Faith above reason means that I accept the view of the upper one even when it clashes with my own understanding, as it is written: “They have eyes but do not see; they have ears but do not hear.” This means that I can lift myself to a higher level each time, as though pulling myself upward to the next rung, by choosing the upper one’s opinion over my own, even when it contradicts everything I know.

If a friend hands me an envelope with $1,000 and I do not check the amount because I trust him—this is faith below reason. My trust does not contradict what I know, and therefore it does not demand faith.

Knowledge is the mind and perception I possess within this material world, like a judge who relies solely on what his eyes can see. Faith, however, is what stands above this knowledge, as Bina stands above Malchut. And to rise from the degree of Malchut to that of Bina, I must advance through faith above reason.

If I count the money and find that there are $999 instead of $1,000, then $999 is my knowledge, and the remaining “$1” is the measure of my faith. But if the envelope contains only $1, or is completely empty, and still I believe the higher one, considering his view to be true, then I elevate myself above my own reason and begin to see from the vantage point of the upper one.

The mind of the upper one is the opinion of the group or the teacher. If I strive each time to rise to faith above reason, this means I am ascending spiritual degrees. If I make no effort to accept the mind of the upper one, I neither enter nor approach the spiritual world.

Faith above reason is the only point of free choice granted to a person in this world.

If I accept the upper one’s view and agree that the envelope holds $1,000, although I counted only $999, then I rise to his degree. And then I myself witness how the envelope becomes filled to the full measure, not with money, but with the greatness of the Creator.

Faith above reason is a special mechanism, a unique method that lifts us from the material degree to the spiritual one, and from a lower spiritual degree to a higher one. This is the only way to ascend: by taking on the opinion of the higher one.

Each time I am as if born anew on the next degree, again and again. I enter the new state like a newborn who carries nothing from the previous one; I cling to the mind of the upper one and proceed with it.

With my own senses I see only $1 in the envelope. Yet above my senses I must accept that it is $1,000. I do not nullify my knowledge, I leave it as it is. I clearly see the gap between what I know and what stands above knowledge.

This gap defines the difference between Malchut and Bina. On one hand, “the judge has only what his eyes see”—this is Malchut. Yet I must go against this knowledge and prefer the knowledge of the higher one—Bina, faith.

And within this interval—this divergence between Malchut and Bina, between knowledge and faith above knowledge—the upper world and spiritual reality begin to reveal themselves.

All the work in the ten proceeds by faith above reason. I may see no love among the friends; on the contrary, we seem ready to devour one another. Yet we work to love each other. In the eyes of the upper one our ten is perfect and stands in complete unity; in our own eyes it appears entirely otherwise. This difference is what we must examine and rise above.

And this contradiction remains. I cannot reconcile one with the other, for this distance is the very gap between Bina and Malchut, it cannot close; in fact, it continues to widen.

This is the difference between the Creator and the created being as it awakens within me. And the more I follow faith, the more I cleave to the Creator instead of clinging to my own mind and animal body. This is how spiritual advancement unfolds.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/20, “Work with Faith Above Reason”

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Rav Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (RABASH) is the source from whom we receive the entire wisdom of Kabbalah. All of it flows to us from his mouth. All his articles, all his explanations, and all his teachings that he received from his great father, Baal HaSulam, pass on to us through him. Let us hope that we accept and realize all of this properly in honor of that great soul.

Of course, in the spiritual world there is no such thing as death. Therefore, even today we are governed by that same force, called RABASH. We must understand and feel this, and never detach ourselves from the heritage he left us. It is our obligation to translate the writings of RABASH into all major languages and to disseminate them throughout the world.

We must carry out all his advice and recommendations as precisely and carefully as possible, and see him as our Teacher and spiritual father. Everything that we can attain in the spiritual world, in eternity, during our life in this world and beyond it depends on this.

The ladder of degrees and souls never changes, and thus we are all dependent upon him. RABASH is that source from which we receive life, through our connection with him and with one another. Therefore, our organization bears his name, Bnei Baruch (“The Children of Baruch”).

We truly are his sons, may we be worthy of this honor!

Come and see how grateful we should be to our teachers, who impart us their sacred lights and dedicate their souls to do good to our souls. They stand in the middle between the path of harsh torments and the path of repentance. They save us from the netherworld, which is harder than death, and accustom us to reach the heavenly pleasures, the sublime gentleness and the pleasantness that is our share, ready and waiting for us from the very beginning…

Our sages have already said, “You have not a generation without such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Baal HaSulam, Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot, Item 8).

This means that the Kabbalists themselves are the source of spiritual life, through whom the abundance from the Creator flows to us that descend into our world as the light of correction and the light of fulfillment. The light passes from Adam HaRishon onward through the entire chain of Kabbalists, and we receive it from RABASH.

Therefore, how immense is our gratitude to our teachers who impart us their sacred lights and dedicate their souls to do good to our souls.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/17, “On the Day of Remembrance of Rabash”

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Question: How does Malchut de Rosh determine how much light it allows into the Peh so it would pass into the Guf?

Answer: I cannot say, but by how we act and connect with the inner properties of Malchut de Rosh, we begin to feel its properties and actions, and thus begin to understand and realize them. This is how we adhere to Malchut de Rosh.

Question: It is written in TES that there is an upper Zivug for the departure of light and there is an upper Zivug for bringing pleasure, for the spreading of light. And both of them are defined as joy. It is unclear what the joy from the departure of light is. Who is rejoicing and what is he rejoicing about?

Answer: Any action that realizes a Partzuf aims to satisfy the upper desire.

Question: Can we say that the reversal into reflected light occurs at the moment when the Kli feels the Creator’s desire to fill it?

Answer: We can say this.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/25, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“

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Comment: Your students constantly turn to you as a source of information. “What should we do? How should we perform this or that?” and so on.

My Response: I only give general advice that involves correction: where to focus more precisely and how to adjust one’s course. I can do nothing more than give a hint from the side.

Question: On one hand, a person can prove to you that this, and not that, is what matters, and you agree. But on the other hand, people come to you for advice about how it is better to act? Then what is the point of this advice if you can be persuaded?

Answer: It depends on the level at which I am being told something. If we are talking about the level of this world and I am given certain arguments, then I listen to the specialist or to a person experienced in that field.

On the other hand, when someone asks me how best to act in dissemination or teaching, meaning within our system, then one must make sure it does not contradict the conditions of Kabbalah.

Basically, all this is only so that a person makes fewer mistakes and learns from me rather than from his own experience. But this does not concern his personal paths, degrees, or states, but only general matters such as when he teaches, writes music, makes videos, creates programs, or publishes a newspaper. In those cases, I can step in, and I do.

But if it concerns his personal state, I cannot help him. He must go through them. I can only help indirectly so that through the environment he can accelerate the passage of his states.

The thing is, we cannot change our states, we can only accelerate them. And if this acceleration happens under our own effort, it is perceived as good and desirable, not as suffering.

Question: But when a person is in a state of descent or feels down, do you not intervene? Or do you still somehow stimulate him?

Answer: When he is with me, such states are softened because he feels the energy emanating from me and receives a sense of confidence and safety from it.

But on the other hand, he still needs to go through all his states. That is why I shake, shout, and pressure him, as if compensating for my presence with negative influences, and push people away from me. I have no close ones, favorites, or deputies; everyone is equal.

Maybe I relate to people differently depending on their position, but only in a professional sense, not otherwise. I make absolutely no distinction between people in their spiritual path.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. House of councils” 10/7/10

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Therefore, come and see how grateful we should be to our teachers, who impart us their sacred lights and dedicate their souls to do good to our souls. They stand in the middle between the path of harsh torments and the path of repentance. They save us from the netherworld, which is harder than death (Baal HaSulam, Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot).

On the memorial day of the great Kabbalist, our teacher RABASH, we do not indulge in memories and do not mourn his passing as is customary in the corporeal world, which is far from the truth.

We perceive this day as an opportunity to connect even more strongly, to cleave, to draw closer to our root. Because RABASH is the revelation of the Creator in relation to us in a certain form and with a certain force.

We wish to thank the Creator for having sent us such a messenger through whom He opened for us the possibility of drawing near to the upper force, of correcting ourselves, bringing us to resemblance with the Creator. Through RABASH we bind ourselves to the Creator because he is an intermediate degree between us and the Creator thanks to which we exist and receive all that is necessary for spiritual ascent through it.

RABASH is revealed to us as a system connecting us with the Creator, through which we can realize ourselves and draw nearer to the truth. Therefore, we recall, not the external image of the man and his earthly habits, but first and foremost consider him as a special revelation of the Creator toward us, manifesting Himself in such a form.

The more we revere RABASH, the more we draw near to the Creator, treasuring that special revelation which the Creator made through him. Thus, the upper force called “RABASH,” becomes important for us, links us to the Creator, and brings us closer to Him.

To some extent, this revelation of the Creator was manifested in an external form, and then it disappeared. We, however, must, despite this external disappearance, this dimming, likewise illuminate ourselves and attain connection with RABASH, with this spiritual root, as with our higher degree, in order through it to connect with the Creator.

There are special souls through which the Creator influences a certain number of lower souls. As though the brain gives a command to an important organ so that it may send signals to various cells of the body under its governance and direct their behavior. RABASH, who was the continuation of Baal HaSulam in our generation, became a turning point for us, the source of the modern, practical method of spiritual ascent.

Therefore, we must understand what a gift we have been granted by having been given the opportunity to connect with him, to absorb from him the method suited to our days, and to realize it.

How grateful we must be to our teacher, RABASH, whose soul, this part of reality, was so great that it could form and transmit the entire method of correction to us. Without him, it would have been extraordinarily difficult, perhaps even altogether impossible for us to attain the spiritual world.

The upper force spreads within the system of Adam HaRishon, reveals itself from above downward by enlivening more and more parts of the soul. And when the light must spread into the lower layers of the system, to enliven the next organs in the chain of the body of Adam HaRishon, the need for the higher, special parts of the system to enter this work arises.

Development proceeds from above downward, and therefore, when some lower degree develops, it induces changes in all the higher degrees. Every correction is intended only for awakening ever lower souls, called “the Last Generation,” to also bring them to resemblance with the Creator.

RABASH symbolizes a great, global force acting upon our entire generation. What remains for us is only to realize the method of Baal HaSulam, which was transmitted to us and explained by RABASH. Therefore, we study the articles of RABASH in order to perceive the world as a single system and to actualize it correctly, to which RABASH leads us in the most practical form.

Baal HaSulam is revealed to us not as a guide, but as a scientist who knows all of creation from end to end and even beyond its limits. And RABASH takes us by the hand, like an adult guiding a child, and leads us along this path until the very end of correction. He opens the path for us and walks beside us.

The heavy, coarse souls revealed in our generation would not be able to attain adhesion with the Creator without the method revealed to us by RABASH. Because he explains how to attain those states about which Baal HaSulam writes.

Baal HaSulam writes about the higher degrees and higher states as a scientific researcher. And RABASH speaks more, not about the degrees themselves, but about the inner work a person must perform to attain them; that is, about the means: the environment, unity, self-annulment.

Baal HaSulam describes the entire upper system in these books, but these are not textbooks by which one can ascend. He is like a composer who wrote a symphony. But we first need to learn musical notation and the technique of scales before we can read that score and play it. For this, we need another person, a teacher, and such a teacher for us became RABASH, who leads us through the entire path.

Without his explanations, we might have become confused in the teachings of Baal HaSulam and begun to interpret them incorrectly, according to our own imagination. But if we realize the instructions of RABASH, which enable us to attain such attainment, then we will begin to understand what Baal HaSulam writes about.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/2019, “Rabash Memorial Day (Yahrzeit),”

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Question: In RABASH’s “The Purpose of Society – 1,” it is written that the reason for creation was the fear of God. What kind of state is this?

Answer: It is the state of a person who desires more than anything in the world to come to fear of the Creator, and for this purpose he is ready to immerse himself in all the details of what happens with him in the world and in his group.

After all, everything in the world was created only so that a person would reveal his attitude to the Creator, which is called “fear of Him.” This is what we need to understand and try to attain.

Question: Further RABASH writes that we must be in a low state. What does this mean?

Answer: A low state is a state when a person feels that his desires and aspirations are in contradiction to the desires and aspirations of the Creator. And how to come out of this state, he does not yet know.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/25, “Rabash Memorial Day (Yahrzeit)”

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Comment: When a person gets into a certain society, he is influenced by that environment. Suppose he got into the society of “Brahma Kumaris” or somewhere else, and began to truly perceive: “Yes, there is God there.” When people come to study Kabbalah, you also present certain information, and this brainwashes a person.

My Response: No! Because Kabbalah is against his egoism, against one’s nature! With it, I do not subordinate a person to myself. I place him against me.

Pay attention, although you respect me and consider me a smart person, you do not agree with me, you are not under me, because I am giving you information that is against you.

You can agree with me only if you annul yourself, if you acknowledge that you are nothing and nobody. This is your inner struggle.

That is why Kabbalah is the only method that does not subjugate a person. It is not a religion, and it is not some other methods.

I only teach and give information, but how to realize it in you, that is your problem, and a very difficult one, because you can resolve it only by fighting with yourself. Therefore, you will never obey me. You will always be against me, and if you will be able to agree with me, it will be only above your reason.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman Against the Students” 10/4/10

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Question: When studying Kabbalah is it better to agree with you or to resist and find out?

Answer: To resist and find out, of course! That is what I want from my students! This is called a Kabbalah teacher.

Question: And faith above reason, where should I be annulled?

Answer: Faith is above reason, that is your work if you are able to carry it out. But at the same time, you are not destroying knowledge, you are not destroying your egoism. You rise above it. It is like a pillow for you on which you build faith, the quality of bestowal above your egoism. Egoism gives you the possibility to build faith.

If egoism disappears, then the quality of bestowal will disappear, since it is built on the opposite of egoism, which works as a counterforce. Therefore, there is absolutely no subordination here!

I know from my own experience how difficult it was for me with my teacher. The more you move forward, the more you begin to hate him. You always feel insignificance in him, emptiness, you cannot agree with him!

I know all this, and that is why I see right through my students. This does not concern me and in no way dictates my attitude toward them. By no means! Not at all! I understand their hatred toward me, because I am presenting them with a method that is against their nature. How can they love me?!

Question: Then why are they with you nonetheless?

Answer: Because they have nowhere to go. That is it!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman against the students” 10/4/10

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Question: Many of your students use their material qualities for the dissemination of Kabbalah. They are told that first they must rise out of their egoistic attitude, but they don’t want to listen to anyone. What should be done about this?

Answer: In Kabbalah, as in our world, this is called the suffering of parents: “If youth only knew, if old age only could.” You can’t do anything with such a person except try to educate him as much as possible. But, in principle, everything depends on him.

You give the students what you can, you soften and accelerate their development, but nothing more than that. And then, gradually, they begin to absorb it.

To this day, I am nourished by what I went through with my teacher during twelve years of being by his side. Education is when you give a student the beginning of a connection with you, and then through this connection between souls—whether on the level of our world or from world to world, it doesn’t matter—his further development takes place.

We must look not at bodily interactions within the framework of this world, but at the fact that we exist in the system of souls, and everything happens there.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. If Youth Only Knew, If Old Age Only Could” 10/4/10

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These ascents are like rungs of a ladder, set and arranged degree by degree until it is completed and achieves its goal. And you should know that the quality and quantity of these rungs is set in two realities:
1) the existence of material substances,
2) the existence of spiritual concepts.

In the language of Kabbalah, they are called “from above downward” and “from below upward” (Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence“).

The descent of the desire from above downward and the ascent from below upward is a gradation of our egoism. As we descend from above downward, the ego manifests as increasingly corrupted, but during the ascent from below upward, it will appear increasingly corrected.

Question: So nothing disappears? In fact, we ascend those very steps by which creation descended?

Answer: Of course! There is no other way. Egoism was created opposite to the light; the light filled it, fitting it precisely, and together they form the ladder of spiritual elevation.

Question: What is the difference between the order of the descent from above downward and the order of ascent from below upward?

Answer: The ascent from below upward happens through our unity and our appeal to the Creator for help to rise and become similar to Him.

Question: Is humanity still threatened by further descents?

Answer: No, there will be no more descents. What is corrected is corrected forever!
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/18, Writings of Baal HaSulam ‘The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence’

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