Question: What are the 613 desires?

My Answer: They are desires not for pleasures in our world, but are egoistically directed toward the Creator, and for this reason they are called “impure,” “Pharaoh,” and so on. In order to discover these desires within oneself, one needs to study Kabbalah and do a great deal of work upon oneself. While these desires are being discovered, the shame that Adam had discovered also begins to be felt, and begins to become corrected. As such, only through the study of Kabbalah can a person come to spiritual work, and the attain the goal of creation.

A dialog with a user called Caligula (from my Russian blog):

Caligula’s Comment: “Spirituality is above time, motion, and space; that is to say, when these parameters change in our world, they never influence a person’s spiritual state!” – that’s a quote. In other words, no matter what we do, study, and aspire to – it is all in vain and unnecessary.

My Response: That’s wrong! We cannot influence the Upper Light directly, but we can evoke it indirectly, by making efforts in the group and proper study. Read the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” item 155.

Caligula: Yes, but there’s more to it… If we follow Rav Laitman’s assertion in this case, we can reach an absurd conclusion – I don’t know what this is about, but you are demonstrating such great confidence in understanding what I said that it’s worthy of envy.

I am not speaking about regular people, but about those who aspire toward the Creator and study Kabbalah. Actually, I’m not the one saying this, but the Ari in Shaar HaKedusha. There he lists certain age-specific levels in a person’s life. A child is when the vessels of the will to receive haven’t yet developed; age 13 is when a person is already governed by his Yetzer Ra; and age 21 is when a person gains the ability to spiritually ascend

My Response: This is all wrong! Specifically, see the Ari in Etz Chaim or part 12 of Talmud Eser Sefirot. Birth means spiritual birth, regardless of one’s age. All people, except Kabbalists, die physically without even having been born spiritually.

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Two questions I received on a woman’s relationship to a man in spiritual progress:

Question: I may be wrong, but I think that a woman can attain correction on her own, with the help of Rav’s instructions, books, and dissemination, without a man to attract the Light for her.

My Answer: That’s absolutely correct. If you do everything you should, then you will not need the men’s help. Even without knowing who you are, the common men’s world group will do all their work for you to the degree that you do your work, because on the spiritual path, we exchange desires.

Question: On the one hand, my desire is constantly growing and is becoming difficult to bear, and on the other hand, my ability to disseminate and study is limited due to various circumstances (if I am able to do it at all). I think that if I had a stronger sensation of my desire’s influences on my husband or the men’s group, then I would feel useful and blessed. Do you have advice or a solution to this?

My Answer: You should delve deeper into yourself, work through the new sensations you feel, define them, and demand less from others. Everything depends only on you. Besides you, everything is ready and prepared for your correction.

Related Material:
A Talk about Women’s Spiritual Development, #1
A Talk about Women’s Spiritual Development, #2

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A question I received: Did you ever have an experience when young students would express a nice attitude to you in order to please you, but later they would begin perceiving everything that happens to them as your manipulation?

My Answer: You’re right. We are under the constant influence of external factors, but we have no awareness of it. Gradually, during the process of study (which I guide), a student begins to realize how he is being controlled from above (by the Creator), and how he can become freed from such control, have his own say, freely choosing and deciding how to act. Those who don’t study Kabbalah, however, remain controlled in every way.

We are like children in our spiritual development. The difference is that with a child, Nature (the Creator) evokes the aspiration to imitate adults. However, in one’s spiritual development, the person himself needs to develop the desire to become an adult, i.e. become similar to the Creator.

He can receive this aspiration only through upbringing and direction (call it “manipulation” if you will) from the teacher and the group. The student and the group are practically always directed by the teacher. Otherwise, how could they understand how and what they should develop to on their own?

The spiritual world, after all, is hidden from them until they acquire, under the teacher’s direction, the qualities similar to that world. Then, to the degree they are similar to the Upper World, they will feel it and be able to continue progressing on their own. As a result of being guided, the students become independent! This is the difference between spiritual (Kabbalistic) development and any other kind of development.

You have to read Baal HaSulam’s article “The Freedom” and then everything will become clear. [Read more →]

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