Questions I received about the Creator

Question: What is the Creator? Does He have desires and feelings?

My Answer: The Creator is the general force of Nature that incorporates everything. His quality is bestowal (love). This is His only force. From His quality of loving and bestowing, He created creation in the quality “to receive” – to receive what He desires to give it. But even though He created creation in the will to receive, He is leading it to acquire the quality of bestowal, to His state, which is boundless, unique, and perfect.

Question: In the article “The Revelation of Godliness (Matan Torah)” Baal HaSulam writes that the first condition is that “No one acts without a purpose,” and “There is a Creator in the world who created everything with a purpose.” What does “the first condition” mean?

My Answer: The first condition is the basic law of nature.

Question (continued): Do I have to accept this as a fact, even though I don’t have the notion that the Creator is real?

My Answer: You should accept it in order to test it on yourself, to reveal the Creator within you, within the property of bestowal you will acquire. It’s just like a scientist who receives news about someone else’s discovery – he accepts it and then tests whether it is correct. If a person attains the revelation of the Creator’s actions, then to the degree he reveals this, he justifies Him and hence he himself is then called “righteous.” That is to say, in Kabbalah one tests everything in practice, and every person does this within himself!

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A question I received: I participated in a Kabbalah seminar in Tallinn, Estonia on the 15th of June. At that meeting, I expressed my resentment of the following statement: “During a descent, one can progress even more than during an ascent, since at that time a person only uses the force of the group, which is always greater than his own force. One’s friends in the group were selected by the Creator Himself. If you will love them, then He will love you.”

I am used to moving forward and achieving things on my own. Maybe this is wrong, but that’s how it is for the time being. People singing together, holding hands, and singing songs – I feel that not only do they fail to see or know the text, but they even sing without any spirit – so what should I do?

I put more spirit into writing a letter to a woman I love or looking into her eyes. I can’t let myself be part of a group yet. Maybe I’m not ready for a group yet and I have to work on my own, as long as the group is foreign to me. On the other hand, talking to individual people at that evening in Tallinn was a pleasure. But when it came to singing and hugging, I wanted to leave!

My Answer: Everyone is repelled by this at first. Some people are social by nature, and some are loners. Personally I belong to the latter, so I understand you very well. What should you do? You should participate as much as you can. And after that your life will direct you, because when you make efforts and don’t receive a result, you will understand that there is no way out, that our correction lies in the union of souls. You don’t have to hug others or have a good singing voice. You should study and disseminate, and the rest will come in due time. Don’t force yourself.

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Two questions I received on the correction of a woman’s soul

Question: You have provided many explanations about a man’s path of correction – he studies, works in the group, and through this attracts upon himself the Light that returns to the source and corrects his soul. I’m trying to understand how a woman corrects her soul, and the only answer I can find is that she doesn’t attract upon herself the Light that returns to the source, that this is the man’s work, and that a woman needs to study and disseminate, and this way she corrects her soul. Can you give a more detailed explanation of the spiritual process that a woman’s soul goes through when she studies and disseminates on her path to correction?

My Answer: The difference is:
1. A woman does not unite with other women in a group, in “love for her neighbor or for her girlfriends,” but rather she unites with other women only through helping each other disseminate Kabbalah.
2. She doesn’t receive help directly from above, the way the men’s group does, but receives it through the men’s group. This is explained in the story about the reception of the Torah, where the men carry out the condition of Mutual Guarantee (Arvut), and the women support them with their desire. As a result they receive it together – the men conduct the Light to the women. The difference is only the order in which they receive the Light from above, and it practically doesn’t matter. That is to say, a woman doesn’t feel it in any way if she studies and disseminates. Moreover, a woman should study Kabbalah only to the extent that she feels a need to do so, and no more than that, whereas the men are obligated to study between one and three hours a day.

Question: Today women are reaching the same spiritual states that you, the men, are going through. But you have a safety net – a group of Bnei Baruch wives. What about us – women and mothers, and what about our children?

My Answer: The men of the world Kli have the support of the women’s part of the world Kli. This is what I feel, whereas you are looking at bodies instead of spiritual desires. A spiritual desire is not connected to the body, it’s beyond it. Imagine the world without our bodies – a space filled with uncorrected desires that aspire to be filled, rather than to bestow to one another and connect into one common desire. These desires subdivide into active ones – masculine, and passive ones – feminine. It’s similar to conception, where the male cells move and penetrate the female cells. And then a new body is born – a common desire.

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A question I received: You say that Kabbalah is a science. That’s fair. The two forces of nature, bestowal and receiving. All of nature is nothing but bestowal, and man is the only element in nature that disrupts the balance, he creates disbalance, and this is why we suffer.

Everything is fine until we get to this point. But finally, when we get to the point where we need to fix the balance, you say: Ohr Makif. Hmm… Some light comes out of nowhere and corrects me. And what confuses me the most is that this light comes from a book. Could you please explain or define what “light” is in a practical and clear manner? I thought that Kabbalah was a science about forces, nature, desires, etc. In my perception Upper Light is not a scientific term and directly refers to something esoteric. Maybe you could make this notion more reasonable and comprehensible? What is this force that corrects us? Is this the force of bestowal? Then why is it called Ohr Makif? How can this “light” able to help prevent suffering on our path of development? Is it in any way related to the corporeal light?

My Answer: If I were you with your love for sciences, I would study “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (Pticha) or maybe I would even start studying Talmud Eser Sefirot! These texts explain several spiritual notions in a scientific language: 1. desire, 2. correction of intention from “for one’s own sake” to “for the sake of the Creator,” 3. fulfillment by the Light, pleasure, the Creator, to the extent of the corrected intention. There is nothing else in Kabbalah.

Ohr Makif is a force that influences us from a more corrected state, which we aspire toward. It responds to your aspiration in the following way: it pulls you to a higher, more altruistic state to the same extent you aspire for it. This is an interaction of two vectors of desires. The same mutual influence of forces also exists in our world, when a person aspires for any new thing. The difference is that when it comes to spiritual aspiration, this force that pulls you to a new state is referred to as Light, because it doesn’t just pull you through its influence upon you, but it also changes you, making you become like the new state, one that is spiritual and altruistic. The difference between this force of Light, and the force that pulls you toward a new state in our world is that, the force in our world doesn’t need to change you to pull you to something. Check it out for yourself to eliminate any doubts.

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Two questions I received on “love thy neighbor”

Question: When you discussed the article “The Revelation of Godliness,” you explained that there is no rule of “love thy neighbor” in religions. You have given examples of religious wars and caste among Hindus. How am I to understand the wars against the “seven nations” and Amalek through the prism of love for one’s neighbor?

My Answer: These are internal wars that take place within the person, wars against one’s egoism. They aren’t wars where people are killed physically! Kabbalah only engages in correcting human egoism.

Question: I get the impression that there is purification through complete destruction (for example, idol worshiping cities), and that this is present even in the Torah. I am trying to understand how such actions can be properly carried out in accordance with “love for one’s neighbor.” It seems to me that even if these actions are sincerely performed out of love for one’s neighbor, they will still bring the following generations to wrong conclusions, and cruelty and destruction will result.

My Answer: Once again, these questions support the following conclusions: the Torah does not discuss externality; it only discusses the person’s inner correction. It is impossible to change or correct anything in egoism with physical actions. We only need to correct our egoistic nature. This is why the Torah only speaks about our inner correction.

Baal HaSulam writes with sorrow about the fact that Kabbalah books and The Zohar are full of “descriptions of our world,” and how this confuses people studying Kabbalah. For this reason, it is of utmost importance to free Kabbalah from that style, so that it would become clear to each and everyone studying Kabbalah that it only discusses spirituality. Spirituality does not clothe into materiality, and it has no connection to it whatsoever; it is only a force outside of matter. The entirety of Kabbalah needs to be rewritten in this style, so that nobody will be confused, and everybody will perceive its methodology correctly. This is what we still have to do!

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Two questions I received on expressing love and egoism

Question: Imagine a situation where a person who has no connection to Kabbalah sacrifices his life in battle to save his friend, even though he knows that he will die doing this. Isn’t this the revelation of the greatest love possible?

My Answer: In our world, this may very well be the greatest possible expression of love, but this is not the case in the Upper World. It’s because people are taught to die this way through education, examples, and brainwashing, which teach them concepts that they must adhere to, even at the expense of their lives. For example, submarine crews are trained in such a way. However, these people still remain as egoists, it’s just that they receive a different program of fulfilling their egoism. There are many instances when people risk their lives and even go to their death willingly. It is much more difficult to reject egoism than to die.

Question: Do egoists perceive the Upper World?

My Answer: They think they do.

Related Material:
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Two questions I received on this perfect system we live in:

Question: How is it possible that we perform actions that don’t exist in the Creator? That is to say, He doesn’t have to change His nature, but we do. Is this like sacrificing oneself for one’s new “I,” which is real and perfect?”

My Answer: I will slightly correct you: We were created perfect by the Creator, and as a consequence, we don’t perceive this perfection. Hence, He took us out of that state and put us in the opposite state, so we would find the best state on our own – and become convinced that this is exactly what He gave us from the beginning.

Question: I recently began studying Kabbalah, and have reached the conclusion that the diversity or “division” of human (corporeal) desires begets the retardation or as you have said, “the feeling of a dead end” in the development of science, technology, and humanity in general. Is this really so? Have I reached the right conclusion?

My Answer: Obviously, the more harmoniously this single organism of Nature works (in which only man adds disorder, because only he has the freedom of action), the higher is our state, until we reach the point where we perceive the world’s harmony. This is perceived on spiritual levels, degrees of unity with the Creator, the general force of Nature, to the degree that we are equal to him through bestowal and love.

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A question I received: It’s been around the news lately, that in Ethiopia, in the city of Aksum, archeologists have found the palace of Queen Sheba. Inside, the researchers found an altar and Judaism’s most valuable treasure – the Arc of the Covenant. According to legend, the Arc contained Moses’s stone tablets with the Ten Commandments, and it was brought to Ethiopia by Menelik – the son of Queen Sheba and King Solomon. The scientists believe that Menelik changed his faith and began worshiping Sirius, but he kept the Arc – a chest made of acacia and covered with gold plates. ITAR-TASS notes that there were evident traces of calf sacrifices around the Arc.” In your opinion, could this be true, or is it just another piece of gossip?

My Answer: I don’t know whether it’s true and I don’t care. With the fall of the Second Temple, when people fell from “love thy neighbor” to “unfounded hatred,” holiness left Israel, as well as all of the Temple’s paraphernalia, because it’s the people who make these objects holy, and not the objects themselves. Rather than striving for material objects, which don’t contain any spirituality, we should strive to obtain the property of bestowal and love for all people, since this is holiness and the property of the Creator. However, as it seems, we are willing to do everything but this!

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Questions I received on a scientific experiment that aims to reproduce the formation of creation: This week I saw an interview with a scientist specializing in quantum physics who talked about a project that he and seventy other scientists from around the world are planning. Next month, they want to reproduce the entire formation of creation with the aim of finding some missing photon. For this purpose they have constructed a 27km long tunnel between Switzerland and France, as well as various tools. The interesting thing was that at the end of the interview, this scientist said that they will succeed only if God so wishes, and if He doesn’t, then they won’t! My questions in relation to this are as follows:

Question: Will this affect the world, climate, pollution, and so on?

My Answer: No. Only our thoughts and desires have an effect on these.

Question: How can a scientist rely on God?

My Answer: Who else should a scientist rely on at a time when science is already showing itself to be the science of its own end?

Question: What do you think they’ll discover?

My Answer: Even if they were to discover the “missing photon,” they would discover thousands more questions behind it, and this would continue forever, because the second part to the world is the upper part, and it’s hidden from them. Moreover, the barrier separating them from it is a spiritual barrier, and this is why it cannot be penetrated with a physical accelerator. One needs spiritual preparation in order to do this, to ascend over one’s egoism with the property of bestowal and love for one’s neighbor. The scientists want to attain the forces controlling our world, and they’ll continue the way they are until they come to understand and feel, as a result of their experiments, that they need to change themselves – the observer.

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A question I received: I have a very important question! Fifteen years ago, I became religious and joined a religious school because the point of my soul awakened in my heart! I wanted Eternity, but did not know how. I found the studies at the religious seminary to be shallow, and anything that reached deeper required me to “break” my personality, making me sad and remorseful (for having a boyfriend). I cried, had conversations with “G-d,” felt hopeless, fearful, envious, and nullified my desires!

I tried to wipe out my personality, and suffered in order to become righteous! But it was all foolish! Little by little I understood that I was doing idolatry, yet I told myself that this was impossible – after all, it was the Torah! And all the rabbis said, “The Torah, the commandments!” For years I knew that this wasn’t it, and I was struggling, yet wasn’t able to explain it! I was studying at a very prestigious religious school in Jerusalem, with the best rabbis, yet I intuitively understood that they were lacking something! I felt depressed, alone, and couldn’t find myself. I argued with them, saying that they were engaging in questions of minor importance! A week ago, I was lucky to turn on the Kabbalah channel, and I said, “This is what I need! This is what I’ve been looking for!” That was after I saw just one TV show.

I got lucky! And this is just the beginning! I pity many rabbis! I got burned, not warmed, by their Torah! Maybe it’s because my father was a righteous man that I merited not to believe their nonsense, their empty words! I’m sorry for saying so, but in my opinion they are all the same – just lecturers!

Finally, here is my question. After being so suppressed, that I can’t even describe it, do I have a chance to be spiritually revived to the state I was born into? By my nature, I was connected to society, and I understood what “Israel” is, but religion spoiled this eternity for me! I apologize for such a long question and the efforts you’re making for me! In the past I thought, “It’s fine to break your character.” That’s what I was taught, and I simply wiped myself out, I fasted and was even happy to suffer spiritually. Later, I began crying because everything was passing me by!

Do I have a chance? If yes, what is it? It’s very important to me! Will I ever regain the strength I once had? I used to feel love for the people, love for deliverance, love for modesty, love for eternity, love for society! And suddenly all of this turned into anger, fear, failure, religious egoism, collecting commandments, and religious idolatry.

My Answer: Everything you studied, and everything that happened to you, was supposed to happen exactly the way it did, and will be of use to you. You shouldn’t accuse anybody, because until this moment in your life, everything took place according to the Creator’s will. From this moment onward, you should continue behaving as usual, but supplement your life with Kabbalah study. Start with the book Shamati (ed. see below), and then continue with the articles of Baal HaSulam. Or it could be better for you to listen and watch our lessons (ed. see below) instead of reading by yourself. Try it. You should only look forward – never backward!

The Book Shamati (I Heard):
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Lessons by Michael Laitman:
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