Women On the Path of Kabbalah

Questions from WomenQuestions I received from women on how to be sure that one is advancing in spirituality:

Question: Can a woman cross the Machsom without participating in the group, by studying your books for at least two hours a day?

My Answer: To ascend spiritually, a woman has to study and disseminate.

Question: Is it possible to follow the path of Kabbalah incorrectly? What I mean is: If I study with you in Bnei Baruch and I physically do what is needed – disseminate, pay Maaser, study Kabbalah, and have contact with the group, then can I still be doing something wrong in my inner work?

My Answer: Check yourself against the articles and recommendations of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. With every lesson, we delve deeper into this decisive question.

Question: What is the difference between regular feelings and spiritual feelings? When I have regular feelings, should I keep in mind that they aren’t real? And if yes, then how can I trust my feelings?

My Answer: Right now you should only study, and the Light will bring you new, correct notions, which will enable you to measure and judge everything correctly.

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Babies – Physical And Spiritual

Physical and Spiritual BabiesI’ve received many requests to explain the correlation between a baby’s development in this world and the soul’s development in the Upper World. Here is an explanation:

The Talmud Eser Sefirot – the fundamental Kabbalistic textbook with over 2,000 pages of difficult text, has about 300 pages that talk about the soul’s intrauterine development in the womb (the AHP) of the Upper Partzuf (the mother – Ima, Bina). This development may continue for seven, nine, or twelve months – but usually it continues for nine months. It is followed by birth and then 24 months of nursing – which is also described in 200 pages of very difficult text.

What are these lengthy, complex descriptions saying in simple language? The soul begins its development with the point in the heart, when a person asks, “What is the meaning of life?” Next, the person begins developing his soul by attracting the Upper Light to this point. He first goes through preliminary stages called single concealment and double concealment, and then enters a state called conception (Ibur). In this state, he attaches to the Upper Partzuf, provided that he agrees to stay together with It regardless of all the difficulties! And the difficulties keep increasing, but by strengthening his connection with the Upper One, despite the disturbances created by egoism that keep pulling him back, he continually absorbs the qualities of the Upper One – love and bestowal. This process continues until he attains all of the Upper One’s properties by means of annulling himself. This self-annulment also prevents him from becoming a disturbance or a foreign body in the Upper One.

When he absorbs all of the Upper One’s qualities, this concludes the period of passively absorbing the Upper One’s properties – of developing in the form of an embryo. An embryo develops by passively receiving the Light, and this is why it is referred to as blood (Dam, from the word Domem – still), or a passive adoption of the Upper One’s properties.

Stated differently, the state called pregnancy ends when a person desires to go from nullifying himself to actively interacting with the Upper One. This compels the Upper One to push him away, in order to end the previous kind of interaction – similar to when an embryo remains in the mother’s womb for too long, and evokes rejection. The Upper One pushes the lower one away from Him and forces the lower one to begin interacting with Him more actively – to nurse. The Upper One does this by creating conditions that enable the lower one to receive the Light of Hassadim (milk). However, the milk still turns into blood (Dam) in the lower one.

This nursing period lasts for 24 months, and during this time the lower one gains active properties of bestowal (Bina, Galgalta Einaim). This level enables a person to exist in the complete volume of the Upper World, and to be completely independent of his egoism – to perceive the Upper One and learn from Him.

Knowledge of the laws operating in our roots and of how the Upper Forces operate, gives us an absolutely precise understanding of how to ideally and most correctly treat and raise a child, how to interact with a fetus and a newborn, as well as with a teenager and adolescent. It enables us to build the correct system of interactions, and to create the conditions for optimally realizing the opportunity we have in this life – to attain the purpose of our creation.

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The Internet Is Just a Step Toward Revealing Our True Connection With Each Other

The Internet Is Just a Step Toward Revealing Our True Connection With Each OtherA question I received: What do you expect from the development of the Internet and other means of communication? I see how much you depend on them and their development.

My Answer: The Internet connection lets humanity progress inconceivably faster. However, I think that in the future the means of communication will rise to yet a different level, because our interconnectedness has to be even more evident. Very soon there will be new possibilities of unification, which will erase the sensation of distance between us altogether. Time and space will cease being obstacles between us.

This is necessary for egoism to develop and for us to recognize that it is evil. This is how Nature has arranged things, and this will soon become revealed to us. Interdependence and communications enable us to go through many experiences by connecting with others who feel them, without actually going through them ourselves. By becoming included in one another, we accelerate every person’s development and maturation. We are seeing with our very eyes how civilizations that were isolated from the whole world for millennia – Japan and China, are merging with the whole world within a mere decade. (From the lesson on the article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” on 21/07/2008.)

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Another Pointless Conference of the World’s Leaders

Another Pointless Conference of the World\'s LeadersNews Story (translated from www.ynet.co.il): Leaders of the industrial G8 countries have gathered in Japan to discuss global warming. These rich and developed countries disagree about many things, and no one wants to be the first to yield and lose. The leaders smiled for the photographers and then went their separate ways. They won’t save the world this time around either. It’s the same story all over again: the leaders gather for a discussion, and nothing comes out of it. By now, even the journalists are laughing at this. What has to happen for them to actually sit down and talk, and for something to change?

My Answer: The leaders are powerless to change anything. It cannot be done by their mental, moral, or physical power, because the world is governed from above, and our entire history shows us that we can only make things worse. Since we don’t follow the laws of nature, instead of feeling comfortable, we feel nature’s negative reaction, expressed as undesirable phenomena on all levels of nature: the still level (tsunamis, global warming, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes), the vegetative level (droughts, lack of water, harvest failure), the animate level (extinction of species, disturbed balance, spread of disease), and the human level (war, depression, drugs, suicide, fear).

The correction of the world depends on the correction of man, on his balance with nature. And to achieve this balance, we have to know the forces that govern us. Nature has arranged everything this way in order to elevate us (whether coercively or consciously, willingly) to the level of the governing forces – the Creator. And we can become corrected only by desiring to become similar to the Upper World, to the governing forces of Nature, the Creator.

Kabbalah explains the structure and laws of the Upper World, and this is why it’s necessary for us today – it is our only salvation. As for all the world’s leaders – they are no more than puppets in the hands of the Creator.

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