Question: If the wisdom of Kabbalah is a science, how can we tie it to “faith above reason?” After all, faith seems to negate science.

Answer: We are on a corporeal level together with the sciences, the arts, and so forth, and in them we can develop.

However, how do we develop? It is only within the ego. The ego develops, and we develop with it, but as of today, the ego actually has ended its development.

Which sciences and arts are we talking about? We see that today everything seems to be stuck, delayed, and coming to a dead end, to a crisis. It has been going on for several decades now. Perhaps people simply don’t understand, but scientists do.

The ego reached its peak and has stopped developing after 6,000 years, having started from a zero point until today. We have been through a process of evolution during this time and have risen to a certain level in the fields of arts and sciences in which the ego has already exhausted itself.

We actually feel that we don’t want anything anymore. Today, we don’t pay attention to anything, and even space research and other sciences don’t interest us anymore.

So, how do we move on to the next stage now? The next stage is a totally different level, and we also must grow in it since there, too, may be a new unknown ego or certain desires.

This transition must be very special. We don’t even understand what it is. It is a transition to a new dimension.

It is totally different in its attributes, there are totally different forces and different connections. It is like our world, but in a totally different way. The still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature are connected according to different laws, the laws of a new dimension, the laws of what we call the spiritual world.

The new dimension is called the spiritual world since faith above reason dominates it, which means bestowal above receiving. The goal of corporeal existence is receiving. In the spiritual world, however, the goal is bestowal.

So, how can we move to an opposite perception in which the Keter of the lower becomes the Malchut of the upper? How can we move from the egoistic ten Sefirot to the altruistic ten Sefirot? It is only if we perform an operation on ourselves in faith above reason.

“Reason” refers to what I had on the corporeal level, and “faith” is what guides me on the spiritual level. Thus, I raise myself.

This is why it says in all the sources that the most important thing for us is faith above reason.

What is the practical meaning of faith above reason? It means that our previous reason gradually cools down. We are given help here since we cannot advance by our previous reason and immediately begin to rise above it. This is why there is a certain descent after the convention, the addition of ego.

In spite of and together with this, we must ascend and advance more powerfully toward the connection between us. This is why we must study, try to connect, disseminate, and do everything to achieve a stronger connection between us.

We should feel opposite inclinations since we must do everything in order to delve more deeply into it. Our global group must connect more strongly. This is why we should study, disseminate and do everything that needs to be done. It is all only in order to connect internally to the same feeling we had in the convention, but on the next level, on a higher level.

What do we lack in order to reach this? We lack the actual actions.

There is Isra-el, which means “Yashar Kel,” (straight to the Creator). This means that Israel is every friend who yearns for spiritual attainment. There is another part called “Torah,” which stems from the Aramaic word “Oraita – Ohr – light.” The concept of Torah includes the group, the connections, mutual guarantee, and so on, everyone’s adhesion to it, our goal. This is the exact path by which we must advance.

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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, “Faith Above Reason”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth”

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The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “On the Night of the Bride,” Item 142, Lesson 52

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World,” Lesson 7 

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If we felt that something in the convention was missing, it’s only because we were not ready for it yet and now we have to work on it. This means that we have to summon the feeling of the connection between us in order to discover the Creator (the Light) in this connection. Thus both the means (the group) and the Torah (the Light) will bring us to the Creator, according to the rule “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

The point is that in ancient Babylon they spoke Aramaic, which since then is parallel to Hebrew. Hebrew and Aramaic stem from the same root and they are two opposite languages. One language conveys the information through the vessels and the other through the Light: Aramaic does it through the vessels, the desires, while Hebrew does it through the fillings. There is nothing other than these two attributes and so these two languages exist in a parallel.

The Babylonian Talmud that everyone studies today is in Aramaic since it’s about correcting the vessels. The whole Talmud is a system of correcting the vessels, the desires, but it’s described as the states of the still, vegetative, and animate nature of these desires. The Torah, however, (which stems from the word Light) is in Hebrew, since it comes from Above. This means that the Talmud comes from below and the Torah from Above.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, “Faith Above Reason”

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Question: Why is it impossible to hold the Light; it is lost?

Answer: If we could keep the achievements, then we would not be able to develop. If we constantly felt receiving the fulfillment, we would have considered ourselves in the state of final correction. My desire would be constant, the Light filling it constantly, and I would feel myself in the end of correction. How can I know what the end of correction means: 100 kilograms of desire and fulfillment or a million? If the Light fills my entire vessel, I feel satiated.

The newborn, who eats 50 grams of milk thinks that he has received a full meal. You need a kilogram to feel satisfied and he needs only 50 grams. Everyone feels himself filled in accordance with his wishes. If you fill yourself up to the end, then it is called the world of Infinity. Infinity means no boundaries: You received as much as you wanted without any restrictions and therefore this fulfillment is called infinite, unlimited.

Therefore, if we could keep the filling, then we would feel in perfect condition, in a perfect state and no need for further development.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/13, Writings of Rabash

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Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth,” Lesson 3

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The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “On the Night of the Bride,” Item 140, Lesson 51

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World,” Lesson 6

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Baal HaSulam, “Walking the Path of Truth,” Letter 17: …so as to always be a target for you between right and left. This is because there is one who walks who is worse than he who sits idly. It is he who deflects from the road, for the path of truth is a very thin line…

First, we must make sure that we know the right direction so that we can perform actions that aim at the right, accurate, and clarified direction. If I am not sure as to what I must do, it means that I don’t know what the right direction is. If I know what to do, I still must check whether it is the right direction.

It turns out that a person moves by walking not the actual steps, but by clarifying their direction. There are no steps forward as one walks, but only the clarification of the right direction. This means that I advance.

If I am at a certain point where I clarify the direction from it to the Creator, I unite with the Creator at that point. It turns out that I make the right step forward without moving from that place. Then, immediately at that point, new conditions are revealed which I must clarify again as to which way to turn, how to use all the conditions in order to unite, and where I must get to. If I determine how to perform such an action, it means that I have discovered unity at that point, and there is nowhere I must move to.

The steps by which we advance are not by moving, but by determining the point of a more correct attitude, perspective and trend each time, the point of attaining unity and connection, this is actually an attainment along the spiritual path.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 17: For the path of truth is a very thin line that one walks until one comes to the King’s palace.

One who begins to walk at the beginning of the line needs great care so as not to deviate to the right or to the left of the line even as much as a hair’s breadth. This is so because if at first the deviation is as a hair’s breadth, even if one continues completely straight, it is certain that he will no longer come to the King’s palace, as he is not stepping on the true line.

It’s not clear how one can keep the right direction if one has deviated from it once. So this is a very serious warning. How do I know that I have never been wrong before? Is it possible to choose correctly if I am at a certain point now after having made a mistake? Can I find the right direction and advance if I am at the wrong point?

It’s a very uncertain and scary situation. Like all of you, I have made many turns throughout my lifetime. I have been confused and took the wrong direction. So how can I find the right direction after all this? Even if I find it, will it correct all my previous corruptions?

Such questions make our state very uncertain. How can I advance if I don’t know for sure that I have been following the right path? How many times have I gone in the wrong direction?

Hence, one who walks upon the true line of preparing for the work of God (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator is one.) must always test himself to see if he wants the three above aspects equally, as the end of the act is equal with its beginning. If one wants one of them more than the second or the third, then one deflects from the path of truth, and understands this.

This is the meaning of, “Open for me one aperture of repentance, such as the eye of a needle, and I will open for you gates where carts and coaches enter.” Interpretation: the aperture is not for entrance and exit, but to insert the thread for sewing and for work.

Similarly, you are to crave only the commandment of the upper One, to work, and then I will open for you a door such as an entrance to a hall. This is the meaning of the Explicit Name in the verse, “but in every deed (spelled like Hall in Hebrew) as I live and all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”

An eye of a needle means worrying about uniting Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one point. We constantly worry only about that and this point becomes smaller and more focused. In order to reach it we have to constantly unite all the 613 attributes, meaning the desires that awaken in us and which are opposite from one another and present different conditions: those of Israel, those of the Torah, and those of the Creator. We need to unite all this into one whole, into unity.

If we can bring all to such unity, it means that we collect everything into one point into an eye of a needle. When we focus ourselves on one point through an optical instrument, we can see an opening in it that leads to a new world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can I check that I do not deviate from the right course?

Answer: The course can be checked only according to the principle: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator is one.” All the deviations are only from this unity. There is nothing else to worry about but to clarify this principle precisely as it determines the correct state in every moment of our life. And if we are not in this unity, then we have swerved from the right course.

Check how much everything that happens is connected to one source: You yourself with all your qualities and all the conditions that you received in the group. And the whole world is a small addition to your relationships with the friends. Connect the Creator to all of this.

Everything needs to be focused together as in a gun sight, constantly connecting these three points in your life. Then you will have a correct view of the world, the correct perception. You will see the true world, not a false one.

If you look through a telescope and see people, stars, rocks, plants, animals and their different relationships with each other, you would see the whole world as a kaleidoscope. There, you see the friends and all their problems, as well as your personal problems, as spiritual, internal. The entire picture is inside the kaleidoscope.

And then you start to focus this lens, tighten up its axis, until they all merge into one. That is, you understand that all this comes from the Creator and is sent to you on purpose. There is a system between the Creator and you, consisting of 613 parts, every one of which and all together you need to organize correctly so that between you and the Creator there is only one straight line that connects you, which in the end is reduced to a single point of unity, adhesion!

Everything disappears but this point of adhesion. This means that you created yourself, placed yourself in the correct place, in the correct point. We need to begin to feel our 613 desires and the Light that stands against them and swings them, and if not the Light, at least some forces, sensations, that are perceived closer to unity or further away.

You need to deeply regret if you suddenly don’t feel this unity, feeling as if something has gone wrong in your life. You need to be constantly concerned that this is in order. You will not be able to live without it; this concern will not give you rest.

It would seem that it’s impossible to always be in these thoughts. But this point of unity is special because we don’t need anything else in life but it! Even if you work somewhere, are involved with family, children, home, or various problems, you begin to see that the unity “Israel, the Torah, and Creator” solves any problem and everything calms down and falls into place.

When this unity is achieved, the actions that had to be made disappear. You seemingly perform them to achieve unity. But as soon as it’s achieved with their help, they immediately disappear because this world becomes clothed in the spiritual world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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“Faith above reason” means that a person has pushed the limits of the property of bestowal within himself, exiting himself. Faith is called bestowal, the property of Bina, the Light of Hassadim. When I am on any spiritual degree, in any state, I expand my possibility of bestowal and love. This is called “faith,” which begins to predominate, to prevail over the property of receiving, over egoism. Reason is the Light that we receive that fills our egoistic desire. But faith is the property of bestowal, the condition of spiritual advancement.

After the convention in St. Petersburg in 2013, I heard from many people that “now was the first time we felt that we really achieved something.” Indeed, after this convention we first felt unity, and not everyone by himself, but something common, some common mass that linked each other together, closes everyone in itself. In addition, we have found that there is connection between what happens in us and what we study in the primary sources (partly, in The Book of Zohar, partly in the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash) about the conditions of connecting a person within the group, the conditions of our unity.

All this has become much closer to us. We seem to have confirmed the correctness of our development. This means that we have received new knowledge. And how can we now go in faith above the acquired reason?

In this state, of course I can be happy that I have become convinced of the correctness of my path: that I have a teacher who does not fool me, that I have dispelled my doubts and solved some problems. But I fell into the desire to receive and got a bit of the Light into these desires. On the one hand, it’s good that I have achieved this, it should be so. We must never doubt that what we receive and what we are in is how it should be, and we got it from the Creator. And now another question arises: How can we go further?

Next, I have to close my eyes to everything that I received and advance to faith above reason: to break through to the next level by the fact that I do not want to look at the gained knowledge or to pay attention to everything that exists in me today as a proof of the correctness of the path. I want to move forward with eyes closed, only for the sake of bestowal. This means that I should not think that I have confirmation of the evidence that I am advancing on the right path or whether I have the inner confidence that I am in the right group with the right teacher or not.

If we go by faith, it’s completely different conditions, the opposite of reason. That is, the property of bestowal is opposite of the property of reception, as is the property of the Creator opposite to the property of the created being. So, the next degree that we have to cover, to which we should ascend, is realized not by our reason and not with our confidence, but on the contrary, when we rise above them.

In other words, now I want to go only to the property of bestowal, paying no attention to anything, despite everything I received at the convention, despite the sensation that gave me confidence, the foundation of life. I am interested only in that, and I want to enter in that.
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From the Virtual Lesson 7/21/13

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It is necessary to reach the point when all your life is in the friends, together with them in collective unity where there is no difference between us. Our bodies disappear, and there is only the desire that feels the pleasure from connection and is not torn apart. All the parts not only want to unite but have already adhered to each other and dissolved in general unity, having turned into completely uniform, homogeneous material.

All our features and differences disappear in it because we complete each other so much that we turn into one unit, so much so that I do not care whose hands these are, whose feet, whose brain, whose back. Everything is collective as the image of one person. We begin to feel force within this unity that revives this general image that we have built, which is called the human being, Adam. This animating force is called the Creator.

We need to strive to this and live in it all the time. Every moment we need to seek how to strengthen this form where we come to love the Creator through the love of friends. If, for a moment, I leave this search and do not reinforce this state, I fall immediately. I will not feel this right away, but there is no doubt that I fell. It is possible to move only in one direction or another. There are no fixed states in spirituality. Do not think that you can stop and rest. Whether you want it or not in the spiritual world, it is necessary to feel where you are heading every second: to unity together with everyone or in the opposite direction. It is either one or the other.

Trembling fear is required here, which is the First Commandment, and without which you cannot even hope to advance a bit. If some material goal in this world requires me to change direction—to think about the group, the connection to the Creator to help us carry out this material task—then it already is good because it changes my direction.

At least, I am not directed toward a personal interest but at something collective, together with everyone. This already forces us to remember that we need the Creator because without Him, we will not succeed.

If this does not exist, then stronger blows must be sent to us so that we feel our helplessness, the same as the entire world, and we are compelled to recall that only the Creator can help us. No one else can. The main thing is to change direction. As soon as we do this and begin to work in the correct direction of unity, clarifying what and why we need this connection, we immediately change the goal and means.

First, we needed the Creator to succeed in achieving various external goals, and now we understand that external goals were purposefully placed in front of us in order to frighten us and force us to recall the Creator. Thus, we are awakened on the basis of a simple psychological egoism.

For the time being, it is a purely selfish approach, but it teaches us how not to exit “holiness.” After all, there is holiness even in this connection.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/13, Writings of Rabash

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