There is a good reason why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the “wisdom of the hidden.” The wisdom of Kabbalah is the wisdom of connection; it teaches how to connect with other people and with all of creation on the deepest level.
When we say that connection is the solution to all our troubles, it makes a lot of sense and people can relate to it. It’s easy to see that self-absorption, which expresses itself in narcissism or alienation, causes many, if not all the harms that we experience on the level of human society. It’s also easy to show that narcissism means disconnection from people.
However, what has narcissism got to do with earthquakes, for example? What has it got to do with climate change? Why is lack of connection the cause of the coronavirus? This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah, the wisdom of connection, becomes hidden. The ties among all parts of reality and how they influence each other elude our perception. If they were revealed, we would never make mistakes in our decisions about life.
On the still, vegetative, and animate levels, we more or less see and understand how things work. We can show that the forces of separation and connection interact and only atoms, molecules, and organisms that overcome the force of separation survive and develop. However, how do we detect that this is also the case in human society? How do we grasp that only societies that overcome separation and connect survive and develop? How do we make the connection between the still, vegetative, and animate levels and the human level? How do we come to see that the same principle that applies to all of nature applies also to human nature? And how do we show that what prevents us from seeing this simple truth is the force of separation itself, namely the ego?
There is no rational way to explain this, and the ego does not let us agree with this. This is what hides the truth from us, and this is what the wisdom of the hidden reveals. If we could see this, we would see how the real virus within us, the root cause of all illnesses, is our own ill-will toward each other, our egos.
These connections among all of us, which are currently sick, contaminated by ill-will, are what the wisdom of the hidden, aka the wisdom of Kabbalah, comes to heal. It does not change people since people do not need to change. Instead, it teaches how we can connect in a different way, using our uniqueness for the benefit of society, as well as our own, and thereby healing us and healing society. And as we are healed, we create those connections that make everything else in nature persist and thrive.
The wisdom of the hidden reveals that differences are not bad; they are essential diversities, and contradictions are not disagreements; they are complementary views. The wisdom of the hidden reveals everything that the ego hides, all the things that make us happy, and that our egos don’t want us to see.
[New York Cares volunteers in partnership with Together We Can local non-profit organization and Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz distribute holidays toys and winter coats in Corona, Queens in New York on December 19, 2020. (Photo by Lev Radin/Sipa USA)]
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