Question: The material we study begins to take effect only when the light reaches a person, and then, naturally, all the sources begin to open: The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Book of Zohar, and others. Does everything depend solely on the light?

Answer: Nothing depends on the light. Everything depends on your desire, ability, and understanding of the influence of the light, which exists around you eternally and perfectly. I mean the desire to draw the light, work with it, and become like it. To draw the light means to be similar to the Creator.

Comment: You said that we should not try to intellectually understand the material we read since logical reasoning alone will never lead us to comprehension.

My Response: Never! You will never reach understanding logically. You must develop a different logic, additional perceptions. This does not mean rejecting anything corporeal, but rather, you must develop yourself.

You need to build additional systems of perception, analysis, synthesis, and decision-making within yourself that are similar to the spiritual ones. This is what it means to become like the Creator.

When you do this through Kabbalah, which was created solely for this purpose of developing additional capabilities in a person, then you begin to feel Him. The more you expand, construct new inner abilities, connections, perceptions, and analyses, the more you feel the Creator. Then you start to understand what Kabbalah speaks of, and Kabbalistic books become a description of what you personally experience.

A Kabbalistic book turns into a living manual for you. It tells you what to do.

Question: Suppose I travel to Paris as a tourist and see Notre Dame or some other landmark, which gives me certain impressions. How does this work in spirituality?

Answer: In spirituality, your impressions come from inner attainment: What is this object? What is this phenomenon? How does it affect me? How can I best perceive it? How is it connected to other phenomena? And so on.

Essentially, what does spirituality mean? It is the attainment of the Creator, the only thing in which we exist. To the extent that I develop myself, I begin to understand, feel, and study Him. But in studying, I can perceive Him only to the extent that I become like Him.

Therefore, all of Kabbalah is structured around reaching similarity to the Creator, around becoming equivalent to Him. This is the goal of everything we do. To attain complete equivalence with Him means to fully attain Him.

Understanding the causes and sources of all existence brings you immense fulfillment. It fills all your desires, needs, thoughts, intellect, and emotions. There is great pleasure in this knowledge and connection. Connection itself brings immense fulfillment because it is built on the connection of opposites, on resolving contradictions. Suddenly, they align and form a single, wonderful whole.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Develop Yourself” 7/15/10

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Question: What is the meaning of this game that the Creator has initiated?

Answer: The meaning of the Creator’s game is to create a creation equal to Himself, which will attain the state of the Creator, His level, and complete similarity to Him, and in this will be totally fulfilled since He instilled these desires in us.

We are meant to become like Him: to achieve absolute, mutual fulfillment of one another. Thus, the entire program of creation is realized within the framework known to us.

We rely on what the Kabbalists say, that the Creator has a need to create, a positive need, a desire to bestow. In our world, this can be likened to a woman’s desire to have children, which is an inner longing to care for and give. Naturally, in our world, this is an egoistic desire, but in the Creator, it is altruistic.

It stems from the nature of the good that does good. That is why He created beings—to lead them to goodness. This is what we can comprehend. One can philosophize endlessly about it, but Kabbalah teaches that it must be attained. For one who attains, everything becomes clear. And the one who merely philosophizes is left with thoughts that his fishes out from under his hair—nothing more.

That is why Kabbalah is categorically against it. It is a highly practical science meant to lead a person to receive the magnificent fulfillment that awaits him in the attainment of the Creator, in becoming like Him.

Comment: You speak about this so sadly.

My Response: On the contrary, it is something enormous. I simply do not know how to express it, there are no words for it. I am not sad. Quite the opposite, wonderful feelings arise in me that overwhelm me because what has been given to a person is a great thing, such a goal, such an opportunity!
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Meaning of the Game” 7/12/10

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Question: Is there a difference between whether a person listens to your lecture directly in the study hall or from somewhere else like watching it on television?

Answer: If a person is in the audience, it certainly gives him a greater intensity of information, sensations, and has a very strong influence on him.

Question: So there is a certain energy in the room?

Answer: No, you can connect to this from any distance. It all depends on the receiver. Information is not contained in the air of this particular room. I assure you that you will be able to connect to the state of Rabbi Shimon and his disciples, who were sitting and studying some part of The Book of Zohar.

Question: Does it mean that this state exists within the system, and you simply connect to it?

Answer: Of course! It exists eternally, nothing is transient. It is all as if there, and everything is like in Baron Munchausen’s “frozen sounds”: the flute thawed and started to play.

Question: Which is more important: hearing or seeing the letters themselves?

Answer: You need to see it too. In general, seeing helps a lot. After all, it includes another vast area of connection with information, and the most important is that it is the connection with the source.

We do not understand in what volume we exist, who we are. We do not see our real selves—our spiritual, energetic image. We do not know ourselves! We are not at all what we imagine ourselves to be, and we do not feel what we are connected to.

This book lying before us, this amount of information, this enormous realm of our connection that extends somewhere into the n-dimensional spiritual space, we do not see it all! Everything is completely hidden. This is why we must strive to be tied to everything.

There are some things that perhaps at the first contact interfere and distract. But in general, it is necessary to try to absorb it as closely as possible, to enter into an inner contact. The inner contact is, of course, very important.

If a person is not yet in the spiritual world, then the inner contact cannot appear. But once it appears, it does not matter where and how you live, because all of this is information that is recorded and exists permanently.

You connect to it and exist within it. You yourself are both its consumer and the source, the transmitter. You are like a detector existing in the information field, moving, and therefore capturing its information.

This information is called the Creator. He is the informational field: eternal, perfect, and of an unknown nature! That is, we capture a tiny fraction of it, but it is all huge, vast, boundless, and exists in some incomprehensible volume and space. Moreover, there is not as if there is a certain volume, and the field fills it. This field is primary.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Information Field” 7/9/10

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Happiness is the fulfillment of a person’s deepest desires. As a rule, it arises in contrast to a sense of dissatisfaction.

For example: hunger brings pleasure from food, separation leads to joy of reunion with a loved one, and so on. In other words, we are built in such a way that we can only experience the positive through the negative.

This raises the question: “Should we even strive for happiness if we must first go through suffering to later feel happy?”

The fact is that the Kabbalistic method allows a person to experience happiness simultaneously with the feeling of lack. That is, at the moment I taste something, I feel both longing for that taste and its fulfillment.

I do not have to separate this in time, first suffering and then receiving. This is why for people engaged in spiritual practice, there is no question of time. They exist beyond it, simultaneously experiencing states of suffering and fulfillment, hunger and satiation.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is: the wisdom of receiving! It teaches a person to receive what is desired, not in a month or a year, but at the very moment of desire. At the same time, two seemingly opposite states, minus and plus, coexist in harmony.

In our world, this does not exist. Here, there is one big minus, and we almost never receive the plus. But according to the Kabbalistic method, the very act of receiving pleasure awakens in us both the desire for it and its fulfillment.

Question: But how can we achieve this? How can we truly become happy in this world?

Answer: This is possible only when I am fulfilled, not independently, but through others. This is the patent for happiness, because I can never truly fulfill myself. However, if I feel and absorb the desires of others, then by fulfilling them, I fulfill myself, since their desires become mine. It turns out that I fulfill myself by existing in others.

The secret is that I step outside of myself, discover desires beyond me, accept them as my own, and fulfill them. That is, both the desire and its fulfillment exist outside of me, but this is precisely what constitutes my soul.

Question: Does this mean we also fulfill a person’s corporeal desires?

Answer: We satisfy all of a person’s desires but only to a certain extent. Corporeal desires are fulfilled only to the degree necessary for existence and no more. But spiritual desires are fulfilled to the extent that we strive to rise together, since my ascent and his ascent are interconnected and complement each other.

Thus, fulfilling the desires of others gives us a sense of happiness.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/22/14, Part 2

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Question: If the past does not exist, why do I see old buildings?

Answer: All of this exists within you. If you were not here, then none of it would exist.

Comment: If I tell someone: “This is all inside me. You are a part of me,” they will think I am crazy.

My Response: That is natural. Even if you explain that physicists or philosophers propose similar theories, they will still say the same thing. What Kabbalah speaks about closely resembles some philosophical or physical theories. There is nothing unusual about it.

Understand that there is no way around it. What “seems” to a person or not does not matter. There is reality, and that is what we are discussing. Our corporeal reality exists only relative to us. If our qualities change, reality will change as well.

Scientists already write that time exists as an objective reality only relative to us. There is nothing truly objective. Everything is relative to us. Physicists directly speak about time flowing forward, backward, in any direction, or not existing at all. If time does not exist, then what is left? That means nothing exists at all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Reality of Perception” 7/20/10

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If during the lesson you make an effort to concentrate as much as possible on what I am saying, you will feel how through these words I am opening a path for you to develop your soul.

We have texts that we study and discuss in a group. At the same time, we are influenced by the laws of nature, the laws of ten, the laws that bind us at a higher level, and the laws that bind us at a lower level, and we must constantly be in this cycle.

And when I get inside the book, it becomes my rightful ruler, like a mother to an infant who changes his diapers, bathes him, and changes his clothes over and over again. We must strive to reach a state where the Creator would want to care for us just like a mother cares for a baby.

Nothing limits us in our work, and everyone has the opportunity to make even greater efforts. But it happens that despite investing a lot, we get minimal results.

And this is a consequence of the fact that in our work there are forces acting on a person’s desires, and there are forces acting on a person’s connection with reality. And we must strive to achieve the greatest success in both of these areas.

We need to choose words and passages from The Book of Zohar that will draw the maximum illumination to us and so move forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/25, Continuing the Convention With an Ascent

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The Book of Zohar is sacred and speaks in a completely unique language, an extraordinarily precise one. It allows us to grasp the entire global picture and then focus on a single specific detail that it wishes to reveal. It has the power to expand one’s vision to the maximum and then contract it down to a single point.

And when we read Kabbalistic texts, The Zohar or the writings of Baal HaSulam or Rabash, we must connect with our hearts to the one who is transmitting this knowledge to us.

For example, if we take The Introduction to The Book of Zohar by Baal HaSulam, we see that his intention with this introduction is to connect each of us to The Zohar for All, that is, to the book that should be the most sought-after among the entire nation of Israel. It is for this purpose that he wrote and disseminated this introduction.

When we begin to read such texts, we must distance ourselves from literal interpretations and strive to connect with the spiritual message that the Kabbalist wishes to convey to us. And after reading each passage, we must return to it and try to let these words enter our hearts, so that through them we can connect our hearts with the heart of its author Baal HaSulam.

The works of the Kabbalists are of immense importance to us, because they are messages passed down to us by our teachers. Through this message they wish to bind us with a thousand threads between us and with The Book of Zohar. In The Introduction to The Book of Zohar, we can find all the words and laws that will help us draw closer to the Creator and cleave to Him. These texts connect us to spirituality and eternity.

If a person aspires to connect with the spiritual source through The Book of Zohar, then each time they return to it they will discover how this text increasingly ties them to the spiritual in all its forms. And then they fully open their eyes and heart with the sole desire to ascend and cleave to the spiritual root of which The Zohar speaks.

And even when I am not reading The Book of Zohar, I want to live inside it. That is, I strive to be connected with my friends, with the group, and with my ten, and in this way I draw closer and closer to the Creator until I see that I have entered a certain gravitational zone where the Creator begins to pull me inward into this field.

To live inside The Book of Zohar means to strive to reveal what this book wants to tell me with each of its words and sentences. And then The Zohar draws me into a stream that carries me from the beginning of the book to its last word.
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From the Daily Kabbalah 2/24/25, “Continuing the Convention With an Ascent”

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Question: What are the distinctive effects of The Book of Zohar and The Study of the Ten Sefirot on us?

Answer: The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) is an original textbook studied worldwide that explains all the states the soul undergoes. The Book of Zohar is divided into chapters, so we cannot study it from the first to the last page in a continuous manner.

We will study both. Strive for these books to become your true sources so that you live guided only by them. And then you will see how what is written in them becomes clothed in you, in matter, and in time.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/25, “Continuing the Convention with an Ascent”

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Question: You said we are attracting much more light than desire (Hisaron). Can this really happen?

Answer: Of course, we attract a negative amount of light. There is a continuous connection between the Reshimot (spiritual information data) created as a result of the descent of souls from the world of infinity to our world through the 125 degrees of the worlds. As a result, we are at the bottom, and we have information records of all the past states that we parted with when we descended into our world.

Now each of us must make the same journey from bottom up just as was descended from top to bottom, but only on our own accord. This is the difference between descent—fall and ascent—rise in that we must stock up in advance, find, form, and create a desire for bestowal, a desire for love, and a desire for connection between us.

Initially, when we fell, we did not have this desire. It is unnatural because we do not want to rise in attributes of bestowal, love, and unification. We want to receive, grab, dominate, and be filled. In our world, we imagine a spiritual ascent, a connection with the Creator, in an entirely opposite way of how it happens. These pictures are presented to us in an egoistic way as, for example, Muslims think that 72 virgins are waiting to dance for them in the world to come.

That is, people have taken the greatest pleasure in the material world, sexual pleasure, and made a paradise out of it. A person in our world cannot imagine anything more. There is nothing to laugh about. Clearly we have nothing else. Food, sex, such eternal fun, this is paradise.

But we cannot imagine this is about bestowal, absolute love, and connection between us, where on one hand you remain as a person, but on the other hand you completely give yourself, dissolve into everyone else, and work only for their desires. We avoid such thoughts; we dont’ want it to be like that.

Therefore, the return ascent is so difficult because every ascent, every small step, has to have an underlying desire. We must want to rise to this degree in advance, that is, to become more giving, more connected to each other, and more dependent on others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Virtual Community, Part 1” 5/16/10

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As seen above, there are two modes in religion: 1) Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], which is pure utilitarianism, meaning aiming to establish morality for one’s own good. One is satisfied when acquiring this tendency. And there is a second tendency to religion, being a mental need to adhere to Him. This is called Lishma [for Her sake]. One can be rewarded with the above through actions, and from Lo Lishma one comes to Lishma (Baal HaSulam, “The Writings of the Last Generation”).

Question: When a person is working in Lo Lishma, does he have a sense of the Creator’s presence, a feeling that there is none else besides Him?

Answer: No, of course not. He is in a state of self-benefit.

Lo Lishma means performing actions for one’s own sake, and Lishma means for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of others, beyond oneself.

Question: Can we say that the majority of humanity is in Lo Lishma?

Answer: No, they are in an animalistic state. But if a person develops within a Kabbalistic group correctly and precisely fulfilling all the conditions, he transitions from complete egoism to a willingness to give to others. He wants to give altruistically, without any connection to himself, but he is not yet able to. This is called Lo Lishma.

The transition from Lo Lishma happens through the reforming light (light that returns one to the source). Precisely because a person wants to give, but is still unable to, the light influences him and brings him to Lishma, to actions for the sake of others.

Question: Should we constantly have the feeling that we are moving toward Lishma?

Answer: We have to think about this. A person has no right to lock himself in the thought that it is for his own benefit, even though his intentions are essentially egoistic. This is precisely the prison, the bondage, the feeling of Egyptian exile—when we feel that we would like to free ourselves from the rule of Pharaoh (egoism), but are unable to. These are not easy states.

Question: To transition from Lo Lishma to Lishma, we work in a group. Where I am like an expert who observes everything from the outside? Does this happen simultaneously?

Answer: Yes, because a second system is created within you—the quality of bestowal. From it, you observe your own qualities of reception.

Question: On one hand a person tries to become aware of the state he is in; on the other hand he has the opportunity to engage in group activities aimed at unity mechanically, without thinking. How can these actions be done non-mechanically?

Answer: This happens under the influence of the right environment. There must be an active attitude of the group toward each individual. Each person must feel the pressure of the group, its correction, what it wants to do with him, and at the same time feel how much he resists this and how much he agrees to surrender. This is the expert point within each member of the group.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 12/19/17

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