Faith above reason is not an acquisition in the mind but an acquisition of a different ability that does not naturally exist within us. It is another, supernatural channel, a sixth sense, spirituality, the correction of the vessel of reception, the force of Bina. How does one come to it? Through reflection, work, and a series of ascents and descents.

Question: Why do we engage in this if it is known in advance that the Creator does everything?

Answer: Why are you so sure that it is the Creator who does it? For you, all this is merely names, empty words; you do not live in it. It is written that there is an upper force governing everything, that “There is none else besides Him.” So what? You have heard about it, but you do not live within this revelation and do not identify with it.

Yet, identification determines all our thoughts and actions. I feel myself to be a glove worn on the Creator’s hand. He determines everything that happens within me, from the movement of atoms to the movement of thoughts and desires. Every result depends on Him both at the beginning and at the end. This is how I feel the manifestation of the Creator within me.

And if I do not have this, can I say that the Creator is the king? Can I say that I agree with it? Would I myself, without coercion, do the same thing that He does? All of this is empty talk. I do not even know what He does nor do I know who He is.

Therefore, Rabash says that there is the King of the whole world, and there is the King of Israel. Everyone speaks about the King of the whole world: “The Creator is great!”

The King of Israel is attained through a genuine aspiration toward Him—Yashar-El (straight to the Creator). And aspiration means a readiness to cast aside one’s own knowledge and go by faith above reason. This is the difference between the opinion of the Torah and the opinion of the masses.

It is not enough merely to say it. Everyone thinks that they are already in the state of final correction, while the state of Israel is attained through very serious work, by aligning all one’s desires and intentions with the Creator so that they become like His. Only then does one come to a state where he can say that the Creator is the King of the whole world.

What is the world? The world is my entire self, and I have examined it, felt it, and agreed that He leads me. What is this agreement? It is that even if He did not exist, I would still do exactly the same thing. Thus, I myself create the image of the Creator within me. This is called growing from zero to infinity. I grow and attain His level.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/26, Rabash, “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”

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The desire to receive is destined to be filled with the light of the world of infinity. Just as it was infinitely filled before the Tzimtzum (restriction), so too will it be filled after it, in Gmar Tikun (final correction).

This marks the fundamental difference in method of Kabbalah: we never deal with the desire itself. Instead, we acquire an intention for the sake of bestowal through the surrounding light (Ohr Makif), which brings us this intention, that is, the quality of Bina within Malchut.

All other methods cannot make use of the surrounding light because they have no connection to the spiritual source from which this light descends. Therefore, they turn directly to the desire to receive and conclude that it is the source of all evil.

From this they reason that evil must be eliminated. In other words, a person should desire as little as possible and restrict his negative qualities. But this is like cutting off a person’s hands. He may no longer be able to cause harm with them, but has anything truly been corrected?

Therefore, both the desire to receive and all the actions performed upon it remain intact. This is the fundamental difference between the method of Kabbalah and all other methods, a difference that will become increasingly apparent in the near future.

Today, various circles and clubs have sprung up around Kabbalah, each presenting its own interpretation of what the method is. Amulets, red strings, Tarot cards, and a myriad of other beliefs, there is no shortage of such things. Yet all of this serves, indirectly, to clarify what the wisdom of Kabbalah truly is, so that it may emerge as clear, pure, and authentic.

I am glad that all these things are flourishing today. It is a sign that clarification is approaching. These methods should not be suppressed. If, according to the desire to receive, there is still a need for them, if someone can find satisfaction in them and derive some fulfillment, then it means that person has not yet fully examined them. And if he has not examined them fully, he must remain with them for the time being.

That is why Kabbalah does not attack or destroy any method. Kabbalah says that each one has its place and its time, because all of them arise from the human desire to receive. People invent them, develop them, and believe that they can fulfill themselves through them. Until a person reaches recognition of evil and realizes that these methods do not truly fulfill him, he must continue along that path.

Therefore, everything has a right to exist: Chinese methods, Indian methods, and all the others. The more they are allowed to develop, the sooner their limitations will be revealed. Just as we must not suppress the desire to receive, we must not suppress any method that appears capable of satisfying that desire.

But we know that, ultimately, there is no alternative to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method for working with the desire to receive, because that desire is the entire matter of creation. Trying to go against nature will not help us, because nature stands above us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/26, Rabash, “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”

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Question: What is the difference between methods that suppress the desire to receive and Tzimtzum (Restriction)?

Answer: In the process of correcting the Kelim (vessels), we reach a state where we restrict the desire to receive, stop using it, and then begin to use it by receiving in order to bestow. What is the difference between restricting the desire to receive and the Eastern methods and other similar approaches that suppress this desire?

The moment a person begins to study Kabbalah, he begins to develop his desire to receive. Nowhere is it written that we must suppress it. Nowhere!

Instead of working directly against this desire, you should work on drawing closer to the Creator, so that the light will correct the desire to receive. The greater this desire becomes, the greater the light you will need in order to correct it. Thus, you attain greater lights for correcting a growing desire to receive each time. This is how you advance.

Through study and by attracting the light, you come to see that every one of your desires is essentially opposed to spirituality, opposed to the Creator, because it is directed toward self-enjoyment.

You reach a state where in order to move from an intention for your own sake to an intention for the sake of bestowal, you must stop using the desire to receive in its natural form. Then you begin to use it in a different way, for the sake of bestowal. Between these two states lies an action called Tzimtzum (Restriction).

What is Tzimtzum? I do not restrict the desire itself, because I cannot suppress it. Under the influence of the light acting upon me, I see that using it in its previous form is evil. And because I see that it is evil and opposed to the Creator, I stop using it in that way. I cease using the former type of fulfillment and move to a different method of using the desire.

The purpose of the Tzimtzum is not to destroy the desire to receive, but to stop using the old form of reception and transition to a spiritual form. My concern should be only with correction, with making the desire to receive similar to the Creator’s desire, meaning that it acquires an intention to bestow. That alone should concern me.

We should not focus on our desires themselves. We should not worry about what desires we have, even the most terrible ones, all of them come from the Creator. I must understand that their revelation within me is a sign that I am capable of correcting them. That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the method of reception: It teaches us how to work with the vessels of reception.

All other methods, without exception, are based on suppressing the desire to receive, on receiving as little as possible.

Why are these methods so appealing? Because a person immediately feels that life has become easier. Look at how many people in the former Soviet Union nostalgically remember how good life supposedly was in the past.

There was nothing particularly good about it, but a person knew he had a fixed salary, a home, a job from which he would not be fired, children who would attend kindergarten and school; everything was planned. There was a sense of security about the future. Of course, I did not have much, but neither did anyone else. Everything was suppressed by the government, and “shared suffering is half a consolation.”

Even today, many people would gladly return to those times and to what they had then. Why do I need today’s freedom where everyone does whatever they want? Everywhere there is envy, arrogance, and hatred, whereas before it seemed different. The culture was different, everyone was alike, and everything was planned out.

If not for human egoism, which constantly burns and grows, such a system could perhaps be maintained. In China, it functioned even more successfully for thousands of years. But it is impossible to remain in such a state forever.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/26, Rabash, “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”

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Question: Is it possible to combine Kabbalah with yoga or any other methods?

Answer: This is impossible because all other methods are opposite to Kabbalah, as they do not use the desire to receive to achieve the goal. All of them are based on the suppression of Kelim (vessels), rather than their development. Just as Kabbalah is a method of receiving, so they are methods of “non-receiving,” all without exception.

Receive as little as possible, eat only vegan food, think less, breathe less, want less, whatever it is, just less. That is, the goal is to lower a person from his level to the level of an animal or plant, or even to an inanimate level.

The source of all this lies in ancient Egypt, where even dead bodies were made into undecaying mummies. These are all Eastern methods. Of course, this has a spiritual root. There is also a justification on a material level.

When you give the masses an ideology based on the assertion that you must lower your desires and then everything will be fine, it immediately bears fruit. It is accepted because it makes sense to everyone. But if, in addition to ideology, we add a spiritual component to this, if we connect it with what is beyond our life and death, and assert that a person will receive eternal reward for this, it will become a religion. This is a great force.

But over thousands of years, the human ego has continually evolved from generation to generation. Whether we like it or not, we realize our egoism, which leads to the so-called development of humanity. As a result of the new desires that manifest in each of us from cycle to cycle, we are constantly striving for something new. Therefore even those nations that were committed to the ideology of reducing desire come to a state where they can no longer restrain it.

Nothing will be left of these methodologies over the course of a century. People who are going to India today are just traveling. No one is really able to engage their methodology. Those who manage to achieve this make themselves into a primitive animal. I do not want to talk much about it, but this is a kind of last Klipa against development. We are unable to resist the process of development of the desire to receive. In 10 to 20 years, all this will pass.

Those who today are able to escape from their suffering into such techniques—to turn off part of their mind, to lower themselves to a very low level, and to really be satisfied with it—such people are not for us. This is a primitive, undeveloped form.

However, the world is developing very fast. After all, all of this is against nature. This is not a correction, but an escape from correction. We will not achieve anything this way, just some kind of temporary artificial consolation.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/26, Rabash, “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”

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Question: Can we say that the new generation is further distancing from studying of The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Book of Zohar, and authentic Kabbalistic sources?

Answer: No, it is not distancing further. People simply cannot exist on the same spiritual heights as exceptional individuals such as Baal HaSulam or the ARI.

We see the same thing happening in our world. A person uses an enormous number of scientific and technological achievements without understanding anything about them. He simply knows how to plug something into a socket and press a button for the device to work. What does he actually know besides two buttons on an air conditioner, twenty buttons on a computer, and so on? He has no idea what is really happening inside!

When using a mobile phone, he may be familiar with only two or three functions, while having no idea whatsoever of the other two hundred functions it contains.

The same applies in spirituality: there are people who engage with it slightly and solely for their own benefit, in some limited personal way, while others want to attain the inner connections between objects, dimensions, and forces—to know everything. This depends on the nature of the soul, its inner qualities, and its root. If a person has such a need, then he will fulfill it.

Question: So the fact that we are moving away from the original sources does not necessarily mean that we are getting worse?

Answer: We are not moving away from the sources. We are simply studying them not to the depth that exceptional Kabbalist scholars do, but rather, to the extent appropriate for the masses, the ordinary people who make up 99% of the world’s population.

Question: But wouldn’t that require a completely different method of interacting with the light?

Answer: No, because we study Kabbalah only in order to receive forces from it. And after receiving those forces, we must perceive the spiritual world. And we will perceive it to the extent intended for our soul.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Properties of our generation” 9/30/10

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The Book of Zohar and The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) are two truly monumental sources of spiritual power. The Book of Zohar with the Sulam (“Ladder”) commentary, and TES, which is a commentary on all the writings of the ARI, are two foundational works.

It should be said that these are not merely books, but sources that present the spiritual system itself. Therefore, when I study them, I draw the light from there and its influence upon myself.

Question: But you study them as a Kabbalist who has already attained spiritual perception?

Answer: Not necessarily. It does not matter.

Even people who understand nothing of what they are reading, by reading these sources, studying the inner system in which they exist, draw upon themselves an illumination of the light that brings them closer to spiritual degrees.

To what extent must they pass through these degrees and understand them? To the extent of their soul’s capacity, until they attain the world of infinity and take their place there, the place from which they descended to the level of our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Properties of our generation” 9/30/10

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Comment: Difficult events happen to us, but we come here, begin to work with faith above reason, and say that what happened is not so bad, and that over time everything will work out.

My Response: This is incorrect. Baal HaSulam writes that If everything that happens to you is perceived as good, even though you feel it as bad, it is simply a lie. This is called Hasidism.

Herein lies the difference between the knowledge of the landlords and the teaching of the Torah, between religion and the wisdom of Kabbalah. You are simply deceiving yourself: “Whatever the Creator does is for the good, and the blows that come are good. In fact, they are not blows at all, but positive things, I just don’t feel them that way.” All of this is false.

Do you feel bad? Yes! So why deceive yourself? Whom are you lying to? Your heart is in the upper Partzuf. As we study, Ima Elyia (the upper mother) has now turned her back to Aba (father) and does not accept your prayer because it is not genuine. If you continue deceiving yourself, you distance yourself even more from the truth.

If I receive blows and claim that it is good, and even thank and pray for them, what greater deception can there be? How will I reach the recognition of evil and faith above reason? This is exactly what Baal HaSulam speaks about. It means that you are perceiving reality incorrectly.

“A judge has nothing more than what his eyes see.” After you feel bad, you must relate to it according to the principle: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

Your problem is that you do not want to feel the clash of opposing concepts. You do not want to exist in inner tension. Of course, it is easier to say: “Thank God, everything is in the hands of Heaven, all is good,” or “There is none else besides Him, I live by this, and nothing else concerns me.” Or to be like the religious population that supposedly relies on the Creator. I emphasize “supposedly” because they do not analyze the states they go through. They relate to life this way not because they truly feel it differently, but because they erase reality and cling to a single idea: There is a Creator, and therefore one can remain calm.

They do not live within the real reality through which they must rise, from the level of this world to the level of the final correction (Gmar Tikun) by their own effort, because they do not connect these two points. They seemingly cling to the upper force and think that by this, they have completed the correction.

There is also a completely different life lived by secular people. They believe there is nothing above, we live on this earth, and that is all there is. Between these two poles all of humanity exists. If you are at one of these extremes, you can arrange your life quite comfortably by closing your eyes either to one side or the other, like a non-believer or like a religious person, and have no inner conflict. It becomes a kind of life philosophy.

This is precisely how you want to relate to your friends: “My friend is an angel, the Creator, and I must treat him accordingly.”

But one must see everything at once and examine reality from both perspectives simultaneously.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work?”

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All our work is carried out only above reason. It is completely absent in the desire to receive. And although Kabbalah is called a science, this science is hidden. It does not stem from the nature of the desire to receive from which all our sciences are built: physics, chemistry, electronics, even psychology (although that is not entirely a science).

But what conclusion can be drawn from all this? No matter how much research we conduct, no matter how much we develop these sciences, they do not change us. We gain no real benefit from them.

Question: So, what does our “strengthening on the path” before the breakthrough consist of? To come to a state above reason?

Answer: Above reason means to receive advice from the Creator, to become included in Him and not in the desire to receive.

If while being within the desire to receive, I imagine some other state, which I call, say, the desire to bestow, it is still the same desire to receive. So, what is to be done? I must receive from the Creator something that does not exist within the desire to receive.

The sages say that all that remains is to carry out the preparation called “strengthening.” I must work with other people who are outside of me, egoistically, and then I will begin to discover that there is a great difference between my attitude toward them and my attitude toward myself. From the recognition of this difference, I will begin to understand who I am.

I have a “laboratory” in this world located within the desire to receive. In our nature, thanks to the shattering of the common soul, a unique possibility exists to see from within the desire to receive an analogy to the kind of difference that exists between the spiritual and material worlds.

It is said that the same opposition that exists between the material world and the spiritual world also exists in your attitude toward yourself and toward others. It is astonishing that within your egoism, you can see this and learn from it.

Nevertheless, if you study this egoistically, then it is psychology: how good I am, how polite I am, and so on. It becomes the kind of thing people like to take pride in: how noble-hearted they are.

But if you study this with the aim of somehow imagining your attitude toward spirituality, toward the Creator, then, as a result of the connection between the branch and the root, there appears within you a certain feeling called the point of recognition of evil.

From this point, you gradually begin striving toward adhesion with the Creator, as Baal HaSulam says: “I am lovesick.” But this comes only from the recognition of your attitude toward the friend.

What can strengthen us in this? The relationship between “I” and the Creator, “I” and divinity.

Question: But is this not concealed?

Answer: It is not concealed. Before my eyes stands a real friend. But if I accept him, then I work with him in order to find the point of my relation to the upper one. Otherwise, I have no other place for work. The reality surrounding me becomes as if a laboratory.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/26, Rabash, “What Is Heaviness of the Head in the Work? ”

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If I correct myself, then I begin to see the world as more unified and more directed toward bestowal, love, and unity. In the end, I understand that all this is one system, one person, called Adam. And this Adam is me. Because in this way, by my actions, deeds, thoughts, various corrections, I have assembled him together.

Question: That is, I take and gather the world into myself? And I become this single soul, Adam?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is that true?

Answer: It is true.

Comment: And what we see is…

Answer: We also see the truth, but this is partial truth, torn apart by our inner egoism.

Question: And here, we as if do not pass it through egoism? We look not through the egoism?

Answer: If I gather all of them together into one single image, then that is me.

Question: That is me. How can one focus like this?

Answer: This is precisely our task: to gather the whole world and say, “This is me,” and this world depends on me.

Question: Am I responsible for everyone and for everything?

Answer: Absolutely everything comes from here.

Question: Every person?

Answer: Yes.

Question: The simplest, most ordinary person is responsible for the world, for everything that happens in this terrible world?

Answer: To the extent that he finds himself in this world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 4/10/26

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Question: It is said that one must change one’s qualities. What is the difference between the qualities that can be changed and a person’s character that does not change? How can we reveal those qualities that require change?

Answer: What are these qualities that we can change and by doing so feel the upper force within whose field of action we exist, and perceive it as something that changes in relation to us, differing varying according to our own qualities? There is something in us that can change. What is it?

How can I isolate that specific element that I could change and begin to sense that I am within the field of action of some force external to me, a force that is higher, all encompassing, eternal, and perfect? If I were to sense that I exist within this force, merged and united with it, then I would perceive a completely different world. The picture that appears before me, my sensation of reality, constitutes my world.

It is said that the transformation that must occur within me is the creation of a new property corresponding to this upper force. If I can, to some extent, become like the upper one, then I will feel myself as He feels. If I increase the measure of my similarity to Him, I will feel this even more strongly.

There is no profound mystery here; it is very simple. The only challenge is how to acquire this measure of similarity to Him. This is precisely what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us.

Kabbalah is a science in which those who have attained the upper force tell us what it is, who this upper one is, so that from this we may learn that we have the possibility to become similar to Him and begin to feel as He feels.

And if I acquire everything that is possible, to the full measure of similarity to Him according to my abilities, it means that I have completely corrected my Kli and brought it into equivalence with this upper force.

Suppose I have certain means, a kind of “purse,” and if I so decide, I can, with all the money in it, purchase the quality of the upper one. If I come to the decision that it is worth buying, not just some small part, but all of His qualities, to the full amount that I have in my purse, then I truly, according to all my abilities, become like Him. And then I cease to feel that anything remains in me from my former self.

Kabbalists say that this is good. Although we do not understand it, nevertheless, it is good. Why? It cannot be explained until a person feels it themselves. There are such sensations that Kabbalists call the sensation of perfection and eternity. We currently do not perceive either of these in our world.

Therefore, one may imagine anything about what Kabbalists say, but for now it will remain merely words, not connected to any real sensations.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/27/26, Rabash, “Peace After a Dispute Is More Important than Having No Disputes At All”

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