Advancing With The Eyes Shut

527.03Question: What does advancing with the eyes shut mean in spirituality?

Answer: If I do not want to receive for my own sake and want to work only in order to bestow, it means that I do not want to see anything. I am advancing by faith.

However, if I clearly see the benefits of the connection with the Creator, then this causes my spiritual descent, I cannot get out of egoism.

Advancement is always above what I feel in my egoism. Then I can abstract away from the ego and correctly, objectively perceive the picture of the world.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/10/21

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Why Are We Creating States?

523Question: Do we create states in order for others to satisfy my needs?

Answer: Of course. This is the reason I want to live in a state. Otherwise, I can go to some uninhabited island, build myself a hut there, and live. But unfortunately, this is not possible.

If I want to exist normally with certain comfort, then I should not disconnect myself from society. By breaking away from society, I deprive myself of all rights, privileges, opportunities, and comfort.
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From Kab TV’s “Close-Up. Reference Point” 9/9/09

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The Altar—Point Of Connection Of All Desires

625.01Prophets, Joshua, 22:12; 22:16: And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled at Shiloh, to go up to war against them.

“Thus said the whole congregation of the Lord, ‘What treachery is this that you have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the Lord, in that you have built an altar that you might rebel this day against the Lord.

The two and a half tribes of Israel, who left Shiloh, reached the outskirts of Jordan and built a huge altar there.

The altar is that point of connection between us from which we raise all our thoughts and desires to the Creator. This is not a structure that burning is performed on. In spirituality, it has completely different functions.

In other words, the most important thing for the Israelites was to limit the places or, if I may say, the thoughts regarding the sacrifices: Why I am doing this? And this can only come from the one place that unites the whole people.

Therefore, the children of Israel rebelled very strongly and rose up against those who had gone beyond Jordan, because the altar should be the single place for the whole world. This is the place where all desires of all people are connected with intentions directed toward the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/23/21

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To The Court Of Elders

559Prophets, Joshua, 20:4: And he shall flee to one of those cities, and he shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city, and shall declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city to them, and give him a place, and he shall dwell among them.

If a man considers himself ready to get in touch with other desires, with other people, to rise to the next level of correction, to greater connection on the path to the desire of Adam, then he should decide this only in the court of elders.

Elders are those who have attained the highest degree of GAR. They sit at the gates of the city and decide whether or not to let him climb the next step. He must pass this exam.

Question: I do not want to mix this world with the spiritual world, but nevertheless, in some eastern villages such councils of elders still exist. Can we say that this is a projection onto our world?

Answer: This is the natural state of humanity when it appoints elders as its judges.

Question: Will we come to this someday?

Answer: It will come automatically but not in this form, of course: a city, a gate, old people sitting on stones, you come to them, and they begin to discuss something.

Question: Still, the Torah speaks of a city of criminals. What decision do the elders make? That a person has transgressed the law unintentionally?

Answer: No, there are different states and different settlements, cities. If a man wants to be judged fairly, correctly, then he goes to such people, and they make their own judgment about him.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/16/21

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Men And Women: A Guarantee For A Successful Union

632.1Question: How can women influence men by their desire so that we will draw the upper light and will really do this work?

Answer: The influence of one part of our vessel on another flows not by physical but by spiritual contacts. We can study in different places and not be in any physical contact but still influence each other.

We do not need to take joint actions. They are needed in dissemination, but the spiritual process does not require direct physical connection in the group, which can distract us from correctly aiming at the Creator.

Question: And what is the right way to influence each other correctly in the spiritual work?

Answer: We have to want to help each other, and when we want it, it makes no difference whether it is a man or a woman. It is revealed beyond any gender differences. It is simply a desire for the Creator.

A man will never understand what is revealed in a woman as part of her nature, and she will never understand what is revealed in a man. But we connect as one in the Creator, which is why it is said: “A man and a woman, if they are rewarded, the Shechina [Divinity] is between them.”

In order to attain the right union between us, we need to connect through the Creator. The Creator is between us and is our common source. It is only through Him that we can be connected correctly and permanently. It is the guarantee for a successful union both between men, between women, and between men and women.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/13/19

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The Difference Between The Human Degree And The Rest

423.01Question: People have long been interested in the establishment of countries. There are nine widely accepted theories on the subject. Kabbalah considers this process to be the development of the desire to receive. What is this process?

Answer: I am neither a political scientist nor an expert in formation of states. But when I listen to scientists, I see how abstruse they are: each has his own theories, and there are many of these theories, scientists are full of them.

Kabbalah explains everything much more simply. The matter of creation is the desire to enjoy, that is, an egoistic desire.

In the inanimate, vegetative, and animal world, this desire manifests itself in a primitive form, in the preservation of its existence. Crystals, minerals, and metals strive to preserve their structure, like the crystal lattice or the structure of atoms or molecules.

A plant, naturally, strives to survive in order to exist according to the principle of the best fit for its desire to enjoy, to be filled with life. While animal organisms also have the ability to move, to reproduce in a specific way, because their egoism requires such realization.

As for a person, this manifests itself in him in envy, jealousy, suffering in comparing himself with others as he acquires new desires through; absorbs them by looking at others. That is, he has an infinite ability to develop due to an inflow of extraneous desires. Because of jealousy and envy, he always finds new goals for himself.

Therefore, the human level is very different from others. For example, inanimate nature, which was formed after the Big Bang and the further expansion of the universe, develops according to certain laws, and there are no problems with that.

Vegetative nature exists, dies, gets reborn, and so it has been changing for millions of years. In animate nature, too, nothing special happens; we know the habits and characters of animals. True, different animals and even their various types have relatively different characters, but it’s nothing like a person who goes through significant changes throughout his life.

People build, not natural, but some incomprehensible combinations between themselves. This is not just a family, as in the animal world where a pair give birth to cubs, bring them up, and such is the purpose of their existence.

Animals live according to the instinctive law of nature, which is expressed without fail, in the construction of their specific groupings or larger flocks. But all this, ruled by instinct, never changes. The leaders change, but the lifestyle itself is set for each type of animal.

Not so for a person. As his egoism changes, so does what he creates around him. Once people lived like animals in groups. Perhaps they had common children, common wives, and common husbands.

With the manifestation of greater egoism, it began to be shared. But when the need to support each other, protect themselves from wild animals, or go hunting together disappeared, people began to separate from each other and create their own households. This is how, gradually, specialties got established: one is a shoemaker, a blacksmith, and so on.

That is, various groups and clans were formed, a very complex system of relationships between people was established, lawyers, economists and other specialists were needed.

All this existed even in the ancient world to protect the system of interconnections: courts, army, tax collectors and everything else.

The human body, which is constantly developing due to its internal egoism, requires a new, increasingly complex and confusing organization from us that is incomprehensible to a common person.
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From Kab TV’s “Close-Up. Reference Point” 9/9/09

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10/11/21

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #19 “What Is, ‘The Creator Hates the Bodies,’ in the Work?”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 63

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Selected Highlights

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 10/10/21

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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A Thread Extended From Infinity

938.04Kabbalists write that the Creator reveals Himself in the connection between us, in the center of the group. And everything that happens between us in the center of our group is perceived at the degree above us, which is called the Creator.

We are on a spiritual ladder that we need to climb up to the next degree above us, and then another, and yet another even higher. And we always receive instructions, lights, signals, and awakenings from the upper degree.

Therefore, it is necessary to strive to establish a connection with the upper degree and to become incorporated in it. This connection is achieved thanks to the greatness of the upper degree.

The upper degree relative to the lower is always considered as the Creator relative to creation. We have descended these degrees from the world of infinity through the Partzufim of Galgalta, AB, SAG to the degree of this world through five worlds, with five Partzufim in each world, and five Sefirot in each Partzuf,  which makes a total of 5 x 5 x 5 = 125 degrees.

We climb back up the same degrees. And the upper degree relative to the lower one is always called the Creator. First of all, this is so because it really gave birth to the lower degree when descending from top to bottom. And also because we can ascend back through it and attain it, “Come and see” the Creator, Bo-Re. And we will be able to climb even higher from it and move forward.

For every ten there is a thread extended from the world of infinity. And by this thread we must ascend to the world of infinity, to the end of correction. If we follow the advice of Kabbalists, then every time we rise from degree to degree from Malchut to Bina and again from Malchut to Bina.

The lower degree is called Malchut in relation to the higher degree called Bina. The elevating force is called faith above reason, the force of bestowal, the force of Bina, above the force of Malchut, the desire to receive. If we prefer the desire to bestow and connection with friends, then we can rise from Malchut to Bina, from the lower to the highest degree.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/21, Shamati #14 “What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator”

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“The Pandora Papers Will Not Make The World A Better Place” (Linkedin)


My new article on Linkedin “The Pandora Papers Will Not Make the World a Better Place”

A few days ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released what it defined as “An offshore data tsunami.” The nearly 3 terabytes of “data trove,” as the authors put it, “exposes the offshore secrets of wealthy elites from more than 200 countries and territories. These are people who use tax and secrecy havens to buy property and hide assets; many avoid taxes and worse. They include more than 330 politicians and 130 Forbes billionaires, as well as celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal family members and leaders of religious groups around the world.”

The goal of the ICIJ is admirable, and so are its efforts. Regrettably, even such successes as this exposure will not make the world a better place.

For all its size, this “trove” is a drop in an ocean of illegal and fraudulent money movements happening around the world. Today, when the ego is running amok, we cannot know what lurks underneath the surface.

The desire to possess is the worst, and wildest expression of the ego, but it is human nature and we should not judge those people until we are in their shoes. If we could amass millions of dollars with no effort and without being detected, would we be able to resist the temptation? And if we did, for how long would we resist it?

Despite its material manifestation, greed is actually a spiritual desire. It makes you want more and more until you give up on it altogether. But until then, it is insatiable. Our sages wrote about this in the Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah): “One does not leave the world with half one’s wishes in one’s hand, for one who has one hundred wants two hundred; one who has two hundred wants four hundred.” So precisely because it is insatiable, greed brings on itself its own end.

When we give up on satisfying ourselves, we will realize that happiness cannot be found in accumulating wealth and possessions. You cannot take with you any of it when you die, and you’re never satisfied with what you have since once you have it, you want twice as much.

Even so, humanity must go through this stage of excessive greed and lust for power, and no “data trove” will stop it. The only thing that will change the world for the better is when we realize that chasing wealth and power does not produce happiness, but rather more hunger: spiritual hunger for the rich, and physical hunger for the poor that they abuse.

From the look of it, we have more learning to do before humanity is ready to move to a higher and more humane stage in its development.
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