God blesses us, we bless God; a holy dialogue

Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, receiving and giving blessing

A holy dialogue increases the life and goodness in the world. The Zohar teaches us that God’s only desire is to give goodness to His created beings. Therefore all that He wants to give us is ready for us. However, we cannot always receive the goodness He wants to give, because we become separated from Him by receiving for ourselves alone. Blessing God for everything we enjoy is a simple and wonderful way that Judaism teaches us to change the one-way flow into a productive dialogue.

The Scripture in Deuteronomy tells us that, just as God blesses us with His goodness so we also need to bless Him. The Zohar on this verse teaches that our blessing and thanking God for all He gives us, is the key to changing a one-way flow into a dialogue that only multiplies the goodness not only for ourselves but for all hummankind.

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From the Zohar on Ekev paragragh 1 and Rabbi Baruch Ashlag’s Al HaTorah Parshat Ekev
With grateful acknowledgment to Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb who inspired this learning.

Giving and receiving: Coming to a balance

Giving with love

We are created from the dust of the earth. That means we all have the innate nature of desiring to receive happiness and goodness. This is in accordance with the Purpose of the Creator in His creation. So then why do we feel embarrassment or shame when we receive without having earned what we are receiving? This feeling of shame stems from another aspect of our Creation, an aspect connected with our true purpose in the world, that of tikkun.

Although our inbuilt nature is that of receiving we also were given the quality of being able to give. This came about with the union of the Sephirah of Malchut with that of Binah, whose aspect is that of compassion and giving unconditionally.

By giving to the other unconditionally we convert a finite separated vessel of receiving into an infinite channel for the goodness of the Creator.

From Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb’s commentary on Matan Torah of the Baal HaSulam.

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Male and female He created him

The creation of Man

In Bereishit, Genesis chapter one: The Torah says: And God said, “Let us make Man in our image, like us.” This extraordinary sentence is the beginning of our history.

The creation of the human being differs from that of all other creatures. All other created beings have a singular nature; in their creation God said “Let there be… ” and that was followed by “and there was.” But for man both potential and actualization are reflected in his creation. “Let us make man.”

However this is not the only way in which Man’s creation differs form that of the other created beings “Let us make Man”, suggests the complexity of our nature. We are composed of both good and bad, light and dark. Unique in all creation, we have a unique role.

In this podcast we see how the Zohar and the Midrash learn the role of man and his nature from his creation.

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From the teachings of Rabbi Ashlag.
Taken from A Tapestry for the Soul (Nehora Press)

And God called the light “day”

“And God called the light “day” and the darkness “night”.” Why did He do that? What does this mean for me? These are questions that the great Kabbalist Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag asks. His answer takes us to the Purpose of Creation, the process of Creation, and the role these play in our own individual lives.
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The Divine Providence and I

The Purpose of Creation  seems remote from us. Even though we may understand intellectually that God’s ultimate purpose is to give  us pleasure ,this is so far removed from our everyday experience that  it seems irrelevant. But this is not the case. All that happens to us and all that we choose is in fact the consequence of the Purpose of the Creation unfolding right within our lives.Listen to full talk (13 mins.)http://www.nehorapress.com/115470/Audio-Classes

Until we don’t know: the light of Purim

The essence of Purim is its light. What is the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordecai?” Finding the Mordecai (and the Haman)  inside oneself and really celebrating the light of Purim!
 listen now>>http://www.nehorapress.com/115470/Audio-Classes