Yehuda Berg

Transcription

Rav Berg. Now and Forever. 1927 - 2013. While there is no question, that I believe with all of my study, all of my experience that love thy neighbor was not only another precept, but was 'the' precept and that is what all this is about. Not a question of getting closer to God, but making yourself aligned with God. Making yourself similar to God. To act like God. The Early Years I actually met the Rav when I was 17 years old. I was in school, and I was looking for something part-time. For whatever reason, I found my way to his place, his office, and I worked for the Rav. I was not very enamored by him because in those days the Rav was a business person and he had many political contacts. He always had some kind of a power. When I met him I did not particularly like that, I did not understand it. I could not figure out how somebody that could be that religious could also be that involved in the business world; I did not know how it gelled together. I was not particularly crazy about him as a person in those days, because he was a hard-head. He was a force to be reckoned with even then. When I finished school, I went on to something else and I was already married, I already had my children at 18. And nine years later, we met again. That when we finally came back together again I found a different person, somebody more personable, somebody more real, somebody more sensitive, somebody trying to find who they really were. That is what I fell for. I fell for the person that... the humanity that he had become to be. And the Rav in those days, he ... I call him 'The Rav', but in those days, he had no intentions of being a Rav. Then, he had no intentions of anything but just learning Kabbalah, which he did with his teacher until his teacher passed away. I have to admit you all see me today, but many years ago that was not the person you see today. I did not know what it meant to truly love. I did not know what it meant. But when I met my teacher and I saw a few of his writings, I heard a new word that I have never known before. The word Zulat, to love unconditionally. Love unconditionally? What does that mean? I had no idea. And in that short period, unfortunately, it was only seven years that we knew each other, although he has never left me for one day. Since that fateful day, in '69, never left me since. I came to the realization, and it was that simple, that if there was a bullet coming at my teacher I would stand in front of it without hesitation. He taught me what was love. But then I realized that that was not even the reason. I say 'I learned', I should say he did not teach me love, I saw love. The reason why I had to learn love, you might say, that is what Kabbalah is all about. And it is. It is nothing more. Yes, we have all these channels, names, whatever we practice that we conduct here at the Centre. But the ultimate of all of it; there is nothing more than Love. And then a few weeks after he passed away, Karen and I who had known each other for close to 11 years before, suddenly here we were. And I realized that if I have not understood love we could never make it. She is full of love by nature. That was not my character. And so for this to succeed, there was that one important lesson, the one important lesson that I thank you all for your expression this evening, for Karen and I. All I can say is I hope that I shall never, never divert from the meaning of true love. And I thank you for teaching me that way, despite the fact that I am a Leo. God bless you all. The Soulmate Relationship My mother met the Rav for the first time, she looked at him and she told me, she says, "You know what, you need a shrink that is what you need. Not a Rabbi. A shrink. You definitely. What are you going to do with this guy? Where does he come to you? How are you going to do this?" Everybody said the same thing. Even his friends. We had a friend, a dear friend who passed away a few years back, and he said, "Karen, you are crazy. This will never work." I say, "Why do you say it won't work?" He said, "Because he is too religious for you. You cannot live that life. You will not be able to breathe. You would be blocked, you would be in this ..." I said, "No I will not. Trust me I will not. It is not going to happen that way". He says, "Ok. I am just telling you. It is not going to be simple". Usually when the two people inside have perfect harmony but outside is crazy, and it is difficult, chances are it is a soulmate marriage. Because for us to be together was what they called an impossibility: age, education, culture, everything that there could be was against it. Absolutely. And it was, for me, the most important thing was that we have each other. And when we lived in Israel there were no such thing as movie theaters, or shows. There wasn't any of that. So we, was a blessed life because we had those years by ourselves together with the children. I mean there was no going out to dinner, there was no baby sitters, you go and have yourself a bit.. First of all, there were no baby sitters, second of all, there was no place to go. We were pretty much isolated. It was just us. Those were wonderful years. Those were really special, wonderful years. Most people are in love for five years, three years, and then marriage feels like a soft shoe that you are very comfortable with, and it becomes something nice. It becomes a relationship between friends and stuff. We loved each other for 40 years. Really. We would fight, we would be angry and all but to the Rav I was the eyes in his head. Always. If I left him, when the Rav was well we would never separate, we were always together. And even if I chose to go someplace, "Where are you going? When are you coming back? What time are you going to be there? What do you mean you are going? What about me?" And it was something that is very rare in this world, because most people have someone that they care about but love, real, truly love, somebody that would stand in front of a bullet for somebody else, that is very rare and we had that. The end of the road is that there is nobody like the Rav and I am blessed to have this man beside me for all these years. God made him where he is in a place that he is so that he should be part of all of us. All I want to say is that you left out one point; that the Creator did not create me, and everything you had to say about me is because you created it. Thank you. Thank you all. The Transformation Rav changed a great deal. Probably I did too in many ways. We grew a lot together. A lot. For me it was a difficult challenge. For me the challenge was to learn Hebrew as a language, to be able to learn the different coded prayers. The way of life that I had no idea about. And all of the other things that was my personal journey to become who I am. For him, it was to become that different type of a spiritual being, because the knowledge as he received it from Rabbi Brandwein was matter of fact: This is the way it is, it goes into this box. And if you understand it - good, and if you do not understand - well then you will understand it next week. Over and over again. That is the type of study that they did, they did not correlate it to life. They did not make it a part of a system. When I came on the scene and I said to him, "I do not understand, explain it to me". When he started to explain I said, "But don't you see that makes a difference? Those explanations make a difference. You can show me on paper, I can understand, but how do I eat it, how do I make it a part of my life?" And that is where we started, with these conversations to create the different parts of the Centre that, of course, never existed before that. Some times were very, very difficult for the Rav, because what he had to do was far more difficult than to what I had to do. Because he had to... he was part of a society. All these rabbis were a part of his society. All of them knew him and now because of me because of our relationship, he would not be accepted anymore in those circles. He grew from the experience because he had to. You know he is a Leo. At the beginning it was very difficult because from becoming where he was, to becoming where he needed to be, was his choice. His ego was crushed a little bit at that point. But from that he grew to be able to allow us to do what we do today. Can you imagine somebody from that type of a culture? Totally black coat! Okay, creating classes where men and women of all different religions can come to learn. This is like a miracle! That a person can be that open, but he was. He became that way; yes he got bent like steel, but he bent. And he opened and created a place that people would come and respect that part of him. At the beginning it was terrible because people hated us for what we did. Certainly in the religious community did not comprehend that. Rightfully so, I would not understand either. At the beginning I said, "You know, we do not fit into any box". Which is great for me because I do not like boxes. For him to stand and do what he did was a very difficult move, and it opened up a whole different channel. If you look today you find so many more people open to all different alternative ways of life, all different types of spiritualities which did not exist in our time. Okay, he was the first one to say, "This is the way it is going to be. If you like it join me". And he changed. In his own personality, he became soft. He became more gentle. He was always soft and gentle with the boys, with the kids, but the outside world found him to be, you know ... He definitely became much softer. Less, sort of, dogmatically religious. Growing up the Rav was very, I guess the word would be, Orthodox. I often tell this but it is so amazing and inspiring part of our lives. From a very young age, obviously the Rav on Shabbat would give us blessings, but then both with us and when we started having kids, the Rav would come over all the time. Sometimes at two, three o'clock in the morning. Sometimes without us even knowing. I remember when we lived in New York, especially on Shabbat, the Rav would come over. The Rav would just walk into our apartment, go and give a blessing to the kids - at the time I think it was only David - and then we would wake up maybe three or four o'clock in the morning on a Shabbat morning, and there were the Rav's hands over our heads, an expression both of love and of care. It is interesting, those who have had if you have ever noticed, the Rav's hands were very, very soft. I will never forget the feeling of the Rav's hands on your head when he is giving you a blessing. Because that softness was not clearly, just a physical softness, but a spiritual, tremendous care. Who would, when we lived here in L.A., the Rav sometimes at two or three o'clock in the morning would drive from his house to our house to give us a blessing, because that is the most powerful time, in the middle of the night. To get to our houses to give the kids blessings. You would often find with, I would say the tougher people, the Rav was tough, but you would also often see the Rav with - I do not know if the word is weaker - but softer students, tremendous love and care and patience. The Rav The Rav for us is a symbol of everything that the Centre has become. And the root of everything that was and, B'ezrat Hashem, everything that will be. Come thick or thin, there is nobody like you in the world. What you have done has created more evolvement of life. You have made lives, you have created people to live differently than they did before. The people that walk in and become a part of what you have created, do not walk out the same. Whether it is for a day, a year, or for the rest of their lives, and for that 'some place upstairs' I am sure they know that you have done something that nobody in the world has ever done. One of the things I often think about is the Rav's sense of humor. The Rav really enjoyed funny things. Really enjoyed laughing. I remember one of the Rav's favorite TV shows was The Honeymooners and when we lived in New York whenever it came on the Rav would stop and watch it. There are few things as magical as the Rav's smile. I really enjoyed hearing the Rav laugh as well, but there were times when the Rav would have a smile and that for me, is a very big part of the Rav that not many people had the opportunity to experience. I am not sure everyone knows, but the Rav loved westerns. He loved...even when the boys were little he would tell them John Wayne stories and his white horse Silver. Growing up he would tell us stories. We used to call them Shragy stories. The Rav's Hebrew name is Shraga Feivel, and we would, he would call them Shragy stories. And I remember from a very young age and progressively on, I am not sure when we realized that most of them were made up. But maybe one of them, one of the moments when I realized that most of them were made up, the Rav - I do not think I ever remember seeing the Rav on a horse - but he would tell stories about having a horse that was called Silver, which I in retrospect realized was the name in the Lone Ranger. But I did not know it at the time. And how he would go to his uncle in Upstate New York during the summers and he would ride his horse, and he would tell stories about his parents, and his mother. He would tell us that when he came home from school he lived, grew up in Williamsburg, and he went to school not that far away from their house and his mom would always have chocolate and milk ready for him when he would come home. He always viewed his mother Esther, we called her Bobby Esther, as a very righteous person. He related once that she would say the whole book of Psalms, of Tehillim on every Shabbat afternoon. That was how she would spend her time. The Rav, as I said, he would not sleep and was always exhausted. And the Rav would give the TLE classes early mornings. I remember I often would ask the Rav the question he was very tired and we would study with the Rav before and then the Rav would prepare a cup of tea and go down to give the class on the first floor. So I said to the Rav once, I remember very clearly I said, "When are you going to sleep?" And the Rav said my mother told me when you leave this world is when you get to rest. And that was always true about the Rav. The Rav when he would be in front of people if he had what to say, God bless him, he would say irregardless of who liked it and who did not like it. He could do things that I do not know how to do. He knew that he had a mission and he was going to do it regardless of the consequences. Often if you would tell the Rav, 'this person might not be ready to hear this thing', the Rav would always definitely say it then. Countless times, we would be sitting at a table, with the Rav and a new student, "important student", and the Rav could care less, who the person is. If the Rav felt that a message had to be given, the message was given and often the people never came back. But the Rav did not care, because he had a message to bring to this world. I have seen on many occasions the Rav had done things with people, and I would always say "Why are you doing that?" The end result was normally, that is what they needed at the moment. It is a tremendously inspiring trait to be able to know I need to do what I need to do, and people will love me for it or hate me for it; it makes no difference as long as I am true to what the Creator put me into this world. The Miracle They should probably know the Rav had a stroke many years ago, and after the stroke the doctors told everybody, mainly the family of course, that the Rav would not be able to function ever again. Wouldn't be able to walk, talk, because this whole part of the Rav's brain was just gone. And of course the Rav did end up walking and talking and going on with the Rav's life; not in a 100% capacity, but in a high level. So I met with the Rav one day, we were chatting and I thought I would ask the Rav how the Rav accomplished that feat? And the Rav said "Very simple" he said. "Take a lemon, from the lemon tree. The same DNA that is in that lemon is in the leaf of the lemon tree. It is no different. You have the fruit, you have the leaf". The Rav said, "I just went and reprogrammed my body somewhere else in the body. My whole being, my whole purpose is to finally take Kabbalah out of the closet, and I don't want to leave it in the closet so someone else will come around maybe in two generations, 10 generations if ever, and take it out of the closet. I said my destiny is to take Kabbalah to its rightful place. It has been long enough that the world has considered Kabbalah something that has to be kept away from the masses. That Kabbalah should be this concealed, hidden, and all of the other limitations that are not placed on any other study, on any other area of education, except Kabbalah. What do we have to do down here to change everything from where it is now, from this chaotic state that people recognize it as chaotic state and turn it into a wonderful, beautiful world. Each person will learn for himself, there is no rule what each person has to do. You get to a certain point in life, where the Ari said, that you have to find out why you are here. Why am I here? Please tell me what is my purpose here. We all didn't come here just to watch a nice movie. We all came here for a very specific purpose. Everything is here for a purpose of helping someone else, something else to add a little more benefit to the world, more so than when before I came into it. And you get to recognize it, sooner than later. So beautiful. It is so beautiful that that should be done as quickly as possible. And people have to recognize, they have to start asking, "Please let me know why I came back here". People go through life thinking that that is not a question we have to ask or should ask, and the answer is: We must ask that question! The Legacy I think first of all, the Chevre and the Centres are his legacy, his writings. Of course his children are a legacy. But I think the greatest legacy is that he brought the spirituality of Kabbalah to the world and the masses. Rabbi Ashlag had five people. Rav Brandwein maybe had 10 people. All the Tzadikim, the righteous that were in the study of Kabbalah did not, or was no allowed the era, where it could present it to the peoples of the world. The Rav would always say, "It is all about the Zohar, it is all about the Zohar." Finding new ways to disseminate, to teach, to bring this Light to the world. How many people in this world, forget about whether they completely believe it or not, forget about whether we can accomplish in the really near future, but how many people in the world have as their goal that they believe that they can bring about the end of pain, suffering, and death? And with the Rav you knew that he completely believed it. Everything else that the Rav did and everything else that is the Rav's legacy was all predicated on that knowledge. To find a spiritual tool that can alter the souls of people, that can open the eyes of people, that can make their life better it is not just a single thing, but millions of sparks of Light were changed because he existed. The Rav said " Something is happening, do you want to be a part of it?" which is an interesting way to put it. But that certainty, conviction in this idea for me is maybe the Rav's most important legacy. In the years since before the Rav, during the stroke period, we opened Sao Paolo, we opened Mexico, we opened Russia, we opened so many different huge spaces, pathways to bring this knowledge more and more to the people, and that is his legacy. Everything that we do, every book that we write, every person that learns it, every place that comes, every one that comes into this place, this cone of knowledge, wherever it might be in the world is part of his legacy. Because as it was with Rabbi Shimon, as it was with Rav Ashlag, as was with Rav Brandwein, as was with the Rav. The Rav for our world is the place where we get our energy from. He was that place for the common people to be able to open their minds and hearts to the teachings of Kabbalah and that is what he has given us, allowed us to do. Those are the gates that he knocked out and left open. Each person that shows somebody else a mini Zohar which did not exist before our time, a different passage and they learn from that, it is a part of it. Because the word 'legacy' for me means, "How do I create more goody points, if you will. How do I create more sparks upstairs that can enhance the Rav?" And every time somebody learns either from a book that he has written, or from a book that was written from Michael, whatever it is that they have taken something out of it, those people are part of the legacy of the Rav. So too with the generation that will follow, and after that because what he had done, no one had done before. And therefore and that it exists and people draw from that it is like a constant stream, and all of us are being satiated by that stream. And by soul, being the soul source of that is part of his legacy. Rav Berg. Now and Forever. 1927 - 2013. I am not here to say we are not part of the team that will bring Moshiach in our day. But we have to be strong, and we have to take on the challenge. If no one else will do it, then the task is left for us. But if there is anything that I can do to say I promise that I will not falter, I will not hesitate, as I have not done so for the past 50 years and I will do everything in my power, in my soul to make good on that promise. Infinity. Infinity. But whatever may be, this thought will never leave me: That I do not want to say goodbye to any of you, and certainly not my own family, but I cannot do the job alone, it was never meant to be done alone.