Kabbalah Kronicles 17 – What God Wants

Uncle Zally / Zalman Velvel

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Doesn’t it seem like there is always a religious leader telling us, “God wants this from you …. and God wants that from you.”

Then they ask you for money – not for themselves, mind you – but to help God get what He wants.

It’s interesting that the Master of the Universe, who can make or do anything He wants, always needs your money to get His work accomplished. Since He made everything, can’t He make His own money? Our government leaders print money, trillions of dollars of it, in order to get their work accomplished, and I leave it to you to decide how those people compare to God?

Leaders are master manipulators, that’s how they got to be leaders, and they know that once they establish the prime objective for a follower, like What God Wants from Them, they will be followed … even worshiped.

So leaders act like they know, absolutely, positively, what God wants from you. How do they know this? They allude to their greater Faith, and greater closeness to the Almighty.

Well, I have seen too many of the faults of my fellow man and woman, and inside myself, to worship any human being. That is why I was a faithless SOB for 45 years.

Then a man came along, a man of Faith, and he knocked on my door. Yes, he wanted my help, both financial and networking-wise. He seemed happy, and at peace, even though he voluntarily undertook a great struggle to help others. I asked where his Faith came from, and he handed me a Book. We studied it together.

The Book gave me hope.

As a writer, I knew no Man was capable of writing the words in it. And the stories! The stories were wonderful … filled with real people, with faults. And God Loved them with all their faults.

When I made my return to Faith almost 2 decades years ago, every new year, when we began studying the Bible again, from the beginning, I asked the question, “What does God want from me?”

The answer was there, but not in the beginning. Somewhere around the middle, God stated plainly:

I want you to Love Me with all your heart, and follow My instructions and Laws in this Book, as best you can.

What was written in His Book made sense to me – the words went straight to my heart. Without that book, I would still be a faithless SOB. But the part about Love … God wanting me to Love Him with all my heart … I skipped over, concentrating instead on learning the Laws and Instructions.

How do you love someone you can’t see, feel, touch, or hear? My heart wanted to know more about God in order to Love Him. Doesn’t Love do that to us? My heart kept asking, “God, why did You make me … what did you want especially from me?”

What I was really asking was, “God, if you want me to love you more, I need to know more about You … what are your needs and desires … how can I make you happy?”

The answers I came up with are on “Kabbalah You,” a comedy CD I wrote and performed with my comedy writing buddy, David Sayh. If you look underneath the comedy, there are some serious answers to those questions.

Why do I bring up this subject now, in this blog?

Because lately Kabbalah Klass has been getting me upset.

Rabbi Itchy has been emphasizing that God made everything, and everything only exists because of God. I agree with that statement. That is not what was upsetting me.

It’s when the good Rabbi extended that statement, and inferred our goal in life should be to empty ourselves of our desires, our goals, our needs, our character, so that we will be able to receive the greatest blessings from God. (Kabbalah means to receive.) I was being taught that being an empty vessel is true humility, and humility is the character trait that God prizes and loves above all others.

Remember what I said in the beginning about religious leaders telling you what God wants from you? What I heard didn’t make sense to me.

If God wanted empty vessels, he would have made only angels, or robots. Angels do God’s bidding, and nothing else. Robots are void of feelings inside. Neither has free will. Neither can truly love. If God only wanted empty vessels, He would NOT have made people.

Looking at the facts around me, I have come to the following conclusion:

God wanted to be loved by beings that He created, and then separated Himself from, who had the choice to love Him, or not.

I also believe that God, the Creator of all Surprises, loves when we surprise Him, when we delight him with our actions, and our talents – with music, with psalms, with dancing, with sports, with stories, and even jokes. God loves Artistry. Look around you. The world we live in is the greatest work of Art of all, and God, the greatest Artist.

I also believe that Instead of trying to empty ourselves of what it is to be human, we should try to more of a human being, a mentsh.

That is what I believe, and I am not asking for your money, or for you to follow me or read my new and improved book about what God wants you to do. And I definitely don’t want you to drink my Kool Aid.

I also believe the marketing of Kabbalah is masterful. What is the best way of getting someone’s attention?

Tell them you know something hidden, a great secret, and you won’t tell it to them.

I’m looking at the words I have just written in this blog, and I stand by them … yet there is an empty place in my heart tonight. Why?

Because there was no Kabbalah Klass this week – Rabbi Itchy had to go out of town. As I sit here, at my word processor, I realize something.

I have grown to love the people in the Klass, and I miss them. I like making them laugh.

And I love Rabbi Itchy, and I miss him, even though I am upset with what he is teaching now. He and I have a history together, going back to when he knocked on my door, and then asked me to study the Bible with him.

And the mystery of those loves is the true mystery of Kabbalah … to me.

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