After going through the period of “the exploration of the Land of Israel,” the group of Abraham achieved a state where, from the desire manifested between them, they were able to create one common desire for mutual bestowal and love, in which they revealed the upper force—the Creator.

In other words, they rose to His degree and came to an ideal state. But as soon as they reached it, even greater egoism began to manifest itself, because they took with them from Babylon all the huge egoism that was above them and related not even to them, but to the quality of bestowal and love.

So, the universal egoism of the next, even higher degree began to manifest itself, which is inherent in all of humanity, the whole mass, not just this small group, although they were growing and strengthening in power all the time.

According to Rambam, 5,000 people left Babylon, and when they reached the degree of the land of Israel, there were 3,000,000 of them. That was 2,700 years ago.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14

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Question: Your teacher was already an elderly person when you met him. You knew that in any event he would pass away. Did you prepare yourself for his death?

Answer: It was absolutely clear to me that I would be unable to live a single day in the surroundings where he was once he was gone. I was in that place and with those people only because of him. Only! The moment he would not be there, I would not be there either.

Rabash left. He died in my arms in the hospital. There was no one around him but me. It was Friday. I called and told the guys that our teacher is not here anymore. People started coming to the hospital. The same day the funeral took place at 11 in the morning. We went to Jerusalem. I remember all of this as in a dream.

I still thought that I should not be so easily separated from the others and they from me, and that we should break into many parts. I understood that eventually I would have to do that. I was thinking that we would have to reorganize somehow in the same system, in the same society. After all, in Kabbalah it is written about society, about group, so it means I have to do something. And I tried.

In the end I felt rejection from the others, and they felt the same way toward me, and everything broke into many pieces. One group stayed in Bnei Barak, another one in Jerusalem, the third one somewhere else. It happened as I expected.

Question: Does it mean you played the “film” of what would happen after Rabash’s death for yourself?

Answer: Absolutely. No doubt. I even talked using hints about this with Rabash. Why not?

In the same way today I can talk about what will happen when I am gone; there has to be a group the same as now. The core of the group is the people I rely on even today. I can even say their names. They can lead the group correctly together and in no way will be swayed by other opinions that jump out here and there.

The same happened after Rabash was gone. Right away upstarts appeared. With the teacher they were sitting quietly in the corner, but now they got a feeling that everyone is equal. No way! There are no equals.

There are people who are not capable, do not understand, and still undeveloped internally to be inside the governing system, in the core. And there are those who according to their inner readiness, to their connection with me are ahead. They possess the inner self-discipline; they can continue to carry on this mission. Therefore, I think it will get organized this way.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10

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All the states described in the Torah do not speak about geography, not about the way the group of Abraham left Egypt, approached Mount Sinai, crossed the desert, and entered the Land of Israel, but about internal states of people. They began to feel a great development of egoism. It was hard for them, but gradually they came to the point that they were constantly ascending and descending in connection with each other and trying to stay at the level of love, friendship, and the state of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Sometimes it was working and sometimes not, but it went on like this until they realized that they must break away from egoism because it became so huge that it was impossible to deal with it.

You cannot immediately jump onto this mountain, but only gradually revealing the ego to the extent that you can use it, rise above it and thus raise yourself, even though negative qualities are constantly being revealed in you. But you are not afraid of them. You understand that thanks to them you rise above them by using them correctly, and this is your spiritual elevation.

It was in this way that the group of Abraham in connection with each other broke away from the egoism that is called “Egypt,” rose, and began to work on themselves. First, they began to establish a relationship of mutual assistance, so as not to harm each other, since before that they were ready to bite each other’s heads off. Mount Sinai represents the mountain of hatred between them.

Their state can be called a “desert” because they did not feel any taste in it since work for bestowal does not bring any fulfillment to egoism. So, they worked on themselves for 40 years, until they fully rose to the level of Bina.

Then they went through the so-called 40 years of wandering in the desert. Wandering symbolizes a constant search: Where in this egoism, which I constantly raise out of myself, can I find the quality of Bina, the quality of bestowal?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 4/5/14

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Question: How did you find the strength to learn from Rabash Peh el Peh (mouth to mouth)?

Answer: I do not think I was the luckiest or the strongest as was the case with Joshua relative to Moses or with other Kabbalists. I had very big breakdowns.

That is, you come and go along with the teacher and you suddenly break down. And you cannot do anything; there is a contradiction: “Well, how can it be? This is not how he does it! This is not how he thinks! This is not how he acts! I have to do it differently! I… I… I…”

It cannot be fixed. It was probably necessary to go that way. To what has passed, we must say: “This is how it should have happened.”

But it is necessary, of course, to try to make all this happen in an absolute internal fusion. This is called Peh el Peh—spirit to spirit.

The fact is that now we are talking about a relationship that does not exist today between a student and a teacher. First of all, I do not see that this is possible between me and any of the students.

Secondly, the global wave that is rising today is not aimed at merging with the teacher and thus receiving spiritual Peh el Peh from him but in finding spiritual things among them, in scrupulously following all the instructions of the teacher.

Then the teacher becomes not a Teacher with a capital letter, not a spiritual father, but a leader, an instructor on the way; that is, he accompanies a group of students from the side.

We are in a state where we are pioneers. So, it is hard to say how it should actually be. After me, my students will discover further inside them what is inherent in them and will see how to behave further. But still, what is happening now will speak to them and will move them.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10

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The topic of love seems to be the simplest and most understandable. But in fact it is the most difficult because it is the central topic in the issue of perceiving the Creator, of coming closer to Him, and in understanding the root of the world.

We confuse the concept of spiritual love with the familiar egoistic love in this world, which we know intuitively how to use. It is like a baby who cries all the time and demands love from the first day of its birth. This is how a person acts until the last day of his life.

We do not treat love in its true, correct form. We think that love is something simple and self-explanatory. This explains why so few people reach spiritual attainment, i.e., altruistic love for the sake of bestowal, universal love, and love for friends through which we reach spiritual love.

The problem is that we do not understand that our entire life and the path of spiritual development is aimed at finding love for the other. This is a great difficulty because naturally we understand love in an egoistic form and perceive everything through self-love. But we do not know what love for the world is or what love for the Creator is, which is the only way to come closer to Him and begin to feel Him.

Everyone can feel in one’s heart how much he neglects love if it is not an egoistic love, but rather love for the world.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us a different attitude to the Creator and to the truth. We think that the main goal is to find out how the worlds cascaded downward and how the Sefirot and spiritual Partzufim were born, and that the better we study the technique of the spiritual world, the more we will advance. But this is completely wrong.

In fact, everything depends on the way we develop a feeling of love for the other in our hearts in order to treat all the inhabitants of this world with love—all people, animals, plants, and inanimate nature, all levels from top to bottom. After all, we can attribute this love to the Creator who created this world and gave it to us so that we could correct ourselves by building the right attitude in ourselves at all four degrees of our will to receive.

First, we need to make a restriction on our will to receive fulfillment and turn it into universal love, love for everything that is outside of us. All this was created by the Creator, and therefore, I am obliged to love all of His creation in order to come closer to Him.

We have nothing to do in our life but to turn hatred or indifference to the entire world into a feeling of closeness and love called universal love.

Only to the extent of such universal love for the other will we begin to feel what it means to love the Creator and become close to Him. Through turning egoism into love, we attain all of the true spiritual reality.

Therefore the topic of love is the most important, central, and deep topic within which we will meet with the Creator. Let’s try to free ourselves from self-love and appreciate our friends. It does not matter if they are close or far away or if they are good or bad, but they are on the same path with us and have a special desire to reach true love.

The Creator has given us this inner, concealed yearning. Let’s start working and unearthing the love hidden in us until we reach universal love; let’s get closer and unite with the entire creation and its inner force, which is the Creator.

This is the central grain of all spiritual work. You can forget the names of the Partzufim AB-SAG and not know what the upper worlds are called, but we will feel this through love; it will be not just memorizing, but true attainment.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/23, Love – Selected Excerpts from Zohar for All

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There are many hidden treasures in that palace, one atop the other. Within that palace there are gates that were made for concealing, made to block the lights. They are fifty (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Lock and Key”).

When we study The Book of the Zohar, we must believe that this book is an intermediary between us, the lower ones, and the Creator, the upper one, and all this connection takes place through the group of Rabbi Shimon.

The gates are the conditions with which we have to comply. In order to pass through the gates you need to get closer to them and adjust yourself to certain qualities. Then some of the gates open, some are canceled, and some we need to correct by integrating with them.

After each gate we increasingly reveal the desire to bestow within ourselves, we come closer and closer to the Creator, and we better understand the entire system that connects creation with the Creator. Therefore, with each gate we go through we go further and further into the palace of the Creator.

Behind the last, 50^th gate absolutely everything is revealed, the entire Malchut, completely adhered with the upper force.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Comment: All spiritual work of men is done in the “seven years of famine” when the light is removed for him and he must advance independently.

My Response: In the seven years of famine our egoism does not receive any encouragement. A person should rise above his ego and try to continue working not on egoistic energy, but by developing the greatness of the goal in oneself.

Since this is an ascent from our world to the opposite world, to the world of bestowal and love, this state is very difficult. Usually at this stage many students cannot handle it and leave.

Question: And what is the success of those who stay about? Is it luck or something else?

Answer: Of course, there is always luck. But we cannot take it into account. We do not know what luck means. We know only one thing: with the help of the group, getting closer to the friends, good studies, and dissemination, when a person is actively working in the correct direction, everything works out for him. He advances with enthusiasm and realizes there is no other way.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Seven Years of Abundance and the Seven Years of Famine” 4/15/14

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In spiritual work, what is this narrow keyhole into which a key must be inserted?

The definition of “narrow” means a lack of Hasadim (mercy). If I have managed to make up for this lack, then I am ready to unlock this lock.

The whole path in front of us is a lock. At every step we need to match a certain key to it, i.e., the quality of bestowal, in order to reveal more and more and thus move toward the goal.

At each stage we reveal ourselves more and more and manifest an increasing quality of bestowal in ourselves, and thus we approach the Creator. And for this we need to find the key that exactly matches the lock.

The lock that hides the quality of bestowal from us is a group, and the key is the relationship in this group, the connection and love between friends. A person should disconnect from himself and stick to ten friends. Ten for me is a spiritual Kli. If I reformat myself correctly to get inside this Kli, I will open the lock with a key and get through to the Creator.

I need to find the key, study it, try to adapt it to the lock, and find out how to insert the key into the keyhole and how to turn it. When I have the strength to turn the key in the lock, I can unlock it.

Just remember that when inserting the key into the lock, you need to keep a very strong connection with your friends. If I connect with my friends and annul myself more and more, then eventually I will be able to insert the key into the keyhole in order to be ready to turn it.

But in order to turn the key in the lock, I need to turn to the Creator and ask Him for the strength to open this lock.
There are three stages of work: adjust yourself to the lock as a suitable key, then enter the lock, and finally unlock the lock.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Lock and Key”

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Question: There is such a thing as shame in our world. How is the concept of shame, which Baal HaSulam writes about in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, related to the shame that we are familiar with?

Answer: The shame mentioned in Kabbalah arises when a person feels oneself to be the opposite of the Creator. In the world opposite to the Creator, a person feels incongruity with Him, and this is called shame.

The Creator is absolute bestowal. I want to be like Him, but I see that I can’t and I am ashamed. Just like in our world, I want to be like some great man and I am ashamed that I cannot become like him.

Question: Does spiritual shame remain or does it disappear?

Answer: Gradually, as you approach the Creator in your properties, shame disappears.

Comment: It seems that the closer you are to the Creator, the more you realize how opposite you are to Him.

My Response: If you are approaching the Creator in terms of properties, then why should you be ashamed?

Shame is a separate creation of the Creator. The Creator created shame in humans so that we would feel different from the Creator. Thanks to shame, we develop.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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The center of the group is not in any of the members of the group, but only between all of them. If we all tried to unite with each other in such a way as to feel everyone together as one single whole, this would be the center of the group, the point of complete connection between us.

Question: In order to concentrate in the center of the group during a workshop, do we need to depict this state you have described to ourselves?

Answer: Yes, of course. After all, when we connect, everyone’s personal “I” disappears, and “We” remains instead of “I.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Where is the Center of the Group?” 5/14/14

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