Basic Class 2 – History of the World

Tonight we answer the question as to why you were born? Also the associated question of what am I to do while I am in this world? There are other associated questions too numerous to list but you will get the idea. One question might be Why is the world so painful? Or Why do good people suffer? Or why do bad people have it so good in this world? I hope you get the idea. We will answer these questions tonight?

Please understand we are not going to answer these questions specifically to you tonight. The specific information for yourself is available in the teachings of the Kabbalah and we will describe these tools and information generally. With study you will be able to answer these questions for yourself about yourself. Yet the spiritual system is such that we can not just hand over to you the specifics as it applies to you. To do that would harm you spiritually by adding to your “bread of shame”. The Hebrew words are Lechem Misnayot. This is a kabbalistic concept that we will explain tonight.

Also this 1 hour class is a short – very short synopsis of a life time study. Please keep that in mind. You are going to be given truths yet they are simplistic truths since it is a life time study.

To answer the above questions we have to start at a beginning that is significantly before the Beginning described in the Torah or the Bible or the Book of Genesis Chapter 1. I will use the Term tonight Torah. This is the Old Testament of the King James Bible and the Tanach of the Hebrew Nomenclature. The Tananch consists of 24 Books of the Scroll of Moshe, the Books/Scrolls of the Prophets, and The Writings of the Hebrew Sages like the Psalms or Proverbs or The Scrolls of Job and Ruth.

There are many beginnings. There is a single first cause of all cause beginnings. It is not the phrase in the Torah “In the Beginning” or Beraishit Barah Elokim Et HaShamaim Vet HaAretz which is the verse first in the Torah. Let us explain briefly to you about the corruption of translation.

The first word of the Hebrew is Beraishit spelled Bet Reish Aleph Shin Yood Tav. (Do not worry you do not need to learn Hebrew although you will find out next week that you may choose to do so as a method of benefiting yourself.) In the Torah Scroll there are no vowels which are dots above, below, or next to the Hebrew Letters. Therefore the word can be read with various vowels which changes the meaning of the words in the Torah. In this case Beraishit which means in a beginning can also be pronounced Baraishit which means in the beginning.

I am sure you realize that In a beginning implies that there are multiple beginnings. Some happen before this one and some happen after this one and some may even happen simultaneously to this one. We are going to what the Kabbalists call the cause of all causes which is absolutely the first beginning that we can understand or conceive of. Yes there is a cause prior (there is no time so a better term would be there is a cause of this cause) to this yet Rabbi Ashlag teaches that as long as we are connected to a physical body we have no capability to relate to or understand the cause that caused this cause. So relative to our physical world this is the Cause of all Causes.

These teachings come primarily from the ARI- Rabbi Isaac Luria who taught only 1 student Rabbi Chaim Vital who wrote the teachings into various books and essays. The one that deals with this area is called the Etz Chaim – Tree of Life. In that book the question that is asked initially is “What is the purpose of Creation?” The reason is that the Blessed Holy One had to be complete in all of His Deeds and Powers and all of His Names of greatness, perfection, and honor. If He had not brought forth His deeds and His powers He could not have been called complete, so to speak, either in His actions, in His Names, or in His attributes.

A quick explanation is that HaShem has the Name Adonai or Lord. Without something to be Lord over He can not be called Lord and therefore the Creation needed to be to allow Him to be Complete. Do not make the mistake to think the Creator “Needs” the Creation. This is absurd.

His initial Creation is called Ain Sof which is translated as “The Endless World”. A more direct translation would be Ain = Nothingness; Sof = End. Within this Endless World are all of the Creatures and Creations that will ever come into existence – yet only in potential. This is because The Endless World is Uniform and Unified.

Within these potential Creations are 10 Sefirot that when fulfilled are called Worlds. These 10 Sefirot have two types of potential existence. One is as dots of immense size created in a straight line. The Higher one causing the lower one to come into existence. These dots are connected by a straight line. (To clarify slightly they are immense yet relative to the Creator they are dots.)

Another way they were Created is in 3 columns – A sharing Column composed of three Sefirot. A receiving Column composted of three Sefirot. A Central column composed of 4 Sefirot which balances between the two aspects of sharing and receiving . This structure is called the Tree of Life Glyph. Names of the Sefirot or Worlds will only confuse you at this time. After the basic class you will find it easier to understand these Names and use them properly.

There are thousands of two dimensional diagrams of the Tree of Life. Rabbi Ashlag teaches us that to see them is to limit it ourselves. If you have seen a glyph (diagram) before try to put it out of your mind. Only later will you begin to appreciate this teaching and recommendation. Also know that many of these diagrams are corrupted and inaccurate.

Let us return to the discussion of the Endless World which consists of two aspects. Light and Vessel. The vessel is a desire to receive. The light is the fulfillment of that or any desire and all of its sub components. If someone wants $1000, he also wants 999 dollars, and 998 dollars, and 997 dollars down to 1 penny. These are called sub components of a desire to receive.

If some one wants $1000 and has $999 it is said he is not completely fulfilled but only partially fulfilled. In the endless world there is no such thing as being unfulfilled. Since the fulfillment caused the desire to be created it knows what each vessel and component vessel wants and fulfills it prior to the vessel realizing it does not have and desires something.

The endless world consists of complete unity since there is no desire that is not fulfilled. This went on for eons – remember there is no time only lack and fulfillment and in the endless world lack is never felt so nothing knows of its consciousness.

I must digress to a metaphor to explain what happened in and to the endless world. If we go out to dinner each day for 10 years. Each dinner is better than the last one. The food is amazing, the music is divine and the conversation is incredibly fulfilling, Night after Night. At the end of the meal I excuse myself and seek out the Maiter De to thank him and to pay the bill. How would you feel? This feeling of I would like to pay for dinner once perhaps tonight – this feeling is called Bread of Shame. The more I eat the worse I feel. The more Shame I feel. I want to earn my way.

This feeling of Bread of Shame is why the physical world is created. Since there is only one vessel in the endless world. This vessel has the feeling to buy dinner but no one to buy it for. So the vessel said to the Light “I do not want to eat from you anymore. I would rather die than consume, than allow you to fulfill me. Even this "I do not want" is a desire to receive – desire to receive nothing. The endless light tried to provide that fulfillment yet it meant the “end of the vessel if it complied”. This is the initial paradox of which all of life's paradoxes stem from.

With nothing to share to the Light proposed a compromise. Our physical world is the compromise. A place where the vessel would see an illusion that makes it think that it can share with itself as something separate from itself. Each human being, each animal, each plant, each rock, piece of sand and dust, each atom, each electron, each proton and all of the new smaller atomic particles are aspects of the endless vessel.

The vessel agreed and our world was started through a sexual metaphor which science today calls M theory for Membrane Theory. A male injected a specific amount of energy (This specific amount is really a huge amount) into an empty universe and allowed that energy to make its way into our world and our life form. This process went through 5 lesser worlds after the endless world. Yet please know that there is no disappearance in spirituality so the endless world and each of these 5 lesser worlds and all of their sum components exist simultaneously. The endless world is still in existence with all of the serenity and total fulfillment even more than you mental image of heaven exists. You exist in that endless world and each of the 5 worlds and all of the sum dimensions and sub component dimensions that have or will ever exist.

There is another understanding of how the world was created. That is called the Big Bang Theory by science. The Kabbalists call it Tzimsum. This idea is that all 10 potential dimensions of Sefirot and anything else have the Light as part of it. In order for the physical world to come into existence which is like a sand box for children to play and make mistakes and learn to correct their mistakes and try it over and over again the Light which is everywhere and every when and every other kind of every had to withdraw within itself. This is called Tzimzum and it is a paradox. The Light is everywhere relative to us so how can it withdraw into itself. There is no “space” to fit the additional light that moves out of the empty space. This is the paradox. This Tzimsum will become an important aspect of creation since the concept of going against your true desire is a form of Tzimsum. Also the electric light bulb and all of the electromagnetic laws of physics work with the idea of desire that is pushed back. Sun light can only be seen when it is reflected either off of something and then enters the eye and other examples too numerous to mention. We will discuss this in greater detail in a few weeks.

Actually these two metaphors of creation are not mutually exclusive. This is because the fulfillment or the Light of the Endless World is not the Creator but an extension of the Creator. Remember this is a lifetime learning and this reconciliation takes much study as well as science has not yet caught up to this level yet.

The agreement that was made between the Light and the Vessel sounds a little like this. The light will fulfill me yet only after I earn the fulfillment. If I take a short cut and get the fulfillment without earning it the vessel will lose the fulfillment. If I earn the fulfillment it will be given to me in the endless world and other spiritual worlds not in the physical world. In other words, I earn the light in this world through good deeds and sharing, and going against my nature. I receive the fulfillment in the Endless World throughout eternity.

There is only one problem with this. In the physical world if you see the path to your fulfillment you do not earn the light. You do not remove bread of shame. You do not get to keep Light in any of the worlds. This physical world does not let us see the eternal fulfillment and thus this world appears to have endless pain instead of endless fulfillment.

This agreement was made for 50,000 years. In the 20th century we have learned that time is relative so these 50,000 years are actually 13.5 billion years. These 50,000 years are broken into 7 – 7000 year periods of which we are in the second of the 7. Now there are some Kabbalists who believe that our suffering means that the last 5 do not have to happen. They are in the minority yet they might be true. This is too much to go into tonight.

Lets discuss our 7,000 year period. It started on the 25th of Elul in the year 1. This meant that Adam was created on Rosh Ha Shana or the First of Tishrai in the year 1. We have 6000 years from then to fulfill our destiny which is to remove bread of shame for the whole vessel or actually our part of it. We do this by going against our nature. We do this by stretching our limits and doing things that make us uncomfortable. We do this by our own choice or by the process of doing actions that are negative and we do not see them as negative and then having the Boomerang Law manifest in our life with chaos. Like financial pressures, marriages that fail, diseases, heartaches, pain suffering and eventually death. Thus we have two choices to remove Bread of Shame. We can choose to do it ourselves or we can allow the universe to do it for us with pain and suffering. Doing it yourself is faster and less painful. Letting the universe do it is called harsh judgment. Doing it ourselves with our own free choice is called soft judgment, or sweetening the judgment.

When the universe removes bread of shame it feels like pulling the skin off of your body piece by piece. When you choose to remove bread of shame on a conscious level it feels like heaven on earth. Remember never believe a word I say. I will ask you to prove this to yourself by doing what I suggest over the next number of weeks. The choice is yours. Why not try it since the way of chaos has been your lot through out life up till now.

It does not matter how old you are, the system that I will show you over the next number of weeks will work for you. Sometimes even overnight. Yet one must be open to “see” the true cause of things will always be from a spiritual perspective. People do not earn big money because they work hard they earn big money because they go against their nature and each person's nature is unique and can not be compared to another person.

Our world started with Adam and Chava who brought this world into an even lower state of consciousness due to their “sin” which was just a mistake. They wanted to return to the endless due to "buyers remorse". They did not follow the Mitzvah “Do not eat from the Tree of knowledge.” This took the concept of evil from being outside of us and injected it into our bodies. This made the achievement of our goal to remove Bread of Shame that much harder. After the sin instead of being created as a desire to receive each child is born as a desire to receive for oneself alone. Removing bread of shame is achieved by transforming our desire to receive for oneself alone into a desire to receive in order to share. Simple just not easy.

We are not altruistic by nature nor are we expected to be. We just learn like every Kabbalist has learned that the way to eternal fulfillment is through receiving for the purpose of sharing. What does that mean? In any society a member of that society desires that other succeed by my efforts. I work and they enjoy the fruits. I work in order to provide and share with others. This is the paradox. If I am thinking about others than there are others taking care of my needs and I do not have to provide for myself. We have not reached completion of this idea yet that is the idea expressed by modern societies. I make sure there is health care for everyone else and then I can go to the doctor also.

Now if we look back on the History of the World in this cycle of 7000 years. (By the way we only have 6000 years since the 7th day or last 1000th years is a day of rest just like Shabbat. Therefore Mashiach must come by the year 6000. ) Remember as above so below. This means what happened before will happen again. What happened in your lifetime at the beginning will happen in your life time again. With only 6000 years left it means that we only have 226 years to achieve our Tikune and help to bring Mashiach with peace instead of the Armageddon War. We will discuss this more below.

In the first 10 generations from Adam to Noach each person in the generation could have achieved the removal of bread of shame for the entire world. We did not do this. Thus the next 10 generations of the world had a more difficult Tikune. They needed to bring the Mashiach with the assistance of their family members. Please note it is always more difficult to fix something through cooperation than through your own efforts. Again we did not fix the world Tikune or correction. In each generation there were some individual tikunim achieved but the world as a whole the answer was NO. By the way, Noah's generation was the generation of the flood and then when Abraham was born in the 20th generation the Tower of Babel incident occurred.

Now HaShem activated his mercy and gave the world a third opportunity only this time it would take the cooperation of a nation that was built after three generations of one family, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel and out of 12 different aspects which became the 12 Tribes of the Children of Israel. That is the Tikune of the Children of Israel to correct the world and each of the other 70 Nations have their own individual national Tikune. This is why the Torah was given along with the tools of the Kabbalah.

Here is an essay that will help you understand why the world is/was/will be created. It is from the Sefer Love of Chesed written by a 20th century sage the Chofetz Chaim.

A Jew never has to wonder why the world was created, because this mystery that troubles mankind was revealed to the Jewish people in one flashing moment at Mount Sinai. What was learned there is expressed in the final blessing of Shemoneh Esrei, which acts as a summary of all the blessings that are included in this definitive prayer. The final blessing says, in part, “through the light that emanates from You, You have given us, HaShem, the Living Torah and a love of chesed.” The “light” of which this blessing speaks is interpreted by the Chofetz Chaim as the light that shone upon the Jews when they stood at Mount Sinai. It was a light of revelation — a peek behind the curtains of the Heavens — that had never shone before and will never shine again until the time of the Final Redemption.

HaShem had a purpose in affording the people of Israel this glimpse of the hidden; they were to glean from it a fundamental understanding of HaShem, His Creation and mankind’s place within it. What was the lasting impact of this light? What did the Jews see at Mount Sinai that prepared them for their mission of carrying Torah into the world? The blessing from the Shemoneh Esrei explains: Within the light of HaShem, they saw the Living Torah and the love of chesed. They saw that the Torah is the blueprint for the world — the purpose of Creation. They understood that without the Torah, Creation would return to the void and emptiness that preceded it. This principle is stated in the Talmud (Shabbos 88a), where HaShem tells all of Creation, “If the people of Israel accept My Torah, all is well. If not, I will make you revert to void and nothingness.”

The light did not, however, illuminate only one foundation of the Creation. Joined to the “Living Torah” is the “love of chesed.” On equal footing with the Torah is the ardent pursuit of kindness toward others. The Torah provides the blueprint, but ahavas chesed provides the script for what is to transpire within the realm of the Creation. HaShem’s people learned that they must not only perform acts of kindness, but develop a love for this trait that will assure that it never fades, for without loving kindness, Creation cannot stand.

Let us recap. The one vessel of the endless world agreed to a Creation that would allow them to remove bread of shame by sharing within an illusion called our physical world. This illusion allows us to see each other as being separate from each other when in reality we are all one vessel. In this illusion we have gone through many lifetimes where we have had the opportunity to bring our own individual Tikune and also a global tikune. Those parts of the vessel who have achieved their individual tikune no longer reincarnate and instead wait for the rest of us to achieve our tikunim. The global tikune has yet to be achieved and will be achieved through one of two paths.

One path is the path of pain and suffering. This path will culminate in the Armageddon War at the end of 6000 years. That path does not have to manifest. The other path will culminate in the era of world peace and cooperation where we will achieve our Tikune. This is the prophecy of Isaiah where the Lion will lie down with the lamb and we will beat our materials of war into plowshares and other clearly merciful Prophecies. That is called the Path of Torah. That is what I teach the path of the Kabbalah.

There are various metaphors taught to help explain this process of Tikune. One is the breaking of the vessels which is the 10 Sefirot in a straight line and the other is the Tree of Life. The ARI teaches that the Tree was caused by the breaking of the vessels since the Sefirot did not communicate with each other while in a straight line. When the vessels broke sparks of Light fell into the Klipot – the negativity. The purpose of the exile has been to elevate these sparks from the Klipot and that is the world Tikune. The other metaphor is that we will achieve our tikune through doing Mitzvoth of the Torah and raise our consciousness to arrive at a level of psychic abilities and Mind Over Matter or Love your Neighbor as Yourself. All of these terms represents different aspects of the Sefirot and States of Consciousness. The ultimate state of consciousness is to return to the Endless World without Bread of Shame.

Individual Tikune are aspects of the Global Tikune, as well as the Global Tikune is a second aspect of the individual Tikune. What this means is each soul has two Tikunim to do. One no one else in all of the History of the World is able to do. Therefore they are better than I. The other is something that any soul that comes from the same part of the body of Adam can achieve if I choose not to do that tikune. In that case I am equal to them. These are ways to keep our ego in balance and control. If I am better than others my ego has gotten too strong and I need to remember that I come from a putrid drop of sperm. If I am less than others than my ego has been broken too far and I do not have a good self-image and I need to remember that I am a child of a perfect King known as HaShem and raise myself to that occasion.

The individual Tikune is always simple actions that anybody can do. Things like telling someone the time when they ask or going out of my way to get someone a glass of water. Of course when that person asks for the time I will be rushing to get to an important business meeting where my billion dollar deal will be signed and how can I stop and give someone the time? Or the glass of water has no cup and I have to build a container to carry the water to a dying person in a state of war with bullets flying.

Each individual global tikune is also simple and maybe similar to the individual tikunes mentioned above. The difference is when you give the man the time he will change his life direction due to you being the cause. Remember the question I asked last week about my asking you to turn on the light and you doing so. Who caused the light to turn on you or me?

Another metaphor is we each came into this world to be a cause and not an effect. In that regard we do not do anything because someone commanded us even God can not command us since there is no coercion in spirituality. We must choose to do actions of being a cause by ourselves. This is the idea of a Tikune. It is simple yet difficult for us to do. It would be easy for me to do that tikune but I can not do it for you. Each of us must do it ourselves.

Since it is difficult to do and we must do it ourselves, we each need to have a personal experience of the Creator which will motivate us to do these things to go out of our way to share with others. This is what Kabbalah will teach you. This is what the path of Torah is all about. These personal experiences of the Creator can take the form of whatever level you want. It can be perceiving the word of God. To that effect our Name as we study it will teach us what HaShem wants us to do in this lifetime in this physical world.

An example of this is my name Chanoch which is spelled with 4 Hebrew letters. The Shoresh for my name means dedication as in dedicating a building as well as teaching. On a deeper level the first two letters of my name Chet and Nun spell the word “comfort” and also are a phrase that translates as Chochmat Nestar – Hidden Wisdom. The last two Letters have a gematria of 26 which is the gematria of the Name of HaShem called the Tetragrammaton. Therefore my job in this world so far is to teach the “Hidden Wisdom of HaShem”. I learned this through the study of Torah – the study of Kabbalah.

There are also verses in the Torah that have the same essence as my name. These verses are God speaking to you and telling you what he wants you to do in the various stages of your life. You can find these verses on the Yeshshem web site which is at www.yeshshem.com. You will need help in understanding these verses and that is where the study of kabbalah will help you to know your Tikunim.

There are also two other areas of the Kabbalah that will help you understand your life and to remove the chaos that you have created. Remember you as part of the vessel made this agreement to remove bread of shame. These two other areas are Hebrew Astrology because part of the Tikune is to exchange energy on an unconscious level. This is why sometimes you think you are driving home from work and you pass a car in the freeway lane next to you. The reason you pass this car is that you need to receive energy from them or to share energy to them as part of the world tikune. This takes place on an unconscious level but is more efficient on a conscious level. It is up to you if you want to raise your consciousness to know that you are exchanging this energy and assists in the mechanism. The purpose of Astrology is to move your body to the locations where these energy exchanges can take place.

Another part of the Kabbalah is meditation which will eventually teach you to cleave to the Creator and experience Astral Travel and other psychic abilities. These meditative techniques will allow you to visit the other worlds and the other dimensions that are part of the Creation. All of this is your choice and the extent you want the personal experience of the Creator is the extent you will cleave to the Creator.

These 19 weekly classes will teach you all that you need to know about the Kabbalah. At the end of the 20 weeks you will have learned the tools of Kabbalah to remove the chaos from your life . Of course you will then have to implement these tools in your life to implement them. These are not intellectual tools they are experiential tools.

Remember you have the choice and free will to experience all that you wish to experience and also the choice to wait for the next process. There will be people who choose the path of Torah and the people who choose the path of the Armageddon War. I have chosen the path of Torah. It is up to you to choose your own path. Eventually we all will complete our tikune. We will all return to the endless together. The only question will it be a longer or shorter path.

Here is a short essay that comes from one of the Kabbalistic Sages of the 20th Century. His name is the Chofetz Chaim. This is a name of a book he wrote. In this essay he uses the terms reward and punishment. This is a corrupted translation. In Kabbalah we prefer to understand these aspects as cause and effect. i present this essay as a good essay that hints toward why the world was created and helps to explain why the world was created as an illusion.

Do right, and one is rewarded. Do wrong, and one is punished. The world of perfect justice is a simple world with no surprises; neither is there any room for human error. On first glance, it would seem that such a world would function quite well — a model of consistency that would guarantee mankind’s best behavior.

There are two factors, however, that throw this model off kilter. First of all, human beings are subject to too many temptations and misjudgments to always “do right,” even when they have the best intentions. Thus, in a world of strict judgment, nobody could stand before HaShem free of guilt. This leads to the second problem: HaShem’s desire is to reward and sustain man, even when strict judgment would dictate that he deserves no such reward. Therefore, HaShem infuses this world with chesed. Only through the attribute of chesed can HaShem fulfill His desire to bestow a livelihood, food, clothing, sunlight, water and all manner of good upon fallible, flawed human beings. Without chesed to temper HaShem’s judgment, no one can survive; the world cannot survive.

The Chofetz Chaim, citing the Midrash Socher Tov on Tehillim, describes a world without chesed as a four-legged chair that wobbles and threatens to overturn. To make the chair usable, a person places some small object — a pebble or piece of wood — under the shaky leg. The chair is thereby firmly set in its place, able to support a man’s weight. This is the mechanism referred to in the verse: “The Throne will then be established with kindness” (Yeshayah 16:5). The Midrash on this verse says that HaShem’s Throne of Glory can be compared to this shaky chair: “It was shaking. It wasn’t complete, until HaShem supported it from underneath. With what did HaShem support it? He supported it with chesed.”

This is the structure of the earthly sphere in which man lives. Through this trait of chesed, HaShem expresses His infinite patience with humanity’s flaws, bestowing upon man far more than he deserves. By displaying this attribute, HaShem also teaches His people what they are expected to emulate. The more one strives to emulate HaShem’s chesed, the more one becomes worthy of receiving it himself. In pursuing chesed, one is in reality lavishing love and care upon the mechanism that allows his own life, and the world, to keep ticking.

Now I must mention something about a spiritual law. This law states that energy must be exchanged for energy or it will cause bread of shame. To this effect. You are receiving energy as knowledge and information and wisdom through these classes. They are free of charge although we do ask for donations in order to provide you the opportunity to avoid bread of shame. No one is turned away from these classes due to the inability or unwillingness to make a donation. Donations can be made to other people or organizations it does not have to be made to me or to Yeshshem. Of course I do prefer if you make it to yeshshem, since my ability to continue these classes depend on my ability to raise funds for gas and food as I travel and to pay my creditors.

Donations can be made by Credit / Debit card through Paypal. There is a donations link on our website. Donations can also be sent using other means including Paypal, Money Order, check or cash. They can be made here into an envelope or to my hand or at a later time. The choice is yours. Paypal donations are to be sent to chanochcc@gmail.com. I will also provide you my checking account number for you to mail the checks and deposits directly to my bank. I do not even need to be told you have done so except the first time to verify that the information and system is working. My current address is chanoch ben yaacov, 3156 Howell Rd #207 Atlanta, GA 30327. I will continue to teach through video or telephone conferences at this time. I hope you choose to coordinate and build a community that will continue to study together with me or with another teacher. My phone number is 818-613-3457.

Are there any questions.