CITY OF LUZ

City of Luz is an inter-dimensional city of higher consciousness that unites all branches of knowledge and fields of experience. Luz is the Biblical site of Jacob’s angelic dream, also known as the House of God and the Gate to Heaven. Luz is an impenetrable city in the ancient land of Israel that can only be entered through a secret cave hidden by a hazelnut (luz) tree. Moreover, we are told that after it was conquered, another city also named Luz was built in another eastern country, a virtual “Shangri-la” where there is no death and only the truth can be spoken. “He built a city and called it Luz; that is its name until this day.” (Judges,1:24)

RABBI JOEL DAVID BAKST

Rabbi Joel David Bakst of blessed memory is a teaching rabbi and scholar of Talmud and Kabbalah who, while living in Jerusalem for 20 years, studied and taught in Orthodox yeshivot.

Raised in a Southern California Conservative Jewish home, Joel became a ba’al teshuva (newly religious) at the age of 20 bringing full circle his lineage from a long line of rabbis.  Both his grandfather and uncle were Orthodox rabbis, his great grandfather was chief rabbi of St. Louis, MO and his great, great grandparents made aliya to Eretz Yisrael and are buried on the Mount of Olives.  He is the 8th generation of Rabbi Avraham Ragoler of Skhlov, the brother of Rabbi Eliyahu, the famed Gaon of Vilna, whose unique teachings and School of Kabbalah, have been a focus of Joel’s esoteric studies.