The Power of Women

Women should realize that in their hands lies great power. They are the ones who can change the world. How? By understanding and fulfilling their spiritual role in the world, just as they understand their role in the family.

Women naturally know how to organize the family, how to make it all work, how to care for children, husband, and kitchen. They should understand equally well that they have an inner ability to know how the world has to be organized according to its spiritual root. They should also know that they have the power to make the men execute their will.

We see that humanity is becoming a small house, a small village. Men have tried numerous times to lead it, but it hasn't brought us much good. So the problems that are surfacing today make the women feel that they must come forward. Let us hope that men will listen, yet it is essential that women will know what to say.

A Woman's Happiness - Today It's More Than Family and Career

Women demand the spiritual status equal to that of men.

We are living in a very special time. Children leave home at a young age; relationships between couples are not as close as they used to be. Today, women are in the same social circles and have the same power as men and in many cases even more. As a result, the feeling of emptiness and attempts to find fulfillment and happiness are no longer related to family or even a woman's professional life.

Although it is still important to a woman to be content with her husband, children or grandchildren, as well as with her professional life, this is not enough for her. Her ego is so developed that it breaks through the fences of the family, the work place and even the nation. It wants spirituality.

This yearning for spiritual fulfillment has increased during the last 15 - 20 years. Before the current generation, there were a few cases here and there, but it did not occur by the thousands as it is today.

These days remind us of the times of Abraham, who formed the first Kabbalistic group in ancient Babylon. In those ancient times the women who attained spirituality were by the men's side. They were on a spiritual level equal to that of the men. The great prophetesses, such as Dvorah, Hulda and others reached spiritual levels even greater than the men's. People lived in realization of Godliness, and children were taught these truths from an early age.

But after humanity's decline from spirituality, we rarely saw women Kabbalists. There were a few who reached spirituality, from the times of the destruction of the Second Temple until our generation, but they were a limited number.

Today, however, whether we like it or not, we are going back to that same early state in which humanity was united as one man in one heart. Because of this women have to be on the same spiritual level as men. In other words, the spiritual downfall of humanity that led to the devaluation of the woman's spiritual status has to be remedied in our days.

Hence, today, we have to answer the demand that comes from so many women. It isn't just a demand but a true need.

Kabbalistic Texts Contain a Unique Quality that Ensures a Successful Partnership

Want to strengthen your relationship? Read Kabbalistic texts together!

There are special Kabbalistic texts that discuss partnership and togetherness. When a couple reads them together, this greatly reinforces their spiritual connection, bringing peace and harmony into their home.

When husband and wife spend 15 minutes a day reading Kabbalistic texts together, this brings a unique quality into their relationship that has the power to resolve all of the problems they have between them. It's because these texts contain great power.

Moreover, the only person to whom you can reveal all of your feelings - is your spouse. It is forbidden (impossible) to speak to anyone about your deepest feelings and your inner experiences on the spiritual path - with the exception of your spouse. In sharing their feelings, the husband and wife complement one another, and together they advance into spirituality.

Fairytale Love is Just That – a Fairytale

True love exist only in the spiritual world.

If you think that finding the love of fairytales will make you happy, think again. The love of fairytales isn't really love, but the use of others for self satisfaction.

What we normally call love is the egoistic satisfaction of one person by another, whether it's sexual satisfaction or any other kind of fulfillment we receive from another person. And clearly, this isn't love.

Then what is love? Love is when you don't pay any attention to yourself, but you take the desires of another person and try to fulfill them in exactly the way they would like. In other words, you turn yourself into a vessel of fulfillment for the other person. This is real love, and it exists only in the spiritual world. And there is no difference if it is a man or a woman - what's important are the desires, the soul.

In contrast, when we talk about love in this world, we are really talking about attraction and pleasure that are brought about by hormones. If we were to disconnect a person from his hormonal system, he wouldn't be able to feel "love." This again shows that what we usually think of as love is just an egoistic desire to enjoy. Sometimes this desire can even be cruel, desiring to receive fulfillment at the expense of another person.

Hence, the love we read about in fairytales is really an illusion, and does not exist in reality. It's because all of our desires are based only on the desire to fulfill ourselves. Even when we give something to others, we do so only because it gives us pleasure. Our action of giving is meaningless because what really matters to us while performing that action is what we feel.

The Truth about Virtual Relationships

Virtual relationships are the product of our own imagination.

Many people today create "virtual romantic connections" on social sites such as Facebook. They meet other people, share pictures, and even fall in love with their virtual partners!

The reason we are so drawn to our virtual partners is because the connection we make with them is non-material, detached from physical contact, and even "spiritual" in a way. Since we're not tied down by any physical limitations, we're let free to fantasize as much as we want to, to attribute all the best qualities to our virtual significant other, and to raise our connection with them "into the clouds," so to speak. We convince ourselves of how special this connection is, and that it's an opportunity to reach beautiful, perfect love.

But unfortunately, it's all an illusion. Over the Internet, a person's physical features are hidden and his inner aspects emphasized. One can express himself in any way he wants to, but the problem is that we lose sight of reality as we become unknowingly immersed in this game. We forget that we aren't dealing with a real person, but with our own imagination.

When we see someone in real life, in person, then we can tell whether they really have certain traits or not, and we can see whether those traits are real. On the Internet, however, we only see a (carefully selected) picture and read a few lines that are more likely than not to be lies - and we go off imagining things that are completely unrealistic. However, the moment we meet our virtual partners in person, this sweet fantasy bubble bursts.

It’s Impossible to Run Away from the Global Egoism

Our egoistic development has brought us to a state where we can no longer be satisfied by the little things. But even as our own nature causes us to suffer, we cannot do anything about it. So why do we have to go through failure, suffering, and a life of constant stress? It is in order to reveal that our egoism is evil, and to realize that we have to get rid of our egoism, despite the fact that this seems impossible.

We have no choice: since we cannot reduce the egoism, we must correct it. The phenomenon that is taking place now is completely unprecedented. Today, the will to receive pleasure is growing more than ever and showing us how powerful it is. In fact, it is becoming global, and it cannot be reduced, brought back to the old limits.

People cannot restrict themselves and go back to a simple life, because their egoism is becoming global. One cannot disconnect from the whole world. One can’t say that he doesn’t care about anything and hide away on a piece of land, where he will grow his food and live his life in privacy, leaving others on the other side of the fence to make sense of their world on their own.

The force of globalization and integration has come into effect, and we are all under its influence. The more the general egoistic desire to receive pleasure will be revealed in the world, the more we will see how integral it is, how much it connecting all of us to each other. And we will then be forced to rise above it!

Today, It's Spiritual Relationship or No Relationship

Relationships without a spiritual connection cannot survive.

Today it is practically impossible for a man and a woman to maintain a good relationship over time, unless there is a spiritual connection between them. It's because their egos clash one against the other and destroy their connection. Today there are countless divorces, and most relationships fall apart, because our egos are "on fire," and they only grow bigger with time. The beautiful verse, "Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them" - simply does not exist in such couples.

So what does it take to create that spiritual connection between them, the only thing that can remedy their relationship? Having a spiritual connection means that both partners know the reason for their existence - to embark on the spiritual journey and attain the spiritual goal of life. Then they will have something that truly connects them, they will be in a mutual "cell" together, and the verse "Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them" will really come true. In other words, they will feel the revelation of the Divine Presence - the Creator.

The Spiritual Root of Cheating

Intermixing of male and female qualities at the spiritual level leads to cheating, betrayal and sexual deviations in our world.

Certainly, no one likes being cheated on. But as much as we'd like to write this unfortunate phenomenon off as "purely animalistic behavior," in fact there is a spiritual root behind it because every phenomenon in our world must also exist in the spiritual world. So what is this spiritual root or reason for our cheating? In Kabbalah, it's called "the breaking of the vessels."

This means that once, we were all united in one common soul, but then this common soul broke into many parts. This "breaking of the vessels" caused all the parts to become integrated in one other, and as a result, each broken part now contains a female part and a male part. Hence, the male parts contain female parts and vice versa. We even have each other's hormones!

This intermixing of our qualities is not only the cause of cheating and betrayal, but also of all the sexual deviations in our world, such as homosexuality and deviant sexual identity. And these phenomena are evident in our times more than ever before because we've arrived at the "lowest level" of discerning the breaking of the vessels.

The male and female parts do not see exactly how they should interact with one another. In the ideal, spiritual state, the male and female parts are positioned one against the other - the man opposite the woman. However, in our state - after the souls broke, descended and became intermixed with one another - each one took on qualities that belong to others. This is why we desire different kinds of pleasure from different sources.

However, if we rise above our search for these different pleasures and aspire for spiritual pleasure, then we will see who is our true partner on the spiritual path. This brings us to the famous verse, "Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them." If one's greatest value in life is spirituality, then he (or she) will find the right partner in life, his "other half" who will be together with him on the spiritual path. And together, they will attain adhesion with the Creator.

In the meantime this may sound utopian because in our current reality it is difficult for us to see and understand how it can really happen. But as we continue advancing toward correction and spirituality, we will understand this more and build a good future filled with trust and loyalty.

Spiritual Sex

Sexual union in our world comes from the spiritual union between the Upper Light and the soul, called “Zivug de Hakaa” by means of a screen. In this spiritual union between the soul and the Creator (the Kli and the Light), the Creator or the Light is the male part which bestows, and the soul or Kli is the female part which receives. In the process of correction the soul (Kli) acquires the property of bestowal, and then it is ready to accept the Light in order to satisfy the Creator’s (the Light’s) desire “to bestow.”

The process of union (merging, Zivug – spiritual coupling) happens in the common desires of both “to fulfill the other with pleasure,” to feel pleasure only to the extent that will give pleasure to the other partner. Hence, what happens is a constant comparison of common desires and intentions (in the Rosh of the Partzuf, before reception inside its Toch), which becomes expressed in our physiology as the movements of sexual intercourse, preceding the outpouring of the Light of Hochma (Ohr Pnimi, semen) into the soul (into the Kli, from the Rosh into the Toch of the Partzuf).

These alternating and progressive mutual movements are meant to create a complete desire in each spiritual partner, by way of interrupting and resuming contact. This creates the possibility of wholesome pleasure: when this level is attained, the Light passes from Peh to Toch - the pleasure enters the desire, as written in the Torah: “As an arrow hits the desired target at the desired time, in the desired woman, and in the desired place.”

Thus, when one’s soul attains full correction, one views sex as the physiological expression of the spiritual connection. And if there is no spiritual connection, then there is no incentive or reason for a bodily connection.

All of Humanity Is the Body of Your Soul

Imagine that this person has been in an accident and is on the verge between life and death. His entire body is broken and he lies lifeless on a stretcher. (This is not so far from the truth, since the shattering of the souls is like an accident.)

If he could feel that the only way for him to come back to life is with the help of his friends, he would no longer hate the idea of a mutual guarantee. He would understand that he doesn’t have a body of his own, but only a point. And his entire body - the arms, legs, brain and everything else – is something he can only get from others. He will only get these body parts if the others will sacrifice theirs for him.

This is a mutual guarantee. It is when in addition to the single point you start out with, everything else that you receive comes exclusively from your connection with others. This is because the desire to receive does not exist in the spiritual world; only the desire to bestow exists there. Therefore, one does not live at the expense of oneself, but at the expense of the sacrifices made by all humanity. They constitute your body.

You are only a point, whereas humanity is the body of your soul. All these people must provide you with the organs you need. If you will love them, and if they will be connected with one another, then the force of the mutual guarantee will bestow all that is necessary to every one of us.

It’s good that people today are already beginning to understand that they do not want to be in a mutual guarantee with others. However, once they will learn that they cannot survive on their own, people will desire the mutual guarantee. And then they will realize that they do not have the strength to attain it by themselves. They will passionately desire for the law of Mutual Guarantee to govern them, but will only discover that they are unable to attain it or practice it.

That is when they will cry out so loudly that they will receive this quality from above. And from that moment on, they will become the Creator’s slaves rather than the Pharaoh’s slaves. This will happen by virtue of their desire to have another power, a different authority, rule over them. This authority is the force of bestowal, instead of their innate egoism.

Why Are We So Preoccupied with Sex?

The spiritual root of sex is the soul's unity with the Creator.

In the spiritual world, the soul is united with the Light, and this union is called Zivug - coupling. It constitutes the unification of two parts of creation - male and female, and is the greatest pleasure that can ever be - the soul being filled by the Light of the Creator.

This spiritual coupling also has a branch or copy in the physical world, the world of matter. This is why we are so preoccupied with sex - it is the ultimate pleasure in this world, and the root of all of our desires in this world.

Sex is the basis of all our thoughts, because its root is the soul's union with the Creator. This union is the final goal of Nature, and everything that happens in the world is determined by the final goal. This is why we just can't avoid thinking about sex. Our attraction to the opposite sex and to pleasure also come from this final state - the adhesion with the Creator, called "Zivug" (never-ending sexual union).

The pleasure we feel from sex is a perfect example of the difference between physical and spiritual pleasure. We spend so much time and effort thinking about sex, and we imagine that it will give us enormous pleasure, but in fact our pleasure vanishes into thin air the minute we reach the peak of sexual satisfaction. Before we really had time to enjoy this feeling, it is over and we find ourselves once again striving for another moment of pleasure.

This is what happens in our world, because the pleasure that fills the desire immediately neutralizes it. No longer having the desire, we stop feeling pleasure. It leaves us feeling empty, and as life goes on, this emptiness only grows bigger. This is why it is written, "One leaves the world with half his cravings unfulfilled."

Spiritual pleasure works very differently because being in spirituality means having the ability to receive the Light with the intention of giving pleasure to the Creator, to the One who gives you the Light. Hence, in spirituality, coupling or sex is continuous and eternal, and it only grows stronger all the time. As a result, one feels eternal life and perfect fulfillment that constantly gets bigger. Obviously, this is very different from the pleasure we feel in our world, where we can only feel momentary pleasure followed by emptiness.

This is why it is written that ever since people fell from the spiritual world into our world, only those who attain the spiritual world still feel the real taste of copulation. The true, spiritual pleasure is attained when two opposite parts of creation - male and female - merge together and are filled by the common Light.

Subconsciously, in our souls, we all desire this coupling because we were created for it. On some level, we all aspire to feel the spiritual world because it is the only place where we will find true, lasting pleasure

What does the Story of Adam and Eve Mean in Our Times?

Our ego is the snake that prevents us from being able to love someone else.

The meaning behind the story of Adam, Eve and the snake is actually very simple. The snake represents the ego that became revealed between Adam and Eve, the man and the woman. And that's really all there is to the story.

For example, suppose that a happy, young couple falls in love. They hug, kiss and laugh together, go to the movies and the beach. Then they get married and begin living together, and everything is wonderful. They're in the Garden of Eden.

And suddenly - the snake (the ego) arrives. They suddenly begin arguing. Then they begin taking advantage of each other and making private calculations, such as "How can I get him/her to be the way I want them to be?" This happens to us because the snake (the ego that's inside us) prevents us from being able to love someone else, and makes sure that our love is egoistic from the start.

Under these circumstances, the closest we can come to love is to surrender our egos in day to day life as much as we can. However, this still doesn't solve the problem at the root, and does not enable us to experience real, unconditional love. This is where Kabbalah offers another solution: to correct our soul at the root, or to correct the snake that separates us from our partners.

To do this, both partners must realize that there is a goal to their lives that's above this world. Then they will also realize that they can only attain it by having a partner in life, someone who will go through the spiritual path together with them. This is the meaning of the verse, "Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them." It means that in order for us to attain the Divine presence, spirituality, we must connect with each other correctly.

Then, instead of taking advantage of each other, Adam and Eve will complete each other. And the snake, instead of driving them apart, will become the driving force that pushes them to reveal the Upper Force - the Divine Presence, or the Creator.

Equality Between Men and Women: Good or Bad?

A woman fulfills her role by being opposite (and not equal!) to a man.

Men's and women's roles have become so blurred that people are confused about what the ideal roles of men and women are supposed to be. This has affected the relationships between men and women, and has even caused people to become confused about their own identities.

As much as we desire to create simple, plain equality - according to our understanding of it, in the end it does not benefit men or women. It does not make our lives more balanced, harmonious, fair or happy - and that's because the way we seek to create "equality" goes against the laws of nature.

Instead of learning how to arrange our lives from nature, we have been thinking that we are above nature and inventing our own rules. Yet our lives prove that we are, in fact, part of nature. Hence, we have to let nature teach us how to create perfect relationships between us and live in harmony with one another.

This is exactly what the wisdom of Kabbalah enables us to do - it reveals nature's laws, enabling one to see the best way to act toward others, whether toward men, women, children, or the whole world. Without this knowledge, it is impossible for us to arrange our lives in a sensible way. Rather, with every passing day, we will only experience more problems and suffering.

But how did the confusion around our sex roles begin in the first place? After all, the relationship between men and women is only unbalanced among humans. In the animal world, for instance, the male always supplies the female with everything she needs. The problem with humans is that everything operates according to the ego, and not according to the duties one sex has toward the other. Precisely the ego has made our relationships and gender roles unbalanced.

So what is the balanced way for us to build our lives? It is written that a woman was created to be help against a man. That is to say, a woman fulfills her role and provides the help needed of her precisely by being opposite (not equal!) to a man. To be opposite to him means to help him attain the spiritual goal, and this is how they both attain it.