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The School of the Prophets
Photo by Roman Vishniac - Jewish children in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust
Many ask what exactly happens at our School of Prophets. This is no ordinary academy, but a creative house of study (Beit Midrash Yotzer) that merges ancient wisdom with contemporary tools. Our purpose is to train the creator’s soul, to refine the powers of mind and body, and to translate spiritual ideas into creative action. Here is a taste of our curriculum:
Sunday
The Department of Visual & Soulful Arts
Course: The Structural Drawing of Water
A meditative drawing class where we learn how different forms of water can be interpreted structurally; how to deconstruct chaotic motion (like a splash of water) into geometric forms, and in doing so, discover the hidden order within disorder
. Sample Exercise: Choose an image of movement (smoke, fire, water) and try to sketch the lines of inner Will hidden within it.
Course: Soulful Architecture Description:
How does one design and build an "inner space"? In this course, we will study the science of the soul, sketch the hidden structures of the psyche, and design creative works that can serve as a "sanctuary" (Heikhal) for the prophetic experience.
You can read more about this right now on our website, on the page The Creating Soul
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Course: Calisthenics in the Method of the Hebrew Prophets
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Description: A series of exercises combining movement, breath, and imagination, designed to expand the body's consciousness and enable movement in a multi-dimensional and multi-temporal space.
Course: Telekinesis for Beginners
Description: A practice in concentration, resetting, and emptying the mind. We will explore moving objects from a distance through thought, examining the capacity for mental influence over inanimate matter, as described in Kabbalistic sources.
Lunch: The Clarification of Sparks & The Unifications (Birur Nitzotzot & Yichudim)
Description: A practical exercise in elevating the holy sparks from within the material world (such as food) to their spiritual root, and learning the intentions (kavanot) that reveal divine unity.
Laboratory: Prophetic Kabbalah according to Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
Description: An advanced course for veteran practitioners, examining texts and exercises from Prophetic Kabbalah, including supervised experimentation with complex spiritual techniques.
An hour of volunteering at an organization for the needy or working with children in resilience centers.
Evening: A gathering of men and women for a night of prophetic poetry around the bonfire
A short night's sleep, including a shared dream.
he Midnight Rectification (Tikkun Chatzot), Unifications (Yichudim), and Intentions (Kavanot) of the Ari, rectifying and adorning the supernal Bride until the break of dawn.
Monday
A lesson in sunrise - awakening the creative will
According to the teachings of Kabbalah, human actions in the lower world affect the upper worlds, and everything flows from the Will (Ratzon). The Sefirah of "Keter" (Crown), the highest and most foundational, is called "Will."
The revelation of Will is the revelation of the innermost essence, the power that can, in the words of Rabbi Kook, "renew life in a complete redemption." He writes extensively about the revival of the Will, the resurrection of the Will, the redemption of the Will.
Exercise: Choose an inanimate object in the room. Photograph it not as it is, but as it could be. Photograph a glass not as a vessel for water, but as a lens that could bend light from another dimension. You are not documenting the world; you are revealing its will and imprinting your will upon it. Will meets Will.
Morning Lesson: The Course on Diving with Elephants
Every prophet who respects themself must, from time to time, dive with an elephant. To dive deep, into the depth of things, to the roots of reality, to the depth of the depths of depths. As it is said: "From the depths, I called to you, O Lord."
And after the dive, you will understand that the Holy One, Blessed be He, is at once the closest to you and the farthest from you, utterly beyond grasp. And when something is simultaneously the closest and the farthest—that is called depth
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Prophetic Writing Workshop: The Auditory Logic & The Art of the Secret
Western logic is visual—it observes and builds a theory. Hebrew logic, in contrast, is auditory (sh'ma'i)—it does not observe, but listens. The prophet (navi, from the root N.B.A.) is one who listens to all that comes (ba) to him.
In the teachings of the secret, one does not explain a secret by deconstructing and translating it, but by placing it opposite another secret. Prophetic writing is a chain of secrets and images, whose connection reveals a truth deeper than any explanation.
Directing Workshop: The Sanctity of Nature & The Frame as Sacred Space
Pre-Prophetic Cinema perceives the filmed space not as a backdrop, but as a living entity with a will. Especially in the Holy Land, nature is not a landscape, but a place where "the sacred and the natural unite." The frame becomes a sacred space, an inter-soulful space where an encounter occurs between the creator and the divine Will concealed within creation.
Practical Exercise: Go out to the street, to nature, into the space, and film it as if it is crying out a poem. Like a true poet who recites their poetry and casts it into the air of the world, their whole body and soul singing. The filmed space cries out its poem in a silent scream, in a roaring stillness. This time, you are the observer—be attentive to the song of the land, encounter it
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"Moon Catrog"
Prophetic Music Lesson
As is known, music is the language of the soul. The Vilna Gaon once said that if he had the time, he would only engage in the wisdom of music, for through it, one can draw a person's soul out of their body and even revive the dead
And Maimonides already wrote that in the schools of prophets that existed in the land during the biblical era, the sons of the prophets (students of prophecy) would engage in music:
"All the prophets—they do not prophesy whenever they wish, but they direct their minds and sit, joyful and good-hearted, and enter seclusion: for prophecy does not rest upon a person through sadness nor through laziness, but through joy. Therefore, before the sons of the prophets were a psaltery, a timbrel, a flute, and a harp, as they were seeking prophecy..."
(Maimonides, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 7)
A lesson in the secret of electricity: between silence and speech
The word electricity appears in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel. The sages interpreted it as an acronym for the creative process: Hash-Mal – “sometimes felt, sometimes spoken.” This is the basic rhythm of prophetic consciousness: a sharp transition between active absorption (hash) and active, flowing expression (mal). The pre-prophetic creator is the “electrician,” who knows how to move between the two poles.
Evening: "Book of Creation" – Deciphering Creation
In the evening we return to the "Book of Creation" ("Sefer Yetzirah") – the Kabbalistic text on the art of creation. It teaches that the most fundamental act is: " He created out of nothing, and made that which was not ." The pre-prophetic creator wants to resemble the Creator, he takes the "nothing" – the silence, the void, the chaos – and transforms it into a new "being", generating a new reality.
lesson-directing
Tuesday
Lesson in Quantum Prophecy: The Shortening of the Path (Kefitzat Haderech)
In quantum physics, a particle can disappear from one point and appear at another without traversing the space between them. This is a "leap" that shatters the linear logic of time and space.
In the Talmud, this phenomenon has been known for thousands of years, and it is called Kefitzat Haderech—"the shortening of the path." It is told of three figures—Eliezer the servant of Abraham, Jacob our forefather, and Avishai son of Zeruiah—for whom the earth "leapt," and they traversed a journey of days in a single moment.
The most famous story is of the Baal Shem Tov, who would instruct his wagon driver to close his eyes and release the reins. The wagon would seem to fly through the air, and when the driver opened his eyes, they would be at their destination.
Consciousness precedes matter. It can contract time and shorten the path.
The pre-prophetic creator knows that one does not always need to travel the entire logical path, knows that it is possible to contract space and time, and to make a quantum leap into revelation.
Key Lesson: "The Ladder of Creation" – The Five Steps on the Path to Revelation
In his writings, Rabbi Kook outlines a precise roadmap, a kind of "Jacob's Ladder" of the creator, describing the correct order of approaching the Holy Spirit and prophecy. He writes as follows:
"That's the order."
One must purify and embrace the body and all its powers,
Then comes the power of imagination and all its aspects, which must be especially strong and refined,
And then comes emotion and all its branches,
And upon them will come clear reason , and all its ramifications,
"And the light of supreme listening , which comes from the radiance of the Supreme Holy Spirit , comes upon them."
(Eight files, A, R.H.)
The revolution in the order of things
Rabbi Kook has a holistic, unified perspective that sees creation not as a purely intellectual, or purely imaginative, or purely emotional activity, but as an organic development of all human powers together.
From listening to speaking: creation as an encounter
The word "prophecy" is close to two roots:
The first: N.B.A. - meaning listening to everything that comes to you from reality, from being, from the soul, from the word of God.
And the second is - "lip dialect" - meaning the implementation, from the listening stage to the speaking stage.
That is, the process does not end there. All the stages so far have been the preparation for creation. They were the listening stage. Only after the preparation has been completed and the listening has taken place does the moment of creation itself come, the transition from active listening to active implementation. This is the "lip dialect" stage.
Speech, in its broadest sense, is where the soul and the body meet. The soul (the idea, the inspiration) meets the body (the lips, the muscles of the mouth, the hands, the camera) and creates something new in the world.
Pure creation, therefore, is always an encounter , and as we have learned, it has order.
A Lesson in Unifying Opposites
1969, Dear uncle Boris (Baruch) is photographed in a moment of an experimental exercise of practical Kabbalah from the stream of ancient secret teachings, in which he tries to demonstrate the Inner Harmony: The Unity of Opposites, that is, how although in the reality revealed to the Holy One, Blessed be He, is revealed in a multitude of forces, in different spheres and attributes, and even contradict each other, and oppose each other - the secret thought reveals the divine unity that is revealed in everything.
It is as if we are talking about a king who wears different clothes, and from a superficial perspective not only changes in his clothes, but also appears in different guises, but in truth it is the same king, one, unique and special to Israel. And this is the secret of the unity of qualities, the unity of opposites, how they unite in the supreme harmony that is the stitching of everything.
Uncle Boris always said that one must learn through the soul how from one comes the multiplicity, and then unite everything in a supreme harmony, which embraces and encompasses everything , all desires, all thoughts, all souls, all worlds, all manifestations, all being.
And when a person feels, believes and knows the harmony of unity both in the whole being and within himself - he is filled with joy, and the joy of creation, with a supreme sweetness, the delicacy of heaven, and he radiates and transmits outward the wealth, happiness and honesty, of divine sympathy.
Directing Lesson: The Presence of the Soul
In pre-prophetic cinema we want to direct the invisible. We ask, how do we direct the presence of the soul in space and time? How do we transform the frame into a space where a living encounter between the revealed and the hidden takes place?
The following exercise is not a technical exercise, but an exercise in listening. Its purpose is to free the creator from the need to "control" reality, and instead, to become a conduit through which the inner vibration of being can be revealed.
Instructions for the mise-en-scène exercise:
"To direct a luminous light, on the border between light and darkness, the shadows of consciousness, the twilight of experience, the effulgences of the soul, the spells of being, a dormant will and an awake heart, a space dripping with night shards, the camera listens to the abundance of mystery, between concentration and dispersion, between a stain and a line, to the tinkling of the crystal of my soul in its movement, the smoke of incense, the clouds of honor in the room, a moving well, the actors move in the frame, will meets will, not discriminated, and Moshe did not know that the light of his face shone as he spoke to him."
Practical exercise: Take a camera (even a phone camera). Find a space - a room, a street corner, a field. Read the instructions again. Don't try to "understand" them intellectually, but feel them. Now, try to take one shot, one minute long, that tries to capture just one of the images in the text: "Shadows of Consciousness," "Spells of Being," "Desire Meets Desire."
Practicing Access to the Tree of Life
To eat from the trees in the Garden of Eden is a process both complex and simple. To eat is to internalize. It is to take something external, like an orange, and internalize it, to make it a part of me. Now I am Sasha + orange. I am a talking orange! (And not a clockwork one).
To understand what a tree in the Garden of Eden is, let us turn to the feminine form of the word "tree" (etz)—"advice" (eitzah). When I give someone advice, I am transmitting a certain content, a knowledge. Tree = knowledge.
To eat from the Tree of Life is to internalize the content, the knowledge of life, of eternity, to make it part of me.
Indeed, the very first commandment given to Adam was to eat from all the trees of the garden, including the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
But the problem is that when one eats from it, death appears, for it contains separation. So the correct solution was to first eat from the Tree of Life, and thus receive eternal life. And after that, he not only could but was required to eat from the Tree of Knowledge as well—after all, that was the first commandment.
The mistake was in the order of the eating.
So how can we once again access the Tree of Life and eat from it? For the path to it is guarded by the flame of the turning sword.
So here, at the School of Prophets, we practice the different approaches to the Tree of Life. We practice how to overcome the turning sword.
The turning sword is a sword that makes a circular motion. It is a line that becomes a circle.
In the teachings of the secret, there is much discussion of the straight line and the circles. The straight line represents morality, and the circles represent nature, where there is no morality, and no straight lines.
The relationship between a line and a circle is the number pi, an infinite number that begins with 3.14—and 314 is the gematria of Shaddai, one of the names of God—El Shaddai, who said to His world, "Enough!" (Dai) (related to the secret of Tzimtzum, contraction).
So, the flame of the turning sword is a mental, conscious blockage. And in this class, we will practice how to break through the limiting patterns of thought, how to liberate ourselves from the prison of consciousness, to breach the mental blockage and ascend to a soulful, mental freedom.
Wednesday
Directing Exercise - The Dialogue Between the Currents
In his writings, Rabbi Kook describes the human being as being "cast between two great currents". There are the "mountains of light and spiritual fire above consciousness," an upper current of divine thoughts, ideals, and insights that reach us "like flashes of lightning" from a supreme source.
Simultaneously, there are "the deep abysses below consciousness," a lower current of raw emotions, ancient memories, and nebulous life forces rising from "the misty life of the flesh".
For most of our lives, we are unaware of this cosmic drama taking place within us. But the role of the pre-prophetic creator is to become a "conduit that connects the heavens and the depths".
Their mission is not to choose one side, but to create an encounter, a living dialogue, between these two currents. As Rabbi Kook teaches, this "meeting of the currents" is the moment in which "Spirit of the Holy performs its silent work within the body and the soul".
The following is not an exercise in cinematic technique, but rather a training in deep listening and in the art of directing this very encounter
The Practical Exercise
The Mission:
To create a short, silent video (30-60 seconds) that serves as a visual and auditory interpretation of the dialogue between the upper and lower currents.
Directing Guidelines:
Listening: Before you pick up a camera, try to feel these two currents within you. The high and abstract thoughts, and the carnal, raw emotions and physical sensations. Don't try to analyze, just listen.
Finding the Encounter: Look for a visual situation in the world around you wher two elements—abstract light and a richly textured material—meet and create a dialogue. For example: sunlight "touching" a bare concrete wall; the shadow of a branc moving across cracked asphalt; the reflection of shimmering water on a rough hand.
Directing the Dialogue: Film this encounter. Do not try to "tell a story". Your role a a director is to be a sensitive witness to the drama that is already unfolding.
Editing and Sound: In the edit, focus on the rhythm of the encounter's "breath." Us sound to heighten the drama—this could be recorded natural sound (wind, breathing, a rustle) or expressive music.
Purpose of the Exercise:
The final product is not a film, but a "cinematic unification" - Yichud. (Yichud – a thought that reveals the divine unity).
It is an act of visual prayer, an attempt to capture a single moment where "upper waters and lower waters kiss, and deep calls unto deep". This is a first step on the path to transforming the camera from a tool that describes the world into a tool that reveals its hidden unity.
To be continued soon
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