All traditional customs in Judaism are an imprint from spiritual, Kabbalistic actions, but only in corporeal, egoistic desire. True spiritual actions are performed in two spheres: reception and bestowal.

After we lost the connection with love of others, with bestowal and the upper world, what we have left within the framework of this world is called Judaism. This is the form in which Kabbalah exists for a person during the period of exile. However, for select few, it reveals itself in two spheres: spiritual and corporeal.

That’s why in religion there are certain customs carried out according to tradition. Instead of performing these actions inside oneself, as spiritual actions, they are performed on the outside.

The Shulchan Aruch (Set Table), the book of religious laws, describes spiritual actions, but in material form. When it says “wash your hands,” this means you have to take your spiritual vessel of reception (“hands”) and clean it by dipping or washing it in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy). It explains how to make the wedding canopy, Huppah, for connection with the Creator, how to separate the pure desire (Kosher) from the impure one, or how to slaughter an “animal,” meaning one’s own egoism, the right way.

Any action performed throughout the day is a reflection of spiritual processes. That’s why the Shulchan Aruch describes a person’s life in detail from the moment he wakes up and thanks the Creator: which foot has to come off the bed first when waking up, how to put on shoes, and how to dress, by first putting  through the right hand, a symbol of the desire to bestow, and then the left one, a symbol of the desire to receive.

Everything is described down to the last detail because this follows the correction of the soul. “Body” is the soul, and the book explains how to correct it, how to clothe it, wash it, how to feed it (meaning how to fill it and with which Light, Hochma or Hassadim, and in which order), and how to bless different types of food, types of satisfaction for the desire to receive. This is what the Shulchan Aruch talks about.

Before the destruction of the Temple, the whole nation had been carrying out these actions, each one at his own level and working on his soul. Everyone knew what this meant in relation to his soul and the Light.

However, the moment we lost a connection with the spiritual world and fell down into egoistic reception, we did not have a soul anymore, so there was nothing to correct by performing all these actions. That’s why people started performing the same actions on their bodies, with this corporeal flesh, in the material world, and at the material table where they eat, instead of filling the soul with the Light.

If we open the Talmud, we will see a set of rules that we have to follow in relation to others (for example, how to pay your neighbor if your animal has harmed his), but this implies a spiritual level. The entire Talmud is talking about the actions of a person who is working on the correction of his soul, but they are described through animals or work in the field, using the language of allegory.

If you are in the spiritual world, it’s clear to you that it relates to the spiritual world, the soul. For you, it’s as though this world doesn’t exist. You understand that it’s impossible to correct anything by alternately pouring water on one hand and then on the other, and that these actions are performed only as a token of the material world’s similarity with the spiritual world.

If one exists in the spiritual world, he or she acts the same way in the corporeal world as well. However, a material action does not correct the soul. It is merely a cultural tradition, a nation’s history, a mode of life to which one is accustomed from childhood.

In reality, we perform these actions in our inner correction. In other words, we take parts of our desire and with actions such as these, we lift them from the egoistic level, filling them to the level of bestowal toward others and the Creator. This is exactly what the Shulchan Aruch and the entire Torah talk about, which teaches us how to do it.

However, when we lost our spiritual connection, we started treating this as material actions. Right hand, left hand, bull, or donkey, a person understood and studied them as if they were corporeal laws.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2011, Shamati #40

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A prayer is a person’s connection with the upper force that reflects only his or her perception of it. There are people who pray asking for a better life in this world, there are folks who pray for the future world, and there are those who don’t pray and don’t believe in the upper force.

Still, they do think about their future, and every such thought is regarded as a prayer. But whom I am asking, however, is a whole other matter. Is it nature, fate, something unknown, my future state, or an upper force that can be bad today and good tomorrow depending on my request?

A prayer is the action I take in regard to the subsequent moment in hopes to achieve a specific state, meaning that this notion includes various states, but all of them divide into two parts depending on to whom I pray: Is it someone that changes and whom I can force to change?

That is when people start looking for hidden ways to gain control of the upper force so that it would become more kind and change present reality and the world. This hope to bribe the upper one is the basis for all mystical and religious quests. A person of this world who lives in his or her egoism thinks it’s possible.

However, there is another, very rare approach that says that the upper force can’t be changed; rather, you need to know how to alter yourself by using the forces nature programmed within you. It is the method of Kabbalah which opposes all other methods.

It doesn’t matter whether a person thinks there is one God or many, imagines himself facing nature or any other upper force. What matters is his attitude toward it.

Does he seek to employ the forces of nature and transform himself in order to reach the chosen destination, meaning that everything depends solely on him and his connection with this force? Or, does he look outside himself, seeking to alter the upper force, meaning does he approach the upper force, trying to use it for personal benefit so that it rewards him, which relates to his desire to change the whole world and take advantage of everything there is?
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/2011, Shamati No. 113

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Question: What does “There is none else besides Him” mean? And how do people with the point in the heart, without the point in the heart, and the religious masses attain Him?

Answer: People existing in our world can relate to the whole of reality just as to the environment in which they live, similar to all living beings. Besides that, people can have an additional relationship to their life that animals do not have. If a person was taught to believe in the upper force, this relationship can be either good or evil. If you are good, the upper force will be good to you, and if you are bad, it will be evil to you. This force wants you to be good and thus sends challenges to you. It treats you with kindness if you behave well. So, it is worth being good.

What does it mean to be “good” in the eyes of the upper force? Here, people have invented various systems to the point of sacrificing their own children and annihilating infidels in religious wars. Coming from their ego, people created for themselves all kinds of relations to this upper force.

Baal HaSulam explains the origin of religions and beliefs in his article “The Peace.” In essence, religions are a system for the development of humans, advancing them to spirituality. Those layers of desires to enjoy which are not able to aspire to the Creator move ahead with the help of religions. People know one thing only: There is the upper force, and we are in a certain system of relationship with it: If I am good, it is kind; if I am bad, it is evil.

Then, the sole problem is to define the desires of this upper force. Every religion has its own view on this matter, and each considers itself the right one. And here is all the difference between the religions: how to worship this upper force, how to fulfill its desires so we can live comfortably in this world and in the future world. They seem to work in front of this upper force like in front of the lord, the king: “How can we fulfill Him so He is pleased with us?”

Thus, there are three types of people:

1. Entirely secular with an animal’s attitude towards reality
2. Religious who worship the upper force, trying to find the ways to please it
3. Kabbalists

Kabbalists say that this upper force, the Creator, has no relations with you personally. Even if you say that there is none else besides Him, the good who does good, it is an all-embracing power.

Everything depends on me, and He has no personal relationship with me. Everything is determined by the measure of my transformation in simple, constant, unchangeable existing Light, as it is said: “I did not change my HaVaYaH,” “the Law was given and cannot be transgressed.”

This means that the Creator has no personal relationship with me, has no calculations with respect to me, nothing! I simply feel that He does. But I perceive a computer just the same way. Let’s say, I was working on the computer yesterday and got angry with it in earnest, was ready to smash it with a hammer. Was it its fault? It is a gadget made of steel and plastic.

However, since I work with it, I transfer my personal qualities onto it, think of its behavior as good or bad, and fume at it: “Look what it has done to me!” Similarly, I get angry with a car if something happens to it.

These are fundamental things inherent in our nature. This is not funny at all. Our belief in the power of nature, which treats me kindly or unkindly, stems from here. What do we tell a child when he hits himself on a table? “Hit it back; it has hurt you!” And if it is not a table, but something more abstract, large and all-encompassing, we speak in a different way: “Treat Him well, and He will do you good.” Faith starts from here.

We don’t understand yet that if we are not at the point of truth, we don’t work with anything. We merely work against the law of nature, as “the law was given and cannot be transgressed.” The Creator doesn’t change. Thus, whether I am good or bad, it affects only me. I don’t do to the Creator either good or bad; I don’t touch Him.

When I say that He is happy for me or I make Him sad, it is I who says this. I just perceive this in my senses. If so, what or who makes me change? My ego? It means that I do this only with the purpose of feeling good. Nothing else obliges me! Or maybe the environment, threatening me with punishment, forces me to change?

If this is our attitude towards the entire, perfect reality, no one can force me to change. It can happen only by faith above reason! Why do I exist in this broken, false reality? I want to build from it an independent attitude towards this force, “the good who does good,” the only existing one. What does “an independent attitude” mean? It means that I relate to this force without any personal goal, and it doesn’t know, understand, or sense anything from me. What do I base my work on? “He hangs the Earth upon nothing,” which is called “ten Sefirot Blima (concealing).”

Gradually, I come to such perception of reality that I don’t make any personal calculations, like I make today. I just want to learn from this force its property, become similar to Him. This is my reward. I need no result, neither for the force, nor for myself; I desire only to become like Him, as it is said: “The reward for a commandment is to know the One who commands.”

These are very subtle concepts that are impossible to explain. A person who has no point in the heart will never be impressed by this or understand what is hidden behind. “For whom do I work then? If there is nobody but me who would receive my work and, as a result, treat me differently, it means that I work against the wall, against the void. Then, what do these words mean: “The book is open, and the hand is writing,” “sentences himself and the world to a scale of merit?”

All these words are intended to bring us closer to the ideal, which is called “faith above reason.” There, you don’t have any calculations that you can imagine. You have no one to address. You can make calculations only with the one who has desire, strength, and action. “There is none else besides Him” and “the good who does good” implies that He doesn’t act from the other side. We talk about our actions: changes of states, reactions, but He doesn’t have anything. If so, it’s as if He doesn’t act. He doesn’t seem live if He doesn’t change. This is how it appears to us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/2011, Shamati No. 1

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The entire difference between Kabbalists (people with the point in the heart who follow the path of spiritual development) and the religious masses is in their attitude toward the Creator. Kabbalists say: “Everything depends on me. I must change, while the Creator is absolute and hence unchangeable.”

The only ones who can change are those who can be better or worse, but the Creator is just “good, who does good.” How could I ask Him to change and improve himself? Would this not make Him “bad” now?

A Kabbalist believes that he is the only one who needs to change, and nobody else is subject to correction: neither the world, nor friends, nor the group, not a single person. Right now, I exist within the good who does good, the Creator, the single force of nature “there is none else besides Him.” How I perceive Him depends on my qualities.

When I work with a group, I am the one working; I am the one changing. This is why it seems to me that there is the group that goes through different states, but in reality, I work with my shadow, my qualities.

It is the same in regards to the Creator. It seems to me that He treats me in different ways. Sometimes He comes closer to me, and sometimes He distances Himself, but it is me working with myself against the absolute, the good who does good, and there is none else besides Him. I am within Him.

Thus, “everyone judges according to their own flaws.” I see my shadow against the Creator. This is me seeing myself on the outside, the reflection of my own qualities.

This way, the entire world, except for the Kabbalists, is asking the Creator to change, and they are ready to do anything only so that the Creator would be kind to them. They do not think that they need to change their nature, correct their “evil inclination,” their ego, but they are asking the Creator to be kind to them as they are.

Kabbalists say the opposite: The Creator is “good who does good,” and “there is none else besides Him,” the universal, single force of nature. Nothing else exists besides the Creator. Besides Him, there is only a point of the desire to receive pleasure, “existence from absence.” Various actions take place within this point, and these are changes in its consciousness, its existence in the upper Light.

Suddenly, this point feels that it is expanding to the scale of Malchut of Infinity, the worlds form, and some changes happen. However, it is the same point experiencing all of this. Nothing has changed. All the changes are only happening in its sensations.

This goes on until it reaches a constant state, a sensation that it is like a black point that exists within “the good who does good,” the only One who exists. This entire circle, which we pass within creation until its complete correction (Gmar Tikkun), is only intended for determining our actual place, revealing the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/2011, Shamati No.1

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Question: On the Internet, two approaches to the evolution of the vegetative and animate world are constantly clashing with each other: Darwinism and creationism. What does the science of Kabbalah say about this?

Answer: Frankly, Darwin is right in almost everything. Perhaps, even this reservation is unnecessary since he was simply misunderstood. After all, he was a deeply religious man.

Evolution really does progress in a consistent way where one thing follows as the result of another. Successive development is instilled in nature, and we cannot deny this. However, it does not happen in a random fashion at all since the egoistic desire is constantly searching for possibilities to realize itself to the maximum.

The desire to receive lives in each passing moment and cannot peek into the future. It does not know what it will give rise to in a few more stages. The desire to receive has an exclusively egoistic approach: “How do I get what I want? How do I fulfill myself?”

If this desire is working and the mind serves it, then any kind of progress, any successive development, is absolutely impossible. After all, you are constantly threatening your egoism. Under such conditions, evolution would not have moved beyond the very first particle of the universe.

However, the science of Kabbalah talks about the Reshimot, informational data instilled into the initial spark from which the entirety of matter emerged. These Reshimot are activated one by one in a chain, and the common desire realizes them, building up the matter.

This is precisely the factor of successive development. In Darwin’s theory, we see its external manifestation, but the essence is in the inner engine, the origin of the forces of evolution. They come as a result of the Reshimot.

What was in the primary point from which the Big Bang thundered? Was there really the entirety of the Universe’s matter instilled in it? Logically, such an assertion makes absolutely no sense. There were only two things in this spark: energy and information. They included in themselves the entirety of creation, and development started from them. Energy (Light) impacted the information (Reshimot), and the process took off.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/2011, The Principles of Global Education

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The “Globes” newspaper has published a comprehensive article about the “happiness industry,” which is making us more and more unhappy. The rate of depression in the West is constantly on the rise, while the average age of its victims is decreasing. According to data from the World Health Organization, by 2020 depression will be the second cause of disability and death in the world, surpassed only by cardiovascular diseases.

The modern person is sinking in loneliness, but society does not throw him a life-buoy. With the exception of Islam, the role of religion as a source of support is dwindling to nothingness. Communities are falling apart and the concept of a big, happy family in the Western countries is becoming nonsensical. As people shift to the space of virtual communications, they mistakenly suppose that from now on they can manage without a real, caring environment. As a result, a person looks for the solution to all the problems one on one with himself, inside his shell, perched by a computer screen.

The life of a society that suffers from attention deficit flies by at lightning speed. People twitter short trills hoping to have the time to express something that won’t be heard by anyone a moment later. Anything requiring inner efforts, persistence, and time is rejected at the root. When a person is empty, having no true goal, then worry and depression settle in. So where can he get that goal? Where can he find meaning?

Today all serious researchers assert that happiness lies inside contact with others, in bestowal, and that real meaning can only be revealed in the interconnection between us. Viktor Frankl, the famous Austrian psychologist, says that a person sitting at home and trying to find meaning on his own is like someone trying to break into an open door, not understanding that it opens inwards instead of out.

“You won’t find happiness in a shell,” says one of the interviewed experts to the “Globes” newspaper. By focusing on himself instead of extending a hand out to others, a person only increases his narcissism and depression.

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Question: What is the difference between revealing the Light through one of the eastern methodologies or the method of Kabbalah?

Answer: The revelation of Light can only be reached if one has a big Aviut (coarseness, thickness of desire) which he can correct only with the help of Kabbalah and thereby reveal the Light, the Creator. After all, with a smaller Aviut, a person will not be able to reveal anything but more or less pleasant sensations that give him or her the illusion that he or she is already “soaring” in the spiritual world.

Everything except for Kabbalah—all the eastern methodologies, New Age teachings, different beliefs and religions—are its modified forms born out of the desire to receive pleasure which has not reached its last degree, that of Dalet (four), and is not perfect on all of its levels of Aviut, not as egoistic.

Besides, what did they take from Kabbalah? One preaches moral norms, another advocates meditations, a third recommends food limitations, a fourth prompts to believe in drawn images or spoken tales, a fifth commends ceremonial observances that are considered to be sacred, and so forth.

All of these are the results of the desire to receive pleasure which has not yet reached its final development. It thus expresses the wisdom of Kabbalah in an equally light form instead of correcting itself.

After all, a person like this does not feel the need to correct himself. He does not understand what he needs to correct. He believes that if he were to kiss a “sacred” object or donate something, he would be all right. A small desire to receive pleasure does not push man toward anything greater. All of this flows out of the desire that has not yet been developed to the level of the last degree, that of Dalet.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: How is it possible to ask the Creator for help and to desire only to bestow, without receiving anything for ourselves?

Answer: This is exactly what we ask for. I ask the Creator to give me the opportunity to bestow, where “to bestow to the Creator” means to bestow to the group because it is written, “I dwell among My people.” This is the same thing.

There is no other Creator. “I dwell among My people” means that He becomes revealed in the group. The common force of the group is called “the Creator.” To bestow to the group as a whole means to bestow to the Creator.

We think about this in the earthly sense and that’s why it seems to us, “What’s so special about the group? What can I give to them? How silly!” But if you really would come out of yourself to bestowal to others, you would reveal the upper reality instead of this world. It’s just that we don’t achieve this.

A question arises: But many philosophic teachings also advocated bestowal to society and considered the voice of the people to be the voice of God? Yet, that is incorrect because they did not use the correcting Light, the inner force that is present in society.

At the end of the day, what does the science of Kabbalah say? You have nothing besides desire. Inside of this desire there is a special force called “the Creator,” which was concealed there from the beginning. You can awaken this force inside of the group if you really want to advance to it, to bestow to the group. There you come face to face with the end results —with yourself, with the group, and with the Creator. Everything is inside of the group, in the bestowal that you acquire outside of yourself.

And it makes no difference whether you bestow to the group or the Creator. Bestowal in the group means bestowal to the Kelim or desires of others, whereas bestowal to the Creator means that you become more included into the common force of bestowal that reigns inside of these desires.

We have to detach from the religious notions, from our inherent faith in some kind of Creator who rules somewhere up in the sky and influences us from there. Look at how much power this stereotype still has over us! But in fact, there is no upper force outside of us! This force is inside of the group, in the connection between us. And there is nothing besides this reality, which you reveal. There is nothing outside of reality.

By delving increasingly deeper into these notions, you start to understand that this is a very materialistic approach.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/11, The Zohar

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Question: During the lesson we work with the Light that corrects us. But what do we work with at the Convention?

Answer: At the Convention this happens even more! We don’t have any other means to influence what is happening to us besides the Light that reforms. It is the only thing we can awaken!

We awaken our future states that haven’t been revealed in us yet and which are about to be revealed. They are states of bestowal to the outside, where every person bestows outward, to his neighbor. This is precisely the quality that we want to discover—each person inside of him and all of us as a whole.

When we reveal this quality of bestowal, it means that we have revealed the Creator. As Kabbalists tell us, this quality gave birth to us, formed us, and dispersed us far away from one another so that by uniting with each other we would reveal it once again.

In the meantime, the Creator is in exile. What does that mean? We can say that He also disintegrated into tiny pieces and is inside all of these broken parts that are far away from one another. As soon as you begin connecting them, you start to recreate or restore Him, the common force of bestowal.

We have to build an image for ourselves that is close to the truth. Otherwise we live in various religious fantasies, imagining an unreal, non-materialistic picture.

We have to understand that the difference between faiths or religions and the science of Kabbalah is that faiths or religions want to imagine spirituality in the material desires, which perceive everything “within” and therefore build their notions according to the earthly reality, with creation being below and the Creator being above, as if they are separated by distance rather than qualities. They do not talk about man’s correction.

In contrast, the science of Kabbalah says that everything is inside of man. Thus, the upper reality or dimension becomes revealed in a person’s inner corrections and changes. Therefore, the most important thing for us is to correct man. By correcting our qualities, a person feels that the Creator is revealed inside of him.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/11, The Zohar

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Question: How is it possible to unite the whole world if nations, countries, and religions are so different from each other in every way?

Answer: These are egoistic differences. When we unite spiritually they disappear and we all become as one man with one heart.

The earthly differences actually don’t separate us at all. One person likes to spice up his food with pepper and another one doesn’t. One person holds ceremonies this way and another person that way. This doesn’t make us different at all. On the contrary, that is exactly when we begin respecting one another.

Being dissimilar does not obstruct us from coming together spiritually. On the contrary, by uniting above our egoistic differences, we make them even more powerful and all of that power is aimed at spiritual unity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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