Q: Is there a connection between dreams and Kabbalah?
A: There is no connection. Dreams are a result of physiological impressions that a person experienced during the day.
Q: How do you relate to mediation?
A: There are no mediations in Kabbalah. There are intents and precise forces of thought that lead the world (actual leading and affecting of the world is possible only through thought).
Q: Does the Kabbalah prohibit the use of charms?
A: Yes. The Torah forbids the use charms. TheAri also prohibited the use of charms because they misled people, although they do help psychologically.
People who believe in them ascribe great forces and consequently affect themselves. But we must differentiate between influence that is purely psychological and a true influence on life.
Q: What do you think about methods such as Reiki?
A: I am not connected with any other methods, and I do not see any of them in Kabbalah. However, I do not deny the fact that they do help people improve their lives physically and psychologically. I do not object to yoga or Reiki – if they help, why not? But I do not see any spirituality in them.
Spirituality is only a collection of psychological phenomena. There is no harm in one person seeing more than others. The Bedouin tribesmen, who live in the desert, can see much farther than ordinary people can. They can look at a cloud and know of something that is going on many miles away from them, just as an animal can feel the death of their mate a few days ahead of time.
Those phenomena are not spiritual, but are natural physiological phenomena of which people remote from nature are simply unaware. Kabbalah, however, speaks of a spiritual body, about what happens with the soul.
Q: What do you think about Tibetan studies?
A: I know that as soon as one climbs a little higher than this world, the whole Tibetan philosophy vanishes without a trace. That is why I was never interested in those studies. If I had encountered them in the course of my studies, I would certainly have studied them.
These studies are built entirely on the destruction of the ego. But egoism (our desire for pleasure) must not be destroyed because it is our very nature.
Tibetan studies lower a person to a vegetative, or even a still level. From this we can understand how destructive such studies are to one’s egoism. Those who study these methods feel comfortable because the most comfortable situation is that of a stone, which is still. After all, what else could man want but to rest?
But this way, man will never attain the purpose of creation. If we are to live like a plant or a rock, we might as well not be born at all. Kabbalah maintains that we should take all our egoism, all our nature, and begin to deal with it correctly. Then we will reach the highest situation, not the lowest.
Therefore, when we ascend in spirituality, we see how quickly those methods collapse, as they were created to diminish desires and decrease suffering. Even the experts in those methods, who understand them in depth, recognize Kabbalah as a unique system, a method of study that is second to none.