Question: What is independence from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: Independence is gained only in the middle line to the extent that you can rise above your egoism on the one hand and above the property of the property of the Creator on the other hand.

That is, you want to be independent of both your own desire and the desire of the Creator. By rising in the middle line above both of them, you achieve independence.

Our great teacher Baal HaSulam likens this to the example of the guest and the host. Suppose I come to visit you and you treat me to all kinds of food. Let’s say that you, as the Creator, know what I want because you created all the desires in me. You offer me absolutely all the dishes, everything that I can fulfill myself with, in exactly the quantity and quality that was aroused in me in advance.

If I start eating it, I will eventually be subject to my desire. I will not be independent because I am completely dependent on my desire and on you. Even if I refuse, the desire to use this desire and these pleasures will not disappear in me and I will remain dependent on you.

How can I act in order to be independent both of you as the host, as the Creator, and of myself, my egoism, as a creation, a creation, to rise above it, to be above it? Imagine what an opportunity the Creator gives a person! How can this be done?

If I start using my egoism to eat your treats, but not for my own sake (although I enjoy it), but in order to please you, I make you (because you want me to enjoy it) into a consumer, my “client,” a guest. And I myself turn into a master.

Here we get a very interesting reversal of our states, our statuses: I rise above everything. The Creator made it possible for a person, as His beloved child, to rise above himself and above Him in the middle line. In this way, we gain independence, independence, eternity, perfection, and absolute freedom!

The Creator needs us to attain this because He is perfection He cannot create anything imperfect.

Question: Is this state of independence called perfection?

Answer: It is the only perfection.

Comment: On the other hand, we say that we are dependent on each other, that all souls are tied to each other and we are all one organism.

Answer: Yes, we, the creatures, depend on each other, but not on our egoism, which is created in us by the Creator, and not on the Creator Himself.

In order to rise above myself, I need to connect with others, to achieve the quality of “love your neighbor,” the property of bestowal. If I do this by rising above my egoism, which remains in me, and I use it with the quality of bestowal and to become like the host, the Creator who wants to treat me, then I rise above everything and become absolutely independent.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #6

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Comment: The great 12th century Kabbalist, philosopher, and doctor Rambam dedicated many of his medical works to meal and food consumption. He said that it is best for a person to use all five senses during the meal. That is, the meal should be accompanied by smells, music, incense, and so on.

My Response: We no longer use incense although small snuff boxes with tobacco for inhaling were very popular among Kabbalists.

Question: What is the reason that a person needs to use all five sensory organs?  This is quite a ceremony.

Answer: Yes, it really is. When the old Kabbalists who studied with Rabash invited me to join their meal, it became a real ceremony for me. I remember that I prepared for it with great inner trepidation. It meant a lot to me.

Comment: Rambam also wrote that it was necessary to chew food carefully or it would harm us. We have teeth for this.

My Response: 32 teeth are like 32 millstones that grind food in order to sort it, prepare it for consumption, and then swallow it. We need to understand the mechanics of the chewing apparatus, why we have lips, tongue, cheeks, how the mouth is arranged, and what all our movements lead to.

We are arranged according to the spiritual world. Our biological body is a consequence of the correlation of spiritual forces with each other. And since from above there must be such a reception of the light into our desires, our body is so designed to absorb food and move toward spiritual reception.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/9/21

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Prophets, Joshua, 6:16:  And it was at the seventh time, the priests blew with the trumpets, and Joshua said to the people, Shout, for the Lord has given you the city.

“To blow the trumpet” means to use the quality of mercy for correction, for bestowal. Usually, blowing the horn is used only on special occasions, on special holidays: for example, on Yom Kippur (Judgment Day). All these cases are described in the Torah.

The sound of the horn symbolizes the need to invoke Bina, the quality of bestowal, which completely conquers and destroys the remnants of egoism that exist in us. After all, the children of Israel have already surrounded and broken through the wall. It is clear that now there will be a final victory over all the seven stages of egoism.

When a person blows a horn, expels air with his breath, which passes through the horn of a kosher animal, then a special quality of mercy is manifested, which corrects egoistic desires, and walls collapse.

Question: What is this cry of the people breaking down the wall? Should all people shout, and only then will the wall fall?

Answer: This is the cry of the soul, a plea to the property that they want to achieve. A cry is not a word, not a song, but the apotheosis of prayer.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/12/21

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Question: Can we say that now all of humanity is in the period of preparation for entering the land of Israel?

Answer: Humanity is in a period of preparation from the point of view of how it is being prepared from above. But how does it feel down below? People are in a semi-conscious state that something is happening to them that they do not understand at all.

Nevertheless, we are entering the era of the last generation since there are already several thousand people who understand the meaning of what is happening and their task of taking on this mission and fulfilling it.

The rest will join, there is no conversation with them. After all, if a person does not receive awakening from above to reach the property of bestowal and love, you cannot demand anything from him, he remains at the level at which he is.

The same several thousand who understand the essence of what is happening can be imagined as Israelis approaching this border. They will be drawn from all over the Earth, as they say. Not that they will move here physically, but they will begin to rise internally and gradually create a detachment of pioneers who will enter the holy land.

Question: Will the whole world enter after them?

Answer: The whole world will not even enter. It will simply connect to them. But the division into Galgalta ve Eynaim and AHAP, into pioneers, trailblazers, and the rest of the population will remain.

It is thanks to the connection between this small group that the rest of humanity will inevitably be pulled up under it and gradually attract more and more upper energy, more light through it. In this way, they too will begin to change.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/12/21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Ibur (Impregnation) and Yenika (Nursing)”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

Selected Highlights

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We are at the final stage of the global correction, called the last generation, and therefore, we must awaken each other. Otherwise, nature will increase the pressure on us day after day to show that we are in a very serious and dangerous process.

We are spoiled and do not understand that a small change in nature is enough for us to start dying from hunger, scorching heat, and catastrophic floods.

We do not yet know what tests nature is preparing for us to teach us bit by bit. If it were simply to break us, it would be easy to do. But the Creator does not want that. He does everything to teach us.

Through corporeal adversity, He helps us discover through what internal changes we can rise above physical suffering. By building a spiritual network of connections on top of what is happening on the corporeal level, we will wake up more and more and reveal what is happening in the global system.

Fires, floods, and extreme heat are the reaction of nature to what is happening in the relations between people. And in order to put everything in order, it is necessary only to establish correct connections between us. The more we unite, the more we will soften the attitude of the Creator toward us and  manifest the same forms in a positive way.

Instead of flooding, we will get a lot of water for beneficial use, instead of fires, we will get warmth, and even viruses will become useful. We can make all phenomena favorable. Everything depends only on our attitude toward nature.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/21, “Ibur (Impregnation) and Yenika (Nursing)”

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My new article on Linkedin “Time to Revamp Our Thinking about Our Children”

According to an essay published on July 20, 2021 in the Journal of Adolescence, over the past several years, there has been a significant increase in loneliness at school among teenagers. The essay, titled “Worldwide increases in adolescent loneliness,” written by acclaimed Professor of psychology Jean M. Twenge and several other researchers, concludes that between 2012 and 2018, “adolescent loneliness increased … in 36 of 37 countries. Worldwide, nearly twice as many adolescents in 2018 scored high in loneliness than in 2000, with much of the increase occurring after 2012.” However, the researchers add that “Even with the recent increases … the majority of students did not report high levels of loneliness.”

So are adolescents lonely or are they not? I think that the problem is not that they are lonely, but that we don’t understand how they think and feel, and therefore often attribute to them emotional states that they are not experiencing because we think they’re built like us, but they are not.

Today’s teenagers are smarter, more sensitive, and more understanding than we often think. They look at us, at what we have (or have not) accomplished, at the consequences of our actions, and draw their own conclusions. They’re not as excited as we were about academic titles, about traveling, or about accumulating wealth and possessions. Everything is accessible for them at the touch of a finger on the cell-phone, and they don’t have the drive that we had to achieve, to be “somebody.” They see how “happy” it has made us and what a world we’ve built because of it.

When I look at my grandchildren, they don’t seem to me like they are suffering. It is a new generation with a different character. They ask pragmatic questions; they want to know what they will get out of everything they do, and when they don’t get satisfactory answers, they order a pizza delivery and stay at home with their social media apps and games. At best, they might ask a friend or two over, but often, they will communicate with friends only on social media.

Yet, the fact that they are alone does not mean that they are lonely. Some are lonely, and some or not, just as we were. For them, being alone for many hours does not mean that they are lonely. When we wanted to socialize, we went outside. When they want to socialize, they go online. They’re living in a different world, and the sooner we realize it, the easier we will make it on them to grow in it.

We must support them and care for them, but we must also let them grow on their own terms and in their own way. They’ll have their challenges like the rest of us, and they will need our help, but we must not force our worldview on them, since it will only prevent them from developing the worldview that they need to have in today’s reality, where everything is mixed and interconnected—physical and virtual, local and global, alone and together.

I am not implying that we should not see that they do not go the wrong way. However, we should also not force them to go our way just because we think our way was right for us. In fact, if it was right for us when we grew up, it is certainly not right for them, since the world where we grew up doesn’t exist anymore; we’re living in a different world. Therefore, today’s adolescents must find their own way, and we must help them search for it with confidence, knowing that they have a cushion to fall back on if they need to.

In addition to the above, I would teach them the basics of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science of connecting people, so learning the principles of positive connections with people can be very helpful in a hyper-connected world. I think that if we adopt this approach, we will go through our children’s adolescence more easily and pleasantly.
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My new article on Linkedin “How to Make Good Decisions”

Ostensibly, we are constantly making decisions. In practice, it is not at all certain that to this day we have made a single truly significant decision about the meaning of life or about the inner potential that is hidden inside us.

If we stop for a moment and map out everything we go through during a typical day or week, we would find that most of the actions we make are out of necessity in our reality. We have commitments, pre-set frameworks of action, agendas. The main choices we make are related to the most pressing things we need to take care of—and here it is important to know in advance what we are going to do— and how to prioritize our tasks and plan our time to fulfill our responsibilities.

In mundane decisions it can be a good idea to consult with experts, hear the opinions of people we trust, and so on. However, in substantive decisions that pertain to the essence of our own life, it is important to listen to the inner voice within us. Only.

And here we should strive for the innermost voice that is truly ours, and not the opinions of other people, even of parents or friends. We have to listen to our authentic inner self to answer the most significant questions of our very existence: Who am I? What am I drawn to? What do I want to live for?

If we feel the inward urge to determine what matters most to us in life, our most meaningful life goals, all the daily decisions will follow the lead and fall into place smoothly.

In general, it is important to keep balance between mind and emotion, and it is not simple. On the one hand, the mind helps to make decisions in places where emotion is lacking. On the other hand, if we only follow our mind, then we may not be able to appreciate the wider picture that ensures making the right decision. Therefore, a balance between the mind and the emotion means that they will complement each other in such a way that the emotional actions will be the result of an informed process, and the rational decisions will be such that we could also sustain them emotionally.

At the most advanced level of development we learn to be above ourselves, meaning above our emotion and mind, above our habits and thought patterns. This is already a level of spiritual development in which we explore our inner self, what we need to correct within ourselves, and how to use these discernments to make the best decisions.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us what our nature is, what the nature of the world around us is, and where evolution necessarily advances the human race. And when the whole map of development begins to unfold before us, we discover what we can influence and what we cannot, where exactly our free choice is. This describes the decision making process at the highest possible level for a fulfilling and meaningful life.

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My new article on Linkedin “Hiroshima – Have We Learned the Lesson?”

In the late 1940s and early 50s, the great kabbalist and thinker Baal HaSulam wrote a series of essays and notes that were later compiled into what became known as The Writings of the Last Generation. In those writings, Baal HaSulam described the challenges he saw in humanity’s situation, what he feared those challenges might lead to, and how he thought humanity should resolve them.

In Part One of the writings, Baal HaSulam paints a very gloomy picture of the future of humanity unless we carry out our duty to shift our efforts from thinking only of ourselves to thinking about others. In his words, “I have already said that there are two ways to discover the completeness: the path of light or the path of suffering. Hence, the Creator [nature] has given humanity technology, until they have invented the atom and the hydrogen bombs. If the absolute ruin that they are destined to bring upon the world is still not evident to the world, they can wait for a third world war, or a fourth one. The bombs will do their thing, and the relics who remain after the ruin will have no other choice but to take upon themselves this work where both individuals and nations do not work for themselves more than is necessary for their sustenance, while everything else they do is for the good of others. If all the nations of the world agree to it, there will no longer be wars in the world, for no person will be concerned with his own good whatsoever, but only with the good of others.” Have we learned our lesson? Are we afraid of the bomb enough to relinquish the pursuit of power and, instead, work for the sake of others in order to secure a peaceful future for humanity?

I don’t know the answer to this question. I know that humanity is still fearful of the horrendous consequences of nuclear weapons, but I don’t know if this worry is enough to block ruthless and reckless leaders from using them regardless.

The problem is that we are built with two very different qualities within us. One quality is the reasonable one, which warns that unless we exercise restraint, we could obliterate human civilization in an instant. The other quality says that having such power means that the minute you have it, you become the ruler of the world, and this is an irresistible enticement.

If people felt connected to each other, we wouldn’t go in that direction to begin with; we wouldn’t go to war, much less a nuclear war. But since we do not feel connected, our only consideration is the self-centered one, and in such a state, no caution influences us. Currently, even if we know that once we embark on nuclear warfare we will seal our own doom, and we do know it, we will still go through with it. When hatred rules, it knows no limits.

Because hatred sets the tone in our relationships, the only way to prevent us from tipping the scales toward a nuclear war is to change human nature from egotism to altruism, from putting “me” before “we.” Nothing else will prevent us from setting off an inferno on a global scale. Such a flip of character will not come easily; it will require everyone’s willingness to go through the process. If only some people go through it while others maintain their selfish mindset, the selfish will exploit those who are attempting to change, and this will thwart the entire process.

For this reason, it is imperative that as many people as possible know what lies ahead if we continue on the self-centered trajectory, and that we can change it if we want. People must know that they have a choice, since choice means hope, and hope prompts action. If we act together, we will build a good future for everyone. If we remain apart, none of us will have any future.
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