Breaking the Walls Between Us and Opening Our Hearts

Every parent knows that when they’re expecting the birth of a new child in the family, it’s a sign that it’s time to renovate the house. They start planning everything anew: breaking down walls, expanding rooms, whitewashing walls, improving infrastructure, and buying new furniture.

Our home, the Bnei Baruch – Kabbalah La’am home, has undergone many changes each time we’ve grown, with new hearts joining us.

Our first home was a small room on Rabbi Akiva Street in Bnei Brak. Our teacher, Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, hosted a group of ten men in the living room of his home. They sat around a table and read The Book of Zohar together. Gradually, the group grew, and more students joined, prompting us to look for a bigger place.

As the group grew in size, it also developed in quality. The strengthening of the connections and the quality of the ties between the students attracted new hotspots like a magnet. We moved to Jerusalem Street. In our second house, we started our gatherings of friends’ meetings. We sang together, hugged, and tried to become one heart. Several years passed, and it became crowded there too, so we packed up and moved again.

Our third home was on Reines Street in Bnei Brak. This time, we rented a large house, not a small apartment. During this period, our teacher had a serious car accident that revolutionized our lives. We started studying every day in the morning, holding daily Kabbalah lessons.

As our collective heart expanded, more and more new friends joined us, feeling the electricity in the air. Even Bnei Brak became too small for us, and we decided to move to the nearby city of Petah Tikva, where we live today.

Initially, the house at 112 Jabotinsky Street looked like ruins. We rolled up our sleeves, tidied up, and organized the building ourselves until it was perfect. For a decade, we studied and connected there, and over the years, other similar houses were built worldwide. Nevertheless, the house in Petah Tikva remained the center, the source of learning and dissemination, the focal point providing spiritual oxygen to anyone questioning the purpose of life.

Once again, we grew, but this time, we wanted our own home. In 2012, we decided to stop renting and buy our own place. Many friends donated their money to make this dream a reality. After finding a suitable building at 12 Rabash St. (then called Nevatim St.), many friends got involved immediately. They volunteered for construction and renovation work. As a hammer opened a crack in our sealed hearts, the walls of the material also collapsed, breaking down inner barriers. There was a surge of emotion and hope that we would build the Sukkah among us.

We thought we had fulfilled the dream, but, as always, the upper force had its own plans. In March 2020, the world went into lockdown due to the coronavirus. Streets emptied, cities fell silent, and countries closed their borders. Our house became deserted too, but it didn’t break us.

Thanks to many friends, we established the “Arvut System,” a virtual home where we gathered to participate in lessons, meals, conventions, and friends’ gatherings. Our home gained new depth and meaning as we began to understand what our teacher had repeatedly told us: “Home isn’t just about walls; it’s one heart, a warm feeling that keeps us united all the time. Our entire life resides there, at home.”

In February 2023, we hosted a large World Kabbalah Convention, a celebration of our physical return home. Even during the convention’s registration stages, we realized that we lacked a single space capable of accommodating the thousands of friends who have joined us in recent years.

At the first opportunity, we formulated a detailed plan to upgrade our home, aiming to create a unified space for everyone during conventions and Unity Evenings. As of these very days, we are diligently working on this endeavor.