A question I received: Kabbalah says that a person must always strive to be in a better environment. So what specifically should I do?

My Answer: You have to try to worry at every moment about the fact that you are entirely dependent on your environment. Within this worry you will start to have thoughts and desires to connect with others, and you will reveal that the environment contains everything.

Even though these people are still uncorrected, they contain the corrected system. They don’t even feel it themselves yet, but you will reveal it through searching. Spirituality already exists in its corrected state, but its revelation depends on our desire, as it is written, “Every person judges others to the extent of his own defect.”

You have to strive to feel the influence of the environment. This influence carries energy, understanding, and the need to turn to the Light, the importance of the goal. It has everything you need to attain the spiritual goal. Thus, everything depends on your attitude to the environment; everything depends on you!

The whole world and all humanity were created by the Creator in order to give every person the opportunity to advance independently by creating the right inner attitude to the group. Otherwise, you will move toward the goal by the path of suffering.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/10, “Peace in the World”

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A question I received: What should I do if I can’t concentrate during a Zohar lesson for even 5 minutes? I don’t know where to look for all of this within myself.

My Answer: By all means keep searching within yourself for all the properties described in The Zohar. If a sick person were told that this text bears the information on how to become healthy, escape trouble, bankruptcy, and other problems, he would greedily “swallow” the text, trying to absorb every single word of it. If he were scared and sought salvation in the text, he would try to comprehend it even if the book was written in a foreign language.

But the lack of spirituality does not frighten us. Only the environment can bring about this desire within us.

So even if you don’t know where to look for it within yourself, keep looking anyway. Imagine that you are entering a new, dark, unknown place and you can’t see anything. You have a flashlight, and each time you hear something, you point the flashlight around, hoping to find something.

As adults, we study by filling our intellect. But sensations do not develop through the intellect. As infants, however, we evolved through listening and observing, without understanding what we heard or saw. This was precisely why we developed our feelings and mind. We were being told stories, things were being shown to us, but we did not understand them. The connections between things were being explained to us, yet we did not grasp them. However, precisely because of our efforts to understand, we turned from an animal into a human being.

Hence at this time, when I strive to develop within myself new senses and mind, I read The Zohar without understanding what “it” is all about. However, my efforts uncover new abilities within me and eventually I start sensing and understanding something that was hidden from me before.

The Upper World is among us. We only need is to continue developing from being a human of this world toward becoming a "human" of the Upper World. Make every effort to see. That’s how your senses develop. After you start sensing, your mind will start working as well.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/10, The Zohar

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Our thoughts and desires are interconnected. Therefore, right now, as we study The Zohar, if someone is being lazy, this weakens everyone else. That person will be punished for his deed in that it will be even more difficult for him to keep studying.

We are all in one common boat. Either I am drilling a hole in it, or I’m trying to the best of my ability to move our common boat with my intention.

The less energy I have, the more difficult it is for me. Yet, if I overcome all these obstacles, then I contribute great efforts to the common effort to evoke the Light. I thereby influence everyone else and this comes back to me through them. As a result, I end up a winner.

Therefore, the more difficult it is during the study, the better it is. I have to feel the responsibility I have because we have all signed a group contract, a mutual guarantee, and this fact has to obligate me to act.

It is impossible to read The Zohar by myself; I need an environment. That environment is the people who are studying all over the world and expecting results from the study. The Creator has awakened several million people in different parts of the world, who are now reading The Zohar together with us.

Every person sitting in front of his TV or computer screen has to understand that if he is being lazy at this moment, then he influences all others! This transgression will come back to him and will push him away from attaining the goal in the same measure that he caused harm to all of us.

Therefore, the study is not just my personal work. Right now all of us together are trying to attract the Surrounding Light and with its help to move our boat closer to the goal. It is written that one has to attain such a degree of love for one’s friend that one would give the friend one’s last pillow if the friend wanted it.

Now think: Your friend wants to advance toward the spiritual goal, and the two of you are moving together in the same direction. However, suddenly you abandon him! What kind of punishment does a traitor of this caliber deserve?

From the 1st Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/10, The Zohar

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We don’t have any other means for advancement, any other leverage that helps us move forward but the influence of the environment. If I am entirely, fully focused within myself, what force can possibly direct me in the opposite direction, from within myself, outside? I don’t possess any such powers. All of my powers work “for me,” “for my benefit.” How can I fashion an opposite action “for the sake of the other”? Where can such a power of nature come from?

For this, our soul has been divided into two parts: I and the surroundings, the world. The only freedom we have is to choose what’s more important. If you want to reach spirituality, you have to organize your environment so that it takes precedence over you. In reality, it’s not the external environment, but your soul, your AHP, the “garments” and “house” of your soul’s Kli, which are only seemingly outside of you.

Envy and honor attract you to a certain environment, to the parts of your soul, so you can organize these parts artificially in order for them to influence you.

From our level, we have been given this psychological approach. Yet internally, it is a spiritual approach. I connect with the desires (Kelim) that allegedly surround me, and use my feelings of envy and honor. In doing so, I essentially draw these desires back to myself so that they become connected with me and define my system of values.

What is the source of envy and honor then? It is the breaking of the souls into two parts: I and my world. By desiring to use “help against him,” against my ego, I engage these external desires of mine so they influence me in return.

Consequently we discover that we work with ourselves, with our desires, with our properties and this is how it has been set up from the beginning. But without organizing the environment, the other force that is capable of taking me “by the ear” and directing me toward my true desires (the soul) is not present, and it will never be revealed.

There is no other force in the world but the environment. Suffering can only make us more sensitive and urge us to find the solution. Yet the solution will be the same: to put yourself under the influence of the environment.

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Everything starts with education. We need to build an educational system, an environment that will influence every person to want to change his qualities to the qualities of the Creator.

By changing one’s inner qualities, this in turn, impacts and changes all other systems: connections between people, connections with the environment, family relationships, industry, business, science, and culture – everything! The whole of life will change as a result of people’s inner changes, and so first we need to focus on helping promote these internal changes. Therefore, the first step is education.

Without education, we have nothing to talk about. Without it, a person will not understand or agree with anything. So first, we need to take him and begin to build an incubator around him, the nurturing environment which will correct him.

After all, if we were to start change anywhere else, like with a new system of economics and culture, with whom would we build it? If it were with the same people as before, what changes could we possibly expect to see in the system? Starting from scratch, we need first to lay the foundation. This foundation needs to be established in the basis of Kabbalah, by those who understand Kabbalistic books, who can explain the wisdom, and share how to treat people differently, how to perceive the world correctly, how to see the goal we are aiming for, and how to achieve it.

All the changes in society are carried out through a change in a person, by his changing his priorities. Therefore, there is no more important task than a Kabbalistic upbringing.

What should a Kabbalistic upbringing be like? What does an incubator do as it hatches eggs? It heats them up, providing them with the most favorable environment for their development at every given moment. The incubator changes, adjusts itself to the conditions that are necessary for the future nestlings. We need to provide people with what suits their condition. We cannot offer people what they don’t wish to accept now and what is not currently to their benefit.

If a child does not like the medicine, he will refuse to swallow it. Therefore, the medicine needs to be in a sweet coating. We need to think about this even now, since the whole world is separated into two halves: an internal and an external one. We have almost completed our work with the internal half, and we are moving on to the external one; we need to develop a completely different approach for these people.

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We need to perform very specialized work under a very specific set of conditions to reveal the influence of the Upper Light upon us. Thus, the absence of any feelings, flavors, or understanding while we study The Zohar doesn’t mean a thing.

You don’t need to feel or understand; you simply need to stay open for the influence of the Light, and let it work on you. The environment has to attune us to the correct desire so that we become eager to be influenced by the Light even if we lack the connection to what we read, taste, or understand.

This is what we call the “miraculous force” (Segula) that is implanted into The Book of Zohar. This hidden mechanism (rather than the stories or words) somehow works on us and moves us forward.

When studying The Zohar we need to “trust the sages,” meaning we need to believe the advice of the Kabbalists. We have to constantly take care of how to align ourselves with the perception of the force that is yet concealed from us.

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A spiritual embryo completely cancels itself before the Upper One and depends on Him in every aspect. In fact, canceling oneself is what constitutes one’s independence. This is the inanimate level of sanctity – bestowal and love for one’s neighbor above one’s egoism.

This should constitute our inner work at the Zohar Convention 2010. If each person cancels himself in relationship to the others, then certainly we will be able to reveal the degree of a spiritual embryo. Nobody can resist the influence of such a large group of people. If you enter the environment that has such a great power, then it’s very easy for you to cancel yourself – you only need a small desire and readiness. And accordingly, we’ll be able to reach a state, a spiritual reality where the Upper Force fills the world.

This is not fantasy, mysticism, or meditation; it is a true sensation, a certain level of unity that is reached when each person rejects his egoism in relationship to others. Each person will rise to the inanimate level of sanctity and feel what this state, filled with the Light of Nefesh of the World of Assiya, means.

A person is capable of putting in the effort to reach this state, but it is possible that he will fall again. Maybe he is already able to remain in the spiritual world, but this depends on whether or not he continues to exert himself after the Congress. If a person is motivated to remain in a state of rejecting his egoism in relationship to the others, then he can keep this level and begin to ascend from it regardless of what is happening with the others. It is unrealistic for a person to do this alone, but it’s easy to do it together!

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A person studying Kabbalah has to secure external support in the form of the group, the study, and dissemination so that they are always by his side, ready to help during a state of descent. It is written, “A righteous man falls a thousand times and rises again.” This is the path towards achieving spirituality.

Along this path, different situations and states occur to me. Throughout all of it, the most important thing is to remain in an environment that will always be supportive and inspire you when you face the descents. In the end, you will feel the Light that lies within this inspiration. The Upper Light will no longer be concealed from you, but will be revealed.

If we come to The Zohar Convention 2010 with the same inspiration that we experienced during our preparations for it, then the Convention will be very successful. We will be able to make great internal corrections and will feel the Creator’s revelation inside our connection with each other. It is my great wish that this will happen.

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A question I received: What is “sin” from the perspective of Kabbalah?

My Answer: Sin is separation from the Creator regardless of a person’s spiritual level. He might have gone through 99% of the spiritual ladder or just 1%, but no matter how powerful his connection is with the Creator, if he disconnects from this connection, it is considered sin. He falls into reception instead of bestowal, where bestowal is synonymous with connection.

There are several levels of sin. The smallest sin is when a person separates from the Creator but does not yet lose his connection or similarity to the Creator. A greater sin is when the Creator disappears; this means that a person’s qualities are opposite to the Creator. A sin that’s greater yet is when a person submerges into darkness and senses the opposite side of the Creator. But the greatest sin of all is when a person becomes opposite to the Creator and unites with the Pharaoh through his hatred for the Creator. Thus, there are different degrees of sin, from simple distancing to total opposition.

The opposite of sin is “commandment” – unity, adhesion, closeness. It also has different degrees, just like the three phases of conception, feeding, and adulthood, which are degrees of adhesion. Both sin (separation) and commandment (closeness) can only take place and be experienced in a group, because the group is the unity of desires or souls. And through them, these qualities are felt in relation to the Creator. All good and evil are measured inside a person’s connection with the environment. This is the only way to check and correct any state (spiritual or corporeal), and the only way to always preserve and strengthen unity and love.

A woman’s sin is to think that there is no difference between the spiritual work of men and women, and to be of the opinion that everything must be completely equal, down to erasing all the differences and boundaries. My advice is to try and develop the inner feeling of unity and love for other women in Bnei Baruch, even to the point of loving them. See how much you are capable of this. This will enable you to understand what nature really demands from a woman: to help and support the men, because they are capable of attaining the unity of souls.

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The ten students of Rabbi Shimon who wrote The Book of  Zohar are the ten Sefirot of the corrected soul. This is why they are able to bring to us the Upper Illumination (Zohar), the Light that originates from the head of Zeir Anpin. This Light comes from the highest source, and as such, it is the highest possible Light that can reach us.

As I try to find the qualities that The Zohar describes inside me, I have to understand that all ten Sefirot exist inside me even on my small level. I just can’t discern them inside my desire, which is like a single drop. For now my desire still lacks aim, yet it is like a drop of semen that already contains everything that will happen to it later on – all the qualities and all of life. It is missing only my effort; this is what I have to add to that drop, which is like a drop of semen from which a person (me) will develop.

The effort is made by working with the environment (the group) and the book. The environment inspires me with a greater desire for the spiritual goal, but most importantly, it gives me the right desire. Sometimes a person is burning up with a great desire and thinks that he doesn’t need the group, but that is because he can’t see that his desire is incorrect and not aimed at the goal. It can only be a correct desire if he lets it pass through the group. His personal desire will never be aimed at the Creator because the Creator becomes revealed inside the connection between the souls (us). Therefore, we have to let all of our desires pass through the group. That is how we will receive the force of unity and bestowal from all the group members.

If you are simply burning up with a great desire for Kabbalah and the Creator, this doesn’t mean anything yet. You still don’t desire spirituality because spirituality is bestowal and love for one’s neighbor, and those are things you surely don’t desire very much. You have to let your enormous desire pass through the group, and then you will see how much it really is or isn’t aimed at spirituality. Maybe you will be left with five ounces out of the 100 tons of desire that is burning inside you. But those five ounces will be aimed at the goal and you will really be able to use them to turn to the Creator. As for the rest of the 100 tons, you are simply burning up with them but standing in the same place, not going anywhere.

This is why we have to bring our drop of “spiritual semen” into the right environment: It’s in order to receive the force of bestowal and the right direction from it. The group molds us like dough, which can then be placed into the oven in order to bake into bread.

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