THE CABALA OF LABOR DAY

Millions of Americans will celebrate Labor Day; according to the United States Department of Labor, the day represents: a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well being of our country.

Avadoh/Work in Hebrew also refers to the spiritual obligations the souls performs – this is the true work whose produce exist in the spiritual world; after a lifetime, the soul releases from the body and enters into the spirit realm where the ramifications of action adorn the abode.

The human being has a need to work and feel productive for the self and for the community; without work life has little purpose – the Torah teaches, If one does not work one can not rest. Though creation to the Creator is a little thing, nonetheless God worked to make creation, then God rested.

Work in modern time, is what use to be called slavery in the ancient day when everyone was free except those who had to sell themselves into servitude to a master because of their situation. Now, nearly everyone is in a situation serving a master who is the slave to a boss, who is slave to a boss.

The subjugation of self towards a meaningful goal is what hollows out the human being to be a vessel for the Creator. The Midrash-Book of Metaphor says, God made a work for each person to love. The Cabala explains, From the constancy of work comes the power of Eumuna/Faith; an Eumun is a Craftsman.

THE CABALA OF PURPOSE

New revelations in science have shown what a strange and remarkable universe we live in; the illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis.

The most important question of our time is, How large is the universe? This abstract, existential question is rooted in purpose – if the universe started in a Big Bang, going on forever, then purpose has no place in creation; but, the Torah has a different explanation.

According to the Talmud-Book of Law, The Creator yelled at the universe, shortly after creation, Di/Enough and thereby made a limited universe with a meaningful design. The Zohar-Book of Secret describes creation as being engraved within the Hard Light – the limit of creation.

If the universe is without limit, then, as has been explained by scientists, all happenings would eventually be repeated over and over again rendering creation a senseless, spontaneous happening without purpose or direction. Such theories minimize the human experience.

The expanse of creation can be calculated by squaring the 365 days of a year times the 2000 years God played with creation before saying Di/Enough; the sum, 266,450,000 is the approximate elapsed time, required for the stars to blink on, according to scientific theory.

THE CABALA OF LONG LIFE

Manohar Aich of India overcame many hurdles, including grinding poverty and prison, to achieve body building glory, turned 100 today saying, His ability to take his troubles lightly and remain happy during difficult times is the secret to his longevity.

Life is short when 100 is a long time because each stage of life teaches a new secret and by 100 the person is wise but ready to die. Life is a conundrum made worse by our desire for pleasure; the Cabala considers pleasure to be the spiritual source of life.

The Torah teaches, Through life, the soul comes closer to God. The center book of the Five Books of the Torah called Viyikra/Calling is dedicated to the sacrifice of animals upon the altar of earth with fire, blood and the accompanied song. Korev/Sacrifice also means Close.

There was ecstasy in the Temple during the sacrifice of the animal. Though the sacrifices were commanded by God through the Torah, their purpose was for the people; life is predicated upon purpose and purpose requires sacrificing the animalistic attitudes of the human being.

Life is not about how long we live but what we do with our lives. This world is likened to the antechamber before the great hall; from here we enter into heaven – the great hall of creation where the animal-angel sacrifices the human to bring the soul closer to the Creator.

THE CABALA OF 45

A new study suggests that memory, reasoning and comprehension can start to slip as early as age 45; it was previously believed that cognitive ability does not decline before the age of 60.

The age of 45 is commonly known as mid-life crisis when the individual suddenly begins to question the meaning of life, having lived four and a half decades. The 22 letters of the Hebrew are each designated with a value; 45 makes the word Mah/What – what is life's purpose?

The Cabala explains, Chochma, the name for the power of the right side of the brain, can be broken down into two words: Choach/Power and Mah/What – the power to question. For the first 45 years the human being knows what is what but after that he wonders – what is what?

The righteous people are said to bring the Power of What into the earth while the rest of the world brings the power of Baan/52 into the world; 45 is the gematria of Adom/Human and 52 is the gematria of Behama/Animal – when the animal arises, the human descends then merges.

By losing mental acuity, the ego becomes reduced, forcing the person to question their ways and their deeds; the dissolution of the ego allows death to come without pain. Beautiful is the world provided by the Creator, making each stage of life crucial to living.

The Evolution of Man

Science Daily: Contrary to a widely held scientific theory that the mammalian Y chromosome is slowly decaying or stagnating, new evidence suggests the Y is actually evolving quite rapidly through continuous, wholesale renovation.

The Cababla, in particular the Sefer Gilgulim/Book of Reincarnations makes the point that the male soul evolves in a different way from the female soul as depicted in geometric terms as a line indicating man and the woman the form of a circle. The Cabala teaches that woman was completed in the previous world called Tohu/Chaos and came into this world only to help man evolve as is seen in the Y chromosome.

It is further explained how man symbolizes the world of Tikun/Fixing made from the broken shards in the making of woman and fell into the earth carried by a stream of water the seeds of life. It is here on earth where the male soul through the seed of man, the Y chromosome, has 6000 years to get it straight–only 230 years left, better hurry.

The man, likened to a line, has a destination point–to become complete. The secular world sees time as a line without destination and the manmade system beneath which we labor is an endless, meaningless progress.

The Torah teaches that time is circle combined with a line that makes the spiral of creation from the DNA until the galaxy.



Giving the Soul

A study commissioned by the National Football League reports that Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league’s former players vastly more often than in the national population.

There is a thing about sports more than watching the perfection of the performers; it is the competitiveness of sports which gives it its edge and those who play the sport do so with the forgone knowledge to the dangers of the sport–it is part of the sport.

In the Torah/Teaching this attribute is called by the term Maserit Nefesh/Giving Soul–relinquishing one’s own life for a higher purpose. Life is not about how long you live but how well you live, what you do in your life.

The soul is attached to the body on a mission from God like a player in a game who is asked to give more than his part–to give the soul, to give up the life. What is the reward for giving up life? There is none because the act causes closeness with God which eradicates all vestige of person or soul.

During Yom Kippur is read the story of the sons of Aaron who brought a strange sacrifice to come closer God and were consumed by the fire.