A question I received: Why is it so difficult to link everything that happens in life with one force – the Creator?

My Answer: It’s impossible to think of the Creator the very minute something happens to us, unless we feel Him through our senses, unless we are connected with this source of Light, and unless we become present in Him and He manifests Himself in us.

We react to any sensation or thought that emerges in us by searching for a thousand sources other than the Creator, since we don’t perceive Him as the single force that fills everything that exists. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about something that happened 5000 years ago or today. Because of our egoistic nature, a human being is never able to stay connected with the idea of one governing force, the Creator.

We exist in a state of duality, since we are created by two opposites – the Light and the vessel (Kli), the darkness and the Light. Our perception consists of two parts: desire and sensation (reaction), and fulfillment or emptiness within the desire. One of those parts, the desire, originates directly from the Creator, and the other part, the pleasure, comes to us indirectly. Suffering does not come directly from the Creator, and thus we cannot link it with Him.

Therefore, until we reveal the Creator, through both our mind and senses, the statement that He is “the One, Unique, Indivisible” is false for us. A person cannot affirm that there is only one force that rules the universe since according to human nature, it is not true. Only when a person reveals the Creator can he say that the Creator is “the One, Unique, Indivisible,” since he can then feel it from within.

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A question I received: There are different materials in nature: metal, wood, stone, and others, and they are all completely passive. As I see it, they are all inanimate. However, desire is something more active. Why then do you call them desires?

My Answer: A pencil is made of wood, and wood desires to maintain its form or structure – the connection between the atoms. If you try to do something to it, you will see that it does not wish to give in to your changes; it tries to maintain its form and resists. You need to put in lots of effort in order to break it, meaning, to break its desire to stand guard over itself and to self-preserve.

This material is a force. By measuring certain parameters of this material, you measure its force of resistance to external influences. You will need to apply additional force in order to change its qualities and state. This is called desire or matter.

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When our egoistic desire feels bad, it drives us from behind like a whip, driving us in search of happiness. However, that is not enough to proceed in the right direction, because it is not the goal of creation to flee from egoism. This is merely a way of assisting us since it acts as a force to drive us forward.

To aim us in the right direction, we are granted a desire from Above – a spark or point in the heart which draws us to spiritual development. This spark brings us to a Kabbalistic group and a teacher, so we can grow and develop it.

Using these components, we must build an “ark” for ourselves, wherein we can escape all the evil, all that confuses us and stumps our spiritual growth. At the same time, we have to understand that nothing can be done about the disturbances, whether external or internal. They are revealed in us and around us purposefully, so we could fortify our resolve and gather strength against them, similar to how the turbulent waters of the flood destroy everything harmful and leave behind only what is necessary.

Indeed, we have gathered here to build an ark inside us, representing the Creator’s quality of bestowal. This ark will be our shelter.

The Zohar: Go and enter the ark with your entire household, for all that does not take shelter in the ark shall be erased from the face of the earth.

We have to attach everything we can to Bina, the quality of bestowal, the Creator. We can do it by giving ourselves to Him fully and attaching to Him like a seed in a mother’s womb. Everything that we are able to attach to this quality will be saved and developed in spirituality.

As for the desires that one cannot attach to Bina, they shall be destroyed by the waters of the flood. Noah is the only desire within us that can lead us to spirituality, provided we cut it off from the rest of our desires which cannot develop spiritually. That is why we want to connect to spirituality by means of this desire. It is the only desire we should want to cultivate.

We must cut off the rest of the desires and drown them in the waters of the flood, because we can only advance with the one desire symbolized by Noah. With this desire, we can build a new world – the world after the flood.

We don’t know what this new world will be like. We develop inside of Bina like inside a mother’s womb – and be what be. When we reemerge, there will be a new world!

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The Kli (vessel) is a form imprinted by the Light inside desire. It is the vessel’s attempt to reach a special state in order to attain fulfillment. If I’m looking for some specific form of fulfillment, that means my desire has already acquired the “form” and property of what I desire.

This Light is already present in me, but it exists in the shape of an informational record (Reshimo), in the form of emptiness, a hollow figure.  I don’t feel it as fulfillment, nor do I sense pleasure.

In spirituality, these states are adjacent to each other. The same applies to the material world: when I want something, and I can see it and sense it, then what else do I need to do in order to get it? I have to make an effort!

In other words, I have to add a new twist to my already existing desire so that it becomes possible to reveal the “big Light” which we call fulfillment within the small Light called “Reshimo.” The size of the Light depends on the size of the desire.

I feel a deficiency in fulfillment because the Light already exists and is shining on me from a distance, waking my Reshimo and forcing me to strive towards it. The difference between Reshimo and fulfillment depends only on my desire, since the Light is eternal and permanent. Reshimo is the Light within me that has not yet manifested within my desires.

I must accelerate my efforts to increase the intensity of my desires and reveal the fulfillment that already exists within me. Because of the low intensity of my desires, I sense them as Reshimo, as a lack of fulfillment.

I exist in an ocean of eternal, constant and endless Light, but I can’t feel it since I don’t have contact with it, nor do I possess any common qualities with it. If even the smallest bit of desire towards the Light arises in me, I start feeling the Light.

On one hand, the slightest of feelings confirms that the Light exists, but on the other hand, it makes me regret the fact that I don’t sense it to its full capacity. The regret that I feel as a result of not sensing the Light at its ultimate level is called “Hissaron” (a lack of fulfillment), and it pushes me to try harder to reach the Light.

When I start increasing my level of effort, the Light that I felt in my weaker desire as Reshimo turns into fulfillment. The Light is unchangeable, but as my desire grows, what I desire becomes real.

I am always inside an ocean of Light, and the entire difference is whether I can expose myself to it on a smaller or larger scale.

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We don’t know what Atzmuto is, the Light itself, . We can only talk about the forms it creates within the desire. Besides this, we cannot understand or feel anything.

When I drink water, I don’t know what water actually is when it is outside of me. I only know how it is perceived inside my sensations and in my senses. This is the only thing I can talk about, and I can therefore describe the water as being wet, cool, sweet or sour. I can only describe it from the point of view of my own Kli. That is why we only talk about the Kelim and their impressions, the forms and sensations that are present within them.

It seems to me that I go into the shower, turn on the faucet and enjoy the water streaming down on to me. But the faucet and the water streaming down on me, and the water that’s inside me when I drink it, are all my own Kelim.

If we discern the concepts in the right way, then we will be able to read The Book of Zohar correctly.

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A question I received: I consist wholly of the desire to enjoy. Then who within me is observing the twists and turns of this desire from the side?

My Answer: Indeed, if I am a desire to enjoy, I can only compare the intensity of its particular manifestations.

However, if I have a “point in the heart,” the embryo of my soul, the Creator’s part from Above, a particle of the desire to bestow, a grain of truth – it is precisely against this point that I begin to appraise and systemize everything else. I then find myself incapable of agreeing to anything if it bears no relation to it.

One comes to Kabbalah with a point in the heart, which becomes a reference point for his entire life. He no longer plunges into comparative calculations of egoistic desires, no longer strives for maximum profit with respect to money, fame, power and all the other “blessings” of this world. No, now he checks everything against the truth – the spiritual point that had awakened within him.

This leads one to a new level, which carries with it new expectations. After all, now he feels that without the method of Kabbalah he is unable to develop his point and include everything else inside it. This point now becomes his touchstone and the standard by which all his desires are assessed.

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Our desires exist outside of our bodies. In the past, however, people used to think that one’s qualities are contained in one’s heart, which meant that if you could change a person’s heart, then the person would change as well. But the first heart transplant proved all these conjectures false, showing that the heart is simply a pump. The same is true of the brain; in fact, it can’t even be called a computer.

As for the body, it is but an image that we imagine as being our existence. However, our true I – the spiritual I – is beyond this image.

This entire world is depicted exclusively within our sensations, within us. The three-dimensional screen we are watching is not really depicting the world around us, but the picture of the forces inside us. We don’t see anything else outside of that, which is why it seems to us that we are surrounded by a live world.

What surrounds us is a panoramic screen. We only know what we perceive, and we perceive only what is being shown to us at this moment. It is only when the spiritual picture appears to us that we realize that we’ve been watching a movie all this time.

The science of Kabbalah is a method that helps us transition to a new perception. And that is exactly what we should expect from it. We shouldn’t desire empty, theoretical knowledge from Kabbalah books, but a vision of another, higher world – a clear vision of ourselves and the Creator.

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A question I received: What should I do if I feel that I am controlled from Above in every possible way?

My Answer: If you feel that everything is 100% controlled from Above, this is wonderful! What makes you think that you have to do anything about it? It’s very good if you feel that the Creator leads you and you are walking together with Him. The two of you are together in every movement, “body and soul” (with the body being your desires, and the soul – the place where you perceive His commands).

You feel His desires and immediately change your desires. You feel that you unite with Him, repeating all His steps after Him. You move together, until reaching the full correction, where it will no longer be possible to differentiate His desires from yours, to tell who is first and who is second. You will move together with Him without any delay. This state is called Gmar Tikkun – the End of Correction. It is when there is no difference between you and Him!

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Even if you still don’t have a screen or a desire to bestow, but want the desire to do so, then you can try to instill your point in the heart inside spirituality and attach it to the Upper Level. That is how you will become as a drop of spiritual semen placed into the mother’s womb, the AHP of the Upper Level. By desiring to be there in order for the Upper One to raise you, you will start developing as a spiritual embryo.

You have to cancel yourself and desire to turn into a tunnel through which the Light will flow onto the whole world.  In this way you become a conduit and not an obstacle for the Light. Right now you are locked inside yourself, and you have to open yourself up! This revelation happens with the help of the Light, Ohr Makif.

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It makes no difference what language you use to study the science of Kabbalah. This does not affect the connection between the Creator and the created being. You don’t have to know Hebrew.

All four languages used in Kabbalah (the languages of the Tanach, Halacha, Hagaddah, and Kabbalah) are not really comprised of the shapes of letters, the words, or the Hebrew expressions. Rather, a language is a connection between the created being and the Creator, or between the desire and the Light that activates it. The connection may be externally expressed as the moo of a cow or the smile of a baby, or even without any external expressions.

What matters is how your heart reacts and speaks to the Creator. You don’t have to write or saying anything. The truest language is your desires, which take on various forms depending on their similarity to the Creator.

There are no forms, sounds, smells, or movements in the spiritual world. The entire language of connecting to the Creator is your degree of similarity to Him, as well as how much you desire this similarity, how doubtful you are about it and how much you strive toward Him.

But none of this is related to the spoken language used by people in this world.

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