A Kabbalist’s Empathy

Question: You said that it is much easier for you to give lessons to veteran students who have been with you for several decades than to newcomers. What is the reason for this?

Answer: We have a common vocabulary, general knowledge, and some sensations. There is a commonality of certain characteristics and expressions, and therefore it is easier for them.

I can say one phrase, even without finishing it, and they understand what I wanted to convey to them. With random listeners or beginners who are very different from each other, of course, it is more difficult.

Question: During a lesson, does a Kabbalist speak exactly about things he is experiencing?

Answer: He cannot do otherwise. For example, I can talk about things that I need to buy in the supermarket—milk, meat, and bread—and do not empathize with anyone about that. But if I say something about Kabbalah at any level, then I must empathize within myself and pass it on to whom I am transmitting this.

Question: When speaking about events in our world or various trends of our development, are you also experiencing them?

Answer: Yes. If, let’s say, I am talking about exiting the crisis, then I experience it inside, not in the form in which it appears to people, but in all its internal problems and qualities. I feel why we need all these corrections exactly as they are presented to us.

Question: How is it possible for you to be in all states at the same time? For example, we are now opening the book and start reading “The Freedom.” How can you experience the states that are described there?

Answer: Are you not experiencing the states described in a book when you read it?

Let’s suppose we spoke about the correction of the world in the lesson, how it moves from neoliberalism and democracy to the completely new state of responsible governance that Trump represents. I experience this very strongly within myself.

Although, in principle, it doesn’t concern me physically, geographically, and socially, I see what forces cause such change in the world, where this trend came from, and how it penetrated the world, in other words, the root of all the problems.

It affects me much more that an ordinary person because I see movement toward the correction of the world.

Question: Where is the place in which you feel empathy?

Answer: It is in desire. Desire isn’t in the human body. We feel the consequences of our desires in the pulse, in blood pressure, and other parameters, but these are just external symptoms.
[206524]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/29/17