Question: How do we teach children the language of branches so they will come to understand the roots as quickly as possible?

Answer: I would read the Tanakh (the Pentateuch) with your child and explain the inner meaning to him. Children have good memories and imaginations, and they can easily translate the superficial tale into the internal process that you explain to them.

Then I would suggest to them to do the opposite by writing down the things they see in our world from an internal point of view, using the language of roots instead of branches.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 2/10/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Every science is a language. However, in regular science you explain your attainments on the same level as you attain them (in the same world), whereas using the language of Kabbalah you explain what you attain in relation to the root. This is the difference between regular science and the science of Kabbalah. You record any phenomenon that you study and attain in this world on the same level that you attain and research it. However, in Kabbalah you do not attain matter itself, but its connection with the root. This is the most important thing!

Baal HaSulam writes the following in the article, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”: …physics is mere knowledge of the arrangements of a particular kind existing in a particular world. It is unique to its subject, and no other wisdom is included in it.

This is not so with the wisdom of truth, since it is knowledge of the whole of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking in all the worlds with all their instances and conducts, as they were included in the Creator’s Thought, that is, in the purpose. For this reason, all the teachings in the world, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, are wondrously included in it….

The connection with the root is unique to the science of Kabbalah. That is what enables it to include all the other sciences in itself. You can explain the qualities of a certain matter at this moment or the connection between phenomena, but this does not explain the essence of things and phenomena.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 2/10/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Do supernatural powers exist in our world?

Answer: The natural and the supernatural are measured in relation to man, according to his nature and the level of his development. For example, if a person living 500 years ago was shown a plane, he would be very scared at seeing this metal bird flying through the air without even moving its wings!

However, supernatural does not stand for anything more powerful than me. Right now there is something that controls me, but tomorrow I will control it. Supernatural stands for something “above my nature,” something that I will never attain naturally.

The nature of our world is completely egoistic. It is the desire to receive pleasure from everything possible, to come closer to beneficial things and farther from harmful things. The opposite nature, bestowal and love, is above this level.

The forces of bestowal and love are greater than our nature since they do not have the limitations that come from perceiving things only for the sake of one’s individual pleasure. These forces can only be activated on the condition that you acquire them by rising above your nature into the opposite nature. Then you will have a different perception of reality, as it is written: “I saw a reverse world.” This reality is not limited by time, space, and movement. It is infinite and harmonious, without collisions or boundaries. Once you attain it, you exist in it.

We do not feel that reality now because we possess opposite qualities. But those who have acquired qualities above their nature do perceive it. You could say that this kind of person, who is called a Kabbalist, has supernatural powers.
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From the program “Ask the Kabbalist” on 6/23/10

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A person comes to Kabbalah after awakening to the need to learn the concealed upper force, the purpose and the reason for his existence, and the meaning of his life. As he goes through stages in his spiritual development, a person reaches a critical point and begins to think about the ways to attain the spiritual world. Previously he used to think that spirituality could be attained with what he has, meaning the five senses, the mind, and the regular perception of reality.

But at a certain stage, one begins to feel that the spiritual world cannot be revealed this way and that to do it, he needs to change himself. That’s when he remembers a famous saying: “I created the evil inclination and the Torah for its correction, because the Light contained in it returns one to the Source.”

Every person envisions the spiritual world in his own way. The wisdom of Kabbalah defines it as the property of love and bestowal where a person comes out of his egoistic properties and begins to reveal the higher reality in the properties of bestowal that are opposite to his.

Kabbalists explain that it is necessary for us to develop the property of bestowal, that is, to perform the correction of the heart (desire). This means that if right now our desire works to receive, we need to change it so as to perceive the desires of others like our own. The entire method consists of correcting our ego, which desires to consume everything, through developing a sense above it, which means to come out of our desire.

By the time I came to study Kabbalah, I already had over twenty years of education. I was a scientist and an entrepreneur, whereas all of the Kabbalists who I happened to study with were simple people. I remember having a conversation with Rabash when he told me that he began his employment as a blacksmith assistant, then was a shoemaker, and at the end of his career he worked at a tax collector’s office. Yet, I was convinced that I would be able to attain more with my mind. It took me time to understand that Kabbalah is a science of feelings and that we need to correct our heart.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that the mind awakens in us only to the extent of the heart employing it. The heart wishes to know what it is feeling and why, where feelings come from, and how they can be changed. And then the heart employs the mind.

It is a known fact that our mind works better when we are facing problems and misery. The need that arises develops the mind. Thus, the function of the system called “mind” is to help us fulfill our desire.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a science of developing the feeling of love. In other words, I need to attain an ability to connect with everyone else’s desires or needs and accept them as my own. My concern for the needs of another as my own is called my love for him. This bears no relation to receiving fulfillment or pleasure from someone else, but on the contrary, my pleasure will come from fulfilling others.

People who start studying Kabbalah acquire new feelings in the heart which enable them to gradually begin to understand that in reality there is infinite fulfillment and pleasure from being able to come out of one’s own self and fulfilling others. This gives a person an incessant and unlimited opportunity which suddenly reveals a new perception of reality, a new horizon to him.

This is because a person who comes out of himself and begins to feel the needs of others instead of his own ceases perceiving himself, and gradually comes to a state when he no longer needs to take care of himself. When we find the property of bestowal, we receive the fulfillment there and acquire the upper world through it, becoming like the Creator.
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From my lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 12/21/10

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Does It Mean that a Woman that Impregnates First, Gives Birth to a Male in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Second Commandment,”  Item 203, Lesson 2
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 77, Lesson 44
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “Conveyance From A Wise Kabbalist to an Understanding Receiver,”  Lesson 10
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A person is faced with a big problem: How does he know what world he is living in? How is he supposed to view reality? What perspective should he choose? How does he detach from the inner deception and see not what he wishes to see in his egoism, but rather an objective view devoid of ego’s attributes, desires, and emotions?

We know that we judge according to how corrupted we are and look with subjective, biased eyes which fully distort our perspective of life. The world does the same. We witness how throughout history people were deceived in their perception of reality, their approach to life, unable to comprehend the world they were living in and why.

A person who studies Kabbalah has an opportunity to see the truth, but a person who is locked in the internal sphere of our world, bound by this small circle, cannot see anything that goes beyond its boundaries. Inside it, he sees everything according to his ego, based on his personal benefit, and is unable to think about anything else.

Either way, all his aspirations are aimed inward, solely toward his inner point. Hence, it can’t be that he can develop a desire or thought to see something outside of his own, innermost interest. He is made initially in such way so as to be unable to see or feel anything that does not correspond with his inner point. A person cannot even start thinking about it since it is completely outside the realm of his perception.

There may be another reality next to him that is billions of times greater and more powerful than the one he experiences in his inner egoistic point, but he has absolutely no interest in it and, therefore, can’t see it. His information genes (Reshimot) dictate that he should care solely about things that involve only himself, and that is exactly what he does.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “And Jethro Heard,” Item 73: A black hair that is not yellow sometimes succeeds and sometimes does not succeed. It is good for partnering with and for exerting with it for a short time, not for a long time, since for a long time, he will think thoughts. And to not part from him, he is good for a short while. He will succeed in the Torah if he exerts in it, and others will succeed in him. He has no secret for a long time, his heart is narrow, fear in his enemies. His enemies cannot overcome him….

As it is written in The Zohar, when a person does not have a clear perception of the spiritual world, he understands The Zohar literally. He is convinced that this Book is full of miracles and secret knowledge and that one can use it to read his fortune, predict the future, distinguish good and bad people, give everyday advice, and make money with it.

On one hand, this is incorrect. Material explanations of these texts serve as the basis for all confusions. On the other, when we look at this through the perspective of thousands of years, we see that people will not attain the truth without these confusions. They must become confused and “un-confused.” This way, they will acquire knowledge.

For the last two-thousand years we existed within the religious framework, and we had to live this way. This applies to all of humanity with all its beliefs and religions. We must go through this entire confusion because without it, we cannot connect together the properties of the Creator, Bina, and the properties of the creation, egoism, Malchut, on the level of the lower Malchut, egoism of our world.

What do all the beliefs and religions represent? They represent a certain spark of the spiritual world which needs to be introduced through force into our corporeal world, the desire to receive pleasure, and it can only be introduced in this form. It needs to be made into a mixture in the egoistic desire, Malchut.

The manifestation of the three lines of the Light, the descent of the three Klipot (shells) to the level of our world, was the reason for the origin of all the beliefs, the three religions, the multitude of spiritual methodologies, amulets, and so on. All of them are dictated by the desire to succeed in our egoism, Malchut, in this and/or the future world through Bina, the upper force, which allegedly exists in religion (spiritual practices).

However, without these “spiritual” activities, humanity would not be able to exist in the combination of Malchut and Bina, even on the level of our world. Bina must enter Malchut and give as well as absorb from Malchut everything it can.

After the end of the mutual inclusion of beliefs and religions (Bina of our world) into human egoism (Malchut of our world), the process of analysis, selection, separation, and correction begins. This is happening in our time when people begin to analyze the essence of religion from this mixture.

Those who joined Abraham had figured this out back in ancient Babylon; the rest are figuring this out now. This is why The Zohar, written with a language like this, can evoke absolutely different opinions depending on who is reading it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/2010, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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The only thing that can help us is self-annulment before the group, the teacher, and the Creator. This involves connecting to the environment and absorbing from it as much as humanly possible.

History presents us with many such examples. For instance, one of them is Joshua Bin Nun who merited becoming Moses’ successor. It is our internal force that leads a person to the final stage of correction, by lovingly bringing him or her closer to the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), after the force of Moses has done its part.

It is the most exalted rung of receiving in order to bestow! And how did Joshua merit it? He merited it by helping Moses while the latter was teaching the people: He cleaned the room and “straightened the benches.”

In other words, he cleaved to his teacher’s actions and wanted to be his inseparable part, thereby receiving Moses’ wisdom. It was he who merited and not the students who were studying. He didn’t even study, but rather received spirituality “Peh El Peh” (“from mouth to mouth,” through the common screen), by having adhered to his teacher.

And those who did study also received it, each at their own degree (they were great Kabbalists as well), but not as exalted as that of Joshua Bin Nun. Were they not aware of such principle? They were, but could not apply it.

It all depended on how strongly a person is trying to annul himself before the teacher and the group. I would also add that “good fortune” plays a part in this too. That is, additional settings provided a helping hand which we are not aware of that descend from Above, “dripping” downward (“luck” or “Mazal,” from the Hebrew word “Nozel” or “a trickle, drip”). It is strongly determined by the root of the soul from its predestination.

But there is no point in discussing what is not up to us. We have to do what is up to us, which is self-annulment.

It is described everywhere and isn’t news to anyone. What do we do if we are not succeeding? I know from my own experience how hard it is to achieve. Usually, a person stumbles over the simplest obstacles: They seem so easy to overcome, and yet he can’t. He even understands that it is beneficial in every respect, even the corporeal one, but something inside him prevents him from doing so.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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We are experiencing a very unusual period in human history. Beginning now and onward, all generations will live guided by the attempt to go from perceiving reality within to perceiving reality outside of us.

This is why we feel such a great emptiness inside us, in our family lives, in our relationships with children and others, in everything that we do. This is not only observed in separate individual countries, but throughout the entire world as well.

The changes happening in the ecology and climate of the planet become a bigger threat with every year. But all of this happens in order to change the perception of reality within us, which evokes a very unpleasant sensation, to the ability to go out of our egoistic world and discover that we have now gone from perceiving evil to perceiving goodness.

And if we were to come to the desire to bestow, then, naturally, we would be happy because we would not be destroying ourselves in a global world where we are all integrally connected. On the contrary, we would succeed in furthering our advancement because it is the only possible way to live and exist instead of destroying one another.

But until we change our attitude towards us, other people, the world, and general reality, nature will not stop pressuring us because we have already crossed the designated line. Essentially, what does Kabbalah say about this? It says that if we want to continue to develop without suffering, we should come into agreement with the higher state of nature (we do not have a choice) and understand that our current state is very bad.

This perspective gives us an opportunity to develop beautifully, and rewards us with an existence in an eternal and perfect world which becomes revealed here, through the changes in our perception. For this reason, in everything that happens to us, we must see it as a great help from Above, from the entirety of common nature, which helps and directs us this way towards the proper advancement, even though sometimes it manifests through unpleasant influences.

But if we are sensitive to all the little signs of this sort, like a smart, obedient child who understands how to find a common language with the grownups, we will advance well. We really have a wonderful adventure ahead of us instead of a hard life.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 12/28/2010 "Opportunities for Development"

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