Beyond Belief, Lesson Six: Perfect World
What is G-d’s ultimate vision for His creation? Where are we headed? And how does our concept of a perfect world affect the way we live our lives today? In this lesson we examine the Jewish beliefs of Mashiach and the resurrection of the dead, and how these ideas critically inform our present.
Soul Maps: Kabbalah to Navigate Your Inner World
Soul Maps introduces you to the Tanya, a 200-year-old text with a revolutionary new look at human psychology. It provides Kabbalah-based tools to help you understand yourself.
Until the publication of Tanya, the Kabbalah was an esoteric discipline that was studied and understood by only a select few. Tanya, however, sought to make the teachings of Kabbalah practical, relevant, and accessible. Its numerous reprints attest to its success in achieving this goal.
A precursor of the modern self-help genre, Rabbi Shneur Zalman authored Tanya as a substitute for his personal mentorship. If you attend this course, you will experience six virtual sessions of spiritual counseling from a master of Kabbalah and the nature of the soul. You will come to understand the source of guilt, conflict, and confusion, and find useful strategies for developing joy, purpose, and direction in everyday life.
Lesson Three: Sync or Sink
When your heart’s passion pulls you one way and your measured mind pulls another way, the disconnect can be agonizing. This lesson will teach you two methods for aligning reason and emotion, so you can reduce stress and live decisively.
For more information about Soul Maps, visit: www.myjli.com
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Beyond Belief, Lesson Five: Seeking Heaven
In Lesson Two, we saw that G-d speaks to us through the prophets, but can we also speak to G-d? What can we learn about ourselves from the way in which we choose to pray? How does G-d respond to our actions and our words? Do we have to wait till after we die to find our eternal reward? Or can we find heaven (and hell) on earth? In this lesson, we examine prayer as a form of self-assessment, as well as G-d’s reward and punishment of our actions.
Beyond Belief, Lesson Four: Knowing G-D
Rambam describes G-d not first as Creator of the Universe, but as a personal G-d and Redeemer. We will discover that the first four principles are not meant to describe the “how” of creation, but the “why” of creation. Our understanding of the nature of G-d is a logical outgrowth of our reflection about the purpose of our being.
Beyond Belief, Lesson Three: Universal Code
What are the implications of views the Torah is an unchanging eternal text? What would be different if we thought of it as a flexible evolving document that retained its central core but was adaptable in its details? This lesson describes an understanding of Torah as much more than a holy book. It is the spiritual DNA of our souls and our universe, an unchanging and unchangeable code that defines who we are and what we are meant to become.
Beyond Belief, Lesson Two: Hearing the Voice
Why do we need prophets? How does one become a prophet? How does it feel to receive prophecy? How can we distinguish real prophets from false prophets? Are there prophets today? Prophecy is a realm that seems to us almost surreal, magical, beyond our experience. And yet Rambam identified prophecy as a critical linchpin of our faith. Examine the critical role of prophecy in a world in which G-d communicates with His creation.
Beyond Belief, Lesson One: Beyond Belief
Is faith blind? In the Jewish sense, faith is less an act of unquestioning belief than an act of faithfulness, integrity, and trust. Rambam’s principles are the thirteen “big ideas” that form the basis of our powerful bond with G-d. In our first lesson, we examine the principle of G-d’s omniscience, a worldview that contrasts starkly with the Greek belief that G-d created the world and then left it to its own devices. This principle lays the groundwork for a personal and intimate relationship with G-d.
