Two questions I received on how to deal with emotional states:

Question: If a person is in a difficult state, should he delve deeper into it and try to realize the whole depth of the emotional pain, or is better to pay less attention to this state and to delve more into the studies and dissemination? I am trying to act according to the second approach, but isn’t this considered an escape from the pain and from learning about yourself?

My Answer: You should strive only for the Light, for a good state, thoughts, and desires. Leave the bad states behind you as quickly as possible. There is no sense in suffering and “eating yourself up.” Whoever engages in self-criticism is unhappy with himself and suffers. This is a waste of your time and it puts you in opposition to the Creator. The Creator feels everything you feel in your heart!

Question: At the Congress I felt like someone who’s falling in love and wished with all my heart for this feeling to stay with me forever. This was my first Congress and the first time I met Bnei Baruch members in person, though I studied virtually for three years before that. After such a high ascent, I expect that the descent will be very big. How can I go through it correctly?

My Answer: You should devote all your effort and free time to disseminating Kabbalah in the world. This will connect you with many people, and you will be elevated to the degree you’ll make efforts.

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A question I received: You talk about the Creator as if He is Nature, executing Its laws silently and relentlessly. Nature is Elokim, the forces or angels governing our world. However, the Creator is something much higher; He has personality and a will. He is the one with whom we are trying to gain equivalence of form. Man was created in the Creator’s image and likeness. Isn’t this so?

My Answer: I do not want to go into disputes because words will only obscure the meaning. Instead, I would like you to read what Baal HaSulam wrote in the article, “The Peace”:

It is best for us to meet halfway and accept the words of the Kabbalists, that nature (Teva) has the same numerical value (in Hebrew) as the word God (Elokim) – eighty six. Then I’ll be able to call the laws of God the commandments of nature and vice-versa, for they are one and the same, and we need discuss it no further.

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Questions I received on overcoming  obstacles along the path:

Question: You have said, “All obstacles which one receives and will receive should intensify, and one must not eliminate but overcome them.” What does this mean?

My Answer: All the obstacles in life are given to us like problems we receive in school. By solving them with the intention of attaining the qualities of the Creator, we come closer to Him. If we knew this and perceived life in this way, we would see our lives as a unique opportunity and would get out of the cage of this world and into the World of Infinity.

Question cont’d: Afterward you said, “One should take the impressions one receives, the Reshimot, and multiply them with the help of obstacles. By doing so one will reach Mount Sinai and ascend higher and higher.” Please explain: how can I multiply the Reshimot and the obstacles?

My Answer: The more one ascends through one’s correction, the more obstacles one encounters. See item 133 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”:

It is rather like a king who wished to select for himself the most loyal of his subjects in the state and bring them in to work inside his palace. What did he do? He issued an open proclamation in the state that anyone who wished it, young or old, would come to his palace to engage in the works of his inner palace.

However, he appointed many of his servants to guard the palace gate and all the roads that lead to it. He ordered them to cunningly mislead all those nearing his palace and divert them from the way that leads to the palace.

Naturally, all the people in the state began to run to the king’s palace. Yet, the diligent guards cunningly rejected them. Many of them overpowered them and came near the palace gate, but the guards at the gate were most diligent. Even when someone approached the gate, they diverted him and turned him away with great craftiness, until one despaired and returned as he had come.

So they came and went, and regained strength and came again and so on and so forth for several days and years, until they grew weary of trying any further. Yet, only the heroes amongst them whose patience endured and they defeated the guards and opened the gate, were instantly awarded seeing the King’s countenance, and He put each person in his right position.

Of course, from that moment on, they had no further dealings with those guards who diverted and mislead them and made their life bitter for several days and years, running back and forth around the gate. This is because they have been blessed with working and serving before the glory of the king’s face inside His palace.

Question: Throughout the day, I experience about two ascents and two descents, sometimes three. I ascend by developing my intention and reading the original sources. How will this happen later, down the road? As I understand, the time between the descents will get shorter and shorter. Is this true? And ideally, should these states be changing every minute?

My Answer: No, much more often!

Question: You said that Reshimot surface in us at every second. Does this happen while we sleep too?

My Answer: Yes.

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Two questions I received on identifying one’s point in the heart:

Question: How can I tell whether I have a point in the heart?

My Answer: You’ll know that you have it if you find yourself cleaving to our materials, because they contain the fulfillment for this point (desire).

Question: If I was never particularly interested in money, power, or knowledge, but I am drawn to something else in this world, do I have a point in the heart? You said that a person first has to go through the desires for money, power, and knowledge.

My Answer: Not necessarily. It depends on the qualities of one’s soul – from what place in the common soul it descended into this world. The question is: do you want fulfillment from something that exists in this world, or from a source that’s unknown to you?

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Three questions I received on other methods of spiritual development:

Question: The media uses Madonna’s name to sell articles about Kabbalah. Soon they’ll even begin selling articles about Madonna under the Kabbalah brand. What should we do about it?

My Answer: The Klipa (shell or peel) helps the fruit to grow, and when the fruit ripens, the Klipa is discarded and the fruit is eaten. This is the mission of Berg and Madonna: they attract people using glossy emptiness, which helps people to gradually become smarter and turn to the authentic Kabbalah.

Question: Last year I was studying the method of Yamima. I found your site recently and became very interested. Can I study both methods at the same time or must I choose only one?

My Answer: I actually met with Yamima a long time ago, but I don’t know her method. Personally, I prefer to learn a method that’s based on ancient, practical knowledge and that uses authentic sources over any method invented by man. I have checked Kabbalah’s authenticity for myself, and I haven’t found any other method to attain the goal of Creation.

The Light has the same nature as the desire It created, and only the Light can change the desire. Therefore, the only method of man’s spiritual development is to attract the Light in order to change the desire. The only way we can attract the Light is by aspiring to be similar to It.

This is possible only by connecting with a group, by receiving its desire, which is greater than your own, natural desire. There is no other way to do this, according to the structure of creation!

Question: Are there any systems outside of Kabbalah whose rituals can bring one’s consciousness closer to the spiritual level, or do you consider these pure charlatanism?

My Answer: Charlatanism.

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Questions I received on the soul:

Question: What happens to the soul when the body dies?

My Answer: The soul is “a part of the Creator,” and the Creator is the quality of bestowal and love. So, a person acquires a soul when this quality of “love for one’s neighbor” emerges in him. However, he does not have a soul until he acquires this quality of love and bestowal, and is similar to an animal. This is why it is written in Kabbalistic texts, “All of you are like animals,” “A person is born a small animal,” and so on.

One can acquire the quality of bestowal and love only under the influence of the Upper Light, which is a force that corrects one’s egoism. This Light is called Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif ) or the Creator because It surrounds us and we are inside it. It is written, “The Creator is like water that cleanses Israel (Mikve Israel Hashem), where Israel is Yashar-El, meaning, one who aspires to the Creator, to bestowal and love.

What does this mean? A person perceives our world using his natural, egoistic qualities. When he obtains the altruistic quality of bestowal and love, he feels the Upper World inside this quality. This means that he acquires a soul.

Once he acquires this quality, it stays with him even if his egoistic quality vanishes, or in other words, even if his body (the matter we feel in our sensations) dies. And that’s because there is only one created matter – the desire, and all existence is felt within this desire. If the desire has the intention, “for one’s own sake,” then one perceives “our world” or “this world.” If the desire has the intention, “for the sake of one’s neighbor,” then one perceives the Upper World or the Creator.

The birth of our bodies, our life and death, are but the emergence and extinction of the Light inside the egoistic desire. Spiritual birth, on the other hand, is the emergence of the desire to bestow and to love outside of oneself (to act not for one’s own sake, or not in order to feel egoistically comfortable).

The desire to bestow is independent of the egoistic desire, through which we feel our bodies and this world. Therefore, when the body dies and the feeling of this world vanishes, what remains is the altruistic desire and the feeling of the Upper World.

Question: How can the soul “see,” “feel,” and “perceive” without the functioning of the brain?

My Answer: We feel everything inside the desire. The brain only helps us to distinguish what we see, or rather, what we desire.

Question: Is it really possible for the soul of a person who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, who has lost his memory and cognition, to restore all of this after death?

My Answer: Once a person develops the soul, the quality of bestowal, it never disappears.

Question: Why does it happen that infants and small children, whose souls have not yet been corrected, die so young?

My Answer: By existing for as long as they were destined to, they corrected a particular part of their spiritual development.

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A question I received: Our souls are in a broken state, but their structure – Malchut and the nine Sefirot, is the same for all. So what is the difference between them?

My Answer: The nine Sefirot, like parts of a person’s body, are the same for everyone. But the Malchut of a person, like a separate part of one body, differs from everyone else’s. And Malchut determines how the nine Sefirot pertaining to it are manifested, even though they are the same for everyone.

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A question I received: What role does personal prayer have in Kabbalah, and does the Creator hear it? Can a prayer that has been articulated in one’s own words ascend upward? Can it also be directed toward corporeal things, like the desire to have a house or sound health?

My Answer: A prayer to the Creator can be about anything at all. However, it must come from the heart; spoken words don’t matter one bit.

Actually, everything we feel is already our prayer. However, if our desires or prayers aren’t aligned with the path leading to the goal of creation, which is similarity to the Creator, then they are “adjusted.” In other words, we receive “bad grades” (punishment) and this corrects us. However, this is the lengthy and difficult path toward the goal.

There is another, brief and pleasant path, when we direct our desires or prayers toward similarity with the Creator, the goal of creation. How do we do this? It is possible only by uniting with the group and thereby receiving the group’s desire to attain the quality of bestowal. We then end up with a desire or prayer called a “collective prayer” (Tfila be Tsibur).

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A question I received: When I ask people for their opinion of you, some say that you are a fraud because the only people allowed to study Kabbalah are men who are Jewish, married, and over 40 years old. They say that anyone who teaches Kabbalah to women, youngsters, and non-Jews is a fraud, a layman, and an ignoramus. Please comment on this!

My Comment: My knowledge of Kabbalah can be tested, though I doubt there’s anyone qualified to do this. My daily lessons are an indication of the level of my teaching. In addition, everyone knows that I was Rabash’s student.

As for the prohibitions on teaching Kabbalah, such as teaching it to people under 40 years old, women, gentiles, and so on, see the commentaries of Kabbalists on this. And don’t worry about what people say about me; just follow my example. What they say comes from their current level. Give them time to grow up.

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Three questions I received about the meanings of different Biblical references:

Question: I would like to learn the deeper meaning of the Book of Ruth. Is this possible? Can I read about it somewhere?

My Answer: The Book of Zohar contains a Kabbalistic interpretation of the Book of Ruth.

Question: How does the commandment, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” differ from acquiring the quality of bestowal?

My Answer: They differ in the same way that a quality differs from an action.

Question: Help me understand the meaning of the phrase, “Envy, passion, and honor will lead a person out of this world” (Avot).

My Answer: By using these qualities correctly, a person can leave the egoistic world and enter the altruistic world.

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