One’s development begins from the “animate” level, where a person identifies himself with his desires for things in this world. This stage of egoism’s development is called “animate” because all of one’s attention and strength is aimed at taking care of one’s body – and the body is an animal!

On this stage, it is clear what a person is doing. Everyone supports his efforts to provide for himself, his family and relatives and to have a life of maximum comfort.

But how can we convince our bodies – the desires of this world, to step aside and let us also take care of our spiritual development, to strive for bestowal instead of reception? This can only happen if the “point in the heart” awakens in a person. Once it appears, a person has to identify himself with this point. He will then look at his corporeal or animate desires from its standpoint, and will treat those desires as animate.

You have to check who manages and determines your behavior: Is it your animal body, which pulls you down, or your soul, which aspires upwards? Are you driven by the greatness of the Creator (Keter) and the realization of your own insignificance (Malchut), or by your pride and desire for power and fame? You have to observe yourself from the body’s standpoint and from the soul’s standpoint, and keep track of which is making the decisions: your egoism or your soul.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

A question I received: What is the unification of the points in the heart that we are trying to achieve?

My Answer: When a desire for bestowal, called a point in the heart, emerges in a person, at first it is controlled by the desire to receive pleasure. So for now, the desire to bestow is situated within our egoistic desire to receive, and this is why it is called a “point in the heart.”

The unification of the points in the heart that we are trying to achieve is the unification of our desires to bestow. You have to unite your point with other points in order for all of you to influence each other. Thus your desire to bestow will rise above the desire to receive.

If we come out of our desire to receive and create a net among us above it, then precisely this net will be called the soul. All the points that I have joined, will turn into my soul. In addition, the might of the soul is determined by how connected I am to others and how much I desire to bestow to them.

If we influence the desire to receive pleasure with the force of the Light, then this desire will not be able to interfere with our progress, since it has no contact with the Light. And then we can raise our point in the heart higher. This is called “the exodus from exile.”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Every person receives precisely the capabilities he needs in order to correct his soul. We are not created by the whim of chance. All of your desires and qualities, all the situations you have gone through, the place you were born, the upbringing you received – everything has been set up for you in the optimal way for the express purpose of developing your soul.

Therefore, there’s no use complaining that you need different conditions in this material world in order to develop spiritually, or that you lack sufficient health, money, education, intelligence, talents, abilities, or sensitivity. All your qualities and all the conditions that are provided for you come from the particular qualities of your soul, which has to go through correction. Your only job is to ask for this correction to take place.

Therefore, there is no need to correct the external world. We have to live in the world just like everyone else. This world is a level that does not become corrected until the very end of correction. You may ascend as high as the level of Rashbi, who wrote The Book of Zohar, but you will still have to take care of your physical body, your family, your job, pension, and medical service – everything a person needs.

Like all people, when you’re sick, you will still have to go to a doctor, receive medicine from him, pay him money, and take the medicine according to the doctor’s instructions. You will have to do everything the doctor told you to, but when you are healed, you will thank the Creator for it. Why?

It’s because you did everything needed of you in the conditions that the Creator has organized for you in this theater of life. You treated this theater correctly and carried out all the necessary actions – and then you felt better. You thus corrected yourself on the level of this theater, and now you thank the Producer for everything that has happened. He set up this entire world and your illness for you, and you dealt with it on the same level

However, if He gives you a point in the heart and waits for you to come closer to Him, then you have to relate to Him on the level of the point in the heart. You do not throw your qualities out the window, be it envy, passion or pride, but you use them all in order to connect with others above these qualities, for example, by envying how they are advancing in the spiritual world.

Your pride pushes you to advance at least as much as they are advancing. You thus use all your natural qualities in order to awaken the true prayer inside you. And if you properly use all the means that are given to you, then you will end up attaining all your goals.

You have to clearly differentiate between the material level, which you cannot correct, and the spiritual level. You thereby connect the two levels.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

A question I received: What does the unity of souls feel like?

My Answer: The unity of souls feels like the unification of all aspirations upward, toward the spiritual goal, because this goal can only be attained through the connection between us, never separately. Alone, you would forever remain with just your single point in the heart, which you received at the beginning of the path. Like a drop of semen, it will always remain your foundation, while everything else is the “meat” that you have to add to it. However, that drop contains all the information about you.

The point in the heart exists above you ego, which you cannot fulfill in this world any longer. And even though it draws you upward, if left alone, it will forever remain a point. It cannot grow by itself. But when you unite it with other points – your friends, together your points will form a whole vessel of the soul, and within it, you will then begin to perceive the Upper Light.

The Light is never felt within any one of us, but only in the connection between us, in our attitude toward one another, in our unity. Every one of us constitutes a desire. If I bestow to another person and he bestows to me, then it is inside the connection between us that we feel the Inner Light.

It’s actually similar to subatomic connections. There are two desires. On one hand, one is repelled from the other by the force of egoism, and therefore, people don’t want to unite with one another. But on the other hand, they are drawn toward one another above their ego, because they want to unite their points in the heart.

The ego’s force of rejection is negative, while the points in the hearts’ force of attraction is positive.

If the positive force is greater than the negative, then unification takes place. However, the power of the unification is determined by the tremendous “minus” force of people’s mutual egoism. Yet, by uniting above our egoism, we turn it into a “plus” and begin to use it as a resistor – the domain where the force of bestowal, the Creator, can be revealed.

Then, He is revealed in the connection between us, inside our former egoism, which is now governed by the intention to unite. It is like a field that surrounds a charged particle. This is how the Creator becomes revealed to the creature: through the connection between the souls, rather than inside each individual soul.
(From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of September 11, on Shamati #18)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

A question I received: In Israeli society, there are various charitable events as well as donations made to help the poor. In the end, do these actions hamper the development of this part of the population or is this just another example of mutual guarantee?

My Answer: There is no good without evil or evil without good. We live in the period following the shattering of the common soul and this why in any piece of it, in any of our actions, there is some bad that consequently yields a positive outcome and there is some good which at some point leads to a bad outcome. And this goes on forever. Either in the beginning or in the end, it will be either good or bad. Good and bad go together until the end of correction when all evil turns to good.

When speaking of donations, helping others, volunteering in hospitals or  wanting to help starving people in Africa or other countries, we see that there is absolutely no benefit from any of these actions in the end. There are billions of dollars being spent on such things and there are thousands of people working in charitable organizations who enjoy their work. But the benefit is zero. I would even go as far as to say that it has the opposite effect.

Before people started seemingly to care and therefore began handing out food in Africa, the country created, produced and traded a huge variety of goods. Now that foreign countries are providing Africa with food and weapons, the African nations are only rebelling against each other.

In order to break a person, you only need give him the necessities so that he stops thinking and worrying about his own life. This is exactly what happened in Russia. They found oil and gas there and started to sell it, which led to the country’s collapse. Why do people need to work if they have money?

The same is happening with national insurance in Israel. If you are entitled to benefits you won’t want to come out of your house. “What do I need it for? I can buy a bottle of beer, watch TV and watch the time go by. Today everything is fine.” A person makes a sandwich, goes to the beach and spends the entire day there.

Nothing can be more destructive than these seemingly good works and care for others. It is better for a person to endure blows, as then he will be obligated to work or to study!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: “God Will Help” Is Not Our Remedy
Laitman.com Post: Good Deeds Day Is Missing One Component
Laitman.com Post: Real Care Is Helping Others To Develop, Instead Of Giving Them Charity
Baal HaSulam Article: “Building the Future Society”

Filed under: Society - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam writes that everyone has to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, because this is the reason a person is born: to correct himself.

Our world emerged due to the breaking of souls, when the single, unified soul partitioned into billions of pieces – individual souls. Today we are in the state of separation, which we perceive in the form of “this world.” In reality, however, there are no lower or upper worlds; they are just products of the human perception of the degree of connection between the souls.

“The world” is a degree of connection among the souls. The current degree is “this world.” If the souls begin coming closer to one another, then the increased interconnection among them will be called, “the World of Yetzira.” An even greater connection is, “the World of Beria,” and so on.

As we strengthen the connection between the souls, we will consecutively feel all the worlds. We will ascend up the levels of the worlds all the way until the World of Infinity, where everything is one.

Kabbalah is the method that helps all the souls to unite into the corrected state. This is why it is so vital to us.

(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

You are in the World of Infinity right now, but do you feel it? No, you feel only this world. But when you begin to advance, then instead of this world, you feel the World of Assiya, the World of Yetzira, then the Worlds of Beria, Atzilut and Adam Kadmon, and finally, the World of Infinity itself.

You reveal the same unchanging reality in which you now exist. But how exactly do you reveal this concealed world? You do it by virtue of revealing the same ten Sefirot from which you started ascending, only you reveal them deeper and deeper inside you.

At the beginning of the ascent, you are inside the same parts of reality, “year-world-soul” and “a ready made reality.” These are your ten Sefirot, and you keep developing them deeper and deeper, thereby bringing them closer to the quality of bestowal.

In spirituality, we advance qualitatively, not quantitatively. You continuously refine the details and increase your sensitivity to the world. This is how you constantly reveal newer levels of reality. By heightening your sensation, you reveal new parts of the world, and this is how you advance. The higher your spiritual level, the more you reveal the connection between all parts of creation.

(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

A question I received: The “Preface to the Sulam Commentary” describes a system that is external in relation to man. So how am I supposed to envision that this system is related to me and is inside me?

My Answer: There is no soul inside my animate body. My body does not contain the ten Sefirot of the soul. I only have an initial point, and I have to build the ten Sefirot from it. This point originated from inside my egoistic desires. When I make a connection with the other points in the heart using my egoism, then my ego gives me the material, the desires, and the connection to other people, and this will create the structure of the ten Sefirot inside me.

I will then become the point of Malchut, the tenth Sefira, and my first nine Sefirot will be comprised of my attitude to other people. All the other souls, everything I see in front of me, the entire world, and everything around me are my nine Sefirot (Tet Rishonot). When I connect them to myself with love, with the understanding that we are all one whole, then I rise above my egoism, and if I am able to rise above my Malchut in order to bestow, then I will connect these external qualities of bestowal to myself.

That is when my soul, the complete Partzuf made of ten Sefirot will appear within me. And that is exactly where I will reveal the Creator: inside the desires that I have acquired through bestowal to others.

Everything around me is the structure of my own soul. But after the soul’s breaking and fall into egoism, I started desiring to use these other parts of me egoistically, to receive everything they have. Now I have to go back to bestowing to them. I have to reconnect them to myself through love, and that is how I will reveal the Light of my soul—inside them.

I can never reveal the Light inside myself, in Malchut, because the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) cannot be revoked. This is why everything depends on me coming out of myself and connecting to the other souls, by feeling their desires as my own. Inside this common desire, I will reveal the Creator.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on the “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

It is necessary to understand that the same system in which we now exist, gradually moves us toward the spiritual system, and then to the Creator. The system of all the worlds is one. Granted, our world is cut off from the spiritual world, but it has the same parts: “world-year-soul.” Through this world, I enter the spiritual world. And once I do, then through the words that I read in the books of Kabbalah, I begin to reveal a greater depth in the system.

This is how I acquire a connection with the Creator, who is inside these actions. From these actions I attain His mind and His intentions toward me. This is how I gradually study myself, the Creator and the entire system.

All of this becomes revealed to me as a science. In addition, I suddenly discover how much my actions influence the whole system, because it is integral. I discover that I can incorporate myself into the whole system; I can be simultaneously present in all its parts and feel all the changes happening in it. This is the meaning of acquiring a spiritual Kli.

After that, one’s development only takes place inwards. It’s similar to how we gradually get to know a person.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →