Kabbalah By Heart

I thought I'd only write once a week but this came up and I was in a really inspired mood, so here goes!

I have been a person whose emotions gets the best of them from time to time. Being in therapy has helped because I didn't have a compassionate ear a lot of the time when I was growing up. But when the sh*t hit the fan in my life in 2017, when my dad died and then with Geoff, I decided to start a "grief" journal that I still write nearly every day since then.

Writing has been my favorite thing since I was a child, after taking a poetry class in High School. Then at UCSC, I wouldn't choose to take a class unless the final was a writing assignment instead of a test. Writing, for me, has been a way to explore feelings that I was ashamed to share with anyone else. I can be more RAW in writing (as you well know!) than I can in speaking. (Though my closest friends may not agree with that statement!)

Exploring Feelings/Transforming Feelings

In this post, I hope to share with you some ideas, techniques and tools for journaling that can help you to explore and transform your feelings. First, it's a good idea to find a set time every day to write. I like doing it immediately after waking up, with a cup of coffee.

Ideas for Starting a Journal Entry:

• What did you experience yesterday?
• How did you feel yesterday?
• Are you feeling anything now that is hard for you?
• What are your plans for the day?
• Do you have any concerns about today?
• What is your intention or your goal for today?

I have often used my cards for some inspiration for the day. You could pull one of my Hasidic Kabbalah cards or any other deck you like to use.

How to use a card for your day:

• Shuffle the deck and ask to see what you need to see in order to make the most of this day.
• Place the card some place where you can see it during the day.
• When something difficult comes up, ask yourself, "how can I use the card's concept to work through this difficulty? How can I apply it to this situation?"

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Can you see my reflection taking the picture?!!

Kabbalah Cards Site

Once you pull a card for your day, you can write about how this card is informing you for today. Or the next day, when you go to journal, you can write about how this card helped you.

Transforming Feelings through Journaling:

• When writing out your feelings, try not to simply vent but instead, let your Observing mind come online. Then, you can become more interested in just what it is that you are feeling with no judgement.
• Hold the desire to understand what the feeling is really all about. You are simply gaining more information. Be CURIOUS.
• Feelings are the Inner Child. They just need to be held, given a voice, given some compassion. They will dissipate once they are truly seen.
• You may find that once the Inner Child has really been held, another inner voice will arise - the Higher Self. Notice what that Higher Voice is saying.
• See if you can get yourself to embrace and fully write out what that Higher Perspective is all about.

Thanks to one of my special clients for giving me this topic! Writing things out can be a great way to get whatever's going on inside of you to stay outside of your body, so you have a better chance to transform it or let it go. I even wrote when I was going through my cancer treatment and it helped me tremendously. I shared it online in a blog. Writing is, I believe, the greatest self-help tool that we can have and use for our personal growth and development.

Hope this was helpful.

Take good care,

Allison

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​KabbalahByHeart.com - here you'll find a blog of all of the emails I've ever sent out​

​Kabbalah by Heart on Pinterest - you'll find lots of pins linking to great Kabbalah and Judaism info.​

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​Kabbalah Cards - to sample 14 cards or to find layouts and interpretations and instructions for using the cards.

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​The Jewish New Year - become an insider - learn what the Jewish New Year is all about​

In 2017, my dad died. I felt like all the love in our family went with him. Geoff had begun stuttering and was diagnosed 6 months later, given 4 years to live. It was with the same disease as was just recently announced about Bruce Willis. I longed to ask my dad, the doctor, about it. To feel his love and support. To have his compassion for my plight.

It felt like I was headed for even more sorrow than my husband was. My perspective was: I had nothing to look forward to but 4 years of watching my life partner of 35 years deteriorate and die right in front of my eyes. Nothing to look forward to but death and destruction. When would it happen? How would it happen? And even worse (?) after it happened, I would be utterly alone in my life!

Meaningful Coincidences

My husband was gone in spirit, if not in body, for 3 years. My dad was gone. My son had moved across the country to go to med school. Aimee and I went through a kind of hell that we tried to escape through many different unhealthy things. What did it mean that all of my men were out of reach? This coincidence was too huge to avoid looking at more deeply.

There's GOT to be a reason. Someone doesn't become suddenly widowed during a pandemic when there's loneliness on top of isolation! This is how I look at my life: there's always a good reason even when the bad things happen.

I ask myself:

• How can this make me a stronger person?
• A better human?
• More on purpose?
• What am I to learn from this?
• How can this help me love myself more?

That's the only way I can get through the hardest things that happen in life. In Kabbalah and Judaism, every darkness is custom created for our benefit - to enable us to leap to the next level. When Life brings us to our knees, we have the ability to let something new in.

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 Hasidic Kabbalah Cards are Visual Affirmatios of Jewish Wisdom

What meaningful coincidences are you discovering in your life? Are you able to see them? These are winks from Hashem! What are they telling you? What new awareness is coming in? The new moon, the darkest moon, is happening in the next few days bringing with it the Jewish month of Joy! Let's open ourselves up to gratitude because that can bring in more joy. Each new moon and month on the Jewish calendar is a portal from and to a Higher way of being.

Go to my contact page and let me know what are the things that have brought you to your knees and what you gained from those things happening to you!

Take good care,

Allison

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This week I hit the wall of overwhelm. I saw a pattern of getting anxious and then adding more and more onto my plate to avoid the anxiety. So instead of dealing with the things that are really bothering me, I will get really busy and have to deal with overwhelm! Do you do that too?

Body Symptoms

My body has always given me signs. It comes up with many symptoms to get me to change my ways. Migraines, insomnia, a sore shoulder, a stuffy nose, breast cancer! Etc. I have learned to use meds to deal with lots of my symptoms and would be suffering incredibly without them! This is because I was taught to believe I am too sensitive, so I don't listen to my inner voice that will tell me to slow down. Luckily I have learned to get lots of help for this and am a person who constantly learns from my difficulties.

But underlying these body symptoms are the habits I acquired from being the oldest daughter of highly ambitious, first-generation American Jewish parents. I seemed to have taken on the belief that if I just work harder and push myself, everything will turn out ok.

Bottomline, it's February and I am anxious about the decision I made to stop talking to private clients by the end of the month. Of course, I am anxious, it's a huge change in my life!

I started working MORE during my cancer treatment. And I barely cut back on working when I was caring for Geoff. I stopped for less than a month after he died! When I was grieving that first year, I took on more clients, thinking that would help me.

This week I saw that taking on 2 emails a week for this month and having a gathering of women at my house for a Tu B'Shvat seder was another one of those things - a distraction, an escape and another way of feeling safe about taking a step down from doing what I have been doing. Yes, I need to know I can still be creative and have purpose after this month. And that's the bottom-line anxiety. I am RETIRING er, creating the new life that's going to allow me the freedom to do and pursue things I really want to have in my life!

What's the Kabbalah card that explains this? I would really love to create another deck containing more of the psycho-spiritual things I learned from the Tarot. Still, I do think of the Kabbalah card for the Tree of Life when thinking about the issue of overwhelm because it's really helpful to see where you are going to the extreme with one sefirah over another. I would say I have a tendency toward the negative side of Netzach because it gets extreme when detached from all of the other sefirot.

I am grateful for my body slowing me down so that I can live a happier, more joy-filled and magical life. When I can learn to make my life better, I feel in the flow. How about you? Can you allow your body to give you reminders? But please G-d, no more wake-up calls like cancer! One of our prayers from the Jewish prayerbook - the one before retiring at night says, "The sins I have committed, erase in Your abounding mercies, but not through suffering or severe illnesses." I so love that prayer!!

Please don't read "sin" like you are NOT a Jew because the word means something so much different from the prevailing American religious (faulty) interpretation of the "Old Testament". Instead, think of it as a misstep, missing the "bullseye" or goal - which is the Jewish way of understanding the Hebrew word for sin. And notice - we have the belief that our missteps can be erased through the suffering that we go through. No, the messiah doesn't erase that for us (In the Jewish interpretation of what a messiah is supposed to do!)

Learn from your missteps and you will get to the original goal. Yay! I pray I will not have to go through any missteps but the great thing is that when I do, I can correct them and in doing that, I change myself and make this corner of the world a bit better.

Take good care,

Allison

Aptos, CA 95003

When I started really learning about Kabbalistic Judaism, I was inspired by the concept of "Geulah". The word literally means "redemption" but that word is so un-inspiring! What does redemption really mean in modern thought and perspectives? Geulah actually answers the most basic and most meaningful questions of life.

The Most Important Questions

• Why are we here?
• What are we supposed to do with this life?
• What's the point of it all?

Geulah was the first card I pulled for my monthly layout. It was supposed to answer the question: How do I stay rooted and strong this month? One of the interpretations of the Geulah card that I have on the card and in my interpretations booklet is "keep your eyes on the prize".

  Kabbalah Cards are Visual Affirmations of Jewish Wisdom

There is a goal. There is a purpose. There is an outcome.

The other night I had a flying dream. I love those. I am flying above the trees and I know that I am flying higher and more solidly than I have in a long time. And I know that this is because I have my mind in a positive place so nothing will drag me back down to earth.

So, next time something "bad" happens, I hope to remember that it's for the ultimate Geulah. Everything that comes into my sphere of awareness is custom-created for the best outcome. No more sickness, no more death, no more challenge. Heaven on Earth. There is no other place to try to get to. That's one of the things I love about Judaism. It's all about HERE and NOW.

(Are you wondering about the Jewish concept of Moshiach? Look at this site and you'll learn more about it from the religion that invented the idea of a Messiah. There are LOTS of articles in their Moshiach 101.)

How are you moving your little corner of the world toward it's final destination? Can you even imagine living a supernatural existence? Can you see that it's all supernatural right now? Just think about how your heart beats and your body breathes without your even having to focus on it. It's a natural thing but isn't it also supernatural?

Take good care,

Allison

I have always wanted to imbue my life with magic and the mystical. How can I be inspired in my daily life? What gives my life meaning? These are the questions I bring into the new life that I am creating. What are YOUR questions?

Saying Goodbye

In the past 2 1/2 years, I've been wanting to create a new life that is better than the old one. A life filled with magic, synchronous events, meaningful coincidences and joyful interactions with others. I have wanted to say goodbye to all of the challenges that my short 63 years has brought me.

I am of the age where it's now or never.

I have been hoping that I could create a life where the challenges and traumas no longer come my way. But is that really possible?

Kabbalah Cards Site

We can't really control what life brings. I am someone who has had many difficult situations that seemingly came out of no where.

• Chronic migraines, insomnia, anxiety, depression
• Stage 3 breast cancer - yes it was in my lymph nodes - in 2009
• My husband's anal cancer coincided with my dad dying from colon cancer
• Dad dies and then in the same year, my husband gets diagnosed with FTD and is given 4 yrs and he was gone after 3
• Mom gets diagnosed with Alzheimers while I am caring for my husband. I live 7 hrs away from her by car and I have the POA over her care.

Seems like a lot of stuff for one person to have happen in their life, and so hard for my 2 kids!!!

But I have survived them all. And I'm looking forward to creating my next chapter.

Truly, the only thing we have control over is where we place our focus. Which thoughts am I gonna give energy to and focus on? Which beliefs are going to lead me? How will I treat myself when hard emotions arise? How will I treat others? These seem to be the most important questions.

When I live from the inside out, I am no longer being dragged around by outside circumstances. When I live from the inside out, rather than having every situation outside of myself effect my thoughts and feelings, I can sometimes see my outside circumstances come into alignment with my inside thoughts and feelings and then I seem to be effecting them. They change for the better.

Now THAT'S the magic that I'm looking for!

What have YOU gone through in your life? What have YOU survived? Wow, we are amazingly strong creatures, aren't we?

I have a friend who once called me a "Badass"!!! Most of the time, I believe I'm a wimp but those are old beliefs based on comparing myself to my mom who was an incredibly badass woman!

This is the belief that I want to embrace: That I am strong in a different way than I thought my mom wanted me to be. And that's a different kind of "strong" than how I perceived her to be.

What thoughts are you hoping to focus on? Make it a commitment over the next few days. Pull a Kabbalah card if you don't know what focus to have. Then focus on that.

Take good care,

Allison

There's a new moon which means there's a new month on the Jewish calendar. Did you feel the change? In this post, I want to talk about the Jewish secrets of time. Did you know that every Jewish holiday, every month and every day of the week is a mystical portal to your soul's potential? Today is the 4th day of the new month of Shevat.

Spring is Stirring

New life is stirring hidden within the trees right now and in Kabbalah, a human is a "Tree of the field". On the full moon of this month, the 15th, we have the new year for the trees. "Tu BiShevat" is the name of the holiday and it simply translates as the 15th of the month of Shevat. It's when the sap in the tree starts to ascend through the roots and regrow the trees. It's a hidden light that gives new life. What is stirring within you?

This is I do when the new month arrives!

Contact me if you have the cards and have questions on how to do this!

A reply to the last post got me excited because it validated my intention of creating these cards. This person had found me online because she wanted to "learn Kabbalah from the Jewish perspective". As a Tarot fan, I also had that same desire because the Qabalah in Tarot has NOT been from a Jewish perspective!

I had originally created my Kabbalah cards out of a frustration I felt trying to create a Tarot deck with Jewish Kabbalah in it. It's still a possible future project of mine. But first, I wanted to have some undiluted Judaism and Kabbalah to apply to my life. So, the cards I created were NOT in any way connected to Tarot.

Kabbalah Cards Site

The Cards Came from a Desire

But why create them in the first place? Because I wanted to intertwine inside of me, in my memory, inspiration and actions all of the Jewish holidays, months of the year, Kabbalah concepts and Sefirot on the Tree of Life (which is the main symbol/diagram in Kabbalah). But Why? Because I wasn't raised with much of the understanding of how to apply these things to my life. I was raised Jewish but I wanted to have these things guide my life and permeate my life and I believed that doing so would inspire me on my healing journey.

Besides, I love being in touch with these mystical portals of energy and potential! I love that I can connect with them to amplify my personal development and my soul's light. And I am passionate about Jewish wisdom!

What are your desires? Why do you read my posts? What are your reasons for staying connected with me? Here are the reasons I think you stay connected:

1. You're a present/former client and you just like me and like learning from me.
2. You found me through the internet because you googled Kabbalah and loved the idea of Kabbalah cards
3. You're my friend/family member and just love me!
4. You want to learn more about Judaism and Kabbalah.
5. My posts have just inspired you and you like my writing.
6. You want to learn more about how to apply Kabbalah to your life.
7. You are on a personal journey of self-discovery and find that my posts help you understand more about yourself and about life.
8. You took a class with me and want to keep learning from me.
9. You love Tarot!!
10. Something else - let me know what it is!

Contact me on this! All you have to do is go to my contact page, type one or some of these numbers and hit send. It will help inspire me to keep going!

I am half-way through tweaking my monthly online classes and could use some inspiration for finishing the year. I have completed the 2 months of the Jewish New Year and the 2 months I've called, "Winter C​alendar" and I've just completed the 2 months I've called, "Trees and Esther". So, now I'm onto a 3 month course containing Passover and the Counting of the Omer and Shavout. Then it's only 2 more months to round out the full year!

Sometimes I get self-critical and think I am doing all of this for nothing, no one really cares about this, it's too long and no one will want to learn this stuff anyway. Sometimes I get inspired and don't care about any of that because it's giving me something to do that has some purpose to it. Hearing back from you keeps me going, so thanks for replying!

Hope you're having a great start to the month of Shevat!!

Take care,

Allison

I've felt so stuck and static the past few years! Have you too? The past few years have been filled with fear and isolation and loneliness. But I decided to take a risk and join my Kabbalah teacher's year-long program in order to get me out of my slump. Sometimes just taking one step forward, even if you're not sure and even if you're afraid, can transform everything.

One Step Forward

A year long commitment to a program isn't a small, baby step! But I took that step realizing it would likely get me being creative again. Last week my teacher gave me the assignment to write more emails to you all. So, I made another commitment, even though I wasn't sure because I was worried how you would all respond. The commitment was to write 2 emails a week until the end of February and to also find out what you are needing from me.

Your responses to this has been really encouraging! Thank you for responding! I am learning that sharing my own soul has given you something to think about. The doing of it is allowing me to focus more on being creative and on opening my mind to discover what I'm being inspired to write about!

Kabbalah Cards Site

Going Back to Move Forward

I knew that I wanted to go back to what I'd been doing prior to my husband's diagnosis. And knew that I wanted to go online with the classes I had already taught in S.Cruz. So I'm tweaking them and hoping to make them more user-friendly. They are really a journey through the Jewish calendar, accessing the energy portals there that allow for transformation. But really, it's a Judaism & Kabbalah 101 for anyone who wants to learn about the Jewish holidays, history and concepts.

Moving Forward and Letting go of the Results

I don't know if the 101 classes is really something that anyone will want to learn or access. But I find that more and more people do want to learn about Judaism - both Jews and non-Jews are wanting to learn about something that has been so hidden. So far I've tweaked the classes on the Jewish New Year and the ones for the Winter Months and I'm almost done with the next two months, celebrating trees and the victory of Esther.

Anyway, it keeps me busy and creative and happy to have finally moved forward on this project, no matter what happens with it!! Sometimes just taking action really allows change to take place.

Kabbalah Concepts Inspire Me

Here's the Kabbalah card I think about when I remember the concept in Judaism and Kabbalah where ACTION is the most important thing. The steps we take forward is really the only thing that matters. Actions we take in this world is the only thing that matters in Judaism - getting to the next world is NOT. So if you can't keep up with reading all of these emails - it's ok. My taking action is more important than the results.

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Kabbalah Cards are Affirmations of Jewish Wisdom

Keep moving forward,

Allison

Shyness & Introversion

I have read that Introverts aren't necessarily shy people but the two are very much linked in my case. My shyness has furthered my being introverted but my introversion has been a very good thing!

Reasons I am shy:

• My early upbringing was with a highly judgmental mother (who actually become a superior court judge!) So, I decided to stay quiet to avoid the painful criticisms that would come my way.
• I developed a mistrust of my inner promptings.
• Early on I made the decision to not ask for help because I had experiences when there were no adults to depend on.
• I came to believe that if I stayed hidden, I would stay safe.
• Reply back with the reasons you became shy!

My shyness created a huge Inner World!! That's what I think my introversion is and it's a big gift!! I want to share about how using cards has come out of the strength of being an Introvert.

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Cards As Visual Affirmations of Fear

When I was under 5 yo, my mother sent me and my sister, 2 yrs younger, out to play on the street alone while she studied for law school. Our little dog, Barbette (a miniature black poodle) was our babysitter (this was Mom's joke). The neighborhood kids took us inside of a camper where we were showed Monster Cards. Do any of you remember those from the early 60's? At the time, those cards really scared me!!!

Until just recently, I never put that memory together with my later interest in using cards for self-improvement.

When I was in grad school, I was so shy I would never talk in class and so the director of the program wanted to kick me out! He called me a J.A.P. Can you believe it?! That's anti-Semitism. My Tarot teacher stood up for me and I was able to stay in school.

Cards Became Not Scary but Helpful

The Tarot cards became a way for me to help myself:

• to work on myself
• to find answers within myself
• to trust myself
• to become stronger in my Inner Wisdom

They worked within my introverted boundaries to build me up from the inside. Reply to me whether the above list is something you want and need too! Or let me know what YOUR needs are.

So when I created the Kabbalah Cards, I added an element of working with Jewish wisdom. That helps with pride in my heritage as well as being able to apply Jewish wisdom to my life. The cards I created are not in any way connected to Tarot cards. They are completely different but the way I teach people to work with them is the same as how I helped myself with Tarot cards.

Kabbalah Cards Site

Unfortunately, the printing website I send people to to purchase my cards doesn't allow me to know who has purchased them!! So, if you do get a deck, please let me know so I can stay in touch with you and help you learn to use them.

Take care,

Allison

My Kabbalah Card that reminds me of Introversion:

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Kabbalah Cards are Visual Affirmations of Jewish Wisdom

Is Friday the #13 really a LUCKY day?

Well, according to Judaism it is!!! Here's a list of all the reasons why the #13 is lucky:

This list was compiled by John Kunza on this website talking about the Jewish associations with the #13:

• 13 attributes of Hashem/Mercy- שלושה עשר מידיא (appears in Exodus after we were forgiven for the whole golden calf incident)
• 13 Jewish principles of faith according to Maimonides
• 13 is the age a Jewish male becomes obligated to follow Jewish law, (i.e. the age at which a Bar Mitzvah is performed)
• Israel (Jacob) had 13 children
• According to gematria (Jewish numerology) the words אהבה (Ahavah/Love) and אחד (Echad/Unity) add up to 13
• Number of days of Yom Tovs (festival days) in a year in the diaspora
• 13 months in a leap year on the Hebrew calendar
• Adar II (or the 13th month in a leap year) is considered extra lucky because the month of Adar according to tradition is a “lucky month”
• 13th of Adar (or Adar II in leap years) is the Fast of Esther
• Unit Shayetet 13 (שייטת 13‎ is considered to be the Navy Seals of the IDF

But he left out one: the word "GOOD" in Hebrew = 13 in gematria. The word good in Hebrew is "tov" which is used in Genesis in reference to the third day - "And God saw that this was good. (13) And there was evening and there was morning, a third day."

You might argue - but that's Tuesday, the third day. What about FRIDAY? So, Friday is actually a very good day in Judaism since it is the day we begin to greet each other with "Gut Shabbos!" or "Shabbat Shalom!" since we are full of anticipation for the holiest day of the week: the 7th day! Friday is permeated with the Sabbath because most of us are preparing for the Sabbath on that day by cooking, planning meals, inviting guests, bathing and choosing the clothes we will wear! Friday then is associated with a Holy, Divine day.

Tarot and the 13th Card

When I was in grad school many years ago, I learned that the #13 was associated with the Tarot card called "Death". Yikes!! But I found out that it didn't mean "death", it meant one door closing and another door opening. So, could it be that all depends on your interpretation of the #13? Yes, I believe it does and why not interpret things in a positive way?

The word "Tarot" itself spelled backwards can be read: Torah. So, let's interpret things in a Holy, Divine way. Stav Appel has shown very clearly that the Marseille deck, which all the later decks were based on, was created by Crypto Jews in the 1600's hiding Judaism in the cards because it was a time when you'd be hung, burned or otherwise slaughtered for teaching it. (See his video lectures here.)

A Bit About My Kabbalah Cards

When I learned Tarot, I learned it from a teacher who's wisdom I wanted to absorb. So I took all her classes on Tarot and used the cards to try to heal myself. I later wondered why it was called "Tarot" when it sounded like "Torah" and why there was something called "Qabalah" attached to it and why there were Hebrew letters on the cards as well and why did the major arcana have the same number as the Hebrew alef-bet but how strange that we weren't learning anything about Judaism!!! This made me determined to create my own cards.

49 is also an interesting number because it can be associated with the 49 Gates of Wisdom. "The Babylonian Talmud states that there are 50 gates of wisdom and Moses was only revealed 49 of them; therefore, no human, not even Moses, can attain the absolute Truth of 50. (Babylonian Talmud Nedarim 38a)" (This quote is from this webpage.) In addition, the number 49 equals the number 13 in numerology because 4+9=13!!

The daily ritual I created to use with these cards is like asking a question and then going to the Rebbe's letters or to a holy book and randomly choosing a page to answer your question. Plus, it's not about fortune-telling. Instead it's about self-trust. It's using a mirror outside of you to unlock your own Inner Knowing. It can help remind you that you have all the answers to your own questions. Just pull a card, see what it says on it. If it doesn't help you answer your own question, well then, it's ok because you've just learned something Jewish from the Kabbalah that I have learned from all my teachers. Jewish history, holidays, concepts, Tree of Life.

For people who have bought cards from me, I have now put up on my website pdf's to download to help you work with them. Just go here and find the booklet. If you just pull one card a day or a week, you can learn lots about Judaism and Kabbalah. And if you want to apply these concepts to your life, do what I learned to do with the Tarot - pull one card and refer back to it as your day or week goes along. Apply that concept to your life.

Because really, it all depends on your interpretation!!

Allison

We are now in the month of Kislev, past the full moon, coming close to the holiday of Chanukah. And so, as the moon turns darker, we will start lighting the menorah on the 25th of Kislev (this year that day starts at sunset on the 18th of Dec.). Each night we'll be adding one more candle until the entire menorah of 8 candles is lit up on the darkest night of winter.

See the free preview of the "How to Celebrate Chanukah" handout on my Kabbalah and Judaism 101 online school in the course called "Learn About the Winter Calendar".

Publicizing the Miracle

We light the menorah by the front door or window so it can be seen from the outside of our homes - in order to "publicize the miracle" that happened when the Maccabees fought the Syrian-Greeks and took back control of the 2nd Temple. This was before the Romans finally destroyed it and the Jewish people were exiled from their homeland for 2000 years. (In the 1880's, they miraculously started moving back to that land!!) So what's the miracle of Chanukah that we are supposed to be publicizing anyway???

We don't celebrate the miracle of the small band of soldiers who fought off a huge army, though that was a completely amazing miracle! Instead, we celebrate the miracle of a tiny cruse of oil lighting up the Temple menorah for 8 nights. A tiny bit of the sacred oil was discovered undamaged but it was only enough for 1 night! Still, it lasted for 8! That's the miracle we are publicizing.

To me this translates as: When the "Temple" of your life seems completely defiled and even unkosher pigs have been slaughtered on your "alter", please remember that a tiny bit of "sacred oil" can transform EVERYTHING, doing more than you ever could have believed!

The Dark Moon of Kislev

It's finally raining in California! Rain is a holy gift from G-d. As I look out at the trees all around me in my new home, I notice that every drop of rain on the trees looks like a pinprick of light this morning as the sky clears. Now isn't that a miracle? Rain in California seems like a miraculous event after many years of drought.

According to Kabbalah, the darkest places contain the most light. What does that mean? Why does it feel so good after a dark day of rain? How is it that the darkest times in our lives bring us the most growth, healing and renewal? Can you see the miraculous oil in the midst of your own dark times? Have you been noticing any miracles in your lives over the past 2 weeks since the coming of this darkest month of miracles?

Miracles

But what IS a miracle? According to the Tzamach Tzedek there are four types of miracles:

"1. Those that supersede nature entirely, such as occurred in the Exodus from Egypt.

2. Miracles flimsily dressed in a guise of nature, such as the victory of Chanukah {of the few over the many} and the Purim story {the story of Esther}.

3. Miracles of coincidence and synchronicity, where it is apparent that things out of the ordinary have occurred – yet all events have normal explanations.

4. Miracles that go unnoticed, perhaps even perceived as unfortunate. This last form is the greatest of all. A time will come when our eyes will open and we will see these hidden miracles and say, ‘The miracles of Egypt are nothing in comparison to these.'"

This life can sometimes seem like challenge after challenge after challenge. Just when one is resolved, up comes another one. The challenges are even coming faster now that it seems like time has revved up! It's hard to keep our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes in the direction of perceiving the miraculous amidst all the darkness. Still, each challenge that comes in is so perfectly tailored to the development of each individual soul that the challenge itself can seem miraculous!

Gratitude Brings Miracles

If you can focus your mind to look for miracles, you are really focusing your mind to look for the good things that are happening to you. If you think about what you have in your life, rather than what you don't have, you will feel a sense of gratitude. That gratitude can expand you into a sense of the miraculous. Some people make a list of things they are grateful for at the end of each day - to help them focus their minds on gratitude.

That tiny pinprick of Light builds on itself. As you look for miracles and focus on gratitude, you will begin to see that your life is exactly the way it's supposed to be. Challenge yourself - can you even be grateful for the hard things in life? When something difficult comes up, can you refocus your mind on what you are gaining from this situation? Doing so can help you to see the biggest light hidden within the darkest places.

I have posted my lessons on the winter months of the Jewish calendar. Here you'll find the handout for how to celebrate Chanukah. The whole 3 month course can be found here:

 kabbalahwisdom.teachable.com/p/kabbalah-and-judaism-1011

I have made it so that the entire month of Tevet is viewable for free. That's the month of anger - so it can be helpful to those who have challenges dealing with this emotion.

Enjoy! And Happy Chanukah. May you find that tiny bit of "oil" bringing you a miraculous new Light this season. May you reveal all of your hidden miracles!

Allison