Preparation
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Part 1, on Baal HaSulam’s Letter 24
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Part 2, on Preface to the Sulam Commentary
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Part 3, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Item 146
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Preparation and Part 1 of the Lesson
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Part 2, on Chapter 2 of Talmud Eser Sefirot
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Part 3, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Item 142
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A question I received: I completed the ARI Online beginner and advanced classes, and for the past two years have been attending your online classes daily. I’ve studied Pticha, Shamati, and The Book of Zohar. Your wisdom is profound. But, lately, the only portion of the lesson that that I feel I can relate to is Talmud Eser Sefirot. The abstract seems more real to me than the discussions concerning present world conditions. Is this normal, or am I losing my way?
My Answer: It’s temporary. You will discover that Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator in our world and is realized by studying correction of oneself and of the whole world. To the extent one is corrected, one perceives the world as unified and transparent, for all of universal creation is perceived by us in a single desire that was created. It begins to appear as unified, and all of the worlds will appear as sensations in different layers of that single desire.
Subsequently, the study material, too, will begin to reveal one and the same thing, only in different languages. Finally, everything will come to be seen as one picture, static, whole and perfect.
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Baal HaSulam Article: “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”, Item 12
Questions I received on our lecture series, symbols used in weddings, and names:
Question: I listened to a lecture series you gave on the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.” The last lesson, given on 11.21.08, ended with Item 121. Will you continue giving lectures on this topic?
My Answer: The regular study of the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” ends there because from that point on, it is better to continue studying Kabbalah using the book, Talmud Eser Sefirot. The material becomes extremely dense at that point – you can check this for yourself. In addition, this was my teacher’s custom.
Question: Please explain the Kabbalistic meaning of the symbols used in the Jewish wedding ritual: the Huppah (wedding canopy), the glass of wine, the ring, the money for the ring and the bride, the breaking of the glass, the Ketuba (marriage contract), and so on.
My Answer: These are all symbolic of the unification of the desire (vessel) with the right intention (screen) for the reception of Light (adhesion with the Creator). The Huppah is the screen, the wine is the Light of Hochma, the ring and the money is the effort to create a screen, the bride is the desire, the Ketuba is the condition for adhesion, and the breaking of the vessel or glass signify that the correction and unification begin with the revelation of the broken, egoistic desires. And the entire family life is the correction of the vessel.
Question: You wrote that the Torah contains all the names that have spiritual roots, that these are all names of spiritual forces, whether holy or evil ones. Out of these names, we should choose the “holy” ones to name our children. How do I know which names are holy?
My Answer: Use the names that have been given to children throughout the centuries.
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The Book of Zohar: “The Night of the Bride”
A question I received: You wrote that man developed from the ape because of a spiritual gene he has. Did you mean that man developed from an ape physically, or was it a spiritual process, which led to the emergence of a person with a soul?
My Answer: Man physically emerged from the ape when a new Reshimo (gene) emerged in it. However, in spirituality, a “man” is someone who has begun to acquire the quality of bestowal and love. A person then becomes Adam, which in Hebrew means, “similar to the Creator.” The great Kabbalist the Ari writes about this, as does Baal HaSulam in Chapter 3 of Talmud Eser Sefirot. The Biblical story about the creation of the world is also talking about the spiritual creation of the worlds and man, and in fact, the whole Torah is about this.
The physical matter was formed after the Big Bang according to the laws of nature. Baal HaSulam writes about the geological periods of gradual cooling and heating of the earth, with each period lasting 30,000 years. Kabbalah is a science – the physics of the Upper World, and it does not contradict other sciences. On the other hand, religion interprets the Torah (or the Bible) literally, without understanding that the Torah’s text is Kabbalistic.
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The weekly virtual lesson, held on 03.08.09 from 4:00pm to 5:00pm Israel time, was the third lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “Inner Contemplation,” from part 1 of Talmud Eser Sefirot.
A question I received: How should we interpret Baal HaSulam’s mathematical equations, and numerical operations such as addition and multiplication that he uses? I will give three examples:
1) HATEVA = ELOKIM, i.e., 86 = 86 (from the article “The Peace”)
2) 2 х EKЕ = МB, i.e., 2 х 21 = 42
3) МХ + HAKAL = MAKOM, i.е., 48 + 138 = 186 (both examples are from your morning lesson on Talmud Eser Sefirot).
I can understand the first example: it means that the essence of these two objects is the same. But what is the meaning of the “sum” of two spiritual qualities, or a quality “multiplied” by a number?
My Answer: These operations refer to the combination of qualities between two spiritual objects or two states of one object, as well as their result. For example, they might refer to you in two different states or you in connection with someone else.
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Two questions I received on how to draw the Surrounding Light:
Question: During the third part of today’s morning lesson, you said that the most important thing for humanity today is to come to a realization of evil, and this can only be done with the help of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif). Can we draw the Surrounding Light only from Talmud Eser Sefirot or also from the modified materials? Let’s say, for a beginner, who doesn’t know anything about Kabbalah, will an entertainment show on Channel 66 or a friendly talk with Rav Laitman’s students on Kabbalistic topics also be a source of the Surrounding Light?
My Answer: Of course. All of our materials, in all their forms, bring forth the Surrounding Light. The result depends on the material (the biggest influence happens during my morning lesson), on your desire and on your connection to us. I receive many responses to our TV channel, and I can see that it causes truly wonderful changes in people!
Question: I am a beginner. What brings more Light: reading books or studying through the Internet?
My Answer: The greatest benefit comes from studying together, especially if you study live, together with us!
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In the News: (from Times Online): The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed that Man descended from apes. A leading official declared yesterday that Darwin’s theory of evolution was compatible with Christian faith, and could even be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas. “In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God,” said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
My Comment: No one originated from anything other than from their own Reshimot – informational genes. The Reshimot unravel like a chain, from small to big, giving rise to everything that exists.
However, since we do not see the chain of Reshimot, we see a picture where the species originate “one from another,” whereas in reality they originate “one after another.” Kabbalists have already explained this thousands of years ago – see Part 3 of Talmud Eser Sefirot.
The world was created by the Creator, and every creature was created by the Creator or Nature as well. The only matter of creation is the desire, which develops and expresses itself by creating an outward appearance (a bodily shell) according to its qualities. However, we do not perceive the forces of the desire and only see the external shells. This is why we think that they come from one another.
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Article: “Perfection and the World”
In the News (from The New Scientist): According to physicist Craig Hogan, GEO600 [a detector of gravitational waves] has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time – the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains.”
If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.” … Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.
My Comment: According to Kabbalah, “The particular and the general are equal as two drops of water.” Everything consists of ten Sefirot, which in turn divide into an infinite number of parts, each of which repeats the same structure of ten Sefirot. This was even described by Abraham in his book, The Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira), where he writes: “Ten Sefirot: Ten and not nine, ten and not eleven.” It’s the same in all parts and in the entire creation.
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“Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”
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