The depth of spiritual attainment is determined by the depth of the corrected desire. With each new generation, the souls descending into the world are “coarser” – more egoistic. Therefore, Kabbalists who lived before the Ari (16th Century) had small egos and were therefore able to reveal the elements of creation in full detail, including such concepts as the screen, Tzimtzum Alef, Tzimtzum Bet, Orh Hozer, and so on.

They used these spiritual forces, but they did not completely understand their origin and mode of operation. This is why they could not clearly express it either. It is like seeing a picture: even though you may be able to replicate it, you don’t know how the colors break down into a spectrum, what the wavelength of each color is, and how this affects all of us and turns into feelings.

If one’s desire is not thick enough, then it is impossible to attain the cause of a phenomenon and explain how the Light unites with the desire. The Ari was the first person to reveal the difference and the connection between the Direct Light and the Reflected Light in all its depth. He was able to do this by virtue of having a special soul. In addition, he was living in the beginning of the Messiah’s era, when the souls requiring correction began to be revealed in the world.

Prior to that time, there was a period of exile, when the ego was not revealed in a form ready for correction. This is why it is written that all the Kabbalists before the Ari communicated Kabbalah from the standpoint of the Direct Light (Kabalat Ramak), whereas the Ari explained Kabbalah from the standpoint of the Reflected Light (Kabalat Ari).

Later, Baal HaSulam continued the method of the Ari and made it fit for our use.

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A question I received: How can I make the most of the Surrounding Light – through the Daily Kabbalah Lessons, the television programs or other types of media?

My Answer: Right now the most powerful means for this is the Daily Kabbalah Lesson. Especially for beginners, the only way to receive the Surrounding Light and to attain the force of unity is through studying. Nothing else comes close.

Baal HaSulam writes in Item 4 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot” that the Creator puts a person’s hand on the spiritual path and tells him: “Choose this path!” He brings a person to the group, the books and the teacher in order for him to realize the purpose of creation. But this is only possible if a person uses the Daily Kabbalah Lesson as a means.

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A question I received: In our times, does a person have to have spiritual attainment in order to disseminate the science of Kabbalah?

My Answer: Everything depends on what you mean by dissemination. If we disseminate what Baal HaSulam wrote, talk about him, read his articles, study them and talk about how we understand his texts, then of course these are all things we can disseminate.

What does it mean, to disseminate? It means to give people the opportunity to participate in our studies, but more importantly, to connect them with the primary sources. Everything has to be based on the primary sources. Studying the science of Kabbalah means being connected with this material, constantly returning to it and checking how you connect everything written there into one integral method of your correction.

You gradually begin to connect all of this material with your own mind and feelings and to absorb it. When you study, you should desire to place yourself inside this material so your desires and thoughts will take on its form. It’s as if you want to be like a liquid that will fill the contours and forms of this material. You want to place yourself inside these models in order to distance yourself from your egoistic “self,” your way of thinking, and the way in which you now connect your mind and feelings. Instead, you want to receive higher qualities in your mind and feelings and start thinking according to them.

You should be willing to erase everything you have now for the sake of acquiring these qualities. Your desire will remain, but without a form, in order to then take on the form of bestowal. That is when you will be ready to be born in spirituality.

This is what the study of Kabbalah is. The study does not happen in your mind, but in your desires, making them take on new qualities. People don’t study Kabbalah with the mind, but the heart.

We study how to change ourselves and how to make our qualities similar to the Creator’s qualities. We disseminate our lessons in order to enable every person who wishes it to be able to participate in the study together with us. And the more we advance, the more we have to check: how closely are we connected to the primary sources, how much do our thoughts correspond to them, are we diminishing the contradictions between the two, and are we understanding and feeling the material better? But the most important test is to check whether the importance of bestowal is always growing for us.

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A question I received: Baal HaSulam said that he revealed something completely new in his books that had never before been disclosed in any books of his predecessors. What exactly did he reveal?

My Answer: Firstly, Baal HaSulam writes that he is the next reincarnation of the same soul that had been returning to our world as the great Kabbalists – the Ari, Rashbi, Moses, Avraham and Adam HaRishon. This is a particular soul that appears in our world in various “clothes” in order to present the same method to us, but each time in a more precise and detailed form, more suitable for the generation and age in which it descends to this world.

Therefore, when this soul was in the body of the Ari, it wasn’t able to reveal what Baal HaSulam did because the time was not ripe for it yet. That’s why a part of the science of Kabbalah, which became necessary for Baal HaSulam’s generation, was not necessary in the times of the Ari. In fact, it was forbidden to reveal it. But in Baal HaSulam’s generation, it became absolutely necessary, which is why he appeared and revealed it.

The profound notions we are discussing in the science of Kabbalah today were concealed even twenty years ago, let alone 2000 years ago. But this doesn’t mean that the Kabbalists of the past didn’t know these things. We are like small animals compared to them, yet they didn’t have the permission to reveal what we are allowed to. After all, to whom could they have revealed it? Human perception wasn’t ready for this knowledge!

As Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “Time to Act,” only in our generation did a pressing need appear to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah to the whole of humanity and to begin putting it to practice.

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We can see how the system of creation is built in a step by step manner. A person is always connected to a specific level, and then he advances to the next level, and so on. The influence he receives from Above passes through all the levels in order to reach him. One’s path toward the goal is an ascent up the levels from below upwards, and in the process, one gradually becomes similar to the World of Infinity.

Each of us is a result of thousands of years of development by our ancestors. However, a person’s direct connection is to his parents. They give him the qualities and upbringing that the shape him inside and out.

The same thing happens in the science of Kabbalah. It has developed for thousands of years, and each Kabbalist out of thousands of Kabbalists did something unique in order to bring this wisdom to us today, the time when the whole world must awaken.

But nevertheless, our closest connection is to the most recent Kabbalists: Baal HaSulam and Rabash. They are our parents. They are the ones who give us life and the upbringing that shapes us. They connect us to the system leading to Infinity, and we perform this ascent with their direct help and by virtue of their teaching.

This is why it is so important for us to realize the method they have passed on to us – their upbringing. If we have the strength to hold on to these great parents which the Creator has sent us, then we will definitely reach success.

We are yet to see just how much they care for us. We will see that their souls are always connected with us and take care of us. We receive everything “Upper” only through them and only to the degree we carry out their advice.

Let us hope that we will merit and be worthy of what they have attained, and what they pass on to us. All the Light on their level is ready for us to accept It. Through them, we will be able to establish a connection with the Light, the Creator.

Baal HaSulam spoke about how the science of Kabbalah will begin to be revealed starting with the year 1995, and how thousands of people will come to it. He was talking about us. There is no other group that accepts anyone wanting to reveal the Upper World and that disseminates his teaching. Therefore, we have to be proud, and at the same time continue to make efforts in order to be deserving of such a benevolent treatment from Above.

Baal HaSulam writes in “The Future Generation” that a person has to try to:

1. Attain spirituality by himself, and / or
2. Disseminate it and help others attain it.

A person corrects his soul in either case. When we try to pass his teaching on to others, then regardless of how much we ourselves attain it, our actions bring about a correction and that is a great accomplishment that we have to be proud and happy about.

So let us raise a toast to this great soul, which connects us to the Creator. Each of us truly was chosen from Above. Each of us has received the great right and privilege to establish a connection with this soul, to be connected with this teaching and to disseminate it.

So, let us be worthy of being called Bnei Baruch. After all, Baruch – Blessed – is the name of the Creator.
(From my talk at Baal HaSulam’s grave this morning, 09.29.09)

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A question I received: How can we begin to perceive the true reality?

My Answer: The reality we see only seems objective to us. It appears to be independent of our perception, or of our life and death. We assume that the world we observe is constant, that it exists outside of us and independent of us. We think that it doesn’t get influenced by whether we exist or not.

We reason about it this way: ten billion years before the Earth was formed and man appeared on it, there was the Big Bang – the point that brought our world into existence. That is when time and space emerged. We construct our story upon the axis of time, which we think existed before man sensed it and could talk about it.

We discuss history in the same way.  We say that once upon a time, there was Ancient Babylon, the exodus from Egypt, and all the other events of the past. Today, we can speak about the past and say that some time ago, there lived a man named Baal HaSulam, who wrote books for us which we are reading today.

But in fact, we only reason this way because we are still on the level of the “inanimate spiritual being.” As long as we are on this level, we can’t imagine that everything exists only inside our bodily organs of perception, or senses. As long as a person hasn’t acquired the sensation of spiritual time, he is stuck in the earthly axis of time, and he will think, speak and write accordingly.

However, spiritual time is defined as a sequence of actions, and it begins from the moment one starts to perceive that he is inside a network of forces, the system of Nature (the Creator). There, everything is determined by the measure of your interaction with this network.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The World We See Is A Picture In Our Brain
Laitman.com Post: Only A True Researcher Can Objectively Study Reality
Kabbalah Today Article: Extras-Our World Is An Illusion–See For Yourself
Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life: Part III.”Perception Patterns”
Video: Kabbalah, Science and the Perception of Reality

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Today is the day of remembrance for my Teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Levi Ashlag – Rabash. We are all nourished by what we received from him. He was the only person who understood Baal HaSulam, who continued his path, and who passed the method on to several of his students. The fact that we are able to advance using Baal HaSulam’s method, to see, hear, feel and understand what he wrote, is possible only thanks to Rabash.

Rabash used to write an article a week, and we have over 400 of his articles. In them, he provides explanation of the entire science of Kabbalah, including everything that regards a person’s inner work. Through these articles, he has given us an opportunity to enter the sensation of the spiritual world. He explained the entire method systematically, simply and accessibly, in a form that people could easily connect to.

The reason why he often quotes the Torah, Talmud and other Kabbalistic sources is in order to connect us to the original sources and to help us understand how their authors (Kabbalists) thought. This is how they conveyed their sensations to us.

There’s no doubt that if it weren’t for Rabash’s books, we would not be able to connect to the writings of Baal HaSulam. Without Rabash’s explanations, it would be impossible for us to “open” Baal HaSulam’s books.

I am grateful to the Upper Force for sending me such a great Teacher, through whom we have received Kabbalah. His life’s work was a spiritual breakthrough into a new level and the revelation of Kabbalah’s method to us.

Baal HaSulam also stated this method in his articles, but they remained concealed.  Rabash took his father’s materials and rewrote them in a form that the world could understand. He also transmitted it orally to his students.

Rabash was the first Kabbalist in the entire history of Kabbalah who began openly accepting students. After a year of studying with Rabash, I gave several lectures at Berg’s center. The lectures weren’t for the general public, but for the instructors. After those lectures,  all the instuctors left the Berg center, because they understood that what they were doing there was not Kabbalah at all, but rather just business.

I brought them to study with Rabash, along with an entire group of young, secular people. Altogether there were about forty people. Rabash was 77 years old at the time, and he had spent his entire life living in Bnei Brak – a Jewish Orthodox community, with an overabundance of prohibitions and restrictions. But despite everything, he was not afraid to accept all of these new, secular young men to be his students!

These people weren’t planning to return to religion; they came to him to study Kabbalah exclusively. That is how he started teaching Kabbalah to secular young men from Tel Aviv! This was the revolution he made, and it steered our world toward correction. This was a completely new phenomenon, such that the entire history of Kabbalah has never seen. It was the beginning of large-scale dissemination of the science of Kabbalah, as those forty students continued his path.

Rabash was a great revolutionary. He possessed a tremendous inner power that enabled him to do this, in defiance of his Hassidic community and his relatives.

Everything I have, I received from him. Our group, Bnei Baruch (the Sons of Baruch) is named after him. And I believe that we truly will merit becoming his spiritual heirs.

Let his memory in us be blessed!

Related Material:
Rabash: The Last Great Kabbalist

My Experiences with Rabash in Tiberius

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A question I received: Why did so many Kabbalists burn their manuscripts?

My Answer: To Kabbalists, it is sometimes enough for the revelation of the concealed to be written down or said out loud. It may even be enough for a Kabbalist to just think something, since he corrects creation with his thoughts and desires.

This is why they don’t feel bad about burning their texts after writing them. Kabbalists only keep their manuscripts if the generation is able to use them correctly. This is the reason why many Kabbalists, including Baal HaSulam, burned their books and manuscripts. And there were great Kabbalists, like Baal Shem Tov, who didn’t even write down a single word their whole lives.

In addition, a Kabbalist immediately sees the consequence of his correction in the souls. This is very different from how people in our material world do something “good” for their neighbor, and it later turns into evil. If a person doesn’t correct what he is supposed to on his own and we do it for him, it is as though we rob him. And we also go against the Creator.

If a person’s life is not going right, then this is purposefully done by the Creator in order to force him to correct his attitude to the people around him. But instead of correcting the problems by fixing the connection between us, we try to make up for it through charity in the material world. As a result, the world just rolls downhill and reaches even graver states than before.

Therefore, Kabbalists perform truly great corrections through their spiritual work, while all other actions only cause the opposite effect. We have yet to reveal this.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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A question I received: If I haven’t attained the spiritual sensation yet, do I have to perform the physical commandments of Judaism?

My Answer: Kabbalah does not obligate anyone to do this. This science is studied by people of all nationalities, including those who observe religious commandments as well as those who are completely secular. We don’t meddle in these affairs; this is your personal business. We only teach people how they can attain equivalence with the Creator, or in other words, how to correct their 613 desires.

We are nearing the time when all humanity will have to attain the Creator, according to the written, “My house will be called the house of prayer for all the nations.” This means that the entire global egoism will be corrected, and the desire of every person will go through correction.

All the other aspects of people’s lives may remain and carry on in the same fashion, in whatever way people find the most comfortable and the best, if it matches their inner correction. Baal HaSulam writes that in the state of the final correction, every person can keep his religion.

That’s because Kabbalah views religion as a national custom, the culture of a nation, which each nation can keep. Religious observance constitutes external actions that are nothing more than a cultural tradition, an external covering, and the framework of people’s lives, telling them how to behave at home, with their families, and so on. However, this does not affect the correction of a person’s soul.

The most important thing is to attain the correction of you soul – to attain love for your neighbor.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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