A question I received: I read that Rabbi Nachman said the following about a Mikveh (ritual immersion): “When a man immerses in a Mikveh (a basin filled with rain or spring water, or in an ocean or river), his enemies are destroyed, and all his troubles and disturbances disappear, which prevented him from serving the Creator.” Is this talking about a combination of a Kabbalist’s inner work with the corresponding mechanical actions of his biological body?

My Answer: It means the following: “When a man immerses all his desires into the property of bestowal, then all his egoistic intentions disappear and nothing prevents him from being similar to the Creator.” There is no need for any physical actions of the body, because when a Kabbalist’s body dies, his soul still continues to feel its existence through similarity to the Creator.

The soul exists outside of the body, independently of it. It does not incarnate into the body, and it cannot be affected by any physical actions performed with the body. The soul is a part of the Creator from above, whereas the body is a form of existence of protein matter.

Everything that Judaism advises one to do with the body is a tradition, a framework that helps one remain externally similar to the Upper World. But unfortunately, today – when it’s necessary to come out of the spiritual exile, the same framework that helped the Jewish people survive through the exile is holding them back from the correction they must perform today.

It is written, “As the Mikveh purifies the impure, the Creator purifies Israel.” Immerse into the Creator, the property of Bina, the waters of bestowal and mercy – and you will become pure!

Related Material:
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Kabbalah Today Article: “Who Are You, People of Israel?”
Lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article: “Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
Shamati #79: “Atzilut and Bya”

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A question I received: I strongly believe in the methods and wisdom of Kabbalah, especially after struggling with my old faith and then struggling with atheism and other beliefs. I can’t explain it – there is something in me that’s 100% sure that Kabbalah is the right way. Still, I have doubts, not about Kabbalah itself, but about its relation with our corporeal world.

For example, if Kabbalah came before all religions and religions are inspired by Kabbalah, and this is why we find some similarities between them, then why do historians say that Hinduism was founded before the birth of Abraham, historically speaking? Can you explain this please?

My Answer: There are only three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and they all appeared after “the destruction of the Temple” – after Israel fell from “love for one’s neighbor” to “unfounded hatred.” First Judaism emerged, then Christianity, and then Islam.

Of course, different beliefs existed even before that period, and even before Abraham, as well as before Adam. Abraham himself, as well as his father Terach, were priests in Babylon. And various beliefs existed not only in Babylon, but all over the world.

The Torah, on the other hand, only talks about the spiritual aspect of the world. For example, it talks about the Great Flood, but this flood didn’t happen in the entire world. Likewise, there were people who lived before Adam and believed in different forces and images. The Earth has been around for billions of years, and humans appeared hundreds of thousands of years ago. However, the Torah talks only about humanity’s spiritual development – about 6000 years, starting with the first correction (starting with Adam – one who is similar to the Creator) and until the last one.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Can Religion Come Out of the Crisis It’s In?
Lesson: The Difference between Kabbalah and Religion
Baal HaSulam Article : “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” – Selected Lessons
Kabbalah Today Article: “Love Is the Way”

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A question I received: You said that religion did us a service by showing us how to coexist with each other, and that human egoism became tolerable thanks to religion. Now let’s imagine that religion never existed. Egoism would have torn human society apart, and because of the great suffering we would have reached our logical conclusion much faster – study of Kabbalah and attainment of the goal of creation. Doesn’t this mean that religion is not just harmful, but very much so?

My Answer: The role of religion in man’s (the soul’s) development will become clear only after we attain the Governing Force. In the meantime we have to learn from reality: This is how our world develops, first going through the primitive beliefs, then faith in religions, then faith in science, and finally – the science of Kabbalah. This is when you gain the possibility of opening up your eyes with the help of a new quality and seeing the universe for what it really is.

Kabbalists compare the state before this to sleeping or being unconscious. So while you still don’t have the ability to perceive the true world – while you’re asleep, you should just accept what you feel, and keep advancing. Then the Light of Kabbalah study will “awaken” you.

I accept everything taking place in the world as things that are given to me for my development. I form an opinion about everything that happens only from this perspective. In our time religion must transform and give way to Kabbalah. It should only lay a claim to the cultural content of people’s lives, without any claim to the soul, the world to come and so on, since it doesn’t really know anything about these things. Its task is to give psychological support to weak people, like a psychologist or therapist, but no more than that. Then religion will be able to get out of the crisis it’s in, stop using threats and force to influence people, and earn people’s respect.

The relationships between man and God are explained in Kabbalah by revealing the Creator to man. I consider myself religious because this is the “religion” I follow, rather than the distorted and mechanical one that demands submissive and pointless observance (Musar).

When Baal HaSulam says religion, he means only Kabbalah, while referring to all the rest as culture, tradition, or ethics (Musar). Here’s an excerpt from the article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose“:

“Many are mistaken and compare our holy Torah to ethics (Musar). But that has come to them because they have never tasted religion in their lives. I call upon them: ‘Taste and see (receive the Upper Light into your soul and reveal) that the Lord is good.’

It is true that both ethics and religion aim at one thing – to raise man above the filth of the narrow self-love and bring him to the heights of love of others. But still they are as remote one from the other as the distance between the Thought of the Creator from the thought of people. For religion extends from the Thoughts of the Creator, and ethics comes from thoughts of flesh and blood and from the experiences of their lives.”

Related Material:
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Shamati #66: The Giving of the Torah

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A question I received: How do Eastern teachings and religions reflect in Kabbalah, which also came from the east?

My Answer: Anything related to corporeality has no relation to Kabbalah. Here is a list of just some of the things that don’t pertain to Kabbalah in any way:

• Places, including “holy” or special places that are said to have special qualities
• Objects, including buildings, statues, images, objects of worship, and other objects which are said to have special powers
• Time, including special dates and times, or anything that depends on time and celestial circumstances
• The human body

None of these have any connection to Kabbalah, because Kabbalah is a science that speaks only about the Creator and His revelation in a person’s soul. It has no connection to the body, and this is why Eastern religions or teachings cannot be considered part of Kabbalah. Religious actions and attributes (including specific places or worship, rituals, special objects, and so on) completely contradict Kabbalah, because Kabbalah only engages in studying and delving deep into the human soul and man’s qualities and forces, as if our world and our bodies don’t exist at all.

Related Material:
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Kabbalah Today article: “What is (and is not) Kabbalah?”

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Questions I received on religion and Kabbalah:

Question: Maybe things should be made easier for people who are interested in studying the wisdom of Kabbalah (both Jews and gentiles) by telling them that at the end of the correction process, there is a connection between one’s actions and spirituality. This is the wholeness of Pardes – Judaism (the actions) and Kabbalah (spirituality), and sooner or later this will become the only way of life for the entire corrected society. With all due respect, it’s a fact that you behave as an observant Jew, just like your Rav, Rabash and his Rav before him, Baal HaSulam, and everyone else since the very beginning of the holy generations.

My Answer: I will say it again: the observance of rituals with our body in this world is no more than a tradition, whereas Kabbalah speaks about the correction of the soul’s desires. No one will have to observe the mechanical commandments on purpose. Rather, people will only have to do the spiritual observance of the commandments – in their desire. This is how we will become similar to the Creator. It won’t be done mechanically, because the Creator does not have arms or legs! We have to correct the soul. Study Baal HaSulam’s articles on the body and soul. There he explains that we cannot correct the soul using the body.

Nevertheless, it is good to follow traditions, including the religious ones, in order to keep a framework for our cultural and social existence on earth. I can’t lie to people who are interested in Kabbalah just like I can’t lie to Kabbalah’s opponents.

Question: Where does Baal HaSulam say that one must become secular on the inside? Your arguments make perfect sense, yet you seem not to trust people to be able to fulfill the commandments externally and to work with the intention (Kavanah) internally in a Kabbalistic manner. Your teachers before you and all previous Kabbalists did just this, am I correct? Why then tell people to stop being religious?

My Answer: I never told anyone to stop being religious, just like I never told anyone the reverse! In “The Future Generation,” Baal HaSulam writes that in the corrected society of the future, every person can keep his religion. This shows what the true definition of religion is – it’s a culture, and no more than that. Everyone will recognize and accept it as such when the Creator will be revealed within them. People will remove from religion anything relating to the Creator, the world to come, and reward and punishment for corporeal life.

It’s because everything becomes immediately perceived in “this world,” in the present, right now, and there is no “other world,” or some world “on the other side.” There is nothing but the real, present states. “On the other side” means on the other side of egoism. Change egoism to its opposite, and you will perceive the world on the other side.

Related Material:
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Baal HaSulam Article: “Body and Soul”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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A question I received: I feel drawn to Kabbalah study. I feel great changes. I feel like I am hearing answers that speak to me for the first time in my life. I want to learn, grow and change.

I was unobservant for many years and then returned to observance, mostly to try and make my life make sense and because of guilt. My father is a Rabbi and is a wonderful, pious, accepting man. I thought that I was doing something for my father by returning, and this is how my actions were also perceived by my orthodox family.

I only found Kabbalah because I returned to observance and went into a Chabad house. From there my interests were peaked and I found you online.

I feel conflicted now when I learn from you about the difference between religion and Kabbalah. I understand what you are saying and want to continue to learn, but I feel like if I move toward you, I am being selfish and disloyal to my father. So to move toward Kabbalah might be a selfish act for me considering my circumstance. Is this just part of my work?

My Answer: The difference between religion and Kabbalah is man’s correction. The study of Kabbalah (when it’s done correctly and by the correct source texts) evokes the Upper Light, which corrects one’s egoism according to the rule, “I have created egoism and I have created the Torah for its correction, because the Light that’s in it returns one to the Source.”

We develop to the degree that the broken, egoistic desires are revealed us. When one’s desire for correction becomes revealed, one then begins to sense that our world and everything in it – even faith – are false and empty. However, people who don’t realize this yet are satisfied with faith – whether faith in themselves, the world, or God.

Only you can tell which desires are being revealed in you. At the end of our development all of us will feel the need to unite with the Creator. In our time, people’s desires for Him are beginning to surface. This is why Kabbalah – the method of revealing the Creator, is becoming more and more popular and necessary. Even religions are beginning to “dress” in it and to say that Kabbalah is part of them. This also benefits Kabbalah, because it will accelerate people’s realization that the Creator cannot be attained anywhere besides Kabbalah!

Related Material:
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Kabbalah Today Article: “Interview with Rav Michael Laitman, PhD”

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A question I received: I first heard about The Book of Zohar from a Christian preacher, Billye Brim. This book helped me better understand myself and my relationship with the Creator. At the time I didn’t feel that it contradicted my faith as a Christian, but after listening to your lectures, I understood that you don’t recognize the existence of G-d as an individual. For you G-d is Nature or the Laws of Nature. But then who do we pray to when we pray for correction? I know that when I sincerely ask G-d for something and believe that He hears me, that He is always good to me, and that I will receive what I asked for – then He always gives it me.

I started studying in your on-line courses a week ago, and a month prior to that I began taking courses about stock market operations. Who should I ask for help in my studies? How do I formulate my prayer? I am studying “for myself,” so how can I change this to “for the Creator”? And why would He even care about my education? If I get sick, how should I ask Him for healing? My body will be in pain, but why would the Creator care about my body if He only cares about the soul? I’ve reached a dead end, and I beg you to help me!

My Answer: First you should study Baal HaSulam’s articles “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” and others. You will have to be patient, because it will take you time to figure this out. You have to go through an initial period of confusion and misunderstanding, and it may even take you many months for the material to enter your memory, settle there, be grasped by you and connect correctly with your corporeal perception.

Once this happens, you will be able to understand the things that happen to you and to the world so well that you will be able to answer your own questions. The only way to accelerate this process of understanding reality is by adopting a “mechanical” attitude to the world: work, study, family, Kabbalah lessons, and rest. Don’t pay attention to your feelings and the confusion, but only let a lot of Baal HaSulam’s material pass through you, like through a meat grinder. Later this material will settle inside you and start working. This is a period that cannot be skipped.

It’s possible that you won’t be able to go back to religion. Everything is simpler there – all you have to do is observe rituals and not ask any questions, and then you’ll receive a reward in this world and the world to come. However, you will probably stop believing in this – the lie will become all too obvious!

So if you want to reveal the Truth, my advice to you is to live just like you did before, with the addition of Kabbalah studies. And then the Light of Correction, Ohr Makif, will dispel the darkness you’re in.

Related Material:
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Kabbalah Books for our Generation
Baal HaSulam’s Articles
Buy the Book: The Zohar: Annotations to the Ashlag Commentary

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A question I received: I have been very curious about this for a long time. We say that Kabbalah is not religion, or does not require a particular belief system, yet atheism is now considered a religion among many and it is one of the fastest growing, though that may be a contradiction in terms, as many consider religion a system of belief in God. In any case, we have said Kabbalah study is secular, so my question is – can an atheist be a Kabbalist, or does Kabbalah require a belief in God? After all, in Kabbalah the idea is to become like the Creator.

My Answer: Kabbalah differs from “everything else” (religion or not) in that it facilitates a clear attainment of the Creator, so that you will feel Him like you feel a friend of yours, and even more. Hence there is no room in Kabbalah for belief in something others have told to you. Rather, you have to attain yourself, the entire world, and all the souls, and inside them – the Creator in His entirety.

Atheism is a belief that the Creator does not exist, whereas religion is a belief that the Creator does exist. In contrast, Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator, through researching Nature inside yourself or inside your perceptions.

In this regard, Kabbalah is similar to other sciences. However, the other sciences reveal the world within the senses that we already have, whereas Kabbalah does it in an additional sense – the soul, which you first have to develop inside you. In any case, just like any other science Kabbalah speaks only about the things that are present in one’s senses! It is not interested in anything that’s imperceptible and that cannot be researched, repeated, and tested, and considers these things unreal. This approach makes it a science by definition. See the definition of Kabbalah in Baal HaSulam’s article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” – “Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to man in our world” – to every person and to everyone together.

Like all sciences, Kabbalah uses the scientific method or instrument (even though scientists find it difficult to agree with this because they are used to researching the world only through the animate body). The scientific method assumes that:

• Every scientific statement must be proven by experiment.
• Every scientific statement can be proven wrong.
• It is pointless to discuss an idea that cannot be verified in practice. For example, here is a scientific opinion about G-d’s existence: Immanuel Kant showed that it cannot be proven that G-d exists as well as that He does not. The very notion of an unattainable and almighty G-d is not subject to experiment, because if G-d is almighty, then he’s able to control the outcome of the experiment. People don’t accept G-d through evidence, but through faith. Hence, the idea of G-d is beyond science. Any question that asks “Why is so and so this way?” can be answered, “Because it’s G-d’s will.” (This is how religion compelled people to answer all questions, and therefore it slowed down scientific progress.) Kabbalah allows one to reveal the Creator and His actions in practice. However, it is just as indifferent to the things that cannot be verified in practice as the earthly sciences.
• Every scientific statement must be logical and not contradict the laws that are already known. Usually, the old laws become particular cases of the new laws.
• Every scientific statement must indicate its “weak spots”; it should mention which of it constituents are subject to doubt and objection.

Related Material:
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Laitman.com Post: Some Quotes by Albert Einstein
UPI Article: “Everybody’s God”
Kabbalah Today Article: “Contradictory Phenomena”
What the Bleep!? – Quantum Physics Meets Kabbalah

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A question I received: Whenever I tell religious people that we are opposite to the Creator, they always quote the Biblical verse that we were created in the image of G-d. How can I respond to this? What is “image” in Kabbalah? Is the “image” really a “shadow,” which would mean that we’re exactly the opposite of the Creator?

My Answer: By telling a religious person that we are opposite to the Creator, that we are egoistic and He is Good, you deny their closeness to the Creator. So how could they agree with this, if they consider themselves corrected!? This is where they get their conviction that they are righteous and everyone else is obliged to them; that just by observing the religious prescriptions (which are allegedly G-d’s desires), they are freed from their corporeal responsibilities.

The conclusion to be made from this is: Don’t talk to them until they discover their egoism, their opposition to the Creator, on their own. You shouldn’t make people upset if they are not ready for correction yet. After all, this is exactly why religion was invented – to last until the time when humanity will be ready to attain the Creator.

Then the exile from spirituality, from the concealment of the Creator, will end. Baal HaSulam explains “What is Kabbalah” in the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.” He writes:

“Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to man in this world” – and by saying this, he immediately erases all of religion! It’s because this doesn’t leave any room for faith in something you were told. Instead of the unfounded tales, one suddenly receives the opportunity and responsibility of clear revelation and attainment of the Creator.

When one reveals this, then he does not just reveal something slightly bigger than our world, the way regular science widens the world for us. Rather, one reveals the Upper World, the Creator Himself! Moreover, Baal HaSulam adds that every person and all of humanity will have to reach this revelation, until all people will clearly feel the Creator just like a person feels his friend, and even closer!

So where is there any room left for belief, if you attain everything yourself and make your own conclusions!? In addition, this allows you to attain immortality, omniscience, and perfection, because revelation is only possible to the degree that you are equal to the Creator. In other words, revelation means that a person acquires the same state as the Creator Himself!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Eventually, Everything Will Come Together In Peace and Correction
Laitman.com Post: Religion and Kabbalah are Opposite
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”
Kabbalah Today Article: “All’s Well That Ends Well”

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