The only way our generation can achieve the goal of creation is by using the method created for us by Baal HaSulam. We have to study and absorb what he said without clinging to the content of his books, but instead striving to attain his “spirit” and sticking to it like a child wishes to stick to an adult.

The child does not understand the adult and does not know why the adult acts in a certain way. The child just “clings” to the adult and belongs to him, and that is how he succeeds. This is also how the Upper Level is connected to the lower level. You have to become one with everything the Upper Level gives you by raising its greatness in spite of your egoism.

You have to bring all your qualities into harmony with the Upper Level. This is called “serving the Upper One.” By so doing, you rise to and reveal His level. There is no way to rise from a lower degree to a higher one other than by merging with the AHP of the Upper One.

“Merging with the Upper One” means desiring to reveal His spirit, preferences and thoughts, as well as what is important to Him, how He perceives spirituality, how He thinks and what His attitude is. We can discern all of this through all the external signs which we reveal from the Upper Degree’s manifestation.

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There were many Kabbalists after the Ari, but not a single one of them was able to understand the Ari’s method at the root. Only Baal HaSulam was able to do this because he received the same soul as the Ari. It’s not because other Kabbalists were lower than him, but because the Ari’s method can only be understood by a soul from the same part of the common soul, from the same “spiritual organ” of the body as the soul of the Ari. Other souls understand the same thing from the perspective of their organ, whether it is the spiritual heart, brain, liver or lungs.

Your soul may come from a very important spiritual organ; it may even be higher than the soul of the Ari. However, since he is different from you and has different qualities, you are unable to truly feel his method, to feel “at home” with it as if you are dissolving in water. You cannot feel it as your life unless you are built the same way he is.

Therefore, we do not judge Kabbalists according to the height of their attainment, but according to how much they can help us correct and ascend. This depends on the type and character of their souls and their ability to help us.

Therefore, there is no one we should study besides Baal HaSulam, and no one else we can follow in order to reveal the Upper World. After all, he was the only one who merited the same soul as the Ari.

Any person who feels an aspiration for the spiritual world and desires to develop, is part of one of the most important spiritual organs. The rest of the souls are there to fill up the spaces in the body between the important organs, and thus they carry out a passive role.

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A question I received: Why does a person’s inner change in his approach to reality from reception to bestowal give him unlimited ability to know the present, past and future?

My Answer: The Light, the attribute of bestowal that a person reveals, is all encompassing, for it is the only force in all of Nature, and is Nature itself. The Light governs us, the creation, for we are the only thing that was created. Its broadening revelation in us reveals everything above time, space and motion. Therefore, by revealing the quality of bestowal, a person knows all of the Creator’s  actions – from beginning to end.

“There’s no Creator without the creature that reveals Him.” The quality of bestowal that influences the creation, is in fact, the Creator. When that quality which created me begins to reign inside me, it means that I am revealing the Creator. The quality of the the dominance of desire to bestow and the intention to bestow within me is called the Creator’s revelation to me.

Such revelation occurs to the measure that I become a giver myself. How then, can I state that I am revealing the Creator? Who is that “I” who is revealing the Creator? It turns out that there are qualities within me that are still in the process of revealing the Creator. Later on however, when I reveal everything to its fullest extent, there is no division into “me” and “Him,” there’s only an attribute of bestowal that is reigning supreme within me, and nothing more.

Eventually, I begin to  substitute the force that drives me and I develop the desire to alter it myself so that instead of constant thoughts about reception,  I think only of how to bestow. Actually, I am simply in the bad habit of thinking for the sake of reception, and it’s a habit that I am unable to rid myself of.

Baal HaSulam writes that there’s just a psychological problem of passing on to the will to bestow, nothing more. It turns out that in the desire to bestow, there are many more opportunities for me to develop and receive pleasure. But I am stuck in the habit of acting for the sake of reception and that’s how the whole of humanity works.

That’s why we must all apply an external force against our habit, the force of which is the Surrounding Light.  Through the force of this Light, called, “My sons prevailed over me,” it will change our operating program.

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A question I received: Besides the writings of Baal HaSulam, we also study the writings of Rabash. What do they give us?

My Answer: Rabash provides a detailed explanation of the phases of the inner work, yet we don’t understand the entire depth and breadth of his explanation. There are places where Baal HaSulam gives very concise explanations for beginners, and Rabash goes on to expand them. He thus creates a wide entrance for those who wish to enter the spiritual work. When a person reads line after line, he experiences different sensations. That is how Rabash leads the reader with his detailed explanations, like leading a baby by the hand, taking him from one game to another, and from one impression to another.

However, don’t think that his articles are intended exclusively for beginners. They conceal an enormous depth. It’s just that Rabash always lowered himself before his father, Baal HaSulam, and thought that there was nothing more to add after Baal HaSulam. This is why he did not publish anything of his own and did not write many manuscripts. It was because of his modesty. Yet, he was a great Kabbalist and we are yet to reveal him.

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A question I received: What’s the difference between the books written by the Kabbalists of the past and the books written by modern Kabbalists?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam says that Rabbi Akiva certainly knew more than Rabbi Shimon, since he preceded him – he was his teacher. However, the level of Kabbalists before Rabbi Akiva was higher still.

It goes without saying that Baal HaSulam knew less than Rabbi Shimon and less than all the previous Kabbalists. However, in order to take care of us, he was given an opportunity to learn and express his degrees. This is what he writes about himself.

We evaluate a Kabbalist based on his books,“This is an amazing book! I understand everything in it! He is a great Kabbalist!” But if I understand his books, then maybe he is not so great after all.

In other words, we rate a person based on how close he is to us and to what extent he can descend to our level, not according to his elevation, but according to his ability to be a teacher. And in order to become our teacher, it is not necessary for him to be great.

Along with the historical development of egoism in each person and in society as a whole, the level of Kabbalists is becoming lower.

During the “times of the Temple” (the Temple is the soul of each person in the state of bestowal and love, and the fall of the Temple is the descent into relationships of hatred) people clearly perceived the spiritual, meaning they felt love and commonality, lived as one man, and were similar to the Creator. They understood and felt these things on their own.

We cannot imagine what that means. It is written that compared to them, we are like donkeys next to people. This is not an exaggeration or a beautiful expression; they had a completely different mind, vision, and sense.

(From a lesson on the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” from 10.28.09)

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Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson
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Preface to the Sulam Commentary of The Zohar
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Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”, Lesson #6
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 37, 1927
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A question I received: Is there a difference between Hebrew and other languages in the world?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that Hebrew is the language of the Light and Aramaic is the language of the vessel of reception (the Kli). These two languages correspond to the front and back side, respectively. They are the main languages in Kabbalah because the geometrical shape of their letters portrays the connection between the Light and the desires (Kelim).

But these are just basic languages because they emerged in the very beginning of the division of Babylon and humanity’s separation from each other. The letters mark the properties of the corrected souls (the vessels, Kelim). The horizontal lines correspond to the spreading of the Light of Hassidim, and the vertical lines of the letters correspond to spreading of the Light of Hochma.

Other languages emerged from the ever-growing egoistic separation between people from the time of ancient Babylon, when egoism was revealed in flashes in the basic human civilization. These languages are not artificial, since people invented them from within their own nature. However, they arose far from the Source, from the breaking that happened in Babylon. That is why Kabbalists did not give us any explanations of the letters of these “secondary” languages, and did not describe which property and connection each letter portrays between the Light and the Kli.

In both Hebrew and Aramaic, each letter is a model, a symbol, and a recording of the connection between the Light and the Kli. It is a connection of the properties of Bina and Malchut: nine letters of ZAT of Bina, nine letters of Zeir Anpin, four letters of Malchut and the five final letters (Mantzepach), as well as the shape corresponding to their properties.

Therefore, a person studying the science of Kabbalah has to know the elements of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In fact, their geometrical shape conveys the spiritual properties of Malchut and the extent of its remoteness from Bina.

The letter itself is a recording of a spiritual state. A person should attain the properties of all the letters (meaning, the connections between the properties of reception – Malchut and bestowal – Bina) and “write them down” in his heart (his desire) in the correct order. He will then  receive the whole text of the Torah, as it is written, “Record it in your heart!”

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All of human history shows that man’s entreaties to the Creator do not merit a clear response from Him. This raises a question: If the Creator exists at all, then can we communicate with Him in some way? Will this question remain a mystery forever, like UFOs and life on other planets, where we’re forever left in the dark as to the existence of other civilizations outside of earth, which may exist but not desire to be in contact with us?

In order to attain contact with the Creator, we have to establish a connection with the people who are already in contact with Him. We have to cleave to those who are connected with the Upper System. We will then be like a child who cleaves to an adult and thus receives everything the adult has. This is how we can advance toward spirituality.

If we want our thoughts and desires to be the same as those of the great Kabbalists (Baal HaSulam and Rabash), then we will be influenced by the same Light that fulfills them. This will remedy all our problems, including all the illness of our bodies and souls. The Light knows what has to be corrected and it arranges everything in the best possible way.

The truth is that we don’t know what is really good for us. We only have to desire to come closer to the Light, and It will do everything. Therefore, our entire work is to come as close as we can to what Kabbalists wrote. We should just cleave to them with our hearts.

That is how we can take one step forward after another. No matter what happens to us, despite all the problems, mistakes and confusion, we have to aspire to draw closer to the Light.

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The desire to enjoy is a necessary material, because without it, it would be impossible for us to learn to bestow. I can only change the form of my desire, meaning that I can learn to use it for others instead of myself.

Then I will perceive reality differently – not within me, but outside of me. And I will then understand that I was seeing an imaginary world inside me. Something was wrong inside me, making me think that reality divides into me and the world outside of me. But when I correct this imaginary division of the world into its constituent parts and connect them together, incorporating all of the world’s desires, which had seemed foreign to me, or existing outside me, then I acquire one single desire or Kli.

So, it turns out that the problem we are facing is purely psychological, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Science of Kabbalah.” We have to analyze our desires and see how mistaken we are by desiring to exploit others. When you discover that everything around you is your own desires, then you realize: who are you really lying to? It’s as if you are playing with your baby son, trying to confuse and deceive him in order to profit from him.

Well, this is exactly how we behave toward the whole world, which seems foreign due to the force of the breaking. But when the truth is revealed, we will see a different world.

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The hard times are still ahead of us. Let us hope that the world will have time to go through them by way of realization, before they are expressed in matter. In that case, we won’t have to go through the correction in matter, but in our awareness.

One way or another, this will all happen in a few months. What I expected to happen a year ago will still be revealed. There are great cataclysms approaching, and it’s important to make them be expressed through our understanding of the situation, rather than through material suffering that will last a long time and affect us in the flesh.

Instead of all this, people can awaken immediately, understand what is happening, and respond to it maturely. The modern communications systems give us an opportunity to let the masses quickly understand the essence of things and to elicit changes in their consciousness.

In any case, there are great changes coming our way. In the first half of the 20th century, Baal HaSulam already wrote that the whole world is one big family and people have to unite. Even though a Kabbalist is not subjected to time, he nevertheless saw and felt this, but we still don’t.

The world has been able to lie to itself, pretending that it’s not in crisis. But all the money has been burnt up and the cash register is empty. The world’s bankruptcy has gone global. I believe that the upcoming year holds a great deal of work that we will have to do, and people will sincerely start paying attention to the method of changing the world – Kabbalah.

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