A question I received: The objective of every government is to lull people’s consciousness. That way people will not fall under influence of any kind of extremism. This is why the mass media has to stupefy or brainwash the masses. Clearly, man’s inner resources are not being used in this case, since they become dormant.

In the modern systematic crisis (whose essence can only be seen by Kabbalists), the government is even more eager to lull the people, since it doesn’t know what to do and even admits that it’s helpless! What solution do you propose?

My Answer: Kabbalah offers the only solution that can awaken people to action, without the danger of breaking the fragile balance of forces within the civilization that still manages to hold the world back from complete destruction and chaos.

The most general stages of realizing the solution are the following:
1. The “background mode” of the mass media should be used to give people a subconscious understanding that everyone is connected with everyone and that humanity is a unified whole. In addition, people should be made to understand what is “good” and and what is “bad” – that altruism, recognition that all people are interdependent, and the corresponding actions are good, while egoism and petty pursuit of self benefit are bad, both for the individual and for humanity as a whole.

2. Once this will enter the public consciousness, we will begin motivating people to become conscious and start making altruistic actions. At first the motive will be to solve the obvious, simple, corporeal problems, in order for everyone to see the benefits of the new way of thinking.

3. Even during stages 1 and 2, it is necessary to introduce into the streams of information, thoughts about the existence of a single force, the final goal of universe:

a) At first this should be done in a complex manner, accessible only to the people who think;
b) When the active stage begins, this should be done through simple information that’s clear to the masses, making it obvious that this is the most appealing worldview for every person.

This will give us the opportunity to unite all of humanity in a single impulse to solve our common problem, and at the same time – in the process of solving the problem – the separated souls will combine to create a single system of humanity.

What is special about this proposition? Kabbalah is the only basis with the ability to create an ideological system that satisfies two mutually exclusive criteria:
a) The system must be so powerful that people’s consciousness will not grow disillusioned of it and reject it;
b) The system must stimulate the masses to transform their consciousness.

All the other ideological models satisfy just one of these requirements:
a) Either the system works well to stimulate people’s consciousness, but does not endure (for example, revolutions);
b) Or the system brainwashes people’s consciousness, but by doing so deprives them of the active, creative force that can change the world (for example, religion).

In addition, after going through a specific period of inner changes, man discards the boundaries of the proposed model and from then on, the path of his consciousness becomes unpredictable. Still, Kabbalah helps people build the model of a new world that’s guaranteed to work with all the changes, enabling an individual’s consciousness to develop without any limitations over the course of his entire life.

This is because Kabbalah uses a physical principle that was unknown before it: when the parts of a system are correctly unified, the system gains energy overall. In other words, without altering our material resources (food, water, oil, and so on), we can solve all our problems simply by unifying people altruistically rather than egoistically (see the example of the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage).

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I was doing some research on modern Kabbalistic sources, and came across a book called Kabbalah: New Perspectives, by Prof. Moshe Idel. In it he mentions a poem by Prof. Gershom Sholem (1897 – 1982) – the founder of the modern academic field of Kabbalah. But before I say more about this poem, here is some background on its author.

Sholem devoted his career to replacing the traditional attainment of Kabbalah with academic and philological research. For example, in one of his lectures, published in the book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, this is how he describes Kabbalah in his time, “As a result of Kabbalah’s lengthy process of development, during which Kabbalah paradoxically influenced Jewish history, it has again become the same thing it was in the beginning – an esoteric wisdom of small groups of people, who are deprived of contact with life and have no influence on it.” Likewise, in the article “On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time,” Sholem writes, “There is no doubt that in recent generations there were no awakened individuals who could bring mystical teachings to new forms or start significant social movements.”

In this article, like in many others, Sholem denies modern Kabbalah, or Kabbalah of the 20th century. He points out that Kabbalah has ceased playing an important role in the Jewish culture of his time and that no original and innovative Kabbalistic methods have been created since the 18th century! This viewpoint is very obvious in the article “On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time.” Sholem’s attitude to Kabbalah in his time is also described by the modern researcher, Prof. Boaz Hoss, in the article “Don’t Ask All Questions.”

Considering all this, it’s important to point out that Gershom Sholem, the founder of the modern academic research of Kabbalah, and a scholar who’s renowned by the entire academic world, never says a word in any of his research about Baal HaSulam, the greatest Kabbalist of his time, nor of his works on Kabbalah. How can a researcher overlook something like this? This is an example of envy, dishonesty and petty egoism that do not allow a researcher to face the truth: to admit to himself and to the entire world that all academic research of Kabbalah, anything besides its attainment – is false!

When I was giving a series of lectures in American universities, I heard different comments about Gershom Sholem. In particular, I recall one distinctive comment from the Rector of the University of Illinois, who said, “Gershom talked about Kabbalah, but you are talking from Kabbalah. He urged people to research it with the mind, while you urge people to enter it with their feelings.”

The poem that appears below was written by Gershom Sholem shortly before his death, and it shows that despite everything, he finally admitted that he is in the dark and does not attain that which is concealed in the Kabbalistic texts. Yet, the superficial academic approach and the dishonesty in researching Kabbalah that he sowed continue to be practiced by his students.

“Death in the Professoriate” was a result of replacing research of Kabbalah “through oneself and inside oneself” (or in other words, by correcting oneself in similarity to the Upper One) with academic research that’s done “outside of oneself” (in conjunction with meditation according to Abulafia).

“Vae Victis” (Woe to the Conquered) or “Death in the Professoriate”
I threw myself into ancient books.
I was awestruck by their signs.
I spent too much time alone with them.
I could no longer leave them behind.

The glimmer of Truth is ancient,
Yet disaster is unforeseen:
Generations are weakly linked,
And knowledge is not clean.

I have brought back the blurred face
Of the fullness of time.
I was ready to leap into the abyss,
But was I really primed?

The ancestral symbols are here explained;
The Kabbalist was no dope.
But what transformed time proposed
Remains foreign, beyond our scope.

Time transformed casts us a fearsome glance,
For it is unwilling to turn back again.
Yet abandoned joys grow palpable
Once your Vision has dissolved in pain.

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A question I received: What can every person do to change the situation in the world?

My Answer: No physical, political, scientific, or social actions can change our world. So if the world can’t be changed, perhaps we can change man. What will this give us?

Physicists are discovering that the results of scientific experiments depend on man’s presence, even though they still don’t know the degree of this influence nor its nature. Kabbalah studies how man’s consciousness and intentions affect reality, and how we can control this influence in order to change reality!

There is an initial, constant and absolute reality – the World of infinity. Besides, there is a reality that we create with our intentions. In our world, we have never before changed our egoistic intentions. We did not know that by changing our intentions from “for our own sake” to “for the sake of others,” we actually change all of reality.

We did not know that we can affect reality to the degree we become similar to the Creator’s quality – “bestowal and love.” Kabbalah tells us how to do this.

At the end of our spiritual development we will be convinced that the only thing we have to change is ourselves (rather than the world). By doing so we won’t just change our world, but all of reality will change from corporeal to spiritual, from life in the body to life in the soul.

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When I speak to economists about the crisis, I find that they and I are interested in different things. They are not interested in the cause of the crisis, and are willing to accept my explanation of it. What interests them is the evolution of the crisis, and what needs to be done here and now – by a bank or a family.

For now, my propositions that what needs to be corrected are the relationships between everyone – both organizations and people around the world, sound naïve to them, because they do not yet see the cause of the crisis – the lack of kind connections between people. These connections must come from the understanding that we are all part of one organism, and we can cure this organism only by mutually caring for all of its parts. That is the only way to solve this global problem and all the crises that are gradually becoming revealed in humanity today. They are being revealed because our egoistic development has brought us to the point where we are all united within a single organism.

With regard to the global crisis, the process has begun, but this is just the beginning. There is a lot to say about it, and we will talk about it much more in the future – its causes, progress, purpose, and possibilities of softening it – “the path of Light” that Kabbalah offers instead of “the path of suffering.”

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A question I received: Is there a way of stopping the thoughts that constantly keep coming to us? Can we learn to control our thoughts?

My Answer: Of course! We often think about things that we don’t want to think about. We often attempt to restrain our thoughts, change them, and replace them with other thoughts. When we can’t do this, we feel weak and stupid, as if we’ve lost control over ourselves.

In reality our thoughts do not come to us “out of nowhere.” At first a desire arises in us, even if we don’t feel it. After this, a thought emerges from the desire. The desire brings about the thought. Hence we only think about the things we want: How can we acquire, hold on to, and develop the things we desire; or how can we put more distance between us and the things we don’t desire.

A thought cannot change a desire. It can only change the size of a desire, increasing or decreasing it. Similarly, we also can’t replace one thought with another.

Hence, we can only control our thoughts by controlling our desires. So the question really is: How can I change my desires? The answer is: through the environment – the group, the books, and the teacher!

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News Report (translated from CNews.ru): A group of Oxford based researchers has submitted a paper to Physical Review Letters (one of the world’s most prestigious physics journals) seeking to explain the observed dynamics of the Universe. It proposes that we are inside a special, unique location in the Universe where matter’s density is abnormally low and is atypical for the Universe as a whole. This theory, called Geocentrism, supposes that we are located in the center of the Universe.

The alternative point of view is the Copernican principle, which postulates that the Universe is uniform and does not have a special place for the Earth or the Solar System. This is the principle that the current scientific theories are based upon. However, it is unable to explain the modern scientific conception of the world.

My Comment: According to the science of Kabbalah (part 16 of the Talmud Eser Sefirot), our world is the last degree of the lowest spiritual world, the World of Assiya. It is located in the center of all the worlds, and in the center of our world lies the Solar System, and in its center lies the planet Earth. At the Earth’s center lies Israel, at its center – Jerusalem, at its center – Mount Moriah, then the Temple, and finally – the Holy of Holies (a room with special relics). All of this reflects the influence and proportions of the spiritual forces.

Modern science is nearing its end, the ceiling of its qualitative development. It’s already discovering a barrier that it cannot cross, and hence it is adjusting its theories to match what Kabbalah has been saying for millennia. In Part 1 of “The Tree of Life,” Kabbalist the Ari writes that our world of matter is inside all the spheres of the spiritual force field:

And when upon His simple will,
Came the desire to create the world and emanate the emanations,
To bring to light the perfection of His deeds, His names, His appellations,
Which was the cause of the creation of the worlds,
He then restricted Himself, in the middle,
Precisely in the center,
He restricted the Light.
And the Light drew far off to the sides around that middle point.
And there remained an empty space, a vacuum
Circling the middle point.
And the restriction had been uniform
Around the empty point,
So that the space
Was evenly circled around it.
There, after the restriction,
Having formed a vacuum and a space
Precisely in the middle of the endless light,
A place was formed,
Where the emanated and the created might reside.

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A question I received: In a previous blog entry someone asked you: “How is it known that there is only one true source of Kabbalah?” You answered: “There can’t be several because the Creator is one.”

I fully agree with you about Berg and his shamanistic business concepts, such as selling spirituality through red strings, cameos and reading spells or blessings. But I still don’t understand why there is only one, unique and single source of Kabbalah! After all, during the times of the Second Temple there were thousands of Kabbalists. Based on the qualities of their souls, each of them taught his students differently about how to attain the Single Creator. The students had a choice.

Moreover, you have said that until the 19th century most rabbis were Baalei Hasaga (they attained spirituality), so people also had a choice.

But now you’re declaring that your path is the only correct one. Can our world really be so scanty on Kabbalists that there’s no one left but you who is

a) A Kabbalist, and

b) A revealed Kabbalist – someone whom you, as a Kabbalist, can genuinely recommend to a potential student who is still at the stage of searching for the right Teacher? And what about the verse, “There are many paths to the Creator”?

My Answer: In the process of studying Kabbalah, one often experiences doubts about the correctness of the path. This happens because the path and the goal are concealed. The path is paved with descents, and times of clarity are rare. Unlike egoistic advancement, on the path of Kabbalah you are going against yourself. This is why the question arises, “Can it be true that the worse things are, the better they are?”

When I asked Rabash about how can I be sure that he is my teacher, he replied, “You have to verify this for yourself!” In fact, even Baal HaSulam wrote in his Letters that he no longer saw any Kabbalists in his generation. I also don’t see any, other than myself and my students.

Every person has to find his own teacher. I don’t have the addresses of “Teachers-Kabbalists,” but you can easily find them through the search engines by searching the keyword “Kabbalah.”

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Questions I received on the virtual society of the future:

Question: Which technical means (Internet, TV, radio, and so on) can be used to create the virtual society of the future? Does the necessary technical support exist today? What other things are necessary that haven’t yet manifested in our world?

My Answer: We are starting to really focus on this now, and it is becoming our highest priority project – to create a virtual meeting space for all those who aspire to unite, who strive toward the Creator. As soon as this common aspiration will acquire the needed goal-oriented force, it will begin radiating with similarity to the Creator. He will then become revealed to everyone within this unity.

Your advancement upwards depends on the efforts you make to disseminate Kabbalah outwards – to add more souls to the correction. Hence I recommend not missing the opportunity to participate in the development of the virtual Kabbalistic community.

You can send your ideas to [email protected]

Question: Since the internet is developing so fast, is there any point in hosting distance classes for beginners? Maybe we should have fewer classes like this?

My Answer: I think that soon this will come to an end on its own. However, as long as there are people who desire this, we should continue doing it. You should continue developing only the virtual education, communication, and even congresses.

Question: Your blog is already a virtual group for those who “enter” it. However, don’t real groups have a very big influence on the world Kli, while the influence of an internet participant is much smaller? Yet the combined influence of a large number of virtual participants is much bigger than the influence of real groups?

My Answer: Everything adds up to a combined effort until it will reach the necessary size, and then – inside this common mass – everyone together will start to feel the Upper Presence.

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A question I received: I thought that all the terms in Kabbalah, such as Goy (gentile), the nations of the world, Israel, and Jew, are states that every person must experience. It’s sad that all of your answers are always two-sided. From this explanation it follows that Adam HaRishon is not a common state, but only for genetic Jews, because they have already been there, while the “gentiles” haven’t even had a slight taste of it. But then why are they in a state of descent?

My Answer: You should look at everything objectively, like a researcher. Then you’ll be closer to the truth. All the terms exist both on the corporeal and the spiritual levels. Every person must experience every state.

Those who have gone through the spiritual ascent and descent in the past are the genetic Jews, starting with Abraham, the first Kabbalist. (We don’t consider anyone before him since there was no system, even though everything started with Adam.) These people (souls) must be the first to go through the correction, because they broke during the First and the Second Temples. They must then pass the method on to everyone else.

On the corporeal level, they are hated and abused for neglecting this mission. Incidentally, the Hebrew word Goy (gentile) means a nation. Israel is also referred to as “Goy,” but “Goy Kadosh” – a holy nation, provided that it is in the quality of love and bestowal.

Adam is the common soul of all people. A part of Adam – the souls of Abraham’s students, underwent spiritual ascent and breaking. Another part of the souls, the Goyim (gentiles) never ascended or broke. The broken souls are worse than those that didn’t break, but they also have a greater predisposition toward correction because they contain the broken spiritual desires. This is why they are obligated to become “Ohr Le Goim” – the Light for the nations of the world, who don’t contain the broken desires.

Being “chosen” means being responsible for mastering the method of correction and passing it on to the entire world, or in other words – spiritually serving the world.

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The Book of Zohar. Chapter “The Tenth Commandment” (abridged)

237. The tenth Commandment (law of nature) is to put on Tefillin (correct one’s egoism) and thereby to attain equivalence with the Creator, as it is written, THE CREATOR CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE. He opened (the way for the Light of Rashbi) and said (passed it on to his students), “Your head upon you is like the Carmel.” This text refers to the Supernal head – the Tefillin worn on the head of the Holy, Supernal King HaVaYaH (the governing force), written in separate letters (specific actions). Each letter (action) in the holy name (program) HaVaYaH corresponds to a certain paragraph in the Tefillin (a certain correction). Thus, the Holy, Supernal Name (the Creator’s quality) is written in the scrolls of Tefillin, in the secrets of the letters (is revealed through the correction). For THE NAME OF THE CREATOR IS UPON YOU, AND THEY SHALL BE AFRAID OF YOU (your enemies are your uncorrected desires) refers to the head Tefillin, which contains the Holy Name HaVaYaH.

238. The first passage in the Tefillin corresponds to the letter Yod of the name HaVaYaH (Hochma) and refers to the Commandment, “Sanctify to Me all the firstborns.” This is because Hochma is the firstborn (the first correction) of all the Supernal Ones (qualities). It opens the place of conception for the future firstborn with the help of a thin line of Light that emanates from Yod, which opens the womb (Bina) and impregnates it.

239. The second passage (correction) in the Tefillin (equivalence to the Creator), WHEN YOU COME, corresponds to the first letter Hey of the name HaVaYaH, the hall (Bina) that opens up under the influence of the letter Yod (Aba) in fifty entrances, passages, and chambers concealed within it. The revelation that Yod made in that hall was done so as to hear the voice of the Shofar (a ram’s horn), Bina. The Shofar is closed on all sides, but the letter Yod came and opened it so that its sound could be heard. And since it opened the Shofar and derived sound from it, Yod led all to freedom.

240. At the sounds of the Shofar, the sons of Israel were delivered from Egypt. And so shall the Shofar be blown in the future, the next time at the end of days. And all deliverance originates from this Shofar, which is Bina. This is why the deliverance from Egypt is mentioned in this chapter of the Torah, for this Shofar stems from the force of the letter Yod, which opens the womb and delivers the captives to freedom. And this is the letter Hey, the second letter of the name HaVaYaH.

241. The third passage in the Tefillin is the secret of the Unity in “Hear O Israel,” the letter Vav in HaVaYaH, which includes all and designates ZA, who contains the unity of all. Everything merges in unity within him, and he receives all. The fourth passage that reads, “You shall hear,” includes two sides, Hesed and Gevura, which unite with the Assembly of Israel, called the lower Gevura or Malchut. And this is the last letter Hey of the name HaVaYaH, which takes and includes them all.

242. Tefillin are the letters of the holy name. Therefore, “Your head upon you is like the Carmel” refers to the head Tefillin. The letter Dalet refers to the hand Tefillin, Malchut, who is depleted of Light, compared to the head Tefillin, ZA, but she contains the perfection of the Upper One.

The hand Tefillin designates Malchut. And she is poor in comparison with Bina, the Upper World. Yet, she has her own perfection, for she now receives it from Bina thanks to the unity between Nukva and ZA in “Blessed be His great name for ever and ever.”

243. “The King is held captive in the tubs” means that he is tied down and held in those four compartments of the Tefillin for the purpose of being properly united with that holy name. And he who makes this correction, exists in image and likeness, TZELEM, with the Creator. Just as the holy name is united in the Creator, the holy name is united in him. “Male and female he created them” refers to the head and the hand Tefillin. And it is one.

“The King is held captive in the tubs” signifies ZA, who is bound and unified in those compartments of the Tefillin. The compartments of the Tefillin, which contain the passages from the Torah, are called “tubs” or “troughs,” just like the tubs from which sheep drink water, for the waters of Ohr Hochma and Ohr Hassadim are bound and restricted by these Kelim, the compartments of the Tefillin. And it is the Creator who is bound tight and held in these Kelim, so as to be unified in the holy name.

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