What is man’s sin?

Man’s sin is that he did not ask the Creator for help. Had he asked for help, he would certainly get help from the Creator. But if a person says that he asked for help and the Creator did not help him, to this comes the answer that a person should believe that the Creator hears the prayers, as it is written, “For You hear the prayer of every mouth.” … when a person wants to walk on the path of bestowal and not by way of reception, the sin is mainly that a person did not ask the Creator to help him overcome the evil. For this, he asks forgiveness, and from here on he will ask for help.(Rabash, Shlavey HaSulam, Article. 4 (1988), “What Is the Prayer for Help and for Forgiveness in the Work?”)

Remark: A sin is usually understood as a bad action toward another…

My Comment: Good or bad actions are not performed by you, but by the Creator.

The transgression is not in doing something bad, but in not asking the Creator to correct you, and thus, the egoistic qualities that have awoken in you have pushed you toward making this poor action.

You sin is in not asking for correction of your egoistic qualities. The rest of it is all the Creator, and in no way is any of it on you.

In fact, there are no actions that you have to do except a single one: to ask the Creator for help to conquer the evil inclination.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals  of Kabbalah,” 12/17/18

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Five Rules for Studying The Book of Zohar

Question: To correctly approach the study of The Book of Zohar, several postulates can be distinguished. The first rule is called “the heart understands” (“a-lev mevin“). That is, The Book of Zohar is studied by the heart. What does this mean?

Answer: By desire. You have to change your desires. Instead of the desire to receive, strive for the desire to bestow, instead of the desire to distance yourself, push away, to the desire to attract and love.

Remark: The second rule: “man is a small world.” That is, The Book of Zohar includes many concepts that are familiar to us from the material world, although in fact, the same as in the Torah, it speaks of the internal states experienced by man.

My Comment: Yes, it describes the upper world, but with the words and actions of our world.

Question: Therefore, Kabbalists say that while reading The Book of Zohar, it is necessary to interpret the words written in it as an expression of all kinds of internal actions?

Answer: As actions of upper forces, not something happening in our world. In principle, you just need to do the opposite: perceive everything that The Book of Zohar describes in the quality of bestowal and love, in exiting oneself, not in the quality of reception, selfish love.

Remark: The third rule: “the light that returns to the source.” A person coming to a lesson must understand that there is a special influence in The Book of Zohar, a special force that we can draw from there.

My Comment: The Book of Zohar is studied with the intention of attracting the force that can change a person, to make an altruist out of a selfish person.

Question: So, when I come to the lesson, do I need to know what I want to change in myself?

Answer: This is why you come to the lesson. This is the very idea, power, property, purpose of The Book of Zohar.

Question: Rule Four: Before concluding the study, there must be the recognition of evil and prayer. What’s this about?

Answer: Recognition of the evil of one’s selfish nature is acquired gradually.

Prayer is a request for a force that can change me, somehow raise me above myself, and make me a useful, good, creature pleasing to the Creator. This, in general, is preparation for the correct reading of The Book of Zohar.

Question: The fifth rule: “as one man with one heart.” Kabbalists say that it is impossible to study The Book of Zohar alone, only in a group of people. Why?

Answer: Since The Book of Zohar was written in a ten, you need to study it in a ten. Because under its influence, a person draws closer to the rest, and, only in the right connection with them, begins to understand what it is talking about.

Question: Does that mean that I can’t read it at home alone, I must call someone?

Answer: You can read alone, but you won’t get any benefit from it.

Question: What does it give me that I do this surrounded by ten other people? I don’t communicate with them, we just sit and read together?

Answer: You must mean that you communicate with them, that you all connect with your hearts. Let’s say, just as you peel potatoes, you have to peel your heart from the outer shell, and everyone else too, and connect your hearts into one big heart.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 12/18/18

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Three Limitations in the Study of Kabbalah

Comment: Baal HaSulam writes that in order to begin to study his commentary on The Book of Zohar or The Book of Zohar itself, you must first familiarize yourself with the four prefaces written by him: “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” and “Preface to The Book of Zohar. ”

Answer: Yes. It is impossible to approach reading The Book of the Zohar without a serious study of these four prefaces.

Question: In addition, Baal HaSulam writes that before proceeding with the study of The Book of Zohar, three limitations must be clarified, which cannot be violated. In spiritual attainment, there are four categories that are called: matter, form dressed in matter, abstract form and essence. The Book of Zohar does not deal with such concepts as essence and abstract form. What is this limitation?

Answer: It is impossible to deal with the essence at all since it is above our nature.

We cannot deal with the abstract form because it is not a science.

We only deal with matter, which takes some form.

For example, we study egoism, which can acquire certain egoistic or anti-egoistic, altruistic forms. We can put on these forms and examine them because we ourselves are the matter that takes on these forms.

It is impossible to explore something outside yourself, in particular, such a substance as the Creator. Only if He appears as a person and manifests itself in the form of some property: love, bestowal.

Question: The second limitation—Baal HaSulam says that The Book of Zohar considers only the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya, that is, the concealment of the upper force from creation. Why?

Answer: We can only investigate what manifests in matter, and what is above it, abstract forms, abstract forces unclothed in matter, we cannot discuss them because they are absolutely unprovable and unrealistic.

Question: So there are five worlds and Baal HaSulam speaks only about three worlds?

Answer: Yes. He speaks only of those worlds where we exist: Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya.

Question: The third limitation—in each of the worlds BYA, there are three categories: ten Sefirot, the souls of people, and the rest of reality. The Book of Zohar explains phenomena associated only with people. What does this mean?

Answer: We should be interested only in what concerns us and what is clothed in us, and we can explore this from our practical comprehension.

We must see the limitations very clearly. A step to the left, a step to the right beyond the limits of our desire, which takes on various forms, turns us into philosophers and psychologists, but not scientists. Kabbalah is a purely a practical science.
[252352]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/18/18

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Reasons for the Appearance of The Book of Zohar

Question: The Book of Zohar is a commentary on the Torah. Why did it have to be written?

Answer: Circumstances changed.

There were stages when groups of Kabbalists who were in a state of attainment, that is, a gradual rise from the beginning of the creation of egoism to its relatively complete development, as during the Second Temple, fell. The Book of Zohar was written in the second century AD in a state when a fall had already occurred. There were no groups, no nations; there was nothing called holiness, meaning a sense of at least relative unity. Everything was destroyed, crushed, split. Therefore, a technique was needed to crown this dark period of suffering, called the exile, which should end in correction.

The Book of Zohar is intended for the period separated from its writing to our time by a two-thousand-year exile so that, starting from our time onward, we begin to implement what is written in it, meaning to correct ourselves.

In our generation, we have been awarded The Sulam Commentary on The Book of Zohar. Therefore, we can reveal Kabbalah and begin to understand what the great Kabbalists Rabbi Shimon and his students said two thousand years ago.

Question: Are you saying that without the commentary written by the last Kabbalist of the 20th century, Baal HaSulam (Yehuda Ashlag) it is impossible to understand the Zohar?

Answer: Impossible. Therefore, it appeared.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/18/18

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Torah Is the Plan of Creation and Its Realization

Question: Philosopher Paulus Ricius (Paulo Riccio) in the 16th century wrote that the literal meaning of the Tanakh is subject to the conditions of time and space and that the Kabbalistic meaning remains for centuries, without time and space restrictions. What does that mean?

Answer: The Kabbalistic meaning of the Tanakh is independent of time and on the circumstances of our world. This meaning does not apply to the Torah at all. After all, a Kabbalist who has acquired special spiritual properties reads it from his spiritual attainment.

Question: The Book of Zohar, which comments on the Torah, says that all events in the Torah are sublime secrets. What secrets are we talking about? What is hidden from us?

Answer: Nothing. Just in order to understand the internal interactions between all the elements of creation, one must be at the level of these interactions. Their properties are mutual bestowal, mutual connection, love, conjugation, that is, all the properties that are opposite to our world. Therefore, a person must acquire these inverse properties, and to this extent, at this level, he will be able to correctly understand the Torah.

Question: But what is still hidden from us?

Answer: The whole method is hidden, the whole history of the transformation of the universe from its initial to final state.

Question: So one can say that the Torah is a method?

Answer: The Torah is a method, the Torah is a plan of creation and its implementation in each one and all together, the sequence of this plan, its embodiment.

Question: In Kabbalistic books, in particular, those by Baal HaSulam and Rabash, it is written that the Torah by definition is the light that returns to the source.

Answer: This is a completely different use of the Torah when we use it so that it brings about certain changes in us. It is because we study the upper processes based on the properties of bestowal, love, conjugation, help, inclusion in each other, meaning in the opposite anti-egoistic nature, and then in the process of studying, we attract the light, a certain force that changes us. This is the good influence of the Torah on man.

Question: Can one say that there is a book called the Torah, there is a method of the Torah, and there is a force that is inherent in this book?

Answer: Yes. The Torah is the plan of the whole universe, the way it goes through all its stages of development.
[252078]
From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 12/18/18

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Sacrifice—Getting Closer to the Creator

Question: In all faiths, the concept of coaxing the higher powers with sacrifice is practiced. What about in Kabbalah?

Answer: Kabbalah also has such a concept called “sacrifice.”

But here it is understood that a person sacrifices his egoism, does not want to use it, and does not want his egoism to command him. He wants to give it up, to change it for altruism and bestowal.

“Sacrifice” in Hebrew is “Kurban,” which comes from the word “Karov” (getting close). A person wants to correct his egoism and based on that come closer to the Creator. This is the sacrifice.

Question: That is, everything that is written in the Torah about donations to the Temple implies exactly this?

Answer: Only that. Donations are practically what they did in the Temple, because the Temple is a place of contact between a person and the Creator.

Question: Did people come there to unite with each other?

Answer: You can come to the Temple physically, but it does not mean anything. A man appears in a place inside his heart where he could sacrifice his egoism—“slaughter” it, sacrifice it, in order to come closer to the Creator with a feeling of absolute altruism, love, bestowal, and connection.

Question: So, this has nothing to do with the fact that animals were sacrificed in the Temple?

Answer: No. That is all allegory, like root and branch, cause and effect, nothing more. So you can kill as many animals as you like and it will not make any difference.

Question: So the high priest sacrificed his egoism in order to get closer to other people?

Answer: He was the most corrected person among all the people.

Question: Along with internal work, he took a lamb, cut it, and they ate it?

Answer: Yes. They performed all the actions at the same time, starting from the most spiritual, highest actions, to the lowest, material ones—together and in the same intention.
[251837]
From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 2/17/18

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The Torah Is a Secret Code.

From the point of view of Kabbalah, the Torah is a completely secret code. Moreover, it is classified such that each person can understand it in one way or another depending on the extent of his correction or corruption.

Question: The secret is not in that I have to understand the meaning of some word?

Answer: No. You cannot extort its code from someone, open this book with a special key, or see what is hidden between the pages. It is impossible.

But if you have a certain quality—bestowal, love, exiting yourself, i.e., the quality of the upper world—then while reading the Torah, you begin to see that the book describes not our world, but a completely different, reverse upper world.

If a person can acquire such qualities that are contrary to one’s current properties, then one reads this book correctly, as it was written by its author. And if one does not possess these qualities, then one reads it like everybody else in this world.

Question: I have heard that if one picks a letter after every ten words while reading the Torah, it is possible to reveal some information in this way.

Answer: No. You can read it as you like: front to back, back to front, after every ten or twenty words—nothing will help.

Question: Can the future be predicted by this book? They say that it contains all the information.

Answer: It contains information about everything. Not only about our world, but about all the worlds, about everything that exists, about each and every one of us and all of us together, regardless of time and any possible states. But the fact is that this cannot be revealed.

Question: Is it really possible to find information about a person who will be born, suppose, in 20 years, and about what will happen to him in 50 years?

Answer: To the smallest detail. Moreover, all his external and internal properties are described there, everything that will happen to him every moment, with all the billions of people, animals, and plants, every grain of sand, all the worlds, and their mutual representations.

Question: Can Kabbalists decipher this?

Answer: Yes, to the extent of their development. They read it in the same way as we read a plain text.
[252007]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/18/18

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Question: Was there another language in Kabbalah before Hebrew?

Answer: No. From the very beginning, Hebrew has been the only way of expressing Kabbalistic knowledge. It appeared out of a necessity to express spiritual roots, words, and actions. It exists for this sole purpose.

Conversational Hebrew should not have been used in our world at all. The fact that in Israel today Hebrew is used for writing, reading, and communication is incorrect. It never used to be like this. Kabbalistic texts have always been those written in Hebrew. Other languages were used for everything else, such as Aramaic or ancient Greek, but not Hebrew.

Hebrew is purely a language of branches that is used only for describing the spiritual forces, qualities, and actions.
[251680]
From KabTVs “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/23/19

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The Many Faces of the Torah

Question: When we open the Torah, we find a collection of historical stories with many characters. How should we correctly relate to them?

Answer: If the Torah did not come from a special source but was an ordinary book written, suppose by a person in the Middle Ages, then it would just be an interesting historical novel.

The Torah itself is presented in very interesting language, and when you start reading it, you cannot stop, because it captivates you. There is something in it that makes you never get tired of reading it.

I speak of this as an ordinary reader who has nothing to do with the origin of this book, religion, history, geography, or with anything else. It is just written in an interesting style.

Some perceive the Torah as a historical document, others as fiction, or, perhaps, as a collection of instructions or legal documents. It contains a lot of information about the interaction of people and nations in ancient times, about their view of the world.

In general, the Torah is a very interesting book. We see something similar in Josephus Flavius, if it is possible to compare the Torah and his works at all. To some extent, he retells the Torah and describes it as a historian.

Josephus is a truly stunning historian with a broad outlook and a deep knowledge of historical facts. He wrote his works while in exile in Rome where a huge institute was created especially for him, where hundreds of people worked for him.

But all the same, what he wrote cannot be compared with the Torah itself.
[251953]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/18/18

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Question: Three years ago, I began studying Kabbalah and thought that I understood everything. Both the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (Pticha) and TES were really understandable and clear.

Now after three years, I’m beginning to feel that not only do I not understand what was clear before, but also, Pticha, TES, and work in the group evoke some disgust in me. Is this a normal sign?

Answer: This is a sign of good advancement. You must pass this period by force and persistence, and then you will begin to understand everything with both your mind and feelings.

Question: So, these disturbances are in fact helping?

Answer: Yes. But it can go on for quite a long time, maybe for a few years. The main thing is not to leave and you will see how it will be rewarded.
[251355]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/23/19

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