This month is a new beginning within the Judaic faith. The teachings begin again as we re-read the Torah for another year, which starts with the words: “In the beginning … ,“ and we step into our exploration of the interconnected universe one more time. We’re on a spiral staircase, going up into more understanding of our world and ourselves each year, and this year is simply one more step upward.

In this first chapter of our new beginning we’re told about the creation of our planet and everything that exists upon it. And we’re told that it’s all good. But there’s much more to this story that it doesn’t say.

It doesn’t say why we’re here, or what is the meaning beneath all of this brilliantly designed planet. It’s only when we’re ready to explore the inner aspect of our life that we can begin to find out just how connected we are to everything that has been created. We need to realize that we don’t just walk on top of the planet—we are, at the same time, intricately connected with the creative process that designed everything.

In other words, there is really no separation between us and the One we’re taught to pray to. In fact, we’re all part of this One. The teachers of the Inner Torah, Kabbalah, insist that we realize this interconnection; this is possibly the reason why many people are afraid to know more about it. It can seem much easier for us to think of ourselves as independent beings who walk on the surface of the planet, rather than consider the possibility that we could discover and live in relationship with the Oneness of it all.

But sometimes, when bad stuff might happen, and we have to venture more deeply into the recesses of our mind to figure out how to resolve our difficulty, we’re forced to deal with whatever problem has come before us. Right now, Jews are in a challenging place: anti-semitism and anti-zionism stare at us more frequently, daring us to either run away or fight. But there’s also a third way to deal with these challenges, and it’s probably the most demanding way of all. This third way dares us to look into the reason for our existence—to question exactly why we are here—only then can we find a more comprehensive solution to this dilemma—and it’s actually hidden in plain sight in the Torah. According to Moses, the Creator keeps telling us: “When you listen to Me you will have what you need.”

How are we supposed to listen? There is no One to see. But that’s only because the creative source of all life has brilliantly hidden our connection to this Oneness deep inside of us. This is where our solutions are concealed, on the inside of our own being! And this means we have to listen within very carefully to find out what we need to do in every situation.

When we dare to take time and listen, we can uncover a wise, loving power that exists inside every person’s very own essence. When we each explore the inner aspect of our life, with great compassion and much respect, we can find that deep inside every one of us is an invisible source of amazing wisdom that is completely beyond our usual awareness. Underneath everyone’s faith, every person’s inner inquiry, is the truth of who you really are. When you are ready to patiently listen within, from the center of your own being, you can discover the real truth of your own authentic self.

Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto teaches that “God’s supreme unity is the foundation of faith and the root of wisdom.” This means that the whole universe is completely one—whole in its oneness—so every particle is interconnected with every other particle, which creates one whole harmonious universe.

When we see challenges in our lives, it means that we are not quite in harmony with the oneness of everything. It’s not about judgment, but about assessment. We have to find out what was missing in us that disconnected us from the whole. Then we can rectify it and come back into the flow of all life.

Since Yom Kippur we’re seeing a tragic misstep on the part of the United States. Many thousands of people have been forced to flee for their lives. How can we correct this? Is there any way to correct this? My heart aches to see such suffering. People have had to leave all their possessions behind and run away from their homes, without knowing whether they will survive, where they will find a safe haven, even for a short period of time. If ever there was a time for prayer from the heart, it is now.

Kabbalah teaches that we can heal any problems through the love that awakens in the heart. When we reach into the very depths of our loving heart, and call out to God, yearning from our inner truth, we can lift ourselves above the basic, harsh physical reality of pain and suffering that we see right now, and connect everything into the higher level of oneness that exists for us all. Only when we are united, with loving hearts, will our world become more filled with loving kindness.

In this week’s parshah, Ha’azinu, Moses exhorts the Children of Israel to come into the light of God’s wisdom, and then be that light to the rest of the world. It’s only when we dare to step into this light of God that we will change the pain and suffering that exists up to this very day.

At this time of year, when we remember those who have fallen, and celebrate independence on Yom Ha’atzmaut, we need to take a closer look at where we stand.

We Jews have accomplished so much so far. After 2,000 years of being tossed and turned, into and out of so many different countries, we’ve at last come back to where we belong in Israel.

And yet, we still haven’t found a way to create real peace.

So what, if anything, can we do about it? What can we say is still missing? Our only solution is to re-trace our journey—not in physical steps, but in the inner teachings that were given to us so long ago by Moses.

What did he teach us that appears to be missing from us now? What originally brought us so closely together then that is not with us today?

Something that was so moving then, 3,300 years ago, and isn’t so apparent today, is the awareness that we are all intricately connected through the higher wisdom of God. Yes, we can easily say that we believe in this higher wisdom, but are we really living and breathing this higher wisdom at every moment?

This is what we are really missing. It’s something that can only be fulfilled when we are ready to come back together as one man and one woman with one heart. It means discovering how to listen more carefully to the teachings that are coming to us from within our own heart. This takes commitment. It takes focus. It takes a determined effort. It takes wanting to change the world for the better right now.

Think about it. Let me know if you’re ready to make this work for you as it worked for the Jews 3,300 years ago.

Our effort now has to be to listen to the inner wisdom of God so very carefully, until we finally realize that God is actually listening to us! The beautiful part of this is that this connection is already with us at every moment! We just have to realize it.

When we saw the tragedy in Poway, California, which took the life of one wonderful woman and injured 3 others this past Shabbat, it’s impossible to simply move on from yet another violent act. It’s going to take a profound change in our national values to counteract such devastating behavior. It’s going to take a deep yearning within each of us to challenge and transform our national understanding about life, and turn it into a determined commitment toward the utmost compassion and respect.

The hardest thing to do is to move forward from such devastation. It’s especially hard when we understand that there is a greater wisdom in the universe who is said to know everything that happens here on earth. How could this happen if we are told to trust that God is good?

This is when people ask: Where was God? It hurts to think that we are all here by the grace of this higher power, and yet we are all so vulnerable. What can we do in the face of such tragic violence?

Rabbi Goldstein, the rabbi at Poway, gave a brilliant, powerful response. He said we must be determined to bring more light and more love into the world.

The only way we can change such hateful behavior is for us to bring more love into every moment of our lives. We need to be more mindful, every day, about what we say and what we do. We need to look at our actions very carefully to make sure that our intentions are never misconstrued.

Whenever we try to solve our problems, we keep discovering that life is far more complex than we can understand on the surface. When we are ready to acknowledge and come to terms with this fact, we’ll discover that there is a higher wisdom to the universe. This is when we’ll start to realize that this higher wisdom is hidden deep inside every one of us. It’s up to each of us to learn how to reach for this from within our own self.

It’s only when we learn that we are each individually connected to the greater wisdom of the universe—Eyn Sof—that we can discover how closely we are also, through this connection, harmoniously connected with each other.

This inner path can eventually lead us into an awareness that paradoxically lifts us above the limitations we see in the material world, even while we are still living as physical beings in the physical world.

The Baal Shem Tov said we should view this world as “achizat eynayim,” which means that our world is an “optical illusion.” This means that we all live within the interconnected energy of the universe—something that is now clearly confirmed by science. Eventually, everyone on earth will be more willing to come into harmony with each other and with the whole world through this inner understanding of interconnected oneness.

We all need to lift ourselves and each other up into this higher level of awareness. This is the challenge we’re being given now. And the only way to fulfill this challenge is to become more aware of the loving wisdom of the universe that exists within every one of us. Only then will we be able to do our part to come together and make this world a better, more peaceful place for all of us to enjoy.

When we climb up the levels of our soul, we step into a clearer awareness of our unique self, and enter into a realization of how vulnerable and yet how tender life can really be. We’re here on earth to discover the beauty that exists within every one of us, but we very quickly discover that this beauty is hard to sustain every hour of every day.

Our sages tell us that we need to learn how to climb up these levels, and they’ve given us guidance through the prayers and teachings, but it’s still up to each one of us to find our own way through the matrix of life and continue to thrive.

The key ingredient to this process, according to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, is to learn how to temporarily release ourselves from the bondage of the physical world so that we can experience a closer relationship with the higher wisdom of the universe. This is not a simple matter at all, but he explains that we can reach this more intimate relationship when we learn how to let go of our yearning to know everything. Relating to the higher wisdom means that we have to live in “not knowing.” It means accepting our vulnerability and gradually developing trust in whatever comes next.

When we see the various challenges happening in so many different parts of the country and the world, it’s so tempting to just throw our hands up in the air in anger and disgust. The murders, the discrimination, the hardships some people are experiencing, are all clearly heartbreaking. It can seem as if nothing can be done.

These challenges force us to rise above the chaos and explore the possibility that there must be some way to resolve these issues. Of course, it’s not simple, but it means we have to investigate our existence in the world on a deeper, more profound level, in order to find a clearer view of why all of this is happening.

One of our obstacles is that we keep looking at our world from our own, human perspective. But according to our sages, we also need to be able to see the world from the Creator’s perspective, so that we can get a clearer picture of what’s going on.

We live on a planet we didn’t create, and this planet exists within a universe we didn’t create. In fact, our sages, and our scientists, have told us that we were created by the universe, which is known as Ein Sof—Without End—the Infinite. This, we’re told, is the creative source of all the stars, planets, galaxies, and black holes, and all of us.

When we begin to realize that we are here because the universe created us, we can start to recognize the limitations of our own power. We are not the supreme power—the creative force of the universe is far more powerful than we could ever be. Recognition of this fact alone can cause us to be more reflective about what we’re supposed to be doing here.

With this clearer acknowledgment, we can start to appreciate that maybe the universe, having created us, might have a reason for our existence. This is what we each need to explore, on a personal and also a global perspective. The fact is that we humans have more brainpower than we usually think we have. But it’s only when we reach more deeply into our own inner sense of self that we can come to experience and use this greater brainpower to help us and our fellow human beings. This is what meditation and the study of kabbalah is all about. It means we have to go more deeply into our prayer life to discover the creator of our existence, to find the wisdom that is hidden inside every one of us.

Why are we encouraged to pray? We’re told to pray because the sages knew that this action can take us to a much deeper place within ourselves than we normally reach. It opens up pathways within us so that we can get to the core of our being—our sense of self—which is the real aspect of our true self.

Why do we have to reach this true aspect of our own self? Because there we can find contentment, the kind of inner peace that gives us a sense of security. It’s the level of understanding about our self that can give us peace of mind, even when the world around us, including unexpected personal events, can seem to throw our lives out of kilter.

And why do we have to be told to do this? Because the true essence of who we are is usually hidden from our own self. When we’re not aware of our true essence it can be challenging to know how to maneuver through any difficulties that show up in our lives. Recognizing our true essence can help us to gain a clearer perspective of the deeper reasons for our existence here on earth. Only then can we begin to see that we are each a very important part of life on earth. Only then will we start to realize that everything we experience in life has been given to us to push us forward into a clearer understanding of our existence. At that point we’ll begin to recognize how essential we each are to our human race and to our planet.

It takes an incredibly deep understanding to get us to realize how much we need each other. You can see by the state of the world right now that there’s so much more we could do if we understood this simple fact. We’d start to care much more about the impact our words and actions have on each other. We’d realize that a look, a smile, when shown with compassion and love, can change another person’s outlook for a whole day, or maybe even a lifetime.

We all have this power within us. It will never leave us. We simply have to know that when we use it, it can be a gift to us too. When we show compassion and love, it doesn’t just lift the other person—it lifts us up too!

Who are we really? What are we here for? Why do we exist? Most of us can’t answer these questions because we live within a physical body that constantly needs our attention. “Life is what happens,” as we were told by John Lennon, “while we’re busy making other plans.”

What we do know is that we’re often trying to control the events in our lives to make it the best life possible. When we explore the answer to the above questions, the first thing that we realize is that we need to let go of the thought that we are in control of our lives. While we think we’re in control, we might think of a higher wisdom as an additional assistant to who we think we are.

But when we explore this more deeply, we can come to realize that this higher wisdom is more in control than we are. What we discover is that when we attentively listen to the realizations that come into our mind from this higher wisdom, we can begin to understand life more clearly, with more patience and more love than we thought we could express.

This is what waking up is all about. It’s the time when we begin to realize that we’re not as aware as we thought we were. This new awareness comes into our mind when we’re ready to accept that we don’t know everything. This is when answers can come in ways we hadn’t thought of, in a flow of energy that can make life sweeter, kinder, more respectful of our soul, than we could ever think would happen to us.

Life can then unfold in a way we would never have dreamed possible, taking us in a direction we would never have known. It’s only when we let go of what we think is our control—learning to patiently wait, trusting that only the higher wisdom can know exactly what’s best for us—that we can come into our ultimate expression of all that’s possible from within us. This is beyond our wildest dreams, because no one could have predicted such an outcome.

Only after patient listening, trusting, waiting for relief from any challenges that life gives us, can we experience true resolution. It’s only when we have completely let go of the outcome, while staying responsible for all that we must care for, knowing that any outcome is ultimately out of our hands, that we can begin to experience profound relief.

I usually ignore any gossip in the media, but something happened recently that made me realize how much we need to become more aware about the way the world works. We need to understand what is actually happening when we speak to one another, because it’s not easy to realize how powerful our words can be.

Every human being is able to think, and every idea that comes into our mind has an energetic force. We live within a creative universe that exists as interacting particles and waves of energy, so any energy we have is actually part of this flow of energy within the universe. Once we realize that we each carry this force of energy, we’ll begin to see that our words don’t just transmit sound, they also carry the energy of our thought.

In other words, there is great power in every thought we express, so everything we say has to be said with great care, particularly when we recognize the very intense positive or negative effect these words can have on our relationships. Any negative words we say, perhaps from anger or hurt feelings, can separate us from others and create distance between us, whereas any words with positive energy, especially when they’re transmitted with loving kindness, draw us closer into more cooperation with each other.

We can also notice that this affects how we receive what other people say to us. Once we understand that any words projected toward us have energy, we can begin to appreciate that the impact of this energy will resonate within us, sometimes in enduring ways. That’s why we can often feel hurt or sad long after someone has spoken or acted in a negative way, and yet we usually experience a good feeling after a conversation that’s been positive and respectful.

So when a famous television personality used twitter to write a racist comment about an African American woman, she obviously didn’t realize the power her words could have. This caused a powerful response from the Entertainment President of the television station that carried her program, who canceled this person’s television show. The impact of those negative words was so powerful that it caused great distress, to the general public and to the woman herself.

This is why Judaism advises us not to say “lashon hara,” which literally means “negative talk.” We’re told that it is forbidden to speak negatively about someone else, even if what we might want to say is true. This was explained by Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen of Radin, also known as Chafetz Chaim: “Whoever of you desires life (chafetz chaim) . . . guard your tongue from evil . . . ”

So sad that so many lost their jobs because of a few words said in haste.

We all live in an interconnected world, which requires a new way of thinking, with a fresh approach to life. When we look more deeply into this new paradigm and realize that we exist within the flow of its unified energy, we can discover how to open up our minds with more freedom and less fear. We can begin to realize that we’re all tuned into a cosmic system of conscious energy, even though we can’t physically see anything at all.

The more we explore The Way The World Works, the more we can experience our beautiful, ever-flowing connection with everyone and everything that exists in our world.