We have to rise from the world we exist in up to the Upper World. This is the only purpose of our world. People who have revealed the path to the Upper World are called Kabbalists, starting from Adam HaRishon and on. They discovered that only the Upper Light can draw us into the spiritual world and help us achieve correction. Only the Upper Light is capable of correcting us and raising us along the spiritual degrees.

We can draw this Light by belonging to its system. Currently we do not belong to it because our nature is opposite to the Light. Our nature is reception, while the system is giving.

In order to draw the Light of correction, an “adapter” was created, or a buffer between the two systems. This buffer is Kabbalah books that connect us with the souls of the Kabbalists who wrote them. When we read these books with our “material” eyes, we unconsciously connect our souls (or the embryo of the soul that exists in us) to the soul of the author, and through his soul, we receive an illumination.

Some Kabbalists wrote books for each other, describing the Upper System in order to perfect their attainment and give joy to the Creator, or in order to prepare the Upper World to accept the souls that will later ascend to it. Other Kabbalists wrote for us, those who exist in this world, but they used four different languages.

Three of the languages – the Mikra, Halacha, and Hagaddah, do not allow us to adhere to the Upper Level. They can only be effectively used by people with a particularly refined soul. In addition, because we are living in a special time, we now need a different kind of language; the only language intended for our generation is that of Kabbalah. Only it can help us draw the Surrounding Light and ascend.

Moreover, out of all the Kabbalists who wrote in the language of Kabbalah, we single out the Ari and Baal HaSulam. Their language is most appropriate in order for us to find the connection with the Upper Level. The effect of their texts on us is the strongest, since the Surrounding Light that comes from their books is the most appropriate for our souls. So, of all the sacred books, the only ones that suit us are the books of Baal HaSulam, who adapted Kabbalah for our souls.

Besides this, there is The Book of Zohar, which is absolutely unique. It isn’t even a book, but a tool we can use together with the commentary of Baal HaSulam, who wrote it specifically for us. Besides these books, we cannot establish any contact with any of the other sacred books. Although they are sacred (meaning, they talk about the Upper World), they cannot help us correct our souls and realize the purpose of our existence.

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The only thing created in the whole of creation was the desire to enjoy and nothing exists but this. The Light, the quality of bestowal, created this desire for pleasure as opposite to Itself. The Creator, the quality of bestowal, wants the creation, the desire to enjoy, to feel Him, to understand Him and to reach the state of perfection.

The perfect state is to be in equivalence to the Creator, to the Light, to the quality of bestowal. Therefore, after creating a desire to enjoy, the Creator left it neither empty, nor filled it in an unchangeable state, but rather embedded in it His quality, a desire to bestow. The Creator did not just give the feeling of pleasure or lack of it (suffering), but embedded in it His quality, so that there would also be the understanding of what receiving and giving mean.

The ability to discern bitter from sweet is called “feeling,” and the ability to differentiate between receiving and giving is called “mind.” Mind is also a feeling, a sensation that is inside the desire, but this already exists as “reason.”

It turns out that the desire was created to perceive:

• fulfillment or lack of fulfillment as sweet/bitter
• receiving or giving as false/true

Since the creation consists of two parts, the creation and the Creator, or the quality of creation and quality of the Creator, therefore the desire (the creation) permanently exists in the identity of this relationship to itself.

These two components build inside the desire four possible combinations (states) that the science of Kabbalah calls the “Four-letter Unpronounced Name of the Creator” (Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey). This matrix includes all revelations of the Creator within the creation, from the simplest to the most complex forms.

Each of the four increasingly advanced stages includes all preceding stages, growing out of each previous stage to the next one. It is in this manner that the desire to enjoy comes to its full development.

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A question I received: Baal HaSulam wrote that the spiritual worlds differ only with respect to their material. What does that mean? Is it because the same exact forms are imprinted into different material?

My Answer: Yes! We think that desires differ in size, that they can be big or small, but in reality, the desire only changes with respect to its essence or quality. Looking at the four phases of creation (the four phases of Direct Light), we see that desire develops not in size, but in quality.

We do not assess the size of desire according to its volume. We’re always looking at its quality, the extent to which it is similar to the Creator; this is why differentiates the level of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida. The size and quality of a desire are actually inversely proportional. The higher a desire’s quality, the smaller its size, much like the shape of a pyramid.

There is a great quantity of ordinary materials, qualities and people in nature, while their premium counterparts are rare. In spirituality we focus on the quality of the object rather than its size, and on acceleration rather than speed. The size of a desire is determined by its quality, not its quantity. This raises the question: If a desire does not change quantitatively, then what makes it change qualitatively? The answer is that it’s because of the Upper Light that influences it from within!

What is the difference between a great desire and a small one? The only difference is the extent to which the desire is similar to the quality of bestowal. If I’ve grown over the course of a month, it means that I’ve become more bestowing, not larger in size. But we can also say the opposite: The more a person grows in spirituality, the less he “puffs up,” as it is written: “Wisdom is for the humble.”

Spiritual changes are exclusively qualitative, both with respect to objects and time categories. Qualities are determined exclusively by intention – “reception” or “bestowal.”

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A question I received: What is the screen? What is it made of and how can I recognize it?

My Answer: The screen is a force that enables you to think about others instead of yourself. It is when you acquire a different way of thinking, feeling, and making decisions. When this happens, it is as though you are born anew!

This is called a miracle – “The miracle of coming out of Egypt.” It is when you come out of your egoistic desire and suddenly begin to care for others. All your thoughts begin to work in this manner.

Right now it seems like a frightening change. Who would want this? And even though we do talk about this, inside we are very afraid of it.

However, the Upper Light will perform this change on us. I don’t know how it will do this. It will simply happen in the same manner as it created us. This change in a person is called a miracle. The Light that created our desire can also perform this “upgrade” on it.

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A question I received: Do I have to correct my point in the heart?

My Answer: No, you do not have to correct your point in the heart because there is nothing to correct there. It is just a point and it has no volume.

What you have to do is connect your point in the heart with other points. When you create this connection between you, it is called correction.

You will then reveal that the “group” of points or desires is completely corrected. Everyone exists in the perfect connection, like cells of a healthy organism; everyone except you!

To the extent that you “bow down” before them, they will influence you and you will begin to have the correct intention for similarity to the Creator. When you read about the Upper World with this intention, the reading will evoke an influence upon you from the Upper Level. You will be influenced by the Surrounding Light, which will give you a feeling of the Upper Level from where it descends. So go ahead – start!

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A question I received: Is the study of Kabbalah the only thing that brings us Light?

My Answer: It is the only means you have to connect to the system that contains the Light. You exist below all the degrees that descend from Infinity down to our world, below the 125 degrees of the Light’s weakening. Even the absolute lowest degree, which is still above you, already has a portion of Light, but your degree, called “your world,” does not.

Therefore, with regard to you, the Light that comes from a higher degree is called “Surrounding Light.” It doesn’t enter into you as “Inner Light,” but merely shines for you from the outside. That is why it is called “surrounding.” Its influence is imperceptible and determined by the results it yields.

You have no way of connecting to a higher degree, because you differ in qualities and thus have no point of contact, since the higher degrees operate by the quality of bestowal, while your present degree is run by the will to receive. Therefore, you do not have even a single bestowing quality that you could use to establish contact with or in any way influence a higher degree.

However, if you study the higher degree and want to be a part of it, even though you presently are opposite to it, the Light changes your qualities to match its qualities. This miraculous remedy (Segula) allows you to change yourself even though you don’t understand what you ask or where those changes will take you. It doesn’t matter that you’re an egoist making a “false” request, since the higher degree will accept your efforts as though you really do wish to become equivalent to it.

This is made possible by the system where the Upper Level descends to your degree with the mechanism with which you can ascend upwards. It is called the AHP, and it is a kind of intermediary, a womb (Rekhem). This system of connections is concealed from you, but it is the reason why you aren’t completely detached from the spiritual world and also why you don’t sense your connection to it.

It is just as an embryo in its mother’s womb that doesn’t understand where it is and doesn’t know its mother. The mother however, cares for it nonetheless.

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A question I received: What is the meaning of the verse, “A commandment is the candle and Torah is the Light”?

My Answer: In the science of Kabbalah, a commandment means the correction of your intention from “to enjoy personally” to the intention “to let others enjoy.” How is this done? With the help of the Light called Torah, which “ignites” your desire like a fire ignites a wick inside wax or oil.

There are 613 desires in the soul. But the desires are only the wax or the oil. The wick in the desire is created by our efforts to change our intention to one of bestowal. Then, the Light ignites it.

We have to prepare our desires so each of them will become a candle. To the degree that we make efforts, the Creator will light up lights inside us like a magician, and suddenly there will be Light inside us and we will be similar to the Light, the Creator.

We constitute a material that cannot light up by itself. Wax or oil cannot burn on their own. You have to add a wick to them, which is our efforts to overcome egoism.

We need to have the right ingredients: the Upper Light, the screen (wick) and the desire to enjoy (the material that can burn). Then we will become the Light!

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The entire material of creation is desire created by the Creator, who also sends the Light that fulfills the desire. Man is the correct correlation between the Light and the desire, and since man’s actions most always come from desire, his actions are therefore determined by the Creator.

However, if we aspire to reach connection between us by helping each other, acting “against the Creator” who created this separation between us, it truly becomes our own action.

The quality which the creature acquires by this action is called “a soul.” This soul doesn’t initially exist in us, and the Creator cannot give us a soul. Rather, a soul is created by our desire to connect above our egoism.

All states descending from the World of Infinity to our world (the last stage) exist in us in the form of records, which can be realized only by our efforts towards unification. Our descent resulted in separation, and our ascension is the action of moving towards unification.

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A question I received: Why does a person’s inner change in his approach to reality from reception to bestowal give him unlimited ability to know the present, past and future?

My Answer: The Light, the attribute of bestowal that a person reveals, is all encompassing, for it is the only force in all of Nature, and is Nature itself. The Light governs us, the creation, for we are the only thing that was created. Its broadening revelation in us reveals everything above time, space and motion. Therefore, by revealing the quality of bestowal, a person knows all of the Creator’s  actions – from beginning to end.

“There’s no Creator without the creature that reveals Him.” The quality of bestowal that influences the creation, is in fact, the Creator. When that quality which created me begins to reign inside me, it means that I am revealing the Creator. The quality of the the dominance of desire to bestow and the intention to bestow within me is called the Creator’s revelation to me.

Such revelation occurs to the measure that I become a giver myself. How then, can I state that I am revealing the Creator? Who is that “I” who is revealing the Creator? It turns out that there are qualities within me that are still in the process of revealing the Creator. Later on however, when I reveal everything to its fullest extent, there is no division into “me” and “Him,” there’s only an attribute of bestowal that is reigning supreme within me, and nothing more.

Eventually, I begin to  substitute the force that drives me and I develop the desire to alter it myself so that instead of constant thoughts about reception,  I think only of how to bestow. Actually, I am simply in the bad habit of thinking for the sake of reception, and it’s a habit that I am unable to rid myself of.

Baal HaSulam writes that there’s just a psychological problem of passing on to the will to bestow, nothing more. It turns out that in the desire to bestow, there are many more opportunities for me to develop and receive pleasure. But I am stuck in the habit of acting for the sake of reception and that’s how the whole of humanity works.

That’s why we must all apply an external force against our habit, the force of which is the Surrounding Light.  Through the force of this Light, called, “My sons prevailed over me,” it will change our operating program.

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Two questions I received about the use of drugs:

Question: What are your views on marijuana? In my opinion, it is an herb, not a drug. Is it wrong as a student of Kabbalah to smoke and relax?

My Answer: Anything is good if it’s used as a medicine, even snake venom. However, if something’s used to disconnect from reality and correction, it’s not good.

Besides this, you have to take addiction into account. Overall, if one aspires to the Upper Goal, then he does not need this.

Question: You mentioned several times that as we progress in the study of Kabbalah, our need for addictive substances such as illegal drugs, and the need to abuse prescription drugs just goes away. I personally have experienced this. Is it the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) doing the job or is it our friends helping us?

My Answer: It’s the Light and nothing but the Light!

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