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.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Physics of the Upper Light
Laitman.com Post: Will God Want to Repeat the Act of Creation?
Laitman.com Post: The Irrationality of Kabbalah

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A question I received: Can you explain the following to me, because I am somewhat confused:
From, Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 2, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words“:
“34) What is Yashar (Direct)? (p.2, ch.1, Ohr Pnimi, p.5)
When the Ohr Elyon (Upper Light) descends to the Kelim that contain Aviut Dalet (the fourth level of thickness), namely a desire, for she extends it through her desire, it is considered that the Ohr (Light) comes Yashar (straight, direct) down. This means that the Light that descends in Yosher is absolutely proportional with the Aviut and the desire.

For example, when a heavy object falls to the ground, it falls in a completely Yashar (straight, direct) line. Moreover, it falls at great speed because of the earth’s gravitating force that pulls it down. However, when something light falls, and the gravitating force does not affect it, it floats about in midair until it slowly rests on the ground.

Here too, in the Kelim that do not have Aviut, such as Kelim de Igulim (the circular Kelim), it is considered that the Light permeates them by the power of the Sefirot of Yosher. It becomes round because there isn’t any Aviut there, meaning a desire that would draw it.

However, in the Kelim de Yosher (the straight/direct Kelim), where there is Aviut that draws the Light with great power, the Light comes down very fast and with accurate straightness, like a straight line.”

What is this example about a heavy item that is more affected by the force of gravity than a light item? Was Ashlag not aware that free-fall acceleration depends on the mass of the object, or I am not getting something?

My Answer: In spirituality, the Light is attracted within the Kli (vessel/tool/receptacle), since there is no empty space at all. Space equals desire. It is comprised of five stages, from stage 0 through 4, stages of the desire’s size. The difference between the stages is not only in the desire’s size, quantitative, but qualitative, in the perception, realization of the desire and the Light. This is why stages 0-1-2-3 “indirectly” attract the Light. In other words, the Kli doesn’t yet know “what it is” and “what it is for,” and this is why in desires 0-3 the Light is still perceived as a light item. However, the fourth stage perceives the Light as its desired pleasure: it perceives the source of the Light, and this is why it desires it directly, inside. This is why the Light descends “Ba Yosher” directly toward it.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Blog Post: Talmud Eser Sefirot and the Need to Define Spirituality Correctly
Kabbalah Blog Post: Baal HaSulam’s Intention for Writing Talmud Eser Sefirot
Kabbalah Blog Post: What Is Spirituality? What Is a Soul?

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Question: What are the 613 desires?

My Answer: They are desires not for pleasures in our world, but are egoistically directed toward the Creator, and for this reason they are called “impure,” “Pharaoh,” and so on. In order to discover these desires within oneself, one needs to study Kabbalah and do a great deal of work upon oneself. While these desires are being discovered, the shame that Adam had discovered also begins to be felt, and begins to become corrected. As such, only through the study of Kabbalah can a person come to spiritual work, and the attain the goal of creation.

A dialog with a user called Caligula (from my Russian blog):

Caligula’s Comment: “Spirituality is above time, motion, and space; that is to say, when these parameters change in our world, they never influence a person’s spiritual state!” – that’s a quote. In other words, no matter what we do, study, and aspire to – it is all in vain and unnecessary.

My Response: That’s wrong! We cannot influence the Upper Light directly, but we can evoke it indirectly, by making efforts in the group and proper study. Read the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” item 155.

Caligula: Yes, but there’s more to it… If we follow Rav Laitman’s assertion in this case, we can reach an absurd conclusion – I don’t know what this is about, but you are demonstrating such great confidence in understanding what I said that it’s worthy of envy.

I am not speaking about regular people, but about those who aspire toward the Creator and study Kabbalah. Actually, I’m not the one saying this, but the Ari in Shaar HaKedusha. There he lists certain age-specific levels in a person’s life. A child is when the vessels of the will to receive haven’t yet developed; age 13 is when a person is already governed by his Yetzer Ra; and age 21 is when a person gains the ability to spiritually ascend

My Response: This is all wrong! Specifically, see the Ari in Etz Chaim or part 12 of Talmud Eser Sefirot. Birth means spiritual birth, regardless of one’s age. All people, except Kabbalists, die physically without even having been born spiritually.

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Two questions I received on our perception of the world:

Question: How can I understand this paradox: On the one hand, we are being treated as one integral system of Adam, but at the same time we feel like individuals? And what about the individual who is incorporated into all the general suffering and woes, which happen to the entire system? How can he go through this path pleasantly and safely? And who is to blame for the fact that this system is so opposite to the laws of bestowal?

My Answer: Everything is built perfectly and logically. What you perceive is not a lousy world, but your own imperfections, your own picture of the world. If you correct yourself, then everything will radiate harmony.

It is because the screen on which you see yourself and your surroundings is your qualities, and in order to change yourself to see the world as eternal and perfect, or in other words, to live in this kind of world you depict, is by acquiring eternal and perfect qualities. This is why Kabbalah has been given to us.

Question: Why was the world created precisely the way it is? Why is there nature, attitude, change in attitude, suffering, pleasure, the will to receive, the will to bestow, etc.? Who needs all this? Why can’t we just enjoy and so be it? What is there to do for someone who has no patience and who doesn’t even have a desire to exist (not in a body or without a body, but to simply not exist)?

My Answer: The soul was created in perfection, in the World of Infinity. It lacks only one thing: the perception of this perfection. The only way to achieve this perception is by comparing the opposites of darkness and light – the absence of perfection and its presence. Its presence is there, but its absence is missing. This is why our world was created; it is the place where we have to fully perceive the absence of perfection, and together with it, return to the world of infinite perfection. There we will feel true fulfillment through these opposites.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: I Saw a Reversed World
Article: Perfection and the World
Shamati Article #34: The Profit of a Land
Lesson: Shamati Article #34 – The Profit of a Land [53:59]
Lesson: Shamati Article #34 – The Profit of a Land [53:59]

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A question I received: What makes a woman truly happy? And is such a thing even possible? After all, every pleasant sensation passes, and is replaced by another. What change is needed for someone to feel happy? And how would a woman experience it?

My Answer: Happiness lies in fulfillment: the Light fills the vessel, and the vessel thus experiences happiness. Fulfillment by reception immediately disappears, leaving behind even greater emptiness. Perfect and eternal fulfillment is possible only through bestowal to and love for the one whom you fulfill, and this is what fulfills you. Therefore, “love your neighbor as yourself” is the rule for personal happiness!

Related Material:
Article: Love, Deciphered
Article: It’s All about Pleasure

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A question I received: What do you mean by saying that sex is the root of all our desires? What does Kabbalah have to say about everything that’s going on today surrounding sex, like pornography, prostitution, and so on?

My Answer: In Soviet times, there was a popular slogan that stated, “There’s no sex here!” It was meant to poke fun at people, because all pleasures are based on sex – that’s how nature has made us.

The reason for this is that in the spiritual world, sex represents a union of opposite desires with a mutual intention of pleasing one another. It’s when the soul receives for the sake of pleasing the Light, and the Light fulfills or pleases the soul. This union is called Zivug de Hakaa, an explosive union, where by means of an explosion the soul nullifies its egoistic use of egoism, and instead uses it to bestow or mate (Zivug). It does this to enable the birth of a new Partzuf – an act of fulfilling the Creator and uniting with Him. The way to tell whether an action is correct or not is to check whether a new Partzuf was born.

In relation to this, it’s written that after the destruction of the Temple, Kabbalists were the only people who could still enjoy sex. Why? It’s because they always develop greater desires as well as greater pleasures, but they do so in order to rise above them, that is, to receive for the sake of bestowal. There are many articles by different Kabbalists on this subject.

And I’ll tell you one more thing: Even on the lowest spiritual degree, a person is fulfilled billions times more than by anything he can experience in this world…

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Kabbalah divides everything in existence into pleasure and the desire to receive that pleasure. Nothing else exists in nature. Objects in nature consist only of the desire to receive pleasure and its fulfillment, and they differ only by the degree of their desire to receive pleasure.

The desire divides into the following levels:
1. Still
2. Vegetative
3. Animate
4. Human (Spiritual)

Desires 1-3 are desires to receive pleasure for oneself (at someone or something else’s expense). These desires are natural, i.e. nature gives them to us. When the body dies, the sensation of life disappears. Desire 4 is the desire to please others (and receive pleasure by doing so). Nature doesn’t give us such a desire. It appears under the influence of the Upper Force, which is attracted through the study of Kabbalah. Since this desire is independent of the body, whoever acquires it comes to feel his existence as eternal.

Everything in our world – including love – is determined by the egoistic desire to receive pleasure. Both humans and animals buy and exchange love, as with any other type of pleasure or fulfillment. This shows, yet again, that our desires stay within the limits of the animate level.

Monkeys also pay for sex. Michael Gumert (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) discovered this fact while researching 50 macaques. On average, female macaques have intercourse 1.5 times per hour. But if a male grooms a female, that number increases to 3.5 times per hour. The macaques grooming is done by picking fleas off each other. If there are many females around, then the “cost” of sex drops – a male can “buy” a female for eight minutes of flea picking. If, however, there are few females, then the male has to groom her for sixteen minutes before she gives her consent. According to Ronald Noe of Strasburg University, the same kind of socio-sexual interaction also takes place universally among human beings.

My Current Mood: okay

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Kabbalah is called “the science of reception” because it leads us to the attainment of eternal happiness, tranquility, serenity, peace, fulfillment, knowledge, and boundless love.

How can we make our lives like this? This is the very question that this method – the science of Kabbalah – should give us a clear answer to, by becoming our teacher and helping us reach this state. It is said that Kabbalah is primarily intended for men. This was, however, only the case in previous generations, which preserved and developed this method in order to bring it to us and make it suitable for use in our time. [Read more →]

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Love is characterized by giving. I love – means I give; I enjoy from pleasing the other. How could it be that I please the other? What do I please him with? With my attitude toward him. How can he receive pleasure from me? Only if he loves me. In this case, if I relate to him with love, he receives pleasure from it. However, if I don’t love him, I will perceive his good attitude toward me as hatred, and this will push me away from him even more. [Read more →]

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