The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy

What Is Spirituality?

Philosophy has gone through a great deal of trouble to prove that corporeality is the offspring of spirituality and that the soul begets the body. Still, their words are unacceptable to the heart in any manner. Their primary mistake is their erroneous perception of spirituality: they determined that spirituality fathered corporeality, which is certainly a fib.

Any parent must somehow resemble its progeny. This relation is the path and the route by which its sequel extends. In addition, every operator must have some regard to its operation by which to contact it. Since you say that spirituality is denied of any corporeal incidents, then such a path does not exist, or a relation by which the spiritual can contact and set it into any kind of motion.

However, understanding the meaning of the word, “spirituality,” has nothing to do with philosophy. This is because how can they discuss something that they have never seen or felt? What do their rudiments stand on?

If there is any definition that can tell spiritual from corporeal, it belongs only to those who have attained a spiritual thing and felt it. These are the genuine Kabbalists; thus, it is the wisdom of Kabbalah that we need.

Philosophy with Regard to His Essence

Philosophy loves to concern itself with His Essence and prove which rules do not apply to Him. However, Kabbalah has no dealings whatsoever with it, for how can the unattainable and imperceptible be defined? Indeed, a negative definition is just as valid as a positive definition. For if you see an object from a distance and recognize its negatives, meaning all that it is not, that, too, is considered seeing and some extent of recognition. If an object is truly out of sight, even its negative characteristics are not apparent.

If, for example, we see a black image from a distance, but can still determine that it is neither human nor bird, it is considered vision. If it had been even farther still, we would have been unable to determine that it is not a person.

This is the origin of their confusion and invalidity. Philosophy loves to pride itself on understanding all the negatives about His essence. However, the sages of Kabbalah put their hand to their mouth at this point, and do not give Him even a simple name, forwe do not define by name or word that which we do not attain. That is because a word designates some degree of attainment. However, Kabbalists do speak a great deal about His illumination in reality, meaning all those illuminations they have actually attained, as validly as tangible attainment.

The Spiritual Is a Force without a Body

That is what Kabbalists define as “spirituality” and that is what they talk about. It has no image or space or time or any corporeal value (In my opinion, philosophy has generally worn a mantle that is not its own, for it has pilfered definitions from the wisdom of Kabbalah, and made delicacies with human understanding. Had it not been for that, they would never have thought of fabricating such acumen). However, it is only a potential force, meaning not a force that is clothed in an ordinary, worldly body, but a force without a body.

A Spiritual Vessel Is Called “A Force”

This is the place to point out that the force that spirituality speaks of does not refer to the spiritual Light itself. That spiritual Light extends directly from His essence and is therefore the same as His Essence. This means that we have no perception or attainment in the spiritual Light that we may define by name. Even the name, “Light,” is borrowed and is not real. Thus, we must know that the name, “Force,” without a body refers specifically to the “spiritual vessel.”

Lights and Vessels

Therefore, we must not inquire how the sages of the Kabbalah, which fill the entire wisdom with their insights, differentiate between the various Lights. That is because these observations do not refer to the Lights themselves, but to the impression of the vessel, being the above-mentioned force, which is affected by its encounter with the Light.

Vessels and Lights (the meaning of the words)

Here is where the line between the gift and the love that it creates must be drawn. The Lights, meaning the impression on the vessel, which is attainable, is called “form and matter together.” The impression is the form and the above force is the matter.

However, the love that is created is considered a “form without matter.” This means that if we separate the love from the gift itself, as though it never clothed any gift, but only in the abstract name, “the love of God,” then it is regarded as a form. In that event, the practice of it is regarded as “Formative Kabbalah.” However, it would still be regarded as real, without any similarity to Formative Philosophy,since the spirit of this love remains in the attainment, completely separated from the gift, being the Light itself.

Matter and Form in Kabbalah

The reason is that although this love is merely a consequence of the gift, it is still far more important than the gift itself. It is like a great king who gives an unimportant object to a person. Although the gift itself is worthless, the love and the attention of the king make it priceless and precious. Thus, it is completely separated from the matter, being the Light and the gift, in a way that the work and the distinction remain carved in the attainment with only the love itself, while the gift is seemingly forgotten from the heart. Therefore, this aspect of the wisdom is called the “Formative Wisdom of Kabbalah.” Indeed, this part is the most important part of the wisdom.

ABYA

This love consists of four parts that are much like human love: when we first receive the present, we still do not refer to the giver of the gift as one who loves us, all the more so if the giver of the present is important and the receiver is not equal to him.

However, the repetitive giving and the perseverance will make even the most important person seem like a true, equal lover. This is because the law of love does not apply between great and small, as two real lovers must feel equal.

Thus, you can measure four degrees of love here. The incident is called Assiya, the repetition of the giving of gifts is called Yetzira, and the appearance of the love itself is called Beria.

It is here that the study of the Formative Wisdom of Kabbalah begins, for it is in this degree that love is separated from the presents. This is the meaning of, “and create darkness,” meaning the Light is removed from the Yetzira and the love remains without Light, without its gifts.

Then comes Atzilut. After it has tasted and entirely separated the form from the matter, as in, “and create darkness,” it became worthy of ascending to the degree of Atzilut, where the form clothes the substance once more, meaning Light and love together.

The Origin of the Soul

Everything spiritual is perceived as a separated force from the body because it has no corporeal image. However, because of that, it remains isolated and completely separated from the corporeal. In such a state, how can it set anything corporeal in motion, much less beget anything physical, when it has no relation by which to come in contact with the physical?

The Acidic Element

However, the truth is that the force itself is also considered a genuine matter, just as any corporeal matter in the concrete world, and the fact that it has no image that the human senses can perceive does not reduce the value of the substance, which is the “force.”

Take a molecule of oxygen as an example: It is a constituent of most materials in the world. Yet, if you take a bottle with pure oxygen when it is not mixed with any other substance, you will find that it seems as though the bottle is completely empty. You will not be able to notice anything about it; it will be completely like air, intangible and invisible to the eye.

If we remove the lid and smell it, we will find no scent; if we taste it, we will find no flavor, and if we put it on a scale, it will not weigh more than the empty bottle. The same applies to hydrogen, which is also tasteless, scentless, and weightless.

However, when putting these two elements together, they will immediately become a liquid—drinking water that possesses both taste and weight. If we put the water inside active lime, it will immediately mix with it and become as solid as the lime itself.

Thus, the elements, oxygen and hydrogen, in which there is no tangible perception whatsoever, become a solid body. Therefore, how can we determine about natural forces that they are not a corporeal substance just because they are not arranged in such a way that our senses can perceive them? Moreover, we can evidently see that most of the tangible materials in our world consist preliminarily of the element of oxygen, which human senses cannot perceive and feel!

Moreover, even in the tangible reality, the solid and the liquid that we can vividly perceive in our tangible world might turn to air and fume at a certain temperature. Likewise, the vapors may turn to solids when the temperature drops.

In that event, we should wonder, how does one give that which one does not possess? We clearly see that all the tangible images come from elements that are in and of themselves intangible, and do not exist as materials in and of themselves. Likewise, all the fixed pictures that we know and use to define materials are inconsistent and do not exist in their own right. Rather, they only dress and undress forms under the influence of conditions such as heat or cold.

The primary part of the corporeal substance is the “force” in it, though we are not yet able to tell these forces apart, as with chemical elements. Perhaps in the future they will be discovered in their pure form, as we have only recently discovered the chemical elements.

Equal Force in Spiritual and Physical

In a word: all the names that we ascribe materials are completely fabricated, meaning stem from our concrete perception in our five senses. They do not exist in and of themselves. On the other hand, any definition we ascribe to the force, which separates it from the material, is also fabricated. Even when science reaches its ultimate development, we will still have to regard only the tangible reality. This means that within any material operation we see and feel, we must perceive its operator, who is also a substance, like the operation itself. There is a correlation between them, or they would not have come to it.

We must know that this erring of separating the operator from the operation comes from the Formative Philosophy, which insisted on proving that the spiritual act influences the corporeal operation. That resulted in erroneous assumptions such as the above, which Kabbalah has no need for.

Body and Soul in the Upper Ones

The opinion of Kabbalah in this matter is crystal clear, excluding any mixture of philosophy. This is because in the minds of Kabbalists, even the spiritual, separated, conceptual entities, which philosophy denies having any corporeality and displays them as purely conceptual substance, although they are indeed spiritual, more sublime and abstract, they still consist of a body and soul, just like the physical human.

Therefore, you need not wonder how two can win the prize and say that they are complex. Furthermore, philosophy believes that anything complex will eventually disintegrate and decompose, meaning die. Thus, how can one declare that they are both complex and eternal?

Lights and Vessels

Indeed, their thoughts are not our thoughts, for the way of the sages of the Kabbalah is one of finding actual proof of attainment, making its revocation through intellectual pondering impossible. But let me make these matters so that they are clear for every person’s understanding.

First, we must know that the difference between Lights and vessels is created immediately in the first emanated being from Ein Sof (Infinity). Naturally, the first emanation is also the most complete and purer than everything that follows it. It is certain that it receives this pleasantness and completeness from His Essence, which wishes to grant it every pleasantness and pleasure.

It is known that the measurement of the pleasure is essentially the will to receive it. That is because what we most want to receive feels as the most pleasurable. Because of that, we should discern two observations in this first emanation: the “will to receive” that received Essence, and the received Essence itself.

We should also know that the will to receive is what we perceive as the “body” of the emanated, meaning its primary essence, being the vessel to receive His goodness. The second is the Essence of the good that is received, which is His Light, which is eternally extended to the emanation.

It follows that we necessarily distinguish two discernments that clothe one another even in the most sublime spiritual that the heart can conceive. It is the opposite of the opinion of philosophy, which fabricated that the separated entities are not complex materials. It is necessary that that “will to receive,” which necessarily exists in the emanated (for without it there would be no pleasure but coercion, and no feeling of pleasure) is absent in His Essence. This is the reason for the name “emanated,” since it is no longer His Essence, for from whom would He receive?

However, the bounty that it receives is necessarily a part of His Essence, for here there need not be any innovation. Thus, we see the great difference between the generated body and the received abundance, which is deemed His essence.

How Can a Spiritual Beget a Corporeal?

It is seemingly difficult to understand how the spiritual can beget and extend anything corporeal. This question is an ancient philosophical query that much ink has been spilt attempting to resolve.

The truth is that this question is a difficult one only if one follows their doctrine. That is because they have determined the form of spirituality without any connection to anything corporeal. That produces a difficult question: how can the spiritual lead to or father anything corporeal?

But it is the view of the sages of Kabbalah that this is not difficult at all, for their terms are the complete opposite to those of philosophers. They maintain that any spiritual quality equalizes with the corporeal quality like two drops in a pond. Thus, the relationships are of the utmost affinity and there is no separation between them, except in the substance: the spiritual consists of a spiritual substance and the corporeal consists of a corporeal substance.

However, all the qualities in spiritual materials abide in corporeal materials, too, as explained in the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

The old philosophy presents three opinions as obstacles before my explanation: The first is their decision that the power of the human intellect is the eternal soul, man’s essence. The second is their conjecture that the body is an upshot of the soul. The third is their saying that spiritual entities are simple objects and not complex.

Materialistic Psychology

Not only is it the wrong place to argue with them about their fabricated conjectures, but also the time of supporters of such views has already passed and their authority revoked. We should also thank the experts of materialistic psychology for that, which built its plinth on the ruin of the former, winning the public’s favor. Now everyone admits to the nullity of philosophy, for it is not built on concrete foundations.

This old doctrine became a stumbling rock and a deadly thorn to the sages of Kabbalah because where they should have subdued before the sages of Kabbalah, and assume abstinence and prudence, sanctity, and purity before the sages disclosed before them even the smallest thing in spirituality, they easily received what they had wanted from the formative philosophy. Without payment or price, they watered them from their fountain of wisdom to satiation, and refrained from delving in the wisdom of Kabbalah until the wisdom has almost been forgotten from among Israel. Hence, we are grateful to materialistic psychology for handing it a deadly blow.

I Am Solomon

The above is much like a fable that our sages tell: Asmodeus (the devil) drove King Solomon four hundred parsas (a distant measurement) from Jerusalem and left Him with no money and means of sustenance. Then he sat in King Solomon’s throne while the king was begging at the doors. Every place he went, he said: “I am Ecclesiastes!” but none believed him. And so he went from town to town declaring, “I am Solomon!” But when he came to the Sanhedrin (the sages of the Talmud) they said: “A fool does not utter the same folly all the time, saying, ‘I was once a king.’”

It seems as though the name is not the essence of a person, but rather the owner of the name is. Therefore, how can a wise man such as Solomon not be recognized if he is indeed the owner of the name? Moreover, it is the person that dignifies the name and he should display his wisdom!

Three Preventions

There are three reasons that prevent us from knowing the owner of a name:

1. Because of its truthfulness, the wisdom becomes clear only when all its details appear together. Therefore, before one knows the whole wisdom, it is impossible to see even a fraction of it. Thus, it is the publicity of its truthfulness that we need, so as to have enough prior faith in it to make a great effort.
2. Just as Asmodeus, the demon, wore the clothes of King Solomon and inherited his throne, philosophy sat on the throne of Kabbalah with easier concepts to grasp, for the lie is quickly accepted. Therefore, there is a twofold trouble here: first, the wisdom of truth is profound and laborious, while philosophy is false and easily grasped; and second, it is superfluous, because philosophy is quite satisfying.
3. As the demon claims that King Solomon is mad, philosophy mocks and dismisses Kabbalah.

However, as long as wisdom is sublime, it is elevated above the people and separated from it. Because he was the wisest man, he was also higher than every man. Thus, the finest scholars could not understand him, except those friends, meaning the Sanhedrin, whom he taught his wisdom to every day for days and years. They are the ones who understood him and publicized his name in the entire world.

The reason for it is that minute wisdom is perceived in five minutes, and is thus attainable by anyone and can be easily publicized. However, a weighty concept will not be understood in less than several hours. It may even take days or years, depending on the intelligence. Accordingly, the greatest scholars will be understood only by a selected few in the generation, because profound concepts are founded on much prior knowledge.

It is therefore not surprising that the wisest of all men, who was exiled to a place where he was not known, could not demonstrate his wisdom or even show a hint of his wisdom before they believed that he was the owner of the name.

It is the same with the wisdom of Kabbalah in our time: the troubles and the exile that have come upon us brought us to forget it (and if there are people who do practice it, it is not in its favor, but rather harms it, for they did not receive it from a Kabbalist sage). Hence, in this generation, it is as King Solomon was in exile, declaring, “I am the wisdom, and all the flavors of religion and Torah are in me,” yet none believe it.

But this is perplexing, for if it is a genuine wisdom, can it not display itself like all other wisdoms? It cannot. As King Solomon could not display his wisdom to the scholars at the place of his exile and had to come to Jerusalem, the place of the Sanhedrin, who studied and knew King Solomon, and testified to the depth of his wisdom, so it is with the wisdom of Kabbalah: it requires great sages who examine their hearts to study it for twenty or thirty years. Only then will they be able to testify to it.

And as King Solomon could not prevent Asmodeus from sitting on his throne, pretending to be him until he arrived in Jerusalem, sages of Kabbalah observe philosophic theology and complain that they have stolen the upper shell of their wisdom, which Plato and his Greek predecessors had acquired while studying with the disciples of the prophets in Israel. They have stolen basic elements from the wisdom of Israel and wore a cloak that is not their own. To this day, philosophic theology sits on the throne of Kabbalah, being heir under her mistress.

And who would believe the sages of Kabbalah while others sit on their throne? It is as when they did not believe King Solomon in exile, for they knew him to be sitting on his throne, meaning the demon, Asmodeus. As with King Solomon, it is hopeless that the truth will be exposed, for the wisdom is deep and cannot be revealed by testimony or by experimentation except to those believers that dedicate themselves to it with heart and soul.

Just as the Sanhedrin did not recognize King Solomon as long as the falsehood of Asmodeus did not appear, Kabbalah cannot prove its nature and truthfulness, and no revelations will suffice for the world to know it before the futility and falsehood of theological philosophy that has taken its throne becomes apparent.

Therefore, there was no such salvation for Israel as when the materialistic psychology appeared and struck theological philosophy on its head a lethal blow. Now, every person who seeks the Lord must bring Kabbalah back to its throne, and restore its past glory.

Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam)

Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam)

From no Beginning and no End

In the very depth of the vast Universe, where is no beginning and no end, in the tiny point to us unknown sublime source of everything, lies the program of our beginning and development.

We, small human beings are like a mirror where all details of this unknown to our mind and perception place, reflects to the size much less than an atom. For there is no size or something like this, for there is no place and something that we call before and after.

But there is something that instinctively take care about every point of it’s reflection, like a mother s guided by her instincts take care about her child.

We are those points of reflections of this wondrous, unique and unified depth and it will never left us to stay alone without purpose of our development no matter how much we, as humanity had been troubled by many blows, torments and sufferings. And it will continue until the purpose of creation of this depth heart’s mind will reach it’s final goal.

We can only understand all of this by our feelings for our the mind is unable by it’s limited logic to grasp who created all of this and why?

Our human language is poor to grasp and express in words this instinctively and simultaneously care by this supreme and harmonious government of one singe source that seems, as that comes out from nothing, and created us…

But it let us to be living creatures for thousands generations. Our language is only capable to find one word for this endless caring and purposeful processing, and this word is LOVE.

Ivo Andrić – Quote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Andri%C4%87

Rav Kook on Prayer

The Perpetual Prayer of the Soul

We can only pray the way prayer is supposed to be when we recognize that in fact the soul is always praying.

Without stop, the soul soars and yearns for its Beloved. It is at the time of outward prayer, that the perpetual prayer of the soul reveals itself in the realm of action.

This is prayer’s pleasure and joy, its glory and beauty.

It is like a rose, opening its elegant petals towards the dew, facing the rays of the sun as they shine over it with the sun’s light.

– Olat Re’iyah, vol. I, p. 1

Source: Rav Kook on Tefilah (Prayer)

Baal Shem Tov – Quote

“Nothing is by chance: every single event or experience in a person’s life is predetermined and purposeful. So if a person chances to witness the degradation of his fellow, he must realize that he, too, suffers from the same lack in one form or another. Otherwise, why would Divine Providence have caused him to see his fellow’s failing? Obviously, to open his eyes to something he must correct in himself.

So even if one is your enemy, and justifiably so; even if his moral and spiritual downfall is one of his own making – it could have happened without your having been made aware of it. That you have witnessed it has nothing to do with him: it is a message to you, enjoining you to deal with a similar negative element – be it in subtlest of forms – within yourself.”

Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760)

Shams Tabrizi- Quotes

“You learn by reading but understand by LOVE.”

“Love is a travel. All travelers whether they want or not are changed. No one can travel into love and remain the same.”

“Intellect takes you to the door, but it doesn’t take you into the house.”

“To get closer to Truth and Right, we need a beautiful and soft heart.”

„The real dirt is not outside, but inside, in our hearts. We can wash all stains with water. The only one we can’t remove is the grudge and the bad intentions sticking to our hearts.“

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shams_Tabrizi

Aska and the wolf

“Aska and the Wolf” is the most famous story for children by Ivo Andrić (1892 –1975) who was a Yugoslav novelist poet and short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961.

It is an allegory about Aska, an unusual sheep from Steep Meadows who loved ballet and wanted to become a famous ballerina where Ivo Andric conveys the importance of art and artistic creation, a very current problem of our society.

“We do not know how much power and what kind of possibilities all the living creatures hide in themselves. And we do not realize what we all know. We exist and we pass without finding out everything we could have been or done.”

This happened in the sheep’s world on the Steep Meadow when Aya, a large sheep with an abundant fleece and big round eyes, brought to the world her first lamb. It looked like all the other newborn babies, a fistful of fleece that starts to whimper. It was female, and she was an orphan because Aya had just lost her husband, whom she liked very much. Aya named her child Aska, finding that it was an appropriate name for a future sheep-beauty. “Aska, Let them call you by that name, my dear little lamb!” whispered the content mother.

In the beginning, the lamb followed her mother like all the other lambs, but as soon as she could run, on her still rigid and unusually long legs, and graze on her own, she started showing her nature. She did not keep to her mother, she did not mind for mother’s urges and cautions, and she did not follow the tinkling of the bell of the flock leader. She chose to wander through the paths she found for herself, to search for pastures in faraway places as if led by forces unknown to her.

The mother warned her otherwise good, beautiful, and a clever child. Aya forewarned her with advice and cautions, envisaging the dangers of such behavior in their surroundings, where there could always appear a cunning and violent wolf, from which the sheepherders are not always able to protect their sheep, and which slaughters the sheep and their lambs, especially when they are detached and stray. Aya was worried, and she often wondered after whom the child has taken her nature, and being female, that she was so impertinent and restless. After whoever it is, it is a great concern for the mother. At school, Aska had learned a lot and had made great progress. However, whenever the mother went to inquire about Aska’s grades and conduct, the teacher would tell her that the child is gifted and could be the first in class, only if she was not so lively and scattered. Only at the Physical Education Aska always had great marks.

One day, when she finished with a good grade, Aska stood in front of her mother and declared that she wanted to go to the ballet school. At first, her mother resolutely resisted giving many reasons, one more convincing than the other. She remarked that no one in her family was anything apart from a quiet sheep householder. Art is, the mother spoke, an unsafe choice that nor nourishes nor defends the one who devotes themselves to it. The path of art is in general uncertain, deceptive and difficult, and the dance is the hardest and the most deceitful of all arts, even a notorious and dangerous thing. No sheep from a respected family went by this path. Aya continued with similar arguments and asked herself what would the entire world say when it hears that her daughter is going by that path.

That is how the worried and benevolent mother dissuaded her child. However, knowing the nature of her daughter, she knew in advance that she could not resist for long, and she gave it up. She enrolled the little sheep to the ballet school, hoping that Aska might somehow curb her natural unrest. The sheep from the flock mostly condemned the mother’s decision.

One could not say that Aya was indifferent to the objections and harassment of sheep and rams on the corral and on the pastures, but the mother loves her child so much that she likes and those of its properties that she does not approve of in the soul. Bit by bit mother-sheep accepted the daughters wish and started looking at the matter in a different way. Secretly Aya observed Aska practicing, and came to the conclusion that there was something nice and splendor in dancing. She wondered what, after all, could be wrong in art. In addition, the dance is the noblest of all the skills, the only one where we use exclusively our native body.

The reconciliation with the daughter’s choice was easier as little Aska really showed a lot of talent and will, and visibly advanced. Besides, the sheep was modest and innocent as one could only bid. However, the strange and dangerous habits to wander far from the sheep and sheepherders, the little sheep had not overcome. One day happened that, of which Aya was always afraid.

Aska successfully completed her first year of ballet school and was just supposed to start the other year. It was the beginning of autumn with a still strong sun, which seamlessly starts to fade, and warm short rains, and rainbows forming above the humid and beamed areas. On that day, Aska was especially cheerful, vibrant and distracted. Overjoyed by the freshness of the day and the succulence of the grass, she strayed to the edge of the distant beech forest,

even into it. Here the grass was, as Aska had observed, especially succulent, and even better the deeper in the forest.

There was still a misty fog, which as a remnant of a strange nighttime activity withdrew beneath the rising sun, Poor visibility and full silence created a spellbound landscape in the space, and the distance did not have any measure. In time, time lost its significance.

Aska was sniffing the old skewed beech trees battered with moss that was enchanting as a story of an unusual adventure. Running across bright, green forest clearings it seemed to her that there was no end to the story and no limit to the number of unusual experiences. When she was in one of the clearings, she suddenly found herself face to face with a terrible wolf. Experienced, old and brave, he got to the places where the wolves do not descend at that time of year. His faded fur, greenish and brownish enabled him to equalize with the autumn beech trees and grass which was beginning to wither.

A beautiful landscape, which fascinated and aroused Aska, suddenly lifted itself up like a thin and deceptive curtain, and in front of her stood a wolf with bloodshot eyes, tucked tail, and a grin like a laugh, more terrible than in any of mother’s envisaged dangers. The blood in Aska’s veins froze, and the legs beneath her became arborous. She remembered that she had to call for help, her mouth opened, but there was no sound. Death was before her, invisible, immanent, horrible and implausible in its horror.

The Wolf walked a semicircle around his immutable pray, a slow soft walk that would precede the jump. It seemed that with disbelief if the wolves were aware of unbelieving, he watched the pray and was suspicious. Wolfs are capable of suspicion, and with the fear of a trap, he wondered how this young white beauty strayed here coming under his teeth.

For the pray, these were unexpected moments, somewhere between the deadly horrors to which she had already sunk, and the inconceivable bloody and final facts behind the word death. Already horrified Aska had a bit of time left, even where she thought it was gone and could not be, but so little that it scarcely seemed like time. This gave her the force for the movement; it was not a movement for defense because she was not capable of it. The last move could only be a dance.

Hardly, as if in a sore sleep, the sheep made the first movement, one of those movements practiced by the ballet bar and still do not seem like a dance. Immediately after the first movement came another, and another. The movements were modest, dire movements of the by death condemned body, but sufficient to stop the surprised wolf for a moment. Once she had started, Aska repeated the steps one after the other, with a horrible feeling that she should not stop, because if there was only a second of space between the two movements, death could become through that crack. She performed the steps in the order she had learned them at school and felt like hearing the sharp voice of her teacher: “One – and – two! One – and – two – and – three!”

That is, the way it went, everything she could learn during the first year. The movements are short, quick, and could not fill the time, which stood as the emptiness from which there was a constant threat of death. She also switched to figures performed at school without support, in the middle of the ballet room. Now her knowledge and her strengths were limited. She knew that she could perform two or three figures correctly and completely. She performed them feverishly, one after the other. There about was the end of her knowledge and skill. She had to repeat the movements, and she was afraid that by repeating them she would lose her strength and attractiveness. In vain, she tried to think of something else to perform to fill the dark abysm waiting at the end of the dance. The time passes, the wolf watches and waits, but already starts to approach. Before her, were the ruthlessly closed further knowledge of the classical dance and the fading voice of her teacher disappearing somewhere completely. She was well aware that her knowledge had helped her, but now it has ended. Her knowledge had failed her, the school knowledge could not help her anymore, and she must live and, in order to survive, to dance.

Aska went into the dance above the school knowledge and famous rules, beyond everything that she had learned and practiced. Who knows if the world had ever seen what the modest and unknown forest over the Steep Meadow saw on that day,

Through the green forest clearings, through narrow passages, between gray and heavy beech wood, over the smooth and brown mat of yearly layers of leaves, danced the sheep. Aska, clean, thin, not yet a sheep and no more a lamb, light, mobile like a white willow seed carried in the wind, greyish when she enters into the thin fog, and light when beamed by the sun, as if lit from inside, when she found herself on the clearing alighted by the sun.

Following her, with inaudible steps and without taking his gaze away from her, walked the old wolf, the long-standing and invisible predator of her flock.

The cunning, cold and proverbially cautious wolf, to which neither humans nor animals could do harm, was surprised at first. This surprise turned more and more into amazement and strange, irresistible curiosity. He recalled who he was, where he was and what he should do. Then he spoke to himself: “To first see this wonder of the unseen. Therefore, from this strange snare, I will have not only blood and flesh but also its unusual, funny, crazy and crazily funny dance that no eyes of any wolf have seen. Moreover, her blood and flesh I will not lose because I can knock her down and slaughter her whenever I want, and I will do it, but only at the end of the dance, when I see the whole miracle to the end.”

Thinking like that, the wolf followed the sheep, stagnant when she stopped and treading the step when she accelerated the rhythm of the dance.

Aska had no thoughts. She was only extracting unexpected strength and incredible skill and diversity of movement from her little body, which was covered with pure juices of life joy and condemned to inevitable and immediate death, She knew only one thing, she lived and would live as long as she danced, and the better she danced. She danced. It was no longer a dance, but a miracle.

The new miracle turned increasingly the wolf’s wondering into admiration, a thing completely unknown to wolves because if the wolves could admire anything in the world, they would not be what they were. This unknown sensation of admiration had crept into the wolf so much that this lost sheep, dead from the fear of death, dragged him behind her as if he was on an invisible but firm leash, bound to the invisible ring attached to his nostrils.

Walking like asleep not looking at where he trod and not giving attention to the direction in which he went, the wolf equally repeated to himself: “The blood and flesh of this snare will never escape from me. I can snatch it at any moment when I want to. But let me look at the wonders, to see this movement, and yet this …”

Each movement was really new and exciting and promising a new one even more exciting. One after the other passed the forest clearings and the crepuscular, humid corridors beneath the beech trees covered with dry leaves.

Now, the little sheep felt in her a hundred lives, and she used all their strengths to extend her one and only, her own life, which had already burned out.

We do not know how much power and what kind of possibilities hide in each living creature. We do not portend of what we all are capable. We are and we pass, but we do not acknowledge what we could have been or done. These possibilities occur only in great and extraordinary moments like those in which Aska dances for her already lost life. Her body was no longer tired, and her dance from itself created new strength for a new dance. Aska was dancing. She carried out all new and new figures, which no ballet masters know.

When she observed that the wolf recaptured and remembered who he was and what he was, she enhanced the speed and courage of her dance. She performed unusual jumps over fallen trees, which incited the wolf to laugh, a new admiration, and the desire to see them being repeated. She jumped onto the fallen beech trees and onto the pillows of moss covering them, standing only on her back legs, forming of herself a white, joyful whirligig that glinted at the eyes of the viewer. Then she would stand straight, only on the front legs, and then run with a tiny and fast-paced step, across some flat and yet still green space between the trees. When she would encounter an open slope, she would drop down head-on, imitating bold skies down a smooth dry trail of leaves, but as fast as when a thumb burns a brilliant “glissando” over the piano keyboard. The wolf would succumb to her as fast as he could, without losing sight of anything from the dance. He still kept repeating to himself that, before or after, the blood and flesh of this snare would not escape him, only wanting to see fully the dance, but every time he repeated it shorter and weaker because the dance took more and more of his attention and repressed everything else.

Neither the wolf nor Aska measured the time or the length of the road. She was alive and he enjoyed it.

When the sheepherders heard the bleating of the sheep and detected the anxiety that had flown from one herd to another, they picked out among themselves two young and bold men and sent them to the forest to look for the lost disobedient sheep. One of them had only a dogwood stick, but a good one and the other one had, on the shoulder a gun, if so it is possible to call that percussion rifle. It was a famous old rifle with which the men’s father had killed, a famine wolf, on the fence of his corral. Like all narrated stories, who knows

how it happened and whether it happened. Certainly, it was the only piece of firearms on the Steep Meadow, and it served more to raise the courage and self-confidence of the sheepherders than it was dangerous for wolves.

The men reached the edges of the forest, hesitated a little, wondering in which direction to go. There were many, thousands of entrances to the forest, and there were no traces of the little hoofs. They followed along the path of green grass and good pasture, as the best choice. Luck had served them. Just as they entered a little deeper into the forest, and climbed on a small elevation, they saw a strange sight in front of them. They stopped for a while. Through the branches, they could watch unseen. In a daring and proper way, Aska performed pirouettes moving through the forest, and behind her, at a distance of several steps, the wolf with a fallen muzzle tagged along, gazing constantly, and wagging his tail.

For a few moments the sheepherders were standing like stoned of wonder, but then they composed themselves. When Aska came to the first trees of a clearing, she suddenly changed the shape and rhythm of the dance, and the wolf was still in the clearing turned to the viewers by his side. The older sheepherder removed the gun from his shoulder, aimed and fired. The forest echoed and the leaves flew along with rare frightened birds.

An unexpected thing happened in the clearing, from its interrupted movement, as a bird hit in the flight, Aska fell, and the wolf disappeared into the forest as a green shadow.

The sheepherders stumbled toward the lamb and found her unconscious on a flat spot. There were no injuries on her, but she was lying in the forest grass motionless as if she was dead. There was a bloody trail after the wolf.

The elder sheepherder filled the gun, the young man took his dogwood stick firmly with both hands, and so they followed the bloody trail. They walked slowly and cautiously. There was no need to go far. The wounded wolf had the force just for about a hundred paces, while his wound was still hot and then fell on the thicket. The rear of his body was motionless, but he was digging the ground with his forelegs, wagging his head and grinning. Easily the shepherds abated him.

The sun had just passed the zenith when the sheepherders got back. They descended along the pastures, between the flocks and the corrals. The young man tied the wolf with his braid,

by the rear legs and easily dragged the bloody and elongated body. The elder was carrying the lamb. He put it over his shoulders, according to the sheepherder’s custom. Aska’s beautiful head hung, as dead, down the left shoulder of the shepherd.

There was great joy on the Steep Meadow. There were congratulations, clatter, singing, tears, craving, and joyful bleating without an end to it.

Aska composed herself. It was a slow recollection, lying in the grass motionless, more like a handful of fleece. She did not feel a healthy muscle or a tendon that did not hurt. Her mother was running around her in tears and happiness. Sheep and rams gathered as at a miracle.

She was unsound and disordered for a long time and slowly recovering from the terrible experience, but with her youth and will for life, her mother’s devoted care, and general compassion of all the inhabitants of the Steep Meadow, she overcame her condition. Aska cured and became an obedient daughter and a good pupil, and eventually a ballet champion on the Steep Meadow.

Around the world, it was written, spoken, and sung about the way the sheep Aska outplayed and deceived a terrible wolf. Aska herself never talked about her encounter with the beast or about her dance in the forest. No one likes to talk about the unpleasant and most difficult things in their lives. Only after a few years went by, and when she had overcome her difficult experience, Aska set her own famous ballet, which critics and the audience called the “Dance with Death”, but Aska always called it “The Dance for Life”.

She lived a long and happy life, became a world-renowned dancer, and died at an old age.

Now, after so many years, a famous ballet in which art and spirit of resistance conquer every evil, even the death itself, is performed around the world.

Dance the “kolo and live longer”!

In Southeastern Europe, the South Slavic peoples traditionally dance the circle dance, known as Kolo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Andri%C4%

Everything is needed for its own time

“All the views, even the most extreme, need their day in the sun. In the end, they deepen and broaden our understanding of ourselves as human beings. But now, I believe we’ve seen enough of the negative side of human nature, and it’s time to harness the diversities between us to the benefit of all of humanity. Humankind has championed countless ideologies. Now it’s time to champion the ideology of unity, which states that whatever you believe in and support, keep it, it is yours, and add it to the fabric of humanity. Only a society that places unity as its top value can tolerate diverse views within it, give them their rightful place, and use them to strengthen and improve all of society.”

~ Michael Laitman

Source: https://www.kabbalah.info/net/it-takes-two-to-disagree/

Coronavirus: A Message From Nature

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