Kabbalistic Insightsby Thiago Moshe
Michael Berg on joy, effort, and partnership with the Creator
At the opening of Rosh Hashanah 5787, Michael Berg asks each person to enter the next 48 hours holding two states of consciousness at once: the seriousness of a moment that shapes the year and the joy that calls down its blessings. The Creator offers infinite assistance, but invites us to participate in creating who we will become.
Michael Berg names this union gilu bir'ada. These days carry weight, but the answer is not paralysis. Awakening joy through song and dance is part of the work because it draws the new year's blessings.
Michael Berg begins by recognizing those who crossed the world to be there. He says that crowds are not naturally his preference, yet he chooses to spend Rosh Hashanah with the largest possible gathering of the community. Each person's presence strengthens everyone else's work. No one arrives merely to receive a private experience.
This consciousness changes the question we bring into the connection. Instead of thinking only about the year we want for ourselves, we can recognize that our joy, attention, and effort also support family, friends, and people we may never meet. The collective is not the setting for transformation. It is part of the vessel that makes transformation possible.
Rosh Hashanah asks for reverence because the work of these two days reaches into the entire year. That importance can create presence, but it can also produce tension, fear of failure, or rigidity. Michael Berg presents gilu bir'ada as the necessary balance: joy within reverence.
Joy does not reduce the seriousness. It keeps seriousness from closing the vessel. When we enter the work with enthusiasm, we remember that transformation is more than examining what must change. It also means trusting that Light is available to create something new. The sweetness we ask for in the coming year begins with the quality of consciousness we awaken now.
Michael Berg admits that dancing does not come naturally to him. Even so, he dances and sings on Rosh Hashanah because he understands joy as conscious action. The value of the practice does not depend on preference, talent, or spontaneity. It lies in the willingness to awaken a force we may not yet feel.
The body can teach consciousness. A person may arrive tired, worried, or distant and still choose to stand, sing, and participate. Through that movement, intention stops being only an idea. It finds voice, breath, and presence. Joy becomes spiritual work when it does not wait for the ideal state before beginning.
Speaking about creation, Michael Berg notices a change in the language of Beresheet. For light, the seas, and vegetation, the Creator commands and creation occurs. When the human being is created, the text says Na'aseh Adam: let us make a person. The plural reveals a partnership that was not required in the earlier stages.
On Rosh Hashanah, that invitation becomes personal. The Creator does not promise to manufacture a new version of us while we remain unchanged. He offers assistance for a shared act of creation. The question is no longer only, “What will the Creator do for me?” It must also include, “What am I willing to create with Him?”
Michael Berg describes two movements. It'aruta dil'eila is the awakening from above, the assistance that comes from the Light of the Creator. It'aruta diltata is the awakening from below, the human response that makes the partnership real. We do not control the 99 percent that comes from the Light, but we are responsible for the fullness of our one percent.
Giving 110 percent does not mean controlling the outcome or demanding perfection. It means no longer bargaining with what we already know we can offer. It may be greater presence in prayer, fuller participation in dancing, a conversation we have avoided, or an act of sharing. The size of the action will vary. The honesty of the effort cannot be reduced.
In many groups, the most enthusiastic people move toward the center while others watch from a safe distance. Michael Berg rejects that division during Rosh Hashanah. If the connection is collective, there is no spiritual edge reserved for those who prefer to participate halfway.
The Opponent can turn shyness, fatigue, or comparison into reasons for absence. Entering fully, however, does not require copying someone else's expression. One person may sing, while another supports, listens, or offers presence. The form is individual, but the responsibility is shared: to discover how our one percent can stop being a spectator.
Thinking about the Kabbalah Centre's custom of embracing people, Michael Berg reshapes his prayer. He does not know in advance what each person will need, so he asks the Creator for love to embrace, wisdom to guide, joy to awaken, and strength to support those around him.
This prayer does not exclude our needs. It expands the reason we desire to receive. We ask for more Light so that more Light can circulate through us. Instead of ending with us, the blessing gains continuity. The test of the connection becomes simple: does what I receive increase my capacity to share?
Michael Berg closes by bringing three states of consciousness together: giving 110 percent, creating in partnership with the Creator, and asking for the strength to serve the collective. None of them works in isolation. Effort without partnership becomes control. Spirituality without effort becomes waiting. Receiving without sharing interrupts the flow.
Creating yourself anew means changing the way you participate in relationships. The new self appears when we offer greater presence, when another person's joy matters to us, and when our transformation reaches family, friends, and community. Rosh Hashanah opens the possibility, but we are the ones who give it form.
What is the fullest way for me to participate in this creation?
Source: Michael Berg's Rosh Hashanah 5787 welcome lecture, broadcast live from New York by the Kabbalah Centre on September 11, 2026. This synthesis in Thiago Moshe's own voice is based on the original English transcript and the approved Brazilian Portuguese subtitles. This page is not a transcript.
The Hebrew expression gilu bir'ada appears in the lecture and was checked against Psalms 2:11. The Hebrew forms in the centerpiece are the two terms in that expression.
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