Question: So far, I cannot say that I have been studying Kabbalah. I listen to your radio program, watch TV and movies. I just can’t get an answer to one question. In your book, Kabbalah for Beginners, you wrote that the process of studying Kabbalah is about reading the sources, contemplation, and group participation…

What exactly will raise us to the Creator? How will the worlds be divulged to a human being? Will it happen through reading, thinking, and interacting? Are there practices that teach contemplation, prayers, dreams interpretation? Is it possible to instigate or change certain desires in us?

Answer: The attainment of the upper world occurs in developing our property of bestowal. Inside this property, we will be able to sense the superior nature “of giving and loving.” In order to develop such a property, we need to join a group (preferably 10 people) and work on building these kinds of relationships among us. The entire Kabbalah and the Torah in general speak only about this process!
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Question: At the time when the people of Israel received the Torah, they exclaimed: “We shall do and we shall hear!” Does this phrase have any spiritual meaning?

Answer: As a matter of fact, this phrase has nothing but a spiritual meaning. The entire Torah speaks only about spirituality, not about physical actions of this world as many people think.

“We shall do” means that we will unite, and “we shall hear” means attaining a benevolent force that manifests itself in our effort to connect, to be kind to each other. This force completes our action, as it is written: “The Creator completes me.”

Question: What shall we “hear” after we connect?

Answer: “We shall hear” signifies the level of Bina, i.e., hearing (not material, but internal). It’s a condition when we recognize the force of bestowal that actually appears among us and connects us.

The bestowing force unveils itself and fills the space among us. This force is called the Creator; at this point, we reveal its properties. This is called the revelation of the Creator to the creations in this world.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 5/17/15

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The Torah, Numbers 3:10: You shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall keep their Kehunah; any outsider [non-Cohen] who approaches shall be put to death.

If we examine this from the perspective of desires and their correction, an outsider is a desire that isn’t ready for correction and therefore cannot enter the Tabernacle.

He must be isolated and gotten rid of, expelled beyond the camp borders, and given time to wait internally, and then accepted gradually—in other words, to be absorbed somehow, for example, to get married or to build a family. This means drawing this desire to you if possible. However, if he remains a stranger, then he has no right to remain in the camp. This is the reason he is taken out of the camp and put to death because the concept of death refers to his mutual cooperation with the Light.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

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Question: How could the Creator, who is completely good, and doeth good, create the evil inclination that doesn’t bear His property? Why did He do it? Why aren’t we born to a world that is full of benevolence?

Answer: If we were born in a completely wonderful world, we would be like angels who have no evil inclination. That is, we would exist only in accordance with one singular force.

However, the purpose of the creation is to attain the Creator’s level, get smarter, perceive, and reach the same state as His, acquire similar power and parallel properties with the Creator, i.e., become totally like Him.

To achieve this level, we just have to bear the properties that are opposite to the Creator. However, we also should possess the qualities that are similar to His, i.e., we should be comprised of two parts. One part is the evil inclination, the properties that are adverse to the Creator, with which we are born to this world.

Whereas, the second part, the Creator’s qualities, should be acquired by us, on our own. This is how we are supposed to “build” ourselves by involving both parts more vigorously, thus becoming more and more like the Creator.

The process of achieving His level consists of 125 degrees. It continues until we reach the state called “The sons of the Creator returned to Him.” It happens when we reach equivalence of properties with the Creator. For that, we need to be comprised of two opposite parts.

Therefore, the Creator made the evil inclination, a selfish desire. However, He is the One who grants us benevolent desires when we ask Him. These two forces allow us to reach perfection.

Question: But how can I obtain properties that I know nothing about?

Answer: To make it happen you have to join a group that works on the same task. You should engage in it. You won’t be able to do it alone, on your own. Group connection elicits the Returning Light, and thus receive a second, positive force of nature that balances out the negativity in each of us.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 5/17/15

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The left line helps us build the connection between us. Without the ego, we wouldn’t be able to acquire a form, so it isn’t destroyed. It is as if you place a sheet of copper or gold on it and begin to hammer it until a relief is formed.

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this is the reason for all our sins because our intentions are really good. You are sure that you can work with all the intentions in order to bestow, but there is a short-circuit and everything is burnt; suddenly you fall into darkness.

We undergo states of ups and downs during the preparation period, in the transition process from Lo Lishma (not For Her Name) to Lishma, the intention to bestow. However, since they are minor, they don’t lead to great mistakes. We need this period in order to balance the two attributes in a person properly so that both the Light and the darkness, the desire and the attribute of bestowal, will be seen as equal, and a person will understand that it is impossible to do without them. The attribute of darkness and the attribute of Light are equal in the attainment of the Creator, and you can’t have one without the other.

A person must properly ascend above his desire to break forward, and to bestow even more. It is as if we all say, for example, how wonderful and good you are because you have done someone a favor, and under the influence of these words, you burst with enthusiasm and bestow even more! Then, you begin to regret it. This regret rolls you down from all the levels just like in the kids’ game of Chutes and Ladders when you advance and suddenly are thrown backward. However, in order to guard ourselves from that, we are given a certain period of time during which these two forces must be balanced properly in us.

The attribute of receiving is the upper mind since it is only thanks to the ego that we begin to understand and perceive the way things really are. The right line, on the other hand, is bestowal and love, and there is no Din (Judgment) here, no limitations, no contrasts, no domination or control. The left line includes everything in it. It is impossible to discover the Creator’s Light without it. The ego is our great helper, but against us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

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The Torah, Numbers 3:5 – 3:7: The Lord spoke to Moses saying: Bring forth the tribe of Levi and present them before Aaron the Cohen, that they may serve him. They shall keep his charge and the charge of the entire community before the Tent of Meeting, to perform the service of the Mishkan.

Question: From whom did the Levites have to guard the Tabernacle (Mishkan)?

Answer: Suppose I have a certain property that guards me from saying anything that I shouldn’t. Similarly, in spiritual work we cannot work with desires and attributes that are not corrected yet. We must understand that the right and the left lines must support each other because it seems to a person that he advances and that he wants to discover the attribute of love and bestowal, yearning to get closer to the Creator, but, in fact, we must examine this very carefully.

On the whole, the attributes of the right line that yearn to advance need the left line that restrains and beats them in order to recheck things more deeply, to compare them once more, to connect to others correctly, and to create an “safety cushion,” a special environment that supports this.

When a person becomes adapted to the new level, he yearns for that attribute of bestowal, but, when he enters this attribute, he loses his head and loses his self-control since he sees that it is all absolute love. He is immediately burnt like Nadav and Avihu, or he sins like Adam HaRishon.

The problem in attaining the spiritual attributes is that when you reach a certain attribute, you become that attribute, and everything completely changes in your mind. You don’t control your old self anymore, and therefore, in advance you must create a counterweight to the state in which you will be, your future state. This isn’t easy.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

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The Torah, “Numbers” 3:1 – 3:4: These are the descendants of Moses and Aaron on the day that the Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai. These are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadav the firstborn Avihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed Cohanim, whom he consecrated to serve as Cohanim. Nadav and Avihu died before the Lord when they brought alien fire before the Lord in the Sinai desert, and they had no children. Eleazar and Ithamar, however, served as Cohanim in the presence of Aaron, their father.

Nadav and Avihu wanted to do what was most sacred, but they were not ready for it. So, the deed itself caused their death. However, these were not people, they were characteristics.

It is necessary to look at everything simply. Suppose that we are assembling some kind of machine or apparatus from a wide variety of parts. Suppose that we are designing, creating, embedding, cutting, painting, and gluing them, and other additional activities. The same thing also happens in spiritual work. The correction of the characteristics of “Nadav” and “Avihu” is through burning them with fire, even though they hurry ahead.

So, it is necessary to accept the Torah not as a tragedy that is talking about the sufferings of people, but as a guidebook for spiritual correction. Suppose that we have a group consisting of ten people, ten internal characteristics that are mutually connected. Among them are characteristics that must be burned, killed, cut, glued, and so-forth. As a result of this, from all of this, we get a circle of all of our characteristics.

Question: Does this mean that we remove everything that is superfluous?

Answer: They are not superfluous since new forms must be discovered.

Question: Nadav and Avihu had no children. So, after their death, Eleazar and Ithamar needed to help Aaron. However, if the firstborn had children, would they serve with Aaron?

Answer: If Nadav and Avihu had children, it would be necessary to raise them, meaning to elevate what remains of the characteristics of Nadav and Avihu to the level of HGT because fathers and sons are two linked levels. Certainly, it would be possible in a case like this that it would be necessary to replace one Partzufim with another. We have examples like this. However, then Nadav and Avihu would not be the same characteristics that they were, and they even wouldn’t have been called by these names. If they had continuity, they would have become regular levels: fathers – sons, and fathers – sons – grandsons.

However, the principle of spiritual work is very simple: in unity, attain the characteristic of mutual bestowal within which the Creator is revealed.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

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The twelve tribes of Israel who wandered in the wilderness as a single whole, swallowed the wilderness into them to the degree that they discovered the ego, worked on it, and digested it into the characteristic of unity between them.

When they approached the borders of Israel, they united as a whole, and they became the characteristic that could begin to conquer the ego. They didn’t just rise above the ego as they did during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness when the ego was revealed 100% and they acquired it in the form of their spiritual potential, but they had no connection with it.

Now with their entry into the land of Israel, they took the ego like a bulldozer with a scoop and digested it by transforming it into altruism. Not only did they rise above the ego, but with its help, they could bestow, receive, and cooperate reciprocally between them. This was the conquest of the land of Israel in which there were seven nations—seven profoundly egoistic characteristics—that must be worked on through our internal wars.

So, the people began to fight against them by processing the ego and constantly shoveling it inside themselves. The conquest and subjugation of the ego, working with it for bestowal and love, is called “receiving for the sake of bestowal” and marks the conquest of the land of Israel. “Land” (Eretz) is derived from the word “desire” (Ratzon). “Israel” means “Straight to the Creator” (Yashar El). After that, the people of Israel could attain the level called the “Temple” (Beit HaMikdash). Acquisition of the general desire with which it is possible to discover the Creator fully, His highest revelation, is called the building of the first Temple (the level of Mochin de Haya) where the Upper Light is revealed.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

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The Torah, “Exodus”: He was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water, and He inscribed upon the tablets the words of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Man’s desires that rise to the level of forty, the level of Bina (wisdom), lose their foundation of egoism, and acquire the possibility to receive the form of spirituality on them. Thus, the stone that the commandments are made of, meaning man’s foundation of egoism, receive the form of the Ten Commandments.

The gradual transformation of our first essence of the attribute of bestowal and love is expressed in the Ten Commandments takes place under the influence of the Light, the Creator. We are not the ones who do it, but we want it to happen and bring ourselves to such a state. Thus, the Creator writes these things on man’s “stony heart.”

When we understand that our heart is made of stone, and understand that the Creator has done this to him, then He softens it. We want that the Creator will change its form only to the attribute of bestowal and love, and then He performs this act on us. This is called that He writes the Ten Commandments on my heart (on the stone), and the heart turns into the two tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments are written.

The process of recognition happens gradually. A person’s stony heart is not revealed to him immediately, only to the exact extent that he is willing to accept it and be responsible for it, to understand and agree to that it is his normal and natural foundation and it is so needed. We thank the Creator that He created us as He did, since it is specifically in this state that we can raise to the summit of the Creator, to the point of resembling and being equal to Him.

Recognition and understanding come to us only to give thanks to the enlightenment of the Upper Light. Otherwise, nothing happens! Nothing depends on us except the yearnings, all the more so since in most events the yearnings are in the form of an impulse that is not stabilized and not conscious.

And one shouldn’t forget that on the way to this state, man feels that he is a ruler of the world, like the son of Pharaoh. He feels that everything belongs to him, that he can do anything and wants everything, that he has a right to everything, like Moses in Pharaoh’s palace. It is vividly described in the Torah. But in our world, it doesn’t have to return in a physical form.

So the gradual refusal of egoistic reception brings us to ascend to the level of the opposite attribute, of complete bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/30/13

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The created being is a desire to enjoy created as something from nothing that develops from its root under the influence of the Light. If the desire is passive, which means that it doesn’t want to develop toward the Light and resemble it, the Light forces it to develop just as it happened in the four phases of the Direct Light.

Afterward, the desire becomes inclined to develop, which means that it restricts itself and builds a Masach (Screen) and grows as a result of its own initiative. The development of the desire to enjoy refers to the acquisition of the Masach.

The problem is that our desire with which we must ascend from the bottom to above this world is very small. We are impressed by the fact that it is ignited in order to attain the goal of creation, the upper force, but this is a first impression that quickly fades and disappears. Then, we can only continue as a result of a habit, of a routine, thanks to the fact that we have established corporeal frameworks that sustain and obligate us.

However, this actually increases our desire and our vessel. We must be armed with a desire that matches the same level to which we want to ascend in order to reach the first revelation and in order to discover every new level in general.

Where can we get such a desire? It is only from the Light that operates on us! The Light influences the desire that is something from nothing, that small black point, the tiny nucleus that develops it. This means that the problem is how to draw the influence of the Light.

If I draw the Light by myself, it means that “I awaken the dawn.” The Light that influences my desire to enjoy invokes a feeling of darkness in it. However, I discern the vessel for the revelation of the Light by that and wish for the darkness to illuminate like the Light.

This is the reason that I ask that my desire grow and I wait for the Light to influence me. I don’t care about the phases that will lead me there, and whether I remain in my desire to enjoy or acquire a desire to bestow, as long as I advance and draw the influence of the Light to me. This means that I awaken the dawn by myself and raise MAN, according to which the action is performed. This process is called “hastening time” (Achishena).

If I cannot awaken the influence of the Light on me in order to increase my desire, it develops naturally, in its time (Beito). The Light affects me in any case, but, because these changes are undesirable to me, they bring me sufferings. I am not happy about the darkness that is revealed to me. I cannot see the future vessel for the revelation of the Light in it.

This way of development is undesirable to the Creator, as well as to people. However, we still advance whether it is along the path of the Light or the path of suffering.

Therefore, when Abraham saw the good future that was prepared for mankind, for all of Babylon—for the small desire that was supposed to be filled with the Light of Infinity that is 620 times greater—he asked, “Where will we get the vessels and the desires from?” It is because it is impossible to receive the reward the Creator has promised us without a corrected desire.

Then, the Creator calmed him by saying, “Don’t worry. This desire will grow 620 times bigger during the 400 years of exile in Egypt.” This means that, on the way, people will go through a period in which they receive a big desire, either reluctantly or by hastening time, and then they will begin to work with it in order to bestow.

Today, everything is open and clear, and the phases we must undergo are well understood. We must make sure that we have the right influence of the environment that will be like a greenhouse for us that will hasten the growth of a big desire in us for the revelation of the Creator.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/14

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