When I came to Rabash, he used to write some interesting little notes, for himself. He believed that there was no one to pass them on to. Such a human condition is difficult to explain. He did not allow his students to write anything down.

As soon as I started writing something down, he would stop talking. Then I said: “I am a student; if I do not write, I do not hear. I have to go from ear to pen.” I bought him with this.

We explained to him that this is the way they study at the university: the professor speaks from the lectern, and you sit and take notes because there are a thousand books but you need exactly what he teaches. Then Rabash reluctantly agreed.

Then I slowly convinced him that we needed to record him on a tape recorder. It was a problem similar to the gradual transition from the state of exile to the state of revelation.

I saw how difficult it was for him to cross this rubicon. To give up the state of exile when you are sitting alone in a corner studying The Book of Zohar and Kabbalah, and then you start to come out. It was very hard for him!

I started making drawings, tape recordings, and written recordings. Gradually the material began to accumulate, and I was absolutely sure that I was not collecting it for myself.

After all, when a person develops, he does not need this. We never look at past material. We need the next one, the future.

Although if you look at the past material, you will see how much you reveal there. But life is arranged in such a way that each day should be new despite the fact that you can take much more from yesterday. This is how the beginning and the end of the path are formed.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10

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“Because the will to receive is not in our root, we feel shame and intolerance in it. Our sages wrote that in order to correct this, He has “prepared” for us labor in Torah and Mitzvot in this world, to invert the will to receive into a desire to bestow” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 20).

Everything that is not included in the desire to enjoy causes us impatience and difficulties. All this does not exist in the Creator; therefore, it is perceived by us as undesirable. And we suffer from this.

Question: Does it mean that we feel shame and intolerance because this does not exist in our root?

Answer: Yes. By feeling our dissimilarity to the Creator, we, accordingly, experience negative feelings.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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The need and necessity for the long cascading to this world will be explained below, that this great labor of turning the form of reception into the form of bestowal can only be conceived in this world (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 20).

Question: What is this state called our world, and how come the form of bestowal can only be acquired from it?

Answer: On one hand our world is the lowest of the worlds; it is very distant from the qualities of the Creator, the qualities of bestowal, and exists completely in the quality of reception. On the other hand, by using a mechanism called the Torah, that is, the upper light, which comes to us and makes it possible to acquire the quality of bestowal, we can gradually rise from the quality of reception to the quality of bestowal and thus come closer to the Creator.

Question: But why specifically from the state of our world? What is so special about it?

Answer: Our world is opposite to the upper world, opposite to the Creator. While we exist in it, we can act the way the quality of reception dictates to us. Then, gradually we acquire also the qualities of bestowal. First, we acquire the quality of receiving in order to receive, and then receiving in order to bestow. Thus, we become equivalent to the Creator.

Our world is a special state where we exist only in reception, initially not understanding what real, absolute bestowal is. It is from the opposite state that we can understand what it is. But first we need to fully understand what reception is.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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Question: Any book leaves a person with a set of impressions. As one reads, a person’s imagination soars and depicts all kinds of things.

You said Kabbalistic books leave the same impression on different people. Did I understand correctly that they give such a clear imprint of certain states that fantasy has no place here?

Answer: Of course not. On the contrary, when a person begins to study Kabbalah all sorts of fantasies gradually disappear, a person becomes very grounded, engages in science, and understands that he exists in a system of forces, and he needs to learn to interact with them.

The more we advance and study man, the less we fantasize. What fantasies?! These are all kinds of electric fields in our brain that affect our biological forms. At the same time, some chemicals get released that also interact with each other, and so on.

That is, there are no feelings. There will be feelings, but only when they become independent of matter. After all, being given something to smell, for example, will produce certain sensations. This shows how much our feelings depend on the processes that occur in us.

While we must rise above these processes with pure logic. Pure logic—after the restriction (screen and reflected light), when I come into contact with the one upper force, with all my strength and scrutiny, and start working together with it on the basis called Zivug de haka’a (coupling).

On one hand, the coupling is a rejection because I reject my ego, but do not discard it, I do not destroy it, but simply push it away to connect with the upper force. And to the extent that I can include my ego, that is, my correctly aimed desires, I include them.

This is a very exact science, there are no sentiments in Kabbalah. It contains precise laws, formulas, forces, and their mutual rapprochement and distancing, and how by connecting with each other at different levels, they form all kinds of shapes: right and left lines. This way, certain feelings are evoked but only to control this process.

We rise from one sensation to another until we begin to feel the Creator. But all these feelings are not in us, not in our ego, but in the quality of bestowal that we develop in ourselves. It is an upper reasoning that is not based on our feelings because feelings come after reason.

First, the mind evolves, which develops self-control, understanding of all actions, and only after that does a feeling from you emerge. This is a completely different level of existence—beyond our present nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Recommended Books” 12/12/13

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Question: How can students ask questions so as not to distract everyone from the lesson?

Answer: Students should ask on the topic, what they are desperate for, and for more clarification about the material we are studying. Moreover, asking questions is optional when they need to clarify something.

Even if they do not have such an urgent need, but they understand that this question is now appropriate, then they should ask.

And it will help me to explain. Maybe I myself did not feel that it was necessary to scrutinize more here. We have to work together.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13

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Comment: Let’s say you start a dialogue with a student and can talk with him for an hour. You say that this is for the benefit of the group.

My Response: It is not him I am talking to. What does he have to do with it? He only awakens this topic, this desire, but this is not he himself, and I am, in a way, answering not to him.

I am talking about the group, about the Creator, about the world, about correction, connection, integrity, and about the way to bring it all to one common system in which the entire universe will be revealed to all of humanity. What does the student have to do with it? It is just that the required awakening came through him, and he voiced a question to which I should give an answer.

I do not look at the student at all. Through him, a question comes to me from somewhere, from the general thought of creation, from the common system. I now need to adjust this system a little, to twist a couple of resistors, a capacitor, a coil, an oscillating circuit, and make some adjustments. This is what I am doing.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 12/21/13

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Any receiver of a present is ashamed when receiving it due to the disparity of form from the Root since the root does not have that form of reception.

In order to correct this, He created this world where the soul comes and clothes a body. Through engagement in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] in order to bring contentment to his Maker, the soul’s vessels of reception are inverted into vessels of bestowal (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 20).

With the help of the mechanism of Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], we evoke the light upon ourselves, and it changes our intentions from reception to bestowal. This brings us closer to the Creator, and then shame disappears.

Question: Why?

Answer: If we become similar to Him, where would shame come from?

Question: But nevertheless, the Creator remains the giver and we are receivers. Why does shame disappear?

Answer: If you transform the will to receive into receiving for the sake of bestowal, then you become a giver, and you do not have any feeling of shame. On the contrary, you experience a feeling of pride.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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Question: It is said that the Creator has prepared the application of efforts in the Torah and the commandments for us in this world to turn the desire to receive into the desire to bestow. How can we understand this?

Answer: There is a tool with which we can change ourselves from receivers to givers so that we strive to give to another, and not receive from him. This is due to the influence of the Torah and the commandments on us.

The Torah and the commandments are a mechanism that affects us and changes us from recipients to bestowers.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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Question: How do we know when and what question we can ask you?

Answer: It is impossible! To do this, you need to understand what state I am in, what can be revealed, what cannot be revealed, and so on. The answers to the questions are given in accordance with the needs of society, general and personal ones, the needs of individual groups, the world group, and the entirety of humanity.

All this changes like water in a raging sea, it flows and moves in different directions. Everything is unpredictable.

Comment: It sometimes happens that one can prepare for a lesson and just go through the questions. But when we adjust to your condition, the answer can be much more effective.

My Response: Of course. But do not buy me by saying that you can adjust to me, and you will be effective, and so on. To do this, you need to feel what I feel, and be in the same state, direction, rhythm, and movement. Then you will feel that now is the time to ask a question.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13

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The branch desires, loves, and covets every conduct in the root, and does not tolerate and hates any conduct that is not in the root.

This is an unbreakable law that applies to every branch and its root (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Inner Observation, Chapter 4, Item 19).

Question: The Creator, who is the desire to bestow and not to receive, is our root. Yet we, who are a branch of this root, do not like to bestow and to unite. Where is the logic here?

Answer: We are the product of this consequence. Here happens the division into source and effect. Our source bestows, emanates, loves, and develops. And we are His consequence. This is why we love everything we receive from Him. We want to receive everything pleasant from Him, but we do not want to receive His qualities.

It turns out that we do not want to acquire His qualities, but we want what He fulfills us with.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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