READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN SUNDAY

Baal HaSulam. The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy

LESSON MATERIAL

The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy

What Is Spirituality?

Philosophy has gone through a great deal of trouble to prove that corporeality is the offspring of spirituality and that the soul begets the body. Still, their words are utterly unacceptable to the heart. Their primary mistake is their erroneous perception of spirituality: They determined that spirituality fathered corporeality, which is certainly a fib.

Any parent must somehow resemble its progeny. This relation is the path and the route by which its sequel extends. In addition, every operator must have some regard to its operation by which to contact it. Since you say that spirituality is denied of any corporeal incidents, then such a path does not exist, or a relation by which the spiritual can contact and set it into any kind of motion.

However, understanding the meaning of the word “spirituality” has nothing to do with philosophy. This is because how can they discuss something that they have never seen or felt? What do their rudiments stand on?

If there is any definition that can tell spiritual from corporeal, it belongs only to those who have attained a spiritual thing and felt it. These are the genuine Kabbalists; thus, it is the wisdom of Kabbalah that we need.

Philosophy with Regard to His Essence

Philosophy loves to concern itself with His essence and prove the rules of negation that apply to Him. However, Kabbalah has no dealings whatsoever with it, for how can something be defined in what is unattainable and imperceptible? Indeed, a definition by negation is just as valid as a definition by confirmation. If you see an object from afar and recognize its negatives, meaning all that it is not, that, too, is considered seeing and some extent of recognition. If an object is truly out of sight, even its negative characteristics are not apparent.

If, for example, we see a black image from a distance, but can still determine that it is neither a person nor a bird, it is regarded as seeing. If it had been even farther still, we would have been unable to determine that it is not a person.

This is the origin of their confusion and invalidity. Philosophy loves to pride itself on understanding all the negation about His essence. Conversely, the sages of Kabbalah put their hand to their mouth in this place and do not give Him even a simple name, for anything that we do not attain, we cannot define by name or word, for a word designates some degree of attainment. However, Kabbalists do speak a great deal about His illumination in reality, meaning all those illuminations they have actually attained, as validly as tangible attainment.

The Spiritual Is a Force without a Body

This is what Kabbalists define as “spirituality,” and that is what they talk about. It has no image or space or time or any corporeal value (and in my opinion, philosophy has generally worn a mantle that is not its own, for it has pilfered definitions from the wisdom of Kabbalah and made delicacies with human understanding. Had it not been for that, they would never have thought of fabricating such acumen). However, it is only a potential force, meaning not a force that is clothed in an ordinary, worldly body, but a force without a body.

A Spiritual Kli [Vessel] Is Called “A Force”

This is the place to point out that the force that spirituality speaks of does not refer to the spiritual light itself. That spiritual light extends directly from His essence and is therefore the same as His essence. This means that we have no perception or attainment in the spiritual light, too, that we may define by name. Even the name “light” is borrowed and is not real. Thus, we must know that the name “force,” without a body, refers specifically to the spiritual Kli.

Lights and Kelim [Vessels]

Therefore, we must not inquire how the sages of Kabbalah, which fill the entire wisdom with their insights, differentiate between the various lights. However, these observations do not refer to the lights themselves, but to the impression of the Kli, which is the above-mentioned force, affected by its encounter with the light.

Kelim and Lights (in the meaning of the words)

Here is where the line between the gift and the love that it creates must be drawn. The lights, meaning the impression on the Kli, which is attainable, is called “form and matter together.” The impression is the form, and the above-mentioned force is the matter.

However, the love that is created is regarded as “form without matter.” This means that if we separate the love from the gift itself, as though it was never clothed in any tangible gift, but only in the abstract name “the love of the Creator,” it is regarded as a “form.” In that event, the practice of it is regarded as “Formative Kabbalah.” However, it would still be regarded as real, without any similarity to formative philosophy since the spirit of this love remains in the attainment, completely separated from the gift, meaning the light itself.

Matter and Form in Kabbalah

The reason is that although this love is merely a consequence of the gift, it is still far more important than the gift itself. It is like a great king who gives a small object to a person. Although the gift itself hasn’t any value, the king’s love and attention make it priceless and precious. Thus, it is completely separated from the matter, being the light and the gift, in a way that the work and the distinction remain carved in the attainment with only the love itself, while the gift is seemingly forgotten from the heart. Therefore, this aspect of the wisdom is called the “Formative Wisdom of Kabbalah,” which is the most important part in the wisdom.

ABYA

This love consists of four parts that are much like human love: When we first receive the present, we still do not refer to the giver of the gift as one who loves us, all the more so if the giver of the present is important and the receiver is not equal to him.

However, the repetitive giving and the perseverance will make even the most important person seem like a true, equal lover. This is because the law of love does not apply between great and small, as two real lovers must feel equal.

Thus, you can measure four degrees of love here. The incident is called Assiya, the repetition of the giving of gifts is called Yetzira, and the appearance of the love itself is called Beria.

It is here that the study of the Formative Wisdom of Kabbalah begins, for it is in this degree that love is separated from the gifts. This is the meaning of “and creates darkness,” meaning the light is removed from Yetzira and the love remains without light, without its gifts.

Then comes Atzilut. After it has tasted and entirely separated the form from the matter, as in, “and creates darkness,” it became worthy of ascending to the degree of Atzilut where the form clothes the substance once more, meaning light and love together.

The Origin of the Soul

Everything spiritual is perceived as a separated force from the body because it has no corporeal image. However, because of that, it remains isolated and completely separated from the corporeal. In such a state, how can it set anything corporeal in motion, much less beget anything physical, when it has no relation by which to come in contact with the physical?

The Acidic Element

However, the truth is that the force itself is also considered a genuine matter, just as any corporeal matter in the concrete world, and the fact that it has no image that the human senses can perceive does not reduce the value of the substance, which is the “force.”

Take a molecule of oxygen as an example: It is a constituent of most materials in the world. Yet, if you take a bottle with pure oxygen when it is not mixed with any other substance, you will find that it seems as though the bottle is completely empty. You will not be able to notice anything about it; it will be completely like air, intangible and invisible to the eye.

If we remove the lid and smell it, we will find no scent; if we taste it, we will find no flavor, and if we put it on scales, it will not weigh more than the empty bottle. The same applies to hydrogen, which is also tasteless, odorless, and weightless.

However, when putting these two elements together, they will immediately become a liquid—drinking water that possesses both taste and weight. If we put the water inside active lime, it will immediately mix with it and become as solid as the lime itself.

Thus, the elements oxygen and hydrogen, in which there is no tangible perception whatsoever, become a solid body. Therefore, how can we determine about natural forces that they are not a corporeal substance just because they are not arranged in such a way that our senses can perceive them? Moreover, we can evidently see that most of the tangible materials in reality consist preliminarily of the element of oxygen, which human senses cannot perceive or feel!

Moreover, even in the tangible reality, the solid and the liquid we can vividly perceive in our tangible world might turn to air and fumes at a certain temperature. Likewise, vapors may solidify when the temperature drops.

In that event, we should wonder how one gives that which one does not possess. We clearly see that all the tangible images come from elements that are in and of themselves intangible and do not exist as materials in and of themselves. Likewise, all the fixed pictures that we know and use to define materials are inconstant and do not exist in their own right. Rather, they only dress and undress forms under the influence of conditions such as heat or cold.

The primary part of the corporeal substance is the “force” in it, though we are not yet able to tell these forces apart, as with chemical elements. Perhaps in the future they will be discovered in their pure form, as we have only recently discovered the chemical elements.

Equal Force in the Spiritual and the Physical

In a word: All the names that we ascribe materials are completely fabricated, meaning stem from our concrete perception in our five senses. They do not exist in and of themselves. On the other hand, any definition we ascribe to the force, which separates it from the material, is also fabricated. Even when science reaches its ultimate development, we will still have to regard only the actual reality, meaning that within any material operation we see and feel, we must perceive its operator, who is also a substance, like the operation itself. There is a correlation between them, or they would not have come to it.

We must know that this erring of separating the operating force from the operation comes from the formative philosophy, which insisted on proving that the spiritual act influences the corporeal operation. That resulted in erroneous assumptions such as the above, which Kabbalah does not need.

Body and Soul in the Upper Ones

The opinion of Kabbalah in this matter is crystal clear, excluding any mixture of philosophy. This is because in the minds of Kabbalists, even the spiritual, separated, conceptual entities, which philosophy denies having any corporeality and displays them as purely conceptual, bear substance, in the view of Kabbalists, although they attained the spirituality, more sublime and abstract, they still consist of body and soul, like the physical human.

Therefore, you need not wonder how two can win the prize, saying that they are complex. Furthermore, philosophy believes that anything complex will eventually disintegrate and decompose, meaning die. Thus, how can one declare that they are complex and eternal?

Lights and Kelim

Indeed, their thoughts are not our thoughts, for the way of the sages of the Kabbalah is one of finding actual proof of attainment, making its revocation through intellectual pondering impossible. But let me clarify these matters so that everyone can understand them.

First, we must know that the difference between lights and Kelim [vessels] is created immediately in the first emanated being from Ein Sof [Infinity/no end]. Naturally, the first emanation is also the most complete and purer than everything that follows it. It is certain that it receives this pleasantness and completeness from His essence, Who wishes to grant it every pleasantness and pleasure.

It is known that the measurement of the pleasure is the will to receive it. That is because what we most want to receive feels as the most pleasurable. Because of this, we should discern two observations in this first emanation: the “will to receive” that receives the essence, and the received essence itself.

We should also know that the will to receive is what we perceive as the “body” of the emanated being, meaning its primary essence, being the Kli [vessel] to receive His goodness. The second is the essence of the good that is received, which is His light, which is eternally extended to that emanation.

It follows that we necessarily distinguish two discernments that clothe one another even in the most sublime spiritual that the heart can conceive. It is the opposite of the opinion of philosophy, which fabricated that the separated entities are not complex materials. It is necessary that that “will to receive,” which necessarily exists in the emanated (for without it there would be no pleasure but coercion, and no feeling of pleasure), is absent in His essence. This is the reason for the name “emanated,” since it is no longer His essence, for from whom would He receive?

However, the bounty that it receives is necessarily a part of His essence, for here there need not be any innovation. Thus, we see the great difference between the generated body and the received abundance, which is deemed His essence.

How Can a Spiritual Beget a Corporeal?

It is seemingly difficult to understand how the spiritual can beget and extend anything corporeal. This question is an ancient philosophical query that much ink has been spilt attempting to resolve it.

The truth is that this question is difficult only if one follows their doctrine, for they determined the form of spirituality without any connection to anything corporeal. This produces a difficult question: How can the spiritual lead to or father anything corporeal?

But it is the view of the sages of Kabbalah that this is not difficult at all, for their terms are the complete opposite from those of philosophers. They maintain that any spiritual quality equalizes with the corporeal quality like two drops in a pond. Thus, the relationships are of the utmost affinity, and there is no separation between them except in the substance: The spiritual consists of a spiritual substance and the corporeal consists of a corporeal substance.

However, all the qualities in spiritual materials apply also to corporeal materials, as has been explained in the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

The old philosophy presents three opinions as obstacles before my explanation: The first is their decision that the power of the human intellect is the eternal soul, man’s essence. The second is their conjecture that the body is an upshot of the soul. The third is their saying that spiritual entities are simple objects and not complex.

Materialistic Psychology

Not only is it the wrong place to argue with them about their fabricated conjectures, but also the time of supporters of such views has already passed and their authority revoked. Also, we should thank the experts of materialistic psychology for that, which built its plinth on the ruin of the former, winning the public’s favor. Now everyone admits to the nullity of philosophy, for it is not built on concrete foundations.

This old doctrine became a stumbling rock and a deadly thorn to the sages of Kabbalah because where they should have subdued before the sages of Kabbalah, and assumed abstinence and prudence, sanctity, and purity before the sages disclosed before them even the smallest thing in spirituality, they easily received what they wanted from the formative philosophy. Without payment or price, they watered them from their fountain of wisdom to satiation and refrained from laboring in the wisdom of Kabbalah until the wisdom has almost been forgotten from Israel. Hence, we are grateful to materialistic psychology for handing it a deadly blow.

I Am Solomon

The above matter is much like a fable that our sages tell: Asmodeus [the devil] drove King Solomon four hundred parsas [a distance measurement] from Jerusalem and left him with no money or means of sustenance. Then he sat in King Solomon’s throne while the king was begging at the doors. Every place he went, he said: “I am Ecclesiastes!” but none believed him. So he went from town to town declaring, “I am Solomon!” But when he came to the Sanhedrin, they said: “A fool does not utter the same folly all the time, saying, ‘I was once a king.’”

It seems as though the name is not the essence of a person, but rather the owner of the name is. Therefore, how can a wise man such as Solomon not be recognized if he is indeed the owner of the name? Moreover, it is the person who dignifies his name and he should display his wisdom!

Three Preventions

There are three reasons that prevent us from knowing the owner of a name:

1. Because of its truthfulness, the wisdom becomes clear only when all its details appear together. Therefore, before one knows the whole wisdom, it is impossible to see even a fraction of it. Thus, it is the publicity of its truthfulness that we need, so as to have enough prior faith in it to make a great effort.
2. Just as Asmodeus the demon wore the clothes of King Solomon and inherited his throne, philosophy sat on the throne of Kabbalah with easier concepts to grasp, for the lie is quickly accepted. Therefore, there is a twofold trouble here: First, the wisdom of truth is profound and laborious, whereas the false philosophy is easily grasped. The second is that it is superfluous because philosophy is quite satisfying.
3. As the demon claims that King Solomon is mad, philosophy mocks and dismisses Kabbalah.

However, as long as wisdom is sublime, it is elevated above the people and separated from it. Because he was the wisest man, he was also higher than every man. Thus, the finest scholars could not understand him, except those friends, meaning the Sanhedrin, whom he taught his wisdom every day for days and years. They are the ones who understood him and publicized his name in the entire world.

The reason for it is that minute wisdom is perceived in five minutes and is thus attainable by anyone and can be easily publicized. Conversely, a weighty concept will not be understood in less than several hours. It may even take days or years, depending on the intelligence. Accordingly, the greatest scholars will be understood only by a select few in the generation, since profound concepts are founded on much prior knowledge.

It is therefore not surprising that the wisest of all men, who was exiled to a place where he was not known, could not demonstrate his wisdom or even show a hint of his wisdom before they believed that he was the owner of the name.

It is the same with the wisdom of Kabbalah in our time: The troubles and the exile that have come upon us brought us to forget it (and if there are people who do practice it, it is not in its favor, but rather harms it, for they did not receive it from a Kabbalist sage). Hence, in this generation, it is as King Solomon in exile, declaring, “I am the wisdom, and all the flavors of religion and Torah are in me,” yet none believe it.

But this is perplexing, for if it is a genuine wisdom, can it not display itself like all other wisdoms? It cannot. As King Solomon could not display his wisdom to the scholars at the place of his exile and had to come to Jerusalem, the place of the Sanhedrin, who learned and knew King Solomon, and testified to the depth of his wisdom, so it is with the wisdom of Kabbalah: It requires great sages who examine their hearts and study it for twenty or thirty years. Only then will they be able to testify to it.

And as King Solomon could not prevent Asmodeus from sitting on his throne, pretending to be him until he arrived in Jerusalem, sages of Kabbalah observe philosophic theology and complain that they have stolen the upper shell from their wisdom, which Plato and his Greek predecessors had acquired while studying with the disciples of the prophets in Israel. They have stolen basic elements from the wisdom of Israel and wore a cloak that is not their own. To this day, philosophic theology sits on the throne of Kabbalah, being heir under her mistress.

And who would believe the sages of Kabbalah while others sit on their throne? It is as they did not believe King Solomon in exile, for they knew him to be sitting on his throne, meaning the demon, Asmodeus. As King Solomon had no hope of revealing the truth, for the wisdom is deep and cannot be revealed by testimony or by experimentation except to those believers who dedicate themselves to it with heart and soul.

Just as the Sanhedrin did not recognize King Solomon as long as the falsehood of Asmodeus did not appear, Kabbalah cannot prove its nature and truthfulness, and no revelations will suffice for the world to know it before the futility and falsehood of theological philosophy that has taken its throne becomes apparent.

Therefore, there was no such salvation for Israel as when materialistic psychology appeared and struck theological philosophy on its head a lethal blow. Now, any person who seeks the Creator must bring Kabbalah back to its throne and restore its past glory.

LESSON

Morning Lesson December 13, 2023

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.

Part 2:

Baal HaSulam. The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy

Reading Article: (00:23) “Materialistic Psychology” – Twice.

1. S. (04:36) We’re thankful for materialistic psychology, what is materialistic psychology, if you go to Academia, I haven’t seen a course in materialistic psychology?

R. Yes, but today’s psychology you may call it or refer to it as materialistic psychology.

S. What turns it into materialistic that it is the experiments?

R. Yes, they go hand in hand with medicine with all kinds of experimentation and nature and that’s why it’s called it’s defined as materialistic.

S. And he writes here that everyone admits to the nullity of philosophy for it’s not built on concrete foundations. Do Kabbalists build something on concrete foundations, but how does the Kabbalist know its concrete foundations and not imagination like philosophers?

R. Because it all comes out of his experience in life.

S. That’s not understood because philosophers will say it’s out of his own experience.

R. No, but a philosopher cannot prove that he has it from life, whereas the Kabbalist takes forces that exist in a person, forces of nature, natural forces, a desire to receive, a desire to bestow, and all kinds of forces from man himself. When he discovers what is happening when these two forces are put together. When he puts those two forces together and he develops this materialistic psychology, the difference between that and Kabbalah and philosophy and Kabbalah is that it engages things that it can attain on our level and work with it.

2. S. (07:39) Baal HaSulam says that philosophy was handed a deadly blow and when we look today on the outside we see that most or if you could say all opinions on the outside are complete philosophy. There is no connection to reality where you really see what’s happening and when you see what people think, you see this gap and you think that it’s almost logical to them to say the opposite of what they see in reality. It doesn’t matter what there is in reality, it doesn’t matter if I see different things in reality I’m going to stand on this opinion and that’s it. It’s not just that one person is doing this, the whole system is operating this way. It’s always these conceptions, these thoughts people have in their mind, and it doesn’t matter what is happening in reality, I’m staying with that thought. Where is this deadly blow to philosophy because all I see is this philosophy on the outside completely.

R. I don’t quite understand you.

S. Baal HaSulam, as I understand depicts a process where at a certain stage this materialistic physiology handed a deadly blow to philosophy. I say if I look at the reality that I live in on the outside, I say that other than here and other than the materials that we engage in on the outside it’s all philosophy, complete philosophy so where is the deadly blow?

R. More opinions?

3. S. (09:33) It seems I think philosophy has disappeared, but it has been replaced like the outside with all kinds of inventions. People just believe whatever appears and surfaces in them and you can say that during the coronavirus period, all kinds of opinions came about and people just go by what they think and what they read.

R. Yes.

4. S. (10:05) I’ll also add that the biggest problem in the young generation is that anyone can upload a clip to tick tock and there could be enough likes there and it doesn’t matter whether it’s correct or incorrect. It’s taken as a fact and that’s what we see today with the antisemitism that’s also arising.

R. True.

5. S. (10:30) You said earlier that today’s psychology you could say is materialistic psychology. I don’t understand why we are thankful and nothing good comes of it, only depression comes out of it and more difficulties, we don’t speak about connection at all?

R. This is all up to you, you need to publicize the matter of connection, the importance of connection, and how only this can bring us victory or at least positive change.

S. Could you say that materialistic psychology if it’s finished its role, if it doesn’t reach a connection between people?

R. No, we don’t see, we can’t see the beginning or the middle or the end of materialistic psychology.

6. S. (11:38) I have a friend in the group, we work on connection, we learn the material lessons and parallel this psychology, there’s a psychologist that I go to and a psychiatrist that I go to I take pills. I don’t consider stopping psychologists or psychiatrists and the pills. I need those. Kabbalah cannot replace for me the psychology and the psychiatry. I’m very careful with materialistic psychology and I need it. Is that what it’s talking about in our article, that Kabbalah can replace psychology and psychiatry?

R. No.

S. What’s it speaking about here?

R. Psychiatry cannot be replaced there because it works with chemical substances and they help bring about inner balance to a person, chemical. In those things or simple relaxants and or even more serious medications we live with them, we need them so we need to continue.

S. I don’t expect the wisdom of Kabbalah to solve the psychological problems I have; I don’t have any such expectation. I know that the importance of Kabbalah is the highest, it’s at a higher level and psychology is something that I need for my health in order to participate in all things.

R. That’s true that’s correct, that’s how it was, that’s how it is, that’s how it was and that’s how it will be and will continue until the general atmosphere and humanity will change from the Creator, and then we’ll be able to replace all these different means with one spiritual means. The light.

7. S. (14:32) What does Baal HaSulam respect about psychology and what does he disrespect about psychology?

R. Psychology can help us in cases where it doesn’t try to jump into spirit, but instead adds kinds of medications, herbs, and things of that nature then we accept it because that is what humanity has attained from nature, but more than that we don’t want to take from it.

S. Freud for instance and onward, how does Baal HaSulam relate to for example Freud? Again Freud for example and all the psychologists that have developed since then, how does Baal HaSulam relate to them, is that materialistic psychology or is that connected to spirit as you said, that comes to confuse humanity?

R. I think that Baal HaSulam treats all those things on the level of medications that help balance a person but the philosophical side, he doesn’t accept that.

S. The study of the wisdom of Kabbalah does it correct a person’s psychological problems?

R. Yes, but it is not coming as a medicine or as a remedy. Meaning if a person is healthy it advances him toward the purpose of creation, but if a person who is unwell mentally we should not do it we should not replace it. We should not actually engage in all of those things including the wisdom of Kabbalah.

8. S. (16:54) It seems as if humanity develops with all kinds of methods as Baal HaSulam depicts, and in the end, there needs to be a certain spiritual layer above it all, meaning that humanity needs to progress in the end to spirituality?

R. It must advance and reach the level of the Creator.

S. What does that mean?

R. It would feel and know and be able to carry out actions in order to bestow and then it will bring about a general balance complete balance of reality.

S. What is the role of the wise students within that process, and how do they need to act? Baal HaSulam writes for a long time and he says that it is all heading to spirituality, so at the moment it is as if sitting patiently doing their work in a certain way, the Kabbalist until humanity reaches a certain level. What do I need to do at that level at that point?

R. Which point?

S. When humanity will be ready to take that layer of spirituality?

R. When we connect there between us we are ready to receive the purpose of creation inside the vessel we have built. That is what we need to do, in effect, we need to connect our vessels and combine our vessels, in a common vessel to receive all of the light of the purpose of creation so it would fill us and raise us to the degree of the Creator. I am certain we are on the right path to that, although we sometimes feel like we fall and do not know how to even ascribe ourselves to some world or some method. All of it is because the upper light is working on us this way, so as it says, anything but leave, this is the most important, anything but leave. Remember we learned about it and we read about it. These things are very important, let the upper lights work on us. 

9. S. (20:48) What in that humanity went to materialistic psychology, what brought it closer to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. We understand more about our nature, about humans and the structure of humans, this perception, it helps us investigate reality and see our place in it.

S. Whoever engages in philosophy, does he have no greater question about the meaning of life and the purpose of life than someone who doesn’t engage in philosophy?

R. No.

S.  That is unclear, why does materialistic psychology have a certain engagement?

R.  Because psychology is connected to man’s perceptions. Psychology is more practical and more experimental whereas philosophy can be completely disconnected from reality.

S. Then the question is what other transition needs to take place in order for humanity to go from psychology to the need for the wisdom of Kabbalah, what develops in a person so that he needs the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to answer his questions?

R. There are two things here. First, we can’t do anything using psychology, and the second thing is that we have no choice. We are stuck in a state where no matter what we take we will not be able to advance in understanding the purpose and understanding life and this state is extremely humiliating to us. It puts us down.

S. Is it in the point where a person starts looking at that in which he does not succeed, not that he doesn’t succeed but that he has failed individually and that is what opens him up to the society and there is no chance that something good could happen. Is that the transition to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. Yes, meaning we will reach a state where either we are going to go back to small villages, or we are going up to the heavens.

S.  How can we in the message as it currently appears this message of connection is for the individual? Either he hears or he doesn’t hear, and he can easily resist that. How could we make it something of the group of the nation where a person understands that he cannot escape from that, that there is some sort of law that is acting on the society in which he lives, how could we discuss it in such a way, could that even help?

R. I don’t quite understand what you are saying, I only understand one thing, we are managed from above and we need to advance on the path of materialistic psychology.

S. Do we need to show a person the progress in materialistic psychology until he reaches the need for the wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. Sure because it will pass, it will transition more gently, and smoothly into the wisdom of Kabbalah.

10. S. (25:49) I once did two courses in social psychology and I was even impressed by the fact that lots of Kabbalah’s basics existed in that and the question is, how much can it join in the message in dissemination or should we detach them?

R. No we need neither this nor that, either connection or disconnection just leave it alone. We need only one thing for the connection between us to build inside of us, specifically the connection between us we build the true reality.

S. Because you replied to a friend here that through psychology people will connect to Kabbalah, so how can people through materialistic psychology come to connect with the wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. We will talk about it still, we will talk about it.

11. S. (27:07) The will to receive and the will to bestow are they equal to the same extent to a person’s nature to human nature?

R. Of course, the will to receive more.

S. But in a person the potential exists for the will to bestow, right?

R. Only on the condition that it is in order to receive.

S. In any case, when Baal HaSulam speaks about these psychological changes does that discuss the balance between them?

R. There is no balance between them, where are you taking this from?

S. What is the small psychological change that Baal HaSulam writes in another place that we need to do?

R. Let’s see, find the place.

12. S. (28:09) Philosophers don’t have the proof, the philosopher comes, gives a theory and some take it some don’t and then psychology comes in and brings it into proof, and then everything has an experiment and has to be shown that it works that is inserted into this modern thought, this need for proof. Now that need for proof for the practical side of it, will simply reveal the boundaries of psychology because there are many things that don’t work out for them and as much as they cannot prove, so at a certain moment according to its laws just like a scientist, according to his laws he cannot answer all the questions and then they will take something else. My impression is that this stage has already come, but the will to receive a stronger meaning people if there isn’t some kind of a shot that comes to a person so a person doesn’t make any step forward and then he’ll just say it’s all nonsense psychology psychiatry philosophy, just give me to eat and drink and that is it. Meaning I don’t see the natural process of development here as if it is something in a person’s awareness that they will come to a certain agreement, a certain conclusion.

R. No they will not come to that conclusion. The main thing for us is for them to pass the time nice and easy and whatever will be will be. No one thinks of the time to come.

13. S. (30:13) Does materialistic psychology not what we learn at universities but real psychological thought, could that be some kind of thing that mediates between that person who is not in the wisdom of Kabbalah and a person who is in Kabbalah? Is there a certain common ground there?

R. Look, these things are so wide and expansive, and everyone is wandering there, so it is hard to give precise definitions. For every science, for each branch I don’t know, I think that we are approaching a state of chaos and everything and that might be good and right. Humanity will understand us reaching the end of its abilities and powers and it is not reaching the correct nature, the correct research and investigation and that is how it will come about.

S. When we build connections with others who have no points in the heart or for example our children. Do we have control over the development of the point in the heart or is our development only in order to bring them to a place where they as if become materialistic and realistic and beyond that it does not depend on us?

R. Yes, I would say that, yes. We need to understand that we should also be a little bit above it and higher than that, we need to try to bring them at least into the doorway of a virtual world if you could say that. Just like they understand naturally that there are still, vegetative, animate, speaking and the forces between them, we also need to teach them a little bit that there are such types of nature that we cannot realize fulfill or not with our senses and we need to engage with that as well. 

14. S. (34:01) In all the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash there is a purpose, a hint whether concealed or revealed. I can’t understand the purpose of the goal in this article, what is he trying to tell us? He didn’t just write something informative that there is psychology and philosophy, what is the hint, what is he trying to hint to? He speaks from this space of attainment. He sees there that this thing exists and it can either help or hinder us. What is he trying to say? What kind of weapon is he trying to provide us with this article with a strong instrument, with all the things that Kabbalists write may help us bring the world to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

R. He wants to say that we need to reveal more forces where without them reality will not be understood.

S. Which means that each one of those things psychology, philosophy, and clinical psychology doesn’t matter, it is part of the puzzle and it turns out if one part of the puzzle, and if one piece leaves the whole puzzle breaks down. So we shouldn’t simply relate to it that it could help us if we accept it or we make a partnership for the advancement of the wisdom of Kabbalah. In my mind, we have no right to say that something is completely not good, completely not suitable for us. We have to work with whatever is in our possession, whatever the Kabbalists give us this hint. There’s this vessel, this weapon and turn them for the sake of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can’t just say that it doesn’t exist.

R. Yes, that is what I reply to you, yes. 

Reading. (36:51) “I Am Solomon, The above matter is much like a fable…” 

15. R. (38:14) Yes, so why does he behave in such a way? Three preventions. What did not give him the opportunity to prove himself? Let’s move on.

Reading. (38:33) “Three Preventions, There are three reasons…”

16. S. (47:50) When Asmodeus (king of demons, evil) revealed philosophy and all the other methods it’s clear that there is no other method so you can explain what is happening in reality, that everything is deteriorating. The wisdom of Kabbalah remained a shining diamond of Truth and there is no fake jewelry anyone can buy and still, I do not see any demand for it.

R. There is no demand as well. Look, who can come close to the wisdom of Kabbalah, one who truly was born with a desire that is strong which is directed at the revelation of the Creator. Where he doesn’t depict to himself that he can live without discovering the true reality, and everything else they agreed to live as now as if they were in the womb and they never left the womb. To shut the eyes, to get warmer, and comfortable, feel good, and let it be that way, that’s life, as if inside a dream. What is bad about that, tell me.

S. I’m asking because we are teaching a global course. I’m translating it, I’m impressed they are the best instructors, with simultaneous translation to dozens of languages and there are 500 new students there. It’s not clear here, what is next?

R. What’s next? Humanity as if doesn’t need any more than that, I don’t know. Baal HaSulam, as Rabash always said, had even less students.

S. Yes but what do we need to understand from that? The fact that we need to continue, I heard you in the talk, you have a Ten, and as to what you need to do it’s clear that is what we need to do, but what is beyond that?

R. Everything else depends on the upper force. Everything else depends on the upper force, but look at what it brings us, such corporeal actions in order to organize ourselves in Israel, and in general it is quite complicated. We need to see great corrections also in that.

S. Anyone here in Israel today I’m sure feels a great deal of pain but what to do with this pain, how to translate it into action?

R. It advances us. There are those that advance us in understanding and feeling and there are those that advance us without understanding, without feeling just like that, they advance us. 

17. S. (52:02) Why doesn’t the wisdom of Kabbalah declare that it rids the person of the suffering of the will to receive?

R. It frees a person from suffering, it gives a person advice, it doesn’t free a person from suffering, it gives a person advice on how to progress. And the person chooses each time in such advice more and more and then that is what progresses him.

S. Yes, but it claims, it doesn’t claim, it brings a person to adhesion in the Creator all kinds of exalted things, that to present this package how to present it to the public?

R. How can you? That is what he said in the beginning, I am Solomon. Can you present that before people who will accept it, who will understand it? Only those people who are already in connection with them and studied something from him, they revealed him and agreed with him.

S. Yes, but you cannot come to the people who are suffering and say to them I am Solomon, I am Solomon, who can rid you of your problems? 

R. They will not understand.

S. Why, all the people of Israel?   

R. They won’t believe, they won’t believe.

S. I feel that to tell people to go for adhesion with the upper force they don’t want to do it, but if you tell them to come, I’ll take you to solve your problems, all your torments of the will to receive and you can explain what is the will to receive? 

R. Show me how you solve a problem.

S. Through connection?

R. Through connection.

S. Yes through this power of connection.

R. They come to connection, and you make a group that studies the sources and they start engaging in that, let’s say for 10-20 years.

S. Doesn’t have to be 10-20 years, I think pretty quickly people would feel a relief in their lives from the torments of the will to receive, the will to receive doesn’t let the people live. 

R. They will have it easier because they connect, that’s something else. 

S. Also the incorporation, I wanted to ask about it. Is the incorporation between those who can devote themselves to the wisdom and those who can only receive benefit for themselves, will it not help and raise everyone to the next degree?

R. I don’t know.

S. There’s a problem in presenting the wisdom, how to present it, present it more as something that will solve your problems?

R. Baal HaSulam writes about that, so what?

S.  I feel like it is missing this part of the presentation.

R.  Physically.

S.  No, how to present the wisdom of Kabbalah to the public, how to publicize it, market it?

R.  So, add.

S. I just got up and said what I think.

R. We need to continue writing and adding to Baal HaSulam and to Rabash as much as we are capable of doing so. It could be that the small ones like ourselves, that we will find a solution so that we will be able to touch the hearts of the generation.

18. S. (56:19) We learned that shyness is a good quality and I guess there are many shy people in this generation who suffer great torments because of their shyness, and maybe if we publicize that shyness is in the wisdom of Kabbalah it’s a very good quality, that it will draw a lot of people to the path. Do you think it’s a good possibility?

R. I don’t know, I don’t know. Find sources that at least somewhat hint about that and then we will continue.

Reader: (57:41) Recommended reading, Peace In the World- Baal HaSulam

 He Writes: “The whole difficulty lies in changing our nature…”

19. S. (59:10) We mostly disseminate lately the idea that connection brings a solution and salvation and there are quotes that back it up and we do a lot of work online. The problem is the result that we see is that many people come instead of coming to us, they go to regular religion. The question is do we treat it as an intermediate stage after which they come to us or what would be the next state?

R. We are not against the usual opinion meaning the regular Judaism, but certainly we need to increasingly explain to them that what we learn and why we are the foundation, the center of wisdom, that is all. We will try.

S. There is no change we have to make from the point of view of the message that it will be more aimed at Kabbalah and less at the regular belief that people have?

R. Write that to our managers who are responsible for dissemination, and we will decide on that together.

20. S. (1:00:46) I’m quite close to the founders of this faculty of social psychology of a specific University and they want to send their regards to you, and I want to give an example. On the academics that founded the faculty spoke directly to our students, that psychology has nothing more to offer people and everything is found in the Torah. This is a direct quote from the management of the faculty.

R. Thank you for your comment, we wish for that in which the mind of everyone will be eliminated.