Let My People Know

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “The right way to behave.”

The evil in the world is derived from a distortion of certain forces, and they can, in turn, have a bad effect on the rest of creation.

The Torah, or Jewish Scriptures, is, on the whole, a revelation of the right way to behave so that the Divine plenty will flow into the reality of the world.

The carrying out of the commandments (mitzvot) of the Torah acts in a concrete way to make the sefirot combine properly to cause this plenty to flow, while the transgression of the commandments is an act of absolute evil that adds strength to the forces of wickedness and pollution in the world.

The esoteric teaching, the Kabbalah, is the inner part of the Torah that explains the metaphysical significance of every single movement and thought, and ultimately of the whole essence of the world.

The man who attains genuine knowledge of the wisdom of the Kabbalah can, in certain respects, use the keys provided by this wisdom to reach a deeper and more complete closeness to God, and is able to change and “repair” the world in which he lives.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz