There is no connection between Kabbalah and religion. Religion emerged from the fact that people received a Kabbalistic text, but they do not know how to read and understand it correctly.

As a rule, a religious man, opening the Torah or some other book written by Kabbalists who have attained the upper world interprets it in material images of our world, i.e., in terms he understands.

For example, the forefathers’ journey, he perceives as a journey on the Earth and not within himself at different levels of egoism. He treats killing, defeats, victories, and other events and phenomena described in the Torah as all sorts of adventures in our world. He is like a little kid whom you tell about something higher, but who perceives everything at the level he sees around himself.

The problem is that there is one language for the description of the spiritual world and our world. Therefore, a person who is at the level of our world takes everything literally, and this is the source of religion. But a person who is at the spiritual level interprets it correctly because for him this is Kabbalah, the upper world, interaction with the Creator.

Question: How can a religious person relate to Kabbalah?

Answer: It is said that every man judges everything from his level, to the extent of his corruption. So here comes a big problem.

Kabbalists understand that ordinary religious people, within the narrow confines of their limited perception, interpret the Torah incorrectly. But they need to maintain their level of simple faith. They should study the Torah in their way, until the time of their correction arrives.

Religious people tie Kabbalah to the material level, not realizing that Kabbalists understand it differently (at a higher level), as a young child does not understand an adult. Therefore, they resent Kabbalists, believe that Kabbalah is a harmful thing that takes a man away from religion. Kabbalah really takes a man away from religion because it shows him true peace and the true purpose of creation.

The fact is that a religious person performs the commandments in an egoistic way: just for the sake of a good life in this world and for the sake of paradise in the next world. It has no relation to the laws of unity and to the rule of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

A Kabbalist fulfills the commandment “love thy neighbor” because it is the basis for all his life in which he reveals the Creator and reaches the property of bestowal and love.

Therefore, Kabbalah and religion have completely different goals, different techniques, and different attitudes to the Torah. This profound contradiction separates them and makes them polar opposites. Let us hope that eventually religious people will understand the importance of the gradual transition from religion to Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/22/14

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When we read books of Kabbalah, we are able to attract the Upper Light that Reforms. So it is very important at the time of the lesson to keep the right intention at every moment by remembering what one wants with each and every word that is read.

It could be that I don’t understand anything in these words about the subject itself. I came to the lesson and heard that it was necessary to open some book. I open it, read, and don’t understand anything because the things written there are completely new to me. But this is not important, I think only about my intention: What is it that I want to attain by sitting and learning?

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” Item 155, that the Kabbalists also designed their books for people who are not yet on spiritual levels and don’t understand what is written. But precisely thanks to studying texts they don’t understand and not for the sake of understanding but to receive the Light, they advance.

It is said, “It is not the wise who learns.” During the lesson, it is important to decide that I don’t aspire to knowledge.  “Knowing” means connection, rising to the appropriate level. “The Study of the Ten Sefirot” talks about such high levels that it will take me a long time to achieve them.

But I demand the Light that Reforms, the higher power that will influence me and correct, elevate, purify, and connect me. I ask it to differentiate between desires that are possible to correct and desires that are impossible to correct within me, so that it will be clear to me what I must work with.

This is because there are such desires and thoughts that are worthwhile for me to distinguish and not touch them. And others, on the contrary, must be awakened and discovered. By means of them, I can communicate with the group and with the Creator.

Likewise, I need to discover in what way it is possible to help the group: It is not for my desires but for the desires of the friends. So I turn to the Creator and specifically ask for strength regarding these desires, to bring the Light that Reforms to the group.
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From the Convention In Los Angeles “Day Two” 11/1/14, Lesson 4

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The wisdom of Kabbalah conducts much more accurate and objective research than any other science. In the course of this study, we learn that there is only one force, one factor, that acts in reality. Therefore, we characterize it with the phrase “There is none else besides Him.”

This is not a name or a definition, this is just the way we want to emphasize the uniqueness of this phenomenon. Studying ourselves and all of reality at all degrees and at all levels, we can see that only the Upper Light operates and organizes everything.

And its corollary, beginning from a certain point, divided into two. The Upper Light affects something and we determine whether matter is opposite to the Light according to its properties or matches it. This is the main feature of matter: the ability to remain in a state of oppositeness or similarity.

Accordingly, our experiments may show polar results. If the matter of our desires is opposite to the Light, then we feel it as darkness. If we have prepared ourselves for the meeting with the Light and match it, at least partially, then we feel it as a blessing.

There is nothing in the Light, either good or bad, just the property manifested in giving, loving, fulfilling, advancing, and developing. And it all depends on the vessel, on the created being.

In this, the preparation of the vessel to receive the Light is carried out by the same Light. Indeed, It is primary; it marked the beginning of creation, the whole process; it causes all matter to develop. But matter itself is devoid of any ability to realize anything.

Consider where do atomic particles—protons, electrons, neutrons, etc.—take strength from to move endlessly and so rapidly? They do not stop, do not slow down, for billions of years. How can this be?

The Light supplies them with energy. It is primary and it acts. Otherwise each particle would eventually stop, which according to physicists is equivalent to its disappearance. All matter exists due to the power of the Light, the force of bestowal. This force gives energy to the dead material by its desire so that by receiving it, it would begin to move.

Why does matter have to be developed on the degrees of the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature?—To become like the Light in the end of development. Towards this purpose, the Light pushes all particles and their compounds, be they atoms, molecules, including biological organisms or spiritual forms, inherent in matter, which is already capable of performing bestowal, similar to the Light, until finally they both become equal.

The Light does all this. Apart from it, there is no other acting force in the process. We say about all of this, “There is none else besides Him.”

However, this upper force wants to give something greater to the created being, originally dead matter like dust, as it is said: “For of dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” The Light wants to give this dust vitality, not at the degrees where it inevitably develops, transformed into the vegetative, animate, and human nature. No, the created being is intended to develop in a particular direction above its nature and to acquire a higher nature.

This becomes possible due to the breaking of the vessels, because the Light “corrupted” the desire it created, cut it into many pieces, by force penetrated into the matter and left in it an egoistic urge to receive for self-fulfillment, the inclination to enjoy it, to desire it and do only that.

As a result, the desire became the complete opposite to the Creator. Now, it is not just the created being, a derivative, because it has its own momentum to resist the Creator, to be in antagonism towards Him. The dominant force, demanding power, was revealed in the desire.

And then the Upper Light, the Creator, begins to “play” with the desire that is opposite to Him. A certain system of relations is formed and develops between them; they mutually influence each other.

The created being begins to understand that it is in a complex world. At first, it behaves in our world as the “higher animal,” creates science, culture, education, and forms of human society develops…until a crisis occurs. And then the desire realizes that something is wrong here.

Today, humanity has entered exactly this era; it is not yet the genuine crisis of the basic paradigm but its threshold. From this era, the moral must be drawn: We are in the system, in a network of forces.

They all interact harmoniously, creating a single network, focused on matter, i.e., still, vegetative, animate, and human nature, in order to lead it to self-realization. In other words, so that it begins to realize what it is.

This makes it immediately clear: It is possible to realize only if the created being learns who controls it, who stands on the other side. Indeed, it is possible to investigate and understand anything only from the opposite, like black on a white background.

Therefore, we perceive that “there is none else besides Him,” by coming from the opposite state, when we are sure that there is nobody but us people. In our eyes, we are ourselves are the active force in reality, and no one else.

With this confidence, we boldly and resolutely go ahead, until under a hail of blows “on our own bodies” we learn that something is wrong. Something does not go well to the extent that the global crisis comes, and there is no success in anything. Nothing helps, not reason or senses, not science or culture.

It turns out that we are stupid, clueless, and cannot even establish our normal life or everyday relationships. Even animals somehow make themselves comfortable. And we, on the contrary, destroy the lives of those near and far, using all our strength and knowledge.

That is our nature and we cannot go against it. Our evil nature is stronger than our mind. Intellect does not help in dealing with it. We would like to establish healthy relationships; we produce so much we could make a paradise on Earth for everyone, but we are not able to. Instead, we have only troubles and problems, threats, and fear of tomorrow.

Thus, my nature reigns over me and I cannot do anything about it.

As a result, people become conscious of all the baseness of their own nature. And this, in fact, is the best starting point. Baal HaSulam indicates it in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” explaining what questions we ask in the end of our development: “What is the meaning of our life, the years which cost us so dearly?” “What am I here?”—and in his thoughts only this persistent question remains.

Ultimately, explains Baal HaSulam, this question should lead us to the realization of the necessity of the revelation of the Creator. If a person is thinking about what he lives for, what the meaning of his life is, he eventually comes to the conclusion: “There is something above me. The fact is I cannot arrange my life. Even my nature is beyond me.”

The solution is formulated as follows: “Come and see that the Creator is good.” In other words, from an actual need we really can come to the revelation of the Creator, and then we will see that He acts in everything. We will see that the entire distance traveled was necessary only to get blows and to eventually understand that our only way out is to reveal the force acting in the created being and causing us to move.
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From the Convention in Los Angeles “Day Two” 10/31/14, Lesson 3

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Today, we are slightly lifting the veil on dark matter and other phenomena, but we don’t feel them; the result is calculated from data we collect, postulating what is lacking in them.

But we don’t know the source of the forces that operate in nature, the essence of their action, and the relations between them. The very fact of their existence we perceive as a consequence, not as a given.

The main point is that everything we can learn, study, and attain is described in our five senses because at the end of a chain of experiments and research there is a human being with his five senses, with his mind and his feelings, with his imagination and his ability to build specific models and to make them into a general model of the universe. So far, of course, all these models and results his research are very limited.

Basically, we know nothing, like a little turtle that comes out of his asylum and creeps a few steps in a time span of ages. In fact, he is not very far from the bush he sat under with his head tucked under his shell. And it doesn’t know anything.

Moreover, by advancing gradually he will not discover anything either. No matter how much we develop in our current state, we will not discover anything qualitative. We can collect a massive amount of facts and data, but we will not be able to process and study them so that they would depict the general picture for us.

This is because in order to conduct true research about ourselves we have to move to a higher level, to a higher mind and heart, in other words, not depending on the three axes of time and space and on the mind and heart that we have today, but ascending above them and seeing everything in a different light, as if we are not human beings on this planet any more. Then we will attain knowing people and understanding who they are.

We need a new science in order to do that. It isn’t by chance that scientists today already acknowledge the fact that traditional science is in a crisis. Why? After all, we have enough tools, we know how to build huge complex structures, we send telescopes to orbit the earth and our microscopes and accelerators penetrate particles.

Billions are invested in scientific research, but eventually the benefits of such studies turns out to be an illusion to such an extent that we even mock scientists who seem to be satisfying their natural curiosity at the expense of the tax payer.

We don’t regard science as seriously as we used to, especially when our essence, our ego, ruins all its fruits. After all, we use science in order to dominate one another and to profit at the expense of another, so it is actually almost impossible to find any good fruits on this tree.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/2/14

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Question: Let’s go out into open space, to the universe that actually gave us life. The universe is the system of creation that is made of matter and energy. It encompasses the world that we know including space and time.

The universe is dynamic and according to the Big Bang theory, it is developing from a starting point and is gradually expanding. Universal processes are billions of years old and are subject to the laws that modern science studies. On the whole, what can we extract from what we know about the universe?

Answer: First, by studying something we have to determine the essence of the researchers. The researcher is a person who is also part of nature, of the universe, of the global system.

We should understand the research tools that we have; it manifests our first mistake: we assume that we can study nature objectively.

But in the meantime, as we have already said, we are part of it, and are a quite defective and very subjective part. We value and praise what is good for us, and, on the other hand, underestimate and belittle what is bad for us. All this takes place in our subconscious.

Besides, we are very limited in our sensations, our feelings, and in our senses; we don’t know where they fail us and when they deceive us. We cannot perceive the mistakes that we make in our analytical attributes and our abilities to clarify and compare things. It isn’t in our power because we lack the criteria for examining things and simply have nothing with which to compare our mind and feelings.

If we are ready to at least acknowledge our limitations, it is a good thing. Since then we understand that there is nothing absolute in our perception and that we will never know and obtain the Absolute. Even if we can investigate something, it is only the levels below us: the still, vegetative, and animate. They aren’t as developed as we are and so we can study them to some extent.

On the other hand, we cannot study ourselves. It is because everything is attained only from a higher level. This is the only way we can attain the root, and accordingly we don’t know ourselves because our root, the power, the plan, is on a higher level than us. The reasons underlying our essence remain unattainable.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/2/14

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The name Abraham (AB-am) means “father of the nation.” Abraham is actually the spiritual father of all of humanity since he was not only the founder of many nations but the creator of the spiritual method of the correction of the world. The main idea of his method was the indication that the Creator is the only one unique and united force of nature, which manages all of creation, that “there is none else besides Him.”

The Creator’s attributes were determined by him as the “good that does good.” According to his teachings, the role of humanity was to obtain adhesion with the Creator according to the rule of “love thy friend as thyself.”

He passed on this method to his Babylonian students who joined him and called their community “the house of Abraham” (Beit Abraham), which refers to his students and to his family. Later Abraham took his group of students out of Babylon, which means that he detached from all the other studies and obtained the Creator and established an independent method that he expressed in the Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira), which largely complemented the work of Adam, Angel Raziel (Raziel and Malachi).

Abraham placed the foundations of the method for the right attainment of the Creator, for obtaining His level and adhering to Him. All the other Kabbalists only developed his theory by adding their practical work to it. Because the ego kept on growing in every generation, this enabled the development of Abraham’s method on the next levels according to the conditions in a certain time.

Therefore, we cannot say that we have something new today. Everything that is revealed is revealed by Kabbalists starting from Adam until our times, but the right path begins with Abraham, although there is the unique spiritual birth on every level along this path called the “sons of Abraham.”
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/15/14

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Abraham, who was a priest in ancient Babylon and one of the followers and disciples of Noah’s teachings, was the first to realize that everything that happens with the nation is intentional.

It is hard to accept that negative outcomes, which can destroy an ideal society, can stem from the good upper force.

If people who live together in peace and friendly relations suddenly feel that they don’t understand one another and resent each other, that they are growing apart and even feel hatred towards one another, we may wonder whether the force that manages the world is indeed good and benevolent.

These questions usually concern Kabbalists but not ordinary people.

The separation that was suddenly felt in ancient Babylon led the priests and the sages to think about the existence of two gods: a good one and a bad one who are in a conflict that is reflected in our life in this world. “Probably the evil force prevails over the positive force. And maybe there are not, but a whole host of deities of all kinds.”

Eventually people began to believe in polytheism, thus denying the providence of one force in this world. Abraham regarded it as paganism. He totally disagreed with it because he discovered that there is only one force and one providence in this world and not the many forces as the Babylonians believed when they saw good and evil in all its manifestations in our world, contradicting one another and destroying everything.

Abraham claimed that it all stemmed from one force, but humanity is shown the imbalance of the whole system, just like in an experiment, so that it will start to investigate and understand it. We should understand, feel, and bring it closer to us or get closer to it. We have to connect with its good and bad attributes that are revealed in us and this is why the world seems like such a terrible place.

There is only one manager of creation who operates by two opposite forces: good and bad. We have to control these two forces and connect them so that we have one positive force that overcomes the negative force and the negative force should increase the positive force.

Thus, the continuous revelation of the evil force in a person obliges the positive force to grow to a level called the Creator. This is actually what Abraham discovered and he began to explain and disseminate his attitude to nature, man’s mission, and purpose of life.

However, very few agreed with him, actually several thousand people in ancient Babylon did. He distinguished them from all the others who had their own intentions and inclinations and began to teach them. Thus, each of the groups followed its own path.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/15/14

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Kabbalah is the science dealing not with studying our world but only with the forces that govern it.

The first person who discovered this system 5775 years ago was called Adam. The day it happened is described in the Torah as the day the world was born.

Prior to that, people lived like animals, engaged in satisfying their biological needs. Of course, they believed in some forces that helped, protected, or, conversely, harmed them. But this subconscious sensation is present in animals as well.

And suddenly, while humanity had no understanding of where everything comes from and for what it exists, a normal person of our world, Adam, began to reveal that he exists within nature, in a network of forces that govern him.

He called this network of forces the Creator, since he discovered that it created our matter and operates it.

That time marks the beginning of the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is why Adam is considered to be the patriarch of our world, and everything the Torah narrates comes from his personal attainment and is told from his perspective: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless, and void….” and so on.

Having made his discovery, Adam realized that the meaning of his life is not to simply survive on the Earth for a certain number of years, but to attain this network of forces, to rise to its level, master, and govern it. This is how one can ascend to a degree above our world and begin to operate this world, as well as that world, that system of forces, which become revealed to us.

Adam attained the upper world because he had a desire to rise to the level of the Creator. This is where his name “Adam” comes from: it means “similar to the Creator.”

He immediately felt the need to pass on his knowledge to someone. With his students Shem, Ham, and Japheth who were referred to as his sons, began the chain of those who attain the upper world through the method revealed by Adam.

He called this method “The wisdom of Kabbalah,” the science of receiving, understanding, and revealing of the upper world, the higher system of governance.

Externally, Adam was an ordinary man and it is unlikely that his parents and the people around him were aware of his findings and revelations. After all, what he came to know, he revealed inside himself and only for himself. None of the others had any idea about it. This is why Kabbalah is called a “hidden wisdom,” because every person who attains it reveals it only for himself or herself, and cannot convey it to others.

While physics, chemistry, and all other natural and exact sciences can be conveyed to everyone and taught to others so they would be able use them, it is impossible to communicate Kabbalah. We can only teach another person how to change himself in order to be able to feel the next dimension: the higher system, higher degree, the upper world. When a person starts to feel this, he is called a Kabbalist.

Attainment of the next dimension gives a person the ability to learn what he is living for because the nature that he reveals emerges as the one that is governing, determining, permeating everything with itself, and indicating to everyone where it is leading him and what degree of development he needs to reach. It becomes clear to him that the entire path that he is obliged go through (because here, there is no freewill), he can accelerate by directing himself.

Imagine that you are sitting in a wagon, which is being propelled forward by unmanageable horses, they carry you over bumps and potholes in an unknown direction, and in any moment you can fall into an abyss. This is our life.

Yet it is possible to make it so that by sitting in the front you pick up the reins, knowing exactly where you need to head. There will already be a modern GPS in your hands and you can calmly move toward a quick accomplishment of the ultimate goal, going around all the bumps and potholes.

The meaning of Adam’s illumination, and after him, of all the other Kabbalists, lies in the fact that a person is given the opportunity to reach quickly, independently, and comfortably the final goal of creation, and also to teach the rest of the world how to do it. This is what Adam started to do.
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From KabTV’s “Abbreviated Stories” Part 1, 10/15/14

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Question: Is the wisdom of Kabbalah a science or not?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah is a divine science, a science of the upper world, and not a regular science. It works with other tools, not like biology, physics, or anatomy. This is a science that is different from all the sciences of this world for it uses different tools and methods.

Although essentially, its goal is not that different. This is because in regular science the person is also subconsciously looking for the Creator, the origin of life. From this yearning he gets a drive for scientific investigation. He feels fulfillment from reaching some kind of truth.

Perhaps this truth is the opposite of the truth, but this is not important. Science has some divine spark in it, and this is what attracts the scientist. The problem is that this spark captivates the person and clothes into his ego so much that it is difficult to extract it.

Nevertheless, by virtue of this spark the scientists are great fanatics of their science. They are ready to sacrifice themselves for its sake, to conduct clinical trials on themselves, and to engage in it day and night. Basically, they are running after the spark that is submerged in the ego, in “Klipa.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What can you say about red strings and other popular lucky charms?

Answer: These are all egoistic symbols that allow those who sell them to make a profit.

Those who buy them believe in their “holy power” and to some extent, this helps them psychologically.

I have nothing against this, but we just shouldn’t connect it to the wisdom of Kabbalah. This misleads people, especially in our times when humanity needs to reeducate itself.

Man is a complex creature. A red string doesn’t change a person. It gives him some inner energy, a sense of security and psychological support. It is like a placebo given to a patient instead of real medicine, and it helps.

In any case, it is a lie since such lucky charms don’t heal a person, but only divert him from the real solution to the problem that is ripening and which must be addressed.
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From talk with V. Kanevsky in Toronto, 8/05/14

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