News Report (from The Telegraph): Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren did their best but according to a leading Egyptologist, they came nowhere near to an accurate portrayal of ancient queen Cleopatra.

Using images from ancient artifacts including a ring dating from Cleopatra’s reign 2,000 years ago, Cambridge University’s Sally Ann Ashton has pieced together an entirely different image that shows her as a mixed race beauty. …the monarch came to power at the tender age of 18… Cleopatra was a temptress who ruined two generals of Rome – Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

My Comment: I think the men will agree with me when I say that this is a perfect example of our subjective perception of reality. Reshimot (informational genes) constantly change inside us and they determine our desires. This, along with the influence of the society’s Reshimot, determines our likes and dislikes. As a result, even this will seem like a “Cleopatra.”

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News Report (translated from an article at chtochto.ru, based on the book Brain Rules): Experiments with human senses in neurobiology now demonstrate that not only can people “hear” with the eyes, they can also “smell” with them.

My Comment: This confirms what is written in the “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” that the things we perceive do not exist outside of us. Our five senses are nothing but the five levels (Aviut) of our common desire, in which Reshimot (informational data, Hitlabshut) emerge. The levels of desire differ by the desire’s strength (Aviut) and quality (Hitlabshut), similar to the difference between the development of the levels still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and the Creator.

We study all of this in Kabbalah, the science of perception (revelation) of reality (the Creator). By definition, Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to man in this world. It explains that each of these five parts consists of all the other parts. This is why each part can partially perceive all the other parts, and vice versa. Hence, when a person loses one of the five senses, it becomes partially replaced by the remaining senses. In other words, you can “see, hear, smell, taste, and touch” with any one of your senses. And this ability is more developed in some people: for example, Rosa Kuleshova, who could read printed words with her fingers. Actually, in the past we all had these abilities.

Nothing changes outside of us. We perceive the constant influence of the Simple Light (the Creator – the desire to give us pleasure that’s constantly directed at us) in our continuously changing desires (Reshimot – inner informational data). The Reshimo are what depict – inside us – the changing picture of the “external” world, like frames of a motion picture strip. The senses that create the picture are inside us, and the resulting picture of world is absolutely subjective.

Therefore, if I place myself under the influence of the right environment (group), I can create the inner conditions for the Reshimot that emerge within me to develop spiritually. I will then feel a desire to realize the Reshimot through bestowal and love for others, and then my perception of the world that emerges within me becomes spiritual. I will thereby reveal its cause and its purpose, or in other words, I will start perceiving the general force of Nature (the Creator).

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A question I received: Please make a list of all the 613 desires that exist in a person, one by one.

My Answer: Just like that, you’d like me to describe all 613 desires in detail? But what for? Not a single one of them exists in you yet! They are revealed in a person after he crosses the Machsom, during his spiritual ascent. These are one’s desires to feel pleasure from the Creator, as it is written, “Taste and see how good the Creator is.”

By revealing the Creator, you begin to feel Him as 613 pleasures or delights. First you feel them in the intention to enjoy Him for your own sake (ABYA of the Klipot), and then you correct these to the intention of “for His sake.” Our language does not enable us to express or describe these desires, because we don’t have them.

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Two questions I received on Kabbalah’s relation to other sciences:

Question: When you say Kabbalah is a science, do you mean in the ancient sense of the word? That is, Kabbalah is a body of knowledge (either practical or theoretical wisdom)? Or are you using it in a more modern way: Kabbalah is like chemistry, biology, and geology?

My Answer: Kabbalah reveals the nature of the Upper Light to us. A spark of this Light caused an explosion that created our entire Universe and everything that fills it: the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, including the animate part of humans.

By studying the foundations of everything that exists – matter (desire) and the Light (pleasure), we learn the basis of all the objects and phenomena in our world. For more on this, see the article, “Kabbalah as a Root of All Sciences,” and Part 1 of Talmud Eser Sefirot – Inner Observation.

Question: Kabbalah is not philosophy, but is one philosophy more compatible with it than another? Are there any truths found in philosophy even if they only speak of this world?

My Answer: There is no truth in philosophy because it engages in questions that it has invented for itself, or it tries to answer questions based on suppositions that are unrelated to practical experience (it tries to speak about the “abstract form”).

Even when philosophy speaks about our world, it doesn’t reason about it practically. That is to say, it speaks about something as a form or essence that’s separate from matter. Kabbalah, on the other hand, speaks of the form or essence inside matter and about the form of the matter (see the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”). Therefore, all the philosophical conclusions made throughout all of human history were erroneous at worst, or imprecise at best. See Baal HaSulam’s articles on this topic.

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A question I received: What is the connection between the mind and the heart? Should a person keep them in balance with each other? And how is it possible to increase or decrease one of them? In one of the lessons you said that a person whose mind isn’t developed can go crazy. Can you explain this in more detail?

My Answer: The basis for everything, the only creation – is desire. Hence, the desire is primary in us. But in order to attain what we desire, the mind develops alongside the desire, corresponding to it. Hence, no matter how much we may resist this fact, the mind is a servant of the desire; it develops only in order to service the desire.

Therefore we will never be able to make our minds objective, independent of our desires. However, we can change our desires under the influence of the environment (see the article “The Freedom”), and according to the new desires we will also force our minds to change. If we understand this, then under the influence of the right environment (an environment that leads us to the goal of creation), we can always develop both our desires and our mind harmoniously.

If a person has great desires but his mind isn’t developed enough to actualize them, he may lose the ability to control himself sensibly.

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Questions I received on the meaning of Kabbalistic words and the point in the heart:

Question: What is the meaning of the expression, “There are many thoughts in a person’s heart, but the Creator will save us from all of them”?

My Answer: Only the Upper Light can fill all our desires and thoughts by giving them the correct properties and forms.

Question: Does the point in the heart depend on the number of life cycles one has gone through? I just don’t understand why it is still dormant in many people.

My Answer: The point in the heart awakens when a person grows disillusioned in trying to fulfill all his earthy desires. It is for this purpose that he goes through a history of lives for many millennia!

Question: I have been studying Kabbalah for the past two years or so. There are two things that seem to confuse me and that could be because I keep on associating the meaning of “pleasure” and “desire” with our world. It would be greatly appreciated if you could expand on these two words for me or direct me to the place I can find the information.

My Answer: Pleasure is the sensation of a fulfilled desire – any desire. Desire is an aspiration to fulfill oneself with something one desires, with pleasure. However, in Kabbalah the desire is a desire for the Light, and the pleasure is pleasure from the Light.

Question: Is it possible to convey the essence of your lessons through sign language?

My Answer: Yes, if someone will understand it, for example, deaf people.

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Everything that was created, and everything taking place, is necessary for us to understand the Creator. If a person does not forget this, then he focuses on understanding how the Creator communicates with him through everything that’s happening inside him and outside him.

This is similar to how an infant learns to communicate with his mother. Have you ever noticed how intensely he looks at her, trying to understand what she is saying to him, trying to learn her language? It is precisely through the current crisis that we are given an opportunity to detect what the Creator is clearly trying to tell all of us.

In the past, He only communicated this way with select individuals. But today, all of humanity must start paying attention to the Creator’s actions. This is what we lack.

If the world would understand this, we would avoid all the unpleasant events taking place today, as well as those still in store for us. That’s because instead of fighting wind mills, we would communicate with the cause of it all – the Creator.

The faster we begin to discern the Creator’s communication with us through the things taking place, the sooner we will understand Him. We will then discover what it is we need to correct and change – and the world will be filled with Light.

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News Report (from Science News Magazine): People are mistaken when they expect that the more they spend on gifts, the more those gifts will be appreciated. … recipients preferred gifts that they really needed or that had special personal meaning, regardless of price. … It’s indeed the perceived thought that counts…

My Comment: We can receive from our world only as much as an animal can: only what is necessary for our body’s existence. In this regard, we are completely the same as animals. All the excess that we “receive” is only to our detriment. There’s a wise saying, “A bit of harmful food is healthier than too much healthy food.” Excess creates emptiness in us, bringing about depression and an endless pursuit of illusory fulfillment.

So how does the Creator implement His plan “to delight the creatures with absolute and eternal pleasure”? This isn’t attained by increasing the quantity of the fulfillment, but its quality. We are unable to take in any more that what is necessary for the existence of our animal bodies. However, when we come to recognize the greatness of the Creator, who gives to us, this infinitely increases our sensation of what we receive from Him, because He is infinite. This is how we attain the sensation of eternal and perfect life. Therefore, the goal of our development lies in attaining, “Taste and see how good the Creator is.”

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Two questions I received on being angry at the Creator:

Question: When we feel so much pain, feel angry with others, the corporeal world, and ourselves, due to our egoism, are we permitted to get angry with the Creator as well?

My Answer: No matter who you are angry at, you are really angry at the Creator, and that’s how He perceives it. After all, it is He who creates your picture of the world at each and every moment.

Question: You teach that according to equivalence of form, a person sees bad qualities in others only to the degree he has those qualities. What do you do when you hate the evil in you and in others, if everything around us is the Creator, who is Kind and Benevolent? It turns out that by hating evil, I hate the Creator!? How is it possible to combine hatred for evil and justification of the Kind and Benevolent?

My Answer: Only if you correct yourself and become kind to others, will you then become kind to the Creator and justify Him. This is equivalence of form.

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Preface to the Science of Kabbalah (Pticha).
Items 13-16, summary:

13. Similar to how corporeal objects are separated by space, spiritual objects are separated by a difference in qualities. Two people whose views are similar are close, whereas two people whose views are opposite are far. And even if they’re in close physical proximity, they still feel distant from one another. So spiritual objects are close or far from one another only through their qualities: A difference of qualities separates them from one another, while similarity of qualities brings them closer, leading to adhesion.

The desire was created by the Creator, and is neither good nor bad. The creature’s state isn’t determined by the desire, but for whose sake the desire is used. The Creator bestows, and therefore when the creature uses the desire “for the sake of bestowal,” it is similar and close to the Creator. On the other hand, a creature that uses the desire “for its own sake” (for the sake of reception), is opposite to the Creator and hence distant from Him.

For the sake of brevity, in Kabbalah we use the terms: “will to receive” and “will to bestow,” but both allude to the usage of the same desire:

• “For one’s own sake” is called “to receive,” and
• “For the sake of the Creator (or for a friend)” is called “to bestow.”

However, one should never forget that the desire to bestow does not exist in nature. There is only the desire to receive (to receive fulfillment, pleasure). However, if this desire is used “for the Creator’s sake,” then it is absolutely equivalent to bestowal.

14. The fourth phase, which feels that it is opposite to the Creator, stops receiving the Light. This action is called Tzimtzum Aleph (the First Restriction). As a result, the desire remains empty. It then decides that it will only receive if this will please the Giver, the Creator.

15. Thus arises a new condition of reception – to receive only for the sake of the Creator. In so doing, the creature attains equivalence of form to the Creator. For example: a person comes to his friend’s house, who offers him to stay for dinner. Naturally, the guest will refuse the food, no matter how hungry he is, because he doesn’t like feeling like a receiver who doesn’t give anything in return (as he would in a restaurant, for instance). However, the host urges and persuades him, saying that the guest will please him greatly by receiving his food. When the guest feels that this is truly so, he agrees to receive the food, because he no longer feels that he is a receiver; on the contrary, he feels that he’s pleasing the host and doing him a favor by agreeing to receive from him.

It follows that despite the guest being hungry and unable to receive on account of the shame of receiving, the host’s persuasion and the guest’s refusal gave rise to a new condition: reception turned to bestowal. This happened due to a change in the guest’s intention. The guest receives, but his intention has changed. It is precisely the force of repulsion of the food, and not the feeling of hunger which is the actual desire, that became the basis for receiving the food.

16. We see that instead of using the desire directly, it is used in an “opposite” manner: the pleasure runs into refusal – the Screen, which stands in the Light’s way to the desire. Then the Reflected Light emerges – the desire to receive for the sake of the host. And only to the extent of this intention – the Reflected Light, the Direct Light is allowed to enter the desire. This reception of the Light is called “Zivug de Hakaa” (striking interaction) – first the strike, then the interaction.

The desires to receive for the Creator’s sake are called “pure” (from egoism). The desires to receive for their own sake are called “impure” (mired in egoism). They cannot receive the Upper Light and hence they are called “spiritually dead.”

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Download PDF version of Pticha

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