Question: What is the purpose of the circulation of the knowledge of Kabbalah and in what forms should it be carried out?

Answer: There is a reality that we perceive in our desire to receive pleasure, and we cannot disclose it more than we feel it now. There is also a reality that we can apprehend in our desire to bestow. To the extent we desire to bestow we can reveal the upper force, the nature of which is complete bestowal. We can attain only these two qualities.

We perceive our world in our desire to receive pleasure and can develop in it. But essentially, our world is limited by our egoistic desire that absorbs everything “into itself.” Consequently, we discover ourselves existing in a body made of flesh and in the surrounding environment.

Whereas the desire to bestow reveals for us the five worlds and the upper force, where we feel ourselves eternal and perfect like the upper force. But the problem is that in our desire to enjoy we sense a need for this world. Whereas we don’t have any need for the desire to bestow, for the spiritual world, and we have to develop it. Otherwise, we will not be able to attain the spiritual world.

The question is how I can develop a need for something I don’t want, feel, or understand and have no taste for? I don’t have any prerequisites for it; I have never tasted spirituality. What should I strive for?

I can advance towards it by means of problems and blows. But then I will only want to get rid of the blows, to run away from them, pushing or pricking me from behind. And how can I discover good awaiting for me ahead? I cannot see, feel, or taste it.

Thus, we do not have any choice. Blows, suffering, problems, crises, and bankruptcies alone cannot help us: All these impacts will not assist us in reaching spirituality. Therefore, Baal HaSulam states that there should be a preliminary condition for revelation of spirituality—the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah, which is referred to as “the call of the Messiah’s horn.”

I need to disclose to the world that there is something good, pleasant, and worthy that opens everything before you. It should be so attractive that even if I do not feel any lack now, I will suddenly realize that I am missing a different world—the upper one.

How can I get a desire for it? It is possible if I get impressed by the environment that tells me about it. Meaning, I need a good, big environment that “will brainwash me” to such a degree that I will really want something I do not want now. And we can see that the society is able to do it.

Therefore, everything depends on the environment. Otherwise, sufferings will come and will bombard me with blows—until I develop a desire to disseminate and try to disseminate in any case in order to receive an aspiration to move forward. By virtue of this desire I will be able to progress towards the quality of bestowal, towards the spiritual world, and then and only then I will attain it.

Thus, dissemination is an indispensable and mandatory condition for attaining spirituality. In what forms should we disseminate? In any! How can we influence a person? Through all his senses: Let him be impressed, desire, beg, or fear—it could be anything that will make him desire spirituality, as it is said: “I want!” Otherwise, if I don’t wish to advance on my own, only sufferings will come from behind, which is not enough.

We should desire spirituality ourselves and only then we will reveal it. That desire must be complete and reach a full measure called “Seah.” And I can receive it only from the environment. Therefore, you should realize how important circulation is!
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From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Thought. Movement. Time.

Spiritual movement is not movement from place to place. Rather, it refers to a renewal of form since we denominate every renewal of form by the name “movement.”
– Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Reflection,” Chapter 9

The spiritual definition of time is only a sensation of movements. Our mind pictures and devises a certain number of movements, which it discriminates one by one and translates them like a certain amount of “time.” Thus, if one had been in a state of complete rest with one’s environment, he would not even be aware of the concept of time.
– Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part One, Inner Reflection, Chapter 9
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All of reality is the development of our desire to receive pleasure. It first needs to develop on its own—until it reaches a spiritual degree. And from this point on, we begin to develop in two ways, according to two parallel paths: a left and a right one, always rising above our desire to receive pleasure and working for the importance of the desire to bestow. We do this until we understand that there is no such thing as the desire to receive: Everything that exists is pure bestowal.

It is in this way that we come to a point where there is nothing white, but there is continuous white Light around it, and we begin to do different actions to maintain this white quality. The entire work happens at night in order to separate the nature of the receiver from the nature of the giver and to understand that our desire to receive pleasure is merely the reverse imprint of Light. It is specifically given to us so we will overcome it, rise above this darkness, and build our own reality.

These obstacles to overcome are like school exercises or sports practices which our entire advancement depends upon. And the instructor is good when he has a big reserve of good and appropriate exercises organized in the right sequence, according to the needs of every student. He also knows how to bring a person to correction, meaning to the goal, in the quickest and most efficient way.

Our entire life is a series of exercises that the Creator puts before us, waiting for us to properly react to them every time. And He is a competent judge who never makes mistakes, who knows all our ways and everyone’s foundation. This is why we need to understand that everything we feel, in every moment of our existence, is only intended for the quickest and most efficient attainment of the good and proper goal of our development, till we reach the final perfect state.

This is why we need to justify all of the Creator’s actions over us and all the situations He places before us so that we can practice overcoming and evaluating, thereby establishing a proper attitude. This is our life in every aspect of it.

But when we fail to do an exercise and react the right way, the next stage follows. And if our actions are successful at this stage, we also correct the debt we have left over from last time. All the states at any moment are connected in a chain as causes and consequences: the sensation in the heart and the mind, the perception of reality, the sensation of the past, the present, and the future, and of the entire environment. All these things I paint with my own qualities, like using paints on a canvas of white Light, which I take from the black point, submerged in a white ocean of bestowal.

Everything that exists besides this white Light that I do not yet distinguish, all these things are shades of my qualities. And if I raise them to the level of justifying the One who brings me the current sensations, I will see myself as a black point in the ocean of white Light. And everything else I see besides this is an addition to bring me to the next, higher degree.

And His addition always comes as a sensation of darkness in all the different forms my current reality paints for me. But all these colors are made with my “613” corrupt desires. This is why I see that in all of reality, both corporeal life and inner sensation (the heart and the mind), the Creator always invites me to attain similarity to Him. After all, I have nothing more than one single black point as the foundation that He used to create me “from absence” thanks to the ocean of upper Light.

Spiritual work begins here.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/2011, Shamati #127

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Rav Kook: “Great spiritual questions that are resolved only for great and outstanding people now have to be resolved on different levels of the entire nation. In order to lower great, lofty things from the height of their grandeur to the depth of the level of the masses, a tremendous wealth of spirit is needed, as well as constant social activity that becomes a habit. Only then will knowledge expand and the language appear enabling deeper things to be expressed in an easy, popular style, thereby returning the afflicted souls.”

The science of Kabbalah really is very concealed and distant from people, even though everything is in one “place”: the worlds and souls, Sefirot, Partzufim, circles, and lines. Everything we study in the science of Kabbalah is in one place, in one state. However, in the perception of the receivers, it becomes revealed according to the law of equivalence of form. Our current qualities determine which part of the perfect reality we are able to perceive.

Today our qualities are egoistic, extremely limited, and restricted. Therefore, we perceive only a tiny portion of the enormous world we are in. And we perceive it through the bodily perception, which is confined by the boundaries of time, motion, and space. All of this limits us tremendously.

Throughout all of history, human creatures were in this state, and only individuals were able to perceive the true reality where “to perceive” means to live it, to exist in the same quality. This is because I live in concordance with the qualities that I am able to develop within. If they are above time, then I am eternal, and if they are immersed inside of time, then my existence is temporary. If my qualities are above space, I feel all of reality from end to end, but if they are closed in on some tiny fragment, then I am inside of it and perceive myself as limited in volume inside of this 3D coordinate system. I am also limited in motion, shifting along the physical axis rather than the time axis.

In short, there are many limitations, and in this regard everything depends on my qualities. We don’t really understand this because we are used to certain qualities that we were born in, grew up in, and now live in. However, if we really change them, then we will transform our reality completely. By perceiving a higher layer of it, we will experience it as infinite, located above time, space, and motion. There, we can live in completely different conditions.

This is why Kabbalah is called the science about reception because with its help, we can receive or perceive a completely different reality. We acquire a certain “regulator” by means of which we can change the axis of time, space, and motion, shifting to other dimensions and times with a slight shift of inner qualities.

All of this is realistic. This capability is present inside of us. We can influence the Light that forms us, and accordingly, it will endow us with various qualities. This mechanism was used by Kabbalists of all generations until our time.

However, today we have found ourselves in a special state where all of humanity is acquiring this capability. An impulse is being born in us to change the current form of existence. We are starting to feel worse and worse in this world and are finding less and less benefits from life in it. We are still holding on to it due to not having any other choice, due to the unwillingness to suffer, but are starting to be more persistent in asking ourselves the question, “What for? Why? What’s the point of this existence?”

Questions and suffering of different levels are pushing us to search. And at the same time, we are revealing an inner capability to control the force that created us to such an extent that we really will change with its help. Then, in this period of time, in this life, in our reality, we will be able to turn the little wheels inside of us and find ourselves in completely different dimensions.

This is what Rav Kook writes about: “Great spiritual questions that are resolved only for great and outstanding people now have to be resolved on different levels of the entire nation.” Anyone is capable of it.
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From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Thought. Movement. Time.

The desire is the root of the mind and not the mind the root of desire.
– Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

The desire is the “self” of the person, and the thought is the consequence, outcome of the desire.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 153, “The Thought Is an Upshot of the Desire”

The mind is enslaved by and serves the desire.
-Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 21
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

All these images and changes begin and end only with the impression of the souls.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33

There is no change at all in the world of Atzilut itself, whether the lower ones receive its great abundance lushly, or receive nothing at all. The above mentioned greatness lies solely on the lower ones.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 32

When the Light of Malchut descends and expands over the people, it appears to them, to each and every one, according to their own appearance, vision, and imagination, meaning only in the receivers and not at all in the Sefira Malchut herself.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 35
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All the upper worlds, the breaking and the descent from Above downward all the way until this world, and then the development in this world until our time, all of this cannot yet be called the creature. Only now, when we are finally beginning to reveal something and to supplement our previous development, it can be said that we are approaching the beginning of being the creature. The degrees we are now beginning to realize are turning into some sort of actual reality.

Everything that happened before: the four phases of the Direct Light, Malchut of the world of Infinity, the entire expansion of the worlds all the way until our world, the birth of our universe, the Earth, and humanity, its entire history until today, all this is like a grain that contains the entire program, the entire process in its potential. After all, none have yet realized their freedom of will! There is no creature yet! None have yet done anything by their own desire, their free choice, separate from the Creator.

This special process is starting only today. Until now everything came from Above. And even when we read about certain actions, such as screens, calculations, all of this refers to the future. In addition, people who have already attained this from below upward tell us about it. And only the upper program is realized from Above downward.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

We can only speak on the basis of our sensations, to the degree that we are impressed by the impact of the Light that fulfills us and is aroused by “His desire to do good to His creations,” and to the degree that it reaches the receivers.

Similarly, when we examine a table our sense of touch feels it as something hard. We also discern its length and width, all according to our senses. However, that does not necessitate that the table will appear so to one who has other senses. For example, in the eyes of an angel, when it examines the table, it will see it according to its senses. Hence, we cannot determine any form with regard to an angel since we do not know its senses.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”
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It is extraordinarily difficult for us to change the ideas we have formed over the course of our entire lives until now. In fact, it’s simply impossible. One way or another, we remain with our old perception, even though it seems as if we are already changing. In fact, nothing is moving. However, now we have to change our old perspective to a new one, and this change has to happen in the whole world. So where can we get this new perception, an integral view?

Suppose that tomorrow the whole world wanted to turn into an integrally connected network where every person devotes his full energy to work for the sake of society (even though today no one wants this and no one feels this way, but let’s be dreamers for a moment). How will we find out how to build this system, how we should be connected and interact with one another?

How can we build such a government and society, production and trade, since all of this must exist as long as we live in the material bodies? Therefore, we are obligated to organize the entire system of relationships that ensures our life on earth in order to satisfy the needs of our animate bodies.

To do this we need many systems, but how can be build them by the laws of bestowal where every person is free and freely acts to maximally bestow to others, where every person knows what he should be doing in this ideally organized machine, in which all the cogwheels are spinning in harmony? This seems like a utopia, so how is it possible to actually make this transition?

It’s possible to write a novel about this, but how can we rationally envision an economic system that is necessary in such a society, the government and judicial structure, this entire mechanism, from the large elements to the tiniest bolts, including the supply of goods, care for the elderly, families, children, construction, and culture? The organization of all of this is very complex because everything has to operate in “perpetual motion” without the fuel that we are used to!

Everything has to work upon a different source of energy—love for the neighbor. But where will it come from? If I simply receive it from above, the way I now feel love for my own children, then I will be working automatically again, like a machine. So what’s the difference? Instead of egoistic love, I will be driven by love for the neighbor, so what will change?

Therefore, we have to build one thing upon the other so it would work upon resistance, ascent, the sensation of ourselves between two worlds or two desires where every person constantly rises above his egoism, which pulls him back toward the earth.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/11, “The Nation”

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

For themselves, all the worlds are regarded as simple unity and there is no change in them. This is the meaning of “I the Lord do not change.” There are no Sefirot and Behinot (discernments) in the Creator since the essence of the Light itself, the Creator, cannot be attainted. Rather, all the discernments speak only of what a person attains in them.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”

The proliferation of the names is only with respect to the receivers. Hence, the first name that appeared, that is, the root for the creatures, is called Infinity. And this name remains unchanged. All the restrictions and the changes are made only with regard to the receivers, and He always shines in the first name, “His desire to do good to His creations,” endlessly.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”
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