A question I received: Lately there’s been a dramatic rise in domestic violence in my country. Every day women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends, and it seems that men hate women. My colleague’s daughter was murdered by a man whom she dated for just two months. This happened after she decided to break up with him. In comparison, it’s very rare for women to murder men. Why is this violence toward women happening?

My Answer: From the beginning, a man feels that a woman is inferior to him. This feeling is enrooted in him by nature. Allegorically speaking, we can understand this from the story about the downfall of sin: from the spiritual root, the woman’s correction depends on the male part of the Kli, and this is reflected in our world as our sensations and the woman’s dependence and need for help to give birth and raise her children – even though this is accredited to the husband. The only thing that can correct this relationship in our world is the realization that in order to advance toward the Creator, they have to be partners, and moreover, the woman’s help and desire have an enormous role, which makes the women necessary, valuable, and indispensable for men who desire to reveal the Light.

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Two questions I received on handling relationships

Question: What do I need to do to stop seeing only those things that separate me from other people? It is difficult for me to see the good deeds that people do; I get stuck on their bad deeds, even though I realize that this disconnects me from my friends in the group. I must mention that this mainly happens in relation to men, including my husband. Even though this also happens with women, but when it comes to women I manage to find balance. What should I do?

Question: In one of your talks about relationships, you said that when a couple has a disagreement about something, the best thing to do is keep quiet and not argue, and this silence will lead to a new understanding of one another and a new level in your relationship. You will also set an example for your partner. Can you please talk about this some more? This is a sore spot in my relationship, and I think that there are many couples going through this.

My Answer: Staying silent in an argument, compromising, causes your partner to react in the same way. Compromising leads to union and understanding, an understanding that we need to unite over our egoism. In such a way, we develop respect for one another, even for each other’s weaknesses, and understanding of each other’s nature, and this, in turn, leads to love, regardless of the obvious uncorrected properties of each partner. It says in King David’s Psalms: “Love covers all sins!” That is, the sins still remain, but the two of you learn to rise over them and unite there.

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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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Three questions I received on requesting from the Creator

Question: Does one pray to G-d or to the Creator? You have said that it’s written that the Creator hears no prayer other than to be able to bestow, because He is the quality of bestowal and this is the only thing you can ask of Him. And what about the “kibbutsnikim” in the Negev?

My Answer: Back then the desires of the “kibbutsnikim” and the Creator were the same. But in general, the Creator hears everything and everyone, but He reacts only to that which leads to the goal, to Him, to adhesion with Him. And He definitely hears and reacts to one’s requests for correction, for equivalence with Him. The Creator is a system of forces surrounding us. The Creator (Elokim) = Nature (HaTeva). We need to understand that He does not change His goal and action – at every single moment, everything is directed at reacting to our actions, in order to influence each and every person in such a way that they will be directed precisely toward the goal. This is how the Creator – this system of forces – reacts to our desires, thoughts, and actions. This is why Kabbalah says that He does not change. In other words, He does not change His influence on us, which directs us precisely to the goal.

Question: About the “kibbutsnikim” who asked for rain: How is it possible that they received something just by asking for it? I’ve asked for things a thousand times, and the most I received was a reason to regret the fact that I asked.

My Answer: Their requests did not contradict the Creator’s plans to have people settle in these lands. They were (egoistically) united with each other as one whole. They asked for the necessity and gave it everything they had. And it worked temporarily. But when they lost the desire to be united, they became opposite to the system of governing forces, and the Upper Forces evoked their disintegration.

Question: As I understand, a prayer is a person’s deepest and most real desire. So why is there is a custom to pray at certain times rather than when one feels like it? After all, one receives a response only to a real prayer. And what does prayer give a person, in principle?

My Answer: Religion does not deal with correcting the soul – changing one’s intention from “for the sake of oneself” to “for the sake of others and the Creator” in all of one’s actions, but rather it only trains one to make physical actions – the commandments of our world. Therefore, in religion to pray is to read at specific times something that was written for you by other people (by the sages of the Great Assembly, 2,000 years ago). One does not receive a response to such actions, and we see that religious people do not become corrected, but vice versa – as time goes by, their moral descent is becoming more and more apparent. However, such mechanical actions hold people within certain boundaries, and as such, during the period of the Creator’s concealment (from 0 until the 20th century), the religions had the role of providing life’s boundaries. This was established by Kabbalists, to last until our time, when “the point in the heart” surfaces in people and they begin the path of individual spiritual development.

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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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News Story: DNA Explodes Greek Myth About Women

“Women in Ancient Greece were major power brokers in their own right, researchers have discovered, and often played key roles in running affairs of state. Until now it was thought they were treated little better than servants.

The discovery is part of an investigation by Manchester researchers into the founders of Mycenae, Europe’s first great city-state and capital of King Agamemnon’s domains.

‘It was thought that in those days women were rated as little more than chattels in Ancient Greece,’ said Professor Terry Brown, of the faculty of life sciences at Manchester University. ‘Our work now suggests that notion is wrong.'”

My Comment: Science never insists on anything, but only states whatever it considers to be fact at a given moment. The opinion of tomorrow will be opposite to the opinion of today. I hope that the same will soon happen to our perception of the cause of evil in the world and how to eliminate it. People are gradually starting to understand that it is not our actions that harm nature and evoke its negative reaction upon us, it is our egoistic thoughts.

Take, for example, Carbon Belch Day: Grassfire.org’s protest against taxation for financing the fight against carbon dioxide emissions and global warming, their protest against Al Gore’s “absurdity,” and against the feelings of guilt for ruining the climate.

In our world, we see only the consequences of the Upper Force’s influence; we do not see the connections between the forces, what takes place between them. Even when we observe the cause and consequences in our world, it only seems like they take place within the plane of our world. In reality, however, they come from their own cause, pass through the Upper World, and then return to our world, bringing about the consequences we see. Every event in our world is a consequence of the governing force that descends from above. If, instead of seeing part of the world’s picture, we were to see all of the forces – the causes and consequences – we would discover that it is not carbon dioxide emissions affecting the atmosphere (contrary to the “obvious” facts we see today), but that it is the Upper Forces that determine the atmosphere, and the main component of these forces is our desires and thoughts (heart and reason).

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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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Two questions I received on what will happen to us at the time of final correction:

Question: After the full correction, will the corporeal world disappear forever? Or will it constantly return depending on our behavior?

My Answer: The full correction means that it’s final, marking the correction of all desires that the Creator created in the World of Infinity. Therefore, there is no longer any “return to the corporeal world,” as you say… by the way, there is no such thing as a return to an older desire that had been corrected and then became corrupted – that’s impossible. A “return to the corporeal world” in the spiritual work means the revelation of a new, uncorrected desire, which was always in you, but hidden from you until it became revealed. Therefore, once all desires become corrected, there is no more revelation of new, uncorrected desires.

Question: After the full correction, will there will be any more “natural disasters”? Do these phenomena happen only because the human race is opposite to the laws of nature, and not due to any other “natural” causes?

My Answer: Only we evoke all the natural phenomena, both good and bad. From the Creator’s side, everything is in balance.

Related Material:
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Chapter 2.12 from the Book The Path of Kabbalah: The Body at the End of Correction
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