In the material world, a mother knows when it’s time to feed her baby. But when it comes to our spiritual ascent, a baby (a person who is in the initial stages of becoming a Kabbalist) has to ask the mother for food himself. He has to know how to turn to the Upper Level in order for It to raise him up to It and fill him with Light.

Everything happens according to the lower one’s (the person’s) desire to become similar to the Upper One (the Creator). In the spiritual world, all actions take place either according to Reshimot (informational records which determine one’s state), which are realized in us without our choice, or by us adding our desires for correction to the Reshimot. That is to say, we can add our own prayer or plea for correction.

We don’t have to ask for this artificially. That won’t help. If one’s desire is ripe, then it will elicit the influence of the Light of Correction upon it.

The Upper Partzuf (the Creator) is in the state of absolute rest and never changes. Only our inner Reshimot (the data about our state) undergo changes. This is why we feel that we exist in a changing world, but actually, it is changing inside us relative to an unchanging background – the White Light, the Creator.

Reshimot that awaken in us without our participation do not advance us in the spiritual world. We simply tread in one place, until repeated suffering makes us smarter and forces us to look for spiritual development. Our problems are caused by Reshimot that unravel naturally.

However, if you join a society that engages in spiritual development, then you will receive Reshimot from it, which come from your connection with other souls. You will receive these Reshimot by virtue of your own efforts, and they are the Reshimot that you have to correct in order to reveal the Upper World. How? By raising them through your prayer for correction.

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A question I received: Suppose I have accumulated a sufficient desire for correction. How can I ask the Light to correct it?

My Answer: The desire speaks for itself. You shouldn’t think about how to ask for this. The moment you really want it, your desire will be your request.

The most important thing is to feel a need for this. A baby does not think about how to ask his mom for something. It’s only later on, when he grows bigger, that he becomes more cunning and comes to her nagging and demanding something.

But we don’t know any tricks like this. There has to be a cry coming from the bottom of our heart, our desire.

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As a Kabbalah teacher, I am starting to “free up” more and more material from within myself, and the material is becoming denser and deeper than before. This is the call of the times to accelerate the correction. Whoever is able to “grab onto” our lessons and their new rhythm will be able to advance faster.

Today we have to bring to life everything that we talk about at the lessons. It’s not enough to just understand it. We have to implement it inside us every day, so the words said at the morning lesson will become our actions throughout the day.

The years we have spent studying did not go by in vain, and now we can do this practically, together with hundreds of thousands of people participating in the same process. If we do it together with all our friends and those who watch and listen to the lesson from all over the world, then it is possible.

In addition, every beginner can do this together with us by connecting to everyone and making whatever efforts he can. It’s similar to how children are born and then use everything that was created for them. That is how a person who’s new to the spiritual path can become part of the general movement together with us.

The most important thing is to develop a habit of constantly controlling one’s personal advancement and the general advancement.

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A question I received: Why doesn’t the point in the heart awaken in all people? Why does one person feel it at 20, while another feels it at 50?

My Answer: This is not our business, and we shouldn’t think about it. We have no freedom of will in this regard – everything depends on the common system, the enormous system of souls that needs to advance.

This is like our bodies which consist of billions of little cells. Each cell needs to develop, and they are all connected to each other.

Therefore, each person depends on the other in their correction – first one advances, then another, or two of them advance together.

It is the same kind of system as that of an embryo developing in a mother’s womb, where the head, the arms, the legs, the ears, the nose, and so on, develop in a certain order.

This is a very complex system. So how can we begin to ask why we were awakened only now and not ten years ago, given that we have limited understanding of anything in our material lives, and even less in the spiritual?

Do you know what part of the soul you belong to, and what part you are destined to carry out?

If however, a person strives to understand, he begins to feel where he is being led. Our freedom of choice lies in figuring out what work is placed upon us and then doing that which is dependent on us.

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Question: Why are we all connected?

Answer: The Creator created a single desire and then broke it into pieces.

In reality we are all connected on the inside, and we only feel as if we are disconnected.

I feel like others are separate from me. I lie to people, steal from them, hit them, and hate them, because I do not feel that they are also me. The entire world is all me!

The Creator has confused me on purpose. The fact that others are me will be revealed to me, and then I must ask myself, “How could I have treated myself this way? I took things from my own self, hit myself, stole from myself. I took so many good things away from myself.

I constantly hurt myself, my own health,  my comfort and my peace.  I do bad things to myself. What was I thinking? How could I not see the obvious?”

It is only in the egoism’s distorted mirror that the other parts seem to be foreign to me, even though we are one whole.

This is an unpleasant feeling, but the good thing about it is that it leads to correction.  It pushes us towards interconnection and motivates us to become closer and love our neighbor.

(From the Children’s Lesson at the North American Congress  10.17.09)

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People are opposed to Kabbalah because they have a subconscious feeling that Kabbalah’s wisdom will destroy them. This is their egoism fighting Kabbalah in a war called The Armageddon, or the War between Gog and Magog, which was described by the prophets as the war of the Light against the darkness.

This is a lengthy, tiring battle that a person wages inside of him. But in addition to the inner war, we must also fight Kabbalah’s opponents in our society. This is a battle against the “Erev Rav” (Mixed Multitude), which is described in The Book of Zohar.

There’s no doubt that this war will be won by the Creator, the force of the Light, bestowal and love. But the amount and duration of people’s suffering depend on the efforts we make in this war. The best way to fight a war is to attack, as the Creator said, “Let’s go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart!”

We have to initiate the war against egoism, both externally and internally, without waiting for it to attack us. We will then accelerate the process of correction.

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Two questions I received on man’s imbalance with the environment:

Question: According to the UN, 2.8 billion people won’t have enough water to meet their basic needs by 2025. Can you comment on this?

My Answer: It’s true, and this, as well a all the other blows we receive from Nature, will compel us to correct ourselves. Our correction at the highest level, the human level, will correct everything and bring harmony to all the lower levels. That is when we will see abundance in the whole world.

Question: I disagree with what you say, that “None of our actions really have any effect on climate change.” Our actions are driven by our egoistic desires, and therefore they do have a direct impact on climate changes. Doesn’t this make sense?

My Answer: No, it does not make sense to me, because you are only seeing the effects and then making up theories about what you’ve seen.

Our world is a world of consequences and everything descends upon us from Above. This is why correction at a higher level will bring a result in our world, while in our world, we can never make any “correction.”

We learn from Kabbalah that everything happens under influence of the Light from Above.

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Two questions I received about happiness:

Question: How can we let young people and their parents know that long-term happiness is achieved better by suppressing the ego and instead choosing the forces of love and bestowal? How can we teach this principle and model it?

My Answer: The only way to cause correction and to create a new, stable generation is by introducing Kabbalah’s method of education and upbringing into the schools.

Question: How can I make myself happy?

My Answer: The source of happiness lies in being closer to the Creator.

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In the News (from Current): “‘Ruthlessness gene’ discovered” Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behavior in an economic exercise called the ‘Dictator Game.’ The exercise allows players to behave selflessly, or like money-grabbing dictators … Though the mechanism is unclear, [the research team leader] Ebstein says, he is fairly sure that selfish, greedy dictatorship has a genetic component.

My Comment: Kabbalah says, “Egoism is our nature and we cannot get rid of it in our world.” This is why Kabbalah was given to us: it is a method of attracting the Upper Light, the Force of Correction.

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The Creator is your corrected quality. The Creator is revealed inside of the created being, and this is why in Hebrew He is called “Bo-re” (“Come and See”).

You have to reach your corrected state, your corrected self, and you will then see your corrected qualities and call them “the Creator.” You reveal the Creator only inside you, inside your corrected vessels of perception. You don’t feel anything outside of you.

We perceive all of reality, all that exists, inside us, in our sensations. This is why The Book of Zohar states that all the worlds and everything that fills them, including the Creator, exist in a person. It’s because they are felt by a person only within. Everything only seems to exist on the outside, outside of us. This illusion is given to us purposely, so that through the contrast of the perception of “outside” and “inside,” we will acquire a capability to see the world, ourselves, and the Creator from the side as well as inside. We will then be able to feel creation like He does: before it was created, in the process of being created, and in the future “higher states.”

Spiritual perception is built on feeling within the desires of “others,” which you adjoin to yourself by way of the desire to bestow and love them. In this manner, your desire grows, and to the extent that you unite with other desires, you continue to reveal a greater and broader reality.

In our world we reveal the “World of Assiya,” where each person is secluded inside himself, in his own egoistic desire. But when you begin to unite with the group, which is similar to your desire for the Creator, then to the extent that you unite with their desire, you will reveal the World of Yetzira.

By uniting with the environment into one whole desire, you reveal the quality of bestowal that you’ve attained, and that is called the “Creator.” The phenomena that you reveal in your corrected desire are called the Light, and its innermost source is called the Creator.

But then, a greater egoistic desire is revealed inside you that is your “self,” and by trying to unite with the group over that egoistic desire, you attain the World of Beria.

This is how we reveal all five worlds. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Science of Kabbalah” that all the worlds exist inside of a person. The science of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created being, inside the created being, meaning, inside his corrected desires (senses). By revealing the quality of bestowal, we also attain their Source, their Founder. This innermost attainment is called the Creator.

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