A question I received: In the last two lessons you gave on the article “The Peace,” you mentioned that people who isolate themselves from society cause harm. So could it be that society is wrong to imprison murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and so on, and should imprison monks and hermits instead?

My Answer: According to the Torah, there should be special asylums and courts for people who cause harm. You can familiarize yourself with these laws – they are harmonious with human nature and the Upper Governance, which forces man to sin in the first place (to murder, steal, and so on), and also controls judges and all kinds of circumstances. However, it wants man to consciously enter this system that governs him through reward and punishment.

We see that forceful imprisonment only increases the number of criminals, and moreover, they perfect their craft while in prison. But as society becomes corrected as a whole, people will start using other methods of punishing and educating. A person who desires correction should not isolate himself from society.

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And G-d revealed Himself to Avraam in Aloney-Mamra; he sat at the entrance to his tent and the day was sweltering. And he raised his eyes and saw three men, and he cooked, and they ate. And the latter said: “I shall come back to you in exactly one year, and your wife Sarah will have a child.” And Sarah laughed to herself. Avraam went to show them the way out.

And G-d said: “Great is the sin of Sodom and Gomorra.” And Avraam said: “Will You destroy the righteous along with the wicked? Perhaps you can forgive them for the sake of the fifty righteous that are there?” And G-d said: “If I find fifty righteous inside the city, then I shall forgive the entire place for their sake.” And Avraam said: “Perhaps there will be forty there.” And He said: “I will spare them for these forty as well.” “And what if there will be ten?” “I shall not destroy them for the sake of these ten.” And G-d left, and Avraam returned to his place.

And two angels came to Sodom, and Lot saw them and said: “Sirs, spend the night here.” They hadn’t yet laid down when the people of Sodom surrounded the house and said, “Where are the people who came to your house this night?” And Lot came out to them to the entrance and said, “Do not commit evil, my brothers!” But they began breaking down the door. And these people reached forth their hands and brought Lot into the house, and locked the door. And they struck the people at the entrance with blindness.

And these people told Lot: “Bring out everything that you have in the city, for we will destroy this place.” But he hesitated, and the Angels took him by the hand and brought him out of the city. And they said: “Save yourself, and do not look back!” And G-d poured sulfur and fire from the heavens onto Sodom and Gomorra. But his wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.

And Lot settled in a cave in the mountains, together with his two daughters. And the elder daughter said to the younger daughter, “Let’s go and make our father drunk with wine, and lie with him, and bear posterity from our father.” [Read more →]

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A question I received: Why did Rabash and Baal HaSulam insist on physically observing the Mitzvot, and moreover, they did so scrupulously, not omitting even the point of the letter Yod?

My Answer: It’s because they lived exclusively in a religious environment, and back then it wasn’t yet realistic or necessary to disseminate Kabbalah among the secular public and around the world in general. They had absolutely no contact or connections with secular people. Nevertheless, in the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” “Messiah’s Horn” and other texts, Baal HaSulam writes that it’s necessary to disseminate Kabbalah among all the nations of the world. Moreover, Baal HaSulam writes that a person can only begin studying Kabbalah after he becomes secular (even if he does it secretly, on the inside). As long as he is religious inside, religion binds him and he won’t be able to understand Kabbalah. It’s because these two worldviews are opposite to one another.

In the religious worldview, you believe something that you were told about God, and you blindly follow the instructions you learned from others. You fanatically limit yourself with your mind’s attempts to understand who you are, what you are living for, and where you are. The less you ask and the more you do – the holier you consider yourself to be. And forget about “love for thy neighbor” – you are above all those vile atheists, you are chosen by the Creator. You overflow with pride, and feel that everyone is indebted to you for your holy lifestyle.

On the path of Kabbalah, however, you don’t believe anyone else, and using your own efforts, heart and mind, you reveal Nature or the Creator for yourself. You pull yourself up towards Him, penetrate into His governance, and start to understand Him. And you do all this by correcting your egoism, according to the Torah’s appeal, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” You step out of yourself toward your neighbor, and thereby attain the Creator.

Moreover, Baal HaSulam writes that according to the instructions in The Book of Zohar, you have to disseminate Kabbalah to all the nations of the world! (See his articles “The Revelation of Godliness,” “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” and “The Peace.“)

On this path, the most important thing is you and your decision. So let the critics who favor religion attend to their own business – they need to, since it’s slipping out of their greedy and envious hands. It’s not that I’m against religion, but I am against the egoistic use of it!

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A question I received: What does Light mean in the spiritual sense? What is the difference between the Light in the lower spiritual worlds compared to the higher ones that are closer to the Creator?

My Answer: Everything that is received in the Kli (the soul) is called Light. See this definition in Talmud Eser Sefirot. The difference between the Lights is not the Lights in and of themselves, but the vessels, Kli, the desires they fill – the measure of bestowal, the force of correction.

Likewise, the light in our world is simple and white, but it consists of the seven lights or colors because potentially it can be revealed by the seven kinds of Kli. However it doesn’t exist on its own. There is no Light outside the Kli; there is no Creator outside creation.

We only study matter and its form. We are unable to study the abstract form and the essence since we can’t attain them in a reliable way. In outer space, there is no light, but only darkness, because there is no object that could stop it or reflect it – there is no Kli.

Thus, when light goes through glass, which absorbs one of the light’s components, it is perceived as the absorbed light. If the glass absorbs red waves, then the light is perceived as red. So we don’t sense the Light in and of itself, but only its expression in the soul. More accurately, the soul’s or desire’s reaction to something external in the spiritual world is called Light. In other words, the Light is the property of bestowal which the soul has attained and which it now senses. So we don’t see the Light, but the properties of the Kli or soul, which are expressed through something called Light.

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A question I received: Islam also offers a method of attaining adhesion with the Creator – Sufism. And it’s also based on the same principle as Kabbalah – love thy neighbor. So if the main thing is to correct one’s egoism, to build a screen, then isn’t it possible for a person who’s following Islam to become corrected just like someone following Kabbalah?

My Answer: It’s your right to check and verify which method suits you best. However, you should know that everything comes from Kabbalah – for more on this, see the part of the Torah that talks about how Abraham taught “partial Kabbalah” to the children of his mistresses – meaning Kabbalah without the attainment of the Upper World, and then he sent them to the east. If you checked it for yourself, without believing anyone else and regardless of your ethnic background, and you found that Sufism suits you best, then stay in it – there is no coercion in spirituality.

All faiths and religions came from Kabbalah, from the search for the Creator, in order for man to go through a preliminary development, to prepare him to attain the Creator through studying Kabbalah. It’s written, “The peel (Klipa) protects the fruit” – it protects it from being destroyed until it ripens, and then the peel is removed and the fruit eaten. And this is what’s happening in our time!

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Two questions I received on the role of knowledge in spiritual advancement

Question: In order to advance, do I have to know what state I’m in and what spiritual level I’m on? And in general, how important is it for my spiritual development to have knowledge about the spiritual worlds?

My Answer: Knowledge doesn’t matter at all. However, it does help you connect to the topic (the correction of your soul). Nevertheless, the most important thing is to attract the Light of correction, and this happens during the study of authentic Kabbalistic texts. Item 155 of the Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot explains that the Light descends to the degree one desires to understand what is being said in the text, even though one doesn’t understand anything. This means that a person is trying to understand what the book says about him and his state. It’s because a Kabbalistic text includes all the states of all the souls, and every soul is able to find “its own frequency,” the frequency at which the common soul, the Creator, is speaking to it.

Question: You said that a person who advances in Kabbalah does not have to turn to books when it comes to realizing his freedom of choice, and that this is something he has to do inside. My question is: How do you keep an inner account with yourself if you don’t have the forces for it inside you? You said that a person should turn to the society when he wants to realize his freedom of choice.

My Answer: Baal HaSulam speaks about this in one of his letters. He writes that if you desire to figure something out inside you, then just be alone with yourself, without books. This way you will feel yourself and the result of what has happened to you by studying Kabbalah. You will be able to find yourself, your path, something that’s yours, instead of what others have said.

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Questions I received on intentions and actions

Question: I have a question about the Light that returns one to the source. Do I have to desire for it to influence me while I am studying Kabbalah? If yes, who will influence me, and what will it influence?

My Answer: The Upper Light will influence your aspiration to correct your egoistic intention “to do everything for your own sake” to the altruistic intention to unite with all the souls, and with the original vessel of your soul, and in it – in the quality of bestowal and love – you will unite with the Creator.

Question: Should I intend to bestow before every material action I make?

My Answer: You should always try to remember, in your thoughts and feelings, that “there is none else beside the Creator,” that He acts inside and outside of you, and that all His actions are “good.”

Question: During one of your lessons someone asked a question about one’s intention while performing material actions (such as eating, drinking, and etc.), and you responded that people shouldn’t think about this. But shouldn’t I intend to bestow before every action I make? Right now the only intention we can have is to receive, because we don’t have a screen, yet at the same time, isn’t the correct intention for me to demand a screen from the Creator, in order to be able to give to Him?

My Answer: The best thing to do is to keep holding on to the thought that “There is none else besides Him” and that He is Good and so are all of His actions. I’m afraid that by trying to keep the intention to unite with the Creator while making material actions, you will only make mistakes. You will think that you already have the correct intention, the same as how religious people think. Besides this, you’ll begin thinking that with your actions, you are raising something up to the Creator, and correcting your soul. This is Chassidut. You will start believing that your food is asking you to eat it in order to correct it, and that by eating the food you are correcting yourself just by saying a blessing beforehand, instead of correcting yourself to the level of the blessing – love and bestowal.

After all, the realization that one’s intentions are evil also come to a person under the influence of the Light, the Light of the Torah, which only surrounds us when we study authentic Kabbalistic texts. You should pursue this intention during the lesson and when you disseminate, but not when you eat. You can’t even imagine where the hidden stumbling blocks lie, and how you will veer off from the true path to psychology, Chassidut, or mysticism without even realizing you are doing so. Follow the Kabbalists’ advice! Read Rabash’s articles about the group for beginners – his first twenty articles.

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A comment I received: I’m shocked and moved to tears to find out that we are also potential Nazis. Why did great Kabbalists, who attained Gmar Tikkun (final correction), continue to take part in cruel slaughter and use of animals? How can it be possible that the exalted teaching of Kabbalah ignores cruelty to animals?

It’s obvious that it won’t correct anything in the soul if we were all to become vegetarian. But great Kabbalists corrected everything and did not become lovers of miserable animals. How can this be? Maybe there are 126 levels and the time of the complete Gmar Tikkun has arrived only now, when “love thy neighbor as yourself” will also include animals, plants and the still level of nature? As far as I understand with my simple mind, we must ultimately feel love for ants and bugs as well…

My Response: There are rules for how to act in order to correspond to the general law of nature, called Elokim. Man has been created opposite to this law, and our task is to change ourselves in order to be the same as this law. This is the purpose of our existence in this world. This change in a person, from our level to the Creator’s level, can be attained only by studying Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “Introduction to the Book ‘From the Mouth of a Sage’”: “Even if a person is completely righteous in this world, knows the whole Torah and has fulfilled all the earthly commandments, but did not study Kabbalah, then he must return to this world again in order to study Kabbalah” – because only by studying Kabbalah does he attract the Light of Correction to him, as written in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” item 155.

By correcting himself, a person unwillingly acts according to the Upper Laws. When this happens, how does he relate to the nature around him? He relates to it based on the degree of his equivalence of the Creator. And no matter what he relates to, he does so based on his equivalence to the Creator. But perhaps his actions and behavior won’t seem righteous to you, because you imagine righteousness differently to what it is in the spiritual world.

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A question I received: Sometimes you can’t hear the lesson! That is, you’re listening to it, but you don’t hear it! Sometimes you sleep through it… And sometimes it seems that you understand every word, and it’s simply a revelation!

What determines one’s sensations at the lesson? Is it the lesson itself, the people who are present at the lesson, the person, the material being studied, or something else?

What can I do to hear the lesson like I did the first time, when I couldn’t hold back the tears?

My Answer: I understand you. This happens to everyone. It’s because the Creator only gives a person the initial desire for the spiritual goal: He awakens one’s point in the heart. And He brings a person to the source (a book, a teacher, a group, the Internet), and no more than this. And it’s up to a person to continue developing this desire he received from above, to develop it to the size of the World of Infinity.

This is impossible to do unless you study Kabbalah in the correct environment. (See item 155 of Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” and also his article “The Freedom.”) Otherwise you will spend many years eating yourself up.

In addition, it’s very important to prepare for the lesson. The preparation begins before going to sleep. You should fall asleep with a Kabbalistic book in your hand. Wake up half an hour before the lesson and attune yourself to the lesson. If you don’t attune yourself, the lesson will be ineffective.

You should go through this period more energetically: from the point to the Machsom. Good luck!

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Preparing for the Lesson

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And I prayed to G-d: Lord! Let me cross Jordan, and I shall see this good land! But G-d became angry with me because of you and said: Do not speak to Me of this anymore! Rise to the summit, look west, north, south and east, for you shall not cross Jordan! And give an order to Joshua, and strengthen him, for he shall become the head of the nation and he shall conquer for them the land that you will see.

And now, Israel, hear the rulings and laws that I teach you to observe, in order that you will live, and come, and take possession of the land that G-d, the Almighty of your fathers, is giving you! Do not add to what I command you, and do not subtract from it, in order to observe the commandments of your G-d.

Just protect your soul, so you won’t forget what your eyes have seen, and so it won’t leave your heart for the rest of your days, and tell of them to your sons and to the sons of your sons: Of the day when you stood before G-d at Chorev. [Read more →]

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