Entries in the 'Kabbalah Study' Category

What Is Interesting about the Wisdom of Kabbalah?

214Question: Your teacher Baruch Ashlag (Rabash) wrote articles in which he states that a person who studies Kabbalah lives among people who have nothing to do with spiritual development and even oppose it.

Therefore, if he wants to develop spiritually and change his egoistic nature, he must organize a new environment that would support him. But on the other hand, he needs to be careful not to disengage from society, from acquaintances, from parents, and not to close himself in a small group, and not to enter into asceticism.

How can we make the right choice between egoistic society that does not support spiritual development and a group committed to altruistic ideas and values?

Answer: The fact is that any science, any hobby of a person captures him and begins to pull him in its direction.

It is the same with Kabbalah. Moreover, Kabbalah attracts much more than any other pursuit because it reveals the meaning of our world, its history, the creation of man, the way he is controlled, and his behavior from the point of view of nature.

Naturally, very strong opportunities are revealed before a person here, and one really feels that he can be carried away somewhere, carried away too much, torn away from everything corporeal.

As a rule, such sensations arise in beginners. But in general, we need to reassure them here because all this is not as it may seem to them.

The fact is that we all sometimes get carried away by all sorts of things. But the wisdom of Kabbalah is interesting because it does not detach us from this world, but on the contrary, reveals it even more.

Therefore, a person who correctly studies Kabbalah comes into even greater contact with this world, understands it, classifies it, and ultimately finds a clear and stable root in this world.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 1/16/24

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Revealing a Portion and Covering Two

209Question: As a rule, great sages, when they are about to reveal something sublime, begin their speech with the words: “Behold, I reveal a portion and cover two portions.” Does this also apply to The Book of Zohar?

Answer: Yes, where a Kabbalist reveals something, he simultaneously conceals it. After all, if he does not conceal it, all the actions he attains will be revealed to the whole world, and everyone can use them. As it is, only Kabbalists can use them, and only to the extent they are advanced.

Question: What is the point of revealing if you conceal twice as much?

Answer: So that they study.

Question: When I leave the program after your explanations, sometimes I understand it even less.

Answer: That makes sense also.

Question: Now, I am trying to ask you to decipher The Book of Zohar as much as possible. Do you think it is beneficial? Or is it better for a person to just read, and that is it? It will affect him. Is there any point in deciphering it?

Answer: You need to be able to decipher it. We must read The Book of Zohar and try to decipher what is in it. Gradually, from guesses, you will come to conclusions and from conclusions to revelation.

Question: Should we try to cling on even through the mind?

Answer: Yes, and ask! Ask for this to be revealed to you.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 1/7/24

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The Shortest Path to the Correction of the Soul

209We should read the articles of Rabash slowly and thoughtfully because they contain all the actions that we need to perform in our inner work, all the sensations that we need to experience, and all the aspirations that need to be directed toward our connection.

I remember how Rabash read those articles to me when we traveled together to Tiberius. He ran his finger along the lines reading word by word. Even though our thoughts tend to run ahead and resist such a slow pace, we must train ourselves to concentrate on each word and try to absorb it.

Rabash attached great importance to every word written in these articles. If I missed a word in the text, he immediately noticed it. After the text was written, it became sacred to him and no changes were allowed in it.

When we now read the articles of Rabash together, one by one, they must enter into all our sensations, into every soul, into every person, and create such an internal order in them that during this life and many reincarnations they would not want to rebuild it in a new way.

Gradually, these articles will begin to materialize in us more and more, and we will understand them better and perceive them more and more sensually. They are the ones that will lead us to correction.

Rabash wrote these articles from his inner feeling and wanted them to awaken our souls exactly in accordance with his stencil. Of course, there are many paths leading to the Creator. But if a person tries to enter spirituality without this internal reformatting with the help of the articles of Rabash, then it will be a much more difficult and long path.

The path that Rabash paved for us is the shortest way that leads a person to the demand to correct his soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)

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Psalms—Connection with Infinity

525Question: When you read the Psalms of David, there is such a strong connection that you feel the meaning of every word. Is it the revelation of the letters or a connection with the author?

Answer: This is not yet a connection with the author nor the revelation of the letters. We have yet to achieve this. This is simply revelation of a certain next level of connection with the Creator, but still a very small one.

Question: How does the understanding of the reading come about?

Answer: Pray, ask that the inner meaning of the words be revealed to you, that King David would reveal to you what he wanted to say. He was a great Kabbalist, which is why he reached such heights.

All Psalms from beginning to end can be read in any state. They are very, very sensual. Each of them contains a piece of infinity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/14/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Commentary on the Psalm, ‘For the Winner over Roses’”

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With What Desires Should We Come To the Convention?

938.02Question: In preparation for the convention, we are solving simple issues of the corporeal world, for example, where the congress participants will sleep and what they will eat. Should we look for an opportunity to direct these ordinary desires to the Creator?

Answer: No, everything should be built by a ladder. Since you are gathering with your friends, you must make sure that there is an appropriate place, food, and everything you need. There is no need to turn to the Creator for this.

We turn to Him only so that He will connect us and send us special desires and connection of the hearts.

Question: With what desires should I come to the convention in order to bring contentment to the ten and the Creator?

Answer: With the desire to connect all the friends within yourself. You take the whole group, embrace it both physically and mentally, and raise it to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Cannot Be an Empty Space in the World”

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“The Last Secret I Have Learned”

268.01For many years I have reflected about life.
There is nothing under the moon I cannot understand.
I know that I do not know anything–
This is the last secret I have learned.
(Attributed to Omar Khayyam)

Question: Is the correct outcome of life that a person realizes that he knows nothing?

Answer: Yes, this is really so. He comes to the end of his life and realizes that he does not understand anything from it!

Comment: Although during his life it seemed to him that he was accumulating knowledge.

My Response: Yes, he was a great sage and philosopher.

Question: Yes, he had children, raised them, raised others, taught others. As a result, he comes to the conclusion that he knows nothing and has not attained anything?

Answer: No, that life is something that cannot be attained.

Question: “This is the last secret I have learned.”

That is, it turns out that throughout life this is a secret, a person does not understand this. Why is it revealed at the end of life? Why not tell him this so that he would be wiser in the middle of life or at the beginning?

Answer: He will not accept it.

Question: So, go through life like that and as a result find out that nothing has been achieved by me and I have done nothing. Is that right?

Answer: This is obviously true.

Question: I wonder, are we still shown this along the way? Are there any such signposts that tell us: “Understand that you will achieve nothing or that you are nothing”?

Answer: I think this will not calm a person down. That is, youth and strength take their toll. He searches all the time until already in adulthood, especially in old age, he understands that the main thing for him is to live today. Tomorrow will come, he will live it the same way.

Question: This is when he comes to wisdom, to old age. But during his life, he still has a lot ahead of him, and he still goes on and on, right?

Answer: Of course, there are all sorts of plans.

Question: Is it right to live like this? Or is it necessary to come to the point somewhere in the middle of life that, as you say, we start living day by day?

Answer: But it is difficult for a person to agree with this. It is against our nature. We want to go forward all the time and achieve something. But in fact, we are not achieving anything. We quietly live this life as biological beings and that is it, and then we pass away.

Comment: But we are still somehow enjoying the challenge that we have.

My Response: This is like kids in a sandbox.

Comment: Look at Elon Musk, for example. He is on everyone’s radar all the time. He is enjoying himself. Sometimes he launches something into space, then he wants to move everyone to Mars, then something else, then to implant microchips. He is full of energy and pleasure.

My Response: Such people are indeed full of pleasure and energy and try to make everyone follow them. But does it have a meaning? This is a question.

Question: Why does a person not want to come to the conclusion that “I am nothing”?

Answer: Because he says, “I am nothing,” and other possibilities are revealed behind this.

I am nothing, and then what? Am I then nothing in trying to do what: to get rich, to control? And then what? Here he has all sorts of dilemmas.

Question: Is that why he is afraid?

Answer: Yes. He also does not want to stop.

Question: Does he then stabilize his life by running, creating, and inventing?

Answer: Yes, there are many like this.

Question: But in fact, do you think that one way or another they are destined to come to such an end anyway?

Answer: Everyone knows the end.

Comment: Yes. “For dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).

My Response: Yes. But the fact is that it depends on what goals he sets for himself, and they give him life, and the strength to move, get up, wake up in the morning, and do something.

Question: Do you think this is a sandbox game?

Answer: Yes, it is a sandbox game.

Question: What wisdom should come to him then?

Answer: If this is balanced with his general theory of life, then it is probably a good thing. But if this is just to run from Earth to Mars and somewhere else and back, then of course there is no point in that.

Question: What if a person suddenly stops and asks a question: “What is after that, what is next?”

Answer: It can be very bad for this person. Then he loses his bearings in life. This is even worse!

Comment: This is called depression.

My Response: Yes. So it is better to let him play in the sandbox and not think about anything else.

Question: Is it better when the questions: “Why am I running? What do I live for?” do not pop up?

Answer: Yes.

Question: But you insist all the time and say that a person should still come up with the question “What am I living for?” People who have this question come to us to study. Does it mean that it is good?

Answer: If they come to study with us, then they go further in their development besides building all sorts of ships to Mars. But we still do not know the meaning of life.

Question: But if we want to attain it, is that a good thing?

Answer: I do not know that. Whoever wants to live for this will of course come to us. The rest will be satisfied with less.

Question: If there is this question we have come to it, there is no escape. We came to the question: “What is all this for? What am I running for? What is this life for? For what?”

If this question “What do I live for?” does not stop, but on the contrary gives a person life, can we say that it is good? Does it turn out that this is a different kind of person, a different character? That is, he is not satisfied.

Answer: Yes, it depends on the character of the person.

Question: How was it with you, may I ask?

Answer: I had this since I was a kid. Therefore, the sandbox game for me was something…

Question: But you had it, right?

Answer: Yes!

Comment: Indeed! You were a scientist, you wanted to be a scientist, and so on.

My Response: Yes.

Comment: Then something happened to you.

My Response: I realized that it was all pointless.

Question: Is it because you were stopped, you were not allowed to go where you wanted to go?

Answer: This as well, but still, the desire to attain is disappointing in itself. No matter how much you yearn to attain, you see that it all leads to infinity.

Question: Does it not give you additional desire to live? To infinity, after all, the infinite. endless knowledge, the infinity of everything.

Answer: No, even new knowledge, even if you reveal something new every day, you still need to continue tomorrow. I do not see any special, good impulses in this.

Question: Please tell me, we are getting a little closer to a dead end. How can a person live with this? With what you are saying, how can he live?

Answer: I do not know. I sometimes think of my history teacher from school. He was saying: “A person’s life consists of watching a movie, reading a good book so that it is somehow interesting. And that is life.”

Question: Is that all? No need to rush anywhere, just live like that?

Answer: Yes, he was already elderly.

Question: But you were eager, were you not?

Answer: I was eager. I was not particularly impressed by these words of his. But still, in some ways they remained in me.

Comment: You said that one of the happiest moments of your life was the moment you suddenly started to get answers to your questions. You suddenly realized that there is what you were looking for behind this.

My Response: Yes!

Question: Are you personally still in this state?

Answer: Maybe not as much as before, but I am moving forward, yes.

Question: So, after all, when you get answers to these eternal questions, is this life?

Answer: This is life. Because these answers are in turn new questions.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/13/23

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What is Fate?

633.3It is written about in the book, Tree of Life, by the Ari, “There is not a day that is like another, or a moment that is like another; there is not a person who is like another… Rather, each one must correct that which belongs to his part” (Rabash, Article 10, 1984 “What Is the Degree One Should Achieve in Order Not to Have to Reincarnate?”).

Question: Who determines the part I need to correct?

Answer: It was already determined before you were born, before you realized you existed. Therefore, you must attain and correct yourself as much as you can.

Question: Can we say this part is related to fate?

Answer: Of course, this is the fate of man. Fate is the part of the egoistic desires one must correct.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 1/2/24

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Life Outside the Body

712.03In our world, we are all connected through animalistic senses: vision, hearing, smell, touch, and tactile sensations. A person must go beyond their boundaries in order to begin to feel the upper, that is, what is above the corporeal senses. This is not something mystical, but something that a person does not perceive in his physical body now, but it exists around us!

The technical devices we use now give us a very small additional range of sensations. They only expand them, because behind the devices there are people who still translate these huge expanding ranges into information accessible to them, otherwise they will not understand what is happening with the device. It turns out that we do not go beyond ourselves.

Therefore, we do not need to invent all kinds of devices, but to correct and expand ourselves: “Do we have this in us?”

Kabbalah says that when a question arises in a person about the meaning of life, it means that he has a need to expand the perception of his five senses. Not in expanding the spectrum of frequencies in each sense organ, but in expanding oneself into some new area.

If you want to truly deepen your perception, you must radically change it from reception to bestowal, i.e., begin to contact the environment not in your senses, but outside of them, because they limit you. They refer to your animalistic body.

How can you leave the body as if it were not there? How can you make yourself feel life outside of yourself, not disturbed by your body? Then you can talk about something that really exists objectively. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah deals with, as it does not study at all what we perceive in the body.

Therefore, when people say: “What about vision, and hearing” I have nothing to say. Kabbalah immediately rejects all this, leaving it to psychology and other methodologies, this is their business. It has no connection with those desires, qualities, and thoughts that an ordinary person has because all this relates to the same quality of reception.

We need to move from the quality of reception to the quality of bestowal, i.e. neutralize ourselves by absorbing all perceptions, learn to exit ourselves and feel the space undisturbed by our body the way it really is. This is called “exiting the body,” “exiting into the spiritual world.”

Then it does not matter whether your body is alive or dead. After all, you begin to feel everything with completely different qualities that have nothing to do with your physical body. Therefore, this wisdom reveals to us the eternal perfect world. And you, to the extent of adaptation to it, to the extent of your coexistence with it, to the extent of your consolidation in it, become eternal and perfect.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Eternal and Perfect” 12/1/11

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Fulfill Your Neighbor’s Desires

528.01Question: When commenting on one of Rabash’s articles, you said that loving your neighbor means attaching his desire to yourself and working with your desire to fulfill his desire. How does this happen?

Answer: If my friend in the group strongly desires something, then with the help of my desires, I can try to fulfill his desire.

Question: Are we talking about any of his desires or just spiritual ones?

Answer: No, not only about spiritual ones. If a friend lacks anything, you feel that desire and strive to fulfill even the simplest wish.

You incorporate yourself in your friend, and he, understands your action, and carries it out on others. That is how a Kabbalistic group forms by working to instill in each other feelings of love, attention, and mutual assistance. As a result, these feelings unite the entire group and direct them from itself to the Creator.

The group is a training ground that prepares people to turn to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 12/19/23

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What Is Wisdom Revealed For?

221.0Question: What is wisdom revealed for? To pass it on to others, to reveal it to the world, or are there any other reasons?

Answer: Why is wisdom revealed? It is in order for us to feel the Creator, to be in some way equal to Him, to be able at least partially to perform actions like Him. To do this, we need the light of Hochma.

Comment: If any understanding comes, we must try to reveal it to the world. But at the same time, there is a feeling that you cannot always explain everything in an understandable way. There is always some doubt.

My Response: We will not do without a doubt. You just have to go ahead and listen to the lesson. You need to listen to each lesson two or three times. Return to it after some time, in a week, two, or three. And then gradually it all fits together and turns into one big picture.

Comment: It happens that you are overwhelmed and realize that even if you try to listen to something, it still passes by because you cannot perceive such a large amount of information. That is, the quantity of listening is not equal to the quality.

My Response: It will always be like this because you cannot absorb everything that radiates at you. Gradually, over the course of many months, it passes into you, begins to soak in, and fits into shelves in your head.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 12/27/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is He Will Give Wisdom Specifically to the Wise”

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