[Issue 6] Jan 2012

The Wisdom Of

Kabbalah

“The Creator is the Absolute Good. He watches us in complete benevolence

without a hint of evil, and in purposeful guidance. That means that His guidance compels us to undergo a series of phases, by way of cause and effect, preceding and resulting, until we are qualified to receive the desired goodness. And then we shall arrive at our purpose as a ripe and fine-looking fruit”.

Yehuda Ashlag (Baal Hasulam): ―The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose‖

Special magazine for inmates

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITORIAL ................................................................................................................................... 3

INTENTION .................................................................................................................................. 4

ARVUT ......................................................................................................................................... 5

Mutual Guarantee Above Our Differences ........................................................................... 5 For Each the Right Environment .......................................................................................... 5 The Environment Can Do Anything ...................................................................................... 6 You Must Invest Yourself In A Group .................................................................................... 6 Revealing the Truth Through the Friends ............................................................................. 7 CALL FOR ACTION ............................................................................................................... 7

KABBALAH FUNDAMENTALS ....................................................................................................... 8

The Wisdom of Kabbalah, Lecture 5 .................................................................................... 8 Comprehension test # 4..................................................................................................... 19 Baal HaSulam: the Purpose of Creation Is Man .................................................................. 20

ATTAINING THE WORLDS BEYOND ............................................................................................ 21

Spiritual Progress .............................................................................................................. 21 Structure of Spirituality ..................................................................................................... 25

AUTHENTIC KABBALAH TEXTS ................................................................................................... 29

Rav Laitman: Lesson on the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”. Part 3 ........ 29

DAILY LESSON & RAV’S BLOG: SELECTED EXCERPTS ................................................................... 39

For Each the Right Environment ........................................................................................ 39 Death: The Fee For Development Of Egoism ...................................................................... 39 Discover The Creator’s Goodness, Not His Presents ............................................................ 41 Don’t Torture Yourself ....................................................................................................... 42 The Red Sea Is Lapping At Our Feet ................................................................................... 42 Wake Up At Least Half Way .............................................................................................. 43 A Fear That Uplifts ............................................................................................................ 44 The Value Of Life Experience ............................................................................................. 45 Staring Into The Mirror ..................................................................................................... 46

FEEDBACK ................................................................................................................................. 48

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ........................................................................................................... 49

GOOD ENVIRONMENT ............................................................................................................... 50

SMILE! ................................................................................................................................... 55

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EDITORIAL

Dear friends,

Greetings! The 6th issue of the magazine is in your hands, meaning that together we are about to take another step forward towards the spiritual revelation.

In this issue we have prepared a lot of material for you to read, including a new section, important announcements, answers to some of your questions (read further and you’ll know why we keep some of your questions for later), and of course, lectures, parts of the books, interpretations of authentic text, excerpts from daily lessons and a report from the December Arvut Convention.

As usual, the issue starts with the ―Intention‖ that attunes you to the single wave which helps you get open for an influence of the Light that reforms and fastens a process of your personal correction.

Next is the ―Arvut‖ section. You remember that Arvut (―mutual guarantee‖) is the condition of our spiritual awakening and revival of the power that has always existed between the souls. A person can only connect with the Upper Force when he or she is integrally connected with a certain critical mass of other people who are also attaining this integration. Our individual progress depends on the effectiveness of our group effort in reaching Unity between us despite all the differences.

This is why from today onward we are preparing ourselves for more effective group effort. In the new section ―Call for Action‖ we are announcing our first collective action. This is our ―task‖ that will help us grow and cultivate our inner interconnectedness in order to become as one man with one heart worthy of receiving Torah.

Further you’ll find another lesson of your Kabbalah Fundamentals course followed by more detailed explanations about the nature of spiritual progress and a structure of spirituality from the ―Attaining the Worlds Beyond‖ guide.

In the ―Authentic Kabbalah Texts‖ section we are continuing to introduce you to a series of Rav’s special lessons further explaining and interpreting the original text of the article of Baal HaSulam ―The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah‖, that you can find in the issue 4 of the magazine.

As always, we are happy to share your kind words of support in the ―Feedback‖ section. Friends, it’s only due to your burning desire to break through that we got so far. With a great joy we are watching more and more people reaching back to us. Speaking of the process of strengthening our group, in this issue you’ll find the first response from one of our women. L’’haim!

Finally, the ―Good Environment‖ section will tell you about the December Arvut Convention. A great event that had brought together thousands of people also allowed us to initiate a sincere and serious conversation with Rav about our project. The conversation that has started promises to be both productive and interesting - with your help and participation.

Only Together, Editors of the "The Wisdom of Kabbalah" magazine

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INTENTION

The Thought is the Intention

Source: ―Intention from the Heart‖,

In the science of Kabbalah the thought is the intention. In a regular life thought belongs to the considerations made by the desire to receive in order to receive. A thought is that which you want to do with your desire. The activation of the desire according to an egoistic or altruistic plan, no matter which, is called ―thought.‖

A thought that is clarified regarding its source, meaning for whom is it intended—you or the Creator—is called intention. The intention we are studying cannot be like every other intention of our world. Intention is a thought analyzed in the spiritual work.

The hardest part is to maintain the intention. That is what requires the most effort. It is hidden and not felt. It doesn’t express itself in any way and great efforts are needed to hold on to it. It is always necessary to check and to find out that it is still there. The recognition of evil relates to focusing our intention, as expressed in ―get away from evil and do good‖ (Psalms, 34:15). All is in relation to the intention.

We have to constantly awaken the importance of the intention over all the other activities and inner processes. We have to identify with and connect to the intention, not the action, matter, or anything else. This shows that a person is in the spiritual in his or her work, and is on the path.

SSiinnccee tthheessee aarree ccoonncceeaalleedd iissssuueess,, yyoouu ccaann tteellll jjookkeess oorr ppeerrffoorrmm aallll

ssoorrttss ooff ssttrraannggee aaccttiioonnss,, aanndd nnoo oonnee wwiillll kknnooww wwhhaatt iiss rreeaallllyy hhaappppeenniinngg

wwiitthhiinn yyoouu..

OOnn tthhee ccoonnttrraarryy,, tthhiiss iiss aa wwoonnddeerrffuull rreemmeeddyy:: TThhee mmoorree ddiissttaanntt yyoouu aarree

ffrroomm tthhee eexxtteerrnnaall aaccttiioonn aanndd ssppeeeecchh,, tthhee bbeetttteerr yyoouu wwiillll bbee aabbllee ttoo kkeeeepp

tthhee iinntteennttiioonn,, ssttaayy mmoorree ffooccuusseedd oonn iitt aanndd tthheerreebbyy bbee cchhaarrggeedd wwiitthh aa hhiigghh

vvoollttaaggee..

AA wwoonnddeerrffuull rreemmeeddyy,, aa mmeetthhoodd ffoorr sseellff--pprreesseerrvvaattiioonn,, aass wweellll aass ootthheerr

bbeenneeffiittss,, iiss hhiiddddeenn hheerree.. BBuutt tthhiiss iiss hhaarrdd wwoorrkk..

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ARVUT

Mutual Guarantee Above Our Differences

There is no good without bad and there is no bad without good. Only when

the two are balanced does the feeling of life grow between them, prosperity. We see that in every ―creation.‖ Even in music, minor and major don’t get along without one another. At the junction of notes it is constantly pulsing with the resistance in each chord, dissonance and consonance coexist. Harmony—this is the correct relationship between the discordant sounds.

Even at home you won’t be able to reach an agreement if you don’t bring two opposites together. How can you reach domestic peace? After all, peace is wholeness, the middle line, which is made of two contrasts. They gradually grow and the contrast between them grows stronger; you don’t annul them, but rather, connect them, bringing them together at the top.

This is mutual guarantee: Despite the differences, we look for the common upper force that will connect us to each other. We only want to summon it, to draw it so that it will be among us.

In fact ―it‖ is the future ―we.‖ Now we cannot treat each other correctly and so we want that power of mutual bestowal to be dressed in us, to be awakened inside us.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, ―The Freedom‖

For Each the Right Environment

If all the evidence shows that man is the result of his environment, it follows that organizing all kinds of models of a good and correct society for all humankind is critical. This way any person, depending on his inclinations and personality or by following the advice of his friends and family, would always have the opportunity to connect to such a society, to develop himself in the most effective way possible, and become a genuinely perfect human being. Therefore, in our education we must also focus on establishing such groups and other opportunities for people to unite.

If we continue to study this issue further, we will see that a person is formed by the influence of his inner qualities, the genes he was born with, the various inclinations he acquires early in life at his parents’ home, and then by the influence of society.

We must therefore focus on kindergartens and the various circles for little children, and then on schools and clubs for older kids. We need to ensure that every person has a wide array of opportunities to reveal his potential and develop into a well-rounded individual.

Even the qualities that don’t appear to be particularly strong or promising in an individual ought to be developed anyway, as that will enrich his inner world, as will teaching him to appreciate music, literature, theater, art, and culture: All these things depend on a person’s environment as well.

People must have a family and bring up children; they must learn how to properly act toward his or her spouse, toward friends, in the company of strangers, and at work. We must teach the person by applicable examples how to behave and how to become a person in the full sense of the word, one that’s appreciated by society, which will in turn allow him to reach success and prosperity himself.

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To this end, there are only two factors that aim and correct me every minute: my own natural qualities and the environment’s influence upon them. My ability lies in choosing an environment that would constantly develop me in the right direction, bring me closer to good and advanced states that give the sensation of greater security, confidence, and comfort. This is how we continue to develop.

From this we need to understand the task that lies before us, what we need to do to make sure that our children have a good life and that the next generation is better off and more confident in its future.

This can only be done if we manage to surround our children with these kinds of teachers and create for them the kind of environment that would influence them to reinforce their good qualities and to transform their negative qualities into positive ones rather than suppress them.

From KabTV’s ―A New Life‖ Episode 3, 12/29/11

The Environment Can Do Anything

Question: You often bring up the example of a mother’s relationship to her

child and her relationship to a neighbor’s child saying that if she would see the neighbor’s child as her own, she would no longer perceive that child’s flaws. How can you make a human heart love someone?

Answer: It only can happen through the force of habit. The habit then

becomes second nature, through the conviction of the surrounding society, its good examples, through songs and films, and everything that influences a person. The influence of the surrounding society can program me to hate my own child and to love the neighbor’s child.

The environment can do anything! The environment is stronger than my nature because it pertains to the human level and my nature operates on the animal level. We see how drastically a person can change due to his environment. This is because the influence of society is stronger than any other influence.

From KabTV’s ―A New Life‖ Episode 5, 1/2/12

You Must Invest Yourself In A Group

Question: If I am very envious of my friends, how do I transform this envy from

being destructive to constructive?

Answer: A person does not hear words about the spiritual vessel being a

common vessel. ―I will do something now and advance,‖ he thinks. Our egoism keeps convincing us that a spiritual goal can be attained the same way as a corporeal goal—individually and personally. This is only needed to give us the force of resistance, which drives man inside himself. The stronger the material drive, the more it will give later because the person has taken advantage of it.

However, we must accelerate the time, and the only opportunity to do this is to resist the centripetal currents. Otherwise nothing will come out of it.

―It is not the smart one who learns.‖ The spiritual path is not intended for the sharp ones, but for those who invest themselves. This path consists of simple actions. It is the same way that a computer carries out very complicated calculations through a sequence of elementary operations.

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There can be one advice for man: Cancel the mind and do the deed. Your small steps will make a pathway, which will lead you to the feeling of belonging. It is like a father becomes imbued with love for his newborn child as he takes care of him. Daily care rouses feelings. And this applies to everything: Your heart attaches where you invest yourself.

And this is why you need to close your eyes and invest all your energy into the group. This is the only way for you to feel like it is close to you, like it is yours—and then you will be able to build a common Kli (vessel) together with it. Your investment,

switched from an egoistic account over to the group account—is your spiritual vessel.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/11, ―The Arvut‖

Revealing the Truth Through the Friends

In order to reveal the truth, we need to look from the inside outwards, towards the group and not remain convened inside ourselves.

Spirituality cannot be revealed through my imagination only. In order to truly advance from the world of imagination to the existing world, one needs to connect all the broken vessels. This is done through my relationship inside towards the friends, the group. We need to think how to relate to them, and what to think about them out of the intention for correction and true advancement.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 01/19/12

CALL FOR ACTION

Friends, this section is going to be our place to talk about a group work. Let’s follow Rav’s advice and invest ourselves in the group. Here are 2 ideas about how we can start a collective action together.

Building an inner connection between us. We know that preparation is the

most important part of every endeavor. Having said this we commit to starting

a day by spending 10 minutes each morning from 7.00 to 7.10 am thinking

about all the people in our group. We are going to use this time practicing

overcoming our concerns with personal circumstances, frustrations and

demands of ego in order to concentrate all the thoughts only and specifically

on the success of a friend in achieving the goal. Materials from the magazine

can be used as an aid to find the right wave; reading any piece will remind me

about what is truly important and help me keep the right intention towards

Unity.

Whether you decide to join us or not in this effort, be confident that every morning somebody is thinking about you and sending your way good vibes and thoughts of love and support to help you through the day.

Dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah. As we can only advance if we pass

the method of correction to the world, we are going to look for an opportunity

to share our knowledge with others in an appropriate form. It’s recommended

to relate to any external event that happens to us as part of our internal

correction, and try and see in it a way to connect with the environment.

We shall do, and we shall hear

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KABBALAH FUNDAMENTALS

The Wisdom of Kabbalah, Lecture 5

Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam

Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman lowercase italics: emphasized words Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew

Today we will discuss the structure of Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). We all

hear, and supposedly know that there is such a thing as The First Man. It is written about, we talk about it, but who is Adam? When we talk about something, we always refer to it from the point of view of the created being.

Who is Adam ha Rishon? As we discussed previously, what has been created is the desire to receive, the desire to enjoy. Because the Thought of Creation, creation itself, is the giving of joy to the created being, what is missing is only the created being that will receive all of this benevolence. This created being is called Adam ha Rishon, ―The First Man.‖ What is ―First‖? Is there a second? A third? How many more of these are there? There is only a first, and as we attain, as we start to develop a sixth sense and become included in the Upper World, we begin to sense it, to see what exists in reality outside of us, beyond our five senses. We arrive at a structure that we can see and attain, called Adam ha Rishon.

How did the Kabbalists reveal it? How will we have to reveal it?

We are in this world, and we sense what is called ―this world‖ with our five senses. Our experience cannot grasp anything other than what our five senses transmit to us. We can add to them by using all sorts of instruments, such as microscopes or telescopes, but whatever we add to our five senses are only additional tools that expand the range of our sensation into matter or space. It means that we can then increase our overall understanding of what time, motion, and space, are, as well as our matter, which is experienced in the five senses.

No matter what we build with these tools, it will never give us anything outside of the five senses. This is because, if we exist within the five senses, we do not even know what we lack, or what we can reveal.

If I were to know that I am now in my world, like in a closed room, and that outside of this room there is something else that I cannot sense, then perhaps I would try to somehow feel it, maybe by building some instrument, or by somehow transforming myself and developing a sense for it. But I do not know what is beyond this world. So whenever I search, I always do it out of the five senses, and these five senses enclose me in this structure called ―this world.‖ This is why it is never possible to exit from this world in an ordinary manner, without developing an additional sense, a sixth sense.

What is the sixth sense? How is it constructed? If we develop it we will reach the structure of Adam ha Rishon, the Thought of Creation. We will then discover what the Kabbalists tell us. It is constructed in a simple manner. We are separated from these upper forces by our very ―body,‖ the five senses. If we construct an additional sixth sense, in the same way we construct ourselves via our five senses, the point in the heart will awaken in us. We will then be able to break out of the body, out of our ordinary senses, and through this point, feel the Upper World.

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The emergence into seeing and feeling the Upper World includes two actions. One action is that my desire to feel the Upper World is greater than my desire to experience the five senses, this world. My sensitivity to the Upper World should be greater than my sensitivity, my attitude toward this world. The first action is called Tzimtzum Alef (the first restriction). When a person desires to climb over this wall that separates him from the Upper World, that person has to perform a restriction on himself. What is a restriction? It means that whatever is above nature will be more cherished than what is within nature. Following the restriction, the person needs to add more heartiness, more feeling to what is outside of him. What does it mean, heartiness and feeling? It means that the person will sense what is outside of the five senses through an additional sense, which is built by the person himself. The entire Upper, Spiritual World, is constructed above our five senses. It is impossible to have a preference for sensing this world, and at the same time, also want to feel the Upper World.

Therefore, the Light, the Upper Force that comes to us and corrects us, increases this point in us—it performs a ―double-action.‖ The first involves this world, and the second involves the Upper World. When a person begins to sense the spiritual world, he begins to perceive a very special formation. He starts to perceive the collection of souls that are all included in one single soul called Adam ha Rishon. How? If a person leaves himself, his world, and his walls, so to speak, and acts outside them, the person then feels only Upper Light. How? In what vessel? Here we encounter a very interesting occurrence —the Light is not felt outside the vessel.

We have said that the Upper Light created a desire to receive—it is in the desire, and is only felt in the desire. Outside of the desire it is not possible to feel anything. It is our sense. The desire can be pointed either toward ourselves or outside of ourselves. When a person exits himself, he starts to feel the Upper World in an external vessel. What is an external vessel? It is a desire that is directed at other souls, and which senses them. We never sense outside of the vessels, everything is always felt inside them.

Drawing No. 1

As we drew [points to the drawing], in the same way that I sense in my five senses, in my box, I also feel the Upper World in the sixth sense that I develop. But the sixth sense, this inner sensation which is called ―a soul,‖ is developed by me in relation to the other souls. In this way, if a person can exit his five senses to a ―sixth sense,‖ it is considered that he is able to somehow connect with other souls and feel

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them. If a person feels, out of his soul, what happens in another soul, through a connection to it, then this is defined as his Upper World.

Let me try to explain it in different way. In relation to me, ―Upper World‖ means that I expand myself into a connection with all the other souls. As I join them to me, I actually form the vessel, the Kli, of my soul, inside which I feel the appearance of the Light, the Upper Force. There is no other way to feel what Kabbalists define as the Upper Light, Upper World, soul, Eternal World, Upper Force; anything that can be imagined and expressed with words which is beyond this world, except in the vessels of the rest of the souls. This is why the rule ―love thy neighbor as thyself‖ is considered to be ―a great rule in the Torah,‖ the main rule for the appearance of the Light in man’s vessels. This is also why Arvut (mutual guarantee) is the condition for this to happen. In other words, the connection of the souls is the condition in which the Upper Light, the Upper Force, will be revealed. A person, who begins to perform a restriction over his five senses, and develops a desire beyond them, actually penetrates the vessels of other souls, and it is then considered that he becomes a Kabbalist.

So with the annulment of his self, the person reveals this general vessel called Adam ha Rishon (the First Man). Why does the person call it ―the first?‖ Because it really is first in relation to all the other souls. The Kabbalist reveals that everyone is actually connected through this formation of The First Man, Adam ha Rishon. That is how the Kabbalist describes it, because it is the prototype, the model, the initial structure in relation to every single soul. Anyone who exits the five senses, who rises above them, above this world, actually discovers the same structure of Nishmat Adam ha Rishon, ―The Soul of the First Man.‖ Its revelation is gradual, from small to large, through stages of attainment within this structure, that are called Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. That is how the entire vessel is revealed.

The entire vessel of Adam ha Rishon, which is filled with all of the Light and which includes all of the corrections, is called ―The Endless World,‖ or ―The World of Infinity,‖ Olam Ein Sof in Hebrew. That is why Kabbalists tell us about this Adam, that it is actually a great vessel, a great desire to receive of which each of us is just a part. Each person that reveals this picture, discovers the same general structure. How can the general structure be revealed? It is revealed to the extent that a person can participate in it as an integral, active part, like every single cell in our body which assumes an active role in the body’s functioning.

All bodies, all natural systems, both upper and lower, are constructed in such a way that there is no organ, no ligament, bone, cell or any other part that serves only itself. All parts serve the rest of the body. If a body part begins to function for itself it becomes malignant and consumes everything that is around it. By doing so it eventually dies, since it consumes its own vital supplies. This is what happens at the corporeal level, the level of our matter.

In spirituality we all are within that structure of Adam ha Rishon. We eventually find out that the Creator or the Upper Light created only one structure. This single structure functions through all of its interconnected parts in an integral way, just like the human body. It is just that, we here, who are in this structure, suffer from blurred vision. We do not truly sense ourselves. We are simultaneously in this structure, but we are out of it too, behind five screens. It means that, in our awareness, we are not within this structure of Adam ha Rishon. The difference in our vision, our sensation, manifests in our actions of receiving and giving that each of us performs toward the

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others, in what we feel and in the way we act. This difference is called ―the descent through five worlds.‖ That is how it is named in relation to us.

Drawing No. 2

And truly, each one of us, although we do not see it or know it, is an inseparable part in the structure of Adam ha Rishon, acting completely in the form of bestowal, existing the world of Infinity. ―World‖ (Olam) is intended to describe this state of Adam ha Rishon which is filled with Lights, eternity, wholeness. It is only in our consciousness that we feel ourselves to be in some different state, in a different place. That is why our state is called ―unconscious state‖ or ―imaginary world,‖ which is experienced by us as some concealment.

Kabbalists, who start connecting with all other souls according to the rule of ―love thy neighbor as thyself‖ and according to the rule of Arvut (mutual responsibility), start to feel this state of Adam ha Rishon accordingly. Once this state begins to be felt, when it gradually becomes clearer, the delusion, the blurring dissipates, the vision becomes clearer and then this structure is revealed more and more through a total of five levels of revelation. The concealment turns into revelation. We gradually draw nearer to that structure through steps, or levels of concealment, a transformation from concealments into revelations. All of these levels become revealed; they reveal to us that structure of Adam ha Rishon.

When a person crosses the ―barrier,‖ even if only a little, into the Spiritual World, the person can then already sense the structure of Adam ha Rishon at each level, at some degree of blurring which is called ―his world‖—the extent of ―his concealment.‖ It is always like this. Crossing the barrier is the same as connecting, to some extent, with all other souls.

Drawing No. 3

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To sense the Upper World is the same as to connect with the other souls as an integral cell in the body of Adam ha Rishon; in a conscious way, willingly, while being aware of this doing. This is what becomes revealed. We are all inside this structure of Adam ha Rishon, and all of the Kabbalistic books, and all of our revelations, are only about this.

The worlds are levels of concealment in which I find myself. The souls are what I reveal in this world. The spirits, angels, shrines, heavens; everything that Kabbalah discusses refers to forces acting inside this solid, rigid and unchanging body called Adam ha Rishon.

Rabash once gave a good example regarding the fact that since we are unable to see clearly, we seem to cause trouble to one another. He talked about a friend of his: ―I have a friend who owns a restaurant. It seems to him that he wants money. This is the extent of haziness that he experiences. So in order to have a lot of money he sets up the restaurant and makes very good food, and invites people, advertises, all in order to serve the customers. All of this is done in concealment of the fact that he actually loves them, deeply within himself. It will later be revealed to him—after he passes through double concealment and single concealment, through all of the levels—that he had always been in a state of one hundred per cent bestowal, and it was just that he was living a lie. He lied to himself unconsciously, that he was doing it in order to make money, or to achieve other things.‖

What does this example illustrate for us? It tells us that we are situated in Adam ha Rishon, in that structure, and there is no distance, no time, and no change. We just need to open our sense and start feeling this single state that exists. Then we will discover that we exist in falsehood, opposed to the true state.

We spoke about the levels of revelation. There are a total of five worlds. In each world there are five large levels, called ―Five Partzufim.‖ In each Partzuf there are five additional levels, called ―Five Sefirot.‖ So in each world there are twenty-five levels, and there are five worlds, yielding one hundred and twenty-five levels of revelation. That is what a person passes through. What does revelation mean? The person cleanses his sense, and in so doing, begins to see where he really exists, just as an unconscious person gradually regains consciousness and then sees where he is. That is why this state we are in is defined as an imaginary world, because it is completely imaginary.

The spiritual worlds can be known partially. If I reach a certain level, a small attainment of existence outside of this world, some spiritual degree, then within that level I know that I have the correct relationship, the correct structure. It is still like a child who is not yet familiar with the world, still wanting to discover it. The child has some relationship to the world, knowing that hecan only manage with a small familiar part of the world. The child knows that up to some degree, he can deal with the world, but beyond it, he is afraid, he is not yet ready for it. That is why these worlds are called Olamot, from the word Haalama—concealment. It means that whoever is there, discovers that he is in concealment, and that there is more he has to reveal. Our world, our state in which we do not know anything, is defined as an imaginary state, an imaginary world. It is entirely the fruit of our imagination, and everyone in it is living an illusion. All we need is to start elevating above ourselves, above our five senses.

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Drawing No. 4

What is the extent of the connection between us and all the other souls? It seems to me now, that if I have to give to someone, or think about someone, connect to someone, it will make me feel a certain deficiency. It will damage me, it will damage my pride; I will have to share, to give, I will have to reduce myself in relation to the other. In other words, a person only feels his own tiny vessel with the five senses. He does not sense the point in the heart, only his small vessel.

Performing a restriction on the five senses does not mean avoiding anything in this world. It means paying attention to the development of the point in the heart, and not to the five senses. The five senses are called ―natural senses,‖ and they can thus receive whatever is natural for them to receive. The point is not to invest effort in fulfilling them, but the effort, the attention, should be invested in developing the point. Whatever the five senses demand in the meantime is probably a corporeal necessity for sustaining existence.

Until what point or state do we have to exist in the body? It is as we have discussed; until we are included with all the rest of the vessel, with all the rest of the souls, in a complete and integral way, one hundred percent. Why is it so? It is because only then I will not need to also exist in my corporeal vessel. I will not need to determine my relationship to both some soul and my five senses. I will then begin to sense that my body, the way I currently experience it, does not exist, and these senses will be called ―virtual senses.‖ It is just that I still cannot establish that as of yet.

Rabash gave a very good example about this as well. He said that a person in this world cannot discern between the states in which he finds himself. He described a man who worked as a mover of goods with his horse and carriage. He used to take merchandise from one place to the other with his horse and carriage, he had a family, a wife, kids, he was happy. He earned a good living, and he was happy, a simple man. Suddenly, a tough time came, there was an epidemic, everything began to go wrong, the children died, the horse died, and eventually the man died as well from his deep sorrow.

Then he arrived at the Supreme Court in heaven, and they had to decide what to do with such a soul. He was a good man, he didn’t harm anyone, and he only did what life demanded of him to do. What can be given to him? Giving can only be done according to a person’s desire. What did he desire? He just wanted his family, his house, his horse and carriage, and his simple job. This is a real example, because

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how can they give someone in the next world more than he or she desires? So he received what he wanted. He was given the illusion that he existed and that he had a wife and children, a house, a horse and carriage—all is well—and he enjoyed it.

But the question is this: how can he discern whether he is dreaming or whether he really is in this world wondering around with the horse and carriage, having a family, children? Are there any ways to distinguish one from the other? How do we distinguish between a dream, an imaginary world, and between the real world? We don’t have that ability. That is why, once we reach the sensation of the spiritual world, we begin—as we ascend through the levels and reveal part of it—to understand that there is another part which is still concealed. By seeing that we still need to reveal something which is concealed, we accordingly begin to sense how much our world is imaginary.

[Rav points to the drawing] I rise through one hundred and twenty-five levels of revelation. Here is my material, corporeal world, and as I rise, at every level, I still need my body. This is because, on my body, I construct my free choice to go to the next level, to connect with the other souls at each and every level. This choice needs to be made from my lowest level and that is why I must still be in the body and reincarnate time and time again. To the extent that I elevate from level to level, I begin to see the world—through one hundred and twenty-five levels—as being more and more imaginary. If I rise by one level, I see this world as imaginary to the extent of that one level. If I rise by two levels, I see it as imaginary in the extent of the two levels. This means that, with the same vessels I acquire, I also become capable of distancing and relating to what I see here as imaginary. Accordingly, I relate to what I see here as obligatory, I see how this picture that is in front of me is imperative, helping me to place myself correctly in my spiritual level of attainment.

That is why there is great need for this world, for this reality in which we now exist, imagining ourselves in our bodies, in this great world, the universe… But we should once in a while remind ourselves that in relation to this world, we are in the same state as that mover with the horse and carriage. In relation to others, we are like the restaurant owner, who thinks he is actually acquiring honor, money, all the pleasures of this world, while in reality it is all an illusion that he is experiencing as the Upper Providence obligates him to function within the structure of Adam ha Rishon.

Drawing No. 5

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This structure of Adam ha Rishon is not a homogeneous, unified structure. It is just like the human body, where there are higher and lower functioning organs who are more or less important in the body’s operation. That is why each one who goes through the states of revelation experiences them differently from others. The principal is the same, to constantly develop the sixth sense and its connection to the emergence of the souls. But each person has a different path. It is written: ―No day is similar to another; no hour is like the next‖—no one can be similar to others in his soul or path. That is why Kabbalists do not tell us in their true Kabbalistic books about the pictures that they see. They only tell us about the corrections that we have to apply on our vessels, in order to reach the same world, level or state that they see.

Baal HaSulam tells us this: ―The truth will be rewarding to you, to speak with no disparity, and all that you will see will be seen by your own eyes and no one else’s.‖ We cannot share this depiction with anyone else; we can only discuss its fundamentals, its components. So we need a great longing to see the Upper World, but the revelation of it is individual, it has to be done by each one of us. It is the same as when one says to another, ―taste this; it is sweet, very tasty.‖ Since we have shared senses that are similar, we can then assume that if I taste it, I will sense the same sensation as well. But the inner sensation which is perceived by the desire cannot be compared among ourselves. It is the same in the Spiritual World. Each Light is revealed in an individual vessel, and therefore, it is not possible to discuss flavors any further than what is revealed in the desire. The inner impression from every desire is something personal that we can never compare among one another.

Question: Who or what is the Creator in this picture of the Spiritual World?

I don’t know. Here, we speak about man revealing the world. I have never heard about someone, or some great hand, ever coming down through the clouds to give us some sacred book.

There haven’t been any such discoveries, and what we try to visualize as images is improper. It is simple—do not make yourself any image or figure. Such people are incorrect. We have never seen such things and we must not believe them. ―One must only judge according to what one sees,‖ that is the rule.

How come some people sometimes see unnatural things? Well, they are not unnatural, they are also part of nature. There is nothing that is above nature, there is only the corporeal nature and the spiritual nature. It can be divided into two. The nature in which we were born, and in which we feel this world naturally, can be studied further through research and experiments. However, everything we discover is the world that we sense—the sensed reality—because that is how we are structured. We reveal it according to our desire. All of our substance is actually desire. Atoms desire to sustain themselves, plants want to grow, a greater desire in living creatures makes them wonder around, and an even greater desire in human beings makes us feel all kinds of different desires. It all depends on desire; the entire substance of creation is desire.

Any force that is in matter, actually determines what form the matter will assume. If we could, for example, take a pencil and inject into it additional power, additional power of will, suddenly the pencil would become a vegetative organism. With even more power it would become a living entity until finally it would become human. There are some who actually think, according to Darwin’s theory, that such evolution is possible. We know, however, that it is not possible, because desire cannot evolve in an existing object beyond what already exists in its defined state. The desire that is in an object manifests to the outside as its form, but it is not added to it during its

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existence, it is simply revealed by the object. In human sperm, for example, everything that is necessary for it to create an adult person is included in it. It is not possible that one level of desire will emerge out of another level and evolve out of a different essence. That is why inanimate, vegetative, living and speaking are clearly defined and cannot change. Both The Ari, in The Tree of Life, and Baal HaSulam, in the third part of Talmud Eser Sefirot, tell us that there are still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels, and there are some discernments in between them, such as corals that are in between still and vegetative, so called ―Kelev ha Sadeh‖ (described in Talmud) that are in between the vegetative and the living, or a monkey…

Drawing No. 6

These levels are also permanent levels, only they are intermediary. If we look for the example at the level of living, as many creatures as there are, they all have their place here, from the tiniest ant or some frog, a lion, and so on, until we arrive to the monkey. The monkey may be at the boundary between the animal and the human, but it can never change, go up or down. It has to remain at its level.

You can take any animal, and through training, add to it all sorts of habits, but in that you do not develop in it any additional desire. So do not get confused. We always work only with externality, with what is already defined by nature and can never change. There may be many mutations, all sorts of external forms, but we can never change the desire. There is a desire, and the desire determines the properties, and in these properties it determines the external attributes of the Matter, that is, the Forms of the Matter. In the Wisdom of Kabbalah this is called ―Matter, and Form clothed in Matter.‖ Abstract Form and Essence are not discussed by us. So the entire discussion is about desire. We read in ―The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah‖ that the entire creation, including anything we can name, except for the Light—the Upper Light which is what we call the Creator—is desire. Everything else beside desire is the Upper Force. It determines the desire, and we call it the Creator.

So there is some energy field, which we call ―Upper Force.‖ Why is it ―Upper‖? It is ―Upper‖ because from it emanates the desire—it precedes the desire. That is why we call it the Creator. How do we know about this? Kabbalists, who developed their desire to this level of perception, have told us about it. A person can develop the desire accordingly, and discover that the level of speaking includes many levels of desires within the entire humanity. We usually talk about a pyramid structure. There are many people with simple desires, and very few with elevated, unique desires.

However, changing the desire within a person and developing it, is not related to this. Each person must correct and develop his own desire. Such an action is enough in order to become included in Adam ha Rishon, because within this structure of Adam ha Rishon each one needs to correct his relationship to the rest of the desires around him or her. There are five parts in the structure —Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA

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and Malchut. If I belong to a certain part, I have to correct my relationship to all the other parts of Adam ha Rishon from where I am. I need to become a corrected, integral part, acting correctly within the structure, and providing everyone else whatever they need from me, just like a healthy cell in the human body.

Drawing No. 7

An eye is only expected to receive light and transfer it inside. I cannot add to it functions for which it is not intended, but if it is functioning correctly, then the entire body enjoys it, just as when we function correctly, each of us enjoys the health of the entire body of Adam ha Rishon, as the Light becomes revealed in its entirety. Individual desires cannot be changed, and that is why, in this world as well, as we have discussed previously, dissemination should be passive. People should be shown that it is possible to correct ourselves, to reveal the soul. Education should only take place through example, by setting a good example. A person will grasp as much as he or she can grasp, but no one should be coerced into anything. That is why ethics and education, according to Kabbalah, are opposite to each other.

Drawing No. 8

A person starting to develop spiritually should not be told anything. He needs to see different examples about choosing development through free choice. We cannot change desire, the person must choose on his own how to develop the desire. There cannot be any external enforcement other than an example. The choice has to be

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internal. The development is of ―man‖ in his ―environment.‖ The way in which man uses his environment determines his use of his desire. Man’s desire, his properties, are given from birth, but through the use of the environment, man can better know how to develop his attributes.

Drawing No. 9

Question: Why doesn’t the Upper World open up to a person while he is still invested in the pleasures of this world as well as the Upper World?

I never said that it is so. It is written that ―whoever is greater than his friend, his evil inclination is greater than him.‖ It is also written that, from the time of the destruction of the temple, the flavors of BYA remained only for elevated souls, for the completely righteous ones. So this is not true.

On the contrary, our world does not become any more inferior for those who rise up the levels, because a person has to have free choice to choose the Upper Worlds while still within the physical body. At every level the person has to use the body as well. We have read an article about how long a person has to reincarnate, attain a corporeal, external form. It has to continue until one goes through all the levels, and reaches the end of correction. Why is it so?

What is an ―external form‖? It does not mean this body. It means the five senses, with all of the pleasures that can be revealed in them. Through the five senses the person elevates, and his or her experience changes according to his or her level. So it is not possible to say that, as the person emerges into the smallest spiritual level, this world immediately becomes dark and worthless for him or her.

On the contrary, as written in The Zohar, Rabbi Shimon, before reaching the last level before the end of correction, felt himself to be ―Shimon from the market.‖

We need to understand what ―Shimon from the market‖ means. It is not some merchant in the market. It means that he felt this way, with all of the obstacles that he was facing, having to make the free choice at the level of the end of correction, after going through all of the levels and being in GAR de Atzilut. His state was not something that we can imagine, and that is why Rabash wrote such an article about reincarnations.

The existence in our body is very central and our body, with all of its demands, should not be disregarded. It is the correct relationship, the right combination of the

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world in which a person lives and the spirituality that is revealed to the person that determines the person’s behavior. That is why no one can judge anyone else by external appearance, since no one can know the other’s inner world and what is revealed there. If you would have seen Rabbi Shimon at the time of the desire of ―Shimon from the market,‖ you would have seen his external level, while not knowing his inner sensations.

These issues are still too elevated for us. We will gradually come to understand them. For now we will stop, and next time we will discuss the three states, A, B and C, and go over our entire spiritual as well as corporeal history, and how it is revealed to the Kabbalist.

Comprehension test # 4

1. If we could overcome the limitations of our egoistic vision based on the 5

bodily senses, what world would we discover then? How are we connected there?

2. What action is called ―Tzimtzum Alef‖? Why and how does one perform it? Does this action involve avoiding anything in this world?

3. What does it mean ―to correct myself‖? How our corrected state is different

from our current state?

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Baal HaSulam: the Purpose of Creation Is Man

This purpose of Creation does not apply to the still and the great spheres, such

as the earth, the moon, or the sun, however luminous they may be, and not to the vegetative or the animate, for they lack the sensation of others, even from among their own species. Therefore, how can the sensation of the Godly and His bestowal apply to them?

Humankind alone, having been prepared with the sensation of others of the same species, who are similar to them, after delving in Torah and Mitzvot, when they invert their will to receive to a will to bestow, and come to equivalence of form with his Maker, they receive all the degrees that have been prepared for them in the Upper Worlds, called NRNHY. By that they become qualified to receive the purpose of the Thought of Creation. After all, the purpose of the creation of all the worlds was for man alone.

Baal HaSulam, ―Introduction to The Book of Zohar,‖ Item 39

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ATTAINING THE WORLDS BEYOND

Spiritual Progress

Just as we are incapable of correctly assessing our own true condition, neither can we discern whether we are in a stage of spiritual ascent or descent. For although we may feel we are in a spiritual downturn, in fact it might be the Will of the Creator, showing us our true state. This demonstrates that without self-indulgence, we are incapable of functioning and are immediately given to despair. Even depression and anger may result if because our bodies are not receiving enough pleasure from such an existence.

But, in fact, this lack represents a spiritual ascent, for at that moment we are closer to the truth than before, when we were happy in this world. It is said that, ―one who increases knowledge also increases sorrow.‖ Conversely, a feeling that one is experiencing spiritual ascent may simply be a misinterpreted state of self-indulgence and complacency.

Only one who already perceives the Creator and His Divine Providence over all creations can correctly determine one’s spiritual condition. Based on the above, it is easy to understand that the further we advance along the path of self-improvement in an effort to correct our egoism, and the more effort we make to improve ourselves and to study, the more we grow to understand our own characteristics.

With each attempt, with each passing day, with each turn, we will become more and more disillusioned in our own abilities to achieve anything. The more we despair in our attempts, the greater grow our grievances toward the Creator. We then demand to be taken out of that black abyss, that dungeon of physical desire in which we find ourselves.

In this manner, events progress until, having exhausted our own potential, and having done everything that is in our own power, we recognize that we are unable to help ourselves. We must turn to the Creator, who places these obstacles in our path to compel us to turn to Him for help and to arouse in us a desire to establish a bond with Him.

But for this to happen, our pleas must come from the depths of our hearts. This is not possible to achieve until we have exhausted all possibilities and realize that we are helpless.

Only a plea coming from the depths of our whole being, one that has become our only wish – for we have understood that only a miracle from Above can save us from our greatest enemy, our own egos – will be answered by the Creator. He will then replace the egoistic heart with a spiritual one, "a heart of stone with a heart of flesh."

Until the Creator rectifies our condition, the further we progress, the worse we begin to feel about ourselves.

In truth, we were always this way, but to a certain extent, having grasped the attributes of the spiritual worlds, we have begun to feel how hostile are our personal wishes to entering those worlds.

However, despite feeling tired and hopeless, we can still regain control over our own bodies, Then, having thought carefully and concluded that there is

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seemingly no way out of our state, we may understand the true cause of such emotions, and force ourselves to feel buoyant and optimistic.

By doing so, we attest to our trust in the fairness of the management of the world, and in the Creator’s kindness, and in His rule over the world. Then, by doing so, we will become spiritually fit to receive the Light of the Creator, because we are basing our entire perspective of our surroundings on our faith, elevating faith above reason.

There is no moment more precious in the life of the seeker who is spiritually advancing than when one realizes that all powers have been exhausted, all efforts have been made, and the goal has still not been achieved. For only at such an instant can one sincerely appeal to the Creator from the bottom of one’s heart, because it is now clear that one’s own efforts will be no help at all.

But before recognizing defeat, the seeker is still certain that no other help will be required to achieve the desired objective. Still unable to beg for help sincerely enough, the seeker falls prey to the deceptive voice of the ego, which urges that, rather than ask for help, it is better to make an intensified effort should be made to accomplish the objective.

Finally, the seeker will realize that, in the struggle against the ego, the ego is the stronger of the two combatants, and that help is needed to overcome this enemy. Only then does one realize one’s insignificance and inability to conquer the ego, and become ready to bow to the Creator and implore Him for help.

Faith: Believing in the Oneness of the Creator

Faith in the Oneness of the Creator implies that we see the entire world, including ourselves, as vessels in the Creator’s hands. And conversely, if we think ourselves capable of influencing events, it reveals that we believe in the presence of many different powers in the world, rather than only in the Will of the One Creator.

Therefore, by destroying our egos, we can bring ourselves into accord with the true condition of the world, where nothing exists but the Creator’s Will. Until then, however, we will not have the merit to act as those who believe in the Oneness of the Creator, and thus, our spiritual progress remains idle.

The only way we can become convinced of the Oneness of the Creator is by working hard on ourselves, and by cultivating appropriate aspirations in ourselves. Only after achieving absolute unity with the Creator in all our perceptions, having risen to the highest level of the worlds, can we understand His Oneness. Only then can we proceed to act in accordance with this accurate view of reality.

Before achieving this condition, we must act in accordance with the level that we are on, and not the level about which we fantasize and dream. In order to genuinely improve on our present level, we must combine confidence in our own powers at the start of the work, with the belief that what we achieve as a result of our own labors would have happened anyway.

We must realize that the entire universe develops according to the Creator’s plan, and according to His idea of creation. We may say that all goes according to the Creator, but only after we have put forth our best efforts/

It is beyond human comprehension to understand the essence of such spiritual qualities as total altruism and love.

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This is simply because human beings cannot comprehend how such feelings can exist at all, as everyone seemingly requires an incentive to perform any act.

In fact, without personal gain, people aren’t prepared to extend themselves. That is why a quality such as altruism can only be imparted to us from Above, and only those who have experienced it can understand it. But if this quality is awarded to us from heaven, why then, should we try so hard to attain it? Won’t our labors fail to yield any results by themselves, until the Creator helps us and consigns to us new qualities and new natures?

The fact is, we must pray from below and request these changes. We must, express a strong desire for the Creator to change our qualities, for only if the desire is really and truly strong will the Creator grant it. We must also put great effort into making this desire strong enough for the Creator to grant it.

While we are trying to accomplish this goal, we will gradually realize that we have neither the desire nor the ability to achieve it on our own. Then we will have a real demand of the Creator: to free us from the constraints of our old qualities and to grant us a new characteristic—a soul.

But that cannot possibly happen unless we first attempt to apply all our powers and abilities to change by ourselves. It is only after we have become convinced that these efforts bring no result and cry for help, from the depths of our hearts, that the Creator will answer us.

We can utter this cry for help to change our qualities only after we have found that neither our desires nor a single limb of our bodies agrees to this change of nature to the extent that we will unconditionally hand ourselves over to the Creator. In fact, we are equal in our desires to remain a slave to our nature, and to become a slave to altruism.

Only after we realize that there is no hope of our bodies ever agreeing to such a change can we appeal to the Creator for help from the bottom of our hearts. Only then will the Creator accept our plea and respond to it by replacing all of our egoistic qualities with their opposite, altruistic ones, so that we may draw closer to Him.

If we consider that we must work unwillingly in this world, then what is the result of our efforts at the end of our days? What is the point of our efforts in this world? When we consider these questions, we will conclude that working to change ourselves is not as difficult as we might have thought.

And when we have achieved change, our changed qualities will have revealed to us great pleasures as a result of our inner efforts. The pleasure arises when we see what we are working for.

Therefore, we see our efforts not as troublesome, but as bringing joy. The greater our efforts, the happier we are to receive these new qualities, since we immediately feel a great and everlasting reward for each of them we now possess.

Even in our world, we can see how excitement and exaltation make it easier for us to expend strong efforts. If we feel great respect for someone, and that person is the most exalted person in the world in our eyes, then everything we do for someone so worthy of our esteem will be done with joy and gratitude – simply to have the opportunity to serve such a person.

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The greatest effort will seem a pleasure. Just as we may love to dance or exercise, our exertion is not considered as work, but rather, pleasure. For this reason, one who feels and recognizes the greatness of the Creator feels joy at the opportunity to please Him.

Thus, what at first seemed to be slavery actually turns into a freedom full of pleasures. Consequently, if our spiritual aspirations come to us with difficulty, and if we must make a formidable effort to attain the spiritual, this should indicate to us that the Creator is not yet great enough in our eyes or our perception, and that our attention is being drawn to other goals than attaining the spiritual.

As long as we pursue these other goals, we will receive no support from the Creator and will only be moving farther and farther away from our primary goal.

But even when striving toward the Creator, we will not receive His spiritual support immediately.

For if we received immediate inspiration and joy from our efforts, then our egos would certainly rejoice, and we would continue to make the effort only because of the resulting pleasure.

However, we would have lost the opportunity to transcend our egoistic natures and rise to pure altruism. Ideally, we should only be interested in the pleasures derived from spiritual self-improvement, which are greater than any others.

Our Perceptions

When someone performs a particular kind of work, that person gradually develops a special insight concerning the objects and language surrounding that work. Therefore, there is nothing in the world that we cannot begin to experience as a result of habit, even without prior understanding of the particular object.

We are, however, operating under a vital limitation to our perception and understanding: we see ourselves as separate from objects we perceive.

There is the one who perceives and there is the perceived--the object that is perceived by the person. Similarly, there exists the person who comprehends, and separately, the object of comprehension.

A certain contact between the perceiver and the object of perception is necessary for perception to occur: it is a bond, something that unites them both, something that they have in common during the perception. We can grasp all that surrounds us only through our perception. What we perceive is considered to be truthful and reliable information.

However, because we are incapable of seeing all that surrounds us objectively, we assume that the pictures our senses create for us is true. Yet, we do not know what the universe is like beyond our senses, or what it would appear to be like for beings with a different set of senses than our own. This is because we acquire our sense of reality from how we perceive our environment; we assume that our senses are accurate and we accept as true the picture of reality that we perceive through them.

If we proceed from the assumption that nothing exists in the universe but the Creator and His creations, we can say that our pictures and perceptions are the means by which the Creator appears to our consciousness. At every stage of

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spiritual elevation, this picture grows closer and closer to the true one. Finally, at the last stage of elevation, we can perceive the Creator and nothing but the Creator.

Therefore, all the worlds, as well as everything that we believe to exist outside of us, in fact exist only in relation to us. That is, they exist in relation to one who perceives reality in this particular manner.

If we do not perceive the Creator or the Creator’s domain over us at the present moment, then it can be said that we remain “in darkness.”

Nevertheless, we cannot determine an absence of sun in the universe because our perceptions are subjective. Only we construe reality in this manner.

However, if we realize that our negation of the Creator and Divine rule are purely subjective and prone to change, then we can still begin our spiritual elevation by an effort of will and with the help of various texts and teachers. Moreover, once we begin our spiritual ascent, we may realize that the Creator made the condition of darkness for the sole purpose of compelling us to develop a need for His help, and in order to draw us closer to Him.

Indeed, the Creator made such conditions specifically for those individuals whom He desires to draw closer to Him. Thus, it is important to realize that the elevation of an individual from the state of darkness brings delight to the Creator, since the greater the darkness from which a person has emerged, the clearer the recognition of the Creator’s greatness, and the greater the appreciation of one’s new spiritual state.

But even while perceiving the darkness, being blind to the Creator’s rule and lacking faith in Him, by using one’s will power, we can try to find a way out of the darkness with the help of a book or a teacher, until we can perceive at least a tiny ray of Light, a weak perception of the Creator.

Then, by making this ray of Light stronger and stronger by cultivating constant thoughts of the Creator, we can escape the darkness and enter into the Light. Going even further, if we realize that these states of darkness are necessary for spiritual advancement, and are even desirable, and sent to us by the Creator Himself, then we will welcome them.

We will recognize that the Creator has offered us the gift of perceiving shadows, or the incomplete darkness, so that we may seek the source of the Light.

However, if we do not use the opportunity to cross into the Light, then the Creator will conceal Himself from us completely.

Absolute darkness will prevail, bringing with it a sensation of the absence of the Creator and His rule. Then, we will no longer understand how and why spiritual goals were ever entertained, and how reality and personal reason could have been ignored.

This complete darkness will continue until the Creator again shines upon us a tiny ray of Light.

Structure of Spirituality

A person’s desires are called vessels, and these can hold spiritual Light, or pleasure. However, in their essence, one’s desires must be similar to the qualities of

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the spiritual Light. Otherwise the Light cannot enter them, according to the Law of the Equivalence of Form of Spiritual Objects.

The activity of spiritual objects – whether close, or distant, or merging and unifying – is always based on the principle of the similarity of properties.

The Creator will bestow upon a person that which the person wants – to return to the Creator.

Therefore, a person’s heart, or vessel, will be filled with the perception of the Creator to the same degree that egoism has been ejected. This is in accordance with the Law of the Equivalence of Qualities Between the Light and the vessel.

We can, in fact, begin our spiritual ascent from any condition that we are in. We must simply realize that of all possible conditions, ranging from the highest to the lowest, the Creator has chosen this particular one as the best situation for us to start on the path of spiritual advancement.

Therefore, there can be no other frame of mind, mood, or external circumstances better suited or more beneficial to our progress than our present circumstances, however hopeless or dismal they may seem. Realizing this, we can rejoice in the opportunity to appeal to the Creator for help and to thank Him, even if we are in the most wretched of situations.

Something is considered ―spiritual‖ if it is eternal and will not disappear from the universe, even upon reaching the ultimate goal. On the other hand, egoism (all the original inborn desires and the essence of a human being) is considered to be merely material because once corrected, it disappears.

Our essence remains until the end of correction, when only the form is changed. If our desires are corrected and become altruistic, then even our negative inborn qualities will enable us to comprehend the Creator.

The existence of a spiritual place is not related to any actual space. All those who reach this state after correcting their spiritual qualities can see and perceive the same things.

The ladder of the Creator has 125 levels. These levels are divided evenly between five spiritual worlds. These worlds are:

The World of Adam Kadmon

The World of Atzilut

The World of Beria

The World of Yetzira

The World of Assiya.

Each level provides a different perception of the Creator, depending on each level’s particular properties. Therefore, those who have acquired the properties of a specific level see the Kabbalah and the Creator in a completely new way. Everyone who attains a particular level of the spiritual world receives the same perception as everyone else on the same level.

When the Kabbalists said, "Thus said Abraham to Isaac," it indicated that the Kabbalists were situated on the same level as Abraham. Thus, the Kabbalists understood how Abraham responded to Isaac, since in their spiritual state they were like Abraham.

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In his lifetime, the Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag reached all 125 levels. From this exalted place, he dictated the Kabbalah, which we are now able to enjoy in this generation. From this level, he wrote his commentary to the Zohar, the master text of Kabbalah.

Each of the 125 levels exists objectively; all those who perceive each of them see the same things, just as all those who inhabit our world see the same surroundings if they are in the same place.

As soon as we attain the smallest altruistic desire, we can embark on a path of spiritual ascensions and descents: At one moment, we are ready to nullify ourselves completely before the Creator, but the next moment we will not give it a single thought. Suddenly, the idea of spiritual elevation becomes absolutely alien to us and is thrust from our minds.

This is much like the way a mother teaches her child to walk. She holds it by the hand so that it feels her support, and then she suddenly withdraws, letting go of it. When the child feels totally abandoned and lacking all support, it is compelled to take a step toward the mother. Only in this way can it learn to walk independently.

Thus, though it may seem to us as if the Creator has suddenly abandoned us, in fact He is waiting for us to take a step on our own.

It is said that the Upper World is in a state of complete rest. The word "rest," in the spiritual world, implies no changes in desire.

However, the desire to bestow good never changes. All acts and movements, in both our inner emotional (egoistic) world and in the spiritual (altruistic) world, are involved in replacing a former desire with a new one.

If no such change has taken place, then nothing new has happened and no movement forward has occurred. This applies even if the original, constant desire may in itself be very vivid and very intense, giving us no peace.

But if that desire is invariable and consistent, then there is no movement.

Therefore, when it is said that the Upper Light is in a state of absolute rest, this means that the Will of the Creator to benefit us is unwavering and constant.

We exist in the Sea of Light. But that point in us which we call our "I" is encased in a shell of egoism. In this state, we are incapable of enjoying the Light and are merely floating.

False Pleasures

The pleasures of our world as seen by society can be divided into several types: status symbols (wealth, fame), natural (family), criminal (pleasures experienced at the expense of others’ lives), illegal (pleasures experienced at the expense of others’ property), amorous (romantic pleasures), and more. All of these are understood by society, even though some of them are condemned and punished.

But there is a certain type of pleasure, unacceptable in any type of society, that always evokes protest. It causes enormous funds to be spent on attempts to combat it, even though the damage it causes society is, perhaps, the least significant.

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For example, drug addicts are, as a rule, unpretentious people who are deeply absorbed in their inner sensations. Why, then, do we not allow our fellow human beings to engage in pleasures that pose only a small threat to society? Why not just give them a chance to enjoy their unassuming, peaceful pleasures, which don’t harm others, unlike criminal, illegal and other pleasures?

The answer is that false pleasures divert us from our true goals. They cause us to forget ourselves, and propel us to spend all our lives chasing them as if we were dazed.

Is it then true that all objects that attract us are false pleasures? Instead of seeking true pleasure and turning to spiritual things, we seek satisfaction in forever changing fashions, in improving our lifestyles, and in manufacturing new articles.

It is as if we were in a race to perpetuate attractive bearers of new pleasures, lest we feel life will not give us sufficient enjoyment.

As soon as we attain what we have been striving for, we must immediately set the next goal, because what we have attained soon loses its attraction.

Yet, without hope for new pleasures, without seeking and chasing them, we seemingly have no incentive to live. Therefore, can’t it be said that all of our fashions and our lifestyles, all that we constantly pursue, are but another kind of drug?

What is the difference between a drug addict’s pleasure and the pleasure derived from the mundane and the material? Why does the Creator, the Divine Supervisor, oppose the pleasures derived from drugs? Why does He cause us to pass anti-drug legislation in this world? Why do we not extend the same approach to all other material pleasures derived from the common objects of this world?

Drugs are prohibited in our world precisely because they allow us to escape reality. They make us incapable of facing the blows and beauty of life, which are caused by the absence of egoistic pleasures. These blows are, in fact, a means of reforming us, since only a small part of the population turns to religion and to Kabbalah in order to change.

Paradoxically, we turn to the Creator in times of hardship, when we are shaken by grief. It is odd that we do not turn away from the Creator during the hard times, since it was He Who sent us our suffering.

Drugs are a source of false pleasure and are therefore prohibited. Those who fall under the influence of drugs are under an illusion of pleasure that bars them from finding the path to true spiritual pleasure. For this reason, drugs are subconsciously seen by society as the most dangerous addiction, although they present no immediate hazard to other people.

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AUTHENTIC KABBALAH TEXTS

Rav Laitman: Lesson on the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”. Part 3

Rav Michael Laitman, Bnei Baruch, Israel

September 1, 2005

Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam

Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman

lowercase italics: emphasized words

Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew

We are continuing the article, ―The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.‖ We talked about ―The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,‖ meaning, what is the

definition of the Wisdom of Kabbalah? We talked about the order from above downward, and from below upward. We also talked about the abstract names that exist in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, and how Kabbalists name the things they find in the Upper World, how they take their names, and why these specific names and not others. Now we are in the section ―The Actuality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.‖

“The Actuality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

Actual things are found even in the corporeal reality, set before our eyes, though we have neither perception nor image of their essence. Such are the electricity and the magnet, called „fluidum.‟ Nevertheless, who can say that these names are not real, when we vividly and satisfactorily know their actions? We could not be more indifferent to the fact that we cannot conceive the essence of the subject itself, namely electricity itself.”

Actually everything we perceive, whether it is more or less perceivable or completely ungraspable, we only perceive the actions that stem from it. These things are very unclear. We did not know about magnetic force a few hundred years ago, and a hundred years ago we had no idea about radioactive radiation. Perhaps there are other forces that, only now I am beginning to think that such forces exist—like the power of thought, for example, the power of the mind—which is said to be even more powerful than the others. The more concealed the force, the stronger it is. The force of an atom bomb per kilo is more powerful than tons of regular dynamite. So of course some things are hidden, but it does not mean they do not exist. They are even more powerful and have more of an impact upon us than what we feel in our five senses.

Our five senses are only physical senses. I would even say they are animalistic, like what an animal has, or as with all animate beings. They too have the same senses. The difference is only in the addition of a brain that processes them in a more advanced manner. I feel and discover the crudest of forces that exist in reality, naturally as I grow in this world, and I am only now discovering the most hidden of forces, which I will perhaps discover more of in the future. However, this is only according to my discovery. It is not that they did not exist before and now they

appear. It is only with respect to me. That is why we have to relate to these things as one continuity; they all operate in nature, and they appear in an equal manner, as reality, to a person who studies Kabbalah.

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That is why the physical reality and the spiritual reality are the same reality; only with respect to us the physical reality is revealed, and the spiritual reality is concealed and appears gradually. The more we learn, the more we discern powers of reception and bestowal around us, and the more we delve deeper into matter, discovering and feeling the forces that operate matter, the more this reality appears to us. These powers do exist, even now, and the ones that are still concealed will be revealed. In other words, we should take reality as one and not divide it into concealed and revealed, but understand that a person, individually, subjectively, separates what one feels and what one does not feel.

“This name,” meaning electro-magnets “is as tangible and as close to us, as though it were entirely perceived in our senses.”

Meaning, in the revealed reality that used to be hidden. It was hidden because we did not perceive it in our senses directly, but only through instruments, through additional Kelim. So in this hidden reality, we discover things that are very, very real, and we should then determine and get used to the fact that our five senses perceive the smallest part of reality. If we rely only on them, we are operating no higher than the animate level, thus not entering the speaking level, because these senses exist in the animate.

The difference between the corporeal person in this world and the animal, is that a corporeal person has a little more intellect, but no more sensation, or senses. With intellect, we add to our sensations of time, space, motion and we thus see things a little more in the perspective of an ongoing process—something that animals do not feel and do not perceive in this manner. It is nothing more than a little addition of intellect in humans. That is all we have. Rather, the Wisdom of Kabbalah adds additional senses to a person and, of course, the intellect comes along with them. That is why, here, he enters a completely different level of research, a higher, additional one; the research of an additional reality. Here, we too discover things that operate, in fact even now, upon us.

“Even little children are familiar with the word „electricity‟ as well as they are familiar with words such as: bread, sugar, and so on.”

When we too would discover the upper reality with additional senses, additional intellect, it will be very ordinary for us, like kids today who know how to play computer games better than us, and they master these sophisticated systems that did not exist ten or twenty years ago. So, in a direct, simple, and natural fashion, we enter the revelation of the hidden reality, perceive it, and become incorporated in it, just like in our reality. In other words, the additional reality that comes to a Kabbalist, comes completely naturally.

“Moreover, if you wish to exercise your tools of scrutiny a bit, I shall tell you that as a whole, as there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, so is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands. Our whole acquaintance with our friends and relatives in the world of action before us is nothing more than „acquaintance with their actions.‟ These are prompted and born from their association of the encounter with our senses. They render us complete satisfaction though we have no perception in the essence of the subject. Furthermore, you have no perception and attainment whatsoever even in your own essence. Anything you know about your own essence is nothing more than a series of actions extending from your own essence.”

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Here there is another question. We are no longer are talking about additional senses. We might have more senses, additional understanding and intellect, but now we are talking about the depth of attainment in each sense. I have my five natural senses. I might have another sense, a sixth sense—a Masach (Screen) and Ohr Hozer (the Returning Light), or a soul—it does not matter. In all of them, both in the

natural senses, and in the ones I attain though my effort, I develop, within me, from my rudimentary point, this additional sense. Still, in all these senses I perceive actions, because I am the Kli in which the Ohr, Light, enters and I do not feel the

Light. I do not know who it is or what it is. I feel the results of it, of its influence. I am not able to say at all whether there is or is not anything. I can only discover that I seemingly react to something, meaning, I experience all kinds of changes.

My experience of these changes is what I perceive. Also, there are great precisions in my perceptions, that if not for the changes happening in me, I would not feel anything, I would be seemingly dead. I discern not in the act itself, but in the difference between the actions, between the states. This is, more or less, what gives me the sensation of time, the sensation of life and livelihood. I perceive the difference between things, the gap between them, and not the activation of the sense itself. It is just like the opposition between the Ohr and the Kli, between what pressures and

what strikes the sense. Our scent nerves or our hearing give us such examples. There can be a great noise, but if it stays level I will stop hearing it. There has to be changes. Meaning, my senses receive stimulation. I might even activate them, not externally, but also internally, and they will react in the same way; I will feel the same as if something was influencing me on the outside.

[Rav points to his head] I might put in here some electrodes and awaken things in me that happen seemingly on the outside and I could live in some genuine illusion. But who knows, maybe we are now in an illusion and there is an actual reality outside it? I should always compare my experiences between them, or between this and that, and only according to a comparison can I determine my relative state. Meaning, in our senses and perception, there is a very big limitation in how we perceive what we sense. This limitation is, in fact, what directs us correctly toward exiting this limitation.

Question: If a person were to be living alone in the world, without the environment, without society, would he still need to call these differences in sensory impressions by a name?

Of course, what does it matter if I am alone or not? What does it mean to name something? When I feel a certain phenomenon, there is an inner language that I seemingly determine from myself—―that's the way it is‖—it is like an inner registration. I still have to give it some kind of discernment and then it is imprinted in me according to the Reshimot. When I want to deliver these Reshimot to someone else... Let us say I felt something yesterday. It is imprinted in me as my Reshimo.

Now I want to pass it onto you, so I wonder, ―How can I explain to you what I felt yesterday?‖ It is already an exterior language, it is something else. Yet still, the inner language has to be, it is how our Reshimot are registered in our memory cells.

Question: You said that there are changes, and that there is the me that feels those changes. Who is the me that feels those changes? Changes happen to me; So, there is a me and the changes that happen to me?

I understand you. It is as if you are asking because I said: if there are no changes then there is no perception and no sensation of my reality, as if I am dead.

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So who is the ―me‖ that determines those changes? ―Me,‖ are those natural attributes in me and only in me, in a certain blend from which I determine. From these unique attributes, I determine reality and its motion, and read it in a certain way. I am the sum total, so to speak... It might be easier for us to use the language of Kabbalah. [Rav drawing] We exist as a root in Adam Ha Rishon. Your root is here and I am here

with my root, and he has his own roots, and each has his own place. In other words, in some place in Adam Ha Rishon, meaning, these preliminary attributes—you, me, and him are there. It is called ―the root of the soul,‖ and it is constant and determined for everyone. It cannot change.

Question: If it is predetermined and cannot change, so what does change?

What changes is your perception of the rest of reality, how much you are connected to it, the extent that you can read this reality correctly, and the extent you can correct yourself, to connect with the rest of reality, and through it, feel yourself and everybody else. If you are not connected with others, then within, you only feel your own impression of yourself. Meaning, you still have not exited your own little cell. To the extent that you connect to others, you begin to feel, through them, the reality that you are in. The difference is, what you feel within is this world, and what you feel through others is the Outer World. That is what we call ―the Spiritual World.‖ That is the difference, and it is a huge difference, because when you exit yourself and through love and the connection with others, begin to feel the impression of their Kelim, through their Kelim,. What do you perceive after all? You perceive everybody

else’s impressions. Why do I need everybody else’s impressions? What does it give me? The connection between them and you, gives you the addition of the attribute of bestowal to your own attribute.

It is not that I feel this world, and someone else also feels this world. Why do I need, besides my sensation of this world, which is not very pleasant, more so to add your sensation of this world? Who needs that? To add more troubles to myself? But when I connect to you with love, in the connection between us, I build a spiritual Kli for a different dimension. I then do not discover this world, but I discover the Spiritual World, a different dimension. By that, I switch to a sensation of the Upper Force. From the Kli, I move to the Light. Otherwise, why do I need this trouble? ―One who is pained in the sorrow of the public, is privileged in the consolation of the public.‖

Question: When a person reaches Gmar Tikkun, does he still sense changes?

The changes at Gmar Tikkun are not out of negativity. That is a good question.

Until Gmar Tikkun, we rise from this world, we correct our 613 desires in the soul, which is called ―fulfilling Mitzvot,‖ and fulfill these desires with Lights. When we reach Gmar Tikkun, our Kli is actually corrected, and filled with Lights—the stony

heart too, everything is filled. From there onward we advance, but not out of negativity. Here it is through Tikkunim. Our whole path consists of recognition of evil, and coming to a good state. When we reach eternal love (Gmar Tikkun) and continue

to rise onward or upward, there we rise, not from lacking and correction, to reach a supplement, a filling, but through a perpetual addition of evolution. We do not understand how that can be in our world: evolution that is not out of a preceding deficit. But there the preceding deficit... I do not know, you might express it verbally, I am not sure, I do not feel these things, they are beyond… There is no limit in love, seemingly. There are no words to describe it. Even in our words, Kabbalists do not

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write about what belongs to Gmar Tikkun; almost nothing. The Tikkunei Zohar

explains these things a little bit. But they also do not explain it, because there are no words there.

The whole language of Kabbalah is inside the Worlds BYA.[Rav repeats] Within the Worlds of BYA. The root of the Otiot, letters, is Zat de Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut in the World of Atzilut. We have, in all, from Ein Sof to our world, the Worlds Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira and Assiya. Here is where we exist, in the Worlds BYA—the souls exists here—and here below is this world. That is where

we are.

It follows that our purpose is to rise to the World of Atzilut. The root for our guidance is in the World Atzilut. In the World of Atzilut we have Partzuf Atik, Arich Anpin, Abba ve Ima, Zeir Anpin and Malchut. The guidance is from Zat de Abba ve Ima, Zeir Anpin and Malchut—that is how it comes to us. Zat de Abba ve Ima, is Otiot, letters, Aleph through Tet ( ). In Zeir Anpin is the Otiot from Yud ( ) through Tzadi ( ); and in Malchut is Kuf ( ), Resh ( ), Shin ( ), and Tav ( ) [Hebrew Letters].

The use of the letters is actually in the worlds of BYA, or to the extent that BYA can join Atzilut. We will talk in a simple manner. It is like in the old days when

they used to arrange text in the printing house. They would use lead letters to arrange the text. When I raise something from below, from BYA, from my awakening to Atzilut, I seemingly add my will to receive by desiring to correct it, either to Malchut or to Zeir Anpin or Ima. It is as if I choose a letter, with which letter I can equalize or

identify, and repeat this again and again. Thus, I seemingly connect letters into words, within the World of Atzilut, out of the Worlds of BYA. Through the addition of certain desire, I raise it from BYA, thus determining the forms of letters in Atzilut and

their connection into words. If I connect them correctly, I then perform an action. However, I might not connect them correctly, so then Baal HaSulam explains to us in the article ―Thou Hast Hemmed Me in Behind and Before,‖ that the whole sentence is removed from the beginning if there is a mistake somewhere, and you start over. It is not actually starting from scratch. By that you learned something, and in that too, the corrections come.

Back to our topic. In our research of reality, we are completely limited because we have the essence, the abstract form, the form clothed in matter and the matter itself. So our matter is reception, the will to receive. The form clothed in matter

is called the intention. Why do I use my will to receive? Through both we can receive reality correctly. The abstract form is mere bestowal, which is not in me anymore, but I can somehow describe it outside of me, something which is completely detached from me, completely abstract, then I cannot rely on it. And the essence is something completely unknown. It is not known what this is. It is some kind of root to the coming HaVaYot (plural for HaVaYa).

"Now you can easily deduce that all the names and appellations that appear in books of Kabbalah are indeed real and factual although we have no attainment in the subject matter whatsoever. It is thus because those who engage in it are completely satisfied with their inclusive perception of its ultimate wholeness, meaning a mere perception of actions, prompted and born of the association of the Upper Light and its perceivers."

So all-in-all, we have Ohr, (Light), [Rav drawing] which created the desire, and consequently from the Ohr comes all kinds of changes in the desire; the four phases of Direct Light (Dalet Behinot de Ohr Yashar), the evolution of desire, and

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then the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), the Kav, the Second Restriction (Tzimtzum Bet), the Shevira (breaking), and the Tikkun (correction). So everything that happens is an action of the Light in a desire. Until the breaking of Adam HaRishon, everything that happens is the actions from above downward, and the correction is already actions from below upward. So, in the actions from above downward, we have the construction of the Kli, and in the correction from below upward, we have the correction of the Kli. That is why we do everything from within the Kli. Meaning, what we feel, what we understand, everything we discover and that

we will ever feel—whenever—is always actually the sensation of ourselves and the actions that we experience. I never feel the sensation as it is outside of me or where it comes from. We are completely detached from that. By understanding this principle—of our limited perception of reality—by keeping it and sticking to it, we open before us the door to know the full reality. The understanding of where we are

limited is actually the knowledge of how to get rid of this limitation. Its written about more elaborately in the ―Introduction to the Book of Zohar,‖ ―The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Secular Sciences,‖ and other articles of Baal HaSulam.

Question: If you detach one from the five senses one would stop feeling one‟s existence. But if everyone‟s senses are detached, then is there reality or isn‟t there?

Reality is what one feels. If you detach one person’s sensation, then that person would not feel reality; if you detached everyone’s then nobody would feel it. Is there reality? What is reality? Reality is what we feel. So who will feel? And what? Of course not! There is no reality that exists outside of us. All the worlds, as he (Baal HaSulam) writes... What do we have in this article, ―Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,‖ (in the book Kabbalah LeMatchil, on page 272)? Look at what

Baal HaSulam writes to you in item 1 of the ―Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.‖

"It is explained that all the worlds, Upper and Lower, are all included in us (Adam), and also the entire reality," and so on and so forth… "…is all for us"

—it is included within us. Meaning, there is nothing outside of us. You cannot say that there is anything outside of what you feel. How do you know? Do you feel there is something outside of you? What you feel, you feel in your own sensation. That is why there is no such question as; does anything exist outside of my perception? What I perceive is already perceived in my Kelim, in my understanding, and that is how I picture it. Another animal will feel it differently. But what is outside of us Kabbalists call ―Abstract Upper Light‖ or ―Surrounding Upper Light,‖ ―Atzmuto‖

(―His Essence‖); all kind of things that are meaningless to us, because one cannot define them if one does not feel them. You define according to what you feel, how you relate to it, how it operates on you. Outside of you, you can only say that ―perhaps something exists, which brings me this impression, this sensation.‖ That is it. Perhaps something is there. Perhaps, because you do not feel this, you only want to assume with your intellect that these things exist. Kabbalists come a little closer to this limit, and they say that, yes, they attain that they do not attain. Meaning, there is some kind of perception in the root, in what is outside of us in Atzmuto (His Essence), where we do not feel who ―He‖ is, what ―He‖ is; so we do not talk about

―Him,‖ but we attain ―Him‖ from a negative perspective, so to speak. It is a form of attainment. It is hard to say that it is from a negative perception. Our language is just limited.

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Question: He writes that even in your own essence you have no perception. What is he saying, that I do not know myself too?

Of course! How do I know myself? It is not that I should go to a psychologist to be taught to know myself. Rather, a person cannot know himself, because in order to know yourself, you have to exit yourself, and feel yourself in different Kelim, from the outside. What does it mean, ―to feel myself,‖ ―to know myself‖? It means that

there is me, and something that I feel. How can I do that? I can imagine, in my mind, that I can seemingly exit myself and know myself. But it will never really be ―me.‖ [Rav drawing]

If I am in my Kelim—let us say that is me, those are my attributes, my desires, everything I have, and I, in them, feel something. Afterwards, I connect it all and that gives me knowledge. This is my whole world. So how can I now know myself? I have to take a different Kli that will be impressed with this Kli, just like a Light that enters

my attributes. How can I know myself? I myself am here. In order to know myself, I have to be someone else who knows me: two things. It is not possible for me to exit my Kelim to other Kelim of mine and know myself as I was before. This limitation also

exists in spiritually, not just in corporeality.

We have to understand that we are only a desire that was created by the Light. The way this desire is impressed with the Light, the process by which it happens, the four phases of Direct Light, the First Restriction, Kav, the Second Restriction, Shevira (the breaking), the mixture with the attributes of bestowal, the correction of the Kli... it is the path of the correction. I have no other choice. I am always a Kli. But the forms that I adopt upon my Kli, that travel through me, the

bestowal that travels through me—I want to resemble that form, as if I give to someone, to the Creator. So these forms that I adopt, all sorts of forms, they give me knowledge and a sensation of something outside of me, and that is something that really is outside of me. That is what I call ―the Spiritual World.‖ It is how I describe it. But these are forms of the will to receive, which the will to receive adopts. It is not bestowal, like in the Creator. It is a will to receive that engages in bestowal. But by engaging in bestowal, by having mind and sensation, it comes to completely understand the form of bestowal that comes to it, meaning it reaches Dvekut

(adhesion).

“However, it is quite sufficient.”

Meaning, all our imaginations or impressions, everything within us, if we engage in it correctly, it gives us complete satisfaction, so let us not start regretting that we do not have perception of abstract form and essence. It is pointless regretting things that we cannot regret, because we do not have Kelim for them.

“It is quite sufficient, for this is the rule: “All that is measured and extracted from His providence so as to be realized into the nature of creation, is of complete sufficiency.” Similarly, one cannot claim a sixth finger in his hand, because the five are quite sufficient.”

Because we are built in such a way that if the Upper Light fills our desire—in all the depth that can appear in the desire, this being called ―my vessels of reception and bestowal,‖ in all sorts of forms, and in all the worlds, meaning in all the manners and connections between them, and myself with respect to all the other creatures, as I connect myself with all of them as one body, and that this body is filled with all the possible forms of bestowal that can be outside of me, and when this body begins to resemble these forms of bestowal—we reach, in our sensation, according to our

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similarity to the Upper Light, an unrestricted form, which is called ―Ein Sof,‖ (―No limit‖ or ―Infinity‖). I will never be able to say that something is missing in the state of Ein Sof. The Kli feels and determines that state is called ―Ein Sof‖ (no limit). Therefore,

when we learn in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, that there is also the abstract form and the essence outside of our perception, how did Kabbalists attain it? If we do not attain them within our Kelim? By reaching Dvekut with the Creator, they begin to attain the phenomena above their Kelim as well. How, in what form, if it is not in their Kelim?

Additional understandings open up in the connections between the Creator and the creatures, and out of the difference between the Creator and the creature, such that from there, Kelim accumulate discernments that are outside of the Kelim.

The creature then comes to understand the Creator, understand the Thought of Creation. Where previously, we had the Thought, and then the World of Ein Sof,

because it is the act of that Thought on the part of the Creator; and then the creature, who already having went from above below, as we learned, through a descent from the World of Ein Sof, and from ascends and corrects himself from below above up to the World of Ein Sof. So by reaching the World of Ein Sof with its own Kelim, it

comes to resemble the Creator, entering the Thought of Creation. It then knows the Thought, and this Thought precedes the building of its Kli. The birth of its Kli is here. [Rav draws] This is the birth of the creature. The creature comes to understand and perceive the Thought of Creation—what the Creator thinks, why He began the world the way it is, and why He created it this way: ―From Your acts we know You,‖ as it is called. When the creature reaches the understanding of the Creator, it rises to the Thought that precedes its creation. This is called ―reaching these special forms that do not exist in our Kelim, in our perception, called Abstract Form and Essence.‖ But that too happens inside my Kelim.

Question: We learn that when something evolves it loses the previous form and adopts a new one. When a person reaches spirituality, why does that person keep both forms, the old and the new? Why does it continue in this world?

It is because our corporeal, physical senses do not change. They cannot be better or worse. We only have to correct our attitude to the Creator, between the Tet Rishonot (the Upper Nine Sefirot)—the attributes of bestowal, and Malchut—my vessels of reception. My vessels of reception of Malchut, is what I receive from the Creator. The vessels of bestowal of Malchut are in order to give to the Creator. We

are not dealing with our five senses here at all. [Rav drawing]

What is ―this world‖? Five senses in which we feel our corporeal desires: body, money, honor, knowledge. That is it. That is how our desire evolves; and in the five senses—sight, hearing, scent, taste and touch—yes? [Rav comments about his writing] So what I want to say is that these things do not change. Whether you are smart or stupid, even in a cow or in a person—it is all in the animate level. So if I engage in knowledge, in honor, in money, and all the more so with physical pleasures, it does not matter, this is all the animate level. My senses are being operated and bringing me to it. It does not change. I just have to find, after thousands of years of development—yes? Say, six thousand years of evolution—I have to discover the point in the heart. This point does not belong to the five senses, or to the will to receive that develops in them. It is the connection with the Creator. What does it mean, ―a connection with the Creator‖? There is a Klipa here. This point is the last degree of the Klipa that wants to enjoy from the Creator, to receive from Him, from the Ohr, on the smallest level. I begin to learn, to connect to the group, I do

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everything in order to enlarge that point. This point then begins to grow. So it grows in Lo Lishma. I then want to enjoy more from the Light, from an even greater Light,

from the Creator, until I grow to such an extent that it is called... as is written in the letter from page 70, that he craves it all day and night, like a lover who craves a woman. He gives this as an example: ―I am lovesick,‖ like a physical craving, because we have nothing else to compare it with.

If one has that kind of desire, as Baal HaSulam puts it, ―a lust for the Creator,‖ which is actually the Klipa. So by that, a person crosses the barrier. What does it

mean, ―crosses the barrier‖? He advances, in the meantime, in the worlds of the impure BYA, and it is called that ―the Klipa guards the fruit.‖ Meaning, he is raised in such a manner that the Klipa protects him, and he grows inside the Klipa, like a fruit

that is inside its peel. Then, when a person is born and goes out into the open world, so to speak, and with respect to the Creator, he now has mutual work—I give you, you give me. This is called Ibur (fetus), then Katnut (infancy), Gadlut (adulthood), and so on. But up until the barrier, we grow only under the system of Klipa. It has nothing

to do with our desires, our senses.

A Kabbalist might be very wealthy or very poor, and we have had such examples in the past, such as in the times of the Temple. Everything here in this world—one’s senses, impulses, desires, the nature one is born with—all of it has nothing to do with one’s relationship with the Creator. It has to do with a person’s relationship with people, on the animate level. It is a big difference. We only have to correct our relationship with the Creator, through relationship with people who belong to the group who are like me. Yes, to the group, who belong to this process, to the collection of souls, who help me—with their books, the group, and the guide. But it is not that it will help me in any way in this world. I cannot improve my life in this world with the help of the Wisdom of Kabbalah. There is nothing I can do with these attributes in the Wisdom of Kabbalah.

I can open up spirituality only from within the point in the heart that I enlarge to the level of the spiritual Kli. Not from within the heart itself, but from within the point in the heart. The point in the heart, being that part of God above, the Creator, which is actually a desire for Him. That is why those who come with a point in the heart feel the questions, ―what do I want? I do not know. This world is worthless, but where do I receive something? Where am I drawn to?‖ That person begins to discover the Creator with this question. Then, as Baal HaSulam says, that the Creator brings him to some place, to a group, study, and so on, by which a person starts expanding his point to a certain measure, by which he will begin to feel his spiritual reality, which means he will start to feel the Creator. Because what we feel in the end, in our Kelim, is the Creator. We feel… Him. It is not that we feel Him, but I feel Him. Meaning, I do not feel His essence, and I do not feel the abstract form, but the form clothed in my matter.

To the extent that I equalize myself with Him, I feel Him. What does it mean, ―I feel Him‖? I have substance, and that is my desire. When my desire acquires, through some place or desires [Rav points to drawing 52:58], the form of bestowal, in that I become like the Creator, like the Upper Force. How do I know? Because this force controls these desires: the attribute of bestowal rules. Otherwise I will not feel Him. According to what I did, in how I resembled Him, I can say ―that is Him.‖ So who

is the Creator? The Creator is the attribute of bestowal that can clothe in a person, in his desire. This is called ―figurative learning‖—the form clothed in matter. We have no need for more than that. I just wish we would come to that.

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Question: When he said that we do not need a sixth finger, does it mean that everything that we do need is part of a natural structure?

We have to come to a desire that we have... Let us put it this way. [Rav drawing] We have to acquire the full desire of Adam HaRishon. Right now I have the point in the heart, like in the Shoresh (root), but now it has awakened in me, within me. I have to come to an understanding that I have to acquire this entire desire that exists here, that all of it, this whole sum of souls, will be me. That is it. If I acquire all these desires and make of them the image of the Creator, I will then be like Him. That is all. That is what everyone must reach, and in that we will stop reincarnating.

Question: So how do I come to that? By yearning to live the desires for money, honor, and knowledge in others?

No, no, no. You increase your own desire for spirituality. You connect to people who also belong to a group. [Rav Laitman showing previous drawing] Did you not see the previous drawing? I wrote ―a group‖ here. The sum of souls that I connect to me is a group. What is a group? It is not just people, it is their desires for that goal. By connecting with them I build my Kli, and that is how I advance, okay?

Let us continue. Where are we? Oh, alright, it is not worth continuing. Yes, Oren, please…

Question: What does it mean, “a group”? People are watching us right now at home on television. What about them?

People who are at home in front of a television or a computer, are together with us, because in this Adam HaRishon, we are all together. Whether we like it or

not, we all influence each other. The more we want the same goal, the more we are in a force that connects us from above. But it is very desirable that we, on our level, will be connected to each other, to have a little better contact with each other through our own effort, and not that the Upper Force will connect us. By that, we will definitely feel great progress. That is why Baal HaSulam writes in his article ―The Last Generation,‖ that those who study the Wisdom of Kabbalah will eventually accumulate. It does not matter where they live, because there is a reason why communication, like the Internet, is so advanced right now: it is for Tikkun, for the

purpose of correction. Those people will eventually connect together, in a mutual connection, and that will increase each of their desires for the true goal. In that we accelerate the times. For the time being, we will end the lesson and continue tomorrow.

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DAILY LESSON & RAV‟S BLOG: SELECTED EXCERPTS

Source: Rav’s blog at http://www.laitman.com

For Each the Right Environment

If all the evidence shows that man is the result of his environment, it follows that organizing all kinds of models of a good and correct society for all humankind is critical. This way any person, depending on his inclinations and

personality or by following the advice of his friends and family, would always have the opportunity to connect to such a society, to develop himself in the most effective way possible, and become a genuinely perfect human being. Therefore, in our education we must also focus on establishing such groups and other opportunities for people to unite.

If we continue to study this issue further, we will see that a person is formed by the influence of his inner qualities, the genes he was born with, the various inclinations he acquires early in life at his parents’ home, and then by the influence of society.

We must therefore focus on kindergartens and the various circles for little children, and then on schools and clubs for older kids. We need to ensure that every person has a wide array of opportunities to reveal his potential and develop into a well-rounded individual.

Even the qualities that don’t appear to be particularly strong or promising in an individual ought to be developed anyway, as that will enrich his inner world, as will teaching him to appreciate music, literature, theater, art, and culture: All these things depend on a person’s environment as well.

People must have a family and bring up children; they must learn how to properly act toward his or her spouse, toward friends, in the company of strangers, and at work. We must teach the person by applicable examples how to behave and how to become a person in the full sense of the word, one that’s appreciated by society, which will in turn allow him to reach success and prosperity himself.

To this end, there are only two factors that aim and correct me every minute: my own natural qualities and the environment’s influence upon them. My ability lies in choosing an environment that would constantly develop me in the right direction, bring me closer to good and advanced states that give the sensation of greater security, confidence, and comfort. This is how we continue to develop.

From this we need to understand the task that lies before us, what we need to do to make sure that our children have a good life and that the next generation is better off and more confident in its future.

This can only be done if we manage to surround our children with these kinds of teachers and create for them the kind of environment that would influence them to reinforce their good qualities and to transform their negative qualities into positive ones rather than suppress them.

From KabTV’s ―A New Life‖ Episode 3, 12/29/11

Death: The Fee For Development Of Egoism

Pure desire without intellect represents an original form that is derived from the root. If desire strives only to maintain itself without any other desires, it is

called ―inanimate.‖ It doesn’t change, but rather always wants by all means to

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preserve its existence one hundred percent as it is and continually resists any changes whatsoever. That’s why it’s called ―dead.‖

On one hand, it’s the most powerful force that keeps inanimate matter in its form and because it is inanimate, it is stronger than anything else. On the other hand, it has a deficit because it doesn’t develop at all, nor does it create any advanced form!

A plant doesn’t possess as much force for self-preservation as inanimate matter; it is weaker. But it does have an addition; it is able to change! It develops, alters, and grows. On the other hand, it still cannot remain eternal; that’s why it ―acquires‖ life and death.

There is no choice, there is a price for the opportunity to continue developing. If you don’t possess stony steadfastness, but rather allow yourself to change, you go from edge to edge, from life to death; there is no other option. In other words, our development happens at the expense of immortality.

For a lifeless stone, life and death are the same. For a plant, life and death are different since plants can sense life. This is the root of any sensation, pleasure and affliction, one against the other.

Animals are much farther from inanimate nature; they undergo dramatic changes and experience tremendous growth. They acquire a higher intellect that accompanies their desires; so, during the process of development, animals acquire diverse forms. Naturally, animals are subject to an array of external and internal influences. Compared to inanimate and even vegetative levels, animals have a much more complex organization. Of course, animals sense their mortality very strongly as the difference between life and death.

The added ability to use intellect for analysis constitutes a distinction between human beings and animals. As opposed to an animal, a person has developed to the extent that he recognizes ―time‖ in his brain: past, present and future. People can bring time closer by including it in desire. All of a sudden, we start envying someone who lived a thousand years ago or someone who will be born two hundred years from now.

We observe that at a human level, intellect enhances desire. The work of intellect upon the desire is directly related to the Light; actually, it’s the only work we ever do. The more we work on clarification and expansion of our desires, the more advanced we consider ourselves to be compared to our past, undeveloped states: inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking levels within the human stage.

Naturally, humans sense life and death, the Light and the darkness, even more strongly. We become more dependent, delicate, sensitive and constrained. But this is the payment for our development.

At the time when our development at simple levels (inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking) is complete, we approach the Creator’s level at which we gain new senses, a different kind of intellect and an alternative developmental force, all three components together, which we didn’t have before.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/12, The Zohar

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Discover The Creator’s Goodness, Not His Presents

The Creator doesn‟t hide from us; rather, it is our ego that hides Him.

Our opposite nature is what separates us from Him. So how can we take on the Creator’s form? How can we reach Him according to the law of equivalence of form? How can we discover Him and find out that He is in us?

In order to do that, we have to perform certain actions. Who performs these actions, us or Him? There is probably a need for cooperation here. We can’t advance without the upper Light. By ―rocking‖ us, It demands our cooperation, which is called ―free will.‖ This cooperation is all of our work. There are no restrictions here. It is open to everyone and is implemented by the correct studying of Kabbalistic books.

These sources can be the ―elixir of life‖ or the ―potion of death.‖ It all depends on our approach.

If I intend to discover my evil inclination and to correct it, I can succeed, and the wisdom of Kabbalah will be the ―elixir of life‖ for me. I will discover ―death,‖ my ego, inside me and will want to correct it in order to come to life.

But if I study to attain egotistic achievements, if I am looking for knowledge, power, respect, control, etc., then the studying only reinforces the egoism in me and my success is opposite to bestowal and I am not even aware of it. Such a study becomes the ―potion of death.‖

Thus we go through the stages of the Creator’s concealment. The concealment is divided into single and double concealment; the revelation first reveals to us the governance as reward and punishment and then the revelation of His eternal Providence.

Actually it all depends on my desires, on my vessels. With regard to the Creator, there are no restrictions. He doesn’t hide and is not concealed. It is my desires, my vessels, that hide Him, and if I work with them properly, they are gradually corrected, and according to their correction, I discover the Creator. One way or another, I am the one who hides Him from myself.

In our world we also discover many phenomena that we don’t notice at first: different kinds of food, different kinds of art and culture, and different kinds of animals. These things were there all along, but not for us.

With time we perceive more, thanks to our emotional and intellectual development under the influence of the environment, which elevates the importance of things in our eyes, evokes in us passion, ambition, and vanity, and obliges us to pay attention to things that were totally unimportant to us before. Everyone says that it is important; I am impressed and enter someone else’s desires. This is enough to make me care: I discover new desires, new vessels, and come out of concealment with regard to a certain phenomenon.

It is the same when it comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah and the Creator. It is the same principle here too: I am an egoist, and I don’t care about anything but my everyday ―beastly‖ requests. So if I want something more sublime, I have to enter the right environment that will stimulate me and guide me toward greater things.

Therefore, everything depends on the correction of my desires. Initially the phenomenon doesn’t exist for me and is in complete concealment. Then I begin to

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discover a certain desire, a yearning for it, and then the concealment grows weaker, until I discover something new.

On the spiritual path I look for the Creator, but not as a source of pleasures; I want to discover His attitude to me because He wants to reveal that He is the good and benevolent. The point is not in what I receive from Him, but what is important for Him is that I discover His attitude to me, so that I will see His absolute goodness, be impressed by it, and be filled by this attitude. Thus He ―buys‖ me.

So all the four phases of concealment and revelation actually relate to the good and unchanging attitude of the Creator, which I gradually reveal according to my desires. When I discover the good attitude on His part, I see that it existed before, only that I didn’t feel and understand it because of my corruption.

So now too, when I don’t see the Creator’s goodness in everything, I have to assess the concealment: Even if I don’t pay attention to his goodness in certain things, it could be that He is there too. Maybe it is my fault that I don’t see His goodness?

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, ―The Study of the Ten Sefirot‖

Don’t Torture Yourself

You shouldn‟t torture yourself because of your qualities or the bad things that you did or do. After all, it is the Creator who ―trips you up‖ and arranges all the different states for you. This is how He brings you to the recognition of evil and actually does all the work. And you, instead of revealing the truth, reprimand yourself for your actions.

Question: But if you don’t pay attention to these things, isn’t it like running away

from the struggle?

Answer: It isn’t a struggle at all. You are like a donkey in front of which an obstacle has been placed: He doesn’t understand how it can be bypassed, and tries

to break through it. There is no point in that.

We have to rise above all the actions and feelings, above all the imaginary calculations, and through the group, connect with the Creator. It is the only way to reach the right decision. All the rest is a game, the show of life. It costs us great pain and suffering, but this is our evolution: It is impossible to avoid the mistakes here before we discover the opportunity to rise. One day it will happen.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, ―The Study of the Ten Sefirot‖

The Red Sea Is Lapping At Our Feet

A person goes a long way until he finds out exactly what his work is. He reaches the study by looking for a meaning in life, in the search for an egoistic fulfillment. He stays with the same initial intention for quite a while until finally he begins to hear that it is absolutely forbidden, meaning ―impossible,‖ to fill these egoistic desires. So what can he do?

They say that it is only possible to enjoy when in equivalence of form with the Creator. Do you want to enjoy? Learn from Him how to enjoy bestowal, but not bestowal as you see it, not bestowal from personal egoistic satisfaction. True bestowal gives pleasure to the Creator; this is the only thing you can enjoy.

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This means that there is double incongruence: We have to change both our desires and our intentions—the place where the pleasure is felt. When a person moves on to these new desires, which he doesn’t understand at all, he is told: Here you are, now enjoy. This is totally different from what he imagines today in his present egoistic state. He must change his perception several times.

Going through this, he can only hold onto the group, the environment. After all, every time he advances a little, he feels that he is even more a like a child, even more confused and that he loses more of his power. This is so different from the ordinary, familiar way we advance— getting more, understanding more, and feeling more—that a person cannot bear such ―progress‖ which seems to be headed in the opposite direction.

He doesn’t understand how it is possible to work and to feel a growing emptiness and lack of understanding, simply a state of death, of total helplessness when there is no light at the end of the tunnel—pitch darkness, the Red Sea (Final Sea – Yam Sof in Hebrew). Is all that called advancement?

A person feels totally lost, but if he continues despite everything, he begins to discover that without going thorough these states, it is impossible to reach the real desires: to receive in order to bestow. There is nothing left of the previous state, not the feeling, not the understanding, not the previous approach, not the intention or purpose of ordinary advancement. Everything seems totally new and so different from his previous experience that it is simply impossible to see it from afar.

The only thing that can help him here is to organize support around him and become incorporated in activities, studies, group work, and dissemination, so that he will develop gradually, like a child who plays and at the same time grows. Thus, step-by-step, he will gradually advance towards the state in which he can bear the spiritual idea.

He begins to understand that there are many spiritual and mystical methods in the world, but here he comes across a method that will bring him to a new reality by changing his perception. And only then will he understand what was happening to him.

Therefore, it is impossible to explain this to everyone. This is why it says: ―A thousand enter the room and one comes out to teach.‖ After all, if a person’s soul is ready to attain the truth at any cost, it keeps him on track.

If he is really ready for that, then the environment can help him go through these phases quickly, and while still in this life to attain the world of truth!

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, Writings of Rabash

Wake Up At Least Half Way

Question: What does it mean‖ half of the half‖ with regards to the work we

have to do?

Answer: A person has to prepare his ―half‖ and the Creator completes the

other half. But how can you do that, after all, even in preparing my desire I cannot manage without Him?

To prepare my half means to try and find the deficiency and the right aspiration. But I don’t have that at all. I have to look for the right deficiency instead of the black false bubble I am in where I imagine this false life that doesn’t exist at all that will later seem like a dream.

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How can I want and try to wake up from this deep sleep and to feel willingness for it by myself, because this is the only thing I need! But without this willingness, I will not be able to receive the upper world that is revealed at the end of this dream because I have to develop a deficiency for it.

People with a great coarse egoism come to study Kabbalah in order to attain the upper world . It isn’t enlightened ―spiritual‖ people for whom meditations are enough who come here . The people who come here want to receive and to gain big time, to discover the spiritual world. Here it depends on whether a person can hear what he is told and bear all the conditions.

Two natural spiritual laws operate here, which you cannot change in favor of your egoism. We are told that we have to do ―half of the half,‖ but this doesn’t mean that there is some concession here. A person must perform his half, and then he will receive the other half from Above. The other half will change him and will turn him into something that is totally different.

When he is 100 percent ready to change, it means that he has done his half of the work. Then 100 percent of this change is performed from Above; this is the half that the Creator is responsible for.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, Writings of Rabash

A Fear That Uplifts

Question: The elderly have an especially emphatic fear that arises in any group: What if I won’t have enough time to reach the sensation of eternity and perfection? How to handle that fear?

Answer: We need to set very concrete tasks before them, not prospective

ones, like for the youth, and to set defined goals that are attainable and realized very quickly. At the same time, we need to tell them about the entire global picture of nature’s system, its eternity, its life cycles, as well as our life cycles within it. That is, here we need to provide serious psychological support from the very beginning.

Question: During one of the programs you explained that a fear of death

paralyzes a person’s life, impedes him. It manifests less in young people and more at a certain age. How does the methodology of integral upbringing regard attitude to fear? How to work with it?

Answer: I think that a correct clarification of our place in nature is the key to

understanding a person’s place within it, the place of death and our biological life. We need to bring a person to the next level of understanding, not even feeling yet, but simply understanding of this.

A person will reach the sensation of eternity and perfection when he or she will be integrally connected with a certain critical mass of other people who are also attaining this integration. Then it is as if we rise above ourselves, creating above us some image of one person with one heart and mind. And our physical body exists nearby as an animal that accompanies this one image, the way our dog or cat lives alongside of us.

We need to focus people’s attention on that and to try bring them to this kind of sensation. In principle, psychologically it’s not that difficult considering that there is no resistance on their end, but on the contrary, support and anticipation of results. They represent that part of humanity that joyfully strives towards integration and closeness, understanding that all else passes and vanishes.

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Elderly people easily part with everything for the sake of achieving the feeling of ascent above death, rising above the very factor of the seemingly inevitably impending end. We need to give them a feeling as if they are in a plunging airplane set to crash into a mountaintop, but suddenly some great force force lifts it up, and it speeds upwards with boosted power. I think that such sensation can be created in them quickly.

Besides, the courses for the elderly naturally need to be easier. They don’t require great theoretical and practical studies; they will gladly just participate. And I think that precisely the egoism and fear that appear in all older people, the desire to achieve a result that uplifts them, all that will provide a very serious basis for movement to other groups in society.

From a ―Talk on Integral Education‖ #4, 12/13/11

The Value Of Life Experience

Question: What is unique about teaching integral approach to the elderly?

Answer: I think that they will receive it with greater understanding because a person who has already lived a lifetime understands to what extent one is not the master of one’s own life. It’s as if it passed by above him, commanding him, and not him being in command of it.

People of that age agree more with the fact that nature works on us, and now, when they don’t have that much time left to understand, realize, and possibly correct that in some way, they are more diligent, sensitive, and compassionate.

Besides, the enormous hard-won life experience gives a person a completely different approach to what is being offered. From the very beginning, a person is open to learning, so naturally, his participation in the studies is most amicable. We are offering a person to achieve harmony in that short segment of time that he or she has.

These are people who live and measure themselves not relative to some achievements, but relative to the end of life. Generally speaking, this constant subconscious sensation in a person determines his or her entire behavior.

And here is where we need to imbue the endpoint of their life with joy, attainment, and ascent towards a new state that exists beyond the end of corporeal life. We should give them a sensation that it’s as if they’re flying and about to crash into something, and suddenly a motor appears that carries them up above the obstacle. It is precisely a sensation of this possibility that will give them strength, and then, of course, it will be very easy for them to work in a group.

I hope that these groups will be a serious help to us because in principle, the more groups of this kind we can create, the easier it will be for us to include ourselves into all of humanity.

By the way, longevity inherent in our time (life expectancy is more than doubled compared to the previous centuries) means an accumulation of life experience by an individual. At some point, people lived 30 or 40 years and died young, without gaining any experience in life. From the ancient times and all the way until the 18th century, a person lived no longer than 35-40 years. It’s hard to believe now that there was once such a short life cycle. A person practically had no time to attain anything in life, grew old very quickly, and died. Everything somehow broke off very abruptly.

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We need to take advantage of the fact that in our time, the developing ego offers us an opportunity, in accordance with its development, to simultaneously live through and internalize the experience and the point of view that develops in a person by the age of sixty and beyond. Today elderly people comprise the vast majority of humanity. We need to take advantage of this group, which is sympathetic to our methodology and its outcome, and through them create in all of humanity a certain correct background for integration.

Therefore, under no circumstances should we pass these groups by, although our usual automatic attitude towards this segment of the population is: ―We’ll create all the necessary conditions so they wouldn’t bother us. Let them sit somewhere on a bench and calmly live out their life.‖ No, we need to build very powerful groups out of them, and they will disseminate this method, its usefulness, and a life-saving solution that it offers to mankind among their children and grandchildren.

Question: We know from experience that the majority of the elderly really love to tell the story of their life. Should we give them an opportunity to share their stories?

Answer: Only if it helps us in the capacity of a psychological example: What

you related, what you saw, what you lived through. Naturally, the elderly love this, but their stories need to be accompanied by investigation and analysis: Why this happened, what it provided, what this should teach us today, and so on.

Elderly people passing time in various gatherings is their own business, but we need to take it into consideration and teach them how to relate to the lived experiment of life.

From a ―Talk on Integral Education‖ #4, 12/13/11

Staring Into The Mirror

In the ―Introduction to the Book of Zohar‖ Baal HaSualm explains that the part of our brain responsible for our perception of reality is built like a photographic machine through which I see the world divided. I feel myself as a kind of body and see everything else that exists as outside of me. So all of reality is divided into two parts.

This, of course, is a lie and there is no such division. But the point is that there is a Creator and a created being, and the created being should attain the Creator as a result of his development. Attaining the Creator is possible only by observing Him from the outside, and so the created being has to feel that he exists separately from the Creator, standing opposite to Him.

Then by comparing the two opposites, the created being checks and understands the inverse attributes, realizes that he is opposite to the Creator, realizes that he is evil and that he needs correction to become similar to the Creator and to reach adhesion with Him. Thus he raises the level of ―human‖ in him.

In order to allow a person to assess all these attributes, understand, get to know, clarify, and correct his perception—reality is divided into two so that it seems to a person that he and the external world exist separately.

This, of course, isn’t even close to the truth. The assumption that a person exists and the Creator is outside Him, outside the world of Ein Sof, is also not true. But such a feeling is necessary so that we will add our exertion to building our vessel

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and attaining the understanding and revelation. Then it will be a ―human‖ who built all this out of his free will.

It is like giving a child challenging games and puzzles so that he will work and thanks to that grow, understand, see, try, make efforts, and build himself. The same happens to us with the dual perception that makes us sense ourselves and outside of us, the world.

All our work is to make efforts to connect the two parts into one whole picture called ―there is none else besides Him‖ and ―Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one.‖ This means to sense myself and the external world as one, and to understand that first I have to care about the external world and only then care about myself. After all, I will have to provide only what is necessary for the existence of my beastly body, and I have to try and see all the rest, all the external world, as most precious, my soul.

Then I will reveal that the external world is also me. It is because I treated it as something opposite to me that I hated, rejected and tried to stay away from it, that enabled me to learn about myself, about my nature, and about the ―evil inclination.‖ I had a chance to fight all its fine attributes, the unperceivable, the coarse, and cruel attributes and by that to attain the Creator.

After all, in every incidence of hate towards the external world, there is a need for the Creator’s help in some way. So my rejection of the external world and my decision to connect to it, the power I receive for that from the Creator, and the unity I attain, all bring me to adhesion with the Creator.

So it turns out that there are actions of connection with the external world and there is the acceptance of this world, the feeling of unity or the Creator. By the creation of this division of me and the external world and the ―neutral zone‖ (―Klipat Noga―) between us, I get help from the Creator—a state that is already partially prepared to attain the connection with Him because of this false perception.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, Shamati #36

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FEEDBACK

From your letters: …Just this week I have received your precious gifts sent in response to my

request a month ago or so back for participating in your ― Free Interactive Course ― All of the materials I received have received their initial consumption by me, to which I must give rave reviews. I am impressed. Thank you immensely for the materials. If I had Internet access, I definitely would have long been participating in your web-based course (Dennis from California)

…Thank you for your support on my spiritual cultivation in developing me to become a rapier at all levels (Jeremy from Texas)

…Thank you for Issue 4 of your magazine for inmates ―The Wisdom of Kabbalah‖. I have been sharing your book and inmate magazine with others (Paul from New York)

…I read a copy of ―The Wisdom of Kabbalah ―(Issue 5) I was greatly enlightened (Daniel from Texas)

…Thank you very much for sending me two of Rav Laitman’s books in Russian Thank you for being among the very few who try to bring the light into these twilight lands (Andre from California)

… Greetings from your brother on the other side of the razor wire. This letter of Appreciation has been a long time coming. Over the last couple of years, your organization has come into my life and changed me forever. The Wisdom of Kabbalah showed me the importance of changing my environment for the better and humbling my ego. The apparent stress that used to inhibit my life, now comes to me as a blessing as my perception on our world is totally different The love and understanding that the Kabbalah has brought into my experience has single-handedly stopped me from allowing my ego to start riots and cause violence. From the bottom of my heart I appreciate the help and support that the beautiful Souls at the Kabbalah Prison Project have shown me (David from Texas)

…There are no words in my vocabulary to properly express my thoughts, delights, and gladness of heart concerning the knowledge, understanding and wisdom these studies have provided my heart. I thank you and praise HaShem for them. I find reading, studying, and meditating upon these revelations several times brings new awakening with greater understanding enable me to apply this knowledge in ever more daily life (John from Colorado)

…Just a note to say thank you for the magazine, each issue feeds my mind and soul (Linda from Texas)

…I want to thank you so much for the knowledge that you have been passing on in your Kabbalah study. I am learning so much (Kevin from California)

…I believe the method of study you propose is the best path for me. May I continue to study with you? I intend to learn it, become it, and teach it. Thank you for your guidance and for allowing me to take this journey with you (Richard from California)

…Thank you for the tools that are very omnipotent in my life and continue to bring the evolving news (Jeremy from Texas)

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QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

…I "abstained for 3-days...... From midnight of Dec 28 until midnight Dec 31..... in hopes of receiving Torah. This after reading " Before an Attack: I don't feel any different. Not "drunk with light" not "connected to the group - I ate nothing. I drank only 3 cups of water each day, OK, in definitely "lacking". Show me the proper way to prepare. Otherwise I will spend my days biting my own neck (Christopher from Texas)

- Friends, we found it important to answer this letter openly. The only way for us to prepare is to work in intention, to seek internal connection with each other and to distribute the wisdom when an opportunity presents itself. No physical action and self-restraining at the material level will be of use. ―Don’t torture yourself‖ as Rav put it (see above). Let’s instead be creative and come up with the plan of how to manage what we are confronted with on an everyday basis by supporting each other and reminding ourselves that ―There is none else beside Him‖ and ―Creator is good and does good‖. Together we’ll stay strong.

…In each lesson is a questioner, do you want us to send our answers to these questions in for grading purpose? Or, are they for our own education between us and HaShem? (John from Colorado)

- We prepared questionnaires to help you rethink the material from the lecture and to better structure the ideas for yourself. You don’t have to send the answers back.

…I have seen that you have books on the Zohar and Shamati. So what I am asking if you could send me the Zohar or Shamati? (Jamie from Illinois)

…After completion of your course do you provide certificates? Does your organization provide free literature? (Javier from California)

- Bnei Baruch has a budget to provide free literature to prisons which we use to make sure everyone in the group gets a free book in the beginning of the course. Unfortunately we cannot afford more for now. But we are working to organize our study materials in such a way that it covers all important areas. Soon you’ll see materials from ―Shamati‖ and ―Zohar‖ in the magazine. By carefully studying the texts provided and, most importantly, by developing an inner connection within the group, you will receive all the ―nourishment‖ you need in order to progress.

We are working on the course. It will include many important and interesting sections like history, sociology and psychology of Kabbalah. Your study is the first step to the full course of Kabbalah. After its completion you’ll receive the certificate. Should you study with us and you’ll discover a lot of good things even before that.

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GOOD ENVIRONMENT

World Arvut Convention “Bonding Changes the World” Tel-Aviv, December 6-8, 2011

The most important event of 2011 the World Arvut Convention ―Bonding Changes the World‖ took place during in Tel-Aviv in December.

About 7,600 people arrived to the Exhibition Gardens from more than 50 counties from all around the world. Thousands of our friends joined an on-line broadcast of the lessons, cultural evenings, workshops, bonding breaks, activities, and round tables. The connection that we established for these 3 straight days moved us to another level of Unity and change. Although we couldn’t be there physically with our friends , we surely were there in spirit connecting with them in our desire. We raised to the next level of connection between us and this advancement has only started unfolding itself giving us all the force and power to continue onwards, towards the whole humanity.

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Our broadcasters were at the center of it, helping the words of wisdom to spread all around the world

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The lessons during the Convention were without a doubt a rare emotional experience

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Next Kabbalah congress will take place on March 23-25, 2012 in Europe (Vilnius, Lithuania). Let’s start working together as one Kli to prepare our desire and

our connection to add to the common desire and create the new level of unity between us.

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After the convention a TV interview with Rav was recorded during which we got

to discuss the Kabbalah global education approach to prisons and inmates as a part of corrected society. The conversation was held in Hebrew and as you are reading this our friends at Bnei Baruch are working to have this material translated into English and other languages. We are going to share this material with you when it’s ready.

Preparation for another conversation with Rav is underway. This time we are going to talk about what’s going on in our Prison project. We will address the concerns that arise from our work, possible ways of our group development and – last but not least - we are going to ask Rav to answer your questions.

This is your chance to bring up what is important to you and receive his first hand reply from the Teacher! Some of the questions that we have received from you and haven’t answered yet are waiting to be asked. We invite you to ask more.

Please formulate your questions in a precise manner and be as specific and clear as you can. Make sure to ask about things that are important to you personally.

Remember, how valuable the time that he is giving to us is. Friends, let’s use the opportunity properly and fully. It’s our time to get ahead. SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS FOR THE CONVERSATION WITH RAV

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SMILE!

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Friends,

IT WORKS NOW

As we are trying to promote the Kabbalah Prison Project Facebook page in order to raise public awareness and obtain finding, we are asking for your help.

Call 1-800-982-1253 and tell us about what the wisdom of Kabbalah has

come to mean for you personally. Has it brought a different perspective in your life? Does it help you to be more constructive and positive in your everyday life? How does it contribute to your ways of dealing with the difficult situations you face on a day-to-day basis? How has it changed your self-understanding?

We want the public to know that this knowledge has become essential and helpful for many people and it’s worth their attention and support.

Your calls will be recorded, transcribed and placed on the webpage at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/kabbalahprisonproject

Friends, it's important for us to know that those of you who get released from prison still stay in touch with us.

You can start by visiting the website of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center at http://edu.kabbalah.info where you'll be offered a number of self-study

courses of different levels

The center broadcasts live classes and provides students with other services like access to the library of authentic Kabbalah materials as well as to a lesson archive and Question and Answer Forum.

When you feel that you are prepared enough to move on, our main informational internet resource at http://kab.tv/ will be your next step. Here you'll find

Kabbalah TV Live Stream with daily lessons of Rav Laitman and more.

Also you can join one of our local Kabbalah groups. Let us know about your location upon discharge and we'll hook you up with the closest group in your area.