michael_berg_new_moon_cancer_production_2006_20110426_eng

I'm Monica Berg. Welcome to Michael Berg's "New Moon of Cancer". Thousands of years ago, the sages of Kabbalah understood the unique challenges and opportunities the calendar presents for each of us. Understanding the hidden forces that play in your life will facilitate your transformation. To understand the energy of the month of Cancer, also known as Tammuz, we must look at the personality of the person born under the sign to see how their energy expresses itself. Let's start understanding Cancer by considering its symbol, the crab. Like this little creature Cancerians like to hide in their shell. It's hard for them to express emotions because they feel them so strongly. It takes time to feel safe enough to open up. But once they do, they hold nothing back and wear their heart on their sleeve. Cancer is ruled by the moon, the ruler of moods of which Cancers have many. Overly sensitive, easily offended and sometimes prone to self-pity. However, they are good at being sympathetic to others. When you are going through a hard time, a Cancer friend is the best friend to stand by your side. Because of their sentimentality, Cancers can be thought of as weak. Do not underestimate their tenacity. When Cancers want something it's almost impossible to stand in their way. Cancers place a high value on friendship and family. They will do anything to protect the people they love. This is just a little peek into the personality of Cancer. To uncover the deeper secrets of how this month will help you in your life, Michael Berg. We are now entering the month of Tammuz, as the kabbalists call it, the month of Cancer. And for those of you who know Cancers, those certainly of you who are Cancers, you know that emotions are a very big aspect of what makes Cancers unique, makes this month unique. Now emotions have certainly a positive side but also can be negative. Sometimes, too often, we act or say things in our emotional state. Things we shouldn't say. Things that in retrospect we realize we should not have said, we should not have done. For all of us who are born in this month, myself included, this is a very special month. It is a month in which we recharge our soul. But for all of us regardless of whether we are born in this month or not we have the opportunity to truly take control of our emotions. The power of emotions comes from this month, from this month of Tammuz. One of the great lessons that I learned from the great kabbalist Rav Yehuda Brandwein, the Rav's teacher, my father's teacher, is about emotions. Even though it is good to have emotional highs it is good to have and certainly as they are involved in our spiritual work when we are doing actions of sharing, to feel good about them, to feel happy with them. But Rav Brandwein says to the Rav, he says, you have to be careful not to be controlled by your emotion, but rather to control your emotions. Meaning, if we can come to the point where we become happy only during those right times, become excited only during those right times, when we actually have control over our emotions, that is when they enable, assist our spiritual connection, assist our development. But when we become controlled by them, when we only do things if it make us happy when we only do things when we are excited about them. When the emotions control the actions that we do, then they are not positive. Then they are not in our control and they are not bringing us closer to the connection to the Light of the Creator. They are not bringing us closer towards fulfillment. And that is the key point and the key lesson for this month. We need to be in control of our emotions so that we are able to use them in a way that enables and assists our growth and our connection to the Light of the Creator. But we have to be very careful not to be under the control of our emotions. And the easiest way to know that is, how many times do we do things, sharing, things that go beyond what we want to do that don't excite us, that don't make us happy at that moment. And that is the test, that is the question we will have to ask ourselves, "Are we in control of our emotions?" or "Do our emotions control us?" And again the great gift of this month is that we have the opportunity through our work through our understanding and through our connection in this month to take control of our emotions. Because our emotions are tremendously powerful and they can assist us in great ways in growing, in developing, in connecting to the Light of the Creator. But just as the Light that is within this power there is also the potential for disconnect, for darkness. If our emotions control us if we become unhappy at times and happy at other times, not in our control. then our emotions limit our spiritual connection, limit our growth. And this is the unique gift of this month. So I'd like to talk about three important emotions, love, fear and regret. First I'd like to talk about love. One of the single most important lessons of Kabbalah as the the great kabbalist, Rabbi Akiva taught. The whole purpose of all the work that we do, the whole purpose of all of our spiritual endeavor is one single statement-the Hafta {...Hebrew...} Love your neighbor, your friend, as yourself. As Rabbi Akiva teaches it and Rav Ashlag the greatest kabbalist of our century, teaches, the basis of everything that we do of a spiritual nature. The basis of all of our connection to the fulfillment and blessings that we hope to bring into our lives is dependent on how much we are developing our internal love towards other people. It is important that we differentiate between two different types of love. There is ego love, or selfish love and there is true sharing love. And it is the second type of love that connects us to the Light of the Creator that truly brings into our life the blessings and fulfillment that we all hope to bring. When we find people who give us whether it's physical things, whether it's emotional things, when we receive in return from the love that we give that is not true love. It's love certainly but it is a lower level of love. The ultimate level of love is when we feel an innate desire to care, to share with other people who do not give us anything in return. Love, as the kabbalists teach it, that is not dependent on anything. And that is the ultimate level of love. When we realize, as the great kabbalist Rabbi Akiva teaches, and as Rav Ashlag stresses in his book , "Gift of the Bible", that the entire purpose of our life in this world, that the only way we can achieve fulfillment, and true connection with the Light of the Creator is when we not only have love towards other people but when we are constantly growing that love that we feel towards all people, towards humanity. That is the ultimate test of our spiritual growth. When we realize that we can do a 101 different spiritual actions, even actions of sharing. And we can make a 101 different connections but if our love towards another person, towards other people is not growing then we are not connecting to the Light of the Creator. And this is a very important point because I think most of us if we think about our lives and we think about the way we interact with people, most of us believe that we are loving people. Certainly, we love our spouse, we love our children, we love the people, our friends, those who are close to us. But that is not the test of love. That is not the ultimate true love. My love for other people who do not give me anything in return, physically, emotionally, in any other way, is my love for them, for humanity in general, for people in particular those who do not give back to me is that growing and that needs to be the constant question that we ask. There's a great lesson that the kabbalists teach about Abraham. Abraham, one of the patriarchs, biblical patriarchs, was as the kabbalists teach the channel for Chesed, one of the ten sefirot, one of the Ten Emanations one of the ten channels of Light that come into this world. Chesed is the channel of right column, of love, of kindess. And the kabbalists teach that when Abraham lived and his whole life centered around love, sharing towards other people, and awakening and growing his love towards other people, he literally was the channel that opened up if you will the faucet of love, the channel of love that flowed into our world. Before Abraham, the ability to love, the channel of love from the supernal world down to our world was limited. And Abraham's great work was that he opened up the channel of love not only for himself more importantly, for the rest of the world. And in the time of Abraham, it was easier for people to love other people than anytime before him. But unfortunately, the kabbalists teach, people began using that love in a negative way. They began loving things that they shouldn't be loving. They began expressing their love in ways that they shouldn't be expressing them. Their love unfortunately was corrupted by their selfishness, by their ego. And what had to happen in order to protect humanity is that the Creator shut down, limited again that channel of love. And it is a very important lesson that has to do with every single one of us. Every single one of us has the ability to open up our channel of love and to limit our channel of love. We open up our channel of love by actively pursuing, awakening our love towards other people. The second emotion I'd like to talk about, as we come into the month of Tammuz, this month of Cancer, this month of emotions, is the emotion of fear. And the Zohar in Noach, in the portion of Noach, has a very interesting and important discussion regarding fear. So those of us who know the story of the Bible, the biblical story of Noah, it was the great flood. And only Noah and and his family who were in the ark, Noah's ark, survived the great flood. And as Noah comes out of the ark, the Creator tells Noah, {...Hebrew...} You will be feared by the animals by all of nature. You, Noah, and your children and your family, will be feared, and the Zohar explains, {...Hebrew...} because you will have the image of man. And the Zohar explains that there are different levels of images, meaning, different levels of connection different levels of how we develop ourselves as humans. There is the ultimate level of humanity of a human. {...Hebrew...} But if a person does negative actions as the generation before the flood did their selem elochim, their image of God, their spiritual protection that surrounds our body becomes diminished. {...Hebrew...} Because man was created in the image of God, meaning, that every single one of us has around us, a as the kabbalists call it, selem elochim or image of God. We are surrounded by a sphere, by a Light, that protects us. That shows all of nature, though we don't see it with our physical eyes but the animals see it, all of nature sees it. The entire universe sees a person when he has this protective layer, this selem elochim. This image of God surrounding him. {...Hebrew...} When the generation of the flood and when any person does negative actions, their image, their spiritual image, changes. {...Hebrew...} and the supernal image, {...Hebrew...} and because their image was diminished, that surrounding force of Light of the Creator was diminished, they began to fear all of nature. They began to fear all the animals. {...Hebrew...} Before the generation of the flood, the negative actions, when any animal would look up at a human he would see the image of God. He would see that Light surrounding them and protecting them. {...Hebrew...} And all the animals, all of nature, would fear man. {...Hebrew...} But once they did negative actions {...Hebrew...} their image was no longer the image of God. They would no longer have that protection around them. {...Hebrew...} And then people began fearing animals. The Zohar here is teaching us a very, very important lesson. It's telling us what happened then but it's telling us what happens now. The kabbalists teach us, the Zohar explains that every single one of us has the ability and we were born with a selem elochim. A image of God. A shadow of God of Light that literally covers us and shields us from anything negative of a physical nature. Shields us and makes the entire universe fear us and stay away from us. The third emotion I'd like to talk about is regret. Many of us throughout our lives have done things that we have regretted, very often for the right reasons. We've done things that have either hurt ourselves or hurt others. As the kabbalists teach, regret is an important emotion. But as every other emotion, it has a positive side and a negative side. If we look back at things that we've done and become upset or saddened or depressed about them and therefore do nothing, that is not a positive regret, that is a regret from the negative side. But when we look back at our lives at the actions that we've done, and that literally gives us a push, an impetus, to do things differently, to change, to grow, that is positive regret. So it's important that we know it and this is true for every emotion, that there is a tremendously positive side and a tremendously negative side to every emotion. And what we have to accomplish, what we want to accomplish this month is be able to take hold of these emotions using them for growth. So regret, again, is a very powerful and necessary emotion. But we have to ask ourselves the question, "Where is it coming from"? Is it coming from the positive side or from the negative side? And the simple way to know that is, what does it make you do? If you feel regret and do nothing about it, if you feel regret and become sad and it just keeps you stuck, throw that regret away. There is no purpose for it, it is only from the negative side. But if you look back at things that you've done, if you look back at things that you've done and that pushes you to change, that pushes you to do better next, and that pushes you to change things about yourself, to change things about the way you do things, then it is coming from the positive side. And I'd like to share with you a story that I have read recently this story is from a great kabbalist, his name was The Apta Rebbe Rabbi Abram Yehoshua Reshil and he says that there is a certain person who came to see him. We know that very often people come to kabbalists for assistance, for advice, for blessings, and there was this person who came to visit this great kabbalist, The Apta Rebbe. So this person comes to The Apte Rebbeni, wants to get a blessing {...Hebrew...} The Apte Rebbe when he saw him and the kabbalists have the ability to look at a person and see who they really are, what their essence really is, and as he looked at this person he realizes, he's probably one of the worst people alive at his time. There wasn't a negative action that this person did not do. {...Hebrew...} The Apte Rabbe raised his voice {...Hebrew...} and he said to him this, {...Hebrew...} How dare you come, you evil one, how dare you come into my presence. Go out, I don't want to look at a person as evil as you. So the man of course was shaken up by his words, this great kabbalist, started screaming at him, yelling at him. So the man asks the kabbalist, The Apte Rabbe, {...Hebrew...} Is there any way for me to still correct my soul? Can I cleanse? Because you know sometimes you can touch somebody in a way that awakens them to want to make the biggest changes. And The Apte Rabbe did that here by raising his voice towards this person. the person for the first time in his life, realized all the negative actions that he'd done, all the truly negative things that he had accomplished in his life. And he turns to The Apte Rabbe and he says, "Is there any way for me to change? Is there any way for me to cleanse all that I have done?" {...Hebrew...} so the kabbalist stopped, Rabbe answers to him {...Hebrew...} he says, "Go away for one year." he says, "I can't help you now." He says, "All I can tell you to do, is go away for a year. Don't do anything negative for this year. And find your own way that you think you can correct yourself because right now, as you are, I do not see a way that I can help you. I do not see a way for you to correct yourself. I do not see a way for you to perfect yourself, to cleanse yourself of all the negativity that you have done, all the negativity that you have created. {...Hebrew...} And this is sort of a side point, but a very important point in the story. That Saturday, after the great kabbalist, The Apte Rabbe met with this man, {...Hebrew...} the children and family of the kabbalist became ill, became sick. And when The Apte Rabbe saw this, when the kabbalist saw this, the reason why his family is becoming sick is because he has broken a great negativity, a great, as the kabbalists call, the klipa. A great shell, a great source of darkness. That his breaking of that man, his awakening of that man broke and removed the tremendous level of darkness from our world. And therefore, that negativity is trying to get back at The Apte Rabbe. So again it's in the side but it is an important point to note that true kabbalists, a person who truly desires to help another person is willing to do so even if it can bring him harm. Even if he has to give up himself. It's very easy to try to help somebody else when it doesn't influence me, when there's nothing negative that can come to me from it. But a true kabbalist is a person who is willing to help another person regardless of the consequences for himself. But that's in the side. After that first week, again this is only one week from the time that the great kabbalist had met the man, the kabbalist, The Apte Rabbe, calls back the man and says, "Go home, and there as I said, do whatever you think you can do work on yourself, and after one year, come back to me." The man goes home to his town and he works diligently for the whole year. He studies and he thinks and he works and he does much good as he can. And he does this not just for one year, and after two years but for seven complete years. And after seven years, he comes back to The Apte Rabbe, the great kabbalist because now he realizes that he has only done enough work during those seven years that he probably has created an opening so that the kabbalist can truly help him change, really help him cleanse. When he walks into the room after seven years to the great kabbalist, The Apte Rabbe stands up And he says, "I see upon you that the Light of the Creator, the Shechinah is resting. He says, "Who are you?" The Apte Rabbe turns to him and says, "Who are you?" He says, "You must be a great man!" So the man turns to The Apte Rabbe and he starts crying. And he says, {...Hebrew...} Don't you recognize me anymore? I am that same evil person that you saw seven years ago. I had done everything negative possible to do in my life. So The Apte Rabbe started crying with him. And he looked at his image, at his selem elochim, the image of God that surrounded him now. {...Hebrew...} And he saw that he achieved a tremendous level of connection to the Light of the Creator. And that the Light of the Creator literally surrounded him completely. {...Hebrew...} And The Apte Rabbe hugged him, and he kissed him. {...Hebrew...} He says you no longer need anybody like me to help you perfect yourself {...Hebrew...} because your soul is completely corrected. {...Hebrew...} And you don't need anymore assistance, any more correction. {...Hebrew...} Not only had you perfected your soul, but you have perfected your body. You have achieved complete perfection. And again like I said this is a very powerful and important story. But the question that we have to ask ourselves because we're talking about the emotion of regret. And we are talking about perfecting ourselves through the use of that emotion. And the singular question we have to ask ourselves, Iif this man has accomplished it in seven years and where he started off was worse than where any of us are at But is our goal that complete perfection? Are we constantly pushing ourselves and looking back and asking, How can I become as perfect as that negative person? because if not, you know there is this famous call it a joke or a proverb "If you don't know where you're going, you're not gonna get there." And that is the question we ask ourselves. We know we have to use the emotion of regret. We have to look back at everything that we do and find ways to make it better to perfect ourselves more. But the question is, "Where are we hoping to go?" "What are we hoping to achieve?" And what this story teaches us is that within seven years, and for many of us probably in a shorter period of time, we can achieve complete perfection, complete connection to the Light of the Creator. But when we are only when are serially focused on that goal and do everything that we can and use all of our emotions, all of our abilities to achieve that connection. Like I said this is a, for me, a very powerful and important story, one that has many, many different levels and many different lessons. But as we come now to this month of Tammuz, a month of emotions, a month within which we can grab control of our emotions- love, fear and regret. To be able to achieve the purpose for which we came to this world true, complete connection, true, complete perfection that ultimately gives us the joy and fulfillment for which we came to this world. Chodesh Tov. If you wish to nurture your love for other people, you must also nurture your love for yourself. I'm not talking of becoming full of yourself just simply appreciate the Light and power within. It's a basic principle of Kabbalah. We each possess a spark of the Light of the Creator. Our spiritual work must be built on a foundation of respecting and loving that part of ourselves. Embracing our own Light makes it easier to acknowledge the Light in others. We need to be more tolerant and compassionate towards our own faults. As Karen Berg says, "Intolerance is the opposite of love, since it is judgmental and rejecting, which love is not." This month, exercise compassion and acceptance of yourself. If you do something wrong, instead of a confirmation of failure, practice self-tolerance. See it as an opportunity for growth. Take all of what Michael shared with you into your heart and into your actions. We'll see you in the month of Leo. Chodesh Tov.