What Does A Kabbalist See?

Question: In the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam writes that all of the worlds are identical in all of their details. What does this mean?

Answer: The whole world is like a copy of the higher world. The material is different, the intentions are different, the fulfillment and the essence are different, but it is a copy of the upper world with the characteristics of the lower.

Suppose there is a flower in our world and there is a “flower” in the upper world. A “flower” in the upper world is a collection of characteristics that have a connection between them resulting in a flower in our world.

A Kabbalist who opens the upper world, opens his eyes, and begins to see this connection. And in accord with the inner picture of our world that is found in him, he begins to attain the upper world and sees the roots of this worldview. He sees that a flower in the lower world is a result of a gathering of particular forces in the upper world, which he is now discovering. In such a manner he has the “branch” and “root,” the “root” above, the “branch” below, and the connection between them.

So the Kabbalist looks at the unique gathering of these forces in the upper world that results in a flower in our world. He calls them by the names of flowers, for example, a “rose” with its thorns and leaves. He understands what to call these things. Otherwise he would have no possibility of doing this.

The language of the branches comes from this. Without it, the Kabbalists couldn’t talk about the upper world, where there are only forces. In order to exchange insights between them, Kabbalists don’t require a language, for they are themselves included in these forces and activate them. But in order to transmit their attainments from generation to generation and to teach, they need the language of the branches. This language is very precise, for they know every root for every branch in this world, and since it has a name, it is clear to them what to call the root.

For us this is a problem. When we open books of Kabbalah, we see that everything is written in our materialistic language. This confuses us and we begin to think it is talking about our world. But the Kabbalists are not relating to this world in any way. Only the physical sciences are involved with this world.

Question: Are there roots in the upper world for all the branches in our world?

Answer: Yes. For everything that exists in our world there are roots in the upper world, but they are unknown to us. One could ask this differently: Are there many more roots in the upper world that have no branches in our world? No, for every root there is a branch in our world. There is no Light or phenomenon in Olam Ein Sof(the World of Infinity) that doesn’t reach the lowest point of this world.

In our world, the Kabbalist even sees the Light that is working within the material, whereas we only see the wrapping, the substance. Whereas he sees the Light, the energy that activates all of the components of the substance, he sees the intention of the creation, the goal of creation, the thought of creation. So behind all of the faces, all of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, he sees the realization of thegoal of creation in each and every moment, either a bit more in the way of suffering “in its time” (Beito), or a bit more in the way of Light “I will hasten it” (Achishena). He sees how this world is constantly progressing, as if it is swinging on the balance.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/14, Writing Baal HaSulam

The Upper Sphere Of Nature

Question: What is the Creator according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the upper force ?

Answer: The Creator is the highest nature. Nature has many levels, and the uppermost level includes everything that we are able to discover with the help of all the sciences and the science of Kabbalah, which reveals the mechanism of force of bestowal. All this together is called the Creator.

Indeed, all this is under the control of the properties of Bina, the force of generalbestowal, which is called Elokim, the Creator. What else exists besides this is not known to us. The wisdom of Kabbalah gives a clear answer to this, as in any science: we do not know what is above the force of bestowal and are not able to reveal this.

Maybe it is only a temporary restriction. Generations are advancing one after the other, revealing and correcting nature. Perhaps, after we correct the entire reality and reach the end of correction of all generations, new opportunities will be open to us.

But for the time being, we do not have the slightest contact with what is above the quality of bestowal. Perhaps, nature exists there in different ways that we, due to our structure, are not able to understand and feel. When we reach the end of correction, then we can talk about what is next. Kabbalists hint at this slightly in their books, but we still cannot understand them.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Formation Of The Human Image

A human being is created by two forces, the force of giving and the force of receiving, which are combined. This interaction and interdependence between them and their combination provide us with images of the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and man, as well as their external and internal attributes.

The stronger the egoistic forces are and the higher their frequency, the more information they include and the greater their ability to act mutually. Accordingly, many new phenomena occur. We see how the world that developed cybernetic systems and computer systems can fully transcend to a virtual reality.

Soon we will be able to synthesize any product we want from elementary building blocks, from atoms. If we wish only to do this correctly, we will not even have to extract them from nature.

We will have the ability to reach these levels of technology where the mere combination of plus and minus, of an electron and a proton, of the positive and negative particles, will enable us to create anything we want. But the question is how we will format our thoughts in that way. Everything other than our thoughts, other than the human being in us, will be in our control.

There is nothing in nature but these two forces—the negative and the positive—and all the micro elements are a result of these forces. Everything is based on the right combinations between them: one force supports the other and exposes it in mutual bestowal. This is how a person’s body, appearance, and attributes are made..

There is a part in TES  (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) called “The 13 Corrections ofDikna (beard).” This hair isn’t just another layer since in animals in can appear in different forms like fish scales, shells, feathers, etc.

On the whole, there are external forces that stem from our body and take on the form of hair or open surfaces that are not covered by hair, especially on a person’s face.

This depends on the exit of the Light of Hochma, the Light of knowledge, of revelation, and also on the exit of the Light of Hassadim, the Light of correction and even concealment. The mutual combination between them, the revelation and the concealment, is what forms our face and defines the area where the hair grows on it.

Why does hair grow on a man’s face and not on a woman’s face? Why does a man’s hair have different forms on the head, sideburns, a mustache, a split mustache, the lower part of the beard, the upper part of the beard, etc?

All these attributes result from the interaction between the two forces, which is very important since the head, our microprocessor, is where all problems are solved. Therefore, we are told in TES about these two forces and about the interaction between them. The problems that are described in the Torah with regard to hair and the problems of hair loss, why women have to cover their hair, and why men are allowed to cut the hair on their head but not their beard, mean that all these habits are accurately based.

Question: Why do only men have a beard and a mustache and not women?

Answer: It is because a man performs corrections. The word “hair” –“Se’arot” stems from the Hebrew word “stormy” – “Sauer,” which means excited and ready to act. This attribute is expressed in men by moving forward by revelations, studying, and attainment. Women are more static.

Therefore, both men and women have hair on their head and only men have hair that flows downward. What is more, the upper part of the beard spreads to the chest and the lower part all the way to the waist.

The custom of not cutting one’s beard exists in all the religions because it is taken from the Old Testament.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/20/14

Live According To The Mind Or According To Love

Question: The holiday of Chanukah begins, reminding us of the victory of the Maccabees in the war with the Greeks. What does their opposition mean in a deeper sense?

Answer: “The Greeks” is my desire to enjoy; my egoism that tells me: “Listen, you need to rely on logic and instinct. We have to live by the mind, and you have it. You can arrange life rationally, evaluating and weighing every opportunity. Be like everyone else.”

This is the Greek approach. It is  correct and good, everyone likes it, and there is nothing to argue against. It is true that the world cannot realize it because our life is far from paradise. However, we simply have no other tools that are clear, true, logical, backed by science and psychology, based on a solid foundation, and understood by sense and reason.

But there is another approach: the “Maccabean.”

“No,” say the Maccabees, “we do not want to live in this way. We want to live by the laws that Abraham laid as the foundation of the Jewish people, the principle of love for the other as for oneself. This is what we must achieve.”

The Greek in me replies to this: “To be honest, you are one hundred percent right.”

But wait, how so? After all, he just stated the opposite. It turns out that the both are right?

“Yes,” my Greek continues, “I would, of course, like to live according to love. But this is an unattainable utopia. Do you have a pill, which if swallowed, would ensure all the people of the earth will love each other? Can you impose unity, mutual help, mutual care, mutual guarantee, and equality everywhere? Are you able to make everyone friends?”

Thus, the problem of the Maccabees is that they are irrational and unrealistic. The same is said about the wisdom of Kabbalah: “Why is it needed? It is better to achieve real success in life. A slight interest in high matters might be useful, but to give them all of my life is too much. It isn’t logical.”

That’s why the Maccabees are initially small and weak. They have nothing that will convince me. A tiny Maccabee is hidden within me and a strong Greek is comfortably settled.  What should I do? What war will occur between them?

But I receive an answer that tells me: “Even if you give up the external picture, internally you understand that there is no other way, we need to achieve full unity, which is love, so that then you will start to build the appropriate group. In it, you will attract the Light, which is a special force that is inherent in nature that you can use. You have only a small spark, but nature has a huge Light, and you can attract it to yourself.”

Then you will see that the whole world was just a theater of illusion. It will fade and dissolve; like in Hollywood movies, it will vanish and be gone. Indeed, the whole picture was imaginary.

However, this will happen under the condition that you join your spark, your candle, with the great Light that fills the world. And in order to feel the need for this, you must makeefforts that are contrary to your own mind.

Question: How could I explain this to my family who are far from such thoughts when the Chanukah candles are being lit? How can they be introduced, even a little bit, to this understanding?

Answer: The Maccabees won the war against the invaders because they became united. They went to the people and managed to bring it to unity.

Therefore, it is not necessary for us to bring calls for unity during war, when it is already happening. No, we must unite now and then there will be no war. By this we will neutralize all the evil forces.

So, let’s unite. What harm could there be? None. We need only to apply a little effort. That is what Chanukah tells us: by uniting, we will win our greatest victory.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/14, Writings of Rabash

Choose The Best Way

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that the person can discover the entire system within which he exists while found in this life, in this world. In this world we can exist like all of the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate and not be different from it. We come into this world, live for a designated time, and disappear. We come and we disappear, like all animals, for we also belong to the animal kingdom.

But we can attain the higher level that controls us, manages us at every moment in our lives. Orders and decisions are born on that level that descend into this world and manage us. Suddenly we get thoughts and desires and act in different ways. We don’t know what will be born today. Suddenly we meet people, are involved in various events that we ourselves didn’t initiate. That is what happens at every moment.

Kabbalists explain that all of this was planned from the start. There are people who even feel these situations in advance. It is clear to us that we don’t plan them. But this is concealed from us so much that it seems to me that there is freedom of choice, that I am free to do whatever I want and that nothing is limiting me. And if nobody around me is limiting me, so where do the thoughts come to me from, from where are desires awakened? I don’t know. I simply want, I think, and that’s it.

All of this comes from the system in which we are found and all of us are linked together. This system constantly makes calculations about how to bring us to a higher level of development called the Creator. It is called this because it is above us and all orders, all thoughts, desires, and circumstances descend to us from there.

Throughout history there were a multitude of people who discovered this higher level and told us about what is happening. This higher level wants us to ascend to it so that we will grow from the animal level to the level of Adam (Man). A man is someone who has a head, who doesn’t get desires from above and from the environment, who feels with heart and mind, but molds them himself from an understanding of the general system.

It is up to us to reach this state. And so we enter into a state in which all of us include not only ourselves but the whole of nature, the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate. And it is up to us to take account of all of humanity in all of its generations from the past and the future and also the various states that are found beyond our short individual lives. And this short life becomes something unimportant. After all, the person who begins to rise and to be integrated into the enormous system sees that it is infinite, unlimited. This is the goal of our development that we must attain.

That is how nature is built that brings us to this development. We discover the process, and the discovery of the process is called the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The question is, how can we discover the entire system in which we exist so as not to get bad thoughts and desires that push us in various directions from it, but to discover within ourselves the good thoughts and desires that are useful for advancement so that we will develop in the best, most convenient and shortest way? What is the difference between these two forms of development?

The difference is that in the first way we receive our orders from nature; we develop through suffering, discovering all the time what we are missing and feeling dissatisfaction and suffering, and we are forced to search for the best way. It always happens that we feel a blow and after that something good, and again a blow and again the good. This is escaping from blows; this is the way of suffering.

But if we advance by way of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we ourselves look for how to advance, we shape a future state among us that is better, and we ourselves scrutinize what is good and what is bad. We don’t need to get the deficiency through blows; rather, we clarify it among ourselves and advance without prior suffering, in a rapid way. For we ourselves discover the deficiencies and the fulfillment, and that is how we advance in a wonderful and beautiful way.
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From the Convention In Colombia “Day Two” 7/26/14, Lesson 1

A Place For Effort

Question: All of our efforts throughout the day, other than the morning lesson, are mixed because they are arranged in circles for both men and women. I have a feeling that in general the women are not felt in these circles, they become “as delicate as a dandelion”….

Answer: You don’t feel the female ego? But why should it be discovered? There is no such Mitzvah to be a big egoist. On the contrary, if what you have is already corrected, it means that you are a spiritual person. But if you don’t know what must be corrected in you, it means that you aren’t working on yourself, so the ego hasn’t been discovered in you.

Comment: An impression like this is created that among the women there is a lack of inner unity. Each one is for herself.

Answer: And who is hindering you? You are complaining that the ego hasn’t been discovered in you. But the Upper Light is what must reveal it, the same Light that influences you and from which you will feel yourself as a big egoist. This means that the ego is discovered when you invest effort.

So you must try to serve others more and more, work on unity, on helping. When you finish working on this level, they will show you that essentially you are a big egoist and have been doing all of this for your own sake.

In no way do we create negative actions or awaken negative thoughts or desires in ourselves. We advance forward and upward only, never backward and downward. We never do that. And after a person finishes work on the present level, the next level of ego always appears.

But if you don’t even feel the ego within you, then you remain on the previous level. This means that you are expending very little effort to make our group a single complete unit in your eyes.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 3

The Invigorating Power Of The Light

From At the End of Days. Jewish Predictions of Humanity’s Future, Chapter 1, “Signs Indicating Imminent Deliverance”: Messiah will not come until the strength of Israel expires.

In spiritual work, one has to be completely disillusioned about their ability to act independently and to determine things and events. Everything happens only with the help of the upper force.

Everyone will have to sense and realize that we don’t have anything to do with the action of correction. Even though we may plan for certain actions, we are not involved with them because we are influenced by the upper force that descends and corrects us.

We contribute our efforts only to realize that this process is way beyond us. The force that descends to us from the next level has nothing to do with us.  The sensation that it is impossible to act on our own, is in fact, a reward for our exertions.

Our full awareness that it is the upper force that has complete impact upon us is the basic condition of being under its influence. Its power is ultimately important since it speaks of a new stage, the next level.

Comment: It is a very cruel and painful condition.

Answer: On the contrary, it is very joyous since we feel it as deliverance. We get rid of the responsibility to plan and calculate events that take place in our lives.

Question: Am I freed of worries about myself?

Answer: No, you stop worrying about yourself long before you attain this state. You simply feel a desire that is absolutely incapable to act on its own as if it’s inanimate, dead matter.

Only with regard to the next state, which you define as spiritually dead, are you able to turn into clay in the sculptor’s hands. Only the Creator can transition us to the next step and give us water that brings life. The land (desire) is dead without water (the Light of Hassadim). When it happens, you’ll be revived and will transition to the next step.
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From KabTV’s “Will the Messiah Come?” 11/14/14

The Evil Inclination, For The Good Of Others

Question: The “Song of Songs” was written by King Solomon, the wisest of men, from his knowledge and awareness of all of nature. Why did he choose the form of a romance between a man and awoman for his story?

Answer: We simply have no other words. Only with a language like this can we describe our good attitude towards someone. What other words can I find if I want to fulfill someone, to connect with him, to hug, to kiss? I yearn to be closer to him, constantly adding and replenishing good. This is what is called love. Love is a general expression of caring for a person.

Question: The love described here is love between a person and whom?

Answer: It is for everyone. It is for all of the reality that I feel outside of me. Previously I looked at reality with a desire to swallow everything, whereas now it is as if I have put on glasses. I acquire a new attitude and look at the environment with a desire to fulfill and complete everything. I want everyone to feel goodness, pleasure, and additional enjoyment in life from me. That is what is called loving.

So at every moment in life, infinite possibilities and opportunities open before us. If I enjoy the pleasure that others have when I give them pleasure, then my life is fulfilled. What a person must think about is: What is the meaning of life? What do I enjoy, who do I give enjoyment to? These questions bring him out to the level of Adam - Man (from the word “Domeh” – similar), for he wants to resemble the totality of nature, which is called the Creator.

Question: King Solomon describes the connection with these words: His left hand would be under my head, and his right hand would embrace me. (Song of Songs 8:3). What is this saying?

Answer: Connection is made through two forces that exist within us, a negative force and a positive force. The negative force, the force from the left, is my unfulfilled desires and foreign needs, a yearning to exploit others. In contrast to this I must complete and fulfill the other through the positive force of bestowal, which is the force from the right. It follows that I hold onto the other through my negative feelings and fulfill and complete him through the positive feelings. Embracing and fulfillment is possible only through both “hands.”

If there were no evil inclination, I wouldn’t be able to feel the other at all. By nature, the still, vegetative, and animate don’t feel others. They only feel themselves: I must devour someone to be satisfied, but if this is good or bad for the victim, I don’t know.

Our evil inclination is built such that we feel when we do something bad to other people. I want to diminish others, to dominate them, to be smarter, more confident, and richer. At least something, but I want to be more: I feel pleasure and satisfaction if others are less than I am.

The ability to feel the other as close to oneself can develop other characteristics in me that lead to the correct use of my nature. It is specifically about this that the words, “His left hand would be under my head” are intended: I hold the other by wanting to understand what he is missing, but with a good relationship towards him already. I use my evil inclination to learn and explore the desires of others, and after that, “and his right hand would embrace me” (embracing him with the right hand).

Question: But if I want to discover and know what he is missing in order to fulfill and complete him, why is this evil? This is good!

Answer: To begin with, the evil inclination arouses and pushes me to check what the other has and to take it from him, to feel pleasure that he has lost it. It doesn’t matter if I have it; the important thing is that he doesn’t. The correction begins with feeling something that the other is missing: I don’t enjoy his not having something, rather that I complete it.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/28/13

Now Is The Time For A Complete Revision

In the process of human development, each new state initially is perceived as good and desirable and we are pleased to enter into it. But then, gradually shortcomings existing within it are revealed and it ceases to please us. Over time, it gets worse and worse until it ends in a revolution, a struggle to move to the next stage.

We are now in this transition period. We need to make an audit of our entire previous development on the still, vegetative, and animate degrees, subject it to critical analysis and a general check to see that all this development did not work in our favor.

It was just the evolution of our egoism that made us continuously improve our material life and build systems that were able to fulfill it more and more. But it never made us happy because in the end, egoism always devoured all the fruits of our efforts, once again leaving us with nothing and an even greater sense of inner emptiness.

Having received a hundred, it is not content and wants two hundred, having received two hundred, it wants four hundred. It is a natural tendency and we will never be able to limit our egoistic appetite. It all ends when a person dies without satisfying even half of his aspirations. He never gets what he coveted, even at the end of his life.

Humanity must reveal the insignificance of its egoistic development. First of all, we need to clarify that this development was required and that we now have the opportunity to get out of the material plane and develop in a completely different direction of reality. We must move upward to a new dimension and into the matrix that is not related to this world.

To do this, we need to change our tendencies. Instead of constant absorption, which is characteristic of our egoistic nature that begins with cells and atoms and seeks only to absorb more good things, it is necessary to go directly opposite in order to feel the whole universe that is related to us.

Each of us must feel that all the others are part of us. Thus, we will feel that the whole world is one integral system. In our time, the world began to move toward such a form, but in a negative manner, showing us our inability to exist in an integral system.

We see that we are unable to succeed in the economy, in the education of children, or in any other area of life. After all, we ourselves are structured completely opposite to this integral system and everyone just grabs and pulls towards themselves.

Nature presents us with a new reality. The cause of the current crisis in human society is hidden within it. We remain in our original egoistic nature, but the total integral system is beginning to unfold before us in which everyone is connected to everyone else.

This system cannot work in an environment where everyone grabs only for himself. On the contrary, in order for this system to exist so that can we exist within it, we have to feel it as part of ourselves.

So today we need the wisdom of Kabbalah, which will reveal this upper system, the force of bestowal to us. It will explain its nature and how to work with it. Whether we wish it or not, the train of evolution is carrying us forward and bringing us to a new station. We find ourselves in a completely new condition and suddenly discover that all the previous methods no longer work.

All the capitalistic laws, under which everyone pulled everything towards himself and everyone felt comfortable, do not work. We thought we could continue like that forever, but this does not work because the force of bestowal began to work in our world. And if we are not equipped with it, if are not able to understand and feel it, to learn and begin to work with this second force, then with every moment we will lose control over what is happening and suffer more and more setbacks in our lives.

Therefore, we must study the wisdom of Kabbalah that explains all of reality “that has emerged in the worlds and those that are destined to be revealed, and in all the manners that can ever appear in the worlds, to the end of time,” as Baal HaSulam writes.

There is a science, a technique, by which we can move forward on the basis of our real experiences and sensations. As it is said that the judge has only the facts that are before his eyes and that the phenomenon that has not been comprehended is impossible to describe.

In our hands are the real tools for understanding reality. We have never had such an opportunity to see our future with confidence. Our present lives are arranged so that no one can know what the next moment brings him. The wisdom of Kabbalah gives us the opportunity not only to learn this, but also to control our own destiny. Today’s reality obliges us to do so.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Hanukkah Is The Holiday Of Light Inside Us

When a person correctly arranges the three qualities inside him called “candle,” “oil” and “wick,” he reaches a state called “Hanukkah,” which comes from the words “Hanu Ko” – “stop here.” He thus reaches a short breather in the middle of the path.

The “oil” is our matter, the will to enjoy, the contents of the vessel or Kli. It is unable to light up on its own using the Light we attract from outside. It can only light up with the help of a wick. The wick has to be immersed in the oil, but a part of it has to reach outside, because the wick symbolizes the screen that we build outside our egoistic desire (outside the oil).

The only part of the egoistic desire that is able to shine (to be in contact with the Upper Light) is the part we are able to include inside the screen. Stated differently, only the oil that has saturated the wick can be lit up. This can only happen under the condition that the oil does not just permeate the wick, but also rises above the level of the rest of the oil (egoism), rising towards Bina – the Light, bestowal. Only then will it be able to shine!

The Light emanates from the upper end of the wick, the place where the wick comes outside and loses contact with the oil, egoism. The Reflected Light is the fire that ascends from below upwards, there attaining Keter of the ten Sefirot of the Reflected Light. At that point there is hardly any connection between the Reflected Light and the force of the desire to receive, egoism, which provides the power for the burning to take place. The oil ascends upwards along the wick, and that is the only place where contact is achieved, or equivalence of form between the oil in the wick and the Light. They can only shine together. The Light cannot manifest until it connects with the wick and the oil inside it.

By imagining a burning candle, we can understand the inner work of a person on the spiritual path and what we have to do in order for our soul to attain equivalence with the Light, the Creator. The desire does not disappear; rather, it must be entirely attached to the screen, the wick. From it we create the middle line inside us, to the degree we are able to bring the oil (desire) inside the wick.

The screen can include only a small part of the desire. The wick symbolizes this shaft, the thin line that is the measure of similarity between our desire and the Light. The screen, or the middle line, is built from these two forces – the oil and the wick, the right and the left lines. The right line is bestowal and Light, and the left line is reception, the oil. The middle line, which we create from the two Upper Qualities of reception and bestowal, is called the soul.

The Miracle Of Hanukkah

A miracle is a connection that I don’t understand between an action and a result; it is when my action suddenly causes a completely unlikely but great result. This is the meaning of the verse, “I labored and found.” We have to make efforts during the studies and try to find everything that is being discussed inside us. But what we find will be completely unexpected, even though we talk about it and wait for it to happen. When we receive it,  we will be shocked at how unable we were to correctly imagine this finding! That is why we call it a miracle.

What is the vessel of oil that I have to light up? It refers to qualities that I have to find inside myself. The oil is my will to enjoy. I have to understand how to light it, how to create a new wick in it using my efforts so the wick would come to the outside. The wick is my opposition to using my desire directly, to receive for my own sake; I want to use it in an equivalent manner as the Light. That is why I bring a wick out of the desire which includes a bit of my will to receive, but only as much as I am able to make similar to the Light and to cancel my egoism. I am ready to use it up for the sake of others.

For now I am only willing to bestow a thin, small wick. And I constantly have to check to make sure that I am not doing this for my own sake. I constantly think that I attained this, but it turns out that I did not. This happens over and over again because I constantly reveal new egoistic desires within me. That is how I gradually discern all of them until I finally create a wick inside me – a thin line (Kav Dak) of my desires, spanning from me to the Creator. The upper extreme or quality of this wick is similar to the Light, and that’s why it lights up. The darkness then shines as Light.

If I can imagine this state within me, within my desires and qualities, that means I am already in it. This signifies the arrival of Hanukkah, the holiday of Light. A small candle ignites in me, and inside my enormous egoistic desire, there is a tiny part where bestowal lights up.

This part of the desire longs to enjoy together with the Light that is able to shine in it, and it is called my soul. It is very small for now, but as I continue to correct my huge desire, I gradually turn all of it to Light.

All of our spiritual work lies in finding all of these qualities inside us.

Kabbalah Is The Wisdom Of The Upper Reality

From Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”: What is the wisdom of Kabbalah? As a whole, the wisdom of Kabbalah concerns the revelation of Godliness, arranged on its path in all its aspects—those that have emerged in the worlds and those that are destined to be revealed, and in all the manners that can ever appear in the worlds, to the end of time.

There are many definitions for the wisdom of Kabbalah, but they all come down to the fact that it teaches a person how to reveal the upper force, the one force of nature. It is called one because it includes all the other forces of nature within it. It is the general force that includes all of nature together with everything that exists within it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah reveals the general system to a person, the general force in all the different manners and influences that it has on what is under its control.

We must distinguish between the part of the force that belongs to us that we can reveal, and the part that doesn’t belong to us. We don’t even know what else is going on in another reality that isn’t ours.

This means that the wisdom of Kabbalah is a practical wisdom like physics, chemistry and all the natural sciences, and it can therefore help us discover only what is accessible to us. We cannot imagine, or call by name, a reality that we cannot feel.

We can understand the fact that the upper force also exists externally to us and that we cannot feel it using our senses. But our attainment is only what is and can be dressed in our vessels, in our senses.

The wisdom of Kabbalah develops new senses within us in addition to the five corporeal senses we were born with: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. We can call these five senses animate, since they belong to the animate level in which our physical body exists.

But we can also develop new senses in addition to them, which are called: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. These senses don’t work in the form of receiving and absorbing, but in the form of giving.

The force of bestowal doesn’t belong to us at all and we cannot perceive it, but we can develop in us such an attribute to receive it from above. It is then we will have a second force, a force of bestowal in addition to the force of receiving.

The force of bestowal is actually the upper force. We acquire this upper force of bestowal from the Creator and are then given the ability to work with two forces. We can resemble the Creator by using the force of bestowal, and then we can understand, feel, and begin to discover reality in the attribute of bestowal. This is the goal of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

We then rise above the still, vegetative, and animate levels in which we have developed in this world and transcend to a new level that is called the next world. We begin to perceive the new reality of the next world in the attribute of bestowal to the extent that we acquire it.

This opportunity is given to people who are attracted to it. Eventually, all of humanity has to reach this state, which is called “you shall see your world during your lifetime.” Then a person will be able to perceive and feel, in his senses, everything that happens in the whole reality.

This is the reason that Baal HaSulam says that “as a whole, the wisdom of Kabbalah concerns the revelation of Godliness,” the upper force of bestowal which sustains all of nature, “arranged on its path in all its aspects—those that have emerged in the worlds and those that are destined to be revealed, and in all the manners that can ever appear in the worlds, to the end of time.”

Therefore anyone who receives just a touch and an attraction to such a revelation can reveal all of reality in every way and by every possible means, above time, motion, place, and above all the limitations. It is because the force of bestowal is limitless.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Era Of Universal Calming

When we, the Jewish people, publicly declare our mission, nations will cease pressuring us and will give us time and the opportunity to perform the mission. Moreover, they will come to help us as much as possible, saying, “Just tell us what to do. We are ready.”

Question: Why has this mission been hidden from us for so long? If we had known about it, then maybe we would have realized it in life a long time ago.

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah has remained hidden intentionally because we had to be immersed in the nations of the world. We are talking about a large-scale, highly complex program. We fell from the degree of love into unfounded hatred and this degree is invisibly rooted within us.

Thus, going into exile among the nations of the world, and not knowing how, we affect them and form all sorts of connections. Our contribution is still to be manifested, especially as the ten lost tribes are contributing for the first time since the time of the First Temple.

Therefore, as it is said, war, terrorism and all the miseries and misfortunes, come ultimately because of the Jews.

This means that it is necessary to unite with each other according to a special technique: in circles, in tens. We have already started the process, but this must be done on a large scale by all the people, among the Jews in Israel and abroad. Here and there, we have to lead the people to unity, as in the days of Abraham and the days of the First Temple. We have to rise to this height.

As soon as we start doing this, there will come a general calming, and no one will blame us. So, let’s try. It is in our hands to calm the world. Enemies that are standing today at the border and waiting to destroy us will disappear.

There will be no more anti-Semites and everyone will be in favor. After all, in the end, Israel starts to function properly and give the world what it should, as everyone states, “Finally, these Jews began to realize something that requires them to a higher law, a higher power.”

The fact is that unwittingly, the Jewish people have a special potential, which is the ability to change the world, reality, ourselves and humanity. It is entrusted to us.

We have received the methodology of Kabbalah, and today, according to The Book of Zohar and many Kabbalists, it is time for its revelation and realization. This is the only way to get rid of anti-Semitism, and in general, to correct ourselves and the world. This should happen in our generation, here and now.

Question: How will Israeli society look then?

Answer: The whole society will be united as one man with one heart. Everyone  will feel the eternal, perfect peace. Everyone will identify with the upper force and move into a future dimension that is entirely good.

Question: Is it a secular or religious approach?

Answer: Absolutely secular. It has nothing to do with religion. After all, religion is not engaged in the principle of “love your neighbor as self”; it does not nurture interconnection and love between people, especially on a global scale. Religion helps to keep local customs, traditions, and give a person different services, which of course, do not conflict with the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/25/14

Does God Exist?

Question: If the wisdom of Kabbalah is a science and not a religion, does that mean that you negate the existence of God?

Answer: I negate the existence of God in the sense that a religious person perceives Him as someone who exists as a corporeal figure.

God is the general attribute of love and bestowal that sustains the whole universe and all the worlds. It is the positive force (which the wisdom of Kabbalah calls Light) that created matter and develops this matter to resemble Him. This force is called God, or the Creator or the Upper, simply because He is higher than all the other forces.

Our mutual relations with that force are not based on the human principle that implies that God can feel sorry for, forgive, or punish us. We are dealing with a system of providence that perceives our actions and responds accordingly without any regret, mercy, etc.

It isn’t the God that religious people refer to when they cry and beg Him to be merciful and forgiving. We see that throughout history, our cries and our begging are useless because this isn’t what the system called the Creator demands of us.

The meaning of the word “God”- “Elokim” in Gematria (numerology) is equal in value to the word “nature – Teva,” since nature and God are the same thing.
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From KabTV’s “A Special Opinion” 8/17/14

Feeling Love And Not Oneself

Question: One of the verses of “The Song of Songs” contains these words: “I am sick of love.” Who is this woman talking about, herself?

Answer: If I relate to nature, to the entire reality with love, I start feeling from it warmth and a loving attitude. It embraces, caresses, protects, and surrounds me with pleasant, good waves that constantly support me.

In this way I talk not from the side of “man,” i.e., an attitude toward nature with love, but from the side of “woman,” receiving the attitude in response. Ultimately, we are talking about a person who feels himself giving and receiving.

He who fills is called a man. He who receives from the other in response is called a woman. It turns out that being in good relations to the world is called a man, and in receiving waves of warmth and love from the world is called a woman.

Question: It doesn’t matter whether I am a man or a woman?

Answer: Of course. We are talking about a person who corrected the evil inclination in himself and acquired the good inclination through group work and integral education.

Now, he is feeling bestowal and reception in relation to the whole of nature and to the entire humanity. This feeling brings him a sense of perfection and raises him above all the disadvantages so that the concepts of time, space, and motion disappear.

Question: What is “I am sick with love?”

Answer: A new sensation captures and fills him to such an extent that he does not feel himself. He feels love that fills him, but not himself receiving this love. He rises to the feeling of general nature, exits himself and he does not exist and is not present.

There is only a feeling of universal love. That is the point of his unity, adhesion, and higher connection with nature, with the Creator. The weakness lies in the fact that love rules.

Question: Why is it a disease?

Answer: When something comes from outside, fills me, and dominates me, this foreign power is called a disease. This is the expression of love that comes and fills me completely.

Question: But it is good to be sick with love?

Answer: True. Only it should be emphasized that there are no boundaries. You are under this foreign power on your own accord and due to the constant work that you perform with great efforts. You have reached this state, but as a result, you are in the power of love.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/28/14

If Young People Only Knew

Our world is divided into four categories: the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, not in material form, but in the spiritual realm. After all, what makes us different from animals? It is our inner essence, our internal development. However physiologically, we belong to the same animal world.

We need to get beyond the concepts of time, motion, and space that are inherent to the first three levels, the still, vegetative, animate, and live on the level of man. We do not comprehend this level as yet, but it is waiting for us.

Question: Looking at the past, at the end of their life, the elderly regret the time wasted in the futile race for material enjoyment. They begin to feel that the force that fills the world is the power of bestowal and love, and regret that they worked too hard and did not give enough time for children, family, and friends.

What do old people feel looking back and what is not disclosed to young people who still have their whole lives in front of them? What kind of practical wisdom do mature people acquire and therefore regret for time lost and which young people do not know about at the beginning of their lives?

Answer: Elders and young ones have a difference in the means of enjoyment and sources of pleasure. Young people think that the sources of pleasure are food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge, and everyone wants to achieve them. And the older people already understand that there is no real fulfillment in all of this.

There is a material fulfillment by food, sex, family, wealth, fame, knowledge, but the real fulfillment is only in good communication between people, in love and sincere relationships. They regret that they have not invested enough in order to achieve such an interconnection, and to enjoy it and delight others by it.

Therefore, integral education should provide people, not only with knowledge of this, but also with the proof, because young people do not want to listen. For them, their whole life now is to get as much enjoyment from those things programmed internally, such as food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge. In actuality, true pleasure does not depend on time and is not limited by space, but rather it depends on sincere relationships between people and love for others.

One feels a genuine fulfillment only when connected to other people, and the connection between them starts to reveal a sincere relationship and mutual bestowal.

Then they reveal a sense of eternal life in this context, and this is related to the level of man, which is above the animal level. This step is not in our world and we need to recognize it, build it, form it, and dwell therein. After all, it is not connected with our body, but is connected to a new awareness, a new matrix of perception.

Question: What do you advise a young man who wants to manage his time? What is the best thing he should do in life?

Answer: Take care of all necessities in material life and then dedicate the rest of the time towards the implementation of the spiritual level, the level of Man (Adam), which is bestowal and love.
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From the program “A New Life” 4/22/14

Uncontrollable Assimilations

Question: If the Jewish people begin to implement the Kabbalistic method, what will happen in the world? How will it affect anti-Semitism in the world?

Answer: Instead of feeling anti-Semitism, people will begin to treat us with sympathy, respect, and love. The nations of the world will carry us in their arms because we will provide them with the method for a perfect eternal life.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we should correctly work with our ego so that it will not be just an evil force but a help against us, a help that stems from its oppositeness. When we fulfill this work, we will attain the peak of our evolution.

Question: There are people who offer different solutions to the problem of anti-Semitism, like suggesting that all the Jews should come to Israel or on the contrary, assimilate among the nations. What can you say about that?

Answer: Nonsense. Such plans will not work. It is because nature itself is managing the whole process. Sooner or later we will have to discover the potential hidden in each of us and become teachers for all of humanity.

We will have to discover the wisdom of Kabbalah by which we will be able to restrain the ego so that we will be able to use it correctly. It is very powerful and can be very helpful when used correctly. Thus we will reach the good cause.

As for assimilation, it is useless, and we are incapable of it. On the contrary, we are yet to reunite with the ten lost tribes and we will see that they haven’t assimilated either. They will come from every corner of the world and will proclaim their Judaism.

Question: Do Jews really have a kind of a protective shield that guards them from complete assimilation?

Answer: Yes. It is because of the profound basic difference that is concealed in nature itself, in the inner Reshimot (reminiscences) that operate the Jews and the non-Jews. The Jewish Reshimo is actually found in the nations of the world as well, but it hasn’t as yet been revealed, and hasn’t started to speak with them as yet.

It isn’t by chance that Abraham turned to all the people in Babel and said, “Let’s live differently and base our relations on a new principle.” But those who followed him were those in whom this Reshimo, this inner element of unity, was already revealed. Those who didn’t hear the message were those in whom unity hadn’t yet awoken, and thus they remained in their ego.

Today however, we are very close to the revelation and recognition of the seriousness of the crisis we are in and the uniqueness of this abnormal global world. People will feel that they have to unite and that they cannot keep on living any other life but the life that is based on mutual unity into one whole.

Question: Can we say that anti-Semitism is a call and a demand coming from the world “to teach us how to keep on living?”

Answer: Of course. This is the real reason for it. The nations of the world are actually telling us openly that we have the key for a good life. We may ask how it is possible to blame us for all the troubles in the world, but this is what they feel and they cannot get rid of this feeling.

The nations of the world are totally dependent on us. Only we have the solutions to the current situation by showing them how to organize and cooperate amongst themselves.

Question: Suppose I agree with you, what should I do now?

Answer: You should join the method of integral education and learn what it means to be a Jew. It makes no difference whether a person is religious or not, whether he is politically inclined to the left or to the right. We should understand what it really means to be Jewish(Yechudi), which stems from the Hebrew word “Yichud” – unity, mutual love, and how to attain it.

Then this wisdom and method should be passed on to your family and to others within your environment.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/25/14