Question: Should we begin the Kabbalistic education with our children, to make them an example for the outside world, or are we ready to address the outside world, and the only question is how to go about it?

Answer: Parents must educate their children, this is designed by nature. Therefore, if, as a parent, I understand that the best gift I can give my child is the connection with the Light, the Creator, the force that can protect him and raise him to the highest possible level, the force that accompanies him or her in this world and the next, I will certainly want to give my child this support, this shield.

I want for my child to be brought up by the Light and not just some school teacher. First and foremost, I want to give him or her a spiritual education, and in addition to that he can study in a school or a university. I don’t care as much whether he becomes a blue-collar worker or a professor; what I do care about is the spiritual baggage he ends his life with, whether he’ll be happy in this life, whether he’ll know what his life is for.

Therefore, a spiritual education is immeasurably more important than a material one, which changes direction every few years. These days, when a person concludes his education, he is forced to begin anew almost right away. The world is on the threshold of the informational revolution.

Should we first educate our kids and disseminate the system of spiritual education with their help, or should we cultivate spiritual education in the world directly? We must propagate spiritual education now, without delay. A lot of time will go by before our children grow up and we will be able to present them to the world. We are already preparing materials on the spiritual education method, without any connection to our kids, and disseminating them in the world in all languages through various non-commercial organizations.

We’re bringing up our children, and we will be glad to see children from other countries join us virtually as well as participate in the summer camps we will be organizing. We need to see the result of the Kabbalistic education on our children.

We already see it, but it’s not enough to address the world and show everyone what’s happening here. If in two to three years from now we can show five-six year old kids reasoning correctly, eleven-twelve year olds with mature personalities who understand what’s happening in the world, and fifteen-sixteen year olds finishing universities, then we’ll have something to show the world.
[40904]
From Lesson 6, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: What can we rely on in our spiritual advancement if it’s already clear that knowledge doesn’t matter?

Answer: You can only rely on the environment. Knowledge is worthless. I am willing to forget everything. As the Talmud says, people used to pray to forget what they have already learned. I want to start from a clean slate, like a baby who does not have anything to his name.

Let everything I knew until now vanish from my mind. Let even my heart be empty. I don’t need anything. I want to start from zero, to lose all my possessions. That is the only way we can continue the path, by beginning every day anew.

It would seem like there is so much written in the books, “Remember this, know that, don’t forget about that.” That’s true, but in reality, a person advances when he is ready to become “zero,” when he does not listen to the voice of the present moment.

Therefore, only the environment remains our unchanging source of support.
[41567]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/11, Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”

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Question: What does the concept of “secrets of the Torah” mean?

Answer: A “secret” is something I cannot reveal even though it’s clear to me that it exists. I experience the sensation of a “secret” when standing at the threshold of something new, before opening up the door.

Besides, irrelative of me, “secrets of the Torah” are the Lights that are concealed by Atik. They are in the head of Arich Anpin in the form of a concealed wisdom. These Lights are hidden because right now we do not have a covering for them which would enable us to discern them. However, for me they are not a secret because I do not feel them.

The real secret is the curtain that I feel. For example, exile is the anticipation of redemption, which is felt as extremely necessary but not yet acquired. Inside the very sensation of the emptiness, I already outline the contours of the future fulfillment. This means experiencing oneself in exile: I understand and feel what I want, and all I lack is the implementation.

The same is true for a “secret”: I feel that I lack the quality of bestowal so that inside of its Light of Hassadim I would reveal the Light of Hochma. The knowledge that brings this Light is hidden from me.
[41573]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/11, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”

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Question: Should we only use terms that speak of the laws of nature at the classes for beginners and only later introduce the Kabbalistic terminology?

Answer: No, we can speak openly with the people who come to us with the point in the heart and gradually advance them. But if we were to speak to them about the laws of nature, they would think that we are preaching physics or sociology to them. They need to hear about the structure of the spiritual world. This is what they strive to, and we need to give it to them.
[41458]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: When a person eases someone’s suffering, does he thereby distance that person from spirituality?

Answer: It seems that the person will suffer less, but then he will not ask himself why there is suffering. Does this mean that if I wish people well, I must force them to suffer?

Basically, the main commandment of the Torah is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Simply put yourself in that person’s shoes. For example, think what would you do if it were your small, favorite child, and then you will do the right thing.
[41468]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: Are children born with the point in the heart, filled with absolute love?

Answer: No, there are no people born with the point in the heart, full of love of others. On the contrary, a child is born with a ruined point in the heart. It is precisely this black point that we refer to as the “point in the heart.” He needs to develop, expand, correct, and fulfill it through connecting with others.

There are children born with the point in the heart, and there are those whose point in this incarnation has not yet “emerged” and they do not yet feel the question about the meaning of life.

Question: Do small children have contact with the Creator, and do we need to create conditions for the development of their spirituality from their early months of life?

Answer: We begin to work with children after they turn three. Until that age, they do not perceive anything but their animate state.

We need to form the proper attitude towards others in children. They do not understand what others are until the age of three. But at the age of three they develop initial “social relations” with other children, they already play together. This is why it is possible to start working with them.
[41478]
From Lesson 7, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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Question: I am getting an impression that all my friends fell into a “sleeping mode” now. What can I say to them to wake them up?

Answer: If they feel that you need them, they will wake up. It all depends on the person himself. He must trust that the group is willing, but that he is the only problem. As soon as he opens his heart, he sees that he is connected with all hearts, burning and alert. Don’t say anything to them, say it to yourself.
[41219]
From the evening meal 4/21/2011

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Question: You said that when we read The Book of Zohar we should focus on unity. But how is it expressed? What action should I be thinking about? After all, the very word “unity” doesn’t strike a chord in me.

Answer: A feeling of unity builds up in a person very gradually, over the course of many months, until he begins to sense a certain “taste” in unification with the friends and finds some type of reality in it.

We experience on ourselves all the actions in the process of which, during millions of years of evolution, the vegetative degree formed from the inanimate one, the animate from the vegetative, and the human from the animate. But we undergo similar states at an enormous speed.

You ask about the state you haven’t obtained yet. You are trying to tap where this sensation of oneness may unfold, the feeling of unity and bestowal, when you step out of yourself, your ego. But nothing is really clear to you.

This is a sign of attainment. You start approaching the state which you seek and don’t know how to find: “I am looking for my brothers.” I seek unity and don’t find it. Does it even exist? What is it? How do I get hold of it?!

This is “the void before the revelation.” You are already standing at the threshold of it. And so it is, always. The question about the state you don’t possess is the very state that precedes it. You must simply go on, give the Light time to do its work. If you are present in the group, at the lessons, disseminate, and do everything you can, give the Light a chance to do the job.

As described in the “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 133: “ And only the heroes among them, whose patience endured, defeated the guards and opened the gate. And they were instantly awarded seeing the King’s face, who appointed each of them in his right place.” Just be patient! If it takes ten years, so be it. Another ten, big deal.

And those who think they are smart “jump off the carriage,” and in ten years you see that they don’t have anything. You can say: “But I don’t have anything either, do I?!” You possess great desire, an understanding that you are lacking unity.
[41222]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/2011, The Book of Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come unto Pharaoh),” Item 196: The Egyptians would come and see the bones that the dogs were carrying from place to place and breaking them, and they would put them in the ground so the dogs would not find them. This is the greatest canceling of idolatry on their part …when they hid the bones of their gods in the ground.

Question: What is implied under “the Egyptians hid the bones of their gods in the ground”?

Answer: Usually, a person wants to “bury” his efforts which he views as unsuccessful and to forget all about them. We, however, must resist this failure: “I’ve succumbed to the evil; I couldn’t handle it and failed. True! And now, based on this evil, I do good yet again.”

If I know that I don’t bury anything of my efforts, I merit the support of the group and the Creator in order to go on. Otherwise, I return to the zero point again, and only out of necessity, having found nothing good in this world, prefer to stay in the group. In other words, what really does motivate us? What is the level where a person makes his calculation? It is always at the level of the corporeal world. And that’s why he doesn’t move ahead.

But we should always make calculations based upon the constantly growing evil. Despite the fact that I lost to it and see all the miasma of my ego, all my evil, I keep going forth. But how can I go on? That’s when I need the group, its support, the Creator, so He would give me strength.

Thus, with each new step, a person advances. Otherwise, he stays in the same place as if he just descended into Egypt. We must strive to feel all these inner states, properties, and desires. I know from my own experience: It’s impossible to come out of Egypt if you haven’t recognized, been in, and lived them yourself.

You don’t need to be a smart aleck to do this. Just yearn for unity with the others, mutual bestowal, support, and guarantee, to all of these signs of oneness. In response to these efforts, we will obtain the correct internal meanings.
[41112]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: Do all our intentions go straight into Pharaoh’s mouth, feeding him?

Answer: It all depends on what these intentions are. Pharaoh is a special force, the ego that unfolds against the Light. It is a reserve of egoism, the desire to receive, which we must construct.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is no “Pharaoh” without “Israel,” meaning the strive toward the Creator within man who works in order to unify with the others and come to bestowal. Thus, in the degree of his aspiration toward bestowal, a person builds Pharaoh, cultivates his desires (Kelim) within, from which he later flees and which he afterward corrects, getting rewarded thereby.

The entire work in Egypt lies in arranging Pharaoh and making him great, powerful, and wealthy, meaning in growing our ego from the tiny point of our natural egoism to the Creator’s status. After all, what does this whole egoism give us? It gives us the desires for food, sex, money, fame, and knowledge, a tiny ego of our world, a corporeal ego, which has nothing to do with spirituality. This earthly ego doesn’t even require correction.

Beginning to work on our unification, we discover resentment, alienation, indifference to our oneness. Essentially, this is the revelation of evil, but only if a person sees it as such. After all, he can say that he can’t unite with the others and that this work isn’t for him, before he even starts it. And some do start but get weakened, fall, and “die in the land of Egypt.”

But there are those who do bear it, thanks to the understanding that there is no option. They keep at it, over and over again, although they see that they continue to lose. And try as they might to unite with the friends, strengthen the group, regardless of their efforts, they see that nothing works. On the contrary, they experience a desire to criticize the friends and remove them from their sight all together. And once more, they overcome this flash of egoism.

Thus, time after time, all that a person earned, all his efforts are consumed by his ego, Pharaoh, which grows and rejoices. A person himself builds all these properties within, but through his own efforts. Afterwards, he arrives at the state when he can’t stand his ego any longer. And that is when he receives all Pharaoh’s vessels (Kelim), desires.

In other words, Egyptian exile starts solely with the person’s work toward unification with the friends. In fact, what does Israel merit after they flee from Egypt, when the Creator frees them from it? They merit unification at Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred), all as “one man with one heart,” if only for an instant, until they sculpt the “golden calf” and fall yet again. But those downfalls are of a different nature now, into the gold that they carried out of Egypt, the “Egyptian vessels” they took with them, in order to retrieve them from it and reform.

But still, what did they want during all those years of exile? They wished to create oneness between them that they finally reached at Mount Sinai. And without these moment to moment efforts to withstand Mount Sinai, the “400 years of Egyptian exile” will not have passed for you.
[41115]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, The Book of Zohar

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