In the article "The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy," Baal HaSulam mentions a tale of the wise King Solomon who was deceived, exiled from Jerusalem, and left without money and personal belongings; he went from door to door in his kingdom, but wherever he went, no one believed he was a king.

The question is: Why didn’t anyone notice that he was a sage, and why didn’t he demonstrate his wisdom to them? The answer is that there are “three obstacles” in detecting the wisdom (of Kabbalah):

1. Because Kabbalah contains the truth, it is impossible to comprehend it without having gathered all of its parts and studying it in full. Without having achieved this, one can’t discover its universal and integral nature. But in order to achieve this, the knowledge about its authentic truth must be spread throughout the masses.
   
2. The demon Asmodeus (the egoistic, reverse image of truth and bestowal) dressed in King Solomon’s garments and took over his throne. Similarly, philosophy has placed itself in Kabbalah’s throne. Hence, the difficulty of revealing the truth to the masses grows. After all, the wisdom of Kabbalah is deep and requires exerting effort, whereas philosophy is false, easy to absorb, and accepts anybody’s notions. Therefore, egoism, the heart, gravitates to the opinion that there is no need to study Kabbalah and it is quite enough to be satisfied with philosophy.
   
3. Asmodeus claimed that King Solomon was insane, just like philosophy ridicules and attempts to challenge the wisdom of Kabbalah.

In other words, to acknowledge the truth of the wisdom of Kabbalah is challenging. When we wish to present it to the masses, they say that they don’t need it since they have everything they need. People think that they are wise enough, and whatever Kabbalah says about the upper world is a fantasy, not an authentic truth, for man doesn’t see it.

So, it looks like it is impossible to reach the masses with Kabbalah in order for them to understand that it is right and that it contains the truth and a solution. After all, they are in a state where they are unable to see and acknowledge that it is the only means of salvation.

And so, until King Solomon reached the supreme assembly of sages (the Sanhedrin), who were Kabbalists themselves, and while he walked among his people, as the tale narrates, nobody managed to recognize the king in him, the greatest and the wisest of all. After all, in order to understand it, you yourself have to have the same wisdom and attainment as he does. And if you don’t possess it, you will understand nothing.

The sages of Kabbalah of the Sanhedrin were the only ones who were able to detect deception. But where will you find them today?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/2011, "The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy"

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As we read the works of Kabbalists, people who have revealed the upper world, the super-reality, we do not understand or feel what they talk about, but simply follow their words. They tell us that there is an upper force which is unattainable by itself. On our part, we attain it as the Creator, the Good who Does Good. Coming from this quality, the Creator made creation and desires for it to develop and receive His goodness.

The goodness lies in becoming equal to the Creator. There is nothing better or higher than that. Therefore, “doing good” means bringing creation to the level of the Creator. To do that we have to acquire two parameters, which are inherent in Him: perfection and independence. In principle, independence is part of perfection, but for us it has a special meaning and is of prime importance. We must be independent like the Creator. Just as He existed by Himself before creation, so must we reach the same degree of independence despite being His creatures.

Besides, we have to be able to attain the degree of the Good who Does Good ourselves and acquire this quality as well. In order to give us this opportunity, the Creator made a perfect state where we are identical to Him, similar, united, and unified in every way—in qualities, in perception, in independence, and every other regard.

From this initial and final state, He lowered us into various details of perfection until we reached total oppositeness. Then, from this opposite state, He gives us the opportunity to return to perfection with a valuable possession. All we need is to come back home.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: During the Second Temple period Kabbalists would sit for two hours preparing to read the prayer, “Hear, O Israel.” Why is it that we, who are so small compared to them, are presented with a much more complex reality where we come to the lesson totally disoriented and confused, and struggle for a few minutes to get some kind of focus before reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: In those times Kabbalists had to enter the spiritual states that The Zohar talks about. They had to ascend up the levels from a total lack of spiritual sensation because every level begins from zero. It takes time for people to unite in one intention, to reach unity at the appropriate level, and to enter this state through the common sensation.

This can be compared to how parachute jumpers prepare for a common jump: They wrap up their parachutes, get into a plane, fly up beyond the clouds, jump from there, and while in free fall, without opening up the parachute yet, they connect with each other, creating different forms in the air.

This is a huge preparation for new unification on high spiritual levels. That is why it takes so much time, in accordance with the height of the level. The level obligates them to this.

On the other hand, if you are playing around here below, by yourself, without feeling others, then it’s enough for you to grab on to some thought “by the tail,” and that’s all. Let us hope that we will come to need the same preparation as the Kabbalists of the past.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/11, The Zohar

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Coming closer to others means bringing their desires and thoughts closer to you so you will feel them as the desires of your own children. In the same way, the whole world has to become important to me as if they are all my family.

Then I will feel this “familial” connection more and more until I start to feel that they are parts of me, and even more than that—that they are actually me! This is a purely psychological problem.

To the degree I come closer to others, I feel the force that fills the space between us. That is where the Creator becomes revealed. The more concerned I am about every person in the world, the closer I come to the Creator and the more chances I have to reveal Him.

However, if I repel others and the opportunity to come closer to them, surrounding myself with my egoistic interests, I thereby shut myself and everyone else off from the Creator, from goodness and abundance. Thus, I evoke all of the evil and suffering in the world.

If people don’t start using the science of Kabbalah, then they will start separating from each other, and that includes separate individuals as well as entire nations. Then darkness will close in on people, being much more powerful than it is now. The Creator will distance Himself from us more and more, and when He reaches the critical mark, that is when a world war will begin. Everything depends only how close or far this upper force is. Its distancing will evoke all the explosions, catastrophes, epidemics, and wars, including a world war.

For now we are simply in “exile” (the loss of the sensation of the Creator). He is pretty close to us and is deliberately coming even closer in order to reveal the world’s global connection to us. It is still not too late. We have to understand that we are responsible for bringing this knowledge to everyone, and in this regard everything depends on our desire.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/11, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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There is a triangle and we—all seven billion of us—are at its bottom. The closer we come to each other, the more we reveal the Creator. Everything depends on whether we match Him or not.

We can repel Him by repelling everyone else. To the degree I repel other people, I repel the Creator and then experience Him as evil and suffering. To the degree I desire to come closer to others in order for all of us to be together, I begin feeling the good that comes from Him.

I cannot influence the Creator directly. He is concealed from me and I cannot reach Him, grab onto Him, bring Him to me, or force Him. The only thing I can do is make actions in my realm below. If we act together here, below, then we influence Him to the same measure. This is the entire wisdom of Kabbalah: to work with each other, coming closer together, and to the degree we succeed, we bring the Creator closer to ourselves.

The Creator is the constant force of goodness that does not change, as it is written, “I did not change my name HaVaYaH.” This is a force of nature that has an unchangeable desire and thought. It is like a constant field of memory in a computer (ROM) that we cannot change. It is attached to us and influences us automatically to the degree we influence others.

We all influence one another, and according to this the upper force influences us without changing by itself in the slightest. We can also say that He is already among us and by coming closer and uniting with each other, we make Him become revealed, as if bringing Him closer to us. And by separating from each other, we repel Him and don’t let Him be revealed.

The closer this force is to us, the better we feel because it is the force of goodness. The more we repel each other, repelling the Creator to the same degree, the worse we feel because we repel the source of goodness and prosperity. This is a very simple mechanism.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/11, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Question: In the corporeal world, I have to see and draw a line between two points in order to connect them. How can I connect two souls with the help of The Zohar’s text?

Answer: I don’t know what my soul is, and I know even less about what the other souls are. Moreover, I will never know this. I only need to develop the correct attitude towards them called “bestowal,” and that’s it.

I have no awareness of who I am, nor do I know who my friend is. All I need to do is love him, and that’s enough. It means that I attain the force of the Creator, which rules between us. My open attitude towards the other person, my ability to like and love him is the Creator’s force, the force of bestowal. It is the Creator since He is omnipotent, and I become His part.

We don’t know who anyone is right now; it will be revealed later on. All I need to do is accept the conditions as they unfold. But all of my attention should go towards connection without contemplating who I am as I am the one who is supposed to make the effort to love the others right now.

Yet, to the degree of my effort to bring myself to love and bestowal, I will know my friend and myself even more. I will attain it only if I tie myself and him together with love, then both of our souls will be revealed. It will happen only under this condition.

Therefore, I should focus on the correct attitude towards others, the point where I can exert my effort, my desire, in order for it to be revealed. But how can I create and achieve such desire? Where does it come from? It comes from the group; it is where I influence my friends and they influence me. I have to feel my lowliness in order to receive the importance of the goal from them, and the Creator will be revealed between us.

Thus, I unveil this point more and more using the force of one gram, and all of the worlds light up. Why do I do it? In order to attain this entire labyrinth, to pass through it, learn the whole program of creation, and attain the entire wisdom.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Question: Why during reading The Book of Zohar do we not only have to focus on our mutual connection but also need to listen to the commentaries on The Zohar?

Answer: First of all, if we read the original text of The Zohar, we have virtually nothing to go by. Therefore, we need the commentaries. A commentary is a connecting, somewhat-abridged authentic source either in the outer form, in the degree, or in several criteria at the same time. But it connects us to the original.

The Zohar per se is also a commentary on the Torah. The major part of The Zohar is based on citations taken from the Torah, which it processes in a different form. Does The Zohar comment on these passages at a level lower than that which the Torah was written by Moses or not? I don’t want to discuss it, but such question does arise.

Does the Sulam commentary reduce the degree of The Book of Zohar by making it closer to our understanding? We understand little of this. The following could be said: Each commentary includes two extreme points. At its highest point, the authors of The Zohar share Moses’ revelation at his level; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to make the commentary.

But they write the commentary itself with the reader in mind, meaning in a simplified form and at a lower degree of the spiritual ladder. After all, the entire benefit from revealing the Torah lies in using it to correct the will to enjoy, as described by the verse: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah for its correction.”

Hence, the author of a commentary has to stand on both levels: at the degree where he is receiving the source and at a lower degree to which he wishes to pass this source but in a more suitable form, adjusted to the receiver’s degree. This is the goal of each commentary.

Therefore, up to now, nothing can replace the Sulam commentary since on one hand, Baal HaSulam attained the degree of the ARI having thereby received the incarnation of the ARI’s soul and having attained the degree of The Zohar’s writers. On the other hand, he approximated The Zohar to our degree, explaining it in the three lines, in the language of Kabbalah, using the definitions of Partzufim, the worlds, Sefirot, Reshimot, and so on.

We don’t need anything else but to try to actualize it on ourselves. However, now the whole world is supposed to be approaching the transformation of souls. Hence, to make The Zohar easier to understand for the masses, we have somewhat refined The Zohar’s text from numerous symbols that might be an obstacle for a layman, in order to make the reading itself easier for him.

But we never add any comments of our own and only facilitate the mechanical reading of the text to help a person understand the text. We simply put it through some kind of “filter” that extracts all Aramaic language from it as well as some references and various versions. This is, in essence, what we did with the book The Zohar for All. Let’s hope that in this form, The Zohar is even more ready to use for the correction of the souls.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Torah Develops the Recognition of Evil in a Person

Accordingly, what should one do in order to come to love the Creator? For that purpose we are granted the remedy [Segula] of engaging in Torah and Mitzvot [Kabbalah] for the Light in it reforms. There is Light there, which lets one feel the severity of the state of separation. And slowly, as one intends to acquire the Light of Torah, hatred for separation is created in him. He begins to feel the reason that causes him and his soul to be separated and far from the Creator. [Only the inner part of Torah, Kabbalah, is capable of attracting the Light that Reforms. Then a person will sense that he is an egoist and will desire correction.]

– Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article #34, “The Profit of a Land”

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Question: Why did the world of Nekudim break?

Answer: The world of Nekudim miscalculated. It thought that it would manage to receive the entire infinite Light of the Final Correction “in order to bestow,” but failed since it unexpectedly started to feel self-gratification. It didn’t ever realize that there were such deep desires in it and, against them, such exalted Light, such immense pleasures.

Rabash demonstrates this by telling a story about a man who comes to a wedding party thinking that he can please the bride and groom by celebrating and dancing along with the other guests. However, after a few drinks, he eventually loses his sense of reality and starts getting loud at the table. So, he is taken out, brought home to his wife, and from then on nobody wants to invite him to weddings.

Now, he needs to correct himself and start watching his actions: in what shape he arrives to the party and how much he can drink, which is only a little just to honor the host and never step over the boundary. A similar story happened to the world of Nekudim.

Yet, none of this was in vain. The world of Nekudim broke in order to show the created being what it is compared to the Creator. In fact, all that had been revealed to it before the breaking wasn’t real, as it were. Never before had the creature been able to see the essence of its egoistic desire when faced with the Light carrying pleasure. It had always acted with the intention “to bestow” given by the Creator.

The Creator creates a creature in the world of Infinity, fills it with all of Light of Infinity in all desires (Kelim), and gives it all the intentions. Then, the creature makes a restriction, wants to receive in order to bestow, all thanks to the force of Light present in it.

This isn’t hard to understand: I am operated by the Light, and I follow its orders. It isn’t I who acts, but the two forces of the Creator: the will to receive and the will to bestow. The same pertains to nature in spirituality. The inanimate and vegetative, holy animals and angels, are all subject to this mechanism.

The nature of the creature is revealed for the first time when the creature acts independently, which is during the breaking of the worlds. The creature makes calculations based on the Light that is present in it and thinks that it can (as it always did before) receive all the Light in order to bestow, thereby completing correction.

All of a sudden, it turns out that everything that was done before was done by the force of Light, by its force of bestowal that filled you. It never was your decision; it was simply given to you at birth. Now, for the first time, your own nature comes to the surface.

Therefore, after the breaking, we can already speak of some creature that performs independent acts. It collects its empty desires which lack the screen and says, “And now, I will do it myself and receive the Light into them in order to bestow.” It’s like a foolish, willful son who, instead of a real weapon received from his father, the King, decides to go to war with a toy shield and sword as the fable describes.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: Will revealing the evil within make it more difficult for the person to acquire love of others?

Answer: But this is exactly what you are revealing: the evil in relation to love and unification with others. All the other evil pertains to the animate level.

For example, there are dogs that bite, and there are nice, cute dogs that are pets. Animals also have different personalities. However, we are not referring to a good or bad temper, but to the way a person reveals the real evil when he begins to unite with others. The actual evil inclination becomes revealed precisely in the rejection of the goal.

I unite with others in order to attain the goal, the Creator. We reveal the evil only when we aspire toward the goal. Evil does not become revealed without a connection to the goal. I can have a bad temper, I could lack patience and be irritable; however, this is neither called “evil” nor does it pertain to spirituality.

But when I try to attain love for my friends in order to acquire love for the Creator and I discover how much it sickens me, then evil is the degree of resentment and rejection. Evil is the aversion to unity.

Filter all the human properties and rid yourself of all the animate. There are “dogs,” “rabbits,” and “donkeys” sitting within us. Leave it all; do not take it into consideration. The prophets wrote in reference to this: “I came, and there was no man.” Evil is only associated with unity and aspiration toward the Creator.

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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/11, “What is the Bread of the Evil Eye at Work”

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