Question: If the Creator created the ego and He is also the one who supervises and manages everything, is He responsible for it’s manifestation?

Answer: Certainly. The Creator is to blame for all of our problems. He gives us these problems so that we will clarify them, and in that way, we will gain the upper world for ourselves. Only then will we see that He is doing this to us as a gift and not as a punishment.

Question: If the Creator created evil, then must we clarify who He is? What tools do we have for understanding this? Sometimes you say that the Creator is some kind of characteristic, a force. How can a characteristic create something like this?

Answer: You can attain the Creator only to the same degree that you attain, or it is possible to say, that you create, the characteristic of bestowal and love within you. Thanks to having been made up of only bad characteristics and now a good characteristic has also appeared in you, in the gap between these two characteristics (the right and left lines), you can attain what the Creator is, which is the middle line.

Question: Does this mean that the Creator, who manages everything, is an immense power, while I only attain a small part of Him, and this is also to the degree that I resemble Him?

Answer: You attain Him partially, to the degree that you resemble Him, but it is up to you to attain it all.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/26/17

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Question: How is it possible to use the negative and distracting events in material life for spiritual advancement?

Answer: We need to perceive our world as a single whole. There is nothing outside of the framework of the management from the upper world.

We are learning about the only power of nature, how it manages a person and humanity. Therefore, if problems appear in our lives, we need to attribute them to the same single force of nature. So, we need to understand that if we feel bad, this is only because we are lacking coordination with the demands that nature places before us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how we must do this, how to position ourselves in relation to nature, how to unite, so that due to our good relations, we can properly direct nature to us..

Therefore, all of the negative influences from the surrounding society, ecology, climatic conditions, political life, economy, and all other events that happen to a person, we can decide for ourselves.

Everything depends only on good relationships between us; through them it is possible to “soften” all the problems, and not in any other way. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us, and we feel this through human communication.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, if a person wants to change the world, it is up to him to change himself and his attitude toward others. That is why we have organized ourselves into groups and are learning how to attract the positive force of nature to us so that it will change us.

To the same degree that it will change us toward a positive direction, the world will begin to be changed. This is the mutual relationship between us and the management system.
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From the talk at a videoconference with the Learning Center students, 5/21/17

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Question: What does rest mean for a Kabbalist? After all, studying Kabbalah is a beautiful state of mind when you already are in a state of rest from external problems.

Answer: No, a Kabbalist needs to rest; after all, he gets very tired because the strain that I, for example, withstand now during an hour-long conversation with you is enormous. These words, these thoughts that I express to you, I experience within me on different levels, and therefore, I spend an enormous amount of energy on this. An hour of talking with you is the hardest thing.

When I talk to my students and explain the material to them during the daily lessons, then, on the contrary, I find strength in me because I interact with people who want to receive and give back this energy and this knowledge to me. We work together, and that is why I don’t get tired during lessons.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/22/17

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Torah, Deuteronomy 27:19: Cursed be he who perverts the judgment of the stranger, the orphan, or the widow. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’

Those who already are on the spiritual level exist only in order to pull after them “a stranger,” “a widow,” and “an old man,” that is, all the weak ones, meaning weak spiritual desires.

These desires can be very big egoistically. For example, a “baby” is very big egoism with a scanty bit of spirituality in it, like in a baby. “Woman” is also huge egoism, but she can only follow the male part and, therefore, is considered weak.

All the parts within a person called “an old man,” “woman,” “baby,” and so on speak about egoism that is very difficult to correct. Therefore, those who already are on the path above them (other qualities of a person) must work on pulling all these egoistically strong, but spiritually weak qualities after them.

“Not to pervert the judgment of the stranger, the orphan, or the widow” means not to feel sorry for or indulge them in any case, but to correct these weak desires by adding your spiritual attainments to them.

It is necessary to raise them the way you help a woman, a baby, or an old man. You need to develop them and include them in yourself, like AHP becomes included into Galgalta Eynaim and thus rises.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/23/16

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Question: What tools does the wisdom of Kabbalah offer in order to manage egoism?

Answer:

• Limiting yourself with the help of the upper Light, which a person receives through the group.
• Nullifying yourself with regard to the group and to this degree feeling one’s lowest point.
• Investing all of my efforts in the group and in helping the friends in the group, in order to attain the highest point.

The gap between the lowest point and the highest point determines the format of the revelation of the Creator to a person.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/26/17

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Torah, Deuteronomy, 28:23: The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron.

The heaven and earth symbolize desires within a person. We are talking about such types of restriction when you will be unable to do anything with these desires: neither with bronze nor with iron.

The heaven has to be the property of Bina, the property of bestowal and love, but it is not. If you do not connect with others like you in the correct interaction, then all of life becomes very tough.

You do not have the Creator or egoistic desire. You exist between them like in the air.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/5/16

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Torah, Deuteronomy 27:05: And there, you shall build an altar to the Lord, your God, an altar of stones. You shall not wield any iron upon them.

“Iron” is an egoistic state of a person that one cannot use. Everything that we produce for bestowal should be made with clean hands.

Torah, Deuteronomy 27:06: You shall build the altar of the Lord, your God, out of whole stones. And on it, you shall offer up burnt offerings to the Lord, your God.

The whole stones were always used for the foundation of the masonry of a Temple—huge blocks of hundreds of tons, 12 – 18 meters in length. Today, we are unable to move them from place to place, and previously they were not only laid, but also brought from the quarry that was located tens of kilometres from Jerusalem.

It is not clear how they were delivered there, laid on top of each other with great accuracy without any padding, and how they were cut, raised, and laid. After all, today we practically do not have such equipment. However, everyone can see the foundation of the Jerusalem wall. It is amazing!

Comment: It is said that the Jews practiced on the erection of the Egyptian pyramids.

Answer: Everything was different in Egypt. They used relatively small blocks of limestone, a soft stone that is very easy to process. However, here it is just inconceivable.

To build an altar from whole stones means not putting any tools on it. I am not a specialist either in archaeology or in construction; I just know how it happens inside a person: in order for his original, integral desires to receive the correct form, they must be framed into the correct intentions and used this way.

In no case can we distort the natural qualities of a person, his intentions and motivations, even the most horrible ones if they exist. There cannot be any coercion. After all, all these qualities can be used for bestowal only with the help of the upper Light.

Framing the stones with the help of the upper Light was the art of Betzalel, who built the altar.

A sacrifice, Kurban (from the word Lehitkarev, approximation) means that we bring our egoism, convert it to the quality of bestowal and love, and get closer to the Creator this way.

Therefore, we must correct in ourselves only natural, primordial egoistic desires that we received from the shattering of the soul of Adam.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/21/16

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Question: Why did the good Creator create evil?

Answer: Specifically because the Creator is good, He created evil so that we would change it to the good; we would understand in which state, at which summit, at which level, He is found and we would become similar to Him.

Question: Why was it impossible to place us in a perfected state from the start?

Answer: If we were to find ourselves in a perfected state, we would feel Him no more than an embryo does the womb of his mother.

Question: Did the Creator create anything else besides evil?

Answer: Nothing. He only created evil, what is called “against him” (Genesis 2:18), meaning something opposite and contrary to Him.

Question: If so, where does altruism come from?

Answer: Altruism appears within us when we want to adapt ourselves to the characteristics of the Creator. In every person there exists a point in the heart that the Creator intentionally placed in him, and thanks to it, we can change our original and true ego into a characteristic that is its opposite. This point is called, “A portion of God from above.” (Job 31:2)
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/26/17

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Torah, Deuteronomy 25:01 – 25:04: If there is a quarrel between men, and they approach the tribunal, and they [the judges] judge them, and they acquit the innocent one and condemn the guilty one and it shall be, if the guilty one has incurred [the penalty of] lashes, that the judge shall make him lean over and flog him in front of him, commensurate with his crime, in number. He shall flog him with forty [lashes]; he shall not exceed, lest he give him a much more severe flogging than these [forty lashes], and your brother will be degraded before your eyes. You shall not muzzle an ox when it is threshing [the grain].

The lashes are given to us purposely to teach our egoism to obey a stronger, higher judge, which is the next level. Therefore, one can punish the ego but only to the next level. Forty is the level of Bina. There should not be more lashes because that would be considered a humiliation.

If I get forty lashes, then it is neither a humiliation nor a punishment, but it is a correction.

In our time, people would perceive it as humiliation if they were punished for an offense by beatings. Imagine a judge saying to the accused: “We sentence you to either forty lashes or 2 years in prison.” Is it not better for him to serve the time and keep his pride rather than to feel humiliated in front of others?

Previously, there were no prisons in Israel. They are not mentioned in the Torah at all because prisons do not correct. Only blows can correct.

A person and society should understand that, in this way, they oppose the egoism that the Creator has placed in a person. If a person agrees to this punishment and society believes that there is no choice, a person should not be punished but should get help to correct himself. Then, both man and society work together with the ego. It is precisely egoism that gets forty strokes and not man!

This is an educational process and not punishment.

To this day, prisons in the US are not called places of detention but, rather, correctional institutions. A dog is put into a cage and a person is placed for correction.

Egoism is given to us from above and it must be judged. That is why the people of Israel, mentioned in the Torah, went to their correction with the help of blows and not imprisonment.

Question: It is said: “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is threshing [the grain].” What does this mean?

Answer: When a spiritual level ascends in a person, the animate level has to receive what is its due.
Every person has to go through the state of blows with which he rises to the level of Bina. This is how one gets punishment and rises. And the animate remains at its level and it should get what it is supposed to.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/2/16

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Torah, Deuteronomy 27:01 – 27:03: And Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Observe all of the commandment that I command you this day. And it will be, on the day that you cross the Jordan to the land the Lord, your God, is giving you, that you shall set up for yourself huge stones, and plaster them with lime. When you cross, you shall write upon them all the words of this Torah, in order that you may come to the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, God of your forefathers, has spoken to you.

The egoistic desire that initially works in us constantly grows and leads us to new “mountains” of selfish aspirations and achievements. It always works for alienation between us and becomes more and more stony and inaccessible. This “stony heart” translates into rigid, stony, relationships, without mutual permeation. This is what the stone represents.

The stony heart is what a person has; pure egoism. The Torah should be carved on it, as it is written, “Write the Torah on your heart.”

The land of Israel symbolizes a huge egoistic desire that needs to be gradually conquered, corrected, and transformed in an altruistic manner. All twelve foundations of egoistic desire must be gradually directed toward altruistic intentions, thereby correcting them.

To write or engrave the words of the Torah on the stone means to turn your egoistic heart into an opposite, altruistic one. This is an enormous work but when you take it as a condition for accepting the laws of your own correction, it means that you are crossing the river Jordan and are entering the land of Israel—those desires that you are committed to correct. This is why you are given an opportunity to enter such states.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/21/16

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