Question: Can you give a Kabbalistic explanation of the feeling of love?
Love is the perception of union and is achieved by equivalence or sameness of attributes. The law of equivalence of form is the only law according to which the entire universe moves and brings everything that exists to the Creator. Kabbalah says that the greatest pleasure in the world is the perception of union with the Creator. Our earthly love is merely a weak reflection of this higher love. We do not perceive what it means to be filled by the Creator. However believe me, this is above all other perceptions!
Genuine love can be only boundless! However, if it has no bounds then it causes dislike from the receiver and even hate. We can see this in children’s relation towards their boundlessly devoted parents. This also happens in romantic relationships between men and women. This system of relationships does not occur by coincidence. Therefore in order to give man the opportunity to attain genuine love and preserve it, in order for love not to turn into dislike or even hate, the Creator created such a system of interaction in which the Creator and His love are originally concealed from man and they become revealed only to the degree of a person’s fear of losing this love.
Therefore the first commandment of the Torah is fear and the second is love. In addition, fear does not refer to the egoistic fear of losing love. Rather, this is fear of “have I done everything I could for my beloved?” Only to the degree a person attains this kind of fear, the Creator becomes revealed to him and reveals His love for him. When we fully correct our egoism we come to deserve the Creator’s full, boundless, eternal love. This way, by revealing love we attain the manifestation of mutuality.
Obviously in our world, meaning in the eyes of an uncorrected person, it is impossible to achieve this kind of feeling. Therefore on the earthly level we should aspire to become corrected. To the degree we become equivalent to the common echelon, the Creator, we are able to love each other as parts of one whole, or the single common Soul. We acquire the ability to see our true companion, both the spiritual companion and the physical or earthly one. Together we will really be able to perceive the full union to the degree of our spiritual ascent.
Nothing brings a man and woman closer than mutual study of Kabbalah. There is a reason for the saying, “Husband and wife – the Shehina is between them”. The Shehina is the Divine presence. According to my teacher’s advice, I encourage couples to mutually study at home. We have accepted this as a constant practice. Therefore many of our families can brag about having the perception of love. We wish you to have the same.
Question: What are the objective reasons for the emergence of this feeling – love?
Love in our world and in the Kabbalistic world is a specific reaction to pleasures. That is, feelings that emerge in us in response to received pleasure. Our most regular love for anything emerges as a result of the fact that the object we love contains pleasure, some kind of light or even a micro-dose of light. This is the only reason we like this object. It attracts us and this feeling for it emerges in us. This object may be kids, the opposite sex or delicious food. This is subjective for every person, meaning it is relative to the attributes of each person’s soul.
A Kabbalist, or a person who continues to study Kabbalah, will understand, see and perceive that this feeling – love – is more abstract. It emerges in him towards light, or towards that which clothes into objects of our world and causes love towards these objects in a person. He will feel the feeling of love not simply for the object or the shell, but for the light itself, which is absolutely separate from the shell.
Therefore this love emerges and gradually transforms into love for the Source of the entire universe or towards the Source of one’s soul. Practically speaking, all of our songs about love, our poetry and all our emotions; all this is our longing for the micro-dose of light that is in our world and that shines on us from various forms of our world.
Question: Are you saying that love for a woman is a shell?
In Kabbalah the highest level a person can have is “love your Creator”. That is, love the Source, which is precisely the source for all other pleasures.
Question: Can a Kabbalist love a woman, or only the Creator?
The attributes of a person who studies Kabbalah greatly develop and deepen. He feels the entire universe in all its details and he feels the female part of himself so much that it is precisely he who is capable of arriving at the perception of a woman (who is completely opposite to him in her soul’s structure) through the perception of the Creator. Without attaining the Upper world a man is not able to do this; he is physically incapable of it. He does not have the appropriate abilities, he is unable to exit out of himself, and he simply cannot understand what a woman wants from him. This is impossible for him, and he should not be reproached for this. If you want your husband to love you, then make a Kabbalist out of him.
Question: What is the root of fashion, jewelry and make up?
A person’s efforts to cover himself in beautiful things come from an inner desire, in the same way all of our actions do. Kabbalah says that all clothing is corrections. After his sin, Adam discovered that he lacks clothing; therefore a fault became revealed to him – nudity – or the lack of correction in his egoism. Before this occurred he did not perceive shame became egoism was not revealed. As a child, he did not feel shame before the Creator.
In our world the yearning to cover oneself comes from a different egoism because it does not come from perceiving the Creator. Rather, it comes from a person’s yearning for fame and power. That is, clothing and decoration do not come from the desire to become corrected. Instead, these are desires of the Klipot (the impure forces or uncorrected desires). They aspire for the external rather than the inner and they add more external objects to themselves. This happens to everyone who is connected to the external.
Those who aspire for the inner do just the opposite; they are ready to take off everything. That is, they do not take into consideration any external signs, medals or special symbols. They can walk around in rags since the most important thing for them is the inner. This is because they constantly reveal greater and greater inner depth in themselves. In this case, the inner things of yesterday become the external things of today, and these people get rid of them.
Question: How do you personally relate to poetry and love?
I like all expression of a person’s good feelings, because even when they talk about animal manifestations, I see praise of the Creator in this. All our songs, poems and generally perceptions, are the perception of His light, the fulfillment of our desires. It is He, although not in the revealed and desirable form. Attaining the Upper gives us the ability to attain pleasures that are billions of times greater and to do this constantly, eternally and perfectly. Kabbalah develops our perception (increases the Kli) to infinity, meaning boundlessly or as much as you want! Love is the pinnacle of all attainment; it is the highest perception, when a person is unified with the entire universe.
Question: What is happiness?
Happiness is the perception of the realization of a person’s inner abilities. This is fully revealed only when a person precisely understands what he should realize and how he should come to this. Moreover, he understands what his goal is, how eternal the goal is, and that it does not depend on anything; that the main and only thing in the world is realized by him right now. That is, happiness is the perception of closeness with the Creator because this is the Goal of Creation. It is the perception of movement towards eternal perfection.
How does fulfillment happen? I will tell you what it consists of. Kabbalah talks about only one person. The whole world is inside of him, meaning the husband, wide, kids, home, the Creator, the Universe, and all the nations of the world. All of this is located inside of one person, but in the form of various forces and various attributes in us.
When it says that a person must find his other half and must connect himself with something, this refers to the fact that he must find his corrected Kli. He must find it and work with it. It does not mean that he must find a partner in the kitchen or in bed.
If we describe how Kabbalah explains all of this in a pure form, then it does not refer to family and home. Rather, it refers to the creation of an inner Kli in a person, or a prepared soul, which the Creator will be able to fill. We always perceive the Creator inside of ourselves. Even this world, meaning the world we perceive around ourselves today; it is the perception of the Creator, but on the level or degree of concealment that we call “our world.”
As soon as a person begins to change himself inside and to prepare his perception more for the spiritual, for a finer perception, he begins to see forces that stand behind this world and that control our world. He already begins to see everything taking place in our world as a result of these forces. That is, greater and greater heights become revealed to him, or a greater volume of the universe.
This depends only on how a person reveals his soul. The method of purification and preparing the soul for this genuine perception is called “Kabbalah” or “reception.” This means to receive the genuine perception of the universe. When the universe becomes completely revealed to a person, he feels the one and only force that always works on him and he calls this force “the Creator”.
Baal HaSulam writes: “If we ask ourselves the question about the meaning of life, about the purpose of all our suffering, about why our lives are so difficult, etc., we will find that no one provides an answer to this question. Over the course of thousands of years, philosophers, sages, and many other people tried but did not find an answer. Therefore today, just as a thousand years ago, we stand before life with the same question and we are unable to answer it”.
He says that the answer can be found only in attaining the Creator: “Taste and see how good the Creator is.” You have to try to reveal the Creator to yourself. After He becomes revealed, you will perceive ecstasy, perfection, knowledge and eternity. Before that – you will not. Therefore if a person feels the futility of his state (and it does not matter in what form the Creator sent this feeling to him because our bitter state also comes from the Creator), he must understand this as the Creator’s call for him to go towards Him.