Question: There are times when someone asks you a question and you answer it very briefly, and sometimes you do not even want to give an answer. It also happens that we ask the same question, and you pour out your soul and open wide spaces before us. How do we catch this moment when you can say something?

Answer: If I cannot answer a question directly, but have the opportunity to answer it in a different way, then I answer.

Kabbalists have large limitations in what they can say and what they cannot. In addition, it is possible that by the time you ask the question for the second or third time, the state of the group has already changed. This is why I can talk about the topic that interests you. That is, there are many different conditions. The difference may even be in several days.

Comment: Sometimes you say that it is impossible to talk about something at all, and at other times you address this topic and develop it widely.

My Response: It is because the time has come. It does not depend on me. I am just a transmitter here.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13

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Initially, there was only one desire—it was the desire of the Creator to delight His creations. But the Creator broke this desire into tiny pieces, and they scattered, distancing themselves from each other according to the difference of their qualities, which was revealed during the breakage.

Thus, scientists assert that our universe was formed as a result of the Big Bang. In the beginning, it was just one point that exploded, and its particles began to scatter in all directions in search for balance.

The universe is still expanding, moving away from the central point where the connection once existed. We are still in the process of dispersing. But scientists say that this expansion must end, and the universe will begin to collapse back, meaning, we will begin to get closer and connect.

Somewhere in this process, a state of equilibrium will be reached depending on how we influence these huge cosmic forces and star clusters with our thoughts so that that they begin to get closer back to the center of the Big Bang.

We will see that we can influence all these billions of stars and bring them closer to each other to such an extent that perhaps they will unite again into one nucleus containing all the desire created by the Creator.

There are parallels in this between astrophysics and the science of Kabbalah. The fact is that every day and every moment we influence what is happening in the sky and what will happen to us with our thoughts.

When parts of the universe that seemed empty to us became accessible for observation by space telescopes, billions of stars suddenly opened up there. In place of an empty, dark space, it was as if another universe suddenly opened up to us.

This shows how infinite the world we are in is: both the spiritual world and the material world are endless. And we need to learn how to approach each other with desires and hearts, and then we might be able to see a response in the sky too.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/22, “Each Day They Will Be As New in Your Eyes”

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To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often (Winston Churchill).

Question: Are perfection and harmony the same thing? Does it mean that true perfection is harmony?

Answer: Perfection is an opportunity to constantly feel that you are able to move toward harmony. Ideal harmony on its own is unattainable; it means the end of everything, the freezing of the universe if we can imagine it that way. Therefore for us, perfection lies in the fact that we can move toward such harmony.

Perfection is the way to stop everything. This happens when all parts of the world, the universe, and everything in general are in such a state that none of them want to change their state because each is in perfection. Then the system is perfect.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/18/22

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Question: The state of heartbreak results from what actions? I can’t just feel like my heart is broken. It’s a consequence of something.

Answer: First, you start by desiring everything in this world. Therefore, in your heart, in your desire, you want to be filled with everything that you see that is useful, good, kind, and in general everything that you can wish for.

After you see that this is impossible, you come to the question: Then what is possible? This is where various states arise in you that gradually lead to the fact that you should not strive for this, it is better to wish for something else.

Thus, through many, many disappointments, the Creator brings you to the state where it becomes clear to you that what you really want is to be closer to the Creator, closer in likeness to the Creator.

How can you do it? Gradually, through many actions, trials and errors, you begin to understand that this must be done only through connection with other people. And the more you unite with them and wish to be like them, the closer you get to the Creator.

This is called “from the love of created beings to the love of the Creator.” This, perhaps, is what a person must go through.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22

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Rabash made a revolution by agreeing to teach people who were non-believers, absolutely alien in spirit, that did not have the mentality of Polish Jews of sitting separately somewhere in a corner, in a small community, and studying.

Suddenly forty students come to you from Tel Aviv, who are totally non-believers, and you accept them and give them your heart. All this happens in Bnei Brak, in a closed [Orthodox] community.

It was something incomprehensible: “What? Has Ashlag started teaching non-religious people?! And they are young and not married?! How can this be?!”

It was believed that Kabbalah was only for people over forty. I brought twenty-five-year-olds to him! It was believed that Kabbalah was only for the religious, those who already know the Talmud. I brought guys who never opened these books, did not know, and despised them to him! They only wore the kippah at funerals or if something happened.

He accepted such people to study Kabbalah against all customs—under forty, not married, not filled themselves with the Torah! How can this be? But he went for it. A different time had come.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10

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This is what Rabbi Elazar would pray and say when he fasted, “It is revealed and known before You, Hashem, my Elohim and the Elohim of my fathers, that I have offered up before You my fat and blood, and I have seethed them with the heat of the weakness of my body” (The Zohar, Shemot: Verse 368).

There is a big difference whether I read these words from the prayer book or something happens inside of me and I explode from within in my yearning for the Creator with such words.

These feelings were created inside me, formed into words and phrases. I may not even know this language. I do not know how it happens, but this is the result of my efforts to make my desires similar to the light and connect them with the light.

Light and desires produce this reaction in the soul, they are recognized in my brain, the brain transmits instructions to the organs of speech, and I pronounce them without knowing where these words came from!

This is the way the real prayer should be, when everything comes from within, when from the connection of lights and Kelim, from the deepest foundations of creation, light and desire, the filling of desire with light, the whole TANTA (complete Kli – Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot) is gradually built until they are expressed by the speech apparatus.

It is clear that Rabbi Elazar did not read this prayer according to the prayer book, but while he was in this state, about which he spoke to the Creator.

Before the Second Temple was ruined, the people of Israel were in connection with the Creator, in the qualities of bestowal and love, and their prayer was the feeling in their heart—desire. It is said: “What is prayer? The work in the heart.”

But the sages of the Great Assembly (Knesset HaGadol), knowing about the imminent fall into egoism, meaning the concealment of the Creator from everyone, compiled a collection of prayers for us, states to which a person must come.

They called it “Siddur“—the order of spiritual states that we must go through within ourselves, in our heart (desire).

But since we are not capable of such a thing in times of exile, the absence of connection with the light, with the Creator, when the upper force is concealed, we mechanically read the words from the prayer book, and someone may be trying to imagine what it would mean in spirituality.

Only the light, when we are studying Kabbalah, will evoke in us feelings, thoughts, sensations, words, and phrases of our prayer as work in the heart, and not in the speech apparatus.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/10, The Book of Zohar, Shemot (Exodus)

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We love rest, and vehemently hate movement, to the point that we do not make even a single movement if not to find rest.

Similarly, we love wisdom, power, wealth, and all the virtues because they are contained in Him, who is our root (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Inner Observation, Chapter 4, Item 19).

Question: So the Creator has all this power, wealth, etc?

Answer: Of course. Everything that does not relate to movement, procreation, anything that involves change, exists in the Creator. We are the consequence of this, therefore, we also do not want these changes in us.

Question: There is a great number of pleasures in our world. Are all these pleasures and fulfillments in the Creator?

Answer: Of course. Where else? Where can they come from?

Question: Suppose a person enjoys violence. Is this also in the Creator?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: I think that people imagine the Creator differently. It is written that He is “Good who does good” and this is absolute love.

My Response: But by the time it reaches us in our world, in opposite actions, we already begin to receive pleasure from actions opposite to the Creator.

Comment: That is, He is in His root an Absolute, but by the time it comes to us…

My Response: If you draw near Him, you will feel that you are entering goodness, eternity, love, and mutuality. But if you are not getting close to Him… That is, there are filters between us, opposite states, so that we can study all that.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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One of the main signs of happiness and harmony is the complete absence of a need to prove something to someone (Nelson Mandela).

My Response: This is his personal experience; it can be understood. In general, since nature strives toward a state of rest, including continuous undisturbed movement, we can say that harmony is indeed the main sign of the desire of the universe. We see that, in principle, everything is directed toward it. If something opposite to this happens, then all the forces of the universe are aimed at balancing.

Comment: Yes. If we take into account a small person, then these are small forces, and if we take the whole universe, then huge forces are involved here.

My Response: Which means, no matter what happens, it is intended only for the search for harmony, balance.

Question: How would you define ordinary human harmony?

Answer: Harmony is the combination of all mutually opposite forces in a person that balance each other.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/8/22

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Question: A spiritual teacher waits for his students and prepares himself for him. Is this his life?

Answer: Yes, of course! This is what Baal HaSulam writes! The teacher is preparing for the student to come to him, and he will pass the method to him.

When I studied with Rabash, it was absolutely clear to me that I had to prepare to teach. I immediately began to record lessons on a tape recorder, draw, and write down what Rabash told me when we were walking in the park. I began to systematize these materials and put them in order.

I knew for sure that I would have to take the method from him and pass it on. I had a clear feeling that I existed in order to receive it from him.

I did not know how many years I would stay with him because he was a 70-year-old man when I came to him, but I was sure that after all my ordeals and searches for a teacher, I should receive the method precisely from him.

I just did not see anyone else, although I knew many and was searching. Rabash was completely directed toward spirituality—in spirit, in approach, in terms of source, in character, in desire, and in readiness. Therefore, I knew that I was receiving this media package from him, which I would have to pass on. He also knew it. Thus, his entire archive, his entire legacy, was passed on to me.

After the death of Rabash, I immediately revealed the entire archive to everyone. If someone else had the archive, he might have kept it and not given it away, or would have given it out one serving at a time for personal reasons, perhaps to feel that he has it and therefore is special.

But I immediately gave all his students a chance to make copies of the originals for their use. After that, I felt calm. The works of Rabash were not lying on my desk. I fulfilled my duty to my friends. I gave them everything.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10

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Question: The holiday of Hanukkah is also called the holiday of Light and it was established in the 2^nd century BC. The rebellious Maccabees defeated the Greeks, Syrians, and Jews who joined the Greeks, that is, Hellenized Jews.

The Temple was liberated, cleansed, and the temple service began. And it seems like a Jewish holiday was taking place here. But you once said that the Hanukkah holiday is a holiday of light for the whole world. Can you explain this?

Answer: Because as it were, the connection between the people was restored, and through it, with the peoples of the whole world with the upper source of light.

Question: Through the Temple?

Answer: Through the concept of what a Temple is. It is a spiritual place, not a physical one, where there is connection between people—and it does not matter which people and how—and the Creator. That is, if people want to get closer to the Creator, then the place of their rapprochement, connection, merging, unity, and gathering is called a Temple.

Question: Whenever Hanukkah is mentioned, it is said that the Temple was purified. What is purification?

Answer: Cleansing from all harmful thoughts and intentions that were egoistic. And people who wanted to get closer to the Creator had to take on His qualities—the qualities of bestowal and love. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

And they achieved it. That is why it is called cleansing and purification of the Temple. It is in the hearts of people. No building, no rocks, and nothing else. That is, the Temple is in us.

Question: And when it is said that the people have purified the Temple, these rebellious people—did they purify it?

Answer: People have purified their hearts and connected everything together in mutual love. And then they began to feel spiritual qualities in this connection with each other. This is called a miracle.

Question: And when they say “the miracle of Hanukkah,” when they found one small jug of pure oil, the lamp was supposed to burn for eight days, and there was only oil for one day. And yet, the lamp was lit, and it burned for eight days. They say this was a miracle of Hanukkah.

What kind of a miracle is this when everything seems to be above reason: we think that this is for one day, but it burns for eight days? What kind of a miracle is this?

Answer: This is because people wanted to be united among them and raise their feelings from themselves, everyone together, to the Creator, to this common quality. And this common quality that was revealed between them was the manifestation of the miracle of Hanukkah.

Question: What are these high-calorie donuts that we eat on Hanukkah?

Answer: They are all kinds of manifestations of this celebration. When the oil, which embodies the connection between people, the intention of bestowal and love for the Creator, and so on, manifests itself in such a way that everything is made in oil. And this is, so to say, the main subject of Hanukkah.

Question: Why are they so sweet? Children eat them with pleasure.

Answer: Because that is how it should be. This miracle that happens when we annul our egoism and want to connect with each other is sweet.

Question: Why is this holiday also called a children’s holiday?

Answer: On one hand because there are practically no restrictions in it, and it only talks about love and connection, about communication, about rapprochement of people with each other. And besides, this is the beginning of the rebirth of people, the rapprochement of people among themselves.

Question: That is what this holiday is?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, you are saying that this is a global holiday, it concerns the whole world?

Answer: Not only global, it is a great holiday.

It is a great holiday indeed. We look at it as if it is just donuts and lighting candles every day, and that is all there is. But in fact, this is a great holiday when people ignite in their hearts the connection between them and the love for the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/15/22

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