Preparation for the Lesson
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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” “What Have You Given the Strong to the Hands of the Weak, in the Work”
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 193
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee”
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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 57: …Imagine that there are people who study Kabbalah and attract the light of Infinity, lead the generation after them and the people follow them, and then all will be sure they will never err on their path. But if, instead of Kabbalah, people prefer to study other parts of the Torah, no wonder that the whole generation errs through their fault. So deep is my grief that I am unable to continue speaking about it.
Why did the generations in Israel descend lower and lower, and go further away from the interior of the Torah?
After the destruction of the Temple, there were still many people in constant attainment. Not all fell at once into concealment.
In fact, with the Shevirat ha Kelim (the breaking of the vessels), the highest Kelim descended below all, and those that were not as high don’t fall as low. Besides, there is also significance to the general mixing. Every Kli that falls drags the others after it and pushes those that fell previously even lower.
As a result, the original whole Kli, all parts of which were as a single person with one heart that revealed the Creator, in the shattering gradually lost the revelation as the vessels fell from their previous height. The Study of the Ten Sefirot (Talmud Eser Sefirot) talks about this in Section 7.
History, too, serves as an example. We see how the destruction happened gradually, stage after stage, layer after layer, and continued for a long time. Accordingly, after the destruction of the Temple, for a long time, the spiritual illumination still hadn’t disappeared. After more than a thousand years, during the time of the Ari, many people still maintained the consciousness, the spiritual sensation. It is possible to explain this partially through the great troubles of the exile that held people above the Machsom (the barrier).
Later, after the time of the Ari, a new awakening began, an ascent, a slight call for correction from the side of the Reshimot (remembrances). And therefore, the Baal Shem Tov conducted his work.
It would be possible to ask, “Who gave him permission to do this?” However, the Ari called for correction and suggested his students to “go up to Jerusalem.” Rabbi Chaim Vital also writes about this in Sefer HaHakdamot (The Book of Introductions), and in our day, Baal HaSulam wrote the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot on the same basis.
So, for the Baal Shem Tov, there was a basis for beginning to act and awaken the people to inner work and corrections. He began to speak about the five spiritual worlds, about the Partzufim, about the Sefirot, about the Creator that is clothed in them, and so forth. Why did he and his students disseminate the new message among the people? It was because the crisis had ended by then.
Since then, since we are late with our corrections, we haven’t realized what has been given to us from above, just as we have encountered problems of a different type that have come from below.
Here we are talking about the Yeridat HaDorot (descent of the generations). This was discovered in the 19th century and especially in the 20th century. Despite the fact that the people received a push to return to the land of Israel, this hasn’t had any internal influence on us to this very day. The descent has continued, and we see how from year to year the people gave up the last connections of unity, even in the worst form. But in spite of it all, they are still holding it together. As of today, the shared values of the roots of the movement have disappeared without a trace, like the Kibbutz movement in the form in which it was born.
Baal HaSulam writes that all of this happens, of course, also among those who study the Torah. Instead of turning toward its interior, as all of the Kabbalists in all generations taught—as it was before the destruction of the Temple, according to the principle, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)—they were drawn in an absolutely different direction where it was not possible to find love of others, mutual bestowal, and connection.
This is the reason for the situation we are now in. The generations descended lower, but the people still were not awakened. On the contrary, they continued to descend even lower, even in comparison to the state in which it was in the lands of the exile.
Indeed I have known the reason: that it is mainly because faith has generally diminished, especially faith in the holy men, the wise men of all generations. And the books of Kabbalah and The Zohar are full of corporeal parables. …And that is what prompted me to compose a thorough interpretation… (Item 58)
The books of the Kabbalists were written for Kabbalists, and the common man is not able to understand them. So, Baal HaSulam was compelled to write “The Sulam Commentary to The Book of Zohar.” This commentary, on condition that one learns it correctly, makes it possible for everyone to approach a true understanding and gradually advance toward the truth, to bring the concealed layers of The Book of Zohar down until it will begin to shine from within.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” “The Importance of a Prayer of Many”
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee,” Item 19
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 178
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Writings of Rabash, Letter 40
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Question: Why is our reality called a virtual reality while the spiritual reality is called a concealed reality?
Answer: It is because we don’t perceive our reality by the same vessels, senses, that we feel the spiritual world. We cannot describe anything in the real spiritual world in our reality, in our words.
The question arises, “How our reality can exist if it is a branch of the upper root?” It doesn’t exist. It is imaginary. This is the reason it is called an invented reality that has no connection with the upper world.
And everything I do in this world, all my efforts, do they affect the upper world? We influence the upper only to the extent that we desire to be involved with all stages of spirituality, to the revelations in our point in the heart, but not by what is revealed by our five corporeal senses. So is there any connection between spirituality and all the actions and the commandments that we fulfill in this world? No, after all it is an imaginary world.
All the spiritual levels exist and they are all included in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), while this world simply disappears and doesn’t exist. It exists only if there is a point in the heart through which we enter the spiritual ladder. Everything else is considered corporeal existence, as it written: “all are like animals.” Therefore, our world is worthless except for the work with the point in the heart in order to bring it through the Machsom (barrier) and into the spiritual ladder. This is the reason that the world exists only for those who carry out and fulfill this.
Question: If this world doesn’t exist and is imaginary, why are there upper worlds that we hear about in our imaginary world?
Answer: There is a true reality that exists and there is an imaginary reality that exists only with respect to a person who dwells in a dream. What is the difference between the two? That’s the question… why isn’t this dream the true reality? Why am I not in a dream now? Who can prove to me that I am not? Could I be sleeping now and the alarm clock will go off soon and I will discover that I haven’t woken up for the lesson yet?
We will not know whether we are in an imaginary world or not unless we enter the spiritual world, unless the alarm goes off. When we begin to reveal the spiritual world after we wake up from the dream, we will see that “it is as if we were dreaming.”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Workshop
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 167
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee”
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 4
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee”
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 167
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Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”: …and what exists in the Higher World necessarily exists in all the worlds below it, since the lower one is imprinted by it. Know that these realities and their conducts, which the seeker of the Creator attains, are called “degrees,” since their attainment is arranged one atop the other, like rungs of a ladder.
What is special about the attainment is that we always attain ten Sefirot, the whole of reality. The question is only the resolution, scale, accuracy, depth, and richness of the connections between all parts of reality, but reality is always the same reality.
Therefore, every state in spirituality is called a whole state. We don’t fully understand how there can be a whole state if we are on the first level, the tenth level, or even on the 100th level. After all, it is isn’t the 125th level, and all the more so, not the end of correction and not the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) because only in that world is there wholeness.
No, wholeness is actually in all the states in which we are find ourselves because we always attain the world of Ein Sof. However, with regard to our vessels, it is always revealed as one divided by a certain number and not in its separate parts, but as a whole only to the extent that we understand, perceive, and feel its whole structure with all the discernments within it. It is like a hologram.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/15, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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