Kabbalah: Love and Fear, Truth and Illusion - Rabbi Laibl Wolf, Spiritgrow - Josef Kryss Center

welcome to our five-part series the Kabbalah of love and fear one of the features of creation is duality we've spoken about this a number of times how everything tends in the physical finite world to be dualistic everything seems to come in groups of two you've got two hands two feet two eyes two legs two hemispheres of the brain we similarly have a perception of reality in terms of duality up-down left-right positive negative proton electron particle wave yin-yang it all seems to come in twos in other words there's some deliberate aspect of creation that wants us to operate in a dualistic world and with the duality inherent inside of each one of us and of course the purpose of that is ephod oneness to resolve dualities and bring them into a state of unity and one of the most powerful ways that we achieve this is through our interpersonal relation texts merger joining one entering into state of love appropriate love according to the relationship and that becomes the most primary motivator of human endeavor the way we love each other one of the common denominators of all aspects of love is connectedness joining there is an equal and opposite again in a dualistic world polar opposite and that's withdrawing separating we're going to talk about this chewing and froing in an emotional context we're going to have to understand what the nature of emotion but even before we go to the go there in terms of the context of what is emotion we have to understand what is the nature of consciousness because at the end of the day if we don't understand the nature of consciousness who are we that are talking about emotion and mind in the different features consciousness is something where the text books have discussed at length and one thing I found is that there are all the books tend to be mutually exclusive I think most of the writings tend to associate consciousness with mind and yet mind in the Hasidic teachings of Kabbalah is one pathway of consciousness and emotion is a separate and distinct pathway of consciousness and for a human being to be able to relate to another human being in a way which is able to create the fulfillment of life we need to merge mind and emotion we have to get together the two aspects of consciousness join them together so that we end up with what's commonly now called emotional intelligence the words emotion and intelligence heart and head and even then it's not so clear because the English language is not conducive to a clarity of understanding these things because English is we know as a bastard language made up of so many different antecedents you've got anglo-saxon Celtic Romance languages the classical languages and onwards etc Rome and Latin so you've got words that overlap you've got intelligence you've got intellect you've got mind you've got thoughts you've got all these things that are not clear in their distinction from each other in Hebrew because Lashon ha'qodesh Hebrew is a very exact language a language that actually is the precursor to creation itself as our Jewish mystics teach us at Hashem created the world through the agency of the Torah the Torah is the blueprint of creation so when we look at the Torah and looks like to scroll right that we read from on the Shabbos or the on set etc and it reads like a narrative and provides us with the do's and the don'ts of what a Jewish lifestyle consists of but far beyond that the shape of the letters the negan Trop that makes up the musical intonation x' the juxtaposition and things like whether the sound emanates from the throat or from the lips or from the tongue create groups of letters five groups of letters and all these are actually code like mechanisms to describe to us symbolically the way that creation continues to take place now somewhere there within what we call language Lashon ha'qodesh Hebrew in common parlance we have the secrets of the nature of creation similarly when we talk about mind and emotion there are two very specific words that are used the word for mind is safe hell and the word for emotions in our literature here is called MoDOT and if you know Hebrew the word meda doesn't really convey the sense of emotion in contemporary Hebrew it means a proportional flow a measured expression because we're going to learn that mind has very energetic formats that become intelligence and emotion has seven energetic flows that become the state of emotion the two primary emotions that we're going to speak about are called chassid and guevara Hesed usually associated with the Hebrew word of loving-kindness in the more old-fashioned sense but it's a sense of sharing giving and contribution whereas guevara is translate the severity but Guevara comes you have the Hebrew word gibor ero strong strength but what is it that define strength what do we understand by the word strength what happens to your muscles when you exercise strength you can track them so in others Guevara is an aspect of contraction whereas Hazard is an aspect of expansion when I practice hesed I move outwards to embrace the world to embrace the other in all different formats through largesse through loving kindness through embrace etc and when I practice Guevara what I'm doing is withholding maintaining within limiting measuring focusing so all of us have this duality a duality that with our hands and arms go something like this outwardly and then something that goes like this every one of us possesses both aspects the issue is how wise we can be in being able to balance these two tendencies so that they are appropriate to the moment to the nth of the person and that's where emotional intelligence comes into it having said all that let's interpolate the words love and fear what we understand by the word love could anyone help me build a common definition of what we understand by the word love flow of good emotions heartwarming joy so we've got synonyms connection hardness now what would be the common denominator behind all these good that's the subjective element positive feelings but as was said here that tendency is bringing together bridging the gap here we are you're sitting at the table you're there I'm here until we open up our mouths and speak to each other or at least smile to each other you are still there and I'm still here however at the moment that I smile at you and you smile back is already an element of coming closer when we speak and then share of each other they were able to utilize our words as mechanisms for our souls to be able to draw nearer and nearer it's interesting when I was going to law school one of the visiting lecturers in my family of law school was a very famous English judge by the name of Lord Denning who's no longer with us and Lord Denning was a very a judge with a lot of courage to be able to initiate change in law and he told us that he was going to lecture on the most important subject that we could ever study so we expect that this would be a lecture on criminal law international law things of major substance and he says I'm going to give a lecture on the law of privacy wow this is the most major law ok and he in passing he presented in this way he said if you get on to the clapping bus I assume clapping or some suburb in England and you see somebody at a distance on the other end of the bus whom you've never met before it's very likely that you won't acknowledge them and they won't acknowledge you your perfect strangers to each other and that's perfectly normal but what if you got onto the bus and somewhere on the bus was somebody whom you had a nodding acquaintance ship with then it'd probably be highly likely that you would nod at them and they may nod back so you have already a level of proximity taking place and what if you got onto the bus and or tram or whatever it might have been and you saw some who was a friend of yours it would be very unlikely that you would simply stay away and not acknowledge you'd probably go up and say hi and speak to them and what if you saw someone on the bus was very close to you a member of the family you might even go over and embrace them he said in each of these circumstances in each of these instances what you're doing is choosing to share of yourself to reveal yourself more and more according to the propriety of the circumstances and he says the capacity of the human being to be able to choose how much of Rev self-revelation we practice how much we reveal ourselves it is the most precious commodity because that goes to the core of relationship so you have a situation at first instance which might be a stranger and there's an element of guevara playing you locked within yourself you don't make any attempt because there's no reason to so under those circumstances there's no reason to immediately jump up and down and go up to the person and embrace them in fact there would be somewhat ludicrous if not dangerous and therefore we might say that if you met somebody for the first time in your life and that person in the space of the first one or two minutes poured out to you the most intimate aspect of their life you'd say hold on there's something not quite right here that the balance of how certain guevara is not taking place in a way which is wise there isn't a wise expression of emotions yes we've got the the notion of boundaries and the notion of boundaries is the notion of propriety and I'm more interested in the actual dynamics rather than propriety what are we actually doing when we reveal ourselves what is the most prolific ways that we do reveal ourselves so going back to the two consciousness flows there are two ways that we consciously choose to reveal ourselves or restrain ourselves and they are through mind and through emotion coming back now so that's the expression by the way of of consciousness where does consciousness reside who is the consciousness within you who is the ultimate eye is it the eye so in our tradition consciousness resides in the soul the soul is the mechanism that provides consciousness for the human being and all our wherewithal that we possess which begins with mind and emotion is the way that the soul navigates the obstacle course of the body in order to express itself to reach out and touch the other which is the purpose of life that we each reach out and enter into a soulful encounter that is ultimately what we live for and whether it's with each other or whether it's with the animal kingdom having a pet or whether it is with vegetation or world and our concern and care for ecological or environmental concerns and entry into relationship at that level or with the inanimate world the way we own and possess things and honor them notwithstanding all these are elements of relationship the most profound word that's used in the Torah to express intimacy of relationship is the word the verb love darts what's the verb la dart in modern hebrew mean to know which is rather strange what's intimate about knowing so let me ask you if I were to ask you what is 7 times 6 and you'd say 42 and you know you said it Cecilia you said it without even thinking you just said 42 you know your times table very very well because you know it what does it mean to know it to know something is to be so intimate with it that there's no distance in between it's you if you have to spend time to work it out even if it be microseconds it's not yet knowing in Hebrew to know something is to be at one with it therefore the first occasion that the Torah actually uses the verb la darts to know is in the relationship between Adam and Eve Adam and cover the homage says and Adam knew Eve Adam yada it cover and you'd say well what a color what sort of language is that I mean they treat us in a childish kind of euphemism no no on the contrary it's the most perfect word to know something needs to be at one with it in the most total sort of way mind body emotion and soul that's why the verb is used deliberately we talked about drawing together we've talked about the nature of love love is the act of expressing hesed respect about desert as being this tendency and what propels it is the fuel of love what sphere this is a little more difficult what is the nature of fear it's the result seems to be an opposite you hide yourself you all right so weary lorry that it's an almost seemingly an equal and opposite tendency right that there's a strong Guevara element to fear okay but let's ask ourselves are there different kinds of fears let's analyze different kinds of fears it's an awareness aspect that you could be aware of what of the other but why would you fear rather than love the other right and their signals might be threatening there may be an association with pain and pain is one of the things that we recoil from we practice strong Guevara in the face of pain correct if it's not a reciprocity in the relationship if in it while you are prepared to and share of yourself and the other party is on the contrary repelling and rejecting that there's an element of pain which results in fear in taking a second initiative or third initiative etc okay so we speak in the literature of two kinds of fear we talk about a fear which is yira Tata which is the Aramaic for lower form of fear year at Tata up in modern Hebrew in my colloquial have siddik translation you're a Tata Tata it's right there in front of you in your notes okay and that means lower fear and then there's a thing called Euro Aloha which means a higher state of fear so let's see if we can understand is because Hasidic teachings of Kabbalah make a very definitive distinction between different flows of fear and loosely divided into these two categories what we've been discussing when we've been defining fear here around the table has been basically gyro Tata the fear of consequences fear of things in this world the things that we fear we're afraid of fire to get burnt we're afraid of people who are threatening us whether this be physically or emotionally or what-have-you sometimes we fear ourselves because we don't trust ourselves in whatever shape or form that might be these are fears of consequences of negative consequences yes absolutely hmm absolutely it's part of the existential condition of living this life no question about it the interesting thing is the contrast what is higher form of what we translate as fear and probably the English language doesn't convey this adequately yera ela is probably best described or translated as a state of all awwe or let's just stay there for a moment what does it mean to be in a state of or immense state of or oh let me ask you a better question let's go back and ask us have you ever experienced a state of profound or alright share with us oh yeah you've got a good memory that's going back a few thousand years yep yes yes which probably absolutely and I suppose that it wasn't merely the size of the mountain because it wasn't a very large mountain or it wasn't even the beautiful sunrise or though it probably was a beautiful size it was what you knew that sin I represented for you for your soul and for your people etc that contributed to that whole state of relationship to the moment which we've defined as all okay what other anyone else around the table might be able to share with us experiences of states of all like the wondrousness of of at all you know the the most common poetic expression is the most beautiful sunrise or sunset when you're alone it's just you with that glowing moment whatever that might be any others at the cartel sorry what is it in terms of the state of or what words can you use to describe what it is that you're experiencing within you become at one with the universe okay that's an interesting turn okay right so what might be a common denominator here the state of all evokes in a person and I think you came very close to it the recognition of the absolute distance and yet participation it's really an interesting contrast when you're in or of something part of you repels part of you steps backwards and yet there's a fascination with it that locks you in to be there but there is a tendency of backward motion whereas love is a tendency of forward motion or as a fear is a tendency of a backward motion you know my rule I cannot repeat anything whatsoever because I can never remember what I've ever said okay it's the absolute sense of distance of you as a person and the totality of the experience it's so over arching it's so totally um it's even more than shock isn't it it's transcendental is a word that could be used but here we're trying to convey it the sense of that it is like you have no relationship to it and they yet here you are like sometimes if I must share with you where I was in the presence of the Lubavitcher ever and I had a good fortune of having a good number of private audiences with him that's the experience I have that I'm here and I'm an absolute nothing and here is a person who's in a profit of high order who sees through me and there's no lying here and what's the point of me trying to put on a facade or a front or what-have-you and this is like huge okay so that for me we're always states of or but the ones that you've described adequate also this is yireh allure in other words a state of recoil Allah Anu lammott Aleph hey Allah okay we'll have that a Primus course in Aramaic here okay so now we've got two states of Euro that we've defined and it's interesting to note why do we speak about fear because the wise ones the sages informed us that our capacity to love God or fall in love with the radical act of living to love the universe is dependent on the state of year of or and fear that we can generate it's interesting that there's a correlation you might say it in more common words like this the capacity to love is dependent on the capacity fille ego abnegation and humility a person who was not truly humble a person who's not able to tame their ego is also unable to love I mean either maybe the either the pretense of love or illusion of love or self delusion of love whatever that might be the case but unless you're able to enter the state of Annie votes and Evos humility ego abnegation which we don't mean lack of self-esteem said this in a lecture last night there's a huge difference between losing self-esteem and not being humble right ego abnegation still allows you to have a sense of self what's the difference the difference is like this if a person is a haughty proud individual using the word proud in its negative connotation if a person thinks a lot of himself or herself then it's very very likely that there's some tinge of insecurity people only have to prop themselves up when they deep down suspect that there's very little within so then they have to put on the camouflage of a front okay and that's usually a sign of insecurity so that's why very often people who display this super confidence and over exuberance or what have you are already covering up things within a truly humble person doesn't have to put on an act in our tradition a truly humble person possesses a healthy sense of self esteem what is that as Moses personified it Moses are described as the most humble of all people yeah the hamish says this is the most humble of all people and I often raise the question if he's the most humble of all people Wow you mean dictator general chief justice arbiter of all Jewish disputes this is humility the answer is yes because as the Midrash tells us if Moshe Rabbeinu asked hey Moshe how come such a great guy he would have said me a great individual if someone were given the gifts that God gave me and was somebody else that would have done an even better job than I did in other words what made should have been was saying I recognize my gifts I know that God gave me these I didn't make them though I'm not taking credit but once I've got these gifts from above that means I'm duty bound to express them if I have leadership qualities I practice leadership if I have the capacity to create justice in society I have to create just in society I can't practice false modesty and say oh no I'm not good enough that's humility but that person possesses self-esteem right it's humility together with self-esteem so here when we're talking in terms of these levels of fear the first one the fear of consequences there is a level of I involved I've fear consequences and it may be quite legitimate because things that happen in the world even for spiritual people physical things are real you can't practice spirituality if you're not going to be a healthy individual who looks after himself or herself health-wise and physical wires etc to be spiritual doesn't mean to become an ascetic although there have been groups in different religious lines where a citizen is practiced okay self-denial that's not a Jewish Way even though there were within Jewish history some acetic groups but it's highly undesirable a citizen is not a citizen the kind of notion of self-denial deprive yourself of food keep fasting deprive yourself of beautiful clothing keep very poor clothing I may have shared this little joke before you know we Hasidim often make jokes at the Spence of another group or line within Jewish teachings that practices ethical codes of behavior called the muscle movement which is a very very wonderful evolution in Jewish teachings that makes the person practice humility but it's not the Hasidic way and the reason is as follows you'll see with the story so let me take you to one of the muscle schools of the days of old okay and here we find ourselves in this particular muscle school of Navarra dock and there they have a room which teacher and student has to enter into every day to practice humility how do they do it watch these two teachers they come into the room and they begin their affirmations I'm nothing I'm really nothing it's been a garnished are an absolute nothing and so they go on for half an hour making sure that they're practicing their nothingness which is good that mean to have a sense of humility the greatness of the world to little students come in when I say little we talk about your sugar students who are in their late teens and they to have to start practicing so they come in and they start I'm nothing I'm really nothing I'm an absolute nothing and one of the teachers not just the other teacher and says huh and he already thinks he's a nothing you can become so absorbed in practicing humility that your ego Rises and Rises and Rises okay it's tricky business to practice true humility okay fine so ascetism and self-denial is not necessarily our way okay so now we have another duality that impinges on this what makes love right or wrong and what makes fear right or wrong just because it's love doesn't make it right and just cause it's fear does that make it right so we have another duality within and that duality is call nefesh muhammad NFS ello kids marriage bahamas nephesh a locus which loosely translates the animalistic side of self and the godly side of self but put in a more practical an expression in terms of our own experience it means the ego self self-centeredness and the selfless self other centeredness every one of us here at the table has these two tendencies we have a tendency to take care of ourselves food clothing shelter etc as Maslow says that's what that's ok they'll keep going that's fine let's find beautiful music there so then and I keep going you've got to have your coffee I know you so we have those 10 food clothing and shelter ok food clothing and shelter is what the nefesh Bahamas does it says you're in this world it's a finite physical world and you have to live physically in order to survive nothing wrong with that nothing wrong with it would anyone argue that we shouldn't eat that we shouldn't dress that we shouldn't have a roof overhead and that's the nefesh Bahamas then we have a part of us that says now hold on you don't have to think about yourself why don't you think about others why don't you think about the other nosov existence a life of service a life of contribution a life of being able to carry out what Hashem wants from us etc the nefesh a locust is much more divine in its goals and orientations so you've got these two aspects competing aspects within and they are truly competing as we shall see now having these two aspects I haven't yet suggested that is anything negative or bad both seem to be carrying out a function one is a very prosaic physical function and the other one is a much more sublime spiritual function nothing wrong so far until we get to understand the nefesh Bahamas a little bit better see whereas whereas the nefesh Bahamas wants food clothing and shelter it also doesn't know when to stop how much food how much clothing how much shelter food well I will not sit down to eat unless it's hot cuisine clothing nothing will be on my body unless it's designer label shelter I have to have a chandelier in the lounge room and in the toilet in other words what the nature of the knavish Bahamas is is to seek self aggrandizement more and more physical subsistence that far beyond it doesn't know when to stop comes along the other side of self the nefesh a locus and the nefesh a locus has standards has the values that is connected to the godhead and it says so to speak for the nefesh bahamas if we're wise enough stop there you've got enough to survive now turn your energy and attention to help being a co-creator of the unfinished universe now let's apply it to love and fear you can love someone in a very positive way and you therefore want to serve that person you want to give others of the person emotionally tangibly you want to be able to provide goods and services that person you want to be able to nurture the person etc then there's a love that maybe smothering you love the person too much maybe you love the person too much because you need to love the person not because it's appropriate love but it satisfies your need maybe you're conferring love on the person because you really want it back that you really want it reciprocated you need the other person's love see how subtle it is he know you're finding situations of love that are self-serving and not truly altruistic a very fine distinction and yet a very important one because one actually flows through the nefesh Bahamas it's all about me my needs what I want even though it comes out as a parent love and the other one is truly from their facilities truly serving the other so you've got this dynamic that impinges on the two likewise in terms of fear you've got the capacity to express fear through both dimensions you can be afraid of a circumstance why because I'm going to be made to look stupid so that is a fear of a consequence that flows from the knavish Bahamas or I fear for my child playing with fire because the child can hurt itself that's obviously flowing from a different place now itself it's absolute concern for the other so you can see how the emotions are mediated by these two spiritual tendencies and it's also important to understand that so now we're discovering how acidosis is psychologically analyzing the person in greater complexity and that's unfortunately because we are complex we are not simple that's how psychologists psychiatrists make a living otherwise a real very simple all around okay so we have a higher self we have a lower self we mediate emotion through both areas how do we shape emotions how do we know when an emotion is right or an emotion is wrong and I used an important verb then no how do I know that's when mine starts to enter into the picture in order for something to be right or wrong requires the compass bearing of the antenna of mind if you don't use your head the emotions may go all over the place wrongly you know it's like the father is a physicist and he's five-year-old child he has great ambitions for he wants his child to become an Einstein and at the age of five he decides this is the moment and he takes the child and puts on screen these wonderful equations of equals mc-squared and all the different theories that came and all the numbering and all the and the child listens they're watching this for one hour and after that doesn't want to have a bower of physics ever again the father meant the best the father loves the child and therefore he's ambitious for the child but the father was not wise the father didn't create the right compass bearing and as a consequence the loving repose didn't hit its mark however if he would have said and said we're not about a five-year-old child with so which one better a sixteen-year-old who is equally uh lacking knowledge of any physics or math and the teacher says no understand you don't know any physics and maths but I'll tell you what Einstein taught about relativity he said this he said if you're sitting on a couch with your girlfriend for one hour it'll feel like a mere five minutes but if you're sitting on a very hot stove for five minutes it'll feel like the full hour your relativity they were ah you sort of piqued the interest of the individual you're not trying to sort of show the absolutes complexity of a theory you're moving into the mind of the individual because you love the student you want the student to be able to come out of its shell and understanding something profound but you do it in a way which is measured mind has defined the nature of the flow of the emotions and that's called Moak Shalit oh he'll live that the mind determines the outs the outflow of the emotions okay that gets us to love which the rest of the series is going to deal with primarily but we needed to go through this background have a bit of an understanding of love visa vie its opposite have an understanding of the duality within that mediates it and now let's go to an analysis of love and we're going to over the next several weeks go through various formats of love firstly in talking about love Cibola speaks about two levels of love you have a level of love that's called a hover rubber and you have a level of love that's called a hobbit or lump one literally translates as the great love and the other one translates as love of the world let's have a look what could each of these be as you see we've moved to the second page now in our discussion let's talk about the lower love first the lower love and it's not a low love as you'll see it's something extremely profound is the love that's born of a profound consideration and contemplation of the inner and outer beauty of the other you know it says in the Talmud that every bridegroom always sees his bride as the most beautiful woman in the world and to that extent it's said that every guest that comes to the wedding must reinforce for the bridegroom that belief now does it mean that she's got to win every beauty contest probably unlikely but nevertheless there is that beauty in the bridegroom's eye what does that mean and hopefully it's vice versa okay most handsome groom that ever could be what is it why did the person say that because we're not talking about a measure of beauty that's skin deep we're talking about an expression of relational depth a beauty that goes to the very core and soul of the individual and when you do it through consideration this is the most wonderful person I've ever met and look how gracious she is and look how caring she is and look how sensitive she is and you consider all the wonderful marvels which by the way every husband should consider at least once a week about is and vice-versa and that we would have much less marriage breakdown that we have that's an expression of love and yet this is called I have that alum Alva soul on the lower form of love isn't it something profound that we've enunciated and yet we're describing this as the lower form of love and it's interesting what could possibly be the higher form of love I have a rubber so we're told that that kind of love now have a rubber which you'll find back on the first page there is the kind of love that we cannot premier contemplation consideration meditation focusing ever arise it that singular individuals have been gifted from above to have this profound state of love curve are called uberaba which perhaps around this table I'll speak myself we haven't experienced it's an ecstasy of states of unity and oneness where you see everything constantly in a state of that unity and oneness constantly like it was say it used to say about the robe iam the rebellion would look at a table and they wouldn't see a table they'd see the spiritual connection of the subterranean spiritual forces that make up the energy of the table into matter and its connectedness to God that requires a gift from above so it's not something we should even aspire to because to aspire it's interesting let me just momentarily go sideways where is in some Eastern traditions they aspire to be an expression of the perfect Buddha right perfection in our tradition we don't seek that the name of the text from which this material that we're discussing tonight evolves from is safer Tania the book of Tania in chapter 43 of the first section we're dealing with but the other name for that text is called safer shall be known in the book of the intermediates The Inbetweeners and the ultra rubber who authored it says that's what we should aspire to we should aspire to be the intermediate person not the perfect master which is rather strange should we not set our sights high and it try to become the perfect master okay if we only get there halfway well and good and the answer is no to try to us to aspire to be the perfect master says the alter rubber is the height of agate ISM I aspire to be the perfect master there's a certain aspect that grates against humility and a sense of reality about that so the alter ever says no what you need to do is to aspire to be the in-betweener but hold on what is it in between a mean in-betweener suggests okay you get a 50% pass mark in life 50% of time you get things right and 50% of time you get things wrong that's what the suggestion might be no says the altar ever that's not who I call the in-betweener the perfect master is the individual who no longer has any level of temptation whatsoever always has perfect thought perfect speech and perfect behavior that's the perfect master okay what's the in-betweener then between there has always perfect speech and perfect behavior is there a difference I didn't say perfect thought in other words the bee Donny the in-betweener is constantly tested is constantly aware of temptation constantly understanding the negativities of life and the problem of adjusting to overcome them that says the alter ever the mr. in-betweener the Ben Oni passes every test the difference between the perfect master that sadek and the bane on is that the Sadek doesn't have any of any of these menial tests at all don't beyond that that's why that's again a gift from above but he says we have to aspire to be the individual who lives in the real world and overcomes every moment of Nissan of miss Owen of miss Uranus of tests that's a pretty high standard that's their way I understand why the books called the safe will ship in him and that's what we have to try to get so similarly when we speak about I have a rubber to have that kind of ecstatic love where there's perfect states of unity that we constantly experience that too is a gift from above and it originates from the four realms if we speak about the four realms of sillas brilliant serie and Arcia this love comes from the highest rung called at sillas and in the realm of our Zyliss there is no such thing as distinctiveness or separation everything is in the state of oneness that's why this love originates at that particular level but for you and I we have to struggle with another aspect of love absolutely that's why it's not a subjective test you know being a Jewish person is not a subjective test although historically we've had movements in Judaism that have decided to be subjective things like all right you know sin I took place three and a half thousand years ago but we're modern people we live in the modern world and therefore we have to do things differently that's a subjective test but of course Kabbalah doesn't follow that at all Kabbalah says that there's a profound truth that's innate that is able to transcend to use the word that used down there to transcend the timeframe all together whatever is a truth remains a truth and adulterated by the progress and movement of history at all something we one day will perhaps to get together and discuss a little bit more so if you're going to practice I have uh Solem at least that lower level of love and it's not at least because it's actually a very high level when you want to consider it what it means is you do not look at the externality I don't love you because you dress beautifully I don't love you because you've won the Queen pageant I don't love you because you are the smartest person I've ever met I love you much more profoundly I have to learn to love you because through all the levels that you are there is a profound essence that is intimately connected to me where we are one with each other and that is at a soul level to practice Arvest olam you have to be able to enter the state of oneness in the greatest profundity of the greatest depth and that's your essence in my essence from which comes a very interesting teaching which many psychologists have shared with parents in instruction on how to deal with your children never tell a child that the child is bad or the child is naughty so what we're talking about here of some sort of lesser fair attitude not at all you don't focus on the person you focus on the behavior what you did was wrong what you did was naughty but not that you a Morty big difference because what is it that I love about you most profoundly I love your essence that always is essentially good always I may not like what you said yesterday to me and I may not like the way you behave to me the other day so I don't like your behavior on that occasion I don't like your words but I love you that doesn't stop my love likewise in a situation a spousal relationship of husband and wife a lot of husbands and wives mix this up I don't like the way you speak to me so what does that mean you stop loving the person who's you don't like the words I'm simplifying because it's more complex than that but there is a truth there we have to understand it that goes to the core of what love really is so it's not something external it's not ego driven it's not based on my needs and my perceptions etc it's a profound spiritual connectedness and oneness now let's redirect that and all be mystics around the table let's extend that to the world let's extend that to the universe you know what we love about this process called life because constantly I can be an integral element with the totality of existence I can sit and contemplate that a God who is so totally removed from me that that you can't even compare the figure one to trillions of trillions of trillions because when you say one and trillions there's a relationship even though it's trillions and this is just one this little relationship now when we speak about creator and created there's no apparent relationship it's so removed to the point that we don't even see the benevolence of the creative process in front of our eyes you can't see the world being constantly recreated you can't see this table being constantly recreate it's all hidden that's why that's the god of nature the word heart ever nature which in geometry Oh is equivalent to the gamut of elokim because a name of God is the God of the hidden God the illusion the samsara the surface and truth lights much more profoundly within so what we did this evening was to begin to introduce the subject of love in so doing we introduced firstly that there is a consciousness flow which emanates from the soul we learned that there were two pathways of this consciousness expresses through mind and emotion we then had to define what mind and emotion is two more literal sense and then we discussed that emotions have a two equal and opposite tendencies love and fear which are polar opposites in the way of their dynamics and then we found that there was a duality even in the way they are expressed through lower self and higher self and then we learned there's a Joelle duality in each because there's a higher and lower fear and a higher and lower love and then we use some examples to make that explicit in the world so we've really covered a huge area although it's only half a chapter in the book of Tania and the book of Tania has several hundred chapters so I don't think we've actually covered that much from that point of view but on the other hand I'm sure that through our consideration of the points this evening we at least have a taste of what it is that we have to progress in our own lives already after this lesson any remaining questions well I certainly hope I haven't stands you into silence eeeh yeah that's a good point what happens when Michelle comes in other words a will the nature of the human being change I don't know I usually tell people to stick around and find out but the point is that there will be a change in the state of nature the way we are taught the tour is very vague deliberately vague about the messianic period and the reason is because if it becomes to concretize then the way that we behave in everyday life becomes somewhat disjointed but we are told for example and not about machette but in science that right now we're using 5% of our brain we are taught in the share comes so to speak we'll use 100 percent of our brain I know perhaps could be well-serviced a nice little metaphor meaning that we got to move from VFL to AFL we're going to move from a lower order to high order but it's got to be a quantum leap our perception of reality will change but the reason I guess we don't spend too much their time there because at the moment to get there we have to make sure we perfect ourselves in the here-and-now and operating optimally in the here-and-now is really what it's all about and then we can actually affect the changes that create all that and if we fail it'll happen anyway but it says that we can accelerate the process through our own personal behaviors that's not any other questions that are unrelated to what we spoke about as if we didn't canvas everything in the world tonight speak now forever hold your peace all right so those of you who are gluttons for punishment next week same time same station my Aramaic is not great the Tatar means lower and why that should be the word in Aramaic I cannot answer you Aramaic is a corruption of Hebrew as all languages are every language emanated from Hebrew as its origin as a number of philologists have actually shown that's why you can find Hebrew words I had a driver who brought me here today I ordered one of these taxis that takes wheelchairs and his name was Abraham and I asked him knowing the answer where he sprung because these features were quite obvious is it the OPA and he started telling me about the words in northern Ethiopia that is so many Hebrew words that they actually use one that comes to mind is the the Ethiopian word for water is May and in Hebrew name yeah there are many others also in hawaii's I said last night for some of you who were here I found an amazing number of words in Hawaiian that were very very almost direct tapes of Hebrew so it's pretty quite interesting hmm I'm no longer surprised yeah yeah so there's also another take from MAME so that's fine that's okay that just makes life interesting when I taught grades five and six at you shiver College many eons ago one of the things we did was in study of commish was a competition who could come up with the most English words that have direct clear semantic connection to Hebrew they came up with hundreds it's actually quite amazing it's really really good please stick around have a cuppa sit out there and we'll have a chat more informally thank you for a lovely evening you

Channel: Spiritgrow

Views: 66,428

Rating: 4.8522048 out of 5

Keywords: Kabbalah, Rabbi, Laibl Wolf, Spiritgrow, Art, Love, Loving, Fear, Truth, Illusion, Judaism, Jewish, Spirituality, The Art of Loving

Id: I97s7RR3cQk

Length: 60min 49sec (3649 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2012