It’s two parts davening( communal and individual prayer time), singing with The gifted and super inspirational Gabriel Meyer Halevy. one part bibliodrama(led by talented Tamar Peleg from Washington),another part fun stage, a place to share your inspired self, and repressed chanteuse,or clown, or poet. Start the new year with sharing your gifts. another two parts meaningful rituals . wrapped together in the lovely blanket of the Fairy Forest . with delicious food,and new years delicacies.

Part one in Beit Oren (Wednesday – Thursday, September 8-9), and two, for those that desire can go on a further spiritual journey with Shmuel Saul and Reb Ohad to  delightful locations along the Jordon,and the Banias in the north (9-Sept-night to Sept 11 night)
To register call 054-4540276 Zoe
Below is a general plan of the first part of the New Year in Beit Oren (There may be changes to the order of things.)
Sunset: 6:53 / Dawn 6:20
Articles on the nature of the holiday by Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi, can be found in Hebrew.
Wednesday – the eve of the holiday, Sept 8
4:00 Registration and getting settled
4:30 Gathering in the pine forest
5:00 Opening talk and study the inner essence of the holiday / Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi
6:00 Ceremony releasing unconscious vows
6:30 forest retreat
7:00 Song – New Year’s night prayer \ Gabriel Meyer Halevy

Gabriel and Ohad guide ceremony in Pine Forest
8:30 apple and honey feast,and delicious meal. Veggie, with Fish offering
10:00 daring stage – valiantly start the year valiantly and bravely , bring us your expression of creativity and \ Wonderfully led by our resident clown MC Sancho
Thursday A Sep 9 Tishrei
8:00 Breakfast (in the woods, then up at the air-conditioned hall)
On the road 09:00 – who are interested can attend the mikvah pool, led by Dawn in English
10:00 Song of New Year’s morning prayer \ Gabriel Meyer Halevy
- Learning the secret of the shofar, meditation blow the shofar \ fan
11:30 Ceremony “court order” ( a deep ritual  making adjustments each year with a personal meaning that is accurate to start the new year in a way paved with clear intentions,supported by witnesses to refine your highest goals)
1:30 lunch break

Torah reading at the Cliffs in the Judean desert (2002)

3:30 Torah reading for Rosh Hashana ( reading by men and women together in perfect harmony)

Torah reading from Beresheit
- Bibliodrama (A system developed by Peter Pitzele of embodying the stories of the bible in an alive and dynamic way) AWorkshop for Rosh Hashana \ guided by Tamar Peleg (a guest from Washington)
6:30  sharing Circle
7:30 Estimated ending time ~ ~
You can stay another night in the woods if you are interested. We will continue the second part of the plan for Rosh Hashanah – to sources of the Jordan -and the upper Galile a spiritual journey with Shmuel Shaul.
To register send an email to notsa.shovava @ gmail.com
Or call 054-4540276 Please Zoe
Costs:
The price includes accommodation camping in the fairy forest , delicious meals, access to the  refreshing pool and grounds of Beit Oren to meditate and start the new year in a beautiful setting, with lots of space for personal reflection,and time for celebration with others.

Advance registration ₪ 365 \ 400 otherwise.

please let us know if there is financial hardships.

davening during kabbalat shabbat in the hall of Beit Oren

Registration fees in advance ₪ 65 non refundable- can pay by credit card here
Special discount registering two parts of New Year’s Plan

Kohenet Training program

for more info – click here

Making the efforts to survive in hard times Judaism had created itself over hundreds of years as a insular and “safe” religion, by disconnecting its followers from those three aspects of the Divine (Nature, Femininity & all Nations).  Most of the Jewish Law (Halacha) and many components of Jewish Spirituality (Kabbala) were developed and written as part of this long lived survival effort.

Those three cut-offs had grown and become, with the centuries, into the three chronic illnesses of contemporary Judaism: fear and racism towards the nations, repression of the feminine and alienation from nature.

The Hebraic Path is a path of healing. It is a Neo-Ancient path:  It’s rooted deeply in the indigenous roots of Pre-Rabbinical Judaism. From the rabbinical period it’s embracing and collecting the gifts of divine wisdom (clean from the rubbish of fear, racism and repression) and aiming towards a future of enlightened humanity living in peace on a green healthy planet.

Understanding that a neo-indigenous spiritual path does not require fixed dogma nor does it need a rigid religious authority – we take the passion of the heart from tradition and the freedom of thought from science; including biblical studies that show the variety of theological sources edited into the Torah.

The Hebraic Path we renew is a way of life, and being such it has many levels and layers that can allow every human being to find his or her part in it: children and adults, men and women, lay people, clergies, activists, seekers of enlightenment and lovers of God.

As Rabbi Nachman of BresLove used to say: “Just give me your hearts and I will lead you in a new path, a path that was taken by our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and yet – it is a new path”

The Hebraic Path Vrs Old Way Judaism

On the Development of Spiritual-Sexual Practice through the Four Worlds of the Kabbalah

Ohad Ezrahi

Translated to English by Yair Ohr

Four worlds of Love
by Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi 2007-2010
All rights reserved to the author ©

Published by:

The Garden – the School for Love in Radical Kabbalah

Email: kabalove@gmail.com

April 2010.

***** If you find your heart open to donate any some of money to support the work involved in writing and translating this article – please do so via Pay-Pal to Kabalove@013.net Thank you! ****

There are those who feel that in order to advance spiritually, we must abandon a life of passion for a life of abstinence, or at least for a more subdued life of “minimum pleasure.” But I do not feel that way. The world in which we live is a world in which life is created and flourishes specifically by means of the sexual attraction between sensual bodies that open up to each other and create life. This is a world of passion, of flesh and spirit working together. We are all conceived as a result of sexual contact and are all born from the womb of a woman. That’s how it is here, in this dimension of existence. Perhaps there are alternate universes in which this is not so, but here, in order to open up to the Great Spirit of God, we have to know how to reach the Source of Life, which isthe “Tree of Life,” and the only way to reach there, as some classical Kabbalists had pointed out, is via the Path of the “Tree of Knowledge”—the path of knowing proper sexual love. However, in our confused world, sexuality is suppressed beneath the rule of fear, shame, and countless taboos and prohibitions. Therefore, in order to work with sexuality as a tool for spiritual development, we must first redeem it from its imprisonment. But it is important to understand that this is not the end of the journey. In fact, it only begins there.

I see the human sexual-spiritual development as a development that has four general stages that are connected with and parallel to the four known worlds of the Kabbalah, each one progressively more inner and sublime than the previous: The “World of Asiyah/Action” is the most external of them all, but that is where we must begin. The “World of Yetzirah/Formation” is more inner, the “World of Briah/Creation” even more inner, and the “World of Atzilut/Emanation” is the world of Godliness Itself.

In this essay I would like to draw a general outline of the development/progression of spiritual-sexual practice in each of these worlds. Each individual will be able to find him or herself traveling along this path in other aspects of life as well. Sometimes, our progress seems to be linear, while other times we seem to go back and forth, returning to certain points, remaining there for a while (perhaps an incarnation of two), and then continuing onward. And sometimes we tend to try and skip some steps, but this does not always work. And the truth is—this effort usually does not end well… And I don’t want to sound like a Polish grandmother telling her grandson not to skip or jump ahead because it’s dangerous. It anyway won’t help… you are going to do what feels right for you to do. Sometimes you actually need to skip and fall, get hurt and heal. Only God knows the individual paths we all need to take.

What I have presented in this essay is the basic ideas of the work that my beloved Dawn and I teach in our school: “The Garden — the School for Love in Radical Kabbalah”. Yet, each of the depicted broader steps has many details. In our workshops, classes and courses, and in private sessions that we offer to the public, there is the opportunity to go into the finer details, to pinpoint the specific details that this particular individual should work on, and to accompany him or her through the possible paths of development. Here, though, only the broader picture is presented. And as the great sage, Hillel, said to the person who came to him to be taught the entire Torah on one foot—“These are the general rules; as far as the rest is concerned, go and learn!”

THE WORLD OF ASIYAH /ACTION

Mastering your Tool

The spiritual-sexual journey begins in the World of Asiyah/Action. In this dimension, the spiritual-sexual work is to release passion from the rule of fears, taboo prohibitions and suppressions. In order to acquire spiritual-sexual skill in the World of Asiyah, we must have knowledge of our own bodies and the sexual bodies of members of the opposite sex, just as any artist must know how to use his tools—a painter her paintbrush and a pianist his keys. One must become the tool and know it from all possible angles.

If you were a pianist, for example, in order to acquire such skill, you would have to practice all types of music: classic, jazz, rock and blues, world music, and various types of cacophony, until you had found and developed your own unique style of this art. But even then, you would continue to always enrich yourself by listening to new styles of music. If a pianist would be afraid of trying out different styles of music, his or her development as a musician would be damaged, and even aborted. If a painter is afraid of taking a brush in her hand, no work of art will emerge from it. Similarly, anyone interested in spiritual-sexual development must acquire the skill of artfully using their body, its passions and desires.

Since sexuality has become such a suppressed and secretive subject in our society, we may have to work very hard with ourselves in order to stop from being ashamed of our bodies and to be detoxified from this shame we, for some reason, have of our tool of art. Our instrument by birthright is our nude human body and its sexuality. Encompassing its sexual attractions and attractiveness, cycles of fertility and natural aging, the ways in which it experiences intoxicating pleasure, and the ways in which it is capable of bringing divine pleasure to another human being.

Within the realm of practice and study in the World of Asiyah/Action are for example various types of erotic massage, learning the different types of touch, experiencing the sexual system and its connection with breath, the potential of reaching total body orgasm and the ability to spread sexual energy up and down throughout the entire body. In addition, it is very important for men to learn in the World of Asiyah/Action how to ejaculate only when they really want to and not as a conditioned reflex, and for women to become acquainted with different and various levels of orgasms which their bodies are capable of experiencing.

In order to be detoxified from this awful shame that strangles our sexual lives, it is advisable to practice such work within the container of a supportive group, and advisably under the guidance of experienced teachers. Working with a group that is ready to converse deeply about these subjects, practice and study is the best way. However, this must be a courageous group, not a group that castrates its members, but a group that supports and even challenges them to grow. It must be a group that allows each individual member to bring up all of their suppressed issues of sexual passion and to assess if and when and how to work with it. Such a group demands enormous trust and mutual support between its members. It demands also a firm commitment to absolute honesty and transparency of everybody involved, so that each one will be able to feel comfortable revealing and being revealed, experimenting with new experiences and receiving honest and loving feedback from other members and lovers.

I want to clarify that by saying that it is recommended to practice spiritual sexual growth within a group, I do not mean to recommend engaging in group sex or the like. What I do mean to recommend is to have a group of close friends that is open and sincere enough to question those unspoken areas of life, to delve into them, learn and explore in the way that feels beneficial to its members.

A degree of lightheartedness and the ability to laugh at oneself are important tools required to accompany any such work, in order to allow for it to go deep enough without getting stuck at places where the mind and rational thought place obstacles.

THE WORLD OF YETZIRAH /FORMATION

Devotion and Surrender

Beyond openness to sexuality itself, there exists in the human being a passion to love and be loved deeply, to know a lover and to be known through him or her at the deepest of the deepest levels. The human being has a passion to choose an exclusive lover and to surrender completely to him or her. This passion for exclusive love, to follow this love to the deepest places of heart surrender is typical of the spiritual-sexual practice of the World of Yetzirah/Formation.

The World of Yetzirah/Formation is a world of relationships that have an emotional basis—specifically, focused and long-term relationships. One of the common names of the World of Yetzirah/Formation in the Kabbalah is, the “World of Angels.” As our sages said, “No angel performs two missions” (Breishit Rabbah 50:2), meaning that as soon as we pass the border between the World of Asiyah/Action—which is physical, animalistic, undomesticated and free—into the World of Yetzirah/Formation, where the heart rules, we feel the need for focusing the energy of love in one “mission” only.

In the World of Yetzirah/Formation, the emotional “game” between the masculine and the feminine is expressed as the game of romantic love. Unlike in the World of Asiyah/Action, short-term relationships are usually insufficient for the blossoming of love in the World of Yetzirah/Formation. In this level our ability to be sanctified by love of deep heart surrender and to sustain it in a long-term relationship is being tested.

In the modern world, “falling in love” and even surrendering to a certain degree is the norm, but without any spiritual practice, falling in love frequently ends in disappointment, and surrender in betrayal, at least a betrayal of the heart. The spiritual-sexual practice of the World of Yetzirah/Formation demands of a person the ability to open up to love specifically at times when one would prefer to distance oneself and close off.

Cycles of Emanation and distance, ups and downs, changing moods, and the variations of flirtation are typical and natural to life in the World of Yetzirah/Formation. But the spiritual practice of the World of Yetzirah/Formation is mainly learning to open the heart to a love that is beyond the ego.

The ego gets hurt, insulted, disappointed, and always feels deeply unsatisfied. These are things that inevitably happen to everyone, for they are connected to the very basis of the structure of the human ego. The spiritual practice in this level is to know how to love nevertheless. In the World of Yetzirah/Formation we aspire to succeed in living the life of the heart, a heart that knows that the suffering of the hurt ego is naught and nothing compared to the deep pain of the heart itself when it closes off in refusal to the flow of love, which is the very energy of life. One who follows spiritual-sexual practice in the World of Yetzirah/Formation learns how to open the heart specifically in places where the egoic tendency is to close down and refuse to love.

Being that the spiritual challenge of the World of Yetzirah/Formation is connected with focusing our energy into deep love, the romantic “game” of the World of Yetzirah/Formation provides us with a wonderful platform for practice.

To know how to “play the game right” in the world of Yetzirah, it is very important to understand the different ways in which the feminine and masculine’s emotional organisms tend to work. In order to make it simple, I will use the word “woman” in this text to describe the more feminine character in this game, and the word “man” to describe the more masculine character, but this is really just a rough generalization. In reality we all have both powers within us, and we all have times in our lives when we more embody the masculine or feminine. Many of us grew up in an unhealthy world regarding gender and sexuality, and developed an entire array of ways in which they have shame, guilt and fears regarding their natural sexual essence. Therefore you can find many spiritually developed men who have shame and guilt issues regarding their masculinity, and many spiritually developed women who carry the same complex regarding their natural gift of femininity. Quite frankly, what is crucial to know is that attraction is energy, and the way energy flows in our world is between two opposite poles. It means that in the world of attraction we can say in very simple words: big polarization – big passion; no polarization – no passion; little polarization – little passion (yet, it can still be big love!). I trust my readers to be intelligent enough to be able to apply it to their own reality.

Having said that, let’s have a short look at the game of attraction and energy in the World of Yetzirah/ formation:

The feminine bliss is found in the utter surrender to the flow of love in every given moment. Therefore, when a woman feels that she is able to trust the man at her side, she frees herself up, surrenders to him completely, forgets about herself, shines with satisfaction, and by that she provides him with the greatest pleasure that he could ever dream of.

The man, from his perspective, when he feels that someone is relying on him and trusting him, wakes up and remembers who and what he is, where did he come from and where he is going to. He becomes empowered with courage and inner strength to lovingly penetrate into the woman’s heart and share with her his gift of masculinity with humor and good spirit. When he knows his deepest purpose in life and is connected to his inner freedom, he is not afraid of her moodiness and the constant tests which she puts him through.

As this is true regarding the physical woman, so is it true regarding the “Great Lady”, the “Mistress,” as the Zohar calls her, which is the Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of the divine, or simply—the entire existing world. The world and the woman respond to the man in the exact same way—the two “women,” who are in essence one, are putting the man through cycles of testing and blissfulness. They want to see if he can be trusted. They need to check if he remembers who he really is, as in Hebrew the same word (Zachar) is used for both definitions “masculine” and “remember”. Only a man that remembers his deepest mission in life and is dedicated to give it fully before he dies is worthy of the bliss of deep feminine surrender.

In the world of Yetzirah/Formation women endlessly test men. They need to know that he will really be there for them lovingly even when things are not going smoothly, even when she is in a dark mood, even when she is acting awful and horrible to him, even when she feels ugly in her own eyes. Men who are lost in life tend to freak out in those situations. They do not have enough inner freedom, enough sense of humor, wide perspective and deep love to bare the “chaotic emotional behavior” of women. They collapse, run away, react in frustration or just disappear into their “cave” of nothingness. Every man has a cave, and it doesn’t really matter whether it’s made of beer or books, meditation or sports.

The deep sexual bliss of a woman comes in times of utter surrendering. Therefore she constantly needs to test her man to see if he can be trusted, so she can feel safe to surrender. She does her testing spontaneously and unconsciously, yet with great talent. She needs to know how strong his presence is and can she rely on him or not. She needs to see how easy or difficult it is to distract him from his mission, to what extent his mind is free and clear, or to the contrary, to what extent he is caught and lost in this world. When a woman finds out that her man possesses deep authentic freedom to the extent that nothing in the world can budge him from his life mission, and therefore when he is with her he is totally present with her in love; she feels that he can be trusted and that she can relax and surrender deeply. For her this is a most wonderful and blissful feeling.

The spiritual challenge for a woman in the world of Yetzirah/Formation is not to wait until her man is fully trustworthy in order to surrender into her deep feminine essence, but to trust deeper than her fears, and by that help her man evoke within him his own hidden, sometimes asleep, masculine qualities.

As the woman tends to get into cycles of light and darkness the man, unless he is highly developed and knows how to master the art of love in the world of Yetzirah/Formation, tends to see in this dynamic some type of trap. A man frequently gets lost in this world, forgetting who and what he is, and what at all he is doing here. When a man gets lost in a spiritual sense, he immediately feels trapped. The world (which is a manifestation of the “Great Lady”), and usually a man’s woman (the “Small Lady”), seem to him to be not only a bother, but even some form of a real trap that prevents him in a very exasperating way from being free. When a man feels trapped in this world, this means that he has lost the connection to the deepest point of his existence, that place which is always free. It means that the world has succeeded in confusing him, and the Great Lady has succeeded in distracting him from his path and his focus. Most likely, he does not really know anymore why he is here at all. For this reason, any man who finds himself in this situation would be well advised to devote time and energy to embark on an urgent journey to find anew the purpose of his existence on earth.

The woman at his side can sometimes help him to do this by way of her deep intuition that is her inborn and natural gift. She knows intuitively when her man has lost himself, and she can show it to him. She can show him how she feels when he is lost. Then instead of justifying himself or arguing with her, he can just use this honest feedback and work with himself to find his true freedom again. To find the essence of his being that had been absolutely free and sent him down here, into this world of flesh, matter, passion and confusion.

On the other hand – when he is on it, on track, in sync with his life’s mission, open hearted, free and guiding their life in a true and deep way – she then can allow herself to show him how good it feels for her. A woman who allows herself to be vulnerable and shows her primal emotions without protecting her heart from her man, can indeed make him remember and have him experience that there is a reason to live.

This entire dynamic, the “holy game” of masculine and feminine love in the realms of the World of Yetzirah/Formation is described in great detail and grace in the books and lectures of my teacher and friend, David Deida (two of whose books have already been printed in Hebrew—The Way of the Superior Man, and Wild Nights—while another—Finding God Through Sex will be released soon). I highly recommend you to learn from his rare wisdom.

The Divine game in the World of Yetzirah/Formation is connected with our ability to give total love from the heart, an uncompromising and unwavering love that does not get scattered or leaked out to other places. The love of the World of Yetzirah/Formation demands utter surrender and commitment. When we learn how to live it in our daily lives, the heart shines. Simple as that.

When the heart is ready to love with such fullness—with surrender to the Divine that manifests as one’s beloved—we dare to put aside our defenses, to truly love and be loved. Only then do we allow our bodies to truly open up. The sexual freedom that was gained from the practice of the World of Asiyah/Action is transformed into a liberated tool of art in the hands of loving and shining heart. The man learns how to express the reliable presence of his masculine love through his body—a presence that is liberated and simple, lighthearted and broad, aiming in depth towards a goal worthy of vision. The woman, for her part, learns how to allow her body to be a total and direct expression of her pulsating heart. She learns also how to stop resisting and how to allow love to flow, shine and pulsate through every single cell of her sexual body. She becomes present in the moment—in the totality of each and every passing moment, the quality of which changes every second. In the Kabbalah, the feminine is also called, “the life of the passing moment,” in the sense of the fullness of life in this very moment, and every single moment. She gifts any situation with a flow of life and energy. With her sexual energy, flowers blossom and birds chirp, psychedelic butterflies soar to the infinite heavens, while she disappears with her man, melting into the very essence of love that has neither subject nor object.

A woman who practices emancipating the love of the World of Yetzirah/Formation is able to heal deep spiritual and physical wounds of her man and the world. The feminine medicine is so potent that in Kabbalah she is called “the elixir of life”. In a divine love relationship of the world of Yetzirah/Formation the more feminine being brings the elixir of life while the more masculine being at her side, who practices open and deep presence grants her with his love which is “as strong as death” and killing her softly. Together they are “annihilated” into the Infinite Light, gone and then renewed as born again creatures.

For this reason the World of Yetzirah/Formation is also connected in the Kabbalah with youth: people who love in the context of the World of Yetzirah/Formation feel as if they were “sixteen again”…  If this is done with spiritual practice—with awareness and clear inner work—then they have not really “lost their heads” in childish and imbecilic infatuation, but in a conscious way have drunken of the elixir of youth inherent in the World of Yetzirah/Formation. Something within them remains eternally alive and young. Their love grows and matures but never grow old.

Falling in Love

A few words about “falling in love” must be said here. When we fall in love, the object of our love is transformed, for various reasons, into a screen upon which we project our own inner issues and images. Generally speaking, it can be said that the man projects outward his “Anima” on the screen of his beloved woman, which raises the danger that he is not really seeing her—who she really is. Rather, he sees only the archetypal image of the perfect woman that he has projected outward from his own soul upon her.

On the other hand, the woman projects outward upon her beloved man the images of the “Animus,” and again, this projection blinds and prevents her from really seeing him as he is.

Most people do this unconsciously. They fall in love, stars hover and shine around them, for they are so sure that they have found the one and only love of their lives… However, we all know that sooner or later the stars will at least dim, if not, more likely, explode and splinter into pieces, as soon as the chasm between the real person and the perfect archetype projected upon the person begins to become evident.

Those who practice conscious spiritual-sexual love of the World of Yetzirah/Formation enter this story similarly, yet differently. They are aware that the person opposite them is serving as a screen for the projection of their own unconscious archetypal issues, and they make absolutely no effort to prevent it. On the contrary: the spiritual-sexual masculine practitioner is intentionally interested to learn how to constantly perceive his beloved as the Divine feminine presence on earth, as the goddess that she really is. While he is aware that she is only a flesh and blood woman, full of countless human weaknesses, that she is not a goddess, not a holy personage, and is even very far from being perfect, yet, since the psycho-physical dynamic of his hormonal system supports his perceiving her as a goddess he willingly allows himself to play along with the “game.” He consciously seeks to learn how to perceive her as the Divine Feminine, despite his knowing that what he sees in her is only a projection of his own inner archetypal Anima. The love relationship scene serves him like a movie theater and his beloved (consciously) serves as the screen upon which the images of the Divine Feminine are projected. The practitioner is aware to this process and accepts it graciously, but makes a point of paying constant attention to seeing not only the “movie,” but also the “screen” itself, meaning the real woman at his side. The same is true of the woman, who makes a point of constantly seeing her “screen”—the ever so human man at her side upon whom she gleefully projects her inner movies of courageous heroes who will fight the dragons of her soul and rescue her from their claws.

One of the meditative practices that I have found most helpful in this respect is to pay attention when actually going to a movie to the screen itself and to whatever material the screen is actually made of, rather than becoming completely hypnotized by the images appearing on it, as if they were real. But despite this, and at the same time, of course, enjoy the movie! This practice creates a sort of layered awareness that is able to recognize the situation itself (“I am sitting here in a dark room watching a movie, and it is only a movie”), and to other layers of what is happening (“There is the screen. It is there. It has no connection to the images projected upon it. And there is the unfolding story, the drama, the images. Wow! How I identify with the main character!… How attractive is his or her lover! I only hope that nothing bad happens to them…”). After this practice has been internalized, it becomes possible to look upon the reality of our daily lives in the very same way. We become able to perceive the nature of the entire world as one big movie theater, to perceive our lovers themselves—flesh and blood, ephemeral mortals, psycho-physical creatures whose bodies are filled with mucus and odious odors, and whose souls are preoccupied with physical and ego survival—and despite all to love them for what they are. To love them with humor and compassion, and even to fall in love with them—seeing them as our perfect soul mates, beautiful and shining as gods and goddesses! Then we can perceive them as the fulfillment of all our most rosy and wet dreams… willingly projecting upon them these archetypes with full consciousness of the chasm between the archetypal world (which is the “World of Angels”—the World of Yetzirah/Formation) and their physical daily reality. In the words of the Baal Shem Tov, such layered awareness is called, “Inside the world, outside the world.”

Then, another insight may arise within us: most probably, it is not for no reason that these specific partners turned our inner projector on to begin projecting our inner archetypes on their “screen” So what are they? Are they really gods and goddesses who have taken on human form, or are they mortals who just remind us of our furthest dreams? And perhaps both answers are true?…

There are schools of modern Tantra that call this process “Transfiguration.” In Kabbalah we simply say: “When you behold the world, you are beholding God, and God is beholding you” (in the name of the Baal Shem Tov). Furthermore, the woman is seen in the Kabbalah as a “manifestation of the Shechina” (The Book of Peliah) and therefore, she must be loved as one loves his own soul and respected more than one respects his own body (Mishna, Derekh Eretz ch. 2). Chassidut teaches that every human being possesses both the Absolute Godliness and also the absolute nothingness. The reason why we have two pockets, teach the great Chassidic masters, is so that in one we hold a note saying, “The world was created for me,” while in the other we hold a note saying, “I am dust and ashes.” A person must know when and how often to reach into each of these pockets.

This concept has ideal applications in our love lives. We must know that when we look at our partners we are looking at God and God is looking at us through their eyes. We should love them as we love our own soul, for indeed they are deeply connected to our own soul, and respect them more than we respect ourselves. We must know that God shows Godself through them for us and they are a sanctuary for the divine.

Regarding ourselves, we must know that we too possess Godliness, because the psychological projection of our partners is not a complete error as well. Yet we should remember that we also possess at the very same time the human, the all too human aspect of “I am dust and ashes.”

Practitioners of love of the World of Yetzirah/Formation learn how to shine from their hearts, and how to let the heart shine through their body. The man learns to be present and powerful with his uncompromising love, while the woman learns to allow her body to vibrate and her heart to be alive and flow as love itself, shining such a dazzling light that “dims the light of the sun with its brilliance,” as our sages said.

After years of devoted love practice within the World of Yetzirah/Formation, a time when you do not compromise on anything less than shining hearts expressed through the body, a higher work begins to be aroused within us: the work of the World of Briah/Creation.

THE WORLD OF BRIAH /CREATION

Experimenting with Experiences We Never Dared Before

After a good while of devotion to the practice of love in the World of Yetzirah/Formation (and this may take several years) a readiness for the spiritual-sexual practice of the World of Briah/Creation begins to arise within a person.

In the Kabbalah, the World of Briah/Creation is described as “A place ready for questions”—that is, a place meant for research, experimentation and inquiry. The World of Briah/Creation is also known as a place of “Amelioration of Harsh Judgments at their Source”, in other words, a place where the deepest and most significant healing can happen.

Another characteristic of the realm identified as the World of Briah/Creation is that the connection between the masculine and the feminine is virtually never broken. It is permanent and stable and always there. This is what the Zohar refers to as the, “perpetual conjugation,” and in this dimension the masculine and the feminine are, “two beloveds who never separate from each other.”

The relationships between the masculine and the feminine in the World of Briah/Creation are so stable and firm that they are not easily undermined—even when real challenges arise between partners, challenges that would inevitably cause a split between lovers interacting within the dimension of the World of Yetzirah/Formation alone. There are countless challenges that can cause dramas on the level of the World of Yetzirah/Formation. The love of the World of Yetzirah/Formation is emotional and romantic, and is therefore very vulnerable of being hurt and feeling threatened. Such lovers tend to turn their backs on each other at such points until they overcome and renew their love despite the fears, returning overwhelmed with emotion into each other’s arms. The ocean of love of the World of Yetzirah/Formation abounds with huge waves sometimes. This is not the case though in the World of Briah/Creation. Partners have already shared many experiences together and they perceive themselves as One so deeply that nothing is seen any more as a real threat to their love. Therefore, in the World of Briah/Creation there is “a place for questions,” as the Zohar states.

In the World of Briah/Creation, partners can enter into the darker and less familiar sides of their love and sexuality, to experiment and experience them in a healthy way. Entering into “the shadow” can be, for instance: experimenting with alternate types of sex, or with aspects of sexuality that have been suppressed until now because they were too threatening. This may be for example a fantasy of having anonymous sex with others occasionally, or perhaps to experiment with same-sex relations, things that either one or both of the partners were unable to allow themselves to consider before. It may also be experimenting with other types of fantasies, such as BDSM, role-playing or starting a Polyamorous relationship that involves more lovers on a permanent basis.

The partnership in the World of Briah/Creation is so healthy that it can contain this “shadow”. It can access the “dark side” and “sweeten it”, releasing it from fears and “demons” and elevating it to a state at which it is actually able to intensify the light of love. If the couple has truly reached the level of the spiritual-sexual practice of the World of Briah/Creation, their sense of oneness will not be damaged by any of these experimentations, and sometimes even to the contrary—it will be enriched and intensified.

Not only is the oneness of the lovers intensified in this process, but it empowers each one of them individually as well. Anyone who is in a spiritual-sexual place of knowing at the depth of his soul without any doubt that she is loved and beloved, and that he too gives the gift of unbounded and unlimited love to his or her partner fully and intensely, inevitably feels that the time has come to experiment with other experiences that have been left behind until now. He or she may now  receive the full support of their partners, and with complete transparency enter into places that had been hidden and kept in the darkness until now.

Naturally, passions that have been kept in the darkness and ignored for so many years have collected “dust and cobwebs.” They may have been transformed into emotionally charged issues. They may threaten something deep within us, for the very same reason we have suppressed them for all these years. When the time comes to enter into these dump rooms of the soul, and to investigate what is there in these attics or deep basements, the part of the ego that had been happy that these things were stored away far from sight and distant from the heart is now likely to enter into a panic.

The Kabbalah knows to tell us that in these dark places of the soul, awesome energies are contained, energies that possess very special potencies, energies that the Kabbalah calls: “Lights of the World of Tohu /Chaos.” The reason why these energies are to be found in the shadow is because they were too intense, and we did not possess the ability to contain them until now without our entire worlds collapsing. As long as we are at the spiritual-sexual level of the World of Yetzirah/Formation, we lacked the ability to deal with this chaos. If it were to rise and enter into our personal world, and certainly into our relationships, they would likely crash on account of it. Not until we have grown sufficiently to the point where the gates of the spiritual-sexual practice of the World of Briah/Creation opening up for us, will we be able to find within us the inner strength to contain these Lights of Chaos without our lives, or at least without our relationships, crashing. For this purpose we need abundant love and compassion, and endless humor, but also a healthy serving of humility. Pride and self-importance are considered the number one catalysts that “break the vessels,” and are likely to shatter everything to smithereens.

Anyone doing the spiritual-sexual work of the World of Briah/Creation in a proper way will reach a stage at which he leaves no stone unturned. There is nothing that he or she would wish to experiment with that he or she has not done. There are no more “demons” hiding in dark corners connected with passions and desires that have not been examined and opened. Therefore one of the names for the World of Briah/Creation in Kabbalah is “Alma de-Chiru” meaning the world of freedom and liberation.

I want to point out though that there are methods of inner spiritual-sexual practice that are able to heal and clarify for a person at this level of spiritual work even those types of passions that for reasons of law or ethics one does not want to act out physically (for instance: anything connected with family incest, pedophilia, or any nonconsensual sexual connections). The spiritual-sexual process at this stage allows for these “stones” to be turned over as well—without having to actually act out these fantasies in the real world. This is a high level of work, in which there is a lot of room for meditation, visualizations, role play and courageous inner investigation, work that has the power to reveal what is really hiding behind these “dark” passions without suppressing them on the one hand or acting them out physically on the other. Sometimes, it is possible to “clarify the holy spark” as the kabbalists say, by meditative processes alone. After all, the World of Briah/Creation is connected in the Kabbalah with the sefirah of Binah which is the power of reflection and meditation.

According to the Kabbalah, within these dark forces are hidden sparks of such great light—sparks of light from the World of Tohu/Chaos—when we succeed in clarifying, redeeming and repairing them (a process that can last for years, or even several lifetimes), an extraordinary intensity is brought to our lives. The light that is released by “transforming the darkness into light,” in the words of the Zohar, is an awesome Godly light that opens for us the gate to the World of Atzilut/Emanation.

THE WORLD OF ATZILUT /EMANATION

The Divine One Who Makes Love with Oneself

Not much can be said about the World of Atzilut/Emanation, because at this level there is not even any place for “work.” Everything happens on its own. In the World of Atzilut/Emanation, we are not talking anymore about two people who love and make love with each other. At this level, each one’s experience as a separate “I” has disappeared, and what appears in that place is God making love with Godself. The powers of the Divine masculine and the Divine feminine live within us and make love with each other through us, though in essence the two are anyway one. The Divine Oneness that is beyond all duality appears in this lovemaking, while we, ecstatically and humbly remove our individual cloaks and allow the Divine Personas to make love through us, in any way He/She sees fit.

We humbly bow to the Great One who reveals to us how our bodies are nothing but light formed as temples of love, and how our sexual organs are merely altars, upon which we offer our separate egos, which rise heavenward as fragrant offerings. This is the practice (if it is even possible to call it a practice) of the World of Atzilut/Emanation—a world that anyway rests in eternal bliss beyond all practice. It is ever-present, always already there, and all we need to know is how to perceive it and not interfere with its manifestation, since it usually appears as “a still, small voice,” and not with tumult and trumpets, and whoever is not prepared will simply not notice it.

The World of Atzilut/Emanation does not exist somewhere else. “The World of Atzilut/Emanation exists here and now,” as the Maggid of Mezritch said to his disciples. We only need eyes to see it and a heart ready to sense and experience the depth of Existence that shines and makes love through us—here and now. Whoever this happens through and has allowed it to happen, finds rest from the eternal search for bliss. There is nothing to seek. Bliss is not a promise or a goal to be found or realized. It has been always right here, present and attendant, it was only our  separate personality that has now been removed that was blinding us from seeing and sensing it. Here, there is no more I and you. There is only God. And it IS.

Some Q&A

d WHY DO WE NEED “SPIRITUAL-SEXUAL WORK” AT ALL?

The process of development that I have mapped out above closely resembles in its stages what actually happens under normal circumstances in the process of sexual maturity in the modern liberal world. Young people first learn to flirt, learning about their bodies and their sexuality with various partners, sometimes “celebrating life” as singles. Eventually, longer term relationships begin to develop, and after several years of committed relationship, they begin to have second thoughts about their sexuality and partnerships, sometimes deciding eventually that the time has finally come to really investigate these issues. However, when all this happens without spiritual work and inner awareness, it happens in a very unhealthy way, and usually replete with hurt and pain, which then requires a long process of healing the wounds and scars that become a burden in our emotional-sexual bodies.

This is also one of the reasons why many people extremely object emotionally to any spiritual writing about sexuality and spiritual-sexual development—very likely, their sexuality has been hurt somewhere in the past, marking them with emotional shame and scars. These painful scars can cause them to instinctively react with animosity towards the entire issue as defense tactic.

Anyone who was hurt in the past and has not gone through a healing process is usually not interested in touching this painful topic again, and certainly not to connect it with God and spirituality, which they prefer to see as entirely non-sexual. (Even though it is the same divine power that is creating at this very moment the stones of the Western Wall as well as all the sexual mucus, hormones and discharges of all living beings on earth, including mine and yours. This same Creator created out of absolute nothingness and without any compulsion the very idea of sexuality and sexual passion, visualizing in the Divine Infinite Thought the beautiful and attractive shape of women. Ahh…What an amazing creativity! What genius!).

Nevertheless and for this reason, there is a need today for extensive sexual-emotional healing. And there is a need for more and more people to begin to relate to their sexuality as sacred instruments, and not merely as organs of reproduction or as means for obtaining cheap pleasure.

d IS THIS SEQUENTIAL DEVELOPMENT?

Yes, but not in a simplistic way: It is important to realize that the passage from the World of Asiyah/Action to the World of Yetzirah/Formation, and from Yetzirah/Formation to Briah/Creation is indeed sequential, and it is impossible to truly experience a higher world without having first successfully worked through the lower worlds. Nevertheless, it is truly a matter of degrees: only to the degree that one worked through the spiritual sexual development of the world of Asiyah one would be able to truly experience the spiritual sexual experiences of the world of Yetzirah and the same goes on to Briah.

Yet the World of Atzilut/Emanation is different! It is not part of any sequential development. It appears surprisingly, and can suddenly manifest itself in any place or situation. A hasty fuck in the toilet of some seedy nightclub, or in the back seat of a rented car may surprise us and be experienced as something absolutely divine, when suddenly the sense of a separate “I” disappears and something “Else” appears instead, without our having planned or prepared for it in any way.

This is similar to the idea stated in the Tana d’bei Eliyahu, that the spirit of prophecy can rest upon any human being—a sage, a boor, a youth, an elder, a man, a woman, or on a member of any nation in the world. The Holy Spirit has no rules to which it is bound. Nevertheless, the more a person does practice love in the worlds of Asiyah, Yetizrah and Briah, the more chances that when the prophetic spirit rests upon him or her, one will pay more attention to it and surrender to it, rather than it being chased away out of dread by the terrified defense mechanisms of the ego that does not understand where the whole thing even came from…

The integral philosopher, Ken Wilber, distinguishes between states of higher awareness that may come to people at different levels of development, and fully acquired levels, or stages of development. A state of higher awareness may appear out of nowhere, or after a short good practice, but it would be a mistake to assume that this is already our real spiritual level, or stage.  In order to acquire a real spiritual level one must “regurgitate the milk that one sucked form one’s mother’s breast,” as the Chassidim say. At the same time, how wonderful that the World of Atzilut/Emanation is so generous, that sometimes a window to it is opened in a very surprising place and we are able to have some experience of it that is sometimes enough to bring about a turnabout change in our lives, or to bring a sweet smile on our humble lips till the end of our lives.

BEYOND THE EGO

In sum, the practice of love throughout each of the worlds that I have presented is almost an integral part of human spiritual development since in each of these worlds there is growth beyond the defensive and shriveling ego.

In the World of Asiyah/Action, when the defensive ego’s tendency is to be embarrassed of our sexuality and the natural vital passion, the spiritual practice opens up the bonds of hiding and shame, allowing the energy of life to flow within us freely and happily.

In the World of Yetzirah/Formation, when the defensive ego’s tendency is to refrain from total surrender of the heart, refraining from love and sometimes even running away from intimacy, the spiritual practice allows us to go beyond fear and concern, to dare to express love specifically when we are least comfortable about it, to surrender to the pulsating truth of love with full and free expression of our masculine and feminine psychologies, through the emotional body.

In the World of Briah/Creation, when the defensive ego’s tendency is to defend the existing and known structure and establishment at all costs and risks, the spiritual-sexual practice allows us to continue our development with the courage provided by love so that we are able to descend into the cellars of our soul-shadows and transform darkness into precious light, and fear into intense love.

In the World of Atzilut/Emanation we simply dissolve and disappear. Here, there is no longer any separate ego, and as soon as any conscious thought comes to mind and excites us about what is happening to us, we are immediately “banished” from Atzilut/Emanation and fall back into the lower worlds (usually into the World of Yetzirah/Formation, where the experience of God through sex is less non-dual and more archetypal).

ù

I have attempted here to present these concepts in very general terms. We may spend many years, or even several lifetimes in each of the steps presented here. As said above, there are so many details at each and every stage, but it was not my intention to expound upon them all in this short essay.

The path to the Infinite is infinite. Therefore, as soon as we place our foot on the path, we have immediately reached the Infinite!—as long as we continue walking…

I hope that these teachings will be of help to those who are privy to the Secret of the Divine Love.

About the author:

Ohad Ezrahi is a kabbalist post-orthodox rabbi from Israel. His teachings are focusing on the renewal of the ancient Hebraic Way in post-religious-secular-modern times. In his eyes the teachings of Love and Sacred Sexuality are an integral part of the renewal of the Tribal Hebraic Prophetic Path that had preceded rabbinical Judaism. Together with his wife Dawn he has established “The Garden – The School of Love in Radical Kabbalah” (www.kabalove.org). Their community’s home base is in the Galilee, and is spread all over Israel and various other countries. Together they offer teachings and workshops in America, Europe and Israel. Ohad has written several books and hundreds of articles in neo-kabbalistic thought, this essay is the first one to be translated into English and German.

Books by Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi (in Hebrew):

• “Worlds of Doubt” (Certainty and uncertainty in religious experience – a commentary on the Book of Job) 1994.
• “The Old shall be renewed and the new shall be sanctified” (about the erotic aspect of the Jerusalem temple and Merkava mysticism), with Yithak Hayut-man PhD. The Academy of Jerusalem prints 1997.
• “Who’s afraid of Lilith?” (New readings of the myth of the feminine shadow in Lurianic Kabbalah). Modan 2004.
• “In the secret of Leviathan” with Micha Ankori PhD (Mytho-Psychological readings of Kabbalah). Modan 2005.
• “The BresLove Cards” and the book “Paths of Empowerment” (a set of cards for inner work, based on Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s story “The Master of Prayer” and a commentary on it). 2003.

For more information about the author and his work

Please visit

www.kabalove.org

The Garden

The School of Love in Radical Kabala

Founded by Dawn Cherie and R. Ohad Ezrahi

The Garden is drawing living waters from the deep wells of Radical Kabala. It is watered from unconventional streams of the Hebraic Mystic tradition. A fragrant scent arises from within, stemming from the roots of secret knowledge left within the writings of ancient mystics. Exotic trees are planted within as well, brought from faraway places in the East and the West, Trees of Life and Knowledge that for centuries have sent deep roots into the teachings of Love, and explored layers of healing, art, sacredness and spiritual development.

for more details – call dawn at 972-52-5213137

rooms can be ordered in Daramsala guest-house (simple and nice) or the hotel
camping is permited in the forest as well

more details will be published soon

We started in Krakow with a trip to Jewish quarter  kazimierz  and the area which still holds a bit of the old feel from what we imagine. Close by is Shindler’s factory where they were just opening their museum to the shoah and the heroic acts of Shindler that happened there. It was a little too renovated for some of us , and for those that saw the movie, but nevertheless they are preserving it. which should be commended. We visited a concentration camp right in there heart of Krakow, and saw how people are living just where the Jewish ghetto walls were. Strange to think how it must be to live there. In one SS officer’s house where many of the torturing was executed ;currently it an active  apartment house, called the grey house then. Across the street is a colorful apt building with flower pots on the balconies.Many of the places that once were ghettos or camps were left as grassy area , most with some type of monument.

there were some delightful restaurants  there in this quarter, where ironically I had the best pirogies of my life.and we were serenaded by a sweet man playing klezmer. One needed to find the moments of peace and beauty in this trip. Krakow is a beautiful, very youthful lively city.

My trip to Auschwitz was moving , I had a lot of time to meditate, remember and say prayers  and light candles for all of those that requested, as well relatives of mine that had perished there. I was amazed by the sheer massiveness of the place, and the efficiency and propaganda ,and deception with which they carried out their massive killings. I always wondered how the Jews barely reresisted. They really believed that they were going to a better place or if they behaved they might actually be saved; really till the last minute as evidence by the massive number of personal belongings that are in Auschwitz. It is now set up as a museum, where the famous sign of work will set you free is posted above the entrance.I tell you it’s such a strange feeling to willingly walk in through those gates. As a Jew you are saying how could I enter this place where we tried so hard to leave? There was a lot of fear that arose in me my first time , till I realized the Nazis weren’t there anymore to harm me.  Although these fears were allayed something still was nagging at me knowing that other such terrible atrocities, unfortunately are still  happening  in this world.

Most of the buildings and barracks,and one remaining gas chamber are kept as is. Even the buildings that the Nazis tried to destoy and remove the evdence are left just as it was in many ways when they found it. When the Russian army came in afterwards, they did what they thought was good by helping to clean the place up and create massive graves for the bodies, instead of proper burials, although to identify the bodies was nearly impossible. Upon arrival we see very disturbing movies to this affect, then we went on to a tour where we saw the massive personal affects such as shaving brushes and mugs,pots to cook in, shoes, hair (which has lost its color over time,and will eventually turn to dust they say for lack of proper compounds known to preserve it ).

There are many building dedicated to all the different groups that lost lives there. French, Poles,Roma/Sinti commonly called gypsies.Such a vibrant and lively group nearly destroyed.I was struck at the beauty and the color and the vibrant life that virtually popped out of those pictures.

After some spartan soup and bread in their cafeteria. There is no food permitted on the grounds; we go to few minutes away Auschwitz/Birkenau where the train tracks ended and so many people are seen arriving on the platform. I am struck by the lush green of these hot June days against what was at one time so barren of any vegetation.

There is a very moving gallery called the sauna (in Birkenau)where many pictures are displayed there in a endless wall of beautiful faces, brides, babies, grandparents..

The days were spent mediating, reading names of those that perished and simply bearing witness.The mornings we had council groups,our group had ,a mixture of poles, Germans, Americans, people whose families had been Nazis and victims. it was a strong meeting. One night we saw the art of a beautiful man that passed on last year.

Marian Kolodziej's Art

Marian Kolodziej who was #432,and went into the camps in ‘41 and out at the liberation, He had been arrested as a Polish resister, so was not immediately killed. Afterwards  He became a very known set designer  for theatre, and at 80 he had a stroke,and with the advice of his DR and the help of his wife started drawings . What came out was what had been held in him all these years, the faces and eyes and the amazingly detailed and beautiful pictures that he continued incessantly drawing till his passing . The pictures are in oswiecim (the town  in which the Germans changed  to Auschwitz )in a Franciscan monastery displayed in a striking and dramatic way by him.

We extended the trip to include a teaching at a dominican monestary in Lublin ;Ohad  was asked to teach chasidut.It was an amazing  opportunity- very unique, young students plagued with questions of evil ,and its existence.We visited a theatre/museum TEATR NN there dedicated to memorializing the lives of those  who past in the shoah and those who helped them with amazingly  precise details of the life and the Jewish life in Lublin before. They deal with the difficult subjects with inspiration, creativity and love.

We ended the trip in Warsaw,there I had one of my stronger prayers in the place where the Warsaw ghetto stood, and was completely demolished. My grandpa Max Mandelbaum lived there, and Sophie, my great grandma ,before coming to Ellis Island in 1911. I imagined what he looked at and saw when he was there. The old city was destroyed but the European community was so devastated by this loss to the great Warsaw, it rebuilt this area for the 3-4 years after the war. They tried to replicate it in as much of the exact detail that it once stood.Something made me feel a bit like walking through a movie set there. but the effort is so great, and the fact the you can walk there in what it once was like is amazing.

Well that’s it, for now I bless you all with love , happiness and aliveness. one thing I saw there was the preciousness of life,and how we have been granted life, let’s live it fully with love and open heart.

Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi, Jewish Spiritual Teacher of the Hebrew Path

English tr., Yair Ohr

As a peace activist, I am hurt and frustrated to see supposed “peace activists” attacking other human beings with violent rage: that is NOT the way to bring peace. As an international peace activist, I want to say to those who were involved in the violence on board the Marmara flotilla: You are not peace activists. You came as confrontationists looking for a fight, and you are personally responsible for the bloodshed that took place. I would have expected other peace activists from around the world to come out loudly and say this unambiguously, but it seems that their voices have suddenly gone silent.

And as an Israeli, it frustrates me to see the Israeli Army so foolishly falling into this trap. Could the Israeli army with all its advanced intelligence gathering systems not have obtained more accurate information about what was planned for them on board the ship? Couldn’t they have just neutralized the ship’s engine by some simple commando action in order to stop the ship dead at sea, without direct confrontation, thus avoiding any bloodshed?

The State of Israel has become a very clumsy bully that strikes out heavily against anyone who irritates it, then justifies by crying, “But he started! He spit on me! He insulted me! He hit me with an iron rod!” The modern Israeli Army resembles the Golem of Prague, which was sent to protect the Jews, but was an inept and dangerous creature. But unlike the original Golem, it seems that the modern Israeli version lacks any sage guidance to control it, and no one knows to erase the Divine Name from its forehead and return it to dust at the right time, as did the Maharal of Prague in the famous story.

Many of us right now want only to hide our faces in the ground out of shame: ashamed of “our” state that conducts itself with such inane stupidity; ashamed of the “peace activists” who tried to murder soldiers with clubs and knives; ashamed of the hypocritical reaction of peace lovers around the world who are taking a lopsided and cursory stance, ignoring the complexity of the issue.

So what is the real problem? For years I have been saying that the State of Israel, as a society, is exhibiting the collective psychological symptoms of post-trauma. Our collective psychology resembles that of someone who was traumatized as a child, such as sexual or physical abuse, but never had the opportunity to work it through in any form of therapy. This person grows into adulthood full of relentless rage and fear. He is always “on guard,” responding disproportionately to anyone who spits in his direction.

And as known to experts in the symptoms of post-trauma: whoever suffered violent trauma in childhood will recreate for himself the very same reality that will only prove to him that the world is exactly as he fears it to be: aggressive, violent, and that everyone is against him, so to protect himself, he too must be aggressive and violent—even more so than all the others. It is very difficult to prove to such a person that he himself is an active contributor to the creation of this violent reality. He is not only defending himself against it—he is actually creating it, for only in that situation does he feel “at home.”

That is our situation here in Israel: only if the entire world is against us do we feel comfortable. It has that familiar sensation of massacres and pogroms. Only when “they” want to annihilate us are we relieved, feeling that at least this is how we always knew it to be. Not long ago on Pesach we sang, “In each and every generation they rise up to destroy us…,” so reality has once again slapped us in the face and proved that we are right, as always—and this time, they have tried to do it by hurling broken beer bottles at us with slingshots…

What am I saying? I am saying that the time has come for us to seek treatment. If we don’t get reparative therapy for the fear that controls and manipulates the Israeli society, we will not survive.

Nowadays, God does not need to save us from “them”—He needs to save us mainly from ourselves! We, the Israelis, as a society and as individuals, need therapy—urgently. Preferably it should be some type of alternative therapy, but any type of therapy requires the willingness of the suffering one to acknowledge his situation and seek help. Perhaps, as a society, we can agree to forgo for a while our hopeless clinging to the “righteousness of our path,” and to declare to ourselves and to the world that we are in trouble, and that we need help.

Around the ashes pond. retreat 2003

Rabbi Ohad is among the clergy officiating this year at the Zen Peacemakers  Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz,Poland, with Roshi Bernie Glassman, along with religious leaders from all faiths.    This will be Ohad’s 7th year  joining  this very powerful retreat to bear witness to the pain and atrocities that took place there.

Bernie visited the camps on his own some 15 years ago. After witnessing the  pain that people had upon seeing the camps on  their  first encounter, he saw that there was no outlet for the devastation which the people were experiencing when they visited. They would go in and have a tremendous rush of  feelings and despair, and leave. After viewing this Bernie vowed to bring a group back to bear witness. The next year he took 150 people, and for the past 15 years there have been bearing witness retreats following that first one.

There are three tenents of the Socialy Engaged Buddhism of which this work is a part of.

The first is not knowing,

the second is Bearing Witness,

the third is loving Action.

During the retreat we first have a tour of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. Then the next day we go to Oschwintzen, known by the Germans as Auscwitz. We stay in simple lodgings in a hostel near by the camps. we start the day with a tour of the camps. in general the days are broken down into morning  council sharing groups, where you might be with a polle, a german, children of perpetrators, and victims together. It is a very necessary and important component of the retreat. Here we have time to sort out our mixture of feelings, and share in one another’s feelings,and listen from the heart..

Later in the days we go to the camps and sit in one of the camp sites, barracks or yards for meditation sessions. The never ending reading of names of those perished in the camp is the mantra for all meditation sessions.

Every day there are also rituals taking place, of all the religions and paths present in the retreat – Christian, Buddhist and Jewish. R. Ohad is holding the Jewish ritual, accompanying it with his guitar and praying with old and new Hasidic tunes of Dvekut (= devotion, surrender).

Dawn is also coming this year for her second time to the retreat, with an intention to serve the retreat.

One thing is important to know: Auschwits is not over. it is not merely a historical site. It is a testimony to what humanity can cause to itself.

R. Ohad is planning to take part in the spiritual holding of the next retreat, coming on Nov 2010. For more info about the bearing Witness retreat and Socialy Engaged Buddhism visit the international Zen Peacemakers family website

Join us Saturday eve. for a 3 hr workshop on creating sacred  loving relationships.

How to love, honor and surrender to the divine through the path of intimate partnership.

We will  dive quickly and deeply in this condensed evening of teaching and exercises targeted to enhance and allow the feminine quality of surrender and the masculine aspect of consciousness and direction.

Teachings from little known texts from the kabbalah designed to illustrate the way of the love through this  mystical path  with very practical applications.

This is suitable for people of all religions, faith, gender orientation.

Suitable for  singles and couples.

contact here for info

Join us Saturday eve. for a 3 hr workshop on creating sacred  loving relationships.

How to love, honor and surrender to the divine through the path of intimate partnership.

We will  dive quickly and deeply in this condensed evening of teaching and exercises targeted to enhance and allow the feminine quality of surrender and the masculine aspect of consciousness and direction.

Teachings from little known texts from the kabbalah designed to illustrate the way of the love through this  mystical path  with very practical applications.

This is suitable for people of all religions, faith, gender orientation.

Suitable for  singles and couples.

contact here for info – Mariola:   mwereszka@gmail.com