Kabbalah Kronicles 24 – Showdown at the
OK Kabbalah Korral
By
Uncle Zally / Zalman Velvel
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“Rabbi, this isn’t working.”“What’s not working, Zalman?” he asked.
“Kabbalah Klass. I don’t get what Kabbalah says about love and marriage. We need to meet privately, just you and me, where we can get down to it.”
“Name the place and time, Zalman.”
The showdown took place at my office, at 11 AM, on Monday.
He arrived 1 minute early. If you know Rabbi Itchy as long as I have (18 years) that alone was a sign of high drama. The Rabbi’s clock is set to HDST – Hasidic Daylight Savings Time. Meetings with him are pre-empted by excuses … emergency visits to someone’s child in jail or rehab, sitting by the bedside of someone who is dying, or rushing to a family who lost a loved one and needs help with funeral arrangements.
“Okay, Zalman, shoot. What’s bothering you?” he fired.
“I want to give people simple tools to make their lives better, using Kabbalah, and I haven’t been about to get it from you in klass. What’s more, I don’t agree with what Kabbalah is saying about love.”
“What’s your definition of love, Zalman?”“Why? Are we going to write poetry and sonnets together?”
“Come on Zalman. What do you think love is about?”
“It’s about the wonderful feeling that someone gives me.”
“And when they stop giving you that wonderful feeling, Zalman?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t get the unconditional aspect you keep stressing. Everyone I know puts conditions on their love. That’s why the divorce rate is so high. Love usually stops, and people either give up and break up, or give up and stay together, miserable among the ruins.”
“Kabbalah has a different definition, Zalman. Your definition is all about you, and what you are getting. Kabbalah says love is doing acts of unconditional kindness for someone else … and acting in that manner makes you immensely attractive to your spouse, your family, and your friends. Just about everyone you come in contact with will be attracted to you when you give them unconditional kindness … and most will then want to reciprocate that kindness. The main problem is keeping the process energized by giving love, not waiting for love to happen to you first.”
“What happens when it is not reciprocated by your spouse?”
“After you have tried honest communication about both of your needs and unhappiness, and it produces no results … then divorce is allowed in Kabbalah. But the incidence of divorce would be much much less. Zalman, if you want to give your readers tools, give them the tools of unconditional acts of kindness and honest communication.”
“What about time, Rabbi? It takes time to give everyone in your life unconditional kindness … we have careers, families, and our own needs.”“Then you have to prioritize. And yes, sometimes your decisions about who to spend your time with, and what you do with that time, will need to be adjusted.”
“Yeah, right, Rabbi. Adjusted by poverty and bill collectors.”
“Zalman, is it better to have more good things, or more good relationships? The economy is bad now, and people are suffering, but even when the economy was booming, and everyone was making more money, I saw just as much unhappiness as I do now. Maybe the answer is spending less money, so you can spend more time with the people you love, and creating more love in those people, and more happiness.”
I opened my mouth to argue … but no words came out. I was reminded of someone close to me who is quite rich, and also quite unhappy because she lost her parents, and the love they gave her. Recently, she became a grandmother for the first time, and she is showering her grandchild with unconditional love, and unconditional time. She looks radiant now.
This showdown wasn’t fair. I brought 60 years of doubts and cynicism, the Rabbi brought a Bible and Tanya, containing thousands of years of wisdom and love. He had greater firepower. I was shot down at the OK Kabbalah Korral.Stay tuned next week when Kabbalah will give you another very powerful tool to use in order to get closer to God, and the people you love. Would you like that?
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