On the knife for cutting the Shabbat challah of Baal HaSulam—Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag—were engraved the words, “State of Israel.” Although the Independence Day of the State of Israel has no Kabbalistic background, the establishment of the State of Israel…
After many years of learning about the spiritual meaning of the Jewish holidays according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we thought it was judicious to bind together selected source excerpts on the topic from the greatest kabbalists throughout the ages,…
Last week, The Harvard Crimson editorial stated in its title that the university daily newspaper is “In Support of Boycott, Divest, Sanction and a Free Palestine.” Wholly adopting the narrative of the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee, praising their “Keffiyeh…
The culture of consumption is first and foremost in the human mind, that we do not care about what is going on as long as we get what we think is good right now. We need to understand that our…
Envy has a terrible reputation. It has been blamed for so many crimes and atrocities that we have learned to dread it. When it emerges within us, it is a burning feeling that is difficult to control and difficult to…
A student wrote me saying that today, many people believe we need a new world. He asked, “If you had a chance to build the world from scratch, where would you start?” I answered him that I would begin with…
COVID-19 has not ended yet because we still have not responded properly to the virus. How were we supposed to respond? We were supposed to connect with each other, i.e. to come closer together and become a bit more humane…
Two days from today, Israeli Jews will celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. On that day, in 1948, while still repelling the charge of six Arab armies and immediately following the departure of the forces of the British Mandate, the leadership of…
Egoistic human nature—the incomplete and broken self-centered desire—is the cause of all problems, including mental illness. It functions with a significant fault by trying to satiate itself at the expense of others. By doing so, it devours both itself and…
This past weekend, my students from around the world convened online for a weekend of profound unity and love. Transcending distance, culture, faith, ethnicity, and gender, they gathered in sessions and workshops, meals and celebrations, and rejoiced in their shared…
“When temperatures in Antarctica soared to 38 degrees Celsius above normal—around 70 Fahrenheit—in March, a teetering ice shelf the size of Los Angeles collapsed,” wrote CNN. “The heat rushed in through what’s known as an atmospheric river,” the story continued, “a…
The University of Cambridge magazine announced that Cambridge researchers have found a way “to rewind the clock on human skin cells by 30 years.” The body of the story is slightly less promising, explaining that the researchers were able “to…