Questions I received about the Light, the 600,000 souls, other readings, our purpose in this world and Mitzvot:

Question: You often mention the Upper Light or the Light of the Creator, but what exactly is this Light? What does it feel like and what will it do? How will a person sense this Light? I am certain that this Light is not the same as the light we define in our world, although I often relate the two.

My Answer: The Light is a quality of bestowal and love that cures our egoism, transforming it into similarity with Its form.

Question: I was listening to one of your TV programs where you talk about 600,000 souls scattered in the world. I also read the same thing in one of your books. If every one has to evolve in their spirituality to unite with the teachings of Kabbalah, why 600,000 instead of six billion?

My Answer: 600,000 is a conventional definition: it is measure of the height of the original collective soul (Partzuf Arich Anpin of the World of Atzilut).

Question: Have you studied Tanya by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi? And if you have, how come you never mention it?

My Answer: Because I have never studied it.

Question: What is our purpose in this physical world, in this world of illusions?

My Answer: The goal is to cross from illusion over to the truth.

Question cont’d: And do you talk about the importance of keeping Mitzvot?

My Answer: We strive to observe them in their original, true, spiritual form.

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Our job is to begin the work of our correction, but we shouldn’t worry about its completion. This doesn’t mean we should leave the work in the middle, but rather, we must always consider the result as being the right one, because it comes from the Creator.

It only seems to us that we know how everything has to develop. But in reality, all of a sudden something opposite happens. We are influenced by the Upper Light and the environment, and therefore we are changing. That’s why we see that the work we started turns out to be completely wrong. And then we begin everything anew.

This is our work of correcting ourselves, “the correction of mistakes,” which the Creator completes for us. We always have to start from the beginning, without despair, trying to break through toward Him (toward the quality of bestowal in us).

We have to make every effort to complete the action, even though the result will be absolutely different from what we expected. This happens because the Light turns us into the opposite. That is why we go through so many changes in the process of the spiritual work.

The fact is that we don’t know what the outcome should be. We don’t know what the attribute of bestowal is, and that’s why we have no clue what will be the result of any step we take. If our efforts result in something opposite to what we thought, this may actually be a good sign that we are coming closer to the truth.

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A question I received: Suppose I have accumulated a sufficient desire for correction. How can I ask the Light to correct it?

My Answer: The desire speaks for itself. You shouldn’t think about how to ask for this. The moment you really want it, your desire will be your request.

The most important thing is to feel a need for this. A baby does not think about how to ask his mom for something. It’s only later on, when he grows bigger, that he becomes more cunning and comes to her nagging and demanding something.

But we don’t know any tricks like this. There has to be a cry coming from the bottom of our heart, our desire.

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I always repeat that in order to succeed in the study of Kabbalah, we have to disseminate it. However, I feel that “dissemination” is not a good word because it makes me sound like a salesman or an insurance agent who is pushing his policies to everyone. When we talk about disseminating Kabbalah, it may sound as though we are trying to impose something on others.

Today the word “dissemination” is associated with commerce and dissemination of goods. Thus, when we speak about the dissemination of Kabbalah, those who are unfamiliar with the term think that it involves commerce or business, that we are selling something and making a profit. In other words, this word is very slippery.

But actually, our entire life constitutes dissemination, because the real meaning of this word is drawing closer to the Creator, spreading, expanding, revealing and attaining. All of creation begins with dissemination. That is to say, it starts out as a single point, where suddenly, out of nothingness, something that exists is born – Yesh Mi Ain (something out of nothing), and then it proceeds to disseminate through the four stages of Direct Light, producing all the worlds down to our world.

The last spiritual degree bursts into our world with a single, tiny spiritual charge. All the matter of our world, the whole universe, is born from this one spark in a process called the Big Bang, and then disseminates further. It develops in this manner until it forms our solar system, our terrestrial globe, and everything that exists here.

All of this pertains to the dissemination of the Creator onto the created beings in order to bring creation to equivalence with Him. This happens under the influence of the Light, His quality of bestowal. Indeed, any birth or development constitutes dissemination. In other words, the true, inner quality of dissemination is a partnership with the Creator. It means helping the Creator deliver and reveal His idea to the world by acting together with Him.

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A question I received: If one asks to be brought closer to the Light, is that not an egoistic request? After all, he is driven by the desire to feel better.

My Answer: That doesn’t matter. This is what is called Lo Lishma (to desire spirituality egoistically for oneself).

One wants to sense the spiritual world, to receive the spiritual life, the sensation of true reality, and to see that his life isn’t being wasted. After all, life passes by and no one knows how much time they have left, so one doesn’t want it to go by meaninglessly.

Initially one cannot think of anything other than his own profit. Consequently, if one doesn’t desire spirituality egoistically by envisioning the benefit it will bring him, he will never turn to it.

Therefore, the spiritual path begins with egoistic attainment (Lo Lishma). But then, under the influence of the Upper Light (Ohr Makif), one’s egoistic attitude toward spirituality is replaced by an altruistic one (Lishma).

That is why one’s ego is called “help against him” (Ezer Kenegdo), since it brings one to a state where he suddenly realizes that it is precisely his ego that stands in his way.

The same ego that used to help him and push him forward must now be destroyed. What must be destroyed is not the desires themselves, but only their egoistic intention. This is how one is gradually changed by the Light.

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What is a human being? A human being is a mountain of egoism and hatred towards everyone. If the Light influences this mountain of hatred (the mountain of Sinai),  it raises a person onto the mountain.

Precisely due to the egoism, a person has something to rise above, then under the influence of the Light, the egoism is ready to receive pleasure, using itself for the sake of bestowal.

The Light does everything. One can be the most righteous person, who has ascended high into the degrees of the worlds, but if the Light stops affecting him, he will immediately fall into his initial egoism. There are no other alternatives – either we are controlled by our egoistic nature or we are controlled by the Light.

This will never end, since while I am in any spiritual state, I must always hold onto the Light in order for it to influence me. If I let go of it, I will fall immediately.

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All of human history shows that man’s entreaties to the Creator do not merit a clear response from Him. This raises a question: If the Creator exists at all, then can we communicate with Him in some way? Will this question remain a mystery forever, like UFOs and life on other planets, where we’re forever left in the dark as to the existence of other civilizations outside of earth, which may exist but not desire to be in contact with us?

In order to attain contact with the Creator, we have to establish a connection with the people who are already in contact with Him. We have to cleave to those who are connected with the Upper System. We will then be like a child who cleaves to an adult and thus receives everything the adult has. This is how we can advance toward spirituality.

If we want our thoughts and desires to be the same as those of the great Kabbalists (Baal HaSulam and Rabash), then we will be influenced by the same Light that fulfills them. This will remedy all our problems, including all the illness of our bodies and souls. The Light knows what has to be corrected and it arranges everything in the best possible way.

The truth is that we don’t know what is really good for us. We only have to desire to come closer to the Light, and It will do everything. Therefore, our entire work is to come as close as we can to what Kabbalists wrote. We should just cleave to them with our hearts.

That is how we can take one step forward after another. No matter what happens to us, despite all the problems, mistakes and confusion, we have to aspire to draw closer to the Light.

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We are all made of the desire to enjoy – a material that cannot do anything on its own and is entirely dependent on the Light that created it. All the changes that happen to the desire to enjoy are performed by the Light.

Our development starts with the initial stage, where the Light influences the will to enjoy and causes it to mature. From the state of maturity onwards, the Light ceases developing the desire and waits for it to want this of its own accord, and then to ask the Light for it.

Today we are at the transition phase leading to our independent development. The Light no longer develops us, but waits for us to ask It to develop us further. However, our request has to correspond to the program of the Light’s future actions over us. On every stage, we have to ask the Light to do Its work.

If we desire for the Light to perform a specific action to us – to correct us from reception to bestowal, and if our desire is an exact match to the Light’s program, then the Light immediately performs this action. Thus we advance forward, traversing 1/125th of the path of our development.

Therefore, our entire work lies in understanding what exactly should we be asking for, what is our future state, and what do we have to attain on every stage? Then our desire will become the same as the desire of the Light, the Creator.

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In the World of Infinity, the desire (Kli) is perfect, and it merges with the perfect Light as one whole. Together they descend down to the lowest place in the universe – this world, where the desire is perceived as man’s body and the Light dwindles down to a spark that enlivens the body.

Once these two elements descend, they lose their unity and start to oppose one another. All of this takes place inside a person, and he has to raise these two elements back upwards, in order to connect them just as before they descended. To this end, a person constantly receives a greater desire to enjoy, and against it – a greater Light. His task is to combine the two and make them similar to one another.

In order to do this, a person has to refuse to use his desire to receive. With the help of the Light, he can turn his desire to receive into the desire to bestow, and then man’s desire becomes similar to the Light and they merge together.

Yet, an even greater desire is immediately revealed inside a person – an ego of such proportions that he couldn’t even imagine it before! And he once again has to draw the Light that Reforms through the group and the study in order to connect his desire with the Light and find similarity to it. He has to do this over and over again on all 125 spiritual degrees.

Every time he overcomes a given portion of his egoism, it seems as if he has already overcome all of it. But all of his past resolves to remain steadfast and loyal to bestowal, all of his past corrections come tumbling down when he reveals just another additional ounce of desire. It casts him down into the darkness all over again, together with a lack of understanding, hate, and inability to do anything. And all of this happens just because he received another tiny portion of desire. He must then look for forces and means of correction all over again. And in order to do this, he needs a third element – the Creator.

This was all arranged deliberately, so that while we ascend from below upwards and feel ever-greater darkness inside our growing desire, we will desire to correct ourselves and will feel that we need each other, as well as the Creator.

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The depth of spiritual attainment is determined by the depth of the corrected desire. With each new generation, the souls descending into the world are “coarser” – more egoistic. Therefore, Kabbalists who lived before the Ari (16th Century) had small egos and were therefore able to reveal the elements of creation in full detail, including such concepts as the screen, Tzimtzum Alef, Tzimtzum Bet, Orh Hozer, and so on.

They used these spiritual forces, but they did not completely understand their origin and mode of operation. This is why they could not clearly express it either. It is like seeing a picture: even though you may be able to replicate it, you don’t know how the colors break down into a spectrum, what the wavelength of each color is, and how this affects all of us and turns into feelings.

If one’s desire is not thick enough, then it is impossible to attain the cause of a phenomenon and explain how the Light unites with the desire. The Ari was the first person to reveal the difference and the connection between the Direct Light and the Reflected Light in all its depth. He was able to do this by virtue of having a special soul. In addition, he was living in the beginning of the Messiah’s era, when the souls requiring correction began to be revealed in the world.

Prior to that time, there was a period of exile, when the ego was not revealed in a form ready for correction. This is why it is written that all the Kabbalists before the Ari communicated Kabbalah from the standpoint of the Direct Light (Kabalat Ramak), whereas the Ari explained Kabbalah from the standpoint of the Reflected Light (Kabalat Ari).

Later, Baal HaSulam continued the method of the Ari and made it fit for our use.

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