Dear friends! The first ever Kabbalah Congress in the UK will be held in Blackpool from November 7th – 9th, 2008.
All our friends are invited to join and celebrate the next step of a united World Kli!
When it comes to being persistent, the men have something to learn from the women. Women never cease asking – how can they be equal to men? The sensation of inferiority subconsciously weighs down on them. It comes from the “Creator’s curse” described in the Torah. Hence, it is present in every woman and she feels it in everything.
In spiritual work, our desires are “the woman within us,” whereas the intentions of bestowal that we have to acquire over these desires are “the men within us.” Our “inner women” have to desire to acquire their “inner men,” to unite with them and give birth to sons – the corrected souls filled with Light!
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Two questions I received on abnormal phenomena and science:
Question: Recently I saw a program about the secrets of the Bermuda Triangle. One explanation the scientists gave for the mysterious and sudden disappearance of ships and airplanes in that area is that it holds an entrance to a parallel world. I know from Kabbalah that all the worlds are inside man, so I understand that the scientists are speaking about a completely different world, which definitely isn’t inside of man, but is supposedly outside. But how do you explain these abnormal phenomena? Is there a Kabbalistic explanation to this secret of why objects disappear?
My Answer: There is nothing “secret” in the world. The program you saw was simply exploiting a myth. Our world and all the spiritual worlds are the perception of the Light inside the desire. Our world is the perception of a micro dose of Light in a microscopic sized desire. For more on this see item 34 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”
Question: I am confused because in some of your lessons you have explained that things like circles on fields or archeological finds (a practically indisputable fact, even though it wasn’t not verified by anyone) are illusory. However, at other times you have cited results obtained by scientists. Why is it that in some cases you present the scientific arguments in a positive light, and in other cases – in a negative one, saying that we shouldn’t pay attention to them?
My Answer: Kabbalah welcomes things that were derived from experience or strictly scientific research. It discards the rest because it is misleading and distracts people from the goal – the true attainment of Nature.
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Two questions I received on the Olympics:
Question: Do the Chinese participants of the Olympics have an advantage because millions of people are thinking about them and hoping that they will win?
My Answer: Yes. People’s thoughts influence each other because we are a single system of souls. We are only disconnected from each other in our imagination! Hence there is more than just psychological influence when you have millions of fans present as well as the feeling of being at home – in addition you are also influenced by any number of people who are merely thinking about you.
Question: How does the wisdom of Kabbalah relate to sports and body culture, with regard to how it’s expressed in the Olympics?
My Answer: Sports should exist for the sake of interaction between people, rather than competition between them. Since people do the latter, sports has become political, economical, and physically harmful. The intentions of the players should be similar to a game of “giveaway checkers” (where the objective is to give in) – every person should feel like he’s the host who welcomes the guests and wants to please them. One way to express this on the outside is through athletic games. Right now we find it difficult even to imagine such a scenario – a contest for the sake of bestowal, friendship, and union with the “opponent.”
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Questions I received on religion and Kabbalah:
Question: Maybe things should be made easier for people who are interested in studying the wisdom of Kabbalah (both Jews and gentiles) by telling them that at the end of the correction process, there is a connection between one’s actions and spirituality. This is the wholeness of Pardes – Judaism (the actions) and Kabbalah (spirituality), and sooner or later this will become the only way of life for the entire corrected society. With all due respect, it’s a fact that you behave as an observant Jew, just like your Rav, Rabash and his Rav before him, Baal HaSulam, and everyone else since the very beginning of the holy generations.
My Answer: I will say it again: the observance of rituals with our body in this world is no more than a tradition, whereas Kabbalah speaks about the correction of the soul’s desires. No one will have to observe the mechanical commandments on purpose. Rather, people will only have to do the spiritual observance of the commandments – in their desire. This is how we will become similar to the Creator. It won’t be done mechanically, because the Creator does not have arms or legs! We have to correct the soul. Study Baal HaSulam’s articles on the body and soul. There he explains that we cannot correct the soul using the body.
Nevertheless, it is good to follow traditions, including the religious ones, in order to keep a framework for our cultural and social existence on earth. I can’t lie to people who are interested in Kabbalah just like I can’t lie to Kabbalah’s opponents.
Question: Where does Baal HaSulam say that one must become secular on the inside? Your arguments make perfect sense, yet you seem not to trust people to be able to fulfill the commandments externally and to work with the intention (Kavanah) internally in a Kabbalistic manner. Your teachers before you and all previous Kabbalists did just this, am I correct? Why then tell people to stop being religious?
My Answer: I never told anyone to stop being religious, just like I never told anyone the reverse! In “The Future Generation,” Baal HaSulam writes that in the corrected society of the future, every person can keep his religion. This shows what the true definition of religion is – it’s a culture, and no more than that. Everyone will recognize and accept it as such when the Creator will be revealed within them. People will remove from religion anything relating to the Creator, the world to come, and reward and punishment for corporeal life.
It’s because everything becomes immediately perceived in “this world,” in the present, right now, and there is no “other world,” or some world “on the other side.” There is nothing but the real, present states. “On the other side” means on the other side of egoism. Change egoism to its opposite, and you will perceive the world on the other side.
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Four questions I received on the breaking of the common soul, the Star of David, respect for sports stadiums, and self acceptance:
Question: Is it possible for the common soul of Adam to break again after the souls unite?
My Answer: No, which is why it’s called “the full correction” (Gmar Tikkun).
Question: Can you explain the Kabbalistic meaning of the Star of David?
My Answer: The two triangles represent the descent of the souls from above downward and their ascent from below upward. The fact that they overlap stands for the Creator’s particular and general governance of Malchut (David).
Question: While browsing through the Kabbalah website, I found a story about how you drove past a sports stadium with Rabash, and he commented that we have to respect this place because it gives a lot of pleasure to many people. How can a place like that be respected if the people there don’t have any desire for the Creator, and their entire desire and pleasure are just primitive egoism?
My Answer: A sports stadium is the Creator’s way of giving pleasure to the masses, and we have to respect everything that comes from the Creator, if it does not hurt one’s neighbor.
Question: Dear Rav, does the notion of self acceptance work with your teaching? It strikes me that it is necessary to renounce one’s self if one is ever to advance. Is that so?
My Answer: Accept yourself the way the Creator made you – deformed, in order to then justify the way He created you and the world. One does this by gradually revealing one’s oppositeness to the Creator, and then correcting it – transforming it to similarity to Him.
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Four questions I received on children and Kabbalah:
Question: My children are six, five, and four years old, and they all love Kabbalistic graphs and charts. I draw these graphs for them on А4 printer paper with colored markers, and explain to them what it means in simple words, relying on material from the books Kabbalah Revealed and Kabbalah for Beginners. Maybe we could create a colorful children’s book with charts and graphs that includes simple explanations? Maybe we can even create a coloring book where children will have to use different color crayons to draw the Kli, the Light, the screen, and so on?
My Answer: I warmly welcome these ideas, and can’t wait to see the books!
Question: Do all Bnei Baruch children really have a point in the heart?
My Answer: No, not all of them.
Question: Then should they be studying the wisdom of Kabbalah?
My Answer: Yes, because it will help them avoid the long path of suffering.
Question: Are all the problems and misunderstandings that I have with my children caused by the fact that I only see the opposite side of their souls? What I mean is that their souls have “passed” through me, and now I see their AHP, but not their GE?
My Answer: You are only connected with your children on the animate level, and not on the spiritual level.
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In a recent blog entry, I wrote that we have just published a new edition of the collected works of Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag – the Rabash. Here I would like to offer some insight and history on the most precious text that Rabash left behind – the book Shamati:
Shamati is the most valuable book in the world, because it has the power to bring a person to the purpose of his life. Shamati is the main Kabbalistic source text. It contains all the foundations of man’s spiritual work. The articles contained in this book summarize everything one needs to enter the Upper World. They encompass the infinite depth of all 125 degrees that a person can and must go through in his spiritual path, whose summit is the goal of creation. This book is the most special book in the world, because no book in the entire history of mankind has gone deeper into man’s spiritual work.
Where did the book Shamati come from? Here’s a brief history. Among all the books and manuscripts that my teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag, used for study, there was one special, personal notebook, whose cover held the inscription “Shamati” – Hebrew for “what I heard.” He never parted with this notebook and always made sure to take it along anywhere he went. He never stopped studying it, and used to read it over and over again.
One day, late at night, he suddenly gave it to me and said: “Take this notebook and use it.” I immediately understood that his path was soon to reach an end. And indeed, he passed away the very next morning. His pure soul ascended into the unknown heights as soon as the night was gone.
The notebook he gave me was rather thick, and its contents revealed lessons by my teacher’s father, the great Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag – Baal HaSulam.
Baal HaSulam integrated all of the Kabbalistic knowledge that was previously passed down in secret, from teacher to student, from generation to generation, and thus for millennia. In doing so, Baal HaSulam prepared for us a method of mass spiritual ascension.
Rav Baruch Ashlag recorded his father’s lessons word for word, because he heard them directly from his father and Teacher. Hence, we have to follow these words just as they appear, and abide by the exact form that Baal HaSulam chose for his words. One should strive for his thoughts to go through the very same path as the text lays out, following Baal HaSulam’s thought. It’s more important to adhere to a great Kabbalist than to pay attention to the beauty of the linguistic nuances in the text. One should strive to see the inner beauty of the text, and then, as one will continue reading it, his understanding of the articles will undergo constant transformation, penetrating deeper and deeper.
In these articles Baal HaSulam often relies on quotes by other Kabbalists, written from the heights of their attainment. These quotes should give us an understanding of how profound the topic at hand is. They should also help us realize that we are receiving the method of adhesion with the Creator from the entire lineage of Kabbalists, and this method is being passed to us by the very last Kabbalist in this lineage – the great Baal HaSulam.
All of these texts should be regarded as one article, because they all speak about the same thing. They describe how the creature searches for its Creator and grows closer to Him, until it attains adhesion with Him. Essentially, these articles describe all the work that a person has to do in order to attain equivalence of form, adhesion and union with the Creator. In all of reality, there is no other reason for existence besides this one goal. According to this goal, man enables the entire reality, all the worlds and everything that inhabits them, to rise and incorporate in the Creator.
Hence, we have to understand that the entire universe, all the creatures, and all the worlds, are inside one person. Every person has to imagine that he is that person, and that he has freedom of choice and freedom of action. He, and only he, is standing opposite the Creator, and he has the responsibility and the privilege of doing the work necessary to attain equivalence of form, unification and adhesion with the Creator.
This is what all the articles in the book Shamati are about.
The clock has started ticking and time is flying by. In every part of the world there are people who are starting to feel an interest in spiritual ascent and to ask the question, “What is the meaning of my life?” In light of this, I understood the uniqueness and importance of the Shamati articles, and this is why I decided to publish this book and to reveal it to the world.
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Two questions I received on the conflict in Georgia:
Question: What are we supposed to think about the aggression that’s happening in Georgia? “Way to go! Egoism is growing! Everything’s going according to plan, right?” I don’t agree with this.
Personally, it pains me to see innocent people bombed, and I see their pain as my own. And why is the entire world ganging up against Russia? I think that Russia is the true “Israel” (according to the Kabbalistic definition of Israel), and not Israel. What do you think about this?
My Answer: I put all of my efforts into enlightening all people. What about you? And by the way, aren’t the bombs that are falling on Georgia, Russian? What makes you think that Russia has the property of Israel more than other countries? Is it Russia’s suppression and extermination of its own people during the seventy years of the Soviet regime? Or is it because it has supplied the entire world with weapons? Or because it is encouraging the development of the military atomic industry in third world countries? Or is it Russia’s aspiration to bring the other nations into submission and impose its “truth” onto the entire world? What’s more, Russia has done all this by oppressing its own people!
To ascend above egoism means to make everyone equal, to love everyone, and to unite, instead of bringing everyone into submission like “the older brother.” I am not a politician, and I am not defending or condemning any side in this conflict. I am only pointing out a persistent tendency that Russia has. I think the period of Russian prosperity was when it was connected with Europe, when the Russian tsars were in power. And that’s because the tsars came from Europe, but they reformed and built Russia.
One can only judge an action after ascending above one’s personal and national egoism. I feel very sorry for the people of Russia, because once again, they will suffer from everything that is happening more than anyone else!
Question: The war in Georgia is helping us understand that egoism is evil. But how can one justify it from the Creator’s point of view, how can one ascend over one’s nature?
My Answer: No one is right in this conflict, because people are being forced to collide by egoism. Don’t condemn anyone, but instead disseminate the truth which will draw the Light to our world and correct everyone. This is our only thought, desire, and objective.
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A question I received: More and more people are waking up to the evil within us. Why don’t Kabbalists go out on the political arena? Won’t establishing a political party also be a way to distribute the knowledge of Kabbalah? Or will this hurt the distribution of this wisdom? Even if people don’t like what they hear, they will still have a relation to Kabbalistic knowledge. Wouldn’t the Light give people a push in the right direction then?
My Answer: Our goal is to educate people, to give them knowledge about the true structure of the world, its goal, and man’s role in the world. People will soon start to understand that in order to reach a better future, they have to change their lifestyle, the entire social system and government relations. They will then desire to change their world based on our explanations of the laws operating in society and the world, and will come to naturally realize that the world has to be governed by Kabbalists.
However, this will happen to the extent of people’s Kabbalistic education, the recognition of evil and correction. Until then, we have to disseminate Kabbalah from below upwards, because any attempts to enter politics (to “take over” the Ministry of Education and teach Kabbalah to the masses) will be misunderstood and met with hostility.
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