Question: There are many songs created about love, and many wonderful romance novels written throughout the history of humanity. On the other hand, love has led to a great number of tragedies and wars. So much has been said about love. Perhaps it is a person’s  most sublime feeling. What is love?

Answer: Love is a special attitude of a person to someone or something. I love the sea, music, pleasant smells, etc. This is also called that I love.

Why do I love? Because it gives me pleasure. I enjoy the sea, the music, the smells, the skies. I love what gives me pleasure. Conversely, I hate what causes me suffering or problems. This is how love or hate that arises to people and animals.

It is “egoistic love” when I love something that gives me pleasure and hate what causes me suffering. We are like animals; we love what is good for us and move away from things that are bad for us. This is called love. Meaning, it is not love toward some object, but rather love for what it awakens within me.

For example, I run into a friend and he tells me that he has divorced. “What has happened?!” “Love has gone.” It means that love exists up to the moment where we can receive pleasure from one another. Even today doctors say that love between partners disappears in 2 to 3 years.

This is not the love that the wisdom of Kabbalah is talking about. The wisdom of Kabbalah talks about love as something that is above a person’s ego, which enjoys using someone or something. Love is something we build on two levels.

There is a level of relationship between us which may involve arguments and even hate, i.e., disagreement with one another. At the same time, above these disagreements, we build a special connection called “love.”

We work a lot on this, make efforts, and invest time building it. This is called “love will cover all transgressions.” It means that we build love precisely above transgressions, above disagreements that exist between us.

Only in this way can two people connect one with the other so their mutual connection would be good, strong, healthy, and truly human. This connection is between people who understand that they are egoists and that again tomorrow they can have a dispute but they will still continue working to make their connection beautiful and kind, and it is called “love.”

This is not love that is built on sexual attraction, habit, or something that is good for me today but tomorrow may be the opposite.

On the contrary, it is love between people: a man and a woman, children, within a nation, or within a group of people. But with all this we do not treat each other based on receiving pleasure one from another, where I receive pleasure from the other one and therefore I love. After all, this would be the animal level.

At the human level we create connections of love between us above everything that we receive one from another—pleasures or the opposite—up to the point that I can hate the other for his habits that I do not like. Still I have to love him, for example, for the reason that we belong to the same nation.

Then we will work on how we can also become closer one to another in the habits at the level of this world—physical, national, and so forth.

In other words, love is the highest value in relationship between people who are going to connect with each other since they are obliged to be tied and they chose this connection. Then they constantly work on this.

Therefore it is said that “love will cover all transgressions.” There are “transgressions” between us, various disagreements, and above them we are constantly building love. Even more, the more disagreements, the stronger love should be above them.

This is the way we have to educate people. Then we will be able to come to the state where we will be able to open an umbrella of love above the entire world, above all of humanity. This is precisely what love is. Otherwise, it is just a physiological love where you love something that is good for your body; this is love of animals, whereas human love is built above all that makes me unhappy about the other one. There is some reason, a higher value, that obliges me to be in connection with the other one.

We both understand that at the regular level we have all kinds of disagreements with regard to the country, life, and everything else, but in any case we come to the decision that we have to be connected despite that we are different and our structure is different.

We build this connection, our love, slowly, step by step, based on our superior goal which we together have to reach in connection between us and above our physical bodies.
[178308]
From the Program on Radio Station 103FM, 2/14/2016

Related Material:
Love Without Conditions
Earthly Love Is Worthless From The Start
The Art Of Love

Filed under: Man and Woman, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What does it mean, “that which is not attained, we do not call by a name”?

Answer: In the wisdom of Kabbalah, unlike in philosophy and the perception of our world, there is nothing that exists by itself. Everything exists only in my perception and sensation. And only about this do I have the right to speak.

There is no Creator, no creation, no worlds, nothing that we could call existing. Only I feel that this exists, I think, I see. Only in this way can I say something about it. Everything is perceived within my senses, depends on my attitude, and is entirely relative to me.

Therefore, we speak only about what a person reveals and attains. The Creator in Hebrew is called “Bo-Re,”  “Come and See.” There is no Creator without creation.

The quality of bestowal, which is revealed inside our Kelim according to the equivalence of form with something outside, unattainable to us, we call Creator (“Come and See”): “Look what I saw!”
But I perceived Him in my organs of sensation, which changed within my transformed qualities. This change is within me.

I say: “The Creator has clothed in me!” Why? “Look at the form I have taken!” This form I call Creator. I do not point to Him Himself, but speak about the form clothed in my matter. This form I call Creator. The matter, the will to receive, has taken on the form of the desire to bestow.

Therefore, we evaluate and define everything only relative to the person attaining, and never outside of him. All the worlds are my Kelim, my vessels of perception. They only appear to me as existing outside.
In my inner desire I perceive myself, and in my outer desire I perceive the world since my Kelim are divided into internal and external. But when they unite together, I will have 10 Sefirot of the soul, and then the world will disappear, everything will enter into me.

Now I feel all those around me as existing outside, because my Kli is incomplete, broken. If it were whole, I would not distinguish anyone around me. I would perceive everything as the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).
[4808]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/09, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Introduction to the Book ‘From the Mouth of a Wise Man’”

Related Material:
On The Other Side Of Perception
Why Do We Perceive A Divided Reality?
Come And See Your Creator!

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception - No Comments →

Restriction means that Malchut of Ein Sof diminished the will to receive in her. Then the light disappeared because there is no light without a vessel.

This is the meaning of the restriction, that the will to receive that is contained in the light of Ein Sof, called Malchut of Ein Sof, which is the thought of creation in Ein Sof, which contains the whole of reality, embellished herself to ascend and equalize her form with His self. Hence, she diminished her will to receive His abundance in phase four in the desire. Her intention was that by so doing, the worlds would be emanated and created down to this world.

In this manner, the form of the will to receive would be corrected and return to the form of bestowal, and that would bring her to equivalence of form with the Emanator (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot – Inner Observation).

After the restriction, Malchut of Ein Sof begins to transform itself from reception for its own sake to reception for the sake of bestowal, and in accordance with this, it gradually fills itself with light in its five parts. These measured receptions of the light for the sake of bestowal are called worlds.

In other words, the worlds are portions of light received by Malchut with the intention to delight the Creator.

Question: Is our world also a portion of some light?

Answer: Our world has nothing at all. It is imaginary, illusory, since it exists purely in an egoistic form. A restriction was made on it, and it exists only on the basis of a fictitious egoistic desire that appears to us in order to provide us with a point of departure.

Yet in our world, there still is a tiny spark of light called Ner Dakik (a thin candle) so that we are able to exist within this imagined reality.

Question: And this tiny spark has set in motion the whole world, all human concepts, and the entire history of humanity?

Answer: No, everything stems only from the light. The upper light is the only Creator.

Everything that we feel happens only relative to us. When we ascend above this state and enter the quality of bestowal, we will discover that our world does not exist.

Question: Does it mean there is a world and there is the one who perceives it?

Answer: No, the world exists only for the one who perceives it. It is nothing more than a subjective impression. We cannot determine anything outside of ourselves. Even a Kabbalist feels everything only in his own vessels, either of reception or of bestowal, but they are still his vessels. Outside of them, nothing can be perceived. One may assume anything, but that is no longer science.
[234891]
From Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 6/10/2018

Related Material:
Through The Screen Of Our World
The Real History of the World
The World Is Our Reflection

Filed under: Perception, Structure of the Universe - No Comments →

Question: In Kabbalah there are two fundamental concepts: the Creator and the creation. What are they?

Answer: Initially there is a incorporeal, nameless force without any properties that could be defined in any way and that has nothing to do with us.

This force is called “Atzmuto,” which in Hebrew means existing by itself; that is, it is something we do not touch at all and cannot research.

Question: And we will never attain it?

Answer: We cannot say this because we deal only with our own correction. We do not know what we will begin to attain and reveal after we correct ourselves.

Atzmuto gives birth to the quality of bestowal and love. This quality is what we call the Creator. It can be defined only in relation to the creation. There cannot be the Creator without creation and creation without the Creator. They emerge from Atzmuto simultaneously: the light and the desire within it. The desire is called the creation, and the light is called the Creator.

The desire of the Creator is to bestow, to fill, to love. The desire of the creation is to receive, to be loved, to absorb.

Gradually, these two mutually opposite forces begin to develop through the four phases of direct light from which the desire to receive emerges that completes its formation in the last, fourth phase, Malchut.

From Malchut the worlds branch out: Adam Kadmon (the prototype of the future human), Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. Their purpose is the gradual weakening of the light and the simultaneous development of desire: the less light, the greater the desire. The desire develops all the way to our world by absorbing the light.

In the process of the development of the desire, many different actions take place. When it reaches our level, it breaks, absorbs the light into itself, and begins to develop into a semblance of the light. This is what is happening with us.

The fact is that corporeally, in the form we now perceive ourselves in now, we do not exist. Our world and we ourselves are an illusion in our sensations. We perceive everything only within ourselves.

Question: If we do not exist, then why do we feel each other and the world?

Answer: It is because we have a commonality of sensations through which we can interact with one another.

Very often, we do not understand each other because beside this commonality, we also have individual desires and thoughts. Therefore, we interpret what we perceive differently. But in sensations, we are in agreement with one another.

For example, we have a shared sensation that there is a table in front of us. Such natural agreements are initially embedded in us because we are all built on the same principle.

Question: If there is no corporeal reality, then what does exist?

Answer: Our entire universe, everything around us, and we ourselves are a set of waves. Even physicists agree with this today.

Question: Physicists say that if we look at electrons, we see them as corporeal particles. But if no one is looking at them, they behave like waves. Why is that?

Answer: It is because the waves outside of us are also us. Everything is spoken of and felt only in relation to us. There is nothing that we can perceive outside of ourselves.

Question: Why is this not taught in schools? People would treat each other quite differently.

Answer: When I was a child, we were taught that the universe exists eternally and is infinite in size. Today science refutes this and claims that the universe has existed for fourteen billion years and has definite dimensions. That is, we are constantly developing.

But this knowledge will not change the relationships between people. What difference does it make to a person what scientists say? First and foremost, one thinks about one’s livelihood, health, and diversion. A person is an ordinary animal organism that wants “bread and circuses.”
[226927]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/2017, “Kabbalistic Principles and Their Spiritual Meaning and Application”

Related Material:
How Did The First Matter Appear?
The Worlds Are Within Us
The Reality Of The Universe

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Perception, Structure of the Universe - No Comments →

Question: Can I return to the illusory past in order to change my present?

Answer: Returning to the past is forbidden! Whether you are capable of doing it or not does not matter. You must focus only on the future. Only the future! Remember this, and under no circumstances, even if you ever have the opportunity, should you return.

Question: Can we say that by changing our attitude toward the past, we change the past, and by changing a quality in the present, we change the future?

Answer: Let it be so for now. Later you will correct it yourself.
[250418]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/19

Related Material:
It Is Pointless To Regret What Was Swallowed In Ein Sof
It Wasn’t Me!
There Is Nothing Worse Than Regretting The Past

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Everything was created by a single thought, and this one thought encompasses and includes everything from the beginning of creation to its end. Everything that comes from there is contained there, which due to our lack of correction appears to us as fragmented and contradictory to the extreme.

But all this division and separation, all the “antagonism” and opposition between these parts, exists only in us, in our perception. We simply lack the unity to see them as a single whole where each detail complements the other.

If we correct our desire by equipping it with an intention for the sake of bestowal, then these two poles (the left and the right) will merge together and unite in the middle line. Then for us, everything will unite into one, both the force of the Creator and the force of creation. We will come to understand that all these separating forces, which tore us apart, were only necessary in order to reveal our unity. Without them, we would not have been able to attain it! The advantage of the light is attained from within the darkness.

The advantage of the light, unity, bestowal, love, is attained only through darkness, through its opposite states. Otherwise, we would not be able to attain it, to understand and feel the taste of adhesion. A person understands everything only through the contrast of two opposites.

Therefore, in the thought of creation there is only one quality. But in creation itself two opposite qualities were embedded so that it could correct itself and unify them into one. In doing so, it becomes similar to the Creator.

The perfection of the Creator lies in His singular quality—bestowal. Creation is perfected when it includes two qualities: the desire to receive, but with the intention to bestow. Its intention is bestowal, and in contrast, it possesses a desire to receive fulfillment. It is precisely from the difference between these two that it perceives unity.

That is why it is said, “The greater the person, the greater his ego.” The greatest separation and opposition are revealed just before attaining the world of infinity. There a person feels an infinite gap between reception and bestowal, the utter impossibility of uniting them and making them complement each other. This is what one feels right before making the final correction.
[43098]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/2011, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Unity Cannot Be Held By Inertia
Unifying The Two Forces Of Nature Within
Sentenced To Mercy

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Comment: A device was recently developed that can read a person’s thoughts and reproduce them in writing or artificial voice. The next step in this “utopia” will be a computer that can read both my and your thoughts and link us so we can share them. If we’re connected through the same computer, I can literally participate in your thinking. That is what experts say. They believe the prospect of this mass consciousness is quite terrifying. It completely destroys freedom of thought and individuality.

My Response: The same thing is already happening now, just through cruder schemes of influencing people through the media, etc.

Only this will be compact, quiet, and we will all stare at the world with square eyes.

Question: And think that those thoughts are mine?

Answer: We might not even be thinking at all. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

Comment: But I need to feel that there’s an “I.” That I made a decision.

My Response: Don’t worry, you don’t have an “I.” It’s going to be great? You will be floating in the clouds.

Question: Can they implant even that, that I don’t exist?

Answer: Anything can be done with a person. Life is one big joke. A small, silly one.

Question: Then what is “I”?

Answer: There is no “I” in anyone. It is a part of the Creator that a person acquires if he rises above his nature.

Question: Your advice for how we escape this?

Answer: My advice is very simple: wake up!

But this is possible only with the help of a special, higher energy that we can draw if we unite. That is what Kabbalah says. That is the whole secret of unity: Love your neighbor.

Why love your neighbor? To rise toward the upper governing system, to the supreme information. When you possess it, it is in you and you in it; you will be able to govern it.

That is what is meant by: “My sons have defeated Me.” That is, to reach a state where you, as a human being, govern the world, your condition, everything. You will understand what is happening and see the world from end to end.

Question: Is that the true “I”?

Answer: That is the true “I” of a person.

And if that is absent, then what is the point of anything else? We are completely dependent, trapped in a matrix that governs us. We don’t understand this and we don’t know this. So why should we obey and live by the laws of the animal world?

Question: What should I do?

Answer: Engage only in connection.

Question: What is the connection?

Answer: Connection is when all of us understand that mutual, kind relations will lead us to the understanding, awareness, and sensation of upper governance.

Question: Can egoists relate kindly to one another?

Answer: No, we start by asking: Who are we? What can I even do?

Question: So I must learn my own nature?

Answer: I can’t learn my nature if I don’t try to rise above it. This is how we begin to sense who we really are. And then, within ourselves, our new selves, we begin to feel the upper governance.

Question: So the sequence is: I realize I must connect with another person?

Answer: It is not just desirable, it is necessary! I don’t want to, but there is no choice.

Question: And I make efforts and more efforts and realize I can’t. What next?

Answer: I unite with others who also want to but can’t, and together we begin to ask the upper force.

Question: So in the end, we come to a plea to the upper force?

Answer: Of course! We have no other tool to change ourselves.

If we sincerely ask, from the heart, we receive. We compel this upper force to change us.

We change our nature and begin to see the world differently: through a different desire and different intention. In a different light, as they say. In the quality of bestowal. In the way the world truly exists. We are just trapped in our own qualities and that is why we don’t perceive it.
[258856]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 3/26/25

Related Material:
Can One Read Other People’s Thoughts?
“I” – The Degree Of Similarity To The Creator
The “Self” From A Kabbalistic Point Of View

Filed under: Free Will, News, Perception - No Comments →

Question: Can a Kabbalist be a scoundrel?

Answer: This cannot be because he clearly sees the qualities of the Creator and is a part of Him.

But how can you think that a person is capable of performing miracles? What miracles do you want? Like little children, I want this to happen! If there is some mechanism inside the object, you press a button and show the child the so-called “miracle.” He opens his mouth because he does not understand the connection between the button and what happened.

We are all in exactly the same state.

I remember how I was once sitting in an airport in the north of Russia. Some Chukchi (a member of an Indigenous people of extreme northeastern Siberia) was passing by, and at that moment, the door of a box that measures the air temperature suddenly opened. You know, there is such a device. There is a box on a column in which there are barometers, thermometers, and other measuring devices. A motor (selsyn) automatically opens the door of the box so that air enters, and the devices measure it. Then the box closes until the next measurement.

When the Chukchi saw this, he almost fell. You should have seen his face. I thought: “Well, now a new god is being born before him.” For him, naturally, it is a miracle. Suddenly a door opens…

It is the same with us. We all wait for such phenomena, behind which stand these selsyns that open and close doors.
[345348]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Can Kabbalists Walk through Walls?” 9/16/10

Related Material:
Not Magic But Reality
Kabbalists And Supernatural Powers
Kabbalah And Magic

Filed under: Perception, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We do not realize how much our attitude toward the world improves it! Only now are physicists discovering that the results of their experiments with matter depend on the experimenter and their attitude. Only now are we discovering that even a plant feels how I relate to it.

We do not understand that it is precisely our attitude, meaning, our intention, that changes all of reality. We do not see it because we do not see the results. And we do not see intentions, we cannot clarify them, see them, or measure them. That is the problem.

Nevertheless, this alone operates in the universe; matter is brought into motion specifically by the attitude toward it. What is a matter by itself for? It cannot generate any movement on its own.

Therefore, when speaking about how we should appear before the rest of the world, it should not be at all as if we are actively involved in politics, economics, security, or anything of the sort.

Our involvement is solely in education, spreading this knowledge and bringing everyone who desires it to the right attitude toward reality, nature, and the world in which they live.
[344681]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Intention And Its Influence On Reality
Intention: An Oil Painting
The Intention Is The Means For Changing Ourselves And The World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

There is no greater holiday than the holiday of receiving the Torah. After all, if not for the Torah, we would only lead an animal existence “for as long as the world turns.”

But we have the opportunity to use the upper force, and with its help to leap into a higher dimension, to continue our existence, to live in the spiritual dimension.

From this world, this reality we are experiencing now, we can smoothly transition into a new state, into another world, a dimension that has nothing to do with planet Earth and this universe.

We can reveal ourselves as existing in the form of eternal, perfect, complete harmony, without the limitations of the material world.

With the help of the upper force, a passage will open for us from our world, from this flawed life, to a perfect existence.

The means of transition from our dimension to a higher one is called “Torah,” a special force that gradually changes us to a new state; and to the extent of our change, we smoothly transition into it, until all our earthly, i.e., all our egoistic properties are replaced by spiritual, altruistic ones.

A person receives the opportunity to move on to an eternal and perfect existence. Therefore, getting this opportunity is the most important event in our lives, a true holiday!
[14373]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/10, Writings of Rabash “What Is Preparation for Reception of the Torah – 1”

Related Material:
Shavuot: The Way To Life
From The Giving Of Torah To Its Reception
A Joyful Giving Of The Torah Holiday

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception, Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →