“What are pure and impure forces?” is one of the questions Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) examines in his article “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”

There are pure and impure forces: egoistic, altruistic, good, bad, evil and so on. The Zohar writes about devils, vampires, witches, all kinds of angels, and whatever else you can think of, millions of different such names. They can be good, bad, for and against, assemblies of different gods, forces, and they somehow fight with one another. There are names that we can pronounce, and there are other names that we cannot pronounce because you can cause a harmful angel to influence you, and so on.

What does all of this mean? If there is only one force of love and bestowal, called “the Creator,” which is perfectly good and benevolent, then how can all these impure forces emerge from the singular force of love and bestowal, if it is the root of everything?

How can it be that not only does the quality of love and bestowal give birth to impure forces and all these phenomena that take place in our world, such as murder, all kinds of atrocities and catastrophes, problems, diseases, and everything else that can possibly be imagined, all kinds of deformities… How can all that come from the singular force of love and bestowal that only wishes to do good and give enjoyment to the creation it created? What other root besides the Creator is there? After all, the Kabbalists also write that “there is none else besides Him,” so what is going on here?

Not only do Kabbalists say that everything emerges from the singular force of love and bestowal, they also say (in the Torah) that the Creator constantly feeds these impure forces so that they will exist. If that is really the case, then the picture becomes completely unclear. It seems as if those forces act against the force of love and bestowal, and it is as if the Creator probably battles against them, and that we stand somewhere in the middle, asking the Creator to protect us from them. However, this is not the case. The Creator created the impure forces on purpose, and revives them on purpose. Is this some kind of meanness on the Creator’s behalf?

In “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam examines this question and brings it to its answer. We will not examine the answers here. The book Introduction to the Book of Zohar by Dr. Michael Laitman contains this article, as well as detailed commentary and questions and answers on it, as well as for the article “Preface to the Book of Zohar”: two articles required for preparing oneself toward the study of The Zohar.

Baal HaSulam clarifies several other questions and provides their answers as well in the article:

• Why does a person need all of these worlds if he is so small? Baal HaSulam provides a very lengthy answer, voluminously describing the person’s entire path.
• Why do we need the impure forces?
• What is the soul?
• Why are the souls interconnected?
• What does it mean to “connect to the Creator” and “connect to other souls”?
• How can we connect to the Creator and to other souls?
• Why are obligated to do this now during our life in this world? I f we do not do this, we will have to descend to this world again, and so on.

The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …

In Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag’s (i.e. Baal HaSulam’s) article “Time to Act,” he discusses that precisely our time is special. It is when all souls that existed on our earth over the course of many reincarnations, constantly returning to this life, have now matured or ripened as a result of all of their reincarnations and reached the current state, when they are beginning to desire spirituality.

The desire for spirituality manifests when a person’s entire life, with all its joys, begins to seem completely meaningless and empty. This is how a person with a spiritual desire views himself and his environment. In our era, this is awakening in every person more and more.

“Time to Act” explains that today’s condition has been long-awaited, and has finally arrived. Now it is possible to reveal the science of Kabbalah because it explains what is:

• our very self,
• the goal of the universe,
• the way in which everything exists, and
• the goal toward which everything must aspire.

Nature does not create anything in vain. In principle, nature is the force of the Creator—Elokim—the name of the Creator. The Creator is Elohim (??????) in Hebrew, which is the same as ?aTeva (????) or nature. In Hebrew, these two words are equivalent. That is to say, nature—everything that we perceive around us—is the manifestation of the Creator relative to us.

And so, Baal HaSulam says that the manifestation of the Creator is directed at us so strongly in our time in order to compel us to reveal Him and exist in a completely different volume of the universe, in a completely different perception of our existence—in eternal and perfect movement, perceiving the flow of all matter, information, and energy. According to Baal HaSulam, we have to achieve this in our generation.

The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …

In “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam provides a simple explanation of the essence of the teaching of Kabbalah. He defines “Kabbalah,” saying that it is the revelation to a person of the higher laws or roots that descend from above downwards from the single and absolute source, very gradually descending downwards, until reaching our world.

These laws create our world and humanity. They gradually become revealed to every person in order for everyone to realize them correctly and ascend upwards to the World of Infinity, to our root, our perfect state, ascending along the same levels by which these forces descended from above, forming our world and giving existence to our world and humans. This is what this science is intended for. It describes this entire system of descent from above downwards and our ascent, which is possible and which every one of us must accomplish from below upwards.

The realization of these laws comes about both in general and in particular.

• The particular realization is when there are individuals in every generation, the great Kabbalists of the past, who became worthy of the revelation and ascent.
• The general realization is when in our time all of humanity as a mass already begins to feel the insignificance, pointlessness, emptiness and futility of its existence and feels the necessity to ascend, i.e. to elevate along the same levels as the levels of descent, ascending from below upwards to the World of Infinity.

Here, Baal HaSulam already describes the way in which this science is written, that everything is written in the language of root and branch, and the way in which it is passed down. Over the course of centuries and millennia it was passed down from one Kabbalist to the next and then to the next, only from a teacher to his single student (as a rule), and this is how it was passed down to our time.

But in our time, now it is no longer being passed down from one Kabbalist to his next student, but it is already beginning to be passed to the entirety of humanity. This is why in our time, our task is to discover the method, a widespread educational and enlightening method for the whole of humanity, when humanity will receive the means for spiritual ascent. The means of mass communication and technology developed with the purpose of bringing the goal of creation and everything humanity must accomplish in this life to every person, no matter where the person is, even if far away.

This is what the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” discusses.

The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …

“The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” is an article written by Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), discussing the meaning and essence of Kabbalah. In this article, the word “religion” is not proposed in the same fashion as we understand the term these days, that is, as referring to a set of beliefs for understanding the meaning and purpose of our lives and the universe. “Religion” rather refers to the actual attainment of eternity and perfection. The wisdom of Kabbalah is intended for developing oneself with the aim of actualizing this attainment.

Over the generations, human development has been under the control of nature’s influence. We have developed unconsciously, not knowing the cause of our existence and in the meantime have adhered to various beliefs and philosophies in order to provide us some kind of framework while living in this world. This represents one specific phase of our development, “the unconsciousness phase.”

In our era, this unconsciousness phase is coming to an end. We are gradually breaking through into the next phase—“the consciousness phase.” Moreover, nature is necessitating this next phase of development.

Until today, nothing has depended upon the person. “Unconscious development” means that one is simply attracted toward some goal by the pleasure one pictures for oneself in that goal; or one is repelled to go somewhere else by means of pain. All of our progress throughout history has been controlled by remaining in any state as long as it is tolerable, and when we could not tolerate it any longer, we looked for a way out and moved onto a new and different path. We have acted this way all throughout history, in our lives today, and all of nature acts in the same way: toward pleasure and away from pain. This defines our unconscious development.

Today, in the conscious development phase, our development is dependent upon us. If we continue to simply follow nature’s commands, in other words, follow our thoughts and desires without any true awareness of their cause, we will be led into intensifying pain.

The alternative to this path is if we discover a means for attaining what exactly gives rise to our desires and thoughts, and start working on ourselves in order to discover this cause. Kabbalists state that discovering this cause is the purpose for our being here, and the sole purpose for studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.

This cause will be revealed to everyone, however our development leading to it can either be one of getting slapped about without ever knowing why (i.e. unconscious development), or one that discovers the goal before us, and a method for speeding up our understanding of where everything is coming from and why it is happening, and how to use it all in order to reach our final state in the shortest possible time.

We will then develop consciously toward it—researching and understanding how nature operates upon us, and discovering the complete picture of nature in order to live in a new dimension of life, peacefully and comfortably. This all depends upon the revelation of the common purpose for each and every person, of how incredible and great it is, and making it attractive and worthwhile to choose to advance towards.

The wisdom of Kabbalah has stemmed down to us in order that we discover the goal and purpose of our existence. Neither a philosophy, nor a set of beliefs, the wisdom of Kabbalah rather teaches how one can work on oneself in order to attain more complete levels of perception which are concealed from our inborn, egoistic mode of perceiving through the five senses.

The wisdom of Kabbalah, in general, includes our whole life. Everything that exists was created to correctly use ourselves and everything that has been prepared purposefully, to achieve life’s highest goal quickly, and in the most comfortable, short and enjoyable way. Nothing was made so that we “just exist” in it. When we reach life’s goal, we will feel like we are in a state of eternal and perfect motion and existence, without death, without birth, without all of the problems that we perceive in our world.

Today we are being pushed to realize how there is no worse state of existence than our present state of living in this world. This is in order to develop in us the desire to ascend to an altogether new state of existence, of boundless fulfillment and a perception of our eternal state of life—the purpose of our lives.

The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …

In “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two,” Baal HaSulam describes how over the course of humanity’s history, from the time when the science of Kabbalah was received, when Abraham revealed Kabbalah in Mesopotamia over 5,000 years ago; Kabbalists preserved the entire knowledge, developed it, and adapted it for us. They passed it down into our time.

However, even a very long time ago, thousands of years before our era, they had already predicted that this knowledge will have to be revealed precisely in our time because humanity will reach the state when it will need it.

The Free Kabbalah Course is based on the articles of Baal HaSulam and provides step-by-step guided learning from experienced Kabbalah instructors of Kabbalah’s basic concepts. Baal HaSulam was the first Kabbalist in history who wrote articles not only for Kabbalists, but for the broad public, in order to explain Kabbalah’s fundamentals, because he understood the need that would emerge in humanity to answer deeper questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Therefore, if you’re interested in such topics, we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …