Question: How can we feel the Creator’s control over the entire creation? What can we do about corporeal hobbies that suck us in?

Answer: The desires for corporeal pleasures do not disappear. It is said that since the destruction of the Temple, only Kabbalists have the desire for corporeal pleasures.

A person, who reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah is swallowed by the method of study at first and is caught up by it, but after a while all this disappears and one is drawn in different directions.

This is where the spiritual work begins. A person needs to understand that this is how one is drawn to develop spiritually and that now you must constantly keep your goal in front of yourself, find out how to increase your spiritual advancement, how to get closer to the goal, and how not to be distracted by other things. If you are distracted it should be only for a short time and then you should immediately return to the spiritual path again.

Like a person who must eat, but does not stretch it out for two or three hours. Or, for example, feels that he needs to do a little exercise—so he runs for 15-20 minutes and will immediately return to his spiritual work. It is the same with all his other engagements.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/9/18

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Dreaming involves serious work on the part of our brain, it processes and stores all available information accumulated over a day or several days. The information is then allocated and stored in the archive of our minds. During this process, many random connections take place, so dreams frequently appear illusory.

In fact, during our dream state, serious decisions and actions take place. The mind works very intensively, but on a deep, inner level, which we have not yet explored. When this information has been stored and internally processed on the subconscious level, a person is ready to awaken.

We always see dreams. They constantly appear before us, for these processes are erratic inside our minds.

A person is now ready for the next day, for the following correct perception of information based on the previous day and the dream that he experienced, i.e., for a re-evaluation of the information that occurred during sleep. Therefore dreams, while disconnecting you from reality, allow you to correctly reset yourself and arrive at a new state with a different take on reality.

It is the same in spirituality since our world is a reflection of the spiritual world.

In spirituality, without falling asleep or disconnecting from reality like in our world, we consciously raise ourselves to the next level as if to the next day. Having broken away from the previous degree and not yet risen to the next one, we remain between them and wish to consciously transition from one to the other. This is the night between two days.

Between two realities we can feel such states that we are not internally ready for. We can feel what is not yet part of our understanding and see things that we are seemingly not supposed to see yet. We are still not ready for them.

Therefore, dreams are a very special, beautiful state from which you can draw far-reaching conclusions and find new aspirations.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #5

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Question: How can corporeal egoistic actions like studying, for example, extract the absolutely heavenly spiritual force of bestowal from the upper world?

Answer: Indeed, if our world is not connected to the upper world in any way, how can I do something through my physical actions, through my egoism?

The point is there is nothing I can do. However, we have been given the opportunity to gather in tens and try to unite between us despite our egoism, above it. And although I cannot do that at all, to the extent that I try to connect with the friends, I invoke the upper light unto me. That is, there is a so-called branch-to-root connection, and I can do it.

If I behave in a certain way with the friends in the group and we study Kabbalistic sources together, create connections between us, and imitate the images and actions Kabbalah writes about, then even if I am in my egoism, I still feel an internal inspiration to summon the impact of the upper surrounding light unto me.

This light surrounds the ego on purpose, and to the extent that the ego yearns for it and seemingly wants to resemble it, the light impacts the ego and changes it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/23/18

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Question: From which point can I push myself to advance if my desire doesn’t want to?

Answer: Of course you don’t want to! It is like asking the Creator to take you back to the starting point of creation in which you were a total zero. Cancel me so I do not exist. It is the most repulsive appeal you can make to the Creator if a person says that he doesn’t agree with everything that the Creator has done.

It appears in us naturally when we despise our life, our attributes, this world, and everything that happens to us. This is a terrible state.

We need to ascend above all this a little and see that it is all intentional in order to push us out of this world, so that we will somehow try ascend above it and ask that Creator to raise us and see all the powers, the attributes, and the negative events that we encounter as opportunities that we are given in order to balance ourselves, and without which we will not be able to advance.

These states are crucial so that we can leap above them to the next level and then to the next level, etc. This is how we constantly advance.

So don’t look at our world as a given state. The Creator distorts it on purpose so that we will ascend to the next level as soon as possible.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/16/18

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, 34, “The Advantage of a Land”: Only in this manner can we receive this delight and pleasure. The inability to receive the delight and pleasure that the Creator wants to give evokes in the receiver hatred for separation….

We must understand how we approach the Creator and how we connect with Him because equivalence and similarity of properties, equivalence of form, lies only in the fact that I agree with all the states I am in because all of them come from the Creator.

I do not relate to these states as good or bad. I believe that all of them are absolutely identical, it is just that the Creator dangles me from top to bottom and from bottom to top so that I am directed toward Him all the time. And when the change in the state does not affect me in any way, then it is considered that I have acquired the power of faith.

…and then he can discern the great benefit from equivalence of form, and then he begins to yearn for adhesion.

In turns out that every form points to another form. Thus, all the descents where one feels that he has come to separation are an opportunity to discern between something and its opposite.

We cannot define any state as good or bad unless we attain it from its opposite. Only in this way! Good out of bad, bad out of good.

But if we do not feel these differences and if we do not have this Delta Δ, the difference between the states, then we cannot measure or feel anything. To the same degree that negative and positive emotions are present within a person and he attributes them only to the Creator without attaching “good” or “bad” to them, to that degree they will help him to be in unity with the Creator and he will then manage his states correctly.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/22/19

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Question: Do people cross the Machsom together, as a group, or singularly?

Answer: In principle, the individual is very important. Therefore, in a group, everyone goes through the Machsom in their own way, and not all at the same time. But on the other hand, the crossing of the Machsom by at least one of the tens has a great impact on the others.

Question: So, the Machsom is crossed one by one, but the simultaneous transition is not excluded?

Answer: The fact is that the transition from the feeling of our world to the feeling of the upper world, the forces of bestowal, occurs gradually. This is not a pull or a breakthrough, but a gradual transition, during which many different foundations change in a person. And therefore, we can’t say that someone has slipped in now, and another hasn’t yet.

Question: So this process takes many years?

Answer: No, the action itself is quite intense. It doesn’t last for many years.

Question: Is this a surprise for a person when something is suddenly revealed to him?

Answer: Yes. Any spiritual action that reveals itself in a new way in a person becomes a surprise for him. He feels that the world is filled with the quality of bestowal and love, the quality of the Creator, and feels a great attraction to this.

Question: So the difference between someone who has crossed the Machsom and someone who has not, is that a person who has crossed the Machsom sees only positive forces working in the world, he sees everything rosy?

Answer: It’s not pink. Simply, there is one positive force in the world that operates in the quality of bestowal and love.

Question: Does he also see the manifestation of egoism in our world as positive?

Answer: He sees this simply as a lack of understanding of the existence of a positive spiritual force.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/6/20

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Question: The term “Machsom” in Hebrew means partition, barrier. What does Machsom mean from a spiritual point of view?

Answer: Machsom is a transition from one quality to another, when a person changes his qualities from egoistic to altruistic, from the ability to work only for oneself to actions for the sake of others or for the sake of the Creator. In other words, his quality of giving prevails over the quality of receiving.

Question: Which of the Kabbalists first used this term?

Answer: I first heard it from my teacher Rabash. And then this term comes up several times in our sources.

Question: Did Baal HaSulam write that this is the psychological boundary between the two worlds?

Answer: This is not just psychology, but a sense of your attitude to the world, a change in human nature.

Comment: It is difficult to understand how you can do an action without expecting some benefit for yourself. Even today, psychologists say that this is impossible.

My Response: Indeed, it is impossible. But the fact is that the correct utilization of the forces of nature—when a person, in addition to the power of receiving, begins to awaken the quality of bestowal—gives him the opportunity to own both forces and use them together.

Or, at first, he goes only to the force of bestowal, which is called the quality of bestowal or faith (Emunah in Hebrew), and then he can act with receiving for the sake of bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/6/20

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Question: Can we cling to our friends when we work in the tens so much that we become infected with a reverent attitude toward the teacher from them? Or is it impossible?

Answer: It is possible. We can help each other on our spiritual path and move forward calmly. If a person who is in a descent bows before the group, then the group will show him how to start listening to the teacher. And then this student can receive the same thing as the rest.

Question: That is, it does not matter what you are as wise as you can be or if with a sensitive heart. If you are in the right mood, can you receive absolutely all conditions and stick to the teacher?

Answer: Yes. Mental development does not matter here.

Question: Suppose a person knows that he does not yet have any inner development, that he is lazy. But he really wants to achieve! Can he cling to the teacher with this desire and get everything?

Answer: Only through the group! The group is the connector to the teacher and through the teacher with the Creator. There are no other ways.

Question: This means that a person places himself in a group, and the group helps him  hear the teacher, cleave to him, and go to the Creator. It doesn’t matter who, what, and where you are now, even if you are a hermit. If you want to, you can?

Answer: We all came from one system, the ten, from a soul that was broken into many parts. Therefore, gathering in such tens, we again reveal the Creator and unite with Him.
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From KabTV’s “Teacher – Student” 2/7/19

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Question: What is the difference between the desires of the Egyptians and the mixed multitude (Erev Rav)?

Answer: Egyptians perform actions because they were taught so and  the Erev Rav do it ideologically. They say: “This is exactly what you need to do. Perform only the action, and the intention will be in it.”

The Kabbalist differs from them in that he believes: first you have to think about the intention. If, for the sake of it, it is necessary to do some auxiliary actions, perform them, but with intention. Because only in the intention do we have a connection with the Creator. You can even receive something, but if you have an intention for the sake of bestowal, it will be bestowal.

That is, intention determines everything.

The Erev Rav says: everything determines the action. Kabbalah says: everything determines the intention. But the people (Egyptians) do not care about either one or the other. They do not analyze at all what intention is. There is action, they have been taught this, and so they do.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/22/19

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Question: What is the most valuable thing in a student?

Answer: To sacrifice himself to achieve the goal. That is all.

Comment: It is interesting that the word “sacrifice” in Russian is always shocking, but in Hebrew it is so natural because “Arava” comes from the word “approach,” “proximity.” Sacrificing yourself is actually the law of love.

My Response: Of course. Love is built on the sacrifice of one’s selfishness.

Question: And what does the teacher sacrifice for such a connection?

Answer: The teacher is initially at a level where he does not have to sacrifice anything. Everything that happens between him and the students is beyond sacrifice.

That is, a teacher who has risen to a certain level is primary. And then there are students who can get help from him.
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From KabTV’s “Teacher – Student” 2/7/19

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