Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The most significant development in any generation is achieved by individuals since when the majority of people realize the necessity to rid themselves of affliction and start growing consciously and voluntarily, meaning pursuing the path of the Torah, then they have to surrender their corporeal freedoms and follow the commands and recommendations dictated by individuals.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

The most successful way for one who wishes to learn the wisdom is to search for a genuine Kabbalist and follow all his instructions, until one is rewarded with understanding the wisdom in one’s own mind.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and its Essence”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

There is a strict condition during the engagement in this wisdom: to not materialize the matters with imaginary and corporeal issues…. To rescue the readers from any materialization, I composed the book Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) by the Ari, in which I collected his major explanations and presented them in a simple and easy language.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 156

Most students materialized the matters explained in Kabbalistic books and although the spiritual concepts are above time and above place, pictured them as set in times and places. Additionally, they were confused by the fact material is expressed in corporeal terms.

Thus, I have come out with this preface, to connect the matters and the foundations of the wisdom in a concise manner, so it will be readily available to those who want to study this science.
– Baal HaSulam, “General Preface to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 1
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Baal HaSulam, by his corrections in the upper world, prepared it so that any person can achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator. Before him, one had to be an outstanding wise disciple to be rewarded with adhesion with the Creator. And before the Baal Shem Tov, one had to be among the greatest in the world. Otherwise, they would not be able to attain Godliness.
– Rabash, Steps of the Ladder, “The Deeds of the Nation’s Greatest”

The depth of wisdom in the holy Book of Zohar is enclosed and caged behind a thousand locks, and our human tongue too poor to provide us with sufficient, reliable expressions to interpret one thing in this book to its end. My Sulam commentary is a ladder to help the examiner rise to the height of the matters and examine the words of the book itself. Hence, I have found it necessary to prepare the reader and give him a route and an inlet in reliable definitions concerning how one should contemplate and study The Book of Zohar.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 1
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We all used to be one soul that split into a multitude of egoistic parts. What does that mean? How to return to the initial state? And what force returns broken pieces to the initial state?

In my opinion, there is indeed only one soul in the world, as it is written (Genesis, 2:7), “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The same soul exists in all the children of Israel, complete in each and every one, as in Adam ha Rishon since the spiritual is indivisible and cannot be cut—which is rather a trait of corporeal things.

Yet, saying that there are 600,000 souls and sparks of souls appears as though it is divided by the force of the body of each person. In other words, first, the body divides and completely denies him of the radiance of the soul, and by the force of the Torah and the commandments, the body is purified, and to the extent of its purification, the collective soul shines upon him.
(Baal HaSulam, Fruit of the Wise, “600,000 Souls”)
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

I am the first interpreter of Kabbalah by root and branch, and cause and consequence. Hence, having understood it, any person can then comprehend any Kabbalistic text himself.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

The very fact of the possibility to create the Sulam (Ladder) commentary to The Zohar is a clear proof that we are already in the days of the Messiah, at the outset of that generation upon which it was said, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Creator.”
– Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

I am glad that I have been born in such a generation when it is permitted to disclose the wisdom of truth. And should you ask, “How do I know that it is permitted?” I will reply that I have been given permission to disclose Kabbalah in the world. And it does not depend on me, but on the state of the generation.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and its Essence”

I am not at all worthy of disclosing such secrets, and much less to thoroughly understand them. And why has the Creator done so to me? It is only because it is the last generation, which stands at the threshold of complete redemption and full revelation of the hidden world.
– Baal HaSulam, “Messiah’s Shofar (horn)”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

And after all these days, I listened attentively to all the promises and destinies I have been chosen for by the Creator. Yet, I found in them neither satisfaction nor the words by which to speak to mankind and to lead them to the Creator’s revelation, as He had told me to.

I could not stride among the people, who are vain and slandering the Creator and His creation, while I was satiated and praising, merrily walking, as though mocking those wretched ones…. I resolved that come what may, even if I descend from my sublime degree, I must make a heartfelt plea to the Creator, to grant me attainment and knowledge of the prophecy and wisdom, and the words by which to help the forlorn people of the world, to raise them to the same degree of wisdom and pleasantness as mine.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Prophecy of Baal HaSulam”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

And God said unto me: “Get thee out of thy country, to the pleasant land, the land of the Holy Fathers, where I will make you a great sage and all the sages of the land shall be blessed in you for I have chosen you for a righteous sage in all this generation, to heal the human suffering with lasting salvation. Take this sword in your hand, and guard it with thy heart and soul, for it is a sign between Me and you, that all those good things will happen through you, for until now, I had no such faithful man as you, to give him this sword.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Prophecy of Baal HaSulam”

Since time of the Ari to this day, there has not been anyone to understand the heart of the method of Ari. …And yet, by a High Will, I have been rewarded with an incarnation of the soul of the Ari. And the reason for it is beyond my grasp, as well.
– Baal HaSulam, A Sage’s Fruit, Vol. 1, “Letter no. 39”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Incarnation of Souls

There are no new souls, but only a certain amount of souls that incarnate on the wheel of transformation of the form because each time they clothe new bodies.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

The souls do not vanish in the process of changing the body, but move from body to body, from generation to generation, until the end of correction.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

With regard to the souls, all generations are as one uninterrupted life that has extended over several thousand years since the beginning of creation to the end of correction. And the fact that in the meantime each has changed its body several thousand times is completely irrelevant.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

A single created soul of Adam has been divided into many individual souls that perform corrections in the multitude of bodies and times and reconnect again into one soul.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 22
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