Questions I received on what happens after death:

Question: My name is Daniel and I am fifteen years old. Recently I had a conversation with my uncle about the wisdom of Kabbalah. He said that people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah live forever, but this doesn’t seem logical to me. I would like to know what happens to the soul after death.

My Answer: It’s true: a person who has attained the life of his soul perceives his existence as eternal. But you probably think that eternal existence is impossible because you are connecting it to your body. Of course we can’t exist forever in the body, because this kind of existence is imperfect (egoistic). It was created to be brief (opposite to the Creator), and its only purpose is for us to correct it, to make it similar to the Creator. And the corrected state is eternal. Moreover, our temporary state is actually an illusion, given to us only to realize its evil, like a bad dream, so we would get an impression of it and separate from it!

Question: I really enjoy listening to your lessons and studying with you. You have revealed a beautiful world to me. Suppose that someone has crossed the Machsom, but then died before completing his entire correction. The next time this person is born, will he immediately perceive the spiritual world?

My Answer: No, but he will quickly go through all the preliminary stages and reach the state he attained before, and then he’ll go on from there. One must keep returning to our world until he attains the full correction, because a desire can only be corrected “from outside,” that is to say, while one is in this world, which is external in relation to spirituality.

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Questions I received on movement, celebrities, the Masons, and pop music that uses prayers for lyrics:

Question: Dear Rav, I envy everything that moves. What can I do about it?

My Answer: Also move! (Meaning spiritual movement!)

Question: Why do you have conversations with celebrities, with people who are famous, instead of ordinary people? Do you really need the publicity? Do these talks with celebrities flatter your ego?

My Answer: Famous people meet different people thousands more times than ordinary people do. After my conversations with them they gain an understanding of the great value that Kabbalah has for every person and for the whole world, and they begin disseminating Kabbalah on a broad scale, or rather – they bring the Kabbalistic idea to the world. Experience proves this!

The reason I’m doing this is to accelerate man’s recognition of evil so he wouldn’t have to actually go through it in reality. As the Soviet satiric writer Zhvanetsky once said, “The difference between a clever person and a wise person is that a clever person gets out of a difficult situation with huge efforts, but a wise person never gets into that situation.” I want to be wise and I wish the same for everyone else.

Question: What is the connection between the Masons and Kabbalah, if there is any?

My Answer: There is no connection at all. Even my attempt a few years ago to give a lecture for the Masons in Jerusalem failed – they were scared. Secret brotherhoods of any type feel sick in the stomach at the thought of Kabbalah, because Kabbalah promotes wide dissemination to everyone, while the Masons aspire to maintain secrecy. However, there are no hidden forces there, but only traditions and a belief in their exclusivity.

I’m sure that the wave of world-wide change will soon overtake them, as well as all the other philosophies and religions. The only things that will remain will be man, the Creator and the connection between them, while the Masons’ protocols and religious faith “in something” will disappear.

Question: Recently we often hear the song “אנא בכוח,” with moving lyrics that go straight into the heart. Can you explain this text?

My Answer: Why does it move you so much if you don’t know the meaning of the text? Who taught you to think of this prayer in a special way? You wrote, “Recently we often hear” – but I’d like to ask you: who hears it, and where? I have never heard about it! I only know this prayer from the prayer book. In religion and in Kabbalah, no one treats it in a special way. This is just another “sensation” – someone just wants to stand out!

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Two questions I received on whether spiritual correction requires observance of physical rituals:

Question: You say that it’s possible to attain spiritual correction without physically observing the commandments of Judaism. Maybe you’re just saying this out of your concern for Kabbalah’s dissemination around the world? Or maybe what you really mean is that people can’t understand these commandments by simply reading them? If you can’t publish the answer on the blog, I would like to receive a private answer.

My Answer: The Creator created the will to receive pleasure with an intention “for one’s own sake,” and this is how we find ourselves in this world. We were created this way in order to correct our intention to “for the sake of the neighbor or the Creator,” on all of our 613 desires. This correction happens under the influence of the Upper Light, Ohr Makif, which descends during the study of Kabbalah.

This bears no relation to the observance of religious rituals. A person can attain correction and spiritual attainment without physically observing the commandments, or rather – the traditions. This is true for both Jews and the nations of the world. Moreover, every person can keep his religion, because religion is no more than a nation’s cultural framework. Kabbalah only teaches us about the intention “for the sake of the neighbor,” how to love and bestow to others – and nothing else.

Question: You’re all about spirituality and the love revolution. But what about connecting the root with the branch? After all, the still, vegetative, and animate levels are also levels of the will to receive. You always speak about the internality without any externality, and this confuses me. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” that the internality should be preferred over the externality. But it looks like Bnei Baruch gives 100% of their attention to the internality, and 0% to the externality! This is difficult and confusing. Why not make a small change and pay a little more attention to the externality? Why not combine both parts? Dedicate 90% of your attention to the internality, and 10% to the externality. This will really help everyone! What do you think?

My Answer: We at Bnei Baruch actually do this – we follow the traditions. But do you really think that all the people in the world – who are now approaching correction – have to observe the physical commandments of Judaism, even if it isn’t their tradition? In the article “The Future Generation” Baal HaSulam writes that every person can keep his religion!

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Filed under: Baal HaSulam, Egoism, Love, Perception, Q&A, Quora, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Two questions I received on the differences between Rabash’s students:

Question: Your teacher Rav Baruch Ashlag (Rabash) had many students, including Rav Gotlib, Rav Brizal, and others. Every one of them understands and interprets your common teacher in his own way. In particular, there are great discrepancies about religion and dissemination of Kabbalah. How do you explain this?

My Answer: The reason several versions come from one teacher is to give every person the opportunity to find a teacher who suits his upbringing and aspiration. Check all of these versions, and then choose the one that’s right for you. I’m sure that all of these teachers teach the same basics: by studying in a group to evoke Ohr Makif, one attains the property of bestowal (the Screen and Ohr Hochma), and then one ascends by nullifying oneself before the AHP of the Upper Level.

Question: And how do you explain the fact that Rabash’s students don’t keep in touch with one another?

My Answer: Each of them is following his own path, as it is written: “There are many paths to the Creator” (Yesh Harbe Drachim Le Makom). When Rabash passed away, he left his entire archive to me, and I let all of his students make copies of all his notes, as well as giving them all of the original audio tapes to copy – over a thousand of them. And I wish them success in everything!

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In our world, pain is the organism’s reaction to a problem in it. It’s the organism’s way of telling us that something is wrong with our body. For example, pain warns us of danger and makes us pull our hand away from fire. Pain compels us to move, to come closer to something/someone, or to get away from them, to change our qualities, to adopt new opinions, to realize the reason for the pain, to draw conclusions, and to progress to new states of being.

In fact, pain is the only force that is able to affect our egoism: pain when we feel bad, or when others feel bad, or when others feel good. Pain pushes us from behind and forces us to develop. The pain of feeling empty pushes us ahead, toward fulfillment. Pain is everywhere! All our sensations come from clashes, contact, pressure – or in other words, from pain. We feel pleasure only when it’s preceded by the painful sensation of an unfulfilled desire, suffering, or expectation.

However, when we come out of egoism and rise above the Machsom, we begin to realize that instead of living our lives based on lack or absence, we can live based on total fulfillment and fullness. Instead of basing everything on pain, we can take perfection as our starting point. Instead of doing the things we do because we need to, we can do them out of love, without needing anything.

This is a completely different kind of existence, a different attitude to the world, to people, to yourself, and of course – to the Creator. And when we attain it, the Creator immediately becomes revealed to us, because then we become perfect, just like Him.

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A question I received: I listened to your conversation with Professor Gregogy Brechman on pregnancy and birth, and it made me think about how lately everyone is panicking about aggression and violence among children, and child suicide keeps growing exponentially. According to your conversation with Dr. Brechman, the ones to blame for this are the pregnant mothers-to-be who are constantly thinking whether to “execute (abort) or to have mercy” on the creature that’s in their womb, because these thoughts instill a very powerful fear for life in the future child.

Shouldn’t we do something about these thoughts of the uncorrected parents, because the further we go, the worse and more egoistic their thoughts become, and hence every generation that’s born becomes more cruel and aggressive? If our thoughts during pregnancy really influence the way a person will turn out, then what should we think to make children geniuses? And can a man influence the thoughts of his pregnant wife?

My Answer: It doesn’t matter what state the creature is in: a drop of semen, an embryo, a newborn, a child, or an adult, and whether he already attains his higher existence or still doesn’t – regardless, as a Reshimo, he is always influenced by just one force – the Creator. And there is no one else in the entire universe besides the two of them – the Creator and the creation!

The Reshimo develops under the influence of the Light and begins to feel that it’s receiving from someone. It starts to perceive someone, the way a newborn does. In other words, one’s entire development is qualitative rather than quantitative – it’s the development of one’s relationship with the Upper One (the Light, the Creator), or of one’s attitude to Him.

Hence, if the parents are studying Kabbalah, the connection with the Upper One, then they already prepare their children – on the informational level – for spiritual development. And this influence becomes more and more important as the child develops through the prenatal period, then after he’s born, then the preschool period, and so on, until he becomes an adult. The soul has no age, and regardless of the form of its bodily, outer shell, any influence on the soul is positive.

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Question: You say that the Creator is the quality and act of giving or bestowing. However, if we are able to attain this quality, to attain the Creator, doesn’t this make us greater than Him? We are able to incorporate both egoism and its opposite, but the Creator is only a part of this antinomy. So how can He be superior to us? Maybe we just can’t categorize Him as superior but only as Different?

My Answer: One reveals the Creator’s status only after he attains the Creator’s quality. Then he is able to see where his qualities really stand in relation to the Creator, and what the purpose of creation is. Until this happens, all our words are empty because we don’t know what stands behind them.

This is why Kabbalah hates philosophy and considers it empty talk about things that philosophers don’t attain. Philosophy is opposite to Kabbalah – see the article “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy.” Kabbalah prefers to deal with actual attainment and it talks only from the level of attainment. This is the meaning of the verse, “The judge knows no more than what his eyes see,” and, “If we don’t see something, we don’t talk about it.”

Question: Is the main intention behind the Mitzva of Yirat Hashem (fearing God) the perception of God? Thank you, Rabbi Jose.

My Answer: Absolutely, since the perception of the Creator is what enables man to rise above his egoistic nature and to use it (the Aviut) in the opposite way – as bestowal and love, according to how the Creator reveals this to him.

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I had a conversation that was recorded on the topic of love. I spoke with Oren Levi, manager of our Hebrew publishing department.

We analyzed how the spiritual property of the Creator, “love for creation,” is expressed in action – “bestowal and fulfillment.” However, since creation is egoistic and opposite to the Creator, it interprets this as love for fulfillment and reception. Creation aspires to use and humiliate others, in order to feel more fulfilled than them. In other words, its love manifests in a completely opposite form than the spiritual quality of “love,” yet we refer to both of them with the same word, according to the law of “root and consequence.”

However, when creation attains equivalence of form with the Creator (when it acquires the aspiration toward the property – “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” which is attained only through the influence of the Upper Light that descends during the study of Kabbalah), it begins to comprehend the true meaning of the Torah’s words and of Kabbalistic notions, including “bestowal” and “love.”

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Questions I received on making life choices, understanding Baal HaSulam’s Letters, and preparing for the future

Question: I have a problem on my hands: I’ve been studying Kabbalah for two years and now I’m supposed to go to the army for a year. I can get out of it by paying money (without violating the law!), which will also take about a year of work. If I go to the army, then I won’t be able to watch lessons or disseminate Kabbalah, but if I work for a year, then I’ll have time to disseminate and go to lessons. What’s better?

My Answer: If you will be working as you’re supposed to, studying Kabbalah, and working on inner correction and dissemination, then you will be more useful to the world as a Kabbalah student. So if it’s legal, choose this route.

Question: In reference to Baal HaSulam’s Letters (Igrot) that are included in the kabbalah.info Library section, to whom was Rav Ashlag addressing them?

My Answer: To you! Even though these letters contain some personal answers and comments, mainly they talk about things that are experienced by every person who’s going toward the Creator.

Question: You have disseminated Kabbalah to thousands of people, and I’m one of them. (Thank you. I’m an example of the benefit that comes from dissemination work, which unfortunately I don’t do yet.) I’d like to know: Are you preparing someone to be your successor, to continue the lineage of the wisdom? Or is there no need for a leader in the new era of Kabbalah’s revelation?

My Answer: The leader will be the group that is now learning to resolve the management issues. They are growing right beside me – and you are one of them. Every person who learns the wisdom of Kabbalah at least to some degree, will have to serve others, in order to help them learn and actualize the degrees of man’s transformation until the level of the Creator. This work of attaining equivalence to the Creator has already begun, and the leaders of the new spiritual upbringing of the common worldwide civilization will be determined from above.

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Questions I received about Reshimot

Question: I’d like to ask about Reshimot: The point in the heart is a Reshimo, and Klipot are also Reshimot, but broken ones. What other kinds of Reshimot are “registered” in Kabbalah? There are probably more of them than elements in the periodic table!

My Answer: Reshimot accumulated during the common soul’s descent from its spiritual level of love and bestowal into reception and love for oneself. Altogether there are Reshimot from 125 levels of descent, and we have to correct them in the reverse order. By realizing these Reshimot in order, we ascend along their levels and reveal our spiritual senses, which feel the Upper Light, the Creator.

Question: How can a person tell what level are the Reshimot coming from, according to the special qualities of his individual soul? Do the Reshimot always come to help us grow and develop? And what about the Reshimot of the Klipot – why do they come to a person?

My Answer: Reshimot surface in us one after another, from below upwards, and they always become expressed in the form of broken levels (Klipot, the ego). By correcting them, we build our soul – the vessel in which we perceive ourselves, our spiritual life.

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