Shamati #8 “What is the Difference Between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra“
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Shamati #243 “Examining the Shade on the Night of Hoshana Rabbah”
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Shaar HaKavanot, “Drushey Chag Succot,” Drush 6
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During the reading of The Book of Zohar, each one needs to demand what seems to him to be most important. But one needs to understand that by reading any Kabbalistic book and especially The Zohar, we awaken the Light that Reforms. This Light works on us to the extent that we are similar to it.
Suppose a wind blows on me. If I move straight towards it, in exactly the same line as it does, it influences me to the maximum. But if I move towards it at an angle, then according to this angle, I lessen its influence on me. If I am at a 90 degree angle in relation to it, I feel the influence as if it throws me aside. If I oppose it, meaning turn my back to it by 180 degrees, then it influences me in the opposite direction.
Everything depends on my position in relation to the Light. If I connect to it, the Torah for me is the elixir of life, but if I oppose it, the Torah becomes the potion of death for me. The Light itself operates all the time.
Thus Kabbalists warn us not to open Kabbalistic books without the correct intention. It was forbidden in Kabbalah, and Kabbalists frightened people because they didn’t want to inflict any harm on them.
But now we are already in a state where it is permitted for everyone to study the wisdom of Kabbalah since we are all becoming mutually connected and different laws are operating here. But when we want to reveal the spiritual world, we must position ourselves directly towards the Light. Will it be the Light that Reforms or the opposite? Each person has to decide for himself.
[57083]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/2011, The Zohar
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Question: This evening an introductory lesson on the wisdom of Kabbalah will take place in many cities in Israel. It is a launch pad for a new semester that will begin in our learning centers in another two weeks.
Answer: That is the basis of everything. Not long ago they asked me if we need to continue learning the wisdom of Kabbalah or was it enough to study only articles, like “Mutual Guarantee,” “Peace in the World,” and others. They asked me if it weren’t worthwhile to end the study of TES (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) or The Book of Zohar.
First of all, for me it is all really the same. The wisdom of Kabbalah has four languages through which Kabbalists tell us how we can correct our matter: desire.
It is impossible to manage without these sources. Without them, we do not draw the Surrounding Light, the Light that Reforms. We develop our mind and sensations specifically through this. The soul develops through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah and not through the connection with regular people. We take from them the need to develop the soul, when we try to help them, and then later, during the lesson, we raise this need to the Light, and then this need develops us.
We have to exist between these two factors: on one hand, to get closer to the lower ones to receive the desires from them and to learn the needed materials to disseminate among them, and on the other, to get closer to the upper one through the study of The Book of The Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and the articles.
If a person feels his point in the heart and wants to reach the purpose of creation, and not just the good life in this world, he must study the wisdom of Kabbalah in a systematic way. I don’t know how it is possible to correct the soul without the foundations concealed in the process of the study, without working with the authentic sources. To hear, here and there, lectures and lessons is not at all the same as the systematic course at the learning center.
I recommend for everyone to take this course, even if a person has already heard our lessons. Only in this way it is possible to learn the order of the work, to feel the language, to understand the terms and definitions, and most importantly, to acquire the correct approach that one won’t get via the daily lesson. An introductory course is a must.
In addition to this, it prepares the person in a special way for the social connection to the group. After all, we aren’t speaking only about the studies, but also about the internal work. It is not by chance that most of the students of the learning center don’t want to leave and continue to study.
[57091]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/2011, “Peace in the World”
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Question: You said that about 10% of the people who come to study Kabbalah are drawn to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. Do we need to consciously raise the importance of reading the original sources if a person is attracted to it from the beginning? Or is circulation above everything else in our time?
Answer: In other words, 10% of those who come to Kabbalah want to study it as a science, to climb the mountain of knowledge, and to understand it with the mind. The rest don’t. Yet, the latter are the ones who do advance forward unlike the 10% who simply study and that’s it.
The study has to be sensual, attained from life. When you enter this system, you exist in it, adapt to it, sense everything, and start understanding it from your sensation. You start working with it by being in it. By connecting with other souls, you begin to understand what this connection with a fellow human being is all about, why it is mandatory, and so on. In other words, all of this is actually a direct, natural, sensual knowledge. I wish all of us to come closer to it.
This is a special year, a special time. We have entered a stage of true practical Kabbalah, when we attain this entire system inside of humanity, which is beginning to unfold now, like linked cogwheels. And we have to take part in it, discover it, and help all others.
[56984]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 10/2/2011
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No one before Baal HaSulam ever discovered the true meaning of love of others. This idea appears quite frequently in all the sources, many great novels and other masterpieces praise the love of others, brotherly love, love among friends, and the need to concede. Who hasn’t talked about it! Every politician who wants to be elected speaks about how much he loves everyone. Every thief thinks that he is fighting for justice.
Baal HaSulam sets a criterion for the true test; he puts everything on the right scales and bases everything on an analysis by which one cannot be mistaken. When we read his compositions, we can be sure that we cannot keep our previous views. You can either close your eyes and try to forget everything he writes about and then somehow continue to exist like before, living your beastly life for your ego, or you must change!
He created the entire method of clarification so that it is impossible to stand up against its revelations. After reading all his articles, you begin to feel that you must clarify everything to the end. He writes in such a way that only if you know all of them and reread them again and again, examine them from every angle, read them thoroughly, only then do you finally begin to understand the whole picture.
You can’t just read some small part and then relax, feeling that you have understood everything. The understanding comes only by reading and rereading, from the beginning to the end and from the end to the beginning. Only after reviewing it several times, are you able to tie the concepts together and to analyze yourself. Then you won’t be able to escape anymore.
A person who doesn’t study Baal HaSulam usually thinks that he is a perfect righteous and believes that there is nothing to ask for, there is nothing to regret. Only when a person begins to study according to Baal HaSulam’s method, does he begin to understand how opposite he is from bestowal, how corrupt he is, and that the Torah was written for him because the Light in it reforms.
If we read Baal HaSulam’s writings in order to clarify our evil inclination by them and thus draw the Light that Reforms, they operate upon us and help us advance, according to the Creator’s plan: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” We fulfill all these stages thanks to our work with the compositions of Baal HaSulam.
[57009]
From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11
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Question: I don’t understand what is written in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, how it relates to us, and why I need to study it?
Answer: Everything we can perceive and come to know (ourselves and our environment) makes up our life, the sensation of our existence. If our senses were turned off, we would stop perceiving both ourselves and the world. We are but various desires for fulfillment that are different from one another. We are all connected between us by a network of connections, like cells of a living organism. And all of us, connected together with many connections, are swimming in a “soup” of the property of love and bestowal, referred to as our Creator.
Our perception of life and this world is the perception of the connection between us. Perception is either its fulfillment or the lack thereof in everyone’s individual desires. The desires of fulfillment give us the perception of this world. The desires to fulfill others, the system of connection between us or the Creator, give us the perception of the general connection, its similarity to the property of bestowal, the “soup,” the Creator.
So, The Study of the Ten Sefirot and all Kabbalah books in general narrate about the revelation of this system of connections between us, the Creator, to the extent of our efforts. That is, it tells us how this system becomes revealed, in what order, and also about its interconnections.
This is what Kabbalists have discovered, and this is what they are describing to us. We don’t understand what we are reading because it’s only possible to understand what we already perceive, and we don’t yet perceive the upper world. However, even reading about this system without understanding evokes the influence of forces on us, meaning the reforming Light (the quality of bestowal), our Source, and brings its revelation closer to us.
[56554]
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The connection between people is a lot stronger and obligatory then people realize. According to nature, this connection represents a whole organism that is gradually becoming revealed to us.
As it turns out, all of nature is unified. It began developing from a single point as a result of the Big Bang. In our perception, nature is divided into many different parts: the still, vegetative, animal, and human levels, as well as into physical, chemical, biological, ethical, moral, and other laws. We don’t see all of this as one whole. We don’t see how all of this is interconnected and interdependent, how my thoughts and feelings effect the explosions of stars, or how these star explosions effect the plants in my garden. We don’t see everything, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Nature is global. The reason that we are discovering this fact more and more is because we’re becoming more developed. After all, the revelations I make today couldn’t have been made yesterday because I wasn’t developed enough. However, it doesn’t mean that these things didn’t already exist in nature and that I’m discovering some new attributes in nature. It appears within me because I develop.
I am the most actively developing part of nature. As a person, I develop more and faster then anything else: in my knowledge, attainments, emotions, and so on. And when I develop, I obtain a greater overall perception.
Did America not exist before it was discovered? It did exist! What about the stars and the galaxies, did they not exist before we discovered them? Everything existed, only we couldn’t see it because we weren’t developed enough.
We’re beginning to reveal our interconnection. This interconnection exists on levels we can’t sense, meaning that I can’t perceive it through my five senses. This interconnection exists beyond my senses, within some thoughts and systems of connection between us, and therefore, my thoughts, actions, and feelings effect you.
[56672]
From the Discussion About Global Education 09.07.2011
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It’s not important if I understand what I read in the book correctly or how confused I am—what counts is my desire to understand! A person advances thanks to the influence that he receives from the upper system as he studies it, hears about it, wants to be included into it, performs all kinds of activities towards it, and works with his environment and in dissemination.
Gradually he begins to feel this system from afar: He begins to discern that it is Aba ve Ima, inner and outer parts, and the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) or Gevurot (harsh forces of restriction, limitations), which influence him according to the measure that he is included within this system.
It is a complete world, and it’s impossible to explain it to someone who doesn’t live in it. It just like it’s impossible to briefly explain to a creature from another planet about what happens in this world. He would need to be in it himself, to receive our tools, feelings, intelligence, and tastes. If he embraced our life, then after a while he would absorb all kinds of impressions from the society surrounding him and would understand what happens in this world.
It is impossible to understand anything through words. It all has to go through you and leave internal impressions in you. Then you will understand, as they say, “one thing within another.”
We are also like that. By awakening the Surrounding Light on ourselves with our desire to enter this system, we begin to feel what is before us: that the entire system is based on love and bestowal.
“I am for my Beloved”—after all, I yearn to bestow through this system composed of my friends. “And my Beloved is for me”—because then I will begin to feel how He changes me with the help of the Surrounding Light from the same system that I want to enter into. And thus my correction occurs.
[56433]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, Shamati #42
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