A question I received: I often hear that it’s pointless to restrict our reception of corporeal pleasures since this does not affect our spiritual state. This sounds like permission to do whatever you like. If this is true, why then does the Creator send us feelings of remorse, self-loathing, disgust, or guilt when we indulge in certain pleasures? What if these pleasures are considered normal indulgences in our society, which at one time we deemed okay to delight in? Why the change in our definition of right and wrong if corporeal acts don’t matter?

My Answer: You are contradicting yourself. The Creator is a source of pleasure, and therefore His goal for creating all of creation is to please the creatures. Until we attain this, until we attain the absolute pleasure, we will not be able to please Him! Keep reading Kabbalistic texts and you’ll figure this out!

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A question I received: I have heard you say several times that the Creator is all-powerful. However, the following considerations lead me to the conclusion that this is not so:

• The Creator has a “will to bestow.” Why should someone who’s all-powerful have this desire? He should be above any need, since He is almighty and should be able to control or eliminate this desire.

• Why do creatures have to suffer first in order to receive an even greater desire to attain the Creator? Using His all-powerfulness, He could have arranged this desire for Him, without making it so difficult to achieve.

• The Creator could have created us as simple, unthinking vessels, who would receive as much Light as necessary. There would be no need to go through the various spiritual worlds in order to give us more pleasure.

• Why did the Creator create “our world”? Was it so we wouldn’t feel shame when He gives us Light? He should not have to create a difficult world in order to manipulate us. If He was truly all-powerful, He would create us without the feeling of shame, or He would be able to control this feeling in order for us not to suffer. In addition, I don’t believe that I will experience a feeling of shame if the Creator gives me something.

My Answer: You have serious questions, and they are all addressed in the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” in the very beginning of the text.

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Two questions I received on the right attitude to the Creator:

Question: I did not attend the Congress but I listened to the lessons over the Internet. I have studied Kabbalah for several years and this was the first time I heard you say that in order to rise above the ego, we should spend every minute of our lives between “There is none else beside Him” and “He is good and does good.” I tried this, and it works! My question is: do I have to believe that the Creator is already among us, in the group, and this is why you recommended the above approach?

My Answer: Of course. The Creator is among us because He is the general force of Nature. However, He is concealed from us because our egoistic qualities differ from Him. By correcting our egoistic qualities, we will gradually reveal Him inside our new, altruistic qualities.

Question: You say that everything is governed by the Creator, and a while ago in response to a question about your students, you said that they all have a job and there are no “loafers” among them. But aren’t loafers people as well? And it’s not their fault they are that way; they don’t have any freedom of choice because the Creator governs them.

My Answer: You can use this explanation as an excuse for anything, and remain idle forever. You can just sit there and do nothing for the rest of your days, saying that the Creator will awaken you if He so desires, that your desire to be idle also comes from Him, and so on.

The Creator’s governance will be revealed to you only once you attain Him, and only then will you be able to talk about Him. But before that happens, all these speculations are just philosophy, caused by laziness.

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A question I received: It says in the treatise Brachot that one who dreams that he’s reciting Shema Israel (Hear, O Israel) should be awarded with the presence of the Shechina (the Divine Presence), yet his generation is not worthy. How does Kabbalah explain this text? What is the spiritual significance of dreams, and what is the spiritual state of a person who dreams this particular dream?

My Answer: A dream does not mean a regular dream of our animate bodies, but rather a particular state of the soul’s ascent. In this state, a person feels the Upper Level; however, he doesn’t feel It directly inside his desire, but in a manner that is concealed from him.

Then, after one makes efforts to attain greater self-correction, the dream becomes reality: the person rises to the next spiritual level. If one dreams of reciting the Shema, then the next level for him is to attain adhesion with the Creator. This is what the Shema represents, and is why one is awarded with the presence of the Shechina – the revelation of the Creator. However, his generation (his present state) is not yet worthy (not yet corrected enough) for the revelation of the Creator.

If you want to understand everything correctly, start by understanding that the entire universe is inside a person, and all the names and descriptions refer to his qualities and states. This is what we learn in “the perception of reality” section of Kabbalah. You will then see that a dream is one of the highest spiritual states of a wakeful Kabbalist.

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Two questions I received on man’s origin and the Tower of Babel:

Question: You say that we all came from ancient Babylon. How do you reconcile this with science that says that life started in Africa and that humanity started to migrate from Africa and then spread to other countries?

My Answer: We don’t study where life originated or where the creature called “man” emerged, but rather where the first Man (in Hebrew, Adam – similar to the Creator) emerged. He was the first man because he attained the Creator by becoming similar to Him. He was the first Kabbalist and he left us the book, The Secret Angel (Raziel HaMalach).

Question: At the end of Lesson 6 at the Congress you compared our spiritual growth using Kabbalah with the Tower of Babel. My understanding of the Tower of Babel in Beresheet Ch. 11 was that it was an evil attempt of mankind to be like G-d. Please explain how your comparison relates to the understanding of the Torah understanding.

My Answer: You can find the explanation in the book, From Chaos to Harmony.

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A question I received: How did Marx derive the Kabbalistic principles if he wasn’t a Kabbalist? Was he an altruist? Is there a fundamental difference between his principles and those of Baal HaSulam?

My Answer: Kabbalah is a science. Its laws are the same in the whole universe and in all the worlds. They are laws of the interaction between the Light – the quality of bestowal and love, and the desire – the quality of reception and enjoyment.

Kabbalah studies these laws from their origin, the World of Infinity, the highest world. It then studies their descent along the 125 degrees of the five worlds, ending with our world. These things are scrutinized in all the Kabbalistic books. Therefore, Kabbalah is the physics of the Upper World.

We research our world using our five senses and mind, and then we synthesize the data we gather, which gives us the corporeal sciences. Likewise, Kabbalah reveals how the forces from the Upper World closest to us descend into our world and become forces of our world. And in fact, Kabbalah then turns into the corporeal sciences. (See the articles, “Kabbalah as Compared with Other Sciences,” and “Kabbalah as a Root of All Sciences”).

In its earthly transposition, the Upper Force is expressed as the physical and chemical laws. That is to say, It manifests on the “still” level of our world. It also becomes expressed as the biological laws, on the “vegetative” and “animate” levels of our world. And finally, It finds expression also as the laws of social and economic development, on the “human” level of our world.

Many sages of our world, who were not Kabbalists, studied our word and thus reached an understanding of the principles of Nature (the Creator). Marx was one of them. By studying humanity’s historical development, by researching modern society, and by using statistics of politics and economics, he gained the correct understanding of the direction in which every human society develops: toward unification into one whole.

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A question I received: My friends say I have a good heart, but I am unlucky. I am married and have children, but my life is unsuccessful. Does this have anything to do with my name? I changed my name at age 16, in Argentina, because I didn’t like it. My name was Veronica Nancy, and I changed it to Sivan.

My Answer: We are completely controlled by the Light (the Creator). We can change things only to the extent we are similar to Him – to the extent we have a desire to be giving and loving, like Him. Therefore, correcting our desire is the only thing we can do to change our fate. This change can happen only under the influence of the Light that reforms, which descends onto a person while he or she studies Kabbalah.

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Kabbalah views the entire universe – our world and the concealed Upper World – as one world, separated into two parts only in regard to us. By correcting oneself, one can reveal the second part of the universe.

The matter of creation is the will to receive pleasure. Therefore, all of creation is a single sensitive, living, creative organism. Nothing in creation is a consequence of a coincidental or mechanical occurrence, but rather, everything, including our world, is there as part of the general plan: to bring all parts of creation to perfection.

The correction of man determines the system’s operation – whether it will be active, intelligent and sustainable. There is a law that states, “the whole is identical to all of the parts” (“Prat u Klal Shavim”), and therefore, all the principles operating in the whole of creation also operate in the individual bodies, in the entire ecosystem, in every family and society, and in the global economy.

Because of the general interconnection of everything in the universe, every organism and all the levels of the system must be healthy; otherwise they will undermine the health of the general system. Their interconnection, the mutual inclusion of all the parts into all the other parts, obliges them to this.

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Two questions I received on hatred and evil:

Question: Are members of HAMAS also parts of my own inner Kli? If yes, then why are they fighting in me?

My Answer: A person is a desire that feels only what’s in it. The desire is complex, consisting of many parts, which depict one’s picture of this world. Since our desires are not corrected, we feel completely opposite to the Creator, instead of feeling Him the way He really is. This is why we feel wars and suffering.

All of a person’s enemies live inside him; they are a reflection of his inner state. Even if it appears that they exist outside of you, out there in the world, the fact is that the world is a reflection of your inner state, like a movie that’s showing you your desires.

Question: When I correct myself to the last degree and attain the Final Correction, will I stop seeing evil in the world?

My Answer: If there will be any people left in the world who haven’t yet corrected themselves, then you will still see evil in the world because those people are parts of your desire.

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Two questions I received about crossing the Machsom:

Question: Does a person who crosses the Machsom and attains the Upper World know or feel exactly which of the 125 degrees he is on before he reaches the World of Infinity?

My Answer: He feels it relatively, the way a fifth-grader feels that he’s in fifth grade without yet understanding what it means to go through all 12 grades.

Question: Does a person who crosses the Machsom, but still doesn’t reach the Full Correction, feel growing pains and spiritual suffering? Or does he stop feeling pain and suffering after the Machsom?

My Answer: Yes, he feels these things!

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