On April 22, 2008 a rather negative review of the book Meeting Kabbalah, published in Hebrew by the Bnei Baruch organization, appeared in Israel’s most elite newspaper, Ha’aretz. Meeting Kabbalah is a collection of my talks with Israeli writers, actors, musicians, singers and social activists.

When we asked the newspaper’s editorial staff about the negative review, its reviewer, Tomer Persiko, responded with five questions, in which he disagreed with our statements. Here they are:
1. You assert that all methods besides Kabbalah are based on lowering a person. Have you tried all these methods? If not, then what are you basing your statements on?
2. You insist that Kabbalah has existed since the times of Abraham, but modern researchers say that it was founded in the thirteenth century and their works confirm this. Do you have proof of your opinion?
3. You insist that The Book of Zohar was written by Rashbi in the second century CE, while modern researchers say that it was written by a group of Kabbalists under the guidance of Rabbi Moshe de Leon in the thirteenth century, and they produce proof of their assertions. Do you have proof of your assertions?
4. You assert that Kabbalah is a science, but in what sense is it a science if it is based on metaphysical assumptions (for example, the existence of the Sefirot), whose existence cannot be proven?
5. You insist that “the only way a person can reach a connection with the Creator is through a group,” meaning – a Kabbalistic group under your leadership. But you are not willing to accept homosexuals into your group, and advise them to reach a connection with the Creator on their own. How can you respond to this contradiction?

How would you respond to these five questions?

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A question I received: Who are these “Kabbalists of Jerusalem” you often refer to in your lessons?

My Answer: The answer appears in Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to the Book ‘From the Mouth of a Sage’.” Here is a version I have abbreviated:

Kabbalists say that every person is obligated to study Kabbalah. And even if one has learned every detail of the Torah and is the greatest of the righteous in the world, but he did not study Kabbalah, he will have to return to this world in order to study Kabbalah.

It is because the revealed Torah is no more than a preparation for mastering its concealed part, the attainment of similarity to the Creator. And if a person hasn’t attained this goal, he will have to return and attain it. Hence, the entire nation is absolutely obligated to study Kabbalah, the means to attain this goal.

Our generation is at the beginning of the full correction, which is being delayed because people neglect the study of Kabbalah. There are several reasons for this: The language it’s written in is difficult, the material is disorganized, people are illiterate, and they are concerned with materialistic fulfillment. In order to accelerate the correction, the Creator has revealed the method needed for correction, through me.

But Light becomes revealed from darkness, and this is what happened when I moved from Warsaw to Jerusalem. I saw the poverty of the nation, the scarcity of knowledge, and the pride of fools who assert that the science of Kabbalah is absolutely devoid of reason, knowledge, and logic, that it is just a collection of words without any concealed meaning, words that should only be uttered just the way they are written. And when those who study the literal meaning of the texts increase in number, the Messiah will come and the correction will be complete.

I have met with these famous “Kabbalists.” They have spent many years studying the works of the Ari and The Zohar, and they know what’s written there by heart! I asked them: Did their teacher attain the inner essence? They responded that there is no inner essence besides what’s written, and that no one in the entire line of Kabbalists since the Ari has attained anything. And the Ari also didn’t attain the Upper One, but received his knowledge from the prophet Elijah, who appeared to him and taught him. And Elijah knew the inner part because he was an angel.

So I poured all my wrath unto them and parted with them forever.

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A question I received: I would like to understand the meaning of the sacred name HaVaYaH: the beginning of the letter Yod, the letter Yod, and the rest of the letters in their order. How do they designate the Sefirot in our Kelim and in the worlds, and how does all this relate to Malchut both in the spiritual world and in our world, in our souls from Nefesh to Yechida?

My Answer: The letters and the Sefirot are the same thing. There is nothing besides the desire and the Light that created and fills it. Everything else is a designation of their mutual states. The framework of the spiritual desire is the five-level desire, whose last level constitutes the final desire.

It’s the same with us: The desire forms until we start perceiving and realizing it. It must go through four stages of development, beginning from the Light that begets it as a point, the beginning of the letter Yod, and then continuing along the four phases of the development of the HaVaYaH. Once the desire is formed, it starts reacting to the Light that begot it, and this is already the reversed HaVaYaH. [Read more →]

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A question I received: The information you present to the world is fascinating. Everyone in my family is Orthodox Christian, and I’ve read the Bible and the New Testament since childhood. My question is: Where is Jesus Christ in your science? This worries me most of all, and is the only thing about your method that raises a concern.

My Answer: He’s absent, because I only base my teaching on the three main Kabbalists: Rashbi (The Book of Zohar), the Ari, and Baal HaSulam (view his available works in English). Just like any other science, Kabbalah bears no relation to any religion. It is the physics of forces that are perceived and examined through our sixth sense – the corrected desire.

In contrast, religion speaks about carrying out certain actions and rituals in our world, rather than correcting one’s egoism by means of the Upper Light. However, all religions want this action attributed to them.

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A quote from The Book of Zohar – regarding Klipot, which can be either harmful or helpful.

There are three Klipot, encompassing all kinds of Dinim (Judgments) and the Klipot in the worlds:
a) “Stormy wind,” regarding Malchut from the aspect of Din (Judgment) before being sweetened with Bina.
b) “Big cloud,” regarding Dinim that are revealed in the left line, when they illuminate without the integration of the right.
c) “Burst of flames,” regarding the Dinim de Malchut which ascended to Bina.

All the types of calamities and punishments that befall Israel, are from these three Klipot. [Read more →]

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A question I received: When disseminating Kabbalah in Arabic, should we hide the fact that Kabbalah is the Jews’ “property,” so to speak, so that we don’t arouse antipathy and repel them from it? What will Arabs in Israel and the world think about people who disseminate Kabbalah? How do you think we should disseminate to them?

My Answer: We have to disseminate Kabbalah in the whole world, to all nations. We are all children of the Creator, and we received this wisdom at a time when we were all one human race in Ancient Babylon. At that time, there was a sudden outburst of egoism, and one man, a Babylonian priest named Abraham, researched this phenomenon and discovered what was causing it.

Egoism, as Abraham found, was the cause of disharmony among people, and it had to keep evolving in humanity, constantly and gradually, through four phases (HaVaYaH), until reaching its maximum level, from the year 1995 and on. Humanity would then start finding out that egoism is an evil distinct from us, and would desire to eradicate it.

At that time, people would need the method of correcting egoism, and this is what Abraham had discovered all those years ago. This method is called “Kabbalah.” During his life, Abraham organized only a small group of students who adopted and practiced this method, and this group developed throughout history until the time when the method would be needed by everyone – the 21st century.

Throughout its history, this group went through many ascents and descents and collided with the nations of the world, in order to adapt the method to their evolving egoism. And this all took place in order to realize Kabbalah in our era. Now is the time for Kabbalah to be disseminated to the whole world, and applied by by those same ancient Babylonians who have settled all over the Earth since the time of Abraham.

The Zohar explains the collision between Jews and Arabs today, and these events prove the book’s authenticity. Bnei Baruch maintains a large website in Arabic. Its students include Israeli Arabs as well as Arabs from all the Arabic countries, and we receive many letters and questions from them.

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A question I received: Is it possible to publish the Torah with an explanation of its inner meaning, the Sulam commentary? Many people I know say: “I only know the Torah of Moses. I don’t know The Book of Zohar, only Moses. I don’t know Rashbi, the Ari, or Baal HaSulam, only Moses, and I read his Torah every day.” The problem is that they read a beautiful tale without the inner meaning. Is it possible to publish the Torah with explanations of its inner meaning beneath the text? Does such a thing exist? It would open the eyes and hearts of many!

My Answer: This won’t open anything up for anyone. About twenty or thirty years ago, people used to ask how Kabbalah explains different excerpts from the Torah. Lured by these commentaries, they came to learn Kabbalah – myself included.

However, today people want to know about themselves, and they don’t care about what’s written in the Torah. One considers one’s own soul as being more important. In the past, people were interested in theoretical problems, but today, they are interested in practical problems, the problems of survival.

Thus, we should speak to people directly, and not confuse them with beautiful phrases. We should succinctly explain causes and their effects, get straight to the point, and tell people how they can change their lives in a way that everyone will understand. I dismiss those who set their terms and say, “I only want to hear it this one way.” Let them receive a few more blows of fate, and then they’ll feel the approaching disaster, the suffering, and will come without setting any terms. A hungry person is ready to eat anything, and doesn’t ask for a menu.

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The image on the right is a page from a Latin translation of The Zohar, ascribed to Isaac Newton.

In the book, The Religion of Isaac Newton, Frank E. Manuel wrote that “Isaac Newton was convinced that Moses possessed the knowledge of all scientific secrets.” Dr Seth Pancoast wrote that “Isaac Newton was led to the discovery of physical laws (forces of gravitation and repulsion) through the study of Kabbalah.”

A Latin translation of The Book of Zohar (Kabbalah Denudata), was found in Newton’s library, and is currently kept at the Trinity College in Cambridge. Isaac Newton based his scientific research on philosophical principles. In particular, Newton wrote: “In my books I laid down the principles of philosophy that are not purely philosophical, but also mathematical, which can serve as the basis for discussing physical matters. So that they don’t seem fruitless, I accompanied them with some physical explanations” (Newton I., Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1686, V. 3, “The System of the World,” p. 501).

* 5 Things You Should Know About The Zohar
* Download The Zohar

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An article in this month’s Current Biology magazine has Justin Marshall from the University of Queensland, Australia, describing how stomatopod crustaceans can see circularly polarized light. While the human eye has three types of “color” photoreceptors, they have twelve types of visual receptor cells. A human being perceives light as color (the length of the wave) and brightness. Then there are bees, which perceive linearly polarized light, and as such, see things that we cannot. Moreover, the stomatopod crustaceans perceive circularly polarized light, and see other things altogether.

This is a good example of how limited we are in our perception of the world around us. We cannot perceive a characteristic like polarization, and we don’t know what else is around us that we cannot see. Such an example is one of many that supports what The Book of Zohar says: that there is a World of Infinity around us, and we only perceive as much of it as our sensory organs allow us to.

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News Story: Fungus devastates wheat

A NEW strain of a major fungal disease in wheat is wiping out crops across Africa and Asia, sparking fears that manufacturers will be forced to pay even more for the vital commodity.

Scientists are currently battling against the Ug99 strain of stem rust, which first originated in East Africa.

Bakery firms across the globe are already suffering because of the rocketing cost of wheat, blamed on a variety of reasons including increased demand from emerging markets and biofuels.

In the past, stem rust was generally controlled in the region by using wheat specifically cultivated to be resistant to the disease; however, the new strain is “particularly vigilant,” scientist Lesley Boyd told British reporters.

My Response: The Book of Zohar states that if we, in our era, do not correct ourselves, if we don’t try to become all-giving and all-loving like Nature, then Nature will make us become like it against our will. Nature will affect us through our negative connection with it, bringing upon us hunger, natural disasters, wars, epidemics, and so on.
But Nature (or, the Creator) doesn’t want us to suffer; it doesn’t affect us with the aim of makng us suffer. On the contrary, we get such treatment as a result of our failure to take our evolution into our own hands. For instance, what we would forgive in a child is not necessarily the same as what we would forgive in a grownup. Today, we are mature enough to feel our opposition to Nature (the Creator), and this is so that we can achieve balance with it (called “similarity with the Creator”). However, our aim determines everything. The moment we make a turn toward correction (similarity with the Creator), everything will change. We would be to Nature as a child who wants to show her parents how much she wants to be good. Now you should be able to see the importance of spreading Kabbalah throughout the world.

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