Question: Why was the wisdom of Kabbalah hidden from the people? Was it not to harm those who were not ready for it yet? What has changed today? Is it that we became ready, and it can help us now?

Answer: People might have started to use Kabbalah egoistically, just to gain pleasure through it, and that is a type of Klipa (Shell) of improper use. Until man’s desire ripens for the wisdom of Kabbalah, he shouldn’t approach it because his unripe desire will turn Kabbalah into a completely different activity.

We see how many people use Kabbalah to produce (and sell) all kinds of beliefs, religions, and meditation practices. However, if a man’s desire has ripened for spiritual evolution, it guides him in this collective field of souls that is filled by the Light, and he moves like an electron in the field, reaching the right place. That is how it evolves.

Therefore, throughout our whole history, we had to wait until people’s desires would sufficiently develop and it would become possible to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to them. Now it is up to every individual as to how he or she will realize themselves.

Kabbalah was hidden until the souls matured to make use of it. Man’s desire was not prepared for it since it was unclear what desire was related to. In the instant when desire reaches maturity, it becomes clear that it relates to the correction of self, the wisdom of Kabbalah, or the masses who simply follow Kabbalists. However, until all souls have completely intermingled, it was impossible to say this.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: Egoism is very shrewd, so how can I be sure that my game with it is really leading me forward and isn’t another trick that egoism is playing on me?

Answer: If I include myself in the environment and am permeated by what is important to it, then I advance by faith above reason. I deliberately bend down before the group and adopt its values because they are spiritual. I place myself in front of them so they will raise me.

I never have the forces to ascend independently. At the same time, I am always in some environment that directs me toward specific values. The values of the material environment are also artificial and false. Society motivates me to buy a car, a house, and furniture, but who said that I really need all of that? After all, the body is an animal and all it wants is to rest. Give it a specific number of calories and a comfortable place to lay down. It doesn’t want anything more.

However, society tells me what I have to buy and what I have to aspire to. Otherwise people don’t respect me. Thus, instigated by the environment, I spend my whole life trying to do things to make it like me.

But now, when I am already full to the brim, I no longer want to dance to its tune. Instead I enter a new environment. I choose a society that has a spiritual goal. Now all I have to do is raise it in my eyes and then I will grow with its help.
Thus, I build an artificial environment for my spiritual growth. Therein lies my entire work. The higher I raise the friends in my eyes, the higher I will ascend.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How does it help us to read the Sulam Commentary to the Book of Zohar if its explanations carry us away in the wrong direction? Isn’t it better to read The Zohar in the original Aramaic, a language we don’t understand, and remain in the right intention for the goal?

Answer: In that case maybe you could also read The Zohar in Chinese or another language that you don’t understand at all? Or just look at the symbols without knowing the letters like at a picture, without realizing that these letters connect into groups called words, and the words combine into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs? In the meantime, I do not know anything, looking at the page of text as if it were a certain code.

The matter is that I have to connect to the text through my desire to reveal the states of my soul that it describes. The text is talking about what happens inside of me, inside my connection with the Creator. That is why I want to reveal it.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, The Zohar

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Question: When separate cells in a common organism of the group lack the realization of the importance of the goal, then how can this importance appear between them?

Answer: First of all, I turn to the group outwardly in order to awaken my friends. This is my duty. However, the inspiration I receive from them in return does not necessarily come in an external, “showy” form. In general, Kabbalists have a tradition to avoid expressing their feelings through artificial love, pretty words, and so on. Everything that matters is on the inside.

And on the inside, I must judge my friends favorably. I value them because the Creator has gathered them and given them the realization of the importance of the goal. How well they comprehend the goal is irrelevant since they are still small. However, the Creator is among them; He awakens and unites them with one another. It was He who unified them into a big world group. And this is why they are as important to me as the Creator. He wants them, brings them closer, and cares for them. For Him they are His sons.

This means that I must treat them accordingly. I do not look at their appearance, but at their inner strength. There, on the inside, the Creator connects and supports them, and I want to join that connection between them, which He actualizes, realizes, and sustains. I want to connect to it.

My friends might not understand or feel it, but I want to seriously join it through my own decision and desire. And when I join their connection, there where the Creator sustains them, it means that I connect to the group. This is the group, and not an external expressions of any kind. From there I receive the strength of the Creator who supports my friends and dwells in them. That is precisely where I receive my inspiration for the importance of the goal, and I acquire the strength to always strive towards it.

And all this depends on me.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: We see that people of the new generation do not want to come closer to one another. That is why the Internet has developed so much, enabling a person to act from afar without being physically present in society. That way he makes contacts without really connecting. How, then, can we offer people a method that is entirely based on unification and social influence?

Answer: This is a very good sign. It means that there is already realization of evil taking place. A person does not want to come close to anyone or to touch anyone. He feels individual, not connected to anyone, and does not need anyone—not even his parents, wife, or children. He wants to be left one on one with himself.

Today every person needs a separate apartment. In the previous generation every person needed a separate room. But earlier, this problem didn’t even exist. People lived in one room and did not bother each other.

Rabash told me that when he got married, he moved to live in his wife’s house. Her family was well-known in Jerusalem and had a two room apartment. But all of them, the parents and the children, lived in one big room, while renting out the second room because they did not think they needed it. At night, when it was time to sleep, they would lay out mattresses on the floor and in the morning they would roll them back up and lay them in a pile in the corner. Besides these mattresses and a small table for food, there was nothing in the room. That is how people lived in Jerusalem in the beginning of the 20th century.

But today a person cannot stand even his own wife next to him in the same room. That is how much our nature has changed, which is why we want to shift to a virtual connection. The virtual connection is a search for a higher level of communication. It is not just replacing one kind of connection with another, but a connection on a more internal level. We are starting to aspire to connect with a person’s inner world, on the level of his psychology.

However, people will soon grow disillusioned with the Internet and will understand that it cannot satisfy their need for a real inner connection. All of these SMS text messages, e-mails, and social networks will not provide the answer to the demand that is now being revealed in us, which we do not even understand ourselves yet. We just feel that we have to unite, attain nature and the world, and feel and understand everything on a higher level than today.

The young generation does not realize this inner demand it has yet, but the fact is that this need is not for the virtual connection that exists today. It is a yearning for a more internal, sensuous connection. And that is something that can only be attained if we go from the virtual connection to the use of the science of Kabbalah. This will soon be revealed to us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: If Kabbalah is the basis of all the sciences, then should we first give a child knowledge of this science and only then start teaching him all the other sciences?

Answer: At first a child has to get acquainted with his world. However, from a young age, from about six years or even earlier, it is possible to start explaining the notions of the science of Kabbalah to him.

Children can perceive this wisdom parallel to the sciences of our world just as naturally as they are easily able to remember several languages. In the same way, we can explain these two languages of perception of reality to them: inner and outer. They will easily learn this and it will become part of the foundation of their perception like a habit ingrained from childhood.

The explanation has to be that there are two forces in the world. And everything we see with our material eyes are pictures emerging inside our senses as a result of the interaction between these two forces. Then the child will be able to understand the inner essence of every phenomenon he observes.

Every object, such as a table, chair, a person, a car, or a plane can ultimately be laid out as a combination of these two forces: reception and bestowal, and it is possible to discern why this special combination of these two forces creates precisely this image of the material object inside of us. Then he will understand what he can receive from it and how he can use it in order to attain certain material or spiritual acquisitions. That’s because he will know that object’s place in all of reality, and that is very important.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Writings of Rabash, “What Does It Mean the World Was Created for the Torah”: Torah and Israel are the same thing. At first the Torah is instructions on correcting evil, called 613 recommendations on correcting 613 parts of egoism. After the correction, the Torah is potions of the Creator’s Light, corresponding to each of the 613 corrected organs of the soul.

Question: How is it possible to simply explain what is Israel, Torah, and the Creator, and what their unity means?

Answer: We are in an unchangeable state, as it is written, “I did not change Myself.” This single state is called “Malchut of the world of Infinity.” The Creator wished to do good upon the creation, and thus He created it in the corresponding state of goodness. But in order to feel that goodness, creation has to go through various twists and turns that will raise its desire or appetite by bringing about despair, troubles, and worries, or stated differently, various sensations that are opposite to the sensation of the Good who Does Good. That’s because otherwise creation would not feel Him.

However, in order to make sure that the sensation of the Good who Does Good together with His oppositeness do not become a double blow for creation, the Creator arranged things so we would collect the unpleasant sensations drop by drop—gradually, in small potions. “Ouch!”—and that’s enough. Then “Ouch!” again, and that’s enough. That is how we advance along the path, discerning our desire and learning what is good and what is bad.

As a whole we have to be sensitive and perceptive to good and evil. The more sensitive a person is to the realization of evil, the higher his level and the deeper he penetrates into the matter of creation.

Therefore, the unchanging state that the Creator made already contains the desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal, corrected by the right intention, as well as the Light that fills this desire and intention. There everyone is one without any differences. This state is called “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Israel (ישראל) is a vessel, a Kli with the intention of bestowal to the Creator. In other words, it is “straight to the Creator,” Yashar – El (ישר-אל). “Torah” is the entire Light that corrects and fills it. And they are one because they have attained the sate where they are absolutely equal and are in adhesion.

Equality and unity of the Creator and creation is the only form in which they exist. And every creature gradually reveals this form once the desire to reveal it awakens in him.

By bringing to light the emptiness in our current state, in the events of this world, the Creator gradually brings us to the feeling of emptiness, futility, and purposelessness of our lives. And at the same time He awakens the beginning of the spiritual Kli inside us, the embryo of the realization of evil. My state isn’t despicable because it is nauseating to the taste, but because I lack adhesion with the Creator.

I come to realize this gradually. At first I don’t understand at all what exactly I need, like a child who does not know himself why he is crying. But gradually the details come through, become clearer, and surface in me, and then I already begin hearing something.

Then I come to the group and the teacher, and spend several years subjecting myself to the influence of the Light in various states, which I undergo together with the teacher, books, and group. As the process continues, I become slightly more perceptive to the realization of evil. The evil lies in the fact that I do not want to join the books, the teacher, and the group. When I begin to feel that this is exactly my evil, then I start moving in the right direction toward correction.

At the same time I understand that I have to unite with the friends, receive awakening from them, acquire their mind and feeling, and dissolve in them. I become included in them, in their desires and intentions that are aimed at the goal. And upon this inclusion I have to evoke the Light that Reforms, or in other words, study together with them and attract the Light. If this happens, then I accumulate the necessary quantity and quality of efforts and reach the correction of my Kelim.

Of course, this process consists of an entire series of actions. After all, I cannot tolerate great corrections or great leaps in one go. That is why there are many degrees that divide into more tiny degrees. They are the means by which I attain the state that is described by the verse, “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one.” I already exist in this state, but it surfaces in me gradually.

We would not be able to tolerate it all at once because this unity is too opposite to us.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is the essence of our realization of free will?

Answer: It is lowering oneself before the group in order to receive from it the importance of the spiritual goal, the Creator, bestowal. That is, my free will is exercised in my choice to lower myself before the group so that everything they have may settle in me as the most important thing in life and that their thought about the Creator may rule over everything I have within me. And then, I will think only about that.

I don’t act blindly, as if I am hypnotized; rather, I intentionally work in my egoism against it. I link into the friends, yield to them, and view them as the leaders of our generation, all in order to adopt their importance of achieving the spiritual goal.

Should I then view this world with its desires for wealth, power, and honor as something low and unworthy? No, I shouldn’t since if I do, it means that the Creator is hardly any greater than this lowness, while I must achieve a different kind of status.

Therefore, I have to highly value wealth, power, honor, and this entire world, but I have to place spirituality even higher. In other words, I must not reduce the value of this world as religions and belief systems suggest; on the contrary, I should appreciate everything it offers, but use it solely for the goal of reaching spirituality. And that’s the essence.

If instead of despising this world, we will exalt the spiritual one, then as spirituality grows, this world will become important ever more. So, don’t ruin and devaluate it, but elevate spirituality even higher over it! And in this way, you will be ascending from the level of this world to that of the next one time after time.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: Will the world be able to accept your message as not being tied to religion while your group is in Israel and seems to be following religious traditions?

Answer: We are trying to spread Kabbalah all around the world and in a form which would be acceptable to everybody. But it is impossible and unnecessary to conceal the fact that Kabbalah roots in the nation of Israel, accompanied it over the course of history, and was passed on along the chain of Kabbalists who were part of this nation.

After all, Israel is a unique people. Its basis is not a nationality, as it is in case of the other 70 nations of the world, but rather a group of Kabbalists that was founded by Abraham. This group of Kabbalists was regarded as the people of Isra-El, which means “straight to the Creator” (Yashar Kel) because its goal is to reveal the Creator to man in this world.

We have to continue this mission and become the “the kingdom of holy priests” (Mamlechet Cohanim), meaning to bring to the entire world the method of correction and channel the Light to all its peoples. This is what the nation of Israel is designated to do so that “everyone will know the Creator, from the smallest to the greatest” since “His Temple will be called the house of prayer for all nations.”

This is why I don’t think that if we act as absolutely unattached and we cut the ties with our roots and our history altogether, we would succeed. We cannot detach ourselves from the root; we must remain connected to it.

A person, as he or she advances, starts to understand what Israel’s mission is and from where the nation derived. He changes his attitude to the nation of Israel as to the bearer of the method of correction. He no longer regards it as a nationality, but as a unique group of Kabbalists, spiritual teachers, who must serve humanity and assist it in reaching the spiritual world.

The world’s attitude will change. Today, we already have a lot of students around the world who are with us in heart and in soul and understand that from here, the Israel center, the Light goes out into the world. Thus the method of correction is realized.

A person cannot achieve correction and lack understanding of how it took place in history and why.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: Why do you and your central group have a religious appearance if you keep explaining that it doesn’t assist spiritual advancement? It would be better to assume a more secular look in order to become closer to people and the world, wouldn’t it?

Answer: I don’t think it should bother people. Our students come from different backgrounds, and we don’t tell anybody what they should look like. And if the public are familiar with our society already, they should know that we do not convert people into religion or force them to observe any religious rituals. They yearn to reach the root of their soul and come to us to transform their soul, to uncover the spiritual world.

We deal solely with the correction of the soul since the purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. And revelation occurs only in the corrected soul. As to a person, he or she usually keeps following those traditions that they are accustomed to.

Nonetheless, Kabbalah was passed to us through the people whose background was in Judaism. After the destruction of the Temple, the people fell from the spiritual dimension, and Kabbalah was replaced with religion that is below in our corporeal world. But over the course of all these centuries and parallel to it, from Rabbi Shimon and further on, Kabbalah was passed on from one Kabbalist to the next along their chain. This is how it has finally reached us as a method of correction.

Kabbalah wasn’t related to religion that remained below. It continued to live among Kabbalists in the same way as it did before the fall of the Temple. There has always been a gap, an iron wall, between Kabbalah and religion.

As to us, we receive Kabbalah as it was before the destruction of the Temple, and that is why it has nothing to do with modern religion. We deal with correction of the soul. But at the same time, before the destruction, the Torah and commandments were followed by the people in intention and action alike, as one whole. There was the Temple and ritual service in it with all the necessary attributes. The same pertained to every person, according to his or her root as Cohen, Levy, or Israel.

The branch and the root were unified and viewed by people as one whole. But later on, the branch ended up below, in this world, having lost its tie with the root, and the root remained above, cut off from the branch. This is what is regarded as the exit of the people of Israel into exile when religion was all that remained for them.

But today, we need to ascend to where we came from, and let’s hope that when we do, we will comprehend what our duty is and return to the original state of complete and wholesome fulfillment of the Torah and commandments as spiritual actions. I don’t know how it will look; it is possible that physical actions will not be necessary any longer or they will be performed only by the people of Israel.

Baal HaSulam writes that even in the fully corrected society, every person may adhere to his or her religion since religion is cultural traditions. We don’t know any of it yet, and we should focus only on one thing: the correction of our souls.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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