Greetings, SuperFriends!

In this episode with Rabbi Moshe Miller, we are going to be exploring something a little bit different… In the past, we’ve talked about meditation and yoga, and in a sense, this episode will be a continuation of that. However, today, we’re going to explore it from another angle – Kabbalah.

For those of you who have never heard of it, Kabbalah is a lesser-known teaching of Judaism, characterized by mysticism and mystery. In recent years, it’s become hugely popular among dozens of celebrities, from Madonna to David Beckham, Ashton Kutcher, and Natalie Portman. Personally, I’ve always been intrigued and curious about it, given my interest in and enthusiasm for meditation, so I decided to explore that curiosity in a conversation, and record it for all of you. In that sense, I’m inviting you all to join me on my own learning journey, on a topic I used to know little to nothing about.

My guest today is a world-renowned expert on Kabbalah, originally from South Africa. He’s a prolific author and translator, who has published hundreds of articles and some 20 books. He is most widely known for his translation of The Zohar, and other kabbalistic works. He’s also the author of The Kabbalah of Character, a highly successful course on the subject.

In this episode, I wanted to gain a deeper understanding both of what Kabbalah is, and what benefit it can offer us in our own lives. My goal was to extract some of the practical teachings of Kabbalah in a secular and non-religious fashion, and make it accessible to anyone in the audience. I hope you take a lot of value away from it.

This episode is brought to you by the all-new online course, Creating a Meaningful Life. Use this link to save 20%

In this episode, we discuss:

• What prompted Rabbi Moshe Miller to dedicate his life to the study and practice of Kabbalah?
• What exactly is “Kabbalah?”
• What are the 4 different ways to approach and understand biblical teachings?
• What does Kabbalah seek to do? What is it's purpose?
• How exactly does one practice or study Kabbalah?
• How is Kabbalistic meditation very different from other forms?
• What does Kabbalah have to say about one's purpose in life, and how to realize it?
• A discussion of the most advanced practitioners of Kabbalah and what they do with their lives
• Why have so many celebrities and athletes taken up Kabbalah in recent years?
• Is it true that Kabbalah cannot be learned until the age of 40?
• What are Rabbi Moshe Miller's thoughts about psychedelic drugs as a means of spiritual exploration?
• What are the 12 senses according to Kabbalah?
• Is Kabbalah for everyone? Or are there some people who shouldn't experiment with it?
• How can you begin to take advantage of Kabbalah in your own life? 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Rabbi Moshe Miller's Books
• Kabbalah Decoded
• KabalahOnline.org

Favorite Quotes from Rabbi Moshe Miller:

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman podcast, where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: Before we get started today, I want to let you guys know that this episode is brought to you by the online course, Creating a Meaningful Life. Now, this course is the culmination of 20 years of work and research by my personal mentor and university professor, Linda Levine and myself. Now in it, we teach not only the skills and strategies that we've used and taught and which are being used by life coaches all over the world to create a life of fulfillment and balance.

 But we also go into how you can design your lifestyle, how you can improve in every aspect, all eight of the aspects that make a complete and rich life. And really we share a lot of our wisdom. So if you've been inspired by the show, by some of the guests on here who seem to have these incredibly rich fulfilling lives, I do encourage you to check it out.

And of course it is backed by a 30-day money back guarantee. So to take advantage of a special coupon for listeners of this podcast, visit jle.vi/meaning. All right, here we go with the show. Greeting, super friends and welcome to this week's show. Before we get started, I want to read you guys a fantastic review from eujmk of the UK who says inspiring and life-changing.

I've been listening since the beginning. And I have to say it's the best podcast I subscribe to the variety of guests and topics, the likability of Jonathan and the general pursuit of Becoming SuperHuman is awesome. The biggest compliment I can give it is that it has and continues to enhance my life. He goes on to say that he signed up for the, Become a SuperLearner course, which has dramatically increased his reading speed and memory retention, and that he's taking on a new goal from every single episode he listens to. He or she.

Thank you so much for your review. It really brightens my day. It makes it all worth while. If you want to hear your review, read out on the air, just leave one and I will read it out to you guys. On to today's episode, we're going to be exploring something a little bit different today. You see, in the past, we've talked about meditation and yoga and in a sense, this episode will be a sort of continuation of that.

However, today we're going to explore it from another angle, which is Kabbalah. Now for those of you, who've never heard of it. Kabbalah is a lesser known teaching of Judaism actually, and it's characterized by a lot of mysticism and mystery. It's really kind of misunderstood, but recently it's become hugely popular among dozens of celebrities from Madonna to David Beckham and Ashton Kutcher, Natalie Portman.

So personally, I've always been really kind of intrigued and curious about it. I've never really understood what it was about, but given my interest in and enthusiasm for meditation, I kind of decided to explore that curiosity in a conversation with one of the experts on Kabbalah. And I just happened to record it for all of you.

So in that sense, I'm really inviting you all to join me on my own kind of learning and exploration journey on a topping that, I kind of really didn't know anything about, so I really hope you enjoy it. I hope it teaches you something. And maybe also it'll be something for you, something you want to explore and something that can provide value in your life.

So my goal in this episode was really to gain a deeper understanding and there was no one better to do that with then today's guest, who's a world renowned expert on Kabbalah originally from South Africa. He's also a prolific author and translator. He's published hundreds of articles and some 20 books.

The most widely known of which is the Zohar, uh, and he's also the author of the Kabbalah of Character and a highly successful coach and teacher of the subject. So I hope we take away some practical teachings here, some inspiration and some ideas that you can apply in your daily life one way or another.

I think you'll definitely enjoy the episode and the wisdom that my guest shares. So without further ado, Let me present to you, Rabbi Moshe Miller.

Rabbi Miller. Welcome to the show today and also Chag Sameach, Happy Holiday. I know it's a Jewish holiday today, so thank you for making the time. 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: You're very welcome. It's a, the day of Lag B'Omer, which celebrates, uh, commemorates the passing of the founder of Kabbalah. 

Jonathan Levi: Interesting. I didn't actually know that I'm fairly secular myself, so I assume I will be learning a lot today about the religion I grew up with.

Okay. All right. Rabbi Miller, tell us what about yourself and your life journey? What led you to Kabbalah? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: Well, I was a student in college and university in South Africa where I'm from originally. And I became very interested in philosophy. All the branches of philosophy that are taught in universities.

And I started making quite a deep study of it. In fact, it was my major. And after a couple of years, I kind of got disappointed by not being able to find what it was that it was really after when I began the whole process of looking into philosophy. There's a lot of semantics, a lot of ideas, but not getting really down to the root of what a human being is all about, what the world is all about, why it's all here. 

In other words, it wasn't getting to, I suppose you would call the universal truths. And it so happened that there was someone came to give a lecture on Kabbalah at the university. And, um, it was pretty fascinating. I was really interested in, spoke to him afterwards.

And that really began my journey as a, someone who delved into it. I spent many years afterwards in institute to study Yeshiva, studying all the dimensions of Jewish thought and practice. And that's what brought me to this today. Here I am. 

Jonathan Levi: That's fascinating. Rabbi Miller. I think probably the biggest question in our audience's minds right now, is this, what exactly is Kabbalah?

I mean, I have to admit that even I, as someone who grew up Jewish, I don't really understand it at all. So fill us in on what exactly it is. 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: Okay. There's many ways obviously to talk about it, but just to put it in the proper perspective first, there are four different approaches to understanding the Bible and, uh, associated books.

The one of those approaches is just to understand it basically on a literal level and then to take out of it, the practical applications in terms of what are called the commandments or the mitzvot in Hebrew and follow those. There's a sort of a deeper level of understanding, which talks about the idea of shane's beyond the outer structure, the outer picture, but it's not really ever explained. It's only sort of hinted to that is called rim is the first is called shock. 

The simple, straightforward explanation then comes rim is where things are hinted to, but they're not really explained. And then there's the level of explanation was called the homiletical level of explanation, homily, sermonizing, which probably if you ever went to synagogue or temple, you know, the sermons that the rabbi gives on the sandbox whenever. 

That's the sort of sermonizing aspect of things. And then there's the secret teachings on the door I called Sod teaching. It's all really focusing on the same material, but from different points of view, you could see this in other disciplines as well. For example, we can talk about human emotions.

There's the literary, recording of human emotions, either in art or in theater or in poetry or in writing, then there's the psychological aspect where, you know, a psychologist will go into the various kinds of human emotions and so on and so forth. And then there's the possible physiological aspects of emotion in how the emotion affects the other aspects of the body, of the heart, the lining of the stomach, people get ulcers from worrying too much and so on and so forth.

So there are many ways of looking at the same thing and describing it differently. And that's really what Kabbalah is. It's the way of looking at things, the same things that other aspects of Jewish law look at, but with the understanding that there's a sort of a secret dimension, I can explain a little bit deeper as well.

I would love that. The word Kabbalah means the received tradition, something that couldn't have been worked out like logically it's a received tradition that we got from going all the way back to Moses essentially, the wisdom that's received. But it also means a comes from a word, meaning like alignment or correspondence is the word in Hebrew.

What does Kabbalah seek to do? It seeks to align the lower worlds was the higher worlds or lower levels of reality with higher planes of reality, synchronized human consciousness with divine consciousness, your unique strengths and talents with your purpose in life. So it's synchronicity. Alignment that Kabbalah is all about.

And that's what I personally find so fascinating about it. Is it delves right into the depths of things in order to really connect them? It's a very fascinating study on something that is extremely uplifting and enlightening. 

Jonathan Levi: So, as I understand it, it's really about seeking the nature of consciousness and the nature of the human experience. And understanding the big questions why we're here. What is reality? Those kinds of things. Correct. Correct. I guess my question is how does one go about practicing Kabbalah? Right? Because the teaching of the mainstream Judaism, as you said, it's kind of the same lessons taught in a different way. You mainstream Judaism, we study scripture and read about the stories and teachings of God and profits.

How does one practice Kabbalah? What does it entail? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: So there's an intellectual dimension. There's really, there's two aspects really to come out at once called Kabbalah, you will need, which means the, sort of the intellectual aspect, the understanding of the underpinnings, like how things came into being in a sort of a cosmological sense, how the various planes of reality developed from one another or what the origin of time is, what the origin of consciousness is.

It's really an evolutionary or rather we would say evolutionary because it evolves from highest to lowest state devolves in a sense. And so there's that aspect of things where one is, I'm trying to understand sort of the psychic codes, cosmic history of existence, while at the same time, figuring out its inner structure, how it all works together, how the higher planes work with the lower planes and so on and so forth.

That's one aspect of things. So there's a lot of study involved. On the other hand, there's also meditation, the meditative aspects of Kabbalah, which would usually that will be called the Kabbalah Ma'asit. Practical Kabbalah, the application of the principles to practical everyday questions. Now in certainly historically in terms of practical Kabbalah.

There were people and there aren't today. Also people that had tremendous spiritual powers that could sort of speak. I don't want to use the word manipulate, but adjust, areas of existence, which were problematic for one reason or another. Of course, the only goal is for the betterment of human beings and mankind of the world itself goal is never to control and to harm but four obvious reasons, that aspect of things, the focus on increasing one's abilities to change things has to be restricted and can only be given to by a teacher to a student who is worthy. 

So there's both of those aspects. Nevertheless, even though someone is not yet on that level where he could, or she could appreciate that and receive it, it's nevertheless possible to use the meditations and the focuses in which the practical meditative side of Kabbalah gives us.

Jonathan Levi: Interesting. So what are we talked about the betterment of a person? What are the kinds of outcomes and improvements that one can expect by practicing Kabbalah? Is it similar to other meditative practices in those benefits? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: No. I'll tell you why not? I don't think it is. I mean, in terms of making one's life a better life.

Yes. But the whole direction is very different. I would say at least the way I understand it. When we're talking about Buddhism and to certain extent, certain sects of Christianity and Hinduism. So the focus generally there is, to become Holy you have to leave the world. You have to go to an ashram. You have to go to a cave somewhere in the Himalayas.

You have to go to a monastery. You have to live a life of a celibate life, not get married, whether it's a nun or a priest. And in a sense, you have to leave the world vows of silence and so on and so forth. You leave the world in order to escape the negativity of this world, you sort of have to leave the world and become this, you know, spiritual being.

Kabbalah doesn't see it like that at all. In fact, quite the contrary, the exact opposite is the purpose to bring heaven down to earth, not leave earth, to go to heaven, to bring heaven down to us, meaning to make, just place that we're in now. This existence does sometimes very dark existence into a place of light, into a place of holiness.

So the objective is very different. Maybe some of the methods of the same, or at least similar, but certainly the object of is a very different one. 

Jonathan Levi: Interesting. Okay. So tell us a bit about some of the, the kind of benefits. I mean, you mentioned conducting and having a better life, better experience. And you also mentioned that, you know, these, I don't know if you use the word powers, but these gifts can only be bestowed on someone who is ready and by a qualified teacher, what are the gifts that Kabbalah can offer us in our lives?

What are the benefits that are there to be received? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: So when I spoke about the gifts that can only be bestowed by a teacher, these are really very powerful, spiritual powers and insights that the average individual maybe will not be able to achieve on this puts in he or she puts in the time or effort, but everybody can achieve the basic paradigm of what it means to live a good life in the world.

In other words, basically, Kabbalah provides us with perspectives by which you can understand yourself. And the world in which you live and a framework in which you can live your life to the fullest. Now, the objective is not information per se, but rather a transformation, the transformation of the person, it begins by understanding your own sort of capitalistic profile.

Every individual has his own capitalistic profile, sometimes revealed by persons name. And once one understands that you sort of start to build the what it is that your purpose must be in life. Now, when I start, what your purpose must be, we're all here for a reason. There's no one alive in the world who doesn't have a place and a purpose in being here.

There's actually a very beautiful, specific story illustrates this very well. There was a disciple of the famous rabbi. Yeah, these are branches somewhere white russian. So this disciple went to his rabbi and as was customary, when you go into your rabbi to ask him using all these huge, spiritual questions about your life and what you should be doing and so on and so forth, and how do I improve myself?

So he wrote everything down on a piece of paper and he handed it to the rabbi because sometimes it's the presence of great people. You sort of get tongue tied. So the customer list to write it down, you give the note to the rabbi and whatever, and he sits there and, uh, given the insight that it hasn't to you and into life in general, when he would be able to guide you.

So this disciple goes to the rabbi and it gives him this piece of paper. The rabbi looks at the piece of paper very, very carefully, and he turns it all, anything on the other side and it puts it down for a minute. And then he goes into a state of meditation for awhile and it comes back and he looks at his disciples and says, look, I see that you've thought very, very carefully about what it is that you need.

However, I don't see any hint here that you've ever thought what it is that you are needed for. And at that point, the disciple, let's say the disciple fainted. And he had to be carried down that when he woke up from his faint, he was a transformed person. It became a really, a new person who was dancing. The scene was happy because now he finally understood what he'd been missing.

I have a purpose and I'm here to discover what I'm needed for. And that's liberating and that's really what we aim for in practical cabalistic studies. What am I needed for. 

Jonathan Levi: Mm. And that's achieved through meditation and through study of the texts of Kabbalah. Yes. Okay. I think I'm starting to get a better understanding here.

You mentioned, you know, some of the, at the higher level, really kind of gifted practitioners achieving, I think you used the term powers and given the title of the show, you know, Becoming SuperHuman, I do feel obligated to ask, I mean, the most sophisticated and dedicated practitioners of Kabbalah, what are they getting from it?

I mean, what are they able to achieve? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: Well, let's on a simplest level. We're talking about achieving a sense of fulfillment and wellbeing of happiness. That's on a very simple level on a more profound level. I think you could say that the practitioners of Kabbalah are focused on helping out other people, making the world a better place for everybody.

The story is told one of the stories about the founder, essentially the founder or the great grandfather of Kabbalah Shimon bar Yochai, who today is the anniversary of his passing. He lived in the second century. So. The story is told that he was running away. He was escaping, he tried to escape the Roman forces that recently conquered Israel and they destroyed the temple.

And some of the rabbis, many of the rabbis were their targets because they knew that this was the spiritual life of the people and the hope for the future of the people. And they were attempting to capture them to put the desk and so on and so forth. So he escaped was his son and they hid away in a cave.

And they spent 12 years hiding from the Romans in the cave. When the Roman emperor passed away, and it was declared that this was sort of amnesty, they came out of the cave. And when they saw people just simply tending to the fields and going about life, wherever they looked the place just burst into flames.

Voice came out of heaven and said, this is what you came out of the cave for. Well go back. And they had to go back for another year. And then when they came out of the cave, the second time Rabbi Shimon, that's probably Shimon bar Yochai who's uh, today is, his, um, his anniversary. The first thing, when he came out of the cave was to ask what needs rectifying, workings, fixing what needs improving?

What do you need my help for? And that was a whole different way of looking at things. And that's really what the holiest soul, the Kabbalah really comes to the world to do. They come to improve the world for everybody, not just for this, by everybody. The disciples, the families, and the disciples, and a larger scale entire nation.

And in an even larger scale, the world, as far as it's possible to make things better for everybody. 

Jonathan Levi: Fascinating. Okay. I'm definitely starting to understand it. You know, I know Rabbi Miller that Kabbalah has recently been embraced by a lot of secular people and non Jews, specifically, a lot of celebrities, athletes.

I mean, people who really, as you said are contributing to this world are bringing joy into people's lives, accomplishment and are operating at a very high level. Why do you think it is that Kabbalah has appealed to these people? Why has it experienced somewhat of a Renaissance in popular culture? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: It's difficult to answer for everybody, but I would say that probably certainly in the case of various movie stars and things like that, and the celebrities, I would say that a lot of their interrelationship with people is

based on glamour. Especially I would say, you know, movie stars and things like, I mean, glamor is the name of the game. And I'm sure that they feel that in that glamour, the outside glamour and beauty is to a certain extent lacking an inner dimension. I'm sure that that's what they feel. And that's why they looking for something deeper than just the outer physical blessing that they were born beautiful or born handsome or whatever.

Obama's beautiful voice with musical talent. There's gotta be something deeper than that. It's gotta be more in the world than my beauty, which will fade in 10, 20, 30 years or my musical abilities, which, you know, tastes will change and, you know, it's going to move on. So there's gotta be more to it than that.

And I think that that's why people, you know, if they're looking sincerely, I would say that that's probably, what's behind it. Have the inner beauty, as well as the outer beauty, the inner talent, as well as the outer talent. That's what I would guess is, um, their motivation. 

Jonathan Levi: Sounds reasonable. You know, someone once told me and I don't know.

If this is true, he once told me that Kabbalah can and should only be practiced by someone older who already has children, because it it's very powerful that it can kind of reorganize your mind and change your entire perspective. Is that true or is that kind of an urban legend? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: It's not an urban legend, but let's just clarify that there are sources that say that a person should not learn the Kabbalah until the age of 40.

Oh, wow. And be married and so on and so forth. However, the father of modern Kabbalah Rabbi Isaac Luria, who passed away in 15 hundreds. Passed away at the age of 39. So how did he stuck to that rule? I think you would have felt we wouldn't have had modern Kabbalah's we have it. And so it's not really true now. It also depends very much on which branch of Kabbalah one studies.

The most modern development of Kabbalah is actually a history of three phases is really the third phase of Kabbalah does not have that danger. Because it looked not to transcend the world as to so much as to transform the world. So therefore it doesn't have that danger of sort of floating away. There are stories of disciples.

The four stages has told him the Tomo, the four stages we went into the paradise or the paradise, which literally means the orchard. But, uh, the understanding is that they went to an extremely high spiritual level. And three of them were damaged thereby and only one was not damaged. One came in, they went in, in peace and he came back in peace.

One went crazy. One became an apostate and one died. Only one of them came back. Why? Because all the other three were not properly solidly with their feet on the ground. That's what happened to them because they didn't have their feet on the ground or they left their heads in the, uh, in the wrong place.

So that should have happened in the first two years of development of Kabbalah and the third area of development. That's not the focus because again, the focus there is bringing heaven down to earth and not remaining in heaven or leaving earth for heaven, so to speak. So the danger is not really there.

Therefore you find very young people are learning come alive. In fact, I had a webinar last night and one of the participants is he's in his twenties, late twenties. It's not something that one has to be worried about an age limitation 

Jonathan Levi: today. Okay. So fascinating. That's really super interesting. It also reminds me of another question I wanted to ask you.

I really love doing the show because I asked the questions that most people probably would never dare ask. So I'm going to do exactly that, which is, you know, in recent years, a lot of people have been holding up psychedelic substances and tribal substances that have been used also for thousands of years.

Things like psilocybin, LSD, Iowasca. All these other drugs, as a means for spiritual discovery and enlightened consciousness, you know, and I know a lot of traditional religions are looking at these substances and hold them with high regard because of their powers for exactly that, you know, awakening people to their purpose, the whole idea of the spirit quests. So what are your thoughts on this type of spiritual exploration? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: It's difficult to say. I wouldn't say that all experiences that one has under the influence of substances are only dream-like or to use it even worst expression, a garbage. I wouldn't say that. I'm sure that there are, you know, with guidance, they offer certain benefits.

However, the question is whether the benefits outweigh the dangers. The dangers of addiction, the dangers of taking chemical substances and becoming dependent on them. As you know, many people become sort of addicted to that kind of substance because it gives you such a spiritual high. Now what, if you could achieve that spiritual high without substance, that would be much more powerful

I think, I believe. There was a famous Hasidic rabbi named Rabbi Lubavitcher and he also spoke about addiction. He said, I'm addicted to God. It's certainly a healthier addiction then than other addictions. But again, you know, I don't really certainly in capitalistic practices, there's no one that I know who's an authentic capitalist that uses any substance or suggests that one use substances.

It is, I would say an organic method of getting to it, which means using your own powers to get to that state of joy and that state of transcendence to that state of, uh, perhaps euphoria insight would probably be a much better way to go. 

Jonathan Levi: Um, have you had experiences through Kabbalah and Kabbalistic meditation that have been eyeopening transcendent kind of peaks into the nature of reality in the way that people talk about something like an acid trip?

Rabbi Moshe Miller: I'm not so familiar with, uh, asset trips, but, uh, yeah, I have had experiences and I'm sure that many other people have as well. In all days a euphoric experience that one can go through and it can happen quite often, in fact, and, uh, yeah, deeply meditative experiences where you just completely lose track of the sense of time and, uh, the sense of space around you and sort of doors start to open up and, uh, you know, spiritual realms, that's give you understanding of a much deeper reality than what else fences would have us believe is the only reality.

Jonathan Levi: Well, you know, I forgot to ask. I just realized in all forms of meditation, as far as I know, there's something that you focus on, whether the breath or a mantra. What is the object of focus during Kabbalistic meditation? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: So many different variations and varieties of Kabbalistic meditation, that it would be difficult to say there is a breath meditation from the Bal Chantelle, the founder of acidic branch of Kabbalah, meditation on the breath. It's very different from a, the yoga meditation, the meditation on Holy names. 

There's meditation on concepts, a sort of a conceptual idea. There's meditation on colors. And then there's meditations on withdrawing from the sensors withdrawing within. In fact, the sensors, how would, which we usually know about the five senses, uh, taste and touch and hearing and seeing and so on on, are not the only senses that Kabbalah talks about is there are others. 

There are 12 sensors according to Kabbalah, we were called safer your Tierra describes 12 senses. The sense of eating, the sense of movement, the sense of balance. These are the senses that a sport, the sense of, uh, sex actually is another one.

In other words, in the process of meditation, we always draw from all of those 12 senses to focus within. And then the focusing within begins with emotional stencils, right. Awareness of putting emotions, then going through a gamut of emotions, really seven emotions, six primary ones. And then transcending the emotions, withdrawing from the emotions into an intellectual concept.

And then withdrawing from an intellectual concept into the essential core, which the intellectual concept is merely a manifestation of. That's the up process of meditation. Then that has to be followed by the down. Now it's drawing that inspiration down, back into intellect, then into emotions and then into the senses.

And then back into the world and then you get up from your meditation. So there are many, many different kinds of meditation, many different approaches, different things for different people. And I hope that answers the question. Yeah. 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, absolutely. Is this for everyone, do you think, or are there people listening in the audience who, you know, maybe should finish listening to this episode and never consider it again?

I mean, is there a group of people for whom this is appropriate and a group for whom this is inappropriate? 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: Iwouldn't say inappropriate for anybody. You know, the expression that I know it in America is whatever floats your boat. It depends on the individual. I would say that everybody could find something in it, but for some people it's simply not going to be appealing.

That's not where their soul comes from so to speak. Certainly for people that who were born into the tribe. No, it's certainly appropriate for them to look into it. But I do have, um, many people in my classes, who wants Jewish and, um, who nevertheless, you know, feel like they get something out of it. And have changed the lives accordingly, you know, Kabbalah can be applied the principles and the ideas can be applied to many situations.

That can be applied to business, that can be applied to medicine, that can be applied a little, maybe even engineering, perhaps, you know, like there's this, uh, Chinese idea that is called, feng shui, if I'm not mistaken where they've designed houses in such a way as to make spaces, which are comfortable to be in spiritually as opposed to places which are jarring spiritually and, you know, Kabbalah can be applied to those kinds of situations as well.

And there are many very practical applications of ideas without the person necessarily having to commit to everything there is, of course, it's preferable for people who were belonging to the tribe to commit further to, you know, observe. The requirements of the Torah, but ideas can be adapted and adjusted for people who are not holding by that.

Nevertheless, of course there has to be a moral side to individual who's pursuing these studies because if a person is pursuing it for immoral reasons, I think ultimately A you won't get anything out of it. And B it could very possibly destroy that person's lives. Wow. It's possible. I mean, I don't know of any cases where that happened, but you know, it's certainly a warning on the label.

Watch out don't use for immoral purposes. 

Jonathan Levi: Wow. So I guess the next question would be, you know, we like to give practical, applicable, actionable advice on the show. So I think the next question is how could someone listening in the audience begin to take advantage of some of the teachings of Kabbalah in their own lives?

Rabbi Moshe Miller: Well, there are a lot of places to start classes. Authentic classes are probably the best place to start. There are classes available there's websites that people can go to is my own website kabbalahdecoded.com and there's another one called kabbalahonline.org. There's many other websites. One can get a coach in cabalistic concepts.

If anyone wants to correspond with me via my website or some other way, I could suggest some people in the area that I could talk to and discuss with and go to classes on, uh, you know, there's many classes that are available for free on the internet or live classes. And, uh, that's really the way to begin.

Of course, you have to sort out the wheat from the chaff, which sometimes a little bit difficult. If anyone wants to correspond with me on this issue, I can point them to some authentic sources rather than inauthentic sources, but some of the ones that I've given kabbalahdecoded.com, kabbalahonline.org and a few others I can direct them to are authentic and they're good.

And probably people will get a lot of benefit out of it. 

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. So that is a good segue into the next question, which is, if people do want to reach out to you to learn more, where should we send 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: them. To that website and just hit the button for contact and, uh, it'll come directly to me and we can contact that way.

Jonathan Levi: Perfect. Rabbi Miller. Last question I have for you today. If our audience takes away just one lesson from this episode and carries it with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope for that lesson to be. 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: I would say that the most important thing is that every person is here for a purpose, something that you needed for. Start walking out what it is that you are needed for, and then pursue it with everything that you have with all your strengths, your core strengths and your other strengths.

It'll lead to a sense of fulfillment, well-being, happiness and go for it. 

Jonathan Levi: Beautiful. I couldn't agree more. Rabbi Moshe Miller. Thank you so much. And again, wishing you a very happy holiday. It's really been a pleasure chatting with you. And I do hope we keep in touch. 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: I hope so too. And the pleasure is all mine.

Jonathan Levi: All right. Take care. 

Rabbi Moshe Miller: Thank you. Thanks very much. Bye now. 

Jonathan Levi: All right Superfriends, that's it for this week's episode, we hope you really, really enjoyed it and learn a ton of applicable stuff that can help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

If so, please do us a favor and leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or however you found this podcast. In addition to that, we are. Always looking for great guest posts on the blog or awesome guests right here on the podcast. So if you know somebody or you are somebody, or you have thought of somebody who would be a great fit for the show or for our blog, please reach out to us either on Twitter or by email our email is info@becomingasuperhuman.com. Thanks so much. 

Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming Superhuman Podcast. For more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast. We'll see you next time.