Today we have reached a general crisis-in technology, in education, in family life, social problems, international problems of all sorts. And it really is a general crisis where in all areas of humanity we see that we don’t know how to progress. We don’t know what direction to take because whatever direction we take, we see that after a few years, we actually come to a bitter result. And until now, any development that took place was only in order for us to arrive at such a situation and conclusion, and to have this question awaken in us-what should we do? What is the meaning of our life? Why do we live this way, and is there a plan for evolution that doesn’t bring us to failure and bitter sensation??
Until a person begins to suffer because of his natural properties (pride, passion for money, power, bodily pleasures), until he feels ashamed because of them, until he sees them as an obstacle on his spiritual path, these properties cannot be perceived as good. We have to suffer our way through these feelings and realize that until we receive the strength from above to master our desires, we will not feel good. We cannot get rid of desires; we have to use them correctly. Without our desires, it is impossible to reach adhesion with the Creator.
Today the ego has grown so much that nothing can contain it. We keep trying to handle our egos and fail repeatedly. It is true that in some places, the situation is not yet so extreme. However, this will soon change, due to the awakening of the ego throughout the globe.
The solution to this problem is to begin correcting our nature—correction of our egos. If we do nothing to correct our egos, we will all plunge into drug abuse or suicide, or experience the violence of global terrorism. We will certainly not want to have children or raise families, a trend we are already seeing. Even without ecological catastrophes, we will decline into chaos and self-destruction.
The book of Zohar – a complex and profound book – contains the wisdom of Kabbalah in its entirety. It tells us of the complete path a person must go through from the moment his souls finds its place in a corporeal body; the time he lives along with it in the corporeal world, and how he ends his life, continues to exist as a soul without a body, and how it descends to this world again. Thus, many life cycles go by and we call them “reincarnations” of the soul.
The Zohar says that apart from our world, there is another world – much more spacious – that only Kabbalists can feel, or the souls that exist outside the corporeal body. Man must come to a situation where he lives in both worlds simultaneously. It gives him the ability to be master of his own fate, to plan his future and not be influenced by the life and death of his biological body, but rather to be directly connected with his soul.
Perceiving the Creator is called faith. A common mistake in interpreting this word lies in thinking that faith means groping in the dark, without seeing or perceiving the Creator, i.e. taking this word in a sense directly opposite to its true meaning. According to the Kabbalah, the Creator’s light pervading man, the light of man’s link with the Creator, the sensation of unification is called the light of faith or just faith.
Faith, the Creator’s light, gives man a sensation of being linked with the eternal, a comprehension of the Creator, a sense of complete, explicit communication with the Creator, of absolute safety, immortality, greatness and strength.
We are born on this planet, we live and we die trying to satisfy our countless desires. Only after many lives do we reach the state when one desire is all that remains: the desire to attain our source, the meaning of our lives. Once this final, ultimate desire appears, everything else seems unnecessary and meaningless. A person gets depressed, feeling emotionally and spiritually empty, as if nothing in this world can bring happiness. Life seems pointless and lacking something real…“What is the purpose of my life?” “Why do I exist?” These are the questions that bring people to Kabbalah.
