The International Jewish Liberation School is grateful and delighted to offer a training course in Liberation (Deveikut, God-Merging) based on the principles and practices of Hebrew Wisdom.
Our school is a reactivation of this great and lost Hebrew Liberation wisdom. This school is dedicated to sharing the great mission of Hebrew wisdom; the Democratization of Enlightenment (which is called in Hebrew wisdom sources Deveikut or He’arah). In this teaching Deveikut (Self-Liberation) is not the province of the great masters, but a genuine option for every person. The potential for realizing one’s true nature is the birthright of every human being. Every human being has the potential and possibility to realize their true nature as part of the God field and to act – compassionately and courageously - from the integrity of that realization.
Because realization is the potential and possibility of every human being it is not merely an option but it is the very purpose and invitation of our lives. In line with the four-thousand year lineage of Hebrew wisdom masters, we use the Torah as a guidebook to liberation. Once we understand the Torah as a handbook for the Liberation of every human being, we realize that the intention of the Biblical ideal, of “Kingdom of Priests”- is no less then what we have called, The Democratization of Enlightenment.
Why is this so overwhelmingly important to us? Because we subscribe to the hidden corollary of Hebrew Liberation teaching…that all ethical failure is ultimately rooted in a failure of realization.
A core practice of Hebrew wisdom is called Mitzvah. Although Mitzvah is usually translated as commandment, the Hebrew mystics also read it as being related to the word Tzavtah, meaning intimacy. Mitzvah is the path of intimacy in which the skin-encapsulated ego expands to include all that exists. At the level of Liberation, Mitzvah acts as a channel to draw down the light (shefa) and activate the divine flow of life.
Particularly, we see Shabbat as a day spiritual renewal and Liberation in which the primary mitzvah is creating a quiet mind to receive the higher energies of Liberation. In this context Shabbat is integral to the teachings of Jewish Liberation. In the Jewish liberation tradition, the words of the divine to Abraham, “Lech Lecha,” are literally translated to mean, “Go to Your Self. Realize that your Divine self is “literally part of God.” Once the human beings solves the perpetual identity crisis by realizing his identity with Divine, he or she is able to act with courage, compassion, wisdom, responsibility and holy audacity. It is this courage and audacity of human action, which supports the activation of the indwelling Shekhinah energy that opens us to the experiential awareness of Deveikut. It is this awareness, which naturally manifests the most evolved vision of Tikkun Olam (the healing and transformation of the world).
The International Jewish Liberation School’s course honors, receives, and transmits the four thousand year-old Hebrew lineage of Liberation. Beginning with Abraham Isaac Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah; continuing to Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David and Solomon; transmitted to the communities of elders, prophets, priests and sages, there has been an energetic transmission of deveikut (liberation). The lineage transmission includes some of the most wondrous illuminated beings to walk the earth, including Akiva, Judah the Prince, Abulafia, Maimonides, Cordovero, Yitzchak Luria, Chaim Luzatto, Meir Ibn Gabbai, the Gaon of Vilna, the Baal Shem Tov, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, Mordechai Laine of Izbica, Rav Shalom Sharabi, Rav Yehuda Fatima, Ben Ish Hai, Menachem Mendel of Schneerson and Rav Kaduri in modern times.
A remarkable and powerful teaching of this tradition and modern times is that none of these people were perfect. Perfection and absolute piety is a tyrannical ideal that ultimately separates us from the divine. Toxic shame undermines the deveikut (Liberation) process. All of these liberated figures were flawed, some dramatically so, at different times in their lives. In the words of the ancient teaching, “The Tzadik falls seven times and rises, the wicked falls and does not rise.” The ability to rise like a Phoenix from the fire and to transform human failing into human greatness is core to the shadow work of Hebrew Liberation technology. As the schools of Kutzk and Izbica taught, one’s unique flaw is transmuted into one’s unique gift and gorgeousness. We are all unique flames emerging from the same fire. It is in the realization of one’s authentic unique self that the human being merges with the God field. If one tries to round out the curves of a puzzle piece it cannot fit into the great puzzle of the Kosmos. It is only by highlighting the unique curvature of your self that your merge with the larger divine Self.
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