A cosmic opening, not a memorial. The fearless certainty of the man who opened Kabbalah to the world, available to us for 24 hours.
12th of Tishrei · 24-hour window, from sunset the evening before to the following sunset
◆ These insights are drawn from David Zakin's talk on the Rav's Yom HaHilulah, from the recordings of Rav Berg himself included in that talk, and from studies published on kabbalah.com.
Comece por aqui. Em Rav Berg, Agora e Sempre, o Kabbalah Centre Brasil apresenta o homem que, ao lado da Karen, abriu a Kabbalah para o mundo. Assista antes de acender a vela e começar o estudo.
Start here. In Rav Berg, Now and Always (in Portuguese), the Kabbalah Centre Brasil presents the man who, together with Karen, opened Kabbalah to the world. Watch it before you light the candle and begin the study.
On a tzadik's hilulah, lighting a candle opens a channel. The flame represents the soul, light that rises and is never lessened by kindling others. As we light it in honor of Rav Berg, we invite his presence and his merit into our home and our life. Light the candle, close your eyes, and say:
Rav Shraga Feivel Berg took the lead of the Kabbalah Centre in the early 1970s. From then on, the wisdom of Rav Shimon bar Yochai, of Rav Ashlag and of Rav Brandwein, kept for centuries among a few, began to touch the lives of millions of people. He fulfilled the vision of the Ari and of Rav Ashlag: Kabbalah had to spread across all of humanity before the arrival of Messianic Consciousness.
He did it together with Karen Berg, without any fear and with absolute certainty. He risked his reputation, faced rejection, and did not teach Kabbalah as mysticism: he revealed it as the soul's instruction manual. According to David Zakin, it was the Rav who wrote the entire content of the Kabbalah 1 course, the entrance door for generations of students.
He grew up as a religious man and had the power to transform that, becoming a spiritual person, constantly evolving. He knew how to learn from his teachers and connect to them, and he was willing to leave comfort behind to be present for humanity.
He spent most of the day sitting in meditation, and still he drew people like a magnet. Powerful people, some of them rigid and not always righteous, came close to him and, once they grasped how important his message was, they changed: they turned all the power they had used for themselves toward the world, giving from their businesses, their finances and their time.
Every day at 5 a.m. he taught the Ten Luminous Emanations. People came, drawn in, and fell asleep: the vibration was too intense to hold. One of the members suggested recording the classes, and that is how some 700 hours came to exist, connecting Kabbalah to quantum physics, to creation and to every branch of science. Anyone who listens to the Rav of the 1980s today hears him speaking outside time, straight into our daily life.
Kabbalah teaches that on the day a kabbalist chooses to return to the upper world, all the Light he revealed in life becomes fully available. That is why the Hilulah of Rav Berg is a cosmic opening: on this day we do not mourn, we connect. The Rav opened Kabbalah to the masses with a certainty nothing could stop, and left a teaching that goes straight to the root of suffering: space and time are an illusion, settling for less is an illusion, blaming the other is an illusion. What remains when those illusions fall away is consciousness, and with it the capacity for renewal, for healing and, in the end, for immortality. By connecting to him during these 24 hours, we draw his certainty in the face of doubt, his vision when the path seems unclear, his compassion for every soul and his commitment to the Light, whatever the cost.
David Zakin remembers the first time he walked into the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles, some 25 years ago. It was Shabbat, and there were about 300 or 350 people in the room. Suddenly everyone began to stand, and he stood too. A man came in with a few people around him, and the energy in the room shifted: the vibration grew more intense, far more powerful, a kind of trembling. It was the Rav.
Like the sun, which lights everything the moment it shines, his presence changed the whole room. Then he went to the pulpit and gave his Shabbat class in a very direct, dramatic voice, with an urgent call for people to wake up. No filter. The Rav did not care whether it would sound too direct, too harsh or too offensive, because he had a message that had to reach humanity.
The mission was to open the Gates of Kabbalah and wake people from dogmatic beliefs, from prayers that went unanswered because there was no affinity with the Creator. For that mission, Zakin says, he would have sacrificed his own life.
Spiritually, the Rav was a channel of Binah Consciousness, the realm of absolute compassion and understanding. His gift was to take the infinite and make it understandable. When he spoke he did not only teach: he transmitted frequencies of consciousness.
Can you imagine the power of one person to change the entire energy of a room? That was the power of the Rav.
Physics merged space and time into one thing, space-time. The Rav goes further: it is not even a concept, it is an illusion. Saying "I am in two places at once" still assumes there are two places.
Think of someone driving for hours on a highway who suddenly wakes up: "How did I get here?" Or someone who prays the Amidah and was not there. No one can say where we are at any given moment. The only thing that determines where we are is consciousness.
→ Today: before any connection, ask where your consciousness is, not where your body is.
I have a headache, I take an aspirin. Am I fooling myself? For the Rav, yes, because I settle for ten minutes of relief instead of something permanent. Religion says "God knows why He is punishing me", and the person settles for punishment.
What looks like punishment is the Or Makif, the Surrounding Light, the fulfillment that wants to come in and arrives looking like a problem. We do not want it to leave: we want it to enter. That is why we do not run. Whoever faces it gets an immediate benefit, and the beginning is restriction.
→ Today: choose one problem you have been numbing and take one concrete step toward it.
For two thousand years humanity has perfected a beautiful art: always having someone to blame for its misery. There is never a shortage of culprits. And in two thousand years, the Rav says, all it produced was misery.
From the kabbalistic point of view, no one can do anything to anyone. The frame we call "now" is an illusion: in a previous incarnation, today's supposed victim victimized the one who now looks guilty. It is total internalization. With the Rav, Tikkun stopped being punishment and became the process of remembering who we really are.
→ Today: replace "who did this to me?" with "what is the Light showing me here?"
The Rav was one of the few kabbalists in the world who spoke openly about immortality. Today many scientists predict it is something we can reach. For David Zakin, that is only happening because those kabbalists injected this energy into the world and said we are immortal beings, capable of renewal, of removing chaos and of healing.
What is Mashiach? For the Rav, total connection: the total revelation of reality and the total removal of the physicality of the world of illusion. It is what the verse Bila hamavet lanetzach says, "He will swallow up death forever". That does not mean we will die when Mashiach comes. On the contrary: all bodies will be resurrected.
The force that creates death is the Desire to Receive for the Self Alone, which restricts and squeezes life. When it is fully transformed and stops operating, what remains is immortality. That is why life expectancy, which at one point in the centuries after Rav Shimon fell to 35 years, is now rising. Not because of the doctors, the Rav jokes, but because the Age of Aquarius is revelation, and there is an accumulation of transformation: people who still make the effort to exchange the Desire to Receive for the Self Alone for the Desire to Share.
The Rav's mission was nothing less than to remove chaos from the world and bring an end to pain and suffering. Each time one of us transforms a little selfish desire into sharing, it adds to that accumulation.
This is the Rav's greatest message, and I wish that all of us manage to download this program. Life will become far more powerful for each one of us.
Signal the opening of the portal.
Light a candle and say the blessing: Rabi Shraga Feivel Berg, zechuto yagen aleinu, amen. Keep the Zohar open beside you.
Receive the voice outside time.
Watch or listen to at least ten minutes of a Rav Berg class from the kabbalah.com library.
Live the first key.
Close your eyes and bring your consciousness to someone you love who is far away. Feel that there is no distance.
Total internalization.
Write the name of anyone you still blame for some pain. Next to each name, write what the Light may be showing you.
Begin the day on the side of the Light.
Before you pick up your phone, say the hilulah mantra at the end of this page.
Do not settle for less.
Choose a problem you have been postponing or numbing and take one concrete step toward it today.
Spread the wisdom.
Share one of the Rav's teachings with someone, through a story and without preaching.
Continue the mission.
Give time, money or talent to someone who helps bring Light to the world.
Seal the Light.
Write in one sentence the unique message you came to bring to the world, and the next step toward it.
"I awaken the Light of certainty. I connect to the Rav's consciousness of Binah. I remember that nothing is random, and I choose to reveal Light where there was darkness."
Explore a library of lessons and content on Rav Berg, with teachings that move through certainty, destiny and the courage to share.
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