A question I received: In a previous post, you gave a lengthy response in defense of yourself. Dear Rav, I think it’s a waste of your precious time to do this. Those who understand what you have attained truly appreciate your merit and exclusivity. As for your opponents, even though they get on your nerves, they are actually doing a service to dissemination by bringing attention to you and Kabbalah. Still, your devotees (myself being one of them) are offended by the fact that our Teacher has to come down to the level of such ignorant people in order to defend himself and to flatter the remains of his egoism. Besides, we have to love them too.

My Answer: On 08-05-08 and 08-06-08 we studied Baal HaSulam’s letters and his attitude to opponents of Kabbalah. It would benefit you to watch these lessons. Nowhere does it say that we have to love impurity (Klipot), which is prolonging our suffering in the egoistic exile. However, we do have to try to correct these people and explain to others about the harm that they bring onto everyone. This is what motivated me to write about the connection between them, me and Kabbalah.

Therefore, it isn’t a defense of myself, but study material. In addition, it isn’t written about me, because Kabbalists don’t talk about themselves from a personal standpoint. Moreover, you shouldn’t believe my answers but verify everything for yourself!

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Questions I received on perception, mountains and poor people:

Question: Do animals and nature feel their “self”? Do they perceive reality differently than we do, or do they perceive limited reality like us?

My Answer: They live, but they don’t feel that they live. They don’t have a perception of their “self” or that it’s “their life.” They also don’t feel jealousy of others, but are concerned only with survival.

Question: If we exist in an imaginary reality that we create in our consciousness, then where are we all actually going?

My Answer: By gradually discovering that our reality is distorted, we unknowingly prepare ourselves for attaining the true reality. Science is discovering that matter and waves are the same thing. By studying our perceptions, we have discovered that solid can turn into liquid, and liquid can then turn into gas – a substance that’s imperceptible to our senses. But then the imperceptible gas becomes liquid and then solid again. For example, a piece of ice melts and evaporates, and then condenses into water and becomes solid ice again.

Reality is subjective and depends on our senses. We create it within us. All development is aimed at bringing us to the true state – “There is none else but Him.”

Question: What are mountains from the point of view of Kabbalah – for example Mount Miron and Mount Sinai?

My Answer: A mountain is a mass of egoism, because earth is desire (Aretz means earth, and it comes from the word Ratzon – desire). A mountain is a “protruding” desire. By rising to the top of the mountain – by rising above one’s egoism to the Creator, to equivalence with the Creator, one attains Him.

Question: The Bible very often speaks about poor people. What is a “poor person” in spirituality?

My Answer: In Kabbalah (the Torah) a poor person is one who does not have any knowledge of the Creator (Ani be Daat). It’s because knowledge of the universe and attainment of the Creator (of the only force in existence, the source of everything and the one who governs everything) – is the same thing. A wealthy person in Kabbalah (the Torah) is a one with a wealth of knowledge (of the Creator).

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Questions I received on what to do with a boyfriend who doesn’t study Kabbalah and women who hate dissemination:

Question: A woman becomes fulfilled spiritually through a man – I feel this very clearly. However, all I can think about is my boyfriend, who doesn’t study Kabbalah. I broke up with him when I encountered Kabbalah, but now we are back together and I am still studying Kabbalah. I feel like I prefer spending time with him over going to the lessons, and this scares me because I’m neglecting my purpose and the Creator’s goal for me. I can’t leave you and the group and the entire world Kli. I need you and you need me. But on the other hand, I am drawn to my boyfriend. I really want to be on the path and develop my Kli together with a man, but I feel like I wouldn’t be able to manage without my boyfriend.

My Answer:
1. Calm down.

2. If he loves you then he won’t interfere with your Kabbalah studies.

3. If you still can, choose another man who will study Kabbalah for sure.

4. Don’t force him to study, but gently and lovingly get him involved in passive participation. We’ve had cases when husbands got involved in Kabbalah this way, and then continued studying even when their wives left Kabbalah.

5. In any case, creating a family is more important than Kabbalah! After that your priority should be your work, and then Kabbalah.

Question: Can one woman teach another woman in the Bnei Baruch group?

My Answer: Yes.

Question: What should we do with women who only want to study and hate the idea of dissemination?

My answer: When a woman first comes to study Kabbalah, then she should be taught the basics – just like a man. After that she should be offered a chance to take on “extra weight,” such as participating in dissemination and paying Maaser. If she doesn’t agree to this, then we don’t continue working with her – let her study at home on her own – the Internet is free. We’ll think twice before letting her attend a Congress, and might even decide against it. People who don’t disseminate are depriving themselves of the opportunity to advance because they don’t develop their Kli by adding the desires of others to it, in order to reach the necessary critical mass.

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A question I received: As a practicing Christian, I would like to know: Doesn’t the following verse from the Bible indicate that studying Kabbalah is forbidden? “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

My Answer: You can find the answer in the same passage: The things that are still secret (concealed) belong only to the Creator (to the Upper Level), but the things that are revealed (that we have revealed) belong to us and to our children (to our future states), that we may actually follow all the laws (the laws of love and bestowal), just as the Creator commanded us. It is impossible to follow the laws of love and bestowal without revealing the Creator, as it is written “Know (attain) the Creator and serve Him.” If you study Kabbalah, you will understand what the Creator wants of His creatures. People of all religions will have to do this.

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Questions I received on whether Kabbalists ever wrote about the age of the world and past civilizations:

Question: In many lessons you have said that our world is several million years old, but that according to the Hebrew calendar we begin counting the world’s age from the moment that the point in the heart awakened in a person named Adam (from the moment he decided to become similar to the Creator). What Kabbalistic sources did you get this information from?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam says in his article, “The Last Generation,” that periods of the Earth’s formation lasted 30 million years each. This indicates that the Earth has existed for millions of years.

Baal HaSulam also writes in his letters that Adam was the first person in the world who revealed the Thought of Creation. Obviously, Adam had parents and relatives, and wasn’t the first person in this sense, but he was the first person to attain or reveal the Creator. In every other regard, all of nature evolves because of the Reshimot that surface and become actualized, going from the still level of nature, to the vegetative level, to the animate level, and then the human level. This happens step by step, and on the surface it appears just like Darwin thought. However, it doesn’t happen through natural selection, but through sequential revelation of the Reshimot according to the pattern of HaVaYaH.

Question: Dear Rav, from what I heard in your lessons, I understood that Baal HaSulam was a man of great attainment. At one of the lessons you said that Baal HaSulam wrote about the Earth’s formation and the numerous shifts that took place between the liquid and solid phases, each lasting for 30 millions years. Have Kabbalists ever mentioned anything about past civilizations?

My Answer: No, because they aren’t interested in this one bit. Kabbalists direct all of their attention upward, above this world – to the goal of creation, rather than backwards – into the depths of history.

There are no intelligent civilizations besides ours. This fact becomes very clear from studying the descent of the Light and Kli from the World of Infinity into our world. We exist in the World of Infinity even now, but our distorted senses depict it as our world. The Ari begins his revelation of the universe from the moment when only the Light exists, and then the embryo of the future creature appears. The only thing that emerges from that point inside the Light – is us.

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We exist in a sea of information. We are floating inside it like croutons in a bowl of soup. Everything and everyone is inside the soup. There is no time here, and that’s why it doesn’t matter whether you are watching a live broadcast or a recording of the lesson – because everything and everyone is inside this sea of information, including Abraham, Rashbi, Moses, the Ari, and Baal HaSulam. Whether you are part of the lesson in “real time” or not is only a psychological impression of a person who hasn’t yet come out of the boundaries of our world.

For example, when a person doesn’t know that the lesson isn’t being held in real time, then he watches it as if it were. It’s because this information doesn’t get old. And it doesn’t matter what time of day or night one studies, because everything that we study immediately enters and becomes revealed in the entire universe.

This information has never been revealed to man, and it is becoming revealed only now, with the help of the united group. This force already exists in the field that we must fill – in the entire volume of the World of Infinity. And we fill it. And then the rest of humanity also exists in this information, because they exist in the same field that we are adding our information to.

We are doing this, because following the Restriction, only a thin glowing line passes from Infinity to this world – to the center of the universe. Everything besides this thin line is empty space, and we fill that space with the work we are doing.

This is why the sensory and rational information that we extract already exists in this space. And all the people, regardless of their location, or whether they want it or not, are already spinning around it, in harmony with it.

There is a good example of this in nature. Have you ever seen a flock of birds fly in the air, and suddenly they all make a turn together? How do they know that they need to turn? It’s because they receive their information from one place. And it’s the same with all parts of nature. Physicists are already discovering that the field of gravity spreads immediately and that elementary particles immediately inform one another about any changes happening to them. Everything we learn already exists “around us” – so just tune in to it and become filled!

This is why there is no time and it makes no difference when you watch the lesson. You get in touch with the spiritual information that has already been revealed in this space – and this information exists there for you.

(Taken from the lesson I gave on 06-27-08.)

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A question I received: I’m Jewish. Can I study Kabbalah together with gentiles – people who aren’t Jewish by birth? The Book of Zohar says that every person who teaches even one letter of the Torah to a gentile is responsible for the destruction of the world, and that a gentile who wants to learn must first convert to Judaism. What should I do?

My Answer: “Jew” comes from the word “Ever,” to cross, so a Jew is a person who has crossed the Machsom. Israel is a person who has the intention of “Yashar-El,” “straight to the Creator.” “Yuhudi” comes from the word “Ihud,” meaning “union” (with the Creator). All these notions are properties of love, bestowal, or altruism.

“Goy” (gentile) means “a nation” in Hebrew. This word isn’t offensive; it only underlines the uncorrected, egoistic degree. In the Torah or Kabbalah, “Goy” (gentile) refers to egoism, and Jew, Israel, or Hebrew refer to love and bestowal.

We all start out as gentiles – uncorrected. When we choose the spiritual goal and begin the correction (even while we still haven’t attained it), we become Israel (Isra-El, straight to the Creator). Next, when we cross the Machsom, we become Jewish. And when we attain the goal – union with the Creator, we become Hebrew.

We all came out of Babylon, we are all egoists, and we must all correct ourselves and become like the Creator. When a gentile (an egoist) studies Torah (Kabbalah) for his own sake, he is only harming himself. One should study Torah (Kabbalah) only in order to attain spirituality, the property of bestowal. Hence, you should study with the people who have this goal!

In addition, you should ask: can you and should you study the Torah (Kabbalah) with yourself? Maybe you are a gentile (in your intentions and aspirations)? First you should check whether you want to become like the Creator and attain “love for your neighbor.” If yes, then you can study Kabbalah, because this is the only correction Kabbalah makes to a person. However, if you have a different goal – for your own sake, then you are a gentile, and Torah (Kabbalah) isn’t for you. It is written: “A gentile who studies the Torah must die,” because he attracts Light and thereby becomes even more opposite to It. This is how a person kills the gentile within him. It’s written that the entire Torah is the rule, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Conclusion: Everyone should study Kabbalah regardless of their intention! If they have the intention of a gentile, then they will kill the gentile within them and go from “for one’s own sake” to “for the sake of the Creator.”

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Questions I received on studying, defining the spiritual goal, one’s desires, and one’s mind:

Question: What should I study every day?

My Answer: Study the same things we do, together with us.

Question: Should I study only Kabbalah, or are there other books worth studying as well?

My Answer: You should study only what we study. If you are a beginner, then you should study the first and third parts of our daily lesson together with us, but instead of the second part of the lesson (Talmud Eser Sefirot), you can study the materials for beginners on our website.

Question: Do we have to fight our lustful desires in the corporeal world, or should we just study Kabbalah without fighting these desires?

My Answer: Only the study of Kabbalah evokes the Light of correction – Ohr Makif. You will not become more corrected by fighting your desires or restricting yourself in some way. Don’t focus on your properties, but instead strive toward the Creator.

Question: I am somewhat confused about the spiritual goal. Is the goal for me to be happy, or for me to bestow, or to be like the Upper One, or is it to love my neighbor? Or, according to what you said in the latest lessons, is the goal for me to become master of my freedom of choice, or combine the paradox between the place of the Creator and the place of the creation? What is the goal?

My Answer: There is one goal, and it combines everything – all the opposites: The entire Light enters the entire Kli, filling it completely. This state already exists; we must only reveal it for ourselves. It’s similar to a child’s puzzle: There is an image printed on a piece of cardboard, then it’s cut up into small pieces and the child has to put it together. This is how the child learns to connect all the different parts into one whole – and we will have to do the same thing with all the elements of creation.

Question: Is the ego (my will to receive), my mind that observes the reality?

My Answer: That is absolutely correct. Inside your desire, you perceive yourself, the world, and your existence. The mind is produced by the egoistic desires, or derived from them. The mind comes into being and grows to degree that one aspires to fulfill one’s desires. The more desires one has, and the larger these desires are, the greater is the mind that accompanies them. Hence, since Kabbalah develops one’s desires, it also prompts the development of the mind (the brain).

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A question I received: I heard that plans to build the Third Temple are underway, and that there are even Kohanim and Levites being prepared to perform services there. Where can I find out more about how to be admitted to perform services, and when will the construction begin?

My Answer: I think that before we rush to build the Temple, we should first take care of our unfounded hatred of each other, as this was the reason for the fall of the Second Temple. We have to correct this hatred to the level of unconditional love for everyone – love without receiving anything in return. Then we will become the Kli or vessel for the revelation of the Creator. He will become revealed in it according to the principle of equivalence of form – “He is merciful and you are merciful; He forgives and you forgive.” As soon as He becomes revealed to us, we will become “wise of heart” – attain the spiritual level of Bezalel, the builder of the Temple. Then, based on our spiritual attainment of the Temple, we will be able to build the Temple on the material level as well. This is the meaning of the verse which says that the Third Temple will descend from above.

However, if we only try to build it on the material level, without correcting ourselves, then we are like children who are playing without knowing what the game is. It’s good to do this, but only when we know what is really important – to live by the law of the Temple, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s because the Temple is the gathering or unification of all the souls into one soul, and it was destroyed because people fell from “love thy neighbor as thyself” to “unfounded hatred.” It’s unfounded because it doesn’t have a reason (such as someone hurting you); it comes from envy and the desire to rule over others.

If you want to prepare for working in the Temple, then study Kabbalah and correct yourself to the level of the Temple. Then you will discover that the Temple already exists in your spiritual attainment – Matzav Gimel, the third state. (See the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”)

It’s written than the Third Temple will be better than the first two, because the Light of Chaya in the First Temple and the Light of Neshama in the Second Temple are smaller than the Light of Yechida of the Third Temple. It’s because the Third Temple will incorporate all the souls of all the people in the world, whereas the First Temple incorporated only the souls of Israel, and the Second Temple – only two tribes out of 12 tribes of Israel. This is why the Light of the Second Temple was lower than the Light of the First Temple.

It’s written about the Third Temple: “My house will be called the house of prayer for all the nations of the world” (Beiti – Beit Tfila Ikare Le Kol HaAmim). By disseminating Kabbalah throughout the whole world, we will attain the union of all people in love, in the single soul of Adam.

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We’ve just aired a new blog in Spanish called “Cabalá y el Significado de la Vida“ (Kabbalah and the Meaning of Life):

There are many groups and individuals in Latin America studying Kabbalah with us. I hope that the blog will become a source of simple, popular knowledge and information on Kabbalah for many new friends!

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