Question: Why can’t we communicate directly with the Creator? Why do we need an intermediary, like a teacher?

Answer: It is not an intermediary. It is your previous state. The fact is, creation is a shattered system, which starts to correct itself like links in a continuous chain from the least, almost undamaged elements, to the more complex.

An element that went before always passes all of its knowledge, all it has accumulated, all of its connections, to the next element. And because we are links in this chain, we are always connected to our teachers and then become teachers for the next generation.

Question: If the teacher is my previous state, then who is my future state?

Answer: The future state is you until you advance spiritually. And then it is your students, those who must continue the correction after you, moving through the levels of this broken system. They either find you during your lifetime or in some way connect with you spiritually after death.
[220080]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 10/1/17

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Question: You were with your teacher Rabash for 12 years. After eight or ten years you already knew a lot, you wrote books. Did you have the feeling that you no longer had anything to learn from him?

Answer: Yes, there were states like that. They were accompanied by internal tension and resentment.

For example, the teacher explains, but you already know that listening to an explanation is not enough. We must somehow overcome the potential internal barrier, but you cannot overcome it. And, of course, there are problems. It is here that you have to cancel yourself, and this is contrary to the desire.

Question: Did Rabash tell you how he had to nullify himself to Baal HaSulam?

Answer: He didn’t say that, but he casually mentioned a few times that it was very difficult for him because it is even more difficult to nullify yourself to your father.
[219749]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17

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Question: Does a student remain connected with his teacher after the teacher’s death?

Answer: The connection remains. If the student is on the level of attainment, he understands and maintains this connection. Depending on the level that he is on, there is virtually no difference whether the teacher is physically next to him or not.

But if it is a regular teacher, like a physicist or a mathematician, there is no connection whatsoever. And here, however, the connection continues and is not diminished by the teacher’s death. On the contrary, it grows even stronger and more purposeful, pure, clear, and bright.
[219329]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17

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Question: Is it correct to say that the Creator teaches a student through the teacher?

Answer: Of course. It happened this way starting with the first Kabbalist Adam through the series of Kabbalists described in the Torah: Noah and all his sons, who really are not his sons, but his disciples, up to Abraham.

And further, from Abraham through other Kabbalists: Isaac, Jacob, etc., who are called his children and grandchildren. But, in Kabbalah, family relationships mean souls related through the transmission of spiritual information.

When it is written in the Torah that someone has given birth to someone, it refers to spiritual objects (Partzufim) that give birth to each other, multiply, and develop.

Question: So, Issac is not Abraham’s son, but his disciple?

Answer: Of course. He could have had 20 wives and 100 children, but so what? It is the disciples who are described in the Torah.

Question: When it says “Abraham’s family,” what does the term “family” mean?

Answer: It is a spiritual state: Abraham’s desire, called Sarah, from which the soul called Isaac , the left line, was born.
[219325]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17

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Remark: You say that one must obey his teacher and listen to his advice without any criticism. On the other hand, I heard you say during the lessons that criticism is important and doubt is unavoidable on the path. Moreover, it helps students in their advancement. Please clarify this contradiction.

My Comment: There is no contradiction here. On one hand, in our movement forward, we have to obey the teacher completely since he sees what we should do many steps ahead and we do not; we could not only make a mistake, but could steer off the path.

On the other hand, when we start advancing following the right direction and the teacher, we can figure out all the nuances of our advancement. And this is considered normal. Naturally, all study is based on questions and answers.

Question: And what about criticism?

Answer: How can you criticize the upper Partzuf if you are not on its level? The teacher has his own intentions and his own plans that you know nothing about because he is on a level higher than you. Therefore, everything that is revealed to him is concealed for you.

Question: If a person starts to criticize us, can he go to another teacher, a third, a fourth, and then realize that the truth is here and come back?

Answer: Generally, yes. But the teacher may not accept him back. However, if you do come back and are accepted, hold on to it with a bulldog’s stranglehold and start advancing.

Question: You say to listen to the teacher in spiritual matters, not corporeal life. But my friends in the group tell me that if I want to advance spiritually, I must imitate my teacher in everything. Is it customary in Kabbalah or not?

Answer: That is Hasidism. No Kabbalist would demand their students to imitate him.
[218682]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/24/17

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Question: Does a Kabbalist teacher choose his students himself or does a student pursue the teacher and ask to be taught?

Answer: It isn’t either of those ways. The teacher and the student are determined from above. They are brought closer to each other so that the relationship is established at a certain distance. As they engage with connection to the Creator, the student gets closer to the teacher.

Question: Did Rabash come and take you from your first teacher Hillel?

Answer: Yes, because I could not leave Hillel by myself. I could not tear myself away from him because my egoism received pleasure, answers, and fulfillments that were indescribable.

And with Rabash, it was the opposite. He sat down and opened Talmud Eser Sefirot. I barely understood a word. Rabash, I, and several other people sat and read throughout the lesson. Here we were dealing with the attraction of the upper Light according to our intention. And with Hillel, I was simply engaged in obtaining knowledge.

Question: What are the connections between a student and a teacher?

Answer: There is a connection between them only through the Creator, nothing else. Everything moves through them for the sake of attaining the higher goal.
[219322]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17

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Question: How does a Kabbalist analyze what has been swept through him?

Answer: The Kabbalist should justify everything that happened to him during the years of life. All of this has been done by the Creator, there is none else besides Him, and He is only good who does good.

From this moment onward, he must try to be connected with the Creator in all of his actions, and in whatever happens to him—the best, the worst, no matter what—he still does not part from the Creator.

Disconnecting from the Creator is the greatest punishment of man in the world!
[218468]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/3/17

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Question: In the book Shamati, article 84, it is written: “…lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life. So He drove out the man.” What correction did the Creator “fear” that Adam might carry out and be integrated with the Tree of Life?

Answer: That the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge would remain uncorrected!

Question: How can we conduct a group of ten in Germany that will be exactly like it was conducted by Rabash with gatherings of friends on Fridays? Which questions can we solve in it and what must we study?

Answer: You must refer this question to your friends in Bnei Baruch in Petach Tikva.
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Question: How does a Kabbalist analyze his inner states with the Creator? How does the environment of our world affect this?

Answer: It does not affect it in any way. When I come to the lesson in the morning, can you tell in what condition I am with the Creator? What I had with him before, any talk or relationship? This is a different level, a different world.

Therefore, what I feel and what I give to my students are two different steps, and one does not affect the other.

It happens sometimes that it is very difficult to teach a lesson because everything has been “taken” from you. But it is taken on your own level, and when you switch to the students and use their desires while you are at their level, then you are practically being realized in accordance to them, and they do not feel it.

In this respect, I win and it’s easier for me. I hide myself, and students cannot tell what spiritual state I am in. It is impossible.
[206472]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/29/17

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Question: When you came to your teacher Rabash, did you envy him?

Answer: From the point of view of knowledge and comprehension, then yes. But from the point of view of an ordinary person, what was there for me to envy? I was 30 and he was 70. In front of me was a person who knows everything, but says nothing!

Question: When you asked Rabash, “How do I know that I am in the right place?” He replied, “A real teacher is identified by the heart.” How do you identify that this is your teacher through the heart?

Answer: This cannot be put into words. You simply feel that this person holds the truth and that you need to receive it from him. He has it in his hands and he is ready to extend his arms to you if you extend yours to him and take it. All the same, the student still does not understand the teacher.

Question: How does this click happen, when you know with certainty that this is your teacher, your place, your life?

Answer: I understood this from his lectures. I saw that practically all of my questions had answers. I felt that this methodology was for me.

Actually, I went through many great Kabbalists, but their method of teaching was absolutely not right for me. And only here did I immediately feel that this is absolute knowledge that I wanted to receive from him.
[214195]
From the Lesson in Russian, 6/25/17

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