Question: We know that Tzimtzum Aleph and Tzimtzum Bet (the first and second restrictions) exist in spirituality. Is it possible to say that there is also a third Tzimtzum, “Tzimtzum Gimel,” which separates our world from the spiritual world? Why don’t Kabbalists talk about our world or describe how the forces interact here?

Answer: There is Tzimtzum Aleph, which is eternal. There is Tzimtzum Bet, which becomes nullified with the completion of correction. There is no Tzimtzum Gimel and there is no need for it. Our world is a physical replica of the upper world. It is just the connections within it that are the opposite of the upper world.
[192233]

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Question: When a person feels the Creator, is he giving pleasure to the Creator?

Answer: Without a doubt, otherwise he would not feel the Creator. The feeling happens to the degree that a person resembles the Creator and this is specifically what gives the Creator pleasure.

Question: How can I use what I want for the sake of the Creator?

Answer: If a person doesn’t know what he wants for the sake of the Creator, this is a sign that he didn’t want it for the sake of the Creator but wants a reward. My advice would be to work on unification with people in a group.
[192230]

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Question: You often speak about unity among the friends, but can you discern between corporeal and spiritual feelings? After learning so many concepts, there might be a common confusion: what a good or a bad mood is, what joy is that stems from ordinary connections, and what his feelings are in general.

Is it even possible to discern these feelings or does it all work according to the method of faith? It is all very contradictory. One day I feel that I have a good ordinary life and I am in a good mood and love the whole world, and the next day I feel that I hate everyone. After all, these feelings change according to a person’s advancement and according to his spiritual ascent. This is all very similar to the way we build our relations in the corporeal world and to the way we feel about other people!

Answer: Only the persistent continuous work in group by discussing the mutual relations with the friends and by comparing their attributes with the Creator’s character can guide their relations by imitating and resembling the Creator. Thus, you will create His image between you, the first level of the upper world, (Nefesh of the world of Assiya). This will be your first revelation of the Creator.
[192134]

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Question: Can you engage in spirituality and make money from it? If there is nothing bad in the desire and all that needs correction is the intention, why can’t you make money from spirituality? After all, Baal HaSulam did take money for his lessons.

Answer: Baal HaSulam did take money for his lessons, not for himself but in order to oblige his students to take care and to work for the method they acquired. One of the requirements of spiritual work is to pay Maaser, a tithe. A person who wants to develop spiritually must understand that this is a basic precondition for his advancement, but it is not compulsory. A person can also study without putting any money in the general money box.

No one can make money from disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is very dangerous. If he hasn’t secured himself with a spiritual Masach (screen), which enables him to perform actions of bestowal, he may begin to calculate the interaction with his clients (we will call them clients in this case and not students) and make decisions that stem from his pocket.

Question: Who is it more dangerous for, the teacher or the students?

Answer: For the teacher. The students would only receive a corporeal method from him, which is similar to other psychological methods of study.
[190683]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/3/16

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Question: How should I yearn for bestowal or unity correctly when I still don’t understand what it is? How can I draw Light without the right intention? I still don’t understand what the right intention is, what bestowal is, and what unity is.

Answer: Everything takes place in the group where each of the members is interested in spiritual transformation. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us.

Question: How can I determine whether I have acquired the attribute of bestowal, whether I am in bestowal or not?

Answer: It is according to your attitude toward the friends in the group.
[192249]

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Question: Can a person yearn for wealth and prosperity in his corporeal life and at the same time for spiritual growth? Can these two desires coexist?

Answer: No they cannot. First, a person must work for a living and provide for his family, and only then strive for the next state. Spiritual advancement should not be fulfilled at the expense of the family.

If you have a family, you have no right to neglect it; your children, wife and parents need material support. You have to work seriously to bring your whole salary home, to the last penny! Only after distributing it to the needs of your family, can you be free to engage in the wisdom the Kabbalah.

What is more, a Kabbalist must work not only in order to provide for his family, but also in order to be connected through his work with other people. He must be grounded.
[190642]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/3/16

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A letter I received: “I have been listening to your lectures for quite a while, and I am impressed by your dedication.

“You are a wise and intelligent man who has seen a lot in life and who operates in order to attain the uppermost goal of creation, but I wonder what will happen if what you aspire for will not be revealed at the end. Where do you find the energy to believe in what you do?

“After all, it is an impossible mission, even with all of your great will when many have no patience or desire to reveal the Creator and live with Him forever and to make the world a perfect place. You seem to be the only person on this planet who can be a guarantor for all those who advance toward the Creator.

“I hope that, thanks to all of your efforts for the right to exist in the universe, you will be able to hear the Creator’s voice and receive His specific instructions for life not on this planet, but somewhere else.”

My Comment: There is no question in this letter, but I am publicizing it in order to say one thing only: Desire stems from the Creator, so I only thank Him for that.

In fact, you must pay for such a desire from the Creator, for the desire to reveal Him to the world and bring the world to Him, by your attitude to the Creator. This is what I am trying to do through my actions. Our pleasure stems from the Creator’s greatness in contrast to our shame, pride, and our feelings of worthlessness.
[192004]

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Question: Can a Kabbalist be annoyed and impatient with those around him at times?

Answer: If a person engages in the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah and wants to achieve something, he certainly feels tension and anger, has doubts, and different questions such as how he should act in the best possible way, and whether he should do his work one way or another. Although he is already included in the upper force, he has freedom of choice to use it in a better way, and so there is room for all the human feelings.

Question: As a Kabbalist are you ever insulted by anything?

Answer: No, what can I be insulted by? I can only be insulted by the upper force that takes everything upon itself.

Question: Is it typical of a Kabbalist to feel responsible?

Answer: A Kabbalist feels the greatest sense of responsibility because nothing forces him to work for the wellbeing of others except for a sense of responsibility and commitment that he has taken upon himself. The feeling of responsibility that he has is only with regard to the Creator and not anyone else. To the extent that a Kabbalist develops spiritually, he becomes increasingly less greedy. He teaches people how to discover the Creator in the right connection between them; he serves as a teacher for his students, an advisor, a mentor, and a coach until his students can advance independently. Then he feels that he doesn’t need anything and is only happy that they don’t need him anymore and that they can advance on their own.

Question: Does a Kabbalist have to be brave?

Answer: Everyone has to be brave and especially a Kabbalist. He has to clearly understand that he is in a conflict with the Creator who is revealed to him in different ways. A person undergoes such transformations that he needs to be persistent, stubborn, brave, and steadfast. A Kabbalist cannot be cowardly under any circumstances, but must be able to stick to his opinion when facing the Creator, when the Creator is testing him and trying to divert him from the right path by invoking in him different doubts, which thus strengthens him. This strengthening is attained thanks to a person’s very strong resistance.

Question: Is it typical of a Kabbalist to feel fear? What is he afraid of?

Answer: No, the fear disappears. A Kabbalist can only fear one thing: that he may not do what he has to do correctly.

Question: To what extent is a sense of humor important for a Kabbalist?

Answer: A sense of humor is very important in a Kabbalist’s work. I really appreciate humor and jokes and so did Rabash, my teacher, who used to listen to the jokes I told with great pleasure. Humor is a brilliant thought that comes to mind when a person encounters several awkward situations that contradict one another and knows how to connect them.

Question: Does a Kabbalist feel shame, and if so, of what?

Answer: A Kabbalist feels shame only if he doesn’t use an opportunity to attribute everything to the Creator; it isn’t shame of having been able to do something and not doing it because everything is fulfilled from Above, but it is shame of having had an opportunity to attribute what happened to the Creator and missing it. This is also arranged for him by the Creator so that he will attribute everything to Him.

Question: What would happen if I suddenly discovered that I did something 20 years ago that I feel ashamed of?

Answer: The past will be revealed to you as terrible transgressions and you have to understand that it was all done by the Creator, not by you. A person is not to blame for anything. Even the cruelest person didn’t do anything by himself. It is all arranged that way by the Creator on purpose.

Question: What is being noble for a Kabbalist?

Answer: Being noble is being committed, being responsible.

Question: Does a Kabbalist ever feel a sense of revenge or anger?

Answer: A sense of revenge is a correction. A person naturally feels angry when he cannot fulfill the corrections that depended on him, but the fact that he hasn’t corrected himself is intentionally arranged that way by the Creator. A Kabbalist is a person who is in an uncorrected state and each time rises from it to a more corrected state, and so he does have all these feelings.

Question: Is miserliness typical of a Kabbalist?

Answer: If you are referring to money, he can save money in order to spend it on dissemination.

Question: Can a Kabbalist be unfaithful?

Answer: He has a different set of values and so such things are not typical of him.

Question: Can he be jealous?

Answer: Jealousy is a positive attribute that motivates a person. We have to develop our feeling of envy of those who advance faster and further ahead along the spiritual way.
[191913]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/17/16

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Question: How can I see the forces that depict this world to me if I haven’t acquired a Masach (screen) yet, and the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) doesn’t influence me?

Answer: You cannot see anything before you acquire a Masach!

Question: You have said that we are all asleep and that this whole world is depicted to us as a dream. What stops a person from waking up and will he still exist in his physical body and continue to participate in this dream when he wakes up?

Answer: To wake up means to feel the upper world that manages us and to participate in its management.
[191883]

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Question: Isn’t our method overloaded with terms that increase the egoistic mind, which is useless in spirituality?

Answer: Our study of the wisdom of Kabbalah is based on a very limited study of Talmud Eser Sefirot (TES), with an emphasis on the study of the basics of the spiritual work.

I constantly regret the fact that I cannot study TES (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) with my students to the extent that we should. After all, studying about the upper world, about the leadership that manages us is essential in order to draw the Surrounding Light, (the Light that is external to us as long as we are not corrected), as it says in item 155 in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot.”
[191950]

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