Shame is the point of my “self,” its indication. The more shame a person feels, the higher he is. Shame can manifest itself in everything: in honor, in fame, and in knowledge.

What drives us forward? What develops us in society? I look at others and I do not want to be worse than them. I measure everything in relation to my shame.

Question: Does Kabbalah develop a bigger sensitivity to shame in a person?

Answer: Of course. This is great egoism. Externally, this may not be so strongly manifested, but internally, a person begins to feel ashamed even from some small tap.

Question: And how does this manifest itself in a group when we are trying to unite together and reveal the Creator?

Answer: We understand that each of us has egoism, and each of us has an enhanced sense of shame; and we must play on this feeling, showing the other person how much worse he is in relation to his friends, and to what extent he does not fulfill what we would like him to. In this way we spur him forward for his own benefit.

Question: Is there a difference between shame in relation to people and in relation to the Creator? Or is it the same thing?

Answer: It depends on a person’s stage of development. But in practice, he must reach a state in which the attitude toward people and toward the Creator will be the same. Because my attitude to people is just a means, the system through which I relate to the Creator. As it is written, “the Creator is hiding behind every person.”
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/22/19

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Question: Why is it that the more that we do good, the more evil is revealed, to the point of hatred?

Answer: Indeed, the more that you do good, the more evil is revealed to you. In principle this is the correct realization of the system.

By doing something good, you have completed a level, you have corrected something within you, and now your next level is revealed, which begins with evil to make it possible for you to correct it, and so on.

Much has been written about this in the wisdom of Kabbalah, therefore, your good deeds always arouse and invite bad results. Some students don’t understand this, they run away from the implementation of the method and leave; others remain, and thanks to this they advance.

This is exactly as it is in a science, the more that a person learns, the more it seems to him that he knows nothing and many questions appear within him; while someone who doesn’t learn anything thinks that he understands everything; after all, “What is special here? Everything is clear!”

That is how it happens everywhere, on all levels of attainment, as it is said, “He who increases knowledge, increases pain” (Ecclesiastes 1:18). But it is specifically this that leads him to greater knowledge.

And here again we encounter that it is up to us to balance the right and left lines and exist between them.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/16/18

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Question: What is a soul and how can one check for its existence if a person has worked on developing it for many years? Did he get it? After all, it is possible that while working in this direction, he was not getting there at all but went in the opposite way?

Answer: In order to develop the soul in you, you need to practice Kabbalah in a certain environment, in a group, and then in a few years, instead of feeling yourself, you will begin to feel the surrounding space, your friends.

And later, through your friends, you will begin to feel the upper force, which fills the space around us, but you did not feel it before. Through connection with your friends, you will develop a sensor that can feel the Creator. This feeling will be called “your soul.”

It is impossible to do this without practicing Kabbalah in a group. If you want to save time, then do not even try to approach this in other ways.
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From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 3/20/19

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Question: Isn’t the desire to become like the Creator the highest level of egoism?

Why should attainment happen precisely through Kabbalah if the Creator originally intended the created beings to obtain His quality? It would be more logical if the Creator already instilled the necessary knowledge and instructions for this life in each person at birth.

Answer: Then a person would be just a machine, a robot. The desire of the Creator, however, is to create man in full likeness with Him. That is, to have freewill, choice, decision, and action.

This is impossible without problems, descents, ascents, and understanding, without everything we have today. This is a very difficult path but it constantly shapes the inner consciousness of a person. Only then can he understand the Creator, His thought, His purpose, and implement it.
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From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 3/20/19

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Question: “Egypt” in Hebrew is called “Mitzraim,” from the words “Mitz Ra” (concentration of evil). Is this a spiritual state?

Answer: Yes. And it is revealed to everyone.

Everyone who enters the ten must say that we are now in Egypt because we feel our state as evil.

From the corporeal point of view, this state may be beautiful, but in relation to the goal, it is very far from attaining the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/15/19

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To break through the barrier of the spiritual world means to break the barriers in the heart of each person, which prevent him from connecting with others in the global system of Adam HaRishon, to reveal that it is all filled with the upper light, the upper force of bestowal and love. We must try to break open our hearts and feel our true inner connection, that is, the Creator.

Everything that happens in this world leads us to a single goal: to unite, connect, reveal our connection within the common integral system, and feel a drop of unity in our heart. Let’s imagine how we break through the barriers between us, passing through all the obstacles and mutual rejection, our resistance to the inner connection of hearts.

The more we strive for unity, the more we become convinced of how much we are opposed to it, how much we hate this state, what a black, endless abyss separates us from it. But if we step into this black abyss of our egoism, strive to unite despite all its resistance, and break through the barrier, that is, if we agree to step on our rejection and hatred, then we reveal that there is a drop of unity and connection.

There, within this drop of unity, we discover our connection with the Creator. Hatred and rejection, which felt like an impassable abyss, will remain because all crimes will be covered with love. And at the same time, I must be ready for this step. And as soon as I step forward into the abyss, I discover solid ground under my feet and can go on. But that is only after I have taken a step forward.

For an egoist, there is nothing more terrible than connection. This is the whole of creation. The inner rejection that we find in the heart against the connection with our friends is darkness, a black abyss of hatred, and there is nothing worse than that. The reaction to connection is the most difficult experience of all possible situations in life because it comes from the very root of creation.

But despite this, together with our friends, holding on to each other, we take a step forward with our eyes closed. We know that we must do it because only by doing this can we please the Creator and advance toward the goal of creation.

If this is really for the sake of the Creator, then we can make this action above our strength by annulling ourselves before our friends and receiving strength from them that we can go forward with. This is only possible through the power of the group.

My own Sefira Malchut is not capable of anything. But it has the first nine Sefirot, and if I join them, I get all the strength from them. Everyone should unite with their friends in this way, bend themselves, and feed on their strength.

Only in this form can one advance to the Creator:

1) connect with your friends,
2) gain strength from them,
3) take a step toward the Creator.

And then the Creator gives us a drop of unity to breathe in. The ten turns into a spiritual vessel of ten Sefirot inside of which is the Creator who fills us with the upper light. A drop of unity is a drop of light, a drop of spiritual seed, from which our soul begins to grow.

A drop of unity is revealed only to the measure of our efforts to unite. If we want to get closer and cannot do it, then a drop of unity comes and connects us. And then we discover that it is the Creator Himself, a drop of seed from the future state.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/21, “Breaking the Barriers to Spirituality”

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In the corporeal world, the most important thing in order to advance is to open the gate and enter. But it is different in spirituality because advancement is built on top of everything we have lived through.

Therefore, the locked gate is not visible at all, it seems to be a solid wall. Man feels that there is a wall in his way, and suddenly, an entrance appears in this wall and allows him to pass.

Yet, before the entrance opened, it was entirely impossible to see that there was a locked door in the wall. There was no sign that there was an opening in the wall.

That is why it is so important to understand what this wall and these locks at the entrances are. Now the whole world is under lock and key, in quarantine. This is also a kind of concealment, which is revealed more and more in order for us to imagine what removing the locks, that is, revelation, means and to invite it as quickly as possible.

We feel that we are imprisoned, in darkness, in a narrow and dark world, but we want to reveal the upper force in it and that there is nothing besides it, which means that it is this force that depicts everything that happens to us for us.

So, it does not matter what state we are in, the main thing is to try to reveal in it this one force about which it is said “I dwell among my own people.” The most important thing is to feel that in any dark state we are in connection with the Creator and to try to adhere to Him.

It follows that we do not need to look for a door in the wall. In the place where we can rise by faith above reason, according to our prayer, request, desire, and invoking the help of the upper force, the opening will appear in the wall and allow us to pass. Just as the Red Sea parted during the exodus from Egypt.

In the place where we unite in our desire to pass, we find an opening and go through it.

Faith above reason is what opens the entrance in the wall. The wall is our egoism that separates us from the quality of bestowal. We stand on one side of the wall in the world of egoism, and beyond is the world of bestowal where we want to go. This transition is performed by faith above reason, that is, to the extent that I am capable in my current state to depict that the wall is opening, the intention of bestowal is revealed inside my egoistic desire. This will be the opening.

I understand that I am not capable of bestowing, but I really want it and am ready to do anything to reach it. This is the clash between the existing and the desired states. If we annul ourselves before each other in order to connect, we create a quality that is close to bestowal, and this is our plea to the Creator to help us, to open the entrance for us, the transition from the qualities of reception to the qualities of bestowal, as if crossing the Red Sea.

To find the keys to all the locks means to connect Malchut to Bina and reach the opening. However, this is not a mechanical but an emotional revelation.

The feeling that we are standing in front of a locked door comes from the fact that we are becoming integrated in the group and trying to break into the hearts of the friends in order to connect as one man. Then we discover that there is a wall that prevents us from doing this.

In fact, this wall is the Creator Himself. All we have to do is pressure, persuade, beg, and pray as much as possible until all locks are opened and the walls between us are removed.

When we try to connect in the ten, we feel that something is pushing us away, preventing us from connecting in one heart. There are 125 degrees in the feeling of one heart each of which includes three stages: Ibur (Conception), Yenika (Nursing), and Mochin (Adulthood). We should try to break through the first degree, to reach connection in one desire so that we are together in one heart, in one feeling of unity.

This is the first breakthrough into spirituality when we begin to act as one spiritual cell from which we will then grow. A drop of spiritual semen from which the body will develop is required.

There are several conditions for this: to be included in the upper (in the ten), to annul before each other in order to merge into one cell, and thus to break through into the spiritual world and begin to grow there. The most difficult thing is the first action: to become a spiritual embryo.

Every heart is locked. We must unlock each heart and connect them all together. Then we lock the entire ten with one lock called restriction, screen, and reflected light, which locks us together in a common spiritual action with respect to the Creator.

We put this lock on the connection between us and ask the Creator not to let us escape from the group and break this connection, and thus we connect with the upper force.

By praying for my friends, by begging the Creator to help them, I break the lock on my heart. Praying for the friends is a means to break my unfeeling heart.

All our hearts are locked with egoistic locks and they feel nothing but their egoism. I cannot unlock this lock myself; I can only ask the Creator to do it.

However, it is even better to ask for the friends in the ten, each one for the others. This is most effective when I ask not for myself, but for others, even if it is a formal request.

After all, I was always asking for myself: “Help me, do this for me!” And now I am asking for others as if I exist in the ten only to pray for my friends, to establish a connection between them and the Creator. This is my only role; I do not want anything but this, I completely nullify myself as if I do not exist. My only purpose is to provide a connection from the Creator to the nine friends and from them to the Creator.

If I try to build such relationships, the Creator will begin to take care of the ten through me.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/21, “Breaking the Barriers to Spirituality”

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First of all, I must try to feel that there is nothing before me except for this force that is arranging every moment of my life.

It can awaken me in opposite ways, make me feel how disconnected I am from it and from the ten, and draw me away with the cheap temptations of this world. However, I depict this upper force behind everything that is happening, and I am always looking for connections with it, regardless of all the disturbances.

The greater the disturbances  behind which I reveal the Creator, the more important the Creator becomes to me. The disturbances help me make more effort in order to detect the Creator, as if I am adjusting the focus with a lens and bringing the Creator closer to me. The greater the disturbance, the more blurry the image, and the more effort it takes to detect that the Creator is doing it.

It turns out that the Creator fills my world more and more because I see that He plays with me everywhere and confuses me increasingly more skillfully until the entire earth is filled with His glory.

Working together with the friends, we build a lens, in the focus of which, at its central point, we reveal the Creator.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/21, “Breaking the Barriers to Spirituality”

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There is a certain paradox in the process of spiritual advancement. We are used to the fact that the more we grow, the more we understand life and connections in society, the family, country, and the world. As we grow older, we better understand what is happening because we get to know what is already in front of us in this world.

But in the spiritual world, it is not so. The further we advance, at each subsequent step, we reveal more and more concealment, and only then, accordingly, is there revelation. First we need to detect the whole concealment by putting in the required measure of effort, and then we begin to attain this new degree.

In our daily life, an ordinary person is different from a scientist, who as he advances further in his scientific work, the more difficult his research becomes, the greater the obstacles he has to overcome. But it is impossible otherwise because he makes new discoveries every time. Whereas an ordinary person does not discover anything new but only becomes acquainted with what others have discovered.

Therefore, we must understand that we will always encounter obstacles on the spiritual path that we must overcome by faith above reason, through our connection, each time with effort, and break through to a new level.

All obstacles are a revelation of a stronger desire to receive, another stage of egoism. It turns out that we are thrown out of spirituality and see a new stage of uncorrected desire before us as a barrier, a wall, along the way. We cannot see what is behind this wall, and we can only go by faith above reason.

We want to arm ourselves with the power of faith, bestowal, without any evidence or confirmation, and we are looking for ways to overcome this egoistic barrier—our desire to enjoy—by faith above reason so that bestowal becomes higher than receiving. I must raise the greatness of the Creator above all the treasures of this world, and this is possible only through the importance of the group.

As a result, we find out that neither I nor the group can succeed and only the prayer remains, a request for help to the Creator. Prayer helps us take the final step that will take us to the other side of the barrier.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 1/22/21, “Breaking the Barriers to Spirituality”

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Question: What is faith above reason?

Answer: The concept faith above reason refers to the fact that I ascend above my nature and enter a state in which I am in the Creator, which is opposite from the state I am in today.

The Creator is the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of general connection, of general love. Initially I don’t have this attribute, but if I can somehow create it inside me, compose and reveal it, it will be above my current egoistic nature and will be called faith above reason.

Reason refers to what happens in my nature, in the ego, in my understanding and my feelings. When I ascend above it by wanting to operate in an opposite manner, I will be in the attribute that is opposite to reason, in faith above reason. Opposite does not mean in contrast to.

Generally speaking, there are many discrepancies in our simple understanding of life that we need to bypass first and then try to feel, because faith above reason stems from the feeling that there is a state like the upper world, like an ascent above yourself, like life for the sake of bestowal, and you want to acquire this state.

When such an internal motion appears in a person, he begins to prepare for the exit from the slavery of the ego. This is due to the fact that a force called the upper surrounding light operates on him for a certain but long period of time. This force was summoned by a person’s desire and his actions in order to change himself; although their internal intention is egoistic, their goal is altruistic.

If a person receives such an impact from his work in the group while studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and as a result wants to acquire an extra force, an attribute that is not corporeal, it is gradually created and develops inside him, just like an embryo in a womb. Then this attribute, faith above reason, is born and begins to exist with a life of its own and it is called a soul.

In Kabbalistic terms, a person adheres to Bina and is seemingly detached from Malchut. This is the reason that faith above reason is the attribute of Bina that overcomes the attribute of Malchut, or the attribute of bestowal that is implemented above the attribute of receiving, or the desire to bestow above the desire to receive.

The structure of the general soul is based on this principle, and it is according to this principle that we exist in the spiritual world. We need to build it inside us. Until then none of us has a soul, but only a corporeal body that is not even mentioned in the wisdom of Kabbalah. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the concept of body refers to our egoistic desire to receive and to enjoy, which exists inside us and is not related to the corporeal body in any way.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/23/18

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