Question: Suppose that I come to people to find out what they desire, but they don’t want anything except a lower mortgage rate. What should I think about and what should I ask so that, when I meet with them, they would want to discover the Creator?

Answer: The idea is not about a low mortgage rate. People want their lives to work out because life is pressuring them from all sides. They want a healthier and better existence for themselves, for their relatives, for the people, for the nation, and for the entire world.

So, you need to think about how to bring the world into balance so that every person, in whatever situation in which he may be, will be able to find this point.

When you wake up in the morning, you should connect with the group immediately, and then all of our events, all of our activities will be successful.

I am giving you an intention about how to go through the 24 hours of the day. If everything that you think about and want begins to move through the group, then you will be advancing toward a state of balance and harmony, and then everything will be normal. If it is not normal, this is a sign that you still haven’t reached balance and are at a point that is taking you out of it. It is possible to find balance only in the center of the group!

So, it is necessary to aim toward this from the beginning of the morning and hold onto this intention no matter what happens. We will solve everything this way at work, in your personal life, in the family, and everywhere. Otherwise, all your best desires, activities and thoughts will lead you further and further away from the goal.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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The Torah, “Numbers,” 16:8 – 16:10: Moses said to Korah, “Please listen, sons of Levi. Is it not enough that the God of Israel has distinguished you from the congregation of Israel to draw you near to Him, to perform the service in the Mishkan of the Lord and to stand before the congregation to minister to them? He drew you near, and all your brothers, the sons of Levi with you, and now you seek the kehunah as well?

The problem is that we perceive the Torah as a fascinating novel, while it refers only to one person and tells us what happens inside him, while he must determine who Moses, Aaron, Korah and the rest of the people in him are.

He must clarify which desires and which attributes these are in a person, why they are so opposite from one another, what exactly is revealed in this oppositeness, and in what way Korah is better or worse than Moses.

The Torah explains that everyone must undergo these states, so I want to reveal them inside me. Suppose I undergo a state in which I turn to Moses within me, “I can guide and lead the people better than you. Okay, we have agreed. Please come and bring the pan with the burning incense.” But why should I listen to him? After all, I say that I understand the motion better, but for some reason I still concede to the attribute of Moses. This raises many questions since a person’s internal world is in a complete muddle.

On the one hand, it is as if I object to Moses, and on the other hand, I surrender to him for some reason when I listen to what he tells me.

If we delve into this, it is clear that Torah speaks only about the fulfillment of a certain state, and not about the complete overtaking of Moses’ level since it is a level of absolute Bina, complete connection with the Creator. This is the reason, of course, that Korah has no pretentions about taking it over.

The point is that, if I am on the level of Bina, I may detach myself from Malchut and draw away from the people. Therefore, Korah was right in some sense. I see that all other non-egoistic desires that are already corrected also understand that there is no connection between Bina and Malchut here. Although Moses can be in command here, something in his commands, in this attribute, doesn’t work with my ego.

The Torah tells us that we don’t have any negative attributes. It isn’t wickedness, but simply the attribute of Korah that aspires to advance as much as possible. The whole Torah is only about how to give more, to bestow, to ascend, to imagine everything in adhesion with the Creator, and to hasten this path.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/20/15

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Question: We raised a prayer of many during the Arava convention so that we could be incorporated in one field in order to become one whole. Does that mean that if we simply remember it now, we can return to this point?

Answer: Why should you remember it? See what a global group we have! I never regard a certain small part. A group for me is all those who are members in our movement.

The main law of the general system of the universe is mutual guarantee, an absolute harmonious mutual connection among all the parts of creation. There is nothing but that!

It seems that this is some virtual condition, but in fact, mutual guarantee is the law according to which the system of creation exists and functions! If we are compatible with this law, we not only begin to feel the creation, but even take an active part in managing it. After all, according to the thought of creation, we are the most developed part that is equal to the Creator. This is the level to which we should evolve.

Now, we enter it unconsciously like the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, and in the current phase, we begin to ascend to the human level since human, Adam (in Hebrew) means to resemble the Creator. There is nothing other than this law!

The prayer of many or the general prayer is worrying about the entire system when I am incorporated in it integrally. How can I receive the right influence from it and influence it correctly if I am not connected to it this way? This is the reason that I must study and teach others only about this connection.

Question: What should we do if we are incorporated already in a unified field but don’t discern the Creator yet? What should we ask for?

Answer: The system is already in a state of complete unity, but we are not aware of it and don’t feel it. There is an obstacle here when I begin to ask for myself. We mustn’t do that. We must mean and ask to be an active partner, an assistant, who pushes the entire group, the whole system, toward unity.

The Creator is the force that sets the system into motion in unity, in wholeness, and that connects everything into one whole. This is the reason that when I aspire to resemble this force through the souls, through the components of the system, I bring it to the state of “He and His name are one.”

I must build this model, the image of this system, inside me, and then I will constantly feel exactly what I need and toward what I must advance.

Question: But we cannot fully imagine this model.

Answer: Imagine it to the extent that you can because the aspiration for Him will keep on guiding you later on. If you focus yourself this way, you won’t divert from the right path.

Actually, it isn’t complicated at all, but it isn’t easy to get used to it from our world. The actual structure is, in fact, very simple. What else is there besides the shattered desire that must collect and unite and discover as one whole desire that the Light, the upper force, is in it? This is the force of love and bestowal that we raise above all the other attributes and therefore call the upper force.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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Question: What should I do if I tend to fall asleep during the lesson?

Answer: Sleep! I am serious. The main point is that you are among friends. Sleep! Rabash used to say so, and I got used to it.

At first I thought, “How could that be? After all, I must do something!” There were people who used to come and sleep for three hours. There are also such people here, but I value them no less than I value others since they make an effort in coming here! Frankly, it doesn’t bother me at all. I value this friend just like any other member of the group like anyone other.

Question: But I don’t want to come here to sleep during the lesson! There should be a certain level of importance.

Answer: First of all, you should be happy that you have a place among the friends. It is very meaningful. You come here and take your place and not someone else’s. It is best if everyone has his own place, that you have found your place.

Then the collective work begins: the study, the workshops, and reading articles. Preferably, all of our study would be in the form of workshops, as we study TES, The Book of Zohar and the articles, since the discussions help extract more than usual from a person.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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Question: I understand that it is necessary to be integrated into a group and to direct all of my thoughts there. But where is it possible to get the strength when I am thrown out of this state? What can be done so that I would have this force?

Answer: The best thing that they have invented in our times is an environment that can stimulate me somehow.

Other than this, it is possible to use an alarm clock or cell phone that will turn on automatically, awaken and get me running through music or songs. However, the main thing is the friends who will communicate with me from time to time and begin to be interested in what I am doing. I really don’t want to respond to them, but I am forced to keep the conversation going, and this gets me out of a bad state.

Only the environment saves us. In general, what exists in the universe? It is me or the world. This means that, if I don’t do it, then the world does.

So, when I feel emptiness, relaxation, a cloudy head, lack of inspiration and elevated spirit, I don’t hear or don’t remember what happened yesterday, it means that it is necessary to fill this with the greatness of the group and the Creator.

Where is it possible to get this greatness? It is precisely here that I can check as to how much I am connected with the group, how much I owe them something.

Suppose I have a fever. I don’t feel good and in the next room a child is crying. So, do I get up or not? I get up. Do I go to him? Yes. Do I do everything necessary? Yes. Do I gradually recover? Yes. What can I do? It’s my obligation.

Have I connected myself to a group in the same way with my obligations toward it? After all, don’t I have to get up, go to the kitchen and help the friends somehow? Do I get up in the morning to come to the lesson and sit there, even though I am really asleep? I am saying this absolutely seriously! I went through all of this myself.
Without this, nothing will succeed! Like they say, “The doctor says operate, so it is necessary to operate.”

It is the same thing regarding the group too. Are they pulling me toward them by the ear? Are they pulling me out of the swamp? They must do this if I have signed an agreement with them. Otherwise, what are we together for? It’s only for this. That is also what is written, “A prisoner doesn’t free himself from prison” (Berachot 5b). It’s only the group, the environment, the power of the environment.

I must be obligated to a group like I am to my baby whom I take care of even when I am feeling bad, and the group, in turn, must take care of me like they would care for a baby, even if I disappear from their field of vision, “Something happened to him; he seems to be quiet.” It is necessary to be concerned like that, like parents are concerned about their children.

If we don’t build relationships like these, nothing will result! We go through all of these situations only so that we will strengthen the connection between us.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 57: …Imagine that there are people who study Kabbalah and attract the light of Infinity, lead the generation after them and the people follow them, and then all will be sure they will never err on their path. But if, instead of Kabbalah, people prefer to study other parts of the Torah, no wonder that the whole generation errs through their fault. So deep is my grief that I am unable to continue speaking about it.

Why did the generations in Israel descend lower and lower, and go further away from the interior of the Torah?

After the destruction of the Temple, there were still many people in constant attainment. Not all fell at once into concealment.

In fact, with the Shevirat ha Kelim (the breaking of the vessels), the highest Kelim descended below all, and those that were not as high don’t fall as low. Besides, there is also significance to the general mixing. Every Kli that falls drags the others after it and pushes those that fell previously even lower.

As a result, the original whole Kli,  all parts of which were as a single person with one heart that revealed the Creator, in the shattering gradually lost the revelation as the vessels fell from their previous height. The Study of the Ten Sefirot (Talmud Eser Sefirot) talks about this in Section 7.

History, too, serves as an example. We see how the destruction happened gradually, stage after stage, layer after layer, and continued for a long time. Accordingly, after the destruction of the Temple, for a long time, the spiritual illumination still hadn’t disappeared. After more than a thousand years, during the time of the Ari, many people still maintained the consciousness, the spiritual sensation. It is possible to explain this partially through the great troubles of the exile that held people above the Machsom (the barrier).

Later, after the time of the Ari, a new awakening began, an ascent, a slight call for correction from the side of the Reshimot (remembrances). And therefore, the Baal Shem Tov conducted his work.

It would be possible to ask, “Who gave him permission to do this?” However, the Ari called for correction and suggested his students to “go up to Jerusalem.” Rabbi Chaim Vital also writes about this in Sefer HaHakdamot (The Book of Introductions), and in our day, Baal HaSulam wrote the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot on the same basis.

So, for the Baal Shem Tov, there was a basis for beginning to act and awaken the people to inner work and corrections. He began to speak about the five spiritual worlds, about the Partzufim, about the Sefirot, about the Creator that is clothed in them, and so forth. Why did he and his students disseminate the new message among the people? It was because the crisis had ended by then.

Since then, since we are late with our corrections, we haven’t realized what has been given to us from above, just as we have encountered problems of a different type that have come from below.

Here we are talking about the Yeridat HaDorot (descent of the generations). This was discovered in the 19^th century and especially in the 20^th century. Despite the fact that the people received a push to return to the land of Israel, this hasn’t had any internal influence on us to this very day. The descent has continued, and we see how from year to year the people gave up the last connections of unity, even in the worst form. But in spite of it all, they are still holding it together. As of today, the shared values of the roots of the movement have disappeared without a trace, like the Kibbutz movement in the form in which it was born.

Baal HaSulam writes that all of this happens, of course, also among those who study the Torah. Instead of turning toward its interior, as all of the Kabbalists in all generations taught—as it was before the destruction of the Temple, according to the principle, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)—they were drawn in an absolutely different direction where it was not possible to find love of others, mutual bestowal, and connection.

This is the reason for the situation we are now in. The generations descended lower, but the people still were not awakened. On the contrary, they continued to descend even lower, even in comparison to the state in which it was in the lands of the exile.

Indeed I have known the reason: that it is mainly because faith has generally diminished, especially faith in the holy men, the wise men of all generations. And the books of Kabbalah and The Zohar are full of corporeal parables. …And that is what prompted me to compose a thorough interpretation… (Item 58)

The books of the Kabbalists were written for Kabbalists, and the common man is not able to understand them. So, Baal HaSulam was compelled to write “The Sulam Commentary to The Book of Zohar.” This commentary, on condition that one learns it correctly, makes it possible for everyone to approach a true understanding and gradually advance toward the truth, to bring the concealed layers of The Book of Zohar down until it will begin to shine from within.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Torah, “Leviticus,” 24:10 – 24:16: And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and the son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp. And the son of the Israelitish woman blasphemed the Name, and cursed; and they brought him unto Moses. And his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in ward, that it might be declared unto them at the mouth of the LORD.

And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.

And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying: Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him; as well the stranger, as the home-born, when he blasphemeth the Name, shall be put to death.

“He that blasphemeth the name of the LORD,” is a person who delays advancement towards the goal of creation, by cutting himself off and detaching from the Upper Light, which is ready to correct him, so his ego can no longer be corrected.

Thus, he “shall surely be put to death,” which is losing any connection with the Upper Light, and not moving on. In the future, it will need a cycle of life to come back to this state and regain the opportunity for ascent and correction.

Question: What does, “And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel” mean?

Answer: Thanks to a precise and sharp correction, we begin to discover defects in the people, who previously weren’t noticed. So now it is necessary to correct them.

In other words, stoning and other methods of death symbolize the death of the egoistic desire in a person, which must somehow be nullified and then again begin to correct it.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/18/15

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Question: How can we pray and ask the Creator for anything when first, He knows everything in advance anyway? Second, His law is immutable, everything is predetermined by Him, is fixed and cannot be changed, so everything is actually already done by definition. Third, how can a tiny creature who can’t even see one hundredth of the general picture ask for anything or even more incomprehensible is how can he demand something if this demand is for bestowal?

Answer: Because the request changes you and your attitude toward the Creator and brings you closer to Him.
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Question: Sometimes when I try to pray and imagine the Creator before me, I want to disappear. How can I turn to the Creator? I feel that He is almighty and that He will always forgive me, but, at the same time, I always feel that I am defective when I turn to Him. Even if I keep trying to be nice to others and to justify them, I still feel filthy when I pray. What should I do?

Answer: The Creator has created the defects that you feel and your job is to perceive exactly what these defects are and ask to be purified of them.
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The Torah, “Numbers,” 16:1 – 16:3: Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi took [himself to one side] along with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, descendants of Reuben. They confronted Moses together with two hundred and fifty men from the children of Israel, chieftains of the congregation, representatives of the assembly, men of repute.

They assembled against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much upon yourselves, for the entire congregation are all holy, and the Lord is in their midst. So why do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”

The idea is that the leaders of the community wanted to attain the same level that Moses had attained, not to get rid of him.

Midrash Raba, the weekly chapter of “Korach”: What did the Jewish nation attain under your leadership? Because of you life has become much more difficult than in Egypt. We are paying a contribution to the priests and a tithe to the Levites and, in addition to that, the priests receive 24 different gifts from us. What is more every year 15,000 Jews die in the desert.

Isn’t it enough for you, Moses, that you have complete control? Why have you given your brother the post of the great priest! In the meantime, neither of you have any right to declare yourselves as the head of the congregation all of whose members are holy and among which Divinity dwells.

Korah and his men were so furious that they were ready to stone Moses and Aaron.

This is how the internal egoistic rebellion is revealed in a person. Attributes that say that it is possible to attain complete resemblance to the Creator appear, not through the attributes of Moses and Aaron, but in another way that is better and shorter, without any special efforts.

15,000 men die in the desert every year, and it is natural because all of the generation of the desert must die. Only the new generation born there will enter the land of Israel.

Therefore, a person’s desires—called Korah, Dathan and Aviram, etc.—believe that it is possible to follow a different path that is shorter and less tragic. If they begin to manage it, it will be a different path.

In other words, he can bring all of his desires called “the nation” to work more efficiently with the intention of in order to bestow to the entire world and, through them, unto the Creator, as compared to the ideology and the method that he received with the attribute of Moses.

Now, he sees that there is another force with which he can advance and thus begins to have doubts.

Question: What does it mean that 15,000 men die in the desert?

Answer: 15,000 multiplied by 40 years (levels) is 600,000, which means the entire generation. All of the 600,000 attributes must die. There is a complete renewal; the previous level totally disappears.

The slaves cannot become freemen to live in desires that previously were enslaved. Egoism  used to go wild in those desires—hatred manifested, Mt. Sinai—and they could use them to bestow by correcting them from hate to love, but now it is impossible. First, you must undergo states in which you totally annul yourself, and this is a feeling of death.

Korah wanted the generation of the desert to skip these levels and enter the land of Israel. This is a problem we have along the entire way of the spiritual path. The sons of Aaron, Nadav, and Avihu and all the others also wanted to skip this level.

And they would do it if they weren’t afraid of the giants that the spies had told them about. Then, they could have entered the land of Israel immediately. But in order to do so, they had to ascend to the level of faith above reason. But they couldn’t ascend to that level and, therefore, they are correcting it now.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/20/15

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