Chabad of Malibu

B”H Mystical Mitzvahs: The Hidden and the Revealed The Inner Alchemy of Mitzvot Adopted from the teachings of the Arizal Netzvim When you look at the Mitzvot, you might think of them as simple rules: “Do this, don’t do that.” But beneath the surface, they are codes of energy alignment. Each one shifts the frequency of your relationship with the Divine. There are two currents in this cosmic dance: The hidden current is restraint. These are the passive commandments, the times you hold back, the moments you say “no” to what pulls you out of alignment. In Kabbalah, these connect you to Abba and Imma, the archetypes of wisdom and understanding. Their energy is quiet, like the steady heartbeat of a long-term love. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t sparkle. It endures. The revealed current is expression. These are the active commandments, the actions, the outward movements of devotion. They connect you to Zeir Anpin and Nukva, the archetypes of emotion and manifestation. Their energy is fiery, p...

  B"H Yehudi Lights: Counter-Illumination and Bitul in Chabad Chassidus Elul 18 5785 Project “Yehudi” set out to solve a simple but profound problem: in daylight a plane is seen not because it is loud or large, but because it casts a silhouette, contrast against the sky. Engineers discovered that you could remove the silhouette not by painting the plane darker, but by adding more light, forward-facing lamps that raised the craft’s apparent brightness to match the heavens. The result: the aircraft ceased to register as a separate thing. Its “I am here” vanished into the ambient glow. Chabad Chassidus would call that move, astonishingly modern for a wartime lab, by an ancient name: bitul . And because the project’s very name is Yehudi (“Jew”), the metaphor practically begs to be unpacked. 1) Contrast and hester: why things become visible Chassidus begins with a paradox: the world (olam) is from the root he’elem , concealment. What we see is already filtered light. Like atmospheri...

B"H Adopted from the Arizal Parshas Tavo This week’s Torah portion introduces us to the commandment of bringing the Bikkurim , the first fruits, to the Temple. On the surface, it looks like a simple act of gratitude: a person places their ripened fruits into a basket and presents them to the priest. But when you lean into the deeper current, you realize it is a profound mirror of our own spiritual lives. The Torah uses the word T ene for “basket.” Mystically, this basket represents the feminine container within us, the part of ourselves that gathers, holds, and manifests. It is the womb of our lived experience, the place where energy takes on form. The fruits inside are the overflow of our labor, our love, our creativity, the tangible outcomes of our soul’s engagement with the world. Yet, there’s a hidden warning here. Whenever Divine abundance flows into the world, there is the risk that unintegrated aspects of ourselves, the parts still in shadow, will siphon off this energy....

 B"H Happy Chai Elul!  Adoption of the letter the holy, R’ Yisrael Baal Shemtov, of blessed memory, wrote to his brother-in-law upon his ascent on Rosh Hashana in the year 5507 -1747 I summoned the soul’s ascent, as you know and I saw wondrous things in a vision, things I had never seen before, since I stood fully awake in my consciousness. What I saw and learned in that ascent is impossible to put into words, even mouth-to-mouth. When I returned to the lower world of flesh and saw how many souls, the living and the dead, those I knew and those I did not, were traveling back and forth, countless and beyond measure, ascending from world to world through a column of light known to those who know Kabbalah, my heart overflowed. There was such great joy that my mouth could not tell it and the physical ear could barely bear to hear. Many wicked ones were drawn back to repentance; their sins were forgiven, for the time of favor was great. It astonished me how many were received in Te...

B"H This week, the Torah presents us with something unexpected: a law about going to war. You’d assume the Torah would only concern itself with lofty spiritual ideals or ritual, not the gritty details of survival in a battlefield. Yet it insists: even in war, when you are far from home, you must carry with you not just a sword, but a shovel. Why? To ensure the purity of your camp. To literally cover what needs to be buried. On the surface, it seems trivial, why does something so small get so much attention, when lives hang in the balance? Indeed, this is the point. The Torah is revealing something radical: the environment you create reflects who you are. Your dignity isn’t found in your furniture, your status, or even in your victories. It is found in the choices you make when no one is watching, in the quiet details, in the discipline to respect the space you occupy. This is about consciousness. Carrying a weapon without a shovel makes you powerful but not whole. The shovel is t...