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The topic of love seems to be the simplest and most understandable. But in fact it is the most difficult because it is the central topic in the issue of perceiving the Creator, of coming closer to Him, and in understanding the root of the world.

We confuse the concept of spiritual love with the familiar egoistic love in this world, which we know intuitively how to use. It is like a baby who cries all the time and demands love from the first day of its birth. This is how a person acts until the last day of his life.

We do not treat love in its true, correct form. We think that love is something simple and self-explanatory. This explains why so few people reach spiritual attainment, i.e., altruistic love for the sake of bestowal, universal love, and love for friends through which we reach spiritual love.

The problem is that we do not understand that our entire life and the path of spiritual development is aimed at finding love for the other. This is a great difficulty because naturally we understand love in an egoistic form and perceive everything through self-love. But we do not know what love for the world is or what love for the Creator is, which is the only way to come closer to Him and begin to feel Him.

Everyone can feel in one’s heart how much he neglects love if it is not an egoistic love, but rather love for the world.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us a different attitude to the Creator and to the truth. We think that the main goal is to find out how the worlds cascaded downward and how the Sefirot and spiritual Partzufim were born, and that the better we study the technique of the spiritual world, the more we will advance. But this is completely wrong.

In fact, everything depends on the way we develop a feeling of love for the other in our hearts in order to treat all the inhabitants of this world with love—all people, animals, plants, and inanimate nature, all levels from top to bottom. After all, we can attribute this love to the Creator who created this world and gave it to us so that we could correct ourselves by building the right attitude in ourselves at all four degrees of our will to receive.

First, we need to make a restriction on our will to receive fulfillment and turn it into universal love, love for everything that is outside of us. All this was created by the Creator, and therefore, I am obliged to love all of His creation in order to come closer to Him.

We have nothing to do in our life but to turn hatred or indifference to the entire world into a feeling of closeness and love called universal love.

Only to the extent of such universal love for the other will we begin to feel what it means to love the Creator and become close to Him. Through turning egoism into love, we attain all of the true spiritual reality.

Therefore the topic of love is the most important, central, and deep topic within which we will meet with the Creator. Let’s try to free ourselves from self-love and appreciate our friends. It does not matter if they are close or far away or if they are good or bad, but they are on the same path with us and have a special desire to reach true love.

The Creator has given us this inner, concealed yearning. Let’s start working and unearthing the love hidden in us until we reach universal love; let’s get closer and unite with the entire creation and its inner force, which is the Creator.

This is the central grain of all spiritual work. You can forget the names of the Partzufim AB-SAG and not know what the upper worlds are called, but we will feel this through love; it will be not just memorizing, but true attainment.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/23, Love – Selected Excerpts from Zohar for All

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Comment: Another factor in the classification of cults is: “The group wants you to break off your old relationships as they stop your development.”

My Response: In our organization no one controls anyone. You can keep in touch with your past friends and go with them wherever you want.

It is your personal business who you are going on vacation with; it does not matter. But since your entire system of attitude toward the world and your preferences are changing, then naturally, you, like everyone else, become bored with people who do not share your passion.

For example, if I play chess, I am interested in those who are also interested in it, and I spend time in their circle. How else? All people have some kind of hobby according to which they choose their friends. If a person does not have a hobby, then he just lies on the couch watching football. That is all. What is wrong with the fact that I chose friends according to my hobby?

Today I am studying Kabbalah, and tomorrow, I will maybe be interested in scuba diving or fishing, so I will choose the appropriate environment for myself.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13

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There are many hidden treasures in that palace, one atop the other. Within that palace there are gates that were made for concealing, made to block the lights. They are fifty (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Lock and Key”).

When we study The Book of the Zohar, we must believe that this book is an intermediary between us, the lower ones, and the Creator, the upper one, and all this connection takes place through the group of Rabbi Shimon.

The gates are the conditions with which we have to comply. In order to pass through the gates you need to get closer to them and adjust yourself to certain qualities. Then some of the gates open, some are canceled, and some we need to correct by integrating with them.

After each gate we increasingly reveal the desire to bestow within ourselves, we come closer and closer to the Creator, and we better understand the entire system that connects creation with the Creator. Therefore, with each gate we go through we go further and further into the palace of the Creator.

Behind the last, 50^th gate absolutely everything is revealed, the entire Malchut, completely adhered with the upper force.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Comment: All spiritual work of men is done in the “seven years of famine” when the light is removed for him and he must advance independently.

My Response: In the seven years of famine our egoism does not receive any encouragement. A person should rise above his ego and try to continue working not on egoistic energy, but by developing the greatness of the goal in oneself.

Since this is an ascent from our world to the opposite world, to the world of bestowal and love, this state is very difficult. Usually at this stage many students cannot handle it and leave.

Question: And what is the success of those who stay about? Is it luck or something else?

Answer: Of course, there is always luck. But we cannot take it into account. We do not know what luck means. We know only one thing: with the help of the group, getting closer to the friends, good studies, and dissemination, when a person is actively working in the correct direction, everything works out for him. He advances with enthusiasm and realizes there is no other way.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Seven Years of Abundance and the Seven Years of Famine” 4/15/14

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In spiritual work, what is this narrow keyhole into which a key must be inserted?

The definition of “narrow” means a lack of Hasadim (mercy). If I have managed to make up for this lack, then I am ready to unlock this lock.

The whole path in front of us is a lock. At every step we need to match a certain key to it, i.e., the quality of bestowal, in order to reveal more and more and thus move toward the goal.

At each stage we reveal ourselves more and more and manifest an increasing quality of bestowal in ourselves, and thus we approach the Creator. And for this we need to find the key that exactly matches the lock.

The lock that hides the quality of bestowal from us is a group, and the key is the relationship in this group, the connection and love between friends. A person should disconnect from himself and stick to ten friends. Ten for me is a spiritual Kli. If I reformat myself correctly to get inside this Kli, I will open the lock with a key and get through to the Creator.

I need to find the key, study it, try to adapt it to the lock, and find out how to insert the key into the keyhole and how to turn it. When I have the strength to turn the key in the lock, I can unlock it.

Just remember that when inserting the key into the lock, you need to keep a very strong connection with your friends. If I connect with my friends and annul myself more and more, then eventually I will be able to insert the key into the keyhole in order to be ready to turn it.

But in order to turn the key in the lock, I need to turn to the Creator and ask Him for the strength to open this lock.
There are three stages of work: adjust yourself to the lock as a suitable key, then enter the lock, and finally unlock the lock.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Lock and Key”

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Question: There is such a thing as shame in our world. How is the concept of shame, which Baal HaSulam writes about in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, related to the shame that we are familiar with?

Answer: The shame mentioned in Kabbalah arises when a person feels oneself to be the opposite of the Creator. In the world opposite to the Creator, a person feels incongruity with Him, and this is called shame.

The Creator is absolute bestowal. I want to be like Him, but I see that I can’t and I am ashamed. Just like in our world, I want to be like some great man and I am ashamed that I cannot become like him.

Question: Does spiritual shame remain or does it disappear?

Answer: Gradually, as you approach the Creator in your properties, shame disappears.

Comment: It seems that the closer you are to the Creator, the more you realize how opposite you are to Him.

My Response: If you are approaching the Creator in terms of properties, then why should you be ashamed?

Shame is a separate creation of the Creator. The Creator created shame in humans so that we would feel different from the Creator. Thanks to shame, we develop.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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Comment: In the classification of cults there is a condition that the teaching of the group is considered the only true eternal knowledge.

My Response: Do ordinary Judaism, Christianity in all its manifestations and parts, Islam, Hinduism and other movements not think so? So, everything in the world is a cult.

Question: Why do people call something a cult when it is beneficial for them, and something else is either teaching, or wisdom, or religion?

Answer: But they are people! What do you expect from them? They use what is beneficial for them, convenient for them, and raises them above the rest. It is like politics: Today I need to scold someone, so I scold; tomorrow I need to praise him, so I praise him. We do whatever is beneficial for us. This is genuine human nature.

If you do not study Kabbalah, then not understanding how a person is arranged can, of course, irritate you. But when you study Kabbalah, you understand that a person cannot do it any other way, this is how he is arranged, and this is how he must act because egoism compels him.

Therefore, I am in no way offended by anyone who slanders me; such is their nature until they begin to correct themselves. When they finally come to this knowledge, they will see how wrong they were.

I will be happy to teach those that hate me today, and in no case will I remember anything hateful they used to say about me. This is how we are arranged from the very beginning, and we must turn evil into a good inclination. For this we have been given Kabbalah. To the extent that a good inclination, altruism, and the qualities of bestowal and love are formed in us, we begin to feel the upper world, the upper system of governance.

If people do not feel this, then what opinion can they form about Kabbalah and about me? Naturally, anything goes, the main thing is to denigrate, to slander, because by this they somehow justify themselves. It is very difficult for a person to live without justifying himself; it does not even make sense for him to exist. Therefore, all his actions are aimed only at raising himself or lowering others.

I have no complaints about them; they just work according to their nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13

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