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Hologram - There’s a Likeness

Q: I’d like to hear your commentary on the following ideas. It’s written: “A soul is a part of the Creator. It’s just that the Creator is whole and a soul is a part. Like a stone separated from a mountain, where a mountain is whole and a stone is a part…” Following this comparison, I just wonder if an analogy with a hologram could make a relation between the Creator and a soul easier.

Hologram is a photographic image of a 3D object, which not only registers the intensity of a radiating wave in a certain point, but also its phase. An interesting feature of a hologram is that it not only registers a 3D image on a 2D material, but if you split it into many pieces, even the tiniest piece will contain the entire image with all its characteristics (though diminished respectively).

If this analogy is correct, could it be useful in enabling technically minded people to understand?

A:"A soul is a part of the Creator. It’s just that the Creator is whole and a soul is a part. Like a stone separated from a rock, where a rock is whole and a stone is a part…”
This means that a desire splits the entire Light into parts, since it consists of parts. It is like children making “sand cookies” with their tiny molds. The “sand” in our example is the Light; the “molds” are egotistical desires, which by their egoism split the Light into fractions inside the “molds.”

A hologram may sometimes serve as a good example to stress that each randomly taken part of the spiritual realm consists of all the parts, only in miniature proportions according to the part’s level. Your analogy is a good one!

The Soul and the Physical Body

Q: Where inside the body is the soul?

A: It is impossible to describe what the soul is and where it is in the body just by observing it with our minds. That is because within us there is now only the “animate soul,” the force that sustains us. There is not an organ in our body that is capable of feeling the soul.

Q: The philosopher Deckard argued that the soul is where the “third eye” is, whereas Yogananda maintained that it is in the brain.

A: You are trying to convince me that the soul is somehow connected with the body and that it is, for example, where the third eye is. Perhaps you agree with Yogananda that the soul is in the brain, and thus you ascribe the brain activity to the soul because you, as yet, do not understand what a soul is. The soul is a desire in which the Creator is felt, a desire that enjoys with the intent “for the Creator.”

Q: Will it be possible in the future to dismantle body parts and rebuild the body from spare parts? Does that mean that it will be possible to build a biological robot that will attain the spiritual world and a soul?

A: You can replace everything in the physical body, but that has no influence whatsoever on spirituality. Spirituality means unity with the Creator. It is not in our flesh and blood bodies. In the armies of the past, it was common to believe that if a warrior killed his greatest enemy and ate his liver, he would acquire his courage and strength.

Q: This might sound absurd, but I read that in the East, when a holy man is about to die, his disciple asks permission to eat a part of the teacher’s body after his death. Is there a spiritual meaning to that?

A: You have already answered your own question, because from your words it is understood that the beliefs of the East maintain that the spirit is in the substance. That comes from a complete unawareness of the actual root of the spiritual forces.

Humanity is now awakening to all kinds of clairvoyants, eastern shamanic theories, and charlatans. This is happening so we can experience them and realize how false they are, thus bringing humanity as a whole to Kabbalah.

The Animate Soul

Q: Science has already succeeded in cloning the biological body, but what about the soul?

A: The soul has no connection with our corporeal body. Our physical body can exist as a biological, “animate” body, with an enlivening force called the “animate soul.” But that has nothing to do with the Upper Soul.

We do not ask ourselves why there are cows, chickens, or cats, and what kind of soul dwells in them. Yet they too have souls, but their souls are simply the animate force that sustains them, the same force that sustains our own bodies.

Therefore, the body can be cloned and there is no problem with that. In the future, all organs, and eventually the whole body, will be cloned. But the soul does not depend on the body because man receives a soul according to well-defined spiritual laws, on which physical and biological sciences have no bearing.

There are many people in our world whose Upper Soul does not exist at all. That soul is called the “point in the heart.” There are people who have it, and there are those who still don’t. By the way, we cannot know who has it and who does not.

Our Body and Kabbalah

Q: What is the meaning of the assertion that there is nothing in common between Kabbalah and our bodies in this world?

A: Indeed, they have nothing in common. The human body is like the body of any other animal, whereas the soul is the desire to be filled with the Creator, meaning to delight “for Him.”

The desire replaces its intent from enjoying “for itself” to enjoying “for the Creator.” It changes from being a receiver to being a giver, although the act of receiving pleasure remains the same. In that case, the desires of the Creator and the creature are alike –both are giving.

Thus, by the fact that the soul is filled with the Creator, meaning it receives for Him, the soul is called “a part of God above.” Only that desire can be filled with Light, meaning the sensation of the Creator.

The Creator created only one thing: a desire to enjoy. That desire is divided in several parts:

1. Desires of the world of Ein Sof (infinite world) - the greatest desires.

2. Desires of the world of Adam Kadmon.

3. Desires of the world of Atzilut.

4. Desires of the world of Beria.

5. Desires of the world of Yetzira.

6. Desires of the world of Assiya.

7. Desires of “this world” - the smallest of all desires, which operate with the intent “for myself.”

Our substance is a small desire for pleasure. The soul evolves in us gradually. We develop our lowest desires through desires for food, sex and family. Then come the desires for wealth, respect, control and power; then for knowledge. If we have developed these desires over thousands of lives in our world, we get from Above a desire for spirituality.

To the extent that we develop that will correctly, we receive from Above an admission into the Upper Spiritual World and acquire new desires to act “for the Creator.” By realizing these desires, we receive the Light--the sensation of the Creator.

Dressing the Divine Soul

Q: What happens to the animate part of the soul after our death?

A: In “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Baal HaSulam writes that all that exists, except for the Creator, is the desire to receive pleasure; and all distinctions between the created beings are determined by the degree of this desire. The Creator fixes it in each being, and since there are four levels to the desire, there are also four groups of beings: still, vegetative, animate and speaking (man).
Only stage four has an independent desire. The rest are auxiliary, “mechanical” ones. Hence in all the worlds, including ours, there are still, vegetative, animate and speaking. Only man has free will, and is therefore obligated to correct himself with the help of the screen, and change his intentions from “for oneself” to “for the Creator.” If desired, man corrects the preceding stages three, two and one, meaning the animate, vegetative and still.

Man has within an animate stage and a man stage, in which the man stage is his soul, developing from “the point in his heart” to its full size at the end of correction. Man’s biological body and his animate soul are similar to those of animals and have the same fate: according to the degree of cooperation with the Divine Soul, the animate soul rises to correction, and, as we learn, they dress one another, merging into one.

All About the Soul

Q: Where is the soul and what processes occur in it between each descent to this world?

A: Kabbalah, being the revelation of the Creator to the creatures in this world, does not deal with these questions. It describes only what we must experience in this earthly life. We learn by ourselves what happens outside our lives by studying Kabbalah. But there is nothing about it in the books, since we must know what we need for correction, not to satisfy our curiosity. Study and you will see.

Q: Are the questions about changing the soul and receiving a soul relevant only after crossing the barrier?

A: The changing of the soul happens inside the soul; changing the states is called “soul incarnation.” Roughly speaking, the vessel itself stays unchanged (although not entirely accurate, it is easier to explain it this way).

Q: How does the soul separate itself from the body?

A: Nothing is separated, because a soul is never connected to a body. In man’s feelings, it is perceived as moving from one level to another. This feeling is called “a separation from (some part of) an egoistic desire,” or “the death” of a body.

Q: How does the soul transfer into the collective soul of Adam?

A: The soul never actually left the collective soul; it simply stopped feeling it, since it corrupted its spiritual feelings by acquiring an egotistical desire. But in the process of desiring correction, the soul corrects its feeling and becomes able to feel its true state in the collective soul.
Retrieving this feeling is called “the ascent up the steps of the spiritual ladder” from our world into the world of Atzilut.

Q: How is the individual soul separated from the collective soul?

A: As the soul acquires additional uncorrected egotistical desires, it loses its feeling of the spiritual world, interpreted by the soul as a separation from the collective soul. As a result, the soul starts to feel a more crude desire in itself, called a “body.” This is felt by the soul as birth in the biological body.

Q: How does the soul get into a body?

A: If you mean the biological body, then the soul has nothing to do with it. But if by a body you mean desire, then if the desire is egoistic, it is called “a body of this world,” and if the desire is altruistic, it is called “a spiritual body.” All these questions are explained in The Introduction to the Book of Zohar.
Q: How can a collective soul be “Adam” if it was “broken?” A broken jug leaks… It is impossible to retain anything in broken pieces…

A: Nothing disappears: all the states are saved and have equal rights to exist. Hence there’s a state called “Adam” before the splitting. After the splitting, fractions of Adam, which are separated souls, descend
into our world, and ascent to their root, the “primary Adam.”

Q: Does one have a soul prior to crossing the barrier, or just a fraction of a soul?

A: Before crossing the barrier, man has only a point of longing for the Creator (the point in the heart), among all other longings (heart) for the pleasures of this world, which are felt through our five senses. Upon crossing the barrier, the point starts to grow, ascending 125 steps of the spiritual ladder of the five worlds. As it reaches its root, it finds its original place, except now it is 620 bigger than before.

Q: Can knowledge directly received from the Creator be argued?

A: If it is indeed received as a result of Divine Revelation, it is true for the person concerned and can’t be argued. But this is subject to change during one’s spiritual ascent. Nothing is absolute !

A Renewed Soul

Q: Is the soul fixed in the body, or does it change?

A: Let me simplify the explanation by saying that the soul is fixed and never changes, because otherwise one cannot even begin to understand what happens with the soul and compare its varying situations.

There is another basic question that comes up: if the soul does change, that would imply that one soul works, while another is rewarded. It is very hard for beginners to accept that, because they think it is unjust. But generally speaking, souls do change all the time. Each moment there is a new soul.

A soul is something indefinable; it is the corrected desire that constantly changes and unites with other parts of itself, other parts of souls. In the end, after having been corrected, all the souls will unite and be filled with the Creator.

Therefore, the differences between souls exist only in the sensations of uncorrected souls, meaning only during the process of their correction and only when they sense, through their natural attributes, where there is a demand “for me,” and perform the calculation, “Who does the work and who receives the pay?”

Dressing in the Body

Q: I have read many explanations about body and soul. Does the Kabbalah recognize the process of a dressing of a soul in the body, and if so, how does it explain it?

A: “A soul dressed in a body” means that a person suddenly feels drawn to something exalted. That attraction is misinterpreted. One senses some surrounding Light, which indicates that the person is inside something very big, and is rather lost in it.

Everyone feels this preliminary sensation, but after a person experiences that sensation several times, it diminishes because one learns correctly, studies the Kabbalah correctly and begins to create within vessels that will help one feel spiritual sensations.

A person thus stops being like an embryo in the womb (a state that exists in a beginner) and becomes more and more mature. Emotions are then redefined and analyzed, and thus one grows farther away from that preliminary situation.

Instead of wanting to be “enveloped” in something higher like an embryo, one should aspire to attain the Upper One himself, to consciously be in Him and try to move forward independently. That can be possible only if the person begins to acquire a spiritual vessel for progress called the “screen.” That is exactly what Kabbalah teaches.

Q: At what point does the soul dress in man?

A: The soul is not dressed in man from the beginning. In the final stages of one’s incarnations, there evolves a desire for greater and greater pleasures: fame, fortune, and knowledge. Then there begins to evolve a desire for an Upper Force, for the Creator, for something outside the individual.

Then, all worldly satisfactions begin to pale. This is already a phenomenon that characterizes the surfacing of the soul. At that stage, the search begins for the source from which one can satisfy oneself, which can only be found in Kabbalah.

When does this happen to us? That depends on our maturity. It is not a question of age, but of the number of incarnations we have gone through and the root our soul comes from.

We are all individual parts of one collective soul called “Adam.” The soul dresses in the body. Everyone has a unique, special soul. That is, it may take one person fifteen life cycles to attain spiritual sensations, while another would need only five. One may need to experience horrendous torments, while another will have it very easy. It all depends on the purpose of the soul and its initial state.

When the desire for the Upper Force appears, one should do one’s utmost in order to satisfy it and develop it correctly; otherwise it might be taken away, perhaps for several lifetimes.

Q: Are you actually saying that there are people without souls in this world?

A: There is a force that revives every biological body, called “the animate soul.” But when Kabbalists say “soul,” they refer to a vessel, a screen that enables contact with the Upper Force, the Creator. When a desire for contact with the Upper Force first appears in man, it is called “the impregnation of a soul.” If man does not have the desire for the Upper Spiritual Force, it means that that person does not have an upper soul .

It has nothing to do with one’s physicall attributes, only with one’s inner readiness to bond with the Upper One.

Q: So are there people without a soul?

A: In each of us there is a “fetus” of a soul, but the question is whether it has come to a situation that necessitates its growth. If the fetus has not yet come to that state, a person will not feel any desire for spirituality, for the Creator. But if the fetus has come to that state, a person feels a need to know the purpose of his life. Without the answer to that question he simply cannot go on living.

From this point forward, the advancement depends on man alone. Some people develop their souls, meaning attain the sensation of the Upper World, within a few lifetimes, and others must incarnate hundreds of times. It depends on the society that a person chooses for himself to develop in.

The World of the Kabbalist

Q: While dressed in the physical body, does the soul exist only in our world?

A: That is not necessarily the case. Take, for example, the physical body of a Kabbalist. In his emotions (his soul) he might be in the world of Atzilut, but his physical body remains in our world, with all its maladies, desires, habits and characteristics.

How Many Souls Does a Kabbalist Have?

Q: Baal HaSulam (Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag) wrote that he would not have been able to attain his degree if the Creator had not placed the soul of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in him. Before that he had his own soul, and after that, the soul of Rabbi Shimon entered him. Did it unite with his original soul, or did he have two souls in one body?

A: The body is born, lives and dies in this world. There is a force that sustains it, with its unique attributes, character and skills. Together, these qualities form a being in our world that is no different from a beast. Animals live amongst themselves, separated from one another, but not as much as people, because they are not as well developed. The level of development is determined by the amount of the variations in that creation.

For example: stones of the same kind are no different from one another. Among plants of the same kind there are minor differences. One can already recognize unique characteristics in animals, and these are apparent in man in every aspect. But all of this can be attributed to the same sustaining force--the animate soul.

Everything that happens to man in his past, present and future belongs to this world. There are people who can predict the future, see the past, sense diseases and so on, but all that relates only to our world, to the animate soul.

Spirituality is above the body, above the desire to take pleasure in material things. It is therefore not connected with the body. A “body,” in Kabbalah, means “desire.” If a person has acquired a screen, he feels the dressing of the Spiritual Light within.

The sensation of the Light, the Creator, within such a desire is called a “soul.” The Light changes according to the screen, and any change in the screen is called a “reincarnation of the soul.”

A person in our world has only the animate reviving force, as do all other animals. If a person gets a desire to take pleasure in the Creator, a desire for the Upper One, a screen may be obtained by studying Kabbalah (there is no other way), and one will then receive a spiritual soul in addition to the animate soul. The animate soul does not change, but the spiritual soul changes all the time. A Kabbalist has two souls: the animate, and the spiritual.

Naturally, a Kabbalist is born with the animate soul and only later attains the higher, spiritual soul. It is said that everyone must come to the degree of Moses, meaning they must attain a soul such as that of Moses. Everyone must come to complete adhesion with the Creator and unite with the spiritual root that is in PartzufAdam HaRishon (the First Man), which contains all the souls within it.

The Role of Man and the Role of the Soul

Q: Are we born with a predetermined task that we live with and that we willingly (or unwillingly) perform, or, as the Ari explains, can we attain a soul by labor, effort and prayer?

A: It is not up to us to decide what soul we will be born with, what attributes we will have, and with what task or role we will come into this world. From childhood, we begin to unconsciously advance towards our task, through our environment and the circumstances we are given.

If the task deals with connection with the Creator, then at some point if we have matured through past lives, we will begin to search for something higher than our own world. That is how all Kabbalists started and that is how you will start.

What will happen next? That depends on the effort you’ll make. Ultimately you will attain the degree of Moses, who received the Torah on Mt. Sinai, but when that time comes, in this life or in ten or a hundred lives from now, depends on the quantity and, even more so, on the quality of your efforts.

The Gender of the Soul

Q: Does the soul have a gender, like the body?

A: The soul does have a specific gender: male or female. That attribute extends from the root of creation, from the very beginning. Zeir Anpin (male) and Malchut (female) of the world of Atzilut are the prototypes of the genders in our world, and there are no greater opposites than these.

Throughout the system of creation, built from up downward, there is a division, a separation into a feminine part and masculine part. The lower the degree of creation, the coarser and simpler it becomes, and the more overlap there is between the masculine and feminine parts.

For example, in plants there is almost no division by sex. But the more the creatures develop, meaning the higher up they are on the ladder of evolution, the more distinct they become.

In the spiritual world, this oppositeness is very obvious. One does not cancel the other, but complements it. Without the feminine part, the system of creation is inconceivable. The masculine part depends on the feminine part and waits for it.

Q: Are the souls of men different from those of women?

A: Yes, it is true that men and women have different kinds of souls. But the souls of men are neither better nor worse than those of women. They are simply different kinds of souls, and hence their corrections are different.

Q: What is the difference between feminine and masculine souls?

A: Regardless of the physical body in our world, masculine and feminine souls are two types of parts of souls that comprise the spiritual Partzuf, also called the “right” and the “left” of the Partzuf. A Kabbalist who climbs the spiritual ladder alternates between the masculine part of the vessel and the feminine part. Consequently, at one time the Kabbalist has a masculine soul and at another time, a feminine soul.

An example of that is the soul of the First Man. It broke into 600,000 parts and then into a great many more. However, the content of the original Partzuf is retained in every one of them, turning each part to a minute Partzuf of its own. All the attributes and the forces of the entire creation that were concentrated in the first spiritual Partzuf now exist in every little spark of it.

Those sparks are called “souls” of people. Each has its own origin in the First Man and each comes from a different Sefira or a sub Sefira within the ten Sefirot of the First Man. Those souls divide by masculine and feminine souls, and clothe the appropriate corporeal body accordingly.

We are born with only a certain task. Our corporeal-animate characteristics do not change, whereas our inner-spiritual attributes change according to our correction. Thus, a woman may experience masculine spiritual situations, but on the outside, her body, which is the dressing, the clothing of this world, will remain a woman.

In the spiritual world, however, the soul experiences corrections both in its feminine part and in its masculine part. In our world, the body is fixed and retains its gender -- male or female.

Souls of Leaders of the World

Q: Do evil leaders and dictators in our world have no spiritual souls, since they were destined to punish mankind?

A: All souls are a part of the soul of the First Man. The soul is a part of the Creator from Above because it is filled with the Light of the Creator, depending on the extent of its correction.

We cannot see what actually happens to the souls, and certainly not to the souls dressed in bodies of leaders of this world. All of these people, good or bad, are simply robots in the hands of the Creator to serve His purpose in this world.

It is said about them that their hearts’ destiny is fully in the hands of the Creator (“The hearts of ministers and kings are in the hands of God”). Therefore, everything that happens should be ascribed solely to the Creator.

Q: What connections have they with the “forces of darkness,” of impurity?

A: The systems of holiness and impurity exist only to serve the purpose of creation. You can only speak of systems of holiness and impurity in relation to those who are progressing in Kabbalah. Otherwise, one might think that, besides the Creator, there is another authority. Those two systems exist only to sustain one program -- the design of creation.

Souls of Jews and Inclination to Kabbalah

Q: Kabbalah belongs to all souls, yet Kabbalah is attributed specifically to Jews. Why?

A: Every Hebrew ( Ivri, from the Hebrew word, Ever (passage), meaning one who wants to cross the barrier between our world and the spiritual world), or Jew ( Yehudi, from the word Yechudi - meaning one who wants to unite with the Creator), or Israeli (Israel, from the Hebrew words Yashar-El -meaning “straight to God,” meaning he who wants to go directly to the Creator), takes two lines from Above, and bit by bit builds a middle third line.

The left line consists of one’s uncorrected attributes; the right line consists of the attributes of the Creator that one by one are shown to us from Above. The middle line is the result of the correction of the left line using the right line.

The result of one’s work, one’s spiritual ego, is the Hebrew, the Jew and the Israeli, in everyone now on this earth. As a result of the law of Root and Branch, there is a great inclination to correction among people who are called Hebrews, Jews and Israelis. But it is only an inclination.

Those Jews (of this world) who do not implement this inclination are considered to have a greater will to receive for themselves than do gentiles. Therefore, we can only speak of inclinations, not about a person having two souls. The revelation within us must come with great effort.

Other nations also have a growing number of people with an inclination for spirituality. This is because we are approaching the end of the correction of the world, which will occur when Jews, meaning those who are called Jews in this world, will fully correct their nature. Then, all other nations of the world will follow them and correct the left line through the attributes of the Creator, as the prophets have proclaimed.

The Point in the Heart

Q: Are the soul and the point in the heart different names for the same essence?

A: A desire that is created by the Creator to enjoy Him (the Light) is called a “soul.” That desire remains in perfect form and complete adhesion with the Creator as it was initially created. In order for the soul to attain that situation in its own right, and to equalize with the Creator independently, thus becoming like Him, the Creator separates it from Himself by rendering it with opposite attributes to Him.

Ultimately, the soul stops feeling the Creator, the eternity and perfection, and clothes a corporeal body with a will to enjoy for its own pleasure. Through this will, the soul feels what we call “Our World.” In order to feel its true, original, and complete state again, the soul must develop within it similar attributes to those of the Creator, as though giving birth to them, creating them.

In its original and complete state, the soul consists of the same volume as the Light that descends from the Creator and is filled by it. The more detached the soul grows from the Creator, the smaller its desire becomes. At the farthest distance from the Creator, there remains only a point (in size and power) and we can feel only our own will to delight our animate bodies. That point, however, which is in each and every one of us, can start “talking!”

The original soul is divided into 600,000 parts. Each of them evolves gradually from a point to a vast spiritual vessel (620 times greater), over the course of 6,000 consecutive corrections, called “years” or “degrees.”

When it first appears, the soul is felt as a point in the heart, at the center of all desires, in man’s ego. The soul exists within everyone in this world. But what soul? At what level? That is something we must all discover.

Q: Why are there so many bodies in the world, but only 600,000 souls?

A: Most people in our world don’t have a spiritual soul, only an animate soul, like any other animal, which is enough to sustain them. But in them, there is also an embryo of the future spiritual soul, called the “point in the heart.” The heart is the desire to take pleasure in everything around us.

Throughout history, and through their many lifetimes, humans develop desires for physical pleasures, and then for wealth, power, control, and knowledge. Following those desires for worldly pleasures, generally called the “heart,” is the desire for spirituality.

The desire for spirituality seems to appear within the animate desires, hence the name, “point in the heart.” Of course, those desires have nothing to do with the heart in our body. If we planted a new heart in someone, it would not change a single characteristic in that person-- even if we implanted a new brain. The spiritual sphere has nothing to do with our biological body.

But the point in the heart is not the soul (yet). It is more like a human drop of semen, from which the embryo develops and the child is born. The point in our heart is like a drop of desire, a yearning for supreme attainment, for the Creator. If a person begins to develop it, it grows like the semen that has evolved into a fetus. When it becomes independent, it is called a “soul.”

Q: What does it mean to receive a soul?

A: The soul is born out of spiritual semen, which is developed by the Light that descends on a person when studying Kabbalah. The point in the heart then begins to inflate and expand under the influence of that Light, and finally evolves into ten complete Sefirot; a complete structure called Partzuf, or a Guf (body) of a soul. The Upper Light is drawn into those ten Sefirot. This is how a person begins to feel the spiritual world, the Upper One, the Creator.

600,000 Souls

Q: You said in your lectures that only 600,000 souls descend to this world. How is it possible to explain that the number of the physical bodies in this world is much greater and reaches some seven billion? How do 600,000 souls divide among all the people on earth?

A: There is only one soul in the world, called “ AdamHaRishon.” The soul of the AdamHaRishon consists of 600,000 separate parts. Each part is a separate soul that is corrected when it joins with other parts, other souls. In order to join with other souls, the aim “for myself” must be canceled, because a spiritual bond and full unification is the exact same thing.

By revoking this aim and joining with other parts, with other souls, each part, each soul acquires attributes from the primary soul - that of AdamHaRishon. A soul bonds with the Creator to the extent that it can bond with other souls. That fills the soul of AdamHaRishon, because the attributes of the Creator and the corrected attributes of the soul equalize.

600,000 is a symbolic number. At the first breaking, the soul of the creature, called Adam, broke into 600,000 parts. Then, over many generations, it continued to break into the following smaller parts:

• Cain and Abel

• The tower of Babylon

• The rest of the generations

In addition, the souls constantly go from one body to the next, divide and unite, because they are in fact one soul divided only by our individual feelings. The will to enjoy for itself only is imprinted in them. You might say that there is only one soul, which is filled with Light, but because of our imperfection, we feel ourselves as separate parts of it.

At the end of correction, all the souls that feel separated will unite with one desire and one thought, one delight and one Creator.

The Soul Called “Adam”

Q: How is it possible that in our world there are 600,000 souls, yet at the same time we learn that there is nothing but the creature and the Creator?

A: The soul is the desire to delight in the Creator. In other words, it is the Light that comes from Him. A desire to receive is called a vessel. The purpose of the Creator is to satisfy that desire for pleasure with Himself, provided the soul itself wants it. When that happens, it will feel pleasure. The Creator solved that problem by distancing the soul from Him. When the soul moves away from the Creator, it begins to want to draw near Him of its own accord. That gradually creates in it the desire for Him.

The created soul is called “Adam.” It is, in fact, the one and only creation. There is nothing in the universe apart from the Creator and Adam, who is the creature. Adam was divided into 600,000 parts that were dressed in people in this world.

In the beginning of the spiritual path in this world, there is a change in a person’s desires: the desire to delight in pleasures of this world turns into a desire to delight in the Creator. It is the greatest egoistic desire of all.

Once beyond the barrier and inside the spiritual world, each part goes through a correction of the aim from “for me” to “for the Creator.” The extent of the correction is the extent of the fulfillment with the Light of the Creator until the soul is finally completely full. That sensation cannot be described in words; it is a sensation of eternity, wholeness, equivalence of form with the Creator. It is the purpose of creation.

Chronology and Kabbalah

Q: When, according to the conventional calendar, did Adam’s fall occur? Is it worthwhile trying to reconcile the contradiction between the archaeologists’ beliefs and the Creator’s Words? Or is there no contradiction at all?

A: According to the Hebrew calendar, the count of descending broken parts of the vessel (soul, Adam) into our world, and their incarnations, began in year 0–0-00. Before that, no descending of souls occurred, since the vessel was not broken. I am describing this in the words of this world, but you won’t be able to comprehend it unless you grasp it by yourself.
Archaeology points at the bodies that existed before the year 0-0-00, but there was no descending of the broken parts of Adam into those physical bodies. Baal HaSulam, in his article, “ The Solution,” which describes the solution to the society of the future, writes that the Earth was formed from gases. These condensed through millions of years until they produced a hard substance.

Then life appeared on it: vegetative, animate, and human. Only afterwards did the soul, or, rather, the broken parts of the soul, Adam, start to descend into man. Adam consists of the upper part, called “Israel,” and the lower part, called “Nations of the World.”

These parts are also gradually revealed in each of us, first in the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, and then in the nations of the world. Our task is to correct these parts in us and combine them into one construction.

The Chronology of the Souls

Q: To which part of Adam HaRishon can we attribute the souls that descended before Abraham, GE or AHP?

A: Before Abraham, there were souls in which the combination of GE and AHP did not require correction, meaning they had very thin Aviut (coarseness, or the will to receive). Such souls descend into our world even today; they suffer in this world, and prepare themselves for the awakening of the point in the heart.

Abraham the Patriarch was the first to feel this point and begin to work on his correction. Consequently, Abraham was called the first Ivri, from the Hebrew word Ever (to go over), meaning he who wants to cross the barrier between our world and the spiritual one.

In addition to the soul of Adam, our bodies are kept alive by an animate soul precisely like that of any other animal. However, this soul is unchanging and need not be corrected.

The Correction of the Soul of the First Man

Q: The collective soul-the First Man-is a complete, rigid and uniform framework. Still, the souls that comprise it are adaptable, connected and mixed with each other. How can you explain this?

A: The framework is indeed rigid, but the ties within are flexible, because the whole universe and the soul of the First Man ( AdamHaRishon) are built from the name of the Creator Y-H-V-H ( Yod, He, Vav, He).

1. The tip of the letter Yod - Keter.

2. The letter Yod itself - Hochma.

3. The letter He - Bina.

4. The letter Vav - Zeir Anpin.

5. The letter He - Malchut.

The First Man is a spiritual Partzuf that broke in 600,000 parts. When its screen broke, the aim “for the Creator,” which linked all the parts (desires) together under one goal, was gone. Without the screen, the parts want to receive for themselves instead of giving together to the Creator and thus moving upwards. Now they do not have the understanding, the desire or the will for it. The mutual desire is indeed gone, but the framework is not.

What was extinguished was the screen that ties everything into one action, like a group that works together and is then dismantled.

Q: Why do the parts of the First Man correct themselves separately instead of as one soul?

A: It is only possible to overcome one egoistic desire ( Reshimo, or imprint) at a time, and not an inclusive desire of all the Reshimot together. What matters is that the breaking was done deliberately, so that the creature, the soul, would break to pieces. In this way, the soul will begin to feel those situations that cannot be felt otherwise, when they are not mixed with the attributes of the Creator.

Our work begins from the lowest point in the universe, at the end of the evolution of creation, upwards. Anything that happened before us serves as preparation for us. The breaking of the First Man into parts is necessary for the attainment of the soul. The correction of the breaking is necessary for the birth of the vessel and its fulfillment with Light.

Q: Which parts are corrected first, and which come later?

A: The souls are divided in two: a part that can bestow, called “Israel,” and a part that receives for itself, called “gentiles.” But since they must be created first, their uncorrected nature shows in their full and actual power. That is why Israel appears to be worse than the gentiles, although when the nature of the gentiles is revealed for the purpose of correction, it will be apparent just how much worse it is than Israel’s.

Everything that happens in the world relates to the correction of the souls and their parts. This constitutes the entire reality. We cannot accurately assess what is happening with each and every one of us because all souls are linked together.

The Singularity of the Soul

Q: How does the fact that each soul is unique and receives the Light according to its own characteristics, agree with what you write. You say that Kabbalists feel all the worlds equally?

A: We all have the same five sensory organs. Because of that, our ability to feel and our understanding of the outside world are identical. What we feel through our five senses is essentially our desire to enjoy. That desire is found not within any specific sense of the five, but consists of five desires for pleasures:

1. Animate pleasures from sex, family and food.

2. Pleasure from wealth and social status.

3. Pleasure from power (control) and fame.

4. Pleasure from knowledge.

Pleasure from the Creator.

Those five desires exist in all of us in different combinations and they combine to create a collective desire for pleasure in man. According to the proportion of desires within our collective desire, each of us experiences different feelings. This is where the uniqueness of people comes from.

The entire universe is comprised of ten Sefirot, each comprised of ten inner Sefirot, and so on, indefinitely. For that reason, each particle in the universe that we take will always be comprised of ten parts, or Sefirot. But the proportions between the parts are always unique to that component.

The Multitude of Partzufim and Bodies

Q: After the breaking of the First Man (the collective soul), 600,000 parts were created. Why, then, are we so different if each of us forms a similar part of something uniform and whole?

A: The vessel, or body of the First Man, is comprised of ten Sefirot. The whole body of the First Man is, or dresses on, the thirty Sefirot of the worlds of BYA ( Beria, Yetzira, Assiya): its head ( Rosh) in Beria, its throat ( Garon) in the six upper Sefirot of Yetzira, its body starts from the Haze (chest) of Yetzira, down to the Haze of Assiya, and its legs ( Raglaim) start from the Haze through the end of Assiya.

The characteristics of the Sefirot are different from one another and are linked with one another only by the intent “for the Creator.” If the intent breaks or vanishes, then the link between the parts of the body is gone and each characteristic finds itself on its own.

What ties all the parts of the body, or desires, together is that we are all comprised of the same desires, but each of a different kind, character and shade. The fundamental attributes of the creatures are the same, but the first nine Sefirot, from Keter through Yesod, mix with the tenth Sefira, with the Malchut of each of them, in man’s ego, in different combinations in each of us. They mix by well-defined signs and groups. In this way, they cause the creation of races, nations etc.

The Development of the Soul

Q: How can I know which degree my soul is in, in the course of my spiritual development?

A: If you work on yourself, you will gradually begin to sense your spiritual situation. Later, you will begin to feel where you are, at what spiritual level your soul is located, and your spiritual state. This is possible because you are building your situation and determining your moves and the degree of your spiritual progress.

In order to perform the next step, you must know exactly what is happening right now, or you cannot progress in the spiritual world without doing yourself possible harm.

Choosing the Way

Q: Are there any TRUE ways, besides Kabbalah? If so, then what are they and how many? I guess I’ve been hopping from one thing to another for too long. I am trying to find something to stick with, but until now, all my efforts have failed.

A: Only you can understand yourself and choose your way and your purpose in life. Everyone does this independently, choosing in accordance with how developed one’s soul is at the time of making a choice.

When I asked my teacher if being with him was the right place for me, he told me to test myself. He never coaxed me, as is done in all religious streams, never pulled me to him, since that could only do me harm. So you should work it out yourself. I can only wish you to do it actively, constantly comparing and verifying all possible ways of development with the feelings in your heart.

Above all, do not lie to yourself. Consult your heart and do what it tells you – that will be the right choice. Go this way until you change, develop, and grow out of your uncertainty. It is a permanent process till the very end of correction. Good luck to you!

What Limits a Soul

Q: First, a man is limited by his nature, egoism. In the spiritual world, man is limited by the root of his soul, Malchut DeAtzilut. Or does this root not limit the possibilities of a soul?

A: Acquiring the screen enables us to free ourselves from the slavery of egoism and understand that the intention “for myself” is foreign, artificially created in us from above with the purpose of letting us rid ourselves of it and discover how free, eternal and perfect it feels to be in the intention “for the Creator”.

Where Do We Come From and Where are We Going?

Q: What happened with the First Man later on? Did he live for 930 years and then die? If this is what will happen to us, then why hurry? We will always have time to disappear…

A: We do not disappear and we are not going anywhere. Everything is here, in this place, but in different dimensions, and therefore unfelt. There is no such thing as being born from nothing. In the beginning, the Creator created the worlds. Only after was man created. Everything was preordained that man would sin and lose his spiritual degree, falling to the level of our world.

All our souls are parts of one collective soul named Adam. Each of us must correct our part of Adam. We must correct it alone, of our own choice, on a route that is called “the path of Torah.” Otherwise, we will be forced to mend ourselves on a “path of torment.”

No one will be allowed to merely exist because the goal is clear, even though the road may take longer or shorter, and be more or less pleasant. By our terms, the goal can be expressed in centuries of torment and slaughter, instead of pleasure. It is worthwhile to hurry up and attain the sensation of the right path. That path is the best for both you and the Creator. It is the way of justice, which brings with it pleasure and completeness.

New Souls

Q: Are we new souls?

A: Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “ The Freedom,” that each generation consists of the souls of the previous generation, but in new bodies. This is how mankind evolves. Souls accumulate experience from generation to generation, so that everything we study as scientific discoveries in this generation, and all experience and knowledge that is acquired is imprinted in the next generation as an obvious, indubitable fact. That is why children are smarter than their parents.

Indeed, there is reincarnation, but certainly not for bodies. The souls are what return, but only in the human body. The process of reincarnation can be understood only by attaining the Upper World, by studying Kabbalah. In the Upper World, souls without bodies are tied to the Kabbalists, who are not burdened by the body and can exist in our world and in the spiritual world simultaneously. Therefore, the laws and actual attainments of reincarnation are only open to Kabbalists.

Life Cycles

Q: How many lives does a person have to live?

A: It depends on the individual. You can calculate the number of lives needed for man if he advances against himself, by the force that necessitates him to advance. But one cannot foresee how many lifetimes will be spared when the hastening of the way is one’s own choice, one’s freedom.

Our souls continue to return and clothe new bodies until that moment when we are able to control ourselves completely.

In the Kabbalah, there is a field called “incarnation of souls.” It deals with the incarnations of each individual soul: how many cycles it has to go through before it reaches its peak, and when it is in full control of itself and fully participates in the creation of the world. But let us assume that your soul needs seventeen more cycles to attain its completion. In reality, you can go through them within one lifetime; it all depends on the pace of your advancement.

One cannot say how many cycles each soul will have. It is our own choice. Therefore, each one of us can, in this lifetime, experience several additional cycles and cut the road of correction much shorter, and experience a level of existence completely different from that of today, where we will not feel the transition between life and death.

Q: When does the soul dress in a physical body - is it at birth, or at another time?

A: The dressing of the soul in our biological body does not relate to the physical age of the body. When a person begins to feel a desire for the Upper World (by desire, I mean a genuine yearning for the Upper World), it means that a soul has clothed him.

Reincarnation

Q: Is reincarnation the appearance of a new soul, which brings about the birth of a new person?

A: We do not count people like we count cattle heads; not by physical heads, but by spiritual heads, meaning by their desires and their aims. If those desires and aims have transformed in quality, we have a new person before us!

Q: But I’ve read in several other places in your books that reincarnation means there are many appearances of the souls in bodies in our corporeal world, and that this occurs until they reach their individual end of correction.

A: It is true when you speak about the unification of the soul and the body, at which time the body is like a cover, a shirt for the soul.

Q: In your book, you write: “Just as we must seemingly serve our egoistic desires (our inner “gentiles”), so we serve all the nations of the world in the physical world. Our spiritual state is what determines our situation in this world.” Is that really so?

A: To the extent that we serve our inner desires in order to enjoy them, instead of serving the Creator, we are not serving ourselves, but the nations of the world. They are the ones that enjoy the fruits of our work, not us. Therefore, we have to know that we are the only ones who can change our fate, and only through the spiritual world, through inner change and self-correction.

Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag writes about it in his “ Introduction to The Book of Zohar” (item 66 through the end).

Previous Lives

Q: Is the experience from past lives kept somewhere when we die?

A: In the article, “The Freedom,” it is said that what one has acquired in this life becomes a characteristic in the next. But the information can also be transferred in an opposite form from the one it took in the previous life, because matter itself rots and vanishes between the two life cycles.

Q: If a person did not attain anything in past lives, where is the root of that person’s soul?

A: Any moment in one’s life, even if the person simply exists, is already a correction. That is because we are under the authority of nature and suffer from it, even if unconsciously, and so does the entire creation: the still, vegetative, animate and man. It is said in the Talmud that if a person wants to take a coin of a certain value out of his pocket, but instead finds a coin of a different value, it is already a pain for him, because he feels that his desire was not satisfied. Thus, the amount of pain is precisely determined, regardless of our feelings.

But we have the ability to choose, and to make our own efforts to accelerate the correction. When that happens, we will begin to feel our pain consciously and discover its root cause, and can then conclude that it is advisable to change our intentions in order to get rid of the pain.

Because of that, as we draw nearer to the purpose of creation, we change every minute of our lives. For that reason, each life cycle always seems different. Besides, there is the need for constant renewal of the links between the souls. Otherwise, the connections would not be fixed and there would not be the correction of the collective soul, which is the unification of all the souls.

Ripe Souls

Q: I told my relatives about Kabbalah, but they wouldn’t listen. How do I open their hearts?

A: There are two types of people, meaning souls:

1. Those who are in their preliminary stage and still do not feel the need for spiritual elevation. They are called “Still” - inanimate - in the spiritual sense of the word, because they do not correct themselves, they do not move toward spirituality, like the still in our world. In fact, this term accurately describes the souls of all the people in the world, except for a few hundred Kabbalists and their disciples.

2. Those people (or souls) that have received a desire for spirituality from above, because it is their turn to start approaching the Creator. They find Kabbalah, begin to study and correct their attributes. In their new attributes, the corrected ones, they receive the sensation of the Creator the spiritual world. The question, “What is the meaning of my life?” is what motivates them. It is because of that question that they grow spiritually. They attain the Upper Worlds (in ascending order) - Assiya - Yetzira - Beria - Atzilut according to their efforts.

One who attains the degree of the world of Atzilut is called a “Man,” and before one attains the degree of Man, one’s spiritual development is respectively: Assiya - still; Yetzira - vegetative; Beria - animate.

I suggest that you do not try to persuade anyone, and in general refrain from speaking to people who oppose or do not wish to hear, as you will not convince them. A person should come to Kabbalah when ready. You can offer others a book, but nothing more. If they react, then the seed (the point in the heart) already exists in their soul. If no response is returned, then perhaps in a few life cycles the person will want what we want today.

One’s Soul Shall Teach One

Q: Is it true that there are souls that are connected to the “wisdom of the hidden” and souls that are connected to the “revealed wisdom?” Does each soul have its own spiritual root, by which it can fulfill itself?

A: You are quoting from the words of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, who speaks of a corrected aim of man’s desires, “for the Creator,” meaning those who are already in the process of climbing the ladder from our world to the infinite. To such people there are two types of soul: one that is named “The Revealed Torah,” which stems from the term, Simple Light (One of the appellations of the revealed Torah uses a word that has the same root as the word simple in Hebrew - C.R.), and the “Wisdom of the Hidden,” which is revealed on certain conditions.

There is indeed a meaning to the words of Rashbi (Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai) that relates to our world as well: one who is drawn to the revealed Torah should study only that, and one who takes after Kabbalah can study Kabbalah. I always stress the words of our sages: “One’s soul shall teach one,” which means that the soul shows us where to find the origin of fulfillment.

Kabbalists think that people should develop freely. Freedom in the Torah means a simple observance of the commandments and laws, as long as one is not ready for something else. But if one has a desire to reach for the Creator, a desire for spirituality, that individual should be provided with all the conditions for spiritual growth, and should not be stopped or scared off.

Kabbalah states that a person must freely choose that part of the Torah-- revealed or secret--according to the ripeness of his soul. There was a great rabbi by the name of Noam Elimelech who said: “Kabbalah alone kept me in Judaism.” That is because his soul has reached beyond the phase of the revealed Torah, and if he had not received that fulfillment he could not have truly existed.

One should find oneself. That is the only thing that Kabbalists encourage, whereas those who follow ideas and beliefs blindly, purposely forbid it.

Birth and Correction

Q: Man is born in our world through the joining of a physical body with its spirit, which may already be at a certain level in the spiritual worlds, meaning, by definition, it can already have a screen. Why, then, is there a need to start from the beginning in the physical world?

A: Every birth in our world signifies a correction of the corporeal level of desires. Even if a person studied Kabbalah in the past and reached a certain level, but not a final one, that person must be born as a baby, suffer, learn, and arrive at Kabbalah from the beginning. But the student will very quickly return to the level of the previous life and continue from there. There is never a repetition, only new corrections and additions to the previous life.

A Physical Body and a Spiritual Body

Q: What is the connection between our body and the spiritual bodies?

A: Anything that happens to the physical bodies in our world corresponds with what happens to the spiritual bodies in the spiritual world, or in spiritual desires. Outside the corporeal world there are only desires called forces, bodies, souls, Partzufim, etc.

A spiritual body is a desire with an aim “for the Creator.” It thus turns out that to the ordinary person in our world with a corporeal body, there is no spiritual body. But a spiritual body, that intent, can be acquired through the wisdom of Kabbalah, which teaches how to acquire a screen, the aim ”for the Creator.”

A spiritual body evolves gradually, according to the correction, in the following steps:

• Conception - when a person is willing to nullify the self completely before the Creator, be dependent on Him and totally accept His Rule;

• Delivery - the ability to perform the actions alone, instead of through the Creator;

• Infancy – the period when a person gradually begins to perform certain actions, while the rest are still left for the upper Partzuf - the Creator;

• Adulthood - a state of complete equivalence of form with the Creator in the current degree.

Soul, Mind and Character

Q: What happens to a soul that is dressed in a smart person and how is it affected by such a mind and character?

A: The body and the evolution of intelligence in no way affect the soul and its development, meaning the correction and fulfillment with the Light of the Creator. The fact that the soul and the body are “linked” in one person does not mean that the body influences the soul, because the soul is a desire to give (bestow), something which does not exist in the body’s nature. In principle, the soul must change in a person, it must be corrected. This is why it is sent to the lowest level of creation - this world.

The body gives the soul something “extra” that allows it to exist until a person is able to identify with the soul rather than with one’s corporeal body: the mind and character. Every habit and characteristic that has to do with this world and exists in all people requires no correction.

A person should not suffer because of one’s characteristics and should not change them in any way, but instead should make contact with the Creator, which is our goal. Character has no bearing on that.

I advise everyone to research the Creator, study His deeds, His powers and the spiritual laws, instead of delving within self. “One is where one’s thoughts are.” Therefore, one who is adhesive with the Supreme is in the Supreme, and one who lowers self to lower attributes and suffers from them, “eateth his own flesh.”

Salvation and correction come from Above. A person must only extend upon self the influence of the Upper Light, and that Light will correct everything that needs to be fixed.

The character does not change. Man’s characteristics remain the same, because the will to receive exists in us. The will to receive takes a different form in each of us, in character, in perception of life and in desires. The form of the will does not change, only the aim and the use of it, from receiving “for myself” to an aim “for the Creator.”

The conception and the birth of man and everything he does in this world arouse no response in the spiritual worlds. They have no effect whatsoever on the soul, because everything in our corporeal world is born and reveals itself before us by evolution from the movement of Upper Forces from up downward, as described: “There is not a grass below that does not have an angel above, that strikes it and says to it: Grow”.

Only our desires to draw near the Creator have any effect on Above. A desire to draw near the Creator is a desire to equalize with Him in His desire to bring us pleasure. These desires are called “raising MAN.” If we want to do everything for the Creator, as He wants to do for us, if we ask of Him to give us a chance to do it, than that prayer is felt in Him and He responds to it.

Changing the Shirt

Q: Is there a physical death in Kabbalah?

A: There is no death. Just imagine that you begin to feel another life besides this one, a life in which you also participate. Previously, the additional life was hidden from you. Now, suddenly you begin to feel that you are living in another place, a different relationship. The latter becomes so important to you, so vivid and clear and strong, that eventually, this life loses its meaning and is pushed aside.

When a person crosses the barrier to the spiritual world, it becomes the center of one’s life. The person begins to reevaluate his or her life, and begins to relate to it on a completely different level. Situations such as physical life and death become akin to the changing of a shirt. That is how my rabbi (Rabbi Baruch Ashlag) always described it.

Q: Is there anything after death?

A: You must be asking what happens after death to a person who is not a Kabbalist, because if he were a Kabbalist, meaning of some spiritual degree, then while in this life he would know how to maintain contact with all levels of creation.

What degree does a person who never studied Kabbalah feel when passing away? One feels the lowest degree, much like people who experience clinical death feel. It is a tiny sensation of freedom from the corporeal body; nothing more. Kabbalists feel that freedom a billion times more vividly than ordinary people feel it after death, even while still alive!

Sleep and Dreams

Q: Is the passage to the spiritual worlds done during sleep and dreaming?

A: The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with the study of the laws of the universe, the structure of the soul and the management of the worlds. Your questions about dreams relate to the physical animate state of man. There is no connection between dreams and spiritual forces. Dreams indicate what happens in the body, not what happens with the soul.

Therefore, in order to attain spiritual elevation and attainment of the spiritual world, there is no point in analyzing dreams and there is no significance to the way you sleep. Our sleep is merely a physiological phenomenon, as in all animals.

The Soul of Pharaoh

Q: I understand from your words that all the situations that the soul goes through in the spiritual world, materialize later on in our world. If the soul has already gone through the spiritual state called Pharaoh, will this Pharaoh materialize afterwards in our world? Will it be in a body with a soul in the state of Pharaoh, or within a body that answers to the name Pharaoh with his earthly attributes?

A: You are confused because you are discussing the object from outside, not from within it. The Torah tells us only about the way we can attain the highest spiritual state. It never speaks about history. In the spiritual world, this history is not yet created. It is written by each soul, which goes through the states of “gentile,” “Pharaoh,” and “Moses” in each person. The Torah is written for each person, and one must only refer to it as personal instructions.

The soul can go through changes only within its existence in the physical body, and that is precisely the reason for its condition. All the parts of the collective soul must complete their corrections, from the lowest state to the highest, while dressed in this world’s body.

In other words, a person who lives in our world must experience all the states of elevation in the 613 degrees to the last degree, which is equivalence of form with the Creator.

Q: The Torah speaks of what happens between forces in the Upper Worlds. Everything that happens in our world, in its substance, is no more than a replica or a seal that has been imprinted and sealed. Did Moses and Pharaoh (the humans) have the power, the spiritual degree that the spiritual Moses and Pharaoh had? Was the first temple, or the second, compatible with their spiritual degree?

A: I don’t understand what you mean by “compatible.” Compatible with what? Do you search for spirituality in those? Do you search for their spiritual attainment? They were not souls with spiritual attainment from below upward, but rather an evolution of the worlds from up downward. Pharaoh, Moses and their like are examples of spiritual situations that a person must experience inwardly.

The Torah speaks of the way each person must rise from the situation it speaks of. We must feel everything that is written there. We will have to experience all the events and the characters in it, and only after that will we be able to actually sense what the Creator has in store for us.

The Torah says that every person will be like Moses, or to be exact, that each of us must be like all the other characters in the Torah, such as Pharaoh, Balaam, etc. But Moses is the goal of the development of the soul and because of that it speaks of him. However, it is also obvious that that such a degree of evolution cannot be attained without the evil inclination of Pharaoh being revealed.

Q: When the soul goes through a certain situation in our world, is it already going through its next situation in the spiritual world? And is it possible that a person is in one situation in this world, and in another in the Upper World?

A: One soul cannot be in several situations at the same time. All our future mental situations, to the last and most complete of them, are but future situations of the soul, which will attain them upon its ascent in each degree.

From below upward: our world is the world of Assiya, which resembles the world of Yetzira, which in turn resembles the world of Beria, which resembles the world of Atzilut. And from above downward, the worlds were created and were “copied” one by one, the worlds of BYA and our world.

The Torah speaks of what happens in the world of Atzilut. The same thing happens in all the spiritual worlds of BYA, which are beneath the world of Atzilut (of a lesser degree), but on a smaller spiritual scale. And so it is in our world, everything happens as it happens in the world of Atzilut.

However, this is in another substance, not in the spiritual desire, but in the corporeal one: the desire to delight self alone, which is the substance of our world. That is why we cannot describe what happens correctly.

The link between our world and the other worlds is inconceivable because we have no conception of the spiritual worlds. Only a Kabbalist feels both worlds at the same time, but cannot explain that sensation to one who cannot feel spiritual substance. The wisdom of attaining the Upper World is personal and is therefore designated as “the wisdom of the hidden.” Only one who attains it can see the results, and no one else.

The Pharaoh of the world of Atzilut is the collective uncorrected will to receive that had been created by the Creator. It is always in the height of the degree of the Creator, but opposite Him. Therefore, the correction of Pharaoh in the world of Atzilut means a complete correction of Malchut, which is the whole of creation.

Pharaoh in the world of Beria, which is below the world of Atzilut, symbolizes the corrected Pharaoh, one degree lower than the final one.

Pharaoh in the world of Yetzira is two degrees lower, two degrees below the top.

Accordingly, Pharaoh in the world of Assiya is three degrees lower - three steps below the final degree.

In our world, meaning in the physical body of Pharaoh, there is nothing of the spiritual situation because our world consists only of matter: our bodies and that which is around them - still, vegetative and animate.

But if the soul of one accompanies his body in our world, that person is called a Kabbalist. If the soul does not accompany him, that person is then still in the stage of preparation in the development of spirituality, prior to the reception of a soul. He then has no connection with the Upper Worlds, whether they are Assiya, Yetzira, Beria or Atzilut.

In the corporeal world, in the substance of our world, there is a picture that accompanies the soul, which is an external adaptation of the picture of the world of Atzilut. For example: the rulers of the world are an external adaptation of Pharaoh (egoism, a shell).

Moses, the force that aspires for the Creator, stands against Pharaoh. If Moses goes to Pharaoh along with the Creator in his soul, then Pharaoh and the Creator are equal in a man. Then, he has the freedom of choice.

Therefore, everything in our world and in the substance of our world must follow a well-defined formula of equivalence of form with the Upper Worlds. But that happens without man’s interference, as an extension from above downward, which brings about historic events in this world.

Some time in this world’s history, something should happen that would cause the souls to experience the spiritual worlds by themselves, rising from our world to the world of Atzilut.

The state called Pharaoh is one where a person who studies Kabbalah feels one’s precise nature to the fullest, as it was first created, and feels how opposite it is to the nature of the Creator. This is the most powerful negative degree, which stands against the complete correction, coming right before the last ascent to the final corrected degree -- the End of Correction. If a person corrects that state of Pharaoh in oneself, complete correction is then attained.

Everything in our world, in its history, is an example of spiritual situations in substance that each person must go through within self, according to the rule: “Man is a small world.” That is what humanity evolves towards throughout its history. Every generation’s renewed souls descend into the bodies, moving them toward material progress, but they lead the man in us toward spiritual advancement.

When the soul reaches the full development of the egoistic nature that is needed for its progress, there appears in it the aspiration for spiritual development. A person begins to study Kabbalah, gradually goes through the degrees, from zero (the state of a spiritual embryo) onward and upward to the end of correction. In each degree that person gets greater desires, corrects them and by that attains the light that belongs to that degree by using corrected desire.

The various degrees have different names to the negative and the positive situations that a person goes through in each degree. Only by going from situations of the “left line” (uncorrected) to situations of the “right line” (the force of the Creator) and then to the state of the “middle line” (the correction of the left by the power of the right) - is there an ascent to the next degree.

Man himself, while feeling the desires of his nature, gives himself the name, Gentile. As the book of Genesis writes: the first man, once created, began to name the objects and attributes of the world around him. Along a person’s spiritual ascent, he becomes corrected and names the attributes of his inner world. He calls himself Pharaoh, Gentile, Moses and so on.

When a person feels his negative desires to receive, he names them Gentiles. The particular situations where his nature is shown have particular names of gentiles. Positive appearances are generally named Israel, from the Hebrew words Yashar El (Heb.“ straight to God”) that indicates that a person wants to go directly to the Creator. The state named Israel has some particular manifestations of its own, such as the Children of Israel, Levy, Priest etc.

There is never a withdrawal, only progress, even when a person feels the opposite, as when one falls into desires to enjoy for self alone (uncorrected left line), which already grow to fit the next degree.