Monuments And Images

559Prophets, Joshua, 8:29: And the king of Ai he hanged on a gallows until evening, and as the sun set, Joshua commanded, and they took his carcass down from the gallows, and they threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised upon it a great heap of stones to this day.

Hanging, strangling, this is not the biggest correction of egoism. The complete destruction of egoistic desires in a person is through burning. Hanging is only depriving egoism of its animalistic existence, i.e., one of the execution methods when a person is deprived of any opportunity for spiritual rebirth.

Question: It is written: “They threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised upon it a great heap of stones.” What are these monuments?

Answer: Indeed, why erect monuments to egoism? The fact is that this is not done for the sake of egoism, but for a person in whom a beaten, mortified, hanged egoism exists, and he must remember it so that this will never happen again.

All this is done for future generations and not for the person himself, because the desire called “the owner of the city” has already been killed in him.

Question: It is very popular in the world today to erect monuments to the departed and living people, monuments to victory, and so on. Is it possible that this tradition comes from here?

Answer: No, this was customary in humanity even before the Torah was written. People like to eternalize themselves because egoism wants this even though in the end there will be nothing left of it. That is why it has a desire to somehow glorify itself.

Question: Why is Judaism against monuments?

Answer: We must remember not the person but his actions. And not his actions in the past but those that he conveys to us in the present.

It is customary in our generation that we keep photos, paintings, and portraits. Yet in general, there is absolutely no need for all that. I did not see any images in my teacher’s house: neither of his father, nor of other people, none. These are all just modern habits.

Question: Can we say that this is serving idols?

Answer: Of course. In some ways, it is. What does it give you if you look at a face? By doing this, you replace the correct state of coming closer internally with something external. The connection of the hearts is an absolutely internal action.

Question: What is the difference between a heap of stones and an image?

Answer: A heap of stones reminds us that here we have done away with egoism. The image, on the contrary, says that egoism is still among us, and by this we seemingly exalt it.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/19/21

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Can We Imagine The Upper’s Pleasure?

276.02Comment: Please describe the pleasure that we receive along the path of the light.

My Response: You understand that I cannot describe this. How can I describe a pleasure that a person has never felt and does not understand?

What can it be compared to? We can only compare something we have experienced and give it some resemblance, and not in any other way. We cannot perceive any spiritual pleasure or descent or anything of the spiritual path, except from the stories of others. This is the reason that the wisdom of Kabbalah describes it in physical terms only.

The sensation that results from what happens to a person in spirituality is felt when he actually implements this path by himself. Only then does he understand what Kabbalists say.

If you reread every one of Rabash’s or Baal HaSulam’s articles that you read a year or two ago, you will see that now you perceive everything in a totally different manner. This means that new attributes, new powers, and new sensations appear in you. It is a system that works. This is the reason that the spiritual world is called a secret world because it is revealed only to those who can feel it. This person begins to feel new feelings and new senses, while others do not, and there is no way you can change that.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/14/19

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 9/19/21

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Altar Of Whole Stones

571.03Prophets, Joshua, 8:31: As Moses commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, upon which no (man) has lifted up any iron.

Question: What does it mean to build an altar of whole stones?

Answer: Whole stones represent the stony heart (Lev ha even). Stones are egoistic properties that the children of Israel took, and without changing anything in them, they built altars, thus raising to the property of bestowal, love. That is, they corrected their hearts of stone.

Question: Does it mean that exactly what is not processed is taken?

Answer: No, but the simplest, the primitive egoistic desire is taken in order to build holiness over it.

A processed stone means that you are already trying to apply and adjust the ego in a way that suits you.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/19/21

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Inside A Single Mechanism

75.01Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: Reality shows us that an individual cannot exist in isolation without a sufficient number of people around him to serve him and help him provide for his needs. Hence, man is inherently born to lead a social life. Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine. This single wheel has no freedom of movement in and of itself but continues with the motion of the rest of the wheels in a certain direction to qualify the machine to perform its general function.

A huge, absolutely interconnected world was created around us. Nothing is free in it. Therefore, a person can never be free even if he suddenly finds himself at the end of the world with no one by his side. He will still be totally connected to other people.

He must understand that even in this state when he is seemingly physically disconnected from everyone, he is still connected to billions of people in the world through his inner wheels. We will soon discover that.

Wherever we are, it is desirable that we always feel or try to feel how absolutely connected we are to the whole of humanity.

There is no such thing as feeling totally free in the world. I think that if I lie on the sofa and turn on the TV or sit in front of my computer, I am by myself, I am free. I am not free! I am like a tiny particle that is connected to all of humanity no matter what.

If a person feels that at any given moment, he begins to receive certain signals. On one hand, it seems that by living this way, constantly thinking about everyone, we are overloading ourselves. Yet if I do that, I soon begin to feel how I mutually interact with them, how they affect me. And through them, I quickly find the connection with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/21/19

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How To Take Off To Infinity

627.2Question: How can I become a bird and take off to infinity if I was created a small fish and placed in a stinky pond?

Answer: Your development does not depend on whether you are a fish or a bird, but on whether you want to get closer to the group where you find yourself. The Creator has not brought you to it for no reason.

This means that you can choose your friends and together you should try to create such cooperation between you to establish such a relationship that will absolutely resemble the right corrected soul.

If there is mutual bestowal in the group, mutual love, and mutual support, you will begin to feel the Creator’s presence in it.

We will suddenly feel more power in our common desire to be together in the ten, more power of connection, of mutual reliance, of mutual attraction, and a good and wise power that will gradually determine our spiritual state, and this will be the gradual revelation of the Creator.

Everything will become very simple. Begin to connect between you in a nice way and you will undoubtedly reveal the power of the good in this connection.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/14/19

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Execution Of Evil Within You

508.2Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them; and they have also taken of the consecrated thing, and have also stolen, and also dissembled, and they have also put into their vessels (Joshua 7:11).

And it shall be, he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has; because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, because he has wrought an infamous deed in Israel (Joshua 7:15).

And they raised over him a great heap of stones to this day. … (Joshua 7:26)

Question: According to the Torah, there are four types of execution of egoism: beheading, stoning, burning and strangulation. What does it mean?

Answer: It means that a person has to perform some actions upon his ego, after which it will no longer tempt or conquer a person. In fact, this is an advancement. After all, you must realize your egoism. Otherwise, you will not enter Jericho, which stands on the border of the Land of Israel.

Therefore, everyone should make such a correction upon himself. This is the Creator’s covenant.

Question: Why is this called an execution?

Answer: You are not executing yourself but the evil within you. You have to feel it and separate it from yourself.

In no case does the Torah talk about people killing each other, as it may seem to us. It is talking about one’s path toward the lLand of Israel and its settlement, that is, about our correction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/19/21

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Outward Signs Of Spiritual Actions

506.1Question: The foods we use at Rosh HaShanah for the festive table symbolize some kind of internal changes. Why is it necessary to eat them?

Answer: The fact is that when we want to convey some laws, we put them in the form of folk customs and make them into something like sayings. In this way, they are preserved and passed on from generation to generation.

If you start saying: “The light of Hassadim, the light of Hochma, etc.,” then nothing will come of it. If people do not have adequate feelings, they will not preserve them. Therefore, everything is transmitted in this way.

In order to preserve the inner meaning of spiritual phenomena and actions, Kabbalists clothed them in some kind of material manifestations. At Rosh HaShanah we eat carrots, which symbolize kindness. We dip the apple in honey so that we have a good, sweet year. The pomegranate symbolizes 613 desires that we need to correct from reception to bestowal, from egoistic to altruistic.

That is, all these are particular signs in our world. This is how folk customs are passed from generation to generation although Kabbalists have put a much deeper meaning into them. We know and appreciate them because traditions are passed on in this way. But what matters most is what these customs indicate. They indicate their very high inner meaning. This is what we must perform.

Question: That is, a Kabbalist feels the desire to receive with the intention for his own sake. In this world to somehow convey the signs of correction to everyone else, he takes an apple, which symbolizes the desire to receive, dips it in honey, as if sweetening it with the right intention, and thus the semantics are obtained?

Answer: These are just external signs, nothing more. We should understand that at the same time a Kabbalist wishes that the fruit of that tree, which deliberately threw out the person from the spiritual level, now with the help of Amtakat Hadinim (sweetening the judgment), that is, sweetening with honey, would correct the evil inclination of a person and he would rise to the level of his correction.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States”

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