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-- What Is Kabbalah? --

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a scientific tool for studying the spiritual world. This tool is the wisdom of Kabbalah.

KabbalaLos Angeles is the branch of the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute and is an educational organization teaching and sharing the wisdom of Kabbalah worldwide, presenting genuine Kabbalah sources in contemporary language. To explore our world, we use natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, and biology. But natural sciences study only the physical world we perceive with o

ur five senses. To fully understand the world we live in, we need a research tool that can explore the hidden realm, that which our senses cannot perceive. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, reality consists of two forces, or qualities: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, to give. Since the desire to bestow wants to give, it creates a desire to receive, hence its more commonly used name “the Creator.” Therefore, the whole of creation, including us, are manifestations of that desire to receive. Using Kabbalah, we can work with the fundamental forces of reality-reception and bestowal-to our benefit. It doesn’t only teach us the design of creation, but how we can become designers, as omnipotent and as omniscient as the original Designer of reality.

-- What Do Kabbalah Books Teach? What Do Kabbalah Books Teach? --

Kabbalah books teach the structure of the spiritual worlds, and how each of us can get there. A Kabbalah book is like a tour guide. If you want to travel to a new city, you’d probably want to use a tour guide to tell which are the best places to go see, the best coffee shops and clubs, and where you don’t want to go because you won’t like what you will find. Similarly, Kabbalah books tell you how the spiritual worlds are built, which “places” are more fun, and which are not. Of course, these are not physical places, but spiritual states that any Kabbalist experiences. Another thing that Kabbalah books tell you is how to find the spiritual reality. If you want to go somewhere in this world, you need a map to that place, and a tour guide for studying the place itself. In spirituality, the Kabbalah books will do it all for you-“show” you where the spiritual world is, “drive” you there, and show you around.

-- Who Can Study Kabbalah? --

When Rav Kook-the great 20th century Kabbalist and the first Chief Rabbi of Israel-was asked who could study Kabbalah, his answer was unequivocal: “Anyone who wants to.” In the last one hundred years, all the Kabbalists without exception clearly stated, and on many occasions, that today Kabbalah is open to all. Moreover, they said that it is a necessary tool in resolving the global crisis that they predicted would come, and which we are facing today. According to all Kabbalists, Kabbalah’s hiding days are over. The wisdom of Kabbalah was previously hidden because Kabbalists feared that it would be misused, and misunderstood. And indeed, the little that did seep out evoked numerous misconceptions about it. Because Kabbalists state that our generation is ready to understand the real meaning of Kabbalah, and to clear up the past misconceptions, this science is now being opened to all who wish to learn.

-- Who is Bnei Baruch? --

Bnei Baruch - Kabbalah Education and Research Institute is an organization for studying, teaching, and disseminating authentic Kabbalah. In 1991, Dr. Michael Laitman, established Bnei Baruch for the purposes just described. He named it Bnei Baruch (sons of Baruch) in memory of his mentor, the great Kabbalist Rabbi Baruch Ashlag, himself the firstborn son and successor of Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, author of the Sulam (ladder) commentary on The Zohar. To spread its message, Bnei Baruch maintains this site, publishes books, papers, and produces radio and TV programs. About one million users visit the site each month, and tens of thousands of them are active members, who support the cause and help spread it, to the benefit of humankind. You're welcome to take your first steps in uncovering this wondrous wisdom today by signing up for a Kabbalah course at the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center » http://www.FreeKabbalahCourse.com/

Or join us at our physical campus in Los Angeles: campus.kabbalah.info

09/01/2026

Personal growth is a process of human development that includes self-realization and practical growth in all spheres of human activity. Psychologist Abraham Maslow organized human needs into a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid are physiological needs: warmth, hunger, and thirst-quenching. Then came the need for security. Further, social needs, which he also divides into belongingness, affection, caring for the family, esteem, self-respect, and respect for others. The highest are spiritual needs: self-actualization and self-realization.

What is behind the desire of a person for self-realization?

Self-realization is the most powerful desire of a person to reach the embodiment of his “I.” Practically, it is the desire to be God, depending on how one imagines it.

But if one does not realize himself in this way, it means that the spark of being an aspirational human being is lacking in him. After all, Adam is from the word "Edome," Domeh—similar to God. Therefore, when a person wants to realize himself, he feels that he is creating a Creator from himself. It turns out that self-realization is the desire to know the Creator. Since the Creator and nature are identical concepts, this is the desire to know the entire creation.

It differs from common knowledge. We are not talking about just knowledge, for example, in physics. It is the desire to dominate. At least in something, I have to be special, something that others do not have and that is only in me. Today, practically everyone wants to be a master of this realization.

A person must be taught how to correctly understand this realization, how to develop oneself, and how to compare oneself with others. Otherwise, there will be no progress.
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08/24/2026

Baal HaSulam, “The Acting Mind“:
It is written that every person is obliged to attain the root of his soul.

A Kabbalist who has already attained the root of his soul and is certain of it gives us a clear instruction that you, a man, must attain the root of your soul.

This is the point where the upper force relates to you, from where all systems, signals, and forces of providence descend upon you. And you must perceive everything, understand, adapt, and accordingly alter yourself, change everything for the right use.

Therefore, each person must attain the root of his soul, understand it, and correctly enter into mutual connection with it.

This means that the aspired-for purpose of the created being is Dvekut [adhesion] with His qualities, as it is written, “And to cleave unto Him.” Our sages interpreted that this is the Dvekut with His attributes: “As He is merciful,” etc.

In order to merge with the attributes of the Creator, I must not only rise but also understand that the ascent to the level called the root of my soul can occur only to the extent that I gradually change according to the properties of the root of my soul.

This means that by changing myself more and more into resembling the Creator, I gradually ascend to the root of my soul. And once I reach it, I enter the most comfortable, perfect state, I achieve eternity and perfection.

08/22/2026

Where do the Reshimot come from?

The Reshimot (spiritual informational records) that exist within us are the Reshimot from the shattering of Adam HaRishon.

Once, I existed in the best possible state, but I fell and lost everything: the screens, the intention to bestow, adhesion with the Creator, and the sensation of fulfillment. Now I find myself in my present state.

However, all the intermediate states I passed through during my descent remain within me, and now, through my own free choice, I must attain each of them in reverse order. I must reach the same degrees along which I descended.

The Reshimot awaken within me, and I have no control over them. First, the Reshimot of animalistic development awakens. I am not even asked about it; I simply develop on the animate level for, say, a million years.

Then, 5,000 years ago, my soul began to develop, and from Abraham onward, a new, gradual stage of its development began. This development takes place within the same desire to receive, but I am still not asked anything; I simply realize the Reshimot that exist within me, and in this I have no choice whatsoever.

The Reshimot fell into the animalistic world. The soul descended from the level of the end of correction down to the Machsom (barrier) and then fell below the Machsom into the lowest state. Now, from the lowest animate, corporeal degree, it rises toward the Machsom. Just before the Machsom, it begins to feel the Achoraim (posterior side) of the first, lowest spiritual degree, let us say, the AHP of Malchut of the world of Assiya.

Within my heart, within my desires, I feel the point in the heart, a point of the Achoraim of Malchut of the world of Assiya, and then I enter a new, special, unique stage of development. I feel a certain duality: there are two forces, two states, two worlds, and two factors acting upon me, and I am under the influence of either one or the other, or both together.

All our states come from this, and the more divided I become between the two, the more unbearable these states become. As Rabash says, it is good to live either in this world or in the future world, but there is nothing worse than hanging between heaven and earth.

However, some manage to receive pleasure from both worlds: look at religious people. In contrast, the righteous raise this world to the upper world and likewise taste the pleasure of both.

08/20/2026

Are there fundamental differences between material and spiritual pleasures?

There is only one center of pleasure. The difference lies solely in its magnitude. And it does not matter what one derives pleasure from.

Everything enters the same center, the same sensation of pleasure, provided we are speaking about pleasure with the intention to receive.

The pleasures of our world are very specific, small, earthly. They cannot fill us, because they are pleasures within the desire to receive.

Whereas extraterrestrial desires are based on non-egoistic receiving, when I receive not to satisfy my desire, but to satisfy the wishes of another.

And the other’s desires are endless for me. I am in front of a common system that has the greatest desires, equal to the Creator in its strength and force. This is the most incredible, infinite volume that I can fill with infinite upper light passing through me and filling this huge vessel completely.
Therefore, my pleasures will be infinite if only I will treat the filling as something that I very much desire.

Suppose when I feed my child, the more I feed him, the more I enjoy it. But in the end, he is sated and does not want to eat more. What can be done?

In contrast, spiritual enjoyment is imperishable, eternal, infinite, and perfect because its desire to receive is unlimited. This is what a special principle of spiritual attainment is about.
It is experienced in connection with the Giver of the pleasure.
This is called reflected light.

08/19/2026

We say that, in reality, everything is within us. But wasn’t the world created first, and we were created only afterward?

Indeed, we say that everything a person feels, he perceives through his five sense organs. These sense organs present him with a picture of the world, although in reality there is no such thing as a picture of the world in itself. We can speak about form only in relation to the one who perceives it.

There are entire articles on this subject. Rabash writes that it is impossible to speak about the attained without the one who attains. Therefore, we cannot speak about the existence of anything outside a person. And we attain the person himself as existing because we base ourselves on our own sensations.

Let us suppose that we accept this as a fact: we do not know what exists around us, and we perceive the picture of the world through the internal reaction of our sense organs. We are so incapable of distinguishing between reality and its perception that what we perceive, what appears to us, seems to us to exist in reality: “If I perceive an object as existing through my sense organs, then it truly exists.”

It is very difficult for me; I cannot step outside my body and see that outside of it this object has no form and no existence. Well, then, let us take the sages at their word.

But, on the other hand, the sages say that in spirituality, the world was created first, and only afterward man was created. It is the same in this world: first the universe was created, then the Earth began to form and cool, and only afterward did man appear upon it. So how can we speak about the existence and gradual development of external nature even before the emergence of man, who perceives this nature through his sense organs?

So when we speak about nature that existed before the emergence of man, we mean precisely how we imagine it through our sense organs. Otherwise, we would not be able to speak about it.

Everything in the world is an expression of desires, but the one who can later tell us about it, according to his attainment, tells us about it using our words.

08/11/2026

We are constantly making requests. Whenever a need (Hisaron) arises, we ask. A person’s desire is called prayer. The desire that is in my heart is the prayer, because my heart is connected directly to the Creator, without any intermediaries.

Whatever I feel at any given moment (a desire to rest, to eat, to steal, to fall in love) is immediately felt by the Creator, and accordingly, in the form of a response, the direction of my desires is corrected by various means: either internally—through what the Creator does within my heart—or externally.

In general, through both the internal and the external systems surrounding me, the Creator gradually teaches me which desire is the correct one. So where is my work? It is in independently searching for which desires are correct and which aspirations are true. And when I attain those genuine desires that are in my heart, this is called that I pray.

A prayer is what I feel, what I desire, without having any ability to control it. The desire was created before me. Even before I begin to feel it, investigate it, study it, distinguish it from the others, and give it some name, it already exists within me.

The creature is the desire to receive. Therefore, I am unable to change it. I can only reveal it and clarify what it is and how correct it is with respect to the purpose of creation. Then, accordingly, I arrange various external means for myself, using every possible aid (the group, the books, the teacher) so that this desire, which seems to me not to be properly directed toward the purpose of creation, will change.

08/09/2026

Shift All Problems To The Spiritual Realm

If I do not feel resistance to spirituality, then I am not in spirituality. It is the same as when I get into a car, I must start the engine and burn fuel and energy to move.

The same is true in spirituality; I cannot just lie there and wait to be lifted up to final correction (Gmar Tikkun) along with my bed.

It doesn’t happen that way. Correction occurs only through our efforts, and efforts are measured by the feeling of suffering, the force of resistance. So, we are talking about two destroyers, corporeal obstacles and spiritual obstacles, that interfere with our progress.

Corporeal obstacles are problems of this world: in the family, at work, and with health. And spiritual obstacles are hidden inside them. We cannot dig deeply into the obstacles, but we must clarify both of them to see how much they direct us toward the goal.

And if I focus more precisely on the goal internally, then I will see how obstacles begin to change because they come from the Creator. And if before I felt corporeal obstacles and it seemed I could not do anything about them, now, because of my attitude toward the goal, I can eliminate them.

Problems in the family, with children, and at work will disappear; everything will turn into spiritual problems.

08/07/2026

What is intention, and why is it so important for my mind and feelings?

Intention is the human within me; it defines what I want out of everything I have within. Everything I am filled with—perceptions, mind, hopes, fantasies, dreams, the past, the present, and the future—all of this gets mixed and discerned by me: What do I want out of all of this?

I don’t comprehend this mixture. Everything is tangled: Today it’s one thing, tomorrow another. But what I want is regarded as my intention.

In other words, now I look above my life and everything I have and decide what is the most important to me. It is the point where I can make a decision: I can either submerge myself in the “cocktail” I have mixed and forget about everything, returning to my daily life.
Or I can rise above it and wish to excavate from all this mix only what I can use for my advancement and future life. This is what I must decide, and this is why intention defines the human being in me.
That is, instead of the still, vegetative, and animate level, we have to form a human stage in ourselves. And the human stage is intention over matter.
That is what the change of intention is, a change of attitude; I switch from “for my own sake" to "for the sake of the Force that Governs us,” which becomes the determining factor. The Force is first for me, His state is my first and main concern. And according to this, I do everything that is required of me.

08/06/2026

How We Perceive The World

The most important thing in our lives is to examine how we perceive the world and how subjective it is. After all, I built it with my qualities, my feelings, and my understanding, many of which I inherited from the past, perhaps distant centuries.

That is why I have to rise above the natural, automatic, instinctive perception of the world and try to analyze it consciously and controllably. Can I create it by changes in myself?

And then, very interesting results are obtained. It turns out that the world does not have its own picture or its own kind, but we create it.

The thing is that we have some common impressions about the world we live in. This picture is perceived by everyone practically equally; we have a common agreement on what the world is.

We live in a certain volume, which is drawn by us as if existing beyond us. Actually, it is inside of us, since we depict it in our inner qualities. In such a way, we see these qualities as if from outside, but in fact, it is just pictures passing through us.

According to Kabbalah, this is an ordinary picture of the world. But we have the opportunity to get out of it and begin to explore the world not with our natural organs of sensation but in the quality opposite to them.

All our feelings are our egoistic desires. That is, I always check how I can benefit as much as possible from this or that particular circumstance, and in this way I judge it. And even if I try to rise above my subjective assessment, I nonetheless cannot completely get out of it but only add some additional parameters to this.

But methodology exists that allows us to see reality not in our egoistic organs of sensation but in the opposite ones by making them altruistic. And then, we attain the opposite world, in which we can reveal completely new patterns, qualities, forces, and laws. In principle, Kabbalah engages in them.

08/04/2026

Our Perceptions

When someone performs a particular kind of work, that person gradually develops a special insight concerning the objects and language surrounding that work. Therefore, there is nothing in the world that we cannot begin to experience as a result of habit, even without prior understanding of the particular object.

We are, however, operating under a vital limitation to our perception and understanding: we see ourselves as separate from objects we perceive.

There is the one who perceives, and there is the perceived—the object that is perceived by the person. Similarly, there exists the person who comprehends, and separately, the object of comprehension.

A certain contact between the perceiver and the object of perception is necessary for perception to occur: it is a bond, something that unites them both, something that they have in common during the perception. We can grasp all that surrounds us only through our perception. What we perceive is considered to be truthful and reliable information.

However, because we are incapable of seeing all that surrounds us objectively, we assume that the pictures our senses create for us are true. Yet, we do not know what the universe is like beyond our senses or what it would appear to be like for beings with a different set of senses than our own. This is because we acquire our sense of reality from how we perceive our environment; we assume that our senses are accurate and we accept as true the picture of reality that we perceive through them.

If we proceed from the assumption that nothing exists in the universe but the Creator and His creations, we can say that our pictures and perceptions are the means by which the Creator appears to our consciousness. At every stage of spiritual elevation, this picture grows closer and closer to the true one. Finally, at the last stage of elevation, we can perceive the Creator and nothing but the Creator.

Therefore, all the worlds, as well as everything that we believe to exist outside of us, in fact exist only in relation to us. That is, they exist in relation to one who perceives reality in this particular manner.

If we do not perceive the Creator or the Creator’s domain over us at the present moment, then it can be said that we remain “in darkness.”

Nevertheless, we cannot determine an absence of sun in the universe because our perceptions are subjective. Only we construe reality in this manner.

However, if we realize that our negation of the Creator and Divine rule are purely subjective and prone to change, then we can still begin our spiritual elevation by an effort of will and with the help of various texts and teachers. Moreover, once we begin our spiritual ascent, we may realize that the Creator made the condition of darkness for the sole purpose of compelling us to develop a need for His help and in order to draw us closer to Him.

Indeed, the Creator made such conditions specifically for those individuals whom He desires to draw closer to Him. Thus, it is important to realize that the elevation of an individual from the state of darkness brings delight to the Creator, since the greater the darkness from which a person has emerged, the clearer the recognition of the Creator’s greatness, and the greater the appreciation of one’s new spiritual state.

But even while perceiving the darkness, being blind to the Creator’s rule and lacking faith in Him, by using one’s will power, we can try to find a way out of the darkness with the help of a book or a teacher, until we can perceive at least a tiny ray of Light, a weak perception of the Creator.

Then, by making this ray of Light stronger and stronger by cultivating constant thoughts of the Creator, we can escape the darkness and enter into the Light. Going even further, if we realize that these states of darkness are necessary for spiritual advancement, and are even desirable, and sent to us by the Creator Himself, then we will welcome them.

We will recognize that the Creator has offered us the gift of perceiving shadows, or the incomplete darkness, so that we may seek the source of the Light.

However, if we do not use the opportunity to cross into the Light, then the Creator will conceal Himself from us completely.

Absolute darkness will prevail, bringing with it a sensation of the absence of the Creator and His rule. Then, we will no longer understand how and why spiritual goals were ever entertained and how reality and personal reason could have been ignored.

This complete darkness will continue until the Creator again shines a tiny ray of Light upon us.
"Attaining The Worlds Beyond"
https://www.kabbalah.info/en/our-perceptions/

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