Daily Kabbalah Tip

Advice in the daily Kabbalah lesson is recommended, practical tasks for advancing spiritually

Organizing Your Thoughts During Kabbalah Study

To see whether you are studying Kabbalah with the right intent, first ask yourself, "Why am I studying?" Begin developing the reason for which you are studying.

Learn from Baal HaSulam. See how he flows in the "Preface to the study of the Ten Sefirot." He begins with the initial awakening you received and don't know what to do with it. After that, he asks, "What am I living for?" Don't know. You aren't enjoying your life,  you are searching for something else. Then you are brought to a society. And there too, you have no idea what to do. You study, listen-sounds interesting. You feel it is possible you might get a filling there, you might know something above this world and such. And then Baal HaSulam begins to roll down the path slowly, slowly solving this issue.

He asks, "Are you feeling bad?" You must think when good could be for you. It could only be when you reach the state of "Taste and see that the Lord is good." Begin examining: What is this? What do I need this for? Do they want to bring me back to faith and religion? You must examine all of these questions. Is the revelation of the Creator, all that I am missing in this world? Is this why I came to Kabbalah? Just realize, the wisdom of Kabbalah supplies an answer to that question only.

Daily Kabbalah Quote

Until they accumulate enough wisdom, they are being given this secret little by little, making them accustomed to this matter in a gentle way, until they reach Him and know Him and worship Him from love. (Maimonides, Halachoth Teshuva)

The wisdom of Kabbalah should be revealed to people according to their ability to receive, to absorb, to live, and most importantly to digest.  This is similar to a baby who can live luxuriously but cannot appreciate it because all it can do is take in food and "expel" it.  So is an adult human being who lives only physically.  This does not mean that we need to tailor our dissemination individually to every person.  However, in general we need to present the material in an understandable form with examples and let everyone take from it according to his ability and level of development.

 -from the Preparation to the daily Kabbalah lesson (minute 35)

Daily Kabbalah Reality Check

Examples in the daily Kabbalah lesson elucidate spiritual concepts through explanations of situations in this world

"Reception" Of The Spiritual Reality?

When you build equipment that will be based on solar power (from the sun rays), you equip it with receptors of specific sensitivity, so they can receive certain wave lengths of light of certain frequency, so that the equipment can utilize it for its needs.

Similar to this, man too is equipped with certain sensors from birth, and each of them receives a certain portion of the reality around him, according to a predetermined measure. Also man has a program that is imprinted within him, managing the information it receives; it is called the desire to receive pleasure.

This program processes what it receives through the different senses, and produces for man a certain grasp and awareness, he calls "my reality". In other words, this reality that he perceives in his desire to receive, is not necessarily the truth, rather it is aimed at supplying a man with the ability to determine from what is around him-"this is good for me," "this is bad for me." Naturally, man tries to hide what is "bad for him" or escape from it, and on the other hand, what is "good for him" he keeps as close as possible to him.

So what's the problem?

The thing is that, in man there is a hidden need to reveal an inner program higher than "good for me, bad for me" of the desire to receive. He feels that he is sensing a limited and false reality, and is in search of the truth in life. Slowly, slowly, man is pushed to realize that with all of his attempts to be filled, he ends up with a very short-lived, shallow pleasure, which is followed by emptiness and disappointment. He discovers the distancing between himself and those who surround him.

These sensations push him towards a process of spiritual development. He discovers that focusing on solely filling his own needs is parallel to being in a "lie," and that the desire to rise above the shackles of the ego and above his desire to receive pleasure for his own benefit is the "Truth".

Differently from our five physical senses, which are limited to sense within a very limited range of reality, a man who develops spiritually broadens his new senses which he acquires during his studies. He discovers that the perception of reality occurs within him and that his desire to bestow to others enables him to sense more of the harmonic, perfect reality which exists in nature. Filling the desires of others enables him, to develop an inner instrument, new senses, which within he can sense the source of the Upper Energy, the Upper Light, and infinite perfect pleasure.

 -from the 3^rd part of the daily Kabbalah lesson (minute 16)