Question: I told my mother-in-law about the wisdom of Kabbalah, about the fact that the whole world is one big family and that we are all interconnected with one another. She doesn’t study the wisdom of Kabbalah, but she understood everything. It turns out that when she was young she was part of the hippie movement and supported their ideas. Then she asked: “Does that mean that we will all be like the hippies?”

Answer: I was also young at that time and I remember these movements. Indeed the urge to be cut off from the ego, from materialism and competition, from the endless chase of material things was very strong then among young people. It isn’t by chance. They felt the emptiness in all these things very strongly then.

In those years, the Club of Rome started talking about the futility of individualistic development based on trade and technology. Many agreed with that, but eventually the “mainstream” representatives managed to somehow cover up this problem. They liquidated the connection between gold and paper money and began inflating the financial bubble.

As a result the world underwent great changes. In general, a lie is a tool to make great profit. Only today do we begin to realize what it led to and what an explosion we are facing.

So in the hippies’ times people began to ask about the meaning of life, but the question was formed gradually. They arrived at it from different directions, and so they found many answers. Some turned their eyes to India and others started devoting their time to art.

On the whole, when it comes to the masses, your mother-in-law is right. We are talking about questions that are very similar to the questions that troubled her when she was young. In our days, however, the situation is completely different. In those days, the wave that the young generation felt was broken by the achievements of technological progress that promised endless growth. Today this is impossible.

After this whole “cycle” the world has reached a general crisis, and now we will be able to continue to exist only if we tie money to real things. In other worlds, we must tie a person’s exertion to something that has a real value and not to “papers” that can be printed limitlessly or that can be duplicated “virtually.”  [Read more →]

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom:” Now we have come to a clear understanding of the sentence concerning the freedom of the individual. Indeed, there is a question: “Where did the collective take the right to expropriate the freedom of the individual and deny him of the most precious thing in life, freedom?” Seemingly, there is no more than brute force here.

What should we do if collective interests are more important than personal ones? Can a society constantly force me to take care of it? Would enforcing this help us? Therefore, we need education.

Parents also decide for their child to what faith he will belong, what school he will attend, what kind of education he will get, and with what views he will be imbued. Practically, they define his whole life in advance. Are they given such a right?

Meanwhile, the father and mother predetermine their child’s future by their very existence; moreover, they develop certain character traits in him.

The family, kindergarten, school, and environment—all these factors together form a person, and thus, at the age of 15-20, he becomes an individual for whom everything has been decided in advance. What rights does society have to make out of me what they want: a bun, pie, loaf of bread, or bagel? But that is how it happens

This order of things stems from the law of following the majority. The “majority” means a conscious society that feels and understands that wellbeing depends on the fact that every person takes care of the whole, that is, cancels his egoism and unites with the community.

In this case, society or parents can really require everyone to study collective interests. Moreover, society is responsible for educating all its members about this principle. Therefore, it is said that the father should teach his son a “craft.” We are talking about the same system, teaching bestowal. [Read more →]

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There is no good without bad and there is no bad without good. Only when the two are balanced does the feeling of life grow between them, prosperity. We see that in every “creation.” Even in music, minor and major don’t get along without one another. At the junction of notes it is constantly pulsing with the resistance in each chord, dissonance and consonance coexist. Harmony—this is the correct relationship between the discordant sounds.

Even at home you won’t be able to reach an agreement if you don’t bring two opposites together. How can you reach domestic peace? After all, peace is wholeness, the middle line, which is made of two contrasts. They gradually grow and the contrast between them grows stronger; you don’t annul them, but rather, connect them, bringing them together at the top.

This is mutual guarantee: Despite the differences, we look for the common upper force that will connect us to each other. We only want to summon it, to draw it so that it will be among us.

In fact “it” is the future “we.” Now we cannot treat each other correctly and so we want that power of mutual bestowal to be dressed in us, to be awakened inside us.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, “The Freedom”

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes in “The Freedom” that the method of Kabbalah is intended for the purification of Israel, and this refers to the recognition of evil. How is one connected to the other?

Answer: Do you really achieve something good by recognizing your own evil? Of course, because this has led you to purification, you have become better, more receptive; you feel more, understand more, you permeate the matter of your desire. Before it would come down to good or bad sensations, and you had no knowledge of anything else. You would simply respond to stimuli like a very primitive animal. Just like a frog’s leg automatically contracts under the influence of an electric impulse.

Now you have questions: “Why do I do this? Who does this come from? What is it for? Is it for the good or the bad?” You rise above your nature by analyzing the situation, and in some way it’s the same as coming out of your nature. Like a worm in an apple, you start making your way towards the light.

Imagine a red, juicy apple, and you’re inside of it. And an opening leading to the exterior appears. Even if you haven’t yet gone through it, you already begin to distinguish that there is light there, and it is dark here. Differentiating between them becomes your recognition of evil.

This is an enormous achievement amid the size of creation, which serves as our “apple”…..
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12 “The Freedom”

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A prayer is a desire which appears in the heart at every moment. The main work lies in understanding your prayer: what I want, what I should want, and whether my prayer has reached the heights of the forefathers. In other words, I examine what my heart is feeling. After all, I am not its owner, and I must place severe guards and protectors over it to watch it and build a system to influence it.

Only my environment, my friends, rule over my heart. If I create this environment, it will be able to control it, but I can’t control it on my own. This is my only freedom of choice.

It follows that my prayer completely depends upon the environment, and it must reach my “half of the coin” with its help, a one hundred percent desire towards the Light, bestowal. For this reason, with a correct attitude towards the environment and a demand for them to convince my heart to have the desire to bestow (the importance of it), they’ll create the correct prayer in me. It’s in this way that I’ll complete my half of the coin and finish my work.

It turns out that instead of working on fulfillment and with my heart directly, I work with the environment, directing it so it’ll influence my heart and make it want the right kind of fulfillment, meaning to become filled with the quality to bestow, love for one’s neighbor. This is exactly what I am lacking now. When I complete this entire process, I find the “second half of the coin,” fulfillment.

And here “the common and the private are equal,” everyone is absolutely equal. After all, every element is equally important in an integrated analog system. No one is big or small, rich or poor; everyone must earn their half of the coin and reach a complete specific desire which is only attributed to them.

This is why no one is more special than others, greater or smaller in this kind of work, all friends are absolutely equal. After all, if the smallest correct desire is missing, we’ll not achieve the perfect half of the coin. And this is why it’s necessary to care for everyone.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom“: “Although our strength is not enough to face the first factor, the “source,” we still have the ability and the free choice to protect ourselves against the other three factors, by which the source changes in its individual parts, and sometimes in its general part, as well, through habit, which endows it with a second nature.”

I feel different influences and although I cannot resist them, I can “play” with their “combinations,” “juggle” them and make a decision. But what decision exactly?

Although my actions are artificial, there are different factors that can evoke them. If there were only one factor, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. When there are two factors, I can already direct the ratio between them and influence the balance of power. Thus, I can influence my fate and the changes in me; there is now my “self” that makes decisions.

Here there is a great philosophical problem which compelled people to divide reality into good and bad. One force is inconceivable, unattainable. Only the idea of multiple forces, to some extent, enables people to act and to “juggle” them. Even if people acknowledge the existence of an upper force, they still have a need to believe in different “angels” and “devils” that separately rule under It.

We see that in the spiritual work this problem is solved in a totally different way. A person is under different kinds of influences from the Creator and he can prefer one over another. It’s still unclear how this happens, but we see that the solution for our independent participation in the process is here.

Question: It turns out that I am trying to play with the reasons, although I really have no control over them because I myself am a result.

Answer: I can change a certain influence on me and for that there is another factor. I add my factor to the laws of nature and want to know what I evoke by that. Thus, I can really decide something and learn new phenomena. This can be done by scientific research and by spiritual research; with the help of my factor I begin to study the upper force.

In order to do that I have to be made of two forces, and I have them: on one hand, the ego which is great help, and on the other hand, the group in which the Creator, the upper Light, is hidden. Between them, in the resistance between them, my “self” is born. Thus, I discover the Creator according to how I manage to connect these two forces inside me. I can’t discover Him with only one of them. We need the combination of the two.

The point is that the term “one” is revealed above matter and above the Light. The Light is the measure of bestowal; matter is the measure of receiving, and the Creator above them is consciousness, the thought of creation, and not the duplicity of the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, bestowal and receiving. This isn’t even bestowal, but the desire to bestow that precedes it.

In this desire that are parts that are detached from actual bestowal. I want to reach them, to know who the Creator is, not in relation to me, but who He actually is. In Kabbalah this is called “Atzmuto,” the essence of the Creator, to which we have no access now, although we also want to attain it. This is to where our curiosity is drawn.

So I have to create all the conditions, like in a lab designing a field study. Everything stems from the Creator, but His bestowal surrounds me on all sides. I look for my place, for the opportunity to discover the Creator by this experiment. Actually we always behave this way when we study something new. We only have to arrange everything in its place, to understand what we are dealing with and how we reach the result.

On the whole, behind every experiment we discover an attitude, a formula, and a connection between different phenomena. In addition we discover the logic behind them. These aren’t just dry facts that leave us on the same level on which we discovered them. No, we always look for the reason: why are they connected this way? What forces them to be so? What’s the reason? Behind every phenomenon that I see in matter, I want to see what caused it, the upper part of the Partzuf. I want to know the reason for the data I received; this reason is the actual result of the experiment.

So in my spiritual work I develop a kind of “lab” attitude towards reality. The “lab” in this case is me and the approach remains totally scientific.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/11, The Freedom”

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Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam wrote that nature punishes man if he doesn’t implement its laws. But man is born egoistic and is not able to implement them!

Answer: There are many ways to word this question. First all of, what kind of Creator is there if he created us with so many defects and still punishes us for them? How can such a thing be? Isn’t it like beating a baby who was just born with some defect? Did He do this on purpose so that He would have an opportunity to punish us? Is the meaning of this to enjoy our despicableness and sufferings?

It is here we need to understand that the Creator doesn’t correspond with our present logic. The Creator gives us the possibility to complete ourselves. He created us at the level of beast. I am called, “man,” a name from my future state, and not a name from my present state.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah everything is named according to “future achievements.” For example, we are called, “Kabbalists” even though we have not yet received the upper Light with the intention for bestowal and we still are not in the spiritual worlds. But we are attracted to this, and work for this, and already now call ourselves with this future “title.”

This being so, why do we suffer from lack of self-completeness? It is because otherwise we wouldn’t complete it.

The Creator created us at the low, animal level, and we need to add to this the level of man, similar to the Creator. We need to do this by ourselves, through achieving, recognizing the quality, and valuing this status. This has been imposed specifically on us. Since if from the beginning, the Creator created everything by Himself, then there wouldn’t be any benefit from this creation. What reason is there to create a world where He controls everything and His creatures have no free choice in anything? That would be like doing nothing.

The Creator intentionally created us as we are: We are not complete; we need to feel that, to deeply sense that. Afterwards, we need to understand by what means we can complete ourselves, what we are really missing in order to add the Creator’s nature to ours? And then the animal in us is not taken into account and remains only as a basis that can be turned to. Afterwards, with the acquisition of the form of man, it disappears, and man detaches from it. The benefit is found within this entanglement in order to grow, and then afterwards to exit it and no longer be in need of it. Thus we are in need of the physical world, for this “bubble,” as long as we grow. And when we have grown, the physical world will disappear.

But we need to acquire the attribute of the Creator by ourselves. For this we need feelings; thus, gradually the level of the evil inclination is strengthened in me, the recognition of evil. I feel sufferings, aspirations, and pressures. All of this is in order to awaken me to the spiritual work. Together with this, the Creator does not punish me, but gradually, bit by bit, He shows me that I still haven’t received His form.

Let’s suppose, now, according to my plan of development, I should have already gotten 10% of the attribute of bestowal from the Creator, meaning exiting from the Egypt in me, detaching from egoism, rising above it in restriction, and beginning to process 10% of my desires for bestowal. But since I have not done that, these unexecuted assignments of mine press on me and I feel them as suffering.

It is not the Creator who puts pressure on me, but those forces that are found between the “I” of now and the desired “I,” the person I should already be. The gap between these two, gives me the feeling of the crisis, the feeling of suffering. The Creator only provides the creature with the initial push, from the beginning to the end. And I understand this process as a temporary space where I move from one end to the other in the process of my receiving the form of the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

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Question: What more can I do if I feel I’m unable to ask for correction or to inspire my friends?

Answer: Every morning you wake up to go to work in order to sustain your living. You don’t question whether to go or not because you understand that without working you can’t survive.

Why do you question the spiritual work or think that you can get by without it?

The state where you think that you can live without working for spirituality and feel too lazy to put in any effort, thinking that you’ll advance anyway, is given to you purposefully because therein lies your freedom of will.

In your corporeal life, you can’t be lazy because no one will give you free bread. You are forced to earn a living and put in the effort. Don’t you think that the same principle applies to your spiritual life?

You work eight hours a day in order to sustain your corporeal body, but how many hours did you spend working for your soul in order to fulfill it and provide it with spiritual food?

If you don’t do this, then you’ll remain on the level of your corporeal body. If you don’t know what to do, it is said: “Do all that’s in your power!”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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For some reason we are afraid that if we give up our egoism, our desire will cease to develop. But in fact, it’s quite the opposite; it’s now that we don’t develop it and rather, we use it in its lowest form. This destroys man and the world. The global elite have developed this approach on purpose so that a person will obey and agree to the infinite chase. Everything is arranged so that a person feels satisfied and considers it a “good life.” The top percentile of society fools people and turns them into slaves. A person is told, “What a good boy you are. Work more and you’ll get a bonus.” And he gladly continues the forced labor.

A person doesn’t understand how he is manipulated by society, education, the media…it isn’t by chance that the elite don’t want to change these mechanisms. They want you to remain a fool. Actually the whole world works for them.

When people wake up they’ll understand that they have been cheated and that their life is worse than a beast’s life. Beasts obey nature, even unconsciously, but directly.

But you are being manipulated by that one percent of humanity, and you smile happily as you’re turning on this “skewer.” You don’t even suspect that you are carrying out their orders that have been inserted into your head for decades through the TV screen, newspapers, and other channels. You are in a worse position than a trained dog.

Look at how they oblige you to buy and with what entertainment they feed you. And you obey their orders faithfully from morning to night. You are not free at all. There is a program in your head that totally enslaves you.

Until the elite feel that they are on the verge of collapse, it’ll be very hard for us to bring something to the world. They know what they are doing. They are holding all the strings that sustain humanity. They throw democracy at you like a bone, so that you will play with it by your “kennel.” These “masters of the world” are so proud that they don’t understand that they are destroying themselves this way.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, “The Freedom”

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Question: Where does the freedom of will lie?

Answer: A person in our world has no free will. He is born in an already completed state and develops the innate qualities with which he was born and which he did not choose himself under the influence of the environment. Neither his inner parameters nor the external ones that influence him are not chosen by him, and that is why there is no freedom in that.

The freedom exists only in selecting a specific environment so that it would shape me to be the way that I want to be. I choose my environment in accordance with the kind of individual that I wish to become.

There is a problem here too: On what basis do I think that precisely this environment suits me and not another? Basically, there are still many more internal clarifications here until a person develops fully and understand what he needs. In principle, one understands it in his heart, he senses it: Where exactly is my freedom of will. And this isn’t easy. But we must bring practically every single person to this state.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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