Question: The Book of Zohar is full of stories and earthly images. Why are they so important if all they do is confuse and take us away from the correct intention?

Answer: Everything that a person existing in sanctity (the will to bestow) says proceeds from his attaining, sensing, and existing in the will to bestow, and does not simply come to his mind. Because his will to receive has become “sanctified,” meaning that it has acquired the property of bestowal and exists in it, this is the quality he feels.

That’s why he perceives a certain expression of the Creator within him and expresses it in such a form. He does not produce these images himself, nor do they simply appear in his mind. Rather, the form of the Creator that has revealed itself inside him arouses a certain image, the picture that he then describes to us.

That’s why we have to use these stories and connect with them. And if we do not understand them just yet, we will eventually. Take my word for it. Furthermore, you will reach the same degree of attainment, and the same story, pictures, images, and expressions will suddenly appear inside of you.

This is why Kabbalists understand each other. We don’t understand them, but the more you connect to what they are saying, the more you understand them.

It’s not a coincidence that in the Hasidic tradition, if a Rabbi’s note contains errors, you have to bless them because if he wrote it that way, to you it is a sign of holiness. This follows from the fact that a person who is in sanctity cannot make a mistake. It seems to you that he has made a mistake because you are uncorrected. And this is called faith above reason.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, The Zohar

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Question: Where is the Light that Reforms: in the Torah or in my bestowal to the friends?

Answer: You receive the Light that Reforms from your effort to connect with your friends. We exist in a perfect, corrected system. The upper Light, the Light of Infinity, reigns over this system. How can you awaken this Light of Infinity to act upon you? You try to connect to the corrected system.

What is it? In what model is it presented to you? It’s in the group. To the extent that you connect with the group, in the connection between you, according to your efforts, the Light, the Torah, the force of bestowal, awakens. This force influences you and turns you, as well, into a bestowing part of the corrected system so that the Torah, this correcting Light, begins to fill you.

Question: Then how is the text we are reading connected to this?

Answer: In the text, you read about the corrected states in the connection between you and your friends. Just now, we were reading a passage from The Zohar. Where do I have to reveal everything that I have read about? I have to reveal this in my connection with the friends, in my aspiration to unite with them. Then, I will reveal all the properties, Sefirot, Partzufim, and the worlds in the connection between us.

Now, there are 125 degrees between you and me. Had I made such an inner change within myself whereby I connect with you with my heart and soul, in my mind and desires, I would have reached my personal final correction (Gmar Tikkun). Approaching you, bestowing to you, and accepting your desire as mine, I would have gone through all 125 degrees. I would have revealed the worlds between us, ascents and descents, in the relationship between me and my friends.

As soon as I unite with a friend, at least one of them, I finish my work. You don’t have to unite with millions, or billions, or the Creator because this is the same thing. If I cancel my desire to enjoy and can accept a friend’s desire as mine, it’s done!

That is why we read The Book of Zohar which describes various states that I reveal in the form of connection or separation between us, between me and the other—all the worlds (concealments) and separations are there.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, The Zohar

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All the work begins namely in this world and at our time. We have reached the state when our desire to enjoy has grown, completely evolved at the corporeal level, and now we are able to start to perceive it by comparing it with the desire to bestow. In other words, we finished our development at the still, vegetative, and animate levels, and now we have to begin to develop at the human degree which includes two forces: reception and bestowal.

Before, I had completely “flat” vision; I saw around myself only what I could benefit from and  grab for myself, and those who I could use. I acted just on the desire to enjoy, which is the basis of the still, vegetative, and animate nature. Thus, I did not have any “splitting” and doubt; it used to be one direction only: how to succeed more in my egoistic desire.

This translates into an ordinary corporeal life without regard to public life, which we never developed before. We always looked at the society as an object of use. However, now the desire to bestow awakens and manifests in us. We cannot resist this desire and must take it into account.

For the first time in history, the whole of humankind enters a state in which the desire to receive and the desire to bestow have to be balanced and controlled by us. If we don’t establish their balance, we bring upheavals and crises.

Thus, the most important thing for us is to create the correct environment for all of humanity. Our world group has to become the first one to serve as an example. Thus, our growth “from below up” begins, while before that, we were developing only on the horizontal plane.

Then, we will reveal the correct interaction between the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, Malchut and Bina, in our broken desires. To reach this, we request the Light that Reforms. It’s as though I reveal: Here is my egoism, and I would like it to act differently and to connect with others, to participate in the mutual work.

That is why I ask the Light to come and correct my desire, to establish some balance and reciprocity in our system so that we bestow to each other, make concessions, and connect. Then, the Light comes and brings us back to its Source. This is called the correction “from below up” that we have to accomplish.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: Is it possible to acquire the soul, reveal the spiritual world and the Creator without the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: A person begins to explore nature and discovers in it a certain law, a particular connection between phenomena. For example, I throw an object on the floor, calculate the acceleration of its fall, and draw a law from this experiment. At the same time, other people don’t study natural phenomena but learn about them in a prepared form.

There are people who discover the laws of nature, and there are those who learn them and thereby make a revelation, always personal and individual.

Phenomena that are being discovered by scientists existed in nature before. Hadn’t apples fallen on heads before Newton discovered the law of gravity? In this way, there is nothing new; we reveal what already exists, already happens. However, there are pioneers and those who learn from them and try to use the acquired knowledge correctly.

The same can be applied to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the physics of a wider world, not perceived by our sense organs. To feel it, we have to develop an additional sense organ called “the property of bestowal,” in which we will reveal the spiritual phenomena: Sefirot, the worlds, and Partzufim. Nonetheless, we continue to work as scientists.

It is said: “By Your actions we will know You.” It’s clear that everything stems from an action, from research. “A person judges only by what his eyes can see.” “Faith” is the force of bestowal that you attain. You don’t close your eyes to accept blindly as fact someone else’s opinion; this does not exist in any science, including the science of Kabbalah. On the contrary, it is said: “Know the Creator and serve Him.” Knowledge, analysis, and revelation are the foundation of everything.

There are people who have already made this discovery and have seen certain patterns; they convey to you knowledge about these laws, the method of research to ease your way. These laws apply to everyone because we are in one world.

So, don’t look at Kabbalah as at an unknown animal. It’s the root of all the other sciences of our world because it reveals the roots of creation, and it should be treated as a science. Kabbalah is not related to religion. When we fell from the degree of love of friends into self-love and mutual hatred, we lost Kabbalah and stopped perceiving the upper, spiritual world. Then, religion was born.

Thus, “religion” is the science of Kabbalah remaining in exile, in separation from the Creator, in isolation from the upper world, apart from the object of studying. Outside of real perception, without knowledge and understanding, the interpretation of spiritual actions and the relationship with the true reality, with the upper force, turned into Judaism. It exists in the period between the destruction of the Temple and redemption, after which we return to the wisdom of Kabbalah. That’s why it’s said: “Everyone will know Me, from the smallest to the greatest.”

Of course, we should not despise anything. We advance with the help of available means, but each of them has its own application.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: If the Creator has a certain program of our development, why should we be interfering in it and trying to go around it?

Answer: There is a natural program of evolution regarded as “nature.” Nature has a built-in engine that spins and unwinds the entire development, while we obediently follow it for hundreds of thousands of years and thereby evolve. And so it has been over the whole human history on earth.

But at the same time, the program stipulates that man gradually reaches a state when he will start participating in its work himself. The force underlying nature keeps influencing and developing desire. And inside desire, it also cultivates the point that originates from the soul’s root. At a certain moment, besides the will to receive pleasure, we start hearing the voice of this point in the heart. The time comes when it makes itself known and demands man to actualize it.

Realization of the point occurs above desire. Hence, man feels split into two and finds himself facing a choice: to follow his ego, which is his corporeal desire (for things such as food, sex, family, wealth, power, and knowledge), or to keep raising this spiritual point and get the answers to the questions: Who am I? Where did I start? Where is the upper force? What is this life all about? What is the purpose of existence?

The point in the heart begins asking these questions and plunges one into confusion. Then he or she somehow finds the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is programmed as well! Life is not accidental; everything that takes place in this world descends on us from the upper world. Whether you will choose the second path or not, get all the opportunities to have it actualized, this too is subject to the same program of creation.

Today, you come to study not at your own will. It’s just that there were forces which worked on you and made you realize that you should come. Your freedom starts only where you are clearly facing a choice: to enter a Kabbalistic group or not, and even at the deeper level within you, are you willing to sacrifice your ego so you can become vital part of it or not.

The choice lies only between two desires: one aimed at oneself and the other directed outward. Here is where you really have to choose. Desire directed at oneself is AHP (the lower part of the Partzuf). Desire turned outward is Galgalta ve Eynaim, the upper part of the Partzuf. And in between, there lies an area regarded as “Klipat Noga,” where you seem to be making that choice. Yet, new questions arise: What do you base your choice on, and how are you being manipulated from Above so that you make this and not the other decision?

The same program dictates us to circulate Kabbalah all over the world. Without it, it won’t come to correction since it follows only a natural program of development, just like all other levels of nature. We need to use these levels correctly, meaning that we need to use—in thought, action, and intention—the rest of humanity, as well as the animate, vegetative, and still levels of nature, in order to adjoin them to ourselves and together, as one creation, ascend from the level of this world to the upper world.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/2011, “General Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: When we are in such close proximity at the Kabbalah conventions, what are we trying to overcome, the grip of the ego? Or are we trying to feel our friends’ desire, to make everybody feel good? What should we think about while we are there?

Answer: I personally recommend that you try feeling the collective state as much as possible. Don’t dig into yourself, don’t do the “soul-searching.” You’ll never find the soul anyway because you don’t have one and neither does anybody else. Your soul is beyond you!

Try to feel the collective state, the common spirit of this exalted gathering of desires for unity, attended by people who put huge effort and means into it, anticipating such an event for many months or even years so as to reveal in this unity the integral upper force of Nature, the force of love and bestowal—the Creator. You need to catch the collective spirit. And when it starts working in you, do the only correct and most effective action: lose yourself in this common spirit, just like an embryo in the mother’s womb.

Then you will get to feel how this property of bestowal gradually works on you, forming and building in you a new sensory organ for this new property (or dimension). This new sensory organ isn’t aimed at you, the precious, but at the will to bestow, at those whom you love.

If you want to succeed, leave all thoughts about yourself and dissolve in the convention’s collective spirit. Take advantage of every minute we spend together.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/29/2011, Fundamentals of Kabbalah Series

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All traditional customs in Judaism are an imprint from spiritual, Kabbalistic actions, but only in corporeal, egoistic desire. True spiritual actions are performed in two spheres: reception and bestowal.

After we lost the connection with love of others, with bestowal and the upper world, what we have left within the framework of this world is called Judaism. This is the form in which Kabbalah exists for a person during the period of exile. However, for select few, it reveals itself in two spheres: spiritual and corporeal.

That’s why in religion there are certain customs carried out according to tradition. Instead of performing these actions inside oneself, as spiritual actions, they are performed on the outside.

The Shulchan Aruch (Set Table), the book of religious laws, describes spiritual actions, but in material form. When it says “wash your hands,” this means you have to take your spiritual vessel of reception (“hands”) and clean it by dipping or washing it in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy). It explains how to make the wedding canopy, Huppah, for connection with the Creator, how to separate the pure desire (Kosher) from the impure one, or how to slaughter an “animal,” meaning one’s own egoism, the right way.

Any action performed throughout the day is a reflection of spiritual processes. That’s why the Shulchan Aruch describes a person’s life in detail from the moment he wakes up and thanks the Creator: which foot has to come off the bed first when waking up, how to put on shoes, and how to dress, by first putting  through the right hand, a symbol of the desire to bestow, and then the left one, a symbol of the desire to receive.

Everything is described down to the last detail because this follows the correction of the soul. “Body” is the soul, and the book explains how to correct it, how to clothe it, wash it, how to feed it (meaning how to fill it and with which Light, Hochma or Hassadim, and in which order), and how to bless different types of food, types of satisfaction for the desire to receive. This is what the Shulchan Aruch talks about.

Before the destruction of the Temple, the whole nation had been carrying out these actions, each one at his own level and working on his soul. Everyone knew what this meant in relation to his soul and the Light.

However, the moment we lost a connection with the spiritual world and fell down into egoistic reception, we did not have a soul anymore, so there was nothing to correct by performing all these actions. That’s why people started performing the same actions on their bodies, with this corporeal flesh, in the material world, and at the material table where they eat, instead of filling the soul with the Light.

If we open the Talmud, we will see a set of rules that we have to follow in relation to others (for example, how to pay your neighbor if your animal has harmed his), but this implies a spiritual level. The entire Talmud is talking about the actions of a person who is working on the correction of his soul, but they are described through animals or work in the field, using the language of allegory.

If you are in the spiritual world, it’s clear to you that it relates to the spiritual world, the soul. For you, it’s as though this world doesn’t exist. You understand that it’s impossible to correct anything by alternately pouring water on one hand and then on the other, and that these actions are performed only as a token of the material world’s similarity with the spiritual world.

If one exists in the spiritual world, he or she acts the same way in the corporeal world as well. However, a material action does not correct the soul. It is merely a cultural tradition, a nation’s history, a mode of life to which one is accustomed from childhood.

In reality, we perform these actions in our inner correction. In other words, we take parts of our desire and with actions such as these, we lift them from the egoistic level, filling them to the level of bestowal toward others and the Creator. This is exactly what the Shulchan Aruch and the entire Torah talk about, which teaches us how to do it.

However, when we lost our spiritual connection, we started treating this as material actions. Right hand, left hand, bull, or donkey, a person understood and studied them as if they were corporeal laws.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2011, Shamati #40

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Question: What is the “faith” that Kabbalah is talking about?

Answer: Faith is the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), the force of bestowal or Bina, the Creator’s property, nature. If the property of faith starts taking over your will to receive pleasure, you come to understand what bestowal really is.

To receive an imprint of bestowal, you have to first start feeling it and know how it tastes. Thereby, you will know what it is. Such a unification of irreconcilable opposites may seem impossible, but the intention to bestow begins ruling over your desire for pleasure, and it wishes to be used to bestow.

Such a property is observed even in a selfish desire which feels another as part of itself. In that case, it can’t be authentic bestowal. This is like a mother who is considered as giving since nature forces her to feel that her child is a vital part of herself. It’s as though he is still inside her, and that’s why she bestows to herself. She cares more for him than for herself since she views him as the most precious part of herself.

Hence, even though a mother bestows to her child, someone outside of herself, it’s not considered that she has attained spiritual degrees and is acting for the sake of bestowal. This is merely a natural instinct.

In order for the will to receive to start working with the intention to bestow, it has to receive the upper Light, the special force. We only say that it comes from some place outside. In fact, it wakes up in a person and begets in him the desire to bestow to another, the love for him.

“Another” is a person for whom I previously felt hate, resentment, and distance. I didn’t feel him as related to me, but rather felt him as an alien, an outsider. Despite all this, I suddenly feel the desire, capacity, and aspiration to bestow to and fulfill him. I want to view him as myself, while I realize that I don’t need anything in return.

If I expect to receive pleasure in return, it’s as though I act egoistically. That is, bestowal shouldn’t bring me any pleasure. On the contrary, it makes me suffer since in order to bestow to another, I have to deprive myself. Then, what could possibly make me want to give?

Therefore, we receive a specific force called the Light that Reforms. I begin to feel that on one hand, I am dealing with a stranger from whom I desire to receive, to take something he has. However, instead, I receive an external force that allows me to bestow to him without receiving any pleasure or benefit from it directly.

If I were to enjoy bestowal immediately and directly, it would be egoistic. However, I don’t feel him naturally as part of me and do not enjoy bestowing to him. It is the other way around. I overcome my egoistic desire, which doesn’t get fulfilled and becomes even emptier than before, and transfer all my efforts and fulfillment to him.

If I were to be asked why I am doing it, I wouldn’t have an answer in my selfish will to receive. There is another answer, though. What I do feel is the Creator’s greatness, my connection with the upper one; I fulfill the desire of the One who is higher than I am. I am motivated by a much more exalted ideal. However, words can’t explain it since the ego will always twist it so as to get some compensation from it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2011, Shamati #40

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: The tough, egoistic resistance between people, along which international relationships deteriorate, all these will not cease from the world by any human counsel or tactic, whatever it may be.

Don’t think that the world will be able to correct itself. Even if people realize that our egoism is the evil of the world, correction is impossible without the “spice,” meaning without the method of Kabbalah. We have to give the world the Light that Reforms, but it can be done only by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah in one form or another, according to the various types of desires, that is, the people in our world.

In any case, we have to give them the Light. Egoism cannot be corrected by any other way. Nothing else can help here, neither psychology or sociology, nor wonderful endeavors or troubles. The only thing that can help is attracting the Light that Reforms. We have no chance without it.

Indeed, the Light includes the goal and the program for achieving it, all the stages that we have to pass through. Without the Light, we are like animals that cannot make a single move. The Light has to come and influence us. Then, we will come into motion.

So, why do we experience troubles and all kinds of changes? In fact, they aren’t changes, but namely troubles that will intensify until we, at least some of us, start attracting the Light, at least a small portion of it.

Development is carried out only by the Light. We should be thoroughly aware of this. There is no chance that the egoistic desire, itself, will find a path of development. Throughout the centuries, this opportunity was found through the Light that came without waiting to be called and it continuously pushed us forward.

Today, we have crossed the threshold after which we have to precede the arrival of the Light by our own desire addressed precisely to the Light. From now on, everything starts with “our initiative,” with “a prayer and good deeds.” This definition means that we, ourselves, have to want to evolve, not in the egoistic pursuit of new pleasures, but above egoism. Awakening, rising, has to come from our side.

Moreover, we won’t be able to evolve unless we form a request within ourselves, expecting that in return, the force of the Light will come and influence us, giving us new properties of unity and love so that we will merge into a global, integral whole. Only this Light carries our future states. We don’t know what they are nor how to pass through them, but our work, in essence, is simple: We are looking for the force that develops us.

That’s all; we don’t need any special wisdom. I don’t know in advance what awaits me. Sometimes, I notice something new in my mind and feelings, reveal a new, thin layer of understanding and sensation. It looks a bit like the effect of the Light that awakens and corrects our desires. We shouldn’t interfere in its work, but rather speed up our development as much as possible.

The Light will never affect us until we ask it to do that. We must be the first to ask. This is what it demands. This request, this necessity initiates a spiritual action on the matter of desire. Thanks to it, we reveal who we are and who the Creator is.

At our low degree, we understand a higher degree at least a bit, in order to merge with it. We don’t understand it completely, but only at the place where we are attached to it. To adhere to a point within the mother’s womb, one has to become equal in properties with her.

In this way, the created beings do a big job, wishing to merge with the upper one within a tiny segment of perception. Then, they want the upper one to cancel them, filling them with its Lights of development. Similar to an embryo, we ask for the Lights that bring development, not for those that bring pleasure. In this way, we reach equivalence with the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2011, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 1: Rabbi Hanania Son of Akashia says, “The Creator wished to cleanse Israel; hence, He has given them plentiful Torah and Mitzvot (commandments), … It is as our sages said, “The Mitzvot were only given for the purification of Israel” (Beresheet Rabba, Parasha 44). We must understand this cleansing, which we achieve through Torah and Mitzvot, and what is the Aviut (thickness/coarseness/will to receive) within us, which we should cleanse using the Torah and Mitzvot.

We know that only one force works in the world besides which there is nothing else. But in that case, it seems to be doing some really “silly” things. Why did it make us selfish, coarse, dark, insensitive, and, basically, just bad?

Is it really a good creation? If the Creator is perfectly good, how can we get something bad from Him? If the creature is bad, we should blame the Maker who created it. Where else can a flaw come from if not from its root? Besides, if the Creator made such vice and intentionally created us flawed and selfish, why did He later give us a remedy called the Torah and Mitzvot (commandments) and force us to correct what He corrupted and made bad in us?

These questions run deep. Indeed, we begin to understand them only when we start climbing the spiritual rungs. That’s where we come to realize that the advantage of the Light can be learned solely from the darkness. If we didn’t have this darkness in the first place, we wouldn’t be able to attain the Light. It can’t be found in any other way.

Don’t think that it’s a payment for your work and somebody needs you to do your job first and get rewarded for it afterwards. It’s only you who needs it because if it weren’t for this darkness that you turn into the Light, you would have no chance whatsoever to feel what the Light is!

We get to see it only when we enter the spiritual world and start carrying out these acts of correction by transforming darkness into the Light with the help of the Torah and Miztvot, a specific sequence of spiritual acts that we need to perform with perfect accuracy.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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