Ten Psalms because he took two reliable witnesses [neither of whom was Reb Natan] and declared this in front of them. And said specially that he would do everything  to help that person. But he never took two witnesses about Rosh Hashana nor even said a simple statement like, "Come to my grave on Rosh Hashanah."

When he wanted people to come to his grave he said so openly. When he wanted people to come to him, while he was alive, on Rosh Hashanah, he also said so openly. But he never said or implied to come to his grave on Rosh Hashanah. And in fact no one, including Reb Nathan, came to his grave on Rosh Hashanah. They came to Uman, but not to his grave.
When he wanted to discuss his grave he did so in many ways. But his grave was never mentioned in the context of Rosh Hashanah.
[The obvious question then is: why did he not take again two witnesses and testify before them concerning some connection between Rosh Hashanah and coming to his grave? In theory he could have one so. And why was Reb Nathan not one of the two witnesses?] This does not mean that it is not a good idea to go to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. But there is no mitzvah in saying that Reb Nahman specifically said to do so. He certainly did not. Appendix:
(note 1) 16,32, 41,42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150 (Russians have a different way of numbering the psalms because they consider nine and ten to be the same psalm. So to them the numbers are different.)

(note 2) Reb Nathan did in fact begin the coming to Uman on the very first Rosh Hashanah after Reb Nahman had passed away. So it seems clear that Reb Nathan understood this to be a good thing though not explicitly  stated as such by Reb Nahman. However the saying of the ten psalms by his grave site was in fact explicit.