A question I received: How can I be sure that my request is correct and that it is directed at correction?

My Answer: If a person studies together with us, his intentions are constantly corrected, one after another, and they unite. It’s as if a “viral” correction occurs between friends. We give each other the opportunity to be corrected since we are connected into one system of souls. This is the greatest correction of all possible corrections.

On his own, a person is not capable of anything, but if he has a desire and tries to unite with others, this will work as much as his ego (also called Pharaoh and the heaviness of the heart) will allow. Therefore, a person doesn’t need to perform a calculation for himself alone as to whether his efforts were successful. On his own, a person will never correct himself and he cannot even correctly evaluate his intention.

We need to learn jointly, to feel our unification before the studies, and to aspire to learn like one man with one heart in order to draw the Surrounding Light onto us.

Every lesson presents the opportunity to unify and draw the Light that Reforms, and so each lesson is like the reception of the Torah under Mount Sinai. After all, we need to receive the Torah which is the Light that Reforms. As it is written, “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a means to correct it.” Therefore, we are standing under Mount Sinai at every given moment. Receiving the Torah, the Light that Reforms, is on the condition that we become like one man with one heart.

Individual calculations aren’t applicable; success depends on everyone together, each one according to his ability, uniting in the conditions that are assigned from Above. Success depends on the united effort that comes from us below. Therefore, we need to continuously, tirelessly press on. As a result, our efforts will accumulate into one large account and, finally, revelation will occur.

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A question I received: Why is it that in the process of correction some people actively strive toward spirituality, aspire to teach and create the method of correction, whereas others have enormous earthly desires and merely take a passive part in this process by helping in some way?

My Answer: This division does exist, but it isn’t so clear cut because even the people who aspire to spirituality are divided into different levels. We know that in our world, too, there are people who simply “do” as well as others who want something greater. As a result, each person occupies a certain position that is sufficient to satisfy him and does not want any more responsibility beyond that.

There are many reasons that seem to justify why this is so, but in essence everything is determined by one’s desire. All of humanity is built as a pyramid, including the part of humanity that aspires to spirituality. Some people are willing to keep going until the end and won’t stop for anything until they attain equivalence with the Creator. They won’t settle for anything less. Every person finds his own place according to his desire, work, efforts, and inner aspiration. Everything is determined by the root of one’s soul because this is what one has to realize.

There is no soul higher than Moses; he is the spiritual leader who led the entire nation out of spiritual exile to freedom, thus performing a great correction in the souls. However, this correction only occurred within a part of the souls, whereas now we are awaiting the Messiah who will perform the general correction of the whole world. The Messiah is not a person, but the Light that will bring all of us out of spiritual exile (in Hebrew the word Mashiach originates from the word Moshech – to pull out).

Perhaps there will be a spiritual leader in the form of a person because people are able to perceive the method of correction and to see an example precisely in this form. Alternatively, it might be a group that will hold the spiritual leadership over the world and set an example of how to work together while rejecting one’s personal egoism and elevating the Creator. They will be able to explain the goal of creation to everyone, to show what the Creator demands, and to set an example of love and bestowal, a spiritual union. This will constitute the Sanhedrin, the world’s spiritual leadership.

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We can see that the science of Kabbalah expands and enters the world from the center, from the source. In our generation the source of knowledge and the method of correction is here, in the central Bnei Baruch group.

If any group in the world or any person thinks that he is able to lead himself or the group to the goal correctly, he is deluding himself due to misunderstanding the structure of the system of souls upon which our world is clothed. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that everything always expands from the internality to the externality, or from the Upper Level to the lower one. The same applies to the influence upon our world as well as one’s attainment: First a person ascends to the Upper Level, and from there he can see and influence the lower level.

Therefore, dissemination, influence, correction, and lessons must come only from here, the center. The role of the different groups is to take part in creating materials and disseminating them while submitting to the center in every way, similar to how all parts of an organism act in a coordinated fashion under the governance of one head shared by all. Nothing can start in the middle of the ladder, the pyramid, or some particular group similar to how the structure of the universe is strictly fixed and described.

Baal HaSulam writes in Item 57 of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that if a thousand blind people are led by one person who can see, then they will all be able to follow him; but if there is no leader, they will all perish. Similarly, we observe a special mission on the part of humanity called “Isra-El” (meaning “straight to the Creator”) because the Light of Correction passes through it to all of humanity. Baal HaSulam describes this strict and unchangeable hierarchy in the above article.

Therefore, every person within this system must be connected to the Upper Level as well as the lower level. Above us are our Teachers, the sources, the forefathers, and the Kabbalists of previous generations from whom we learn and by whose teachings we live. Beneath us are our students, all those who come to us wishing to connect to us. This hierarchy must be maintained because we are all able to receive only from the Upper One (see Baal HaSulam’s article, “Faith in the Teacher”).

However, if one person or group decides to act independently, they would be preferring the externality to the internality. They will thus replace the upper with the lower, in which case it would be necessary to immediately correct them or remove them from the common system. From studying the structure of the worlds we see that there is no “democracy,” but a strict subservience to the Upper Level, to the Upper One’s (the Creator’s) example.

Through the connection among the groups and their structure, we are currently implementing the construction of a system that will expand to the whole world, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation.” Then our world will become similar to the Upper World. So where is every person’s freedom? It lies in choosing the right connection with the environment and submitting to it in order to attain similarity to the Creator. This is attained only if one is connected to the Upper One, receives from Him, and carries out the same actions along the same chain of degrees. Thus, every person’s freedom of will lies in preferring the internality over the externality in spite of one’s personal egoistic disturbances or those occurring to the group.

As Baal HaSulam writes in Item 60 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” every person’s action corrects or ruins the entire system. Obviously, this is a dictatorship; however, it comes from Above, from the Creator, and all of us must carry it out by submitting to the Upper One and becoming similar to Him. In addition, we attract the lower one according to a fixed hierarchy. Absolute equality emerges only in the final, corrected state where everyone becomes equal through mutual bestowal.

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A question I received: You said that the students of Rabbi Akiva wrote The Zohar and Talmud. Could you specify who precisely?

My Answer: I said it to emphasize that the Torah came to us from Rabbi Akiva in that his students presented it to us in the form of the revealed Torah, Talmud, and the concealed Torah, Kabbalah.

Rabbi Akiva had five great students (out of 24,000): Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda Bar Ilai, Rabbi Yossi, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi), and Rabbi Elazar Ben Shamoa. Rabbi Yehuda Bar Ilai is the most prominent scholar of the Mishnah. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (a student of Rabbi Akiva’s five great students) finished the Mishnah. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai (Rashbi) wrote The Zohar.

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It may seem that it’s more enjoyable to read The Zohar peacefully, without exerting any effort. But we must demand the intention for every word, and it’s not simple. We shouldn’t consent to simply read The Zohar and let the words “flow” through the ears. Rather, each word should be an opportunity to “break into” the text, an entrance into it.

As I’m reading, I have to see every word as a niche for filling myself with the intention, unification, and connection. I have to realize that every word can add to this connection.

This is the only way we should read The Zohar. Then the Light will come and unite the two opposite properties, Abraham and Isaac, as well as everything that is included between them, into the property of the middle line called Jacob or Israel.

The miraculous property of The Book of Zohar lies precisely in the middle line which unites good and evil together. And it is precisely in their correct connection that we reveal the Creator, the source of everything.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah),” Item 93
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“Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Lesson 26, Lesson 7
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“Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 68
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There are many people living in our world who have no idea how it operates. They are unaware of the structure of social and governmental systems, the laws of nature, the orbiting of planets, and the various connections that exist between people. People can live a very simple life, knowing only what is needed to get along day by day and never burning with desire to know more about how the world functions. In contrast, in our world, some people are more interested and curious to know more, and they research the systems that operate on the world.

The same is true about spiritual existence. Not all people who acquire spiritual perception endeavor to delve deeply into it. They are naturally limited by the root of their soul, which does not demand any more than its level. In other words, it performs its function at its intended place and nothing more is required.

The root of the soul demands more of others who are meant to research the spiritual world. These are Kabbalists. Similar to scientists who examine our world, Kabbalists investigate the entire system of the spiritual world in detail. Kabbalists are meant to come to complete spiritual attainment and perception. This is according to the root of their soul, which compels Kabbalists to include everyone within them and to scrutinize all the details in the spiritual world through synthesis and analysis in order to correct their souls. It is to the extent that one’s soul demands correction that the general reality is perceived by that person.

And it is the degree to which one corrects himself by which he is judged. If one’s correction is 100%, then he is equivalent to the great Kabbalists and is equal to them in all ways. In spirituality, there is no division of people by important and unimportant. It matters that one has done all that was required of him.

Spirituality is a world of bestowal. The approach is a bit different than what we’re used to; a person enters spirituality, looks back, and realizes that he hasn’t done anything! There is nothing left of what a person once fought for or the actions he had performed. Hence, one becomes surrounded only by pure bestowal.

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A question I received: We live our lives in hopes and never achieve pleasure. What will happen when we acquire the desire to bestow? Will we be able to feel pleasure then?

My Answer: When we transform the egoistic intention into the bestowing one, time ceases to exist. The very notion of time disappears because there is no past, present, or future in spirituality. Being in the attribute of bestowal, we don’t inquire about cause and effect. We delight in the act of bestowal that we find ourselves in, needing nothing else. Having the opportunity to bestow is our reward.

But don’t we care about the results of our actions? An opportunity to bestow is the result. For this reason, the concept of time disappears and everything is at absolute rest.

Egoism promises us the future, while in spirituality, there is no future; everything happens in the present. The future is felt only if I reveal the lack of bestowal in my current state, only if I want to bestow more and aspire to it. It’s as if I desire to go from the small World of Infinity to the big one.

This, too, is possible only through “magic,” through egoistic desires that are helping me. They reveal to me the deficiencies of my state, the impurity of my bestowal.
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Our entire life is a spell, a great deceit. The egoistic desire constantly manipulates us, forcing us to work for it. Meanwhile, we are in love with this impure desire of ours and actually desire to be deceived by it.

It lies to us about the end of our path, promising us pleasure and Light when we get there. And along the way it seems like we do receive some kind of pleasure. Even though we don’t have anything besides empty promises, we enjoy them. We think about what we are about to gain and start to feel as if we already have it in the present. We receive sparks of pleasure and they give us hope.

However, there is no Light behind these sparks because the Light does not descend beneath the Parsa, the boundary that separates the World of Atzilut. The Light shines for us from there and awakens these sparks, making us feel hopeful that we will receive the Light. And this goes on throughout our entire lives.

Even though we are always disillusioned and never see any Light, just the sparks, we have no other choice but to keep looking for them in order to feel pleasure. We hope to enjoy ourselves by gaining a little more money, fame, power, knowledge, food, and sex. And thus, we are always on the path, with all our hopes aimed at the future. But the moment the Light is supposed to come to the spark, it does not come and everything immediately disappears.

This constitutes the work of the egoistic desire: to attract us with promises of pleasure, making us constantly desire it and always being on the path, thinking that we are enjoying ourselves. But we never reach the actual pleasure. We only reach disappointment and everything disappears.

In the material world a person’s entire life is based on hopes for the future and he supposes that this is happiness. He believes that all kinds of egoistic pleasures are waiting for him up ahead and tries not to think about the darkness and death that await him.

However, today humanity has developed to a level where it begins to understand that egoistic promises are groundless. But in that case, what are we to do? After all, we can no longer keep living just on hope! We no longer believe in socialism or a beautiful future where everyone will be happy.

As a result, depression and disillusionment are becoming very common; yet, we have to keep living somehow. As a result, people start to lie to themselves even more. They deliberately enter a drunken stupor in order to force themselves to believe. All the mass media channels work for this sake; it is a universal spell that is kept up by society.

This will continue until the lie reaches the breaking point, beyond which it will no longer be possible to keep going.

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A question I received: In our material lives we are in a dead-end situation where it’s impossible to attain pleasure. But what does the science of Kabbalah promise us?

My Answer: When I sit and study The Book of Zohar, it is called Lo Lishma – an egoistic action. I deceive myself because I plan on fulfilling my egoism through this action, but in return I receive the quality of bestowal.

Why does this action end up bringing us success, unlike any other? It’s because by making these actions, I desire to do everything I can to attain bestowal. I look for signs of bestowal along the path, consciously deceiving myself, and I use the Light that brings me correction and draws me closer to itself.

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