Question: The Rambam says that the truth should be revealed gradually to those who are small. When working with children, we do not impose unification on them directly, but try to weave this message into games and studies. Can an overly direct message harm and repel a child?

Answer: As we develop we go through four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human. As a rule, on the still level objects usually take on whatever form you give them if you have enough energy to do that. By exerting the right amount of energy, you can destroy the structure of a metal and rebuild it through heating, pressure, and other such influences.

On the vegetative level the situation is different: In order to give a plant a different form, you have to understand its nature. Say, a tree requires specific types of cultivation and care, and if you are an expert at what you do, then you will receive the necessary form by accompanying the tree in the process of its growth.

Stated differently, you have to grow to a level where you can take care of the tree, which involves bringing it inside of yourself and getting to know it. Then, based on this inner image, you can carry out work with the external form and receive a result.

In order to deal with the animate level of development, it is again necessary to learn its nature, to ascend above it, and include it inside of you. Then you can tame and train animals. Of course, it has to happen within specific boundaries, but you can train them to carry out certain forms of behavior which they are able to learn. And a children’s instructor works analogously.

These levels of development—still, vegetative, and animate—are small, “childish” states compared to an adult, and they end at the degree of “age 13.” From “age 13″ on, you are dealing with the human being in a person, and accordingly, you treat him completely differently. You accept him into your group, treat him as a friend, and raise him through examples of mutual partnership, offering him a place for work.

These are the phases of work with children’s groups.
[46759]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

Related Material:
The Individual And Community
I Want To Be A Child!
Teaching Children The Perception Of Reality

Filed under: Children, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

A crisis (from Greek κρίσις, krisis—decision, a turning point) is a revolution, a period of transition, a breaking point, a state when the current means of the attainment of goals become irrelevant, which leads to unpredictable situations and problems.

In other words, a crisis is not a state of collapse, but a turning point towards a new state. The problem is that humanity does not see this new state!
[46691]

Filed under: Crisis, Q&A - No Comments →

Time in spirituality is a number of actions applied to the creature. Indeed, even in our world where we live by the clock on the wall and navigate by the sun, the moon, and the globe, we still have a personal sensation of time dictated by the intensity of actions.

Sometimes, time freezes and doesn’t move in our eyes. On another occasion, it flies with supersonic speed. Time is our personal impression that depends on the number of transformations occurring in us. Therefore, time per se doesn’t exist.

The number of changes we are supposed to experience within us from this moment to the end of correction is regarded as 6,000 spiritual degrees or years, 2000 + 2000 + 2000. Alternatively, it can be viewed as the three worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya), which we must raise to the world of Atzilut.

Ascending to the world of Atzilut is what we call the flow of time, step by step, from one year to the next. A “year” (Shana) is a transformation (Shinuy), the same circle, a revolution, only at a higher degree.
[46403]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/19/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Question: Is it possible to go back in time? Can I return to the states where I have already been?

Answer: Certainly! After all, time is defined as a chain of the informational genes (Reshimot). You can travel along this chain from the beginning to the end and go wherever you want. If you possess the anti-egoistic screen, meaning the ability to exist in any state, you can choose any Reshimo and realize it.

Obviously, no one would want to descend back from an advanced state. This wouldn’t make any sense unless you had to descend for some period of time in order to help others, that is, to go back in order to establish a connection with them.

However, I would perform this “reversing” through the special Partzuf called “hair” (Searot). I myself stay in the advanced state, but I make a “smaller” copy of myself through which I communicate with those who are below me.

However, one cannot descend for no reason because it contradicts the purpose of creation. How is it possible for a spiritual individual to do such a thing?
[46406]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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

Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words”: Question 16: What is Time? It is a certain sum of Behinot (phases) that derive from one another and are mingled with one another by an order of cause and consequence, such as days, months, and years.

There is no time. There is only a sensation of changes that cause us to experience the flow of time. In spirituality, it is evident, whereas in corporeality, it is camouflaged. This is why many phenomena, effects, and transformations get intermixed in the corporeal world and seem not to be directly connected with spirituality, meaning not dependent on our effort and advancement.

Hence, in the corporeal world, time is not alive and flows “mechanically,” separate from our inner transformations. However, in the spiritual world, time is an internal sensation of the changes that a person is going through.

Therefore, corporeal and spiritual time have completely different meanings. Spiritual time can flow faster or slower, contract or expand, depending on the number of changes occurring within a person. In the material world, time depends on the point where we are. If we moved to another dimension, we would experience a different time there.
[46409]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Question: How do you envision the future of Israel?

Answer: What can Israel give to the world? Today it produces certain “know-hows,” computer and military products and technologies. All those things are nonsense.

The world is subconsciously waiting for Israel to give it only what Israel can deliver to it: the method of the revelation of the upper governing force. It is written in the Torah that Israel (Yashar Kel, meaning those aimed “straight to the Creator”) must be teaching the world how to connect with the Creator (Mamlechet Cohanim ve Goy Kadosh). Of our exports, this is the most important item.
[46685]

Filed under: Israel, Q&A - No Comments →

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

The Superiority of Man to the Beast

And the most important sensation is the noetic sensation given to man alone. By its virtue we can come to perceive the Creator.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

A beast sees only itself, not the past or the future. Man feels the past and, thanks to this, can correct his flaws. Whereas beasts, not being able to correct themselves, cannot evolve as man does.
– Baal HaSulam, “Writings of the Last Generation”
[45781]

Filed under: Kabbalistic Sources - No Comments →

Question: The thoughts about spirituality cause sadness and suffering in me because I do not feel the Creator. What can I do?

Answer: If a person feels real sufferings in his life, this pain hides the Creator from him. This is done purposefully so that we do not damage our relationship with the Creator and yet remain connected with Him rather than starting to hate and reject Him.

There are various states, but to the extent that a person feels bad, to that extent the Creator is hidden, we have to attain mutual support and guarantee from the environment. In this case, even at the time of greater troubles, the environment will help us rise above a bad feeling to its cause.

Then I will understand that the feeling of evil comes not from the Creator, not from the upper force, but from the force of my own egoism. I will start to divide my feelings in two parts: 1) my desires that are not corrected and make me feel bad in them, and 2) the Creator, the upper Light, that radiates good upon me.

Precisely because the Creator emanates good upon me, while I am opposite to Him, I sense good as evil; that is, for me His good turns into its opposite. Therefore, the Creator cannot be revealed to me more because I will feel so bad that I will not be able to stand it.

As long as we remain uncorrected and feel the Creator in His opposite form because our ego turns Light into darkness, the Creator is revealed to us to the extent that we can bear this. And to the extent that we cannot tolerate, He hides.

He reveals Himself only slightly to disclose just a bit of evil to us, so that we do not disconnect from our mind and can analyze our feelings. Then, I begin to check where this evil comes from and what causes it. Consequently, I come to the group, the books, and the teacher who explain to me that I evoke evil myself because of my oppositeness to the Creator.
[46330]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, Shamati #241

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Pictures from the World Kabbalah Convention in Moscow, June 10-12, 2011.

[Show slideshow]

1 2 ►

Filed under: Conventions - 1 Comment →

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the means that allows us to rise from the animate to the human level. If we do not use this means for transforming our egoistic nature, we remain animals, as it is said: “All are like animals.”

Indeed, in that case, we develop only within our ego; we have nothing to correct it with and nothing with which to rise above it from the receiving desires to the giving desires. Then, we sense only this world; we live and die like animals.

While at the human degree, I become similar to the Creator (“man” or “Adam” comes from the word “Edome” or “similar” in Hebrew). With the help of the tool called “the Light that Reforms.” which I attract to myself by reading Kabbalistic texts and especially The Book of Zohar, the strongest source of the hidden upper Light, I can correct myself and ascend from the egoistic nature to the altruistic one, to bestowal and love for a fellow human being.

Then, instead of the desire to use the other, I bestow to him, and instead of hatred, I feel love towards him. To the degree that I attain this nature, I begin to discover the upper force in my altruistic desires, in my properties of bestowal and love. I sense what fills my new qualities, and this is called “the upper Light” or “the Creator.”

However, all this is attained in the force of bestowal. How can we achieve it? For this purpose, before the lowest level of the world of Assiya, “this world,” was made, the creature created by the Creator, called the common soul Adam (Man), was shattered into many pieces. Now, in order to attract the Light, these pieces must unite with each other in the previous state before the shattering when the Upper Light filled them.

Although we cannot unite with each other ourselves, by desiring this, yearning and striving with all our power, by our efforts, we draw the Light from that state of unity. This Light does not come to us and doesn’t clothe in us because we have not united yet. But it shines to us from afar, to the extent of our aspiration for it—for the Light of bestowal and love for the other.

But do I really aspire for this?…I imagine that I yearn for this Light, for something very nice for my ego. But if I interpret this correctly—as the Light of bestowal and love in which I enjoy by bestowing to a fellow human being and acting solely for the sake of bestowal—then I do not particularly want it.

Hence, first of all, in order to strive for the Light, for correction, in order to become a giver and love the other, I must acquire the importance of this. I can obtain the importance of correction from the following two sources:

1. If I suffer and feel pain, I strive to change my condition. I am even willing to give just not to feel bad. This is called advancement by the path of suffering.
2. I can receive the importance of bestowal and love for a fellow human being from the environment that will begin “to brainwash me,” convincing me of how important it is to bestow, how much we can win, how good it is, and what pleasures bestowal brings.

One seems to contradict the other: “Bestow and you will receive pleasure! Bestow and you will feel the upper World!” This is called “Lo Lishma (for oneself),” but anyway, this is an intermediary phase of advancement. In this case, I strive to advance by the path of “Lo Lishma,” the path of Light. We all are egoists and have to imagine an understandable self-gain ahead of us; otherwise, we will not be able to do anything.

Therefore, I am in the group, together with people who also want to attain spirituality. It is not important that all of us envision the spiritual world as a good prize: We want to be above others, to earn more, to rise above this short life filled with sufferings, to reach something worthwhile and great.

Even if we promote the importance of this goal to each other, then something exalted, great, eternal, perfect, and worthwhile will be revealed in the connection between us, and we will have strength to advance towards the inner connection between us at least slightly. If in the connection between us, we discover the common internal force called the spiritual vessel, the will to bestow, then in this vessel, to the extent of this will to bestow, we will reveal the Light: the Light of bestowal, the upper Light, or the Creator.

So, before we start reading The Book of Zohar and thus draw the Light, we have to imagine that we aspire to be in the inner connection between us when each nullifies himself and feels only others: everyone together, the whole inner group, where we are connected with each other in our souls. And in this connection between the souls, we reveal the Light, the common force of bestowal and love—and the Creator within it. If this is our line of thinking during the reading of The Zohar, it influences us in the most effective way.

It does not matter how much we understand the text and know the words. It is important to think about one thing only all the time: “Now, I am taking medicine. I want to connect with others, and then, in the unity between us, I will get everything: the entire spiritual, upper world. I am looking forward to this!”
[46323]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, The Zohar

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