Question: Is it possible to call accepting the opinion of a friend, even though it is the opposite of one’s own, “faith above reason”? If so, how do I do it without disregarding my own opinion?

Answer: Faith above reason means contrary to my opinion, I accept the opinion of a friend and follow it 100%. I am trying to make his opinion, even though it is the opposite of mine, become mine. You need to experience it yourself, and gradually you will be able to understand what it is.

Faith above reason is a system of spiritual perception where you begin to see the spiritual world above our world or through it. It is not easy. You need to spend a lot of time and expend a lot of effort until you start to perceive everything this way.

This is a completely different system of the universe, as if you have a completely different mind, feelings, and thoughts.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/16/20

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Restriction means that Malchut of Ein Sof diminished the will to receive in her. Then the light disappeared because there is no light without a vessel (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Restriction and Line,” “Inner Observation,” Chapter 2).

Question: What does the principle there is no light without a vessel mean, and how is it manifested in our world?

Answer: It is very simple. Let’s say that when a person is hungry, he can enjoy food. But to the extent that his appetite decreases, his pleasure from food also decreases.

How much a person will feel and, I would even say, how much a person will seek pleasure in the things he receives depends on the desire.

Question: Did Baal HaSulam, who commented on Ari’s essay, study the inner needs of a person? Is this the basis of our desires and of our life?

Answer: Naturally, both Ari and Baal HaSulam understood and absolutely, clearly differentiated how pleasure is manifested in accordance with the size of the desire.

This principle says that there are a great number of pleasures in our world, but we cannot grasp them if we do not have a desire for them. If there is no desire, there is no pleasure.

Question: Where can a person get desires if he has none?

Answer: This is a problem. We see how unhappy people are who have lost their desire for some reason. They are depressed and ready to do anything to have a desire again.

Question: Is it possible to increase the desire for something, say, twofold?

Answer: Basically, doctors and scientists are trying to do this.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 11/20/22

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It is as our sages write: “All the gates were locked except for the gates of tears.” The world asks about this: If the gates of tears are not locked, what is the need for the gates at all? (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 18, “My Soul Shall Weep In Secret”)

The gate of tears opens only when a person is convinced that all other gates are locked and there is nothing before him. Then he bursts into crying and pleading, and he sees that the gate of tears is opening before him.

Question: It turns out that there are a lot of obstacles before a person. However, it is written: “All the gates were locked except for the gate of tears.” So, if they are open, why not enter them immediately?

Answer: No, a person does not feel that they are open. Only if he makes sure that all the gates are locked and cries from his own helplessness: “What to do!”—then he sees that the gate of tears is open before him.

Question: What in our life can be the gate that is locked?

Answer: Locked and open gates are the coupling of a person with the Creator. Either he sees that they are closed or he sees that they are open. That is, this is coupling by striking (Zivug de Hakaa), the equivalence of qualities.

If our qualities correspond with the qualities of the Creator, then at some stage the gates open.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/6/22

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We should yearn to see a friend as the greatest of the generation in a real, tangible way, which is called “within reason,” as it really is, and not as it seems to our egoism. After all, egoism always wants to feel better and more comfortable, and therefore it instinctively belittles everyone around in order to be above them. The main thing for it is to rule.

Therefore, to accept the idea of the need to connect with friends as a means of reaching connection with the Creator is possible only by faith above reason since we certainly do not see each other in our true form. Only on the basis of this small external criterion, where we see that a person is aiming for the same goal and is willing to accept all the conditions necessary to advance toward it, do we begin to treat him as a friend, as a means to connect with the Creator.

Based on such external signs, we decide to start working on our attitude to this person. If he is ready to work together, then we annul all other claims that our ego usually makes and begin to come closer to the person to connect in order to tangibly reveal our connection, and not just by faith above reason.

As we reach a genuine, sensory connection, we are coming closer to building a spiritual vessel in which the Creator is revealed.

A connection can occur above reason, at a time when it does not seem to me that a friend is worth it, but I still connect with him. I use this as the means. We call this a period of preparation, when I value my friends not because I see them as great. According to my feelings, I am above them, but I go above my feelings, do not agree with them, and I imagine my friends as great.

In order to move from faith above reason to reason, that is, to truly appreciate my friends, I need to correct my perception. The correction is in the fact that we are starting to work on our connection despite the opposite opinion. We are building a society in which everyone gives others a sense of the greatness of the group and the goal.

Through working together, we attract the reforming light, and as a result, we move from faith above reason into reason, and so we rise higher and higher. Of course, each subsequent step is more difficult. At first, the friends seemed as not too bad to me: in some ways bad, in some ways good. When it was necessary to rise above reason, I could easily do it and accept them as equals, companions on the way, or even great people of the generation. Their goal and they themselves seemed important to me.

But then I received the burdening of the heart, and I found a lot of flaws in them. It becomes increasingly difficult for me to accept them as great and see the Creator behind them and to warm myself up so that I do not notice anyone except my friends so that friends become everything to me.

Each time it gets harder and harder until I nevertheless overcome these obstacles and fulfill the measure allocated for me. Then all my efforts to go above reason turn into reason, turn into the correct vessel, inside of which the first revelation of the true quality of bestowal takes place, that is, a person is filled with the feeling of the Creator.

Thus, the principle of faith above reason always operates between the degrees, when ascending from one to the other. But when we are building our vessel, we should try as much as possible to transfer it into the reason.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/13, Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” “Concerning Above Reason”

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Question: You say that tears are a manifestation of passive participation in correction and a sign of a person’s spiritual weakness. That is, it is a state of Katnut (smallness), a form of protection from egoism that does not give us the opportunity to work with it to bestow. What is passive participation in correction?

Answer: Passive participation is when a person does not have the ability to ask, demand, or participate in one’s correction. He only states the fact that he is in a certain state but nothing more. As a result of this passive component, he produces tears from his own weakness.

There are the states of smallness and the state of greatness in the spiritual world. In our world, up to a certain age there is also a state of smallness (infancy) and then a state of greatness (adulthood). We see that young children cry a lot more. As a consequence of this, it is the same thing in spirituality; that is, tears are from powerlessness that a person cannot work with his egoism.

In addition, young children also learn to manipulate with their tears. It is a natural defensive reaction for them.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/6/22

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Question: The 13^th part of The Study of the Ten Sefirot describes the system of the universe where all our desires come from even before our world was formed.

It also says how tears appear. They symbolize an excess of light. When the light enters the Kli (vessel), and the Kli cannot accept it, it seems to overflow over the edge. This is called tears. How does one understand this?

Answer: When the reflected light does not have the opportunity to receive direct light, then these remnants of light seem to pour out in the form of tears.

That is, you cry because you do not have the opportunity to properly accept the highest pleasure, and you regret it. But not because you cannot accept it, but because you cannot accept it for the sake of the Creator, and this makes you bitter. This is the reason for tears.

Question: And how can you come to such a state at all?

Answer: They come.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/6/22

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Our sages said that if a person asks the Creator to revive his soul with faith, then such a request is immediately accepted. Apart from faith, we have nothing to ask for, we will receive nothing else.

There is no point to turn to the Creator with any other questions, there will be no answer. That is, we will receive indirect answers that will gradually turn us toward the correct prayer. This is what is happening to us so far.

Therefore, we must find out what we really want to receive, not money, fame, or small momentary joys. What should we ask of the Creator in this short life? That is, the main problem is not how to turn to the Creator, but what exactly to turn to Him with, which means to find out what is really important to us in life and to turn to Him with it, no matter in what words.

We see that billions of people are constantly turning to the Creator. Every second in the heart of any person there is a request to the Creator, which he may not even realize. But all these requests are not relevant. Therefore, we cannot say that the Creator does not respond to them at all; He reacts, but just a little bit. We have been advancing toward corrections in this way for thousands of years.

Therefore, Kabbalah teaches us how to ask correctly in order to accelerate the process of correction: to ask for the force of faith, the opportunity to move to the force of bestowal and not live in the force of egoistic reception. The answer to such a request is guaranteed to us because this is the purpose of creation. Everything that a person has in this world is given only so that he can ask for the force of bestowal and adhesion with the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/08/22, Rabash “The Striking of Thoughts upon Man”

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When we move from rejection of others to a connection above our egoism, then we begin to feel this system of communication between ourselves and everyone else. The connection between you and everyone else is called rising along the degrees of the worlds.

To the extent we can reduce the internal distances between us to be heart to heart with our desires, intentions, and fillings, to that extent relative one to the other, we ascend the degrees of the worlds. My egoism is between me and you, and if I divide the ego into parts, then it will have five degrees: zero, one, two, three, and four.

If I can overcome the first degree a little and get closer to you, it is called that I have ascended to the degrees of the world of Assiya. The second degree is the world of Yetzira, the third is the world of Beria, then the world of Atzilut, the world of Adam Kadmon, and Infinity—the place where we completely merge, it means without end, without limitation. That is how it happens.

When I am in this state relative to you, nothing is difficult for me; that is what is called worlds. And there is nothing else but the surface on which we all exist—broken, rejected, separated from each other by our egoism—and we must unite.

Let’s say that the upper world is acting on us now, which means, the global system is starting to work more. But the ties between us are vicious and bad. Therefore, when a small “electric current” passes through us i.e., a small connection, then the system feels in disarray, in crisis, so to say, and we can do nothing about it.

We feel like we are trying to be disconnected from each other, and the system constantly engages us more and more, and we cannot get anywhere. Contrary to this system, we are in an egoistic relationship with each other, but it requires us to be connected and act together. Therefore, the crisis is called global, integral!

Here we have no options in front of us. We must unite and join this system either voluntarily, with awareness and what Kabbalah calls for and helps to do, or the system will turn on more and more, and we will feel sufferings more and more until they convince us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How do you know Kabbalah?” 11/12/13

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If we correctly tune ourselves with our friends and create a substrate from two opposite qualities, a place in which these qualities will be connected with each other, then a third quality, called the Creator or the middle line, will manifest in it.

Otherwise, He does not exist and the middle line does not exist. There is no one to chase outside; there is nowhere to look for them around you, or somewhere over the stars, or underground. There is nothing to draw any images. Only our correct connection will manifest the Creator. We will find Him ourselves and create this condition and this quality between us. Otherwise He is nowhere.

When you follow such a method, holiness arises only in our correct relations with each other above egoism that is really created in the most correct way, so that from it we build a correct attitude to each other, which is called the Creator.

As a result, a person becomes Adam, similar to this quality, and feels him in oneself. And the fact that such a quality arises in people even at the beginning of their correct connection, such an inner spirit, this is the prerequisite for the smallest light that we must reveal.

That is what we are doing. This is Kabbalah, which is open to everyone.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Sectarian Fanaticism” 10/19/13

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“My soul shall weep in secret,” meaning when one comes to a state of concealment, then “My soul shall weep,” because one has no other option (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 18, “My Soul Shall Weep In Secret”).

Question: What does it mean that the soul is crying?

Answer: When a person would like to give everything to the Creator and cling to Him but sees that he is not yet able to achieve this, he feels that his soul is crying.

In the spiritual world, as in our world, there are many different states: the soul is crying, the Creator is crying, the children of Israel are crying. But all this happens within one person.

In principle, in spirituality, as in our world, there are different tears: tears of happiness, grief, and so on.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/6/22

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