A question I received: Will the receiving force disappear when we come to final correction?

My Answer: If it disappeared, then creation would disappear as well. Is receiving really a bad thing? Kabbalah (receiving in Hebrew) is the science of how to properly use the force of reception.

Everything began from the Light that is the quality of bestowal or the giving force that created creation, the will to receive, or receiving force. In reality there are only these two forces, and this is why creation always has to receive or strive to receive. The will to receive is a necessary and enduring force. Otherwise, how can I possibly give? It is possible only if I learn how to properly receive; then I will be able to acquire the force of bestowal.

The One that purely gives is the Creator. I am the one who receives. The receiver can thoughtlessly swallow up everything that is  given to him, in which case he will find himself in an intolerable situation. In this case, anything a person receives will only leave him feeling more and more drained. It is  because delight is opposite to one’s desire and it neutralizes the desire. The next moment after I have filled myself, I feel empty. Why is this so? It is because delight is felt only during its brief encounter with the desire, which vanishes once it’s full. For example, I was hungry and anticipated a treat, but now that I am full, I can’t even look at food.

It follows that egoism kills itself and gives way to despair. Whatever I do, nothing remains. What else can I think of in this world to delight myself? How many different foods, movies, cars, or jets do I need? At some point, it all stops satiating me.

This is why the world has come to a crisis. The crisis is due to all of us having forgotten how to use our desire to enjoy, and therefore not being able to employ it as before. The world is at a dead end. So what should we do?  This is when a new desire called the “point in the heart” emerges in man. It says, “It is possible to enter a different dimension of pleasure. Let’s try it.”

This is how one comes to the science of Kabbalah. It teaches a person to give by means of the desire to be delighted. How does this happen? Only through love for others. Love towards others will be revealed in everyone, and people will suddenly feel that this love gives them fulfillment that does not vanish, is always there, and always increases.

When you begin to wish to give, you will sense that you are being fulfilled, and this never-ending fulfillment will be a sensation of eternal life.

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A question I received: In the corrected state, I will love my neighbor as myself. But will his desire in relation to me still remain “not my” desire?

My Answer: We do not erase the differences between us; we preserve all of our desires. It is written, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” not “nullify yourself and disappear.”

“As yourself” implies the depth of each person’s desire which remains between us, our differences and the hatred that we rise above, like over Mount Sinai (Sina means “hatred” in Hebrew). We use our ego, the entire depth of the egoism, in order to turn it into bestowal. If we were to cancel our desires, we would have nothing to rise above.

Therefore, we should not destroy anything about ourselves. Even the worst qualities have to stay. We just add correction to them without creating anything new; we simply use what exists in us initially. Until the World of Infinity, we ascend by the degrees of our egoistic desire, transforming it to bestowal.

We can fall at any given moment, as it is written, “Don’t believe in yourself until your very death (the death of egoism).” If you lose the screen, you will fall back into these desires, since the screen restrains your egoism – all your hatred. However, the hatred remains, and it can burst out at any moment.

Even in our ordinary lives, we see how people unite, and then suddenly and unexpectedly, hatred erupts between them and a war breaks out. This happens because people build connections with each other based on “corrections” that can fall apart at any moment. It is like a “united” Europe, where there are 30 different countries, all being torn apart by mutual oppositions. No matter how much they try to build a “common home,” it can explode and bring them to a third world war in one instant!

Suddenly terrible hatred will be revealed, a kind that they have never experienced before. All of the unification that they are trying to reach right now will serve as fuel for hatred. And all that’s needed for this is one match.

In our spiritual ascent, only the Creator serves as the guarantor of the fact that this will not happen to any of us, provided that we include Him in our union!

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From your studies, you need to expect changes that are brought to you by the Correcting Force – “the Light returning to the Source.” Kabbalists who wrote books were present in our world and the Upper Worlds simultaneously.

Therefore, if you desire to acquire the Kabbalists’ properties and vision, then by using your aspiration, you can draw the force of correction upon yourself and soon feel the result of its influence. This will be expressed as a gradually increasing feeling of the properties of bestowal within.

Under the influence of the hidden Light in the studies, you will gradually recognize that you don’t have even a bit of the quality of bestowal within you. All the good that you attribute to yourself is just egoism, which attempts to fulfill itself in this manner. This will be a clear recognition that whatever you do is only for self fulfillment.

At the same time you will feel that this is not good. It is seemingly okay, yet you will feel that it is actually bad because it limits you. Through bestowal, you will open up the infinite spiritual world, and by receiving, you will stagnate in this world. This realization is a step forward.

Then you will feel that there is actually someone, the Giver, filling all space around you. You are not familiar with Him as yet, but you want to feel Him, be equivalent to Him, become as Him, and unite with Him through the quality of bestowal.

In this way, you can gradually change under the influence of the Correcting Force that you draw upon yourself during the studies. This Force influences you, especially while studying The Book of Zohar. If you are ready and want to unite with other souls, then together with them, you will attract the most powerful Correcting Light from this book.

Only this Light will help all of us. All other efforts will be useless, other than uniting together to draw the correcting force upon us.

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For the first time in human history, now in the 21st century we have come to the point where we feel ourselves in opposition to Nature, the Creator. We have come to be connected into one global system of humanity.

Before this, the Light affected each of us individually so that each of us would grow within his own egoism. Today however, we have developed to the point where the Light has connected us together and is causing a different kind of development within us that will correct the connections between us.

Prior to this, we weren’t opposite to Him, even though He is one and there are billions of us. Today we are connected together, but involuntarily and not by our own desire; it is for this reason that we are opposite to the Creator.

We have finished our individual egoistic development and therefore we have lost the desire to develop further. The world has reached a point of presenting unprecedented opportunities, but people have lost interest in them because the desire has become different; the desires are no longer personal desires of an individual to fulfill his own egoism.

Humanity’s  egoism has reached its maximum limit and cannot find any new voids to fill, nor do we feel the need to fill those voids. The Light has stopped developing us and is now pressuring and forcing us to connect correctly with others and to become equivalent to Him (the Creator).

This is a different kind of Light that is aimed at our unification. We have therefore come today to the global crisis, which is the crisis of connection between us due to our non-conformance to the Light, the Creator.

We are experiencing a new phenomenon of the 21st century; one that has never happened before. Today all problems occur on the scale of the common system and the whole of humanity. That’s why we all feel we are all together in one boat.

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The Zohar: And the Creator said: “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.” And they came from the East, from the ancient days of the world.

And they found how to use the secret wisdom of the first people, the generation of the flood, so they wouldn’t have to submit to the Creator. And they built a city and a tower.

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens.” They decided to act according to their ego and to rule all the way up to the heavens themselves.This is completely opposite to elevating oneself over one’s ego in order to reveal the Creator and life in the Upper World.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. This was the situation in Babylon: Even though they were egoists, their ego was so small and undeveloped that they lived as one people, in complete understanding, as though they were speaking one language.

And since they all had one heart and one desire, and they spoke the holy language (the language of bestowal and love), they were able to accomplish anything they put their mind to. And there was no one who could stop them.

These people are opposite to the Creator and want nothing to do with Him, but because they are bound by bonds of love, they are invincible. They are like a band of criminals who are staunch friends and look out for one another to the bitter end. Their connection is loyal and true, but their goal is egoistic – to build a city with a tower.

They do not use their connection to become similar to the Creator, yet they created their connection upon the quality of bestowal, which makes it indestructible! That is what the Creator “complains” about.

This connection is equal and opposite to Him, and that is precisely why the people had to attain it. It is in order to then tear it asunder and recreate it once again, but this time in likeness to Him.

It is very similar to the world’s situation today. It’s the same as if we now decided to liquidate the crisis and reject all our egoistic interests by establishing a connection between all the nations, yet we would do so without thinking of the Creator or the goal of creation. We would then return to the state of Ancient Babylon. Today we are discovering that the world is global, that everyone is interconnected, and that we must treat each other well lest we will destroy one another. However, if we begin to establish good relationships with one another without thinking of how to connect to the Upper Force and without an objective of achieving the goal of creation (to reveal the Creator), this would lead us to self-destruction, just as it happened in Ancient Babylon.

The Creator would shatter our connection just as He had done in Babylon when He “mixed the languages” (meaning, when egoism emerged between the people) and people stopped understanding one another. This would happen in order for us to understand that our connection requires another component – the Creator. Only He can bind us with a true connection and allow us to feel life on the Upper Level – a life that is perfect and eternal.
From a lesson on The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Noah”

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Two questions I received about fear:

Question: I read that there are three types of fear, but that only one is real – the fear of the Creator. So if I am faced with a situation that scares me, like when I fly and the plane is shaking, this is the wrong type of fear because egoistically, I am afraid to die. I then try to turn this great but wrong fear into a fear for the Creator. I need to feel fear of possibly losing my contact with Him. It is almost impossible, but I try as hard as I can. Am I wasting my time?

My Answer: The only thing you should do is understand that everything comes from Him!

Question: Everywhere I go, I’m filled with fear. I’m worried what people may think about me.  Why do I care and how can I get over it?

My Answer: Your egoism makes you worry about what others think about you. Start thinking about the spiritual world and its qualities. You will then free yourself from this imaginary world and come to realize that the Creator pushes you towards Him with this fear.

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Two questions I received about the growth of egoism:

Question: I’ve been studying Kabbalah for almost two years now, and there is something bothering me. It seems that the more I learn about my own nature, the more I’m disgusted by it. I feel as if I’m getting even more bothered than I already was. I simply can’t focus on the goal and the beauty of it, while I’m feeling so disgusted by my own nature, and that of everyone around me. What should I do?

My Answer: You have to be glad that egoism is being revealed within you. It’s the Upper Light that reveals it, and you must appeal to the Creator without getting deeper into the egoism. You must rise above it and be thankful for it as it will continue to grow as the soul uses it to develop.

Question: Please give us your advice on how can we find the strength to make the efforts toward connection when our egos are so strong that we feel like we can only surrender to Him and not make those efforts that we must make?

Sometimes we feel like “We know we must do this, but we don’t want to at all and we have no strength to do it.” These are frustrating moments, as our egos seem like the strongest power that exists!

My Answer: This is because you don’t invoke the power of the Creator! The Creator is the one that has to stand against Pharaoh while we have to be like Moshe, standing in the middle letting them fight!

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A question I received: Your goals are beautiful: Happiness, freedom, consciousness of the people and harmony in the world. Am I right?

My Answer: Yes, you are,

Question cont’d: Your methods for reaching these goals are very effective: You use people’s ego to make them free from their ego and illusions. Am I right?

My Answer: Yes, you are.

Question cont’d: The consequences are exactly what you want them to be: People are attracted, the circle of your followers grows, and your power and influence grow too. Am I right?

My Answer: Yes, you are.

Question cont’d: Don’t you think that for the sake of creating more power sooner, you might have become slightly distracted from the true goal? Don’t you think that your followers are somewhat distracted too?

My Answer: Even if you were right, we still don’t move on our own. We are moved by the Light, and therefore we can never tell ahead of time what it is “to be distracted” and what it is “to go straight,” because we are move in a desert! See Baal HaSulam’s letter, “The Path to the Creator’s Hall, page 63.”

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A question I received: Could an analogy be drawn between spirituality and black holes which irrevocably consume all matter?

My Answer: All astronomic phenomena are derivatives of the created desire on the still level. That’s precisely why they exist on such a giant scale. Even the vegetative level of nature, which follows right after the still, is incomparable to the vastness of the universe.

The still level of matter and desire require quantitative might as compared with the higher, vegetative level. This disparity only underlines the qualitative difference between the two degrees of nature, the still and the vegetative.

As far as the black holes go, they are just like our ego – a desire to enjoy that wants to consume the whole world. We are yet to see that the entire picture of the universe is formed within us. That will be the meeting point between physics and Kabbalah.

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We are living in an age when one way or another, everyone must reveal the Creator and rise above their egoism. This is a collective process where everyone will have to rise above their egoism and no one will be able to remain in the egoistic state.

Our world is no longer divided into separate nations because the awakening is happening globally. Initially this will happen through suffering, and later on – by our voluntary aspiration upward. It’s a wave-like movement that will eventually absorb every one of us. While the process of awakening unfolds, the waves collide due to interference, bringing about side effects.

Changes will occur suddenly and rapidly. The world today is like a volcano that is ready to erupt at any moment. Under these conditions, moments of silence should only alert us even more.

Finding the most attractive way to explain to people what is happening will help humankind to make the transition from the egoistic way of existence to global relationships and connections. That is why disseminating Kabbalah is so important. It is our duty, because that is the only way the world can avoid years of suffering, much like labor pains.

If we gain awareness of the current situation, we will be able to change our attitude to what is happening. We will then discover that the Creator is already with us and is showing us that our world is merely the opposite side of the spiritual world. But the transition to the spiritual world depends entirely on our decision to alter our egoistic mind-set to its opposite.

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