A Question On Religious Practices And Kabbalah

Question: Many of us belong to a religious group in addition to Bnei Baruch and attend church services regularly; and some of us even teach Sunday School or Bible Studies at the church we go to. Perhaps it’s being generous to say so, but it seems the vast majority of the people who associate themselves with a religion are indeed searching for answers to life’s questions.

Is it a worthy task to introduce the Kabbalistic method of Baal HaSulam into the Bible study curriculum of the Western religious institutions? And if so, what is the correct approach?

Answer: Religion exists due to the concealment of the Creator, while Kabbalah is the method of His revelation in the corrected desires of man. Therefore, religion and Kabbalah have opposite purposes. As soon as the Creator becomes revealed, there is no place for religion.

The Bitterness Of Inequality

Question: How can we explain to people the true meaning of social justice?

Answer: Along with the external demands, people feel deep inside the bitterness of inequality, of social and national injustice, of various differences. A person values himself not for who he is, but in comparison with others. Never before have we lived as well as today, but when we look at each other, we feel bad.

Of course, there are people who truly live “from paycheck to paycheck,” and their living standards should be immediately raised to the minimal level. However, all the other imbalances need to be fulfilled primarily by way of mutual unification.

No “just distribution” will help here: It will only aggravate conflicts. Any addition to someone would raise rumors and criticism, discontent and resentment. Try to increase salaries in one of the sectors, and it will be hated. Even if this is not done at my expense, and even if I am not supposed to get more, I am still wondering why the money was given to them and not to me.

In what case will I be happy for a person who was given a raise? Only if I am connected to him by the ties of love. So, first, I should be taught the right attitude so that I consider him. For starters, before we even reach mutual guarantee, we need to understand that we completely depend on each other.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/2011, “The Nation”

"Isra-El" Is Responsible For The Whole World

A question I received: What does it practically mean “To value the inner part of me more than the external part?” Baal HaSulam writes that this is necessary in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

My Answer: To value the inner part of you means to respect your mission and responsibility to attain mutual bestowal and to unite together “as one man with one heart” through brotherly love, for the sake of revealing the Creator, the general force of bestowal and love that rules in nature. This has to be the most important thing to a person. We are talking about the Upper Force of bestowal, which fills everything, but which we don’t feel because we nullify its manifestation with our egoism. The right intention for us to have is for this force to become revealed within us to the fullest extent.

I make a simple calculation: that this is the only thing that is important to me in this life. This is why I was born and what I live for. This is what I have to achieve as long as I live in this world. In addition, all of humanity depends on the work I do in this regard, because we are all connected together inside one net.

Baal HaSulam writes that “a person from the nation of Israel,” meaning a person who has a point in the heart (Isra-El means the aspiration to the Creator) determines the direction and state of the whole world with his intention. He can say, “I don’t want anything right now. I’m in a state of descent so leave me alone. I don’t want to hear about spiritual work. I’m going to rest!” In that case, where is his responsibility and the understanding that there are millions and billions of people who depend on him? He is now determining their fate and how they will advance toward correction – whether through painful blows or through realization and goodness.

If these people depend on you, then you have a very strict responsibility to make the right choice because you are leading everyone, be it in a good direction or a bad one. You have no choice about the matter; this is how the worldwide network is built and this is the place you have been allotted in it. Therefore, you must always be in a state of upper fear and remember that you decide what will happen to the whole world.

Later you will reveal that all the people are your children, the closest thing to you! But you have to think this way even now, by faith above reason. Everything that you do is not being done to you, but to the whole world!

How important we deem spirituality directly determines the fate of all humanity. What’s important for us will be important for everyone else. That is the structure of this entire system, in which we are connected with strict connections. A person without a point in the heart does not have the ability to change anything. Only you do, who are called “Isra-El,” or “Li-Rosh” (I am the head).

From the Independence Day lecture 04/20/10, “Preface to the Book of Zohar”

You’re Responsible For Seven Billion Children

A question I received: How will people as a whole develop the desire to unite? Other than suffering, what will rouse this desire in them?

My Answer: We are in an absolute and inseparable connection with each other, in a complete mutual guarantee. This state is designed by nature without our consent, and we have no choice.

Imagine that you have bought an apartment in a building with 50 neighbors, and when you signed the contract, you were unaware that you agreed to be in a mutual guarantee with all the neighbors. Now you are responsible for everything that happens in these 50 families.

This means that if one of them commits an offense, you will be held responsible and taken to jail instead of him. You will be held responsible for everyone. This is the reality of a mutual guarantee.

Humanity must realize that this agreement for an absolute and complete mutual guarantee is currently pressuring us and that every person is responsible for the whole planet. What can we do against this extremely difficult and irrevocable agreement? After all, being responsible for everyone is unbearable! People will feel that there is no choice other than through their own will to connect to others in the correct, good way. However, the whole problem is that we will not be allowed to do this.

Even when we develop the understanding of the need and the desire to unite, and all the governments consent to this at some meeting (like the G20), even then every person individually, as well as entire nations, will discover their inability to unite. Although everyone will seem to realize the hopelessness of the present state, at the same time there will be no opportunities to unite. This is the revelation of a foreign force over us.

It is as though someone from above is purposely building obstacles, tripping us, and not allowing us to achieve what we desire, in spite of all of our efforts and against all logic. And then “they will cry out from this work.” When this occurs, the third force will be revealed: one who wishes to come out of this state must use the Light from the Source in order to replace the hatred in him with love and to begin to love that which he hated previously.

We don’t even realize how much we hate the Creator currently, how distant we are from Him and opposite in our qualities. It is hard to believe that love for Him is even possible. After all, it is He who created everything bad in this world and placed us in the lowest state.

We hate Him specifically and no one else, since “There is None Else Beside Him.” And from precisely this point that every person needs to reach in his personal development, we need to completely turn everything in the opposite direction, and begin to love.

Feelings By Calculation

Question: Why does the egoism in our world keep the mind and feelings from connecting?

Answer: It is an obvious fact that when we are very worried about something, the mind vanishes into thin air. And when we try to understand or examine something, then feelings disappear. These two different approaches, sensory and rational, cancel each other out.

This is a consequence of the breaking. Our root is in the breaking, when the screen that used to connect the mind and the heart, calculation and pleasure, disappeared. That is why in our world, we are unable to make a correct calculation based on feelings. And the more we can leave our feelings behind, the faster we can look at them from aside. The more we move away from our feelings, the more we are able to make a sound calculation in the place which has been freed up, on that same interval that is not filled by feelings.

It appears to us that we are able to connect the mind and the heart, but in reality we cannot. If I were 100 percent inside my sensation but started coming out of it by 30 percent, I would be able to work with my mind in the place that is 30 percent free from feelings.

In our world, feelings and the mind cannot work together. If the mind and feelings were connected, it would be the Reflected Light, a spiritual action. Before this occurs the Restriction (Tzimtzum) must happen, the reception of the Light that Reforms, the merger with the upper one by faith above reason so as to acquire the mind and the heart of the upper one, or to work above one’s feelings with the help of a higher reason.

This already relates to spiritual work. It’s exactly the purpose of the screen: to connect the sensation and the mind, “The Torah and the work.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/2011, Shamati #45

What To Do If You Have Fallen

Question: If I have fallen down, what do I need to do in order to move forward?

Answer: When you have fallen, you are first of all sorry about it, and you want to come out of the fallen state, to rise above your nature, which you can no longer bear. You are even justifying this fall and you understand that “There is none else but the Creator.”

And then, gradually, you forget about this and you return to your usual state, thinking that there is nothing scary about that and that all kinds of things happen. And so it goes on until the next blow.

How many blows like this will be needed depends on the extent to which you connect your mind to it and work on your falls with the help of the group. The group must become your store-room, accumulating the whole of your mind at the time when you are completely under the control of your feelings, in order to balance it.

And on the contrary, when you fall under the control of the cold, dry reason, and when you do not even know how to awaken feelings inside of yourself in order to be inspired by spirituality, then you receive the impression in terms of feelings from the group.

But you will never be able to possess both, the feeling and the mind. That is why the connection to the group is so necessary for us; it can compensate for the lacking opposite and in a way connect both of them. Under the condition that you lower yourself in front of the group and are ready to accept its sorrow. Then you can connect the heart and the mind inside of yourself somehow.

Although, in reality, they do not really connect, because you are not yet really connecting to the group, but still it influences you from afar. And this indirect “surrounding” influence allows you to somehow connect the two opposites inside of yourself. And this is already helping you to understand a little bit about what the spiritual is and what the connection of these two poles means, when you feel and understand the spiritual simultaneously at the same one place.

This is an absolutely special feeling, in which there is understanding. Such things are almost non-existent in our world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/11, Shamati

When The Wall Between Us Falls

You are revealing the evil that does not let you enter the spiritual world as a wall that stands in front of you. Also, you cannot break through it alone, only together.

To do this, we have to unite in a group, which is the only free action that we are able to perform. Having gathered together, we have to draw the power of the Creator to us and break the wall with it!

Now I stand before the same egoistic wall, but I am no longer alone; I stand as manypoints in the heart connected together and called a “Kabbalah group.” This is a huge force that can easily break the wall. We reveal the Creator inside our connection because without the Creator, we are unable to connect!

I ask the Creator and He connects me with the others. The others ask the Creator for the same thing and they also get connected. By this we introduce the force of the Creator between us. He unites us, and with the same force we break the wall. It’s because the wall isn’t outside of us, it’s between us. By working on your connection with others, you are basically preparing yourself for a breakthrough.

What does it mean that the people of Israel exited Egypt? They united with such a force that the wall collapsed; they ascended above their egoism. This is what escaping from Egypt means.

There are no walls outside. The wall is revealed to show us that we don’t want to connect with each other; it’s a revelation of the wall between us. Now bring the Creator so that He will break it. That’s it, nothing else is required!

We should continue on without being too smart. Our main work is done in concealment, unconsciously; this is the preparation period. Thus, it’s important to follow the methodology even if we don’t fully understand it, just as a child doesn’t understand how he grows up. The wall is between us and our only free action is directed against it.

One can work on this connection even if he watches the lessons at home on TV because our connection is not physical; we do not connect to each other with handcuffs or iron chains, only by inner desire. Therefore, even if I’m far from a center, I can still join as if I’m in the center itself. The distance doesn’t matter; it’s only the desire and devotion to the goal that do.

The same wall that we feel between us right now will turn into glue that will bond us together in the end. The same Pharaoh that stands between us will become the Creator. This means that we run from Pharaoh and come to the revelation of the Creator.

We don’t move anywhere; this is done within the group, but instead of feeling the breaking and rejection, we reveal the glue and connection. This is purely a psychological problem that we’ll overcome, and then suddenly the difficulty will turn to the power of connection, the angel of death into the angel of holiness, and the grave into the mother’s womb.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

Only Together Will We Succeed

A question I received: When we work on uniting with others, do we reveal the common ego or our personal egos?

My Answer: We all work on uniting in order to achieve a common desire to reveal the Creator, the quality of bestowal. There is no separation between the personal ego and the collective one. I depend on you, you depend on me, and everyone depends on everyone. If one person drills a hole in our collective boat, everyone will drown.

Therefore, the individual and the group are united as one (Echad). If we are marching into battle together to reach a goal, then does it really matter if it’s an individual or a group? It is like a team: either we win together or we die together. A society has all that an individual has and vice-versa. Therefore, the concept of “the individual” disappears and it becomes irrelevant whether I succeed or someone else does. It is everyone’s success or failure that matters. The group and I are the same thing.

This is called a mutual guarantee. The fact is that we are unable to achieve it on our own, but it’s what the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif) wants for us. We are given a condition: to unite as one man with one heart. However, we are unable to do this. We reveal our inability to bond, which is known as “the broken Tablets.” We understand that we are incapable of this since we are opposite to the Torah.

Unity is not what I imagined spirituality to be. I imagined it as something I can acquire using my ego. However, when it comes down to it, I don’t want spirituality because it is opposite to everything I ever imagined it to be. This is true evil being revealed in me: the fact that I don’t want unity and I am unable to achieve it. This is called the “Golden Calf,” where the Upper Force makes a calf for me. It is done by Aaron, the quality of kindness (Chesed), and this revelation occurs inside a person as a result of tremendous effort.