A question I received: Why is it so difficult to admit that I am egoist and to find the evil within me?

My Answer: Because a person is a living being, he possesses a protective force. He has to protect himself, his life, his nature, and his “I” similar to how the peel (Klipa) protects an apple as long as it grows. If there is a defect in the peel, then the apple rots without ever reaching the state of ripeness. Therefore, the peel must always be there to protect it.

The ego is Klipa and must be protected as long as the desire within it grows. When the desire contained within becomes full, then the Klipa can be removed and the desire (the fruit contained within) used. Therefore, as long as we grow, our egoism constantly protects us by not allowing us to realize the evil because that evil is still insufficient. If there were no Klipa, we would cry and scream to the Creator like a small child who cries and calls out to his mother over every little occurrence that happens to him.

Our ego locks us up from within, making us a “stony heart” and preventing us from asking the Creator for correction. A person says, “I am a man and I won’t ask You for anything. Moreover, You will do whatever I want.” Thus, we oppose the Creator and wage a power struggle with Him. This is why Pharaoh said, “Who is the Creator that I should listen to His voice?” We want the Creator to do everything that we desire. We don’t turn to Him with a request, but with a demand.

Indeed, the demand has to be present, but it has to come from the full, ripe ego, the “evil inclination.” Reaching this takes time because it’s very difficult for a person to come to accept the fact that he is an egoist. Nevertheless, eventually, under the Light’s influence, one reaches the breaking point, a state called “the gate of tears” where a person feels that he has nothing.

At that point, a person is ready for anything. He says to the Creator, “Do what you will. I don’t care if I don’t receive anything. I don’t care if I have nothing. Just let me stop being who I am! Take away everything, but please take me out of this state! I cannot stand it any longer because I am opposite to bestowal.” This is the internal crisis point that has to become revealed in a person.

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Our egoistic desire filters reality to suit its purpose. In effect, there is a filter before us through which we see the world. In other words, we don’t see the world, nature, society, and people objectively the way they really are; rather, we merely see what is profitable for our ego in every object, namely by what is either beneficial or harmful to it. Thus, out of an infinite reality, we sense only its minuscule part called “this world” because our ego cannot perceive anything more than that.

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A question I received: How do we combine intellect and feelings?

My Answer: There is a scholastic approach widely used at schools and universities to convey knowledge. Often, however, without involving our feelings, we are unable to understand our teachers. For example, when studying music, a person has to hear it inside himself. He has to differentiate between its most minute shades and nuances. In other words, his feelings have to go together with his intellect, which, in turn, will make his feelings work.

The building material of the wisdom of Kabbalah is feelings, not intellect, because the matter of creation is desire. Therefore, we have to develop our desire, making it more sensitive and more complex. We have to fill it with impressions, crevices, and “cells” of the thinnest, most delicate emotions. In the same way, when a person who is not a wine expert tries a 200-year-old wine, he won’t be able to detect the same nuances as the expert who will experience an entire range of unique sensations. Yet, the wine expert wasn’t born that way; he developed this rich wine-tasting palette. We have to do exactly the same thing. We have a point in the heart, which is the initial impulse toward something. But toward what? That is something we don’t know yet because we can’t discern the details within our aspirations.

Thus, it’s essential for a person to develop his point in the heart. He must make it more voluminous so it well have enough room to accommodate the many details of his spiritual perception. It has to become capable of all the inner responses, the depth, height, colors, and tastes of the spiritual sense. This development occurs through one’s aspiration toward the spiritual goal. Thousands of feelings will show up as soon as we can sense them; everything is already there in the spiritual world. Our task is to develop the ability to feel them. In order to accomplish this, we need to aspire toward the Light, to long for the Light to descend upon us, correct us, and make us similar to it.

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Two questions I received on Kabbalists’ attitude to the world:

Question: Our Kabbalah study group in Seattle was asked to give a presentation on Kabbalah to a club that meets to learn about different spiritual traditions. The talk went very well and after it was over, one of the participants asked: “What do Kabbalists say we should do with desires when they rise within us?” How would you have answered such a question?

My Answer: We will fulfill them with the understanding of the Creator.

Question: If the Kabbalists do and have always known all, in my opinion, they are responsible for explaining to all of humanity and even individuals, why the Creator seemingly treats them so poorly.

My Answer: It’s you, not Kabbalists, who perceive the Creator’s attitude in this way. You will understand the rest on your own once your impressions of the world start changing.

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A question I received: At the upcoming Zohar Convention 2010, if we succeed in canceling our egoistic desires with respect to the common desire, will we be able to reach the first degree and be born into the spiritual world?

My Answer: Yes, this is possible for all the participants of the Convention, even those who come there almost by chance and who have not studied with us for a few months or years. They too can merit the revelation of spirituality along with everyone else. People who wish to come out of their egoism and unite as one man with one heart around Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred) realize that they are controlled by their egoistic nature – hatred toward others and love for themselves.

Reaching love for one another is a task as difficult as rising to the top of this high mountain of hatred. However, if they desire this, they will attain it. What do you think was so special about the people who came out of Egypt: men, women, the elderly, children, and the whole countless multitude of different tribes that joined them? The 600,000 men who received the Torah are just a fifth of the total number of people who stood around the mountain; they represent just one of five degrees: Shoresh, Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet. If we achieve unity in this one degree, the smallest desire of the zero level, and 600,000 people out of three million unite, this is sufficient.

When we receive the means called the Torah, we begin to move ahead with its help. We are able to work on our egoism and ascend through it. This is called “work in the desert,” where we will be able to raise MAN and carry out all the necessary actions. The most important thing is to go through the spiritual birth. also referred to as the “exodus from Egypt.” I believe that we are quite capable of achieving this if we so desire. We have all the conditions and opportunities that are necessary for this.

Everything is open for us from Above. I am completely serious when I say this. Those who join this action and who desire to be with us in heart and soul can merit spiritual revelation, correction, and an exit from exile.

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeHaalotcha (When You Mount the Candles),” Item 10: This is so in action, meaning in sacrifices.

Item 11: When the priest intended to light candles below and bring the incense closer, the upper candles, the Sefirot, would shine at that time, everything was connected, and joy and jubilation were in all the worlds, as it is written, “Ointment and perfume delight the heart.”

The main spiritual work is sacrifice, where the word “sacrifice” (Kurban in Hebrew) means “closer” (Karov). This means that we take our desire to enjoy, measure it, and check to see which part can be the “sacrifice.”  By “slaughtering it,” we bring it closer to the quality of bestowal, releasing it from its egoistic form of “an animal” that lives only for its own sake.

We want to raise it to the level where it can be used by man, elevating it from the animate to the human level. This is the essence of all sacrifices from the still level (salt and water), the vegetative level (grains), and the animate level (birds and animals), which are the levels that are brought to the Temple. It is the corrected Malchut, where Malchut is connected to Zeir Anpin.

All of this is talking only about desires inside a person, which are corrected from egoistic to altruistic. It seems like it is talking about hard, dirty, and cruel work, such as sacrificing or killing with blood and water. And indeed it is – the correction of our egoistic desire is dirty work. It is written, “Mother (Bina) will come and cleanse the son.” This is why we need to attract the Upper Light so that it works on us. Then, the work is done by forces of Cohen, Levi, and Israel: singing, blowing the horn and lighting the candles – the Sefirot that shine from Zeir Anpin into Malchut. A person does not have to know all the details of this work; once he receives these qualities corrected by the Surrounding Light, he will see how it all works. We only need to observe the Creator; He will wage this war with Pharaoh, while we simply have to want it.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Ki Tissa (When You Take),” Item 81: …for a thing that requires disclosure, to be revealed later, needs a place for hiding and covering, first. First, it must be concealed from the eye, and then the craftsman lets his craft be shown. Thus, what needs covering later needs to be revealed first. This is so because “God has made them one opposite the other.” All that exists in the degrees of holiness has its opposite in the Sitra Achra (impurity).

Everything will be disclosed through its opposite; the advantage of the Light is revealed from within darkness. The Creator cannot disclose Himself to the creature until the creature reveals His opposite form and learns through that opposite form about what the direct form is.

We can perceive only darkness. We read black letters on a white background, meaning that we feel what is missing. What we reveal is not the Creator, but His absence. We are unable to reveal His properties. Our entire work amounts to revealing Him from His opposite side, as it was said to Moses: “You shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”

That is why a person who truly wants to attain the revelation has to go by faith above reason and acquire the power of bestowal, Bina. However, he is unable to reveal this force of bestowal, since he does not feel it. He can reveal it only under the condition that he feels a lack within him, within his darkness, his egoistic desire. This lack is a need for bestowal. We have to reveal it from the opposition, because we always come from the side of the darkness, from the side of egoism and see the opposite of everything. Upon revealing the spiritual world, we will say: “I saw a reverse world.” We don’t even realize how opposite to us spirituality is.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Tazria (When A Woman Delivers),” Item 70: “…pangs of love are hidden from people.” Pangs of love is the state also known as “I am lovesick.” It means that I don’t need anything; I only want to give, to bestow. My only wish is to fulfill your desire.

This is an intermediate state where I very much want to give but I am unable. Since I haven’t yet acquired a screen, I am unable to receive the Light in order to fulfill your desire. Love is a state where I feel the desire of the other more than my own.

The Zohar, Chapter “Tazria (When A Woman Delivers),” Item 72: It is written, “Better is open rebuke than love that is hidden,” which means that open rebuke is better. And if the rebuke is out of love, it is hidden from people. Similarly, one who rebukes one’s friend with love must hide his words from people so his friend will not be shamed by them. And if his words are open before people, they are not with love.”

In our world we naturally desire to hide our relationships and the love between us because love requires discretion. We want to protect it from everything that might potentially hurt it. But what does it mean “to be ashamed” or “to reveal love in front of others” in spirituality? Who are those others? They are my desires.

If I attain connection with the Creator in one desire, then the other desires in which I cannot connect with Him are called “the others.” Therefore, I need to pay attention to them so that they don’t hurt my love, as well as keep in mind that everything is happening internally.

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We must try to reveal everything that’s written in The Book of Zohar within ourselves. A person sits in front of a book and doesn’t understand a single word written in it. This is because every word points to a spiritual desire, along with its type and quality such as reception or bestowal, large or small, and all its various forms. We must search for all of this inside ourselves.

A person has to unite with others and desire to merge into a single desire with them. With this common desire a person aspires within himself and concentrates on the searches, trying to find, “Where is it all hidden in me?” The fact is that all of reality exists inside us. There is nothing outside; all of what we picture is formed within. Some things only seem to be external, yet there is no real life outside of us. While we see various imaginary pictures, The Zohar does not write about them. Rather, it writes about the forces which create that picture. It is like a computer screen where we see various pictures and forms, but in reality they are all electrical forces.

We need to switch from the external display or demonstration of forces to an inner perception and the understanding that everything happens inside our “computer.” This is important to distinguish in order to perform various spiritual calculations and actions.

Actually, we don’t even need a monitor. We can work with the computer directly from its hard drive, without transferring everything to an external picture.

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A question I received: How come problems do not go away even when you understand the cause?

My Answer: This means that you lack the understanding, meaning, the attainment of the cause and the source. Where do these problems come from? They come from my egoism. Why do they come? They come because I am opposite to the Creator. What do I need to do? I need to demand help from the Surrounding Light so I will acquire the quality of bestowal and attain a connection with the Creator; these are my initial goals.

Basically, I need to go through several stages. The ten Sefirot of the Direct Light awaken the ten Sefirot of the Reflected Light within us, causing us to feel pain starting with the first Sefira (Malchut). After the first nine Sefirot, I feel the evil as a stab or a blow when the Light comes from Above and collides with Malchut. And then I must turn this evil into a proper reaction – the nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

In other words, I need to understand that this evil did not come from the Creator, but from my egoistic desire, which is opposite to Him. But why am I opposite to Him? Didn’t He create me this way? I need to understand why I was created this way and what I need to do. I have to rise above my egoism, unite with others, and attain the form of Bina. I rise from Malchut to Bina to acquire the quality of bestowal to the full extent, so that Malchut will be included in Bina and the quality of bestowal will influence and fulfill me.

I remain in it, but that’s not all. After that I’ll need to rise even higher – from Bina to Keter. I rise to Keter in order to attain reception for the sake of bestowal, until I unite with the Creator completely. This is the goal, and the reason why I am now receiving the first blow in Malchut, which I perceive as pain. It’s so that I will be able to attain Keter. The entire process must occur inside me inside Malchut of the Direct Light, or stated differently, inside Keter of the Reflected Light. It must take place within the creature’s initial reaction to the Creator. I need to examine all of this, comprehend it, and solve it, so that as a result, a prayer will emerge inside me where I ask, “Give me the strength to ask”! Because I don’t even have that yet.

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