Questions I received on how to work with the material and the group:

Question: When does a person who studies the science of Kabbalah go from simply “absorbing” the information (reading, listening and seeing) to actually perceiving the Upper World?

My Answer: When he becomes equivalent – in the minimal degree – to the quality of bestowal described by the text.

Question: When studying the materials by the aforementioned methods, does it make sense to try and unite with the Kabbalist’s way of thinking, rather than finding a connection with the material itself?

My Answer: That’s exactly what you should do – try to unite with the author and his intention.

Question: Can the point of the breaking be revealed only in the group? Or also with other people close to me, such as my husband for instance?

My Answer: It can only be done by trying to unite the aspirations for the Creator by drawing our joint aspirations for Him closer together.

Question: Sometimes I meet people who seem very close to me spiritually, and it’s easier for me to connect to their desires. Is this egoistic equivalence of form? Or the pattern of the reincarnation of souls?

My Answer: These are the same.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Shamati – The Most Valuable Book In the World
Laitman.com Post: We Must Only Unite Our Points In the Heart
Chapter from the Book Spiritual Search – “Equivalence of Form”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Acting Mind”

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Watch this video!
The souls reincarnating today are ones we have suppressed in the past, trying to turn everyone into robots. Whether one is secular or religious, everyone has his own canon. However, today the souls can no longer be overpowered. They will overcome us and put us on a completely different path, in spite of our bourgeois way of thinking.

I am glad to see this kind of thinking surface in humanity, which is presently on the still (inanimate) level.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Soul Is the Part of One’s Desire That’s Similar to the Creator
Laitman.com Post: Destiny and the Root of the Soul
Kabbalah for Beginners: Chapter 8 – “Reincarnation and Kabbalah”
Booklet: The Structure of the Soul

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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!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Reshimot Surfacing Today Demand Spiritual Ascent of All Humanity
Laitman.com Post: Connected Through the Worlds
The Open Book, Chapter 7 – The Purpose of Reincarnation According to the Zohar

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Dear friends!

Bnei Baruch is hosting an international Internet campaign in conjunction with the FLIX website. The campaign is called “Shana Tova” (Happy New Year), and it’s dedicated to the Israeli New Year, which will begin on September 29, 2008. The campaign is a competition of the best video wishing people a Happy New Year.

Every time someone views a video clip on the FLIX website, they will see an ad of our website – “Kabbalah L’Am.”

Click here to watch an explanatory video on how you can easily help disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah by participating in this campaign.

So far 345 video clips have been posted and watched by 121,571 people! Here are just a few to sample – by watching them, you will be helping to disseminate Kabbalah (please wait for the video clips to finish playing):

• Taxi – by the evening group
• Shana Tova… Scared? – by the young group
• Shana Tova from Eliezer and the Carrot – by the Haifa Group
• Shana Tova from Noah – by the Eilat Group
• A New Reincarnation, a New Year – by the Ashdod Group
• A Moment Before “Closing Shop” – by the virtual group

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Happy New Year from the Odessa Congress!
Laitman.com Post: “Shana Tova!” or “Happy New Year!”

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A question I received: You say that everything we experience in each reincarnation comes from the root of one’s soul. Throughout my life, and especially in childhood, I wondered, “Why do I perceive the world through my body, and not through someone else’s?” The answer to this is – because I have my root of the soul. But why do I have the root of the soul that I have? If I had a different root of the soul, then I would perceive reality differently. I understand that the Creator does not do anything by accident, so I’m sure that this question is justified and has an answer.

My Answer: The common soul of Adam divided into many pieces, called Bnei Adam (the sons of Adam, the word for “people” in Hebrew). Each part or separate soul descends, while worsening its qualities, to the lowest level – our world, where it perceives itself as a physical body with a world around it. This perception is the most detached one from the Creator, and it is fixed (permanent) – it cannot be corrected.

However, there is a “point in the heart” – one desire out of all the others, which can be corrected and raised up to its root in Adam. “The body” is the lowest desire, and it goes through life cycles in order to reach the state when it will be possible for a person to start developing this “point in the heart.” Each “point” of Adam corresponds to a particular “body” with its own destiny.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Soul Is the Part of One’s Desire That’s Similar to the Creator
Article – “Soul As a System in the Model of the Universe”
The Path of Kabbalah: Chapter 1.3 – “The Evolution of the Soul”

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A question I received: Dear Rav., When I turned thirty, I stopped feeling anything. My life became gray, worthless, and empty. I thought that this is what old age feels like and just accepted it. The years went by, and then one day I “accidentally” saw a program where you spoke about Kabbalah. It touched me, so I went to your website and spent three years studying materials there on my own. But a year ago I was so “shaken up” that I couldn’t remain alone anymore, so I started looking for other people who were interested in Kabbalah. And the ball started rolling! In the past year we formed a group, rented a study hall, went to a congress, and held a book fair that brought more people to Kabbalah. Now when men and women come to our center for the Sunday lesson, I feel responsible for making sure that everything goes smoothly. And all of this is happening after just one year!

Time seems to have gone by incredibly fast. More things happened during this one year than in my entire lifetime. My states change so fast that I don’t have the time to think about what is happening. My question is: Am I going through my reincarnations faster, or am I feeling this reincarnation more strongly, or am I making up for lost time, for the things I needed to do but didn’t?

My Answer: There is no “fast” path, there is no speed limit, and there are no speeding tickets. However, you must always check:

1. What is your goal? Is it to attain absolute bestowal by connecting into one whole with your friends, through the mutual guarantee?

2. Is this the goal you’re racing to attain? You have to gradually attain the property of bestowal, the opposite of your present state.

3. Where do you get the strength to advance? If you get it from yourself, then you are being pushed by your natural egoism – and it’s not pushing you toward the goal. However, if you are receiving your energy from the group, then you are advancing toward the right goal.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Correction Lies In Unity
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah Is Not for the Weak
Laitman.com Post: Where Is Our Moses?
Kabbalah Today Article: Storks and Teamwork
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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A question I received: In the “Introduction to the Book Tree of Life” Rabbi Chaim Vital describes many aspects of the Kabbalah of the Ari. He writes the following about the Ari: “He was able to speak with reincarnated souls. He knew all the secrets of all people, the roots of their souls and all the details of their past lives. He was able to speak with the dybbuks (translator’s comment: this probably refers to evil spirits that possess people and need to be exorcised), as well as to correct them and drive them out of the bodies of the people whom they possessed.” My question is: What are the “dybbuks”? I couldn’t find this word in any of the study materials available today. It probably refers to one’s inner forces, doesn’t it?

My Answer: That is absolutely correct. This refers to man’s inner forces, since everything that exists is inside us in the form of forces, desires, and thoughts. See Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” item 34. Nothing exists outside of man. We perceive the world as being outside of us, but in fact it is only a projection of our properties onto the white Light. It says in The Book of Zohar, “All the worlds are inside man,” but man perceives them on the outside in order to feel the Creator as being outside him and to attain similarity to the Creator. To the degree that he attains similarity to HIm, he will start perceiving everything that happens “outside him” as happening “inside him.” Today in our world we are beginning to attain the fact that our perception is absolutely subjective – that it happens inside us.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: Reincarnation

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Questions I received on death, reincarnation, the body and the soul:

Question: How can you do spiritual work with a friend who has passed away?

My Answer: In exactly the same way as you do with the souls of your other friends. Integrate that soul’s aspiration toward the Creator together with your aspiration as well as the group’s.

Question: In one of your lessons, you said: “A person’s soul is eternal because it is part of the Creator. This is why one imagines that he will live with his soul forever. However, the Creator changes one’s soul, and this is the meaning of the reincarnation of souls – it’s when the previous state dies and ‘a new person is born.’” My question is: When the souls reincarnate, does one keep the same physical body (does it happen in one physical incarnation), or does the body also change?

My Answer: Every time we change our spiritual state, we change our soul or our degree of similarity to the Creator. When a person rises to the level of being similar to the Creator, then his reincarnations happen during the life of the same body. However, if he hasn’t completed correcting his soul yet, then his body is changed for another one.

Question: When a person’s soul is replaced and he is given a new soul, where does the previous soul go? Does it incarnate in another body?

My Answer: A soul is the state that appears in the desire due to the realization of the Reshimo. The soul is a part of the entire desire – it’s the part that is similar to the Creator.

Question: When one’s soul changes, then it would seem to me that its properties shouldn’t be very different from the properties of the previous soul. Is this correct?

My Answer: The soul is stronger and larger every time.

Question: Does a person notice when his soul changes?

My Answer: A person changes his soul for a more perfect one with his own efforts.

Question: Recently I read a newspaper that talked a lot about Kabbalah, and there was an interview with you where you talked about the person’s “I.” You said that the body is only a shell for this “I,” and that a person won’t change if any of his physical organs were to be replaced – even his brain. I would like to know: What happens to this “I” after the body dies?

My Answer: If a person has expanded his “point in the heart” during the life of the body by uniting with others (by coming out of egoism and crossing the Machsom), then he has already revealed the Upper World. But if he hasn’t attained it yet, then he remains a point and reincarnates again in order to cross the Machsom.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Is the Soul?
Laitman.com Post: The Formula of the Soul
Laitman.com Post: What Will Happen to the World if I Die?
Laitman.com Post: What Is Death? How Can We Not Fear Death?
Kabbalah Today Article: Reincarnation

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