Question: When you studied Kabbalah, you did not have a group; there was only a teacher. How did you hold on to the importance of the goal in order not to regress in any circumstance?

Answer: It is a different path without a group. It is much more difficult and less effective. After all, I have not advanced at the pace that people who come to us today are advancing. It took me several years to grasp what a beginner grasps in six months or a year.

A person masters the initial stage that one goes through today three times faster than me and those who studied with Rabash. One year for three. What I comprehended in three years, our beginner comprehends in a year.

He gets intensively involved in the work, in understanding, in the system, and in the group. He is drawn into this all, receives explanations, and absorbs material through all the pores. If a person goes through a serious yearly practice with us, then in principle he lays down the foundations for the correction of the soul.

And then it depends on the person. But I believe that at least the first year is a necessary and sufficient condition to become a beginner Kabbalist. After that, if he decides, let him become a Kabbalist, that is, let him start working with himself.

I think that according to the measure of its expansion in the world and how it deepens into us, the preparation period will get shorter. People will start to absorb everything very quickly because it will be perceived through the surrounding ether, through the air.

Such surroundings will be created and such waves will affect us so that everything will seem to be clear! It’s like how children who are born today start playing with phones and computers already from the cradle. What I can’t do is nothing to them.

“How do you know what to do? Did you study somewhere?”

“Why study? Everything is clear anyway.”

That is, their internal logic is built according to what was created by other people in the last generation or a few years before their birth. It will be the same here.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Various Kabbalah” 2/22/13

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The book The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) is a commentary by Baal HaSulam on the Ari’s work The Tree of Life (Etz Chaim). It practically explains the entire basis of Kabbalah from beginning to end.

The book of the great Kabbalist of the 16^th century: Ari’s The Tree of Life, of course, is not easy and this is especially so for beginners. But Baal HaSulam wrote a commentary on it, which you can gradually understand and this is where people who come to Kabbalah start during the first few years of study.

TES begins with the words of Ari.

Know that before the emanated beings were emanated and the created beings created, an upper, simple light had filled the entire reality. There was no vacant place, such as empty air and space, but everything was filled with that simple, boundless light. It did not have a quality of Rosh, or Sof, but it was all one, simple light, completely even, called light of Ein Sof (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot).

This is about the fact that when there were no created beings as such, there was only one interesting substance called “the upper simple light that fills the entire reality.”

When reading these lines, questions immediately arise: What is a simple light? What kind of reality does it fill? What happened before it filled this reality? What does it represent? What does it mean that there was no free space, but the upper light was filling everything?

Moreover, Ari emphasizes that there was no free place in the form of empty air or empty space and everything was filled with infinite simple light. And, as he writes, there was neither beginning nor end in it, but everything was one simple, completely even light, which is called the light of infinity.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot” (TES), 8/14/22

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Question: Why is it that no method accepts criticism of its so-called guru?

Answer: This is certainly incorrect. After all, we are engaged in the correction of man. Let him do anything he wants, just do no harm. Therefore, there are two very interesting laws in Kabbalah.

The first condition: You can do everything you want except harm the group where you study or slander it because this prevents attracting people who want to join this group.

The second condition: When it seems that the Creator tells you: “You will not succeed—why are you here?” You must stay and check! In general, you are given all the opportunities to intensely and fruitfully study, analyze, prove, ask, and convince.

This method requires a very tedious approach. You must bite into it and start implementing it on yourself together with the people who surround you, and not believe anyone. On the contrary, you must doubt everything.

Otherwise, how will you be able to rise and adapt to your teacher and try to be like him? It is from the denial—that he is not right—that you will understand what he is standing on and how he builds himself. This is the only way. After all, everything we have exists based on positive and negative.

If you do not have the opportunity to criticize and be in the state of opposition, how will you be able to build a state of similarity to the group, similarity to the teacher, and similarity to the Creator?

Coming from this point of view, you can see that all other methods are baseless because people who are engaged in them cannot make anything out of themselves. This is because from the beginning they are prohibited to have such a comprehensive, fearless, and critical attitude toward the very teaching, toward the inner movements, toward the friends, the teacher, and even toward the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Criticism of Kabbalah” 2/20/13

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Comment: In the Ari’s methodology there is not a single word about love, about unification. It is a purely dry language of Sefirot.

My Response: Yes, the Ari says almost nothing about feelings, only about actions. But this is conveyed in the language of Kabbalah, the so-called language of the Sefirot.

Besides this, there is also a second language of Kabbalah, a sensory one, where a person begins to attain the upper world through sensations. There are no barriers, no boundaries, to feelings. He understands that he enters the state of the Creator’s boundless love and dissolves in it.

This was described by Rabash in his articles about the group. When you study them, you should not just come to the class, put a book in front of you and read the names of lights and worlds, but there should be a certain mood in a person.

To do this, he needs to work in a group, to try to unite with his friends, to receive certain desires from them, to reveal these desires, to come to lessons with this, and to study directly the system of lights and screens. Otherwise it will be just a theory, and Kabbalah does not welcome theory.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/2/22

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The Creator is the Nature surrounding us and nothing more. Write “Nature” instead of the Creator, but still with a capital letter, so as not to attribute it to something purely mechanistic.

The Creator is the upper degree, the upper light, and the quality of bestowal in relation to us, who represents the quality of reception. That is, everything is based on very simple concepts that are close to each of us.

The only thing is that we are all very confused. After all, the attitude to Kabbalah throughout the centuries has been deliberately confusing and impeding. We are also confused by all kinds of external customs, items, and objects,  as well as the appearance of religious Jews, as if it has anything to do with Kabbalah. In general, all this is so heaped up that it is, of course, very difficult for a person to understand.

I can see how hard it is for my students in different countries of the world who belong to different religions and races. I see what a huge amount of work they are doing internally and will have to do for a long time.

A person brought up in a different religion who belongs to a different race and thinks in a completely different way, with an opposite mentality and a different language, and one must overcome all this. This quality of the soul is necessary for its correction and not that it is in a more favorable or less favorable state relative to others.

This is how we are separated and distant from each other. I see that many of my students from all over the world would really like to be here next to us. Just tell them it is possible and that a thousand people will come here at once. But they have to overcome huge problems within themselves, big internal disagreements.

When a person suppresses something in himself, since the truth has not yet been fully revealed in him, he is in a kind of semi-compromising state: “Well, what can I do? I will not pay attention to this, as if I don’t see it, do not understand it, and do not observe it, as if this is not in me. I will leave this aside.” It is very hard. But that is the way to live.

This is very similar to how Jews live among other nations. Exactly the same feeling: “We are opposite to them, but we want to be like that. Can we or can’t we? How do they treat us and how should we treat them?” All this omission, this kind of special attitude, is exactly what a person who comes to study Kabbalah goes through.

I understand this. There are many problems. The world is still in such a transitional state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Criticism of Kabbalah” 2/20/13

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Comment: Baal HaSulam writes that the Ari’s book The Tree of Life (Etz Chaim in Hebrew) is identical in its importance to the Torah that was given to us on Mount Sinai.

One can imagine what the Torah means for all humanity. Today, all culture, art, painting, all religions, and all science are based on it. It’s hard to say what life would be like if there were no Torah. Everything is built on this, right up to our relationship.

And the book The Tree of Life was written only 500 years ago and was published literally 200 years ago. But there are still no implications; no one knows about it.

My Response: It should manifest itself in the future. We hope that its consequences will manifest themselves already in our days and will become the basis not only of our culture, but also of the life of all mankind.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/2/22

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Comment: Baal HaSulam writes that the singularity of the language of the Ari is that his words cannot be materialized. After all, when I read a story from the Torah, for example, I begin to imagine people, animals, some wars and events because the Torah is written in the language of branches.

And when I read about Keter, Hochma, and Bina, and some kind of interaction between them, I do not have any associations, and thus I do not materialize them.

My Response: Yes, it is very important! In no case should we assume that the Torah speaks about our world! It speaks only about the inner world of man. And therefore it is imperative to transfer everything that we read in it into ourselves and not imagine that we see our world and everything that happens in it like in a theater.

Thus, the singularity of the Ari’s method, compared with the method that existed thousands of years before him, is firstly the language itself, which does not allow us to materialize everything that is written.

And secondly it is the method itself, where you draw upon yourself the light that builds a screen in you and allows you to objectively explore the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/2/22

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Comment: When you teach certain levels of the Study of Ten Sefirot (TES), it is hard to understand at first, but later these layers become revealed.

My Response: I teach very simply since I give elementary information. It is just that today people are not able to comprehend it and they do so even less than they did before. Let’s say thirty years ago this information was simply understood, absorbed, studied, memorized, and used in a purely logical way.

Today, egoism has grown so much that it cannot tolerate simple knowledge, it must necessarily apply it to itself, and it has become more demanding. This is good after all, as it means we are moving toward practical correction.

What is interesting is that some cannot even tolerate the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Pticha), not to mention the Study of the Ten Sefirot. People need what they can feel, really understand, and accept.

Take my lessons from 10 or 15 years ago. Look at how much I drew, the drafts I made, and whole panels! At that time I had a large board and I depicted drawings from the beginning of the creation to its end. It took two hours of time and with explanations and graphs. That’s how we worked.

But today people want only one thing: “This is what I need, this is what I want to know, and how do you get it quickly.” This is how egoism works. I’m not blaming anyone; I’m just saying that the ego has changed and that is why it is difficult for us to study such serious materials.

Comment: I remember when you were explaining and drawing, you never seemed to reach MA and BON. I always wanted to find out what was happening after that, but you always stopped in the middle.

Answer: Because MA and BON are rudimentary organs of the upper system that exist in order to pass the light further. But on their own, they have no direct influence on us. That is why we do not study them.

Comment: But how it affected us on the inside! We could clearly feel some truths resonating with us out of your explanations. They may not be as specific as mathematics, but this seems to have been erased.

Answer: Because you are no longer interested in it and your soul’s need for it disappeared.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Exchange of Spiritual Information” 2/15

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Question: What makes the spoken Kabbalistic language different from the written?

Answer: Spoken language, unlike the written language, can convey much more, on one hand, and on the other hand, written language can convey more than the spoken language.

After all, written language is not just the language we use today; there were many other additional symbols in it. People used it for a long time until it was all erased and forgotten. Our great teacher Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) speaks a little about this.

Spoken and written languages are different ways of passing on information. But in general, of course, everything is passed on in written language, especially in our time.

But it was not so before. At one time, written language was used very little since information was mainly passed on orally and memorized. For example, if I hear something from my teacher, I just memorize what he says literally. Gradually, I start to understand these words and begin to understand what I have received from him.

Question: Was it so because much more can be conveyed through oral speech?

Answer: Not only because of that, but because the information was not written down. It was forbidden to simply write it down. That is why there is the oral Torah and the written Torah.

The oral Torah is much deeper and much higher than the written one. It talks about connection with the Creator. The written one is only what we can write down, what we can indicate, what we can understand and comprehend today.

A true Kabbalist can read texts and see all kinds of words between the lines; that is, certain information that was intended to be passed orally, but was not written down.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/26/22

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In the News (“Harvard Developed AI Defines the Shortest Path to Human Happiness”): “Researchers have created a digital model of psychology aimed at improving mental health. The system offers great personalization and recognizes the shortest path to a cluster of mental stability for any individual. …

“Deep Longevity has published a paper on Aging-US outlining a machine learning approach to human psychology in collaboration with Nancy Etcoff, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School, an authority on happiness and beauty. …

“The article describes an AI -based recommendation engine that can estimate a person’s psychological age and future well -being based on a developed psychological survey. AI uses information from a respondent to place them on a 2D map of all possible psychological profiles and take ways to improve their long -term well -being. This model of human psychology can be used in digital self -help applications and in therapist sessions.”

Question: The model gives recommendations on how to live to be happy. Do you believe that this is possible?

Answer: No. What is happiness?

Comment: Scientists assumed that a person would be healthy, for example, would feel good, and would have money…

My Response: So will they be able to do that?

Question: Artificial intelligence gives a person recommendations on how to live. And he follows these recommendations. And he feels: “What state am I in? Am I happy or not? Oh, I feel good now,” I will follow the next recommendation. Thus, I live by recommendations. Is it possible to live life like this?

Answer: No, because, as it is said, human nature is egoistic from the beginning. And that’s why he only thinks about him feeling good compared to others.

Question: Does this additive ruin everything?

Answer: Sure. One cannot feel happy if others feel as good as he does. At least a little less. This is nature! There’s nothing you can do!

Comment: Then basically it’s a failure, because if everyone is happy next to me, I won’t have a feeling of happiness.

My Response: Of course. How can it be? Everything on the same level? Then I lose any feeling that I am happy.

Question: What needs to be done to make a person happy?

Answer: To make others less happy. This is what is being done now with the help of wars. If others are less happy, I already feel happier. Everything is perceived only in comparison.

Question: So this artificial intelligence, in theory, should program everything so that you will be happy when you see that others will be below you? I will do my best for you to see it?

Answer: Yes. If we had such glasses to make us feel that way, it would be great. Everyone would walk around, look down on each other and not understand: “Why are others looking down also? Why are others smiling? I’m above them in everything.”

Comment: This is a great patent for our world! How about ideally, on a high score?

My Response: Ideally, when you take care of others, this will be your destiny and a sense of happiness. And then no one will bother you. You can make everyone happy. And so each of them can also make others happy. Meaning, I feel good from doing good to another. This is the only way it can be implemented.

Question: Can artificial intelligence reach such a turn?

Answer: It will break down doing this. The machine will break down.

Question: Yes, this won’t fit in it. But is humanity advancing to this one way or another?

Answer: It is coming to the realization of evil, but not to the solution of the problem itself.

To solve this problem, they will have to come to Kabbalists. And then they will discover on a whim from above that there is such a way out, such a teaching that lifts them to another level, to another nature, to the quality of bestowal, love! And they don’t need anything else besides that. With the help of this new nature, they will build absolutely everything!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/18/22

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