The Rise of the Islam
Besides increasing Anti-Semitism, there is another recent phenomenon that is strongly affecting our situation: Christianity is surrendering its domination to fundamentalist Islam. This process is described in The Book of Zohar as part of the processes that will occur when Israel returns to its land: “And the children of Ishmael are destined to evoke great wars in the world, and the children of Edom will gather over them and they will wage war with them” (Zohar, VaEra, item 203).
When we study the rise of Islam, as when studying any process, we must first know that everything that happens in this world is a consequence of the balance of reality’s hidden forces. For example, we cannot sense the force of gravity; we cannot see or feel it, but we can sense the consequences of its actions. We measure its effects and thus learn how to handle it.
In much the same way, there are forces in reality that affect human society. However, unlike forces affecting lower degrees than the human level (the still, vegetative, and animate in Nature and in our bodies), we cannot clearly identify the forces that affect human society, or their consequences. This is so because researching a certain phenomenon requires observing it from a higher perspective. For example, a child cannot study what it means to be a child. Similarly, we cannot presently understand the forces that affect our degree, the human level.
However, since reality is complete, just as natural forces affect all of Nature’s degrees, human society is influenced by Nature’s forces, even though they are hidden from us. In fact, all of the phenomena we observe in human society, in human relations, among peoples or among countries, are the effects of Nature’s forces, which manipulate human society as a shepherd leads a herd.
If we want to change our situation, we must understand these forces and affect the place from which they affect us. And the degree from which they affect us is above the human level, hence it is called “Nature’s Upper Level” or “The Upper World.”
Kabbalists describe this modus operandi in the following words (Bereshit Raba, 10, 6): “There is not a blade of grass below that does not have an angel (force) above it that strikes it and tells it: ‘Grow.’” In other words, nothing changes in our world without a force that operates it from a higher degree, the Upper World.
Therefore, to understand the relations among religions in general, and the rise of the Islam, in particular, we must know the Upper Root of religions: the three lines. In fact, man’s evolution toward equilibrium with the inclusive Nature unfolds along the right, left, and middle line. There are many degrees to this path, and in each degree one gains egoism from the left line, and acquires altruistic balancing force (to correct the ego) from the right line. Our task is to coalesce the two lines in the middle, meaning use the ego altruistically.
Corresponding to those lines is a system intended to sustain them, like a rind that guards the fruit within it. For this reason, the system is named, “the Klipot (shells, peels) system.” Its task is to guarantee the functioning of the lines.
The consequences of the work of the forces of the right and the left in the human society are Islam and Christianity, respectively.
The left and right lines help Israel keep a straight course in the middle line toward the realization of Nature’s plan. During the exile, the force that operated on Israel came primarily from the left line. But toward the end of the correction of the collective human egoism, the right line is becoming increasingly active.
During the exile, the evolution of nations was characterized by the intensification of the egoism. Hence, the left Klipa (singular for Klipot) was the dominant force in designing the people of Israel and distinguishing it from the other nations of the world. It did that by hating Israel—that is, Anti-Semitism. In doing so, it guarded the people of Israel from assimilating in the nations of the world throughout the centuries of exile.
However, since the end of the exile, this was no longer sufficient. Now the right Klipa, the force that stands opposite the balancing force, must be awakened and goad Israel to acquire the real quality of altruism.
Nature’s inherent forces operate the elements in human society: the nations, the countries, and so on. Hence, since the time of Israel’s exile, the left Klipa, Christianity, dominated our world. It took the place of Athens and Rome (which were not religions, or Klipot), dominated the world and suppressed all other methods.
But as the time approaches when Israel must correct itself and ordain the quality of altruism over ego, the domination of the force of the Klipa of the right is appearing in the world. This is what we feel today as a global intensification of the power of Islam over Christianity.
When the people of Israel begin to tackle the two Klipot and stabilize themselves in the middle line, they will encounter the Klipa of the middle line. It resides within them, in their own religion, and they will have to distinguish it, separate it, and uproot it from the world.
We should be aware that all the wars that Kabbalists describe can be decided at a higher level than the human-social level—it is the level of our desires. If we triumph there, succeed in realizing the correction method, and learn to use the ego altruistically, we will thus build the middle line. In that state, it will not be necessary for wars to materialize.
We should remember that the measure of balance or imbalance between Nature and us determines the corporeal, external reality, and the intensity of suffering we will experience. The key to the change is in our hand because the only active part in reality, for better or for worse, is the people of Israel.