Question: Is there a difference between a student studying Kabbalah one on one with a Kabbalist teacher and the way we study in a group?

Answer: You also study together with me at the lesson. Of course, it’s different from having a one on one lesson, but I don’t think that today it is possible to pass this science on to anyone individually. In our time this is possible only by studying in a group or through the Internet in the widest possible form, and it makes no difference where a student is. The student will advance, whereas the previous individual method no longer works.

You shouldn’t regret the impossible, but should use everything you have. Every person has a governance from above and the Creator controls the entire process. Any place where you have freedom of choice, you should realize it and that’s all.

I don’t have any students that are closer to or farther from me. The student himself continuously determines how close he is, and that is how much he advances. Whether a student is close to me or far is determined only by how much he desires to accept my inner message, absorb it, and realize it.

This does not depend on whether a person is located right here in the classroom or lives far away and studies over the Internet, or whether it’s a man or a woman. Everything depends on the student and how he uses the means that are given to everyone.

Besides, it’s very important to not forget that it is impossible for the student to respect the teacher while neglecting the group. That’s because a teacher is the innermost part of the group, the message that is inside it. Therefore, it’s impossible for a person to scorn the group while respecting the teacher, the group’s inner charge.

The group is our mutual place with the teacher, the place where we meet. This did not exist in previous times, when the student worked with his teacher face to face. When we meet inside of the group, every student determines for himself whether he unites with the teacher “Peh el Peh” (through a common screen) or “Peh el Awzen” (from the mouth into the ear, like when studying regular science).

At the end of it all, we meet the Creator, because everything is united until the world of Infinity.
From the lesson on 1/7/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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There is a very big problem in Kabbalah: this science is described using an allegoric language. It is written in a very difficult manner. Using strange examples, expressions, Kabbalists address us, people in this world, trying to tell us about how to make attempts to enter the Upper World. They are trying to tell us something about the upper world, about the qualities we should aspire to.

This language is extremely not simple. We must always try to translate it to the language of feelings until every word comes to resonate with the right feeling in a person. Every word must “pull” on some string inside of me, giving rise to an inner response.

Until that happens, the text is unclear to us. It is absolutely external, does not touch us, and we do not perceive it or adapt it inside of us, and do not act in accordance with it. We have to find how to feel what the author wants to convey to us. This is the most important thing. Reading a Kabbalistic text is like tuning a musical instrument. If we attune ourselves correctly, then this instrument will begin to play by itself.

It is written that King David had a harp hanging on the wall, and at midnight, when the north wind swept through the room, the harp played. We are the same. If we attune ourselves correctly to the external force, we will begin to feel its influence and desire, and will match it by qualities, reaching a resonance with it and “vibrating” like it. That is what we have to attain.
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From the lesson in Moscow on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash

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We have to understand that our daily study is not for acquiring knowledge, but for development. Every lesson you attended, whether today, yesterday, or the day before yesterday, are phases of your development.

This is not a study of some article or a part of Talmud Eser Sefirot. By studying this material, you discern which levels you should develop through. Therefore, later on, over the course of the day, it is very important to remain inside of what you studied at the lesson.

You have to spend the whole day revolving around the hours when we meet at the lesson. It is necessary to work on the lesson and to process it, trying not to lose it, and by reading my blog. You have to process this material as much as possible. By doing so we already unite in our thoughts and find ourselves in our common, specific phase of development. This is very important since through it we already produce one common thought.

I saw that even Rabash did the same work: Over the course of the day he returned to the material that we studied in the morning. He also talked about it using the same words, recalling the article we read. This is good since it means that a person lives it, transferring it from his head to his heart.

Every day Rabash and I would go out for a stroll, and if I came a bit early I would find him sitting and reading or writing something that dealt with the morning lesson. Afterward, when we rode in a car, we only talked about the article or the part of Talmud Eser Sefirot that we studied at the lesson.

If he had to go to a doctor’s appointment, he took articles or a volume of Talmud Eser Sefirot with him, and while sitting in the waiting room we talked about it and studied it. Usually it was the same material that we had just studied in the morning.
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From the lesson on Talmud Eser Sefirot on 1/7/11

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Question: How can a person follow the advice of “being joyful” if he feels “the taste of waste” in his spiritual work?

Answer: This is a phase where you still do not understand the importance of waste. Yet, can anything grow without waste, manure, or fertilizer? There is nothing useless in the world; everything depends only on your attitude. We have to go through all of the states and feel each of them. In these states death seems sweeter than life, but you aren’t able to avoid them because you have to understand what the “will to enjoy” is.

I am speaking frankly, without exaggerating: Unless you experience this, you won’t be able to come out of the power of the will to enjoy, even though this also doesn’t help a great deal. This is the revelation of the “angel of death.” Without the group’s support, without a strict daily routine, and without taking on obligations, it is impossible to cope with this feeling.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to take on obligations that compel you to carry out a certain task today. It has to put pressure on you like a yoke on a bull. There is nothing worse than feeling free. Despite the fact that you do not see, feel, understand, or remember anything, you start to work because you have to, and gradually you come out of the state of descent and continue your path.

We are controlled by two forces, and the only opportunity we are given is to shift from the rule of one force to the influence of the other. Besides the rule of two forces, there is an intermediate state where you choose what influence to be under. You have to try to control these two forces from the intermediate state, the middle line, as if these are two reins that you hold in your hands.

That is why you have to stick to the daily routine: Go to the lesson, go over the lesson, sing, dance in your room when no one can see you, laugh—do anything you can to come out of a bad state! You have to disagree with and oppose the control of this force! The worst thing you can do is despair.
From the lesson on Rabash’s article on 11/7/11

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First and foremost I have to be grateful and “bless” the fact that I have a connection, that I am not shut off from the upper governance, no matter what it seems like to me now: good or bad. The most important thing is that I have a point of unity: I know about the existence of the Upper Force, Nature. It is Good and Does Good. It has a mind and feeling as we understand it. It creates us and desires for us to develop. Out of all humanity, right now it evoked a desire inside of me to come to it, and I have to be grateful for this aspiration even though it brings me discomfort.

I treat my new aspiration the same way as all my other desires: I want to fill it as fast as possible for the sake of reception. However, this emptiness will only be filled if I operate in the mode of bestowal. This is a different kind of desire: It enjoys only when abundance comes from it, when it does good for someone else.

I have to treat the spiritual desire that awakened in me as a new creation. It is impossible to continue regular life with it; I just won’t be able to. That is why I am brought to the group, the teacher, and the studies; I am introduced to the Kabbalistic method so I would understand that the time has come to work on a new creation.

This new Reshimo or new inclination in me does not yet have a vector and a form. I must now immerse myself in the environment like a grain in soil in order to receive nutritional substances from the group. Only then will the embryo of my spiritual desire begin to develop.

Moreover, it will develop in a completely different direction because this desire belongs to a dimension that is completely new for me. That means I must treat it differently from the onset and not demand the same thing I am used to demanding from my usual desires.

I still live in my previous desires the way I used to live, but now I devote all of my attention and energy to raising the new sprout. I study the science of Kabbalah in order to find the opportunity to realize this desire, to express it, and reveal fulfillment inside it. This is the gist of the entire wisdom.

I don’t act instinctively, the way I did until now. The new desire demands a new “style of work” from me. That is why I must first learn a new method, develop a new approach.

However, if I don’t want to study and keep acting the old way, not rising from the animate level to the human level, then I receive blows. That’s because my new aspiration is completely not intended or adapted for my egoistic reception. Is it possible to raise a human child by the laws of the jungle among wild beasts? He wouldn’t grow up as a person and wouldn’t rise from the animate level.

In the same way, I have to study in order to properly nourish this seed and create the right environment for it. I have to provide it with moisture, minerals, warmth, and light—all the things that are necessary for its development.

This is the meaning of studying the science of Kabbalah: I study how to correctly and optimally raise my spiritual desire.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What’s the use of my growing egoistic desires?

Answer: Their task is to bring you to failure, to let you feel that you are worthless, that your life is awful, your desires despicable, and generally speaking, nothing around you is worth a thing.

Therefore, the only thing you now need is for the Light to awaken you. It will awaken you to the same desires, showing you that they are worse than they seemed before. Then you really will desire to ascend above them and will start revealing the opposite side of reality above these desires. However, before that, you have to start studying in the group because lectures and live communication cannot be substituted by anything else.
From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 1/4/11

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The key to reading The Book of Zohar is intention since while reading it we draw the greatest Light, if we know how to do it. Of all Kabbalistic writings, none contains a greater Light than The Book of Zohar. That is why this book gained such great fame and popularity over the course of history, and why it was hidden and underwent many fateful events.

It is becoming revealed only today because it is the source of the Light that Reforms. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what exactly we read in The Book of Zohar at the moment because we do not understand a word of it correctly anyway. Yet, we aspire to penetrate through the image that is being described, to feel it rather than to understand it since we cannot comprehend it in our corporeal mind.

We strive to step into it, to unveil it. It is written by Kabbalists who attained the spiritual world and are sharing with us what they found there, just like an adventure novel that tells a story about travelers exploring new islands and continents. In a similar manner, Kabbalists tell us about the spiritual world. They describe what internal instruments they use to reveal spirituality, while also letting us know what they see and feel. In other words, they tell us about the actions they perform and what they find as a result.

On our part, we look, read, and listen to it although we do not understand any of it. Nevertheless, we are motivated to experience these states and live in them. As children, when we felt excited while reading adventure books, we experienced what the protagonists did in our imagination. On the other hand, in our case we actually enter the spiritual world and are able to feel it even more than how we perceive ourselves in this world. As a matter of fact, our present perception of this world is extremely distorted and blurred compared to what else is out there.

In spirituality, there is incredible clarity and transparency, which is impossible to imagine now, along with the deepest understanding of all the events and forces that stand behind us, including the causes, effects, and the source of all that occurs. This is what we should aspire to while reading The Book of Zohar. We should stop feeling like “old men” and instead feel like children who are absorbed in a book of exciting adventures.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/11, The Zohar

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Question: Is it possible to find one’s bearings in the upper world without knowing all these terms that The Zohar is using? Does knowing the upper world depend on understanding the terms?

Answer: It doesn’t matter in which language a person is reading The Zohar at the moment: a totally unfamiliar one, the language of branches, or any other. All these languages are not for us just yet. I don’t know what is being described.

If I am not familiar with some phenomenon, object, type of fulfillment, forces, spiritual states, or outcomes, and if I haven’t attained the spiritual state itself, you can describe it to me in thousands of words—it will not help me. What do these names and words matter to me then if I haven’t attained them?

Why then do Kabbalists write all these texts for us? They do so in order for us to not focus on the words themselves, but rather to strive to attain these spiritual states. Without attainment, none of these words has value. You may play with them as you please: It’s as if you toss them into a box, mix them up, and put them together however you wish.

If we don’t attain, all these texts are merely a Segula (a miraculous remedy) provided that you employ them as such. If not, you only entangle yourself. Therefore, we look at The Zohar’s text only inasmuch as we are able to think about its “miraculous property” during the reading. That is the key.

The Zohar does have chapters which are very difficult to focus on. I read about various faces and facial features, or palm lines, all of which really confuse me. But this is also good since I exert more effort in order to recognize spiritual properties behind these words.

Therefore, we must see in the text of The Zohar only its “miraculous force.” And the more entangled we get with it, the stronger it should encourage us to cleave to this “miraculous force” and demand the Light that Reforms so it will bring us attainment. After all, “Anything we do not attain, we do not define by a name and a word.” We won’t understand a word, and no name will ring a bell.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

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The Book of Zohar describes spiritual states experienced by those attaining the spiritual world. Yet, it describes spiritual objects in the words of our world. These words bring corporeal images to our mind. They arrange earthly pictures on our “will to receive,” our egoistic screen, through our corporeal properties.

In spirituality there are no words but only sensations. For this reason, Kabbalists borrowed the words of this world to describe the spiritual one and labeled with them the spiritual properties that they reached in their attainment.

Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, we should try to identify the upper forces, spiritual states, and relationships, which exist beyond material objects that we are accustomed to feeling behind these corporeal words. It is a very good and useful exercise.

Suppose we read the words “forehead,” “eyes,” “ears,” and “hair” in the text. We have to try to immediately start thinking at least about the Sefirot (Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut), which relate to the corresponding parts of the Partzuf (“forehead,” “ears,” “nose,” “mouth,” GE and AHP).

“Hair” (Searot) is an excess of the Reflected Light that the Direct Light cannot clothe into, which results in the Reflected Light’s spilling over and out thereby forming the “hair” in a Partzuf. These are the Lights that expand in this manner from Above downward in the upper system, in Rosh of Arich Anpin and then in Zeir Anpin, and through all these multiple Partzufim, we receive the forces that awaken, transform, and fulfill us.

Therefore, in The Book of Zohar, we are studying this integral system of transformation of souls.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

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A person who starts studying the science of Kabbalah discovers that his previous notions are far from reality. “Body,” “soul,” and other familiar notions acquire a completely different meaning.

The science of Kabbalah arranges everything very simply, practically not leaving you any chance to get confused. There is a desire for pleasure, inside of which different forms of bestowal can be perceived. And that is the only thing happening in our reality.

Depending on what level of bestowal you are on, that is the reality you feel. You can feel reality on level zero, in other words, you can live in our world where the degree of bestowal equals zero. We are at the very bottom, but even here there are four developmental levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human.

Then, as you ascend up 125 levels of the spiritual ladder, you will attain the degree of bestowal, or in other words, the Creator. At the end, at the 125th level you will reach 100% bestowal.

We are talking about equivalence of form or how creation acquires a form of bestowal above the desire for pleasure. You must constantly ascend in your receiving desire in order to acquire the form of the bestowing desire over it. The form of bestowal you clothe over the receiving desire brings you to the degree of bestowal because you have actualized this to a specific measure. That is how you make yourself similar and equal to the Creator, becoming human (Adam).

In essence this is very simple: You only need to combine two qualities correctly, ascending up a slanted ladder that is built of two forces or two lines: the right and the left. Thus, beginners receive clear explanations. In fact, Kabbalists do not draw a distinction between the worlds. everything depends on the person: Develop your capability for the form of bestowal and you will see more than you now do.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/11, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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