Question: Where was Adam when the serpent was tempting Eve? If he were by her side at that moment, he might have chased the serpent away or have protected Eve from it by asking her not to listen to the evil “seducer.”

Answer: He veered off to the left, to the serpent’s wife.

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Question: The more I read The Zohar, the more I realize its power. Is The Zohar truly that deep?

Answer: I will say only this: It’s difficult without The Zohar. You will often feel the need to return to it throughout the day. Anyway you look at it, it’s simply a source of strength.

In the beginning, when a person just opens The Zohar for the first time, he doesn’t know why this book magnetizes and charms him so much and why it is so difficult to go without it. Some start feeling this sooner than others. For some people it can take a long time to feel the power hidden in this book.

Yet sooner or later, everyone begins to feel that they need The Zohar. It’s like water: We need it more than food.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/10, The Zohar

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Question: The mechanics of the development of desire in our world is simple, and we have accumulated thousands of years of experience in it. What new knowledge does the science of Kabbalah offer regarding the use of desire?

Answer: Kabbalah offers the intention; nothing else is necessary! The Creator created the will to receive pleasure and He drives it to evolve. This desire is egoistic, making us constantly run after whatever might fill it. Such behavior characterizes the still, vegetative, and animate levels of existence. However, in our time, after millennia of growth, we have finally evolved to the “human” level (Adam), which is a totally different state of existence. A human is independent of the still, vegetative, and animate ways of existence.

To a human being, the most important thing is the intention, or the reason “why” do I possess the still, vegetative, and animate levels? What do I live for? He wonders about the purpose of life, and when a person has this question, he comes to Kabbalah. This is a totally new inclination where I don’t depend on the previous evolution of my desire. I have evolved, but what now? Now something completely new, mysterious, and unknown lies ahead of me.

Today’s human crisis is the crisis of the formula of our previous development which doesn’t work anymore! The previous period of evolution has ended where the only operating forces were Light and desire, pleasure and hunger. Now I see that there is fulfillment and I feel a need for it, but I don’t understand how the two are connected.

Previously it worked very simply: the greater my desire, the greater its fulfillment. But today even though my desire is enormous, I grab and enjoy what I want for an instant and then it’s gone. As a result, I don’t even want to run after pleasure any more. However, I still have to fill myself with something. Yet, I have nothing to do it with. Do you realize what a disaster this is?

Mankind does not know what to do with the situation. This leads to wars, crime, brutality, and terrorism because the moment man experiences emptiness and longing, he is willing to do whatever it takes to find at least some small fulfillment even for an instant!

We are now going through this transitional time. The egoistic desire has completed its evolution on the still, vegetative, and animate planes of existence. Now it has to grow as a “human,” which means “similar to the Creator.” This is an absolutely new form where one works in bestowal, the reverse of everything that one did before.

We neither comprehend this action nor where to get the strength for it. We do not have the mind, the desire, and the environment for it. We only have the science of Kabbalah, and even that is available only for those who have already discovered it. That is why we are making such great efforts to disseminate it because we would like to accelerate evolution and offer a remedy well in advance before the next blow strikes.

Otherwise no one will know what to do with this life: neither politicians, nor sociologists, nor psychologists, or any other scientists. Mankind will give up and agree to any sort of existence, hoping to conceal what is really happening and to continue living at least somehow.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (Jacob Lived),” Item 119: “Only your fathers did the Lord desire.” “Your fathers,” actually three—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It writes, “Only,” really only, that there are no more than these three, and from them all the others branch out and grip, meaning all the degrees in BYA. They rise for MAN to ZON, to crown the Name, to extend new Mochin to the Nukva, who is called “Name.”

The Zohar always brings us to the middle line in all the states. That is its mission: to constantly show us how we can arrange the two lines we receive from Above, from the Creator – the force of bestowal and the force of reception. The Zohar shows us how to build our reality out of them so we are above the force of bestowal and the force of reception. We ascend above both of them and receive them to the degree we are able to include one inside the other. Their mutual combination builds the middle line in us.

The middle line is built out of the sum of two lines, by using the best from both of them. The middle line is formed when the left line becomes included in the right line, and the right line  in the left line, and then you take what is shared between them – their mutual combination from both sides (Malchut in Bina and Bina in Malchut). That is how you make the middle line.

This is the fundamental principle, and the same thing happens to the soul. The soul does not exist unless we build it. Even though it is called “a piece of the Creator from Above,” in fact this piece does not come from the Creator unless I build it through the connection between us. This spiritual vessel (Kli) does not exist. We build it in the form of a connecting net between us.

The same thing happens with the middle line because it is the soul. The right and left lines, bestowal and reception, come to us. They are both forces of nature. When I combine them in the right way, then the middle line or the soul is formed out of them.

In our relationships we deal with the forces of bestowal and reception. Based on our reception we build the form of bestowal, and that is how we attain the soul by creating a middle line between us. There is no reality besides the one we build between us. Everything becomes revealed there, in that reality.

The Zohar brings the middle line to us from Above. While reading it, we have to try to become included into that line. Then we are tuned to the same wave through which the Light comes to us and returns us to the Source, the Creator.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/10, The Zohar

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Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

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Kabbalah TV Channel 66’s Kabbalah for Beginners, “Slihot”
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It’s very easy to determine whether the path is a spiritual one: Everything that we agree with does not relate to spirituality! It is specifically the contradictions that our mind and senses do not accept, that are undesirable and repulsive to us, that relate to spirituality. We should work on these in particular.

If I sense that a certain state won’t bring me any benefit either in my senses or mind, then by rising above this particular state, I can start building spirituality. Most likely, in this state it will be impossible to “buy” me, and I won’t look for a selfish profit; rather, I will need the Creator’s help in order to rise above it. In other words, I constantly check myself: How much does my body resist my work? And for me this is the sign of my correct spiritual advancement.

Further on, I need to examine what I’m doing it for. Perhaps I want to overcome myself and pursue some personal goals. Or maybe I want to find love of the Creator which is repulsive to my “body,” my egoistic sensation and mind. And I’m searching for love that is built on hatred toward egoistic thoughts and desires about oneself.

Often, however, we are not trying to transcend our bodies and regret that we are unable to work according to our mind and feelings contained in the body. Instead of looking for a state that is beyond our sensations and mind, we wish to be in it.

First and foremost we need to push the body “down,” along with its feelings and mind, and be above them, not to take them into account. That is, I take them into consideration, but only in order to rise above them. Then it’s called faith above reason. But instead, I regret: Why is everything not revealed within my reason so that I can act as a sensible person and know that I have intellect and personal strength to advance correctly…

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/10, “When A Person Knows What the Fear of God Is”

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Baal HaSulam, The Study of Ten Sefirot, Part 7, Questions and Answers, Item 7: The Achoraim of Nukva are NHY de Nukva, where there is the principal grip of the Klipot as long as they lack He’arat Hochma. This is so because it is adjacent to the Klipot as it ends the Ohr Atzilut and from it downward begin the Klipot, by way of “Her feet go down to death.”

All anti-egoistic screens that accompanied the desires in their descent from the World of Infinity to the degree of Malchut de Atzilut end at Nukva. The screens end, and the egoistic desires “grip” on Nukva since through her there’s a chance to capture Light.

Nukva, with her nine lower Sefirot, descends to the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) and has no strength to resist the unclean forces (Klipot). Nonetheless, she stays in a particular “balance” with them. When the Upper One resides within the Klipot, and the Klipot are able to “grab” something from it, by the same token, the Upper One is able to “grab” the Klipa, to analyze this desire and correct it. This is what happens constantly in Malchut de Atzilut with the broken souls. Inasmuch as they desire to “grip” on it and draw its Light, it can draw and correct them.

Without such mutual work, when each one strives to draw the opposite side to itself, there wouldn’t be any discernment and correction. Therefore, all our work (as the Torah describes) consists of transgressions and corrections that take place over and over again. All these fluctuations back and forth, from holiness to wickedness and vice versa, occur between Nukva and the broken souls that must discover their broken state.

These broken parts are revealed only when they are joined with Nukva; otherwise, they wouldn’t see that they are broken. As a result of such action, the Creator (Zeir Anpin) is aroused, and so tells the Torah when it describes how the Creator speaks with Moshe and apprehends his people for another sin.

In this way, Nukva reveals in the souls that their desire is egoistic. Nukva lifts a part of the souls that she is able to incorporate into herself up to Zeir Anpin. Zeir Anpin, the Creator, comes and cries, “What have you done?” This is the correct reaction to the desires which soon are going to be corrected.

We simply don’t understand the Torah. It doesn’t speak about any transgressions, but only about how the desires are revealed when they come to correction. At the instant when they are revealed, we “rejoice in the revelation of the wicked,” as Baal HaSulam writes. We rejoice because the “wicked” who aren’t revealed have no chance at correction. And who knows when it’s going to happen?

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The work that we do with our spiritual commonality is very similar to the “Tamagotchi” effect (a Japanese toy that obligates one to care for something virtual and nonexistent). The player becomes so consumed and fixated on the toy that for him it becomes more than real! He simply must stop everything he is doing and take care of the toy, “feed it.”

Interestingly enough, egoism doesn’t prevent him from caring for it. After all, this isn’t another person who he needs to compete with; rather, it’s an abstract “easy-to-care” for being, although it subtly imposes its own will on the person.

The same happens in our spiritual stimulator: On one hand, we separate ourselves from people and create something abstract where I depersonalize absolutely everyone, separate them from their bodies, appearance, and personality. But I leave their points in the heart, their aspirations towards unity for the sake of revealing the common force of love: the Creator.

On the other hand, it is nevertheless our desire, our yearning that is abstracted from the body and everything that separates us from each other. On the contrary, we are united by our common dream, our common need to reach the goal and do it only together.

This system is already becoming a supranational, multilingual world community. It will become the common spiritual root of all humanity because the idea is to unite all the people in the world. At first, we put all our strength into creating a system of connection, love, and bestowal between us. And afterwards, “the Ark carries those who carry it”: It will take the lead and begin to shape us with the Upper Light which will manifest within it to the extent that we create the vessel of bestowal.

In this system, we give the opportunity to the Upper Force of nature which exists in the unity among people to "enter" us and manifest between us. And it will begin to operate within us, nurture us, and lead us ahead towards the purpose of creation.

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