Question: It is said that when Rabbi Shimon and his disciples were creating The Book of Zohar, they were sitting in a cave, Rabbi Shimon was talking, Rabbi Abba was writing it down, the son of Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Elazar, was listening to him "from mouth to mouth," while the rest were listening through the heart. What do these different levels of connection mean?

Answer: Beside the external language that Kabbalists can use for communication, "the language of branches," there is also an internal connection called "Peh El Awzen" (from mouth to ears) at the level of Bina, when the teacher and the student are united in a state of Katnut (a small state), as well as the connection called "Peh El Peh" (from mouth to mouth) at the level of Keter, in the state of Gadlut (a big state). Such connection requires no language: One understands the other without words, through the inner adhesion, union.

In other words, we can understand each other in one of the following ways:

• After long conversations, or
• by taking the hint, or
• we start understanding each other without words, or
• we become so united into one whole that it becomes impossible to say that you understand me and I understand you since we are inseparable, and we don’t need to pass anything to each other.

These are the levels of the spiritual connection.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: How can a person know that his teacher is a real Kabbalist?

Answer: How can you know that he is a true Kabbalist? He cannot show you any specific diploma or perform miraculous acts that would look spiritual to you since how do you know what spirituality is anyway? Hence, you can only listen to your heart and examine whether what you hear resonates with you, connects you to the root of your soul.

I studied in five or six places before I found Rabash. And I used to leave them not because I would find something better; I just saw that there was nothing else to do there, nothing else to learn. And it isn’t because their intent was to deceive me; it’s just that each of them had their own method, ideas, and delusions.

But I was seeking a place where I could study Kabbalah as a science. And when I met Rabash, I immediately saw that his students studied authentic primary sources: The Zohar, the works of the ARI and Baal HaSulam, which are the most fundamental Kabbalistic texts, and that he attached deep meaning to the concepts in a logical form, without external religious acts or meditation.

In other words, he used a strictly scientific approach without shifting to one or the other side. By then, I had already realized that everything else has nothing to do with truth. I had a sense that wherever they talk about some actions related to the corporeal body or fantasies, it doesn’t have anything to do with spirituality.

I had a very clear feeling that here there was some entrance into a more internal world that doesn’t depend on the body or imagination, on all those attributes I have at the moment. It is required that a person reveals a certain internal layer within, and I was searching: How do I do that? And when I came to Rabash and started to study, I saw that that’s exactly about what he was speaking.

Baal HaSulam writes that anyone who wishes to receive spiritual knowledge must find himself a teacher, an authentic sage-Kabbalist who seems to be right for the job. But if he feels that he is in a place which doesn’t suit him, he shouldn’t stop looking. After all, time is running out.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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We always experience extreme difficulty when studying anything relative to Partzuf Adam HaRishon (“the First Man”), which consists of two parts, the male and female ones, Adam and Eve (Zachar and Nukva). It could be the simplest of things, but since our structures are different (it has the spiritual structure while we have the material one), in our case 1+1=2, and in its, 1+1=3 (as it is written, “Husband and wife, the Creator, Shechina (Divinity), between them”). And we are incapable of understanding this.

We don’t need all these infinite details that are described in Talmud Eser Sefirot; we study them only in order to draw the Light that Reforms. And inside the entire content that we discuss, there is our intention, the expectation that the Light will come. That’s all we are talking about.

But we have to keep in mind that it talks about me, the structure of my soul, the various spiritual states it undergoes. I don’t feel them just yet, but all of them are given to me for one reason: to live through each state, from start to end. I can’t escape any single state described in the book.

Each of us passes through the same states on this path. Therefore, a student’s job is to cleave to the upper one, to the teacher. After all, the upper one has already gone through these states, and by clinging to him, you will pass through them as well. We draw the Light namely by studying what is written about your soul.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The only thing that can help us is self-annulment before the group, the teacher, and the Creator. This involves connecting to the environment and absorbing from it as much as humanly possible.

History presents us with many such examples. For instance, one of them is Joshua Bin Nun who merited becoming Moses’ successor. It is our internal force that leads a person to the final stage of correction, by lovingly bringing him or her closer to the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), after the force of Moses has done its part.

It is the most exalted rung of receiving in order to bestow! And how did Joshua merit it? He merited it by helping Moses while the latter was teaching the people: He cleaned the room and “straightened the benches.”

In other words, he cleaved to his teacher’s actions and wanted to be his inseparable part, thereby receiving Moses’ wisdom. It was he who merited and not the students who were studying. He didn’t even study, but rather received spirituality “Peh El Peh” (“from mouth to mouth,” through the common screen), by having adhered to his teacher.

And those who did study also received it, each at their own degree (they were great Kabbalists as well), but not as exalted as that of Joshua Bin Nun. Were they not aware of such principle? They were, but could not apply it.

It all depended on how strongly a person is trying to annul himself before the teacher and the group. I would also add that “good fortune” plays a part in this too. That is, additional settings provided a helping hand which we are not aware of that descend from Above, “dripping” downward (“luck” or “Mazal,” from the Hebrew word “Nozel” or “a trickle, drip”). It is strongly determined by the root of the soul from its predestination.

But there is no point in discussing what is not up to us. We have to do what is up to us, which is self-annulment.

It is described everywhere and isn’t news to anyone. What do we do if we are not succeeding? I know from my own experience how hard it is to achieve. Usually, a person stumbles over the simplest obstacles: They seem so easy to overcome, and yet he can’t. He even understands that it is beneficial in every respect, even the corporeal one, but something inside him prevents him from doing so.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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The language of branches is attained when you ascend from this world, and then in the upper world, you reveal the roots of everything existing in this world. But the goal isn’t simply to connect the branch with the root. This language does not connect us with the spiritual world, but with our teachers! This is the means that helps them to teach us.

We do not understand the spiritual language they speak as we did not learn it. And we do not have to know it because we are already familiar with it from our world. That is why we can hear it and learn from them about what happens in the spiritual world.

You open up the book in which some kind of words are written. If you were not living in this world, then you would not understand anything. But from our world, you are already familiar with what Kabbalists talk about, and you desire to attain the root to find out what they are pointing to in the upper world since they do not say a word about the material world.

Kabbalists do not describe our world with even one word. The Torah is not connected to our world and a person who interprets it this way materializes it and commits the greatest crime, creating “idols” for himself. It is talking only about the spiritual world. But in order to speak the same language as you, Kabbalists describe the spiritual world using words of our world in order to awaken some kind of connection or attitude to them within us.

This was deliberately planned in the thought of creation so we would begin rising from our world to the spiritual world. Thus, we have to take all of the means for this existing in this world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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We are trying to make Kabbalah closer to people and to clarify that it is a wisdom which explains our life to us and helps solve the problems concerning education, health, and everything else. But all of this is only externality.

Actually, Kabbalah speaks solely about the spiritual world and stops at the level of Bina de-Malchut de Malchut of the world of Assiya. Between this Bina and our state of existence in this world, Malchut de-Malchut de-Malchut of the world of Assiya, there is a gap.

We cannot step across this abyss, make it narrower, or fill it in with something. Until you leap above this gap, Kabbalah will always seem an abstract science to you, a philosophy or mysticism, meaning something unreal. After all, you perceive as real only that which you can see and hold in your hands right now. And what can we give you if we don’t sell red strings and “holy water”?

This gap between our state today and the closest Bina is overcome only by intense work within one’s own matter: an egoistic will to receive. I try to accomplish this with the help of environment, albeit also egoistic so far, and the studies that are for my own sake. Like a little child, I make efforts to grow and rise above myself as much as I can.

Kabbalah will never be able to garb itself directly in the matter of our corporeal world; you will always have to keep leaping up with it! You won’t be able to fix this very last AHP (the lowest part of the upper spiritual object, Partzuf) since you don’t have Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE, the upper part of the spiritual object) that you could use to clothe the AHP with.

This is the structure of all the worlds, the entire spiritual ladder; GE of the lower Partzuf is clothed into AHP of the upper Partzuf and as a result can receive from it. Although it is completely dark in the upper’s AHP, I am willing to accept this darkness with my GE and comply with it, in order to hold on to the upper one. I am prepared to choose this dark over the light that I have in my GE at present.

But I don’t have the GE for this very last AHP between Bina and Malchut de-Malchut de-Malchut de-Assiya! In fact, I reside below this AHP with my egoism; I don’t have anything I could clothe into the upper one with. There is nothing I can do. Hence, Kabbalah remains an abstract knowledge for me so far.

Spirituality ends in the last Bina, (at this red mark  in the diagram). The upper one’s AHP is total darkness for me. But if I bring into this interval “the group, the book, and the teacher” and start working with them, then I have an opportunity to connect to this Bina.

In fact, this doesn’t mean that the group itself has to be in spirituality. But these instruments (the group, Kabbalistic texts, and the teacher) are endowed with such miraculous property (Segula) that if I imagine them to be above me and wish to partake in them by lowering my ego before them, then I extract from them a spiritual component. Through them, the Light descends on me from GE of the upper one.

I, on my part, contribute desire (an egoistic one!). In response, the Light comes to me, and we meet in this area regarded as “the teacher, the books, and the group.” It is a qualitative definition rather than corporeal people and books: the very place where I reveal the AHP of the upper one, the spiritual world.

Therefore, I must keep visualizing that they are exalted and great, and that the Creator lives within them. Only in such form can I envision the upper’s AHP, a higher spiritual degree, and cling to it. Since I don’t have the GE, there is no other chance to do so.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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The time when the wisdom of Kabbalah comes into circulation is not up to a Kabbalist. He receives a sign from Above as a revelation: rejection from the world to some degree and a striving to realize his mission.

These signs are absolutely clear, and he understands them since he lives in spiritual attainment. Due to the fact that he is connected with the upper force in the spiritual system, he sees how it arranges these conditions for him.

He does not pick the method either. There are no other methods; there is only one. However, in each generation, a new need arises, and hence a Kabbalist is able to explain more than was required previously.

The Kabbalists of past generations knew the entire method. Do you really think Moses or Rashbi weren’t familiar with it? Yet, they couldn’t express it openly, and that is why they wrote in a coded language.

In our generation, as Baal HaSulam informs us, a Kabbalist not only has the opportunity, but an obligation to reveal it. The generation has come that demands spiritual evolution. Hence, Kabbalists reveal it.

The type and degree of revelation are determined by the generation rather than by the Kabbalist because the need of the generation is what matters. For instance, if there were no students in front of me during the lesson and if I did not absorb their desires, I would have nothing to say. Even though I do have attainment, it wouldn’t get revealed or renewed.

Therefore, one on one with the camera, I can express some mundane things, but I can’t reveal anything new as we do during our daily lessons. This happens because a new desire awakens in the world every day, and through my students who are scattered around the world I feel the common need.

It includes all questions and desires such as the lack of perfection, striving to reveal the screens, the property of bestowal, and interconnection. The sensations of thousands of my students who are present at the lesson become concentrated within me, and I collect them as a mother who feels the need to feed her children. Then, as our studies go on, I see something new in the texts and my perception which didn’t exist before.

So it is every day, even if not everybody notices it. There is a reason the sages said, “from my students I learned most of all.” Why? This is because I receive desire from the students, which enables me to dig deeper into the matter of creation.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Who is a Kabbalist” 12/13/10

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Rabash’s articles start gradually becoming clear to a person to the degree he actualizes them. At first it seems like they are written gracelessly and incorrectly, that their separate parts are unconnected, and they lack order. In these articles we do not see the precise movement of the forces of the soul which develops precisely this way, and that’s because we do not know our soul.

If a person carries out his actions on his own and at the same time studies these articles, then he sees that they are written absolutely precisely and could not be written otherwise. That is because Kabbalists wrote their texts based on what they felt, and all of the souls go through the same path and the same states. Therefore, these articles become closer and clearer to a person with time; they are the “manuscript” of his soul.

At first a person who studies tries to memorize the material. He remembers separate phrases, understands some of them, while some of them still remain unclear. He repeats them like a child repeating the words of adults without understanding their meaning. Gradually, to the degree he realizes these articles, he begins to see that these lines express his states with absolute accuracy and it is impossible to write them differently. That is exactly why Kabbalists use quotes from the Psalms, Talmud, Prophets, and other sources.

These articles are absolutely special. I grew up with them; they were written by my side. Later on, as I read them over the course of many years, I saw that they become closer and more real for a person so that eventually you no longer read them in a book, but from inside, from your soul, which becomes revealed to you together with these words. This will happen to everyone precisely for the reason that these articles were written based on the full attainment of the soul.

Rabash was great no matter how much he concealed himself. Yet he did succeed in concealing himself from everyone! However, a person who attains Rabash’s articles sees that this was a great person. In the entire lineage of Kabbalists preceding him, starting from Adam, there was no one who laid out the system of spiritual work so sequentially and in such detail while keeping the connection with the root, using the language of branches, and with the entire Pentateuch (Tanach). Moreover, he explained the system of spiritual work openly, making it accessible to all.

Rabash takes you by the hand and leads you through all the phases of the articles in such a way that you cannot make a mistake. He underlines every detail that you should pay attention to. In fact, we don’t have a teacher who’s closer for developing the soul. Baal HaSulam is very high, academic, and universal. He comes down to us from a high mountain, while Rabash is a close and tender mentor who gently gives us the method of correction with love and care.
From the lesson on 1/7/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Is there a difference between a student studying Kabbalah one on one with a Kabbalist teacher and the way we study in a group?

Answer: You also study together with me at the lesson. Of course, it’s different from having a one on one lesson, but I don’t think that today it is possible to pass this science on to anyone individually. In our time this is possible only by studying in a group or through the Internet in the widest possible form, and it makes no difference where a student is. The student will advance, whereas the previous individual method no longer works.

You shouldn’t regret the impossible, but should use everything you have. Every person has a governance from above and the Creator controls the entire process. Any place where you have freedom of choice, you should realize it and that’s all.

I don’t have any students that are closer to or farther from me. The student himself continuously determines how close he is, and that is how much he advances. Whether a student is close to me or far is determined only by how much he desires to accept my inner message, absorb it, and realize it.

This does not depend on whether a person is located right here in the classroom or lives far away and studies over the Internet, or whether it’s a man or a woman. Everything depends on the student and how he uses the means that are given to everyone.

Besides, it’s very important to not forget that it is impossible for the student to respect the teacher while neglecting the group. That’s because a teacher is the innermost part of the group, the message that is inside it. Therefore, it’s impossible for a person to scorn the group while respecting the teacher, the group’s inner charge.

The group is our mutual place with the teacher, the place where we meet. This did not exist in previous times, when the student worked with his teacher face to face. When we meet inside of the group, every student determines for himself whether he unites with the teacher “Peh el Peh” (through a common screen) or “Peh el Awzen” (from the mouth into the ear, like when studying regular science).

At the end of it all, we meet the Creator, because everything is united until the world of Infinity.
From the lesson on 1/7/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: Rabash writes that a person “should have faith.” What does this mean?

Answer: First of all, there is a notion of “faith in the sages.” This refers to the Kabbalists who completed the journey and left us the method.

They explain the method in a very logical manner and to the point, but for now we still have to believe their words. Granted, we do have a point in the heart, and we agree with them. Nevertheless, there is a place for faith here: I entrust myself to the insight of the upper one who has already acquired the experience.

Even a real, practical analysis does not eliminate a “spot of weakness,” something not very obvious, and I simply follow the upper one. I literally grab his hand and walk by his side. Baal HaSulam explains that one needs to find a teacher and “cling” to him in order to try to know him from the inside from the actions that he recommends.

This faith is essential. This is how a child believes an adult. Moreover, you only accept on faith the actions that he recommends, and you see that he is right thanks to this small and quick step.

It is not blind faith: You continuously lower your head in order to use his, to rise slightly and immediately confirm that he is right. In reality, it is not as much faith but study, an exercise, which can be immediately verified.

Overall, in Kabbalah, the notion of “faith” stands for the force of bestowal, whereas “knowledge” is the force of reception. We advance through these two forces.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/2011, Writings of Rabash

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