BS”D

The Secret: The Phenomenon/ The movie/ My Challenge

By Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzchak Schwartz


THE PHENOMENON

I began teaching a few weeks ago here in Jerusalem, a course I called 'The Secret

of the Secret'. My intention is to take on the challenge of exploring the

essence of this phenomenon whose impact is felt on a global level. It's main

appearance is in the form of a movie entitled "The Secret ". "The Secret" is

now the subject of seminars, articles, national talk shows and other forms of

supplementary literature. It's based on the premise that the greatest figures

of history all shared a secret - "The Law of Attraction". For whatever reason,

the presenters of this movie felt that now [ actually about a year ago] is the

time to 'reveal this cosmic secret.


THE MOVIE

The movie is very well done, presenting the principle that your thoughts or

desires, whether positive or negative, manifest in reality. Therefore, if you

take hold of this power and direct your thoughts\will in a positive non self-

sabotaging way, the universe will grant you anything you want---something

like your own personal genie in a bottle 24/7. The movie's battery of

scholarly presenters, historical natural proofs, life applications as well as tips

for 'getting it'--were very impressive. Although I must confess, being Jewish

for me, and for many others, is often experienced as being the

constant skeptic, a Holy skeptic--mind you, always feeing like there must be

more to it than the agenda that all these and other glossy eyed sworn

believer-presenters want to sell to us---in fact, my stomach began to get a

bit queasy after watching one too many of these semi-proselytes do their

thing. After having said that, I must admit that it was a very powerful

presentation!


MY CHALLENGE

What's driving me to depart from my normal writing style [and comfort

zone] and tackle this subject are a few factors;


A. I've been using something similar to the 'Secret's' formula [before I even knew it was a

phenomenon] for years, especially this last year both for personal situations and to coach others.

I can definitely testify that it works and oftentimes miraculously!


B. If this phenomenon has that big of a cosmic/global impact, I'd say it's worthy of some serious

study.


C. Being a long-time student of Jewish wisdom, both the revealed and mystical types, I am

absolutely, screamingly certain that over the last few thousands of years of Jewish scholarly

history, involving millions of brilliant and inspired minds, there were countless luminaries who

lived "the Secret", in their own way - and in that mass of historical brilliance, there must be hidden

somewhere a uniquely Jewish take of "the Secret" and most likely even 'the secret of the secret'---

I'm driven, or better yet obsessed to uncover it!


D. Last, but not least, there was something weird about how they projected God's role in the

movie i.e. if you resonate with the vibrations of the law of attraction properly, then, 'YOUR

WISH [be it $1000,000, a new Porsche, or a life filled with happiness] IS GOD'S COMMAND!'

The Universe somehow becomes our cosmic genie in the bottle or Divine bellhop, if you prefer.

But isn't there a bit more to the dynamic of our relationship with the Divine than that?

So I began to explore...

After sending the above commentary out in my weekly email, I received a lot of messages from

people who wanted to know what the Jewish/Kabbalistic tradition teaches concerning these

ideas.

Previously, after introducing the essential idea of 'The Secret' as being a way to miraculously transform

your will into manifested reality, we stated that our main challenge is to find the Jewish element of the

'Secret' as well as the secret of the 'secret'. I received a lot of messages from people who, after having

found that they have discovered [often a long time ago] the power and the reality of manifesting

their desired outcomes in life, nevertheless, felt that they wanted to know what the Jewish tradition

teaches, especially in light of the very shallow portrait of the G-d-man dynamic that was presented in the

movie.



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