Question: Why does Baal HaSulam tell us about how the Masach (screen) rises and descends, about how Bina mixes with Malchut, etc.? Why should we know all these details?

Answer: Baal HaSulam tells us about our foundations, our roots. It is because a person in this world acts either like an animal, worrying only about how to fill himself, not caring about anything else (if something happens one millimeter away from him he doesn’t care one bit), or he may be troubled by questions like: Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I living, for what purpose?

If a person thinks about such questions that are a bit beyond his own body, they already belong to the human level and not to the animal level. An animal is totally closed inside itself.

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about the roots that belong to the human level, that is, everything that is external to me. External to me means external to my corporeal existence. Corporeal means from one end to another: from birth to death, as long as the body lives. This is the only thing about which the animal cares.

On the human level, however, one asks: Where did I come from and where am I going? These questions do not belong to our inner system but to the external system. I have to reveal it and then I will get the answers to all the questions such as: Who am I, what am I living for, and what is happening to me?

So when we read the descriptions of the upper system in Kabbalah books, we may not care or we may care very much, and accordingly we discover that this story actually refers to us. It refers to our behavior and our functioning on the animal level and also on the spiritual level. Spirit refers to what is outside the body.

In the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam tells us about our foundations. Up to a certain point he tells us about Malchut itself and about how it spreads from the top down. Malchut is considered the animal level, but Malchut is connected to Bina, which is the foundation, the root of the human level.

By its connection to Bina, Malchut can resemble Bina and thus reach the level of Keter, that is the Creator. This is why the connection between Bina and Malchut is so important. In fact it is the point where a person connects with the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is the difference between caring and service? You say that we must attract the future states. This is unclear because it truly doesn’t exist within our sensation.

Answer: Certainly. So, this is not understandable. We understand only what is given to us in sensation. The matter of the world, of creation, is desire. So, feelings are primary. First, we feel, and after that we begin to understand what we are feeling, the reasons, all kinds of connections and everything that is happening within the desire itself. We understand how it is reinforced and  how it is possible to recover it, and so forth.

It is very important to understand that the main thing is desire, meaning feeling.

What touches upon the difference between care and service? Well, “service” or “usage,” these words are not good because they indicate that we must do something without ourselves understanding what. This is what has been taught to us, commanded and forced upon us. I am not saying that this is bad. For instance, service to a nation is something else. However, this is something that cannot be in the spiritual way.

In the spiritual path, it is necessary to attain everything emotionally within ourselves and, after that, explore our emotions. On what level of desires are Shoresh (root), Aleph (first), Bet (second), Gimel (third), and Dalet (four) found? Which Light is extended into these desires according to our intention? The degree of intention—Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet—determines the amount of the Light that is revealed, in other words, the intensity, the strength of feeling of the Creator which is discovered in that desire.

All of us must begin to feel to such a degree that when reading a book, we experience and measure our feelings at the same time. The book must be our spiritual and emotional guide in the full sense of the word so that we will laugh and cry when we read it, for it is talking about which activities I must carry out within me at every moment.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a very emotional science, but only for someone who can feel these emotions in himself already, and, if not, then it will seem dry to him.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/9/14, Lesson 1

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Historically, the wisdom of Kabbalah begins in ancient Babel where all of humanity encountered a new state. Before that, people lived a simple life which everyone understood. Everyone wanted to succeed and they somehow got along with one another. Suddenly, however, they felt how much they hated one another and could not get along.

Conflicts broke out and their pride grew so much that allegorically this period is described as a time when people wanted to build a tower to reach the heavens. It was a very dangerous situation, a real civil war, an internal war.

Many people tried to resolve this sate and many wise men at the time realized the reason for the crisis. The reason was that all of humanity was in one place and people were tightly connected to one another; the integral system was revealed among them, but their relationships were not good.

They had two choices: either to improve the connections between them, which means to correct themselves, or to draw away from one another and break the connections. If a connection is bad and cannot be corrected, then they have to separate.

Thus, two schools were formed: At the head of one was Abraham who said that human nature must be corrected and people should connect by love, understanding, brotherhood, and closeness. At the head of the second school was Nimrod who spoke about drawing away from one another, like a couple that is getting divorced today since they cannot get along.

Humanity followed Nimrod, decided to separate, and dispersed all over the world. This state continued until the end of the 20^th century when the same state people felt in ancient Babel is recurring. Once again we find ourselves connected, not in one small place but all over the globe.

Now we cannot resolve the conflict by using Nimrod’s method of drawing further away from one another. There is nowhere we can draw away to because the integral connection is fully revealed among everyone. There is no choice now but to follow Abraham’s method, which means to correct the relations between us by correcting man’s nature.

This is the state we are in today. This is why Abraham’s method, called the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed today, which explains how to correct our nature so that the connections between us will be good.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day One 5/9/14, Lesson 1

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Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center
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Starts March 19, 2014
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The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center will begin a brand new live, interactive Kabbalah course March 19, 2014.

This course will enable you to discover the meaning of life, will give you a deep understanding of nature, the world, and man’s place in it, and will provide the necessary framework for the study of The Zohar and other Kabbalistic sources.

Kabbalah is a practical methodology that allows us to go beyond our five senses and attain the general law of the universe. The short course in the systematic knowledge of Kabbalah will give you a deep understanding of the world in your material and spiritual progress.

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Question: Can we bring harm to the world by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah like the harm caused by the egoistic use of external science?

Answer: Through discovery of Kabbalah it’s impossible to do any harm because there is a natural filter that transfers only good influence from us to the upper world, to the system of forces that manage reality. Bad influence can never go there.

But when the time comes that you must have a good influence on that system and you don’t,  then you have a bad influence on it, not directly, but indirectly. You don’t damage the system willingly, and don’t even know it.

But this is speaking only about your lack of correction. You cannot intentionally cause destruction in the higher system. Deliberately you can only correct. You cannot add your efforts to provide a good influence, but a bad influence is impossible.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/09/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is the spiritual source of the daily Kabbalah lesson that is held from three until six in the morning?

Answer: It is in order to get up with the thought about the Creator and immediately create a connection with Him because He further determines all of your workday during which you need to maintain the same connection that you built in the morning lesson for all of the realities of this life.

Question: Why do we begin to study specifically at three o’clock and not at 2:40 or some other time?

Answer: In principle it is necessary to begin to study at midnight, but midnight is not 12 o’clock at night as we usually think it is. It is necessary to divide the night into two halves, and this is also a time that varies. So it is necessary to begin studying at midnight.

Question: Why don’t we use the lesson form that was organized as customary in the time of Abraham? He would invite people to a table, give them food and drink, and give a lesson.

Answer: It is said that he had a tent and he would call everyone there. The tent stood along the road and merchants would pass by, all sorts of passing traders, and they would come to him to rest and drink tea. At the same time, he would tell them about his teaching.
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Recommendation for how to work at the time of reading The Book of Zohar: I read along together with everyone and I listen. But in the beginning I don’t listen to the reader, I don’t want to hear and think about the text. I think only about adherence with the group and adherence with the Creator, wanting the Upper Light to hold me all the time and increase my state of adherence more and more.

If I succeed in holding a few minutes in this state, I allow myself to begin to start listening. I keep bobbing all the time, like a buoy on water, constantly checking myself: Am I listening, more or less, seeing the letters or not? But the main thing is to “float” all the time, to be in adhesion.

To the degree that I can add my impressions from the text here (suppose that it touches me because I have already gone through similar states), then I allow myself to combine the text with adhesion. And if not, then even though I don’t hear it at all, the main thing is that my thoughts will always remain correct.

That is, first of all we all want to remain in adhesion with the upper power, in mutual Arvut, in connection, and the Creator strengthens and adheres us together. And as much as possible, we add to this what The Book describes. The Zohar talks about all kinds of changes, all the kinds of guiding routes, roads, paths: capillaries, cells, body parts of this entire system of unification; it explains how it works, how it acts. To the degree that I am also ready to be in this, I do this, and if not, then I don’t.

We want to feel ourselves under a shower of Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) or in a sea of Ohr Makif, in the depths of this sea so that it will influence us all the time. The closer we join together, the stronger its influence. We need to feel that we are in a sea of Upper Light and that the words of The Zohar pierce us. To the degree that we are prepared to combine them to intentions and to our state of connection, we make it possible for them to enter into our feelings and intellect. And to the degree that they disturb us and distract us from connection, we don’t allow them to enter into us.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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