Editor’s Note

What you see from there…

From the dawn of history, death and reincarnation have fascinated humankind. Both death and reincarnation are shrouded in mystery, and throughout the generations people developed diverse theories attempting to understand death and what happens before and after it.

Kabbalists, researchers of the complete reality, did not return from the dead to tell us what happens there. Rather, they experienced our world and the spiritual world simultaneously. The surprising thing about it is that they stated that we don’t have to die to know the “next world.” Instead, we can and should reach it while we are still alive.

The beauty of it is that they also left us with a method that grants each of us the possibility to reach the same wondrous attainments and achievements that they experienced.

Their words teach us that our lives are like a sequence of scenes in a film. The highlight of this feature is the meeting with the wisdom of Kabbalah. This encounter is our door to the spiritual world, and only from that moment on do we really begin to reincarnate—from one spiritual degree to the one above it, until we reach the top of the spiritual ladder. All that we experience throughout the millennia leading to that point becomes nothing more than transitory lifecycles.

In the 11^th issue, we are inviting our readers to embark on a journey beyond their imagination. When we know the purpose of these incarnations and the purpose of our lives, we will be able to lead our lives to a place of happiness, tranquility, and spiritual perfection.

Don’t Wait for the Next Life

Our lives are like a sequence of scenes. The highlight of the story is the meeting with the wisdom of Kabbalah, when we take the reins into our hands and set the pace. Only then do we begin to reincarnate, and each incarnation is a phase in the spiritual development. Each incarnation brings us closer to the Creator.

One of the most mysterious Midrashim (commentaries) in the most important book of Kabbalah, The Book of Zohar, reveals one of the deepest secrets of existence: what happens after we die. It reveals what happens to us the minute we close our eyes for the last time, where the soul goes and what reincarnation really is, according to Kabbalah.

Things You See from Here, You Don’t See from There

“Come and see what is written, ‘If thou know not, O thou fairest among women’: the Lord replies to the soul, if you have come and did not look at wisdom before you came here, and you do not know the secrets of the Upper World, go thy way, you are not worthy of coming here without knowledge… meaning reincarnate a second time into the world.”

--The Book of Zohar, Song of Songs, Vol. 10, item 486

Kabbalists, researchers of reality, did not return from the dead to tell us what happens there. Rather, they lived in our world and in the spiritual world simultaneously. The surprising element about it is that we don’t have to die to know the next world. Instead, we can and should achieve this sensation while we are still alive.

Kabbalists left us with a method that grants each of us the possibility of reaching the same wondrous attainments that they experienced. To understand this, we must understand what life and death are, and lift the mystery surrounding reincarnation.

The Wheel of Transformation of the Form

First, let me present the opinion of our sages… there aren’t any new souls as the bodies are new, but only a certain amount of souls that incarnate on the wheel of transformation of the form, …Therefore with regards to the souls, all generations since the beginning of creation to the end of correction are as one generation that has extended its life over several thousand years until it developed and became corrected as it should be.”

--Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, “The Peace”

Kabbalah books were written by people who lived their lives in the world just as we do. But at some point in their lives, they came across a method for spiritual ascension, which helped them to feel a higher reality. At this spiritual degree, they were exposed to the secrets of creation and experienced a reality that is above and beyond limitations of time, substance, life, and death. They saw the circle of life as a continuous process of spiritual growth, a series of phases leading to one purpose: to bring each person and the whole of humanity to feel the eternal and complete sensation of life. During this process, a person transcends from one spiritual phase to the next, and each such phase is called a “reincarnation.” According to Kabbalah, this is the only meaning of the term “reincarnation.”

Unlike the popular belief, replacing the bodies between one lifecycle and another is not considered reincarnation.

From Life to Life, from Will to Will

Kabbalah explains that each of us comes to the world with a “package” of desires, like a spiritual magnetic charge. Just as one is born with a unique sequence of genes, which designs one’s personality and tendencies, the charge we receive is the foundation for our spiritual development.

This foundation is also the basis that determines our outlook on life. It designs not only the way we experience thoughts and emotions, but even the course of events that will befall us. To progress and evolve to the highest spiritual degree and truly begin the process for which we were created, each of us must undergo preparation in the form of a series of lifecycles.

During each such lifecycle, an individual accumulates desires, which one will gradually develop from one lifecycle to another. As soon as we finish realizing our desires in the present lifetime, we stop feeling this world. We call that cessation of sensation, “death.”

Thus, we progress on the axis of growth from one life to another, from will to will, until we arrive at the turning point. At this point, a new desire evokes in us, which directs us to attain the spiritual reality. This new, spiritual desire is called “a soul.” From this moment on the soul begins to evolve in spiritual degrees. It is only from this point onward that we begin to relate to what a person experiences as an incarnation. This is because incarnation, according to Kabbalah, concerns only a person’s spiritual evolution.

Reality’s Genetic Code

Kabbalists that have completed the process and reached the height of the spiritual ladder, tell us that the whole reality is operated by a vast spiritual mechanism. This is a complex system that operates both the spiritual and corporeal worlds, and everything within them. Try to imagine a gigantic database that contains information about everything that happened, that is happening now, and that will happen at any time in the future. Within that mechanism, all of life’s processes are hard-coded—the souls, and the spiritual and corporeal worlds. Kabbalists refer to this genetic code of reality as Reshimo (record).

The Reshimo is the DNA, the spiritual genome, and it is responsible for taking creation through the entire evolutionary process, at the end of which each of us will live in complete harmony and balance with the Upper Force.

Writing Life’s Storyline

The Reshimo exists within each of us, and secretly operates the course of our corporeal lives. Moreover, it leads our spiritual evolution, taking us from state to state, and like a movie projector, projects sequences of images into our lives. We laugh, cry, grow, fall in love, win, learn, become angry, and start a family. This sequence of shots, which keeps surprising us every time, is what we call “our lives.”

As we grow old, the pace of the shots slows down, as the last shots of our lives are screened before our eyes. When the movie ends, the projector is turned off and the screen darkens like an abrupt end of a movie.

This is the state we call “death.”

But the projector is turned right on again, a new sequence of shots appears, and we move on to the next Reshimo, the next lifecycle. Thus, our lives’ feature is rolling once again.

Everything we have collected, saw, learned, and acquired in this world becomes qualities and attributes that we are born with in the next round. Thus, we are born with a new package of properties, but at the same time, the situations and the events we face become more complex and demand a more serious and thorough handling. The new Reshimo brings before us a series of states that are adapted specifically to suit the evolution that we will experience in the current cycle. This Reshimo also determines how long we will live, to which family we will be born, and what we will experience in life.

However, this spiritual mechanism is not random. Rather, it is predetermined in every detail to bring us to achieve life’s goal. It develops us from one will to the next, until we finally arrive at the most developed desires from among all the desires that we have experienced in life—the desire for spirituality. Only when this desire awakens in us will we begin the reincarnation process that Kabbalists write about.

The Last Cycle

The emerging of the desire for spirituality is called “the birth of the soul.” Here, for the first time, we are given a chance to begin to evolve in spirituality. Until that moment, our Reshimo is realized only on the corporeal level, leading us through continuous cycles of life.

Before we begin the spiritual reincarnation, our lives move along routinely, without discovering a special meaning or explanation. Now, however, we are at a new point in history—we are ready for the beginning of the evolution of the soul.

The real evolution of the Reshimo (our soul) begins with an encounter with the method that tells us about cycles in the spiritual world, the wisdom of Kabbalah.

From this point on, the evolution of the Reshimo and its momentum depend only on the individual’s choices. When we find the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can let into our lives the only means that will develop the Reshimo from life to life at a different level from what we’ve known thus far. The spiritual force that we will draw from reading in genuine Kabbalah books will bring us to feel that actual reality.

Instead of looking at imaginary pictures, projected into our lives, we will experience the genuine reality, which appears to our eyes in its full glory.

The spiritual degrees that a Kabbalist experiences change the whole way in which one perceives reality. A Kabbalist discovers the hidden forces that operate our world and understands the reasons for everything that happens in it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the only means that enables Kabbalists to begin the process of the reincarnation of their souls, and change degrees and states without having to end their physical lives. Each shift of a spiritual state is considered a new incarnation, and each incarnation brings us closer to perfect balance with the Upper Force, the Creator.

In the course of a Kabbalist’s spiritual work, he or she becomes increasingly sympathetic to the Upper Force, and farther apart from the sensation that our world is the only world that exists. Such a person begins to feel the spiritual world as the real world, and corporeal life as imaginary.

When Kabbalists go through all the spiritual degrees that they must complete, they feel the Upper Force in their souls, and are granted a tangible connection with it. At this stage, they reach the apex of the realization of their Reshimo, the highest spiritual degree, in which they experience life as eternal and perfect. When Kabbalists reach that degree, they no longer have to return to our world.

Changing Shirts

So, do Kabbalists live forever? We know that Kabbalists, like all people, pass away. This makes us wonder what kind of sensation they are talking about.

When Kabbalists speak about eternal life, they do not refer to eternal physical life. They mean that a Kabbalist’s soul that has risen to the spiritual life while the Kabbalist was alive continues to exist eternally. The Kabbalist’s body, however, passes away like any other person’s. The spiritual and corporeal realm are completely detached from one another, hence a Kabbalist’s sensation of life does not end when physical life ends.

One of the greatest Kabbalists of our time, Rabbi Baruch Ashlag (Rabash), described what a Kabbalist who realizes his or her Reshimo and achieves the spiritual world experiences. He said that a Kabbalist’s life ends in our world the minute he or she is no longer needed by his or her generation. But while it appears that the Kabbalist passed away from the world, the soul of the Kabbalist continues to exist in the spiritual world, eternal and full of love, just like the Upper Force, which it has attained.

Rabash described the sensations of a Kabbalist who switches between one lifecycle and another, as long as he or she has not reached the peak of the spiritual ladder, the highest degree. He compared this transition to changing the shirt you’re wearing with a clean one.

Rabash explained that those who have already attained spirituality, feel their bond with the eternal Upper Force as the most important thing. This sensation of reality as whole and eternal becomes the main reality that such a person experiences. In such a state, physical life feels like a shirt one has to put on, and take off at the time of death, and replace with a clean one in the next life. After “changing the shirt,” the Kabbalist continues the spiritual work from the point he or she had stopped in the previous life.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

You can therefore see the utter necessity for anyone from Israel, whomever he may be to engage in the internality of the Torah and in its secrets. Without it, the intention of creation will not be completed in man.

This is the reason that we reincarnate, generation-by-generation through our contemporary generation, which is the residue of the souls upon which the intention of creation has not been completed, as they did not attain the secrets of the Torah in the past generations.

--Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to From the Mouth of a Sage”

Kabbalists described their lives as a sequence of events, which culminates at one point in time: when they come across the wisdom of Kabbalah. This point is a golden opportunity to finally come out of the maze we have been living in all through our lives.

The wisdom of Kabbalah grants us the ability to break the cycle of routine we find ourselves in, moving from one lifetime to another, not knowing why we die, and, even more so, why we live.

Now we can finally embark on a new journey, filled with vitality and hope, and which leads to perfection. All the events we previously experienced, in this life and in previous lives, suddenly take a new and positive meaning. We understand the reason for which we came into this world and we live in eternal bonding with the Upper Force, the force of love. Thus, when we climb to spiritual perfection, we will no longer have to return to this world, and we will not be afraid of death, for we have chosen life.

All You Ever Wanted to Know about Reincarnation, but Didn’t Dare to Ask

What is a soul?

A soul is a new desire that appears in each of us at some stage in our development. This desire makes us ask questions about our lives and the reason we exist, and gradually brings us to take interest in the spiritual reality and crave it.

Who has a soul?

Contrary to what most of us think, not everybody has a soul. A soul is a spiritual vessel, a kind of “sense” through which the Kabbalist perceives the Creator—the perfect and eternal force of giving and benevolence. We can talk about the birth of a soul only from the moment a person begins to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method that develops one’s soul. If one studies Kabbalah and strives to feel the spiritual world, the sensation of the soul begins to formulate in that person.

About reincarnation

In our ordinary lives, there aren’t any “real” souls or incarnation. There are only lifecycles. We pass time on Earth. An incarnation occurs from the moment we begin our spiritual path. The term “incarnation” symbolizes a new, higher spiritual state, that our soul reaches.

Can one reincarnate as an animal?

Contrary to superstition, the soul never reincarnates in animals. It is also not connected to the vegetative degree, and certainly not to the inanimate (minerals etc.). The soul can only reincarnate in a person.

What happens when we die?

When the physical body dies, we continue to exist in our soul, but only if we have developed a soul during our physical lives. If we haven’t, we will find ourselves in this world again, with another life and a completely different scenario.

Who can tell me what I was in my previous life?

All the tarot card readers and other mystics will not be able to know what you experienced in your previous life. Most people are convinced that in their previous lives they were a king, a queen, or some other prince or princess charming. Normally, however, this is nothing more than delusion.

Only when a person transcends to the spiritual world using the wisdom of Kabbalah, does one see all of one’s previous lifetimes and incarnations. Then one understands the reasons that led him or her to live each of these incarnations.

Will we return to this world?

All the Kabbalists write in their books about a very simple natural law. This law says that we will keep coming back to this world until we find the wisdom of Kabbalah and implement it on ourselves. However, Kabbalists also promise us that in the end, each of us will reach the highest spiritual degree, using the wisdom of Kabbalah. When that happens, there will be no longer be a reason to reincarnate.

Does a Kabbalist live forever?

A Kabbalist lives as long as he or she is useful to the generation. When Kabbalists complete their role, they pass away from this world, though their soul continues to exist in the spiritual world, as eternal and complete as the Upper Force, the Creator.

How can I find my “twin soul”?

When looking for a partner, we shouldn’t be confused by all kinds of false ideas and imaginations. The best advice is to follow the heart and the eye, and choose a partner in the most simple and mundane manner.

What happens to a soul that began its corrections but didn’t finish it?

Once you have acquired a soul and brought it to a certain spiritual level, you don’t have to take the “whole tour” again. In your next life your soul will continue the spiritual process precisely from the same degree it reached in this life.

Three questions, one answer:

Can spirituality be transferred by inheritance?

Does the soul choose which parents to be born to?

Is there a way to connect to the souls of the dead?

In a word: No!

The Man who Raised Kabbalists

Rabbi Israel Ben-Eliezer (the Baal Shem Tov) – 1698-1760

The Baal Shem Tov is the link, connecting the Ari with today’s Kabbalah students. He established the Hassidut, preferred the hidden to the revealed, carried the wisdom of Kabbalah up the spiritual ladder, and gathered all those who preferred spirit to matter.

In 16^th century Zephath, over a period of 18 months, occurred one of the most significant breakthroughs in history. The wisdom of Kabbalah, which was first revealed to Abraham in ancient Babylon, on the basis of which we were made as a nation, but which we have forgotten in exile, has taken a big step toward its reappearance.

The Holy Ari was the one who conveyed the real message hidden in the sacred writings. He transferred the words that were written in an obscure language in the Bible, the Midrash, the books of the prophets, the Mishnah and the stories of The Book of Zohar, the Talmud and the legends, to a Kabbalistic language of worlds and Sefirot. He paved a clear and scientific way that would allow any person to sense the spiritual world.

But to realize the plan of creation and to bring the people back to spiritual awareness using the wisdom of Kabbalah, further moves were required. Thus, 130 years after the passing of the Ari, at the beginning of the 18^th century, somewhere in cold and gloomy Poland, in the small town of Okopy, begins the next phase in the revival.

Away from Idle Talk

“The slightest and the least that you can think of, I love it more than you love your only son.”

--From the words of Baal Shem Tov to one of his students

Israel Ben-Eliezer was orphaned from both parents as a young child. When other children were studying in the Heder (a chamber where young children were taught), he would run to the woods surrounding the town. His teachers would chase him back to the Torah lessons, but he insisted. In nature, away from the idle talks (as he saw them), beyond the dashing of life, he asked to know his God.

At twelve years of age, Israel worked as an assistant tutor, and later as a guard at the seminary. When everyone else was asleep, he delved in The Book of Zohar and the Kabbalah of the Ari, the inner part of the Torah. Even back then, he felt that he was given the mission to continue the work that the Ari began, to bring more and more people to feel the spiritual world.

A few years later he met Rabbi Efraim of Brad, who sensed that Israel was a special young man, and signed a note that promised to give Israel his divorced daughter’s hand in marriage. Israel waited for a time, and in the meantime, Rabbi Efraim passed away. When the time came, Israel dressed as a peasant, pretended to be an ordinary person, and went to Brad.

The daughter’s brother (the distinguished Rabbi Gershon) was appalled when he’d learned that this peasant came to marry his sister, as his father’s will instructed. But despite his objections, the wedding took place. When he failed to “force” Torah into the ignorant brother-in-law, and the shame overcame him, Rabbi Gershon gave the young couple a horse and carriage and demanded they leave the community.

Spiritual Ascent and Dry Matter

“Let him always isolate his thought with Divinity, and think of nothing but his love for Her, that She would cling to him, and let him always say in his mind: ‘When will I be granted the presence of the Light of Divinity?’”

--The Baal Shem Tov, Baal Shem Tov

Rabbi Israel built a little house for his wife in one of the villages, and secluded himself in the Carpathian Mountains. He dove in the depth of the human soul and continued to plan the way he would realize the goal for which he had come into this world—to bring the light of Kabbalah to the nation, to bring it back its soul.

Along with his spiritual ascent, Israel did not neglect the material world. Twice a week his wife would come for a visit, load the wagon with the clay her husband prepared in the mountains, and sell it. This is how they made their living. At this point, she was the only one who knew his secret mission.

In the meantime, the nation was declining, and the crisis in leadership was at its worst. “Everyone is haughty and says, ‘I will rule, I am a wiser disciple’” (The History of Yaakov Yosef, VaYishlach). Rabbis were engaging in the Torah and teaching without knowing its only goal—to elevate its learners above their egos and acquire the Creator’s quality of love and giving.

These rabbis were chasing dry knowledge and esteem “instead of showing the way to the people, how they will be sanctified for the work of the Creator” (The History of Yaakov Yosef, VeYehi). “Pride and greed is the detaining leaven in the dough, and they, the tutors and the judges and the heads of the people, and the caretakers, and the cantors… who study mostly not for Her Name, ‘I will read so that they will call me Rabbi or to be a Judge,’ and make it a means for provision, in our many sins” (Rabbi Zelig Margaliot, Introduction to Collections).

After some years, the sign from above was given. The preparation period was over and Rabbi Israel’s time to act had come.

Establishing the Hassidut

“The appearance of the soul of the Ari in this world was necessary for the wisdom of truth to be revealed and made known, and the soul of the Baal Shem Tov appeared in his generation to bring the Hassidut and through it awaken the house of Israel.”

--The Yachid BaDorot, p. 142

Rabbi Israel came out of hiding to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah that the Ari renewed. Although the Ari was the one who introduced the method to the world, the method has hardly been disseminated to the masses since his time forward.

First, Rabbi Israel moved to the town of Tlust. A group of students who wished to know life’s secret gathered around him, and he became known as The Baal Shem Tov (Owner of the Good Name). In 1740, he moved his seminary to Medzhybizh, where he climbed with his students on the rungs of the spiritual ladder. It is not for nothing that they said about him: “The Baal Shem Tov really saw from the end of the world to its end, and all was by means of that light, which is hidden in the Torah” (Praises of the Baal Shem Tov).

The method of dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which the Baal Shem Tov developed, was unique. He established the Hassidut, which took Kabbalistic terms and made them known to all by establishing a series of Hassidic customs “according to the Kabbalah.” Thus, the dip in the Mikveh became a daily conduct of great importance in the Hassidut. Another example is the Aliah la Torah of the greatest students of the sages specifically on the sixth blesser, as the Ari had determined, and not on the third blesser, as was previously the conduct.

The customs, like all other Hassidic conducts concerning clothing (Gartel, Shtreimel etc.) and other aspects of life, symbolize spiritual processes that take place inside an individual who corrects his or her soul.

The water at the Mikveh, for instance, represents the Sefira of Bina, which purifies one from the inherent egoism. Similarly, the preference of the sixth blesser (symbolizing the Sefira of Yesod) to the third blesser, which symbolizes the Sefira of Tifferet), stems from the essence of their corresponding spiritual Sefirot. The Sefira of Tifferet represents an earlier stage in the correction process, the phase of Katnut (smallness), as opposed to the Sefira of Yesod, which stands for the phase of Gadlut (adulthood), hence the preference of the sixth blesser.

Kabbalah for the Nation

Along with the dissemination of “Kabbalistic” customs, the Baal Shem Tov roamed villages and towns, and gathered people who would not settle for practical Mitzvot, but wanted to know the internal part of the matters. Thus, he achieved the goal for which he established these conducts to begin with: evoking questions in people.

Once he raised his students and made them Kabbalists in their own right, they continued to implement his method throughout Eastern Europe. Each of them became an Admor (great rabbi and teacher) and led his own Kabbalistic community, from which he would collect groups of Kabbalists. The Baal Shem Tov’s instructions were clear: “We should chase wholeheartedly the wisdom of faith, which is the wisdom of the way of the Kabbalah, which is the path of truth” (Lir’ot Tov, p. 32). Thus, a generation of thousands of Kabbalists was established, and the nation took another step forward, toward its spiritual revival.

Revealed vs. Hidden

“In the place of one’s thought, the whole person is there.”

--The Baal Shem Tov, Al ha Torah

The Baal Shem Tov provided answers and solutions to all those in whom the desire for spirituality awakened and who wanted to know what they were living for, the purpose of their existence on Earth, and craved to realize it.

Before his time, they were teaching only the revealed Torah in all the seminaries, without dedicating any place for the study of Kabbalah, the wisdom of the hidden. Hence, many people could not find answers to their questions about life that surfaced in them, and felt lost.

His innovation was in opening a place where the wisdom of the hidden could be studied. Now, any person who felt inclined to it knew where to go, as Rabbi Baruch Ashlag explains in his 1980 essay “The Way of The Baal Shem Tov.”

The revealed Torah teaches what is revealed to all, the Mitzvot (commandments) and prayers. These things are known and people can see if other people are keeping these Mitzvot or if they are studying. But the wisdom of the hidden deals with a more intrinsic aspect, a hidden one. It concerns one’s thoughts, the most internal motivations, which are hidden even from the individual him or herself.

The wisdom of the hidden elevates us above the egoistic nature we were born with, and leads us toward a new and higher nature—a nature of love and giving—the Creator’s nature. Acquiring the Creator’s nature enables us to sense the spiritual world, the endless bounty that the Creator wants to grant us all.

The Way of The Baal Shem Tov

The return to the land of Israel symbolizes the obligation, as well as the opportunity to end the period of spiritual darkness. Baal HaSulam continued the mission of disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah. He aspired to bring the wisdom of Kabbalah to any person.

Like all great Kabbalists throughout history, Baal HaSulam knew that “Both the individual and the nation will not complete the aim for which they were created except by attaining the inner part of the Torah and its secrets” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Tree of Life”). For this reason, he stated that we must continue the work of the Ari and The Baal Shem Tov: “Therefore, we must establish seminaries and compose books, to hasten the circulation of the wisdom throughout the nation” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Tree of Life”).

Today, when we are spreading this knowledge to the masses, we are undoubtedly closer than ever to the realization of the Thought of Creation. A great, wondrous, and bright spiritual world is ahead of us, and we shall return to it together.

Soul Splitting

Each soul is a part of a puzzle that was once the soul of Adam ha Rishon. The soul of Adam ha Rishon did not cope with the load and was shattered into billions of pieces. Now it is time for correction—to regroup the pieces.

No one likes to be stuck in a traffic jam, to wander in crowded shopping malls or wait forever in line for the cashier at the supermarket. Sometimes we wonder what this crowdedness is for.

We would agree to share the world with a few friends and kin, and perhaps with a few more dozens or hundreds of people. But seven billion? It’s an incomprehensible number, and for what?

Brazilian Coffee and Swiss Watches

We all have a common background. We’re all born, breath, eat, drink, sleep, dream, and wake up. We all fear, envy, love, hate, and eventually die. For thousands of years, generations have been coming and going, and the world population has been increasing. But most of us still don’t understand what it is all for.

Judging by commonsense, the relationship between me and the rest of the people on Earth is useful to me. If I were alone in the world, just to eat some bread I’d have to saw the wheat, grow it, harvest, grind, knead, and bake it. I’d even have to build the oven. Quite an effort. I would have to do all that instead of enjoying my present standard of living.

Presently, I’m working some eight hours a day and enjoy the products of the rest of humanity. I enjoy great Belgian chocolate, fast food from the U.S., Swiss watches, and Brazilian coffee. The Chinese make toy cars for my children, and the Japanese make the real cars that I drive. And I make a living and benefit from all these.

But is this a good enough reason for so many people to exist? For example, what if there were one billion people fewer in the world? Would I notice that anything is missing?

In the Kingdom of Desire

Kabbalists tell us that we all come from one soul, called “the soul of Adam ha Rishon” (The First Man), which was created by the Creator. They explain further, that the Creator’s nature is of complete love and benevolence. Conversely, the Creator created the soul of Adam ha Rishon with an entirely opposite nature: a desire to receive delight and pleasure.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Sefira of Malchut symbolizes this soul, since the desire to receive pleasure governs it. The task of the soul of Adam ha Rishon is to become similar to the nature of the Creator, become as loving and giving as Him. To the extent that the soul succeeds, it will be awarded the greatest pleasure in reality.

Pleasure before Contact

Kabbalists explain that when the soul of Adam ha Rishon was created, it was in contact with the Creator. But the pleasure it derived from this contact was restricted since the soul did not make any independent effort.

The Creator, on the other hand, wanted the soul of Adam ha Rishon to evolve on its own. For that purpose, in a premeditated act, he exposed it to greater pleasures. The soul, in turn, received the greater pleasure, discovered how much it enjoyed it, and suddenly felt that it preferred the pleasure to the contact with the Creator. In consequence, the attitude of this soul toward the Creator changed immediately, and lost contact with Him.

It is like a person who is praying to win the lottery, and promises that if he wins, he will donate half of the prize to charity. But once this man wins the lottery, the pleasure he is exposed to overcomes him and his priorities change. He “forgets” his promise, and suddenly finds many avenues of investment that are much more fascinating than donating the money to charity.

Fragments of Pleasure

As a result of the disconnection from the Creator, the soul of Adam ha Rishon was disconnected from the spiritual world and shattered into many fragments, called “particular souls” or “individual souls.” According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, this process is called “the breaking of the soul of Adam ha Rishon.”

The soul of Adam ha Rishon became fragmented into many particular souls because the burden of all the pleasures that appeared to it was too much for one soul to carry, while maintaining contact with the giver of the pleasure: the Creator.

As the process continued, souls came down to this world and clothed in human bodies. Similarly, if we want to move a weight of one ton, we cannot ask a single person to do it. But if we divided the ton into a thousand little weights of one kilogram, and gave a thousand people one piece each, we would easily move this weight.

In much the same way, after the breaking, each soul is awarded very small pleasures compared to the huge pleasure that the common soul experienced initially. Each piece can gradually learn how to receive its intended pleasure, while maintaining contact with the Creator.

There is an allegory by Baal HaSulam that concisely expresses the breaking process and its purpose: “There is an allegory about a king who wanted to send a large sum of gold coins to his son, who was overseas. Alas, all the people in his country were thieves and deceitful, and he had no loyal messenger. What did he do? He divided the coins into pennies and sent them by means of many messengers. Thus, the pleasure of stealing was not worth blemishing the king’s honor for.”

--Baal HaSulam, Tree of Life, p. 129

Ceasing to Reincarnate

Today we are already past the breaking stage. Each of us is a messenger of the king, and we are all carrying pennies from the treasure. Our mission is to do what the king ordered, to resume contact with the Creator, while we are still alive. Until we place the coin in its place, we will continue to come back into this world.

Kabbalists refer to this process as Tikkun (correction). The meaning of Tikkun is the ability to incorporate in our lives the awareness that we are all on the same journey, aspiring for the same goal.

The Tikkun takes place in two basic stages:

1. In the first stage, we repeatedly return to this world, without knowing the purpose of our lives.

2. The first stage prepares the ground for the next stage, in which the desire to know what we are living for awakens in us. Only once this awakening begins does one begin the conscious Tikkun.

However, we can accelerate the process. Kabbalists, who have already been through the correction process, teach us how to correct our own pieces. When we do it, we will climb to the height of the spiritual ladder, and we will not have to reincarnate into this world.

The Holy Ari writes about it in his book Shaar HaGilgulim (Gate to Reincarnations, p. 10): “All the children of Israel must reincarnate until they are complete with all the lights of the soul.” This means that each of us will correct him or herself and will return to the root of one’s soul, thus completing one’s role and bringing the whole of humanity to its perfect state.

The Whole is (much) More than the Sum of Its Parts

The purpose of the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah is to assist each of us, pieces of the soul of Adam ha Rishon, to return to a state of unity in the quickest possible way. When each of us corrects his or her share, we will be realizing the goal for which we came into this world and will be awarded tremendous pleasures, because the whole is worth much more than the sum of its parts.

When the correction mission is completed, all the pieces will join into a single, great soul, the corrected soul of Adam ha Rishon. A wondrous light, filled with love will shine in our souls, the light that the Creator wanted to give while Adam’s soul was still broken. This (corrected) state is called Gmar Tikkun “end of correction.”

A Journey-Log: Tel-Aviv – Toronto – New York – Mexico City – Home

The whole world connects at one point. A secret wish, unnoticed for millennia, is becoming feasible today. Today, every one of us can know why we are born, why we live our lives the way we do, and what our place and role is in the global scheme of things. A journey-log: humanity asks, Rav Laitman answers.

Toronto, Sunday, January 7, 2007

Cold Outside and Warm Inside

The silver sedan rolled slowly on the icy asphalt. Typical January weather for Toronto, it’s 24 degrees, the streets are empty. Toronto is known for being the most multicultural city in the world. Half its residents are minorities in this land. Toronto is also the financial center, the “economic engine” of Canada, and at the same time, it is a center of culture, art, and medicine—an island of peace and quiet, relaxing smugly on the banks of the vast Lake Ontario.

Toronto is also home to a large Jewish community of 200,000, out of the half a million Jews that live in Canada. The Jews conduct a diverse community life.

Heading for the Longest Street in the World

“I doubt that people will come out of their houses on such a night,” the driver mutters somberly. “A Sunday evening, before the beginning of a new week, we’ll probably have no more than a few dozens in the audience,” he continues.

As we approach the Darkei Noam Lecture Hall on Bathurst Street, we discover an exciting scene: there is traffic, and the dormant city seems to have awakened. Jonathan (Jonny) Kostiner and Ron Feinstein, among the leaders of the Bnei Baruch Educational Department in North America, meet us at the entrance, smiling from ear to ear. He is a pleasant fellow, Jonny. A successful musician and co owner of a radio advertising company, Jonny is usually a bit ironic. Not today. He is really excited.

This is not the first time Rav Laitman has been to Toronto. For more than twenty years he has been lecturing here on occasion, but his lectures never attracted as much interest as tonight.

“It feels like something has fundamentally changed,” Jonny states with prudent optimism. “I think this tour will be a success.” He says that at the last minute they had to run to get 150 more chairs from their teaching centre, on top of the existing 300 seats.

The lecture starts, and Rav Laitman gets right to the point.

“All of the souls in humanity are divided into two major parts—internal and external. The inner part in this division is called “the people of Israel,” and the outer part is called “the nations of the world.” Preferring the internal over the external is the spiritual mission of the people of Israel.

“Hence, when we realize our spiritual role, we will be treated favorably by the nations of the world, and we will enjoy peace and prosperity. However, should we continue to prefer engagement in the external over the internal, the pressure on us will not ease. This is an unbreakable law.

“The wisdom of Kabbalah that is surfacing today, exposes the inner layers of the reality we experience. It shows us that every event in our world stems from a higher, spiritual root. The emergence of the Kabbalah in masses enables us to carry out our role and build the relationship between the internal and the external correctly. When we do that, the Upper Light will be revealed to us, correct our souls, and subsequently bring the whole world to correction.”

Rav Laitman continues: “When each of us finds the right inner balance between the internal and the external, and divides his or her time and attention correctly, it will prompt a substantial change in the whole reality.”

Following the lecture, Rav Laitman answered questions from the audience. He explained that the people of Israel will improve its situation and resolve the anti-Semitism we are witnessing today only through increasing its work on the internal—the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah—and make it more important than superficial matters.

When the lecture ended, Laitman signed books and addressed personal questions. Jonny and Ron were beaming. And we moved on to New York.

New York, Thursday, January 11, 2007

The World Is a Small Village

Hilton New York is in a flurry. Adam Schuler, director of Bnei Baruch’s Technical Department., is beside himself with anxiety. “I’ve been waiting for the Internet company since this morning, but no sign of them, and the lecture begins in an hour!” he exclaims. And he continues: “We’ll have a crowd of at least 600, thousands of people will watch online, and I don’t have a signal,” he yells into his cellular phone.

To those among us who aren’t technically savvy, a signal, in this case, means that there is a successful connection between two video broadcast points on the net.

Adam is a twenty-eight year old bespectacled man living in Brooklyn, New York. For a living, he runs the computer department at a large bank in downtown Manhattan. Ever since he can remember himself, he was a computer “freak.” For several years he was even a professional computer hacker. “We were young and naïve, bored, and looking for meaning,” he says with a quiet smile, “we were looking for attention.”

Today Adam uses the knowledge he’s acquired to bond people so they will be able to watch Rav Laitman’s live Kabbalah lessons on the web.

“It is amazing,” he continues. “People gather in so many different places in the world: Australia, Mexico, Canada, Eastern Europe, Germany, the US, Latin America, and even in Arab countries. They are in different places and in different time zones, but when you see them all on your monitor, it gives you such a wonderful feeling. You can almost feel the energy running through the wires. It’s such a rewarding feeling to be a part of a real connection, a spiritual bonding that bridges boundaries of time and place.” Adam’s eyes sparkle as he speaks, radiating with joy.

Four years ago he came to Kabbalah, and at that moment his life changed forever. “For years,” he explains, “I went around from one self-awareness course to another. I tried everything: I was a veggie, a yogi, a macrobiotic and what not. One day, I had enough. But one day, I found myself engulfed in authentic Kabbalah books, and I have been ever since.”

Young and Restless

New York is different from Toronto, and so is the lecture. The crowd is younger and more brisk. People are asking many questions: “Does a person who begins to study Kabbalah become detached from his environment?” a young man asks.

And Rav replies: “A person who begins to study Kabbalah becomes the most beneficial person to the world. This is because such a person draws the Upper Light into our reality, and in doing that, becomes an asset to the world, as he or she corrects the world, the environment, and one’s contact with other souls. Such a person develops a different attitude to the world, understands that his or her goal in life is to become a bridge between the world and the Upper Force.

“At the same time, a Kabbalah student doesn’t become detached from everyday life. Throughout history, Kabbalists have always worked for their living. They raised families and lived as positive elements of their societies. Through their work, Kabbalists increase the inner, spiritual part of their societies, and in doing so, contribute to the unity among its members.”

With food, comes appetite. Dozens of hands are raised, wanting to ask questions. A girl in a fashionable suit stands up and asks, “If we die anyway, why should I care about developing my soul?”

And the Rav replies: “A person who senses only this world, lives without a soul. All such a person has is a minimal amount of vital force, like a tiny candle. From the spiritual aspect, this state is not considered “life.” It is detached from the spiritual existence, the Upper Light.

“Our existence in this world is given to us as mere transitory living, to grow from it toward spirituality. This existence is like an inanimate object, and doesn’t bring us to evolve. We end life as we started it. Each such lifecycle is an opportunity to reach a desire for spirituality, which is the beginning of the soul.

“We must come to live in both worlds, this world and the spiritual world alike. It depends only on us. We will receive help from above, but it depends on our free choice and our efforts. This is the meaning of correction, when a person begins to acquire new desires and correct them. In that state, one’s spiritual vessel, the soul, becomes filled with Light.”

As the Rav replies, the questions pile up: What is a soul? What are the recommended study books? How do I recognize a genuine spiritual teacher? What is the difference between the learning process of men and women? There are many more questions, as the audience is thirsty for practical answers and there is a dialog between Rav Laitman and the audience.

Adam, the technical manager we met earlier, is happy. He tells us there are hundreds of connections, and that viewers from the world over are asking questions and sending regards. Now that the live broadcast is over, he allows himself to relax and smile.

Bound for Mexico

The day after the lecture, Rav Laitman was interviewed by several TV and radio stations in N.Y., and at the end of the round of meetings, we make the last preparation to head out. Our next stop: Mexico. The third chapter of this (so far successful) journey is about to begin.

We rest on Shabbat and head out to JFK airport first thing Sunday morning. Mexico is nothing like the United States, and none of us has ever been there, so we’re all quite excited.

The Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon in Mexico

The official reason of our visit is the publication of Rav Laitman’s new book Alcanzando los Mundos Superiores (Attaining the Worlds Beyond), by Planeta, the largest publishing house in the Spanish speaking world. Planeta invited Rav Laitman for a lecture tour and media interviews. This tour is standard procedure for this publishing house when it concerns notable writers. Other writers for Planeta are Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Pablo Coelho, and other notable authors.

Mexico City, Sunday, January 14, 2007

Mexico City is one of those cities you cannot quite prepare for before you are actually there. It is the most populated metropolis in the world with close to twenty million (20,000,000) people. Mexico City is also one of the most air-polluted cities in the world, but at the same time, it is breathtakingly beautiful. The city is like a mammoth size market, with tens of thousands of stands, hawkers, and tiny restaurants. It seems governed by some invisible “organized chaos,” which could be shattered at any given moment by one of the millions of people swarming the streets, and the hundreds of thousands of cars that seem to be stuck in a never-ending jam.

Monday, January 15, at the Mexico Israel Center

The day begins with a series of TV and radio interviews. The Mexican media left very good impressions on all of us: correspondents came prepared with questions, having read the book. It seems like everyone is taking an interest in Kabbalah and is very welcoming. Rav Laitman is getting ready for his first lecture in Mexico this evening, and everyone is a little tense. We try to learn about the audience, and understand what kind of crowd we should expect tonight.

That afternoon we are told that a lot of people are calling to register for the lecture. The venue of the lecture is quite a famous one, and recent speakers there were Mikhail Gorbachev and Prof. Israel Oman, a Nobel Prize laureate in economics.

In the evening, as we arrive at the center, we find an ancient, beautifully reconstructed building that looks like a combination of museum and an antique theatre. Mrs. Shoshanna Turkia, the vibrant director of the center, greets us with a smile. She speaks Hebrew with a heavy Spanish accent and has a Mexican temperament, mixed with some Israeli attitude.

The audience begins to fill the hall, wing by wing. As the time of the lecture approaches, Shoshanna announces that the house is packed, and there are 250 people still waiting outside. She asks us to start a little later so that she can make arrangements for the others, too. Once everyone is seated, the hall is filled beyond capacity, and the lecture begins.

“According to the wisdom of Kabbalah,” Rav Laitman opens, “the achievement of the purpose of creation is a task that the whole of humanity must achieve together. The way to achieve this purpose requires that we correct the human egoism, which is the force that motivates the whole of humanity. The human race is all in the same boat, and there is no way to escape it.

“The wisdom of Kabbalah is a means in our hands that can be used to affect ourselves and our environment, and the world at large positively. It teaches us how to love one another—the true love—which is the cure that heals all of humanity’s ailments. The purpose of the Kabbalah,” he explains, “is to unite and connect Israel with all the nations into a single soul, filled with Light. The wisdom of Kabbalah holds within it the knowledge about the role of each nation in reality, and how it fits into the general structure of the common soul we call “humanity.” This is the Messiah’s horn, which will begin with Israel, and continue to the rest of the world, a clarion of peace, unity, abundance, and love.”

Tonight’s audience has a little surprise for us: many of the people in the audience are already studying with us via the internet. They seize the rare opportunity to ask Rav questions face-to-face, questions they have been troubled by for a long time.

A young man stands up in his chair and asks in pain, “How do we stop the increasing suffering in our world, and in Mexico, too?

“The wisdom of Kabbalah reveals nature’s law to us,” the Rav replies. “If we learn how to use it correctly, as we use the laws of nature we already know, we will be able to build a perfect human society and we will stop suffering from life’s events. The suffering we are experiencing is a result of our lack of knowledge of the laws of the nature that surround us. At the moment we discover these laws, we will understand how we should work in nature’s system, just as biology teaches us about the functionality of each part in the body.

“All of nature’s elements besides humankind follow nature’s law instinctively, by force, and hence, correctly. Only humans have the freedom to build a society of their choice. This freedom is given to us so that we know the common law of reality and build the corrected humanity by ourselves. In doing so, we will realize our destination. If we build our society with the knowledge of the common law of love and giving, we will be awarded a truly happy life.

Tuesday, January 16, at the Academia

The next morning, more interviews are scheduled, and at noon, we head off to the Iberoamericana University, which collaborates with The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Rav’s lecture takes place at the Department of Jewish Philosophy before a crowd of 300 students. The audience is troubled by the future of the land of Israel and the people of Israel. They ask, “What do you predict for the near future?”

Rav’s reply is anything but expected: “The people of Israel determine everything that will happen in the world. I hear the fears, the worries, and the anxiety of war, and especially of the nuclear capabilities that Iran is developing. But we have nothing to fear. If we do what we must, and bring correction to the world, none of these frightening scenarios will materialize, neither toward us, nor toward the whole of humanity. Humanity’s good future depends specifically on us; this is why we are called “the chosen people” and “a light of the nations.”

Coming Home

After ten days, and 13,000 miles, we return to Israel. It’s always good to come back, but somehow, this time feels even better. The journey was a great success, and probably not the last of its kind. In the words of Baal HaSulam, “Only by the spreading of the wisdom of Kabbalah in masses will we be awarded the complete redemption.”

The people of Israel was born for spirituality, and only for that. What is left for us to do is continue the path that the greatest Kabbalists have paved and disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah to the masses.

Our Allegories

Kabbalists writing about reincarnation

Who must return to this world after death?

“It is known from books and from authors that the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah is an absolute must for any person from Israel. If one studies the entire Torah and knows the Mishnah and the Gmarah by heart; if one is also filled with virtues and good deeds more than all his contemporaries, but has not learned the wisdom of Kabbalah, he must reincarnate into this world to study the secrets of Torah and wisdom of truth. This is brought in several places in the writing of our sages.”

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to From the Mouth of a Sage”

Why does the study of Kabbalah dismiss returning for another lifecycle?

“There is a wonderful, invaluable remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. …through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls. …these Lights that are destined to reach him are considered “Surrounding Lights.” …they stand ready, and wait for one to purify one’s vessels of reception. At that time, these Lights will cloth the able vessels. …One who has not been awarded in this life will be granted in the next life, etc. …This means that every person from Israel is guaranteed to finally attain all the wonderful attainments that the Creator had calculated in the Thought of Creation to delight every creature.”

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

The evolution of generations

Although we see the bodies changing from one generation to the next, this is only the case with the bodies. But the souls, which are the core of the body’s essence, do not become absent by transience but go from body to body, from generation to generation. The same souls that were at the time of the great flood descended during the time of Babylon and during the exile in Egypt and so on until this generation and until the end of correction.

So that in our world there aren’t any new souls as the bodies are new, but only a certain amount of souls that incarnate on the wheel of transformation of the form, because they dress each time in a new body and a new generation.

Therefore, with regard to the souls, all generations since the beginning of creation to the end of correction are as one generation that has extended its life over several thousand years until it developed and became corrected as it should be. And the fact that in the meantime each has changed its body several thousand times is completely irrelevant, because the core of the essence of the body, which is called the soul, did not suffer at all by these changes.

And there is much evidence pointing to it, and a great wisdom called the secret of the reincarnation of the souls, that this is not the place to elaborate on. But to those who believe it is exaggerated because of their lack of knowledge in this wisdom, it is worthwhile to say that reincarnation occurs in all objects of the tangible reality, that each object, in its own way, lives an eternal life.

And although our senses tell us that everything is transient, it is only how it seems. But in fact, there are only incarnations here. Each item does not rest for a moment but incarnates on the wheel of transformation of the form losing nothing of its essence.

--Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

The wisdom one needs

When the body passes away and the soul comes before the Creator, he tells her: “If you have come to the Upper World, and during the life you spent in the world below you did not look in the wisdom of Kabbalah, and you do not know the secrets of the Upper World, leave here, for you are not worthy of entering here without this knowledge. Reincarnate into the lower world until you know the wisdom of Kabbalah, the wisdom that people consider lowly, and learn from people who know the Higher Secrets.”

--Based on the essay, “The Wisdom One Needs,” from The Book of Zohar

The origin of Baal HaSulam’s wisdom

“By the Upper One’s will I have been granted the soul of the Ari, not because of my good deeds, but by the will of the Upper One. It is higher even than my own understanding, why I was chosen for this wondrous soul, that’s been awarded to no one since his passing to this day.”

--Baal HaSulam, Pri Hacham (Fruit of the Wise), Letters, p. 118

One Soul, Five Lives

Abraham, Moses, Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, and the Holy Ari are all incarnations of the same unique soul that finally incarnated in Baal HaSulam, who adapted the wisdom of Kabbalah to our generation.

“By the Upper One’s will I have been granted the soul of the Ari, not because of my good deeds, but by the will of the Upper One. It is higher even than my own understanding, why I was chosen for this wondrous soul, that’s been awarded to no one since his passing to this day.”

--Baal HaSulam, Pri Hacham (Fruit of the Wise), Letters, p. 118

This mysterious and amazing process happened only five times in history. Few know about it, yet, every time it happened, it produced unprecedented changes in the evolution of humanity.

One corrected soul, whose task was to connect the Upper Force with humanity, comes down to our world and reincarnates in five giant Kabbalists. Each of these Kabbalists takes humanity another step forward to the attainment of the highest, most perfect state of existence—the sensation of spirituality.

Abraham – the First Sign

The first among five “milestones” on the history of humanity appeared some 5,000 years ago, in Mesopotamia, which we know as Babel (today’s’ Iraq). Up to that time, people settled for a roof over their heads and basic provision of food. They didn’t aspire for promotion, career, or conquests. Everything ran smoothly and naturally, without much friction and dispute.

But then, one day, things changed fundamentally. The Babylonians began to feel that the simple life in the cave, with the herd or under the tree was no longer satisfying. They began to want more, much more.

The Babylonians became concentrated on themselves and wanted to use each other for that. The egoistic desires that emerged in them separated them like a knife. The famous Tower of Babel symbolized this egoistic drive more than anything. The Babylonians began to think that they could “reach the sky” and govern nature, the Upper Force, as well.

But one man, named Abraham, did not accept this situation. He simply would not go with the flow. He searched for the power behind the scenes, and he had found it, too. His attainment revealed to him that the ego was not really meant to separate people. It was there to make people unite with an even stronger and truer bond. He discovered the method to overcome the ego, and began to disseminate his method. Alas, only few among the residents of Babel would listen to the teachings of the first Kabbalist in history.

Abraham attained the highest spiritual degree that a human being can achieve. According to spiritual law, there was no need for his soul to reincarnate once more into our world. But Abraham's soul had a special role: to elevate the whole of humanity to the state that Abraham himself achieved. This is why this soul continued its journey and came down to our world once more.

Moses and the Exodus from Egoism

The time was Egypt’s golden age. Bloody wars, wealth, and mega-structures, some of which still stand today. All those symbolized a new phase in the growth of human egoism. Vast territories were conquered and whole nations taken captive and made slaves. One of these nations was the people of Israel. The Israelites were serving the kingdom that represents the egoism that has been growing in humanity through the centuries: the Egyptian Kingdom.

To bring the people from slavery to salvation, a strong leader was needed, who would lead the people to a higher state. For this purpose, Abraham's soul was summoned below and dressed in the body of the next giant Kabbalist—Moses.

Ironically, this man, who grew up as the prince of Egypt, became the greatest spiritual leader of the Jewish people, enslaved by his own kingdom. Armed with nothing but his inner strength, he faced Pharaoh and struggled with him for the spiritual future of the people of Israel. However, to exit Egypt, a unity of the entire nation was required.

To achieve this unity, Moses did precisely what Abraham did before him—he called upon the whole people to unite. He took the method that Abraham had built, and adapted it to the new degree of egoism that was now in power. And with the Upper Force at his side, Moses led the people out of Egypt, and then composed the complete guide for defeating egoism: the Torah.

Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai and the Hidden Book of Zohar

In the middle of the second century CE, the land of Israel was in turmoil. It had been two hundred years since the ruin of the Second Temple, and the people of Israel were facing the onset of the most difficult time in its history.

But the physical ruin was only the superficial expression of a much deeper ruin that occurred in those days, a spiritual one. The separation and the segmentation spread among the people, and affected even the greatest Kabbalists of the generation—the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva’s known verse, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” which was implemented by the whole nation, had become unfounded hatred, and the students perished in a terrible plague that spread through the land. Egoism erupted once more, and the ruin it brought was the worst ever.

To bring the exiled Jewish people a method that would help it reclaim its high spiritual state, which it possessed at the time of the Temple, the unique soul of Abraham and Moses was called upon once more. This time it dressed in the body of Rabbi Akiva’s greatest student—Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi).

Rashbi gathered nine other Kabbalists, and went with them to a cave in Northern Israel, where he wrote the book of Kabbalah: The Book of Zohar. But the book was intended to be revealed only at a time when the people were ready to return from exile. It was to provide the people with the powers to do it.

Hence, the book had been concealed immediately after its writing was completed. Thus, the method for spiritual elevation had already been developed, but waited for a special time, when people were able to realize it. And this time began in 16^th century Zephath, in a Kabbalists’ town located near Rashbi’s cave. At that time, the soul that dressed in Abraham, Moses, and in Rashbi, dressed in the next great Kabbalist: the Holy Ari.

The Holy Ari – a New Era of Growth

For more than 1,500 years since the time of Rashbi, the wisdom of Kabbalah was hidden by the Kabbalists, and kept in private chambers. The generation was not yet ready for its appearance. But the arrival of the Ari to Zephath was the sign that a new time had come, in which the wisdom of Kabbalah was to be made ready for the masses.

Since the 16^th century, the world has been in a whirlwind of change. The scientific and industrial revolutions, the civil wars, and the social changes were only some of the changes that were to take place in the next 200 years.

To prevent the suffering and promote humanity toward spirituality sooner, the same unique soul dressed in the body of the Holy Ari. Just as before, its task was to adapt the method of Kabbalah to the new era, in which egoism intensified to new highs, or lows.

It is with good reason that Baal HaSulam declared the Ari as Messiah Son of Josef, and said that he symbolized the beginning of the exodus from the exile. Within a mere year and a half, the Ari did the impossible: he turned the wisdom of Kabbalah from a method that was suitable for unique individuals, to a method that was suitable for the masses. Nevertheless, at the time of the Ari only a few people felt the need to implement his method. Humanity had to ripen just a little more.

Baal HaSulam – the Unique Soul Completes Its Task

The 20^th century was the most intense period in history. It seems that in the last hundred years, time simply shrank. So many things began this century: cars and airplanes, rockets and space-travel, atom and hydrogen bombs, and the Internet, which made the whole world a small village. There were two world wars, revolutions in Russia and in China, and all these events claimed the lives of more than a hundred million people. The 20^th century was, therefore, the most powerful level of human egoism.

At the end of the 20^th century, humanity began to feel growing emptiness, spreading to all realms of life. More and more people failed to find satisfaction and began to search for something beyond what they could find in this world. This search is in fact, the sign of the need for spiritual ascension. It marks the phase that Kabbalists through time have been writing about. Now is the time when every person can study and understand The Book of Zohar and the writings of the Ari. This is the only way humanity will be able to embark on a new path.

Because of the new need that has emerged in humanity, the soul that previously dressed in Abraham, Moses, Rashbi, and the Ari, came down one more time, and dressed in the body of Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam.

Baal HaSulam simplified the writings of Rashbi and the Ari and adapted the method discovered by Abraham back in the days of Babel, to suit our generation, which asks about the meaning of life, and seeks a way to climb to the spiritual world again.

Baal HaSulam’s special soul completed its task with the work it did on the ancient writings. Thanks to it, we only need to open Baal HaSulam’s books and read them, to begin our ascent to the spiritual world.

If thou Know Not, O Thou Fairest among Women

Based on the essay from The Book of Zohar, “The Wisdom a Man Needs” (New Zohar with the Sulam Commentary, Song of Songs, item 482).

“If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feed thy kids, beside the shepherds' tents” (Song of Songs 1:8).

“Any one who goes to that world without knowing the secrets of the Torah, even if there are many good deeds in him, is taken outside all of the gates of that world.

“Come and see what is written, If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, the Creator replies to the soul: If you have come without looking in the wisdom before coming here, and you do not know the secrets of the Upper World, go thy way, you are not worthy of entering here without knowledge. Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, meaning reincarnate in the world, and you will know by the footsteps of the flock.”

­ --New Zohar with the Sulam Commentary, Song of Songs, Vol. 10

In a profound and mysterious essay, the author of The Book of Zohar, Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi), explains the text in the book The Song of Songs. The Song of Songs is a Kabbalistic text, dealing solely with the sensation of the Upper Worlds. This composition expresses the states that a soul experiences from the first spiritual degree to its complete and eternal bonding with the Upper Force, the Creator.

Rashbi exposes us to what happens to an individual who finishes his or her life on Earth without having started the correction of one’s soul. In such a state, the soul becomes attached as “a point in its spiritual root” and begins to experience reality through special senses. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, these senses are called Sefirot.

But such a soul can experience only a tiny fraction of the spiritual reality, since it did not evolve spiritually, using the wisdom of Kabbalah. Rashbi explains that at this point, the soul feels that the Upper Force is “speaking” to it.

In Kabbalah, the term “speaking” means “revealing.” A soul that experiences the spiritual world discovers that the purpose of creation is to bring it to perfection and eternity, just like the Creator. But a soul that did not evolve in our world, as it rises to the Upper World feels only the gap between its own qualities and the qualities of the Creator.

Additionally, it senses how remote it is from realizing its vocation. When this happens, a soul begins to want to close the gap and correct itself to reach wholeness and eternity.

In The Book of Zohar, this state is described as the Creator seemingly talking to the soul and telling it: “If thou know not, O thou fairest among women.” Rashbi explains this saying in the following way: “If you have come without looking in the wisdom before coming here, and you do not know the secrets of the Upper World, go thy way, you are not worthy of entering here without knowledge. Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, meaning reincarnate in the world.”

Existence in the Upper World is conditioned upon the soul having equal qualities to those of the Creator. In other words, the soul should develop its quality of love and giving. This is why a soul that did not correct itself using the wisdom of Kabbalah is told to leave, come down to this corporeal reality once more, be born in a physical body, grow, and achieve a state where it stands on its own and can decide which path to take. From this age (state) onward, the soul receives another chance to find Kabbalah. For example, a person who is reading the paper Kabbalah Today is actually receiving this opportunity to begin on the spiritual journey to a complete and bright world.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the only means by which the soul can begin to discover the spiritual world. This is why Rashbi stresses that we must all know the secrets of the Torah, i.e. the Kabbalah. When one begins to implement the wisdom of Kabbalah in one’s life, he or she corrects his or her soul and equalizes one’s qualities with the Creator’s quality of love and benevolence.

When this happens, that person’s soul is awarded all the wondrous secrets of creation, the Thought of Creation. The next time such a soul stands before the Upper Force, it will achieve perfect and everlasting bonding with it. Moreover, in that state, it will not have to return to this world “by the footsteps of the flock.” Instead, it will experience the full grandeur of the spiritual reality.

Questions and Answers

Some people tend to ascribe the writing of The Book of Zohar to Rashbi, and some ascribe it to Rabbi Moshe de Leon. Which is true?

Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, addresses this very question in this Introduction to the Book of Zohar (items 59): “And all those who know the ins and outs of the holy book of Zohar, that is, who understand what is written in it, unanimously agree that it was composed by the Godly Tanna (sage) Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Only those who are far from this wisdom doubt this origin and tend to say, relying on opponents’ fabricated tales that its composer is Rabbi Moshe De Leon, or others of his time.”

For whom is the paper intended?

Kabbalah Today is intended for everyone, to bring all people to the sources of authentic Kabbalah. The purpose of the paper is to present the only method that can bring a solution to the global problems in an easy and accessible manner.

Can a person who is not corrected study Kabbalah?

Kabbalists explain that specifically those who feel that they are not corrected, but do want to become corrected, should study Kabbalah. If one studies from authentic Kabbalah books with the intention of correcting one’s soul, he or she awakens the reforming light on their souls, which promotes them toward spirituality.

What is Tikkun (correction)?

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that human nature is to want to enjoy. This desire prompts us to act only for ourselves. Changing the way we use our desire to enjoy from self-gratification to doing good to others is called Tikkun (correction). The correction can occur in a person only by means of a special force called “the light that reforms,” which affects a person only during the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah from authentic sources.

Terms

The shortest way to Paradise

Each soul reincarnates again and again until it obtains the sensation called “the Garden of Eden.” Entering the Garden of Eden is conditioned upon the passage of 125 degrees of spiritual evolution. The soul can complete these degrees in the course of many lifetimes, but the shortest way to complete those 125 degrees of the spiritual ladder is by means of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which accelerates our spiritual development.

NRNHY

As we travel on our spiritual journey, we are filled with increasing spiritual pleasures, called “Lights.” Their names are (in ascending order), Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. Their initials are NRNHY, pronounced as NaRaNHay.

Reincarnation

The wheel that turns the wagon rolls, and with the completion of each cycle, the wagon progresses toward its destination. In much the same way, we progress from the realization of one corporeal desire to the next, until we arrive at the greatest desire of all—the desire for spirituality. From here on, the soul begins to correct itself until it reaches its final destination—the sensation of paradise.

The spiritual gene—the Reshimo

Much like the genes, which contain all the information about a human being, with his or her every tendency, unique character, and qualities, the human soul is permeated by a “spiritual gene,” called Reshimo, from the word Roshem (impression). It relates to the soul’s impressions from states it experienced as it declined from the Upper World to this world. Using the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can accelerate the emergence of the Reshimo, and climb back up to the eternal and sense of wholeness that our soul experienced prior to its decline into this world.

Did you know?

All the knowledge and experience we accumulate in one lifetime becomes qualities and natural inclinations in the next. The process of gaining experience along the generations can be clearly seen on our children. They relate to new technology much easier than do we. Adults need much more time to learn how to do the same things children do with ease. Once the soul has evolved from one lifetime to another, it is ready to begin its spiritual evolution.

The moment of salvation

Salvation is that moment for which the human soul reincarnates through many lifecycles. At that moment, it is endowed with eternal and unending pleasures.

The way to salvation begins when the question, “What am I living for?” emerges in a person. This question is a result of many lifetimes in which a person tastes every kind of worldly pleasure and finally decides that they will never yield whole and lasting fulfillment. A person who does not ignore the question of existence and persists with the attempts to understand life’s meaning will be awarded salvation and discover the spiritual reality.

Quotes

“It is known from books and from authors that the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah is an absolute must for any person from Israel. If one studies the entire Torah and knows the Mishnah and the Gmarah by heart; if one is also filled with virtues and good deeds more than all his contemporaries, but has not learned the wisdom of Kabbalah, he must reincarnate into this world to study the secrets of Torah and wisdom of truth.”

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to From the Mouth of a Sage”

“We must know that all the souls extend from the soul of Adam ha Rishon… It turns out that each of us is born with but a fragment of the soul of Adam ha Rishon, and when we correct our piece we no longer have to reincarnate.”

--Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, “To which Degree Should a Person Reach”

You can therefore see the utter necessity for anyone from Israel, whomever he may be to engage in the interior of the Torah and in its secrets. Without it, the intention of creation will not be completed in man.

This is the reason that we reincarnate, generation-by-generation through our contemporary generation, which is the residue of the souls upon which the intention of creation has not been completed, as they did not attain the secrets of the Torah in the past generations.

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to From the Mouth of a Sage”

Every person from Israel is guaranteed to finally attain all the wonderful attainments that the Creator has calculated in the Thought of Creation to delight every creature. One who has not been awarded in this life will be granted in the next life, etc. Finally, one will be awarded completing the thought that He preliminarily planned for him.

--Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”