Question: Ever since we started studying the article “There is none else besides Him,” I feel totally confused about the intention. If the upper Light is constantly at work, doing 100%, then what is the “Light that reforms?” And whom do I ask for it? From whom do I demand it for others? What works here if everything is inside of me?

Answer: Suppose I have a remote control. I press a button and activate some kind of mechanism. Nowadays there are many devices that work this way. However, if you were to show this to a person who lived 100 years ago, he would think that you are simply an angel that performs miracles: You press a button and suddenly the glass turns into a picture….

That is, using the remote control I can activate various systems. For example, I press a button and you, who are looking at a piece of glass (a screen), start to receive all sorts of impressions. You start crying and then laughing, experiencing worry and then joy. It turns out that by simply pressing a button, I made such a powerful impact on you. I influenced a friend.

Kabbalists say that when reading The Book of Zohar, it’s as if you are holding the remote control to all the souls and they depend on you. Think about how you awaken them! This is called “pressing a button.” If you think about this, then you “press the button” and activate an influence that causes them to begin awakening.

Everything depends on how much you desire for this to happen and how many other people also aspire to awaken others. All the efforts must be both qualitative and quantitative.

That is how we awaken one another. No one can awaken himself. Every person can attain this spiritual community called “the group” only in order to awaken others. Otherwise, he does not even come in contact with the group. That’s because the group is like Malchut of the world of Atzilut.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/11, The Zohar

Filed under: Collective Soul, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Spirituality, Zohar - No Comments →

A person can’t advance in spirituality without participating in our daily lessons. Those who can’t watch the entire session can watch one of its parts.

There are people who prefer the first part of the lesson that includes Rabash’s articles and the second one on The Book of Zohar. Some like the third part of the lesson on The Study of the Ten Sefirot. The fourth part is general, where we analyze world issues, education, and all the rest. Each of you should pick the most suitable parts, although I recommend switching them at times.

Perhaps, it’s difficult for you to attend the entire three hours of the lesson which includes all four parts. But today, there is such a wide assortment of communication devices that you can record lessons or listen to them on the radio. Our Internet site is constantly updated. You can also wear headphones and listen to the lesson all the time, and then you will definitely advance much faster.

But at any rate, it is vital to get connected to the daily lesson (at least part of it). It is said: “If you abandon Me for a day, I will abandon you for two.” A person who skips one day of studies gets disconnected from the spiritual source twice as much. This is the law in the spiritual world regarded as “measure against measure.” So, beware!

But the most reliable means is an MP3 player or other similar devices, with the help of which you can stay connected to us all the time.
[40869]
From Lesson 5, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

Related Material:
Nothing To Your Name
This Isn’t The Torah Yet
What Can You Get From One Day Of Study

Filed under: Conventions, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study - No Comments →

Question: What can we rely on in our spiritual advancement if it’s already clear that knowledge doesn’t matter?

Answer: You can only rely on the environment. Knowledge is worthless. I am willing to forget everything. As the Talmud says, people used to pray to forget what they have already learned. I want to start from a clean slate, like a baby who does not have anything to his name.

Let everything I knew until now vanish from my mind. Let even my heart be empty. I don’t need anything. I want to start from zero, to lose all my possessions. That is the only way we can continue the path, by beginning every day anew.

It would seem like there is so much written in the books, “Remember this, know that, don’t forget about that.” That’s true, but in reality, a person advances when he is ready to become “zero,” when he does not listen to the voice of the present moment.

Therefore, only the environment remains our unchanging source of support.
[41567]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/11, Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Should we only use terms that speak of the laws of nature at the classes for beginners and only later introduce the Kabbalistic terminology?

Answer: No, we can speak openly with the people who come to us with the point in the heart and gradually advance them. But if we were to speak to them about the laws of nature, they would think that we are preaching physics or sociology to them. They need to hear about the structure of the spiritual world. This is what they strive to, and we need to give it to them.
[41458]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

Filed under: Conventions, Kabbalah Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How does the way we treat the words written in TES (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) differ from how we relate to your explanation of the text?

Answer: It is difficult to explain why the Creator made it so that we need someone to connect us with the upper reality in our world. It is similar to a mother and father we have in this world, who connect us with life. Indeed, it weren’t for the mother, I wouldn’t be born in the first place and wouldn’t exist until I grew up.

The same goes for the spiritual birth: I need someone who will give birth to me, tend to me till I mature in spirituality! It manifests in the birth of material bodies in our world and also in the birth of the souls, all of which is the derivative of the laws acting in the spiritual world where there is a certain order of spiritual Partzufim, and Aba Ve-Ima (the upper Father and Mother) give birth to ZON and tend to the souls.

But so far, I haven’t linked my broken soul into ZON of the world of Atzilut and cannot cause Aba ve-Ima to work on me; so I need a guide to spirituality! And he, right now, also looks as some material person to me since I cannot see the spiritual world.

The same pertains to the friends: I cannot perceive their spiritual desires and I think I am surrounded by some physical bodies. But later on, I will see that it isn’t so. The teacher and the friends are a spiritual mechanism, spiritual forces with whom I work.

That is how I should treat the teacher and the friends, with an understanding that they are part of the Creator given to me in order to help me connect with Him. In the degree that I value the teacher and the group and lower myself before them, to the same extent I will reach contact with the Creator. I don’t have any other opportunity to connect with Him and no chance to tap into Him in any other way.
[40465]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Knowledge Is Passed Down The Chain
TES: A Kabbalist’s Personal Diary
A Duty To Learn From An Authentic Sage-Kabbalist

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Spiritual Teacher - No Comments →

Question: If the key is to draw the Light upon ourselves, why do we so thoroughly discuss the structure of the worlds described in TES (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) during the lesson?

Answer: It’s not our goal to talk about the structure of the worlds in detail; we simply try to grasp some details in order to tap into what Kabbalists tell us about. But when we study TES, as any other source, we first of all must think of the soul since it is there where all these elements I am reading about reside and where all the phenomena occur.

Kabbalists who revealed within themselves the property of bestowal discern what actions they can perform within it, and they write about it. Besides this, there is nothing else. Either we are in some imaginary reality of this world, which doesn’t really exist and dissolves later on, and live in it as in a dream, or we reach the authentic reality of bestowal, the reality of the Creator.

After all, there is “none else besides Him,” and if something actually exists, it’s only there. And TES describes in what form this authentic reality is being revealed to us within our desires.

As a Kabbalist, I can describe to what extent I enter this reality and discover that it does indeed operate in me, how well I connect and begin to identify myself with it. And other Kabbalists do the same. In other words, we all write about the same unification with the eternal upper Light and what we find in it from our black point of creation, the “point of absence.”

When I come in contact with the Light and achieve equivalence with it, I feel how within me various phenomena start occurring, dressing into me from Above downward (the Light of Hochma) or breadth-wise (the Light of Hassadim). These phenomena produce various sensations in me, and I describe them,as I have obtained the opportunity to express them in words and sounds.

But all the impressions we have derive from the encounter of this black point with the Light, where the former becomes similar to the latter. And this is the essence of the wisdom of Kabblah: to find the Light within the black point of creation.
[40468]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

When we read TES (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), we discuss and clarify meanings that are closer to us, in order to prepare ourselves to understand it. But then we have to read the original, authentic text written by great Kabbalists who channel the upper Light to us.

I don’t possess such upper Light as Rabash and Baal HaSulam do, but I can help you connect to it. In order to teach a child, one doesn’t have to be a professor but just someone who can come down to the child’s level.

Therefore, next to the pupil there is a teacher, the most important person who can help him right now. But besides, there are authentic sources which are very precious to us from which the Light comes down to us. It is impossible to get by without one or the other.

On your own, without such a special person as the teacher, you would never be able to attune yourself to the spiritual source of Rabash or Baal HaSulam. And so it was throughout all generations. We don’t speak about such unique souls as Adam HaRishon and Abraham who discovered the spiritual world on their own. Sometimes, there are moments in life when something gets revealed to a person from Above, for some special predestination of the soul.

But if we speak of Kabbalah as the passing of spiritual knowledge through the chain of Kabbalists from generation to generation (“Kabbalah” means “receiving”), then we always imply a teacher and a disciple. Above everything else, the teacher aims you at the goal; he helps you to get around and gives you direction in life. And its realization is definitely your responsibility—with the help of the great Kabbalists who wrote these holy authentic sources for us.

On one hand, there is a teacher who supports and guides you, and that is why you ought to be loyal to him so that he may “hold you in his arms” like a baby. On the other, you walk along his side in order to connect to the authentic sources.
[40462]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
The Teacher Connects Me To Life
Talking To The Deaf
The Four Levels Of Understanding

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Teacher - No Comments →

Question: In one of the articles in Dargot HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), Rabash writes that it is forbidden to teach gentiles, meaning egoists, the Torah. What then are we doing here?

Answer: "Forbidden" in Kabbalah means impossible. It would be similar to saying that egoists mustn’t get the upper Light. Try to break this law and we’ll see what happens.

We are talking about the laws of nature, and nature doesn’t ban anything. But if you go against it, you will be punished. “Prohibition” means inability. If Kabbalists write “no,” it means you are unable to do it.

Egoists can’t learn the Torah, or in other words, they can’t study the Torah because an egoist cannot do so in principle. He has no means for it, no tools. After all, he is a gentile and worships his own ego that won’t allow him to establish a connection with the Lights.

The Torah, or the wisdom of Kabbalah, is the method that connects the vessels and the Lights. But if you don’t have the former, you can’t find the latter. And therefore, you can’t learn the Torah since “Torah” is the passages of the Light that expands into desires according to the law of equivalence of form.

Question cont.: So what are we doing during the lessons?

Answer: We are moving toward it. We employ the Torah as the Light that Reforms; we use it as if from a distance.

At a higher spiritual degree, there are the Lights and vessels, and I am cut away from them. But I wish to be at this rung and in the degree of my motivation, I draw from it a small illumination that is preparing me for an ascent.

Thus, I use the Torah as the Surrounding Light but not the Light in the full sense of this word. I am not studying the Torah as such yet. The real study is the expansion of the Lights in the reformed vessels (desires), the interaction between the Light and the desire by way of the screen. That is what the Torah is.

My spiritual “I” is the receiving desire which is reformed by the intention to bestow and able to receive the Light. Wishing to achieve this, we read Kabbalistic books, yearn with all our might, and work in the group in order to somehow express our desire aimed at bestowal.

But a response arrives only in the form of the Surrounding Light. I don’t even know what it is, but time after time, I feel changes within me: a little more understanding, a bit more sensation. It isn’t the Torah yet. The real Torah is something concrete: desire, the screen, and connection between them, which leads to the revelation of the Creator, or the Light in the vessel.

But still, even now we are using the force of the Torah. This is described as: “I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah as a spice since the Light in it Reforms.”
[40478]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, The Writings of Rabash

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Torah - No Comments →

Question: I just can’t seem to understand: What is the Light that reforms? And how can I demand it during the study?

Answer: 1. At the very least, try to recognize all of these qualities inside of you which we read about in The Book of Zohar. Try to discern where they are inside of you, “rummage” inside of your desires, thoughts, and inside yourself.

That is how you expand your inner Kelim, desires, and qualities of perception. As you search among them, you begin to differentiate between them. But all of these qualities already exist inside of you.

2. If I don’t have a need for correction, then to me the words “the Light that reforms” are devoid of life. If I require correction, then I expect this Light. But if I don’t have this need, then I don’t know what this Light is.

I am told, “You have to wait for the Light to come.” Fine, so let it come. The sages say it’s good, and I agree. If that’s my attitude, then I cannot attract it.

It is written that one must await salvation at every moment. “The Creator’s salvation comes in the blink of an eye.” This is talking precisely about the correcting Light, the Light that reforms, bringing us back to the Creator.

The action we demand from above must always be preceded by our desire, the need for it. Otherwise it will never happen. Either we elicit the suffering inside of us on our own, which is “the suffering of love,” a passionate desire for the Light, or it will come in the form of compulsory suffering, by the path of “Beito” (in due time).

However, without suffering, without a question and without a desire, I cannot attain the correcting Light. That’s because the Light is at absolute rest. We only need the desire so the correcting Light would influence us.

We could say that the Light is present inside of the desire, but is revealed only when this desire reaches the true measure.
[40438]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
Finishing The Creator’s Words For Him
A Guide To Your Feelings
A Sign Of Spiritual Progress

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Suffering, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: How does The Book of Zohar teach us the methods of the connection between us?

Answer: Baal HaSulam adds a commentary to The Zohar to stave off the materialization of The Zohar‘s text. It lays ground for the formation of the spiritual state within us, beyond space and time, beyond the images of our world, to make us want to experience it within and not outside of us.

The Sulam commentary, like all the books of Kabbalists, is written for people who have already acquired spiritual attainment to help them understand what they’re already feeling. I am being explained what I am feeling right now; I’m at the level where “a person’s soul teaches him.” Then by reading Kabbalistic texts, I begin to understand what I am feeling.

Before spiritual sensations arise in me, however, the Kabbalistic texts are not a source of knowledge but “Segula” (a miraculous force) for me because while reading them, I am exposed to the influence of the upper Light, washing over me like a stream of living water.

Hence, I don’t want to explain what each phrase in The Zohar means from the standpoint of Sefirot and Partzufim so that a student will not be satisfied with superficial knowledge. I want him or her to search inside, within their feelings, wondering what it is really like. Then they will have a greater yearning for revelation and thereby form a desire, a need, for it.
[40370]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/2011, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
I Want The Light
TES: A Kabbalist’s Personal Diary
Even Though My Eyes Can’t See

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →