Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

Only the Will to Receive Is New

746.01The whole of reality is contained in Ein Sof and extends existence from existence. Only the will to receive is new and extends existence from absence (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Inner Observation, Chapter 4, Item 18).

Question: How can the will to receive appear from absence?

Answer: Naturally nothing can come from absence. It is just that a desire arises from a higher degree called the Creator who determines the whole development of creation.

Therefore, at first a desire appeared from absence. In the process of its development, it reaches ten Sefirot, worlds, and all kinds of connections between them. This continues until one general large picture is obtained.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22

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When The Heart Is Broken

236.01Question: It is written in Kabbalistic sources that a person with a broken heart is called a hero. Please explain why a hero is the one with the broken heart?

Answer: Indeed it sounds so unusual. It has even been said that there is nothing better than a broken heart. After all, when a person feels that all his desires, intentions, passions, and impulses are broken, and he has nothing he can cling to like an anchor so he does not drown in life, then such a state is the best.

It is good in that we have nothing to hold on to other than the Creator.

Comment: But if we could hold on to the Creator without any dramatic situations, that would also be nice. 🙂

My Response: No, this is not possible. A person can only cling to the Creator when he is hanging by a thread with nothing to hope for and in a second he will drop and fall down. This feeling is so terrible that death is better than such a life. It is in this state that he can come to the Creator.

Of course I do not advise anyone to come to this. The wisdom of Kabbalah says that we should recognize this and come to the Creator in advance, knowing that there is none else besides Him; He governs everything and all our future states are in Him.

In general, although there is none one besides Him, we should still try to choose the states ourselves as close as possible to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22

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Complete Harmony

235Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).

Question: Could you please describe the state of complete harmony for a Kabbalist?

Answer: I believe that we reach perfection through revealing two opposite forces, reception and bestowal, which interact with each other and balance each other in order to reveal the single force that creates them, and only within which they can coexist.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/18/22

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The Healer of Broken Hearts

243.03Question: It is said that the Creator is called the healer of broken hearts. Why is He called that?

Answer: Because He heals hearts and connects them into one big single heart. And the person is only present in this. He is, so to say, a witness of what the Creator is doing.

Therefore, all the work that we do in spirituality is called the work of the Creator (Avodat Hashem).

Question: But does something depend on the person, nevertheless?

Answer: What depends on a person is to be more attentive to what is happening to him, to try with the help of the science of Kabbalah to understand how the Creator is working on him, and how he should react to His actions, i.e., to be just a sensor.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22

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“There Is Nothing so Whole as a Broken Heart”

534

There is nothing so whole as a broken heart (Kabbalist Menachem Mendel of Kotzk).

Question: How can we understand this?

Answer: The heart is a person’s desire. When he sees that with these desires he cannot do anything right and purposeful, this state is the best. After all, in such a state, a person is in a desperate request to the Creator to help him because no one else can help him.

This is called the most whole, best state.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22

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True Harmony

237Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony (Heraclitus).

My Response: In general, this is a simple and fairly correct statement. If we take into account that there are only two opposite points and they do not change, they are not in a dynamic state, and each is by itself, then this can be accepted.

However, if there are many such points and they are constantly changing, then this greatly complicates the processes. The system becomes very complex and even somewhat unpredictable.

True harmony is the mutual balance of all components of the general system. That is, it is already a system with the number of parameters that exist in it. Either we have to rely on the fact that we know this system and understand it, or on the fact that some upper force deals with it and brings it into balance. In this case we cannot say anything.

Question: You say that it is not necessary for a person to even know these forces, that it is enough to know the tool that arranges them within a person. What are these two forces, the maximum difference of potentials that need to be connected?

Answer: If we know the general quality of the system, then we do not need to understand its particulars. The particulars sort themselves out.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/18/22

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Faith Above Reason

528.04What is faith above reason? Faith is bestowal, and above reason means it has a higher importance than reception.

In our state, this quality is expressed only as my attitude toward the group because only in the group can I clearly see that in my actions and thoughts I prefer its benefit to my own.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/10, Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “The Importance of Faith that Always Takes Place”

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The Closer You Come, the Further It Seems

528.02Question: How is it that friends seem qualitatively better and more successful than you, but they do not consider themselves like that?

Answer: It seems so to a person, but in fact it may not be so. The main thing is how you feel. It is very good when it seems that everyone else is better than you. You have a lot to catch up on. Jealousy and envy press on you, and you have to go forward and develop.

Comment: This is a point that is always somewhere out there, far away.

My Response: Right. That is how it should be. You will not find an absolute point of reference because everything is relative to you. The closer you come to this state, the further it seems.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who to Believe?” 11/26/13

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Opposite from the Source of Life

629.3This is why the Klipot are called “dead,” since their oppositeness of form from the Life of Lives severs them from Him and they have nothing of His abundance (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 17).

That is, the Creator’s desire is to bestow. A person’s desire is to receive. That is why all people are absolutely opposite to the Creator, they do not feel and do not perceive Him. We are all spiritually dead.

Hence, the body, too, which feeds on the yeast of the Klipot, is also severed from life and is filled with filth. And all of this is because of the will to only receive and not to bestow that is imprinted in it. Its desire is always open to receive the whole world into its stomach.

Body means desire, that is, not the flesh, but rather our desire that is always directed at filling itself.

Question: It is written that the wicked in their lives are called dead. What does it mean?

Answer: Although our physical body is alive, we are still called dead because we do not bestow but receive; that is, we are opposite in our qualities to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 11/20/22

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What Is Real Life?

261But the righteous, who engage in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] not in order to receive reward but to bestow contentment upon their Maker, thus refine their bodies and invert their vessels of reception to the form of bestowal (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 17).

Question: What is this methodology Torah and Mitzvot?

Answer: This methodology explains how, with the help of some miracle, of some special upper force called the Torah and Mitzvot (commandments), people can turn themselves from the desire to receive into the desire to bestow. By this they become similar to the Creator.

The Torah is a methodology of receiving light. That is, we can invite upon ourselves the influence of the upper light so that it changes our nature from reception to bestowal. This is what will be called life.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 11/20/22

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