Question: What is the benefit of Kabbalistic knowledge for humanity? What is so special about it?
Answer:The fact is that Kabbalistic knowledge is necessary for people who are interested in the meaning of life, for what purpose it was given to them. After all, a person, unlike an animal, sometimes asks himself: “What should I do?” and begins to seek the meaning of life. “Where did I come from?” “Why am I here?” “Where do I go after I leave this world?”
If such questions torment a person, then he can no longer abandon the desire to attain them. The rest of life becomes as mere support for existence, which does not make sense since life is finite. What is the point of supporting it if in the end you do not achieve some higher predestination?
This is how certain people who have a “point in the heart,” that is, a desire that urges them to know the meaning of life, feel. They strive for this and tell everyone else who also want to attain the essence of existence. [267780] From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 8/5/19
Disagreements Between Two Movements in the Jewish People
Comment: Over the past few centuries, confrontation within the Jewish people has been very strong, in particular between Lithuanian Jews and Hasidim, the Vilna Gaon and The Baal Shem Tov.
The reason for their disagreement was a different point of view on the dissemination of Kabbalah within their own people and all the rest.
My Response: The Vilna Gaon was a great Kabbalist, but he opposed dissemination of Kabbalah among his people.
The Baal Shem Tov, on the contrary, believed that it was necessary to spread Kabbalah, to educate Kabbalist disciples, and to pass information about the spiritual world to everyone. Therefore, Hasidism originated from The Baal Shem Tov, whereby each child was taught about the spiritual worlds, unity, and the purpose of the existence of the people of Israel.
And the disciples of the Vilna Gaon engaged in Kabbalah only as a small group of people. As a result, the emphasis in their activities was placed purely on the formal fulfillment of the commandments.
The confrontation between these two groups continues to this day, although today it is external, informal. But at that time it was a serious war.
Question: Didn’t they understand that their disagreements lead them to disunity and alienate them from the Creator?
Answer: It is difficult for us to say something about these people. These are two different approaches to Kabbalah that manifest within the Kabbalists themselves. But the fact that they could not establish a connection between them led to great persecutions. And all this is felt to this day.
Comment: Our contemporary Baal HaSulam writes that it is only due to the spread of Kabbalah among the masses that we will be liberated, both each one and all of humanity. But if you look into the history of the development of humanity, almost everything repeats itself.
My Response: No. The time is different now. Today humanity is rapidly moving toward revealing itself as falling into egoism, which does allow simply settling down, enjoying life, and correctly using all the achievements of humanity.
Thus, a favorable environment arises for revealing the meaning of life. This question, which urgently requires an answer, appears in every person in our generation. And the answer is generally nowhere to be found except in Kabbalah. [267587] From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 7/29/19
Answer:Selfishness is self-love. It’s not such love as when I think about simply being, but when I love myself beyond what is necessary for existence.
Question: But if the Creator sends me all thoughts, then what is my egoism?
Answer: Naturally the Creator sends you selfish thoughts. He does not hide it. He says: “I created selfishness.” And then He adds: “And I gave a technique for correcting it.”
Question: Where does the root of the need for comfort come from?
Answer: From the same egoism. Selfishness does not want any difficulties. They are a waste of calories, mental and physical strength; it does not appeal to any living organism since any living creature seeks a state of rest. And mechanical objects gravitate to this.
Question: What will happen to places like Las Vegas that are built only to receive worldly pleasures?
Answer: In principle, there is nothing wrong with that. If I do not harm others, and at the same time do not cause them hatred, then all these toys can be completely harmless.
As children constantly play games, so adults play the same games. Only adults are interested in playing with each other for money, so that there is some excitement. [267428] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 5/10/20
Gematria is a person’s or soul’s particular internal state, which consists of a spiritual desire (called a “Kli” [“vessel”]) and spiritual light (called “Ohr”) that fills the desire.
It is a way of recording a definitive state of the soul. The totality of all feelings, perceptions, states, memories and intentions that the soul undergoes can be expressed by means of letters or letter sequences known as “Gematria.”
Since ancient times, Kabbalists, i.e., people who attain a soul and increase their closeness with life’s causal force of love and bestowal, known in Kabbalah as “the Creator,” have recorded information about the spiritual states they experience, and all such records are known as Gematria.
In other words, when we attain the soul, we perceive through a new sense called a “screen” (“Masach”), an intention that equalizes between the Creator’s light (“Ohr”) and the desire (“Kli”) of the created being. Gematria thus becomes an expression in our world of what we perceive with the screen.
What, then, is the significance of Gematria, i.e., recording spiritual states in our world?
The significance is that by reading the letter sequences and words, we do not simply read stories, fables, parables or any other corporeal information, but we shift from one spiritual desire to the next, discovering our soul, i.e., our increasing closeness with the Creator, through the changing letters and their sequences.
Every letter in Gematria is a spiritual symbol, and every word is a matrix. It is like a encrypted secret code where every word, letter, sequence of letters and words, and every word’s root, stems from the relationship between the light, the Creator’s quality, and the vessel, the soul.
The more we approach Gematria with the intent of attaining our soul, the more we will sense the harmony registered in the connection of the forces of nature that are expressed through its letters.
Kabbalists created the Hebrew language to express their spiritual attainments, and in addition to the 22 Hebrew letters, there are expressive points, called “TANTA” (“Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot”), which express the letters’ connections and developments.
The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet break down into:
9 letters from Bina;
9 letters from Zeir Anpin;
4 letters from Malchut, and
5 more letters at the ends of words.
The 5 letters at the ends of words symbolize the positioning on the Parsa. The exit of the light builds the expressive points (TANTA) that disappear. Vowels are nearly never used. They are just hinted at.
Ultimately, the significance of Gematria, the words, letters and their sequences, is that it contains the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, and by reading it, we can attract such an influence upon ourselves, drawing us closer to the discovery of our soul’s connection with its Creator.
Question:How are the particular and the general connected? If some kind of bacteria that produces oxygen molecules without knowing it has affected our lives so much, then how can each of us affect all of nature?
Answer:I cannot say anything about oxygen molecules. I only know that absolutely all of nature comes from one source and continues its development. Therefore, whatever new forms appear in nature, they are manifested in the fullest mutual connection with each other.
Although we do not feel this and cannot yet discover and investigate, all of nature is absolutely integral, and there is not a single part of it that suddenly begins to develop by itself.
Question: Thanks to some bacteria that lived for, say, two weeks and produced oxygen, thousands of people live today. Is it possible to assume that the meaning of existence of each of us is to give life to some super-being? Or is everyone’s life important?
Answer: The life of each of us is important because we are parts of this super-being, which is called the “soul.” It is one for all of us. [267372] From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/30/20
All the articles in Shamati are very easy to read, are seemingly quite clear, and can be processed analytically. It is not a problem at all for a rational person.
We need to understand not the presentation of the article, but their internal meaning, which means to feel, to see, to hear, to understand, to sense the powers that are described in them. This is what a person needs to yearn for. A person who delves into these articles sees that he is actually very far from what they say. It is because he doesn’t feel the actual material. He doesn’t experience these attributes, and doesn’t see these powers around him since they are not in the dimension we exist on.
Question: So what is the point of reading these articles?
Answer: By reading these articles we begin to realize that there is something above us, and how it can be connected to us. The yearning for reaching the internal meaning of Kabbalistic texts leads and draws us onward to spiritual objects. It awakens spiritual powers in us that gradually change us and create new attributes in us in which we already begin to feel what the article is talking about. [257672] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/8/19
In the article “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment,” (Shamati #3) Baal HaSulam says that Ein Sof is the source of everything and that it is called “Light without a vessel,” which mean the limitless light of the Creator in a certain attribute. From there the root of creation originates, the connection between the created being and the Creator, called the Creator’s desire to do good to His created beings. This pleasure begins in the world of Ein Sof and descends through all the worlds until the world of Assiya.
The upper light that wants to fill all the souls that descend from the world of Ein Sof through the worlds of Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, and our world. In order to do so He needs to create a vessel for the light that the souls can be filled with because the light brings the pleasure the Creator wants to give them.
It is like a child who wants to enjoy only sweets, but his parents do not let him. This is how the Creator treats us. In order to determine the pleasure that He gives us, the Creator puts us through many different impressions.
We need to choose which fillings are correct in order to get closer to the Creator, to resemble Him, and to begin to see the world as He sees it: infinite and whole. In order to do so, we need to change our desires and our awareness. [257856] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/8/19
Question: How should we respond to the fierce criticism of Kabbalah coming from family during the quarantine period?
Answer: You should explain to your family that Kabbalah talks about how to create good relationships between people, how to raise children correctly, how to make sure that when you drive you are careful not to hit others or crash into the car in front of you, and to give way to others. A person should understand that society is integral and how beneficial it is for it to be connected through good relations.
Kabbalah explains the correct social structure in which everything works smoothly as one single organism. Creating such an organism is completely contrary to our egoism, which is decidedly opposed to it. This is the state we are in, but we must still find a way to correct ourselves. Kabbalah talks about how this can be done.
There is a positive force in nature—altruism. We must attract it to help us balance the negative force—the egoism that initially exists in us. Then we will live in an open, friendly, kind society. Otherwise, we will bring ourselves to mutual destruction.
Tell this to your family. It is unlikely they will be able to object.
Kabbalah is the science of how to use the positive force of nature, the quality of bestowal, the quality of connection, against our egoistic quality of separation and distance.
This is the science of balancing the two opposing forces in human society: positive and negative. By balancing them out, we transform the family, society, and the environment into something good and positive. [266697] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20
Question: Religion is a framework of relationships between people who share the same faith. Is the wisdom of Kabbalah a religion?
Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion. The fact that in our ordinary life we begin to establish certain rituals and laws that do not exist in nature, but want them to exist, is what we often call religion. Or it may also be some kind of cultural norm of society.
This isn’t the case with the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is based on the fact that you reveal these laws in nature, comprehend them for yourself in absolute knowledge, and then you have no problem with it.
Of course the wisdom of Kabbalah is not a religion nor is it a science because it does not reveal anything in our senses or in our mind, but instead, it is actually revealed in the attributes that you develop internally when you ascend above your ego, above the matter of our world. Then you begin to feel totally different attributes, different laws, and this is how you advance.
You need to delve into this issue in order to attain the truth and in order to understand what you engage in.
Otherwise, you relate to what you hear today from the perspective of what you heard yesterday. What is the result? Yesterday your head was filled with certain dogmas, which you accepted as true, and today you condemn and criticize what you received yesterday and define everything anew.
This means that you have accepted something as a condition, and now you negate everything else, and thus you will continue to increase your mistakes, and will not reveal anything new in life. In ten years you will still be in the same state you are in today. [258476] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/15/19
Answer: Only by understanding the greatness of what you are doing. After all, you are studying the greatest science not only in our world, not only in the universe, but in all the worlds. This science reveals the structure of the entire universe to you, introduces it to you, and gets you into it.
At the same time, you lose the sense of life and death and you can be simultaneously in all properties and at all levels of the universe.
When you understand this, think about it, and do it, you see that you are dealing with the greatest thing in the worlds and you become acquainted with the only governing higher force—the Creator. What could be better? This should fill you with pride and joy. [266403] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/26/20
What is the benefit of Kabbalistic knowledge?
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