A question I received: I have a very difficult question. I lost my son six years ago, when he was nineteen years old. I still feel terrible pain, but I can’t even talk about it with those close to me. I have to “keep a straight face” in front of everyone, and I let myself cry only when I’m alone, driving. I feel as if I’m holding on to my son, not letting him go where he’s supposed to. Or perhaps it’s he who won’t let go of me? In my mind, I understand that he no longer exists, and that the Almighty entrusted his unique soul to me for a brief period of time, and that I must be thankful. But it doesn’t work this way. I am completely alone in this situation; and I feel that God had abandoned me, like an orphan. How can I find at least some kind of peace?

My Answer: Under no circumstances should a person look back. One should only look straight ahead. Otherwise, you’ll drown in impure thoughts and forces, which are egoistic, and which will only lead you astray from the path. There is no truth in any such thoughts.

A question I received: How can I come to terms with mistakes I made in the past, which I’m only now starting to understand? And how can I continue to move forward without feeling the bitterness of these mistakes?

My Answer: There is no time and no past. You should aspire only ahead, or else you’ll become “a pillar of salt” like Lot’s wife. That is to say, you will stop moving forward.

Related Material:
Lesson on a Letter from Baal HaSulam (Igrot, p.70)

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A question I received: Why is it that during the period of concealment, you feel as though you’re in a dark room, receiving punches from every direction? It’s as if the Creator is waiting for you to fall into frenzy, or apathy… And all this happens in spite of all the work you’re doing in dissemination and the group. Is this, as the Russian proverb says, “Love her like your soul, punch her like a punching bag” (meaning, “those we hurt the most are often those we love the most”)?

My Answer: That’s absolutely correct, “I love her like my soul, so I punch her like a punching bag,” because your egoism has to be punched out of you, or you punched out of your egoism, so that you’ll want to part with it no matter what. The unpleasant states are precisely the states that push us out of the common egoistic swamp, to the Creator.

“The Creator spares no blows for those He loves” – this is widely explained in Kabbalah, and no Kabbalist hides the fact that “the true path to the rose is through the thorns” (through the thorns to the stars), and not through buying a fifty dollar red string or through meditating in order to relax.

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A question I received: In response to a question you were asked in the post “Evolution of Man – We Were All Monkeys in the Past,” you wrote that “Everything is initiated by the Reshimo – the informational gene – and not by the evolution of blind nature, as Darwin thought.” Can you specify what you mean by “blind nature,” and how it relates to Nature/the Creator?

My Answer: “Blind nature” refers to the opinion of Darwinian theory, whose adherents believe that nature lacks a purpose, a goal, and a program of development. They think that at every given moment, nature simply chooses the best of all possible alternatives for development. These scientists, however, say nothing about how such a phenomenon is possible without knowing the end result, and one is left with having to believe in religion!

However, Kabbalah considers nature to be the Creator. Kabbalah, which is the science of the Upper World, and not religion (as many think), provides the following answer: Nature knows the final form, which has existed since the very beginning, and which has a predetermined path leading to it. Everything that takes place is necessary only for man to develop the perception of his own developmental process, and to consciously and willingly assume the perfect, final form.

A question I received: You said that 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, there was a single nation, and people separated from one another due to an egoism outburst. As a result they dispersed and populated the entire globe. However, it’s known that 5,000 years ago there were already civilizations existing in India and Egypt.

My Answer: We’re talking about the ancient Mesopotamian civilization, the source of the modern developed civilization. You can read about how the nations dispersed in the Bible and “Antiquities of the Jews” by Josephus Flavius.

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