The science of Kabbalah is a method of correction based on the two forces of attraction and repulsion. These two forces are intended to bring a person closer to correction through aiming him at the goal. Obstacles are set before him all the time that he has to overcome; these obstacles supply him with the building material that he needs to edify himself.

For that reason, the text is composed in such a way that a person enters it as if it’s a jungle. He doesn’t know what is happening there; he doesn’t understand how it’s organized or why. He enters the jungle and gets lost there. He doesn’t know where the path is and he’s scared of every tree. Gradually, however, he enters the text between the words and begins to see depth within. The text begins working on him and he begins working on it. Every word and notion comes to have a dimension and this is how a person advances.

He encounters many obstacles on the path that clearly are directed against his animate mind and feelings. These obstacles help him to disconnect from his material feelings and “break” his material mind. Suddenly, he acquires an ability to feel and understand something new. The “jungle” of the text becomes more understandable and he begins to feel that there is a pattern to it. For example, the monkeys that jump around in the jungle understand what is going on there because this scary place is their home. In a similar way, a person comes to feel at home in the text.

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A question I received: Prior to the reception of the Torah, the people of Israel performed a special preparation for three days. How can we prepare in the best possible way during the three days preceding the Zohar Convention 2010?

My Answer: These three days are called “days of restriction”; it is when you completely detach from everything you had before.

We know from the science of Kabbalah that the screen, which rises with the Reshimot when the Light exits the Partzuf, ascending from Tabur to Peh, needs to go through three stages. Once it reaches the third stage, it loses all connection with the first stage.

In the same way, a person who is in the first stage raises to the next degree, where there is an emanation of Reflected Light, which descends to the previous degree – the first stage. When the person rises one degree higher, he also emanates these Lights onto the two previous levels.

After going through these three stages or three days (limitations), one reaches a state where he has no connection to the “transgression” of the past. Therefore, we need to detach from everything we had or knew before and prepare for the correction of our desires. This is how we’ll be able to reveal the Upper Force inside us.

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A question I received: Why is the upcoming The Zohar Convention 2010 called “Zohar for the Nation?” It’s kind of a loud name, isn’t it?

My Answer: The Zohar is the greatest Light that comes to us from the system of Arich Anpin. It is the Light that corrects us. “For the Nation” means that we want to unite together. It is written, “I dwell inside my nation,” meaning, the Creator dwells inside those who unite into a single whole. The Creator is Light, Love, and Bestowal, and He is revealed inside this unification.

That is why the Congress is named accordingly. Like disconnected pieces, we are trying to draw closer and come together. The Light will change us and weld us together. Like glue, it will enter between us. Thus, the Light of The Zohar changes the nation and so the Congress is called “Zohar for the Nation.” There is nothing mystical about it.

The matter in question is the correction of man, of society, and of the world. I doubt anyone could put up an argument against this. Kabbalah only reveals the good and useful things for humankind.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Miketz (At The End),” Item 84: In all the places of judgment over the other nations, it is for the good. For “Masa” (prophecy) [also] means “burden”; it is a burden for the Creator – the good of the nations-idol worshipers. And when their judgment is passed, He removes from Himself the burden He had suffered due to them.

And hence when “Masa” (prophecy) is spoken of them, it is for the good.

It is impossible to change our desire to enjoy without feeling pressure and a burdening of the heart. As times grow increasingly difficult, we see that the world listens more and is now ready to hear the advice of the Kabbalists. In fact, this applies to each one of us as well.

The science of Kabbalah enables us to employ the remedy capable of forestalling the blows. It allows us to take the good path – Achishena, instead of the path of suffering – Beito. (In Hebrew Achishena means “accelerating time,” and Beito means “in due time.”)

Yet either way, by the path of good or by the path of suffering, the correction of the desire to enjoy occurs through pressure and restrictions, until we decide that we must change it. As a result, we wait for the Light that Reforms, since the only thing that can correct our egoistic desire in the first place is the Light that created it.

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A question I received: Does the preparation for the forthcoming The Zohar Convention 2010 intensify according to the same levels — still, vegetative, animate and speaking — as does any development in nature?

My Answer: Yes, this happens with any development, including the evolution of desires. They also go through the four stages of the Direct Light, HaVaYaH (Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey), and the same applies to the Congress as well. When a person starts thinking about the Congress and preparing for it, he goes through ascents and descents. Sometimes he wants to attend the Congress and sometimes he doesn’t. But if at the end of it all he reaches a final decision to attend, then he comes to the Congress truly prepared.

He has to understand why he is going and what he wants to get out of it, as well as where the rest of the world, including his job, family, and health stand in relation to it. He has to calculate everything and arrive at the question: “What is the meaning of my life?” Which cannot be answered by anything besides Kabbalah.

Experience has to show him that at the end of the day, everything else in life depends on some unknown factor, whose Source is revealed to us by the science of Kabbalah. This Source is the Upper Force, and by connecting to it a person gains a tool that enables him to correct everything he has in this world and in the spiritual one.

If a person discerns everything fully according to the HaVaYaH structure, then there is no doubt he will come prepared to the Congress.

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A question I received: Why can’t I reveal the Light of Hochma?

My Answer: Because you don’t have the Light of Hassadim. You have only the desire to receive, which doesn’t feel good in the Light of Hochma because it cannot receive pleasure from it. The Light of Hochma cannot be felt in the egoistic desires. It can be revealed only to the extent of the presence of the Light of Hassadim, your intention to bestow (Bina of the four stages of the Direct Light).

You can have an infinite Kli with infinite Light of Hochma in it, but if you don’t have the Light of Hassadim, you will experience complete darkness, a state called “hell.” Even a tiny spark of the Light of Hochma without Hassadim feels like suffering, illness, disaster and crisis.

We are given a tiny feeling of the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim by the Creator’s mercy. This gives us a feeling of life so we would be able to exist and develop with free will, in order to acquire the Light of Hassadim and reach the full revelation of the Light of Hochma.

The Creator develops us by “playing” with us. When He shines upon us with the Light of Hochma, we feel bad, but it is done in order for us to understand that we need the Light of Hassadim (a screen, Ohr Hozer, the Reflected Light, the intention to bestow and love). Then we will reveal the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim, reflected by the screen.

Over time, as one receives blows depending on the amount of luminescence of Hochma, one starts asking the question, “Why am I suffering? What is going on? What is the meaning of my life?” That person is then brought to the group, the teacher, and the studying of the science of Kabbalah where he gradually finds out that the only thing he needs is the Light of Hassadim.

That is why the science of Kabbalah teaches us how to build a screen of bestowal (the intention to bestow and love, Ohr Hassadim). To the extent we are capable of bestowing, the Creator will also be revealed to us as One who Bestows, like in the example of the guest and the host.

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We know from the science of Kabbalah that everything is accomplished from below as well as from Above, with each side doing its half of the work. In our spiritual work this is called “half a Shekel.” We prepare our desire, which is our vessel (Kli), and present it to the Upper One. This is our half of the work, while the second half is realized from Above; this is how we reach partnership.

The same process occurs when we read The Book of Zohar. Although we lose some of the inspiration we first had when we came to the science of Kabbalah and started studying this book (since all this was due to the Creator’s “fuel”), we need to see that we are building our vessels of perception (Kelim), our desires. Through our repeated work, we add the desires of the friends and the environment, each time raising the importance of spiritual advancement.

It is precisely while experiencing the burdening of the heart, when we no longer aspire toward spirituality very much, that we understand that we are being given an opportunity to add something of our own. Moreover, if we don’t have this understanding, we are provided with an opportunity to demand it. Therefore if we don’t feel it, we should aspire and desire spiritual advancement to come from Above rather than arise from us. After all, what can exist in us?

In order to acquire something new, something higher, we are given the chance to come to a true prayer by feeling a lack of taste, sensation, and understanding. It is only this way that we come to desire and feel the need for it. And as soon as we have the need and desire, the fulfillment will come from Above.

Therefore, our work is not about achieving fulfillment, like in our world. Rather, our work lies in desiring, which brings the fulfillment from Above.

In our world we work in order to receive a payment, which is only for pleasure by finding something that fills us. In spirituality, we don’t need to work on this, since “the Upper Light is in absolute rest,” and “more than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to feed.”

We only need to desire to receive this fulfillment, as if desiring to eat and drink; it is to feel the whole abundance which is prepared for us from Above and “is in absolute rest,” meaning it exists around us without any limitations.

Our entire work is only to desire this.
[8142]
From Daily Kabbalah lesson on Zohar for All “”VaYeshev,” 148,  1/7/10

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Three questions I received on the right way to interpret the Torah and other holy books:

Question: I am very confused about the “oral Torah” or The Talmud. I understand that the Torah is a gift from the Creator guiding us towards the right path in life and we are to sometimes understand the stories from the Torah on a metaphorical level, not a literal one. Then how do you explain the literal aspect of The Talmud and that it seems to have been written by Rabbis? As I understand, the priests and Sanhedrin were corrupt – which is what caused the destruction of The Temple.

My Answer: We have recently started reading The Zohar. By reading it together with us, you will also be able to see how the other holy books were written.

Question: I have been reading your posts and finding them rather interesting. As I can see from the pictures, you are Jewish, so my question is this: What does Kabbalah have to do with the religion of Moses? Is it like a manual for humans to read the Torah?

My Answer: It’s impossible to understand the Torah without Kabbalah, because on the outside, the Torah appears to be a historical tale, whereas Kabbalah reveals it to us as a method of correction and a textbook on the structure of the Upper World.

Question: In the Torah, who (or what force) was Melchizedek? And why did Abram pay tithes to him? The Torah says Melchizedek was a priest of God, but I thought Abraham was the first to discover, let alone attain, the Creator.

My Answer: Melchizedek personifies the Creator’s quality of justice. Similarly, all the characters in the Torah are not men or women, but descriptions of human qualities. Everything that is written in the Torah is describing specific, consecutive changes that happen inside a person.

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In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “Paul Volcker: Think More Boldly” Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker chastised the largely private-sector group for the timidity of its proposals:

“My overall impression is that you have not come anywhere near close enough to responding with necessary vigor or structural changes to the crisis that we have had. Every day I hear financial leaders saying that they are necessary and desirable, they are wonderful and they are God’s work. Has there been one financial leader to stand out and say that maybe this is excessive and that maybe we should get together privately to think about some restraint?

Wake up, gentlemen. I can only say that your response is inadequate. I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information. I am getting a bit wound up here.

I found myself sitting next to one of the inventors of financial engineering. I didn’t know him, but I knew who he was and that he had won a Nobel Prize, and I nudged him and asked what all the financial engineering does for the economy and what it does for productivity. Much to my surprise, he leaned over and whispered in my ear that it does nothing—and this was from a leader in the world of financial engineering…”

My Comment: Mr. Volcker is stating the truth (a liberty he can allow himself due to being a “former” chairman). The crisis continues because it is not being corrected by the creation of improved connections in our global society.

Kabbalah forecasts further downfall until people recognize the root of the crisis – the human egoism, and until people will be forced to rise above it for the sake of survival.

The only question is: how much suffering and how many world wars will we all have to go through in order to recognize the necessity of building the right relationships in our interconnected, global world.

Related Material:
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The world is the outcome of our inner qualities, our senses. Currently our five senses – vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch – have a narrow, limited range of perception. However, we have the ability to expand our senses so they will perceive without any limitations. The way to do this is to come out of the desire to receive and to exclusively consume, and instead learn to perceive the world as it exists outside of us, instead of perceiving it through our five senses. We will then perceive Infinity, the absolute reality, without any boundaries.

Of course, the question is: How do we come out of ourselves? We can understand what it means to expand the range of our senses, but how do we come out of ourselves? If the only thing in nature is the desire to receive pleasure, then it would seem impossible to come out of it.

Kabbalists say that this possibility does exist: It can be done by feeling what our neighbor feels. Just like we reveal the world through ourselves, we are able to connect with a friend who has the same spiritual goals, and to perceive the world through him, and then through another person, and another, and so on. Once we reveal the entire spiritual reality through other people, we will discover that it is, in fact, outside of us.

This is why the condition for perceiving spirituality is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In our world this sounds like an old, worn-out saying. But Kabbalists have a completely different condition in mind when they say this phrase. Loving your neighbor means feeling what is happening in him. It means connecting to his soul, his senses, and his perception to your own. Or, in other words, it is when you come out of yourself and begin to reveal whatever is outside of you, whatever is in him.

Thus, as you begin to examine what is outside of you, you also reveal the Upper Force, the Creator. This is called “From love for the creation, to love for the Creator.” This phrase may sound religious, but in reality it speaks of our sensory development.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to feel our neighbor and to build a common vessel of perception (Kli), called “Shechina.” This is a sense so enormous that we can perceive the Creator in it.

This is what the method of Kabbalah is about: learning to perceive and receive everything that is outside of you, without any limitations.

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