nice example of kabbalah

 

130 Evil Years

The Holy Ari

From the teachings of Rabbi Yitzchak Luria; translated and edited by Moshe Yaakov Wisnefsky

In this parasha, Jacob emigrates from the Land of Israel to Egypt. Joseph presents him to Pharaoh, who asks him how old he is. Jacob answers:

"The days of the years of my journey [on earth] are one hundred and thirty years; the [quality of the] days of the years of my life have been few and evil, and they cannot compare to the days of the years of my fathers' lives in the days of their journeys [on earth]." (Gen. 47:9)

Why did [Jacob] call [the days of his life] "few and evil"?

To answer: Know that Adam was reincarnated in the Patriarchs, and that is why they are called "the fathers", after Adam, who was the first father.

Adam was the father of all humanity, and the Patriarchs were the fathers of the Jewish people, the line of humanity selected to fulfill G‑d's intentions in Creation. For this purpose, they were endowed with the spiritual capacities necessary to fulfill this purpose; their creation as a people can therefore be compared to the creation of humanity as a whole, and their progenitors to humanity's progenitor.

It is explained in the Zohar  (Tikunei Zohar 69, 70) that Adam's Nefesh was reincarnated into Abraham, his Ruach into Isaac, and his Neshama into Jacob.

As will soon be explained, the Patriarchs rectified the collapse of spiritual consciousness Adam precipitated by his sin. In so doing, they had to reconstruct divine consciousness from the bottom up. Thus, Abraham began with the lowest level of the soul, the Nefesh, which is the animating, vital force in the body; Isaac continued with the Ruach, the emotional life force; and Jacob continued with the Neshama, the intellectual life force.

It is also explained in the Zohar   (III:111b, in Ra'aya Mehemna) that Abraham rectified the sin of idolatry, Isaac the sin of murder, and Jacob the sin of sexual licentiousness.

These are the three cardinal sins, which the Torah instructs us to give up our lives for rather than transgress (unless it is a case of a government trying to snuff out Judaism altogether, in which case we must give up our lives rather than committing any sin, however "small").

Adam, in a certain sense, transgressed all three of these cardinal prohibitions in committing the primordial sin. (Megaleh Amukot 144) Transgressing G‑d's command was denying Him; this was akin to idolatry. Inasmuch as this sin brought death upon the whole human race, it was akin to murder. By committing the sin, he plunged the souls of all humanity into the realm of evil; this is akin to adultery - or sexual licentiousness in general - which misdirects reproductive seed or creativity into realms where they are not meant to be.

Abraham rectified the sin of idolatry by smashing his father's idols and promulgating monotheism in the world. Isaac rectified the sin of murder by submitting himself to be killed by his father. Jacob rectified the sin of sexual licentiousness by working for fourteen years for his wives Rachel and Leah, thereby redeeming their souls from the realm of evil into which they had been cast by Adam's sin.

It is also explained in the Zohar  (Tikunei Zohar 2) that when Jacob descended to Egypt, it was only then that Adam's soul was reincarnated in him.

Now, Adam sinned by wasting his seed during the first 130 years of his life, as we have explained.

After the sin, Adam separated from Eve for 130 years. Although this was an act of penitence for his sin, it backfired, because during this time he succumbed to sexual fantasies and had seminal emissions, which the forces of evil used to propagate demons.

Wasting seed is described [in Scripture] as "evil", as in the verse: "And Er, the firstborn of Judah, was evil in the eyes of G‑d."  (Gen. 38:7)

He was called "evil" because he wasted his seed. (Rashi ad loc.)

It is also written, "And the imagination of his heart's thoughts is only evil, the whole day."   (Gen. 6:5)

This verse describes the state of humanity before G‑d sent the Flood. The Generation of the Flood was guilty, among other things, of sexual licentiousness.   (See Gen. 6:1-4; Rashi on Gen. 6:11, 12, 13, 7:4)

It is also written, "Woe to the wicked, the evil one."   (Isaiah 3:11)

In the Zohar, this verse is interpreted to refer to someone who does not procreate, that is, does not utilize his sexuality properly. (Zohar Chadash, Midrash Rut, Piria veRivia)

[As we said,] Jacob set out to rectify the sin of sexual licentiousness, i.e. wasting seed and giving it over to Lil— and Na'am--, who are termed "nakedness", as is known.

As we have seen previously, these are the archetypal female demons, i.e. the power of evil to receive life force from the realm of holiness. This feminine evil takes the vital force of wasted seminal emissions and impregnates itself with it, producing demons, or forces of evil, i.e. anti-divine consciousness. The idiom for "sexual licentiousness", "gilui arayot", literally means "uncovering the nakedness" of a forbidden sexual partner.

His first 130 years therefore passed in suffering and exile, as is known.

Until he came to Egypt, Jacob's life was a long series of troubles. As Rashi lists them (commenting on Gen. 43:14): the trouble of Laban (who deceived him and tried to steal from him), the trouble with Esau (who tried to kill him), the trouble with Rachel (his favorite wife, who died in childbirth), the trouble with Dinah (who was raped by Shechem), the trouble with Joseph (his favorite son, who was sold and who he thought was dead), the trouble with Simeon (who was detained in Egypt), and the trouble with Benjamin (who Joseph demanded be brought to Egypt).

This is the meaning of "few and evil, one hundred thirty years". Since they were evil due to the suffering [he endured], Adam's sin of wasting seed for 130 years - termed "evil" - was rectified. When [these years] were completed, the soul of Adam entered him, for [Jacob] had by then rectified [these years].

It is then written, "And Jacob lived in Egypt for seventeen years."   (Gen. 47:28)  For at that point the living Neshama of Adam entered him. This is alluded to by the words "And Jacob lived".

These words imply that Jacob received a new influx of life-force, which, as we have seen, was the rectified soul of Adam.

This lasted for seventeen years, this being the numerical value of the word for "good" [in Hebrew, "tov"], indicating that the first 130 years were spent rectifying the evil, whereas the last 17 years were good, without evil.

"Tov" is spelled tet-vav-beit - 9 + 6 + 2 = 17. These years were the good years of Jacob's life, for he was reunited with Joseph and lived comfortably with his family, all of whom were loyal to Judaism.

And this is why Jacob descended to Egypt, for it was there that all the soul-sparks that Adam wasted [during those 130 years] were reincarnated, as we have explained elsewhere.

[Adapted by Moshe-Yaakov Wisnefsky from Shaar HaPesukim]

 

Rabbi Yitzchak Luria […Ashkenazi ben Shlomo] (5294-5332 = 1534-1572 c.e.); Yahrtzeit (anniversary of death): 5th of Av. Buried in the Old Cemetery of Tzfat. Commonly known as the Ari, an acronym standing for Eloki Rabbi Yitzchak, the G-dly Rabbi Isaac. No other master or sage ever had this extra letter Aleph, standing for Eloki [G-dly], prefaced to his name. This was a sign of what his contemporaries thought of him. Later generations, fearful that this appellation might be misunderstood, said that this Aleph stood for Ashkenazi, indicating that his family had originated in Germany, as indeed it had. But the original meaning is the correct one, and to this day among Kabbalists, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria is only referred to as Rabbenu HaAri, HaAri HaKadosh [the holy Ari] or Arizal [the Ari of blessed memory].

Moshe Yaakov Wisnefsky is a scholar, writer, editor and anthologist living in Jerusalem. He is a co-founder of Ascent Institute of Safed and one of the first contributing writers for KabbalaOnline.org. He has produced two monumental works: "Apples from the Orchard: Arizal on the Weekly Torah and a Chumash translation with commentary based on the works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Kehot).

Never too late

 

oh those goyim

 

corporations

 

Here's how corporations work. With vaccines, you cannot sue the vaccine makers so you are relying on their integrity to make safe vaccines. But corporate chiefs oftentimes have no conscience. 

It's the tone

 

and bt men go decades alone

 

too often the case

 

each worse than the next

big weddings?

 

rabbi speaks to new bt

 

why you shouldn't live in ny

 KEEPING GOOD COMPANY

We can understand why Eisov wanted to come out, but Yaakov was being taught Torah by an angel at the time, so why would he have wanted to come out? The Brisker Rov is said to have commented that even being taught Torah by an angel is not worthwhile at the cost of having to live in close quarters with an evil person. Even though there was no obvious detrimental effect, just being in close proximity to a person like Eisov is damaging, especially for someone like Yaakov, whose image is engraved underneath the Kisei Hakavod.

Rav Sternbuch was once asked whether a child should be sent to a cheder with excellent teachers and a very high academic level, but the class in question also has some boys with bad middos, or to another institution with a much lower level of learning but in which the boys in the class did not have bad middos and came from strong homes. Rav Sternbuch instructed the parent to choose the institution with the better boys because that was the most important issue, since even a minority of children with bad middos can have a very detrimental effect on their friends.

listen to your rav? maybe not

 for the rabbi who told me not to move to cleveland because it wasn't growing:

There really are rabbis and mohalim like this

 

Does it have to be EVERY TIME?

The name Harlan Ellison doesn't sound Jewish to me, at least not the Harlan part. So when I read this, I figured we were dealing with a low class Southern gentile. But no.

Who is the rudest celebrity you have met, and who would be the nicest?

The rudest was celebrity I ever met Harlan Ellison. My husband, a famous science fiction author, introduced me to Harlan Ellison, also a famous science fiction writer. I was about five months pregnant at the time, and Ellison said, “You got him trapped, didn’t you?” My husband came close to socking him. At a conference several months later, my husband was on a panel discussion and I was in the audience. When Ellison had his turn to speak, every third word had four letters. The entire audience as shocked. When one lady left, Ellison yelled at her that she had a weak bladder.

The nicest was Robert Heinlein, also a science fiction writer. I can’t even count the number of kindnesses he and his wife Virginia bestowed on us. Theodore Sturgeon, author of “More Than Human”, came in a close second.

--------------------

Ellison was born to a Jewish family^[8] in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 27, 1934, the son of Serita (née Rosenthal) and Louis Laverne Ellison, a dentist and jeweler.

Heinlein, born on July 7, 1907, to Rex Ivar Heinlein (an accountant) and Bam Lyle Heinlein, in Butler, Missouri, was the third of seven children. He was a sixth-generation German-American; a family tradition had it that Heinleins fought in every American war, starting with the War of Independence.

Brilliant

 

When a man wakes up.

This applies to frum men too.

Listen don't watch. 

 

guess which two are jewish

 

for Boston fans

 

Is YU Hirschian?

 

Not really. YU is Litvish Judaism with lots of Zionism and enough feminism to emasculate the men but not enough to challenge the rabbis. See Zev Ellef's articles: Between Bennett and Amsterdam Avenues: The Complex American Legacy of Samson Raphael Hirsch, 1939-2013 and AMERICAN ORTHODOXY’S LUKEWARMEMBRACE OF THE HIRSCHIAN LEGACY,1850-1939.

Being more open to things, YU will have some talk about Rav Hirsch and some Chassidus, but even those are approached Litvish style, which means analytically and coldly. They are more open to careers in part because Modern Orthodoxy is very expensive with the million dollar houses and day school tuition at $40,000 a year per child. Nobody is encouraging fulfilling careers for men, just ones that make lots of money. Women on the other hand go into whatever careers they want. I know a Modern Orthodox woman who left Israel with her husband who quit his job to go study in a theater program in Colorado.

I once told a MO rabbi that it was nice that we are doing so much to improve the lives of women but I believe we need to do the same for men. He said, "I don't know what you are talking about," turned his head and walked away.

The lives of men aren't nurtured in that world any more than they are in the yeshiva world. There's the same pressure to become a genius and to 'learn more Torah,' as well as the pressure to move to Israel, which also can destroy your life. They have little sense of caretaking of the soul in either the MO or yeshiva worlds for they are after all Litvacks.

Hirsch was neither a Zionist nor a feminist nor a Litvack so YU can be a problem but so can be every other group. 

To be a Hirschian you will walk alone because what's left of the German community is either Modern or Litvish. The few people who describe themselves as Hirschians are usually Zionistic, sometimes intensely so. They rationalize that if Hirsch were around today, he'd be a Zionist. That's what you call delusional rationalization as most Zionists have replaced God and Torah with State and that's exactly what R' Hirsch said not to do. He also said to be cognizant of the dignity and purpose of gentiles. Show me a Zionist who does that. 

So, no, YU is not TIDE. You have to be TIDE on your own. Go for it. R' Hirsch will be by your side, and all the gadolim who praised Hirsch are by your side too because they understood that he was sent by Hashem to help people in their Judaism. 

But you won't be entirely on your own. You can have a foot in many communities. In the Israeli Haredi world you get the anti-zionism of Hirsch. It's a militant anti-zionism because Israel is a militant country but you ignore that part. You also get the religious intensity that was true of Rav Hirsch, although he didn't impose that on others. In the Chassidic world you get the sense of community, more of a focus on God, and a pursuit of happiness. In the Modern O world you get more of a tolerance for earning a parnassah. In the small Yekke world, mostly Wash Heights, you get the German Minhagim. And they all respect Hirsch so you keep that in your back pocket.