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Your analysis of the role of the Jewish people in world history is spot-on up until you totally neglect to acknowledge the key role of the esoteric Christway as a Jewish allotrope, as well as the role of esoteric Sufi-Islam as a Jewish allotrope. At that point, you totally drop the ball. To fail to take into account the critical role played by the complementary traditions of esoteric Christianity and Sufism, both of which are in perfect harmony with the Wisdom of Kabbalah, is to blind yourself to the enormous, irreplaceable role that Wisdom plays in and through the Kabbalah as it is expressed in the allotropes of Christian Kabbalists and Sufi Kabbalists.
In the true account of what happened after the destruction of the second temple, the rise of esoteric Kabbalistic Judaism – facilitated by exoteric Rabbinic Judaism – is that middle path between the Chokhmah/Chesed right-hand historical force of the Christway (not Christendom, but actual esoteric Christianity), and the Binah/Gevurah left-hand historical force of Sufism (again, not exoteric Islam, but the esoteric path of Sufism which, like esoteric Christianity, is complementary with the Wisdom of Kabbalah).
I have written volumes of analysis about the importance of these the relationships and dynamics between the three strands of Kabbalah after the Late Antiquity: Jewish Kabbalah, esoteric Christway, and Islamic Sufism. This is obviously not the forum in which to present those many writings. Suffice it say that Bnei Baruch, as exacting as it certainly is in understanding the role of the Jews up until the destruction of the second temple, has completely missed an entire continent of wisdom when it comes to deeply and truly understanding the role of Christianity and Islam in the process of the redemption of the world.
How you can discount and dismiss the key role played by billions and billions of people in ushering in the Messianic Age, I cannot understand. But my hope is that the little bit of this Wisdom I have to impart to you here will somehow penetrate – and perhaps even make it to the highest levels of leadership in Bnei Baruch. This wisdom is for you to take or leave. It’s up to you. I am only here as a messenger to try to make you aware of entire sector of humanity that you, apparently, have relegated to the sector of error and irrelevance in the Messianic process. A tragic mistake, indeed!
So, here are a small selection of the Kabbalistic mysteries of the Three Children of Abraham, which I submit for your consideration:
1. Judaism and Islam work to correct Christianity’s temptation to polytheism and pantheism. Judaism and Christianity work to correct Islam’s temptation to anti-sacramentalism and anti-sacerdotalism (which ultimately leads to a false view of the character of the Messiah). Christianity and Islam work to correct Judaism’s elitism, exclusivism, and false doctrine of chosenness.
Yiddishkeit corrects the duality of paganism with the hope of Messianicity. Christianity corrects Yiddishkeit with the love of Theosis. Sufism corrects Christianity with faith of Tawhid, which points back to a Yiddishkeit that is inclusive of true Messianicity, and authentic Theosis, and real Tawhid – all of which are realized in the highest level of consciousness: non-duality
Together, the three great Abrahamian religions (in their esoteric, Kabbalistic practices; not their outward, exoteric forms) are absolutely necessary and integral expressions of the true human desire for the One True God.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all need one another and would be diminished without the existence of the other.
2. There will never be peace and harmony in the Middle East, nor anywhere else on this planet, until we get a little closer to Christening and Islamifying Judaism, Islamifying and Judaizing Christianity, and Judaizing and Christening Islam.
Until the same congruence of mutual respect, admiration, and interbeing that abides between Chinese wisdom, Buddhadharma, and the Sanatana Dharma maintains between Yiddishkeit, Islam, and the Christway, these symbolurgies – which are so promising as humanitarian ideals – will never realize the fullness of their innate potential to generate and foster joy, peace, compassion, and universal love.
The only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – which only replicates every human conflict – will arise when each side simultaneously and with an equal intensity of desire begins to want the divine qualities of peace, love, and brotherhood between their (ostensibly) opposing nations and religions more than they want to shore up the defensiveness and separation driven by demonic egoism and ethnocentrism.
The source of this solution can only be found in a commitment to the spiritual work available in the inner path of the heart offered by Zikr, Kabbalah, and Holy Communion; in other words, by Tasawwuf and Devekut and the Christian Liturgy, all together and mutually supporting one another. Tawhid, and authentic Tikkun Olam, and the Communion of Saints together will only be realized when we desire unity and reconciliation more than we want national pride and religious correctness.
3. The Threefold Aqedah: How much more insight we gain when we understand that the Aqedah happened once, but in a threefold manner: the first, with Ishmael – which was a test of God’s faith in Ibrahim – and the second with Isaac, as a test of Abraham’s faith in God.
Both God and Abraham had to know that each had faith in the other before they could establish a mutual covenant, which would lead to Abraham blessing the whole world – that is, all of humanity – through him.
This covenant of trust was later recapitulated with the sacrifice of Jesus, who is both the Son of Man, i.e. Abraham, and the Son of God.The crucifixion and resurrection, then, archetypically recapitulated the Aqedah of both Ishmael and Isaac, by confirming the faith of God in the man, Jesus, as well as that of Jesus in his heavenly Father, God.
In other words, God trusted Jesus, the way He trusted Abraham with Ishmael: to carry out his divine will; and Jesus trusted God, the way Abraham and Isaac trusted God: to believe that this “sacrifice” would only lead to a higher form of truth and life.
When we splice this threefold Aqedah together – Ishmael, Isaac, and Jesus – the whole notion of the Aqedah takes on a three-dimensional significance that makes any other narrow-minded, exclusivist interpretation of the Great Mystery of the threefold Aqedah completely pale in comparison.
4. Islam and Christianity together represent the perfect universalist distillations of Judaism for “the nations”. Both Islam and Christianity take the great truths, the ethical genius, and the prophetic vision of Judaism and make them available to the wider world outside of Israel.
Islam accentuates the transcendent, royal, and majestic legality of Elohim, while Christianity emphasizes the immanent, tender, and fatherly nature of YHVH. Together, Christianity and Islam express something like the right hand and left hand of God, whom the Jews rightly (and non-dually) call, “Avinu Malkenu”: Our father and our King.
In this way, the three great monotheistic faiths become a trifecta of wisdom, salvation, and enlightenment for the whole world.
In terms of the law of three, Israel acts as the first force, proceeding from the level of Keter, revealing the character of Elohim/YHVH to humanity. Christianity then absorbs this initial force at the level of Chokhma, by internalizing and universalizing the initiating force of Judaism’s intuitions about the nature and character of Avinu (Our Father), YHVH.
The third and reconciling force appears with the rise of Islam, at the level of Binah, which externalizes, rationalizes, simplifies, and further universalizes Judaism’s brilliant intuitions about the nature of Malkenu, (Our King), God “Elohim” (Allah).
Then, at the level of Da’at, Judaism works together with both the Christ-force and the Allah-force, and synthesizes the mystical intuition of both mysticisms of Christian and Islam (Hesychasm and Sufism), and produces the astonishing beauty and power of the medieval (Lurianic) Kabbalah, and later, of Hassidism and, ultimately, the Haskalah of the 19th century.
The Messianic force then proceeds to the level of Chesed (expressed in the esoteric Christway) and Gevurah (esoteric Sufism).
5. In the years ahead, we will cease referring to “religion” and speak instead of “symbolurgy” – the spiritual work of archetypal symbolism, i.e. cultural institutions based on the language of roots and branches.
Archetypal symbolurgy is a long phrase for a simple idea: All that a “religion” is, at its essence, is a symbolic system for the transformation of desire and suffering with the aim of realizing the promise of our highest human potential, which is nothing less than the remembrance and manifestation of our innate divinity for the good of humanity and for the life of the world.
The chief archetype of human perfection of any particular symbolurgy becomes the paradigm for all of that respective group’s belonging, behavior, and belief.
Whether that consummate archetype is Zoroaster, Lao Tsu, Moses, King David, Krishna, Mahavira, Gautama, Jesus, Muhammad, Nanak, Baha’u’llah, Simone Weil, Mother Teresa, Mirra Alfassa, or Jacinda Ardern, the ultimate symbolurgical Archetype of your chosen “religion” (or your chosen plurality of religions) models the highest human potential for whose sake you sublimate your desires and sacrifice your suffering to the glory of God (or the glory of the Good), and to the benefit of the Earth and all sentient creatures
6. God is actually a non-dual deity in the Genesis account of the creation of the world, and that non-dual entity was called “Elohim/YHVH.”
Elohim was the God of law and justice, who later re-emerged as Allah in Islam.
YHVH was the God of love and Human/Divine unity who would re-emerge as the Father of Jesus in Christianity.
In Judaism (in spite of St. Paul’s obviously tendentious bias toward the God of Jesus) Elohim and YHVH have actually always both equally represented in both the Law and the Prophets.
The take home message here is that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, far from being mutually exclusive, are in fact mutually interdependent. Jews, Christians, and Muslims balance each other out, and we all need one another.
One cannot really be a whole Muslim without being both a Christian and a Jew. Neither can one be a true Christian without being both a Muslim and Jew.
And to be a true Jew, one would actually love and respect both Elohim (Allah) and YHVH (the Father) within both Christianity and Islam.
The Children of Abraham must learn to put aside their petty difference and worship the one, true God in the unity of love and faith … together!
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This was just a small sampling of the key ideas that will will form the basis for the Messianic Age, which Bnei Baruch sadly disregards. I heartily pray that my brothers, sisters, friends, and teachers in Bnei Baruch will at least consider the Wisdom in reaching out to connect with, and to understand, the way our destiny is interwoven with our friends and brethren in the family of Abraham. To miss this invitation, directly from the Creator, to forge bonds of fraternity and community would be a tragedy of epic proportions.
Wow, thank you so much for sharing your research, explanations and thoughts! Finding this one post alone was worth taking this course. Implementing your visions and ideas will be another thing, though. Let’s all hope (and work!) for the best!
Listening to Dr. Laitman’s interviews, reading his posts every day and understanding a little bit more about the wisdom of the Kabbalah one can accept that this should be the case. Only it feels a daunting task with the ego still growing and raging, both inside me and around.
Thanks for your response. I appreciate the interweaving of Christianity and Islam with Judaism. And the same could be done with the Eastern symbolurgies which speak of the same Unity.
I recommend the last chapter of Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within” which you can get for free on the internet for its clarity in showing how present society is distorted by lack of adherence to the natural law of love, in this case expressed by mystical Christianity
This point generates more questions than answers. I feel the word Jew has not yet been defined definitively. If not genes or religion, then what makes a person a Jew? That feeling of oneness with nature is bestowed on birth, upbringing or by merit, be it financial or social merit? Surely plenty of Jews just like other people are driven simply by their egoistic desires no?
I do agree that in practice Jews most often end up becoming hubs, but I cannot yet see the present explanation as the definite one – perhaps I am still missing something. And also in this case, the word ‘Hub’ refers to a main channel of Nature’s intention upon the Human network?
Sorry for the long post!
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