The Torah, “Exodus,” “Terumah,” 25:31, 25:37: And you shall make a menorah of pure gold. The menorah shall be made of hammered work; its base and its stem, its goblets, its knobs, and its flowers, shall all be one piece with it…And you shall make its lamps seven, and he shall kindle his so that they shed light towards its face.

The Menorah (lamp) is the embodiment of the good corrected ego (made of gold). It’s very hard to design and to consolidate the Menorah (to correct the ego so that it will shine as the Light), including the cups and the flowers that are made of one piece of metal.

Every item, every human egoistic attribute has to be of a certain size and shape so that all the features of the Menorah will resemble the Creator in all its seven parts: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. When Malchut becomes like all these seven attributes, it becomes totally like the Creator, as its egoistic matter, the despised gold metal, becomes the attribute of bestowal and actually becomes the means to light, the means to burn for the Creator, for the Light.

The Menorah symbolizes the ego that has become similar to the Creator that radiates Light by itself, although it isn’t naturally a source of light. Besides there is also the oil and the wicks, but the resemblance is achieved by the vessel for the oil and the light that comes out of it. So the symbol of the Menorah is still a great idea in itself, when the lowest form of the ego, (the gold) becomes the most sublime form of bestowal.

The seven candles of the Menorah form on the attribute of bestowal, Zeir Anpin, the ideal image of the Creator. This is called the inverse image of Adam, meaning similar to the Creator. By correcting the ego, Malchut, in the seven phases of the attribute of bestowal, connects totally to the Creator and by this action, Malchut attains the end of its correction.

On the whole, the Torah speaks about nothing but that. It only says which desires and according to which order we have to resemble the Creator, this is the whole plan, the spiritual work that is given in the Torah, which stems from the Hebrew word “Ora’a” which means “instruction.”
[121351]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/28/13

Related Material:
The Ark Of The Covenant
Why Do We Like To Kindle Candles?
The Reason We Kindle The Candle

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”: According to the above-mentioned power in the Torah, that is, considering the measure of Light in it, it is certain that the Torah should be divided into degrees, according to the measure of Light that one can receive from studying it.

The “Torah” is the means of correcting the primordial desire. The Light, “something out of something,” created the desire as “something out of nothing” and develops this desire to correct it to the required state. Thus, the whole influence of the Light on the desire during its development is called the “Torah.”

Thus, the “Torah” is the method of correction of the desire until it reaches the required state. Individual Lights “shake” vessels of desire, align them, connect, and disconnect, and all this is the Torah.

We are talking about it and coordinating ourselves to the extent that we are able to engage and draw the Light. The part that we attract is called the Torah for us. We can draw it according to one of the fives layers of desire (stages of Aviut), from zero to the four. Accordingly, the Torah is divided into five parts for us.

By studying it, we study the relationships of the broken fragments. Today, we observe their egoistic interaction; they depend on each other, but their connection is bad, and we study how to connect them correctly. For this we need the Light that Reforms to create good relationships with the various desires, parts of creation, and all the interconnections between people in the systems they have built. We want the Light to organize us in the correct connection; otherwise, all the achievements of humanity will end in failure.

That is why we need the wisdom of Kabbalah, the means which allows us to attract the Light. It will bring us back to the source, and then the general Light, the Creator, will be revealed in our correct relationships.

When I am studying, I align all these components—moving them from the broken state to the corrected one, from the crisis to unity, from an egoistic reception to general altruistic relationships, to connection and mutual guarantee—then the correct connection, the correct system will be revealed to me.

Moreover, they are revealed in stages. If I act only in the first layer of desire, I reveal the “secret” (Sod). The second layer shows “allegory” (Drush), the third one is the “hint” (Remez), and the fourth layer is the one where all connections are aligned correctly, it reveals to me the “simple meaning” (Pshat), here everything is simple, open, disclosed.

Thus, the Torah is the means for the correction of the vessels; the correction of the human being is the fourth stage (Behina Dalet) because it contains all the previous ones. When the human being is corrected, all the other levels are corrected as well: the still, vegetative, and animate.

Therefore, everything depends on the study of the Torah. This means that I want to learn the correct components and connections between the vessels in various forms, which bring me to the correct, true system where all the desires are connected with each other in mutual bestowal. And this makes it possible for me to reveal the Creator.

Thus, due to the connection of different desires and their interaction, through mutual bestowal to each other, I reveal the Creator. Why? Because in the desires that are connected correctly, in the spiritual Partzufim, in the “circles” and “straight lines,” TANTA (Ta’amim, Nekudot, Tagin, and Otiot) is manifested, all of the details of perception, all the discoveries that come to me from the Light. Thus, I disclose the vessel and the Light supporting each other, and this allows me to feel, to reveal, the root according to the principle “From Your actions we will know You.” It expresses itself in the Light and the vessel, in the structure of TANTA, HaVaYaH, and thus, is manifested in us.

This is the purpose of creation. Indeed, I am able to reveal Him only by adhesion, which I reach in the end. I reveal the Creator in the corrected vessels, the main TANTA, HaVaYaH is revealed, and by this I bring Him pleasure in the same way as He does. Due to this reciprocity, we come to adhesion, the final state.

In fact, all these facets are very close to each other, and the main thing for us is to try to link them together. The crisis, the current problems, the enemies that stand against us, and the Creator who saves us from them, the whole process that we go through, we must bring all of this together and view it as a single system.

For the time being we turn to the Torah as the book written by Moses. In it, he described and presented the very process that lies before us. It is said that in every generation, a person must view himself as if he came out of Egypt. The entire history up to the present crisis can be compared with the seven years of satiation. In general, we were pleased with our egoistic desire, our development, the “American Dream” which seemed about to come true. Competing with each other, we expected to rise higher and higher, to take more and more, to reign over nature…

Then, suddenly the seven years of famine arrived, the promised rewards were no longer satisfying; on the contrary, they humiliated and belittled us. The work turned out to be too hard, like slavery. Despair is rising; we groan under the unbearable yoke, and find no exit. The entire world is “floundering” in turmoil, and in essence these states herald the escape from Egypt. We are getting closer to the realization of complete helplessness, and the only way out is to show people the door to spirituality. This is truly a passage through the wall into a new world. However, the condition for passing through it is that we cannot see the wall. We will try…
[120976]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
From Secret To Simple Interpretation
The Morning Lesson: According To The Call Of The Heart Or A Time Table?
The Book That Connects The Sky And The Earth

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Group Work, Spiritual Work, Torah - 1 Comment →

The Torah, “Exodus,” 25:22: “I will arrange My meetings with you there, and I will speak with you from atop the ark-cover from between the two cherubim that are upon the Ark of the Testimony, all that I will command you unto the children of Israel.”

The Ark of the Covenant is called Aron Kodesh, it is a specially made cabinet in which the Tablets with the Ten Commandments are kept. On top of it there are two cherubim (angels or birds – Kruvim) that cover it with their wings, and between these wings, the Creator’s voice is heard.

This isn’t really a description of some physical objects but of forces and spiritual properties. The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only about the desire, the only matter existing in nature.

The Ark, or Aron Kodesh symbolizes a person’s corrected desires.

The uppermost area we can correct is called cherubim (Kruvim), (stemming from the word to come closer or to yearn for in Hebrew – Leitkarev). The distance between the cherubim symbolizes the desire that is constantly aimed at and yearns upwards, forward, towards the next level. It has to reach this state when it is totally aimed at the Creator. Therefore, it is from the uppermost form of the desires that are aimed at the Creator that according to the law of the equivalence of form of the Creator’s attributes and the attributes of the created being, that a person hears the Creator’s voice. It is there that his appeal to the Creator comes in contact with Him.

The construction of the Ark is described in the Torah and it means that we are shown of what desires and of what connection between them we should assemble ourselves, our soul.

We gather these components and put together all the parts of the desire in the right order consistently, and they create a resemblance to the Creator. So the soul is called Adam which means to resemble in Hebrew, the one who resembles the Creator. This is our work along the middle line, between the cherubim, the right line and the left line, where the revelation of the Creator takes place.
[120385]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/12/13

Related Material:
A Place For The Revelation Of The Creator
The Tabernacle Is The Place Of Our Spiritual Life
Creating A Model Of The Upper World In Me

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: We study that angels are forces. When does a person begin to clearly feel them within?

Answer: In the corporeal world, we sense various forces related to still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature. They are related to gravity, climatic phenomena, and the entire world that surrounds us.

They participate in human life by the positive or negative influences contained in them. These forces are called angels. Therefore, when we read that three “men” came to Abraham, the angels Rafael, Michael, and Gabriel, it means that he discerned these forces within. Angels are the forces of our soul, not someone from the outside. Some of these forces appear, some disappear, and their influences constantly change.

In truth, there is nothing but angels at various levels of desire. A person perceives them and classifies which of them he can advance with and which he cannot. The same is observed in our world. Only here, we recognize external forms of the forces: wind, rain, sound, people, animals, internal sensations, all of which are angels.

A Kabbalist in our world doesn’t look at the outside of phenomena. He sees through them what the Creator wishes to show and influence him by. Therefore, he focuses on the inner essence of the event and its meaning. After all, through these effects, the Creator is speaking with us. What does He want to say?

He wants us to unify the influences of all levels, still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, and bring them into our heart so that we feel only Him behind them. Then, they won’t be an obstacle that conceals the Creator any longer.
[24635]
From the “Weekly Torah Portion” 10/22/10

Related Material:
Angels in Kabbalah
A Meeting With The Angel Raziel
The Serpent Is The Angel of Help

Filed under: Perception, Spiritual Work, Torah, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Laitman Unplugged, Torah, Zohar - No Comments →

Torah, “Exodus,” Mishpatim, 22:20: And you shall not mistreat a stranger, nor shall you oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Even when more and more new desires for the sake of reception are discovered with you that appear in your “land”—meaning,  when in your corrected state, desires appear that you have not yet corrected—you don’t need to sweep them away, intentionally making a contraction on them and not accepting them. Rather, it is the opposite. You need to help them recover. This is what is called a “stranger.”

Torah, “Exodus,” Mishpatim, 22:21-22:23: You shall not oppress any widow or orphan. If you oppress him, [beware,] for if he cries out to Me, I will surely hear his cry. My wrath will be kindled, and I will slay you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children orphans.

A “widow” and a “fatherless child” are unfinished Kelim, unfinished vessels for advancement, completely uncorrected desires where not even half of them have been corrected. There is no contact with them for ascension.

“You shall not oppress” means that in any case you should not abandon them, rather always help in order to connect all the desires together. This is speaking about the person connecting all of his desires, his intentions, his characteristics, within himself into a single whole that will be called the soul in which he reveals the spiritual world.
[114789]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/27/13

Related Material:
The Essence Of Torah
A Person’s Private Desires
Be Your Own Prosecutor and Judge

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

The sages said: “A person should always be involved with Torah and Mitzvot even though it is Lo Lishma, for from Lo Lishma one comes to Lishma.”

In the article “613 Recommendations and 613 Commandments,” Introduction to The Book of Zohar explains to us that a person consists of 613 desires, and to correct them we do the 613 commandments. After all, this is specifically what we were commanded to do: to correct each and every desire and use them for the sake of bestowal.

In general, the desires or the commandments are divided into 248 positive and 365 prohibited Mitzvot. On the “forbidden” desires we must have to impose a restriction (Tzimtzum) and not use them. And with the 248 Mitzvot (desires), we need to use them as reception for the sake of bestowal. And that is how the person corrects all his 613 desires for the sake of bestowal: part of them through action and part of them through inaction.

The Light that Reforms corrects all the desires. Once it was Ohr Pnimi (Inner Light) that filled the desires, and after that it was removed from them and was left outside as Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light). Now all the desires are corrupted with an intention for the sake of reception, but we can link them with the Ohr Makif so that it will influence them and correct them with an intention of being for the sake of bestowal instead of being for the sake of reception. And after that, to the degree of the change of intention to being for the sake of bestowal, that Ohr Makif will enter into the desire in the role of Ohr Pnimi.

In this manner we serve as intermediaries, as “links” between the Ohr Makif and the corrupted desire. This is our work.
[116370]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/13, The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Rejoicing in the Holidays and Not Giving to the Poor”

Related Material:
The Commandments And The Laws
Lo Lishma: Having Something To Correct
A Very Sophisticated Animal Or A Human?

Filed under: Commandments, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

It says: “for they shall all know Me, from their smallest to their greatest,” (Jeremiah 31:33). This means that everyone must reach the end of correction.

It is very hard to fulfill this, but there is no other way. Everyday each of our friends who are on the spiritual path perform certain spiritual actions of correction, partly by their own freewill and partly unwillingly. Yet people still go through the process of correction, partly consciously but mostly unconsciously.

I have no doubts that I am leading my students correctly and that they will never say that they don’t understand where I have brought them to. They can check my recommendations by reading the sources based on the writings of other teachers, etc.

Question: Did you have any doubts when you were a student?

Answer: No, I reached the wisdom of Kabbalah having no doubts that it was the right choice. I immediately felt that the place I arrived had everything. Until then I had been through a long road of searching and had seen a lot of stupidity and folly.

It is impossible to find anything in science anymore. Internally, I understood that philosophy is empty. It is all nonsense and it is totally limited to our world. Then I thought that I might find something in religion, but would I?

After being in several religious institutions, I saw that some engaged only in observing the physical Mitzvot (commandments) without changing their inner attributes, so what’s the point? Others read Kabbalah, but they didn’t understand what they were reading at all, thinking it was enough to simply engage in reading. This means that they were like the other religious people who observe all the Mitzvot but read too and that there is nothing more to it than that, so what’s next?

So when I heard a logical explanation, I realized that I had a found a place that was undoubtedly right—the most serious thinking, accurate direction, with total connection to all the sources!

Before I found my teacher I read many books: the writings of Ari, the Talmud, and the Bible. I knew all the Mitzvot and observed them in part. So when I came to Rabash I was already living a religious life for about five years because in order to visit religious institutions I had to look accordingly at least externally. Besides, I believed that I had to be tied to our roots since my grandfather was also a very religious man.

But when I came to Rabash I realized that these people’s dealings are based only on the sources. Before, I also tried to read Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Book of Zohar, which describe special corrections, but what could I understand then? After all, I had never seen such knowledge, such extensiveness, such penetration of the still, vegetative, animate, and human connection.

So people who don’t understand what we study and what we speak about think that it is mysticism. Even today people have no idea what a great system we are dealing with.

We, however, play, juggling: this world, the next world, how they connect, how they integrate, and how a person feels himself in them. It is as if all this volume is before us. Of course, it is still theoretical and abstract for us now and cannot be described; it isn’t mystic but  theoretical and abstract. We work with this volume of forces, of interactions, attributes, and connections, while a person on the outside has to spend years in order to enter this system.
[116864]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/29/13

Related Material:
So The Student Should Become The Teacher’s Son
From Within Separation One Gains Completeness
Social Rejection Linked To Later Health Outcomes

Filed under: Group Work, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 19: …all the agonies in our world are but manifestations offered to our eyes, to prompt us to revoke the evil Klipa of the body and assume the complete form of the will to bestow. And it is as we have said, that the path of suffering in itself can bring us to the desired form.

Our corrupt desire has to develop, that is, to change in the course of its evolution. As it develops, it strives for pleasures as long as this pursuit doesn’t stop satisfying us. Now, on the contrary, it brings us troubles and problems.

The afflictions vary. Partially, they happen because a desire is unable to fulfill itself, which is not that scary yet. However, in addition the desire suffers from its own vices. In other words, the desire suffers not only because it experiences a lack of fulfillment but also because it feels a lack of vitality. It’s one thing when there is no abundance but it’s a totally different thing when there is a deficiency of essential things. This  eventually leads to death.

From this we see that desire can be accurately directed to anything. Sufferings forces people to run away them, that is, sufferings direct us to exactly where we should be. They don’t define the goal, but simply push us away from them.

But there is another path, the path of Torah. It reveals the purpose of man, which defines the goal without painful reminders. The state in which I feel bad (the evil state) pushes me away to a place where suffering stops being the main moving force. I move away from it to a distance of, let’s say, L₁. I stop there, and then, a new round of pain pushes me away again to a safe distance of L₂, solely to stop the torments.

This kind of Brownian movement can take years and generations. It is the path of suffering.

 

On the other hand, on the path of Torah, I pursue its purpose it in a good, peaceful manner, in the quickest way, through 125 degrees.
[82055]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
The Creator Does Not Need Our Suffering
Righteousness Isn’t Acquired By suffering
About sufferin Great Great And Small

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: What are “practical commandments?”

Answer: Practical commandments are corrections that we are capable of making today. The entire Torah and commandments are corrective actions that are made with the help of the Light.

As it is written, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice.” The evil inclination is the “material,” the egoistic desire. The “Torah” is the power of its correction. A man, me, should be positioned between them.

It is I who organizes a liaison between the Torah and the evil inclination. As it is written, “Whoever attains the Light hidden in the Torah can see with it from one end of the world to the other.” I am the one who defines egoism as evil and the Torah as a spice. My main duty is to initiate the impact of the spice to correct the evil inclination, so I build the whole system, and by doing so, transition from an evil inclination to a good one, which means that I am following the commandments.

There are practical commandments that are possible to follow right away, and there are commandments that are not available to us as of yet. In general, it’s about the methodology of the fulfillment of the commandments (corrective actions) with the help of the Torah (the Light).

“Commandment” is a transition from evil to good, from receiving to bestowal, from egoistic intention to altruistic in each given desire. It is done by the Light. Accordingly, before anything else, I must identify evil with the help of the Light of the Torah. Then, I will be able to make a request that will lead me to a good inclination.

I cope with all stages of this path due to the Light. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the general, great rule of the Torah, the corrected form. The corrupt form (the evil inclination) signifies hatred toward our neighbors. Therefore, the Torah is not a scroll of parchment that is kept in a special bookcase but the Light that Reforms.
[82789]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
The Commandment: Love Thy Friend
Spice Up Your Desire
An Honorable Task Of Becoming Righteous

Filed under: Commandments, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Torah, Zohar - No Comments →