Questions I received on Kabbalah books and how to study them:

Question: Why do Kabbalists advise us to read The Book of Zohar even if we don’t understand or attain what is written there?

My Answer: You can find the answer to this in item 155 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot.”

Question: Five years ago you started studying The Book of Zohar with us. When do you plan to resume teaching The Book of Zohar?

My Answer: We study it for about an hour every week – see the media archive.

Question: The books that help to correct us are the books of the Ari, Baal HaSulam, and Rabash. But I cannot read them yet, and I’m not sure if I will be able to in the future. Can’t I advance by reading your books?

My Answer: Of course, my books also contain the force of spiritual advancement, but the books of our Teachers – Baal HaSulam and Rabash, are more universal and their Light is more powerful. Nevertheless, I agree with you that my explanations are closer to you and easier to understand. My advice is to read the texts of our Teachers, and then study my explanations.

Baal HaSulam did the same thing – he based his teaching on the texts of The Book of Zohar by Rashbi and the texts of the Ari. He took these books as a basis and wrote his commentaries to them. This is also how I teach: first we read the original texts, and then I give my commentary on them.

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A question I received: By disseminating Kabbalah you ascended spiritually and enabled Rabash to ascend even higher. This is why during his life Rabash did everything to make sure that you would continue to disseminate Kabbalah once he is gone – this was the purpose of his life. Before his death Rabash instructed you to continue disseminating Kabbalah. Does your dissemination of Kabbalah today play any role in Rabash’s afterlife?

My Answer: All the souls are absolutely interconnected. Even in our world studies already reveal that every one of us knows everyone else through a sixth acquaintance. Baal HaSulam explains that all the souls in our world go through correction over the course of 6,000 years, in the form of one Partzuf:

• At first, during the first 2,000 years, the world, common soul, Kelim Chabad are corrected with the Light of Nefesh;
• Next, over the second 2,000 years, the world, the common soul, Kelim Hagat are corrected with the Light of Ruach;
• Finally, over the last 2,000 years (and we are living at the end of this period), the world, the common soul, Kelim NHY are corrected with the Light of Neshama.

By correcting ourselves we receive the smallest Light – Nefesh, but due to our correction in the first souls (the forefathers, the great Kabbalists of the past), our corrections reveal the greatest Light – Neshama. The Kabbalists of the past prepared all the conditions for our correction, but it is we who correct the broken (devoid of a screen, of the intention “for the sake of bestowal”) and the mixed (Bina and Malchut) Kelim (desires). Hence, we and our actions are the most important in the process of creation’s development. We raise the entire universe up to the Creator!

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A question I received: Do you really think that the time has already come to implement Baal HaSulam’s dream about the State of Kabbalah in a virtual space?

My Answer: I see that everything is already technologically ready in the Internet and people’s consciousness has developed so they feel the need to exist in a spiritual society. According to research (published by Reuters in the news article, “Porn passed over as Web users become social”) people today are already more drawn to virtual communication (social networking sites) than to sex (pornographic sites). This clearly indicates that the modern society, the youth, has a demand for communication. It’s because the desire for sex is the fundamental desire of the animate level, the foundation of the egoistic desire. And if it is being voluntarily replaced with the desire for communication, then the time for correcting egoism has come!

Baal HaSulam’s words about the future society (see the article “The Future Generation” and the newspaper “The Nation“) must already be implemented in the virtual space. Of course, this is just the beginning, but I’m sure that as soon as we’ll be able to offer people a good platform for spiritual communication, then the masses will aspire to it. I look forward to receiving your ideas and technical proposals!

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A question I received: What is the Kabbalistic meaning of the Jewish holidays that are coming up?

My Answer: According to the program of creation, all of life is the process of correction of the created egoism so it will be used for love and bestowal to people, and from there – to the Creator. There is no other purpose, meaning or fulfillment in life. This process is comprised of regular actions of correction – the weekdays, and special actions – the Sabbath and holidays.

The Torah divides the holidays (the special actions of correction) into Hagim (Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkoth) and Moadim. Moadim means “holy gatherings”; they are holy because “bestowal” is called holiness. This is when special corrections are done through greater unity (gatherings) of souls, and this is how the souls attain a special degree of closeness with the Creator. The great Kabbalist the Ari describes these states in detail in the book Ta’amei Mitzvot. However, in our time there are no Moadim because there is no Temple and we are not on the level of the gathering of souls into a single soul.

In addition to this, there are holidays that follow the dates of the calendar, that is to say, that follow the direct implementation of the program of correction. These are the Sabbath, Rosh Hodesh (the new month), Rosh HaShana (the New Year), and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement of egoism). So altogether there are five holidays: Pesach (in April), Shavuot (in June), Rosh HaShana (in September), Yom Kippur (in October), and Sukkoth (in October). Each holiday corresponds to a specific level of ascent along the 125 steps of the ladder of ascent toward the correction of the soul, from the egoistic level of our world until the soul’s absolute similarity to the Creator – the World of Infinity.

All the special days are states of ascent due to a special connection between the souls, where the souls attain greater unity in order to become One, like the Creator. All the holidays have been passed down to us from the time when the people of Israel were on the spiritual level and performed acts of correction according to the Creator’s design. However, in our time, instead of correcting egoism and unifying our souls, these actions have been replaced with ritual prayer gatherings.

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Questions I received on memories of past lives and the resurrection of the dead:

Question: How much time does it take for a soul to reincarnate into a new body – days, months, or years?

My Answer: There is no time, and therefore it can happen at any moment.

Question: How do you explain it when a person has memories of a past life?

My Answer: These aren’t memories of a past life, but fantasies of this life.

Question: Why do we need cemeteries if everything stays in our memory, and especially since our soul reincarnates into a new body?

My Answer: When one of the soul’s 613 desires “dies,” it is “buried” – one stops using it. Then, as one continues the correction process, this desire is “resurrected from the dead” – in order to be corrected. This is how all the desires undergo death, burial, and resurrection, in order to reach the full correction.

Question: There are first and second restrictions, as well as the “resurrection of the dead.” When a person chooses the path of Kabbalah, starts studying the material and implementing it, then when does the “resurrection of the dead” take place?

My Answer: A person goes through these states one after the other: first the double concealment of spirituality, then single concealment, then single revelation, double revelation, resurrection of the dead, and the full correction.

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Questions I received on egoism and its negative consequences:

Question: Sometimes you give simple interpretations of the source texts. For example, in one of the daily Kabbalah lessons you talked about the verse from the prophets, “One’s enemies are his family.” I have experienced this through the division of my family. My question is: when is it acceptable to interpret a text literally and when isn’t it?

My Answer: As time goes on, egoism develops and hence more hatred becomes revealed everywhere and in everything. As a result we are revealing that everyone hates everyone. Soon we will also reach the situation described in this verse.

Every verse has to be correct on every level. However, whether it has already been revealed in our world or not is a matter of time.

Question: Could the expansion of egoism lead to megalomania or delusions of grandeur, like when a tyrant sees himself so powerful that he may claim to be G-d, or to another mental condition known as “G-d complex,” which is a psychological state of mind where a person believes that he has supernatural powers or G-d-like abilities?

My Answer: Under the influence of Ohr Makif, the ego grows in parallel with its own negation or correction. Without correction, a person only has a minimal level of egoism (this is what is revealed in him), but as soon as he starts correcting himself, new layers of egoism appear (are revealed).

Question: How does Kabbalah explain the increase in the worldwide suicide rate?

My Answer: The emptiness of one’s desire forces one to kill the desire. People will do anything to avoid feeling empty. Things will only get worse, especially among the youth!

Question: Religious canons view suicide as the greatest sin. How does Kabbalah view it?

My Answer: Suicide is one’s reaction to the impossibility of finding fulfillment in our world, because a person senses life only in the fulfillment of his desire! Only Kabbalah can attract the Light of fulfillment, and hence it is the only means able to prevent suicide.

Here’s a recent news report I saw on this (translated from Newsru.com): In China, a quarter of a million people annually end their lives in suicide. The US Army broke a 28-year record on the number of suicides among its personnel. In Japan, the number of annual deaths due to suicide is around 30 thousand. Russia takes first place in the number of suicides among kids, and is second in the world in the number of suicides overall.

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A question I received: I hear a lot of talk in the mass media about large scale charity projects aiming to help terminally ill children. There are entire sites being created just to help one person who’s dying from a rare disease. I also see that there’s a big response to this from society. Meanwhile there are hundreds of people dying every day from hunger and AIDS in Africa, but this does not bother anyone at all. I’d say that this is one big imbalance.

Is there any way we can make the world understand that all the “charity” only slows down the general development and creates an illusion that we are acting altruistically?

My Answer: We can only explain the positive things that Kabbalah gives to the world and what it adds to people’s lives. However, we can’t criticize any actions people make, especially “charitable” actions, because then we will only evoke their hatred and greater misunderstanding. People will see for themselves that charity doesn’t really help and that temporary relief is misleading and only causes bigger problems later on.

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Questions I received on Rav Ashlag’s descendants and how to get one’s family involved in Kabbalah studies:

Question: Are Rav Ashlag’s descendants involved with your center?

My Answer: No.

Question: Where do they live?

My Answer: Mostly in Bnei Brak.

Question: Do they carry on their father and grandfather’s teachings in their own way?

My Answer: No.

Question: What do they think of you carrying on their father’s teachings?

My Answer: I’m not interested in what they think, because I received instructions from my Teacher.

Question: Are your wife and children involved?

My Answer: Yes. My son is in charge of book publication and distribution around the world (with the exception of Israel and Russia). My eldest daughter has a PhD in biology and is married to the manager of our Russian dissemination department. My youngest daughter is doing her dissertation in Kabbalah and is about to be married to my student. I am sure that my grandchildren will also follow this path because they live in this environment at home. My grandson watches lessons together with my son every day. Besides, their time will be the time of humanity’s spiritual development.

Question: How do we involve our spouses and children?

My Answer: Lovingly. “There is no coercion in spirituality.” Kabbalah is not a religion – there is no persuasion, intimidation, or convincing. Love is the only means to show them that the correction of the soul is the best possible thing and it’s necessary to all.

It is written, “The Torah is not inherited.” Every person realizes it within to the extent of his desire and efforts. This is how one reveals the Torah, the Upper Light, or the Creator within. Moreover, history shows that the spiritual heirs of the great Kabbalists were usually not their physical heirs.

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I recommend for everyone to watch my last lecture at the Odessa congress, on the perception of reality. This topic is becoming more and more attractive to people, especially the younger generation. People are beginning to feel and realize that we are not living in the complete reality, but in a partial and deformed part of it.

I received very impressive questions about this from a former classmate. He experienced a severe electric shock, after which he started seeing through objects and even feeling the future to some degree. He had always been a skeptic, but after the electric shock (by a powerful magnetic field), he began to perceive additional forces that exert an influence on the world.

The topic of perception of reality helps us not only to realize how limited our perception is, but also to understand that all the spiritual worlds are inside us, and exist together with us in the same dimension that we are now in. We can reveal them by revealing new “altruistic” properties inside us; through these properties we will feel the additional worlds. The method of revealing these new, altruistic properties within is Kabbalah.

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Two questions I received on educating children and understanding their growth process:

Question: I’m a teacher. What is the best way to teach and educate young children (from the age of 5 to 12) within the framework of a profane school today?

My Answer: Through personal example – your goal and meaning in life.

Question: We learn that one reveals a completely new world on each level of advancement because one’s qualities undergo a fundamental change. So why is it that on our earthly level, the things that happen to a child in the first years of life lay a mark on him for the rest of his life, and it’s practically impossible to change his character traits later on? Why aren’t his qualities renewed when he grows up?

My Answer: It’s because everything in our world is pre-programmed. When a creature grows on the animate level, it develops the same qualities. However, when one grows spiritually, one increases his equivalence to the Creator and gains completely new qualities.

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