Many people in the world are connected to all kinds of groups, associations, alliances, and communities, and they are quite satisfied with these “hobby clubs.” In addition, people also cooperate in businesses in order to make a profit together.

There are the great and small, supervisors and subordinates, but, ultimately, there is a clear goal for everyone, and they understand that everyone needs to have his own place and contribute for the benefit of all. The picture is clear when the result is felt in the pocket or our desire for pleasure is delighted in some other way.

All the ways and forms of connection differ, including the religions. However, in general, people enjoy shared interaction that provides everyone with some benefit.

It seems to be different when a person asks the question about the meaning of life, “Why and for what am I here?” After all the searching, this question only grows, leaving a sensation of emptiness inside. So, finally, the person comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

However, in addition, he opens books and doesn’t find an answer. Essentially, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t reveal anything. On the contrary, it is called the “concealed wisdom” because it removes the cover and only shows a person that something is hidden from him. What is this exactly?

What is concealed from us is the Creator. He is what we are missing. If we were to discover the higher power in nature that activates all of its forms—the still, the vegetative, the animate, and the speaking—then everything will become clear to us.

So, actually, in our world, in our life, there is no other question than the discovery of the Creator. In this way, we will solve all problems. We will understand what is happening to us, how we should act, what the consequences of our actions are, how they come back to us, and so forth. In brief, everything will be revealed to us. When we go beyond the limitations of this world, we feel not only the shortness of material life but also the entire way that stretches to Infinity. All this is provided that we discover the Creator and understand and feel reality in the same way that He does.

In addition, we don’t understand and feel. Here, the question arises, “What do I get out of this understanding and feeling?” The wisdom of Kabbalah answers like this, “You can understand and feel to the degree that you can become like the Creator.” In other words, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t make it possible for us to recognize that particular phenomenon called the “Creator” but presents a condition that is not characteristic of our world.

Here, we look at things from the side. For example, I go to a ballet performance and see people dancing on the stage. I enjoy watching them, but I can’t perform like them myself. However, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, this would not be called attainment. True attainment requires that I carry out this activity myself. From this, I will understand and feel what is being said; I must be “on stage.”  [Read more →]

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Question: How is it possible that in the world that is “made out of nothing” there appeared a methodology that describes the real nature that is opposite to the nature of creation? What serves as a bridge between the worlds and connects them?

Answer: 5772 years ago, there lived a man who was the first human being ever to ask himself: “What is going on in the world? Where does it come from and for what was it created? Who is the “boss” that governs this world? Why is it rotating around Him and together with Him?”

This person’s name was Adam. By asking these questions, he tried to solve the mystery and not only did he unravel the “secret,” but he also wrote a book, “The Secret Angel,” which means a “secret force,” since the word “angel” means “force.” From this book, we see exactly what he attained, felt, saw and described in his allegorical stories.

Adam started a whole galaxy of Kabbalists who described spirituality in an unprecedented and thrilling way. We feel the same things while reading their books, since the upper nature is unchangeable. It means that today contemporary Kabbalists who reveal the system of nature and the ones who lived five hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred or even five thousand five hundred years ago (like Adam) talk about the same things.

They describe one and only one force that falls into many sub-forces which influence us and define everything that happens to us. This science is called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.” If I read a book that was written fifty, five hundred, fifteen hundred, or twenty five hundred years ago (for me, it’s the same!) there is no difference between them whatsoever. All of them describe the same things.

So, if I met the author who wrote a book four thousand years ago, let’s say Abraham, I would be able to easily speak with him about these topics and he would answer my current questions about what we should do and on what to concentrate. We would have no problem speaking with him since our questions and clarifications would be exactly the same and we would easily understand each other’s concerns, thoughts, and aspirations. He would understand our questions and give us thorough explanations that would be very apparent to us since we are dealing with eternal matter, the everlasting force, and perpetual movement. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is all about.
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From the Virtual Lesson 3/3/13

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There is a system which in our perception of reality is depicted as the current reality of this world. In it a person has books that were written by Kabbalists in the past, a teacher who is a Kabbalist, friends, the whole world, and the Creator who is concealed, meaning the attribute of bestowal that is opposite from everything a person discovers in his five senses. Except for this attribute, everything is at his disposal.

So how can we use all the means we have correctly, in order to reach the general attribute of bestowal?

It is external to a person, outside his “vessel,” and he can acquire it with the help of three components: books, the group, and the teacher. With their help he fulfills the study, dissemination, and the connection.

The combination of all these things brings a person to turn his vessels, his desires, from receiving to bestowal. He discovers increasingly more egoistic vessels that he turns to “in order to bestow,” according to his efforts and exertion.

What are these efforts and exertion?

A person holds on to the right intention during the study, connects with the friends in the group, and follows the advice of the teacher without which he doesn’t know how to work with the books and the group. On the whole, these three components are called “Torah,” which means a study, a method, a means for attaining the attribute of bestowal.

From that we choose the right actions and the right relations by combining the books the group and the teacher in them. Thus a person reaches oppositeness, by rising “above his reason” above his mind and feelings, towards the next level…
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: The exercises and games that we use in the course of integral education, in general, are nothing new. Many training companies use games in similar combinations, organize roundtables, and do so in a much more sophisticated way.

Answer: We do not need to learn from others. This can only confuse us because we are not interested in the level where the other companies are.

That is why it is desirable, as in everything else, to use only our own Kabbalistic sources, to follow only them. And then, as they say, we will see.

When you follow the primary sources, you develop naturally, and based on what is revealed to you on the spiritual path, you transfer this to the students. I never take anything from the external sources: philosophy, psychology, new age, etc. I always felt some rejection towards them and think that we do not have anything to learn from that.
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From a Talk on Integral Education 1/20/13

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Question: We only need to reach an equivalence of form with the Creator. So why do we need all the books and all the talk about self-annulment and about unity? We must simply demand the equivalence of form and that’s it.

Answer: Go ahead, demand it. But how? Kabbalists wrote books only so that we can advance. On the whole we study two types of books:

– There are books that bring us the Light that Reforms—which are mainly the writings of Baal HaSulam.

– The other books, the books of Rabash, teach us how to approach the writings of Baal HaSulam: in unity, with the group, with the right intention.

Without this guidance you would not attain anything. You need someone to guide you.

Question: Still, why didn’t Baal HaSulam write a book about how to reach equivalence of form with the Creator?

Answer: It is forbidden. I have to look for equivalence of form by myself; I have to feel my way around and find it. Then I will understand what it is and that it’s exactly what I need and exactly what I aspire to.

And I would also understand how to ask for the power to do it. The desires can’t come from the outside; I have to arrange them internally. In our world everything is the opposite: I open a physics, mathematics, or mechanics textbook and study it. I have the necessary basis for that. In the spiritual preparation there is no such basis, no such tools or desires. Even if Kabbalists wrote a book like that, I wouldn’t understand what they want from me. What does it mean to raise the NHY to HGT?

This means that first I need to extract new levels of perception from the books, new powers, and new inner responses, to develop my mind, and to expand my feelings. First I have to develop internally, and in order to do that, the book has to perform certain actions on me, to “sculpt” something of me, to knead my matter and to stretch it by direct and by opposite bestowal. It’s only then that I acquire enough gentleness and sensitivity so that in a second reading I will already understand what it’s about.

After several years a person doesn’t read “Shamati“ as he did in the beginning. But how can this be explained to a beginner? This means that it’s impossible to manage without guidance and training…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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We are used to traditional literature. Books can be entertaining about adventure, science fiction, etc. In general, when opening a book, I want to draw some information or impressions from it.

However, Kabbalistic books act very differently. In Kabbalah a book is a means, the connecting element, the adapter, with which I can connect to the author. That is how I should see the works of Kabbalists: They help me connect to an immense spiritual system flooded with the Light of Infinity, filled with the Creator.

This system consists of souls, that is, from the corrected desires of the greatest spirits that by great efforts achieved similarity with the Creator, and they hold His revelation in their vessels, in their desires. Moreover, some of them formed a thin “pipe” to me, a channel through which I can connect with them and receive inspiration, news, correction, everything that makes me belong to this system.

Thus, reading a Kabbalistic books is quite different from reading all other literature. That is why these books in general are called “studying” (the Torah) because they contain the Light (Ohr) that Reforms. They contain a special power, and I can get it if I wait for change, if I want to become like the authors.

If I look just for knowledge in these books and treat them like any other books, then I disdain the efforts of Kabbalists and thus lose a lot. Of course, in general this approach brings no good to either me or anyone else.

Thus, it is very important to connect to the heritage of Kabbalists, to use the opportunity to unite that they gave me. Here, the intention decides everything. If my “animal” mind sees various kinds of wisdom in their books to improve something in our world, then it is a completely worthless approach called “the potion of death.” Nothing is worse than this attitude.

And if we connect, if we read these books only in order to see the “elixir of life” inside, we open ourselves so we are ready to receive what they intended to give us. There are no tricks and excuses: all that the upper gives us for the better. Thus I advance, as they say, “believing the wise.”

It is not simple, but it imperative. My intention determines the difference between the “elixir of life” and the “potion of death,” between the “bat” living in the dark, and the “rooster” praising the dawn. If I do not keep the correct approach, I can stay in the same place, or even worse, fall backward. Even if I have dedicated a whole life to this, if there were an error in the main thing, then life will pass in vain, and even worse, it can throw me into the forces of impurity (Klipot), cleansing from which can take a few more cycles.

That is why people must constantly check themselves on the spiritual path.

Question: What can I do with my “material” mind and my feeling to connect to this “adapter,” a Kabbalistic book?

Answer: It is necessary to cancel yourself before the group and the teacher; this is the tool that lets you connect to the author. By annulling oneself before the group and the teacher who oversees it, a person seemingly connects to the “jack” and establishes connection with the Kabbalist who wrote the book. The group plays the role of the “adapter” between them.

In general, the concept of “group” represents a link between the Creator and humanity.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

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The content of Kabbalistic books can be divided into two parts.

One of them describes our work in feelings between us and explains how through it to reach the Creator Who is not somewhere on the side but between us.

On the other hand, we are given precise Kabbalistic texts, such as The Introduction to the Science of Kabbalah, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and The Book of Zohar, which are absolutely incomprehensible to us. These books talk about the degree to which we must ascend and the actions that we should perform, so by having united and received the property of bestowal, we begin to feel the upper world in this property.

That is why, based on the articles and advice of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, we must carry out actions of unity between ourselves, and while reading the textbooks about the spiritual worlds, we draw the upper Light to ourselves.

In other words, one part of the primary sources is educational, forming our correct connections up to the point that inside them we feel the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

The second part is dedicated to pursuing the goal of unity between us, during studies, to the extent the upper Light, upper forces, properties, degrees, worlds and Lights are revealed between us.

We should strive to that as a child who longs to become an adult is driven by his egoistic nature. It keeps putting pressure on him, teaching him how to grow, and he tirelessly engages in this. Therefore, in our spiritual growth, we must try to be like children, and with the same energy, just as hard, playing all the time to go to the next level, to become adults, to explore this world of adults and adult relationships.

To do this, on one hand, we need to annul ourselves before the friends, and on the other hand, to be above them, to work on unity within the group, to seek every opportunity to add to it, deepen, broaden, and concentrate it so that in everyone one big spark gathers and lights between us. We should not be afraid that we “rub” against each other like nuts in a sack because this friction also produces sparks. If we know why we do this, we will succeed.

Most importantly, we should constantly be aware of the need to unite and adhere to the Creator and fear nothing. As soon as the group or individual people forget why they are here, they immediately turn from a Kabbalistic group to a “bunch of mockers.”

As it said in the Psalms: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” With these words, King David begins the world renowned Psalms, the book of man’s pleas and appeals to the Creator. They are accepted all over the world as the outpouring of the human heart. That is the most important thing! This is the beginning of all beginnings!

We know that groups have many conditions and problems, but they all converge in one point—the realization of the law “love your neighbor as yourself” because it is the law of the Creator. When egoism corrects itself to love, one becomes similar to the Creator.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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The book The Study of The Ten Sefirot (TES) tells us about the structure of our soul and about the actions it performs. But this soul is frozen and motionless now, as if in a state of expectation, of readiness, in the minimal state of its still level. To the extent that we study about it, it awakens and comes to life.

We can do this even unconsciously, without any calculations of how all this happens, but simply by reading this book. This is also good since by that we already evoke the Light that Reforms, but we make the blood flow in the system only at the intensity of the still nature.

If we want to participate in this work consciously and to feel how the Light operates in us, which means not only to read TES, but also to go on spurring the action of the Light consciously, we inject different currents of the Light of life into our soul, and it comes to life.

Then we feel its actions and thanks to that we reach the understanding, the attainment, and the participation. It all depends on the extent to which we identify with the writings, when we understand that it is about our soul. The word “soul” is called “a Godly part from Above,” which means the corrected desire to enjoy with the intention to bestow. There cannot be another upper particle in us.

And so gradually, we slowly advance by drawing upon ourselves the force that injects the spiritual life into us. Eventually a person begins to feel and to be incorporated practically in the whole process the book tells us about, just as the author of the book who attained everything describes it.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/12, The Study of The Ten Sefirot

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The message from our friends, who participated in the book fair:
Thank you for your thoughts for our success at the Frankfurt Book Fair; we couldn’t do this without you. And indeed, we were successful in our continued efforts to share the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah with the world.

During the book fair, Kabbalah Books forged many new contacts with publishers, distributors, and booksellers and strengthened our existing relationships.

Also testimony to our success is that while overall book fair attendance was lower than usual, Kabbalah Books visitor traffic was higher than ever. Rav has stated that one day, we will be the only booth left.

With the addition of more than 20 new publishers, we hopefully will publish many new books.

Since October last year we published 32 books in foreign languages (not including 19 books in Hebrew and Russian): 4 in English, 2 in Spanish, 3 in Germany, 5 in Turkey, 3 in Taiwan, 1 in China, 3 in Macedonia, 3 in Georgia, 2 in Hungary, 1 Italy, 1 in the Czech Republic, 1 in Finland, 1 in Norway, and 1 in Sweden.
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Kabbalah Books was present at the world’s largest book fair in Frankfurt, which ended yesterday. A team of wonderful friends from Europe gathered in Frankfurt to make this fair a success.

We had promising meetings with book publishers from Spain, Holland, Italy, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Brazil, China, Croatia, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and Ethiopia. Most of our current publishers renewed licenses with us to publish their second and third books and we added a number of new publishers in new languages.
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