A question I received: I feel repelled by spirituality. I feel that I want to go through my life as a separate person, not as part of a group. I get this picture that the purpose of spirituality is to reject all pleasures. I mean, what is there to enjoy in the spiritual world? I’m not ready to reject my regular life for spirituality. How can I pray for another desire when, in fact, it isn’t my desire at all?

My Answer: The Creator (Kabbalah) won’t make you do anything forcefully. Instead, He forces us by giving us suffering in this life, and it pushes a person forward. However, it’s possible to accelerate our path of development and make it easier by using Kabbalah.

Either way, everyone will attain the goal they were created for: they will become equivalent to the Creator by uniting within one integral desire. This will happen either through The Path of Suffering or The Path of the Light that returns one to the source – to equivalence with the Creator (the quality of love and bestowal).

Right now everyone in the world is revealing a common suffering, which has just one cause – a lack of connection between all people within one desire. But the Creator will force us to unite!

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”, item 19:
When all human beings agree to abolish and eradicate their egoistic will to receive for themselves, and have no other desire but to bestow upon others, all worries and evil in the world will cease to exist. And we will all be assured of a healthy, complete and secure life, since for each and every one of us there will be a whole world ready to satisfy his every need. However, when everyone has only the will to receive for himself, from here originate the pains, the wars and slaughter which we cannot escape. They weaken our bodies with all sorts of sores and maladies.

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”:
Evil is nothing other than self love, called egoism, since it is opposite to the Creator, who hasn’t any will to receive for Himself, but only to bestow.

Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”:
The shared quality of all the people in the world is that each and every one of us stands ready to abuse and exploit all the other people for his own private benefit by every means possible, without taking into consideration that he is going to build himself through the ruin of his friend. And it doesn’t matter what excuses each of us invents for acting this way.

Baal HaSulam, “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)”:
It is a natural law for a person to regard anything outside his own body as unreal and non-existent. And any movement that a person makes to love his fellow man, cannot be considered “love of a fellow man” because it is judged by its goal: to benefit from this action. It is not in man’s nature to perform any action out of love for one’s neighbor, without expecting a reward, and hence such an action is completely impossible.

And only the revelation of the Creator (the Upper Light,Ohr Makif) is able to change us.

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A question I received: One of my friends is a philosopher studying Egyptian culture. He told me a story from the Jewish religion about a soul that has to confess its sins. When it does, it lays the sins on one side of the scale, and the other side of the scale rises.

My Answer: The Kabbalistic text that will be closest to you (in terms of clarity) is item 110 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot” (there you will also find references to earlier source texts). It states: “We must thoroughly understand what is written in Tractate Kidushin, p. 40: ‘One must always regard oneself half guilty and half pure. If he performs one Commandment, happy is he, for he has sentenced the world to a scale of merit. If he commits one sin, woe unto him for he has sentenced the world to a scale of demerit.’

Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, says, ‘The world is judged by its majority, and the individual is also judged by the majority. Hence if he performs one Commandment, happy is he, for he has sentenced himself and the entire world to a scale of merit. If he commits one sin, woe unto him, for he has sentenced himself and the entire world to a scale of demerit. Because of this one sin that he had committed, the world and he have lost much good.’”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” item 68:
Do not wonder that the action of a single person will trigger a descent or an ascent of the whole world. For it is an unbending law that “the general and the particular are equal.” And all that takes place in the general takes place in the particular parts as well. And vice-versa: everything that happens in the particular parts also happens in the general, for the general cannot come to be, but after the particulars have been revealed, according to the quantity and quality of the particulars. Hence, the actions of every person raise or decline the whole world.

Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”:
Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels in the same machine. And this single wheel has no freedom of movement in and of itself, but continues with the motion of all the other wheels in a certain direction in order for the machine to perform its general purpose. And if there is a breakdown in one wheel, it is not seen as a breakdown in this one wheel, but is assessed according to the service and role it performs in the entire machine.

Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”:
The collective has only what its individual parts have. And the benefit of the collective is the benefit of each and every individual. He who harms the collective harms himself as well, and he who benefits the collective takes his part in the benefit, because he is a part of the whole. And the whole is not worth more than the sum of its individual parts.

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A question I received: The second part of the film Zeitgeist was recently released. It encourages all of humanity to unite and gives advice on how to build the new world order based on equal distribution of resources, a new education, and mutual guarantee. It also refers to the laws of nature. Are these people our partners?

My Answer: No. In fact, I’m not even familiar with this movement. However, the ideas of unity and globality are already in the air and I’m happy that more and more people are realizing that it’s urgently necessary to implement them in the human society.

However, the correction can only be achieved by the Upper Light, which descends while people study its Source. The description of the Light’s Source is found only in the authentic Kabbalistic books, and in our time, the most effective books are Baal HaSulam’s. That’s why we study them all the time. There’s nothing for me to look for anywhere else because I’ve already proven to myself and through myself that this method is effective.

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Two questions I received on relating to one’s environment:

Question: In one of your lessons in the United States, you said that people who are ready for a new worldview should voluntarily limit their needs to the minimum bodily necessities for food, shelter, leisure and knowledge. What should we do about the rest of our surroundings such as children, spouses, and parents, who are not ready to limit themselves? Is it sufficient to limit myself while giving those around me what they desire, and show them that my path is correct just through personal example? By the way, I have acted this way all my life, and in return everyone around me tacitly hates me and puts me down.

My Answer: If one’s head is “in the clouds,” then he naturally takes no more than the necessities from this world. He does not have to limit himself because this just comes to him naturally. This is the attitude one has when he realizes that the whole world is one family.

If the people around you hate you and put you down, it’s probably because you’re forcing them or prohibiting them from something.

Question: Can one person make another person feel a lack or need (whether spiritual or corporeal)?

My Answer: The environment can evoke or suppress any earthly desire in anyone (see the article “The Freedom”). Moreover, if a person has a point in the heart, the society can accelerate its development.

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Three questions I received on souls and reincarnation:

Question: At some point you talked about how a single Soul descended into this world in different bodies throughout centuries: Abraham, Moses, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the Ari, and Baal HaSulam. As I understand, you and everyone who has crossed the Machsom (or in the process of crossing it) are in contact with this Soul. Has it completed its mission?

My Answer: No, it hasn’t. We are all parts of one soul. Its “lighter” parts have already undergone correction and are now helping all of us (this is called Zhut Avot in Hebrew). Gradually, one by one, they help us to do the same thing they did – connect to the single soul of Adam. All of humanity are parts of this single soul, the only created creature.

Question: What is a “ Kabbalistic soul”?

My Answer: It’s a soul that compels a person to attain the Creator. Actually, there are no other souls, because if a person still doesn’t have the aspiration to reveal the Creator, he still doesn’t have a soul. However, this aspiration will be revealed in the future, or perhaps in the next life cycle.

Nevertheless, even if a person doesn’t have this aspiration, listening to or reading Kabbalistic materials will accelerate the revelation of the aspiration toward the Creator and the revelation of the soul.

Question: If one is born a genetic Jew, does this mean that one always reincarnates as a Jew?

My Answer: Yes, just like anyone else. It’s because our world is an imprint of the Upper World, and a person is a copy of the soul.

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On November 25, at the Foreign Press Association Media Award in London, Prince Charles stated:

Humanity has a natural tendency to consume and if there are no limits on that tendency we can become obsessed simply with satisfying our desires. The desire grows ever more potent as we consume ever more, even though we achieve very little of the actual satisfaction we desire…

We hear so many people admitting to feeling deeply dissatisfied. This reminds me of that wise observation about Gross National Product made by Robert Kennedy forty years ago, that it “measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

…many do not even realize that we have lost something very precious – what I might best describe as that intuitive sense of our interconnectedness with Nature… I consider our problems today not to be an environmental crisis per se… nor a financial crisis. They all stem from this fundamental crisis in our perception.

…the denial of our real relationship with the universal truths through a deep connection with Nature and her laws has engendered a dangerous alienation. In denying or forgetting the invisible “grammar of harmony” we create cacophony and dissonance.

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Two questions I received on explaining Kabbalah to others:

Question: If a person is advancing and developing through the study of Kabbalah, does he gain the ability to explain the concepts of Kabbalah to others in a way they can understand?

My Answer: Not necessarily. The Book of Zohar says that Rabbi Shimon couldn’t write this book himself, but told Rabbi Aba what to write. Likewise, it’s written that Moses was unable to explain the events talking place and their purpose to the people, and needed help from his brother Aaron.

Why is this so? Baal HaSulam writes that some souls originate from the Inner Light and some – from the Outer Light. This determines their ability to explain the material on a level appropriate to the student and the level of their explanations.

Question: I come in contact with many different people who face difficult situations. Some are religious, others love mysticism, and others are just searching for something. I think that there’s a great opportunity here to attract them to Kabbalah by explaining that everything comes from the Creator and was designed on purpose to awaken the question: “What is the meaning of my life?”

What should I do?

My Answer: It’s best not to say anything about Kabbalah. Instead you should simply keep materials on Kabbalah, such as our newspapers, in your reception area.

Related Material:
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Three questions I received on uniting with others:

Question: How does working on dissemination and being in a virtual group help me justify the Creator? What if I don’t do any work?

My Answer: The Creator doesn’t need you alone because His task is to bring all the souls to unity in the common soul of Adam. Without uniting with the others, you won’t be able to reveal the Creator. You simply won’t be able to find the right direction.

Question: How can I find my group? Who should I contact?

My Answer: Visit our site and go to the “Contact Us” section. Or see this interactive map to find a group in your region and its contact information.

Question: What will happen if we won’t be able to unite?

My Answer: That’s impossible because our unity was planned by nature from the beginning, and therefore it has to come true. We will be obliged to attain the complete interconnection with each other, to be as one – absolutely united in harmony and love, as befits any integral system. The only question is how much more suffering will we go through in order to realize that this is the only way out of the crisis.

The following two situations are possible:

1. Undesirable: People will see that there is no rational solution to the crisis and that everything is falling apart: unemployment, total devaluation of money, total destruction of the economic relations, paralysis of the entire industry, an end to basic services for the population and to the supply of the bare necessities – just like in Hollywood horror films about the future. Under the pressure of despair, fear of murder, massacres, and rebellions, the authorities will feel that they have lost all control over the situation and will start a war. They will think that this is a solution to the problem, a chance to control the situation, to mobilize people and resources. It doesn’t matter who will start the war, but all the governments will be in favor of it.

2. Desirable: It’s possible that we will be able to give a timely explanation, and in addition, people will also understand it through our thoughts that are “in the air,” that the state of crisis is pre-programmed, rational, and a desirable part of Nature’s (the Creator’s) plan, and that there is a way out of it. There’s a way to find freedom from all the limitations and emptiness of our world, to find an eternal and perfect life above our egoism, which is the only source of all the evil. Then, instead of perceiving the world “inside us, egoistically,” we will begin to perceive it through the qualities of bestowal and love “beyond us.” We will then feel the Upper World, the other part of our universe, which has been concealed from us until now because we desired to receive everything “into ourselves,” and therefore we did not know “where we are from,” “what we live for,” and “where we go when we leave this world.” We only perceived a part of our existence.

In any case, either after the wars or a peaceful transition, we will attain the quality of bestowal and love, the quality of the integral system where “all people are one family.” We will then become equivalent to the Creator through adhesion and equivalence of form with Him. This is the only eternal state because all other states are imperfect, leading to it.

Related Material:
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Rabash Article from Book of Shlavey HaSulam: The Importance of the Association (2)
Rabash Article from Book of Shlavey HaSulam: The Purpose of the Association
Rabash Article from Book of Shlavey HaSulam: The Purpose of the Association (2)
Baal HaSulam Article: Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before

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