Question: How does a Kabbalist attract spiritual reality to himself?

Answer: He does not attract it. He needs to build it in himself. Spiritual reality does not exist! There is no spiritual world, there is no heaven, hell, there is nothing! You have to create all this yourself. Then it will exist. The one who does not create it for himself does not have it.

Question: But there is some form or formula. How is it created?

Answer: There is a formula by which it is created, but not a form.

Question: Do all Kabbalists, using this formula, perceive reality differently?

Answer: No. This reality is felt as one single whole, and they feel themselves existing in it because they have an equivalence of qualities with it. But everyone feels it in his own way, as each of us feels this world in his own way.

Comment: The point is that it does not exist, but still its perception is automatically given to us in our heads.

My Response: It is because instead of you, nature itself forms an egoistic image within you, an egoistic desire in which you feel it. However, a spiritual, altruistic desire, you have to form by yourself.

Question: How do we all form some kind of reality together when, let’s say, there is a congress?

Answer: We must gather together, help each other with our thoughts and aspirations, and make an effort so that we would want to reach the quality of bestowal and love. Then, in this common quality, we will begin to feel the upper world. Each one to the extent that he has invested in it.

Question: This is a cumulative process. Nevertheless, some amount of effort should be accumulated inside a person. What should be the limit so that a person is ready to just burst?

Answer: He receives what he wants just before he bursts. But only if he is bursting from the desire for connection and love, from the desire to bestow and fill others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Reality on the Other Side of Perception” 7/18/13

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Question: Baal HaSulam wrote the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” in which he explains each phase in great detail on dozens of pages. This is the basis of all Kabbalah.

The language of Kabbalah was revealed from nature itself. For the first time it was attained by the great Kabbalist the Ari. Is it because no one before him had operated with such terms as “restriction, surrounding, departing,” and “equivalence of form”?

Answer: Yes, the Ari revealed all these phases, qualities, and emanations, and he described it for the first time, which gave the basis for the wisdom of Kabbalah.

In principle, they were also known to Rashbi, the author of The Book of Zohar. But Rashbi could not describe it the way the Ari did. It is not that he knew less. He just lived at a time when all this could not be unfolded. He could not receive the apparatus of explanation yet. These Kabbalists were separated by almost 1,500 years.

Comment: As far as I understand, the most special thing is that when people read these definitions, which they do not quite understand, this already affects them.

My Response: Yes. It is very important. Even if a person does not do anything but just listens, some changes already take place in him because we are talking about things concerning our roots.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 9/4/22

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Question: When a person studies Kabbalah, he is sometimes squeezed through all sorts of states, as if through a grater. How can we relate to this with humor?

Answer: Nothing can be done. You can’t really relate to this with humor when you are greatly torn. If you associate yourself with this state, that this is indeed “me,” then you are in this wash.

And if you get used to looking at it from the outside, since it happens to your body, to your donkey,  egoism, then you will take it more calmly. But at every phase of our development, there are moments when you nonetheless fall into this feeling and in it so deeply that you can’t look from the outside.

Comment: There is a desire to look at it from the outside, but it is really absolutely impossible.

My Response: Move forward because nothing can be done. If you have a strong environment, then you will be able to overcome these states and stay, for the most part, above them. The environment will hold you, will not let you fall, and will pull you, as if through the air, above these states. Instead of crawling over rugged terrain, you will have a balloon or a magnet that carries you over this space.

Question: When a person experiences all this, there is some kind of cumulative process. Why is it important to endure these states?

Answer: There is no need to endure! On the contrary, it is necessary to sweeten them as much as possible. It is not good if you are in one of those states where you have to endure. Always be cheerful and justify the Creator for all the actions that He does, because He leads you forward all the time.

Going through the four stages of your development, you really feel like you are in a washing machine: the water starts, with the detergent powder, the drum turns, the water is drained, the rinsing starts, and then the spinning. These are the stages that you feel on yourself. But when you feel that you are being thoroughly washed, cleansed, scrubbed, and rinsed, and this is necessary for the goal, you rejoice. Everything depends on the goal.

If you understand that correction is taking place in you every minute, then you are inspired. After all, watch how mountain-climbers climb a mountain, how much work, how much courage. And what?… A person rejoices, although he is high in the mountains in very difficult conditions.

That is, everything depends on attitude. This is a difference between, let’s say, a casual walk and a forced march. The forced march has a goal ahead, whereas, during a walk we enjoy the process itself.

Question: But in such situations, students often ask you for advice on what to do, how to be. What do you tell them?

Answer: What can I tell them? Accelerate! And you can accelerate only on account of the environment. Let it put pressure on you and you act. That is all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Look at Yourself From the Outside?” 5/23/13

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Question: You gave an example of how a person neutralizes what is above him because a person’s egoism does not allow him to see something better. Is that why we do not see many things at all?

Answer: Of course. Our egoism hides them from us. There also are things that are given to us specifically so that we worry about them. They are given to move us forward.

Question: What exactly do we not notice at all? What is this about?

Answer: There is an egoistic desire within you that draws a certain projection against the background of light, i.e., this world.

This is what you see. You do not see anything better or worse. Egoism draws the so-called HaVaYaH, the whole Kli (vessel), on the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels. This is what is drawn for you at this primitive level.

You cannot attain the next level because it must already be in accordance with the law of nature. The law of nature is the law of bestowal. You, however, are in your egoistic desire to receive.

Apart from your small level on which you exist in egoistic desire there is nothing else. So you grow at this level, develop evolutionarily, and reach a certain point where all of humanity must rise to the next level. To do this it requires a methodology, which has now been revealed.

Question: What does it mean to “see”?

Answer: It means to see with completely different senses, which are called Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut, just as in our world there are sight, hearing, smell, touch, and tactile sensations.

But these are extracorporeal sense organs, outside the animalistic body. Therefore Kabbalists have two levels of sensations: material and spiritual.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to See Spirituality?” 7/10/13

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The anti-egoistic screen is first of all the force of connection between the friends in the ten and then between us and the Creator. It is built upon the fact that we want to rise above our egoism and unite. If we invest efforts in connection, then in this way, we begin to build a screen.

This connection is not just in thoughts but in the hearts, the cordial connection of one with another. We want to connect our hearts because the Creator is one for all, and He reveals Himself within the connection between all of us.

I make an effort in my heart that I want to direct it to a certain quality and begin to approach it. The main thing is the effort in the heart as there is nothing spiritual in the physical action. After all, I strive with my heart to the one I love, I want to be closer to him so that he feels this heartfelt closeness. This is called connection of hearts.

We want to give to each other. And of course, giving can be in an external form, in the form of a material gift, but by this I express my heartfelt feelings.

How can you direct your heart in the right direction? With the help of a thought. The heart is a desire, and I direct this desire with the help of a thought. Through the thought, it is possible to control the desire like a steering wheel if I rise in my thoughts to a prayer in which my desire is combined with my thought and with my goal. So, I find myself as if driving a car.

The thought comes to us from the Creator, but I can influence and change my thoughts with the help of actions of connection. We connect with our hearts but under the influence of thoughts.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/22, Baal HaSulam, Shamati 42

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Question: What is the difference between cynicism and humor where someone mocks others and goads them?

Answer: Humor, satire, cynicism, and sarcasm are various manifestations of a person’s attitude to his own or to the common existence.

Humor, as a rule, does not indicate personality. Humor is good. It speaks about the general structure of the world, humanity, and people, which must be perceived as given to us from above. That is, such is nature and that is it. Humor does not aim to eradicate some phenomenon in character or in anything. It simply states: this is what we live with.

And satire is aimed at eradicating shortcomings. In addition to it, there are also exaggerations: sarcasm, criticism, and all kinds of ambiguity.

Question: But sometimes you tease some students, even bring them to tears. Do you somehow measure when it needs to be done?

Answer: I feel that this is necessary, and often I do this in order, on the contrary, to remove something negative, to soften it, to turn it around a little.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Humor Will Save the World” 5/20/13

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Question: When we are all singing together, a person seems to enter into a common wave. Is he actually included in some level of connection with others or is it just our imagination?

Answer: The fact is that our common desire draws the surrounding light, which gives a certain illumination, and people feel that they are in some kind of cloud.

In addition, serious mutual efforts can even cause the manifestation of the upper world and then people really get a clear feeling of what is happening, but only for a certain time. And then, if they do not have the opportunity to constantly remain in this state, it goes away.

It is not like in our world when I have caught something and keep holding it by force. I can retain the feeling of spirituality only through my own properties. If I have the properties of the upper world, then this feeling exists in me. Yet it seems to people that they can hold it by force: “Now I will strain myself, crouch, jump up, and fly.”

There are no such “flights” with us. One has to work very seriously to raise and hold on despite the fact that all sorts of opposite desires are constantly arising in you.

Based on this, one needs to reckon. There are people who just sit with their eyes closed and try to catch some special mood.

There are those who feel it more. There are those who already enter this state, but temporarily. And there are those who stay in it constantly.

But when a group gets together and aspires together to a certain spiritual manifestation inside itself through connection, then it results in a corresponding ascent. And then, when this ascent passes, some of them descend from that state to a lower but still spiritual level and some descend and pass through the Machsom back to the earthly level. Each one on his own at different sub-levels.

Question: But is it singing long drawn-out songs that we sing at our meals or meetings of friends, that lead a person into different states? Does it actually work in a person?

Answer: Only in the case that people unite, it works, and if they do not unite, it does not work. And you can sing whatever you want. The main thing is that it supports you and helps you unite. There is nothing supernatural or mystical in this singing.

Comment: It is not even mystical here, but precisely the feeling where private states are canceled, as it were.

My Response: It is because people believe so, because they try to connect their feelings with the music from which they came.

In the past Kabbalists used it, and so naturally as these sounds exist in the spiritual world. Like with Munchausen, they froze and then they played. In the spiritual world, all this happens all the time. If great Kabbalists used this, then we connect to them with the help of these sounds.

But this is not mysticism. We simply excite the field that they once excited. Basically, there is no “once.” Nothing disappears in spirituality.

Question: Can a person enter spirituality through Kabbalistic singing?

Answer: No. Kabbalistic singing can affect a person a little, move him, or raise him up. He will feel that there is, perhaps, something attractive in this. But nothing more.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Magic of Singing Together” 5/11/13

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Comment: You once said that a person should use the light of confidence that occasionally shines on him.

My Response: This happens when the group provides him with their support. When he feels that he is walking with his friends, they support him all the time, and he has something to fall on.

Question: Is isn’t the light when a person felt his first contact with Kabbalah and really felt that this was the truth?

Answer: No, of course not.

Question: Why does a person still lose the feeling he experienced the first time he encountered Kabbalah?

Answer: So that he can move forward normally. Now he must understand it himself within his corrected properties.

Question: It turns out that the initial feeling is erased so that there are no moments one can become attached to?

Answer: Of course. After all, you return to a normal state in which you do not believe that there is something that is not material. You can even say, “All this is nonsense,” despite the fact that you once absolutely clearly experienced spirituality.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Forget Spiritual Attainment” 6/9/13

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Rosh HaShanah is the time to ask forgiveness from the Creator for your crimes. In other words, I feel that I do not have a sense of the importance and greatness of the Creator, and I apologize for this. After all, if I felt the greatness and importance of the Creator, then of course I would behave differently. It turns out that I lack only the feeling of the Creator.

And that’s why I ask: “Let me feel You and I will become different!” This is what a person should say to the Creator; this is the correct request and the right apology. After all, why do I commit crimes? Because I lack the sense of the Creator, which is called faith. There is no feeling of the Creator, there is no faith, and therefore, there is no one to stop me. I cannot do otherwise because if the Creator does not rule over me, then the evil inclination, egoism, rules.

Therefore, I ask the Creator to take authority over me. This is my main request, after which we come to Rosh HaShanah, we come to the king, and we want to place Him to reign over us.

I want to repent of all my sins, to know and feel everything that prevents my correction. I ask the Creator to open my eyes and let me feel where the crime is and where the commandment is so that I understand where I fulfill His covenant to give, to love, and to unite, and where I do the opposite.

I don’t feel it now at every moment of my life. If I did, of course I would improve. The problem is that I don’t feel the Creator, the force of bestowal, which I could check myself with. So with this, I turn to the Creator and demand that He give me the opportunity to test myself regarding the force of bestowal, and then I will never commit a crime.

We do not recall the past and do not ask for forgiveness for it. I should not cry about what happened, but about the fact that I do not strive for correction and do not require the Creator to help me in this. I want to move forward, not dig into the past and shed tears about what I did.

Did I do something? I didn’t do anything, the Creator did everything. And He did it on purpose so that I now know what I need to fix. I take this evil, the crime that has now been revealed, and begin to correct it. My whole aspiration is forward, not backward. This is the difference!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/20, “What Is Preparation for Selichot (Forgiveness)”

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Question: Let’s say some scoundrel teases me, laughs, and mocks me. Should I say that the Creator sends me this and I justify Him and do not take revenge?

Answer: When others mock you, when you are in such a hostile environment, but you perceive it as coming from the Creator, then this state is called exile from spirituality.

It encourages you to break out of there, to look for methods of how to do it. You begin to understand that such a state is specially created and acts in such a way as to bring you closer to the Creator.

After all, if there were no negative impact from the environment, for example, of other nations upon the Jews, then in the end, they would have dissolved, disappeared, and would not have come to today’s fulfillment of their mission.

Therefore, it is said that Pharaoh brings the Jewish people closer to the exodus from Egypt and closer to the Creator, and forces them to this by his negative attitude toward them.

Question: Does this justification of revenge come at any stage?

Answer: Of course, because everything comes from the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Take Revenge on the Enemy” 5/24/13

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