Prophets, Joshua, 8:29: And the king of Ai he hanged on a gallows until evening, and as the sun set, Joshua commanded, and they took his carcass down from the gallows, and they threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised upon it a great heap of stones to this day.

Hanging, strangling, this is not the biggest correction of egoism. The complete destruction of egoistic desires in a person is through burning. Hanging is only depriving egoism of its animalistic existence, i.e., one of the execution methods when a person is deprived of any opportunity for spiritual rebirth.

Question: It is written: “They threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised upon it a great heap of stones.” What are these monuments?

Answer: Indeed, why erect monuments to egoism? The fact is that this is not done for the sake of egoism, but for a person in whom a beaten, mortified, hanged egoism exists, and he must remember it so that this will never happen again.

All this is done for future generations and not for the person himself, because the desire called “the owner of the city” has already been killed in him.

Question: It is very popular in the world today to erect monuments to the departed and living people, monuments to victory, and so on. Is it possible that this tradition comes from here?

Answer: No, this was customary in humanity even before the Torah was written. People like to eternalize themselves because egoism wants this even though in the end there will be nothing left of it. That is why it has a desire to somehow glorify itself.

Question: Why is Judaism against monuments?

Answer: We must remember not the person but his actions. And not his actions in the past but those that he conveys to us in the present.

It is customary in our generation that we keep photos, paintings, and portraits. Yet in general, there is absolutely no need for all that. I did not see any images in my teacher’s house: neither of his father, nor of other people, none. These are all just modern habits.

Question: Can we say that this is serving idols?

Answer: Of course. In some ways, it is. What does it give you if you look at a face? By doing this, you replace the correct state of coming closer internally with something external. The connection of the hearts is an absolutely internal action.

Question: What is the difference between a heap of stones and an image?

Answer: A heap of stones reminds us that here we have done away with egoism. The image, on the contrary, says that egoism is still among us, and by this we seemingly exalt it.
[286947]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/19/21

Related Material:
“They Took Them Down Off The Trees And Cast Them Into The Cave”
A Testament For All Generations
Everybody Has Their Own Toy

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Comment: Please describe the pleasure that we receive along the path of the light.

My Response: You understand that I cannot describe this. How can I describe a pleasure that a person has never felt and does not understand?

What can it be compared to? We can only compare something we have experienced and give it some resemblance, and not in any other way. We cannot perceive any spiritual pleasure or descent or anything of the spiritual path, except from the stories of others. This is the reason that the wisdom of Kabbalah describes it in physical terms only.

The sensation that results from what happens to a person in spirituality is felt when he actually implements this path by himself. Only then does he understand what Kabbalists say.

If you reread every one of Rabash’s or Baal HaSulam’s articles that you read a year or two ago, you will see that now you perceive everything in a totally different manner. This means that new attributes, new powers, and new sensations appear in you. It is a system that works. This is the reason that the spiritual world is called a secret world because it is revealed only to those who can feel it. This person begins to feel new feelings and new senses, while others do not, and there is no way you can change that.
[251712]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/14/19

Related Material:
What Is the Upper Light?
In Kabbalah, Pleasure And Desire Are Defined Relative To The Light
Love Is A Vessel For The Light

Filed under: Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Prophets, Joshua, 8:31: As Moses commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, upon which no (man) has lifted up any iron.

Question: What does it mean to build an altar of whole stones?

Answer: Whole stones represent the stony heart (Lev ha even). Stones are egoistic properties that the children of Israel took, and without changing anything in them, they built altars, thus raising to the property of bestowal, love. That is, they corrected their hearts of stone.

Question: Does it mean that exactly what is not processed is taken?

Answer: No, but the simplest, the primitive egoistic desire is taken in order to build holiness over it.

A processed stone means that you are already trying to apply and adjust the ego in a way that suits you.
[287014]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/19/21

Related Material:
Turn A Stony Heart Into A Live One
Transformation Of Intentions
In Contradiction With The Laws Of The Land Of Israel

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: How can I become a bird and take off to infinity if I was created a small fish and placed in a stinky pond?

Answer: Your development does not depend on whether you are a fish or a bird, but on whether you want to get closer to the group where you find yourself. The Creator has not brought you to it for no reason.

This means that you can choose your friends and together you should try to create such cooperation between you to establish such a relationship that will absolutely resemble the right corrected soul.

If there is mutual bestowal in the group, mutual love, and mutual support, you will begin to feel the Creator’s presence in it.

We will suddenly feel more power in our common desire to be together in the ten, more power of connection, of mutual reliance, of mutual attraction, and a good and wise power that will gradually determine our spiritual state, and this will be the gradual revelation of the Creator.

Everything will become very simple. Begin to connect between you in a nice way and you will undoubtedly reveal the power of the good in this connection.
[251816]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/14/19

Related Material:
Where Is The Upper World?
A Spiritual World? It’s Simple!
Everyone Will Discover The Upper World

Filed under: Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them; and they have also taken of the consecrated thing, and have also stolen, and also dissembled, and they have also put into their vessels (Joshua 7:11).

And it shall be, he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has; because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, because he has wrought an infamous deed in Israel (Joshua 7:15).

And they raised over him a great heap of stones to this day. … (Joshua 7:26)

Question: According to the Torah, there are four types of execution of egoism: beheading, stoning, burning and strangulation. What does it mean?

Answer: It means that a person has to perform some actions upon his ego, after which it will no longer tempt or conquer a person. In fact, this is an advancement. After all, you must realize your egoism. Otherwise, you will not enter Jericho, which stands on the border of the Land of Israel.

Therefore, everyone should make such a correction upon himself. This is the Creator’s covenant.

Question: Why is this called an execution?

Answer: You are not executing yourself but the evil within you. You have to feel it and separate it from yourself.

In no case does the Torah talk about people killing each other, as it may seem to us. It is talking about one’s path toward the lLand of Israel and its settlement, that is, about our correction.
[286757]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/19/21

Related Material:
According To One’s Qualities
“Until You Remove The Accursed Thing From Among You”
Work To Want

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: The foods we use at Rosh HaShanah for the festive table symbolize some kind of internal changes. Why is it necessary to eat them?

Answer: The fact is that when we want to convey some laws, we put them in the form of folk customs and make them into something like sayings. In this way, they are preserved and passed on from generation to generation.

If you start saying: “The light of Hassadim, the light of Hochma, etc.,” then nothing will come of it. If people do not have adequate feelings, they will not preserve them. Therefore, everything is transmitted in this way.

In order to preserve the inner meaning of spiritual phenomena and actions, Kabbalists clothed them in some kind of material manifestations. At Rosh HaShanah we eat carrots, which symbolize kindness. We dip the apple in honey so that we have a good, sweet year. The pomegranate symbolizes 613 desires that we need to correct from reception to bestowal, from egoistic to altruistic.

That is, all these are particular signs in our world. This is how folk customs are passed from generation to generation although Kabbalists have put a much deeper meaning into them. We know and appreciate them because traditions are passed on in this way. But what matters most is what these customs indicate. They indicate their very high inner meaning. This is what we must perform.

Question: That is, a Kabbalist feels the desire to receive with the intention for his own sake. In this world to somehow convey the signs of correction to everyone else, he takes an apple, which symbolizes the desire to receive, dips it in honey, as if sweetening it with the right intention, and thus the semantics are obtained?

Answer: These are just external signs, nothing more. We should understand that at the same time a Kabbalist wishes that the fruit of that tree, which deliberately threw out the person from the spiritual level, now with the help of Amtakat Hadinim (sweetening the judgment), that is, sweetening with honey, would correct the evil inclination of a person and he would rise to the level of his correction.
[287095]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States”

Related Material:
Two Spiritual Actions
It’s Time For Spiritual Action!
Spiritual Roots Of The Traditions Of This World

Filed under: Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Today we celebrate the memorial day of my teacher Rav Baruch Ashlag (Rabash). There were thousands of Kabbalists who lived before him and millions of people who dreamed of revealing spirituality.

But now all this work is focused on us and we must try to bring ourselves to the form of the so-called last generation so that we reach the spiritual level through faith above reason, the first association with the spiritual world with its forces and possibilities.

All of humanity is beginning to feel its dependence on each other both in a bad and in a good sense, both its dependence on terrorist groups hungry for war and on people who strive to unite.

We are all part of humanity and we are increasingly aware of our connection with each other. So far, this dependence is expressed in unpleasant forms, the pandemic, for example. But on the other hand, we are advancing more and more because we see that our connection comes from above as a necessary condition for moving forward.

Two great Kabbalists: Baal HaSulam and his eldest son, Rabash, created a methodology designed for the last generation, for us. Therefore, we are extremely grateful to these two Kabbalists and to the Creator who sent them to us. Rabash writes that if a group of people united by a common goal gathers together ready to annul personal interests for the sake of connection, then such a group is able to achieve the sublime goal even here in this world.

The more a person values the group, the teacher, and the Creator, the more he approaches the force of bestowal and reaches faith above reason. There is one main principle that operates here called “The Torah, the Creator, and Israel are one.”A person seeks to join the ten, which he organizes so that it becomes a place for the revelation of the Creator in it.

We must act in this world as messengers of the Creator, fulfilling the desire from above and helping it to be realized in humanity. After all, there is no such connection between the Creator and humanity that would allow people to feel the Creator’s intention. Therefore, we need to implement this connection, to rise to the spiritual level of faith above reason, and at the same time be within reason, that is, to serve as a transition between the Creator, the force of Bina and Malchut for the whole of humanity.

In this way, we will be able to shift all our forces and intentions to humanity, which will join us and rise with us together as a supporting force, the AHAP of the spiritual degree.

Of course, there is nothing new under the moon, and the concept of faith above reason was known to Kabbalists even before Rabash. But it was not clarified and explained in such detail as Baal HaSulam and Rabash did in order to bring this technique to practical implementation among the masses.

Rabash explained the method of Baal HaSulam in detail and expanded it in his articles. In fact, he took the entire spiritual path that a person should go through and thoroughly explained it. All his articles are like one fascinating novel explaining the spiritual development of a person and his ascent from the animate to human level.

We do not even understand what infinite depth Rabash’s articles hide. Only when we climb the spiritual ladder to the final correction will we be able to assess how this man has prepared the whole path for us and what supreme degrees he describes in his articles.
[287267]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/21,”Day of Remembrance of Rabash”

Related Material:
Who Is Rabash?
Closing The Chain Of Great Souls
In Memory Of Rabash

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Rabash, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Ten days after the New Year, called the days of atonement, Yom Kippur begins, the day of correction. What corrections are taking place during these days from the point of view of the spiritual work of a person who is already advancing?

Answer: A person who is advancing, checks himself during these ten days. He must clearly determine in what he is different from the Creator. This demonstrates his concern to observe the spiritual laws of equivalence with the Creator.

Ten days symbolize ten Sefirot, ten qualities. In each quality, he checks how different he is from the Creator.

Question: Can he check particularly this?

Answer: A person who exists in the spiritual world is obliged to do this. So he does. On the corporeal level, however, this remains as a habitual custom and a person who is not engaged in spiritual work simply asks to have a good year.
[287120]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States”

Related Material:
A Special Silence During The Day of Atonement
How One Develops The Sixth Sense
A Taste That Cannot Be Compared To Anything In This World

Filed under: Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

All holidays symbolize special states in the spiritual elevation of a person. If we work as we should, then from year to year, day by day, we climb the spiritual ladder more and more until we reach complete adhesion with the Creator.

The ascent above egoism is called Passover, the exit from Egypt, and the acquiring of the force of bestowal is called the holiday of Shavuot.

Then a person judges himself and sees that he is not capable of giving, which is called the 9th of Av. And then he decides to start his whole life anew with a new relation to the Creator, which is called the New Year, Rosh HaShanah.

And the most important thing is to make a correct calculation of how to enter this new period, this new time. Many times in his life, a person wanted to change his life and, as though, start it all over again. This is a sign of the Day of Judgment, Yom Kippur, one of the days that a person must pass through to achieve equivalence with the Creator.

Yom Kippur comes from the word “atonement” (Kapara); it is when a person asks for forgiveness from the Creator. After all, he tested himself and saw that many times he had the opportunity to correct himself and achieve adhesion with the Creator, but he neglected this and could not overcome his egoism.

A month before Yom Kippur, a person begins to check himself and sees that he is in egoistic desires to get pleasure for himself and does not want to use them to correct himself and get closer to the Creator. And for this he asks for forgiveness, one realizes that at that time he did not have any strength and opportunity to overcome his pride and ask for help. After all, our entire correction consists in asking the Creator for the power of correction.

It turns out that our whole crime is that we did not ask for help, and we should ask for forgiveness for this. “I am sorry I did not ask,” which means, to ask the Creator to forgive us for not turning to Him with a request to correct us.

The Creator created egoism, but man must realize that egoism is the only evil that exists in him. Through the prism of this evil, we look at the whole world and therefore the whole world seems bad to us. And in accordance with this we relate to the Creator because this whole spoiled picture of the world allegedly comes from Him. It turns out that we blame the Creator for making us and this world so bad.

And at this moment, a person does not realize that the Creator gave him egoism and the ability to look through it at the whole world in order to ask the Creator to correct this egoism and replace the evil nature with a good one.

This is the person’s work. The only thing we need to do is to know the evil contained in us and realize that the Creator gave it intentionally so that we would turn to Him and ask Him to replace egoism and the inability to do good deeds, to correct all the evil to good.

After all, there are no good forces in us and there will not be if we do not ask for them from the Creator, and then we will be able to feel and see the whole world through a good desire. Then the world will seem like a real paradise to us.

Therefore, all our work is to reveal our evil, the reason why we see evil around and inside ourselves, and then turn to the Creator to turn this evil into good. This work is done by the Creator and therefore it is called the work of the Creator (Avodat Hashem). And the request for the Creator to do this is called the day of repentance, Yom Kippur.

It turns out that this is not a day of mourning, but a day of joy because we judge ourselves and see that in order to correct our condition, we only need to ask the Creator to turn the evil desire with which He created us into a good desire.

So, we have someone to turn to and what to ask for. And everything depends only on our request. And the whole past, when we were weak and unable to do good deeds, were confused and insignificant slaves of our nature that dominates us in everything, all was deliberately created by the Creator to show us our powerlessness and awaken in us the desire to free ourselves from our egoism and turn it into bestowal.

This is the main meaning of the Day of Judgment, Yom Kippur, when we ask the Creator to take away our evil, egoistic desire and turn it into a good, altruistic desire, into love. And then we will climb up from a deep hole to a high mountain.

Therefore Yom Kippur is the most significant day of the year when we spend all 24 hours thinking about how to ask for forgiveness for our weaknesses, all the evil that we have created in our egoism that was given by the Creator. And since we decide that this evil was created in us by the Creator, we have the opportunity to turn to Him and ask for the power of good instead of this evil. As a result of this request, we will gain more and more forces of good and will rise higher and higher until the very end of correction.

It turns out that each of us and all of us together should do this work not only once a year, on Yom Kippur, according to the calendar, but every day and as much as possible we should turn to the Creator and ask Him to turn our evil inclination into a good inclination. To the extent of our ability to turn to the Creator and demand this correction, we will be able to become like Him and achieve adhesion with Him and perfection, i.e., the end of correction.

This is what you need to think about and try to implement in the next twenty-four hours.
[287386]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/21, “Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement”

Related Material:
Yom Kippur: Universal Joy Or Grief?
Yom Kippur
The Day Of Atonement

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

It is not always possible for a person to overcome his egoistic desire and rise above it. This means that his inclination for bestowal is still very weak compared to his great will to receive. Therefore, he feels disappointed that he cannot receive the results of his work inside egoism.

According to the program of creation, his soul should have already progressed to the desire of bestowal and instead of being aimed at himself to be aimed at the Creator. Therefore, he is shown that he made a mistake in some part of the spiritual process. He needs to check where this mistake was in order to succeed next time. This next time may be in a few seconds or minutes.

If I do not see success on my spiritual path, then I am not ready for it yet, and I thank the Creator for showing me that I am not yet able to progress directly but only from mistake to mistake. This is how we learned at school: first we wrote, and then we worked on the mistakes made, and gradually we progressed.

The same is true in spiritual advancement, until the very end of correction, we always reveal our mistakes and advance on them. Our entire advancement is based on the fact that we reveal mistakes and learn from them.

It is written: “A thousand times the righteous will fall and rise again.” Only as a result of falling, we reveal our mistake, correct it, and rise to the next state. In the next state, we try to do something, make a mistake, fall, reveal the fall, the mistake, the reason for the failure, and correct our attitude and rise.

This is how it happens every time, therefore it is written: “A thousand times the righteous will fall and rise again.” Do not think that you will ascend the high degrees of the spiritual ladder like you are on an escalator. There will always first be a fall in order for you to understand why you fell and to correct yourself.

Precisely by correcting the falls we are scrutinizing the Reshimot. As in the world of Adam Kadmon when AB and SAG are born from Galgalta.

Why does the Partzuf develop? It is because it feels its weakness and inability to receive light. Therefore, it is impossible to advance without falling. It is the fall that reveals a deeper will to receive hidden in a person, more subtle and deeper qualities, and helps to advance.

This is the same in any profession: first, we reveal the problems and from them we come to the breakage and the correction. There is no choice, the created beings can attain the perfect only from the imperfect. The further we advance, the more imperfections we see in the Creator and at the same time we discover that this is exactly what perfection is if we look at it with corrected eyes.
[287303]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/21, “Faith Above Reason”

Related Material:
Fall, But Do Not Lose Your Aspiration Forward
Should One Be Afraid Of Mistakes On The Spiritual Path?
It Is Pointless To Regret What Was Swallowed In Ein Sof

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work - No Comments →