The right environment can provide beginners with a new platform and a fresh outlook on life. It can help us discard our old views, concepts, attitudes, and values and instead take on a new form, as if fitting a square peg into a round hole. We have to reshape ourselves in order to fit into a new world and take on its properties. These changes take place slowly, but steadily. It takes constant work that results in new attitudes and values.

For example, if you wanted to know about a visiting alien’s home planet, you would need to show interest in learning about his home so that he would take you with him when he returned to his planet. If you did not show the willingness to learn, and did not make the effort to learn, he would not take you with him.

In order to transform your sensations, thoughts and desires, spirituality has to become infinitely important to you, while the material things must be limited to necessities, or what is required to maintain a sensible lifestyle. We have been given every opportunity to reveal the higher, eternal and perfect existence, but we aren’t using them. Thus, we are not utilizing our freedom of choice. We seem to be waiting for something, but the fact is that we have to come to this revelation ourselves. No one can do it for us.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

It makes no difference what language you use to study the science of Kabbalah. This does not affect the connection between the Creator and the created being. You don’t have to know Hebrew.

All four languages used in Kabbalah (the languages of the Tanach, Halacha, Hagaddah, and Kabbalah) are not really comprised of the shapes of letters, the words, or the Hebrew expressions. Rather, a language is a connection between the created being and the Creator, or between the desire and the Light that activates it. The connection may be externally expressed as the moo of a cow or the smile of a baby, or even without any external expressions.

What matters is how your heart reacts and speaks to the Creator. You don’t have to write or saying anything. The truest language is your desires, which take on various forms depending on their similarity to the Creator.

There are no forms, sounds, smells, or movements in the spiritual world. The entire language of connecting to the Creator is your degree of similarity to Him, as well as how much you desire this similarity, how doubtful you are about it and how much you strive toward Him.

But none of this is related to the spoken language used by people in this world.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

When we teach a baby to walk, we stand him on his feet and encourage him to take a step, then another, and so on. But with regard to our spiritual development, we are unable to take even one step on our own. The Creator places us on our feet and holds us up so we would be able to walk, but we get scared and don’t understand anything. We are left simply unable to take even one step forward!

And that is for the reason that every step forward in spirituality goes against our nature, and therefore we don’t understand how to take it. There are no efforts that can help in this regard. The only thing left to do is to ask the Creator to show us how to do it and to give us the mind and strength to act as He does.

So, all we have to do is ask Him! The Creator doesn’t need us to carry out any actions on our own. What He needs is for us to understand that we have to learn from Him about how to become similar to Him. He wants us to ask Him for help because then we will have a connection with Him.

Throughout the entire path that we have to transverse, we are never able to take even one step forward on our own. That’s because every step takes us higher, into a new world, and that is something we don’t have a desire for; and we also lack the necessary screen and Light.

We only discover new states and find ourselves facing a dilemma: run back where we came from, to our earthly lives, or ask the Creator to take us forward? Everything else we need to advance has already been prepared from Above – everything besides your request!

But it’s really not so easy getting to that point of making that request. It seems simple, but this is where everyone gets stuck.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Question: Why don’t we have a Congress once a month?

Answer: We need to build the kind of connection between us that allows our real life to flow above the corporeal world, and our daily life to remain somewhere below. Then we would always be inspired and feel the great eternal life much stronger than during a Congress.

You can’t reach the spiritual world by train or plane – it is within us. We just need to evoke the spiritual sensation within us in order to feel the spiritual reality in the same way we feel this world. Our sensations need to be more acute and we must open our perception to what is happening right here in our own environment.

We already have the capacity to do this, and in doing so, we will find ourselves on an infinite adventure of such wonder that we will have nothing left to do but marvel at this ever expanding adventure.

We adults need to prepare the ground for you so that you will be ready to enter this world. And we will try our best.

Filed under: Children - No Comments →

A question I received: What changes between one spiritual world and another?

My Answer: The change happens in the desire or force that is in control, the value system relative to the Giver and how important He is. This determines everything.

The only thing that exists in the whole universe is the desire to enjoy, which can follow two principles: its personal benefit or the benefit of the Giver. It’s like in the example of the guest and the host, where the guest’s state is called Beria, Atzilut, Yetzira or Assiya depending on the guest’s reaction to the Host. For example:

• If he is in the World of Assiya, then he consumes the whole meal;
• If he is in the World of Yetzira, then he has doubts as to whether he should eat and how much should he eat;
• If he is in the World of Beria, then he makes a calculation and knows that he won’t make a mistake; he will be able to show the Host that he gives Him pleasure;
• If he is in the World of Atzilut, then he consumes everything like in the World of Assiya, but he is sure that he does this only for the sake of the Host! After all, they have united with one another until there are no differences between them.

And all of this is talking about a person’s inner state.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

A question I received: What is the goal of creation, and where are we on the spiritual ladder leading to this goal?

My Answer: The goal of creation is to reach adhesion with the Creator. Kabbalah uses various techniques in order to express the essence of categories and qualities of a concealed world that the reader does not perceive.

In order to discern the difference between the Creator and the creation, we say that the Creator is “above” and creation is “below” with regard to the importance of their qualities. We then measure the distance or height between them, although it is not a physical distance, but a difference of qualities, the degree of man’s separation from the absolute Creator.

If a person does not have even one desire that is similar to the Creator (the quality of bestowal), then he hasn’t reached even the first degree of the ladder between him and the Creator. If he has made at least a minimal portion of his desires similar to the Creator, then he ascends to the first degree. If he is able to use a greater portion of his desires for the sake of bestowal, then he ascends to the second level.

These “portions” are set for us from the beginning. They are precise and always differ from one another by ten Sefirot. Each time, I receive a strictly defined addition of desire, and by correcting my intention from reception to bestowal, I ascend.

Eventually I will have to make the entire desire that was created in me similar to the Creator. However, this desire is presently concealed from me and becomes revealed to the degree that I am able to use it for the sake of bestowal. This is why the entire universe is divided into three worlds:

• This world, which I perceive just like everyone else, even within the desire “for my own sake”;
• The world that is concealed from me, which is a desire that I am still unable to use for the sake of bestowal, and that is why that world does not become revealed to me;
• The Upper World that is revealed to me, which is a desire that I am able to use for the sake of bestowal, and that is why I perceive the Creator within my equivalence of form with Him.

Everything takes place inside the one, common desire that was created by the Creator. There is nothing in existence besides this desire. Everything that is concealed and revealed constitutes one created desire. Therefore, that which is concealed from me today will become revealed to me tomorrow. And thus, one more part of reality will shift from being concealed to revealed.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

It is written that the entrance and exit of the Light in and out of the desire creates in the desire a recognition of the Light and Its Source. So how many times does the Light have to enter and exit my desire in order for me to start being conscious of myself, my state and my actions? And where is the beginning of my own desire, discernment, freedom of will and intention?

The Light’s entrance and exit, and Its interchanging influences create a desire (Kli, vessel). The desire become more and more complex due to the various influences of the Light, and gradually starts to understand its own state. It begins to make its own decisions independently of the Light regarding how to desire It and how to aspire for It.

Spiritual life is evaluated by the frequency of the Light’s entrance and exit in and out of the desire. It depends on the frequency with which a person evokes these actions, as well as how he tolerates and uses them.

This is similar to our material life, where the rate of things always increases. With the development of technology, the clock rates used by computing devices increased from Hertz to Megahertz and to Gigahertz, and the frequency spectrum of communication devices rose from radio waves to microwaves and to optical laser frequencies.

In spirituality, a person is like a device that is measured by the frequency of his movement, his “start – stop” intervals, or the Light’s entrance and exit in and out of his desire. The more a person advances, the happier he is about the changes taking place within him and the more he knows how to use and control them.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The speed of one’s spiritual advancement depends on how attentively one relates to everything that happens to him in life and whether he doesn’t let a single moment go by without connecting it to spirituality. One has to be restless like a child and use every single moment. In this regard, the environment is very important. The environment speeds up a person’s development by giving him the right direction and always pushing him forward.

With the help of the environment, a person can discover that even the calmest moments have great content. It is particularly during those moments that one discovers the Creator’s passionate attitude toward him. It’s like discovering a whole world deep beneath the still surface of water.

Don’t let life pass you by. We shouldn’t miss a single moment, since each moment is an opportunity to connect to the Creator. This is called returning life to its Source. We have to understand what He wants to tell us through each circumstance He gives us. Our whole life is a conversation between us and the Creator, but because we let moments slip by, we don’t hear Him! If we only listen, we will hear the Creator’s voice at each moment.

That is how we will connect the material time with spirituality. They will unite as one and we will see the spiritual picture. If a person perceives time as a number of actions, then he is ready to view his life as a spiritual process. However, only the environment is capable of attuning us to this attitude to life.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

A question I received: It is written that “our world” is the lowest level of the spiritual world, the World of Assiya. Then what is our world in which we live?

My Answer: Our world does not exist in spirituality. It is a “reality” that we imagine. We have to attain the first, lowest level of the spiritual world, and from there we will already begin to ascend, like by a thin ray of Light, going upwards, toward our root.

Right now it seems to us that we exist in a huge world and universe. However, all of this is but a point, an imprint or shadow of the lowest spiritual world. And like a shadow, it does not exist by itself.

Yet we “live” inside this shadow, similar to how a dream stays alive, until we replace the shadow with the original – the first spiritual level, called “this world,” which is the beginning of the spiritual ladder. The most difficult part of the process is ascending to this first level, since it is completely opposite to us, and therefore concealed.

If someone told you that you will receive the opportunity to give others everything you have, including your life, would you consider this something worth aspiring to? Certainly not! That is why the “impure forces” hide this from you, deceiving you according to the principle, “the peel (Klipa) protects the fruit.” The Klipa (impure force) tells you: “It’s worthwhile to reveal spirituality because there is a lot of pleasure there!” And you believe it! That is how it helps you come to the Creator.

A person wavers to and fro: Sometimes he passionately strives for spirituality, and sometimes he doubts whether there is anything good there at all. But in the meantime, he advances. The most important thing is to let the Light work on you. Do everything that the Doctor prescribed and let him perform the surgery on you. However, instead most of us try to be smart alecks and don’t let the Light work on us.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - 1 Comment →

A question I received: Why do we need the material world and corporeal bodies if the spiritual desire (Kli) is not inside the body?

My Answer: What other reality would you live in before entering the spiritual world? Precisely this illusory reality gives you freedom of will. This imaginary reality is extremely important because every time we fall, we ascend into spirituality precisely from within this reality. We enter spirituality “from nothingness,” similar to “Yesh Mi Ain,” a new creation.

Spirituality (or a connection with the Creator) has to be entered from outside, from “nothing.” Man is the only animal that is not governed completely by Nature. Nature allows man to make mistakes and leaves an “empty space” inside him, giving him freedom in order to enter the spiritual world “from nothing,” or from a negative state.

If we were completely governed by nature, then we would not have any questions. Everything would be predetermined ahead of time. But because we have been granted a certain degree of freedom, it makes us aspire to and be able to feel the beginning of the spiritual desire (Kli), which is opposite to ourselves.

If we were completely controlled by our egoistic nature, then we would never be able to feel the nature of bestowal. But since egoism’s control over us leaves us this empty space, by feeling it and not understanding ourselves, at that moment we begin to feel the beginning of the altruistic nature. That is how one enters that nature as “something out of nothing.”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - 1 Comment →