A Hidden Hand behind Anti-Semitism
When I read the newspapers and listen to the radio, I see that the nations of the world treat me differently because I belong to the Jewish people. The attitude is laden with hostile, anti-Semitic emotions.
Even within Israel and around it there are peoples who wish to destroy, or at the very least, subdue the Jewish people. Our challenge is to treat this situation as one that comes to us from the Creator and that it is happening in our favor, so that we will change our line of thinking and the way we work. It is happening so that we will rise above our normal human reaction, from an instinctive reaction to what our eyes see to questioning the reasons for what is happening around us.
If I do not relate to the phenomenon of anti-Semitism as it is, but to the reason behind it, I will then be operating in the spiritual degree called “humanity.” This is the only way for me to develop an ability to understand the essence of events. Instead of running away from situations, like an animal runs from a hunter, I can actually change external causes.
Kabbalah Unveils the Purpose behind all Human Suffering
There is only one reason for all the pains of this world: to make us wonder at their meaning, to raise us from a level of aimlessly suffering to a level where we think about and analyze the reason and the purpose for the pains. The spreading of the wisdom of Kabbalah brings the purpose and cause of the pains to the public awareness. By doing so, we can shorten the amount of time it takes for every person to understand the cause for suffering and realize that there is no pain without a reason, that it comes from the Creator. The purpose of the operations that the Creator performs on us is to develop in us, through a series of negative situations, a grown-up attitude toward pain. Therefore, we should not escape them, only use them and see them as a gift from the Creator.
If we use them correctly, we can turn them into a vessel that will be constantly filled with infinite knowledge and delight. If we rise above the ordinary feeling of suffering and try to understand what causes it, then instead of feeling the stick, we would feel the Creator, the giver of the pain, the one who holds the stick. That is what the Creator wants from us! And then the pain will stop! The Creator is leading us to this goal, through our own egoistic desires to delight ourselves alone. Just like a child is tempted with sweets, the Creator sends us ascents (good feelings) and descents (bad feelings) and gradually leads us to want to be in permanent connection with Him, to need Him.
Moving Beyond the Bodily Calculations of Pain vs. Pleasure
In the beginning, this connection between ourselves and the Creator is based on our benefit—we want the sweets as a child does. But later on, because there is a need to survive, we develop that connection and begin an entirely different phase of development, a completely different attitude to pleasure and reward. From a will to receive pleasure only through the body, we move on to a desire to receive pleasure above the body, a reward that does not depend on the sensations of the body.
In other words, we begin to understand that there can be a much higher reward than the bodily one. The reward that we expect no longer comes from the fear that once compelled us to maintain contact with the Creator. We feel as though the fears of the body slowly disappear like a long coat slipping off our shoulders, or like a snake sloughing its skin. We no longer act by the calculation of what will be good or bad for us.
How Contact Is Gradually Strengthened With Spirituality
No longer reliant on this life to maintain contact with the Creator, a new need forms in us: to be in constant connection with the Creator, freed from the physical body and its feelings. That need creates in us a permanent desire to feel the Creator. It becomes so strong, in fact, that it pains us if bodily pleasures distract our mind from contact with the Creator.
If a person experiences this entire chain of feelings and insights, he or she begins to thank the Creator and love Him for having sent all these “negative” experiences, which actually brought him or her to contact the Creator. Therefore, it is most important to strengthen this feeling so that no corporeal obstruction can break the inner connection with the Creator, but rather intensify it.
When this contact is attained, it takes the form of worlds (degrees of contact with the Creator, described here from the least to the greatest): the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and Ein Sof. When that contact intensifies, it is called an ascent in the spiritual worlds. In the end, there is such a strong connection that we attach ourselves completely to the Creator and unite with Him.
Kabbalists who are in contact with the Creator, while still being in their physical bodies, feel their mission, in addition to their sensation of the Creator. Their mission is to help all those who live in a corporeal body to attain contact with the Creator, if only a little bit.
“The Secret to Why You Suffer in Life” is based on the book, Awakening to Kabbalah: The Guiding Light of Spiritual Fulfillment by Dr. Michael Laitman.
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