A question I received: Why is it so important to read Kabbalah books?

My Answer: Information comes in many forms. In our times, people are gradually shifting from reading to listening to audio files, and from listening to watching videos. But these are not the same thing.

Watching and listening to something happens on the animate level, but reading happens on the human level. This is completely different. Through reading a book, a person connects to a spiritual channel.

It’s great if you watch or listen to the lessons, but nothing can replace a book because it lets you find a more intimate contact, even if you don’t clearly feel it. In our times people may not be so used to reading books anymore, but this doesn’t change the fact that reading happens on the human level.

For example, when you read The Book of Zohar, you discover the importance of the letters, their forms and their order. And it doesn’t matter what language the book is written in. Kabbalists have given us a code in one language – Hebrew (or Aramaic) instead of other languages.

The shape of the letters reflects the model of the soul, like its imprint. The soul has several shapes, and this is how it is “imprinted” in a different form every time.

When we read the text, we go from one letter to another, and accordingly, our soul changes, taking on one form after another. This is why a book is connected to a person’s soul.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - 1 Comment →

A question I received: You said that when a person reads a text written by a great Kabbalist, he may suddenly see additional words appearing in the text, as if they are printed in the book. Does this effect also happen when the text is translated from Hebrew into other languages, such as English, Spanish and Russian?

My Answer: It makes no difference how the book was printed and what font or language it is using. As long as the original text was written by a person with spiritual attainment, then even when the book is translated into another language by a regular, professional translator, you will still see all of these phenomena. That’s because they depend on your aspiration to attain what is written there.

According to your current desire, you are seeing a book and certain words printed in it. If your desire changes, then instead of the book with printed words in it, you will see a source or system that brings you Light. You will see it as a spiritual fulfillment.
(From the second lesson at the North American Congress in Buffalo)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

We are standing opposite of just one force – the Creator, as it is written: “There is none else besides Him.” However, it seems to us that there are many forces operating in the world: powers and qualities, people, nature and, ourselves.

The whole world is a theater, where the scenes of our lives are played out by still and vegetative objects, animals and people. We are all players in this theater, yet we don’t know the script, the author and the director that is controlling everything.

This is what it means to attain the Upper World: it is when you reveal the only force, will, and mind that directs the still, vegetative, animate and human levels on the stage of this theater we call life. When you attain this force, you gain the complete knowledge about everything. You understand how to change your life and destiny, but most importantly, you establish a connection with the Director.

People are already disillusioned from attempting to improve this world, this spectacle, on their own. It’s becoming evident that without having a connection with the Director, without knowing the script of the play, all our attempts will only bring more harm.

This is why our hopes to achieve happiness were always thwarted throughout the millennia of human history, and now the science of Kabbalah is being revealed to the world in order to explain that our purpose in this world is to get to know the One who directs everything.
(From the first lesson at the North American Congress in Buffalo)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

For beginners, the most important thing to learn in the science of Kabbalah is the structure of the Upper Worlds, according to the book Talmud Eser Sefirot and the article “Preface to the Science of Kabbalah.” The result of your study should be that you actually start to feel the text, similar to a musician that reads the notes and hears a melody within. Just as he feels the sounds within, that is how we have to feel the spiritual actions. And eventually, we will feel them more powerfully and more real than this world.

The smallest spiritual degree is felt a billion times more vividly and powerfully than this entire world. Our entire world, the whole universe, and our lives throughout all time periods are incorporated in the spiritual world like a small point.

When you read a Kabbalah book, it is like reading an encoded letter. If you know what it says, you can change your destiny and your entire life. That is how you should feel during Part 2 of the Daily Lesson, while studying Talmud Eser Sefirot.

It doesn’t matter that while reading it, you don’t feel or sense anything. What’s important is your yearning to feel the text within you. So, the only thing you lack is the desire! If you obtain the needed desire, then it will enable you to enter the spiritual world. You will begin to feel the spiritual world within that desire.

In the meantime, we are in an unconscious state relative to the spiritual perception. We’re like an unconscious person that doesn’t perceive the world around him. And what do we lack in order to reveal the Upper World? Only the aspiration for it!
(From the first lesson at the North American Congress in Buffalo)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - 1 Comment →

People are opposed to Kabbalah because they have a subconscious feeling that Kabbalah’s wisdom will destroy them. This is their egoism fighting Kabbalah in a war called The Armageddon, or the War between Gog and Magog, which was described by the prophets as the war of the Light against the darkness.

This is a lengthy, tiring battle that a person wages inside of him. But in addition to the inner war, we must also fight Kabbalah’s opponents in our society. This is a battle against the “Erev Rav” (Mixed Multitude), which is described in The Book of Zohar.

There’s no doubt that this war will be won by the Creator, the force of the Light, bestowal and love. But the amount and duration of people’s suffering depend on the efforts we make in this war. The best way to fight a war is to attack, as the Creator said, “Let’s go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart!”

We have to initiate the war against egoism, both externally and internally, without waiting for it to attack us. We will then accelerate the process of correction.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →