A question I received: What is “the Path of Sanctity?”

My Answer: “The Path of Sanctity” means that everything that happens to us is commanded from Above and comes from the Creator (Stage 0 —  Keter) with the help of the Light. The Light influences us in two ways:

1. The Light (Pleasure) acts directly on us and creates the desire to receive pleasure (Stage 1 — Aleph), which is the first level of desire.

2. The Light also brings a sensation of its Origin to us (the Creator, the force of bestowal.)

This is why in Stage 1 — the desire to receive, within the desire created by the Light emerges the desire to bestow. Stage 1 strives to transform itself into Stage 2, which is the desire to bestow.

The Creator triggers within me a desire to receive pleasure and I follow His commands directly (the commands of Nature). But when I realize that the Creator who created me as the desire to be pleased is Himself the one who bestows, I want to become similar to Him. This is a secondary impact from the Creator!

Eventually, I deliberately develop this secondary impact within myself, the intention to bestow, until I undergo all four stages of the Creator’s “influence” (HaVaYaH) and merge with Him.

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Malchut, creation, can never attain Keter, the Creator Himself. He is revealed to creation in all the other Sefirot, which separate the Creator and Malchut. In response, Malchut achieves similarity to Him in the Reflected Light in all the Sefirot. These forms of Malchut are called attainments or names of the Creator.

Everything that happens and everything that we sense are manifestations of the Creator who wishes to show Himself to us in this form. Around me, I see inanimate nature, vegetative nature, and animals: the material ones and the spiritual ones. All of these are forms of the Light, which are revealed this way in my desire, in Malchut; these are the forms of the Creator in me. These forms can be a direct reflection in me, which does not demand my similarity to Him. Yet, these reflected forms are not true, which is why our world is so limited and imaginary.

However, when I begin to take on forms that correspond to Him, they will be called by the names of the Creator in me, since they will be similar to His bestowal. However, this is not His bestowal, but mine. If I create a form in me that is similar to His bestowal, and His bestowal clothes into it, then our joint bestowal is called my spiritual degree, our adhesion, or attainment of the Creator.

On my path upward I go through many such names or images of the Creator. All my attainments are names of the Creator.

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The breaking creates an imaginary reality, space, and distances. Parts of Malchut drew away from each other during the breaking of the common soul. It is in this space between its parts that I differentiate myself and others, those who are close to me and those who are far away. Within this sphere, I imagine a distance between these separated parts, which are not connected as one whole.

Thus, it is as a result of the breaking that I feel this reality. If such a reality did not exist, I would not be able to work on drawing closer and connecting to others. I would not have had an opportunity to attain something. After all, my whole attainment comes from an aspiration to learn, “What is this?”  And then I draw closer to the object that interests me, much like a little child that brings everything to his mouth, his most developed sense, in order to taste it.

Since the breaking exists, I first begin to egoistically strive to adjoin individual parts to myself, and then I wish to unite with them in bestowal. If I wish to unite with them egoistically, then I wish to attain only my inner sensations. However, if I wish to unite with others in bestowal to them, I thereby attain the Light that vanished during the breaking. I wish to fill the gap between us with this Light.

I build an image of the Creator within the desires (Kelim), which are distant from one another. I fill this empty space between them with my Reflected Light. This means that I build an image of the Creator. Therefore, the Creator (Bore) is called “Come and See” (Bo-Re), since I create Him.

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A question I received: What should we imagine when we read the words of The Zohar, which we do not understand at all? Should we picture the souls in unity, the Light’s influence on us, or something else?
My Answer: You need to imagine that we are all together in one desire, and that what we read about in The Book of Zohar will be revealed as filling inside this desire. And together, this desire and its fulfillment will reveal the Creator.

We are waiting for and expecting results from our studies. We really need to correct our connection to others because this will become our vessel for the Light. Then, my desire will receive the quality of correction, the quality of oneness – the Creator. The Creator is my correct desire for bestowal.

I need to imagine a state that I want to exist in. I may not know what the Light is or how it enters me, but I still need to picture the correct state that I want to achieve. Just like in our everyday lives, when we wish for something, we don’t think about the actions we have to make in order to obtain it, but only about the end result, about our desire coming true. I am then able to understand what I am lacking in order to attain the object of my desire, and where I can obtain the right example of the future state, meaning, which books can give me that example.

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We can see that the science of Kabbalah expands and enters the world from the center, from the source. In our generation the source of knowledge and the method of correction is here, in the central Bnei Baruch group.

If any group in the world or any person thinks that he is able to lead himself or the group to the goal correctly, he is deluding himself due to misunderstanding the structure of the system of souls upon which our world is clothed. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that everything always expands from the internality to the externality, or from the Upper Level to the lower one. The same applies to the influence upon our world as well as one’s attainment: First a person ascends to the Upper Level, and from there he can see and influence the lower level.

Therefore, dissemination, influence, correction, and lessons must come only from here, the center. The role of the different groups is to take part in creating materials and disseminating them while submitting to the center in every way, similar to how all parts of an organism act in a coordinated fashion under the governance of one head shared by all. Nothing can start in the middle of the ladder, the pyramid, or some particular group similar to how the structure of the universe is strictly fixed and described.

Baal HaSulam writes in Item 57 of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that if a thousand blind people are led by one person who can see, then they will all be able to follow him; but if there is no leader, they will all perish. Similarly, we observe a special mission on the part of humanity called “Isra-El” (meaning “straight to the Creator”) because the Light of Correction passes through it to all of humanity. Baal HaSulam describes this strict and unchangeable hierarchy in the above article.

Therefore, every person within this system must be connected to the Upper Level as well as the lower level. Above us are our Teachers, the sources, the forefathers, and the Kabbalists of previous generations from whom we learn and by whose teachings we live. Beneath us are our students, all those who come to us wishing to connect to us. This hierarchy must be maintained because we are all able to receive only from the Upper One (see Baal HaSulam’s article, “Faith in the Teacher”).

However, if one person or group decides to act independently, they would be preferring the externality to the internality. They will thus replace the upper with the lower, in which case it would be necessary to immediately correct them or remove them from the common system. From studying the structure of the worlds we see that there is no “democracy,” but a strict subservience to the Upper Level, to the Upper One’s (the Creator’s) example.

Through the connection among the groups and their structure, we are currently implementing the construction of a system that will expand to the whole world, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation.” Then our world will become similar to the Upper World. So where is every person’s freedom? It lies in choosing the right connection with the environment and submitting to it in order to attain similarity to the Creator. This is attained only if one is connected to the Upper One, receives from Him, and carries out the same actions along the same chain of degrees. Thus, every person’s freedom of will lies in preferring the internality over the externality in spite of one’s personal egoistic disturbances or those occurring to the group.

As Baal HaSulam writes in Item 60 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” every person’s action corrects or ruins the entire system. Obviously, this is a dictatorship; however, it comes from Above, from the Creator, and all of us must carry it out by submitting to the Upper One and becoming similar to Him. In addition, we attract the lower one according to a fixed hierarchy. Absolute equality emerges only in the final, corrected state where everyone becomes equal through mutual bestowal.

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A question I received: We live our lives in hopes and never achieve pleasure. What will happen when we acquire the desire to bestow? Will we be able to feel pleasure then?

My Answer: When we transform the egoistic intention into the bestowing one, time ceases to exist. The very notion of time disappears because there is no past, present, or future in spirituality. Being in the attribute of bestowal, we don’t inquire about cause and effect. We delight in the act of bestowal that we find ourselves in, needing nothing else. Having the opportunity to bestow is our reward.

But don’t we care about the results of our actions? An opportunity to bestow is the result. For this reason, the concept of time disappears and everything is at absolute rest.

Egoism promises us the future, while in spirituality, there is no future; everything happens in the present. The future is felt only if I reveal the lack of bestowal in my current state, only if I want to bestow more and aspire to it. It’s as if I desire to go from the small World of Infinity to the big one.

This, too, is possible only through “magic,” through egoistic desires that are helping me. They reveal to me the deficiencies of my state, the impurity of my bestowal.
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A question I received: In our material lives we are in a dead-end situation where it’s impossible to attain pleasure. But what does the science of Kabbalah promise us?

My Answer: When I sit and study The Book of Zohar, it is called Lo Lishma – an egoistic action. I deceive myself because I plan on fulfilling my egoism through this action, but in return I receive the quality of bestowal.

Why does this action end up bringing us success, unlike any other? It’s because by making these actions, I desire to do everything I can to attain bestowal. I look for signs of bestowal along the path, consciously deceiving myself, and I use the Light that brings me correction and draws me closer to itself.

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People often ask, “Why am I studying for so long and putting in effort, but not receiving revelation?” The fact of the matter is that the state cannot change while that is what is still important to us.

People should ask: What is my attitude to spirituality? Do I consider it just an addition to my material life? Am I willing to settle for this life, or do I feel that I am in exile? The feeling of exile is unpleasant, and a person instinctively draws away from it. We don’t want to think that our lives are spent in vain and that time passes without any result. We try to forget about this, or we begin to eat ourselves up without doing anything to change.

However, the feeling of being in exile does not come from feeling bad in this life. It comes from the fact that spirituality is so important to me that I aspire to it in spite of having a pretty good regular life. After all, anyone can criticize his life, but mere criticism has not brought anyone to the spiritual world. It is paramount to realize the importance: of spirituality, of achieving the sensation of the Creator, of merging with Him, of feeling bestowal and love for the neighbor, and of attaining the connection between us within which we can reveal the Upper Force.

In other words, we can only run away from exile if we feel the importance of salvation. The word “salvation” (Geula) differs from “exile” (Galut), as it is written in Hebrew, by just one letter: “Alef,” which means “the Creator.” If we begin to value and desire the connection with the Creator, the force of bestowal, and love for the neighbor, it indicates that we have reached the right preparation and the exit from exile is really happening.

We also need to understand where it is we want to exit to. We prepare for this by correctly imagining the spiritual state. If a person correctly imagines spirituality as bestowal, love, connection with others, connection with all other parts of the universe within which the Creator is revealed, then he becomes worthy of coming out of exile and being free.

Then the exit occurs quickly; we only need to attune ourselves correctly. We can’t just run away from an unpleasant life; we need to work on receiving the correct and clear impression about spirituality and desire it. The exit from exile depends only on feeling the importance of the quality of bestowal.

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A question I received: What kind of book is Beit Shaar Ha-Kavanot which we started studying today? What is the correct attitude I should have while studying it?

My Answer: Everything is already expressed in its title, “Beit Shaar Ha-Kavanot” (The Gatehouse of Intentions), which implies the foundation, the basis of intentions. While studying this book, you should have the same intention directed to the development of the soul as you do with other Kabbalistic books.

Everything a person reads affects the corporeal mind and heart in a certain way, and it depends on the style of the content at every level of PARDES (hint, parable, secret). In other words, one book has greater influence on feelings, another on the mind, while a third book is completely unclear.

Nevertheless, a person must aspire to extract just one thing from this book: the force of bestowal. It is the “Light that Returns to the Source.” At the same time, we should try to understand this book and connect with it as much as possible. However, this should be secondary to maintaining the proper intention of drawing the maximum power of Bestowal from it. Our primary aspiration should be directed to correction, rather than knowledge. Otherwise “one outsmarts his actions.”

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A question I received: Why is The Zohar very complicated?

My Answer: I spent two years studying anatomy in college, where I learned an infinite number of details and names. And this science only studies individual parts of the human organism, not the links between them. But there are systems within it that we do not even know exist. Though we try, we cannot completely examine the systems that we do know because there is no end to their complexity. Basically, this question is not about The Zohar, but rather about why all of nature is extremely complicated.

The Zohar presents all of reality to us. This includes man, nature, all the worlds (this entire system), and not only its structure, anatomy, parts of this system, and links between them, but its entire operation, function, and its revelation to each one of us according to our position within it.

Our world is like a grain of sand in relation to all the spiritual worlds. There, every element is a billion times greater, not in size, but in complexity in all the connections. The higher the level, the more complicated it is because it incorporates all of the lower degrees.

Where does this complexity come from? In reality, it is infinite. But we need some kind of a boundary, otherwise the object escapes our sensations and attainment. “Lack of boundaries” is like the absence of everything; to me, infinity equals the lack of existence.

This infinite variety of the Upper World emanates from the opposite qualities of the Light and the desire (Kli). They are completely opposite and there is no connection between them. If I wanted to build something between them using their connection, I would get an infinite system.

I am speaking from the point of view of mathematics, and not a spiritual perspective. Take a “1” and a “0,” between these two points there is infinity. It is impossible to connect them. How many numbers are there between zero and one? An infinite amount.

Thus, it turns out that we are unable to perceive this with our brain and with reason in our world. But when we come out of our limitations of the desire to receive, rise above it to another dimension, the desire to bestow, the problem disappears. Everything shifts from the quantitative measure to the qualitative measure. And we easily manage qualities because we perceive them through feelings and not our brain. And our feelings have no problems feeling things that lack precise measure.

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