Two questions I received on whether spiritual correction requires observance of physical rituals:

Question: You say that it’s possible to attain spiritual correction without physically observing the commandments of Judaism. Maybe you’re just saying this out of your concern for Kabbalah’s dissemination around the world? Or maybe what you really mean is that people can’t understand these commandments by simply reading them? If you can’t publish the answer on the blog, I would like to receive a private answer.

My Answer: The Creator created the will to receive pleasure with an intention “for one’s own sake,” and this is how we find ourselves in this world. We were created this way in order to correct our intention to “for the sake of the neighbor or the Creator,” on all of our 613 desires. This correction happens under the influence of the Upper Light, Ohr Makif, which descends during the study of Kabbalah.

This bears no relation to the observance of religious rituals. A person can attain correction and spiritual attainment without physically observing the commandments, or rather – the traditions. This is true for both Jews and the nations of the world. Moreover, every person can keep his religion, because religion is no more than a nation’s cultural framework. Kabbalah only teaches us about the intention “for the sake of the neighbor,” how to love and bestow to others – and nothing else.

Question: You’re all about spirituality and the love revolution. But what about connecting the root with the branch? After all, the still, vegetative, and animate levels are also levels of the will to receive. You always speak about the internality without any externality, and this confuses me. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” that the internality should be preferred over the externality. But it looks like Bnei Baruch gives 100% of their attention to the internality, and 0% to the externality! This is difficult and confusing. Why not make a small change and pay a little more attention to the externality? Why not combine both parts? Dedicate 90% of your attention to the internality, and 10% to the externality. This will really help everyone! What do you think?

My Answer: We at Bnei Baruch actually do this – we follow the traditions. But do you really think that all the people in the world – who are now approaching correction – have to observe the physical commandments of Judaism, even if it isn’t their tradition? In the article “The Future Generation” Baal HaSulam writes that every person can keep his religion!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Religion and Kabbalah Are Opposite
Laitman.com Post: Look Forward, Only Forward
Laitman.com Post: The Peace (Baal HaSulam)
Laitman.com Post: Intention Is Action

Filed under: Baal HaSulam, Egoism, Love, Perception, Q&A, Quora, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Two questions I received on whether it’s necessary to know the Torah before studying Kabbalah:

Question: I have been examining Kabbalah from every angle: science, religion, faith, spirituality, and so on. Are you sure that a person who studies Kabbalah with you and reads Baal HaSulam’s articles is able to understand what you are saying correctly? This wisdom is great and there is nothing like it in the entire world. Should it really be so easily available to every person who wants to study it? Maybe these people don’t even understand what they are reading.

I am asking this because I’ve met students who explain Kabbalah in a completely different way, and they have preconceived notions that are difficult to change. Shouldn’t they first learn about Abraham, Moses, and the stories from the Bible? Shouldn’t they first understand the simple meaning of the Torah before they start studying the spiritual part of the Torah?

My Answer: I brought many new students to my teacher, Rabash. They were secular and didn’t know anything about Torah, yet he accepted them to be his students. Rav Kook also wrote that the study of Kabbalah does not require any preliminary preparation. It doesn’t matter how a person understands the material, because this wisdom isn’t learned through common sense, but by attracting the Upper Light in order to reveal new qualities in the student. And to the degree that the student acquires the Light’s qualities, he starts understanding the Light.

On the other hand, people who “examine” this wisdom’s meaning with their corporeal qualities won’t be able to understand anything! The wisdom of Kabbalah differs from any other science, because in all other sciences, we can examine the world with the five senses that we already have, but in the wisdom of Kabbalah one first needs to acquire the sixth sense – similarity to the Light, and only after that, to the degree one is similar to the Light, he will be able to examine It.

Hence, this wisdom is much more practical, since we attain it within us, not outside of us. Using this wisdom, we reveal the Upper World, and we attain it from within, in a profound way. This attainment changes the student, since he studies everything inside himself only. This is why Kabbalah is called the wisdom of the inner, or the Inner Torah.

Question: If it’s impossible to understand the Torah without knowing Kabbalah, then why did most Kabbalists of the past say that before one can start studying Kabbalah, one has to learn the Torah in detail?

My Answer: It’s because the period from the 1st century until the 16th century (from the fall of the Second Temple until the Ari) was a period of exile from spirituality. During this time it was necessary to wait for the souls that fell from the spiritual level to intermix with the souls that have never been on that level. For example, Abraham was told ahead of time that the Egyptian exile was to last for 400 years. Similarly, Baal HaSulam predicted what would happen in our times – that beginning from 1995 on, there will be intensive, mass revelation of Kabbalah.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How to Read the Torah
Laitman.com Post: Talmud Eser Sefirot – A Study Only for Attaining Revelation
Laitman.com Post: Improve the Quality of Your Life
Myths About Kabbalah
Kabbalah in Our Times
Do knowledge and intelligence ease the way of faith above reason?

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

Two questions I received on the differences between Rabash’s students:

Question: Your teacher Rav Baruch Ashlag (Rabash) had many students, including Rav Gotlib, Rav Brizal, and others. Every one of them understands and interprets your common teacher in his own way. In particular, there are great discrepancies about religion and dissemination of Kabbalah. How do you explain this?

My Answer: The reason several versions come from one teacher is to give every person the opportunity to find a teacher who suits his upbringing and aspiration. Check all of these versions, and then choose the one that’s right for you. I’m sure that all of these teachers teach the same basics: by studying in a group to evoke Ohr Makif, one attains the property of bestowal (the Screen and Ohr Hochma), and then one ascends by nullifying oneself before the AHP of the Upper Level.

Question: And how do you explain the fact that Rabash’s students don’t keep in touch with one another?

My Answer: Each of them is following his own path, as it is written: “There are many paths to the Creator” (Yesh Harbe Drachim Le Makom). When Rabash passed away, he left his entire archive to me, and I let all of his students make copies of all his notes, as well as giving them all of the original audio tapes to copy – over a thousand of them. And I wish them success in everything!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Correction Lies In Unity
Laitman.com Post: New Book – Shamati (I Heard)
Kabbalah Today Article: Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (The Rabash)

Filed under: Spiritual Teacher, Spirituality - No Comments →

Questions I received from women on how to be sure that one is advancing in spirituality:

Question: Can a woman cross the Machsom without participating in the group, by studying your books for at least two hours a day?

My Answer: To ascend spiritually, a woman has to study and disseminate.

Question: Is it possible to follow the path of Kabbalah incorrectly? What I mean is: If I study with you in Bnei Baruch and I physically do what is needed – disseminate, pay Maaser, study Kabbalah, and have contact with the group, then can I still be doing something wrong in my inner work?

My Answer: Check yourself against the articles and recommendations of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. With every lesson, we delve deeper into this decisive question.

Question: What is the difference between regular feelings and spiritual feelings? When I have regular feelings, should I keep in mind that they aren’t real? And if yes, then how can I trust my feelings?

My Answer: Right now you should only study, and the Light will bring you new, correct notions, which will enable you to measure and judge everything correctly.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Woman’s Correction
Laitman.com Post: Women’s Spiritual Progress
Laitman.com Post: Women in Kabbalah
Lecture: Women’s Spiritual Development
Lecture: Women’s Spiritual Development

Filed under: Women - 1 Comment →

I’ve received many requests to explain the correlation between a baby’s development in this world and the soul’s development in the Upper World. Here is an explanation:

The Talmud Eser Sefirot – the fundamental Kabbalistic textbook with over 2,000 pages of difficult text, has about 300 pages that talk about the soul’s intrauterine development in the womb (the AHP) of the Upper Partzuf (the mother – Ima, Bina). This development may continue for seven, nine, or twelve months – but usually it continues for nine months. It is followed by birth and then 24 months of nursing – which is also described in 200 pages of very difficult text.

What are these lengthy, complex descriptions saying in simple language? The soul begins its development with the point in the heart, when a person asks, “What is the meaning of life?” Next, the person begins developing his soul by attracting the Upper Light to this point. He first goes through preliminary stages called single concealment and double concealment, and then enters a state called conception (Ibur). In this state, he attaches to the Upper Partzuf, provided that he agrees to stay together with It regardless of all the difficulties! And the difficulties keep increasing, but by strengthening his connection with the Upper One, despite the disturbances created by egoism that keep pulling him back, he continually absorbs the qualities of the Upper One – love and bestowal. This process continues until he attains all of the Upper One’s properties by means of annulling himself. This self-annulment also prevents him from becoming a disturbance or a foreign body in the Upper One.

When he absorbs all of the Upper One’s qualities, this concludes the period of passively absorbing the Upper One’s properties – of developing in the form of an embryo. An embryo develops by passively receiving the Light, and this is why it is referred to as blood (Dam, from the word Domem – still), or a passive adoption of the Upper One’s properties.

Stated differently, the state called pregnancy ends when a person desires to go from nullifying himself to actively interacting with the Upper One. This compels the Upper One to push him away, in order to end the previous kind of interaction – similar to when an embryo remains in the mother’s womb for too long, and evokes rejection. The Upper One pushes the lower one away from Him and forces the lower one to begin interacting with Him more actively – to nurse. The Upper One does this by creating conditions that enable the lower one to receive the Light of Hassadim (milk). However, the milk still turns into blood (Dam) in the lower one.

This nursing period lasts for 24 months, and during this time the lower one gains active properties of bestowal (Bina, Galgalta Einaim). This level enables a person to exist in the complete volume of the Upper World, and to be completely independent of his egoism – to perceive the Upper One and learn from Him.

Knowledge of the laws operating in our roots and of how the Upper Forces operate, gives us an absolutely precise understanding of how to ideally and most correctly treat and raise a child, how to interact with a fetus and a newborn, as well as with a teenager and adolescent. It enables us to build the correct system of interactions, and to create the conditions for optimally realizing the opportunity we have in this life – to attain the purpose of our creation.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Preparing for Childbirth – a Conversation
Laitman.com Post: A Conversation About Pregnancy and Birth
Article: Spirit and Body

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

A question I received: I’m able to intrigue many people with a “trick” that lets them be in the present, after they discover that they are always thinking and feeling the past or the future. The moment they’re “enlightened” by this realization, should I talk to them about Kabbalah? If yes, then what’s the best thing to let them read? They usually have preconceived notions, so it’s better to give them something easy to start with. For example, maybe I can let them read something by the American mystic and spiritual teacher Gurdjieff?

My Answer: The first time you talk them, don’t talk about Kabbalah but rather show them what is the reason for the crisis – both the personal and general one, and explain that the correction lies in unification, attainment of the quality of bestowal. Show them that this is the only freedom of will we have, and we are like robots in every other regard. Moreover, the attainment of this quality has to be evident in one’s perception and mind.

However, we can’t change our egoistic nature, but only an external force – the force of bestowal – can make this change in us. Explain how one can attract this force, that there’s a method for it, and so on.

Mystics and philosophers such as Gurdjieff, Madame Blavatsky, Solovyov and many others were true seekers of a connection with the Upper Force, but they didn’t have the right Teacher and the authentic method. Hence, their compositions only express their attempts to use human qualities and reason to figure out something that’s impossible to attain with our qualities. This can only be done with help from above, through the Upper Light.

Kabbalah draws the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif) by combining the necessary “ingredients”:

1. The person
2. The group
3. The text that talks about one’s corrected state
4. The Teacher who guides the way

This is why Kabbalah is the only method of attainment that allows one to enter or clearly perceive the Upper World.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Improve the Quality of Your Life
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah and Other Teachings
Laitman.com Post: Verifying the Validity of Kabbalah
Chapter 7 from the Book The Kabbalah Experience: Beliefs, Mysticism and the Supernatural

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

A question I received: I listened to your conversation with Professor Gregogy Brechman on pregnancy and birth, and it made me think about how lately everyone is panicking about aggression and violence among children, and child suicide keeps growing exponentially. According to your conversation with Dr. Brechman, the ones to blame for this are the pregnant mothers-to-be who are constantly thinking whether to “execute (abort) or to have mercy” on the creature that’s in their womb, because these thoughts instill a very powerful fear for life in the future child.

Shouldn’t we do something about these thoughts of the uncorrected parents, because the further we go, the worse and more egoistic their thoughts become, and hence every generation that’s born becomes more cruel and aggressive? If our thoughts during pregnancy really influence the way a person will turn out, then what should we think to make children geniuses? And can a man influence the thoughts of his pregnant wife?

My Answer: It doesn’t matter what state the creature is in: a drop of semen, an embryo, a newborn, a child, or an adult, and whether he already attains his higher existence or still doesn’t – regardless, as a Reshimo, he is always influenced by just one force – the Creator. And there is no one else in the entire universe besides the two of them – the Creator and the creation!

The Reshimo develops under the influence of the Light and begins to feel that it’s receiving from someone. It starts to perceive someone, the way a newborn does. In other words, one’s entire development is qualitative rather than quantitative – it’s the development of one’s relationship with the Upper One (the Light, the Creator), or of one’s attitude to Him.

Hence, if the parents are studying Kabbalah, the connection with the Upper One, then they already prepare their children – on the informational level – for spiritual development. And this influence becomes more and more important as the child develops through the prenatal period, then after he’s born, then the preschool period, and so on, until he becomes an adult. The soul has no age, and regardless of the form of its bodily, outer shell, any influence on the soul is positive.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Conversation About Pregnancy and Birth
Laitman.com Post: Preparing for Childbirth – a Conversation
Laitman.com Post: How to Help Teachers and Parents
Laitman.com Post: How Should I Raise My Children?
Laitman.com Post: A Mother and a Child
Laitman.com Post: Hyperactivity in Children – Our Children and Us
Kabbalah Today Article: The Story of Cogwheels

Filed under: Education - 1 Comment →

I had a conversation that was recorded on the topic of love. I spoke with Oren Levi, manager of our Hebrew publishing department.

We analyzed how the spiritual property of the Creator, “love for creation,” is expressed in action – “bestowal and fulfillment.” However, since creation is egoistic and opposite to the Creator, it interprets this as love for fulfillment and reception. Creation aspires to use and humiliate others, in order to feel more fulfilled than them. In other words, its love manifests in a completely opposite form than the spiritual quality of “love,” yet we refer to both of them with the same word, according to the law of “root and consequence.”

However, when creation attains equivalence of form with the Creator (when it acquires the aspiration toward the property – “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” which is attained only through the influence of the Upper Light that descends during the study of Kabbalah), it begins to comprehend the true meaning of the Torah’s words and of Kabbalistic notions, including “bestowal” and “love.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Is It Possible to Love Everyone?
Laitman.com Post: Love Thy Neighbor as Yourself
Laitman.com Post: Does the Creator Have Feelings?
Laitman.com Post: On the Revelation of Godliness
Laitman.com Post: Love Her Like Your Soul, Punch Her Like a Punching Bag
Laitman.com Post: Love Covers All Sins
Laitman.com Post: On Love
Lesson: Unconditional Love
Kabbalah Today Article: Love, Love, Love
Kabbalah Today Article: Love, Deciphered

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Love, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Questions I received about Reshimot

Question: I’d like to ask about Reshimot: The point in the heart is a Reshimo, and Klipot are also Reshimot, but broken ones. What other kinds of Reshimot are “registered” in Kabbalah? There are probably more of them than elements in the periodic table!

My Answer: Reshimot accumulated during the common soul’s descent from its spiritual level of love and bestowal into reception and love for oneself. Altogether there are Reshimot from 125 levels of descent, and we have to correct them in the reverse order. By realizing these Reshimot in order, we ascend along their levels and reveal our spiritual senses, which feel the Upper Light, the Creator.

Question: How can a person tell what level are the Reshimot coming from, according to the special qualities of his individual soul? Do the Reshimot always come to help us grow and develop? And what about the Reshimot of the Klipot – why do they come to a person?

My Answer: Reshimot surface in us one after another, from below upwards, and they always become expressed in the form of broken levels (Klipot, the ego). By correcting them, we build our soul – the vessel in which we perceive ourselves, our spiritual life.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Klipot and Reshimot (Advanced)
“The Reshimo” – a Chapter from the Book Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life

Filed under: Spirituality - 1 Comment →

Here is some guidance on how to read the Torah chapter summaries posted on this blog:

The Torah lays out the foundation of the theory and practice of attaining spiritual life. Neither Adam nor Abraham received the full method of attaining the Creator; only Moses did. All other texts are commentaries, that is, other ways of describing the attainment of the Creator or descriptions of partial attainment of Him.

Torah comes from the words Ohr – Light, and Ora’a – instructions. It is written in the Language of Branches, which names spiritual forces by the things they produce in our world. So even though we think that it’s describing our world, it’s actually describing spiritual forces, since in the spiritual world there are only forces without matter.

Why do we need these descriptions of the Upper World?

1. So that by reading them, we will evoke the influence of the Correcting Light (Ohr Makif) on us.

2. So that after we correct ourselves by the Light, we will then be filled by It to the degree we’re corrected.

If it weren’t for this method, we would remain on the animate level of existence forever. We wouldn’t be able to reach the level of eternity, perfection, and equivalence to the Creator.

The Language of Branches (which describes the Upper Forces with the help of their results or branches) has four modifications, or in other words, there are four languages of branches:

1. The language of Tanach – historical narration, like the one used in the Torah chapter summaries posted on this blog;

2. The language of Halacha – laws;

3. The language of Hagadot – legends;

4. The language of Kabbalah – this language is closest to the spiritual roots and the most precise of all the languages. For more on this, See Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

My suggestion: As you read the Torah, start imagining that it’s talking about egoism, the desire that has to be corrected, so that instead of being used for the sake of oneself, it will be used for the benefit of one’s neighbor (or the Creator, which is the same thing); and this correction happens gradually, in parts. Everything divides into the force of bestowal (the Creator) and the force of reception (the creation). The part of creation that’s corrected or undergoing correction is called Israel (Isra-El – straight to the Creator). It also has parts called people, rulers, slaves (of desires), overseers (of correction), Levites, Kohens, and so on. Check yourself to see how much you’re able to discern actions of forces that govern our world behind the “theatrical” scenes you read.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Torah. The Book of Beresheet. Chapter Vaera
Laitman.com Post: The Torah. The Book of Devarim. Chapter Vaetchanan
Laitman.com Post: The Torah – The Book BaMidbar, Chapter Baalotkha
Laitman.com Post: How to Use Kabbalistic Source Texts
Laitman.com Post: Dates of the Torah’s Transmission from Moses to Our Days
Laitman.com Post: Why Is Studying Kabbalah Good for You?
Kabbalah Today Article: Kabbalah Explains the Bible
Article: The Secret Meaning of the Bible

Filed under: Spirituality - 2 Comments →