If a person studies books of Kabbalah, then even without understanding any of what’s written in them, he goes through inner changes and gradually begins to feel what is written in these books. This is called that he studies the science of Kabbalah. He begins to see the relationships between the fulfillment and the soul’s desire (the Lights and the Kelim), “world-year-soul” and “a ready-made reality.”

If he begins to study these books and to see them with his inner vision, then he studies the wisdom of Kabbalah – the science about how to fulfill one’s soul, how to reveal the spiritual world and the Creator, by likening one’s qualities to Him. But if a person reads these books, although he may really try and make efforts, but he is nevertheless unable to feel the Creator’s actions inside him, it means that he isn’t studying the science of Kabbalah yet. He is only preparing for it.

But if he has no intention whatsoever to achieve the spiritual sensation, then he has no connection to spirituality, or to the Torah. He is only connected to knowledge, because he does not strive for the Torah. The Torah is the Light that returns one to the Source, and it influences a person when he desires for the Light to come and correct him, because he feels that he requires correction.

So, if a person simply reads Kabbalah books, this doesn’t necessarily mean that he studies Kabbalah. He may just be studying the wisdom. Therefore, everything is discussed relative to the person studying. If I pick up a book whose cover says “Torah” or “Kabbalah,” this doesn’t necessarily mean that I study them. Everything depends on me and what I desire from these books.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”)

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A question I received: Kabbalah bases part of its reasoning on a certain chronological order, scaled by the millennia of the Babel Kingdom’s existence and by the dates of Adam’s life in Babylon. However, the work of a modern mathematician in the area of historic chronology (Anatoly Fomenko, Professor of Mathematics at Moscow State University and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences ), casts doubt on the generally accepted sequence and the dates of events. For instance, he dates the Egyptian pyramids to the 11th-14th centuries B.C.E. as per the dates of Zodiacal images found in them. This means that egoism wasn’t growing for 2000 years. The dates of the books can also be wrong, with manuscripts mistakenly dated as being more ancient, when, in fact, they were written later.

Kabbalah, being an extension of science beyond our world into the spiritual, relies on the sciences of this world, including history and chronology. What if the actual chronology is radically revised: can it be possible that the Kabbalists are also mistaken in their descriptions of historic events (the dating of Adam’s life as well as the lives of other Kabbalists?

My Answer: Up until now, all doubts about the Bible’s validity have been proven wrong, historically speaking, which confirms the authenticity of the Biblical story. The Biblical calendar starts with Adam – the beginning of man’s correction in this world, and it concludes with the final correction of all people, throughout 6000 years.

Over the past 5769 years, everything predicted by the Bible (as we, Kabbalists, know) has come true. The Book of Zohar, written 2000 years ago, says that our times (from the year 1995 on) is the time of this book’s revelation. And this is coming true! There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. However, everyone has the right to doubt everything in the world. This is the right of every scientist.

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A question I received: Could we say that the great Kabbalists, who created a connection between the Creator and the created being and wrote books for us, created the method called a Torah?

My Answer: These great Kabbalists wrote books for us. However, they  are not actually books,  but rather a revelation of the connection between us and the Creator. The Kabbalists gave us an opportunity to grab onto this connection through letters and words, which are written down on sheets of paper; in this manner we can take part in this connection.

After all, what is a book and what are the words written in it? We don’t know what it is. Like infants, we touch something. And Kabbalists arranged it so that when we come into contact with a book, wishing to be connected to them through it, we use the force that they created through the connection between them.

It is true that they created the Torah through this. After all, the Torah is actually given to us to correct egoism precisely through these Kabbalists and the special souls who prepared for us this opportunity: their connection. If it weren’t for their actions, we would not be able to achieve our correction on our own, which is the connection between us.  Without the actions of the Kabbalists, we would not be able to rouse the reforming Light.

A simple physical law is in action: if you have the quality of bestowal, Light shines on you; if you do not have the quality of bestowal, Light does not shine on you.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand that without the revelation of the science of Kabbalah in the books, and without studying it, a person will not be able to rouse the reforming Light. He can try to fix his relationships with other people, wishing to build his wonderful world, but he will not receive the force of Light, the force of correction. One needs to be connected to a system that uses authentic books, a group, an understanding, and a connection according to the recommendations of Kabbalists. Otherwise, it is impossible to reach correction.

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A question I received: It says in Beresheet 25:6: “But unto the sons of the concubines, that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.” What gifts did the sons of the concubines receive from Abraham? Where are these gifts?

My Answer: These gifts are all the beliefs and religions in the world, except Kabbalah. Kabbalah, however, is the sole method of egoism’s correction. The sons of the concubines did not wish to correct themselves and to be Abraham’s students, and therefore he sent them eastward – Kedma, to a source from which they would begin to return to Kabbalah.

By the way, the Torah does not speak about people in our world, but about spiritual forces. Therefore, the Kabbalists did not mean that a woman named Sarah gave birth to child named Isaac, for example. Rather, they meant that two spiritual Partzufim, called Abraham and Sarah (in Kabbalah they are generally called Father and Mother, Aba ve Ima), gave birth to their common, more advanced state, called Isaac.

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A question I received: What is your opinion on preparing the Torah scroll in order to bring it into the Temple?

My Answer: It is necessary to prepare the people to serve at the Temple so they will attain the quality of the Creator. Hence, the Torah scroll isn’t the most important thing. It’s because the Torah has been given to us for our correction, as written, “I created egoism and the Torah for its correction.”

The Torah scroll will not be beneficial if man isn’t corrected. So it’s best if you put your effort into the correction of people.

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Two questions I received on how religions emerged from Kabbalah:

Question: Where is the proof that all the religions developed from Kabbalah? Are there any sources confirming this, other than Kabbalistic ones?

My Answer: This is a historical fact – read any of the books comprising the Torah, The Book of Zohar, and so on. Religions emerged 2000 years ago, as a consequence of the Jews’ descent from the level of Kabbalah – the level of bestowal and love. Their fall from that level led to the destruction of the Temple and the emergence of the Jewish religion, which came to replace knowledge, attainment, a perception of the Creator and a connection with Him.

Instead, in religion, people believe in something without actually perceiving the things they believe in. Because of this, other interpretations of the same religion later emerged – since no one sees anything clearly and people just presume things! This is how the other religions came about, although they describe themselves as new religions or new revelations.

However, before all of this began, the Jews perceived the One Governing Force of Nature – the Creator. This is what they described in all their holy books, such as the Mishna, the Talmud, The Book of Zohar, the Tanakh, and others.

Question: In one of your articles, you wrote that after the Jews were exiled from Israel, Christianity, brought there by Greeks and Romans, became dominant in the whole world. You also emphasized that they are not religions. If they are not religions, what are they?

My Answer: I don’t think you understood my article correctly. The three main religions – Judaism, Christinity, and Islam – are, in fact, religions. However, Christianity did not emerge from Romans or Greeks. It emerged in Israel, among the Jews, after the destruction of the Temple, and was later dispersed throughout the world.

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A question I received: I am a school teacher, and we are now covering the topic, “The Creation of the World.” We have just finished discussing the first part of the Bible, “Genesis,” and we are now starting to talk about the Big Bang. How can I explain the apparent contradiction between the creation of the world 5600 years ago and the Big Bang which occurred billions of years ago?

My Answer: The Big Bang took place 14 billion years ago. It was caused by a spark of the Upper Light, which reached its lowest level and clothed into egoism. This spark contained all the matter and energy of our world, from which the whole universe later developed.

Then, about 4 billion years ago, our planet emerged from the condensation of particles. It cooled for billions of years until the atmosphere and life were generated. None of this was coincidental. All the actions and events are the realization of information contained in that initial spark of Light.

Next emerged the inanimate and vegetative levels of nature, followed by the animate level of nature and then the human being. Everything happened consecutively, just like explained by Darwin’s theory, except that the cause for the emergence of each species was the information that was initially implanted in the spark of Light. This spark initially contained all the information about our entire universe.

However, we can only observe the external emergence of one species from another, and we interpret this incorrectly, thinking that species evolved one from another, when in fact, it all happened due to the realization of informational genes (Reshimot).

As the Ari wrote in his book, The Tree of Life, a human being emerged from an ape hundreds of thousands years ago – (see Part 3 of Talmud Eser Sefirot). However, the first Man, meaning the first person who attained the Creator 5769 years ago, was Adam. His name comes from the word Edame, meaning “similar to the Creator.”

We celebrate this date as the New Year, and our chronology begins from it. This is because starting from that date, within 6000 years all the people have to attain the level of the Creator – the complete correction of their egoism.

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A question I received: You say that the Jews were always a spiritual nation and they were like this ever since their nation emerged, since the times of Abraham. And you say that everyone was equal. But what about your slaves?

My Answer: The Jews were not a nation, but a part of the Babylonians, who followed Abraham from Babylon to Canaan (Israel). This group united around the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What united them is the desire to attain this quality and thereby to become equivalent to the Creator. Equivalence of form with the Creator allows one to reveal the Creator, and this is the goal of creation.

Regarding the slaves, you should not think that the Jews’ attitude toward their slaves was anything like their treatment in other nations. It is says in the Torah (Shemot 21:26) that if a man strikes his slave, or hurts his eye or tooth, he must let him go free. There was a prohibition against tormenting the slaves. An amendment to the law (Mechiltah) specifies that if the owner inflicts any damage on the slave, the owner must let his slave go free.

In essence, a slave was a worker who did not receive payment for his work, but the owner was obligated to care for the slave in the same way he would if he were free. Moreover, other sources say that one who bought a slave bought a master. Also, see texts that speak about the owner’s responsibility to marry a female slave, etc.

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In the News (translated from Washprofile): What Americans really think about God and religion:

42% – God is male

1% – God is female

38% – God is neither male nor female

9% – God has arms, legs, a head, and other human body parts

48% – God has a body, but not necessarily a human body

27% – God does not have a body

29% – God has full control over everything

50% – God closely observes everything, but does not intervene

6% – God pays no attention to what is happening on Earth

53% – Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe in the same God, but pray differently

42% – The Bible is the actual words of God

37% – The Bible is affiliated to God, but should not be taken literally

14% – The Bible was written by people

56% of US residents are Protestant, 28% are Catholic, 2% are Jews, and 1% are Muslims. 3% practice Hinduism, Buddhism, the Baha’i faith, and other religions. One out of ten is atheist.

My Comment: People’s relationship with God is no better off in other nations. Humanity has to undergo many more changes to begin to feel (or reveal) the Creator as He had planned. However, Kabbalah enables people to reveal Him quickly by changing under His influence. Then everything will become clear as day and all of our preconceptions about God will disappear.

We have made great progress in revealing the physical world, which is open to our perception. But we have made no progress regarding that which is concealed from us. When modern scientists, politicians, or businessmen talk about God, it’s clear that they are no different from Neanderthals who used to worship images, spirits, and the signs of the zodiac.

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A question I received: What should my attitude be towards the Holocaust? Also, being that the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” says that all of the nations could become Nazi regimes if Israel doesn’t fulfill its duty, and also given that everything in this world is pre-determined, how am I to feel anything but fear and hatred towards the Creator?

My Answer: See Baal HaSulam’s article “Matan Torah (The Revelation of Godliness)”: Kabbalah (the authentic Torah, Torah Emet,) was given to us in order to correct the egoistic desire “to fulfill only yourself” into the altruistic desire “to fulfill others.” Since the entire system of souls is built as a pyramid, similar to our physical body, the correction isn’t done by all the souls at the same time, but happens in a specific order. This order depends on the souls’ desire to break free from “pursuing things in order to receive.”

This concealed desire to reveal the Creator is called “the point in the heart.” The heart is all of a person’s desires, and the point in the heart is the desire for the Creator. This is how parts of the souls unite together and – within their unity – reveal the Creator. This is referred to as the “Reception of the Torah” (revelation of the Light, the Creator).

Also, see Baal HaSulam’s article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Receiving the method of correction (Torah or Kabbalah) is only the initial stage in the general correction of all the souls. Hence, the corrected part must fall into the common egoism, intermix with the uncorrected part – the rest of humanity, so together they can become corrected.

In addition, see Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to the Book of Zohar (item70)“: When egoism becomes revealed as evil in the world as a whole, this is the beginning of the period of the revelation of Kabbalah, the method of the entire world’s correction. But because this method is still in the possession of the group of people who have used it – the people of Israel, they must master it and pass it on to all the nations of the world. The destiny of the people of Israel and of the entire world depends only on this. When the method is not passed on in time, then all kinds of problems appear in the world – aggression, wars, extermination, and so on, including the Holocaust.

You cannot justify the Creator because the degree of the righteous (one who justifies the Creator) is still far above you. Therefore, I can understand what you are feeling, though I do not feel the same way.

Related News Story (from Associated Press): Israel’s chief rabbinate severed ties yesterday with the Vatican to protest a papal decision to reinstate a bishop who publicly denied that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

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