The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Emor,” Selected Excerpts
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Love - No Comments →

Question: Why is it that my mind understands that the Creator is worthy of being justified for what He is doing to me right now, but I am feeling bad nonetheless? Why can’t I affect my inner state with external actions such as a prayer?

Answer: What your desire is feeling at the moment is, in fact, you. In spirituality, you can’t pretend and say something you don’t feel. You have to come to the correction of your heart. And before anything else, we still have to figure out what exactly is in our hearts.

If you are crying, what is crying in you: your eyes or your heart? That’s the difference! The problem is that everything we do is on the outside, while the science of Kabbalah is the internal wisdom, the inner part of the Torah. You must dig into the heart of hearts, study, and test it.

Then you’ll understand that external actions only stand in your way and cover the authentic image up; they deceive and confuse you. You need to bare your heart and work with it without any outer theatrics, laments, and tears!

If you take a sedative and stop raging, will it really turn a sinner in you into a righteous one? No, everything is evaluated by the inner feeling in the heart. And we know what it is like. We think that all we have to do is to become embittered and make ourselves cry. Kabbalah doesn’t cancel external actions, but it wants them to reflect the internal state since without it being true, our work is pointless, and we won’t fulfill our designation.

Therefore, don’t fear that you’ll have to become a “sinner” at one point and “righteous” at another. They are two stages of the same spiritual degree, as it is said: “One cannot carry out a Mitzva (commandment) unless one breaks it first.” This means that one first undergoes the burdening of the heart (an additional load of egoism), and he is regarded as a “sinner” who broke the “Mitzva” and feels to what extent he is unable to do it.

And then, he gets stronger with the help of the environment, demands the Light that Reforms, corrects his desire, and becomes “righteous,” only to fall again. After all, he receives another dose of egoistic desire and turns into a “sinner” once more, in order to keep correcting himself in order to become “righteous.” It is said: “A thousand times the righteous will fall and rise again.”

Every spiritual degree starts with a new load of egoism, and you start it as “a sinner.” Afterward, you finish correcting it and reach adhesion with the Creator at this degree, and then you are regarded as the righteous.
[41999]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/2011, Shamati No. 16

Related Material:
An Honorable Task Of Becoming Righteous
Don’t Scream “No!” Standing At The Threshold
Spiritual Endurance

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: I feel that when I started studying Kabbalah, I could hear the Creator’s voice more clearly. And now, I feel my receptivity has decreased.

Answer: That is because the Creator wants to tune you to Himself even better and demonstrates to you that you are not attuned to Him well enough. And you should search so that the most exalted feeling that you have experienced so far would constantly be alive in you. You must, regardless of the obstacles, constantly tune to that previous feeling, while it will be new nonetheless.

In the beginning of creation, in our first state of existence (1), we felt only the Light of “Nefesh,” the smallest Light. And then, we descended into our world, into the broken state (2), and are now ascending from our world back to the third state (3).

The third state is the same as the first one, although we feel the Light of “Yechida” in it, which is 620 times greater than the initial one that we used to have in the first state. It is the Light of NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida).

Why is it so? It is due to the fact that we have attuned ourselves in spite of the obstacles! On the way from the first state to the third one, we were given numerous obstacles of all sorts, but regardless of them, we have attuned ourselves to the same Light of “Nefesh” that was in the beginning. The Light doesn’t change.

I have raised my receptivity and become a vibrating string instead of a thick metal pipe that I used to be at the start. I have become more subtle, sensitive, sensuous, and receptive.

As a result, in the first state that I used to exist in, I experience, not the Light of “Nefesh” that used to fill me at the still level when I didn’t feel anything, but rather I discover myself as equal to the Creator, that is, I reveal the great Light of “Yechida.” Why is it so? Just because I tuned myself to it. This is the process we undergo.
[41981]
From the Virtual Lesson in Russian, Fundamentals of Kabbalah 4/21/2011

Filed under: Conventions, Inner Work, Spirituality - No Comments →

Shamati #56 “Torah Is Called Indication”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, “Mishpatim, ‘The Grandfather,’” Item 248
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 2, Item 5, Lesson 8
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Modern Physics and the Wisdom of Kabbalah
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →