A question I received: I am 25 years old and I live in Brazil. I read your book Cabala: Alcançando Mundos Superiores in Portuguese, and felt a deep desire to learn more about Kabbalah in order to become a good servant of the Creator. I don’t know exactly which book I should read now. I am debating between the Torah and The Book of Zohar. In your opinion, which of the two books should I read next?

My Answer: The only books you should read are the books of Baal HaSulam. Additionally, in the beginning you can read our books, since they explain Baal HaSulam. Once you gain a precise understanding of what is Kabbalah from these books, then you will be able to read any other book without straying from the right path to the Creator.

Baal HaSulam wrote about this in many texts. He says that the difficulty of explaining Kabbalah, the difficult examples, and the non-systematic presentation were the main reasons why Kabbalah was misunderstood by the masses.

If you can only read Portuguese, then your choice of books is rather limited. If you can read in other languages, then I advise you to visit our website and see what’s recommended there for beginners – whether it is books, lessons, talks, and so on.

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Questions I received on studying, defining the spiritual goal, one’s desires, and one’s mind:

Question: What should I study every day?

My Answer: Study the same things we do, together with us.

Question: Should I study only Kabbalah, or are there other books worth studying as well?

My Answer: You should study only what we study. If you are a beginner, then you should study the first and third parts of our daily lesson together with us, but instead of the second part of the lesson (Talmud Eser Sefirot), you can study the materials for beginners on our website.

Question: Do we have to fight our lustful desires in the corporeal world, or should we just study Kabbalah without fighting these desires?

My Answer: Only the study of Kabbalah evokes the Light of correction – Ohr Makif. You will not become more corrected by fighting your desires or restricting yourself in some way. Don’t focus on your properties, but instead strive toward the Creator.

Question: I am somewhat confused about the spiritual goal. Is the goal for me to be happy, or for me to bestow, or to be like the Upper One, or is it to love my neighbor? Or, according to what you said in the latest lessons, is the goal for me to become master of my freedom of choice, or combine the paradox between the place of the Creator and the place of the creation? What is the goal?

My Answer: There is one goal, and it combines everything – all the opposites: The entire Light enters the entire Kli, filling it completely. This state already exists; we must only reveal it for ourselves. It’s similar to a child’s puzzle: There is an image printed on a piece of cardboard, then it’s cut up into small pieces and the child has to put it together. This is how the child learns to connect all the different parts into one whole – and we will have to do the same thing with all the elements of creation.

Question: Is the ego (my will to receive), my mind that observes the reality?

My Answer: That is absolutely correct. Inside your desire, you perceive yourself, the world, and your existence. The mind is produced by the egoistic desires, or derived from them. The mind comes into being and grows to degree that one aspires to fulfill one’s desires. The more desires one has, and the larger these desires are, the greater is the mind that accompanies them. Hence, since Kabbalah develops one’s desires, it also prompts the development of the mind (the brain).

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A question I received: Do we have a memory (Reshimo) of freedom? I think we have to have it, because otherwise how do you explain the fact that we are always searching for freedom? So, assuming that we have this Reshimo, then the Light also fills us, but we just don’t feel or remember it. And one’s aspiration for spirituality is also determined by the Reshimot, isn’t it? This yearning for spirituality and freedom can’t just appear in us out of nowhere, and this means that we have Reshimot of something that once filled us. So my conclusion is that the entire problem is with us – how to awaken our Reshimot , how to wake up from the dream?

My Answer: That’s absolutely correct – our task is not even to awaken or revive the Reshimot, but to realize the Reshimot that have already surfaced in us. And the way to do this is by drawing the Upper Light (Ohr Makif) upon the Reshimot. However, this work has to be done constantly, and it can only be done in a group, by receiving the following things from it:

1. The importance of the goal.
2. The realization that it’s impossible to attain the goal with your own desire, but only with the group’s desire.
3. The help of the Upper Light, Ohr Makif.

This means that the Reshimot are awakened by the desire that we receive from our environment! And the awakened Reshimot in turn awaken the Light (Ohr Makif) that corresponds to them. This Light then corrects them, gives them the screen, and fills this screen with Inner Light (Ohr Pnimi).

So the Soul = Reshimo + screen + Ohr Pnimi.

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Every summer we disseminate our newspapers “New Humanity,” “The New World,” and “Kabbalah Today” all along the Black Sea coast, to the eleven million vacationers and local residents who are there. With each passing year, more and more vacationers recognize us and greet us with a smile. Many of them even begin studying with us and become our friends.

This happy couple, whom we’ve never met before, took our newspaper and said: “Maybe they’ll post a picture of us on Laitman’s blog – cool!” And I’m indeed happy to post it. Enjoy your vacation!

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Questions I received on being able to read original Kabbalistic sources alone and achieving something great in life:

Question: You often emphasize that people should only study according to your lessons. I agree that at first there’s no other way, but later on a person reaches a point when he wants to read the sources on his own and to understand them in his own way. I have a different Kli than you, and I can see the Light only in my own Kli. Can a student independently decide when he is ready to advance on his own?

My Answer: You are absolutely right – you should study Baal HaSulam’s texts on your own, independently, and try to understand what’s written there on your own! However, you should only do this after properly attuning yourself using our lessons. Otherwise you will get confused and it will take a long time to “disconfuse” you, and it would be a shame to waste so much time! Besides, usually it’s impossible to do this. So it’s best to first read the text with the help of my lesson, and then to read the original text without my explanations.

Question: Dear Rav Laitman, I’m 37 and by now I’ve done many things that got me in trouble. This year everything is going wrong. I feel like I’m under huge pressure, and I can’t do anything to stop it. Ever since I was a child I felt that I was meant to do something great in my life, and that my life is being wasted. But instead, I have completely isolated myself. How can I come out of this vicious cycle? Should I repent? I wouldn’t even know how.

My Answer: The greatest thing you can do is attain the greatest thing that there is. And the greatest thing that there is – is the Creator. There is no goal higher or greater than Him! So you should read only Baal HaSulam’s materials 24 hours a day!

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A question I received: I’m able to intrigue many people with a “trick” that lets them be in the present, after they discover that they are always thinking and feeling the past or the future. The moment they’re “enlightened” by this realization, should I talk to them about Kabbalah? If yes, then what’s the best thing to let them read? They usually have preconceived notions, so it’s better to give them something easy to start with. For example, maybe I can let them read something by the American mystic and spiritual teacher Gurdjieff?

My Answer: The first time you talk them, don’t talk about Kabbalah but rather show them what is the reason for the crisis – both the personal and general one, and explain that the correction lies in unification, attainment of the quality of bestowal. Show them that this is the only freedom of will we have, and we are like robots in every other regard. Moreover, the attainment of this quality has to be evident in one’s perception and mind.

However, we can’t change our egoistic nature, but only an external force – the force of bestowal – can make this change in us. Explain how one can attract this force, that there’s a method for it, and so on.

Mystics and philosophers such as Gurdjieff, Madame Blavatsky, Solovyov and many others were true seekers of a connection with the Upper Force, but they didn’t have the right Teacher and the authentic method. Hence, their compositions only express their attempts to use human qualities and reason to figure out something that’s impossible to attain with our qualities. This can only be done with help from above, through the Upper Light.

Kabbalah draws the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif) by combining the necessary “ingredients”:

1. The person
2. The group
3. The text that talks about one’s corrected state
4. The Teacher who guides the way

This is why Kabbalah is the only method of attainment that allows one to enter or clearly perceive the Upper World.

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Two questions I received on why people sometimes stray from the right path and what to do when it happens to you

Question: Why do people sometimes drop out of the group? Do they leave on their own, or does the group somehow influence them to make them leave?

My Answer: One’s only freedom is to participate in the group. If one does this, then he advances toward the Creator, and if he doesn’t – then he leaves the group. However, it’s also possible that a person isn’t given the freedom to participate in the group, but rather, he simply exists in it. Our archive contains many talks on this topic. In the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” items 3 and 4, Baal HaSulam writes that the Creator brings a person to the group and teacher, and his freedom of will then lies in strengthening his connection with them. But if a person’s desire for the purpose of life isn’t ripe yet, then he leaves or “wanders away” from the group.

Question: Dear Rav, suppose that a student was in the group, he really advanced and understood the inner part of the study, and raised a MAN, but then he fell into the state, “His wisdom exceeded his actions.” Can he still regain the property of “faith above reason” and the skills needed for spiritual work, get back on the path, and cross the Machsom?

My Answer: Don’t despair – the path is available to everyone. This student should continue advancing from the state he is in, but he should advance toward the goal honestly, rather than through deceit. (You got it!?)

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Two questions I received on virtual groups

Question: I’m starting to feel kind of a pull towards “groups,” though I don’t know what groups or why. I’ve always been an outsider and an “independent” loner. I just want information about virtual groups: What do they do? How can I join one?

The understanding of the group’s importance comes from the influence of the Upper Light (Ohr Makif) on you. In the beginning a person doesn’t understand that the only way to enter the common soul is by connecting with others. He doesn’t understand that there is no other path to the spiritual world, to his soul. So without the influence of the Light, you wouldn’t have begun feeling a desire for the group. And the fact that you feel it is an enormous achievement! However, mostly it didn’t come from you, but from above. As Baal HaSulam writes, the Creator brings a person to the group and thus makes the choice for him, and the person’s choice lies in reinforcing himself in the group – in that which the Creator put his hand upon. Now you have to use it and develop it – it won’t happen by itself.

Later the Creator will push you away from the group and you will suddenly start scorning it, yet you will think that this feeling is coming from you rather than being sent to you by the Creator on purpose, and so on. And you will need to fight this feeling by increasing the importance of the group, of unity, of Shechina (the place of the Creator’s revelation).

Question: Recently you mentioned that groups outside of Bnei Baruch lack the presence of a Rav who would represent the Creator, the force of bestowal. In this case, how will a virtual group work, since it also lacks leadership by a Rav?

My Answer: I am fully present in the virtual group. I am their teacher and every person is my student, if he desires to be and learns what I pass to him. Everything depends only on one’s desire.

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A question I received: If the Creator is good and does good, there is a plan of creation, and everything is predetermined, then how do you explain suicide? What kind of correction should a soul perform in a body, if we don’t have freedom of choice and one’s suicide was predetermined in advance, from the root, since we are controlled by our root?

My Answer: Everything that has already happened was the Creator’s will. But as long as it hasn’t happened yet, it is up to a person. There is freedom of choice, otherwise we would be robots and there would be nothing to discuss – we would just have to exist! You have to understand the connection between the general governance and the private governance, HaVaYaH and Elokim. For more on this, see Baal HaSulam’s Letter from p. 61 – “If I Don’t Do It for Myself, Who Will Help Me?”

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Two questions I received on the role of knowledge in spiritual advancement

Question: In order to advance, do I have to know what state I’m in and what spiritual level I’m on? And in general, how important is it for my spiritual development to have knowledge about the spiritual worlds?

My Answer: Knowledge doesn’t matter at all. However, it does help you connect to the topic (the correction of your soul). Nevertheless, the most important thing is to attract the Light of correction, and this happens during the study of authentic Kabbalistic texts. Item 155 of the Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot explains that the Light descends to the degree one desires to understand what is being said in the text, even though one doesn’t understand anything. This means that a person is trying to understand what the book says about him and his state. It’s because a Kabbalistic text includes all the states of all the souls, and every soul is able to find “its own frequency,” the frequency at which the common soul, the Creator, is speaking to it.

Question: You said that a person who advances in Kabbalah does not have to turn to books when it comes to realizing his freedom of choice, and that this is something he has to do inside. My question is: How do you keep an inner account with yourself if you don’t have the forces for it inside you? You said that a person should turn to the society when he wants to realize his freedom of choice.

My Answer: Baal HaSulam speaks about this in one of his letters. He writes that if you desire to figure something out inside you, then just be alone with yourself, without books. This way you will feel yourself and the result of what has happened to you by studying Kabbalah. You will be able to find yourself, your path, something that’s yours, instead of what others have said.

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