Many people in the world are connected to all kinds of groups, associations, alliances, and communities, and they are quite satisfied with these “hobby clubs.” In addition, people also cooperate in businesses in order to make a profit together.

There are the great and small, supervisors and subordinates, but, ultimately, there is a clear goal for everyone, and they understand that everyone needs to have his own place and contribute for the benefit of all. The picture is clear when the result is felt in the pocket or our desire for pleasure is delighted in some other way.

All the ways and forms of connection differ, including the religions. However, in general, people enjoy shared interaction that provides everyone with some benefit.

It seems to be different when a person asks the question about the meaning of life, “Why and for what am I here?” After all the searching, this question only grows, leaving a sensation of emptiness inside. So, finally, the person comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

However, in addition, he opens books and doesn’t find an answer. Essentially, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t reveal anything. On the contrary, it is called the “concealed wisdom” because it removes the cover and only shows a person that something is hidden from him. What is this exactly?

What is concealed from us is the Creator. He is what we are missing. If we were to discover the higher power in nature that activates all of its forms—the still, the vegetative, the animate, and the speaking—then everything will become clear to us.

So, actually, in our world, in our life, there is no other question than the discovery of the Creator. In this way, we will solve all problems. We will understand what is happening to us, how we should act, what the consequences of our actions are, how they come back to us, and so forth. In brief, everything will be revealed to us. When we go beyond the limitations of this world, we feel not only the shortness of material life but also the entire way that stretches to Infinity. All this is provided that we discover the Creator and understand and feel reality in the same way that He does.

In addition, we don’t understand and feel. Here, the question arises, “What do I get out of this understanding and feeling?” The wisdom of Kabbalah answers like this, “You can understand and feel to the degree that you can become like the Creator.” In other words, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t make it possible for us to recognize that particular phenomenon called the “Creator” but presents a condition that is not characteristic of our world.

Here, we look at things from the side. For example, I go to a ballet performance and see people dancing on the stage. I enjoy watching them, but I can’t perform like them myself. However, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, this would not be called attainment. True attainment requires that I carry out this activity myself. From this, I will understand and feel what is being said; I must be “on stage.”  [Read more →]

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Question: Why do I have to make such great efforts not to fall asleep during the lesson although I exert a lot of efforts in the study and in dissemination?

Answer: I will tell you a secret: People who are attracted to spirituality, who want to reveal the Creator, don’t like to study…. It’s because they want to feel! They may even seem a bit stupid and sleepy. They can read the same passage ten times and not understand what it says. I have experienced it myself.

If you let someone on the outside read this passage, he will immediately “understand” what it says. This is very typical of the wisdom of Kabbalah since the point in the heart is awakened in a person when he reads, the point of feeling and not the mind. A stranger perceives the text in a totally logical way, and so he has no problem understanding what it says.

This is the reason that we sometimes see how new people come to the group and apprehend and master the material easily. It’s easy for them to understand what the text says, they immediately begin to study TES, and in a month or two already begin to discuss the most complex theory. People with the point in the heart, however, who have studied for ten years, cannot understand what it says since they are looking for a feeling and not for logic, like a clever donkey.

We should understand that there are two main obstacles for students. The first obstacle is when we discover problems in the group, in the relations between the friends, but we don’t understand that these problems are actually the springboard forward and we escape them.

The second obstacle is that a person reads the text over and over again and already knows it by heart, but feels that he doesn’t understand what it means. This is true not only with regards to the theory in “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” or TES, but even with regards to Shamati and other articles. Certain articles may sometimes move a person, but most of them seem dry and do not touch the heart.

This is actually a good sign. It is said: “It isn’t the wise who learns.” It doesn’t mean that I am giving you permission to sleep during the lesson, but in fact I do understand it. I have never made complaints to students who sleep since I understand them. It isn’t just feeling tired, but a result of wanting to feel spirituality. If they don’t feel that, they don’t understand why they sit in the lesson.

It’s said about this: “Time does what the mind doesn’t do” since the mind cannot really help us here, but time can! This means that with time the Light influences us when we are in the group or even when we sleep during the lesson. You should just let the Light work on you, and the sensation will come.
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From the Convention in New Jersey 5/10/13, Lesson 1

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Question: How can we say at any given moment, in spite of any problems, that “There is none else besides Him” and that “He is good and benevolent” if I feel the opposite at the moment? Do I have to combine the feelings with words?

Answer: We begin to work from a state of total uncertainty. We only hear and read that “There is none else besides Him.” This is how the first article in Shamati begins: “It is written: There is none else besides Him.” This is what Kabbalists say! But these are only words for me that have no meaning. So how do I develop them?

I try to turn these words into actions that will impress me. So I find a group in this world that claims that “There is none else besides Him,” and I am incorporated in it so that it will influence me and convince me that indeed there is nothing else but the upper force. At least they speak about what Kabbalists say.

I connect to that group and subdue myself before them, raising my friends above me, so that the principle of “There is none else beside Him” will be heard more loudly and so that I will feel how important it is. I try to be under the impression of this slogan, which in the meantime exists only on paper for me.

But if I work with my friends, I begin to receive the Light that Reforms through them. This Light is in their words, and to the extent that I exert myself in the group and subdue myself before it by serving my friends, the Light changes this slogan. The Light is dressed in these words and brings them to life. I begin to feel the life in the letters that make up the words “There is none else besides Him.”

I begin to feel the letters as live vessels that are full of Light, and then the vessels, my desires, begin to move together with these letters according to the Light that goes through them. It isn’t just a Light, but rather a “formatted” Light that has taken on the form of these letters. It turns out that I am impressed in different ways by the sentence “There is none else besides Him” and begin to see, to understand, and to feel how it’s expressed in different states and manners. I learn to work with it.

The sentence that used to be dead for me, just a written slogan, gradually begins to come to life. Accordingly I try to fulfill it in different states, the good and the bad. I hold on to it especially in the bad states, since in the meantime I am an egoist. If the uniqueness of the Creator, “There is none else besides Him” and “good and benevolent” is revealed to me in unpleasant ways, it means that I am acquiring vessels of bestowal and that I rise above this pain. I advance towards the state of: “Don’t do unto your friend what is hateful for you.” I hate this state and want to rise above it. I don’t think that the Creator has caused me all these troubles, but rather, I attribute them to my ego. Thus I acquire the attribute of Bina, “to bestow in order to bestow.”

Then, in very unpleasant states, I begin to receive pleasant states, which is much more difficult, since I have to rise above them. It’s already faith above reason on the second level, not only above the desire to bestow, but also above the desire to receive. I already work with AHP.

It’s as if I work against the good and the benevolent, which means that I receive both the good and the evil equally, as the same thing. Thus I reach love, about which it says: “Love thy friend as thyself,” and then “Love thy Lord,” the highest level of this state, Keter.

All this work is done in “faith above reason.” The moon stands for Malchut, which “sanctifies” itself in its darkest state, and by that begins to illuminate with the Returning Light. It has nothing of its own, and it doesn’t need anything of its own either. It says to the sun that it wants to be like it. The more the moon becomes like the sun, the more the earth determines all the appearances of the moon, to the extent that Malchut is adapted to Keter.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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And all the people answered together, and said: ‘All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.’ And Moses reported the words of the people unto the Lord.

And the Lord said unto Moses: ‘Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee forever.’ And Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord.

And the Lord said unto Moses: ‘Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments,

And be ready against the third day; for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. (The Torah, “Exodus,” “Jethro,” 19:8 – 19:11)

We begin to come in contact with the attribute of bestowal, to be attracted to it, and to absorb it from its highest point that is called “Moses” (from the word “Moshech” or ” to move,” to pull”), which pulls itself from within the ego. In this way it receives upper energy, an upper attribute, and thus begins to feel in what way it is now possible to continue to work for the bestowal to the Creator.

He begins to acquire the same absolute attribute, like the Creator, Whom he is now facing. He feels the Creator, but still doesn’t belong to Him. They are joined, but in an external way.

A person understands that he now needs all of his egoistic attributes so that as much as he is able, he will pull them to him, to strongly pull within the point in the heart which is in contact with the Creator, to enter gradually within it from his ego, to connect, to add the entire nation, those attributes that he left for a while, within the point that is called “Moses.”

For this reason they need to go through a certain period of final preparation: three days of detachment from their ego and correction of their external attributes, so-called “garments.”

In each one of us there are five levels: the root (Shoresh), the soul (Neshama), the body (Guf), the clothing (Levush) and the palace (Eichal). The inner part, the root, soul and body, we already corrected. Without that, we wouldn’t have departed from Egypt, the point in the heart wouldn’t have detached from the ego. And now, we need to correct the clothing, so-called “garments” on the soul, and afterwards also the palace, the rest of the attributes of the world.

The first three discernments are: the root, the soul, the body. That is, if we express it in a picturesque way, then in the beginning we correct all that exists in my body, in the flesh, my inner part. And the clothing is what is on me. That is what I exchange, what I can take off and wear. The palace is the rest of the world.

“And they washed their garments” means to wash the uncorrected attributes with the Light of Hassidim and to correct them.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/4/13

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Question: Can it be that the group doesn’t give a person the support that he needs?

Answer: The group gives a person all the support that he needs according to how much he can feel it. The question is whether he is sensitive enough to feel this support. Perhaps, he is not connected to the group at all, what goes on it doesn’t concern him, and he lives his own life. He comes to the lesson, studies, and goes home. He may come to the lesson again after a couple of days when he doesn’t have anything more important to do. He doesn’t care about what happens in the group. He doesn’t develop the inner sensitivity to feel a response, an impression, an inspiration from them. He simply comes to the lessons occasionally. He never will receive anything from the group this way.

The group is a vessel, a means to adhere to the upper one, the place where the embryo adheres to the mother’s womb, the placenta through which a person adheres to the Creator. In the meantime, he is only in the form of an embryo, and the group is his whole world, like a mother’s womb. However, later, it receives the form of the entire world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is the difference between The Book of Zohar and its “Introduction,” which we started studying?

Answer: In the “Introduction,” there is an extensive and prominent commentary for people who want to get to know The Book of Zohar, even if they have not begun to attain it yet. In any case, this “Introduction” advances a person. If he studies it, he will later be able to continue and study The Book of Zohar, although The Book of Zohar is much more difficult than the “Introduction.”

There are greater auxiliary forces in the “Introduction.” The “Introduction” is built so that a person who studies it softens and takes on a form that is suitable for delving into the depth of The Book of Zohar. A person’s image becomes adaptable to The Book of Zohar. It is because everything requires preparation and the “Introduction” provides us with it.

I studied it with Rabash, and he said that the “Introduction” includes the whole Book of Zohar. We will discover what this means in the future.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/13, The Book of Zohar, Introduction “The Rose”

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We come from the place of shattering, starting with the desire that has no idea of what bestowal, sanctity, spirituality, is. We build this understanding gradually, over time. The words that we use in the beginning and in the end of the path are the same: bestowal and love, but as we advance, we feel more depth, more accurate form in them.

It is as if you take a fruit covered by layers of skin and gradually peel one layer after another. It is only in the very middle, in the core behind dozens of coverings, that we find the fruit. We do the same when we peel shells from words, feeling what exactly each notion means and what is hidden behind them.

When we clarify one word or notion, it sheds light on other words as well. After all, everything is interconnected. Thus, we gradually begin to understand what Kabbalists write about.

We already comprehend these ideas with our mind, but we don’t feel them yet. It awakens in us a very strong desire to attain. As we advance we become “less smart.” If we didn’t strive to reveal spirituality and had no pronounced, burning point in the heart, we would continue our studies by using the power of our minds and would learn the theory pretty well. We even would think that we sense something. We would never go through the state of internal confusion, nor would we feel that there is a confrontation between our feelings and mind. Thus, we would progress in accordance with a stiff, one-way path and would be led solely by our intellect.

However, if our heart and mind act simultaneously and we develop our spiritual vessel, we will always be confused. We would feel that we lose the sharpness of perception and that our brain doesn’t progress as we study, but rather expands proportionately to our sensations.

Mind becomes a consequence of sensations. A person’s mind only works in accordance with the development on his feelings, the spiritual vessel, outlined only by sensations, desire. In other words, we become very primitive as opposed to highly intellectual people who think of complex matters and love to philosophize. We are smart to the extent that our heart can feel. It is called “being wise in the heart” since it is the heart that obligates us to be clever only at the level of the heart and no higher than that.

What’s good about it if we lose the sharpness of mind and become absorbed by our internal experiences, trying to develop only our sensations? By all means, we will do everything that is in our power to develop our hearts. Otherwise, we will stay obscure and incomplete since everything we receive comes from our spiritual vessels, through our sensations. In this world, no one considers a person who is driven solely by his sensations to be intellectual.

In the end, this ambiguity forces us urgently to expand our feelings since we understand only what we feel in the heart. The heart doesn’t feel much, and only in a very egoistic, primitive, one-way, and narrow form.

This explains why we don’t have a choice: We understand that we must open the heart. We experience a huge pressure that is getting stronger due to our jealousy, passion, and ambitions that push us to spiritual revelation in the heart. Our situation is hopeless since the Creator blocks all other forms of our development.

It is as if we lose our sharpness: We no longer hear or feel. There are people who have a very sharp mind and who know a lot about politics, science, about how to make good deals and so on. They turn into straightforward people who are driven solely by their hearts. In our world, it is called an animate level, whereas a human being is someone who is driven by intellect. But this limitation forces a person to open his heart and expand his spiritual vessel at any expense. Otherwise, he feels bad because he has no clue as to what bestowal is.
[102749]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can we amplify the influence of the Light upon us during the study? What exactly depends on the students?

Answer: We only study about what depends on a person. What isn’t brought into effect by a person doesn’t relate to us, and we cannot understand it for the time being.

It depends on a person to come to the group, to be among his friends, to prepare for the lesson, and to connect to the lesson together with the friends so that everyone will realize that they need to feel what they study. This is the meaning of the lesson, and we can only feel it in the connection between us.

This means that the books tell us about the connection between the friends who desperately want to connect under the influence of the study, of the Light, so that in it, to attain the Creator or their general collective soul in which they will discover Him. This is the meaning of our existence, our development, the study, and of all our activities.

In order to do that, we have to study the articles of Rabash and Baal HaSulam about the connection of the friends in the group, about how the study should be conducted, and about how we should connect in our thoughts and intentions. It is actually very simple: a person, a group, and the Creator who is revealed in the group. And that’s all. Only the right general concentration can generate the desirable result.
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From the Virtual Lesson 4/21/13

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Question: On April 15^th, Israel celebrates Memorial Day honoring fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. How can a person deal with the pain of loss? And generally, how does the science of Kabbalah relate to such a painful subject?

Answer: I have faced this inescapable issue, which in essence is an attempt to find the culprit. “Whose is to blame for my feeling bad?”—an inconsolable mother asks, and together with her, one way or another, everyone else asks. In the end, this question unequivocally brings us to the one who can make a difference.

There are times when it cannot be changed. For example, the still, vegetative, and animate nature obey the laws of their development. Until a person parted with the legacy of the ape and in the time of Adam got a chance to determine his states in something, he had been developing through a sequence of constant troubles: Our ancestors were eaten by animals, killed by diseases, natural disasters, etc.

In general, we can only point to the general law of the universe, which defines what is happening, as required by gradual development. It says: “Don’t show a fool a job half done.” We also go through this process.

However, when we have the opportunity to determine our states for benefit or harm, then it is necessary to understand what is happening. Now, in addition to the “roller of development,” set in motion by Nature, he has a kind of addition.

For example, I drive a car that is not in fully operational order on a rough, bumpy road. One wheel is flat; the brakes barely work; in short, I am in trouble.

And so it is in life: Part of our problems are caused by nature that paved such a path for us and the other part depends on us. This is the part that we usually talk about. After all, nothing can be done with nature; it leads creation from the primary, egoistic state to the final, altruistic one. It is a powerful irresistible force that drives everything forward. And in addition, at each stage, the created being has an opportunity to facilitate its development, understanding that it is inevitable and desirable. The created being is able to look to the future in its final state and see that there is no alternative, that it is worth it.

We behave in the same way when we are doing any hard work. For example, having enrolled at university, I am “harnessed” by hard daily work for four to six years, knowing that I have no other options. Moreover, I continue studying afterward because I don’t want to remain just an engineer all my life. Although on the way, I encounter things I don’t like and I suffer through obstacles that do not depend on me be they exams or assignments that seem meaningless and which I hate, but I look forward and understand that I have to go through all that. After all, the smart people above have decided that I need all that, at least for broadening my horizons so that I am not restricted in my approach.

In Kabbalah we know that we talk about a complete perfect program, which foresees all the nuances. We are sent the necessary steps and we pass them along the “middle” way, neither through an endless series of terrible suffering, nor through the “pink alley,” above which the melodies of the higher spheres sound.

We cannot walk the best shortest easiest path; however, of course, we are not interested in the path of suffering with its nightmares at every turn. Thus, we somehow make our way in the middle, according to what is said in the Torah. Obviously, due to our nature, we have to balance between two forces—negative and positive—combining the properties of “judgment” and “mercy,” being in awe and at the same time valuing what we receive.

And again, there are different developmental periods. Sometimes, we have an opportunity to succeed on the kind path of unity, easily and comfortably reaching an intermediary result. But it also happens that we are faced with insurmountable difficulties; we cannot unite, and then what happens is happening. This applies to all wars which we have fought from the moment of the revival of the state of Israel and earlier, as well as the Holocaust.

And, of course, all that we could have corrected and prevented in advance, but unfortunately, we did not make the corrections. Not only Baal HaSulam but also other Kabbalists write about this and hint at this, but on the other hand, they prefer not to go into this topic. Indeed, what can they tell people? This topic is so painful that direct explanations will only cause rejection. A person should reach the conclusion himself that all this depends on us. Correct studies are necessary, based on which the findings will be made by the student and not by the instructor…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/13, “Israel Nation” (Independence Day in Israel)

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