Love Will Keep Us Together
November 7th - November 13th, 2004
Holiday time is almost upon us. It’s the time of year when our heart strings are pulled by commercials, our mailboxes overflow with fundraising letters, and our accountants reminds us of end of the year tax deductions.
In Kabbalah, we are fortunate to see beyond the illusion, to see the real purpose of giving. It’s about making miracles.
The great 20th Century Kabbalist Rav Brandwein often explained the secret of making miracles:
Sometimes one needs to attract a miracle, which is outside nature. The only way one attracts miracles - to rearrange nature from how the Light arranged it - is through self-sacrifice. For in man, the force and desire to receive is innate. If he overcomes himself, then this force rises and tears all the veils. No power among the higher and lower beings is able to stop him - and his prayer will be answered in full.
Giving money is the greatest way to go against our nature. That is why when we do it - with the right consciousness - we are able to generate miracles.
So when giving charity, don’t just do it out of guilt, or to be nice, or simply for a tax write-off. Do it to create change in your life.
And before you do, first ask yourself: is this organization I wish to donate to removing chaos from the world? There are many wonderful charities involved in essential work, but how many are dealing with problems at the root level - the spiritual level?
It goes back to the old proverb my mother and teacher Karen Berg taught me - give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
The Centre is involved in several incredible undertakings to teach men, women, and children all over the world how to take control of their lives, how to replace darkness with Light. In doing so, we are assisting people in transforming their lives and tipping the global scales towards peace.
One of the ways we are doing this is through the Spirituality for Kids Outreach Program. The Outreach program is offered free of charge to at risk children and their families…particularly for those who are living in high crime, poverty-stricken communities. We take them off the streets and empower them to choose love over violence, self-esteem over self-destruction.
When making a donation this holiday season, why not make it count? Why not play a part in the dramatic effort to affect the next generation… at the seed level.
Watch this and you’ll see what I’m talking about *
Now onto the consciousness of the week. Love.
Most of us at some point or another have struggled with love. We’ve had our hearts broken, or been addicted to it, or simply not felt it. But no matter what we may tell ourselves, no matter how hard our hearts become at times, we cannot escape the truth - we need love and we need to give it. Or as the poet D.H. Lawrence wrote, “In every living thing there is the desire for love.”
This week, The Zohar gives us two truly amazing and beautiful lessons. Don’t allow its seeming simplicity to blind you to its importance. If you understand and practice these lessons, you will not only increase the amount and quality of love that you have in your life, but also the amount of love that is revealed in the world.
1. The capacity to love and the quality of your love is a gift from the Light.
2. The more you use your love in a sharing and positive way, the more love you are given to share. On the other hand, if you use your love in a selfish and negative way, then your capacity to love will diminish.
What this means is that you should run after and find every opportunity to share your love.
There’s one more powerful secret revealed this week about love. You influence the amount to which the channels of love open and close for the world! When you are not loving, or if you are using your love to manipulate or punish, you are diminishing the love that is in the world.
Remember what we teach in Power of Kabbalah 1 - our actions matter. Everything is connected. It is important to appreciate our power and our actions; unfortunately almost of us often underestimate our abilities.
Our actions take place in this physical world and their effects permeate the spiritual worlds. As our action reverberates through the supernal worlds, its resonance grows stronger and stronger. You have heard of the “butterfly effect”? In 1972, scientists explained the mind-boggling phenomenon that the smallest act in one location could have a huge effect on the other side of the world (there example was a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil causing a tornado in Texas.)
The Zohar and Kabbalah have known this for over 4,000 years. But they take it one step further - a seemingly small spiritual action, a simple act of sharing, can affect a tremendous amount of Light to be revealed in the world.
Unfortunately, because our senses are limited to seeing only in this physical dimension, we grossly underestimate the positive effect of all of our actions and certainly of seemingly minor actions. We need to constantly remind ourselves that our power is much greater then we allow ourselves to believe and that the positive effect of our actions - whether huge or minor - is much more then we could ever imagine.
One thing is certain about the world today: there is not enough love being shared by enough people, and we all need to take responsibility and recognize that we are responsible for this.
All the Best,
Yehuda Berg