A question I received: Why isn’t the Creator happy when people enjoy the material life and are content with it?

My Answer: The Creator isn’t happy with it because it’s not the pleasure that He intends to give us. From the beginning He created a state where we are completely filled with Light, but we don’t realize it because we’re unconscious.

All of the spiritual worlds are degrees of concealment of that state, and we are in the lowest state, the final concealment. The World of Infinity is here and we are inside it, but separated from it by multiple layers, like wrappings that hide the state in which we exist.

We are like a person who is lying in bed unconscious. We exist in this world in a state that can be called life, but our senses don’t perceive anything. This is our state today. But the Creator can’t just leave us in this unconscious state, where all we have is a spark of Light keeping us on life-support, but we don’t realize this and are willing to settle for corporeality.

However, it’s very difficult for an unconscious person to wake up. And the people around him also have a hard time making him come to consciousness. But one thing is clear: the plan of creation has to come to fruition. We don’t have a choice about this. Our only choice is whether we will reach our goal by way of suffering or by way of the Light, consciously. We can choose between the two.

We start progressing in order to avoid blows. But then, having gained a little bit of consciousness, we continue the path willingly, because we begin to value the final goal above everything else.

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The depth of spiritual attainment is determined by the depth of the corrected desire. With each new generation, the souls descending into the world are “coarser” – more egoistic. Therefore, Kabbalists who lived before the Ari (16th Century) had small egos and were therefore able to reveal the elements of creation in full detail, including such concepts as the screen, Tzimtzum Alef, Tzimtzum Bet, Orh Hozer, and so on.

They used these spiritual forces, but they did not completely understand their origin and mode of operation. This is why they could not clearly express it either. It is like seeing a picture: even though you may be able to replicate it, you don’t know how the colors break down into a spectrum, what the wavelength of each color is, and how this affects all of us and turns into feelings.

If one’s desire is not thick enough, then it is impossible to attain the cause of a phenomenon and explain how the Light unites with the desire. The Ari was the first person to reveal the difference and the connection between the Direct Light and the Reflected Light in all its depth. He was able to do this by virtue of having a special soul. In addition, he was living in the beginning of the Messiah’s era, when the souls requiring correction began to be revealed in the world.

Prior to that time, there was a period of exile, when the ego was not revealed in a form ready for correction. This is why it is written that all the Kabbalists before the Ari communicated Kabbalah from the standpoint of the Direct Light (Kabalat Ramak), whereas the Ari explained Kabbalah from the standpoint of the Reflected Light (Kabalat Ari).

Later, Baal HaSulam continued the method of the Ari and made it fit for our use.

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A question I received: Today people no longer have to drive or walk to the Kabbalah classes in the rain. They can just turn on the TV. But is each person who watches our broadcast lessons granted the freedom of choice?

My Answer: The freedom of choice doesn’t depend on how one connects to the lessons, but on one’s point in the heart. If the point in the heart is ripe, then one has free choice: the choice to establish a connection with the environment that will help him draw the Surrounding Light – the Light that Reforms. When a person feels the need for such a connection with the environment, this is called the free choice.

This may happen a few years after a person first starts attending our lessons. Gradually one realizes that he won’t attain spirituality with his mind. Knowing the terminology, actions, and structure of the worlds won’t reveal the Upper World to him. But it takes some time for a person to realize this.

I’ve seen many people who spent years studying the science of Kabbalah with their minds, trying to learn more. They took great pleasure in doing this and to this day they still don’t sense a need for real sensual attainment.

And I’ve seen others, who sensed such a need, but they still didn’t realize that attaining spirituality means reaching the attribute of bestowal, that attainment and bestowal are the same thing. Some people need years to understand that it is precisely the connection to the inner desires of the friends in the group (where the Creator has brought him) that constitutes the means through which one reveals the attribute of bestowal.

Nevertheless, in the interim their time does not go to waste. A person undergoes constant changes under the influence of the Light, and eventually reaches the understanding that he must obtain just the attribute of bestowal.

The freedom of choice begins from the moment a person begins to understand that a connection with all the rest of the souls, or with their points in the heart, is necessary to reach the attribute of bestowal. After all, this is what spirituality is.

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All of a person’s thoughts and desires come to him from the Creator. So, if a person wants to come closer to the Creator, this means that the Creator wants this as well and instills this desire into the person’s heart and mind.

If, however, a person doesn’t have a desire for the Creator, this means that the Creator doesn’t want the person either and is sending him desires and thoughts against Him. But nevertheless, along with what a person receives from Above at every moment, he occasionally gets a chance (a point) to see himself from afar. This kind of inquiry is possible even during the period when one is only approaching the spiritual development.

When a person does this, his life turns into dialogue with the Creator: a person thanks the Creator for all the good and bad things that come to him, and the only thing he asks for is to advance. That is how he receives a new mind, new sensations and a new reality.

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Our problem is that when it comes to our spiritual development, we can stand still for a long time before taking the next step forward. It may seem as though we are going through a lot of states, but actually we are just treading over the same spot, shifting from right to left, leaning forward or back, unable to take a step forward by making spirituality be the dominant force in us.

We can’t yet focus all of our strength to actually annul ourselves (our egoism) for the sake of the quality of bestowal, which we have to attain on the next degree. After all, every step we take brings us closer to the quality of bestowal, which begins to reign within us. The question is whether we are ready to make all the necessary preparations: to annul our egoism, to sense the importance of the goal and focus all our thoughts and desires on it, having made a final decision that this is the only thing we need and nothing else.

If a person has a chance to take even one step toward bestowal, the Creator, without hoping for a reward, even while lacking the forces to do this, but simply wishing to cleave to the quality of bestowal in just one point, and to be satisfied with this despite all the great desires he has, then he reaches perfection (Malchut in Bina).

Thus, he enters the state of perfection (the attribute of bestowal) through one point (Tzimzum Bet). All that remains for him to do is just to develop this point. It is written: “Make Me an opening as the eye of a needle and I will deliver you.”

If you hold on to that point of bestowal in spite of all the doubts, questions and disturbances, then the desires that emerge in you (your Reshimot) will pull you deeper and deeper inside, like a thread through the needle’s eye, pulling you into the spiritual attribute of bestowal. Then, through your desires, you will see the Upper World.

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A question I received: Does one’s material situation also change when one attains spiritual correction?

My Answer: Corporeality changes together with spirituality. Corporeality is the initial level of our perception of reality. It is the level we feel now, and we have to ascend from it to the first spiritual level.

Like any other perception on any level, this one also exists relative to you, inside your own sensations. When you change your qualities, everything will change.

If we care about ascending into the spiritual world, then we project this aspiration onto the material level as well, and then we don’t feel problems. We end up feeling life in our physical body similar to the World of Infinity, where we don’t lack anything. We will have everything the body needs.

If you think only about your spiritual advancement up 125 degrees, then your material life will take place without any worries and problems. You will have enough of everything, without any illnesses or misfortunes.

This material level has to exist because prior to ascending to every subsequent level, you always fall back into this world in order to then ascend even higher from it. What we now feel as this world, as physical matter, is the first, inanimate level of all the worlds. It’s necessary for us to live on this level because it is the basis of all the spiritual ascents. If we will desire to exist on this level only for the sake of ascending, then life will be wonderful.

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The fatigue we feel is deliberately sent to us from Above. It seems to us that there is nothing good about spirituality and today’s lesson is talking about the same thing as yesterday. And this fatigue we feel will only get stronger. If a person does not receive energy from his environment (the group and books), then he will not be able to continue advancing spiritually.

However, the greatest forces come from disseminating this knowledge to other people. When you do, you will come out of the lesson revived and much stronger than before. It’s because you connect to the desires of many people and you all experience the material together.

Inside your new desires, you reveal the world on a deeper level, and you experience this revelation as new energy and strength, a revival of your soul.

However, if you do not feel pleasure and the force of life from the lesson and dissemination, then you are not connecting with the desires of the friends. The correction lies only in unifying the broken connection between the souls. We have to correct what was broken. As soon as we attain the first connection with one another, to this degree we will immediately feel the Upper World.

The Light, the sensation of connection, bestowal, and love does not appear from some place, but it appears inside us as soon as we attain this quality. This quality comes from the Creator and envelops us.

The fact is that we are always immersed in an ocean of Light! That’s why we don’t feel that there is water all around us. We can only feel it inside our glass. So connect several souls together; you will then form a vessel and will feel the spiritual world!

This is so simple. When it finally becomes revealed to a person, he is taken aback because he sees that it was always right under his nose, and he wonders: why didn’t I do this ten years ago?

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A question I received: You said that the science of Kabbalah was conveyed “from mouth to mouth” for millennia. What does this mean?

My Answer: “From mouth to mouth” means that spiritual attainment is conveyed by way of a common Masach (screen) from teacher to student, when both are on the same degree. They are connected to one another as an adult and a child in our world: the adult can descend to the level of the child and teach him, while the child is capable of receiving from the adult. Learning is possible because both are in the same world and on the same level.

The same is true in the spiritual world: we can attain a connection with the Teacher because he descends to a lower spiritual degree, a degree the student has to rise to. They then reach a connection that is called “from mouth to mouth,” meaning: through a common screen between a Partzuf of the Upper Level and a Partzuf of the lower level. The screen stands in the Peh (mouth), and that is why the mutual connection is called “Peh El Peh” – mouth to mouth.
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A question I received: Why is it so hard to ascend from the material world particularly to the very first spiritual degree? After all, we’re rising to the smallest spiritual degree.

My Answer: Even though it is the smallest spiritual degree, we ascend to it under circumstances where we have absolutely no understanding of spirituality.

We have to be born into spirituality, and there is nothing harder in the world than birth. Scientists say that the energy, strength, and concentration of effort that one spermatozoon employs to enter an egg cannot be compared to any other effort. It’s because they are two complete opposites, but in spite of this, one of them succeeds in breaking through the barrier, through the screen, and fastens itself inside the other.

This is why the first degree of the ascent from the material world to the spiritual world is the most difficult.

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Spiritual advancement is built upon descents: as they become corrected, they serve as the material for the spiritual Kli. If you turn your sensation of being far away from spirituality into a spiritual ascent, you will thereby build your soul.

Think of an electronic converter that straightens out an oscillating, off-and-on current, making it constant. The oscillating current enters the diode bridge where the positive phase passes through one contour and the minus phase passes through another. As a result, a constant current is produced at the exit. This is very much like the spiritual processes, where the descents turn into ascents.

The Light acts as the positive phase, and the Kli is revealed as the negative phase, and they work together. Practically speaking, I affect my environment and the environment affects me. I project two feelings onto the environment: the feeling that it is important, and that I am worthless. In response, the environment impresses me with the feeling that bestowal is important and reception is worthless.

If I take care of these four channels, then I will receive strength. When I am in the state of ascent and I have a lot of strength, I have to give to the environment. And when I fall and have no strength, I receive strength from the environment.

This works in exactly the same way as the device that straightens out the oscillating current: sometimes I give to them, and sometimes they give to me. As a result, I always have strength.

In fact, this is why the soul was separated into two parts: me and everything that’s outside of me. It was to enable me to treat others like myself.

Everything outside me is also mine. It’s just that I work with it in this oscillating manner – sometimes I give strength, and sometimes it is returned to me. However, what I receive is many times greater than what I put in.

In virtue of the darkness (the new Kli) that is revealed in me, I am able to receive enough strength from the environment to turn to the Force (the Light) of Correction. I am then always able to move forward, like a constant current that is always being straightened out. And thus, I rise higher and higher.

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