Question: Is it possible to explain the Kabbalistic method using terms of modern science?

Answer: Can you explain the mathematical Fourier transform to a cow? These are different degrees. A person who does not have a “sixth sense,” a point in the heart, cannot understand what you are talking about. He does not have a need for this, and therefore, it’s pointless to talk to him. Therefore, in our wide dissemination, we have to conform to the desires of the masses rather than of those who study Kabbalah.

Throughout all the generations, the world did not understand Kabbalists. And the world is right: From their degree people are not capable of this yet. It says in the Psalms, “You save humans and animals…”—but when? Today you cannot explain to people about the altruistic intention Lishma. It’s even difficult to talk to them about the topic of the perception of reality. This is intriguing and provocative, but they don’t understand or grasp the essence because they simply can’t.

In order for a person to really be able to hear words about the correction of his desires, he needs one more level of desire. But until then, we can only accelerate his development using external means. One way or another, as long as he doesn’t feel the sting in his heart, he won’t understand your explanations.

That is how the world is built. People are on different levels of development, and even at the end of correction the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels will remain. Yet it is written, “Everyone will know Me from the smallest of them to the greatest of them,” meaning each person according to his level.

The time will come when we will see how people will start grasping our words: some through scientific terms, others in the language of feeling, and others yet by virtue of simple actions, which are enough for a person to join the unity. Some need to attain and feel the adhesion, to actively participate in it, whereas for others this is unnecessary. Everything is determined by one’s desire.

We shouldn’t suppose that everyone will receive the same degree of desire for bestowal and the Creator’s revelation. However, every person will receive the full measure in accordance with his own vessels, and will be filled thanks to the common inter-inclusion.

That is why to this day Kabbalists concealed their knowledge. But now this knowledge can be revealed, although every person will hear just an insignificant part of it. Nevertheless, as a whole the Light is already starting to operate in a big mass of the common desire. This is the revolution that is happening in the world today. The modern crisis is essentially the inter-inclusion of desires.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/11, Shamati

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Question: Where is my freedom of choice? How can I decide between two choices?

Answer: Man does not face two choices, but only one. We are not standing at a crossroads, needing to decide whether to go right or left. There is no such thing! I am on a straight highway, and my only choice is whether or not to accelerate my advancement.

If I’m moving very slowly, then every moment I receive blows from every bump on this rough, broken highway that’s full of potholes, where wild beasts can attack me at every turn, and a host of other problems and even wars await me.

Or I can take a helicopter and fly over the highway. That depends on me.

However, the direction remains the same and the goal we achieve is the same. And although it says that we can fall off the path, that doesn’t refer to deviating from the highway itself, but to a refusal to travel at a high speed of our own accord.

In that case I advance in accordance with the engine of the program of creation, which is called “in its time” (Beito), and at every step I receive problems, blows, wars, hardships, diseases, and crises, everything that transpires in our lives, in all possible manifestations of the desire to enjoy.

Indeed, it has to demonstrate to me all of these problems so that the despair and problems compel me to “refine” it and cease to desire pleasure in such states. That is sufficient to correct the desire to enjoy at this first degree: the animate level.

Question: How can I check if I fell out of the helicopter onto the highway again?

Answer: First of all, I sense it in accordance with my degree of awakening, inspiration, and aspiration toward the goal. I must check whether I’m “burning” with the importance of the connection with the group, which is the only means of advancement. Am I working toward it, am I making use of all the means at my disposal? These means are the teacher, the group, and the books.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How do our efforts to unify during our reading of The Book of Zohar impact the world? What changes does it instill?

Answer: There is no world per se. Your efforts build this reality for you. Right now, it seems to you as you see it. To the degree of your exerted efforts, you create another reality, a different world. What you make is what you get.

Spirituality has no image. It doesn’t have any specific picture unless a person forms it within himself, within his desires that he collected and linked in one.

We should reflect on this as much as possible in order to get accustomed to this view of reality. This isn’t about spiritual attainment. I am saying that every person in our world, who hasn’t attained any spirituality yet, can still choose to view reality as suggested and in so doing begin experiencing certain sensory impressions.

Question: But how do our efforts to unify affect the desires of the most coarse level within us, where there is no yearning to unite? It seems that at the deepest level, I don’t have the slightest aspiration or desire to unite with the others….

Answer: I am made of desires of all kinds and forms, of all levels of Aviut (thickness, coarseness), including desires that don’t change until the final correction. These desires unfold in me in all possible combinations which I am not the one to set up.

I must, to the best of my ability, mold them into a spiritual form, meaning to bring them to unification with the desires that seem alien to me and which I reject, despise, and wish to have nothing to do with: “Who are they, anyway?! Why do I need to unite with them?”

I must overcome this resentment and try to unite with them if they have a desire for spirituality similar to mine. For now, it’s only with them. And if we try to rise above our mutual resentment and unify, we build the “place” for revelation of a more inner degree.

Question: Sometimes, I feel as if I am standing against the wall, trying to push through it with all that I”ve got, but it won’t move. What do I do in this state?

Answer: Ask the friends for help….
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, The Zohar

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Question: What can one do when one feels very weak and his family and environment are unable to support him since they do not feel a great importance of the goal?

Answer: Baal HaSulam explains why we experience so many difficulties on the spiritual path in Shamati (I Heard), Article #4: “One comes to a state as if the entire world stands still, and he alone is now seemingly absent from this world, and leaves his family and friends for the sake of annulling before the Creator.”

It is like a person becomes suspended in the air. But the Creator arranges all of this for him on purpose so he would not look for solid ground to stand on, but on the contrary, would search for a way to become similar to the upper one in his thoughts and ideas and would aspire towards the upper one in order to adopt His spirit. In other words, you need to aspire to reveal the Creator as the quality of love and bestowal in the desires of another, and then you will rise above your own desire through “faith above reason.”

When you feel suspended in the air without the support of your usual corporeal environment, it is your invitation to cleave to the upper one in bestowal. Instead of looking for support in rational, reasonable proofs, you need to look for support in faith above reason.

Baal HaSulam says: “There is but a simple reason for this called “lack of faith.” It means that one does not see before whom one nullifies, meaning he does not feel the existence of the Creator. This causes him heaviness.” But on the other hand, this is our invitation to reveal the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

From the highlighted parts we see again that faith is a clear revelation of the Creator. To see means to believe, and the one who sees Him is said to believe in Him. This shows us how distorted the meaning of these words has become and how incorrectly we read the sacred texts. They are  “sacred” because they talk about attainment and revelation of the Creator, and He is holy, He is the property of love and bestowal. Books that describe how to reach this property are called sacred books.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: It’s unclear why creation makes a restriction and pushes the pleasure away? Why can’t it be close to the Creator and receive from Him?

Answer: I don’t push away pleasure, but an unpleasant sensation. At that moment I no longer feel pleasure. If you give me some kind of exquisite dish, but it causes me to feel ashamed, then I stop feeling pleasure from that dish. This infinite fulfillment doesn’t make me feel good any longer!

Afterwards I will have to awaken my taste for this pleasure all over again. When I acquire the quality of Bina and start acting for the sake of bestowal, and then I start to receive for the sake of bestowal, I must once again reawaken the taste for pleasures within myself.

However, these are no longer the same tastes I felt before, but a completely different kind of pleasure which I offer to the Creator. First of all, I take His desire and fulfill it. I check with what kind of love He gave me this piece of pleasure and I want to fill the empty place in Him. It’s empty because I did not accept this fulfillment from Him.

I think about His enjoyment, about what kind of pleasure He will receive when He fulfills me. And because I feel what kind of pleasure I give Him, I now understand what kind of fulfillment I have to take from Him and in what form I should enjoy Him.

When I begin to experience pleasure from bestowal, I no longer feel the old taste of pleasures inside of me because I approach them with a new intention. Just like shame ruins all of the pleasures from reception for me, so the intention of bestowal revokes the simple taste in me. That is why it is called the acquisition of new vessels or desires.

Both the bestowing and the receiving desires in me are completely new, which is called “613” times more than what I had before. This multifold multiplication comes precisely from the shame that enables us to increase our desires and pleasures by 613 times.

This is the shame from the difference between myself and the Creator, the difference between our situations. This is not just some kind of sensation, but a precise measurement of how much He is entirely bestowing and above me, since I am a receiver. It’s precisely equal to the height of that shame.

And the difference does not arise due to any material reception, but it’s a difference in our intentions. Therefore, if we work on this shame in order to turn it into respect and honor, then we attain this “613-fold’ increase.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words,” Question 43: What is separation?

Two degrees without any Hishtavut Tzura [equivalence of form] on any side are regarded as completely separated from one another.

Our desires are like two circles: They can coincide completely, superimposing on each other and thus becoming one circle. Or they can overlap and be partially one inside the other. Or they can come in contact with one another with one point, their common desire.

Total separation means that we don’t have a single common quality or desire. That is to say, the first is not similar to the second in any way and we do not attain any form of bestowal with one another that would allow us to be one inside the other.
If I don’t take a single desire from you in order to bestow to you, and you don’t take a single desire from me in order to bestow to me, then we do not touch each other and are completely separated.

If at least one desire to bestow to one another appears between us, then there is already contact between us. And if there are several desires like that, then we are already partially one inside the other: I am inside your desires and you are inside mine.

That is how we advance until you take my desires and I take all of yours, and through them we bestow to one another: I give everything to you and you – to me. This is called adhesion.

These definitions from Talmud Eser Sefirot are unusually important. Memorize them mechanically, because that is useful as well. Later, by perceiving them on the level of feelings and intellect, try to gradually unite the mind and the feeling.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: What should we think about all together, the entire world group, when we hold a Unity Day? How can we unite?

Answer: Every person has to delve into himself and there to feel the chain that connects him with others, the inner net that exists between us. Moreover, a person can be in this world or he might no longer be in it because this is a network between desires, between the souls and not the physical bodies.

Baal HaSulam and all the great Kabbalists of the past millennia are here, in this connection. They are all together with us, embedded in our common net. There are millions of us today, but in reality, there are many more because all of these souls throughout all of human history are together with us, amounting to hundreds of millions of souls. And all together they are a tremendous spiritual force.

If we wish to unite together in this net, then naturally not only will we influence each other and become part of this net so every person will acquire it for his own spiritual ascent, but we will simultaneously influence all the people in the world, who are tuned into this net involuntarily, without sensing it. We will start to awaken them.

Therefore, let’s start by reaching an agreement among us that we desire to clearly feel our common connection.
From the lecture on Unity Day, 6/26/11

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In Kabbalistic books people see the upper system that controls the world. However, by using the wisdom of Kabbalah as well as religions, people  have “sculpted” all sorts of misconceptions according to their personal taste: mystical teachings, philosophies, and other theories studied in universities. Papers on demonology and wizardry are submitted in philosophy courses.

By borrowing Kabbalistic names and terms but not the essence, people only confused themselves, thinking that they understand what was being discussed. This includes anti-Semites who formed an entire structure using an unsound foundation. People from Hitler’s faction studied these questions closely, trying to prove that by destroying Jews they can destroy all evil in the world. This is why Baal HaSulam writes in his article “Messiah’s Horn” that premature disclosure of Kabbalah caused disasters for Israel.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. All culture in the world is based on religion. Some 200 years ago there were no “regular” books, music, or art; everything revolved around faith. If the wisdom of Kabbalah hadn’t revealed itself to the world in different forms, humanity would still be at that stage. And really, where else can development come from? Man can’t develop by himself.

But leaking Kabbalistic knowledge caused humanity to “flourish” and develop a rash of faulty beliefs. This brought a lot of disaster to Israel.

Question: But Baal HaSulam also writes that Kabbalah was revealed according to the Creator’s will. So how does one combine these things?

Answer: Certainly, everything happens according to His will. He established an absolute law to which you have to conform or else you are heading down a bad path. And the difference between these two paths is in you, not the Creator. There are no changes on His part whatsoever. You feel His attitude as bad only because you are bad.

The revelation of Kabbalah to the world did a lot of damage to the nation of Israel. But if they had acted differently, better, Kabbalah wouldn’t have been revealed to the nations of the world, and they wouldn’t be treating Israel this way. After all, the hearts of the rulers are in the hands of the Creator.

Everything in the world happens in relation to those who have a point of choice. But if a person doesn’t have this point, he cannot do anything, and he is pushed forward by collective suffering.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/2011, “Messiah’s Horn”

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Question: How should the nation of Israel living on the material level of this world participate in the general correction?

Answer: Together with correcting the spiritual Israel, we have to correct its material “hypostasis.” It is the result of the reincarnation of the souls of Israel, whereas the spiritual Israel is all those who have a point in the heart, a spiritual aspiration by which they join the process.

The difference between them lies in what they are drawn to: a person with a point in the heart is drawn to spirituality, whereas a person who does not have this point is not. Still, if a person without a point in the heart belongs to the nation of Israel (Yashar Kel, meaning those aimed straight to the Creator), then he is obligated to work on correction.

True, there is a principle stating that there is no coercion on the spiritual path. But nevertheless, this obligation is incumbent on Israel. The Torah says, “You will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation for Me.” And the time has come.

Of course, the responsibility of those members of Israel who have a point in the heart is different from the responsibility of those who do not have this point, who have not been awakened yet. However, this obligation is incumbent on everyone, and the external pressure of AHP, the nations of the world, is aimed precisely at making Galgalta ve Eynaim correct themselves. This pressure will only keep growing. The more we fall behind, the more AHP wants because egoism constantly grows and becomes more and more empty. That is why the pressure on Galgalta ve Eynaim will become stronger. That is how the nations indirectly incite Israel to accelerate its correction.

Therefore, people with a point in the heart, meaning the spiritual Israel, and just the Jews, the material Israel, have to actualize the correction upon themselves and attract the Light for AHP. You can’t do anything to change this fact because we are talking about a single vessel whose parts are interconnected in this way.

Question: Does this mean that two processes have to occur simultaneously?

Answer: I don’t see two processes occurring here. At the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam writes about two parts of Israel: the internal and the external. The inner part are “the workers of the Creator,” those who desire to serve Him. They also divide into two parts: the inner part, those who wish to attain the intention for the sake of bestowal, and the external part, which makes material actions. Besides them, Israel also includes people who don’t know anything and aren’t interested in anything.

Similarly, the nations of the world also include two parts. The inner part wants to join us and belongs to Israel, even though it is called “Israel in the nations of the world.” And the external part is indifferent to this and feels only the troubles of this world. But we also have to awaken these people, so they will at least avoid making great mistakes in the future and will save themselves from annihilation and grave problems. That is how they join us.

In the end, correction is intended precisely for this external part—AHP. They are the goal of creation. The top priority is the will to enjoy, while Israel is not the goal of creation, but just its correction.

This is what our entire work has to be aimed at: correcting ourselves in order to bring correction to the world. This is the meaning of “a kingdom of priests.” We are servants, we serve the world.
From the lesson on 5/13/11, “A Discourse On Wisdom” by Ramchal

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