The Passover Haggadah tells us that a person has the opportunity to plan his life and become its master. It explains the goal that he must achieve, the means of accomplishing this, and what he needs to change within himself. It gives us all the details.

The Passover Haggadah, in the first place, gives a person the means to understand what his life is today and how much it is limited and dead.

It reveals how one can make a breakthrough and escape this dead life and rise to the state above our current nature in order to achieve the perfect level of freedom.

This is called liberation from the angel of death because we rise above death.

Question: What does it mean to rise above death?

Answer: It means to live an eternal life.

Question: Does this mean that I will never die? I have not seen a single person who has lived forever.

Answer: Only bodies die. But we discover another entity in ourselves, which is the inner human being, my “I.” This inner “I” is removed from my body and does not feel death.

Anyone who really wants to obtain freedom and eternal life can learn how to realize this using the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is quite possible, as it is written: “You will see your world in your lifetime,” that is, we are able to reveal in it the upper force, the Creator. Everyone is able to achieve this since the doors are open to everyone—only a desire is required.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/15

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Question: What are the four sons that the Passover Haggadah refers to: one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who does not know how to ask a question?

Answer: All the four sons contemplate the same question: “How can we rise above our egoism?” The wise son philosophizes and says that these laws can be interpreted in one way or another, but there is no solution that would allow us to get out of Egypt, that is, to rise above our egoism.

The wicked son says: “But why do we need to rise above it?” He does not want to do this at all and asks: “What is the use of this work against egoism? Leave me alone, I’m fine.” Therefore, in our eyes, he is wicked because he does not wish to rise above his current state, although it is bad. He takes everything as it is and does not want to come out of Egypt.

The simple son says that these laws are not understandable and it is not clear why we came out of Egypt. He is not aware that he is in bondage and how to rise out of this slavery.

We are sitting around the holiday table. One feels like the wise son, the other as the simple one, and the third one as the wicked one, and the fourth is like the one who does not know how to ask a question. And this fourth son, who does not know how to ask, needs to say that day: “This is in honor of the fact of what the Creator has done for us, taking us out of Egypt.”

This son does not know how to ask, not because he is stupid, abstruse, or wicked. He realizes that there is something, some kind of way to get out of our nature that we cannot perceive and recognize.

All the guests at the table are also wondering: “Where do we need to exit to and why? Where have you seen that you can get rid of your ego? This does not exist in nature.” Everyone is asking these questions, the wise, the simple, and the wicked.

But he who does not know how to ask does not ask questions, knowing that there is a secret hiding about which nothing can be asked because it is completely inaccessible to us. There is something beyond our lives, beyond our egoism, in whose hands we are found.

There is a reason we were created and exist in this miserable way. But it is not clear what can be done with it; we cannot see the exit. Therefore, it is said that it is necessary for it to be explained. Indeed, if a person develops to such a state when he has nothing to say to justify his egoism, then he finds a solution.

Everyone has eventually become the son who does not know how to ask questions. These are the four stages of human development. Each of us is on his stage of development and thus may recognize himself in one of the four sons according to the question he asks.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/15

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Question: What is the good Pharaoh who received the Jews?

Answer: We have to examine this concept with regard to a person.

We believe that the ego leads us forward: civilization, expansion, and growth. “We will fly to the stars, attain and know everything, discover! We, we, we!” This is good healthy egoism. It is essential since otherwise we wouldn’t develop.

If we weren’t patient with a child, for example, and continuously limited him, he wouldn’t develop. Therefore we constantly allow him to develop, even egoistically, no matter how, and when he reaches a certain age, let’s say 13, we begin to teach him how to limit himself.

Let’s not forget that until this age a person is immersed only in his evil inclination, and from the age of 13 onward, the good can appear under the influence of education. The age of 13 is a relative term. Baal HaSulam talks about that in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

I remember that my son who studied in religious schools used to say: “What do you want from me? I am only 9, wait until I am 13.”

This is called the seven years of satiety when the nation is satisfied with everything. We try to unite and at first everything goes well. The ego is patient with us saying: “Cooperate, everything is good, everything is right.” Then disputes and conflicts begin to break out between us.

This is also what happens with people who are in love, when they begin to live together, or in international relations: “Now we will work together and do certain things and achieve something! We, we, we, we!” Everything is fine; egoism is good and everything is wonderful, and suddenly something negative seeps from within. No matter what we do, a hindrance will eventually appear; the evil Pharaoh will arise.

When you start something you should know that if you perform actions that do not lead, with the help of love and mutual connection by using the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah, to balance between good and evil, the evil, which seems attractive and charming at first, will later kill you. The angel of death attracts and entices you, gives you a drop of poison and you are dead.

This is the reason that you should look for the balance point between the two forces of good and evil, everywhere, in every action.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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Question: How can we acquire the force called Moses? After all, you say that it doesn’t exist in nature.

Answer: Moses (from the Hebrew word “Moshech” –  to pull) is the attribute that awakens in us and raises us from the bottom of Mt. Sinai to its summit, to the peak of the general hatred. When a person climbs above it, he attains the Creator who is at the peak.

It is impossible to bypass this mountain; we must climb it. This is the way for the entire world. Today, all of humanity is at the foot of Mt. Sinai, surrounded by the enormous hate that separates us. But at the same time, the method called the Torah is revealed. The Torah is the Light that Reforms at the summit of the mountain.

We don’t have to make any special efforts, and there is nothing to fear. When we acquire the enormous hatred, we are at the bottom of the mountain where we receive the method by which we gradually can ascend by mutually complementing and helping one another.

Then, Mt Sinai becomes the temple mount, at the top of which there is the temple, the place where the Creator is revealed.

This is basically the essence of Pesach (Passover). This is the reason that the calendar of the nation, of the new humanity, begins on this holiday.

Before the receiving of the Torah, mankind developed like animals, but from that moment onward, there was a connection with the Creator, with the force that can raise us continuously above the ego and help us climb the mountain of hatred by getting closer to one another.

At the same time, we attain the Creator to a greater degree, because two forces already appear in us, the egoistic force and the altruistic force. When we build ourselves from these two forces a state called the attainment of the Creator or the soul appears between them.

The two forces descend from above, and we make efforts not to mutually annul them but to connect them by placing our resistance between them, trying to recreate the harmony between them by connecting and adding all the disconnected parts. Then this harmony creates our soul, our upper existence.

This is the reason that we consider Pesach to be the major and most important holiday, because symbolizes the beginning of the creation of man, Adam, (from the Hebrew “Domeh” – to resemble the Creator).

There are, of course, many subtleties, laws, and different nuances that only speak of how to properly cover the ego with the attribute of love, and that’s all. Everything comes down only to this!

We can study this holiday down to the smallest detail, about why eating certain things is allowed and why eating other things is forbidden, about why Pesach is seven days, why we drink four glasses of wine, and why there are other customs that are described in the Haggadah.

However, these are merely actions that we must perform on every level to create the right connection between plus and minus, which are the attributes of receiving and bestowal, hate and love. We cover the hate with love, and together they will give us the sense of attainment, adhesion to the Creator.

Thus, we don’t simply come out of a small ego to love, but from our world to a perfect eternal world. This is the reason that Pesach is indeed a special holiday.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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The beginning of this post can be found in: Passover Is A Reminder Of The Future

Abraham’s group moved to Canaan.The ego then grew from one generation to the next, but the main thing was to keep the general connection, the spiritual brotherhood.

Later, the disputes and conflicts grew to such an extent that even Jacob’s sons, the brothers, couldn’t overcome them. This process is described in the Torah as the beginning of the famine. The brothers sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt, (Mitzrayim), which symbolizes one’s evil nature (Yetzer-Ra). When they fell from the level of brotherly love, they found themselves under the domination of the ego, Pharaoh.

At first this domination was good: Pharaoh raised Joseph and life was full of different pleasures, but then things changed and people began to feel that corporeal benefits and pleasures were not everything in life.

They felt a deficiency for a spiritual connection, which Pharaoh, of course, objected to and resisted. Now all the ego’s efforts were not to allow them to maintain even one bit of inner unity.

It seemed as if there was no way out, but it is actually the despair that generated the force that pulled them to unity—Moses. He was brought up in Pharaoh’s home, the ego, and was therefore ready to confront the king of Egypt. This spark that kept the essence of the Jewish soul lives in each of us. It is the general, inclusive perspective of a united world in which there is no room for separation.
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At this time, we approach a state when humanity faces a need to change its attitude to life, to itself, to its developmental goals. Humans have to realize that there is a purpose in life and that nature leads us to achieve it.

We will advance towards mutual understanding, benevolent attainment, and comfortable existence to the extent of our correspondence with the program that guides us.

The goal we must reach is above this world, beyond life and death. Eventually, we will transition to the level of immortality. This world gradually will dissolve and we will enter a totally new dimension. By the way, nowadays all worldly sciences confirm this fact. We are going through this process as we speak.

Everything starts with Pesach, i.e., when we realize that we are capable of rising above our egoism and we shift to unity and reciprocity by observing the rule of “loving our neighbor as ourselves,” or at least following the rule of “not doing to others what we do not wish for ourselves.” In other words, when we feel like brothers and maintain mutual guarantee. This holiday is about realizing that exiting from the ego is possible.

When one “leaves Egypt” and rises to the next level one regards the prior state as absolute wickedness and clearly sees how it can be used correctly. This explains why it is said that attainment happens at the foot of Mount Sinai (derived from “Sina” – hatred) when all human properties “stand around the mountain,” whereas our aspirations, the point of Moses, rise to its peak.

Mount Sinai represents a huge egoism and it is absolutely essential to make us rise above our qualities that stand for the entire nation gathered around the Mountain.

The final goal of human advancement is to reach the peak of the Mountain where Moses and the Creator are.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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Question: The Pesach Haggadah, the story of exiting from Egypt begins with the words: “We were slaves in Egypt…”

Answer: We still are slaves, but we don’t realize it. We consider ourselves a free nation living in the “land of Israel,” but it is not the “land of Israel.” It is not even Egypt yet. “Egypt” means that we acknowledge the Pharaoh’s authority over us. However, we think differently.

Look what’s going on! What kind of game our ego plays with the people of Israel! We are submerged in endless arguments, quarrels… We are completely immersed in all sorts of problems. Our government and the entire country are split into numerous fragments. We are almost facing a civil war!

We are very far from Pesach! We still are in the deepest and darkest Egyptian slavery of the seven “years of hunger.” We don’t realize that it is our ego that governs us, plays with us, and pits us against each other.

Pesach is about a decision to run away from slavery, to exit from the power of egoism, from the state in which we “gobble” each other up, as it is said, “And the children of Israel cried out from the work…”

Question: Are we slaves today?

Answer: No, we are not, since “a slave” means that one feels one’s slavery and realizes one’s dependence on one’s evil nature. We admit that we hate our neighbor and that we are compelled to argue and fight with each other. We don’t know where this desire comes from. It rises from the inside and we don’t even acknowledge it, nor do we feel that the force that governs us is alien to us. We think it is we who choose to behave this way.

Many people do bad things, but do not consider them wrong. However, there are people who acknowledge: “I am tired of my wickedness! I don’t know what to do with this body of mine, with my nature, nerves, moods… I look at others and want to ravage them. I love neither my wife, nor my family. I want to abandon this world. Let it burn completely. I have no idea where to run away from this life! I wouldn’t mind living on a desert island.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that human nature was created evil on purpose so that we come to the realization of its wickedness. First of all, we don’t feel that we are evil. We think it is natural for humans to be wicked. Then, we gradually learn to differentiate between ourselves and our nature and realize that we are built of two powers—“us” and our opposition, the evil inclination called “the Pharaoh.”

At this point, we regard the Pharaoh as the evil inclination that dwells in us, and think: “Maybe I should try to avoid its power? Let me try treating everybody well. It doesn’t matter what my attempts will end up with, but I still want to learn how to control myself!” The Pharaoh constantly turns off our “dual vision” that is set to differentiate between “us” and “him.” He makes us treat others in a bad way.

Eventually, we will come to understand that the Pharaoh is an evil and hostile power that took us over in order to make us acknowledge that it is an alien to us, thus bringing us to a desire to run away from it. It is not in our power to fight it, but we are able to detach from it. The detachment from the evil power is called the “escape from Egypt.” The evil stays intact; it is us who stop associating ourselves with it.

The evil is still inside us, somewhere in the deepest layers of us, but we don’t allow it to “jump” out; we suppress it and detach from it. Detachment from the evil by rising above it is called “exiting Egypt, an escape from the power of the Pharaoh.” At this point, we reach redemption. We are not yet a free people in the free land. We haven’t transitioned from slavery to liberty yet. We just ran away from slavery, but haven’t yet attained freedom.

At this point, we desperately need to detach from the Pharaoh. This state is called “Pesach.” We start correcting the properties associated with Egypt and the Pharaoh. We don’t have another nature. All we have is the evil inclination that we must correct and turn it into benevolence. In order to achieve this state after exiting from Egypt, we need a special power that allows us to make clarifications on our self-correction. This period is called “counting down the days of Omer.”

In Egypt, there was plenty of bread for us. During the first week after we exited Egypt we ate “frugal bread” called “matza.” Later, we returned to regular bread. This period is called “counting down the days of Omer. “Omer” is a sheaf of grains.

We check our wicked desires, all 49 of them. These desires are called “Sefirot.” Seven Sefirot or seven parts of our desire are called “Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut.” Each of them splits into 7 parts. That’s why we have 7 X 7 = 49 different desires that we are ready to correct.

We “abandoned” these desires at the time of our exodus from Egypt, i.e., we stopped using them. Now, we start testing them again. We check each desire and evaluate whether we used them to hurt others, slander, fight, etc. We should find a way of using the same desires to benefit others.

We should transition from the evil to the good inclination in each of our desires. We have to do an “inventory” of our wickedness. We must find a way of using our desires for benevolent purposes.

So far, it is not yet about detaching from our prior state. During Pesach night, we run away and hide from all desires. We check them and try to understand what our desires look like now. We contemplate them from a new level already being “out of Egypt” and away from the power of the Pharaoh.

We look at our desires and become terrified that we previously had them. However, now we have already distanced them away from us; we do not consider them ours any more. We identify ourselves with the point that exited from Egypt and is outside of any egoistic desire.

At this time, from a new “height” we check each desire, one by one, all 49 of them. It is called “49 days of the Omer count” since from the new level that we have just achieved, we start counting and testing all of our desires and see if we are able to alter them and use them for good purposes instead of the wicked ones as we did before.

It is possible because of the Pharaoh who reveals our wickedness to us. Now, we can gradually turn the evil into the good. 49 days of the Omer count is the preparation for the 50^th day that is called “Shavuot”—the Giving of the Torah.

On one hand, it is called “Shavuot” because we counted all of our desires and made an “inventory” of them, on the other hand, it is called “The Giving of the Torah” since we receive the Light that Reforms.” The Creator said: “I created the evil inclination and made the Torah as a spice for it.”

At this time, we clearly see the evil since we made an inventory of our desires. Now, we need a special Light, a specific force, called “the Torah” that will help us use our desires one after another and all of them together for the sake of bestowal and benevolence of others since the major law of the Torah is “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the level we eventually will attain.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/24/15

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The beginning of this post can be found in: Passover Is A Reminder Of The Future.

Pesach symbolizes the birth of the Israeli nation, which was born out of unity and despite repulsion. As long as we are divided and separated, we are not a nation, but are in exile. Only the good connection and unity between us makes us one community, which is rightly called “Israel.”

When we prepare for this ascent, we clean our homes and we break away from disputes and from being divided. The Seder symbolizes the order of the renewal of our corrupt mutual connections.

When we rid ourselves of this egoistic sourdough, we eat Matzo (unleavened bread) for seven days as a symbol of our ascent to the level of mutual bestowal, which in Egypt was perceived as tasteless. We start off along this path as slaves of separation, as slaves of our nature, and we end the journey as free people, freeborn, and as one nation.

It isn’t at all surprising that we have to relinquish our worship of the values that separate us, no matter where we live. Every such urge becomes a phase of the exodus from Egypt, since Pesach symbolizes our “step over” (Passover) the dispute and the separation towards the level of love.
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Question: The Jewish nation has gone through a special transformation, the transition from slavery to freedom, to which the feast of Pesach (Passover) is dedicated. What is the meaning of this transformation?

Answer: The meaning of liberation from slavery is acquiring the power of love due to exiting from one’s egoism. We are under the control of the system that advances us, especially given under the power of our egoism, which is called Pharaoh.

First, we feel good in this bondage, but then realize that we are in exile and are slaves to the egoism that rules over us absolutely. We do not agree with this authority and wish to escape from it, from the bad attitudes towards each other, because we see that in this form, it is impossible to move on and exist.

After many failed attempts, we become convinced that nothing can be done and only a miracle can save us. Indeed, egoism is killing us to the extent that we do not see success in anything in our lives in any way. In this way, Pharaoh’s rule between us is manifested.

That is the situation we see today in Israel. There are 23 political parties in a little country, huge gaps between different layers of the population, crisis in the education system, an increasing divorce rate, and growing use of drugs. Half of the citizens would be willing to move to another country if given the chance.

Our unkind attitude to each other can be seen from the behavior on the roads and elsewhere. We are divided by indifference to others and pride. Egoism reigns within us and makes us act in this way. It is not our fault, but it is our nature that plays with us.

One must realize that our nature is the evil inclination, which enslaves us. If we do not get out of it, then our lives will be over and we will not leave behind anything good for our children. Life will become worse and they will not have even those crumbs of happiness that we once had.

This is slavery, and the Passover Haggadah tells us how to escape it to reach freedom. But above all, we need to understand that we are in slavery. After all, while you see yourself in the darkness of egoism that separates us through mutual hatred, it is impossible to understand the reality of freedom from this angel of death.

We have to desire to become a free people in our own country, independent of our desire. We need to wish to achieve love, connection, mutual guarantee, and unity between everyone above our egoistic nature.

The people of Israel once escaped its egoism and rose to a height of unity and love, which is called the building of the Temple. But then we were not able to remain at that height and fell from it.

Rabbi Akiva taught that you cannot leave the principle of love for others as oneself; otherwise, we will again fall back to unfounded hatred. Egypt is the state of causeless hatred between us. After the destruction of the Second Temple 2,000 year ago, we returned to this state of hatred, which is called Egypt.

After thousands of years of living in unity and connection, the Jewish people again went to Egypt, to unfounded hatred. But today the whole world must realize that we are in Egypt.

Once, a small group led by Abraham left Babylon and became united into the people of Israel. But then it went back to Babylon and mingled with all the Babylonians. Today, we again find ourselves facing the same Tower of Babel and are confronted with hatred towards each other and the unwillingness to know and understand others. This is called a confusion of the tongues.

Once again, we have to make the same action as was once performed in ancient Babylon. It is said that acts of the fathers are an example for their sons. Today, we once more need to exit from Egypt, but this will be the last exile before the final liberation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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The basis of the Jewish nation is not an ethnic but rather an ideological basis. We have to start from way back, ages ago, when humanity was concentrated in ancient Babylon and people lived a simple life but in brotherhood. However, there came a time when conflicts broke out, and neighbors who used to be close and friendly began to feel suspicious of one another and gradually became strangers.

Imagine this situation in the perspective of our time: the neighbor’s grass is greener; he has a modern washing machine, and yesterday I saw a new refrigerator being delivered to his home. His wife is like a thorn in my wife’s eyes since she wears a new dress every day, his children are disrespectful, and what is more, he now has two new pure bred dogs who openly look down at my mutt with contempt…

In short, the ego grew in ancient Babylon and people ceased to feel themselves as one nation. It is as if they began to speak different languages.

Then Abraham, who was a great sage, discovered the inner essence of what was going on and found a true solution to the conflict. He discovered that they had to overcome the ego that had grown in order to maintain the warm and friendly relations between them.

But the majority didn’t accept that approach and it ended in a general break up. The tribes and peoples scattered all over the globe.

Very few followed Abraham and they were the ones who laid the foundations for the Jewish nation and the Jewish people. They established a society that despite the continuously growing ego, kept the feeling of closeness to one another and the warm family relations between them.
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