Questions I received on the soul:

Question: What happens to the soul when the body dies?

My Answer: The soul is “a part of the Creator,” and the Creator is the quality of bestowal and love. So, a person acquires a soul when this quality of “love for one’s neighbor” emerges in him. However, he does not have a soul until he acquires this quality of love and bestowal, and is similar to an animal. This is why it is written in Kabbalistic texts, “All of you are like animals,” “A person is born a small animal,” and so on.

One can acquire the quality of bestowal and love only under the influence of the Upper Light, which is a force that corrects one’s egoism. This Light is called Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif ) or the Creator because It surrounds us and we are inside it. It is written, “The Creator is like water that cleanses Israel (Mikve Israel Hashem), where Israel is Yashar-El, meaning, one who aspires to the Creator, to bestowal and love.

What does this mean? A person perceives our world using his natural, egoistic qualities. When he obtains the altruistic quality of bestowal and love, he feels the Upper World inside this quality. This means that he acquires a soul.

Once he acquires this quality, it stays with him even if his egoistic quality vanishes, or in other words, even if his body (the matter we feel in our sensations) dies. And that’s because there is only one created matter – the desire, and all existence is felt within this desire. If the desire has the intention, “for one’s own sake,” then one perceives “our world” or “this world.” If the desire has the intention, “for the sake of one’s neighbor,” then one perceives the Upper World or the Creator.

The birth of our bodies, our life and death, are but the emergence and extinction of the Light inside the egoistic desire. Spiritual birth, on the other hand, is the emergence of the desire to bestow and to love outside of oneself (to act not for one’s own sake, or not in order to feel egoistically comfortable).

The desire to bestow is independent of the egoistic desire, through which we feel our bodies and this world. Therefore, when the body dies and the feeling of this world vanishes, what remains is the altruistic desire and the feeling of the Upper World.

Question: How can the soul “see,” “feel,” and “perceive” without the functioning of the brain?

My Answer: We feel everything inside the desire. The brain only helps us to distinguish what we see, or rather, what we desire.

Question: Is it really possible for the soul of a person who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, who has lost his memory and cognition, to restore all of this after death?

My Answer: Once a person develops the soul, the quality of bestowal, it never disappears.

Question: Why does it happen that infants and small children, whose souls have not yet been corrected, die so young?

My Answer: By existing for as long as they were destined to, they corrected a particular part of their spiritual development.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Why Did God Create Death?
Laitman.com Post: In Spirituality, Nothing Disappears
Article: “Spirit and Body”
A Guide to the Hidden Wisdom of Kabbalah: “Enhanced Perception”
Shamati #153: “A Thought Is an Upshot of the Desire”

Filed under: Body and Soul, Spirituality - No Comments →

A question I received: You wrote: “Every woman represents a desire, and every man represents the fulfillment of this desire. Hence, it’s impossible for women to be friends with anyone, and they can only love what belongs to them.” I don’t understand, why is it impossible for women to be friends with anyone? Perhaps my definition of friends is different. I understand that I don’t have many true friends and just lots of acquaintances, but I still feel I have friends. Can you explain?

My Answer: A man’s egoistic nature has to go through correction in order to transform to “love for one’s neighbor.” However, a woman’s correction doesn’t happen by participating in a group of friends or girlfriends, but by helping the men’s group do their work. How can a woman help them? By working on dissemination.

Everyone has friends, but in Kabbalah we are talking about something special: the unification of the male souls into one common soul, where each male soul and all the souls together are joined by the female souls, like Galgalta ve Eynaim and AHP. The male souls have to correct themselves by uniting, and they then transmit the correction to the female souls. However, the female souls receive the correction only to the degree they connect to the male souls.

It is written that when the Creator was revealed, 600,000 men united in a Mutual Guarantee while the women surrounded them, supporting and helping them. Another example is the family, where the husband works and earns, and a woman receives what he brings her, organizes the home, gives birth and produces the next generation, even though it receives the man’s name.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: In the Spiritual World, Women Don’t Get Carried Around by Men
Laitman.com Post: Men, Women, and the Soul’s Correction
Kabbalah Today Article: The War of the Sexes
Talks: To the Woman of XXI Century
Eighteen Talks With Beginners: Fourth Talk – Structure of the Soul

Filed under: Women - 2 Comments →

A question I received: Robert Kiyosaki has already answered the question about education in the book, If You Want to Be Rich & Happy, Don’t Go to School. He writes that an unruly class society starts forming when a teacher forces the students to solve the problems individually, without giving them a chance to help the weaker students, and even with a risk of being punished for helping them. Children actually want to help each other, and they should be supported in this, but instead they’re being punished for it.

The entire history of schools shows that they raise kids to be egoists and individualists, using grades, competition for who’s better, and so on. If schools would teach kids to work in teams, if the kids had to unite to solve problems, we would raise a completely different generation of people. Therefore, all the egoistic flaws are developed in childhood, in our schools.

My Answer: I agree with you. We are trying to solve these issues through the education system that we are now creating. The main purpose of this system is to develop an environment that will give everyone a desire to cooperate.

A school is, first and foremost, a correctly organized society of children, which develops every student in a certain way. The society sets the examples, values and goals that will help every student to become a very special person. Nothing like this exists in the world yet, not even in any private school. And that’s because schools don’t set the goal of perfection and equivalence to Nature. Therefore, there is no Correcting Light (Ohr Makif) there.

The fact is, it’s the Light, not the environment, that corrects a person. The environment just helps one draw the Light. Therefore, no system or method of education will work besides the Kabbalistic one, because the latter draws the Force or Light of Correction upon a person.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What the Global Education System Should Teach People
Laitman.com Post: The Surrounding Light Influences Us Only When We Evoke It
Kabbalah Today Article: “Spiritual Education”
Kabbalah on Education
Article: “The Secret of the Letters”
Article: “One Law”

Filed under: Education - No Comments →

A question I received: Our souls are in a broken state, but their structure – Malchut and the nine Sefirot, is the same for all. So what is the difference between them?

My Answer: The nine Sefirot, like parts of a person’s body, are the same for everyone. But the Malchut of a person, like a separate part of one body, differs from everyone else’s. And Malchut determines how the nine Sefirot pertaining to it are manifested, even though they are the same for everyone.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Why Do We See Such a Diverse World?
Talk: “Perceiving the Desires”
Wondrous Wisdom: “Lesson 5”

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

Evolution has never ceased, and today we have reached the critical transition point where the world is shifting from egoistic to altruistic. Kabbalah explains that life on earth, on all the levels, goes through the same process of development. Thus, studies of bacteria have shown that at some point in their evolution, bacteria were forced by circumstances to shift from hostile and competitive behavior to  peaceful interaction. This resulted in the creation of new, multi-celled organisms, which later developed into complex organisms, including humans.

A similar process occurs on all other levels of nature, from inanimate to human. We too will have to transform from being rival and hostile groups, nations, religions, and civilizations, into a global family. Indeed, we are driven by inner data (Reshimot – the spiritual genes of our development) that’s the same as our biological data, revealed to us externally.

The evolutionary process is explained by Kabbalah this way: The “thickness” of egoism (Reshimot of Aviut) constantly increases, causing the process of evolution to take place. Egoism grows along these levels:

• 0-1 inanimate

• 2 vegetative

• 3 animate

• 4 human

When egoism reaches the last, human level of its development, a special quality becomes revealed in it: a connection to the Upper Source – the highest degree, the Creator, or Nature. But this final, fourth degree also develops gradually, going through its own, inner stages (also the stages 0-1-2-3-4).  At egoism’s final, fourth stage, man finally reveals its global nature. Hence, on this level of man’s development, he has to begin connecting to his Source – the Creator. Humanity has to become one, like the Creator.

On the surface, a person appears as nothing more than a biological system. But when this system reaches a certain degree of its development – the fourth stage of egoism, it prompts a “system crash” – an upgrade in the system’s organization and operation, taking it to the next, global level. This is what we are witnessing today in our society.

In other words, the next level of our development, the “spiritual” level which demands our equality with the Creator, is beginning to be revealed in us. For now, we are only starting to define it, to see that it is global and integral. However, to the extent we become more acquainted with this new form of egoism in us, we will begin to feel the need for its fulfillment – the Creator.

Related Material
Laitman.com Post: The Vatican Accepts Darwin’s Theory, But Kabbalah Does Not
Laitman.com Post: There’s No Going Backwards In Evolution

Filed under: Evolution - No Comments →

In the News: (from China Daily): “HKMA chief eyes second wave to financial downturn” Financial protectionism may be one of three signs of the second wave of the global financial turmoil. “The global economy is experiencing tremendous difficulties,” Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Joseph Yam said. With a rise in financial protectionism, Yam said he worries that investors may refuse to buy financial instruments issued by other countries.

My Comment: This is an instinctive self-defense reaction, but it will not help anyone escape the crisis. In fact, it will only exacerbate the crisis because separation goes against the law of Nature, which states that all of humanity must unite into a single whole, like one family.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Crisis May Spread Worldwide In Domino Effect – Again
Laitman.com Post: Countries Are Starting a Global Trade War

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

A question I received: You explain that the reason for the financial crisis is people’s egoism, which acts in contrast to harmony with Nature. Bnei Baruch feels responsible to present the world with an alternative economic model, which is founded on altruism and harmony among all parts of the world’s society.

I am sure that there are economists, businessmen, and executives who could help us to build this social and economic model. We have to schedule meetings with such people.

My Answer: I agree with you completely. However, I have not been able to find people like this yet. There are only a few individuals who are specialists and agree with us on some issues. Evidently, it will take some more development of the current events and the suffering to make people more sensitive and ready for a new outlook on the world.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Must Recognize the Reality of Our Complete Interconnectedness
Laitman.com Post: The Crisis Will Wash Everyone Clean
Laitman.com Post: Karl Marx Gains Popularity In Europe
Kabbalah Today article: Navigating Through the Financial Storm

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

Three questions I received on love for others:

Question: One sometimes feels a sensation of connectivity, unity, and pleasure during the lessons, as if one’s spiritual issues are actually the spiritual issues of others in the Kli and that it’s these collective deficiencies you address. Is it advisable to relish this sensation, or should we strive to restrict it lest it become egoistic pleasure?

My Answer: You should enjoy your love for others! People can only grow out of positive emotions; after all, the purpose of creation is to delight the creatures!

Question: Last night I got a strong desire to do good to everyone without getting anything in return, and I am enjoying it. And today I woke up feeling my usual egoistic, melancholic self. Tell me please, what was it that I was feeling? Was it a higher stage that opened itself to me for a minute?

My Answer: You are studying Kabbalah and the Light is influencing you. The Light gave you this inner sensation to give you an example of what you should aspire to (this is called “awakening from Above” – Itaruta de Leela). Now you should continue in the same direction as that sensation (“awakening from below” – Itaruta de Letata), until you acquire these new qualities and sensations forever!

Question: When a person realizes the evil within him and changes to be an altruist, how can he live and survive among others who are egoists?

My Answer: By loving them! It’s because he will be corrected and his attitude toward everyone else will be equal to the Creator’s attitude.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Love Is Providing Others With the Means to Fulfill Their Point in the Heart
Laitman.com Post: A Conversation About Love
Laitman.com Post: Let There Be Light
Shamati #32: “A Lot Is an Awakening from Above”

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Love, Q&A - 2 Comments →

A question I received: What role does personal prayer have in Kabbalah, and does the Creator hear it? Can a prayer that has been articulated in one’s own words ascend upward? Can it also be directed toward corporeal things, like the desire to have a house or sound health?

My Answer: A prayer to the Creator can be about anything at all. However, it must come from the heart; spoken words don’t matter one bit.

Actually, everything we feel is already our prayer. However, if our desires or prayers aren’t aligned with the path leading to the goal of creation, which is similarity to the Creator, then they are “adjusted.” In other words, we receive “bad grades” (punishment) and this corrects us. However, this is the lengthy and difficult path toward the goal.

There is another, brief and pleasant path, when we direct our desires or prayers toward similarity with the Creator, the goal of creation. How do we do this? It is possible only by uniting with the group and thereby receiving the group’s desire to attain the quality of bestowal. We then end up with a desire or prayer called a “collective prayer” (Tfila be Tsibur).

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Is a True Prayer?
Laitman.com Post: The Way to Reveal the Creator Is the Right Desire
Laitman.com Post: The Meaning of Prayer and Blessings

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

A question I received: When I ask people for their opinion of you, some say that you are a fraud because the only people allowed to study Kabbalah are men who are Jewish, married, and over 40 years old. They say that anyone who teaches Kabbalah to women, youngsters, and non-Jews is a fraud, a layman, and an ignoramus. Please comment on this!

My Comment: My knowledge of Kabbalah can be tested, though I doubt there’s anyone qualified to do this. My daily lessons are an indication of the level of my teaching. In addition, everyone knows that I was Rabash’s student.

As for the prohibitions on teaching Kabbalah, such as teaching it to people under 40 years old, women, gentiles, and so on, see the commentaries of Kabbalists on this. And don’t worry about what people say about me; just follow my example. What they say comes from their current level. Give them time to grow up.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Anyone Who Aspires to the Creator Can Become Israel
Laitman.com Post: The Third Temple – In Stone or In the Heart?
Wondrous Wisdom: “Studying Kabbalah”
Baal HaSulam: “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation”

Filed under: Spirituality - 1 Comment →