Israeli Researchers Tapped into A Life-Saving Kabbalistic Secret

Last week, Israeli researchers announced that they had developed a breakthrough cartilage regeneration therapy that could eliminate the need for knee replacements. Using advanced biomaterials and stem-cell engineering, the new technology works by creating a supportive scaffold that allows the knee to regrow healthy cartilage. Instead of replacing the joint with metal implants, the therapy encourages the body to heal itself from the inside. 

A fascinating verse in the Zohar (2:161a) says “G-d looked in the Torah and created the world.” The rabbis interpret this to mean that for anything to exist in the world, it has to exist somewhere in the Torah first. What’s remarkable about this revolutionary knee therapy is that the idea behind it isn’t new, and in fact it’s deeply rooted in Torah ideas.

This week, the Torah describes our forefather Jacob, who rests his head upon a pile of stones. He has a famous dream about angels ascending and descending on a ladder reaching heaven. The passage about the dream contains a puzzling discrepancy on how many stones Jacob used as a pillow. In Chapter 28, verse 11, it states “Jacob took stones from that place and placed them around his head”, yet later in verse 18, it says “Jacob rose early in the morning, took the stone that he placed under his head, and set it up as a monument.” So was it many stones or just one?

The famous 11th century biblical commentator Rashi says it was both. He quotes the Talmud (Chulin 91b) which shares a story, that the stones were quarrelling with one another to see who would get the honor of having Jacob sleep on them. One said, “Upon me let this righteous man rest his head”, and another said “Upon me let him rest it”. Upon hearing this, the Holy One, blessed be He, straightway made them into one stone! While that anecdote may resolve the seeming contradiction, it actually has immense relevance to our lives.

Hasidic philosophy teaches that in our day to day lives, we often have conflicts and quarrels. We experience life as a multiplicity, where people, objects, and situations are all disconnected. However, as taught in Hasidic sources, underlying this veneer of separation, there’s a cosmic unity of all things. This distinction is illustrated by two names of G-d, the first “Elokim” and the second, the four letter name referred to as “Havaya”. “Elokim” is a plural word and represents the multiplicity of existence, whereas “Havaya” – a contraction of the Hebrew words for past, present and future – represents the underlying unity of reality.

In the story above, the solution to their quarrel of the rocks wasn’t to crown one rock the winner, but to create a win-win scenario that brought them all together. The quarreling rocks represent the “elokim” consciousness of multiplicity, whereas the unified rock they transform into is the “havaya” consciousness of oneness. 

This same framework can be applied to the issues and conflicts we face in our own lives. When a friendship isn’t working, we often try to replace the old friends with new ones. If we feel we’re not keeping up with the Joneses, we buy the latest gadgets and toys to get back on top of the social ladder. We clamor for logical, mechanistic solutions to our problems without realizing we are looking at them through the “elokim” lens of limitation and separation. 

However, instead of seeking right away to fix or eliminate our problems – which is thinking through the “elokim” or multiplicity consciousness – we should seek to transform our frame of reference, and see that the answers to our problems lie within the situations themselves. This is the “havaya” or transcendent consciousness, where by looking inward, we see that the solution requires no external solutions. These are often labeled as miraculous, impossible or unbelievable, but they simply represent what is possible when we adjust our mindset and vision toward the infinite possibilities that lie within.

As stated in the Tanya – the seminal work of Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy, penned by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi – each Jew has a tiny piece of G-d within them. Through prayer, Torah study, and fulfillment of Mitzvot, we are able to deepen our connection to that divine infinity within, and tap into the “havaya” solutions that are waiting to be uncovered.

Tying it all together, just like the novel cartilage therapy allows our hips and joints to heal themselves without needing to be replaced, and just like the stones miraculously merged, allowing each one to support the head of the righteous Tzaddik without taking away from the others, each of us can do the same and find brilliant solutions just by looking within. Then healing and blessing will come to ourselves and the world, and with increasing frequency as we get closer to the messianic age, a time when the consciousness of oneness will “permeate the earth.”