Michael Berg
MARCH 31, 2021
The place where we gather to connect is what exists today, the kabbalists say, as the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. The space does not simply happen to be a room where we go for every connection. It is meant to be on the same level as the Mishkan, and what makes it or does not make it on that same level is the consciousness of those who come together there. The Ramchal, the great kabbalist, speaks of both the physical and conscious space that was held in the Mishkan, that was held in the Beit HaMikdash, and that needs to be held in the space when we come together. And it is completely dependent on everybody else in the room.
The kohen, the priest, would go into the Mishkan and do certain types of work. But what was his consciousness as he was doing it? The Ramchal says an amazing thing. The Light of the Creator can be revealed only from a collective unification of creation. Therefore, when the kohen would walk into the Mishkan, his consciousness was, “I need to take with me everything, this entire world - the inanimate, the animate, the animals, the vegetation, and even those people who have no desire to connect. That's with whom I enter in order to accomplish the revelation of the Light of the Creator that needs to be accomplished.”
That's why in the Mishkan they used incense, animals, and all pieces of creation, because the work of the Mishkan was to elevate, not just to connect. It was a place the entire world was going to be elevated by, and therefore, physically, they used all different parts of creation. Consciously, this was what the kohen was doing. His thought was not, “Let me draw Light and blessings for myself and for all the Israelites here in the desert.” No. His thought was, “Let me elevate all of creation.” And that is what our consciousness needs to be as we walk into the room, that the work we do there is not just to draw Light for ourselves, for our family, and for all those around us, but that we elevate all of creation. We need to come into the room with the consciousness of the kohen; “I am going to elevate, to the degree that I can, all aspects of creation with me.”
When we walk into the room to connect, many of us think we’re there to draw some Light and blessings for ourselves… and yes, that's true. But that's not the real purpose; we didn't need the Mishkan for that. What we need the Mishkan for is to elevate everything, to elevate all parts of creation. That was the purpose of building the Mishkan, that was the consciousness of the kohen who walked in to do it, and that needs to be our consciousness when we walk in.
There's another level of consciousness that the kohen had when he walked into the Mishkan, and that was to finish the work of correcting this world. And there are two pieces to this. The first piece, as we said, is as we walk into the room it needs to be a space that allows us to have the consciousness and strength to elevate all parts of creation from the damage that has been done, from the darkness that exists within it. And the second part needs to be the desire as we walk into the room to give the strength, not just to ourselves, but to all aspects of the world, all people, all animals, all vegetables, and all inanimate objects to be able to come to their correction, to their completion. Therefore, this is a consciousness that we, too, have to have as we come to connect: that we are awakening Light to inject into all parts of creation so that they can be elevated and come to their Gemar HaTikun, to their complete correction. And if we do this, if we elevate all creation, we elevate and inject in all parts of creation the Light in order to bring the Gemar HaTikun, then we also draw the blessings, Light, and support from the Creator for ourselves.
We know the reason there’s pain, suffering, disease, and death in this world is because there is a degree of a lack of revelation of the Light of the Creator. If the totality of the Light of the Creator was revealed in our lives, if the totality of the Light of the Creator was revealed in this world, there would not be any lack, there would not be any pain, there would not be any suffering, there would not be any disease, there would not be any death. So, all aspects of lack and pain are an element of the lack of the revelation of the Light of the Creator in that person, area, or reality, because if the Light of the Creator is completely revealed then the individual or the situation is completely filled with Light. And when those of us who have that consciousness come together to create the space, this work can be able to happen.
The Ramchal tells us that this space becomes a space in which the Creator chooses to come and shine down an overabundance of Light. The consciousness of the people coming there to draw that Light needs to be, first, “I elevate the entire world with me, I take aspects of the entire world with me to elevate them.” And second, “I am going to inject in all parts of creation the Light of the Creator to be able to bring them the strength to come to their ultimate correction – people, animals, vegetation, and inanimate objects.”
But there is a very important third part. And that is you have to understand why there is darkness, pain, and lack. Which is because, very simply, there's a lack of the revelation of the Light of the Creator in so many parts of our world. Therefore, what we want to do is consciously think that the overabundance of Light which we spoke of that is revealed in the physical space goes and shines to all those places of life in the world where aspects of lack exists.
This is our work as we walk into the room. If we go into the room with that consciousness, then the singularity of the Light of the Creator will be awakened and will be revealed to all parts of the world and all the parts of creation. There's no part of our spiritual work that does not bring additional correction to the world…but how much depends on our consciousness. And therefore, again, our consciousness about the space, our consciousness about our collective work within the space, influences what the space is. And to the degree that we focus our consciousness on these ideas and why we're there is to the degree that the place becomes even more powerful.
How big and how wide the opening of Light is going to be depends; as we walk into the space, where is our consciousness? What are we thinking? Are we thinking to elevate all of creation? Are we thinking to inject all of creation with the power to come to their correction, to their completion? Are we thinking to bring the Light of the Creator to all the places and spaces of this world that lack? The more of us who walk into the room and awaken that consciousness, the wider the gates open and the more strongly that Light shines down. We create the space by this consciousness. And that's why it's so important that I hope we never walk into the space again with the thought only of coming there simply to draw Light for ourselves and to connect; that's a nice thought, but that's not the real purpose.
The personal connection we make and the personal Light that we receive, yes, all that is important, but that's not why we come together. It is certainly not why they built the Mishkan. It is not why the kohen walked into the Mishkan to do his work. His work and our work needs to be based on this consciousness, and then the space, as we said, changes, and the Light revealed in the space becomes greater and greater, for all of us, and more importantly, for the world. If we come into the room with this consciousness, we cause that Light to permeate throughout all creation, and begin removing the barriers between all things.
And the Ramchal says if you do this work, in this consciousness, and you come to a space collectively together where all of you can elevate your consciousness to this clarity, then Light and blessings will come down into this world, and the lower worlds, humanity, animals, vegetables, and inanimate objects all start receiving more and more blessings. And then personally, we will also benefit from the additional Light and blessings that were awakened.
We need to have a re-envisioning, a re-awakening, of what our consciousness must be in this space. Because whatever that consciousness is affects every single other person in the room and in what the space becomes. We can make that physical space on the same level of the Mishkan. But, I think if we're all being honest with ourselves, we are not yet collectively of that consciousness. However, what the space can become is hopefully always more and more powerful, so that when we walk into the room there will be so much Light circulating and so much Light awakened that we can all change from it, physically, spiritually.
What level of Mishkan do we want to build collectively, with our consciousness about the space? We are meant to create a place where an overabundance of Light brings all aspects of creation together. We are meant to awaken an overabundance of Light that sends strength to all people and things so that they come to the End of the Correction. We are meant to create in this space the Light that shines down on all the areas of lack of this world so that they become filled with Light, and there is no more darkness.
The collective responsibility that we have for each other's spiritual and physical space as we come together to connect is so important. There's no question that if all of us would be in the consciousness discussed here what we could accomplish and the space we could create would be immeasurable. We want to be awakened to the awareness of what we can create, to be conscious to the degree that we can be conscious, to be focused to the degree that we can be focused to create this powerful space, not just for ourselves, but for others, for the world, so that it becomes a place of a burning fire of Light that shines throughout creation. It's possible…and it depends on every single one of us. Chag Sameach.
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