A Jewish Mystical Perspective on the Law of Attraction

Millions of people each year wish they could find a new and better job, make more money, have a better relationship or marriage, lose weight, create health, or find peace, but despite their unhappiness and frustration with where they currently find themselves, they feel unable to create something different.  Some of them do break out of negative patterns and create what they want, yet they often find themselves back in the same negative situations before long.

Can you relate?

Maybe, like these people, when you find yourself back in your old situation, rather than finding a different or permanent solution, you spend your time complaining to yourself and to others about your sad lot in life.

You might say you can’t change or life is unfair or you have bad luck.  You might say you “always” end up in bad relationships or with debt.

The Power of Thoughts and Words

Actually, the thoughts and words you use when you complain—or even share your lot—are self perpetuating.  Every time you say, “I hate my job,” you hate it more.  Every time you say, “My husband doesn’t appreciate me,” he appreciates you less. Every time you say, “I don’t have enough money,” a new or unexpected bill arrives in the mail.

To begin manifesting more of what you want and less of what you don’t want, you must remember that you become your thoughts and begin watching your words both in the form of what you say and what you think.  Simply by stopping your negative talk and thoughts you can begin to change what you create in the world. Indeed, your thoughts have energy, and what you say has great creative power. In addition, to create your dreams and desires, you must learn to constantly focus on what you want. You must change your words and thoughts to match your desires.

Words Create Everything—Even the World

Judaism has long held the belief that “what we think is what we get.”  One of its best-loved teachers, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, said, “You are where ever your thoughts are.  Make sure your thoughts are where you want to be.”  His teaching corresponds with modern-day proponents of positive thinking like Napoleon Hill, author of the best-selling book Think and Grow Rich, and Norman Vincent Peale, author of the best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking and As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. The great Kabbalists, or Jewish mystics, also knew that our thoughts and words, especially when combined with feelings, would manifest what we want on the physical plane.  They taught that Hebrew, called the “Holy Language,” was special because the Hebrew letters possess an extraordinary creative force, an energy that makes them the primordial tools of creation. Of course, in the Christian tradition we are told, “In the beginning was the Word…”

One Jewish mystical creation story tells us that God “spoke the world into being” with “10 Utterances.”  God “said” and everything in the world, including man, came to be.  In Kabbalistic and Chasidic tradition, the world was created and exists on a foundation provided by the Hebrew alphabet.

Interestingly, the Aramaic word “abracadabra” literally means “He has created as he has spoken,” manifestation according to the power of words.  This word comes from the verb “daber,” which refers to organizing “speech,” which relates to physical things created by making order out of chaos. No wonder so many magicians have chosen this word as their incantation when creating something out of nothing. (Aramaic preceded Hebrew and was spoken by many during the biblical period.)

Despite the kabbalists’ focus on using Hebrew to manifest physical things and the physical plane itself, the English language—or any language—can be used for the same purpose.  Almost any language can find its roots in Hebrew and Aramaic.

The Old Becomes New

Mystics throughout the ages and from many traditions have known that their words held amazing creative power.  Thus how we use them, such as by writing affirmations and goals, invoking what we want through prayers, visualizations and incantations, can bring our dreams and desires to us, like a magician waving his wand and creating a rabbit out of thin air.

The huge success of the book and DVD The Secret when it was released six years ago came from the fact that the principle that it proposes—combining thought and feeling about what we want to bring about the manifestation of that desire on the physical plane—was not new.  In fact, it is well known and well proven.

Many people don’t realize, however, that this idea that  in most recent years has been called the Law of Attraction can be found within Judaism, as well as within many other religions and tradition. In Judaism, it is found within Kabbalah. I devoted many years to studying thistopic, and I even wrote a short book on the topic, called the Kabbalah of Conscious Creation.

Have you found the Law of Attraction in your religious tradition? If so, tell me about it in a comment below.

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