The Secret Of Genuine Love

critical A question I received: What is the secret of love for friends that the science of Kabbalah is talking about? The whole world says that we have to love each other, but instead we just hate each other.

My Answer: The secret is that by properly working in a Kabbalistic group, a person begins to reveal the truth: that he does not love his neighbor, and even hates him. Before making this revelation, he used to think that he loved everyone and he truly believed this. But now he sees that he is the greatest hater, and he would destroy everyone around him if he could. This is called the revelation of evil, and it is a big step on the path of correction.

This realization comes on its own as a consequence of Kabbalah studies and self-scrutiny. A person studies the qualities with which he was created, the same qualities about which it is written, “I created the evil inclination.”

We have to put in a lot of effort in order to understand what kind of world we exist in. This is the springboard for making the leap upward. When I understand with what qualities I was created, the only thing left for me to do is complain and ask for correction from “the Master who created me.”

The Creator does not hide the fact that He deliberately created us this way so we would realize our evil. A person must first understand that he personally suffers from his hatred toward others and loses out greatly because of it. He is then gripped by fear about what will happen to him in this world and the world to come. However, gradually, under the influence of the Light that Reforms, he begins to understand how valuable the quality of bestowal is, since it gives him freedom.

He begins to prefer spirituality over all the material things. He wants to become giving and loving and to come out of his egoism – to come out of his dungeon! For the time being, he wants this for himself, so he would feel better, but at least he already wishes to become free from his egoistic desire.

For this purpose, he unites with others, and in regard to this goal, they are already called Kabbalists rather than a gathering of egoists. Together they reveal that they are powerless to change anything; they need a third component, the Upper Force, the Creator, the Light of Correction.

The Lights stirs them up like a boat in a stormy sea, and the whole group unites in such a way that it begins to react together, synchronously, by interacting with each other in common harmony (either positive or negative). The Light then begins to influence each person much more powerfully, since its influence is increased in the group, as if it passes through an amplifier.

In this manner they come to a realization that they will not manage without the Creator, the Light that Reforms. Then the whole group reaches a willingness to unite as one person with one heart in order to reveal the Creator.

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“You Shall Not Make For Yourself An Idol”

idol A question I received: Who is an “idol worshiper” in Kabbalah?

My Answer: You are! Without even realizing it, you make idols every minute out of thin air.

If you don’t connect everything that happens to you with One force, called “The One, Unique, and Indivisible,” if you don’t always attribute everything to one cause and consider everything else besides it just a manifestation of that One force, then you are engaged in worshiping.

For example, your wife says something unpleasant to you. You have to realize that this came from the Creator and she is just a puppet demonstrating the Creator’s attitude toward you in this manner. If, on the contrary, you relate everything to her, then you are “making an idol.” You have to relate to the Creator through her rather than relating this to her. There have to be two components here.

We should understand that the director of this play is the Creator, and He presents Himself to us in this manner deliberately so we would unify all the different and opposite manifestations of Him into one form and one Source: the Creator. However, this is only possible under the condition that you use the whole world in order to connect it in your perception into one, and to tie it to one Source.

Beware Of Joining A Gathering Of Clowns

Kabbalah and the Earthly Sciences When we unite into a group in order to study Kabbalah, we have to check every minute: why are we getting together, for what purpose, why are we coming together and putting in effort? We must always be fearful and vigilant to make sure we don’t suddenly “turn into a gathering of egoists (clowns) instead of a group of Kabbalists.”

The most important thing is for the group to be dominated by the spiritual love for friends rather than material love. In a world that is interested in material things, there have been and are many groups that talk about love for friends: the Bolsheviks, robbers, and fighter units are all united by a goal. However, a group of Kabbalists differs from other groups because:

1) It sets a spiritual goal, which means that each member must nullify himself in regard to the others and attain love for the neighbor, through which the Creator will be revealed;

2) Only the Creator can execute this connection between us; we cannot achieve it on our own.

Each person includes everyone else. Due to the inclusion of everyone in each other, each person multiplies his force by the number of friends, and then, each person in the group uses the multiplied force to tune into everyone else and thus he multiplies his force again, squaring it. Thus, the general force of the group is increased progressively until we achieve such a need for the force of unity that can reveal the Upper Light, the Creator.

This demands unceasing attention, because as soon as one loses this attitude, one immediately and automatically returns to the dominion of one’s egoistic nature and falls into a gathering of egoists (clowns). And then he has nothing to hope for, since instead of the elixir of life, he immediately becomes filled by the potion of death, as it is written: “The Upper Light (Torah) can be an elixir of life or a potion of death.”

A Drama Unfolding Inside You As You Read The Book Of Zohar

russia2 You have to imagine Noah inside you, and opposite him, a world full of sinners. Both of these qualities are inside you. The Creator tells Noah, the quality of bestowal, how to hide in the ark, the quality of Bina, bestowal. Hiding inside Bina means completely cancelling yourself opposite its quality of bestowal, like an embryo inside a mother. The Creator gives instructions to the Noah in you as to how this quality can survive and grow. You have to build an ark so all the species, all the parts of your Kli, would be able to enter inside. You have to take upon yourself the power and reign of the quality of bestowal, Bina, so it will reign inside you 100%. It will be opposed by all your egoistic qualities, which will increase and rise all around you (inside you), as the waters of the flood, a force of annihilation. If you stay inside Bina for a certain number of days, then you will be born thereafter! You will come out into a new world!

This is a tremendous job that has to be done by Noah, a tiny quality that has a small aspiration for Bina, bestowal. But by means of the flood and the huge work of having to stay inside of Bina, he will grow. He builds himself on account of the sinners that remain outside. Then he comes out, stepping onto new ground, and begins to multiply on all levels: the still, vegetative, animate and human levels inside him, as well as all their qualities. This is how a new world begins!

All his qualities that drowned in the ocean, in the waters of the flood, will have to be brought back and corrected later on. But for now they don’t exist for him and are not expressed in any way. They will come alive again later on.

Try to write your own novel inside of you. As you imagine all of these things, don’t forget that “There is None Else Beside Him.” Envision yourself, the group, and the whole world, which seems external to you, but in reality it is all inside of you. The most important thing is not to get confused and to hold on to one picture. We are always talking about one state, but describing it in different colors. You create a picture out of it, then a symphony, and then a story, but they all describe the same state.

Take A Journey To The World Of Spiritual Sensations

sensations A question I received: Where exactly should I invest my effort when I remain insensitive to The Zohar?

My Answer: At first we have to artificially evoke feelings inside us, because our job is made easier by anything that can influence our ego. This is why preparation, group work, and the mutual guarantee are essential. The entire Book of Zohar is written in this group-like manner.

Impressions don’t come on their own; you have to fight for them, because that is how you will be able to take part in this fascinating journey. It rejects you, but you keep entering it over and over again many times; you enter and exit it at every single moment. This is what our work is all about: you push through while you are being pushed away!

Just imagine that all of your friends sitting next to you are experiencing these inner vibrations of The Book of Zohar, while you are not! This is because you are neglecting your friends. You have to want to unite with them! The Creator acts within them regardless of whether they realize it. Everything depends on you, on how much you enter them and find the revelation of the Creator in the unity with your friends. Meanwhile, they may not even suspect that this is happening.

You have to fight for the realization of the need to reach this. You have to artificially awaken yourself from point zero, until you become “wound up,” just like you try to start up a car until the engine finally ignites. This is how you should examine yourself, or to be more precise, you examine the way the Creator has made you. Try to approach yourself in different ways, carefully and with understanding, as if you are studying an unfamiliar animal that keeps showing its different sides to you and every time you need to approach it in a new way.

However, in this case nothing works except for your desire and the understanding that you need this. All the theory, explanations, and graphs are behind you. Now, by studying The Zohar, we are entering the world of spiritual sensations. Later, once we start feeling it, we will turn to our mind once again and begin analyzing our sensations. But for now we do not yet have the sensations, like an infant who cannot speak because he does not understand what he is feeling.

The Whole Of Creation Can Be Yours!

Laitman_2009-07_0231A question I received: When the entire world reaches its final correction and ascends, merging with the Upper Worlds, then it will turn out that we haven’t yet enjoyed life in this world but have already passed to the Spiritual World?

My Answer: You are worried that you will never get the fame you are entitled to, or the glory, money and power over everything? You are afraid that you will correct yourself and get rid of these desires, ascend to another world where the Creator will meet you, hug you and ask, “Well, tell me what you want?” But you will have nothing left to ask for!

You already don’t want money, glory, power, or anything else. So what do you do then? What do the righteous need? A sip of water and a handful of berries for a week. And this is called the final correction, to which we all aspire?

But don’t worry, the higher a person ascends, the greater his desires become. Today’s material desires relative to the spiritual ones are a billion times less than the desires of an infant relative to an adult. In fact, we are completely cut off from the spiritual world, while an infant lives in the same world with us.

But as the child’s desires grow with age, he already wants to enjoy life as adult – the same way the desires of the soul grow within us. When we cross the barrier separating us from the Upper World and enter the spiritual world, there we find entire layers of impure desires, which we need to correct. By correcting them you rise above them into the Upper World!

How much can you lose here compared to what the system of the spiritual impure worlds can give you? It gives us such huge desires that our universe is nothing compared to them – they comprise all the worlds and not just our world, which is like a small grain of sand next to them.

Therefore, don’t worry, our desires grow all the time. And the greatest desires of this world, all its wealth, fame and power are just worthless minuscule feelings compared to spiritual fulfillment.

Besides, now the world is in such despair and depression that a person doesn’t even desire such minuteness.

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.06.09

Preparation to the Lesson
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Rabash Article 7, 1984
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Article: “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 52, Lesson 23
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Article: “The Character Of Kabbalah,” Lesson 1
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The Zohar Lets Us Touch Something Truly Great

wordsWhen I read The Book of Zohar, I want to connect to the Creator as much as possible and to “There is none else besides Him.” All of the characters I read about are living inside me, such as Bilam, Balak, and Noah; my thoughts are the waters of the flood, and the Creator is one of my inner qualities which tells me, “Go hide in the ark, the quality of bestowal! In order to increase the force of bestowal in you, Noah, I will drown the whole world, all your other egoistic desires. But I will let you, your only righteous desire, live, in order to increase and strengthen it – and to make you the progenitor of the descendants on earth (the desire).” I want to feel all of these qualities, desires, and impressions, and to sense that they are incredibly important and lofty, burning inside me.

Even though The Book of Zohar does not awaken powerful sensations inside me yet, nevertheless while reading this book, I want all of us together to feel that we are touching something great, similar to how people used to hold their breath while thinking of infinite cosmic spaces, far away stars and galaxies. Try to feel how you are being immersed in a raging sea of sensations inside you. An entire drama is being played out there.

But if you remain numb, then the friends have to awaken you! In our world it is very easy to make yourself feel and worry about something. All you have to do is read the details of a cruel crime or look at pictures. But here you have to make efforts in order to awaken feelings inside. This is exactly what we have to do. I have to organize myself and my environment so that I will go from being indifferent to being lovesick! This is my only desire: to connect and to love!

Difficulties Are Given Only To The Strong

uptous A question I received: It seems like correction has to be an active action, but we are just reading The Zohar and that’s all. What do we have to overcome here?

My Answer: All the corrections are done by the Light, not by you. You only overcome the alien thoughts that impede you from demanding the Creator’s revelation, which is necessary for you to become like Him.

If you were not bothered by alien thoughts while we were reading the chapter about the flood in The Zohar, then you are still not ready to overcome these thoughts. When you become a righteous man, you will feel how “the waters of the flood” are rising up against your righteousness, trying to throw you off the path and engulf you in egoism.

It’s worth your while to stop and think about why these distracting thoughts are not emerging in you. This doesn’t mean that you have to seek them out on purpose now, but if you try to be righteous, you will understand how much of a sinner you still are.

Vibrate In Unison With The Sounds Of The Book Of Zohar

The Secret Things Belong to the Creator It is written, “Reveal the Creator in fear.” But what is fear? Fear refers to inner changes, similar to the vibrations of a musical instrument such as a violin, a harp or a guitar. These inner vibrations enable the instrument to make sounds or to reveal the sound from within.

In order to reveal the Creator, we have to understand that “Every day His call comes from Mount Horev.” We have to be ready to perceive the call like a musical instrument that vibrates together with His sound in unison. This is the meaning of revealing the Creator in fear. Then we will hear Him.

We have to approach The Book of Zohar with the right preparation: with the sensation of an insistent need to reveal Him, and at the same time, the sensation of complete helplessness and inability to do this. These two impressions will force us to vibrate in unison with the Creator’s call, which is concealed in The Book of Zohar, and we will then reveal its sound.

A person will gradually feel that he is becoming the Creator’s instrument and the entire universe passes through him as enormous streams of energy, waves and revelation. However, he is not simply a numb piece of wood, the material the instrument is made of. Rather, being in unison with the Creator and producing the same vibrations, he becomes equal to Him. He is ready to nullify himself completely in order to participate in the same motions and changes as the Creator, who gives the person His knowledge and qualities.

Therefore, when we read The Book of Zohar, we have to nullify ourselves like an embryo and try to absorb the sounds of this book.