The student who studied in secrecy, Betash be Bruria and he said he’s prepared in everything. If it is prepared in Ramach (248 parts) it exists. 'Chashai' means Katnut (smallness) and 'secrecy' means Katnut: from the word 'Chash-Mal'. ' Chash' means the vessels of the faith (anterior side). And 'Mal' are called the vessels of the posterior side, which are the vessels below the Chazeh (chest), which bring to the aspect of Gadlut (greatness)...

We usually learn that as many virtues, mistakes and sins a person has, they are weighed with a scale. One forces himself and the whole world to a scale of merit or, G-d forbid, to a scale of demerit. It’s all weighed. A person puts out one and adds to the other. How can there be this rule of weighing sins as against merit, against Mitzvot...

A person shouldn’t complain about anything. Everyone has a group of some sort, some kind of a connection, books of some sort, prepared conditions and other benefits. Suddenly I get the desire to write a book in Russian, and as a result you have a book...

May it please You, our Lord, God of our fathers, who hears the outcry of pleas and listens to the voice of the prayers of His people, Israel, with mercy, to prepare our hearts, set up our thoughts, and send our prayers in our mouths. Do lend Your ear to the voice of the prayer of Your servants, who pray to Thee with an outcry and a broken spirit...

Dear and beloved friends, we want to start the opening ceremony of the most important thing to happen to us and to the history of the humanity....

We have been talking a lot about group, about the necessity of unification. We have been talking about phases a person undergoes in our world, about emergence of the Universe which took place 15 million years ago, and then about emergence of our Earth and of a human being on it; about the path of a human being—how he evolved on the Earth, what is the purpose of his existence, whether people are temporary on the Earth and in the Universe...

Rosh Hashana (the beginning of the year) is called the Rosh (head) of the degree, of life, of existence, when a person determines his goal and toward where his efforts will lead him. This is why the scrutiny of our sages on the month of Elul symbolizes our work...

A women’s group is not just a group that consists of individual people but it is women who unite in order to participate in the spiritual ascent. Together with children and all those who don’t participate actively, women comprise the greater part of humanity. The woman’s part is very important and very powerful. If they are able to organize, then it’s great and if not, then men lack this help and pressure from women, and women lose out as well. Therefore there is need for a serious organization, mutual help and connection. If it exists, it exists; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t...

Question: According to Kabbalah, how long has the world existed?
What do you mean by “the world”? Do you mean our universe? In essence, our universe is on the same level of existence, or period of existence as what modern physics tells us: about fifteen billion years. The universe developed over fifteen billion years. It is precisely according to physics. Kabbalah says this very clearly. The Kabbalistic sources stated this before our time...

Basically, everything that is in the Torah can be explained; we have commentaries on this topic. Soon we will be publishing a book of our conversations on the radio, where the Torah is explained in a general sense...

That is, everything that exists in our world is controlled from Above. There is not a single desire, action, intention or thought in our world; there isn’t anything that does not come from Above — from the Upper World...

This was introduced on the lowest level of egoism. Everything operates this way on still, animate and vegetative levels of egoism. These levels of egoism see and sense what it is that they need. An animal never makes a mistake. A baby calf, a lamb or a puppy, knows from the start what kind of grass to eat, and they know if they’re sick. Nobody has to teach them. They’ll never stumble and fall off a cliff or cause any harm to themselves. They have an instinct that serves them in all of life’s situations, whereas a person lacks knowledge about our world...

The leaf refers to the shade that it makes on the light, meaning on the sun. There are two kinds of shades: one comes from the side of Kedusha (lit. Sanctity), and the other comes due to a sin...

Here you have to pay attention because Baal HaSulam explains that it is not enough to reach bestowal, but it has to be with gladness. It is not enough to want adhesion. This desire has to be with adornment and the sign for adornment is gladness. Gladness is the enthusiasm in one’s Kelim (vessels), and it indicates, it proves that a person is found in wholeness with one’s way, with what one wants or with what one is about to obtain...

We are currently in a state in which it is being revealed that the whole of the world is gradually approaching a crisis, a general and all-embracing crisis in all fields of human activities. It is a crisis in science, art, literature, and family relationships. The crisis reveals itself in a huge number of suicides, depression, drugs and terrorism...

What the Creator created is called Hissaron, Nekev, which is an empty, unfilled space. While the masculine part is associated with the Creator, with the one that governs and fulfills, with the giver, the female part is always associated with the one that receives, the scarcity of something, lack, un-fulfillment, unrealized desire...

We all understand that at each instant, we live in a new state. If before, we did not know how to study Kabbalah, how to organize groups, how to further advance, what to do with ourselves, how to explain ourselves to the world, juxtapose ourselves with the world, or even connect with others, then we now gradually start to see that the world “succumbs” to us, so to speak...

If I aspire towards the goal, how should I treat this interference when dealing with circumstances in this world? How do I find that borderline, where I need to work in the bounds of our egoistic world in this interference? And where is that level that I should have developed in myself in relation to the goal?...

Life conditions of the last generation. On the one hand, it must be good to be living in the last generation, but on the other hand, prophets warn us that these states will be frightening and horrible. What can we make of it? Perhaps, they will be “frightening and horrible” only with regard to our present understanding, while in reality everything will be different. The question is, what life conditions are we talking about?

The use of uniqueness as a means for the development of an individual and society. The perception of uniqueness comes to us from the Creator, who is the Only One. For this reason, this attribute manifests in us as His personal attribute. However, since within us the uniqueness lays on top of the egoistical desire (rather than altruistic desire as it does in Him), it harms us.

Hopes for peace. There are people in society who are successful and wish to use others in order to achieve their goals, as well as people who, by their nature, can never be successful and have no choice but to serve those who are able to rule over them. Although the smart, skillful, cunning, crafty and refined really do have a great qualitative power, nevertheless, there are few of them in comparison to those who are stupid, weak, and simple.

Four categories: mercy, truth, justice and peace with regard to an individual and the society. Four categories simultaneously control us and can be controlled by us, with the help of which we can change the surrounding world by changing ourselves. After we clarified what the genuine good is, we should analyze the means at our disposal to accelerate the approximation of happiness.

It turns out that two powers act in this process of development. One is the so-called “power of heaven” that guarantees the transformation of everything evil and harmful into good and useful. This path is slow and painful; the object of development goes through боль и terrible suffering. The road-roller of evolution crushes it with utmost cruelty.

“Nothing is appraised by the way it looks at the moment, but according to the degree of its development” (The Baal HaSulam).We should never judge a person by his present condition, but rather, by the goal to which he aspires. We do not assess anything by its form or quality, but in accordance with its development and the goal it strives to achieve.

Love is the main quality in the universe. I'd say this is the only positive quality that moves, controls, and connects all of its parts. It unites the elements of all structures: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and finally man's inner world. We call this unifying quality "love" or complete mutual acts of giving. All nature submits to the law of universal love. The only exception is the human level on which we are given a free hand to do whatever we like, and we act in defiance of this law...

Love is the main quality in the universe. I'd say this is the only positive quality that moves, controls, and connects all of its parts. It unites the elements of all structures: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and finally man's inner world. We call this unifying quality "love" or complete mutual acts of giving. All nature submits to the law of universal love. The only exception is the human level on which we are given a free hand to do whatever we like, and we act in defiance of this law...

We learn that everything is incorporated in the Upper Light. In other words, in it are all the discernments that the vessel will ever find. This is why it all depends on the vessel. It depends on the desire in the vesselbecause it precisely reveals the Light according to its relation, correspondence and equivalence of form to this or that attribute of the Light...

The essence of one’s work should be how to come to feel taste in bestowing contentment to one’s Maker, since all that one does for oneself distances him from the Creator, due to the disparity of form. However, if one performs an act to benefit the Creator, even the smallest act, it is still considered a Mitzva...

There are men and then there are women, because there is the Creator and then there's the creature, created by Him—two of them, two partners in this tango. There is the prototype of the Creator—the giving, dominant leader—that's the male root. And then there's the creature—receiving, drawing closer to the Creator, bringing them together—the female root. The same applies to our life in this world. If we were to act correctly, clearly understanding how these two roots are implanted in nature and interconnected, then we would do quite well—both men and women. After all, it is not just us, but all of the nature before us is divided from above downwards into clear-cut male and female roots...

There are men and then there are women, because there is the Creator and then there's the creature, created by Him—two of them, two partners in this tango. There is the prototype of the Creator—the giving, dominant leader—that's the male root. And then there's the creature—receiving, drawing closer to the Creator, bringing them together—the female root. The same applies to our life in this world. If we were to act correctly, clearly understanding how these two roots are implanted in nature and interconnected, then we would do quite well—both men and women. After all, it is not just us, but all of the nature before us is divided from above downwards into clear-cut male and female roots...

A person in our world has manners. Memories, various conventionalities and obstructions create various confusions in his head and cause him to move forward. We can’t say that he acts only egoistically. He has egoism and he does act only egoistically, but this egoism is set in motion by the various conventionalities that society has made and accepted for itself, rather than being under the influence of nature’s precise laws...

Acquiring fear is through the power of Torah and Mitzvot. It means that when one engages in Torah and Mitzvot with the intention to be awarded bringing contentment to one’s Maker, that aim that rests on the acts of Mitzvot and the study of Torah brings one to attain it...

In order for a person to obtain Lishma one needs an awakening from above, because it is an illumination from above. And, it is not for the human mind to understand. But he that tastes knows. It is said, "Taste and see that the Lord is good."...