Question: Is it necessary to take notes on what you say during the lessons?

Answer: People have various ways of studying Kabbalah. Those who want to take notes should do so. Those who don’t, should not do it. This kind of knowledge must be recorded on hearts on the desires.

Each one approaches their desires differently. I went through a very difficult path: science, graphs, vectors, tables, and so on, and it is a long way to go, but for me there is no other way to learn. That’s how I am built.

I remember that my childhood teachers complained to my father that I was solving chemical problems by applying mathematical methods. I simply couldn’t remember how various substances reacted to each other. So, I solved the problems by calculating the number of electrons they have on their external orbit. I simply was unable to see these problems from a different angle. Today, it is called “physical chemistry” or “chemical physics.”

When I studied Kabbalah without a pencil or a pen or additional tools, and if I couldn’t  organize everything in a table or a dictionary, it simply did not exist for me.

However, Kabbalah has nothing to do with all of this. A person must open his mouth, heart, ears, and eyes so that this knowledge enters inside him.

Question: What kind of preparation do we need for that? After all, to “open our mouths,” we must be ready for that.

Answer: There are people who perceive the world only so. But the problem is in them; they are very shallow and that’s why their penetration into the material they study is very superficial. “Ah-ah-ah!” That is all they say.

When you resist and turn on your brain, your “Ah!” goes through your mind, which is always full of tremendous opposition. I would compare it with induction resistance when the electric flow circulates through a torus and accumulates momentum. You unmistakably feel how it works, how your internal contours change. It shapes you!

The remodeling that we receive is very difficult since we must breakdown our previous form to a shapeless mass. We must crash our “flesh” and make it an amorphous mass even though it is assembled so accurately and our internal organs work so well, notwithstanding that they work egoistically. Then, we should reshape this formless mass anew. This process must be accompanied by the awareness that it is we who should do this work on ourselves. Our apprehension that it is much better for us if we do it ourselves should become so strong that we even begin asking for it.

Yet, the pain does not vanish. However, we neutralize it by the higher purpose. It is as if we perform surgery on ourselves. I don’t want to scare anyone off, but it is exactly how it should be that way in our awareness.

It is not an easy thing to deal with. It takes time. When one begins associating oneself with the Creator and begins to regard one’s egoism as “a help against him,” then one can rejoice because his egoism undergoes numerous tsunamis and hurricanes that smooth it out—beat, knead, mince, and make ashes out of it. Ashes cannot be resurrected into anything but the initial state.

If the pain persists, it means that we haven’t merged with the Creator yet. It is an indication of one’s integration with the Creator! When everything is ground down and turns into ashes, as it is written, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thy return,” then, Adam will emerge, that is, a Man that is built in a completely new internal structure. This is what we must go through.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book,” 4/28/13

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In his commentary to The Book of Zohar written in the language of Midrash, Baal HaSulam added the language of “The Study of the Ten Sefirot.” By doing so, he passed us a key to this book. His commentary is not just a simple interpretation, but rather, an encoding key to a cipher, to a door that was locked before.

For example, as it is written in The Book of Zohar and in other original sources, “The Creator has come before the face and announced.” Baal HaSulam explains that it is written about the ascent of Malchut to Bina.

At first, this happens in the state of smallness (Katnut), the property of judgment. Then, Malchut is allowed to descend from Bina to the level of Yesod and use the vessels of reception that are, by this time, ready to relate to the Giver and are called “AHP on the rise.” At this time, the Creator comes in front of the face and announces. “Announcement” means revelation.

Baal HaSulam gave us an opportunity to see spiritual actions behind the language of Midrash. This vision facilitates our path and opens ways to self-report that are essential for a deeper penetration into The Book of Zohar.

It also contains parts that are written using the language of Kabbalah, but in general, the texts of Midrash are richer, more expressive, more poetic, and more colorful; whereas the Study of the Ten Sefirot tells us about the physics of spiritual relationships, about psychology and measurable properties of the soul. The soul is the general vessel (Malchut) of the World of Infinity. It is as if the soul was split into several parts that were tested, checked, weighed, and studied together with the interconnections between them, their order, and the way they are fulfilled, and hence went Kabbalah.

These things can be described in a number of various ways, schematically, along the lines of systems research,  or sensorially. In any case, it is about the same thing: ways of correcting and fulfilling the broken vessel that we have received. Generally, there are two ways to describe this process, emotional and intellectual.

It doesn’t matter if we really understand all of the fragments or if they remain unclear to us. When we read The Book of Zohar, we should be thinking only of the Light that Reforms. This way, step by step, penny by penny, we’ll accumulate a huge legacy.

So far, until we reach the revelation—that is, until we disclose the Creator at the very first step, right after the Machsom—we are bound to the rule that describes the work of egoism. So far, we absorb abundance; in other words, the results of our efforts go straight to impurity. It shows in our tiredness, weakness, lack of feeling, and so on, that are in fact, nonexistent; they only seem so to us. If our egoism gets a worthy and attractive offer, our weakness would disappear immediately.

Everything depends on the internal energy, on vessels, desires, that do not consider the spiritual path to be of any importance, either because they are not getting enough illumination from above or because they are being pulled down by egoism from below. In fact, it is a separation, an increase of the distance between the Lights and the vessels. As a result, we feel that we are hanging between heaven and the earth. It is as if something is pulling us down and won’t allow us to soar.

If this happens, all of our achievements fall back into egoism, into filth. However, since we already have completed the analysis and are familiar with these facts, we should avoid repeating prior mistakes. So now we are given new encumbrances that we must overcome over again, but how?

First of all, we should stop eyeing our friends’ faces that look so miserable. One judges according to one’s own flaws, but in fact, all of your friends are on the rise. The Light that descends during Passover lifts them, but they don’t sense it and feel a huge fatigue and pressure.

Question: Does it mean that when we cross the Machsom, we will flow with The Book of Zohar without any more burdens?

Answer: At that level, we concentrate on much harder things since we will acquire the ability to act against our will.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/13, The Zohar

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From Rabash’s Letter No. 16: Hence, if a person is idle in the work, he cannot see the truth, that he is immersed in falsehood. But by increasing Torah in order to bestow contentment upon his Maker, one can then see the truth: that he is walking on a false path, called Lo Lishma. And this is the middle point between truth and falsehood. Hence, we must be strong and confident on our way, so every day will be as new to us, as we need to always renew our foundations, and then we shall march forward.

We are able to identify the true way on condition that we are not idle and that we apply every effort derived from our environment to approach bestowal, first, among friends and then with the Creator. If one tries to bestow and enhance the greatness of the goal, attempts to strengthen the influence of one’s environment, in other words, if one improves all the positive factors that contribute to one’s advancement, only then one will recognize one’s evil inclination, will distinguish the truth and understand that he is walking on a false path, called Lo Lishma.

“And this is a transition point between truth and falsehood.” In other words, we apply all possible efforts to follow the correct path. Only under this condition can we reveal that we are going the wrong way. This revelation is in fact a reward for our work.

We don’t realize the value of this compensation since we feel bad and think that we haven’t achieved anything at all. However, it signifies that we have attained positive results, because we disclose the shattering, recognize our oppositeness to the Creator, and detect the properties that we have to correct. By correcting them, we come to spirituality and achieve similarity with our goal.

That’s why the Creator gives us a reward—the revelation of our egoism—by showing us how opposite we are to Him. This is the first true attainment of our oppositeness with Him; that’s why it’s called a transition point between truth and falsehood. This is the first measurement of the Creator! When we correct the evil and turn it into its opposite, we become similar to the Creator and adhere to Him.

This process happens at each level. Our task is to enhance our aspiration to bestowal and love. Then, as a reward, we’ll reveal the opposite states, hatred, detachment…and we’ll scream to the Creator: “Save us!” Then, the Light that Reforms will descend and correct us.

When we reach a new level of correction, we should continue working with the help of our environment and pursue the right line. Then, as a reward, we’ll disclose the left line and the sinners will appear. Then again, we will be happy to see them, since at this point, we’ll already have something to correct, thus getting a chance to become similar to the Creator. This situation repeats over and over again.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/13

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Question: What does it means to believe in the Creator’s greatness? Is believing an instrument like the instrument a scientists uses for an experiment following the advice of another scientist?

Answer: In our world the term “believing” has become banal: “I believe,” “I am a believer,” etc. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the term “to believe” has a totally different meaning. Believing means feeling.

Everything the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about is about two forces: receiving and bestowal, which means a desire and Light (its filling). What is more, the filling also shapes the desire and changes its form as we study in the four phases of the Direct Light.

Why is one of the forces called Light and not pleasure? Because the Light influences the phases according to which the vessel develops, and it isn’t always felt as pleasure. But everything is done by the Light. Therefore, there is no such term as “believing.”

What does it means that I believe in something? Does it refer to something that I don’t understand, that is tasteless and unfelt? No. We always speak from the perspective of the vessel (the desire), from the perspective of what it feels.

The main thing is feeling the greatness of the force that has created me and which manages me, feeling that it is good and that it bestows. We call this feeling believing.

We also call the attributes of bestowal and love believing, since by feeling the force that has created me, I feel the attributes of bestowal and love inside me. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to feel this force, since it is felt only to the extent that I am equal in form; to the extent that I have a certain attribute, I feel this attribute external to me, although there is no such thing as external to me and everything is always felt inside me.

We must understand that whatever we feel is because we are identical to that feeling and are actually made of that attribute. On the whole, we feel ourselves! The question is how we can change ourselves so that we will begin to feel ourselves differently, that we will feel that we are spiritual.

Believing in the Creator’s greatness means feeling the superiority and the greatness of the force that has created everything and that fills everything.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: How can we demand the power to ascend from the Creator the moment the activity of the group of ten slows down?

Answer: It happens that together we go through a state of descent and feel that our activity slows down, we feel powerless, a descent in our yearning, and a certain emptiness. What is more, if the emptiness is mutual, it influences us even more strongly than if I were by myself.

When I am alone and I am in a state of descent, I may feel bad when I look at others since I am at a lower state than they are, or it my impress me and I may make an effort to be on the same level they are on since I understand that I have no choice. But when the group of ten goes through a general descent, it is very difficult.

This happens very rarely, but it happens. We also see it during the lessons. Last week for example, there was this state of emptiness and it was a very difficult blurry feeling.

What can we do to exit such a state? There are several options.

The first option is to hope for help from the other groups of ten; we are not alone; we are many.

The second option is for everyone to lower their heads. If such a big wave comes along, we all have to lower our heads and this wave will pass over us. Then we will float on top of the water again, we will begin to breathe the air again and gradually come out of this state. Sometimes we have to act this way.

Sometimes we have to resist, which means not to wait for the influence of another group of ten and not to lower our heads submissively (although it is also a big problem to lower yourself before the Creator), but to act against Him. If you can gather and demand this from the Creator, then it is great. Cry out, demand, curse, do everything you can, but resist somehow.

If you can’t do anything at all; if you were active before and everything was fine and now it is as if you have all received a blow on the head and cannot exit this state in any way, at least follow this state, study it and see to what extent you are merely “rags,” and that the whole group of ten is worthless.

A bit of Light was taken from you and you are already in such a state. This means that we are under the total control of the Light and this is also something that we should feel.
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Form the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Spirituality begins from restriction. Restriction means that a person doesn’t ask for anything for himself. His desire is closed before his own pleasure and he uses it only in order to bestow. If he can bestow, he uses it, and if he can’t, then he doesn’t use it. It is as if there is a switch in him, a trigger that works only in one direction.

It is like a computer that can be in a state of 0 or of 1 and nothing but that. If there is no one he can bestow upon, it is a state of 0, and if there is someone he can bestow upon, it is 1. This means that I open myself, accept the deficiencies of the other, and convey them to the Creator. This is how Malchut that wants to resemble Bina works. It restricts its own desire, and locks it for using for its own sake, but thanks to that, it can feel the deficiencies of others. This is called “make your desire His desire,” but with regards to the created beings.

By acquiring the desires of others, I convey them to the Creator like a prayer, MAN, and get a response according to the rule: “The first born receives twice as much,” for himself and for the lower. I don’t need anything for myself, but I receive twice as much since my desire has changed and now I include in it the deficiency of the other. Thus I fill the two of us.

I fill my desire to bestow and not the desire to receive! When I convey a desire to bestow to another, I first convey the Light that Reforms to him, and then incorporate him in me, which means that I add him to myself like to the AHP of the upper. When he is ready to annul himself before me, I convey to him the force that allows him to build his own vessel and to receive the filling for himself.

It turns out that our work with the public is divided into many phases. First we have to work among us in order to acquire the desire to bestow upon the public. It should not be a desire to bestow for the sake of self-pleasure but truly in order to bestow. I work with my desire to receive only in order to bestow.

Thus we awaken the public, and they are impressed by the fact that they can fulfill their egoistic desires. But thanks to the connection with us and the mutual incorporation, they receive the force of correction and correct their desires. Then we can raise a double prayer, MAN, and receive a double response: for ourselves and for those we asked for, and thus we fill our collective vessels of receiving.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/13

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Torah, “Exodus,” Mishpatim (Laws), 21:22: “And should men quarrel and hit a pregnant woman, and she miscarries but there is no fatality, he shall surely be punished, when the woman’s husband makes demands of him, and he shall give (restitution) according to the judges’ (orders).”

It refers to two contradictory forces that struggle with each other in a man to the extent that their fight kills the fetus of his next stage.

If this happens, they are obligated to replenish the loss they have caused, but it should not be of a material or physical nature, which is common in this corporeal world, but rather should replenish the state that was lost and elevate it to the same level as before the damage.

By the way, this is a routine problem that constantly happens at transitional stages between levels since there is always a possibility for these forces to collide, thus creating a chance of a miscarriage.

This is why it is said that a woman does not die and can still give birth.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/20/13

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Question: Could you please outline in a couple of words the scheme of our relationships with the Creator.

Answer: The Creator is a source of pleasure. He created us as pleasure-seeking entities. However, His task is to teach us not to pursue bliss per se (since in this case we just turn into thoughtless animals, robots), but rather to teach us to love Him, the One who grants us delight, instead of being attracted to pleasures directly.

What does He have to do in order to achieve this goal? He has to gradually show us, which does not give us pleasure, so that we can build our direct relationship to Him, rather than aspire to the delights that He gives us.

This is a game: more pleasure – less pleasure, and in response to our response: our attitude to the bliss that comes out of the Creator or to the Creator Himself.
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Question: After I have already annulled myself in front of my friends, what else should I do?

Answer: By nullifying oneself, one becomes as a drop of semen that enters a uterus and attaches to its lining. Then, the spiritual fetus has to grow. It starts receiving blood (desires associated with the inanimate level) that adds more material substance to it. Later, this inanimate material will to turn into a vegetative substance, then it will develop into animate and speaking levels.

All of a sudden, one feels hatred toward the upper and thus one has to work on it in order to nullify oneself again. Because of this self-annulling, one shapes oneself similar to the upper, since one becomes receptive of everything that the upper gives him. It’s said that “a fetus in its mother’s waters sees the entire world from one end to another. A candle is lit above his head (the Light of Keter) and he is taught the whole Torah.” The Light hits all of his 620 desires and corrects them by adding the intention to bestow to them.

All of the above happens as a result of self-annulling. There is nothing else we should do, nothing but this: Our advancement starts with self-annulling. Each new step of ours is just a new level of self-annihilation. One rescinds oneself and the upper starts working on him as his mother’s uterus. Same as in regular life, a fetus conforms to its mother. It’s as if it doesn’t yet exist, nor does it understand or feel a thing; All the fetus does is totally annul itself. Later, we start nullifying ourselves at higher levels, Ruach, HGT.

Then, a period of “feeding” (nourishment) begins; it’s about self-annulment that is even bigger than the previous stage. The upper demonstrates to us that He acts and that some of His actions are recognized by our egoism as incorrect and even terrible. Look at what the Creator does to the world, what affliction He causes in people! All our problems are originated by Him.

When corrupt desires wake up in us, we feel them as a manifestation of the Creator’s horrible attitude to creation. It means that real egoistic powers (Klipot) rebel in us. We have to “disregard” ourselves and accept these situations by going with faith above reason and regard them as the best circumstances that could have happened to us.

We receive energy for self-negation from our friends, from our “ten.” There is no other place for spiritual revelation; we exist only in this group. The power comes from the Creator to us only through this group of people. Before, we were all equal, but now we see our friends as very big ones. We were the ones who made them look big, whereas they in fact remain the same, but due to our self-nullification, we start receiving nourishment through them as a fetus from his mother.

We can receive the entire world of infinity through them, since as we speak we are in it, but we don’t see or feel this endless Light only because of our corrupt properties. So, if we continue working correctly, we can receive everything through our “tens” to the degree of our self-nullification. This process doesn’t depend on our friends at all. Their task is just to stay ready to do the same thing to at least some extent, this will already be enough so that through them we will achieve the state of the world of infinity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: But because of the descent of human nature to the lowest degree, which is the self-love that unrestrictedly rules over all of humanity, there was no way to negotiate with them and persuade them to agree to take upon themselves, even as an empty promise, to exit their narrow world, into the wide spaces of the love of others. The exception was the Israeli nation because they were enslaved in the savage kingdom of Egypt four hundred years in horrible torments.

These torments were caused by the attempts made by the sons of Israel to rise above their egoism (both individual and collective) in order to achieve the state of love among them. Would Babylonians really follow Abraham if he had told them exactly what they would undergo if they joined his group? Nevertheless, gradually, out of hopelessness, we come to a state at which all we aspire to is bestowal. We strive to give, although it’s irrational and illogical. We simply feel like giving and that’s it, since we are under the Light’s influence. This desire is so huge that we cannot run away from it. We look at our friends and each of them looks close, dear, and beloved. Afterward, it’s the entire world that we regard similarly.

Question: Still… Will I get rid of afflictions on my way?

Answer: By all means you will, but it will happen when your desires and plans will exactly coincide with the Creator’s wishes and ideas. So far, they are opposite to the Creator’s, so what can you expect? We all are in a state of a constant confrontation with Him.

At the same time, it doesn’t mean that we have to surrender and simply wait for the time when we enter spirituality. Even now, way in advance, we can make a decision from now on to view the world from the Creator’s point of view, from the angle of the property of bestowal. If we act this way and get used to this approach the world will suddenly change into a benevolent place in our eyes.

Moreover, after we manage to get rid of the obstacles, we will regard this world as the world of infinity. Today, we see it generally as a corrupt and dreadful place, but that’s how we currently regard infinity. This is the way we envision infinity… At the same time, we don’t want the Creator to change us, but rather the “picture” drawn in our imagination. Then again, it’s the Upper Light! It doesn’t change! Only our internal properties are subject to modification.

Let’s go back to affliction: They won’t go away immediately since we are not “jumping” into infinity by making one huge and powerful leap. Instead, we climb the stairs that sometimes are associated with quite unpleasant material conditions. However, at the other level there is a different type of calculations that are interlinked with the general system, not only with us personally.

We see that even the righteous people suffer, for example Rabbi Akiva. However, in fact, we cannot take the place of those who are already in bestowal.

When we watch their sufferings from aside, we don’t understand their internal world and their vision. Baal HaSulam writes about this in his article “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/13, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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