Question: What are the four sons that the Passover Haggadah refers to: one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who does not know how to ask a question?

Answer: All the four sons contemplate the same question: “How can we rise above our egoism?” The wise son philosophizes and says that these laws can be interpreted in one way or another, but there is no solution that would allow us to get out of Egypt, that is, to rise above our egoism.

The wicked son says: “But why do we need to rise above it?” He does not want to do this at all and asks: “What is the use of this work against egoism? Leave me alone, I’m fine.” Therefore, in our eyes, he is wicked because he does not wish to rise above his current state, although it is bad. He takes everything as it is and does not want to come out of Egypt.

The simple son says that these laws are not understandable and it is not clear why we came out of Egypt. He is not aware that he is in bondage and how to rise out of this slavery.

We are sitting around the holiday table. One feels like the wise son, the other as the simple one, and the third one as the wicked one, and the fourth is like the one who does not know how to ask a question. And this fourth son, who does not know how to ask, needs to say that day: “This is in honor of the fact of what the Creator has done for us, taking us out of Egypt.”

This son does not know how to ask, not because he is stupid, abstruse, or wicked. He realizes that there is something, some kind of way to get out of our nature that we cannot perceive and recognize.

All the guests at the table are also wondering: “Where do we need to exit to and why? Where have you seen that you can get rid of your ego? This does not exist in nature.” Everyone is asking these questions, the wise, the simple, and the wicked.

But he who does not know how to ask does not ask questions, knowing that there is a secret hiding about which nothing can be asked because it is completely inaccessible to us. There is something beyond our lives, beyond our egoism, in whose hands we are found.

There is a reason we were created and exist in this miserable way. But it is not clear what can be done with it; we cannot see the exit. Therefore, it is said that it is necessary for it to be explained. Indeed, if a person develops to such a state when he has nothing to say to justify his egoism, then he finds a solution.

Everyone has eventually become the son who does not know how to ask questions. These are the four stages of human development. Each of us is on his stage of development and thus may recognize himself in one of the four sons according to the question he asks.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/15

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Question: What is the good Pharaoh who received the Jews?

Answer: We have to examine this concept with regard to a person.

We believe that the ego leads us forward: civilization, expansion, and growth. “We will fly to the stars, attain and know everything, discover! We, we, we!” This is good healthy egoism. It is essential since otherwise we wouldn’t develop.

If we weren’t patient with a child, for example, and continuously limited him, he wouldn’t develop. Therefore we constantly allow him to develop, even egoistically, no matter how, and when he reaches a certain age, let’s say 13, we begin to teach him how to limit himself.

Let’s not forget that until this age a person is immersed only in his evil inclination, and from the age of 13 onward, the good can appear under the influence of education. The age of 13 is a relative term. Baal HaSulam talks about that in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

I remember that my son who studied in religious schools used to say: “What do you want from me? I am only 9, wait until I am 13.”

This is called the seven years of satiety when the nation is satisfied with everything. We try to unite and at first everything goes well. The ego is patient with us saying: “Cooperate, everything is good, everything is right.” Then disputes and conflicts begin to break out between us.

This is also what happens with people who are in love, when they begin to live together, or in international relations: “Now we will work together and do certain things and achieve something! We, we, we, we!” Everything is fine; egoism is good and everything is wonderful, and suddenly something negative seeps from within. No matter what we do, a hindrance will eventually appear; the evil Pharaoh will arise.

When you start something you should know that if you perform actions that do not lead, with the help of love and mutual connection by using the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah, to balance between good and evil, the evil, which seems attractive and charming at first, will later kill you. The angel of death attracts and entices you, gives you a drop of poison and you are dead.

This is the reason that you should look for the balance point between the two forces of good and evil, everywhere, in every action.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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At this time, we approach a state when humanity faces a need to change its attitude to life, to itself, to its developmental goals. Humans have to realize that there is a purpose in life and that nature leads us to achieve it.

We will advance towards mutual understanding, benevolent attainment, and comfortable existence to the extent of our correspondence with the program that guides us.

The goal we must reach is above this world, beyond life and death. Eventually, we will transition to the level of immortality. This world gradually will dissolve and we will enter a totally new dimension. By the way, nowadays all worldly sciences confirm this fact. We are going through this process as we speak.

Everything starts with Pesach, i.e., when we realize that we are capable of rising above our egoism and we shift to unity and reciprocity by observing the rule of “loving our neighbor as ourselves,” or at least following the rule of “not doing to others what we do not wish for ourselves.” In other words, when we feel like brothers and maintain mutual guarantee. This holiday is about realizing that exiting from the ego is possible.

When one “leaves Egypt” and rises to the next level one regards the prior state as absolute wickedness and clearly sees how it can be used correctly. This explains why it is said that attainment happens at the foot of Mount Sinai (derived from “Sina” – hatred) when all human properties “stand around the mountain,” whereas our aspirations, the point of Moses, rise to its peak.

Mount Sinai represents a huge egoism and it is absolutely essential to make us rise above our qualities that stand for the entire nation gathered around the Mountain.

The final goal of human advancement is to reach the peak of the Mountain where Moses and the Creator are.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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Question: The Pesach Haggadah, the story of exiting from Egypt begins with the words: “We were slaves in Egypt…”

Answer: We still are slaves, but we don’t realize it. We consider ourselves a free nation living in the “land of Israel,” but it is not the “land of Israel.” It is not even Egypt yet. “Egypt” means that we acknowledge the Pharaoh’s authority over us. However, we think differently.

Look what’s going on! What kind of game our ego plays with the people of Israel! We are submerged in endless arguments, quarrels… We are completely immersed in all sorts of problems. Our government and the entire country are split into numerous fragments. We are almost facing a civil war!

We are very far from Pesach! We still are in the deepest and darkest Egyptian slavery of the seven “years of hunger.” We don’t realize that it is our ego that governs us, plays with us, and pits us against each other.

Pesach is about a decision to run away from slavery, to exit from the power of egoism, from the state in which we “gobble” each other up, as it is said, “And the children of Israel cried out from the work…”

Question: Are we slaves today?

Answer: No, we are not, since “a slave” means that one feels one’s slavery and realizes one’s dependence on one’s evil nature. We admit that we hate our neighbor and that we are compelled to argue and fight with each other. We don’t know where this desire comes from. It rises from the inside and we don’t even acknowledge it, nor do we feel that the force that governs us is alien to us. We think it is we who choose to behave this way.

Many people do bad things, but do not consider them wrong. However, there are people who acknowledge: “I am tired of my wickedness! I don’t know what to do with this body of mine, with my nature, nerves, moods… I look at others and want to ravage them. I love neither my wife, nor my family. I want to abandon this world. Let it burn completely. I have no idea where to run away from this life! I wouldn’t mind living on a desert island.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that human nature was created evil on purpose so that we come to the realization of its wickedness. First of all, we don’t feel that we are evil. We think it is natural for humans to be wicked. Then, we gradually learn to differentiate between ourselves and our nature and realize that we are built of two powers—“us” and our opposition, the evil inclination called “the Pharaoh.”

At this point, we regard the Pharaoh as the evil inclination that dwells in us, and think: “Maybe I should try to avoid its power? Let me try treating everybody well. It doesn’t matter what my attempts will end up with, but I still want to learn how to control myself!” The Pharaoh constantly turns off our “dual vision” that is set to differentiate between “us” and “him.” He makes us treat others in a bad way.

Eventually, we will come to understand that the Pharaoh is an evil and hostile power that took us over in order to make us acknowledge that it is an alien to us, thus bringing us to a desire to run away from it. It is not in our power to fight it, but we are able to detach from it. The detachment from the evil power is called the “escape from Egypt.” The evil stays intact; it is us who stop associating ourselves with it.

The evil is still inside us, somewhere in the deepest layers of us, but we don’t allow it to “jump” out; we suppress it and detach from it. Detachment from the evil by rising above it is called “exiting Egypt, an escape from the power of the Pharaoh.” At this point, we reach redemption. We are not yet a free people in the free land. We haven’t transitioned from slavery to liberty yet. We just ran away from slavery, but haven’t yet attained freedom.

At this point, we desperately need to detach from the Pharaoh. This state is called “Pesach.” We start correcting the properties associated with Egypt and the Pharaoh. We don’t have another nature. All we have is the evil inclination that we must correct and turn it into benevolence. In order to achieve this state after exiting from Egypt, we need a special power that allows us to make clarifications on our self-correction. This period is called “counting down the days of Omer.”

In Egypt, there was plenty of bread for us. During the first week after we exited Egypt we ate “frugal bread” called “matza.” Later, we returned to regular bread. This period is called “counting down the days of Omer. “Omer” is a sheaf of grains.

We check our wicked desires, all 49 of them. These desires are called “Sefirot.” Seven Sefirot or seven parts of our desire are called “Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut.” Each of them splits into 7 parts. That’s why we have 7 X 7 = 49 different desires that we are ready to correct.

We “abandoned” these desires at the time of our exodus from Egypt, i.e., we stopped using them. Now, we start testing them again. We check each desire and evaluate whether we used them to hurt others, slander, fight, etc. We should find a way of using the same desires to benefit others.

We should transition from the evil to the good inclination in each of our desires. We have to do an “inventory” of our wickedness. We must find a way of using our desires for benevolent purposes.

So far, it is not yet about detaching from our prior state. During Pesach night, we run away and hide from all desires. We check them and try to understand what our desires look like now. We contemplate them from a new level already being “out of Egypt” and away from the power of the Pharaoh.

We look at our desires and become terrified that we previously had them. However, now we have already distanced them away from us; we do not consider them ours any more. We identify ourselves with the point that exited from Egypt and is outside of any egoistic desire.

At this time, from a new “height” we check each desire, one by one, all 49 of them. It is called “49 days of the Omer count” since from the new level that we have just achieved, we start counting and testing all of our desires and see if we are able to alter them and use them for good purposes instead of the wicked ones as we did before.

It is possible because of the Pharaoh who reveals our wickedness to us. Now, we can gradually turn the evil into the good. 49 days of the Omer count is the preparation for the 50^th day that is called “Shavuot”—the Giving of the Torah.

On one hand, it is called “Shavuot” because we counted all of our desires and made an “inventory” of them, on the other hand, it is called “The Giving of the Torah” since we receive the Light that Reforms.” The Creator said: “I created the evil inclination and made the Torah as a spice for it.”

At this time, we clearly see the evil since we made an inventory of our desires. Now, we need a special Light, a specific force, called “the Torah” that will help us use our desires one after another and all of them together for the sake of bestowal and benevolence of others since the major law of the Torah is “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the level we eventually will attain.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/24/15

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Question: The Jewish nation has gone through a special transformation, the transition from slavery to freedom, to which the feast of Pesach (Passover) is dedicated. What is the meaning of this transformation?

Answer: The meaning of liberation from slavery is acquiring the power of love due to exiting from one’s egoism. We are under the control of the system that advances us, especially given under the power of our egoism, which is called Pharaoh.

First, we feel good in this bondage, but then realize that we are in exile and are slaves to the egoism that rules over us absolutely. We do not agree with this authority and wish to escape from it, from the bad attitudes towards each other, because we see that in this form, it is impossible to move on and exist.

After many failed attempts, we become convinced that nothing can be done and only a miracle can save us. Indeed, egoism is killing us to the extent that we do not see success in anything in our lives in any way. In this way, Pharaoh’s rule between us is manifested.

That is the situation we see today in Israel. There are 23 political parties in a little country, huge gaps between different layers of the population, crisis in the education system, an increasing divorce rate, and growing use of drugs. Half of the citizens would be willing to move to another country if given the chance.

Our unkind attitude to each other can be seen from the behavior on the roads and elsewhere. We are divided by indifference to others and pride. Egoism reigns within us and makes us act in this way. It is not our fault, but it is our nature that plays with us.

One must realize that our nature is the evil inclination, which enslaves us. If we do not get out of it, then our lives will be over and we will not leave behind anything good for our children. Life will become worse and they will not have even those crumbs of happiness that we once had.

This is slavery, and the Passover Haggadah tells us how to escape it to reach freedom. But above all, we need to understand that we are in slavery. After all, while you see yourself in the darkness of egoism that separates us through mutual hatred, it is impossible to understand the reality of freedom from this angel of death.

We have to desire to become a free people in our own country, independent of our desire. We need to wish to achieve love, connection, mutual guarantee, and unity between everyone above our egoistic nature.

The people of Israel once escaped its egoism and rose to a height of unity and love, which is called the building of the Temple. But then we were not able to remain at that height and fell from it.

Rabbi Akiva taught that you cannot leave the principle of love for others as oneself; otherwise, we will again fall back to unfounded hatred. Egypt is the state of causeless hatred between us. After the destruction of the Second Temple 2,000 year ago, we returned to this state of hatred, which is called Egypt.

After thousands of years of living in unity and connection, the Jewish people again went to Egypt, to unfounded hatred. But today the whole world must realize that we are in Egypt.

Once, a small group led by Abraham left Babylon and became united into the people of Israel. But then it went back to Babylon and mingled with all the Babylonians. Today, we again find ourselves facing the same Tower of Babel and are confronted with hatred towards each other and the unwillingness to know and understand others. This is called a confusion of the tongues.

Once again, we have to make the same action as was once performed in ancient Babylon. It is said that acts of the fathers are an example for their sons. Today, we once more need to exit from Egypt, but this will be the last exile before the final liberation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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In the News (from Maariv Online): “I saw a study on a television program that until recently the United States imported 25% of the global oil exports. It was dependent upon Saudi Arabia and other nations. Today everything has changed.

“It has developed a technology for attaining cheaper gas and oil from shale (a type of mineral), and presently the United States is standing at the top of the market of the principle suppliers of energy.

“Now the United States is facing the opposite problem, finding markets for the sale of its resources. The preferred direction is not the Middle East, but the nations of Europe and the Far East region. This factor explains the loss of interest of the United States regarding Israel. For the allies of the Jewish nation, the main asset is technology, but the United States doesn’t need this and can get along without the Israelis.

“Russia, China and Europe need technology, but the Chinese steal it, and the European Union replaces it with immigrants. Russia has itself defined extremist Islam as a threat to security and on a background of geopolitical changes a situation could be created whose signs are already sprouting up today; its interests will be identical to those of Israel and it will become its ally.

“In order to establish an alliance with Russia, a two-term Republican regime in the White House is required. This will gradually change the character of the mutual relationships and will not bring about a conflict with the United States, that in turn was expressed in the prohibition of supplying ammunition, weapons and spare parts. In a general view it is possible to say that the United States has decided to leave and go away, and what will Israel be for them? It will not have any importance. The time has come to search for new allies.”

My Comment: The strength of Israel will not be in the force of arms and technologies but only through a connection with the upper force that can be increased and expanded endlessly through unity between us according to the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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The basis of the Jewish nation is not an ethnic but rather an ideological basis. We have to start from way back, ages ago, when humanity was concentrated in ancient Babylon and people lived a simple life but in brotherhood. However, there came a time when conflicts broke out, and neighbors who used to be close and friendly began to feel suspicious of one another and gradually became strangers.

Imagine this situation in the perspective of our time: the neighbor’s grass is greener; he has a modern washing machine, and yesterday I saw a new refrigerator being delivered to his home. His wife is like a thorn in my wife’s eyes since she wears a new dress every day, his children are disrespectful, and what is more, he now has two new pure bred dogs who openly look down at my mutt with contempt…

In short, the ego grew in ancient Babylon and people ceased to feel themselves as one nation. It is as if they began to speak different languages.

Then Abraham, who was a great sage, discovered the inner essence of what was going on and found a true solution to the conflict. He discovered that they had to overcome the ego that had grown in order to maintain the warm and friendly relations between them.

But the majority didn’t accept that approach and it ended in a general break up. The tribes and peoples scattered all over the globe.

Very few followed Abraham and they were the ones who laid the foundations for the Jewish nation and the Jewish people. They established a society that despite the continuously growing ego, kept the feeling of closeness to one another and the warm family relations between them.
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Question: What is the difference between the Kabbalistic explanation of our world and Pesach (Passover), and the usual explanation we have known since we were children?

Answer: There are several levels that explain reality, existence, creation, development and the goal of man in it. When we speak about Pesach, for example, we can speak about:

1. The historical period of slavery our nation spent in Egypt.
2. A person’s enslavement to his ego in Egypt, to his Pharaoh.
3. The development of the created being, of the desire, under the influence of the Light, the Creator, and under the influence of darkness, Egypt, and Pharaoh.

At the same time we can speak about different levels:

1. The technical fulfillment of the rituals that in our language are called Mitzvot (commandments),
2. The psychological fulfillment of the commandment of “love thy friend as thyself,” as the general commandment and order of the Creator, which includes all the other commandments and orders as it says in the Torah: Love thy friend as thyself is the great rule of the Torah,
3. The Kabbalistic influence of the Upper Light on the worlds and through them on the souls that undergo different phases of development and their spiritual correction.
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Question: Was there ever a miracle that the Red Sea parted and the Israeli people went through it when they fled from Pharaoh?

Answer: The Torah doesn’t talk about events of our material world. It talks only about what happens between our souls. In this sense, we pass through an inner spiritual state called “Crossing the Red Sea.”

The exodus from Egypt and the freedom from the slavery of Egypt is freedom from the control of our ego, from the “Angel of Death.” In principle, on the way to this freedom, we move through some kind of passage called crossing the Red Sea. It symbolizes the end of Egypt, the end of our ego, after which we can become a free people.

A unique force of unity is hidden within nature that is called the Creator. When we invest in efforts to unite, to get closer to each other against our desire, then through these efforts the higher power creates a state where “splitting the Red Sea” will be discovered. It moves us from the egoistic nature to a nature of bestowal and love.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 3/15/15

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Question: The celebration of Passover is a special opportunity to learn something new about oneself, about our people, about our society, and make a qualitative change in our relationships to each other.

Rav Kook wrote that if the people of Israel once had not made this transition from slavery to freedom, the whole world would have never been able to make such a change. Is it true that the people of Israel affect the whole world so much?

Answer: The people of Israel are a special group of people that were selected from the entire world and came out from ancient Babylon in order to unite.

Today, the whole world is in the same mutual hatred, which once was revealed only between the Jews during the destruction of the Temple. Due to this hatred, Jews fell from the height of unity to the level of this world, and that means going into exile.

Today, the Jewish people are mixed with the entire world, and we all are in the same state, which is called Egypt or the slavery of mutual hatred.

Since the Jews have already exited this slavery, we have memories, the genes (Reshimot) of that previous state. This is why we must lead everyone else in exiting this terrible state the whole of humanity exists in now and in setting an example to everyone, meaning, being “a light to the nations of the world.”

Now this task is for the people of Israel who are living in the land of Israel. This is why we were able to come back here. We must realize our mission for the benefit of the whole world. After all, the purpose of creation is that all of humanity become one people, one family, as it is written in the Prophets.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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