A question I received: When reading The Zohar, we are supposed to follow the text as though we are travelling within ourselves. However, don’t we also have to exert effort in order to demand our correction?

My Answer: The Zohar itself directs you to correction and the necessary thoughts. It will tell you what is good and what is bad depending on your specific state and what you in particular need to clarify.

The book itself will provide you with this approach. On our part, we must simply be able to adhere to it and its flow, to “swim” along with it obediently and to go wherever it wishes to bring us. We have to let our mind and heart swim smoothly along with the stream.

Everything is pre-assigned, including my desire, the Reshimot in it, and the Light which realizes the Reshimot. However, everything depends on my effort and my consent to give the Light access to the Reshimot.

I only allow the Light to act, but beyond that everything happens without my knowledge. I just witness everything that happens inside me. My effort is called “Avodat HaShem” – the work of the Creator; I am only an accomplice to it. The Creator said to Moses: “Let’s go to Pharaoh. I will do everything and you will watch how I act toward him.” This means that my point in the heart, the first spiritual Reshimo, brought me to the entrance into a new world, which I know nothing about. And now, through this point in the heart, I am hearing an explanation about this new world. To the extent that I learn about it and connect to it, I will be able to live in it.

Baal HaSulam writes that just like it is impossible for material bodies to live in this world without knowing its laws, rules, and conditions, so it is impossible for the soul to live in the spiritual world without receiving the necessary knowledge about it. Thus, right now we are trying to receive this necessary knowledge. When we receive it, we will feel that we already exist in the spiritual world, because in spirituality, knowledge and sensation is the same thing.

Right now I feel only my animate body – an illusory reality; but I also have a point in the heart which can potentially feel the Upper World. This point that I was given is a tremendous opportunity; however, it is the only thing I was given. I need to develop the rest on my own, which is why I am given The Book of Zohar, which provides an explanation for me.

I learn about the Upper World similar to how a baby learns about this world without knowing anything about it in advance. A baby cannot attain the world with his mind, by performing an analysis and a synthesis. I am the same in regard to attaining the spiritual world. I learn about it only by adhering to the book and attracting the Surrounding Light. This type of study is the most natural. We discover a new world in the same manner as we discovered this world when we were babies.

The Upper Level can never be attained with the mind, since we don’t feel, see, or understand it. However, we have to begin to feel it.

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Two questions I received about the nature of spiritual pleasure:

Question: If genuine fulfillment comes from bestowal, does this mean that at this point I am unable to be fulfilled?

My Answer: Right now the only way I know how to be fulfilled is by fulfilling myself. There are desires or empty spaces within me, and by fulfilling them I receive pleasure, temporarily satisfying my relentless “appetite.”

However, a different type of fulfillment exists, one that arises when I connect with other people and feel that I am fulfilling them. Depending on the level of our connection, we become a single whole, just like parents and their children.

In reality we are all part of one soul, and a soul is a desire. By connecting to other people’s spiritual desires, I fulfill them as if they were my own desires, and I take pleasure in doing so. That is what we call spiritual pleasure. It is also felt through desire, but the only difference is that previously I used my own, natural desires, whereas later on I start to sense pleasure through somebody else’s desires, which are not natural to me.

The desires of others seemed so distant that when I compared myself to them, I felt that the worse off they are, the better off I am. But now, after completing my correction, other people’s desires become my own; I obtain the opportunity to fulfill thousands of desires and to enjoy doing it. The pleasure is then much bigger than the fulfillment of only my personal desires.

The conflict between the desire and the effort I invest in it does not disappear. By replacing hatred with love, I only increase the difference between them, and thus enhance the pleasure. After all, Light is measured in contrast to darkness. Even in our regular lives we have a much higher level of appreciation for peace when it is attained after a long period of hostility.

Question: What is more important in spiritual pleasure: to broaden our spiritual horizons by finding answers to our questions, or helping others reach spiritual attainment?

My Answer: Both are important. Spiritual pleasure is something I sense when I connect with the Upper Force. The revelation of the Upper Force occurs even when I just begin to approach it, even if I don’t see it clearly yet.

The world is divided into two parts: the Creator and the creation. “Spiritual pleasure” means that I unveil the Creator as if He appears out of the fog. I start to understand and feel Him a little more; I follow His example and become more familiar with Him.

Studying helps this process because when I study the system He created, I receive an illumination. Even though I haven’t fully revealed Him yet, the connection with Him still shines on me from afar. It makes me more sensitive and I start to feel how I am getting closer to Him, and that I am under his control. Then out of the corner of my eye I begin to see the contours of spiritual phenomena.

Of course, my sensations are still egoistic: I feel good, more secure, tranquil and hopeful about the future. Yet, the spiritual pleasure is felt from a connection with the Upper Force, illumination whereas material pleasure concerns ourselves and others who are like us.

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Psychologists agree that our behavior is defined by the models and characters we’re exposed to during childhood and later in life through advertisements, movies and other media sources. Our teachers shape our psyche by cultivating stereotypes of conduct and opinion, which we accept as fact. These stereotypes sit deep in our subconscious and define our outlook on life.

I look at the world through these stereotypes; they are the basis of my value system and I use them to evaluate the importance of anything that happens in life.

The whole world is a reflection of our inner value system. We don’t see the real world, but rather we see the world through the prism of automatically generated stereotypes that were instilled in us by society. We are therefore unable to rid ourselves of these stereotypes, and consequently cannot free ourselves from our involuntary outlook on the world.

However, by studying Kabbalah we develop an additional, new sense and activate new behavioral models that are of a “bestowing” nature. When we perceive the world through this sense, we become free of the world’s opinion, and gain personal freedom.

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By studying Kabbalah, a person begins to understand that it is precisely the act of “coming out of himself,” that will allow him to find something special. Outside of his little world, there is something great, eternal, and perfect – a higher dimension.  All of this occurs due to a shift in priorities which raises the importance of spirituality over what surrounds a person here in this world.

The aspiration toward the goal depends on its priority in regards to the importance of everything else in a person’s life. A person is evaluated based on his scale of priorities and goals. Thus, if coming out of himself to attain eternity and perfection is more important to him than his surroundings (except what is vitally necessary), this means that he has placed his priorities and values in the right order.

The order of one’s values should be the object of one’s unceasing care and self-analysis that he makes inside himself. Food, sex, and the family are bodily (animate) desires, which are necessary for a particular kind of fulfillment. Money, fame, power, and knowledge are human desires. Furthermore, we have the desire for spirituality, which is higher and beyond the existence of our world.

If a person constantly worries about placing his desires in the correct order, he stays on track to the spiritual goal in any situation and thereby advances towards it.

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The wisdom of Kabbalah is hidden from our senses and intellect. It belongs to a different dimension, one which we are incapable of perceiving and exploring directly.

As opposed to animals that are unable to comprehend the music created by humans, we possess a powerful imagination and the basic property called a point in the heart, which allows us to transform ourselves. It is to this end that we study Kabbalah, merely by maintaining a connection to the eternal wisdom. This is our most important work in this world.

It doesn’t matter how far a person advances in Kabbalah, or how much he understands. Simply studying the eternal wisdom of Kabbalah, which is beyond this world and above our unconscious state, is an expression of a desire to come out of this world, which is a great and timeless expression on its own. Every moment spent studying Kabbalah with the intention of getting closer to a new reality and getting rid of unconsciousness is a moment well spent.

It is written that after one’s body dies, the soul is asked only two questions: “Did you study Torah? Did you await salvation?” The question, “Did you study Torah?” means: Did you try to attract the Light that returns you to the Source? And the question, “Did you await salvation?” means: Did you believe that the Light would do this work for you, and did you strive to transform yourself into a “giving” being?

If a person pays even the least bit of attention to the wisdom of Kabbalah and studies it, he advances the entire group of souls that are close to him in the general system called “Adam.”

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Two questions I received about the growth of egoism:

Question: I’ve been studying Kabbalah for almost two years now, and there is something bothering me. It seems that the more I learn about my own nature, the more I’m disgusted by it. I feel as if I’m getting even more bothered than I already was. I simply can’t focus on the goal and the beauty of it, while I’m feeling so disgusted by my own nature, and that of everyone around me. What should I do?

My Answer: You have to be glad that egoism is being revealed within you. It’s the Upper Light that reveals it, and you must appeal to the Creator without getting deeper into the egoism. You must rise above it and be thankful for it as it will continue to grow as the soul uses it to develop.

Question: Please give us your advice on how can we find the strength to make the efforts toward connection when our egos are so strong that we feel like we can only surrender to Him and not make those efforts that we must make?

Sometimes we feel like “We know we must do this, but we don’t want to at all and we have no strength to do it.” These are frustrating moments, as our egos seem like the strongest power that exists!

My Answer: This is because you don’t invoke the power of the Creator! The Creator is the one that has to stand against Pharaoh while we have to be like Moshe, standing in the middle letting them fight!

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Kabbalah books are a lot like medical books. A doctor cannot give health to a sick patient; he can only give him advice about what actions the patient has to make in order to heal and become healthy.

This is exactly what Kabbalists do for us. It is not their intention to depict pictures of the spiritual world for us or to simply describe what is happening there. Their texts are written in order to help us become similar to the qualities of bestowal being described. Using their books, we start to identify ourselves with these actions, and are then able to “process” our qualities, desires and intentions in such a way that we will become similar to spirituality, the Creator.

A Kabbalah book is not written in order to be studied, or to give us knowledge and wisdom. If this is your approach, then you won’t see or attain anything spiritual. On the contrary, it will only lead you farther away from the result you desire to achieve, which is to change yourself and become a “citizen” of the Upper World.

When a sick patient reads a medical book, he isn’t looking for anything besides advice on how to be healed. That is the approach we should have when studying Kabbalah books. Otherwise we will be studying for the sake of knowledge, and the same books will become a “potion of death” instead of an “elixir of life.”

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A question I received: Is the study of Kabbalah the only thing that brings us Light?

My Answer: It is the only means you have to connect to the system that contains the Light. You exist below all the degrees that descend from Infinity down to our world, below the 125 degrees of the Light’s weakening. Even the absolute lowest degree, which is still above you, already has a portion of Light, but your degree, called “your world,” does not.

Therefore, with regard to you, the Light that comes from a higher degree is called “Surrounding Light.” It doesn’t enter into you as “Inner Light,” but merely shines for you from the outside. That is why it is called “surrounding.” Its influence is imperceptible and determined by the results it yields.

You have no way of connecting to a higher degree, because you differ in qualities and thus have no point of contact, since the higher degrees operate by the quality of bestowal, while your present degree is run by the will to receive. Therefore, you do not have even a single bestowing quality that you could use to establish contact with or in any way influence a higher degree.

However, if you study the higher degree and want to be a part of it, even though you presently are opposite to it, the Light changes your qualities to match its qualities. This miraculous remedy (Segula) allows you to change yourself even though you don’t understand what you ask or where those changes will take you. It doesn’t matter that you’re an egoist making a “false” request, since the higher degree will accept your efforts as though you really do wish to become equivalent to it.

This is made possible by the system where the Upper Level descends to your degree with the mechanism with which you can ascend upwards. It is called the AHP, and it is a kind of intermediary, a womb (Rekhem). This system of connections is concealed from you, but it is the reason why you aren’t completely detached from the spiritual world and also why you don’t sense your connection to it.

It is just as an embryo in its mother’s womb that doesn’t understand where it is and doesn’t know its mother. The mother however, cares for it nonetheless.

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Questions I received regarding finding our importance, interest in life outside Kabbalah, and freedom of choice:

Question: I only want to say that in my search for meaning, it seems as though everything leads to the wisdom of Kabbalah . I know there is something I must do, and I do not know what it is. How can the wisdom of Kabbalah help me to discover what my importance or role in life might be?

My Answer: Everything is revealed through revelation of the Creator, because there is nothing else besides the Creator and man. While everything around me is part of me, thus far, I just perceive everything as being external to me.

Question: After a few months of studying Kabbalah, I find it hard to find pleasure in ordinary things that I did before. Whatever I try to do, I hit the barrier of my ego. Either I decide not to do anything, or I break it, but afterward I feel shame.

Therefore I am losing interest in everything besides studying and my job, which I have to do. How can I justify the Creator if there is nothing to look forward to or nothing to take pleasure in?

My Answer: You lack a society that is going towards the Goal with you.

Question: One recurring question many people have who are new to Kabbalah, myself included, is this: Do we have any free will other than the choice between Kabbalah and the path of suffering?

My Answer: No.

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I always repeat that in order to succeed in the study of Kabbalah, we have to disseminate it. However, I feel that “dissemination” is not a good word because it makes me sound like a salesman or an insurance agent who is pushing his policies to everyone. When we talk about disseminating Kabbalah, it may sound as though we are trying to impose something on others.

Today the word “dissemination” is associated with commerce and dissemination of goods. Thus, when we speak about the dissemination of Kabbalah, those who are unfamiliar with the term think that it involves commerce or business, that we are selling something and making a profit. In other words, this word is very slippery.

But actually, our entire life constitutes dissemination, because the real meaning of this word is drawing closer to the Creator, spreading, expanding, revealing and attaining. All of creation begins with dissemination. That is to say, it starts out as a single point, where suddenly, out of nothingness, something that exists is born – Yesh Mi Ain (something out of nothing), and then it proceeds to disseminate through the four stages of Direct Light, producing all the worlds down to our world.

The last spiritual degree bursts into our world with a single, tiny spiritual charge. All the matter of our world, the whole universe, is born from this one spark in a process called the Big Bang, and then disseminates further. It develops in this manner until it forms our solar system, our terrestrial globe, and everything that exists here.

All of this pertains to the dissemination of the Creator onto the created beings in order to bring creation to equivalence with Him. This happens under the influence of the Light, His quality of bestowal. Indeed, any birth or development constitutes dissemination. In other words, the true, inner quality of dissemination is a partnership with the Creator. It means helping the Creator deliver and reveal His idea to the world by acting together with Him.

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