Everything takes place within the desire for pleasure, which was created by the Creator. As it develops, this desire undergoes certain changes. At first we approve of and don’t conflict with it. In fact, any sort of conflict is downright impossible, since one never distances himself from this desire but always acts at its command. He is not yet aware that the desire really isn’t his and that it rules over him. He is yet to distinguish these two aspects within himself as separate: desire and man.

But then inside of him awakens the Creator’s point directed at bestowal and one begins to feel his desire as alien to him. He begins to distinguish between 1. Desire, and 2. Me (point in the heart).

One’s efforts to change his desires further distance himself from them, and one begins to feel like their slave. Regardless of whether they bring pleasure or pain, one begins to understand that these desires are being sent to him. One’s reality appears to comprise three components: 1. The Creator, 2. The desires He sends, 3. Me.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains the matter of free will as how one can use the influence of the group and the Upper Light (Ohr Makif) to exalt the importance of the goal above the interests of the body and corporeal life, and how to change one’s desires so as to attain the goal.

That is how one develops his equivalence to the Creator (bestowal).

From the Daily Lesson of 10.20.09

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For beginners, the most important thing to learn in the science of Kabbalah is the structure of the Upper Worlds, according to the book Talmud Eser Sefirot and the article “Preface to the Science of Kabbalah.” The result of your study should be that you actually start to feel the text, similar to a musician that reads the notes and hears a melody within. Just as he feels the sounds within, that is how we have to feel the spiritual actions. And eventually, we will feel them more powerfully and more real than this world.

The smallest spiritual degree is felt a billion times more vividly and powerfully than this entire world. Our entire world, the whole universe, and our lives throughout all time periods are incorporated in the spiritual world like a small point.

When you read a Kabbalah book, it is like reading an encoded letter. If you know what it says, you can change your destiny and your entire life. That is how you should feel during Part 2 of the Daily Lesson, while studying Talmud Eser Sefirot.

It doesn’t matter that while reading it, you don’t feel or sense anything. What’s important is your yearning to feel the text within you. So, the only thing you lack is the desire! If you obtain the needed desire, then it will enable you to enter the spiritual world. You will begin to feel the spiritual world within that desire.

In the meantime, we are in an unconscious state relative to the spiritual perception. We’re like an unconscious person that doesn’t perceive the world around him. And what do we lack in order to reveal the Upper World? Only the aspiration for it!
(From the first lesson at the North American Congress in Buffalo)

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In the News (from the BBC): “Depression looms as global crisis” – “WHO figures clearly show that the burden because of depression is likely to increase – so much so that in 2030 this will be the single biggest cause for burden out of all health conditions,” comments Dr. Shekhar Saxena of the Department of Mental Health of the World Health Organization. The scientific concept of “burden” is the measure of years lost of life due to early death or severe disability brought on by a certain illness, in this case depression. Dr. Saxena says depression is much more common than some other diseases that are more widely feared such as HIV-Aids or cancer.

My Comment: I wrote about this many years ago, saying that people will discover that their desires are empty, dark and bottomless. Drugs will no longer be able to quench these desires, and suicide won’t bring people freedom either, since the desires will be felt as eternal and imperishable, as something from which you can never free yourself.

Eventually we’ll be left with one choice: to accept Kabbalah as the method of fulfilling that desire. This method enables people to reach fulfillment by the Creator rather than fulfillment by the things in this world.

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Two questions I received on man’s imbalance with the environment:

Question: According to the UN, 2.8 billion people won’t have enough water to meet their basic needs by 2025. Can you comment on this?

My Answer: It’s true, and this, as well a all the other blows we receive from Nature, will compel us to correct ourselves. Our correction at the highest level, the human level, will correct everything and bring harmony to all the lower levels. That is when we will see abundance in the whole world.

Question: I disagree with what you say, that “None of our actions really have any effect on climate change.” Our actions are driven by our egoistic desires, and therefore they do have a direct impact on climate changes. Doesn’t this make sense?

My Answer: No, it does not make sense to me, because you are only seeing the effects and then making up theories about what you’ve seen.

Our world is a world of consequences and everything descends upon us from Above. This is why correction at a higher level will bring a result in our world, while in our world, we can never make any “correction.”

We learn from Kabbalah that everything happens under influence of the Light from Above.

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A question I received: What are the boundaries of science? Is science infinite or is it mortal as we are? If the latter is correct, do we see the end?

John Horgan in his book  The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age says that we are witnessing the end of classical science as we know it.

Science has made some great discoveries and underwent swift development due to the Cold War. But now society no longer wants to invest in the abstract, scientific exploration of nature.

Humanity faces problems that are more real than theories of super strings or the wormhole of the universe. How can we survive? The author is concerned that young people are leaving science.

My Comment: Science is based on humanity’s attainment through the five bodily (animate) senses. Therefore, it is limited by them from the beginning.

Our desires (our heart) and mind limit the field and depth of our comprehension, and these are the limitations of science. If, however, we break away from the limitations of our five bodily senses, as well as the desires and the mind that are connected to them, then we may feel the space that is independent from them – the Upper World. We will then be able to explore it with the new means of the outer sense, the soul.

That is what the science of Kabbalah teaches us to do. Therefore, it is the science of the future.

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In the News (from Current): “‘Ruthlessness gene’ discovered” Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behavior in an economic exercise called the ‘Dictator Game.’ The exercise allows players to behave selflessly, or like money-grabbing dictators … Though the mechanism is unclear, [the research team leader] Ebstein says, he is fairly sure that selfish, greedy dictatorship has a genetic component.

My Comment: Kabbalah says, “Egoism is our nature and we cannot get rid of it in our world.” This is why Kabbalah was given to us: it is a method of attracting the Upper Light, the Force of Correction.

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The Creator is your corrected quality. The Creator is revealed inside of the created being, and this is why in Hebrew He is called “Bo-re” (“Come and See”).

You have to reach your corrected state, your corrected self, and you will then see your corrected qualities and call them “the Creator.” You reveal the Creator only inside you, inside your corrected vessels of perception. You don’t feel anything outside of you.

We perceive all of reality, all that exists, inside us, in our sensations. This is why The Book of Zohar states that all the worlds and everything that fills them, including the Creator, exist in a person. It’s because they are felt by a person only within. Everything only seems to exist on the outside, outside of us. This illusion is given to us purposely, so that through the contrast of the perception of “outside” and “inside,” we will acquire a capability to see the world, ourselves, and the Creator from the side as well as inside. We will then be able to feel creation like He does: before it was created, in the process of being created, and in the future “higher states.”

Spiritual perception is built on feeling within the desires of “others,” which you adjoin to yourself by way of the desire to bestow and love them. In this manner, your desire grows, and to the extent that you unite with other desires, you continue to reveal a greater and broader reality.

In our world we reveal the “World of Assiya,” where each person is secluded inside himself, in his own egoistic desire. But when you begin to unite with the group, which is similar to your desire for the Creator, then to the extent that you unite with their desire, you will reveal the World of Yetzira.

By uniting with the environment into one whole desire, you reveal the quality of bestowal that you’ve attained, and that is called the “Creator.” The phenomena that you reveal in your corrected desire are called the Light, and its innermost source is called the Creator.

But then, a greater egoistic desire is revealed inside you that is your “self,” and by trying to unite with the group over that egoistic desire, you attain the World of Beria.

This is how we reveal all five worlds. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Science of Kabbalah” that all the worlds exist inside of a person. The science of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created being, inside the created being, meaning, inside his corrected desires (senses). By revealing the quality of bestowal, we also attain their Source, their Founder. This innermost attainment is called the Creator.

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The science of Kabbalah resembles a program that sets a computer in motion. Its inner orders are recorded in the form of words, which the program then reads and carries out.

Externally, this is the reading of Kabbalistic texts. By reading the letters, words and lines, we set our inner mechanism in motion. It seems like we’re simply reading a text and pronouncing words, but in reality, we are entering commands into our minds and desires, which will carry them out.

This is why a book written by a Kabbalist from a high spiritual level holds a special force. Baal HaSulam wrote his texts based on his actions according to this program. Therefore, when you read this text, then even without really understanding what it is talking about, you absorb a specific sequence of actions that you then perform.

Your vessels of perception begin to arrange themselves according to the text, and you start perceiving these new forms of your vessels of perception. You feel them as your new qualities, which you call “the Light that Reforms.” Yet there is no Light coming from outside.

Therefore, when we study the Kabbalistic texts, we are not just studying, but setting in motion a program that directs an immediate but gradual correction of our senses.

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A question I received: The current global crisis has affected many people. However, when the blows were over, people did not listen to the science of Kabbalah. Instead, they decided that the difficult times have passed and now a good period is starting, which will make everything fall back into place.

My Answer: This is understandable. The crisis is worsening, but since no one has a solution, people just keep quiet about it. This is the same in every country.

We receive many blows for performing dishonest actions, but we still cannot stop doing them. That means that the blows were not strong enough to teach us the correct way to behave.

Why don’t we learn from our past mistakes? You would think that it’s as simple as one, two, three. If only minor blows could immediately help us reach correction! However, our egoism is constantly developing and becoming bigger. And since we become more egoistic, the previous blows cannot force us to act properly.

Let’s say I stole ten dollars and was punished. Now when I look at ten dollars, I remember the punishment, and this holds me back. However, what will happen if suddenly I find 100 dollars in front of me? I’ve never been punished for 100 dollars before, so 100 dollars is not connected to punishment in my mind. So I steal the 100 dollars and receive punishment.

But what about a thousand dollars? It’s the same thing! This is how we are built – like animals that only know the things they’ve felt. This is why it is written: “A person cannot carry out a commandment (an action of bestowal and love for one’s neighbor) unless he first breaks it (finds the opposite action in him).” First you have to stumble and fall, you have to “steal,” and then you have to repent and correct what you’ve done. This is something that happens only after one receives blows. Without them, it is impossible for a person to change.

The science of Kabbalah explains that each desire develops according to four stages, from the time it is born to its final form. We consist of a desire and an intention. Therefore, there are four possible combinations of the desire and the intention, because there is a total of four combinations from two variables: “you desire something and intend it, you don’t desire something and don’t intend it,” and so on. (See “Inner Reflection” in Talmud Eser Sefirot).

A person has to go through four stages of blows and clarifications in order to reach the last stage, where he desires to use his egoism only for the sake of selfless, unconditional bestowal and love. This is why it is impossible to learn from one small blow. It’s because there is a law acting between the desire and the Light.

The Light creates a desire, and the desire acts precisely according to the program that is placed into it by the Light. If it is the desire to enjoy, it wishes only to receive pleasure. In order to teach it to be bestowing, the Light always has to influence the desire through four stages.

Only on the last stage does the desire realize that it is receiving. As a result, it feels shame and performs a restriction. This happens with every spiritual action.

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Three questions I received on marital relationships:

Question: In your blog post, “Don’t Look For Love In This World,” your advice is, “Don’t look for truth, justice, loyalty, and love in marital relationships.” So my question is, what are we supposed to look for in marital relationships, and how are we supposed to be partners without expecting to receive loyalty and truth?

My Answer: I see that within our global Bnei Baruch group, many people worldwide find spouses and are happy, because their common goal eliminates all the disagreements.

Question: I have been studying Kabbalah for two years. My husband and I have been married for almost twenty years. My husband refuses to have a physical relationship with me and shows very little affection or desire towards me. He believes that I should adapt to this, but I wasn’t told prior to our marriage that this would be a condition in our relationship. I have been depressed about this situation for a long time. I was hoping you could explain it from a Kabbalistic perspective: How should a man act toward his wife when it comes to a couple’s physical relationship in marriage?

My Answer: This is not a question you should be asking a Kabbalist, because Kabbalah talks only about how to restore your relationship with the Creator. By definition, Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to man in this world. It does not have anything to say about people’s relationships on the animate level.

Question: How does Kabbalah view marriage between elder women and younger men?

My Answer: Kabbalah has no view on it. It depends only on the people.

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