A question I received: Does it make a difference how a person is buried?

My Answer: First, Kabbalah engages only in the correction of the soul. When a person comes to a Kabbalistic group and begins working on himself in order to unite with the friends so as to reach the quality of a mutual guarantee, he realizes that he hates the others and is repulsed by them. This rejection of friends is, in fact, the egoistic quality that a person needs to correct by turning it into love toward them.

This is possible only with the help of the Light that influences a person while he studies Kabbalistic texts (especially those written by Baal HaSulam and RABASH). A corrected attitude to the neighbor, up to the point of loving him, is what forms a person’s soul, which becomes filled with the Light of bestowal and love: the Creator.

Second, the human body has no sanctity. This attitude to our animal body comes from religions which are based specifically on the concealment of the Creator and on the fact that people don’t feel the soul and mistakenly attribute it to the animate body. It seems to a person that there is something special or unique about the body since they don’t feel anything except the body and perceive everything only through it.

In ancient times, food, utensils, and slaves were buried along with the body of a dead master in order to help him in his future life in the same body. For that purpose, the body was embalmed. American Indians (Native Americans) still dig out the bones of the deceased from the grave, wash them, and return them to the grave as a token of respect. Hindus choose an infant for worship and make him holy. Christianity has an array of relics as well, which they argue about to this day.

Funerals are accompanied by a variety of  rituals. They all are based on ignorance and the adoration of the flesh. Muslims believe that the pleasures of our world also exist in the future world. Over the years, as Judaism descended from feeling the spiritual world and the Creator to the exile (Galut), Judaism became clothed in various external rituals. People began to honor graves and to practice fortune-telling and other “spiritual” manipulations. And although people are trying to re-build the Temple, they are doing so only in an external way according to their exiled spiritual state, and in this way it will be nothing more than an ordinary building.

Conclusion: There is no sanctity (eternity, perfection, and divinity) in our world (our thoughts, feelings, actions, objects, and rituals). Our whole world consists of three levels of nature: inanimate, vegetative, and animate. We need to reach the “human” level (from the word “Adam,” meaning Dome – similar to the Creator) through our work on correcting the mutual hatred among us into mutual love. Thereby, we will become similar to the Creator and thus feel eternity and perfection irrespective of our animate bodies.

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A question I received: Will my soul remember everything I learned in this life? Will I continue to learn Kabbalah and come to the group again in my next life?

My Answer: The only thing that a person takes with him from this life is the spiritual path that he went through; this does not vanish. After all, in regard to spirituality, we are, and continue to be in the same reality, but it is slightly hidden from us.

I am constantly situated in my soul, in spite of the fact that I don’t feel it, I continue to work with it and go through different states. All this occurs in my eternal soul. The fact that I now see physical bodies and this world around me is a “mirage” of my spiritual state.

If I work internally now, then I will begin my next reincarnation from a higher spiritual state, and I will come to a Kabbalah group faster and will be more successful in my studies. The entire previous path will remain within me in the form of spiritual genes (Reshimot); it doesn’t vanish. In the spiritual world nothing vanishes at all; things disappear only in our world because this whole world will eventually vanish. In the meantime, nothing that I have acquired through my egoistic desire remains, since the desire itself vanishes, only the external clothing remains.

Every time the soul goes through a new reincarnation, it builds an environment for itself according to its ability and the necessity to correct itself. Why do I exist in this environment and not a different one? It is because my soul requires this. No calculation is performed in regard to the bodies; they exist in connection with each other, in this world, in all of the situations that are necessary for the soul’s correction.

Meanwhile, the body is not taken into account. Actually, it doesn’t exist at all; it is a virtual illusion that presents itself to us in this form. In actuality, only the soul exists, but we are unable to feel it. And its development clearly determines what happens to the bodies.

Therefore, in the end of “Preface to The Book of Zohar” Baal HaSulam writes that only the correction of the souls will help us correct our world and perceive this corporeal life as more kind. All the offenses that occur in this world are a consequence of the necessity for the soul to be corrected. At the same time, there are no actions or corrections in this world: changes are only possible through the soul.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/10, Article “Which Degree Should One Acheive?”

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In the News (From Top.rbc.ru): “According to Professor Dimitrios Karussis, member of the Executive Board of the Israel Society of Neuroimmunology and the Head of the Multiple Sclerosis Center, Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem, scientists were able to identify a soul in a human being by using MRT technology (magnetic resonance tomography).

Research indicates that Kabbalah study activates a part in the brain which the researches called “faith apparatus.” It activates brain activity and increases manyfold an organism’s resistance to diseases that have left modern medicine helpless.”

My Comment: How can we reveal the soul? It depends on what we want to discover. If that’s the force activating an animal body, then surely it’s doable. Back when I was a student, research about “the weight of the body before and after death”was already being conducted in the world, to define the weight of the soul that allegedly leaves the body.

Everything depends on how we define a soul. Sometimes a man and a woman address each other as “my soul-mate.” If that’s how you define the soul, then you can weigh it. But if we understand that the soul is a part of the Creator from Above, the force of bestowal, then, similar to other forces of our world, it can be identified only by the results of its actions. By perceiving the force of bestowal within the property of bestowal (the desire to give, Kli), we thereby reveal the Creator within us and thus call Him Bo–re, from the words "Bo" -"Come" (attain it with your property of bestowal) and "Re" – "See" (discover).

There is no Creator without the creature. We are unable to say anything about Him, as He is outside of us, since that’s the essence or the abstract form which we can’t discuss. Kabbalah, being a purely experimental science, forbids us to engage in such philosophical reasoning, as Baal HaSulam states in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “the judge has nothing but what his eyes can see.”

We need the material on which this spiritual force could act. This material along with the force acting in it will be called the “soul.” Why? It is because the material itself – a part of the Creator from Above that possesses the same property of bestowal – would resemble the Creator.

How can the scientists discover the soul if it exists in the property of bestowal? What kind of devices can they use? What can help them? To discover the soul, one needs the material that would have the property of bestowal.

That could only be when a person has reached such a correction. Then, whatever clothes that material would be called the Light of the soul. The Kli itself, the desire, the material that has the property of bestowal, would be called the soul’s body. Without possessing such qualities, a person of this world is unable to perceive neither the body of the soul nor its Light.

Hence, if we define the soul according to Kabbalah, as a part of the Creator from Above, then scientists have no way of approaching it. One can attain the soul only the help of Kabbalah.

Everything depends on our intention. If we aspire to reveal spirituality, the Light will come and correct our material (desire), so that it becomes bestowing. When the material will resemble the Creator, become the Creator’s part from Above, the soul will arise within us.

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Zohar, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 66: …there are two creations in man, creation for good and creation for bad. With the Torah, he separates them and the Creator gives him a soul from Him, to dominate over both—the one that is good and light, the next world, and the one that is evil and dark, this world—as it is written, “And He blew into his nostrils the breath of life.”

Our entire reality stems from the separation between darkness and light when we can truly “filter” the qualities that pertain to this world and to the world to come. We begin to build ourselves through discernments, by distinguishing the qualities for the sake of bestowal and those for the sake of reception.

All that we study in our world is our animal existence, meaning our nature. Why animal? This is because an animal doesn’t grow, but always remains at the same level with respect to its perception.

Therefore, until we begin to use the Light so as to build ourselves, by distinguishing the bestowing qualities from those of reception, until we amass these bestowing qualities, desiring to dwell in them, and build ourselves out of them, we exist only in this world.

Just as drops of semen begin to form into an embryo in the mother’s womb, so we must try to utilize the group, the environment, the study, the intentions, and various actions to continually add and accumulate the qualities of bestowal within. This is how a spiritual body will be formed.

Every time we reveal yet another part in bestowal and wish to gather them all together, this is called our next reincarnation. Indeed, we see our new life every time and a new opportunity to keep gathering and adding to us the qualities of the human level that are similar to bestowal and the Creator (the word “man” in Hebrew is “Adam” which is from “Edome,” similar).

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/10, The Zohar

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I am trapped in my skin which cuts me off from the Creator who is situated “outside.” I am a slave and I cannot break out. At every given instant, a force influences me and automatically returns me to my own self, to the egoistic center.

How do I force myself to pay attention to what is happening on the outside in order to understand that it is also me? My true reality is “outside”; there, I am together with the Creator; there, I am outside of my animal; there, my soul is outside of the egoistic “I,” which I currently imagine myself to be.

These are two forces that act in nature. I need to arrange them in such a way that the second force (centrifugal) would influence me in the same natural manner, instinctively and inevitably, as the first force (centripetal). Let it occupy my mind and heart and drag me out by force. Let it force me to think about others and worry about them. I need this since this is the only way for me to find my soul.

In this regard, the force of a Kabbalistic group helps me; only the group can convince me to come out of my circle and turn my attention to what is “outside of it.” When I change my attitude from the “intra” (within) to the “extra” (outside). I stop worrying about the body and begin to be concerned with the soul.

I understand that the external reality, which seemed foreign to me and which I was completely indifferent to, contains the real me. This external circle is actually much more valuable to me than the inner one since it contains my soul which is eternal. Meanwhile, the inner circle is merely an animal, which is allotted some 70 years.

However, the concealment does not allow me to see all this. When I begin to realize this, I am amazed to what extent the Creator plays a joke on me.

From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/1/10

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We don’t have any other means for advancement, any other leverage that helps us move forward but the influence of the environment. If I am entirely, fully focused within myself, what force can possibly direct me in the opposite direction, from within myself, outside? I don’t possess any such powers. All of my powers work “for me,” “for my benefit.” How can I fashion an opposite action “for the sake of the other”? Where can such a power of nature come from?

For this, our soul has been divided into two parts: I and the surroundings, the world. The only freedom we have is to choose what’s more important. If you want to reach spirituality, you have to organize your environment so that it takes precedence over you. In reality, it’s not the external environment, but your soul, your AHP, the “garments” and “house” of your soul’s Kli, which are only seemingly outside of you.

Envy and honor attract you to a certain environment, to the parts of your soul, so you can organize these parts artificially in order for them to influence you.

From our level, we have been given this psychological approach. Yet internally, it is a spiritual approach. I connect with the desires (Kelim) that allegedly surround me, and use my feelings of envy and honor. In doing so, I essentially draw these desires back to myself so that they become connected with me and define my system of values.

What is the source of envy and honor then? It is the breaking of the souls into two parts: I and my world. By desiring to use “help against him,” against my ego, I engage these external desires of mine so they influence me in return.

Consequently we discover that we work with ourselves, with our desires, with our properties and this is how it has been set up from the beginning. But without organizing the environment, the other force that is capable of taking me “by the ear” and directing me toward my true desires (the soul) is not present, and it will never be revealed.

There is no other force in the world but the environment. Suffering can only make us more sensitive and urge us to find the solution. Yet the solution will be the same: to put yourself under the influence of the environment.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah),” Item 155: …Every Guf [body] fell under the authority of Sam, Esau’s minister, during the sin of the tree of knowledge, from which the Guf was sentenced to death. This dominion is the filth of the serpent, which is not removed from the Guf before it decays in the grave….

The desire to receive pleasure called “body” is my ego, the enormous desire for pleasures for my own benefit. It has to die before my eyes, be buried, and decay. In my life I have to come to such a state when “death is better than such a life,” when I know for sure that I have nothing and never will have anything from this earthly life. I have everything, but I don’t have any purpose in my life or any goal for which it would make sense to live.

This is exactly what is happening now. People have everything compared to those who lived a thousand years ago. They have a place to live, food, and prosperity. Who lived in such conditions in the past? Perhaps, just kings.

Today we have everything, yet we have to take antidepressants and visit our personal therapists twice a week. This is telling us that people are revealing the inability to fulfill themselves. Apparently our body is satisfied at the material or animal level while at the same time, the human being within us is revealing himself, and he is empty. This is indicative of “the body decaying in the grave.”

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A question I received: I am giving a Kabbalah internet class with a group of eight people right now. One couple has studied other Kabbalah books on their own. They talk about the Sefirot as lights in parts of our body that need to be awakened and they are confusing me because I have studied with you that the Sefirot are levels of attainment.

Can you explain to me what the Sefirot really are so that I can clarify it in the group? I want to tell this couple that they can’t come and confuse the students with other Kabbalistic views that are not authentic. They also mentioned a book named Bahir that they say is very important in Kabbalah, but I haven’t heard of it here in Bnei Baruch. I need to establish with them that we study only authentic Kabbalistic writings and not every Kabbalistic book that is found out there.

My Answer: Don’t listen to those who say that our body is a receptacle of spiritual forces. This is the foundation for all mistakes. As for the book Bahir, nobody understands it and because of this, many are reading this particular book. It would be better if you would avoid these people.

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In the “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam explains that the science of Kabbalah examines everything with regard to the soul. This is because we are not actually aware of anything outside of ourselves; rather, we reveal, perceive, and evaluate things through our feelings.

Therefore, when we read about the processes that occur between Zeir Anpin, Bina, and Malchut, and the connection and actions between them, it is all happening inside us, in the connection between others and me. We learn about what happens in our soul, or what our soul feels and reveals to us. Where it feels and reveals is only inside it.

That connection between me and others is, in fact, my soul. However, right now we feel that we exist in our inner corporeal body; this is our world because we don’t perceive anything else.

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A question I received: Why is it written that Baal HaSulam merited to receive the Ari’s soul? Didn’t he have his own soul?

My Answer: The soul is a “part of the Creator from Above.” No person born in our world has it from birth. The only people who have a soul are those who have attained at least the minimal quality of bestowal, the quality of the Creator.

With the case you are asking about, a person corrected himself, attained the quality of bestowal, built his soul (vessel of perception – Kli), and suddenly this vessel acquired a specific form and was filled with the Light called “the soul of the Ari.” The soul is the corrected desire (this is “the body” of the soul), and the Light that fills it (the Light of the soul) is the revelation, the Creator, which clothes into you. That is why the soul is called a “part of the Creator from Above.”

Receiving the soul of the Ari means thinking like him, feeling like him, being instead of him, seeing through his eyes, and feeling with his senses just like him. Baal HaSulam received the soul of Ari, which is the same soul that was passed from Adam to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Rashbi, from Rashbi to the Ari, and from the Ari to Baal HaSulam. This is a special soul through which the Creator reveals the method of merging with Him during the generations when a special spiritual change has to occur. If the Creator sent us a teacher like Baal HaSulam, who had the soul of the Ari, this indicates that we are living in the generation of the last, general correction.

The soul constantly changes and reincarnates. Throughout the course of a Kabbalist’s lifetime, he always has a different Partzuf and a different degree. A person’s corrected qualities that have the intention of bestowal, in which the Light can be clothed, is called a soul. The Kli is called the body of the soul, and the Light is called the soul. This is the Light of NaRaNHY, but in general it is called “Neshama” (soul) because until we reach the complete correction, we can only correct this degree completely.
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