Question: It is interesting that Hanukkah and Purim are two great holidays not described in the Torah. Why are they considered the most childish holidays? On Purim, children dress up in carnival costumes, on Hanukkah they sing songs and eat sweet doughnuts.

Answer: The fact is that we have not yet reached these states in our world, and therefore, it is all personified in children. A child who is looking to the future as if shows us that we must reach those states that have not yet occurred.

Historically, these states have taken place but not within a person. Internally, we have not yet set ourselves up for the holiday of Hanukkah and then for the holiday of Purim.

Question: So it is like a game. Children are always associated with games. So here we have to play this state?

Answer: Yes. The correction of small vessels is called Hanukkah (Hanu-Ko, stopover). This is an intermediate state, half of the correction. And the second half of correction is Purim. We are yet to go through both states—both the people of Israel and the whole of humanity.

Question: Why is it customary to eat doughnuts on Hanukkah?

Answer: Oil symbolizes the desire to receive and dough, the power of life. Oil must saturate the dough because the power of life comes to us from flour. Since then, it has been the custom to fry the dough in oil.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/19

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How can we light the light, meaning reveal the Creator? To do this, we need three contradictory components: a jar of oil, a wick, and a fire. Yet, how can we put them together if the oil itself does not burn, the wick itself also does not burn, and neither oil nor a dry wick can support the fire?

The fire burns only if the wick is contradictory to the oil, and therefore absorbs it. We do not want to receive spiritual work, and yet we are forced to approach it, and then we absorb spiritual qualities from it against our will, and become imbued with the importance of bestowal, self-nullification, and love of friends, as a wick absorbs oil.

This is what happens, whether we want it or not—another convention, another lesson, reading of articles, meeting with friends—time and time again we absorb the oil into the wick, despite the fact that we consider this work worthless. I do not want this work, and I only dream of rewards, of discoveries, so that I can learn everything, control everything, and feel everything, as my egoism imagines.

However, I do not have a choice, and I perform actions that allow me to absorb oil like a wick. I am still getting permeated with the material that the wisdom of Kabbalah provides, and in the end I will receive enough material inside, connect with my friends, and our light will light up.

Then, I will see the true results of this entire process, I will reveal the Creator within the created beings that is bringing us a new state, faith above reason, which is called Hanukkah, a parking in the middle of the way.

Our whole life is made up of contradictions because otherwise we would not distinguish the difference between darkness and light. We would be like animals that do not feel their “I,” do not feel themselves. In order to understand who the man is, it is necessary to rise to a higher level than the man and study him from there.

The wick is all that I neglect in spiritual work, all that I resist. I have resistance to the oil, but I am trying to connect the oil and the wick together, and then I reach the light. Then I begin to understand what is happening to me.

If the oil and wick burn out, then there is nothing left to burn and darkness comes. It is the same with a person when he has exhausted all his efforts and all his burning, he loses the light and returns to darkness again. If he wants to keep the light, he must make an extra effort, which is called a wick, and add his burning, which is called oil because the light has nothing else to light up on and rise on.

After such overcoming, a person is rewarded with receiving the light of the Creator that illuminates his soul and is called the light of Hanukkah, that is, the light of absolutely good open upper providence.

To the extent that a person can sacrifice his egoism for the sake of connection in a group that wants to advance toward the purpose of creation, he makes  a wick that absorbs oil out of himself and of the group. Initially, no one wants this and considers this despicable, but since we are all connected, we make a wick from ourselves, twist all the threads into one thick bundle.

One thread cannot absorb oil, but when ten threads are twisted together, there is an empty space between them that sucks in the oil. The oil goes up the wick, and we can light it up at the very edge of the wick.

We do not want this work, but we agree to connect together and let the oil go up in us, over our threads twisted together. The oil rises, not through the threads themselves, but through the gaps between them, through the connections of the friends with each other. If the friends try to connect despite their differences and are together, then the oil begins to go up between them and the Creator lights the candle, that is, begins to become revealed.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/20, “Hanukkah”

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Question: It is said that a miracle happened on Hanukkah: the oil, being enough for one day, burned for eight days. Do you think this could have happened?

Answer: It is up to us. If we strive to ensure our properties to be equal with the properties of the Creator, that we participate in kindling the light in the world in order to illuminate it with the qualities of love, kindness, and connection, then such an effort is sufficient on our part. This comes from our side, Malchut, and the rest is given from above.

Question: Do you think the miracle of Hanukkah really could have happened on a corporeal level?

Answer: Why not? Our world conforms to general laws. If we fulfill them, we can do everything. There are more and more miracles in our world every day, but we simply do not notice them because we are included in them. And if we could see them from the outside, they would be miracles to us.

Question: So, this is not an allegorical description?

Answer: Of course. Absolutely everything that is written in the Torah must and will happen in our world. I do not see any miracles in it.

If a Papuan comes to me, for example, and I press the switch and the light comes on, he will fall on his knees before this phenomenon. Is it a miracle or not? It is a miracle for him but not for me.

If we were now at the first spiritual level, then everything that happened there would be a miracle for us.

Comment: But if you say that these are laws, then any person could repeat them. And I don’t think anyone can repeat that today.

My Response: Because we are not at that level!
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/19

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Question: What is a Menorah? Why does it include eight candles?

Answer: From the highest quality (Keter) to the lowest quality (Malchut), from the quality of the Creator to the quality of creation, there are eight stages, eight Sefirot, excluding the highest and the lowest.

Therefore the Menorah is lit for eight days, on the eighth day the newborn is circumcised (Brit Milah), etc.

Question: How did the Kabbalists know that the Menorah should be in this form?

Answer: Kabbalists act according to their inner vision. They feel it from the correlation of their inner attributes. The connection of these attributes appears to them in this form. Moreover, this is how our world appears, according to our desires. In fact, it does not exist; it is simply that our materialized desires manifest themselves in front of us.

Question: According to Kabbalah, oil is the egoistic desire, the wick symbolizes the screen, and when there is a screen, an anti-egoistic quality, a force covering the egoistic desire, then fire appears. What is fire?

Answer: Fire represents the light of life, knowledge.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12.16.2019

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Question: What is a Spiritual Temple from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: Spiritual Temple is our soul —of each one of us and of all of us together—integration of all our desires striving for equivalence of form with the Creator.

We must unite our desires in such a way that in our connection, in bestowing to each other, we can reach a state that is balanced between us. And then in it, according to our efforts, we will find the upper force, the quality of bestowal and love called the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/20

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Question: What is the difference between the Greeks and Romans inside us?

Answer: The Greeks are egoistic thoughts directed toward knowledge and philosophy. And the Romans are egoistic actions directed toward working with coarse desires.

Question: Let’s say I want to become famous, to glorify myself. Is this called the Greeks in me? Are these the desires that need to be corrected?

Answer: No. We are talking about correction on the spiritual level. Both the Greeks and Romans are states that come to a person when he really wants to expose himself to the quality of bestowal. Then he begins to fight with his egoistic desires and sort them out internally into Greeks and Romans.

In other words, there are desires of our world when you want to use someone for your own sake, and there are desires related to the Creator. If the Creator reveals Himself to man and he wants to use the connection with the upper force for his own sake, then these desires are called egoistic: Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. They need to be corrected.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/14/20

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The holiday of Hanukkah is a special time. You see, our world is a projection of the spiritual world and it contains various symbols of spiritual renewals and corrections due to our work.

Therefore, during the year we go through good times and special states in this world as symbols of our progress in building the soul, restoring the spiritual vessel, the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which was shattered.

On this path, from the most broken state to the fully corrected one, we pass important points: the beginning of correction called the New Year (Rosh HaShanah), then the recognition of shattering: the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and correction by the surrounding light: Sukkot. The next stop on this path is Hanukkah, which symbolizes rising to the state of Bina, the stage of bestowal.

We celebrate these holidays in this world, but of course, all their manifestations take place on the spiritual level. If we reach faith above reason to the fullest extent, this is called Hanukkah, and if we rise even higher to receiving in order to bestow, it is Purim.

Each person and the whole world must go through these states in their correction, correcting the shattering of the single soul of Adam because we are pieces of that soul.

Hanukkah is called a miracle because we cannot connect with each other without help from above, without the force of the Creator. This connection happens above corporeal nature, like a miracle.

Corporeal nature is egoism, the will to receive, which is drawn only to separation, distancing, its own authority. The spiritual nature, on the contrary, aspires toward connection and self-nullification. This is why Hanukkah is called a miracle, the attainment of the force of Bina.

We used to think that miracle is what we get for nothing: I did not work and suddenly won a million in the lottery—that is a miracle! And if I earned that million, I would not think it was a miracle.

But we invest a lot of effort in spiritual work, we try to achieve connection, perform a lot of actions, and then we are rewarded with the miracle of spiritual revelation. It is called a miracle because until it happens we do not know what we will come to. Only when it happens do we see: “So this is the spiritual world; I did not think it was like this! This is not what I imagined at all!” That is why this is called a miracle, but it takes a lot of work.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/20, “Hanukkah”

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Question: How do you understand the expression: “be yourself”?

Answer: It means finding yourself.

Question: What advice has helped you in life?

Answer: Everything that happens is moving toward perfection.

Question: What was your most daring decision?

Answer: I don’t know. Probably it has not happened yet.

Question: What was the biggest disappointment you faced?

Answer: When, at the beginning of the journey, I discovered that I was not capable of anything.

Question: What was the most incredible coincidence that has happened in your life?

Answer: When I realized that all people are exactly the same as me. All in all, there is absolutely the same opportunity to be a righteous and a sinner.

Question: What episode in your life are you deeply ashamed of?

Answer: The fact is that since I realized that everything comes from above, this question does not come up in me. The feeling of shame arises only when a person stands before the Creator and understands that certain properties and situations were given to him in order to become like the Creator and he did not. In all other respects, the Creator controls us.

Question: What event caused your greatest fear in life?

Answer: I don’t even know. I do not remember.

Question: Is it true that old age has its advantages?

Answer: Each age has its advantages. It all depends on how you perceive youth or old age, strength or weakness.

Question: What was the nicest day of your life?

Answer: When I first found myself in front of my teacher.

Question: Do you have a motto?

Answer: Motto: “Only forward.”

Question: What are the biggest difficulties you experienced in life on the way to the goal?

Answer: If I do not feel any resistance, if I feel that I am forgotten, that I have no haters, then this is the worst of all.

Question: What have you radically changed in your life, and how did it turn out for you?

Answer: I left my previous job, my previous occupations, changed my profession and absolutely my whole life in order to study Kabbalah.

Question: What would happen on earth if each person possessed the maximum intelligence? Would the world be a better place?

Answer: No. All this must be left to the Creator, and we must do what is entrusted to us. That is, within the framework in which we exist, in which He gave birth to us, we try to achieve similarity to Him.

Question: When is it worth breaking off a relationship? How to do it correctly?

Answer: I think it does not depend on the person.

Question: Does the person’s appearance affect your attitude toward him?

Answer: Yes, it does. I always pay attention to a person’s appearance, to his behavior, to his desire to enter into correct communication.

Question: How can you comfort people properly?

Answer: Sympathy, I guess.

Question: What relationship do you remember the most in your life?

Answer: Mutual assistance—that which is required from person to person.

Question: What type of relationship should we come to?

Answer: To the fact that I do not feel the difference, the distance, between me and others.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 7/30/20

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Question: How can a person’s consciousness and sensitivity protect him or her from unpleasantness and sufferings?

Answer: We should not engage too much in how to escape sufferings and how not to feel it.

We need to advance correctly, and even small sufferings will be felt as correct guiding forces. Man cannot move only by the right force. We will not get anywhere if we move only by pleasures.

We need to move along two lines: right and left. You take a small child by both hands and teach him how to walk.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/18/18

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The place for revealing the Creator emerges in me in the place where I set myself aside and allow the friend to enter. In this place I am restricted, and the friend enters. Then I can reveal the Creator in that very place. This is called “from love of creatures to love of the Creator.”

If I am developing spiritually, then I am happy when I envy the friends, because that is how I reveal forces within me to advance forward. But if I don’t want to see their accomplishments, to avoid suffering, it means I don’t care about spirituality! I must therefore check: do I feel envy or do I instinctively cover it up to avoid suffering?
From Twitter, 12/19/20

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