Equality Between Men and Women: Good or Bad?

A woman fulfills her role by being opposite (and not equal!) to a man.

Men's and women's roles have become so blurred that people are confused about what the ideal roles of men and women are supposed to be. This has affected the relationships between men and women, and has even caused people to become confused about their own identities.

As much as we desire to create simple, plain equality - according to our understanding of it, in the end it does not benefit men or women. It does not make our lives more balanced, harmonious, fair or happy - and that's because the way we seek to create "equality" goes against the laws of nature.

Instead of learning how to arrange our lives from nature, we have been thinking that we are above nature and inventing our own rules. Yet our lives prove that we are, in fact, part of nature. Hence, we have to let nature teach us how to create perfect relationships between us and live in harmony with one another.

This is exactly what the wisdom of Kabbalah enables us to do - it reveals nature's laws, enabling one to see the best way to act toward others, whether toward men, women, children, or the whole world. Without this knowledge, it is impossible for us to arrange our lives in a sensible way. Rather, with every passing day, we will only experience more problems and suffering.

But how did the confusion around our sex roles begin in the first place? After all, the relationship between men and women is only unbalanced among humans. In the animal world, for instance, the male always supplies the female with everything she needs. The problem with humans is that everything operates according to the ego, and not according to the duties one sex has toward the other. Precisely the ego has made our relationships and gender roles unbalanced.

So what is the balanced way for us to build our lives? It is written that a woman was created to be help against a man. That is to say, a woman fulfills her role and provides the help needed of her precisely by being opposite (not equal!) to a man. To be opposite to him means to help him attain the spiritual goal, and this is how they both attain it.

What does the Story of Adam and Eve Mean in Our Times?

Our ego is the snake that prevents us from being able to love someone else.

The meaning behind the story of Adam, Eve and the snake is actually very simple. The snake represents the ego that became revealed between Adam and Eve, the man and the woman. And that's really all there is to the story.

For example, suppose that a happy, young couple falls in love. They hug, kiss and laugh together, go to the movies and the beach. Then they get married and begin living together, and everything is wonderful. They're in the Garden of Eden.

And suddenly - the snake (the ego) arrives. They suddenly begin arguing. Then they begin taking advantage of each other and making private calculations, such as "How can I get him/her to be the way I want them to be?" This happens to us because the snake (the ego that's inside us) prevents us from being able to love someone else, and makes sure that our love is egoistic from the start.

Under these circumstances, the closest we can come to love is to surrender our egos in day to day life as much as we can. However, this still doesn't solve the problem at the root, and does not enable us to experience real, unconditional love. This is where Kabbalah offers another solution: to correct our soul at the root, or to correct the snake that separates us from our partners.

To do this, both partners must realize that there is a goal to their lives that's above this world. Then they will also realize that they can only attain it by having a partner in life, someone who will go through the spiritual path together with them. This is the meaning of the verse, "Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them." It means that in order for us to attain the Divine presence, spirituality, we must connect with each other correctly.

Then, instead of taking advantage of each other, Adam and Eve will complete each other. And the snake, instead of driving them apart, will become the driving force that pushes them to reveal the Upper Force - the Divine Presence, or the Creator.

Kabbalistic Texts Contain a Unique Quality that Ensures a Successful Partnership

Want to strengthen your relationship? Read Kabbalistic texts together!

There are special Kabbalistic texts that discuss partnership and togetherness. When a couple reads them together, this greatly reinforces their spiritual connection, bringing peace and harmony into their home.

When husband and wife spend 15 minutes a day reading Kabbalistic texts together, this brings a unique quality into their relationship that has the power to resolve all of the problems they have between them. It's because these texts contain great power.

Moreover, the only person to whom you can reveal all of your feelings - is your spouse. It is forbidden (impossible) to speak to anyone about your deepest feelings and your inner experiences on the spiritual path - with the exception of your spouse. In sharing their feelings, the husband and wife complement one another, and together they advance into spirituality.

The Truth about Virtual Relationships

Virtual relationships are the product of our own imagination.

Many people today create "virtual romantic connections" on social sites such as Facebook. They meet other people, share pictures, and even fall in love with their virtual partners!

The reason we are so drawn to our virtual partners is because the connection we make with them is non-material, detached from physical contact, and even "spiritual" in a way. Since we're not tied down by any physical limitations, we're let free to fantasize as much as we want to, to attribute all the best qualities to our virtual significant other, and to raise our connection with them "into the clouds," so to speak. We convince ourselves of how special this connection is, and that it's an opportunity to reach beautiful, perfect love.

But unfortunately, it's all an illusion. Over the Internet, a person's physical features are hidden and his inner aspects emphasized. One can express himself in any way he wants to, but the problem is that we lose sight of reality as we become unknowingly immersed in this game. We forget that we aren't dealing with a real person, but with our own imagination.

When we see someone in real life, in person, then we can tell whether they really have certain traits or not, and we can see whether those traits are real. On the Internet, however, we only see a (carefully selected) picture and read a few lines that are more likely than not to be lies - and we go off imagining things that are completely unrealistic. However, the moment we meet our virtual partners in person, this sweet fantasy bubble bursts.

Fairytale Love is Just That – a Fairytale

True love exist only in the spiritual world.

If you think that finding the love of fairytales will make you happy, think again. The love of fairytales isn't really love, but the use of others for self satisfaction.

What we normally call love is the egoistic satisfaction of one person by another, whether it's sexual satisfaction or any other kind of fulfillment we receive from another person. And clearly, this isn't love.

Then what is love? Love is when you don't pay any attention to yourself, but you take the desires of another person and try to fulfill them in exactly the way they would like. In other words, you turn yourself into a vessel of fulfillment for the other person. This is real love, and it exists only in the spiritual world. And there is no difference if it is a man or a woman - what's important are the desires, the soul.

In contrast, when we talk about love in this world, we are really talking about attraction and pleasure that are brought about by hormones. If we were to disconnect a person from his hormonal system, he wouldn't be able to feel "love." This again shows that what we usually think of as love is just an egoistic desire to enjoy. Sometimes this desire can even be cruel, desiring to receive fulfillment at the expense of another person.

Hence, the love we read about in fairytales is really an illusion, and does not exist in reality. It's because all of our desires are based only on the desire to fulfill ourselves. Even when we give something to others, we do so only because it gives us pleasure. Our action of giving is meaningless because what really matters to us while performing that action is what we feel.