Preparation to the Lesson
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Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, (Starting with: “However there is no doubt”), Item 12, Lesson 5
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Emor,” Item 88, Lesson 7
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol 3, Part 8, “Ohr Pnimi,” Item 52, Lesson 34
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“The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah“
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There is only one means to reach the goal of creation—the science of Kabbalah. Any other goal that appears in this world can be achieved by using our forces. But we do not have the force to attain the goal of creation; we have no possibility of understanding it. We are not designed originally to be able to see the goal and reach it.
But there is a state inherent in the process of our development in which we feel bad without achieving the goal of creation even in our normal life on earth, as if it is not related to the higher goal. However, we exist in the material world to rise out of it and reach the goal of creation.
So, there comes a stage in our development when we suddenly feel that it is enough, we can no longer continue like that, and it is necessary to find the meaning of life. From this moment, a person begins to search for this meaning.
This question awakens in individuals and in entire groups or even in the whole world. Of course, this was facilitated by blows that people feel as suffering according to their current perception, meaning average worldly problems with food, family, money, respect, and knowledge.
A person feels a lack of fulfillment in these earthly desires, which cannot be satisfied with anything, and thus he starts crying: “What is the meaning of my life?” He loses the taste of his existence so much that he does not understand why he needs this life if he does not reach the goal.
Then, he comes to the need to realize the method of Kabbalah to achieve the goal of creation. So, the entire material life of humanity aspires to one goal.
To some it comes earlier, to others later, according to a specific process, depending on the root of each soul. But sooner or later, everyone must come to this goal, changing his nature so that all our egoistic desires diminish to the level of basic necessities.
This material level is neither condemned nor praised because a person satisfies these basic needs in order to exist for the realization of spiritual purpose. And all the available forces he will devote to the achievement of this higher goal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot
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The wisdom of Kabbalah is the only means that actually enables me to have control over my fate. No president or prime minister will help here, since the same fate that is in the hands of the Creator also “pulls them by the ear.”
But I don’t reach the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to pray and beg: “Please! Let me feel good!” I don’t want to reveal the Creator, to know His plans, to discover how to influence them, or how to be part of them. It isn’t just any revelation; I am given access to the “keyboard” from which the orders to all of reality are sent.
In addition to that, I am taught how to act, how to control, and to manage my fate and the fate of the whole world. I am told about the structure of the worlds and of this world, about the history of the process, its reasons and its direction, the nature of all of creation, the system of the leadership and the system of Providence. In short, there is nothing that is not included in the wisdom of Kabbalah. It tells us about nature and its absolute laws, which we don’t know. If we know them, we will have control over everything.
The Creator isn’t random outbursts of emotion, and not someone’s capricious desire that leaves me an opening to the truth at the last moment. The Creator is the general law of reality. If I study it, I know how to relate to it, how to incorporate in it, how to manage it.
If I want it, I will have that chance. With time I discover that I first have to understand the Creator. When I understand Him, I immediately agree with Him, just as a person agrees with his mother when he grows up and sees that her desires were only in his favor.
The opportunity to manage the absolute law is free of contradictions: By the revelation of the general system I see that only the right integration between Him and me is necessary here. I only need to change myself and I fulfill it on the levels of the spiritual ladder. On every level I turn to the Creator, and we are incorporated in each other and reach an agreement in the middle line, after which we are together in harmony and peace. We reach equality in the current state, in every moment of my life, because we both value it as the best.
Thus I manage my fate, since on His part it is managed in the same manner. What can be better for a person?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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It is said that there is none wiser than the experienced. It seems to a person that he has been through a lot and that he understands a lot. However, there is none wiser than the experienced doesn’t refer to mere understanding, but to actually having been through all these states and feeling them. Who knows what other states are yet to come.
So a lot of patience and endurance are required of us no matter what happens. The main thing is to adhere to the environment that will help a person hold on in any situation and to not leave the path, to hasten time, and thus to turn all the problems that are revealed to help, for the good.
The evil that is revealed is detachment from adhesion, from the feeling that “there is none else besides Him.” This is what the person sees as evil and not the unpleasant bodily feelings, until all his organs begin to feel the same thing. This means that the Light that Reforms brings him an actual feeling of pleasure from the fact that there is none else besides Him that dominates him.
Until then a person has to go through many states in which he feels lost and wants to totally disappear from this reality. But eventually, he reaches opposite states when all the emptiness that is revealed turns into the one place in which he can value and praise the Creator’s domination, the dominance of the force of bestowal.
Then he is able to relate differently to all the states, relationships, people, and values that were previously hateful and caused him pain. He understands that “there is none else besides Him,” and that everything that happens is for his own good. Then he begins to love them until he attains complete absolute love.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12
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In Kabbalah, the historical aspect plays a minor role. It doesn’t matter when or in which generation a certain Kabbalist operated; what’s important is what he did and what he fulfilled in the general system of the worlds, which corrections he made, so that thanks to this, those who come after him would be able to advance in a better, easier way. I cannot assess the Kabbalists or compare them until I am in the upper system myself. I judge according to what I see today. Suppose someone has left wonderful writings that light my emotions and my mind and enable me to advance. Accordingly I see that Kabbalist as great.
On the other hand, Baal Shem Tov, for example, didn’t leave any books, but all the Kabbalists that followed him rose thanks to his study. The Ari didn’t write anything either, all his teachings were written by his disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital. There were also Kabbalists who shortened the way for the next generations. It all depends on the root of a person’s soul. Only in the network of the connections between the souls can we discern what each of them did in the general framework, and what corrections he made in it.
Rabash says that the Talmud sages made the greatest corrections. On the one hand, they had attained spirituality on a very high level, and on the other hand, they were already in exile. This allowed them to write and to describe the states on a corporeal level and at the same time to make great spiritual corrections. In the “Introduction to TES” Baal HaSulam speaks about the requirements of those times: “You shall eat bread and salt, drink water sparingly, sleep on the ground, and labor in the Torah.” But by their spiritual work, Kabbalists have annulled these extremely difficult conditions and left us only one means, the Light that Reforms. Since then, it is enough in order to fulfill the goal of creation.
They, of course, drew the Light before that too, as it says: “You shall labor in the Torah,” but this was in addition to asceticism. Later the authors of the Talmud developed the channels of abundance to such an extent that now we can lead an ordinary corporeal life, needing no luxuries and settling for the necessities. The Light creates such a reality that we don’t need to think or to worry about that.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Question: How can you identify a Kabbalist? Even though the spiritual work is concealed, can the fact that a person speaks about correcting our desire be some indication of that?
Answer: I don’t know. He may have read Kabbalah books many times and describes their content to you. Well, what of that? Is he a Kabbalist according to this? Or is it enough that his blessing makes your body tremble?
And what if a person says something and it happens a couple of days later? There are quite a few people in the world that can foretell the future, but a fortuneteller is not a Kabbalist. He tells you what will happen to you in this world, but it has nothing to do with Kabbalah and nothing to do with spirituality.
A well-known fortuneteller, Wolf Messing, accurately foresaw the events that were to happen in the future including world wars and peoples’ fates. He even predicted the day and the hour of his own death. During the crisis with Cuba, he actually revealed all the cards, describing the concerns of the two sides and the consequences of any move. As a result, the two sides reached an agreement and eliminated the threat of war.
A person can feel what is about to happen in the world, since everything already exists, but is concealed from our perception. For us it is a secret, but in fact there is no time and it is about the levels that are revealed one following the other, so there are people who can see “through” this order.
Imagine that I am short-sighted and it would take me five minutes to get close enough to you to recognize you. On the other hand, if I put on my glasses, I will be “closer” to you without having to wait five minutes and will immediately identify you. Time and distance are the same thing, the same essence, it all depends on the “glasses”…
One way or the other, such abilities have nothing to do with Kabbalah. Different secret agencies use such techniques, but clairvoyants are not Kabbalists.
A Kabbalist is a person who identifies with the Creator and is already on the spiritual ladder. What is more, it is a person who can already receive in order to bestow on the third level of the first Sefirot.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 11, Lesson 4
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Emor,” Item 71, Lesson 6
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol 3, Part 8, Item 48, Lesson 33
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“The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah“
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Kabbalah is science and the system and the realization of the attainment of the Creator. Our goal is to reveal Him, and that is why there is no science higher and more important. After all, any wisdom is evaluated by its goal. Kabbalah is complex: It is not only explains the procedure, but also accompanies us throughout the entire process of its realization.
In the article “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence,” Baal HaSulam writes: As a whole, the wisdom of Kabbalah concerns the revelation of Godliness, arranged on its path in all its aspects—those that have emerged in the worlds and those that are destined to be revealed, and in all the manners that can ever appear in the worlds, to the end of time. In addition, Ramchal writes in the book 138 Gates of Wisdom: The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is designed only to know the management of the higher will: on what He created all these creatures, what does He want from them, and the end result of everything in the world.
And here are the words of Baal HaSulam from the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah:” This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence, by fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.”
From some highest Source that I do not know, a sequence of roots descends along which, as a creature, I can achieve the revelation of the Creator. Firstly, on the way from above to below, the Creator constrains Himself more, and my receiving desire is growing until all the roots disappear, leaving me with the last one—the point in the heart (•). And on the way upward, I reveal the Creator a little bit, time after time, getting to know Him, passing through 125 roots.
Thus, the system, as well the passage of the way, connects me to the Creator. The guide and the path from point A to point B is the science of Kabbalah. Ultimately, it is a means of revealing the Creator.
There is a ladder between the Creator and the creature. It leads from the properties of the creature to the properties of the Creator, and along the way their properties are combined with each other from zero to one hundred percent. This is what Kabbalah is: It tells not about the properties of the Creator as such and not about the properties of the creature as such because this essence is incomprehensible to me. I just study their relationship, the form dressed in matter. I can attain it, know it, feel it, understand it; I have access to it. I do not know what the Creator and the creature are separately—I study only their combination.
This happens on each degree. This is the realization of the “wicked,” that is the creature, ascending to the degree of the Creator; in other words, the revelation of the Creator to the created beings is the science of Kabbalah.
Hence, it is clear that we have nothing else to do in life but to satisfy our basic needs and to devote the rest to this science. Today, we are approaching the basic level. Life itself, the crisis will cleanse us from excesses within a few years, if not sooner. Then, in desperation, the world will discover that for a few thousand years it advanced along the wrong course and now it must change direction. Of course, it was not a mistake, but preparation, the realization of the previous degrees of development, still, vegetative and animate, to finally come to the science of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Baal HaSulam, Introduction to the book Pri Hacham (A Sage’s Fruit): The sages said there are three partners in a man, the Creator, the father, and the mother. The father gives whiteness, the mother gives redness, and the Creator gives a spirit and a soul.
A father and a mother are two lines, the force of receiving and the force of bestowal, matter and form. Everything is arranged according to the middle line, which we have to put together by ourselves. We are given three lines from Above: father (Aba), mother (Ima), and the Creator. We have to put the father and mother together, below, build and reveal them inside us in order to find the middle line. Then I come in contact with my middle line, which means the human being (Adam) in me, and resemble the Creator, forming adhesion between us.
A human being is made of two things—matter and form. Matter is what we call the creation. And form is the Creator. It turns out that we have three partners:
Baal HaSulam divides the influences from both sides into different types and gives them different names: father and mother, matter and form, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, and so on. The point is that, together, these two factors present us with a choice by evoking us to put them together into the form of a human being.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Until the destruction of the Second Temple, the wisdom of Kabbalah was the Torah, the study of the Israeli nation, the group that Abraham brought out of Babel and made into a nation that lives according to the laws of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The destruction of the Temple means that they fell from love thy friend as thyself into unfounded hatred.
Since then the wisdom of Kabbalah ceased to exist among the people who we still call the people of Israel, although they were no longer connected to the law of love thy friend as thyself, and therefore have no right to be called “Israel” (Yashar – Kel), which means “straight to the Creator.” So the understanding of what we need the wisdom of Kabbalah for was lost. Baal HaSualm speaks about his fear, “and it is fearful that it will be forgotten, God forbid, in the people of Israel.”
He is afraid of that, but others don’t even think about it since they don’t know what the wisdom of Kabbalah is needed for. And to that end, Baal HaSulam wrote the “Introduction to TES,” in order to explain why it is obligatory to study the book “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“ (TES) and the wisdom of Kabbalah in general.
He didn’t see that people were interested in this wisdom or that they respond to his appeal, that they even listened to how important and essential this wisdom is. Everyone rejected it by finding different excuses. Religious people who studied the Torah didn’t understand why they needed something else. And a person who lived an ordinary corporeal life was afraid that the wisdom of Kabbalah would ruin his life. Who knew what forces were hidden in it, what he would summon upon himself by mentioning the Holy names, perhaps he would summon troubles by that…
Others justified themselves by saying that there were people who studied Kabbalah, who called themselves Kabbalists, but who didn’t recommend it to others. There are many reasons why the wisdom of Kabbalah was pushed aside, away from general attention, and it is a wonder that it has existed until now. After all there were many wisdoms that were forgotten and have disappeared throughout history.
People reject this study, but Baal HaSulam thought that this should stop. The time had come for mankind to change our attitude and to show people why the wisdom of Kabbalah is necessary and why it came into the world—in order to raise humanity to the level of unity with the Creator, which is the goal of our life, the goal of creation. It is time to fulfill this goal here and now.
For this reason Baal HaSulam wrote TES and “The Introduction to TES” in which he explains the importance of its study. In his time it was very hard to bring this idea to people. Today it is accepted in a totally different manner, and we can openly advertise the widespread study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. I remember what a buzz it made in Bnei Brak, an orthodox town, when people found out that I brought a group of nonreligious students from Tel Aviv to my teacher, Rabash. Rabash made a real revolution, but there was no other choice, the world is in such a state that the wisdom of Kabbalah has to be revealed.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot
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