THE KABBALAH OF PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION:
TURN DARKNESS INTO LIGHT

“In the sixth century of the sixth millennium, the gates of the highest [heavenly] wisdom will be opened, just like the sources of earthly wisdom, preparing the world to be lifted up in the seventh millennium.” The Zohar (a source text of Kabbalah)

“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the extent and sense in which he has achieved liberation from himself.”
–Albert Einstein

Who are you? Are you a mother, father, son, friend, spiritual seeker, doctor, lawyer, teacher, businessman? Husband or wife?

And what kind of person are you? A good person, a not so good person? Smart or stupid, elegant or clumsy? Are you talented, bold, weak, fearless, fearful, eloquent, timid? Do you like to take risks or are you afraid to try new things? Do you like to let it all hang out or are you quiet as a clam? Whatever your answers, you will almost certainly have a number of fairly definite beliefs and opinions about yourself. And those beliefs and opinions, expressed or not, will limit and define you as surely as if they were made of concrete and steel.

Several years ago, a magnificent young tiger was imported from India and sent to a local zoo in the United States. A beautiful and extensive habitat was built for him, complete with waterfall, trees, rocks, valleys and caves. While construction was taking place, the tiger was housed in a small temporary cage, approximately 30 by 30 feet. He spent his days continually walking the cage from one end to the other. Originally, this cage was intended to house the tiger on a very temporary basis, only for a couple of weeks, but the construction took longer than expected and the tiger remained in the cage for several months. When the habitat was finally complete, the cage was introduced, opened, and removed. The tiger resumed its pace almost immediately: 30 feet forward and 30 feet back. He no longer needed the little cage to limit and confine him; this cage, which once surrounded the tiger, had been transplanted into the tiger’s mind.

A similar mechanism is familiar to people who train elephants. When the elephant is young and small, it is strongly attached to something large and heavy; a strong stake or a tree. The elephant tugs and tugs, but cannot break free and eventually gives up, limiting its movements to the length of the rope. As soon as this happens, the tree can be replaced by a small stake that the now much larger elephant could lift in an instant. Just no. The stake, the rope, and the confinement have become indelibly associated in the mind of the elephant.

Does this ring a bell?

Do you ever say to yourself, “I can’t, I’m just not that type”? If you answer ‘no’, look further, because in one field or another we all do it. Some people can’t parachute out of planes. Some of us just can’t keep our homes organized. Some of us can’t stop eating or drinking excessively. Some can’t talk about our feelings. Some of us can’t get to work and others can’t stop working. And we almost always think that we know, in any given area, whether we have what it takes or not.

Like our zoo friends, the ties that bind us together are almost always thicker, stronger, and more real inside our heads than in the real physical world. The way we react to our beliefs about ourselves, life, other people, and what we can and cannot do is no different from the reaction of the tiger to its months in the cage or the elephant to its rope.

We don’t start life with fixed ideas about who we are and what we can and can’t do, but we start developing them pretty quickly and continue to reinforce them as we go along. If you decide as a child that your ideas are not important, it is likely that throughout life you will continue to act in accordance with that belief, avoiding sharing your ideas with others and, therefore, having little influence on the people you meet. they surround you. This pattern of behavior will, of course, continue to ensure that very few people will seek your opinions or advice, continually providing more evidence for your original belief. This is a definition of a vicious circle. However, remember that this does not make you unusual. Virtually every human being, no matter how functional his upbringing may have been, has some fixed ideas about who he is and who he is not.

But Kabbalah explains this phenomenon in a deeper way.

Ever since we were caught in the act of eating from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and exiled to a world of hardship, pain, death and struggle for survival, human beings have been imbued with feelings of fear, insecurity, shame , fault. , shyness, failure and the general feeling of being exiled from home. Much of our life consists of trying to deny, overcome, or compensate for these feelings. At first glance, this seems like a huge problem. It takes a great deal of time and effort to constantly fight to overcome our inner flaws and fears. But, in fact, this seminal event, with all its challenging consequences, is neither a problem nor a mistake and actually has a Divine purpose.

Kabbalah explains that G‑d first looked into the Torah (the Bible) and only then created the world. That means that before G‑d created the world, He foresaw the entire scenario in the Garden of Eden, including eating the forbidden fruit and the exile that would follow. As paradoxical as it may seem at first glance, this scenario is actually central to creation itself.

Let me explain.

Part of the intention in Creation is that we should not remain passive recipients of G‑d’s bounty. Rather, God gave us the greatest gift of all: the potential to become true partners in creation. This is a gift that was not given to even the holiest of angels, but was reserved for us, specifically because we are souls in very physical bodies and trapped within our fixed and limited sense of who we are and what is possible for us. . Only because we are finite and disconnected from truth do we have the ability to exercise free will. And only those who are endowed with freedom of choice have the power to create something new; to transform darkness into light.

Childhood is intentionally designed to reactivate and personalize the limiting emotional states that were imprinted on the human psyche during exile from the Garden. Your particular experience and predispositions combine to create your ego-based identity, your personality. This part of you tells stories, gives opinions, makes judgments, has reactions, and is programmed to reinforce and defend itself in exactly these ways. It is on the one hand part of what uniquely defines you as you, but on the other hand a highly restrictive and limiting structure, like a piece of very dark, even opaque, glass superimposed on a transparent window. It is the outermost surface layer of who you are, which hides all the innermost layers. Because it is the most visible, it seems to be the most real.

But there is a real you. And the purpose of each and every obstacle in your life and all of your reactions to those obstacles is to allow your true self to shine through.

And at this time, when, as prophesied, the Divine wisdom of Kabbalah has become accessible to the average person, the time has come for that to happen.

Every Olympian has spent thousands upon thousands of hours testing and stretching their limits; jumping over hurdles -or the equivalent- to tap into latent power that would otherwise never be expressed and break through the barriers of what is supposed to be possible, over and over again.

Whether you are an Olympian or not, you have the same power to break barriers in your own life. In the game of life, we face obstacles almost constantly. Often these obstacles seem too high. Every time you come across an obstacle that seems too high, you have to make a decision. You can continue with your old family story about who you are, walk away from the obstacle and resign yourself to a smaller life. Or you can reach below and beyond the glass that hides the limitless potential of your truest self. There, you already have the untapped power to jump higher and farther than ever before, and in doing so, expand the boundaries of the person you’ve assumed yourself to be.

Every time you do this, you take a piece of darkness, whether it’s your own limiting stories, the obstacle in your way, your fear, resignation, or doubt, and use it as the impetus to draw in more light, power, and vitality. of the essence of who you are. That’s one of the reasons you’re here.

The next time you hear yourself say or think something like, “I’m just not the guy,” “I can’t,” or “I’m scared,” think of the tiger and the elephant. Knowing that you are creating your own cage is the first step to freeing yourself. Then, as an experiment, ask yourself what you would do if you were the type, if you could do it, or if you weren’t afraid. If you ask yourself this question, you will be surprised how clear and available the answers are.

Then, as a bonus, even if it’s ‘just not you’, even if you’re scared, try to take action based on these responses and see what happens.

Time to turn some darkness into light.

*Authentic Kabbalah is not magic, spiritual tricks, or a new age self-help technique. It is Jewish mysticism, the deepest level of the Torah: the divine communication given to Moses on Mount Sinai. It is the definitive mission statement and owner’s manual for the human being. Learned and applied correctly, authentic Kabbalah will help you reach your full potential as a human being created in G-d’s image and open you to a life of joy, purpose, power, and passion.