Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Lesson 1

July 19, 2002

 

The purpose of these lectures is to provide a foundation to what is called the Wisdom of Kabbalah in a format that will enable its transmission in a clear and easy way, once a week. Recordings will be made after each lesson for anyone wanting to review the material. Since we are all here together in this series of lessons, I would like to ask everyone for help in creating an atmosphere during the lessons that will enable spiritual progress. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the introduction to ‘Talmud Eser Sefirot’ – “…and accordingly it should be asked: why then did the Kabbalists obligate each and every person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah? Indeed there is a wonderful quality in it that should be revealed: that there is remedy in it…”

What remedy? He explains that we all have a soul. This soul is in each and every one of us in a dormant state. To awaken the soul, to open it so that it would be able to receive the upper light we need to develop it. The development of the soul happens by way of the upper light. The reason why we have not developed enough until now is that we have not attracted upon ourselves the upper light. How can we do it from now on? During the study, especially over the next two hours, we need to make an effort to attract the upper light. It is done simply, by not forgetting why we are studying, or what the purpose of our study is. It is not just in order to know what is written, or understand what I am saying, but to live it, to attain it, and to feel how it works in us because we are only discussing what is in us. Except for us only the upper light exists - the Creator - and everything that we can imagine is all within us - spiritual worlds, this world, and all that we can think about is inside of us. If it seems to us that there is something outside it is simply an illusion. Any person who will later merit to see these things from above will perceive that this is truly so – that all is inside of the person.

So first, during the study, think about us as one large, unique and united group, and that we have one large desire or vessel with which we attract large amounts of spiritual light. I am here to help this process. I support it, and I am doing it for you, so try to create a good, comfortable atmosphere for all of us together. It is important that we know that we are going to receive great power from above; a power that will help us advance and elevate. You will feel it and see it. It is very important.
Secondly, I will not use any book. I will say where things are written, but this is actually not important. My goal is to give the foundations and I will use different sources, mostly from our book “Kabbalah for the Beginner”.
At the end of the lesson there will surely be questions and I hope that everyone will receive an answer. If not, I will answer later through the internet or during the next lesson.

Where is the information that we will study being taken from?

We know about this from people like us, who lived in this world just like we do, and who suddenly revealed something higher than this world. They began seeing through walls, through people, through the place they were living in, whether they lived in caves, tents, or maybe palaces. They began seeing something beyond this world.
They started writing what they saw and felt. They began measuring their sensations, repeating them, checking them, and they started discovering an entire world beyond this world. Gradually, their writings accumulated into books, forming the basis for the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is called “the wisdom of receiving” because it discusses the revelation of godliness; how to receive the revelation of the upper power, how to feel it, see it, and unite with it. That is what they wrote and left for us.
What did they write it for? First they attained, and then they wrote. They measured; they repeated all of their experiments and actually talked to each other through their books. These writings were only understood by those who already had the sensation of the upper world.

When we study what they wrote we obtain surrounding light. As much as we think about it and desire to draw it on ourselves, to enjoy it, then with its help we can reach a state in which we will see, as they did, a wider, higher reality. This reality will help us know who we are, where we came from, and where we are going etc.
And so in the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, and the books written by Kabbalists, we can discern two types of influences:

The first is the transfer of information from one Kabbalist to another. Another Kabbalist can read and experience all of those sensations that the author has experienced – to go up and down just like the author, to re-live the states that are discussed in the books.
The second influence is on us. We enjoy it for now as surrounding light. Without understanding what it is, we desire to draw upon ourselves power that will improve us and elevate us to those states that the Kabbalists experienced. It is beneficial for us to read from such books since they possess special, great powers. That is why we don’t read all of the Kabbalistic books (there were many Kabbalists who wrote in many ways and many languages) but we read special books written by special people who were at the end of correction - a very high degree. They wrote these books specifically for us, for those who are below the barrier and desire to cross it and elevate above it. There aren’t many of these books. We have the books by the holy ARI, books by the RAMCHAL (that we are not studying yet because he used a very special language) and the books of Baal HaSulam. There are a few other books that we enjoy reading, but they are secondary.

So what is actually discussed in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Kabbalists tell us that there is a structure called soul. There is nothing else besides this soul. The Creator created this soul.

What is a soul?

It is a desire to receive. This desire to receive has several aspects or levels. It has five openings, called vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Through these five openings we receive something from the outside; we sense that there is something outside. All of this is inside the soul, inside the desire to receive. These five senses are given to us at birth and what we sense through them is called this world. This is how we all feel, that we are living in some reality called this world.

What is this reality?

It is our impression from our five senses. Outside there is really nothing except light, but we are impressed by it in this way, through the five senses, and so a picture of a world is created in us. The truth is that this world is not really a world at all. It is just an impression of our senses, sensing the effect of the simple light according to the way they are constructed.

Why are Kabbalists called Kabbalists?

Because they open up an additional sense called ‘the sixth sense’. Through the sixth sense they receive some additional information from that simple light. What they feel is called the upper world.
So our five senses give us the perception of what is called ‘this world’. That is what we call it. The sixth sense gives us a sensation that is called ‘the upper world’. And truly, besides this structure there is nothing else. Around us only the Creator exists, meaning the upper light. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to develop this sixth sense and use it to feel everything that is happening in that sense.

Drawing Nr 1

Why is it so important?

It is important because these senses give us a sensation of what is happening very close to our soul, around us. In them we can only feel our biological, bestial life. The sixth sense on the other hand, gives us a sensation of a wider space called divinity. It means that the impressions, the feelings, the understandings, the insight that we receive in the sixth sense enables us to know, to see and feel that there is something that causes everything, that directs and oversees everything, from which all kinds of influences come to us. This great power that acts on us orchestrates all that we feel, determines everything that was, is and will be. It is the reason and the end of all actions. This immense space outside of us called the Divine can only be perceived with the sixth sense, and that is what the Kabbalah is about.
Those Kabbalists who attain these insights tell us about them and say that it would be beneficial for us to attain them too, because our soul goes through different phases. There are periods during which we feel the part of our soul called ‘this world’, as we are now, seeing our life through our five senses. And there are other periods during which we do not sense that part of the five senses and we only feel with the sixth sense. If we live in what is called ‘this world’ then we sense through the bestial part – the five senses. If we get rid of ‘this world’ we sense through the second part – the sixth sense.
What is unique about the Kabbalists is that, to them it is not important whether they live or die, whether they activate these senses or not. They could activate all of them at once. They don’t care about the state they are in because they have control over the entire soul, their entire vessel, in such a way that even when they die biologically they still know about these senses. They activate them and they connect with us. Although they may be in this world, by activating the sixth sense they exit any kind of limitation, any type of limited way of life, of sensing. They have no limitations to their existence.
Our problem is that we lack this sixth sense. We all know what it means to see, hear, smell, taste and touch. We are not lacking those sensations. We only lack the sixth sense, and if we open it we will feel all that exists in the upper force; how it behaves with us, what it wants from us, what it sends us and why it is pressuring us. We will feel what our state is and how we should respond in order to improve our state, to coexist with it.
Once we will attain this sense we will know what the reason for our existence is, and what the end will be. All of that is attainable through the sixth sense, which gives us much broader information. Not just about our bestial existence (what is called ‘this world’) but about much more.

How can the sixth sense be attained?

As I’ve said, the Kabbalists wrote books for us - special books. By reading these books, or studying the material that is in these books, we can draw upon ourselves surrounding lights to the extent that we really desire to attain the development of the sixth sense. We need to think about that while we read. Our intention should be - “I want to feel!” - “I want to understand!” To understand means to actually feel that, “I want to open this channel in me”, to begin perceiving this wide world called ‘the upper world’.
If we have this intention then the material that we study acts on us in that direction while we read and listen to it.

How is it developed?

It is developed by studying it. We study how it was created, how it acts, and how we should activate it later on when we will reveal it.
Our study includes two parts. First we study how the upper light emanates from the Creator and gradually constructs the created being, from higher to lower, the way the created being gradually becomes distanced from the Creator. In the second part we study how the created being becomes a Kabbalist by studying, listening, getting involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah and with all that it involves. We learn how the created being, from a state of having five senses, transforms into a Kabbalist, meaning that he or she opens up the sixth sense, and with that sense receives the upper light, the correction, from above. Later on, through this correction, the created being elevates to attain the level of the Creator, in which the created being becomes equal to the Creator at the higher degree.
And so we go through a whole circle. We study the expansion from above to below done by the Creator, called “the work of God”, as well as the path from below to above, which is also called the work of God, but is actually man’s work of God. The expansion from above to below is purely the work of God, the way He did it. It is called in the Kabbalah ‘the expansion of the worlds, the Partzufim and the Sefirot from above to below’. The work of man is called in the Kabbalah ‘the elevation of the souls from below to above’.
The first part, the creation of the worlds and the souls, is explained and discussed extensively in books such as “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”. The second part is only discussed indirectly in articles and letters. Kabbalists began writing about it only in the last one or two hundred years, because now the time has arrived in which all of us, all of the souls, are in a state where they can open this sixth channel and begin elevating towards the Creator. That is why there are by now many books on the subject, and we study mainly from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash because they are the Kabbalists of the last generation who wrote this method down for us. In previous generations Kabbalists almost never touched on this subject, explaining how to elevate from below to above, because there were still no souls that demanded it. The souls that existed in previous generations (until the 19th, 20th century) were souls that, if they had an urge, it was taken care of from above. It means that they were given the urge from above as well as the possibility, and then these people were called “unique” and special. Their soul was ready for the development of this sixth sense.

Drawing Nr 2

Baal HaSulam writes that in our days every person should attain this, that we are ready. We have reached the generation of the Messiah, in which we must pull ourselves from below to above. Through these two Kabbalists, Baal HaSulam and his son, we have a broad and detailed method and we need to implement it somehow.
How? We will discuss during our studies how the world and the soul in it were created. In parallel, we will talk occasionally about how a person can use all of these things that were prepared for him, or her, in order to elevate to the degree of the Creator. When the person does, he or she attains eternity and wholeness. These attainments, we unfortunately, cannot even describe.

What about people who were born with a sixth sense?

It is not possible that people are born with the sixth sense. There are some people who are sensitive, pure from birth. In Russia for example lived Wolf Messing. He was a well-known Jew from Poland that used to perform in theaters all over Russia. He could tell a person about their future and past and he could predict the date of his own death, etc. There are several examples like that in history, but such people are not considered to be Kabbalists. There was Nosterdamus among the gentiles, although some say he was Jewish. It does not indicate the spiritual level of a person. It is out of purity, without opening the sixth sense, just simple purity of the soul.
We tend to approximate ourselves to a black box, which is pure sensation. This pure sensation senses this world through five openings. In the shell around the soul there is a certain degree of coarseness, and so the soul is very sensitive, very pure, and through the shell it senses the surrounding light. According to that sensation it has a feeling of what is happening and what will happen. Usually these sensations are not out of this world, meaning that the person can only know what is and what will be in this world. The person may perhaps tell fortunes, help people with all sorts of energies. Each of us can develop such abilities, there are techniques for that, but those techniques do not bring a person from below to above, from the level of man to the level of the Creator. They only give a person more information about the bestial, biological life. In the same way there are some animals that know what will happen tomorrow. They can detect in advance occurrences on the earth such as explosions, earthquakes, etc., days before they happen. These abilities are in our bodies, some of us sense them more, others - less. A Bedouin in the desert senses more of nature than we do. We could sense these things more one or two thousands years ago, but today we lost these abilities because of our technologies and progress.
But in general, these things are not related to the sixth sense. It doesn’t interest me because it doesn’t help me. Whether I know more or less I will still live and die and gain nothing from it. They say that it is better to know less. So we do not involve ourselves with these things.

In order to get out of this world of the five senses into a wider sensation called the sixth sense, I need external assistance. Should I wait for an awakening from above in order to begin developing it?

Very good question! I descended from above to a level called Machsom (barrier). Below the barrier I sense myself as a person, as a box with five senses, living my life. What is supposed to happen next? Should I have some sudden realization that will cause me to begin developing the sixth sense?
There are many, let’s suppose seven billion such boxes like us here. Each of them has inside a Reshimo, a spiritual gene waiting for its time to develop. If we take all of these seven billion we could make a chain out of them, and in each one there would be a different spiritual “gene”, more or less coarse and of different types.

And so there is a sort of a sequence according to which of these genes go into action and begin to speak in a person. You for example, are already sitting here today. Your neighbor who still sits at home in front of the TV drinking beer will come here in a year or two; why? It will speak in him later.

What does it depend on? It depends on the fact that the light coming from above is becoming greater and greater. Also, when people like you sit here now and draw these lights, you create an atmosphere in this world that helps more and more people to be drawn to this sense. You are already creating here an environment in which these spiritual genes awaken in others even if it is not yet their time to awaken. They awaken because you drew additional light into this world. And so it is considered that you are speeding up the times.

With all my senses I feel what is around me. Without the sixth sense I have a desire for all of the pleasures of this world. This sixth sense, the spiritual gene, the point in the heart or the beginning of the spiritual soul, senses only the spiritual light. That is what it desires. And this desire is what brings you here now, and here you will receive additional light and this desire will grow gradually. It will grow more and more until this soul, this sixth sense through which you feel, will become larger than all other five senses. Once you will reach the point of identification with this sixth sense you will want to live through it entirely. When you will have it, when you will be entirely drawn upwards, you will live down here just because you have to live and give your body some calories, keep it clean, etc. But your soul will actually already be above. The moment the sixth channel will be opened for you, you will have free entry, free sensation, meaning that you will have crossed the barrier. The opening of the sixth channel means the passing of the barrier, eliminating this buffer.

By studying, during the study, we must keep this in mind. We may learn about all sorts of things, not always related to this directly, discussing the building of some worlds, several details etc. The study may not always be interesting, but there is a reason why Kabbalists write about these things. They could have written a hundred thousand volumes, but there is enough as it is. Six volumes of TES is quite a lot. But what did they touch upon? What have they done? They wrote for us about those places that are sort of junctions where sources of the surrounding lights unique to us are accumulated. That is why it is beneficial for us to study what they wrote. It is not even important how much one knows. You just go over the writings and attract light. If you have the right intention to reach those places where these lights descend from, you really do mutual work with them and it helps you. After us billions will come as well.

How does a person sense that he or she passed the barrier?

This is a problem. Some people come to me and say – “I am already in infinity”. There are many like that, and if someone says so it means the person feels so. The fact that the person’s sensation is mistaken is a different story, but how can this be proven? That is how the person feels. Sometimes I have to look at such people and consider whether to tell them the truth or not. It is very nice to be living in such a sweet illusion, and it is written, ‘do not place an obstacle in front of a blind person’. So if the person does not see, one is not allowed to place an obstacle in front of the person that would cause the person to fall. If a person is in a bad environment somewhere far away, for example I am being invited to Australia to lecture for some people who want to study Kabbalah who do not have our books or any other support, should I tell someone there that he or she is at rock bottom, that he or she hasn’t even begun anything, that they don’t even understand where they are? This is questionable.

So how would we really know? Just like that person is wrong, so can I be wrong, or it can be the opposite – people come to me crying: “who am I? what am I? I am nothing”. They could be wrong too. They could be at a high level but not sense it. It is really a problem.
It is not possible to explain what spirituality is to someone who has not attained it, since the person doesn’t have the necessary vessels. It is like trying to explain to a blind person what the color of the sky is, or to a deaf person what a certain sound is like. How would they understand when they do not even have that sense? The other problem is, how can people who are in this know that they really are in it? One can know it according to what one reads in the books. It begins to be one’s life. The person can live in it just like we live in this world, meaning that when I act, if I do some act of bestowal, I receive a response. I can measure it very accurately, like when using a tape measure in this world. The person doesn’t flow in the clouds any more, he or she knows his or her sensations, what he or she receives, with who and how he or she is working etc. He or she has a connection with the divine, with this upper power.

When Kabbalists talk to each other they have a common language. If one of them chooses to conceal himself he can do it so they don’t always see each other.
There are many issues in the work with the sixth sense, in knowing the divine. I just don’t want to confuse you. We will talk about it gradually, as much as I would be able to describe it in such a way that it will be understood.
In the mean time I can just say this: whoever studies Kabbalah correctly, according to Baal HaSulam and Rabash will not have any illusions or imaginations of himself floating in some spiritual worlds and grabbing spirits there, or of being in infinity. Our work is very technical and accurate. The method is very practical, with the person standing with two feet on the ground and having to use all of his or her powers; all of the means of this world, his or her character, all of his or her bad attributes. Only by doing that will the person attain. There is no chance for the person to float. On the contrary, the person will always feel down to earth.

You said that all is inside of man, that there is nothing outside.

They tell us that whatever a person feels is felt on the inside, while all of the information enters us from the outside. What does it mean? The upper light enters us, and it is the only thing we feel. All that we feel is how this light works on our nerves, on our five senses. That is what our senses are impressed by, from them this information arrives into the center of pleasures, which is adjacent to the intellect, and then we join all of this information, and feel “something” or some impression. This impression does not depend on what is happening outside, but it depends on how we are constructed inside.
There is some software in us, called “Reshimot”. These Reshimot in me are like a spiral, and cause me to change from moment to moment, to go through all of these Reshimot. Each point on this process can be decoded, and then it can be seen that the Reshimot give me my internal state, and cause me to change on the inside. Because I change from the inside it appears to me that there is a change on the outside. But outside there is no change. All of the changes are due to these inner Reshimot. That is why our world is called the illusory world; it is only a product of our imagination. Whoever exits this world and grasps it from the outside sees how simple it is, but until then it is unbelievable. I keep changing according to these Reshimot and then it seems to me that the upper light that pressures me changes, when actually it is constant and unchanging.

What does it mean that its pressure is simple and unchanging?

Its pressure constantly leads to one goal – to bring me to the end of correction, to get me to elevate to the level of the Creator, to equalize with the Creator. When we receive this impression from the upper light through the five senses, we change, just like in this world we change from generation to generation, from year to year, from one incarnation to the next. Once, in previous incarnations we had more pure desires, now we are more egoistic, coarser, more, I would say, primitive. These Reshimot cause in us the urge to advance. They have brought forth everything that has been achieved through technology, culture etc. Anything actually. This is what belongs to the perspective of this world.
What belongs to the soul works in the same way. We have here a point in the heart, and it has those Reshimot as well. The Reshimot in the point in the heart are not the same as those in the five senses. In the point in the heart they come from the path that the soul has gone through, from the Creator down to the barrier, down to this world. Through this long path these Reshimot are now in me, like as in a gene - all of the information, an infinite amount of details (we learn about this in the book Beit Shhar Ha Kavanot). All of these Reshimot are constantly updated, and therefore I keep changing from one state to another, as if a CD drive in me keeps scanning all this information. And so every time I change inside, it seems to me that the upper light changes on the outside, and that the Creator acts differently with me. Truthfully, there is no change in Him. He is in absolute rest. His pressure is constant, and it is applied to elevate me up to his level.

Drawing Nr 3

We say that at some point we develop the sixth sense and cross the barrier, that there is a whole world there, meaning that I act, there are mutual reactions, and at the same time I live in this world, I can observe that I actually live in a false reality.

So you are asking this: how do I relate to this world once I develop the sixth sense?
This is also related to what I’ve said previously, that we have both feet on the ground according to Baal HaSulam’s method.
What is actually the issue? We are never allowed to pass judgment on, to relate or think about reality from a position, which is different than the one we are in. Meaning that if I am now still in a state of a beast (meaning that I have the same senses as a beast), then I live according to my five senses. Those are my senses, even if I read books and get very excited by them. I must exist and relate to this world according to where I am. Whatever information I receive is what determines my attitude to the world.
As long as I haven’t yet developed the sixth sense, I still do not live by it. I am not allowed to relate to the world through it because I am still not in contact with the upper light. I am not in touch with it through the sixth sense. I am just learning about it. It is for me, just a theory. Until I receive a spiritual vessel called a ‘screen’ to deal with the upper light, so that the screen would be in between me and the upper light, I am not allowed to think that I am doing a spiritual action. I must act in this world as usual, like everyone else.

I am talking about the fact that you have a relation with the upper world, and as you say, you discover there a false reality

No. I do not discover a false reality in the upper world. When I enter the sensation of the upper world I see that the reality I perceive through the five senses is false.

How do you relate to that?

I relate to it differently, but I still don’t stop sensing this reality. I begin to relate to it through the sixth sense as well, because it comes from the same source. We will talk about it more. It is not simple thing. It is only simple once you live it.
Explaining it to someone who only has five senses is almost impossible. That is why the Kabbalah is called the “study of the hidden”, because all is hidden from us, even the state at which we are now. We cannot even identify our present state.

Is there a chance of using the sixth sense wrongly?

No chance, and I will explain why.
We are here in this world without any preparation. I am born, right into my mother’s hands. From there I move on to kindergarten, and then to school, and so on. We live in a very big world, and we are very small. We do not understand anything, but there are support systems like mother, father, a society, social security, all sorts of things that help us and then we can exist even if we do not know or understand anything. One sick person is taken care of by ten others. That is how we build society and we have the mental preparation to do it. We did not invent it, nature forces us to do it. It is possible only within the framework of this world.

In spirituality the rule is exactly the opposite – the vessel precedes the light. Meaning that I am only able to enter and sense the upper world to the extent that I prepare myself, that I know where I am, that I do the right thing, and that I benefit myself, the Creator and other souls. All else is still sealed, closed. I cannot sense it or feel that it even exists. That is the entry to the upper world.

And so before I elevate to any higher level, I have to get equipped with all that this level includes, the power, the understanding, the brains and the heart. There is no way to make mistakes. All that we learn about the breaking of the vessels and the sin of Adam, the destruction of the temple and so on, was done as an expansion from above to below, to prepare the place for us, this place of destruction. And then we can put back together all of this breaking, all these broken vessels and elevate back up.
But from where we are and higher, there is no possibility of making mistakes – “in holiness there is only going up, never down”, that is the rule. This is because vessels precede lights. I have to be in power first, and only then I enter into action according to that power. So do not worry.

Drawing Nr 4

I feel uncomfortable thinking that I am constantly drawing light.

So don’t think about it, don’t draw. I have said how you feel in words that are not close to you. Each person feels in a different way.
I am a technical person, and the Kabbalah uses a technical language. It discusses the desire to receive. What is a desire to receive? It is a desire to enjoy the filling of lack. It discusses degrees of filling and sensations. We have a special language for it, a very coarse, technical language, which doesn’t include any emotional impressions. It discusses coarseness, screens, Reshimot, purification, going up, down, etc. Even later when studying things like Zivug, Neshikot, (mating, kissing) it is still a technical language that is being used.

A Kabbalist treats it as a simple technique. It is a technique of how to work with our vessels, and when one enters this method one can see that it is so, and even senses it. These are very emotional subjects, much more powerful than what we see and feel in this world. If we would gather all that humanity has had in this world during all generations, all souls, with all of the lights that humanity gathered through the five senses during all incarnations, it would be less than the smallest level in spirituality. The smallest degree in spirituality that a person enters is more powerful than what everyone has all together here, under the barrier at all times.

So maybe each person should choose different words. To me this language is understandable now. But I remember how it used to be. Take a body for example. What is the body? I always thought, a body is a body. But gradually the concept ‘body’ became associated for me with the concept of ‘desire to receive’, meaning the level of my desire, the form of my desire, according to that there is a form of a body. If I now want to eat chicken, then my body has the form of chicken. If I want a drink, then my body gets the form of that drink. It is truly so. It took many years until I began to realize this…

So gradually everyone who studies begin translating this to themselves. The mentalities may be different. I am Russian, you are American, and people belong to different generations. It just has to be learned and gradually it works itself out. Each person develops an inner dictionary.
So don’t draw lights, think about it differently. Is there anything in life that you want from above? Think about that.

Is our goal to reduce the use of the five senses to the minimum, using them just to the necessary things like eating and breathing, and live just with the sixth sense?

No. On the contrary, nothing was created from above in vain. But, everything that descended here exists in its source in a much richer, greater form. All desires are much bigger, including the most bestial ones.
You may be very reflective and all now, but you will see how much more you will want to eat, and to have all other pleasures. Why does it happen? It is no joke. It is written in the books of Kabbalah very clearly. The Kabbalah has nothing to hide - it talks about souls. You are actually going to develop the center of pleasure in you. If you have a small place for pleasure then you don’t need anything else. You can live on bread and water and be satisfied. You do not become a Kabbalist from that. A Kabbalist needs to swallow the entire world, and gradually, by the light that comes to us, we start to sense it. By this concept - ‘Kabbalah’ (receiving) – you are not told to stop receiving but on the contrary, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah – receive and enjoy in the most extensive way possible, the most perfect way, as much as you can. And this is really wisdom. It is not simple.

So first we study how to develop the possibility to receive, and not by restricting our senses or limiting ourselves in any way. The person must continue functioning as usual. The Kabbalah obligates one to get married, to live a normal life, to work, to go to the army, to do everything like one’s generation does. It is written: “within my people I reside” - meaning that I have to function like everyone else in my generation, like the average person.

I have seen that with my Rabbi. When I went to buy things for him he said “ask everyone as much as you can, bring me back things that are average to what everyone thinks or uses”. It is forbidden to live differently. It manifested even in the smallest things, in the hospital. Unless there was no choice, the Rabbi stayed in one room with other people. The principal is that when someone uses something, which is unique to him and not to everyone, the person looses.

The bottom line is, keep living normally and do not limit yourself. It is not a holy thing to do. On the contrary, there are two approaches to this world; education through discipline, and education through inner development. Discipline warns us, do not do this, do not do that etc. It involves punishments. It limits the person, not letting the person develop. It is good for controlling the masses, to keep them under control. Anyone wanting to control people uses this approach, and until our time, until quite recently, it used to work. People were not that developed. The souls have not yet reached the level of the last generation, but now their spiritual gene is beginning to awaken and people are already at a stage where they need to nurture their core, their point in the heart. Before this began to happen the method of discipline worked. It held the nation together. Everyone went to the synagogue, studied, and all was well.

Now that the desire to receive has grown, this spiritual gene has fulfilled its role almost entirely, and all we have left to do is to really open the sixth sense and continue into the spiritual world.

We can see for ourselves that the other way doesn’t work anymore. The education by discipline is not functioning. You cannot warn someone, threat someone, because if you do then the person ends up taking drugs. You have to let the person develop.
That is why the Kabbalah is against threatening or forbidding. A person, on the contrary, should not be limited in any way. As opposed to the method of discipline where “this world is worthless, you don’t need anything from it, you are entirely dedicated to spirituality”, the Kabbalah says that this world is very good and it is possible to really enjoy it here. The fact that you are able to or not, whether you have the opportunity to, or not, is something else. But do not discard the world. You need to discover that spirituality is much greater and more attractive then any corporal wealth.

Why is the disciplinary education not capable of doing this? It does not open the spiritual world. It cannot tell a person what to prefer or explain to him what there is in spirituality. The Kabbalah does just that. It opens up for a person the spiritual world, and then the person will naturally work things out in the optimal way without any limitations. There is no coercion in spirituality. That is a very important rule. No coercion, even upon oneself.
To the extent that you enter this sensation in the sixth sense, you gradually begin to evaluate the five senses, and see how much of an illusion they are. I would say not exactly an illusion, but that you clothe your five senses on the sixth sense and see it all as one single perspective. You may ask, so why is the sixth sense just one? Let it have a few channels like in this world. The truth is that yes, the sixth sense does have five channels as well, called the five Sefirot – Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, and Malchut. The impression from it also includes five lights, called – Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, Yechida. And that is exactly how they are named in spirituality – vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch. We just say that it is a single sense. Why? Because it is all received as one package. In our world we could, god forbid, live without eyes or ears, but not in spirituality. If you receive, you receive the entire package, all of the NRNHY. Then the senses clothe each other and create in you an impression, a complete and perfect picture.
There is no one born in this world who receives impressions from these five senses and does nothing with them. We go through some of the path without any sensation of spirituality, with no understanding of what spirituality is. We don’t even have any desire for it. Say, if I live in some village, and my father is a shepherd, I become a shepherd like him, and so does my son, and my son’s son and so on. It evolves and works that way. The question is this: are we doing anything by just living in this world through our five senses? Or are we just sending and receiving information and substances without anything coming out of it? No - we are realizing these Reshimot. In each Reshimo we have a unique NRNHY, even in our own Reshimot, and as they accumulate they give us a perfect picture, from beginning to end, as a single image. Our entire lives, this one and previous ones were not in vain. Nothing was in vain. No one existed by chance. That is why we should never dismiss even the smallest person who seems not to take advantage of opportunities to break into spirituality. We may try and make him do it, but never dismiss the person. Baal HaSulam says that even the existence of the smallest insect is necessary and that is why it was created and chosen to fulfill its tiny part of the general desire.
Without the fulfillment of every desire to all of its details, nothing will evolve. Therefore we should not dismiss people who are still not drawn to spirituality, but we should help them. In helping them one helps oneself because we are linked to the same system.

If the Kabbalah develops space for pleasure, then what is the issue of the restriction?

The Creator created a desire to receive. What does it mean that the desire to receive distanced from the Creator? The desire to receive remained the same. It could not restrict itself on its own. It restricted itself as a result of receiving the bounty. There was a large hole for the reception of light and later on it closed – that is called restriction. It is not a restriction on the desire itself. That volume remains the same size. Only a restriction was made so that now it is closed; there is a cover on it.

So how do we open this cover? The cover that was there before is not right. We need to open the cover only in order to elevate back up, not in order to receive here, in this place. Every reception should be a step in the 125-step-ladder.

How does my correction begin? I perform the restriction. Let’s say the first restriction, and then I open myself only to the extent that I can elevate from my state higher and higher, so that this box would constantly move. Only in such a case can I open the cover.
If I can receive the light and move forward toward it, then I open myself to the reception of the light, otherwise I remain in my state until I gain powers for what is called a “screen”, so that the filling would be in order to progress forward.

Is there a link between the spiritual desire to receive, the screen, the upper light, the spiritual pleasure and what we sense here in this world with our five senses?

There is no connection, since it is our world.
What do I mean by no connection? It is very simple. The pleasures that I can receive through my five senses are received without a screen. I receive them according to my desire, which depends on my Reshimot that are in my center of pleasures. I do not have to work on that. I only need to awaken a specific Reshimo, so that if I have a small Reshimo I would then have a bigger one. I want to eat, but not enough. I work with that same desire to receive, although these entries of pleasure and my entry into the sixth sense are completely not dependent on each other.
It is possible to be a great Kabbalist and work with the sixth sense, with a screen, at very high levels, and still enjoy all five senses. There is no problem with that.

Doesn’t it annul the five senses?

No it doesn’t, On the contrary, the end of correction means that you are at the highest level, very much in your body, in this world, connecting in your soul these two opposing points as one. You really organize them, and so it is considered that you have realized the purpose of creation.

How are those two spirals related to the point in the heart and to the corporeal Reshimo?

We already spoke about this. We go through many levels of development, or incarnations - that is what we call the levels of development. We go through many incarnations in which we fulfill these bestial Reshimot that are ordered as bestial desires first, which are common to humans and to animals – desires for food, family, sex, a home, a community etc. Later on a desire for money, then honors, and knowledge eventually emerge.

Once a person fulfills all of these desires, the desire for spirituality arrives. These stages are not separated in a discrete way. The process is gradual. Once I develop sufficiently the desire for one thing, the next desire comes. I develop the desire for money to some extent, and then there appears a desire for honor. Suddenly I feel like working for honor. I want to be elected for government etc. It is not that I forget about the money or the bestial pleasures, they just start working together. I have developed those desires enough, and now they continue developing along with the new desire for honor. It works the same way with the desire for spirituality. Along with it I also develop other desires further. Developing Honor for example, while developing spiritually causes a great disturbance, but in a positive way, meaning that like any other disturbance, it comes to show me what my faults are, and so on.

So these senses are always with the Kabbalist, as it is written: “whoever is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than him”, “since the destruction of the temple, the taste of BYA remained for the workers of God” meaning that the lowest bestiality remains only for the workers of God. Whoever opens this channel, the sixth sense, specifically activates the five senses at a very high intensity; only he senses them in a purposeful manner, helping him.

Does suffering help the evolution of a soul?

There are billions of people suffering, Africa is starving, but it doesn’t lead them to the involvement with the evolution of the soul. On the other hand, the largest amounts of suicide are committed in the most advanced countries and not in Africa. Where is the largest consumption of drugs? Europe, while those who grow the drugs and never use them live in poverty in their countries.

It is written: “suffering purifies the body”. Body means the desire to receive, not the suffering that we experience due to the lack of bestial pleasures, but suffering of love, longing for spirituality and not having it. Only these sufferings purify us and bring us closer to spirituality.
So again, the Kabbalah opposes suffering. A person, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, should advance with wisdom so as to enjoy every moment, otherwise the person would curse the Creator and not justify Him. Otherwise the person is not reading his situation correctly, because no state comes to us unless it is to correct us and bring us to a higher more spiritual state. We are never in a state where we are not advancing. We are advancing every day, every moment, and even a person who doesn’t understand it should realize, think about it, that it is really so.

When someone enters the sensation of suffering and doesn’t want to get out of it that is called a Klipa (shell). Those are the forces that really stop a person and even bring the person down in a way. They must be resisted. That is why it is problematic for beginners who begin sensing how lowly they are, how remote from holiness they are, how much they lack what they desire. And they are still in egoism, in an egoistic desire to receive, “I don’t have, I don’t have” and the person gives up, which is the opposite of what is supposed to occur.

Therefore real progress is when a person opens up for himself the ability to evaluate the path, as long as the person remains in happiness. Baal HaSulam writes about this in a letter that twenty-three and a half hours a day a person has to be in happiness, in adhesion to the Creator, and just half an hour go and check where he actually is.

You said before that there is this issue about a moral disciplinary system that works for the masses. Is it possible in the state we are in to open up the world and behave according to “all is permitted”…?

The question is how to educate the generation so that it will evolve from the method of morals to the method of Kabbalah, to development according to nature.
I don’t know. We have here a group of women, our youngest group. We don’t know. I don’t even know how to educate children. I have all kinds of thoughts, but the great Kabbalists haven’t left any instructions for us and I do not intend to write any books about spiritual education. I know my place.

Unfortunately, we have not received from the great ones any method of approaching children. It has been written by SHAGRA, three or four hundred years ago, that Kabbalah can be studied from the age of nine, since there is nothing more natural for a person then knowing that there is more and more around him to attain and to grow with. And these questions are asked from very young ages – who am I? What am I? What do I exist for? Later on we forget these questions due to all the trouble we experience.

But still, there is no method, just like there is no method for approaching the entire nation, which is still lacking spiritual progress, still immersed in other things. So either we will study, and by that accelerate the entire nation, or maybe we can learn from the example of what happened with my Rabbi. I love learning from examples. It happened in real life, in front of my eyes. When I brought him new students from Tel Aviv, secular men, there were some that he didn’t want to accept and said that if it is possible, they shouldn’t come. There were others that he let stay, and out of just being with us they developed, even if they hadn’t yet reached the stage of the point in the heart. By just being in such a society, doing things together, some of them developed a desire for spirituality and began drawing other guys, until eventually, entire groups started to come. We could see that it was beneficial, that people came just because they saw others doing it, like some kind of a club. Eventually we saw cases where some of these new people surpassed the original ones in their development.

We do not know the ways of the soul, how it progresses and at what rate. It may sometimes jump far ahead, or the opposite may happen, that people who were very advanced in the material, very pure, suddenly began to dry up, to stall and even leave the studying or just remain in it formally. It is not possible to know in advance how far a person will go, where the person’s obstacles will be. Every soul is different.
This lecture was an introduction. Next time we will continue with “opening to the wisdom of Kabbalah”, as well as further discussions on this subject.