Feast Of A Kabbalist

Maimonides, a great 12^th century Kabbalist, philosopher, physician, and astronomer, dedicated quite a few medical articles to meals and the need for nourishment. In particular, he wrote, “The food must be chewed thoroughly to receive pleasure,” otherwise the food will be harmful, “and thank the Creator for this.”

In the spiritual world, food is the Upper Light that we need to receive in order to bestow, meaning for pleasure and not because we want to satisfy hunger, and we have no other choice.

It is said (even among those who were not Kabbalists) that in order to chew food, it is necessary to chew 72 (Ayin-Bet) times with the teeth. From the spiritual point of view, the teeth chew Ohr Hochma, dividing the desire into a multitude of fragments, so that it will be possible to mix them with Ohr Hassadim. And in the physical world this is expressed in the mixing of food with saliva when one chews.

It is necessary to eat quietly among friends or family (it is desirable not to eat alone), so that at every moment we feel thanks.

That is how it was with my teacher Rabash; the meal went on in total silence; nobody said a word. We were even very careful with our movements so as not to disturb others remaining within their inner thoughts.

In general, with our current education, we are used to talking during a meal. People gather in a coffee house or in a restaurant for conversation between them, to connect and so forth. And here everything is completely different; everything is done in silence, working within yourself but in relation to others. So Rambam writes that it is “necessary to eat in quiet among friends or family, and to feel thanks at every moment.”

I hope that eventually we will get to have meals like this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

L’Chaim – For Spiritual Life

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #173: “He said about sayingL’Chaim (to life) when drinking wine, that it is as our sages said, “Wine and life according to the sages and their disciples.” This is perplexing: why specifically according to our sages? Why not according to the uneducated?

The thing is that saying “L’Chaim” implies higher life. When we drink wine, we should remember that wine has its spiritual source, which implies “the wine of Torah,” the Light that comes as a reward, and so we say, “L’Chaim!,” a reminder that we should extend theLight of Torah, called “life.”

The corporeal life, however, is called by our sages, “The wicked, in their lives, are called ‘dead.’” Hence, it is specifically our sages who can say, “wine and life.” This means that only they are qualified to extend spiritual life. Uneducated people, however, have no desire for it or the tools to extend it.

Wine symbolizes Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom), which I want to receive in order to bestow (with Ohr Hassadim). If I can keep the Ohr Hochma with Ohr Hassadim (Light of Mercy) and not violate the accommodation between them to feel life, then this energy enters into us in a positive way.

But if I don’t have enough Ohr Hassadim, then Shevirat HaKelim (the shattering of the vessels) happens and I fall again into the egoistic desire. So I seemingly analyze whether I have enough Ohr Hassadim for receiving the Ohr Hochma so that one Light can be clothed in the other. And then Ohr Hochma is revealed, and the next level is revealed in me.

An analysis like this is called L’Chaim, to bestowal with faith above reason. Receiving for the sake of bestowal is a process of eating that is expressed in the word, “L’Chaim,” meaning that I am doing this for the sake of spiritual life.

I transmit the Light that I receive from above through me by conveying it to others, otherwise it doesn’t enter me. This is the law of the upper world. When I receive in order to bestow, by conveying it through me to others, and they in turn do the same thing by conveying it through me, is called, “L’Chaim.”

So when we drink wine, we say, “L’Chaim!” which means that we remember that it is necessary to be concerned about the right reception of the Light of life in order to attain the higher level.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

A Place For Bringing A Sacrifice

Question: In the transition from the five senses of this world to the five senses for feeling the Upper World, where is there a place to “bring a sacrifice”?

Answer: In the beginning a person has nothing. We begin to bring sacrifices during the exodus from Egypt when the Creator seems to demand the bringing of sacrifices, building the tabernacle for the “tablets of the covenant” and so on.

If a person is already found at a particular degree of attainment, it is as if they tell him: “This desire of yours is egoistic to this degree, and another desire – to another degree. It is necessary to cut it to this degree here, and from there – to another degree.” This means that they show him how, to what extent, and with what accommodation to the other desires he can use each one of his desires with an intention for the sake of bestowal.

When a person clearly feels that he is passing from one world to another, he begins to feel a kind of detachment from this world. This is already apparent to some degree in people who come to study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

After that a clear desire for the next state is revealed, the discovery of the Creator. But the person doesn’t yet understand what the Creator is, what kind of characteristic this is—bestowal and love, and what he must sacrifice to discover the Creator, which he wants very much after all.

Of course, a person needs a group in order to develop correctly, to look at the others and maintain his envy and craving within him, his aspiration to move forward. He needs to feel that he is not alone.

He makes a Tzimtzum (restriction) on himself, and strives forward on every level. And problems are constantly awakened within him, which apparently pull him backward: withdrawal, indifference, and excuses. After this he makes a leap forward; he goes through difficult experiences in the form of the plagues of Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea, the wilderness, and so on.

But the main thing is that only then does he receive instruction and guidance about what to do. After all, he doesn’t immediately receive instruction about how to bring sacrifices.

First of all, we understand the importance of detachment from this world in which only our physical body exists. And we, with our desires, intentions, and hopes move towards attainment of the upper world, the characteristic of bestowal and connection between everyone.

As serious investigators we want to discover how the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature are connected, where the forces that exist between them are.

We gradually discover all of this in two stages. In the first stage we don’t want anything for ourselves, we try to be completely detached from the receptive characteristic, and in this way we acquire a characteristic called “Hassadim” (mercy).

In the second stage we fully rise to the level of the Hassadim, to the level of Bina, after we make a correction on our desires, when they are found in total separation from reception and any fulfillment. After this we begin to transform those desires into characteristics of bestowal and love. This is where the place for sacrifice is revealed. In other words, we must clarify how to sanctify each one of our desires, everything that is within us: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.
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From KabTV”s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/20/13

The Spiritual Source Closest To Us Is Passover

Question: What is the connection between us through which we left Egypt?

Answer: From Egypt only desires that want to connect leave, meaning only Israel. All the rest of the parts of the desire to receive that don’t feel an attraction to connection die in Egypt, they are the army of Pharaoh.

We work on the connection between us in a group; but we discover that we are not ready to reach it, so “…and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage….” (Exodus 2:23). This means that we cry out to the Creator and ask Him to connect us.

Question: So what is our work? Must we work on prayer?

Answer: The prayer cannot be artificial, for prayer is the work of the heart. At the end of all my efforts, after I have become convinced that nothing depends on me, I break out into prayer.

It is impossible to pray by the clock, this is not called prayer. Prayer must be adjusted to the feeling in the heart. So at this moment you can be in a state of “Yom Kippur” and in a few more hours be in a state of “Passover.” This is not talking about time but about states.

So why is there great significance to the Passover holiday that is marked on the calendar? It is because the Upper Lights that come down to us from the “end of correction,” through all the steps of the ladder, reach our world and even create a small illumination in it. And we want to connect this illumination with all the Upper Lights ofbestowal and love of others, which we yearn to reach, to connect them together to world of Infinity. So also in our world, in the physical branches, we celebrate this state and want to be like it even on the physical level. This is particularly relevant to the Passover holiday.

All the rest of the holidays are very high: Rosh HaShanah (embracing the right) and Sukkot (embracing the left) are great Surrounding Lights. But everything begins with Passover. Therefore it is called the “head” of all the months. The exodus from Egypt is the birth of spirituality, so this spiritual source is the closest to us, found right above our heads. All the rest of the holidays are much higher.

We want to approach this source, meaning to begin to actively connect as much as possible. The symbol of the exodus from Egypt is the first connection between us, and after that we add more and more “meat,” more desires, to that point of connection.

But the first contact is the exodus from Egypt, which is why it is called the “birth” of man—that which we have succeeded in accumulating from the shattered parts through leaping above our ego and the connection between us. This is called a true “miracle.” We receive this opportunity thanks to the influence of the Light; otherwise, it is impossible.

We must seriously prepare for this state because we spend a lot of time together at meals and in lessons with all the groups in the world and try to actively reach a connection. We hope we will succeed in implementing this; we still have time. There is no time in spirituality and we can carry this out very quickly, at least temporarily reaching this state and descending again. And there is also a second “Passover” in another week. Someone who doesn’t succeed in realizing this in the first Passover will get a second opportunity.

Question: What is connecting actively?

Answer: All of our hearts must contact each other in a single point, reaching a point of contact. It is not enough just to want it; rather, we must actively carry this out. The prayer is awakened in a person only at the necessary time that comes as a result of the action in the physical world. If I do something and absolutely suffer from failure, from this point the prayer breaks forth.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/14, The Zohar

Human Nourishment

The Torah, “Leviticus,” 23:14: You shall eat bread or [flour made from] parched grain or fresh grain, until this very day, until you bring your God’s sacrifice. [This is] an eternal statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.

Bread represents the characteristic of Hassadim (mercy), so the correction of a person happens precisely around this states.

In our spiritual correction before the Omer (sheaf), we are involved with everything, just not with bread. Bread is human nourishment. Those who correct the Omer within them—meaning those who harvest, gather, bind, and turn it into baked products made from flour—reach the level of full bestowal.

Pastries (baked products made from flour) refer to the attainment of egoistic desires that grow from the ground, from the lowest state, where a person can grow them and turn them into the characteristic of bestowal.

As a general rule, egoistic characteristics on the level of the still are found in each one of us, so we can correct them without any problem. But here this is talking about developing the egoistic characteristics within ourselves that transform into food for the spiritual level,Adam.

With this we create our internal self-inquiry because we know how to develop the egowithin us, how to manage it, how it will grow in the left and right lines, and then we correct it by comparing and matching them, advancing forward in the middle line.

Everything that is mentioned in the Torah is intended only for our connection and unification, and teaches on what level, in which conditions, which parts of our desire, are connected and complete each other reciprocally with resemblance and equivalence with the Creator. This is all that a person needs to do in this world beyond the minimal satisfaction of his basic needs.

When we finish our spiritual correction, providing ourselves with the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate through the “fruits of the land,” then this world disappears. And we remain existing in a corrected and eternal state. We try to reach this while we are still alive in this world. The wisdom of Kabbalah was given to us for that purpose.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/28/14

About Internal Beauty

The Torah, “Leviticus,” 21:16 – 21:18: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron, saying: Any man among your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect, shall not come near to offer up his God’s food. For any man who has a defect should not approach: A blind man or a lame one, or one with a sunken nose or with mismatching limbs;

From a spiritual point of view, a blemish is a flaw, an internal corruption of a person, a flaw in his spiritual yearning for connection and unity.

Question: How is a person’s inner flaw determined?

Answer: It is impossible to determine it externally since it is concealed even from the person himself until he discovers it inside him by himself. This is called the concealed wisdom or the concealed knowledge. It is only to the extent that a person can reveal the defect inside him and bear it that he can fulfill it properly.

The blemish is totally unfelt and cannot be seen on the outside since no one knows what a person’s intentions are. He can perform actions that may seem absolutely stupid and even harmful, totally tasteless and egoistic, on the outside, but in fact everything is totally different because the character and the quality of the action determines the intention.

Comment: But in our world everything is opposite from the Torah, which only refers to the intentions when it speaks about a person.

Answer: These limitations do not refer to a person’s external appearance, of course. Moses, for example is described as very handsome, tall, and strongly built. Can a 120 year old person really look that way? It is only about his internal beauty and purity.

I first understood that when I studied with Rabash. He asked me to help find a match for a certain girl and I decided to introduce her to a guy who studied with us. The girl was very intelligent, really smart, and a talented painter who later gave one of her paintings as a present to Rabash. I invited the guy and the girl to lunch at my place and they spoke and then went for a walk and two hours later he came to the lesson and told me that he doesn’t like the way she looks. I passed this information to Rabash since the future of that girl was very important to him. At first he didn’t understand what happened, but when I explained it to him he wondered: “so he only looked at her externality?!” The guy couldn’t ascend above his reason, and eventually life didn’t work out for him or for the girl. He got married and had five children, but then got divorced after a while. She got married and had one child and then divorced her husband.

Rabash always said simply: “Love is a kind of animal that is built by mutual concessions.”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/28/14

I See You In The Next World

Question: The friends may be great and feel the meaning of the concept of the center of the group and of one heart, but what should I do if I don’t feel that and don’t know how to work correctly?

Answer: This is clarified in the mutual work. You have to start seeing the friends through the center of the group, united as one. They may not know that they are and may not understand it, but you will see that they are actually already in spiritual connection.

You have to see their advanced states, and it depends on your desire to see them as such. I, for example, want to see how successful you all are since you are like my own children, and so I see that. But it is because of the concern and the desire that you should attain it that I see your future form.

Seeing the friends as successful means seeing them united and revealing the Creator in order to delight Him, which means seeing them in spiritual states.

We should see all of reality as one system. The corporeal world and the spiritual world don’t exist separately; they are a unified whole. It all depends only on the eyes of the beholder.

The Creator is revealed among the friends, which means that there is a force of mutualbestowal operating among them, that’s all. The Creator is revealed only in the right connection between us. This is called the Creator. It is in this connection that we turn to that force.

He isn’t found anywhere else. We mustn’t picture or imagine that He is in another reality, but only among us. The Creator has no form. There is a certain inconceivable identity that is revealed if we provide Him with the system to be revealed in. If all the components are properly connected, we discover Him.

It is as if there is a magnetic or an electrostatic field and if we build a system to detect that field, the system will begin to work: the lights will turn on, and the wheels will spin. After all, we have properly assembled the machine and now it perceives the force of the field that is around it, the black energy.

We live in the world of this energy that is revealed in it in different lower forms, such as the force of gravity and other physical forces, but we want to discover the primary force in which the upper thought and the desire are concealed and not the outcomes, not the particular fields.

These fields are revealed in matter, since matter is already arranged that way. This is the reason that we study matter. On the corporeal level we discover these outcomes on the surface of the earth and in the universe, but when we ascend to a different level of the connection of matter we discover a different field. It is called the “dweller (Shochen) who dwells in the Shechina.”
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From from 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Is There Eternal Life?

Question: Is there eternal life?

Answer: There is eternal life but not in our corporeal body. Our biological body is a machine that cannot exist more than many decades.

Science can extend the life of the body up to several decades more than we lived in the past, but it is hard to understand why people should want to live so long if it isn’t in order to develop the soul inside us. We see that people today live twice as long, and even three times longer than then they did 200 or 300 years a ago.

Eternal life is life in the altruistic desire, not in the egoistic desire. It is because the ego kills itself, while we can live forever in the desire to bestow because it doesn’t disappear and is continuously renewed. The desire to bestow connects to other people and lives in them.

When a person develops the soul inside him, which means the love for others, he exits his narrow world that is filled with pain and problems and enters a wide eternal world.
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From Israeli Radio Programming 103 FM, 2/1/15

A Deficiency For The Image Of The One Who Bestows

Question: What is a deficiency for resembling the Creator? What should I yearn for?

Answer: I have to find out what form of the one who bestows should be revealed under the conditions of each and every concealment when I feel that something hurts or when something goes wrong. If a certain deficiency, meaning that I feel that I lack something, is revealed in this world, which is all my desire, it means that I lack only one thing: the revelation of the Creator.

But I have to determine in exactly what way. I don’t simply cry out that I feel bad. This is totally wrong. I am even glad that I feel a deficiency and am thankful for the mind and feelings that I was given that allow me to understand that it is a deficiency for the Creator. It was done on purpose so that I will pay attention to Him.

Thus, I develop a deficiency for the image of the one who bestows, not in order to feel good in my ego, but in order to have the opportunity to discover the Creator and to delight Him. I don’t even want to feel that; I don’t want to receive a reward this way.
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From 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

Can A Person Be Reincarnated As A Cat?

Question: Can I be incarnated as a cat in the next cycle of life or will I also be a person?

Answer: A person always remains a person, a man – a man, a woman – a woman, and a cat – a cat. Matter remains the same matter.

All of the theories and fantasies about the reincarnation of souls in various animals and even in plants are erroneous.

And in general, the soul doesn’t belong to the body. The body exists only to create conditions for developing the soul. But to the degree that the soul is developed, the body begins to receive new physical characteristics, which help us to develop the soul further. Everything happens for this purpose only.

Question: I don’t understand; what happens with a person after he dies?

Answer: Don’t we see what happens to a person after his body dies? The body rots and turns into dust. If a person doesn’t develop the soul within him, then only a conscious element of the soul is left, which must create a body again.

Question: What happens if I have developed a soul?

Answer: If you have developed your soul to the necessary level, meaning you have corrected it absolutely, then you no longer need to be incarnated any more into this world, and the soul will live forever.

Question: Will that soul itself be my “self”?

Answer: Specifically the soul is the “self.” A person is his soul, whereas the body is only material that accompanies him and helps in developing the soul.

Question: So why do the Kabbalists sometimes write that a person is reincarnated into animals, for example, into a pig?

Answer: This is written metaphorically. “Reincarnated as a pig” means that desires like those of a pig come to a person, which he had apparently abandoned a long time ago.

Just as sometimes in a person’s life he behaves like this and we call him a “pig.” In the same sense Kabbalists speak about incarnation as a pig, meaning such characteristics like a pig appear in a person, but it is clear that he remains a person.
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From Israeli Radio Programming 103 FM, 2/1/15

The Closest Particles Of The Immense Soul

Question: What is preferable, to develop each friend individually or to magnify the image of the ideal group?

Answer: It is also necessary to develop each friend. But if you have a large group, this could be complicated because you know some and with some you do not. It is not important. Their participation in the general common work already testifies that you accept them as the people closest to you.

Imagine that every person sitting here, both men and women, are the closest particles in the huge collective soul; so we have gathered like this. I am from the previous level, you are from the next level, but all of us are connected. Imagine all the generations and incarnations, an immense soul, billions of billions of particles.

After all, each one of us is changing rapidly every second. And each time he is a new person with a new soul. The body remains the same, whereas inside of us we pass through states much faster than an electron orbits an atom. Every state is new.

From all of the states, from all of the souls, the billions of particles that there are in all the generations, we have each other—the closest. That is what we need to think about the group and that is how to relate to the friends.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

Life With The Second, Third, And Tenth Attempt

Question: Where is our soul located? There are even experiments where they try to determine the weight of the soul in grams.

Answer: That is completely pointless. The soul has no weight in the corporeal world. Imagine that a moment ago you didn’t want to drink and now you suddenly want water. That is, a new desire appeared to you. It is possible to weight it? Where is this desire located in you? You can’t say. The soul is also a desire; a desire to attain the upper force, that same external sphere that manages our world, the system that surrounds us.

The soul is called the desire to attain the meaning in our life, the goal of our life. If such a desire appears in a person, then he begins to feel that his soul needs to develop; it obliges him to learn how to attain it.

Question: If I succeed in developing the soul while I am alive in this world, is that a sign that my life was successful? And if I don’t succeed, then will I be returned to this world once again?

Answer: Yes, you will return and pass through new lives until the soul is developed within you. But in our time, we have the opportunity to accelerate our development, and then we will not need further incarnations. We already lived enough in this world, each of us.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103 FM, 2/1/15

Where Is The Spiritual World Found?

The spiritual world is right here, but as long as you don’t have a soul you don’t see it. If you hadn’t developed from a drop of semen, you wouldn’t feel this world either.

But because your body develops from this semen, you feel this world through it. The same thing happens with the soul; it also has a father and mother.

Question: What kind of connection exists between my soul and my relatives: father, mother, and siblings?

Answer: In the entire general system of one single soul there are parts that are closer to me and further from me. Closeness or distance in the spiritual world is derived from this. It is not by chance that specifically these people become my parents, and not others. It is not by chance that I marry specifically this woman and have specifically these children.

All of this is derived from the general system that has already been created and stabilized. It is known from the start what will be with me; I only discover this for myself. But all of these events already exist in potential, as potential forces.
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From Israeli Radio Programming 103 FM, 2/1/15

The Thought Of Creation Through The Figures In The Torah

Adam HaRishon (First Man) is the structure of the only soul that was created and which has undergone great changes after theshattering. First, it existed in the state of Hafetz Hesed, and didn’t receive anything and didn’t want anything for itself.

This state is called the Garden of Eden (heaven) or an angel.

An angel is a force that has no ego at all. He performs all the work that is necessary for the general force of nature. It is said that an angel is part of the Creator.

He is managed by the upper force that operates and advances all of creation toward the goal, toward attaining the attribute of love and bestowal.

Question: Is there a Reshimo (reminiscence) of the state of Adam HaRishon in us?

Answer: There are Reshimot, spiritual genes, of all the states in us. It is because we have descended into our world from the spiritual level of absolute wholeness, and now we must ascend once again by ourselves using the Reshimot that were preserved in us, but we must do it consciously through drawing the upper force and correcting ourselves by it. This force is called the Torah, stemming from the Hebrew word, “Ohr” (Light).

We gradually accept the Upper Light because it arrives gradually, according to our ascent. The upper system of illumination formats and affects us, raises us, and corrects us by reintegrating everyone into one general structure that is the same general soul that was initially created.

This sums up the entire history of our descent from the top down and our ascent from the bottom up. The ascent from the bottom up began when the general soul called Adam was shattered and discovered that it was absolutely egoistic, and that it wasn’t ready for the contact with the Light, with the Creator. This is called Adam HaRishon’s sin and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

The Creator disappeared from people’s feelings, and they were left to roam the earth in the corporeal darkness. This is the reason that we all are totally shattered, separated, and distant from one another in this world.

Twenty generations of Kabbalists after Adam tried to correct this situation, but the first ten generations understood their problems and that they couldn’t do anything until Noah appeared. Noah was saved during the flood while most of the people died.

This wasn’t death and loss, but purification because there is no actual death. People who died symbolize the egoistic desires that we cannot use at a certain time.

This is the reason that they are considered dead. However, later, they come back to life in the correct form and, thus, seemingly appear in the next generations.

They are the same desires that underwent phases of purification through death in their earlier egoistic form and then come back to life in an altruistic form. Thus, the ten generations that followed Noah are already generations that are closer to Abraham, to the recognition of the right spiritual advancement.

The last level before Abraham was his father Terach. Terach is the feeling of the ego that we want to use and to enjoy, while Abraham is the recognition that this ego is evil, which means its opposite side.

Abraham and Terach are one single whole, but the part called Terach wants to work with the ego and the part called Abraham already understands that it is forbidden to work with the ego and that it means death.

This is why they break apart. Abraham changes his attitude toward life, toward the world called Terach and becomes Abraham, meaning the father of the nation in Hebrew. This means that he becomes the father of all the desires that eventually will be corrected.
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From KabTV’s Secrets of the Eternal Book 6/18/14