I do love an expert who can share his knowledge, and without an edge, bias or whatever you want to call it. These lecture series are fascinating!

I came from a Muslim background, and despite what you see on TV Muslims do have a huge respect for Jewish culture and intelligence....Personally, I can’t get enough of learning about Jewish history and teachings....Thank you for sharing these lectures.

In your Hillel lecture, you speak of a debate between the Hillel school and the Shammai school that went on for several years regarding the resolution that, all things considered, mankind was a doleful addition to the universe. The resolution was put to a vote and the Shammai school won (not a common occurance). Then a divine proclamation occurred (as I remember your lecture) that proclaimed both answers as being correct and necessary, which is very satisfying to me, personally. It is, for me, a commentary on the nature of language, generally, and paradox, in particular, that is, the point where metaphor fails, and the answer occurs in the separatrix between the two pursuasions. As a Christian, it satisfies me because, in the final analysis, The One (as described in Revelation 4.2) cannot be contained by finite properties and that the separatrix contains the mystery that remains a mystery because it exceeds our capacity to contain it except in wonder, a quality I hear throughout your lectures (such as in the father and son immersed in the Torah for 12 years). The second thing it represents, the separatrix of the paradox, is the dynamic quality of Aristotle's Golden Mean, a subject you bump against from time to time, in regards to the fascination with all things Hellenistic in the Jewish community beginning with the Septuagint and proceeding to the 1st century CE and Philo of Alexandria. In this, I am not holding you to any dogma, but am reflecting on the horror modern conservative Christians, in particular, Evangelicals and Pauline adherents. have for all things Platonic. From my perspective, there is no conflict, expistemologically, between Plato/Aristotle and the epistemology of either Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible: the Platonic forms exist in the mind of The One and the issue is not principle but methodology: how do we acquire the artifacts of the mind of The One? Plato wants to perceive the Forms, directly, and is anticipated in Genesis 15:5 while Aristotle assumes the Forms are crudely reflected in the world and can, thus, be abstracted catagorically from the specific of the specific temporal phenomena, such as the "Horse" to the general proposition, the "Horseness" of the Forms by vertical inquiry. In this, Aristotle is anticipated in Genesis 28:12. In this regards, I am offended by the political intent of the Pauline school of the Evangelical agenda. Their method is essentially Marxist, in a post-modernist sense, in that they devolve paradox to dilemma and then force a choice between the two horns, creating a Fascist construct that they then attempt to impose upon not just their own constituency but upon the larger body politic (in particular, around the Pro-Life heresy) for what amounts to little more than a merecenary advantage. Thanks to your lecture series, I have come to see Paul as representing the rigid structuralism of Shammai that he brings to the Romans in his epistle to the Romans. That's his mission, while Jesus very clearly represents the unadorned and unshackled optimism and humanity of Hillel As a Christian, Jesus is at the separatrix in terms of the Romans of the 1st century CE, He is the Torah, standing on one leg, "What you find hurtful for yourself, do not to others" but with the commentary being the injunction of it's inversion "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", which is a formula for the liberation theology of His evangelism. Jesus is paradox, the Kabalah incarnate. The first 9 Sephirot being the passive structurialism of Shammi, the yin, so to speak, and the 10th Malchut, being the active optimism of Hillel,, the yan, presenting the commentary as a living example ("it is better you lose a bet, twice, than to provoke my anger"). In the separatrix between the 9th and 10th Sephirot lies the elan vitale of Kabalah. And it is in this quality of the separatrix of paradox I encounter The One. Cornelius, the centurion in Acts 10, is the only person in the Bible I identify with (I am an Army brat and combat veteran) and when he was confronted by whatever happened as a result of what was otherwise a routine matter of riot control and counter-insurgency, he didn't have any idea what he was dealing with except that it was big medicine. It's my premise that he is the author of The Gospel According to Mark and that it is an abstract of the Quelle archive the Romans accumulated on Jesus as a routine surveillance file on a potential insurgent AND Mark was at least the second intelligence report to be forwarded to Rome before Paul ever began his missionary career. In fact, it is my premise that the soldiers of the legions throughout the Empire were aware of the legend of the resurrection before Tiberius died and the term "Christian" surfaced in Antioch. And that, as a soldier, Cornelius was perfectly aware of Yaweh before he encountered Jesus: he had recognized that authority in the stories he heard at the Capernaum synague that compelled him to become a patron of Jairus, which is why we can identify him in Matthew and Luke (and in John as the "royal official"). For Cornelius, Yaweh exists from which devolves Jesus, on one side, and Paul's letter to the Romans, on the other side, And what evolves is Hebrews. As I say, I am not trying to proselytize any dogma, but to describe the gratitude I feel for your lectures. Marx makes the mistake of attempting to reconcile all the contradictions of capitalism without realizing that the contradictions are actually elements of paradox that reflect the dynamic qualities of human economics that Buckminister Fuller identifies as "synergies": removing the contradictions eliminates the capacity for renewal, for disentrophy, that keeps societies healthy. The synergies proceed from the separatrix at the core of the myriad paradox Marx tried to eliminate. And that is what the Pauline agenda is: a commitment to reducing the liberation theology of Jesus (which is not Marxist in any manner) to what amounts to a crass appeal to Mammon and the tyranny of theocracy. For that matter, Jesus had the same relationship to money that we have to electricity: it is useful and helps to round the edges off of social intercourse. The Epistles of Paul have the same relationship to Hebrews that the Federalist Papers have to the US Constitution: they represent the structuralism of Shammai from which emerges both Hillel and Jesus. but they are vestigel to Hebrews, which is the founding manifesto of the Roman Church. In fact, the 18 books of the New Testament, the 4 Gospels, Acts and the Paul's epistles reflect the 18 blessings of the original Amidah as the structues of Shammai, while Hebrews corresponds, numerologicallly, to the 19th blessing of the Amidah and both are the residue of the living commentary of Hillel and Jesus. And the separatrix between the 18th and 19th blessing of the Amidah, there dwells The One, as described in Revelation 4:2

Professor, I would imagine that each of the Prophets would have been a greater Kabbalist than any Tanna, but the Prophets kept their mysticism pretty much to themselves, while Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed that, which until then, had been only known, but never spoken.

Another excellent presentation! Thank you!

Thank you. You are a great teacher. Greetings from switzerland. ❤️

Can you do a video on baal hasulam (Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag) ?

thank you for talking about this in english :)

Love it ! I love when he says its enough for two of us in the world studying Tora with intensity . In the Catholic Church its the same thing . You can get lost in Gods Word and dedicate yourself to his Will and live in it , there is no appetite for anything else .

Good stuff from one Haitian Brother seeking knowledge of the unknown

I wonder if Mohammed got the idea of the cave from this . What a wonderful video Henry ! Thanks ! As a Christian I really enjoyed it .

Hi dr henry where can I see the lecture about Moses-deloan?

I thought your son looked like James Dean, too! Thanks for the lecture.

Enjoyed your spiritual lecture on Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai I learned a great deal! P.S. Your son looks exactly like James Dean !

What is the name of that little book you were used as a devotional for the parish Austin is divided up in 7 days I would be interested in finding one for myself thank you

Always wonderful....what a gifted Prof you are...thanks

Shalom Dr. Henry please provide me any email from you or your college for my future education study. Thank you for all your excellent lectures that is for me (free education) opening my minds and the truth beyond my years of self doubt. May God bless you n ur family always. Amen.

Ouch! You messed up the story at 30:29! Since they were somewhat tipsy, the husband told his wife she could take any one thing she wanted from the house as his parting gift. Then he passed out, and she... had his bed carried to her parents' home. When the husband awoke in his ex-in-laws house, he asked her why he was there. She replied, "Because the only thing I want is YOU!" (Ein li cheifetz, ella bach!) When Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai heard about this, he prayed on their behalf, and she became pregnant... (I believe Shir HaShirim Rabbah 6. It's surely on the verse, "Nagila veNismecha BACH", that the Jewish people tell G-d as well, "Ein lanu cheifetz, ella BACH!") Very nice lecture otherwise...

rabb {I} shimo {N} ba {R} yoha {I} may be coincidence but why do the last letters of his name appear on pictures of the crucifix on the plaque above Jesus's head ?

i agree, can share more, please

From a Non-Jewish man. This is Just AMAZING!!

that example of Esau will always hate Jacob is kind of strange; because the story Esau and Jacob (although Josephus says, i believe, there was martial conflict between them at some point which wasnt directly mentioned in Bereshit) ended with reconciliation, in brotherly love. so it would have made more sense if he referenced gentile-jewish conflict being a long generational psychic war BUT eventually a la Esau and Jacob, by degrees harmony will exponentiate until fulfilled by the Eutopian Messianic Age's total racial harmony (conflict occurring will no longer involve bigotry as a cause).

thank you - terrific

Thank you for enriching me.

Thanks!

Love the depth of your Judaism. Also so glad (as an American) for your fluency in English (Canadian is close enough, ha ha). Learning a little makes me hungry for more. I gather that among Litvaks, Kabbalah was less well received, or slower to be received. Except for among religious ... like the Lubavitcher movement. Just my impression, but Litvaks are such good teachers, perhaps owing to their intellectual inclination. Sometimes Hasidic ravs are insular. Like their attitude might be, "Leave the secular folk alone, they are too far gone, anyway." I discovered that one early attitude toward Litvaks is, that they are tseylem-kop , their elitism (intellectual) is like privilege, they assimilate into the outside world so much as to almost cease being authentic Jews. Personally I think the secular world craves what Jews have, perhaps they see something that they envy, or wish to emulate. (I mean religious Jews, not mitnagim).

Good YomTov! It's Lag BOmer today in Australia and I listened to your animated and colorful talk from here in Melbourne Australia (Down Under!) YasherKOach it was interesting and informative generally. One question though is many believe the Zohar IS written BY The Saintly RASHBI R SHimon Bar Yochai whose Yahrzheit/Hillulah is today LagBOmer. Isn't your claim that R Moshe de Leon was it's actual author and not the RASHBI based on account by another Kabbalist R Isaac of Acco?(see R Areyah Kaplan's ZL's book "Meditation and Kabbalah p 29) R Isaac writes that he went to visit Rabbi Moshe de Leon to see the manuscripts but by the time he arrived , he found Rabbi Moshe had passed away. He was informed the manuscripts never existed and Rabbi Moshe was the actual author of the Zohar. There are nevertheless, many strong objections of the veracity of this story since: -In those days it is known the ignorant often destroyed manuscripts and on some occasions , sold them so parchment ( a rare commodity in those days) was used. It is plausible that his wife did this , and then embarrassed at not having the manuscripts claimed they never existed. Rabbi Issac of Acco investigated the facts but never revealed the exact results of his invetigations. R Isaac of Acco did eventually accept that the was the author of the Zohar!!!

James Dean

to think and learn very good

Great!!!°!!!

Coming in and going out indeed.

No milk and cookies for Eliyahu ! LoL 😂

Very informative and interesting to listen! Fascinating death story if it was a true event !?

👍

This the peado?

please stick to history and stay away from the jokes..............PLEASE...............