Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life

The essence of human nature is its perpetually evolving desire for pleasure. To realize this desire, we feel compelled to discover, invent, and improve our reality. The gradual intensification of the desire for pleasure has been the force behind human evolution throughout our history.

The desire for pleasure evolves through several stages. In the first stage, it manifests in the need for sustenance, such as food, reproduction, and family. In the second stage, the desire for wealth arises, and in the third, there is a craving for honor, power, and fame. Development of these three stages had lead to major changes in human society—it became a diversified, multi-class society.

The fourth stage signifies our yearning for learning, knowledge and wisdom. This expresses itself in the development of science, educational systems, and culture. This stage has become associated with the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, and is still predominant today. The desire for knowledge and erudition requires that we understand our surroundings.

To understand the present state of humanity and its prospects, we must build a bridge connecting several milestones in the evolution of science. These milestones have significantly affected our approach to life.

The Scientific Revolution that occurred during the 16th century brought radical changes in our thought patterns. At the time, researchers believed that theories must be tested against experiments and observations. They also cautioned us to avoid mythological and religious explanations. At the center of scientific thinking was an analysis of reality, and the search for scientific answers to age-old questions. Until then, these topics had been ascribed to a divine power.

In his book, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), Isaac Newton (1642-1727) proposed a theory of mechanics that would let us calculate the change in the motion of any body when influenced by a given force. The success of Newton’s theory presented a whole new worldview. Newton’s deterministic viewpoint stated that in any event, regardless of its nature, a certain natural law will manifest. The presence of the Divine was of little importance because the trajectory of all motion is fixed, and there was no intervention by the Divine.

The deterministic approach was well described by the astronomer, Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827) as he sought to explain to Napoleon how our solar system had been formed. When Napoleon asked him about God’s place in the process, Laplace replied: “Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là” (“I did not need this hypothesis there”).

Thus, science left no room for the existence of other aspects beyond its own limits, including those realities that are hidden from our perception. Everyone believed that humanity had discovered the necessary measures to know the world as it really was.

In the late 1800s, it seemed that classical physics had provided researchers with a complete set of laws for every natural phenomenon. Many researchers maintained that these laws would help them explain even the few phenomena that remained mysteries. Since physics has always been considered “the mother of all sciences” and the forefront of technology and experimentation, its discoveries served as the foundation for research in other sciences, as well.

The era of modern physics began in the early 1900s with Albert Einstein’s (1879-1955) revolutionary discoveries. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity generated a fundamental change in attitude towards everything that had previously been known about time, space, mass, motion, and gravity. Einstein’s theory unified time and space into a single entity—time-space—revoking the premise that time and space were absolute.

In the 1930s, another theory emerged: Quantum Mechanics, also known as Quantum Theory. This spurred an ongoing revolution in physics whereby all measurements yielded only approximate, quantitative results, probabilities that Quantum Theory calculations would interpret.

Quantum Theory was able to describe several phenomena that could not be explained by preceding theories. The most famous of these was wave-particle duality, showing that microscopic objects such as electrons behave as waves under some conditions, and as particles under others.

A fundamental concept of Quantum Theory is the Uncertainty Principle, which maintains that the observer affects the observed event. Hence, the key question is, “What do the measurements actually measure?” This principle implies that the concept of an “objective process” becomes irrelevant. Moreover, beyond the measured results, an “objective reality” simply cannot exist.

The discoveries of Quantum Physics drastically changed scientists’ approach. The deterministic concept that maintained that physics revealed objective facts of nature and described their absolute existence was dismissed.

It was replaced by an understanding that physics does not know the true essence of nature. Physics can only assist in building paradigms, patterns, and formulae that calculate results of an experiment within a certain boundary of probabilities.

Contemporary science differentiates between the “actual reality” that exists independent of the observer, and the reality that the observer can describe. Today, researchers understand that what had once been defined as “absolute fact” is destined to give way to new conclusions and new experiments. These, in turn, will yield to ever-newer formulae and experiments.

It is now evident that science does not present the absolute truth, but rather a picture of the world as depicted through current experiments, perceptions, and paradigms. Moreover, the greater our knowledge of the world, the greater the uncertainties and contradictions we face.

Acknowledging the above has significantly diminished the predominance of natural science in general and physics in particular. Instead, it positioned science as a tool that uncovers a limited part of reality, rather than the absolute truth. The actual reality is hidden from us; we cannot discover it by means of scientific research.

In recent years, many scientists have become interested in various religions, new age theories, and mysticism. They are trying to find new tools and new ways to understand the hidden parts of reality, those unattainable by using conventional research methods.

This scientific predicament has escalated into a crisis since the turn of the century, challenging our ability to expose the full picture of the world we live in, and to understand the rules that govern both nature and humanity.

Once humanity exhausted its desire for knowledge and erudition and the visible reality had been researched, a new desire surfaced—to know the highest of concepts and the hidden part of reality. This is the stage of the evolution of desires that humanity has reached today.

This is the background for the appearance of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which offers humanity a new perspective, a scientific worldview that Kabbalists discovered thousands of years ago. Our current desire to know all of reality shows that humanity is ready to be exposed to Kabbalah.

The Kabbalistic perception of the world includes premises that other religions accept on faith, coupled with a scientific approach. Kabbalah develops tools within us that welcome us into a comprehensive reality and provide means to research it.

Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life presents the fundamentals of the science that explores the aspects of reality hidden from scientists. When we discover those hidden parts, our knowledge of the world we live in will be complete. By uniting both the hidden and the revealed, we will prepare ourselves for accurate scientific research and the discovery of the genuine formulae.

By uncovering the hidden, our view of the world will become complete, liberated from the boundaries of relative perception and we will be able to unveil the existence of every part of reality, beyond time, space and motion. The Wisdom of Kabbalah grants all the above to anyone who truly seeks it.

This book is based on talks given by the author and compiled by his students.

Professor William Tiller

Prof. William Tiller, PhD in Physics, University of Toronto, is a former Materials Science and Engineering Professor at StanfordUniversity. He has published more than 250 scientific publications, including several books. His primary books are Some Science Adventures with Real Magic;Conscious Acts of Creation: The Emergence of A New Physics; Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD in Theoretical Physics from UCLA, is a lecturer and a quantum physicist who has had contacts with renowned physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) and studied with Richard Feynman (1918-1988), among the most prominent physicists of the 20th century.

Dr. Wolf has also authored eleven books that were translated into several languages. Among his books are: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics For NonScientists;The Yoga of Time Travel: How the Mind Can Defeat Time; Matter into Feeling: A New Alchemy Of Science and Spirit, and Mind into Matter.

Jeffrey Satinover, MD, MSc

Dr. Jeffrey Satinover holds degrees from M.I.T. (SB), Harvard (EdM), the University of Texas (MD), and Yale (MS). He completed psychoanalytic training at the C.G. Jung Institute of Zürich. He is a former Fellow in Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry at Yale, where he was twice awarded the Department of Psychiatry’s Seymour Lustman Residency Research Prize (2nd place). He was the 1975 William James Lecturer at Harvard. Until recently, he was a teaching fellow in the Department of Physics at YaleUniversity. Today, Dr. Satinover is completing his PhD in Quantum Physics at NiceUniversity in France and teaches constitutional law at PrincetonUniversity.

Dr. Satinover has written five successful books that were translated into nine languages and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. His most famous book, The Quantum Brain, set new standards in popular science writing and was celebrated by critics. This book touches upon several themes: mathematics, science, computers, quantum physics, and artificial intelligence. Two other books of Satinover’s became bestsellers: Cracking the Bible Code, and Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth.

Michael Laitman, PhD

Rav Michael Laitman has a PhD in Philosophy from the RussianAcademy of Science and an MSc in Bio-Cybernetics from the Polytechnic Institute of St. Petersburg. He was the disciple and personal assistant to Rabbi Baruch Ashlag (1907-1991) for twelve years. During those years, Rav Laitman acquired The Sulam Method, teachings passed on to his mentor by his father, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (1884-1954), known as Baal HaSulam for his Sulam commentary on The Zohar.

Rav Laitman has written thirty books on Kabbalah, which were translated into ten languages. His daily lessons are broadcast live and recorded on cable television in the US, in Israel, and on the Internet to tens of thousands of students worldwide. In recent years, Rav Laitman has become a frequent speaker at scientific conferences and conventions in Europe, East Asia and North America, expounding on the links between Kabbalah and science.

Dr. Laitman says that when he finished school, he was searching for a profession that would enable him to explore the meaning of life. He chose bio-cybernetics because this field researches life systems and the laws that dictate their existence.

“I had hoped,” he explains, “that through this study, I would understand how the inanimate evolves to vegetative and then to animate. Yet the question that troubled me most was, “What are we living for?” It is a question that arises in each of us, but dissolves in the course of our routine race of life.

“When I completed my academic studies, I worked at The Leningrad Institute of Hematology in Russia. Even while conducting research as a student, I was fascinated with the wondrous way in which a living cell sustains life. I was awestruck by the harmonious incorporation of each cell in the body. The research centered around cell structures and their various functions in the body, but I could not find an answer to the question about why the entire body exists.

“I assumed that much like a cell in a body, the body, too, is part of a greater system in which it functions as a part of a whole. Yet, my attempts to research that question in the scientific framework were met with recurring rejections. I was told that science does not deal with these questions.

“Disillusioned, I had resolved to leave Russia as quickly as possible, hoping to continue in Israel the research that had so captured my heart. In 1974, after four years of being a ‘refusenik’ (a person who is denied an exit permit from the Soviet Union by the government), I received the longed-for exit permit and arrived in Israel. Alas, here, too, I was only offered to conduct studies and research on the limited single-cell level.

“I realized I had to search for a place where I could study the general systems of reality. I turned to philosophy, but before long realized that the answer was not to be found there. I then tried to find answers in religion, but had found nothing but a mechanical performance of The Commandments. There was no deeper understanding there.

“Only after many years of searching did I finally find my teacher, Rabbi Baruch Ashlag. I was with him for twelve years, from 1979 to 1991. To me, he was the Last of the Mohicans, the last Kabbalist in the chain of great Kabbalists that extended through the generations. I was his personal assistant and his disciple. I did not leave his side all through that period, and I wrote and published my first three books with his support in 1983.

“After my teacher passed away, I began to develop and publish the knowledge I had received from him. I considered it a direct continuation of his work. In 1991, I founded Bnei Baruch, a group of Kabbalists who study and practice the method of Baal HaSulam and his son, Rabbi Baruch Ashlag.”

Since then, Bnei Baruch has become an international organization comprising many thousands of students. Its members research, study and disseminate Kabbalah.

Bnei Baruch maintains the largest Internet site on Kabbalah, offering a wealth of information in twenty-two languages, and the most extensive media and text archive of lessons, books, and films on the Internet. All the material is offered free through the site (www.kabbalah.info). Bnei Baruch recently established the Ari Films production company, producing documentaries and educational films aired on cable television networks in Israel, North America, and Europe.

Additionally, Bnei Baruch established the Ashlag Research Institute (ARI), named after Baruch Ashlag, which serves as a center for public discussions on Kabbalah. The educational and academic goals of the ARI derive from a deep commitment to bring the teachings of Baal HaSulam to the center stage of public discussion.

When Rav. Laitman saw the film, What the Bleep Do We Know?, he said: “I was overjoyed by the sensation that the scientists appearing in it were asking the same questions I once did. I thought that perhaps they would take interest in the wisdom Kabbalah offers.”

(An abbreviation of Dr. Laitman’s presentation at the public panel before students and teachers from the universities of Berkeley and Stanford.)

The wisdom of Kabbalah (“reception” in Hebrew), as its name implies, teaches us how to receive. It explains how we perceive our surrounding reality. To understand who we are, we must first learn how we come to sense reality around us, and how to cope with the events that befall us. The wisdom of Kabbalah provides us with all these insights.

The wisdom of Kabbalah does not come to an individual naturally, but only when one reaches the right level of ripeness. This is why Kabbalah is being exposed to so many these days, and this is also the reason why it was hidden for thousands of years.

Previous generations believed that the world exists by itself, whether or not we are there to perceive it, the world is the way it is and exists objectively, independently. Afterwards, people began to understand that our picture of the world is shaped by who we are. In other words, the picture of the world is a combination of our own attributes and external circumstances.

Therefore, we perceive only a part of everything around us. For example, right now there are numerous waves outside us, but we can only perceive one of them, the wave that we are attuned to perceive. Hence, we perceive external conditions according to our internal qualities. If we have nothing in common with the outside world, we will not perceive or feel any of it.

Kabbalah speaks extensively of our perception of time, space, and motion. Why does it seem to us that reality expands, that it is at a certain distance from us? What is the source of our perpetual sense of movement and change? Is this a result of internal processes that we are experiencing, or does it exist regardless of them?

The more we progress in the study of our internal being, the more we find that our perception of reality depends on us. Once humankind sufficiently evolves in knowledge, science, and technology, we will be able to perceive what the wisdom of Kabbalah has to offer.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that around us there is only “The Upper Light,” a single force in a permanent, unchanging state. Nothing exists besides this Upper Light. In such a state, the words existent or nonexistent mean the same because we only measure changes. When there are no changes, there is nothing to measure.

Within each of us is a “gene,” a bit of information that constantly evokes in us new sensations and emotions. We picture the world from within these sensations, which is where we derive the awareness that we exist. All these processes occur within us and design our perception of the outside world.

Actually, nothing exists outside of us, but our picture of reality appears as if it were outside of us. The concept I am presenting here was described by the greatest Kabbalists thousands of years ago, and is both fascinating and awesome in the richness of experiences it provides. It is written in The Book of Zohar (The Book of Radiance) that only when we understand that perception, experience it, and master it will we understand the writings in the Kabbalah books and in the Zohar itself.

Once we have recognized the limits of our perception, Kabbalah can teach us how to discover what really exists outside of us. Through Kabbalah, we can transcend our natural qualities, build new tools of sensation, and through them fully experience the external reality.

When we are liberated from the chains of our innate perceptions, we can discover a whole new world and begin to experience life’s eternal, complete, and unbounded flow. We will be able to experience the forces that operate on reality as a single power, and events that seemed accidental to us, unexpected or incomprehensible will suddenly make sense.

For such people, the spiritual world can become a system of forces that stands behind our perceived reality, the forces that propel reality. It is similar to examining embroidery: from the front, it looks like any other picture, but from the back, you can see the threads that comprise the picture, and their interconnections. Discovering these threads and interconnections provides knowledge about ourselves and the world around us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is appearing now because we are living in a special time: on the one hand, we have many ways to succeed at being happy, but on the other hand, we cannot seem to achieve it. Kabbalah does not repeal any other teachings or sciences. Nor does it challenge humanity’s progress over the generations. It cherishes humankind’s achievements, but as we come to the crest of these achievements, humanity is beginning to experience a growing need to sense the complete reality. This is the reason for the growing interest in Kabbalah today.

To reach this goal and to experience the spiritual world, we must cultivate within us identical qualities to those of the spiritual world. Everything we perceive in reality is through an equivalence of qualities. Therefore, we see and discover new things in the world according to the qualities within us.

As we mature, we acquire new qualities, both from our parents and from our surroundings. After absorbing them, we can use them to study our surrounding reality. We acquire many different kinds of attributes, some of which awaken in us naturally in time, and some that are acquired by the influence of our environment. However, some qualities cannot be acquired naturally, and must be developed within us through a special method.

The wisdom of Kabbalah builds such qualities. The act of studying authentic texts by genuine Kabbalists affect us as readers in a unique way, evoking subtle discernments. There are no other texts or methods in our world that can do so. The study of Kabbalah creates a special perception with which we can begin to see what appears to be “ordinary reality” from a new perspective.

We can compare it to looking at a stereogram (A picture in which the delineated objects have an appearance of solidity). When we look directly at the picture, it appears to be a medley of incomprehensible lines. But if we blur our gaze, we will be able to “penetrate” the picture and discover a rich, three-dimensional image.

The wisdom of Kabbalah acts on us in much the same way, helping us “capture” that picture. In fact, Kabbalah doesn’t present anything new, but simply refocuses our gaze so we can begin to “see.”

When a person begins to perceive the correct picture, and experiences the opening of the Upper World, this discovery is accompanied by the wondrous sensation of eternal life, and endless, boundless stream of pleasures. This is where our lives are leading us.

The Wisdom of Kabbalah has evolved over thousands of years and been disseminated among Kabbalists throughout history. I would like to briefly review the key points in this process.

• The first Kabbalist was Abraham the Patriarch (approximately 1,800 BCE). Sefer Yetzira (The Book of Creation) is ascribed to him.

• 500 years after Abraham, Moses wrote his Book of Torah (The Pentateuch), around 1,350 BCE.

• In the 2nd century CE Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai wrote Sefer ha Zohar (The Book of Splendor).

• Kabbalah thrived in the 16th century Israeli town of Safed, led by the Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Luria Ashkenazi, the Ari (1534-1572). He presented his method in his books, and today the wisdom of Kabbalah is founded on the Lurianic Kabbalah (the Kabbalah of the Ari). Lurianic Kabbalah relates to Kabbalah as a science—there is no meditation, chanting, charms, amulets or magical drawings of letters.

• Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (1884-1954), known as Baal HaSulam (owner of the ladder) for his Sulam(Ladder) commentary on The Zohar, paved the way for our generation. His writings enable all of us to connect to the ancient, authentic sources that the past giants left behind.

The Kabbalah that we study today contains the same knowledge that was passed on from Abraham through all the generations. I was privileged to spend twelve years beside Baal HaSulam’s eldest son and successor, Kabbalist Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag, and from him I received this knowledge.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method for discovering the hidden part of reality, that imperceptible realm of reality that our five senses cannot grasp. It develops another sense in us, one that perceives the reality that exists beyond our present perception.

Kabbalah says that the whole of reality consists of a substance called “the will to receive pleasure.” This will to receive pleasure is essentially a desire to be filled with delight, enjoyment; it is what we so often refer to as “egoism.” This will to receive operates on all levels of existence: still (inanimate), vegetative, animate, and speaking.

Although the will to receive is the substance of all reality, the desire in itself is neither matter nor atoms, which came later. Everything that was created, that exists as the basis of reality, is based on the desire to enjoy, an aspiration for pleasure. In each level of reality, this aspiration takes on different forms.

Every Kabbalist, without exception, from Abraham to the last great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, maintained that the entire substance of Creation consists of a desire to receive. Every Kabbalah book speaks of the same thing, and all Kabbalists are in agreement in that regard.

Kabbalists are people who attain the Upper World; they speak from tangible attainment, not from theory. The word, “attainment,” refers to the ultimate degree of understanding. Let me make things easier to understand by using some drawings.

We said that the will to receive is the basis of Creation. It is created by the expansion of the Upper Light. (In Kabbalah, the term “Light” designates giving, bestowing, love; it is referred to as “the Creator”). Thus, the Light created the will to receive that wants to be filled with the Light. Hence, the will to receive is also called Kli (vessel/receptacle), see Figure 1.

In other words, the desire to give creates the desire to receive, meaning the Light wants the Kli (vessel) to receive what it wants to give it.

The desire to enjoy is the beginning of matter; Kabbalah calls it “the primordial matter.” However, it is still not a complete matter because at this point, it is created entirely by the Light’s action. This process precedes the formation of any matter known to us, long before the material formation of our universe.

Since this will to receive stems from the Light’s action, it senses the Light (the pleasure) at a very minimal level. At this point the will to receive has no independent desire for the Light. To make it independent and further develop the will to receive, we must add another element: the will’s awareness of its own existence.

The Creator (Light) gives the will to receive the sensation that it exists, that there is “a Giver,” meaning something that gives it the pleasure it is experiencing. Thus, once the will to receive senses pleasure, it begins to sense the giver of the pleasure within the pleasure.

Similarly, when we receive a gift, we feel the giver’s attitude toward us beyond the gift itself. We should note that when we refer to the Creator, we actually refer to the giver. In this state of things, the created being (creature) begins to feel that there is a collision between the pleasure and the sensation of the giver of the pleasure (Figure 2). This collision stirs a reaction in the creature, making it want to be like the Creator because the Creator is higher than the pleasure itself. At this point, the will to receive evolves to the next degree.

The will to receive then chooses to be a giver, like the Creator (the giver). This is the first reaction of the creature, though it is still not an entirely independent choice. It is rather a reaction that stems from its sensation of the giver, which makes it a compelled reaction, derived entirely from the presence of the giver. Thus, the will to receive has no free choice in the matter.

Now the creature begins to contemplate what it can give to the Creator. The Creator gives because He is the source of the pleasure. But when the creature wants to give as well, it finds that it has nothing to give in return.

Thus, through its need to give to the Creator, the creature discovers the nature of the Creator. The creature finds the Creator’s love for it. Yet, if the Creator loves the creature and wants to please it, it follows that the Creator should want or need something. The creature realizes that the Creator’s need is His desire to delight the creature; when the creature enjoys, so does the Creator. But when the creature does not enjoy, neither does the Creator.

To realize its desire to give to the Creator as the Creator gives to the creature, the creature decides to receive the pleasure from the Creator. This process is somewhat similar to a child who eats to please its mother. In this way, even when the child receives food from its mother, it acts as a giver to its mother.

When the creature is in this state of being, we can say that it is similar to the Creator—it receives what the Creator wants to give, but only to give back to the Creator. The creature gives just as the Creator gives. However, this is not the end of the process. Now that the creature has performed a similar act to the Creator’s, it experiences an additional pleasure—the pleasure of having the status of the giver.

This pleasure creates a new desire in the creature: a desire to enjoy the status of the giver, as well as the desire that the Light first created in the creature. This new desire does not come “from Above,” and for that reason it merits the title, “a created being,” “a creature” (Figure 3).

The root of the Hebrew word Nivra (created being) stems from the word Bar (outside). Thus, the term “creature” or “created being” refers to something or someone outside the Creator’s will.

Once a creature is formed, it undergoes a sequence of interconnected states resulting from cause and effect. These states are referred to as “Upper Worlds.” The Upper Light and the will to receive descend through the Upper Worlds to the lowest degree, called “our world.”
At the degree of our world, we are totally controlled by the will to receive and we are completely detached from the sensation of the Upper Light, the Creator.

Once the will to receive descends to our world, it becomes independent from the Creator’s domination because only by so detaching can the purpose of Creation--to make the will to receive identical to the Creator--be realized. In Kabbalah, this identicalness is referred to as “Equivalence of Form between the creature and the Creator.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah depicts each evolutionary stage of the will to receive from the very first stage of Creation down to our world. By studying these stages, we can understand how the material world, time, space, and motion were all formed, and how the will to receive will evolve.

Our entire history is determined by the evolution of our will to receive; this can help us understand how humanity evolves. Every process in reality, with no exception, is a result of our ever-growing will to receive.

Once the spiritual structure just described materializes, the matter that forms our world is created. Our world has experienced several evolutionary eras, and today we are at a stage where we are starting to understand that spiritual evolution must begin.

Today, humanity is facing a series of crises on both social and scientific fronts. Many signs point to today’s bleak state of humankind and the global crisis it is experiencing. Drug abuse is perpetually increasing and begins at an increasingly younger age; depression is spreading like a plague, and international terrorism has become uncontrollable.

There is but one purpose to all of the above: to help humanity realize that the root of all our troubles is the intensification of our egoistic will to receive, and that we must mend it. Kabbalists wrote about the intensification of the ego ages ago, explaining that when humanity reaches this state, it will be time to disclose the wisdom of Kabbalah as a means to correct the ego.

Let’s reiterate what we have discussed thus far. There is a Creator who wishes to give. This is the Root, or Zero Phase. In order to give, He must have someone to give to, and because the Creator wants to give, He creates a Kli that receives the “gift,” meaning the Creator gives to the Kli. This is State One.

For this to occur, the receiver must first want the pleasure. If I build in you a desire for something and then give you what you want, you will not enjoy my gift because this is not your own desire. You must feel that it is your own desire before you can define it as “pleasure.” Thus, at the end of State One, the creature begins to sense the Giver and His nature.

The will to receive evolves by sensing the Giver (State One), and consequently wanting to be like the Giver (State Two). In that state it becomes worthwhile for the creature to be like the Giver (State Three). However, this is only a phase in the formation of the will to receive, and the creature is not really aware that it is receiving anything.

In fact, the creature isn’t aware of any of these observations; they are merely phases in the evolution of the crude will to receive. This crude desire must still descend, formulate, and drift far from the Creator until it stops sensing Him altogether. It must descend to the level of our world, and only then will it sense the desire in it as its own independent will (State Four). In this way, it will believe that it’s free and does not submit to the Creator’s guidance.
In this state, when an individual in our world wants to discover the Creator, the desire will seem to come first. Thus, a person will be able to give to the Creator out of free will, and this will constitute one’s form of free giving. You might say that from the perspective of the Creator it is nothing but a fantasy, and that the Creator really runs the show. Although this is true, it does not diminish the fact that from the perspective of the creature, the concealment of the Creator enables the creature to feel independent.

At the end of State Three, the creature decides to receive from the Creator in order to resemble Him. Although in State Two the creature already has a desire to give, this is still not its own desire; this is not a “Creator-like” desire, as in State Three, but a desire that stems directly from the Creator.

Let me give you an example to explain what I mean. Assume that I am serving you a piece of cake. You might say that you don’t know what this is, you have no initial craving for such a cake, but then I convince you that you really should try it because it’s a fantastic cake. In this process I give you both the desire and the satisfaction, the fulfilling of the desire.

Therefore, there is an evolution in the transition between the stages where “this thing” (the craving) suddenly “wakes up” and becomes aware of itself. It is as though it begins to converse with the Creator. This evolution results from an interior collision in the creature between the two factors—the pleasure and the Giver of the pleasure. In reality, all that exists is these two elements.

State Three also marks the awakening of a new desire in the creature: envy toward the Creator. In this respect, envy is a positive and useful element because it propels us to evolve further.

Finally, at the end of State Four, the creature feels that it is bringing pleasure to the Creator. Thus, it considers itself holding the same status as the Creator, and feels the pleasure that comes with having achieved the Creator’s status, the pleasure from giving, from being a creator.

This state of being creates in the creature a desire to enjoy that status, relish in this pleasure. Because this desire does not come to the creature directly from the Creator, but evolves as a result of its own actions, it is considered a new desire, one that we ascribe to the creature. This is what we refer to as “the desire to enjoy” (Figure 4).

In this last state, the creature receives pleasure from sharing the Creator’s status, and indulges in it. Thus, the creature indulges in two pleasures: the pleasure that comes from the Creator, and the pleasure that comes from sharing the Creator’s status. This state of being is called Ein Sof (No End), and refers to a state where there are no limitations on the desire.

This does not refer to distance, time or space in the physical sense. Rather, this is an observation that pertains to the nature of the desire, meaning that the desire itself is unlimited.

Upon receiving these pleasures, the creature finds once more that there is a source of the pleasure. It discovers that the Giver is the source of the pleasure, and feels itself as the receiver. This time the sensation is valid because the will to receive in this state is the creature’s own, not one that came to it from the Creator.

Consequently, the creature feels that it wants to escape its own desire. It shuns it, and does not want to belong to its own desire any longer. The rejection that it feels toward its own desire induces it to “restrict” it (avoid using it). The desire is still there, but now the creature refrains from using it. Hence, the sensation of fulfillment—the pleasure—ceases.

Having remained with a craving, the creature resolves to reach the status of the Creator, the only status that the creature now wishes to have—that of the Giver. It senses that it must give to the Creator without receiving any reward for itself. From this point onward, all its actions will be aimed solely to attain this goal.

To reach this objective, the creature executes a complex series of operations: It builds a chain of concealments (coverings) on the Upper Light, called “worlds” (the Hebrew word for “world” is Olam, which stems from the word Haalama, concealment). At the bottom of the chain of worlds stands “this world.” Because the process that created the creature was comprised of five parts, the lessening of the Upper Light occurs through five degrees of concealment, five worlds whose names are Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya.

In the process of constructing these worlds, the creature builds a surrounding environment for itself. In the world Atzilut, the will to receive is split in two: an inner part—soul--and an outer part—environment (surroundings), in which the soul operates. This stage still does not pertain to our world.

As a result of later events, the soul and its environment will experience a process of shattering, and consequently decline several degrees down to the degree of “this world.” Only now begins the formulation of the matter that makes up our world.

From this stage onwards, from the broken will to receive, begins the historic evolution of the material world we are familiar with. Once the universe has been created, the still (inanimate), vegetative, and the animate degrees are made, and following them, the speaking (human) degree is formed (Figure 5).

At its preliminary evolutionary stage, humanity has physical desires for sustenance, reproduction, and family. The body always has these elementary needs to sustain itself; we would need them even if we lived alone on an island.

The second stage in our evolution features a growing desire for wealth, followed by a desire for power and respect. These drives for wealth, power, and respect are considered “social desires,” thus called for two reasons:

A) We absorb these desires from our social environment. Had we lived alone, we would not want them.

B) These desires can only be realized within a social framework.

The final evolutionary stage is the craving for knowledge and erudition. We want more and more knowledge, and want to know and research everything--hence the evolution of science.

Today, as we are nearing the conclusion of this evolution, which has taken us thousands of years, we are beginning to realize that it really did not yield anything. We find ourselves in a unique situation: we want to be filled with pleasures, but can’t find around us any sources of true pleasure. Additionally, we cannot accurately define what it is we want. Thus, we find ourselves perplexed and disoriented, like lost children, not knowing which way to turn. Although we want something, we don’t know what it is or where to find it.

We assign the word, “heart,” to the sum of desires that have evolved in us through our life cycles: physical desires, social desires, and the desire for knowledge. Opposite these desires stands “the point in the heart,” a “speck” of a new desire that evolves above all other desires. In fact, the point in the heart is the awakening desire to know the Upper Force, and it is the awakening of this desire that brings one to the wisdom of Kabbalah as a means to realize this desire.

The awakening of the point in the heart brings confusion, a by-product of this point’s origins in the Upper World. The laws of the Upper World pertain to a reality where time, space, and motion do not apply.

Naturally, our brains are arranged so that we always think in terms of time, space, and motion. But in this new stage, we begin to feel that what determines everything is how we personally sense reality, and that reality in and of itself is unchanging.

Thus, we gradually come to sense that reality is static and that time, space, and motion don’t really exist at all. We begin to realize that all our past experiences happened only within our sensations, that everything depends on how much we have cultivated our abilities to sense.

We need time to adjust to the concept that nothing changes except the measure by which we open our “tools of sensation.” When we have done that, we will begin to sense the world we live in very naturally, simply, without any limitations, preconceptions, rules, oppression, coercion, or exterior pressures.

The point in the heart is the beginning of the desire for spirituality. Today, relatively few people are at this stage, but their numbers are increasing all the time. Eventually, every human being must come to the point where a craving for the Creator is uppermost, a point initiated by the above-mentioned envy, meaning the inherent need in every creature to reach the status of the Creator.

We must understand that when we said that the Creator is good, we meant that the Creator created us with the intention of bringing us to the best possible state of being, i.e. the Creator’s own state. Hence, this is the state to which we must be brought. Any lesser state than this one will therefore not be considered adequate. It follows that the purpose of Creation is to allow us to reach the status of the Creator (see Figure 6).

In order to reach the level of the Creator, however, we must come to feel that our desire is totally opposite that of the Creator, that the Creator wants only to give, and that we want only to receive. This is the emptiness and darkness of the Kli (vessel) as opposed to the Light. Acknowledging this oppositeness builds us as creatures. For us to know the Creator, we must first know the opposite state from his, the “anti-Creator,” a state of unbearable torments that poses a big question mark about our ability to endure these torments.

It is fair to say that we haven’t yet begun the process of knowing the anti-Creator. To feel our complete oppositeness from the Creator, we will have to emotionally decline to much lower degrees. The wisdom of Kabbalah is surfacing now because it is impossible to experience these states physically, and Kabbalah is a means of easing our way through the states of oppositeness from the Creator, to experience them in our consciousness and our minds, not in our bodies.

We can compare this process to a person in pain. That person can either wait until the pain becomes intolerable and then turn to a physician, or turn to the doctor as soon as the pain appears. In the latter case, early diagnosis of the problem will spare one the suffering that comes with the actual breakout of the disease. In other words, a clever person takes medication as soon as symptoms of an illness appear, thus preventing its onset.

By so doing, one can evolve consciously, through reasoning, and thus the Kli (creature) learns to become aware of its oppositeness from the Light. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that helps us evolve through knowledge instead of through pain, and it is appearing today to allow humankind to acknowledge the evil that lies in egoism before it fully manifests itself, inflicting horrendous ruin in all aspects of life.

Hence, the wisdom of Kabbalah as the means to achieve both our evolution and the purpose of Creation should reach all of humanity. The more people engage in Kabbalah, and the more we circulate it throughout the world, the better off we will all be. Baal HaSulam writes about it very clearly in his Introduction to the Book of Zohar.

The first researcher to ask about the universe and the forces that conduct humanity was Abraham. He was one of many people who lived in Mesopotamia (ancient Persia), and in those days there was no division into nations. He discovered the method by which we can know the reality beyond our ordinary perception, and described his research and discoveries in his Sefer Yetzira (Book of Creation).

Abraham began to gather students and teach them the wisdom of Kabbalah. In time, this group of Kabbalists became a nation. Many years later, after the ruin of the First and SecondTemples, this group of Kabbalists lost its perception of the Upper Reality; they fell from their degree of spiritual consciousness and were able only to perceive their physical reality.

This was actually a gradual process. Some lost their spiritual perception with the ruin of the First Temple, and the rest lost it with the ruin of the SecondTemple. Rabbi Akiva was the last great Kabbalist to attain the degree of the spiritual law, “Love thy friend as thyself.” The intensification of egoism induced unfounded hatred, and only religion remained for people, instead of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Yet, despite the decline, a select few remained Kabbalists, and they passed the wisdom on from generation to generation until a time when all of humanity would need it. Today, we must rekindle the ancient science, revive the study of Kabbalah, discover the Upper Reality through it, and pass it on to all humanity.

It is important to note, however, that Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion, and does not imply that we need perform any physical actions. As we have mentioned previously, Kabbalah speaks only about desires and intentions with respect to the Creator.

This might lead us to conclude that, since the solution to our future challenges lies in the dissemination of Kabbalah to all humanity, we might have to convert everyone into Kabbalists. In truth, we don’t have to.

Humanity is built like a pyramid. As in any other field of human engagement, ninety-nine percent of the world population is passive. They do not research or develop, but simply rely on the fruits of scientific discoveries.

Therefore, we should turn to those who are disturbed by the fate of our world and the future of humanity. We do not expect billions of people to study Kabbalah, but if we can use science to present humanity with the picture of reality, it will compel everything to change, as we are all parts of a single structure.

As we have said above, the Kli (vessel/creature) that the Creator created became a soul in the world Atzilut. This is the collective, or general soul, called Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). In the beginning, all its parts were bonded in wondrous harmony, and it was filled with the Upper Light. In that state, the sum of the parts created perfection. Later on, the soul experienced a process of shattering and fell to a degree called “below the barrier,” where the spiritual sensation ends. The pieces of the single soul continue to exist below the barrier, but feel detached from one another (Figure 6).

To clarify these words we can say that they remain in “the same place” as they were before, but another sensation is added to them. This is the sensation that they exist within themselves. In spirituality there are no places and the changes are merely in the quality of their perception and their sensations. Thus, each of the parts now lives within itself and senses nothing but itself.

Such a state of being is called “this world,” which is the situation we are in today. The Upper Force is operating on us (the detached parts) to bring us back to the corrected state, and this will be the realization of the purpose of Creation.

Actually, the Upper Force “threw” us down to this world to acknowledge how different we are from It. We must come to want to rise back from this lowest point to the correct state of existence, where we are all connected. The gap between human nature and the Creator’s nature is evident through millennia of sufferings, a complete process of descent and ascent designed to enable us to see how hateful we are to one another. In other words, every person’s egoism must be exposed, and only then will we realize why we must willingly reconnect with one another.

We must understand the problem that arises when we want to satisfy a desire. For example, when a hungry person sits in a restaurant and waits for a meal, the minute the meal is served and the person begins to eat, the appetite begins to decrease. The more that person eats, the less hungry the person becomes, and with the lack of hunger, pleasure diminishes. Even if much of the food is left on the table, and even if the food is delicious, without a desire (appetite) for it, the pleasure ceases.

This scenario repeats itself in the fulfillment of every desire. If a desire appears in us, we are motivated to satisfy it. We strain and exert to fulfill our craving, but once we have achieved our desire, it vanishes. It might take a few minutes, a few hours or a few weeks, but sooner or later (mostly sooner) the fulfillment fades away. Thus, the same pleasure that satisfies the desire also eliminates it.

Moreover, obtaining one pleasure builds a desire that is twice as strong as before. Kabbalists have said that “One who has one hundred wants two hundred,” one who has two hundred wants four hundred, and so on and so forth. As a consequence, when we obtain a certain pleasure, we remain twice as empty as before. If we could only find a way to always be filled with pleasures, we would be feeling eternal life.

There is one way to do this: to separate the “sensing unit” into two parts. One part will receive the pleasure, and the other part will sense it. In other words, if there were someone else to whom the pleasure would flow through me, my pleasure would not be quenched. If there were another person in the process of my receiving pleasure, the sensing unit would be split in two.

In such a case, I could separate the receiver of the pleasure from the one who feels it. The receiver would be another person, and the one who senses the pleasure would be me. In so doing, the sensing of the pleasure can become unending and yield a sensation of eternal living.

We can compare the above situation to a mother and her child. The mother enjoys her child’s pleasure and can therefore give without restraint and delight in it. If I could love someone in such a way that pleasing him or her would feel like my own pleasure, my delight would be unlimited. In order to recognize that principle, our souls had to break and come down to this world.

When the point in the heart—a genuine desire to reawaken the sensation of the spiritual world—awakens in people, they come to the wisdom of Kabbalah. The study of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the study of our true state: the pre-shattering state. This is the only state that exists. Even now we are in it, though we are unaware of it. By wanting to come out of the dark state we are in and awaken to feel our real existence, we draw to ourselves the effect of the Light within that state.

Our efforts to unlock our tools of sensation and to perceive our actual state of being, develop new vessels in us. Thus we begin to feel how we are all connected as parts of a single system.

There is endless Light and fulfillment flowing continually through each part of the system. The reason for all the suffering and troubles the world is experiencing today is to force humanity to return to its true, perfect state, called Gmar Tikkun (“The End of Correction”).

Returning to the natural, perfect state is a process that the Creator has predetermined from beginning to end. Each phase is dictated from top to bottom. In each of us is a spiritual gene in which all our past, present, and future states are imprinted. The soul must move up the same route and stages from which it had fallen from Above. However, the way back depends on the extent to which we recognize that our egoistic state is bad, and our understanding that being closer to the Creator is the preferable state to experience.

Thus, the predetermined stages built in the spiritual gene evolve through the Light, namely through the Upper Force, and lead us from state to state. If we realize that it is in our interest to ascend and “invite” the Surrounding Light to work on us, we will accelerate our evolution and come to feel true spirituality. Hence, our freedom of choice lies only in accelerating the process.

The term “Surrounding Light” describes the Force that attracts us toward the attribute of bestowal. It draws us to the corrected state, which is the attribute of the Creator. All our future states exist within each and every one of us, even though we do not sense them. The projection of our altruistic, corrected state on our egoistic state awakens the attribute of bestowal in us.

Our corrected state is called Gmar Tikkun (“The End of Correction”). At Gmar Tikkun, every soul is filled with boundless pleasures and a complete equivalence of Form with the Creator. In our present state, the Light that fills our souls at Gmar Tikkun shines in the form of Surrounding Light; its power is determined by the intensity of our desire to acquire the attribute of bestowal.

The Light is the power of bestowal, the power of giving. If a person wants to reach the attribute of bestowal, that person must make the force of bestowal—the light that fills one when he or she is corrected—project upon one’s present state. The Surrounding Light corrects us and brings us back to the quality of bestowal. It is like a decent person who has gone astray and now reawakens to return to decency.

In fact, in order to cross the barrier that separates the corporeal world from the spiritual world, we must change our intention from relating to each other hatefully to relating to each other with love. The same rules apply to all parts of Creation, from the lowest element of reality to the highest. It all depends on the perspective of the observer who discovers the rules.

However, until a science is mathematically established, it cannot be considered a science. For example, quantum physics relates to a reality confined by time and space. But what we are talking about here is beyond time and space.

Hence, as long as quantum physics is not extended to include dimensions beyond time and space, it might be difficult for conventional science to proceed with the research. For this reason, it is important to find a tangential point, a connection between quantum physics and Kabbalah, for Kabbalah takes the research of reality to a place where physics cannot reach.

In other words, to progress to a higher level we must expand contemporary science to include consciousness, and this is a big step.

At this point, it might be beneficial to describe how Kabbalah relates to our perception of reality. We perceive reality through our five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. However, all we really feel is our own reaction to whatever exists outside of us, with no perception of the actual, objective reality.

For example, a wave reaches my ear, which it interprets as sound. I know it because of the reaction of my ear’s membrane to the wave that presses it. In truth, all I am measuring is my own reaction; I do not feel the wave itself. I perceive a range of sounds according to the changes in my hearing abilities and the health of my hearing mechanism. However, I have no idea what is actually happening outside of me. All our tools of perception and our senses work similarly.

We can say that we are closed in a box, and all that we measure is our interior impressions, creating in us a sensation that reality outside us changes. We cannot know if anything at all changes; we cannot even know if anything really exists outside of us. We simply have no means to come out of ourselves and test it.

Prof. Tiller mentioned Tor Norretranders, the renowned Danish researcher who published a book entitled The User Illusion.[1] Norretranders notes an intriguing point regarding the functionality of the unconscious and what it contains. It appears that the five senses perceive fifty million bits of information per second, gathered as streams of information in the consciousness. The subconscious processes the information mathematically, but it only processes a tiny fragment of the information—some fifty bits of information per second.

Evidently, there is a huge gap between the received fifty million bits of information and the processed fifty bits. The important element to note is that the subconscious sends to the brain only the information that the brain determined in advance would be meaningful. The rest of the information is dismissed by the subconscious. These findings appear to corroborate the Kabbalah perspective with regard to the will to receive.

It is still unknown whether cutting-edge science and prominent researchers realize that the evolution of research depends on our changing our own interiors--the interior of the researcher. At the end of the day, we are studying ourselves; our ability to progress in research depends on the extent to which we change ourselves.

In the film What the Bleep Do We Know? and in similar publications of popular science, we can find claims that there are infinite possibilities around us. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that all that exists around us is the Upper Light in a state of complete stillness, and all the changes and the endless possibilities are inside us. All that we see is the reflection of ourselves in the fixed, unchanging Light.

I regard the concept that to progress in research we must change ourselves as the next perception that the world will come to understand. It is a process that began with Newton, continued with Einstein, and continued with Quantum Physics. Now it is time for the next phase. Research will eventually discover that nothing changes except our inner tools, something that Kabbalists have discovered thousands of years ago. Today, a growing number of researchers and thinkers are anticipating that science will reach that view.

A talk with Dr. Jeffrey Satinover and Michael Laitman, PhD, Israel, April 2005

The Concept of Freedom in Quantum Physics

Rav Laitman: What is the existing outlook of science on the topic of freedom of choice?

Dr. Satinover: Modern science as a whole—and I’m using the term “as a whole” because I will shortly present a significant correction to it—perceives reality as mere material reality. It regards the material reality as whole, as a complex machine. I will demonstrate this concept using a toy-train model. If we switch on the train, it will ride the rails and little people will move about in it. This model is only a machine.

You will certainly say that in the toy-train model, each of its parts has no freedom of choice. Similarly, most contemporary scientists will tell you that the physical universe is exactly like the toy train, and that every action of each part in the universe is determined entirely by preceding events in the universe. They will even insist that there is no other model. Reality is made solely of a universe and a “toy train” within it; there is no builder, no engineer who designs and builds the toy train.

Alongside this view, there is a branch of modern science called “Quantum Mechanics.” This branch acknowledges that the theory we just presented is incorrect, and that there is in fact an element of complete freedom in the physical universe where particles of atoms do not behave mechanically, but “choose” how to behave. I am using the word “choose” in quotation marks because our language is too limited to explain it sufficiently. The real problem is that science cannot say anything about the nature of whatever makes those choices, hence they appear utterly random to us.

If one properly understands quantum theory—the most advanced of sciences—one can see that there is a possibility of genuine free will in humans. However, modern science cannot clearly explain how and where such free will is used.

Rav Laitman: It seems that beyond ordinary and accessible nature, particles have some way of “choosing freely,” but how does this affect human beings? All this does not imply that we have free choice in day-to-day life. Perhaps, somewhere, in the depth of matter, there are additional forces or probabilities that adhere to a regularity that we cannot conceive of in the ordinary determinism.

Dr. Satinover: Correct. These are subtle and complex discernments. The greatest minds of science have been arguing over them for the past eighty years. It appears that single electrons, despite their limitations, can “freely elect” from several trajectories. Electrons cannot do much; they cannot write books, marry, or go to war. Nonetheless, within their limitations, it appears that they do have a certain measure of freedom.

When I say that “the electron chooses,” I am using rather loose phrasing. The truth is, we don’t really know who or what makes the choice. What we do know is that the behavior of every particle of matter in the universe is twofold: in part, it behaves according to fixed laws, and in part, it behaves irregularly, affected by something that is not a part of our known universe.

Thus, one might say that, for instance, the creation of our universe is also twofold—in part, a result of prior physical processes, and in part, created by an Upper Force. But science cannot prove this. All it can prove is that we understand that physical actions are not determined solely by the physical actions that precede them. Rather, we understand that “something else” affects matter, but science cannot tell us what that something is, and certainly not how to research, confirm, or rebut it.

Some might argue that it is as though electrons had pseudo-brains of their own that make those decisions, but I do not endorse this theory. At this point, you are free to believe whatever you choose.

When a quantum object connects with another quantum object, it sets off the decision making process, ignited by the connection between them. This process can be with an observer who is watching the particle, but the observer is not mandatory.

The true mystery is not in the question of the external observer, but in the fact that there seems to be some latitude passed on within matter. That latitude points to “something” that is beyond the material universe, without telling us anything about the nature of that “something.”

Rav Laitman: I cannot see why we haven’t encountered this mystery thus far. When we research the human body and human psychology, we do not find any latent forces that cause unexplained behaviors. It is odd that we had to split atoms to the tiniest particles to eventually find that there is nothing in them but a tiny energy burst where we finally see that we don’t know where they will move in an instant, or even if we are facing a wave or a particle. Would it not make more sense to first find these hidden forces at a much higher level, one that pertains to human consciousness? Why is it that physicists, who study lifeless atoms, are the ones that suddenly find a hidden life among these particles?

Dr. Satinover: I think that this is one of the great ironies of the 20th century. Newtonian physics discovered a lifeless universe. The view that matter is lifeless, and perceiving it as a mere machine evolved as an offshoot of research in physics, chemistry, and biology. Eventually, physicists produced a perception that humans are nothing but machines, as well.
On a day-to-day level, intuitively and emotionally, we experience ourselves as free creatures that make our own choices. Moreover, psychologists rely on the premise that their patients can choose freely. If I thought of my patients as machines, I would give up my practice as a psychologist.

Nonetheless, the reasonable and rigorous premise from the beginning of the 17th century up to the 20th century, a premise that all sciences relied on, is that all things are machines.

It is true that most people do not feel like machines n their daily lives, hence the inconsistency between the scientific worldview and the way people actually lead their lives. Modern medicine, modern psychiatry, and all the doctrines that research the human mind and nervous system leave no room for the assumption that people have free will.
Rav Laitman: What you are saying implies that physicists, too, did not want to cope with a non-mechanical system. Yet, the discoveries that arose from the experiments forced us to acknowledge that there is another force that abrogates the deterministic results we had anticipated.

Dr. Satinover: This is just what happened. It was evident only when rigorous experiments in quantum mechanics were executed at the subatomic level. The first results left the scientists dumbfounded. Einstein, for instance, supported the view that the world was a lifeless machine. He thought that quantum mechanics was impossible and even defined it as “insane.” The possibility that there might exist any freedom in matter made him proclaim his well-known assertion: “God does not play dice with the universe.”

Although Einstein used the word “God,” he was using that word cynically. What he meant was that at this level of matter, there cannot be any freedom such as the experiments demonstrated. He realized that if freedom existed at this level in matter, it would mean the end of science, which is why he said that science cannot be structured upon such postures.

Rav Laitman: Why does that have to mean the end of science? Hasn’t scientific research always impelled us to progress and to change our views? Why are so many scientists saying that we are approaching the end of science?

Dr. Satinover: First, Einstein was wrong when he thought that this would be the end of science. He was also wrong when he thought that quantum mechanics is false. Quantum mechanics research showed that scientific knowledge has its limits. Scientists of quantum theory reached the boundary of research and then left it.

I believe that the most important fact concerning your expertise is that quantum theory makes it very clear that there is a limit to science’s ability to know, and at the same time points out that there is “something else” on the other side of the boundary. I have noticed that many people miss that point, and get mixed up between quantum theory and Kabbalah. Quantum theory states unequivocally that science can reach that limit and prove that it exists, but quantum theory also says that science cannot say anything about what lies beyond that boundary. This is not in the hands of science to discover, and at this point, science admits its limitations.

Rav Laitman: Our perception of reality stems from our research of reality. It is created within us according to our senses and our perception. Quite possibly, if we had been created with mental and intellectual technologies that let us analyze what we see differently, we could cross that border. In other words, while this may be the limit of our present qualities, perhaps this limitation exists only in our present state. Is it possible that we could find some way to change our attributes and cross that boundary?

Let me put it differently: Is it possible that everything we do not know about quantum particles stems from the fact that we are caged within a framework of time, space, and motion? Were we somehow liberated from this boundary, could we have seen the whole process differently? Would the unknown become known if we improved our qualities?

Dr. Satinover: In this talk, I deliberately chose to leave my personal view of the world, of spirituality and of Kabbalah aside. I am not an expert on any of them. Here I am trying to serve as an emissary of the scientific world and remain self-effacing concerning what science can or cannot do.

It is possible that human beings were emanated as creatures of spiritual potential that enables them to cross that border. As a human being, I long to do just that, and I think that all people will strive to this. It might be that Kabbalah is the scientific method that makes doing that possible.

Yet, hard science requires us to be vigilant and to recognize its limits. Science can lead humankind to the borderline, but it cannot take us across. In other words, a scientist cannot use quantum theory as a method to cross the border that the method itself points to.

Rav Laitman: Concerning the argument that there are infinite possibilities around us, is it not the observing scientist who chooses from among them?

Dr. Satinover: We do not know. Quantum theory demonstrates that certain particles choose one trajectory and others choose another; but we cannot say where this choice comes from. Nothing can be said about it from a scientific point of view; it is a complete mystery.

The trick is to recognize the mystery, not to pretend that we have an answer when we don’t. Such recognition can prompt us to realize that there is a “beyond” to reality. This recognition does not tell us what it is, but it can bring us to start wondering about it.

The Family Unit

Dr. Satinover: What is the Kabbalistic approach to relationships between men and women at the start of the 21st century and what is the Kabbalistic prognosis in that field?

Rav Laitman: From the perspective of Kabbalah, it is important that a man and a woman be together, marching together on the path of self-correction and reaching congruence with the Upper Force. By doing that, they will complement one another on both material and spiritual levels. Both the man and the woman have certain corrections to make. By making their personal and reciprocal corrections, they will come to the right connection in such a way that their relationship will resemble the Upper Force.

The difference between what is happening in the 21st century compared to what happened throughout history is that today we are involved in a comprehensive crisis. This crisis is evident in every field of human engagement, including personal and familial.

Its cause is the intensification of the ego and the desire to indulge in pleasure. Today, human ego is at its apex; we can no longer control it. As a result, we are losing the ability we once had to cope with ourselves and our world.

We no longer want to belong to each other or to a family. As the ego runs amuck, people cannot stand to be near one another. Family relationships in general, and spousal relationships in particular, are the first to be harmed by the ego’s outburst, as our spouses are the closest people to us.

In the past, the family was sheltered from fluctuations—it was an island of stability. When there were troubles in the world, we left home and fought, but longed to return to it. When we had troubles with our neighbors, we could relocate, but our family unit was always considered a safe haven. Even when we did not really want a family, we kept the family unit alive to care for our children or elder parents.

Today, however, the ego has grown so much that nothing can contain it. We keep trying to handle our egos and fail repeatedly. It is true that in some places, the situation is not yet so extreme. However, this will soon change, due to the awakening of the ego throughout the globe.

The solution to this problem is to begin correcting our nature—correction of our egos. If we do nothing to correct our egos, we will all plunge into drug abuse or suicide, or experience the violence of global terrorism. We will certainly not want to have children or raise families, a trend we are already seeing. Even without ecological catastrophes, we will decline into chaos and self-destruction. Our present situation requires that we ask ourselves what we are truly living for, and if there is a way out of our plight.

This is the point where we arrive at the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalists have written that at times such as ours, the Kabbalah will surface to help us correct our nature. We can thus use Kabbalah to rise to a new level of eternal and complete existence.

Personal Fate and Collective Fate

Dr. Satinover: What is the Kabbalistic explanation of personal fate and collective fate? I understand the importance of unity among people, but does Kabbalah have a position concerning each individual regardless of the fate of others?

Rav Laitman: The wisdom of Kabbalah specifically promotes personal growth. We can demonstrate it through the Kabbalistic approach to education; Kabbalah maintains that the proper education is achieved solely by means of personal example. It is pointless to try dictating to people.

Proper rearing is based on building a correct, effective environment in addition to providing good personal examples. People will act according to the examples they observe and use them according to their personal level of evolvement. We must treat every person according to his or her individual strength, since everyone in the world is unique.

All of us are segments of one collective soul, and each of us possesses a unique part of the whole. If even one part of the general soul is absent, the structure will be incomplete and we will not reach the purpose of Creation. Hence, we must cherish the personal part of each and every person. We must allow everyone to evolve in a way suitable for them to flourish.

Kabbalah distinguishes between a proper social life and personal, individual evolution. To sustain society, everyone must certainly adhere to the rules it has set. But when it comes to personal growth, the uniqueness of every person must be fervently guarded. Kabbalah explains in great detail how personal growth and adherence to society’s rules should be intermingled, and specifies how to build a correct society that allows for all of its members to evolve in their own unique way.

Kabbalah strictly objects to any cultural or educational coercion from Western countries toward third-world countries. This is harmful to both. Coercion ruins the uniqueness of these peoples because it does not let them evolve at their own pace and according to their own rules and culture. This situation is creating a real deformity within humankind and producing deplorable results.

The Tzadik (Righteous)

Dr Satinover: What is the nature and role of the Tzadik (righteous person)?

Rav Laitman: The term Tzadik refers to a person who is at a degree where he or she Matzdik (justifies) the actions of the Upper Force. The Tzadik justifies everything that happens in Creation because he or she has come to sense the whole of Creation, not just the part accessible to our five senses. The righteous sees the rules that govern the realm beyond the boundaries of our five senses—the rules that affect our world, create everything within it, govern the unfolding of every event, and lead it to the purpose desired by the Creator.

Thus, clearly a Tzadik is a Kabbalist, one who discovers the Upper World, the World of Forces, the level at which plans concerning this world are made, and from which they come down to operate it.

The nature of the Tzadik corresponds to the level the individual Tzadik has reached. Kabbalah explains that all that we feel in reality adheres to the principle of “equivalence of Form,” the “congruence principle.”

In each of our five senses, we perceive a certain span of reality. For example, our sense of hearing enables us to hear a certain range of frequencies, and our eyes can see a finite range of colors. If we had additional senses, we could perceive reality differently and perhaps perceive additional dimensions.

Actually, we cannot even imagine how we would perceive reality if we had other senses. It turns out that our five senses with their specific spans create limits defining our sense of reality. We cannot exceed this limit.

There is, however, a method that allows for perception beyond this picture of reality, including the forces that govern our reality, which we call “the Upper World.” The way we are able to perceive them is based on the same principle that applies to our perception of reality, namely “equivalence of Form.” In other words, we must match ourselves to these forces.

Our task is to cultivate the attributes that inhabit the Upper Sphere, which conducts our world. However, it is impossible to know these attributes before we reach them. Hence, here we are assisted by Kabbalists, those who are already “there,” who teach us how to acquire these attributes. They explain how one can develop an additional, internal sense, a “soul,” through special activities. Using that sense, we can perceive an additional reality that was previously hidden; hence the epithet of Kabbalah—“the wisdom of the hidden.”

Perceiving that hidden reality brings us to understand the formulae by which it operates us, the goal to which it is leading us, and the way in which it is executing these formulae. The Kabbalist is inside that reality and is an integrated part of it, a part that justifies it. In that state, a person is called a Tzadik, and this is the Tzadik’s nature.

125 degrees comprise the justification of the Creator’s actions. Total agreement with the Creator’s actions is achieved at the last degree. Every person must reach this final degree. This process of life and death, which repeatedly “recycles” us to this world, is what enables us to rise to the degree of utter righteousness, that of one who completely justifies the Creator.

Human Suffering

Dr Satinover: I think the topic that people find most difficult to accept is human suffering. On the one hand, suffering motivates people to search for spirituality. On the other hand, it is very hard to accept suffering. How does Kabbalah relate to this question?

Rav Laitman: This is indeed a question that troubles everyone. On the one hand, we are speaking of a benevolent Upper Force, but if it is “Upper,” it means it is better than us. Yet our world is filled with anguish and torment. Do anguish and torment also come from this Force? Is there more than one Force, and if so, are they at war with each other?

Satinover: I am referring not only to the philosophical question of the nature of suffering, but also to the practical aspect.

Laitman: Reality is made of our desire to enjoy and the pleasure that motivates this desire to operate. These are the only two components on all levels of reality—the pleasure and the desire to receive pleasure. In Kabbalistic terms we call them “the Light and the Kli (vessel).”

When pleasure is absent, it creates a sensation of a desire to enjoy. But sometimes the deficiency of pleasure is so intense that it creates a sensation of suffering. Because everything is made of a certain measure and quality of a desire to receive pleasure, everything also suffers when it is absent—minerals, plants, animals, and people.

In fact, suffering is a necessary sensation that impels a creature to leave its present state and move on to the next. Without suffering, there is no motion. In fact, motion means that my present state is unsatisfactory, so I decide that I will be better off in a different state. Suffering enables us to make the necessary effort to move toward a situation that seems better. Hence, without suffering, progress is impossible.

The Upper Force has no other way of promoting us to better states except through suffering. If it created us as egoists with a desire to indulge in pleasure, then the only way it can move us from one state to the next is through a sensation of suffering.

However, we still need to explain why there is so much more suffering today than before. The purpose of Creation is for humankind to reach the highest degree in reality.

The only way to approach that goal is with an immense drive to reach it, or phrased differently—from the greatest suffering. This does not necessarily relate to physical suffering. We seemingly have everything today, yet we feel that something is missing, and that sensation of absence is the greatest degree of suffering.

To advance, to exit the boundaries of this world and begin to search for something higher, we must suffer. We must feel suffering at the deepest level so that we can demand the correspondingly highest state. That sublime state of being that stands vis-à-vis this world is the spiritual world; hence the suffering, too, must be spiritual, not physical.

In spiritual suffering, one does not suffer from absence of mundane fulfillments. While mundane fulfillments exist, they do not provide a sensation of livelihood, or even a sensation of being alive. Those who specifically regret a lack of “feeling alive” will have the strength to ask for something beyond this life.

For this reason, we are not going to see a satisfied humankind in the near future. On the contrary, suffering will intensify and will take on a more spiritual form. The sensation of absence of spiritual fulfillment will overshadow any physical abundance. There will be nothing satisfying and nothing joyful for us. Depression will spread throughout the world and the sensation of distress will not let us live our lives in peace.

The result of this distress will be an increase in conflicts, terror, outbreaks of diverse psychological and psychiatric problems. These things will happen specifically with the material abundance in the background, showing us that what we lack in our world is not material sustenance, but the sensation of living. This is how Kabbalah explains the process that lies ahead.

The way to meet this challenge is to utilize Kabbalah to understand the source of suffering. This will sweeten the suffering, since we will see that there is a reason for it. This will allow us to begin the correction before we plunge into affliction. This is why we are working so hard to prevent, rather than to cure, and prevention means letting humanity become aware of the wisdom of Kabbalah before it plummets into deep depression.

Perhaps it will be easier to come to terms with Kabbalah’s concept and purpose of suffering if we understand its perspective on death in general. Here’s what Kabbalah says about death: We are all individual parts of one spiritual Kli, called Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). The soul of Adam ha Rishon was split into billions of souls that came down to this world. This world occupies myriad bodies, each with its own soul. The goal is for each person to return to the same root in Adam ha Rishon from which he or she came down.

When we first come into this world, our souls are but a “point.” If we do not build a spiritual Kli out of this point while living in this world, our souls return to their roots in Adam ha Rishon like seeds that did not evolve, unconscious, lifeless points. To put it differently, we do not feel our own existence until our souls dress a new body in this world.

However, if we cultivate this point through the altruistic intention until it becomes a spiritual Kli, that Kli will remain after the demise of our physical bodies, since we’ve begun to feel the Upper Force while living in this world. This connection remains, since it is not a part of our biological body.

The spiritual Kli perceives what is outside of us, regardless of our natural sensory perceptions. Once we are outside ourselves, physical life and death do not affect how the soul perceives. Therefore, we don’t feel life and death in this world so intensely, since spiritual sensations remain intact. Put more accurately, eventually we must transcend this biological alternation between life and death to the point that we are not affected by it whatsoever.

The Kabbalistic knowledge we possess is a result of Kabbalistic investigations performed by those people whose souls were burning with the question regarding the meaning of existence. They used a special method to begin to feel the comprehensive reality, and they wrote books about what they discovered. When Kabbalists first sense the complete reality, they call it “the opening of the eyes.”

The opening of the eyes is a process of climbing up the same degrees by which we all came down from the previously mentioned infinite state (Ein Sof). The wisdom of Kabbalah comprises two parallel orders:

From Above downward—the descent of the will to receive from Ein Sof through all the Upper Worlds down to “this world.”

From below Upward—the ascent of the researcher from this world, through the barrier, to the Upper Worlds, to Ein Sof.

Kabbalah talks about the will to receive, i.e., the desire to enjoy. As we have said, there are five stages in the creation process of the will to receive. We mark these stages with four Hebrew letters: the tip of the Yod (), then Yod (), Hey (), Vav (), Hey (), and for short we call this structure of letters HaVaYaH. We also assign these five stages five respective names: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut.

The tip of the Yod is Keter (Figure 7), designating the beginning of the manifestation of the desire that departs from the Light, like a black dot inside the Light. From this dot evolves the letter Yod—the primordial desire. The shape of the letter Yod is like a point with a prickle at its head and a tail at its end. It symbolizes the creation of the new matter—previously nonexistent—the will to receive. This stage is called Hochma.

Once the letter Yod evolves, the will to receive continues to evolve by absorbing the attribute of bestowal from the Creator. The combination of the attribute of bestowal and the attribute of reception generates a new quality, called Bina, designated by the letter Hey.

Bina contains the first matter that wants to be similar to the Light that engendered it. The shape of the Hey symbolizes the integration of the attributes of reception and bestowal. This generates the form of bestowal atop the primordial desire.

Following that, the desire wants to perform an act of bestowal, as the Creator previously did, and therefore tries to be like the letter Yod. But because this time it is an act that the desire itself performs, it is assigned the form of the letter Vav.

The letter Vav symbolizes our efforts to be like the Giver, the Creator. However, the act of Vav is considered incomplete because it is a decision that was made beforehand, a consequence of Hey’s wish to bestow. The incompleteness of the desire, symbolized by the letter Vav, is hinted in its name Zeir Anpin—small face (Aramaic). Zeir Anpin lacks the independent decision, the “head.”

When Zeir Anpin performs the act of bestowal, it discovers what it means to be a giver. In consequence, it begins to want to reach the status of the Giver, and this last desire is called Malchut. Malchut’s desire is aimed entirely toward receiving the attribute of bestowal, hence, like Bina, it is symbolized by the letter Hey.

However, there is a fundamental difference between the first Hey of Bina and the last Hey of Malchut. In Bina, the combination of reception and bestowal stems from the Creator, “from Above,” while in Malchut this combination comes “from below,” from our craving for the status of the giver, a desire that stems from its own will to receive. Now we can see why the letters Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey symbolize the name of the Creator. It is the pattern by which the Creator formed the will to receive, within which the will to receive senses the Creator as a Light that fills it.

Once the Light filled the will to receive in Hochma and instilled it with the sensation of the Giver, the desire began to sense itself as a receiver, and wanted to become like the Giver. The desire can easily change its nature because at this stage, the desire is not an independent desire, but one that came from the Creator. However, the will to receive in Malchut is already an independent desire of the creature.

When the will to receive in Malchut wants to receive both the Light that comes from the Creator, and the pleasure of having the status of the Giver, it begins to see the oppositeness of its own attributes from those of the Light. The will to receive then experiences the gap between itself and the Light. Sensing this painful gap brings it to perform the Tzimtzum (restriction of Light). In other words, the reaction to discovering how opposite its attributes are from the Creator’s, is removing all the Light that filled it.

From this stage onward, the Tzimtzum (restriction) becomes the governing law in all of the created being’s actions. The Light will no longer enter an opposite desire from the Creator because the creature decided so. In this manner, the Tzimtzum becomes a binding law in Creation.

The law of Tzimtzum implies that as long as we (the creature) are egoistic, we will not be able to sense the Creator and the pleasure that comes from Him. There is only a tiny segment of the whole reality, called “this world,” where one can receive pleasure and enjoy within an egoistic desire, despite the law of Tzimtzum. This enables us to exist on the physical level before we begin to correct ourselves and become more like the Creator.

We must understand that an egoistic existence, such as our current existence in this world, does not exist in reality. Ascending from this world implies the ascension of one’s desire toward the quality of bestowal. In this world, the will to receive works inwardly, and in the spiritual world, it works outwardly, giving, like the Creator.

In other words, the spiritual world observes the law of Tzimtzum, and the term “spirituality” refers to states in which we are similar to the Creator. In our present state, we are egoists, and are opposite from the Creator.

Let us go back to the process of creation. The term “world” depicts a certain state of the creature, the will to receive. Thus, the state of the creature prior to the Tzimtzum is called “the world Ein Sof” (the infinite world), and its state following the Tzimtzum is called “the world of Tzimtzum” (the world of restriction).

After the Tzimtzum, the Kli (vessel/receptacle) remains empty and should decide what to do next. It feels that staying empty is pointless for both itself and the Creator. The act of the Tzimtzum made it independent of the domination of the Light, but by that it still did not come to anything because the Tzimtzum does not make it a giver like the Creator.

The Kli understands that it can carry out a similar action to the one it had performed while transiting from Hochma to Bina. However, this time it would be of its own free, independent will. It understands that it can give the Creator pleasure if it were to receive the Light from Him with the intention to give to Him. After all, this is the Creator’s will—to delight and please the creature.

Thus, when the Light-pleasure reached the creature-Kli, along with the sensation that it came from the Creator, the creature first rejected them. It did that so it would not sense them directly and thus feel the shame of being opposite from the Creator. In this manner, the creature followed the law of Tzimtzum that does not allow reception for the sake of self-gratification.

Afterwards, the creature measured the pleasures before it and weighed the result against its own desire to enjoy. It received this specific amount of pleasure only after it knew exactly how much it could receive in order to please the Creator, and not to please itself. The rest of the Light was then repelled.

Kabbalists explain this by using the example of the guest and the host. The host serves all kinds of exquisite delicacies and ushers the guest to the table. The guest feels shame and declines politely. In truth, the guest is afraid to feel like a receiver, and hence guards his ego from shame.

Now it is the host’s turn to implore: “I have made it all for you! You know how I care for you. I want to delight you with what I have prepared for you; please, will you eat for me?” By so doing, the host displays before the guest a deficiency, a need for the guest to receive. Now the guest feels that consenting to eat the food would fulfill the host’s need. Eating would thus be doing the host good.

Thus, the balance of power changes: if the guest receives in order to please the host, it is no longer reception, but bestowal. It follows that the guest uses the host’s love to give pleasure back to the host.

Another example of a giving-receiving relationship is between parents and children. Actually, the child is the head of the family, using the parents’ love to manipulate them in order to satisfy its needs. Naturally, the people in these examples are egoists. Things happen quite differently in the spiritual world, but such examples can help us understand the principle. The process occurring in the Upper Worlds is built upon a very similar principle: if one receives pleasure for the sake of pleasing the Creator, it is not considered reception, but bestowal. In performing this act, the human being equalizes with the Creator and acquires the Creator’s thoughts.

In other words, the Light created us from the very beginning with a massive, total desire for it. This desire is in us even now, but it is latent, and thus we do not feel the Creator’s Light. This desire (for the Light) must be evoked.

It is important to realize that we are dealing with researching the term “Creator” in a purely scientific manner. In other words, we can measure our sensation of the Creator in precise tools, quantifyeach sensation, and express it numerically. The tool with which we measure the sensation of the Creator is called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.” We can precisely define which Lights permeate which part of the Kli, how powerfully, and under which conditions.

Kabbalah talks about the will to receive created by the Creator. These two—the will to receive and the Creator—are much higher elements, in the sense that they precede all religions and belief systems. Kabbalah is about the two working forces of reality, the giving force, called “Creator,” and the receiving force, called “creature.”

Kabbalah has nothing to do with any religion or any faith. I do not want to compare Kabbalah to other teachings, nor do I wish to discuss any religion, be it Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. After all, why deal with religion when we can discuss the physics of the Upper World?

The challenge in explaining this material is that we cannot compare our emotions. We cannot say that the term, “Upper Force” that one person feels is identical to the term, “Upper Force” that another person feels. Hence, trying to compare this or that teaching to the Kabbalah is pointless.

Kabbalah is a technique that provides accurate, mathematical, measurable tools. When I document data pertaining to one state, another Kabbalist can perform the same act—with his or her own tools—and experience the data I was referring to. The wisdom of Kabbalah provides an accurate measurement of human emotions.

Kabbalah books describe the Kabbalists’ impressions of the Upper Force. They describe their emotions and leave us with formulae that explain which internal actions we need to perform on our will to receive. In so doing, we learn how to perform acts of reception and bestowal of the Light that the Creator wants to impart to us.

A Kabbalist measures the pleasure that can be received or repelled very accurately. Thus, we are given exact instructions as to the type of inner work we must do at each stage. Thus, we will know how to work with our desire vis-à-vis the Light.

A talk with Dr. Jeffrey Satinover and Michael Laitman, PhD, Israel, April 2005

The Concept of Freedom in Quantum Physics

Rav Laitman: What is the existing outlook of science on the topic of freedom of choice?

Dr. Satinover: Modern science as a whole—and I’m using the term “as a whole” because I will shortly present a significant correction to it—perceives reality as mere material reality. It regards the material reality as whole, as a complex machine. I will demonstrate this concept using a toy-train model. If we switch on the train, it will ride the rails and little people will move about in it. This model is only a machine.

You will certainly say that in the toy-train model, each of its parts has no freedom of choice. Similarly, most contemporary scientists will tell you that the physical universe is exactly like the toy train, and that every action of each part in the universe is determined entirely by preceding events in the universe. They will even insist that there is no other model. Reality is made solely of a universe and a “toy train” within it; there is no builder, no engineer who designs and builds the toy train.

Alongside this view, there is a branch of modern science called “Quantum Mechanics.” This branch acknowledges that the theory we just presented is incorrect, and that there is in fact an element of complete freedom in the physical universe where particles of atoms do not behave mechanically, but “choose” how to behave. I am using the word “choose” in quotation marks because our language is too limited to explain it sufficiently. The real problem is that science cannot say anything about the nature of whatever makes those choices, hence they appear utterly random to us.

If one properly understands quantum theory—the most advanced of sciences—one can see that there is a possibility of genuine free will in humans. However, modern science cannot clearly explain how and where such free will is used.

Rav Laitman: It seems that beyond ordinary and accessible nature, particles have some way of “choosing freely,” but how does this affect human beings? All this does not imply that we have free choice in day-to-day life. Perhaps, somewhere, in the depth of matter, there are additional forces or probabilities that adhere to a regularity that we cannot conceive of in the ordinary determinism.

Dr. Satinover: Correct. These are subtle and complex discernments. The greatest minds of science have been arguing over them for the past eighty years. It appears that single electrons, despite their limitations, can “freely elect” from several trajectories. Electrons cannot do much; they cannot write books, marry, or go to war. Nonetheless, within their limitations, it appears that they do have a certain measure of freedom.

When I say that “the electron chooses,” I am using rather loose phrasing. The truth is, we don’t really know who or what makes the choice. What we do know is that the behavior of every particle of matter in the universe is twofold: in part, it behaves according to fixed laws, and in part, it behaves irregularly, affected by something that is not a part of our known universe.

Thus, one might say that, for instance, the creation of our universe is also twofold—in part, a result of prior physical processes, and in part, created by an Upper Force. But science cannot prove this. All it can prove is that we understand that physical actions are not determined solely by the physical actions that precede them. Rather, we understand that “something else” affects matter, but science cannot tell us what that something is, and certainly not how to research, confirm, or rebut it.

Some might argue that it is as though electrons had pseudo-brains of their own that make those decisions, but I do not endorse this theory. At this point, you are free to believe whatever you choose.

When a quantum object connects with another quantum object, it sets off the decision making process, ignited by the connection between them. This process can be with an observer who is watching the particle, but the observer is not mandatory.

The true mystery is not in the question of the external observer, but in the fact that there seems to be some latitude passed on within matter. That latitude points to “something” that is beyond the material universe, without telling us anything about the nature of that “something.”

Rav Laitman: I cannot see why we haven’t encountered this mystery thus far. When we research the human body and human psychology, we do not find any latent forces that cause unexplained behaviors. It is odd that we had to split atoms to the tiniest particles to eventually find that there is nothing in them but a tiny energy burst where we finally see that we don’t know where they will move in an instant, or even if we are facing a wave or a particle. Would it not make more sense to first find these hidden forces at a much higher level, one that pertains to human consciousness? Why is it that physicists, who study lifeless atoms, are the ones that suddenly find a hidden life among these particles?

Dr. Satinover: I think that this is one of the great ironies of the 20th century. Newtonian physics discovered a lifeless universe. The view that matter is lifeless, and perceiving it as a mere machine evolved as an offshoot of research in physics, chemistry, and biology. Eventually, physicists produced a perception that humans are nothing but machines, as well.
On a day-to-day level, intuitively and emotionally, we experience ourselves as free creatures that make our own choices. Moreover, psychologists rely on the premise that their patients can choose freely. If I thought of my patients as machines, I would give up my practice as a psychologist.

Nonetheless, the reasonable and rigorous premise from the beginning of the 17th century up to the 20th century, a premise that all sciences relied on, is that all things are machines.

It is true that most people do not feel like machines in their daily lives, hence the inconsistency between the scientific worldview and the way people actually lead their lives. Modern medicine, modern psychiatry, and all the doctrines that research the human mind and nervous system leave no room for the assumption that people have free will.
Rav Laitman: What you are saying implies that physicists, too, did not want to cope with a non-mechanical system. Yet, the discoveries that arose from the experiments forced us to acknowledge that there is another force that abrogates the deterministic results we had anticipated.

Dr. Satinover: This is just what happened. It was evident only when rigorous experiments in quantum mechanics were executed at the subatomic level. The first results left the scientists dumbfounded. Einstein, for instance, supported the view that the world was a lifeless machine. He thought that quantum mechanics was impossible and even defined it as “insane.” The possibility that there might exist any freedom in matter made him proclaim his well-known assertion: “God does not play dice with the universe.”

Although Einstein used the word “God,” he was using that word cynically. What he meant was that at this level of matter, there cannot be any freedom such as the experiments demonstrated. He realized that if freedom existed at this level in matter, it would mean the end of science, which is why he said that science cannot be structured upon such postures.

Rav Laitman: Why does that have to mean the end of science? Hasn’t scientific research always impelled us to progress and to change our views? Why are so many scientists saying that we are approaching the end of science?

Dr. Satinover: First, Einstein was wrong when he thought that this would be the end of science. He was also wrong when he thought that quantum mechanics is false. Quantum mechanics research showed that scientific knowledge has its limits. Scientists of quantum theory reached the boundary of research and then left it.

I believe that the most important fact concerning your expertise is that quantum theory makes it very clear that there is a limit to science’s ability to know, and at the same time points out that there is “something else” on the other side of the boundary. I have noticed that many people miss that point, and get mixed up between quantum theory and Kabbalah. Quantum theory states unequivocally that science can reach that limit and prove that it exists, but quantum theory also says that science cannot say anything about what lies beyond that boundary. This is not in the hands of science to discover, and at this point, science admits its limitations.

Rav Laitman: Our perception of reality stems from our research of reality. It is created within us according to our senses and our perception. Quite possibly, if we had been created with mental and intellectual technologies that let us analyze what we see differently, we could cross that border. In other words, while this may be the limit of our present qualities, perhaps this limitation exists only in our present state. Is it possible that we could find some way to change our attributes and cross that boundary?

Let me put it differently: Is it possible that everything we do not know about quantum particles stems from the fact that we are caged within a framework of time, space, and motion? Were we somehow liberated from this boundary, could we have seen the whole process differently? Would the unknown become known if we improved our qualities?

Dr. Satinover: In this talk, I deliberately chose to leave my personal view of the world, of spirituality and of Kabbalah aside. I am not an expert on any of them. Here I am trying to serve as an emissary of the scientific world and remain self-effacing concerning what science can or cannot do.

It is possible that human beings were emanated as creatures of spiritual potential that enables them to cross that border. As a human being, I long to do just that, and I think that all people will strive to this. It might be that Kabbalah is the scientific method that makes doing that possible.

Yet, hard science requires us to be vigilant and to recognize its limits. Science can lead humankind to the borderline, but it cannot take us across. In other words, a scientist cannot use quantum theory as a method to cross the border that the method itself points to.

Rav Laitman: Concerning the argument that there are infinite possibilities around us, is it not the observing scientist who chooses from among them?

Dr. Satinover: We do not know. Quantum theory demonstrates that certain particles choose one trajectory and others choose another; but we cannot say where this choice comes from. Nothing can be said about it from a scientific point of view; it is a complete mystery.

The trick is to recognize the mystery, not to pretend that we have an answer when we don’t. Such recognition can prompt us to realize that there is a “beyond” to reality. This recognition does not tell us what it is, but it can bring us to start wondering about it.

The Family Unit

Dr. Satinover: What is the Kabbalistic approach to relationships between men and women at the start of the 21st century and what is the Kabbalistic prognosis in that field?

Rav Laitman: From the perspective of Kabbalah, it is important that a man and a woman be together, marching together on the path of self-correction and reaching congruence with the Upper Force. By doing that, they will complement one another on both material and spiritual levels. Both the man and the woman have certain corrections to make. By making their personal and reciprocal corrections, they will come to the right connection in such a way that their relationship will resemble the Upper Force.

The difference between what is happening in the 21st century compared to what happened throughout history is that today we are involved in a comprehensive crisis. This crisis is evident in every field of human engagement, including personal and familial.

Its cause is the intensification of the ego and the desire to indulge in pleasure. Today, human ego is at its apex; we can no longer control it. As a result, we are losing the ability we once had to cope with ourselves and our world.

We no longer want to belong to each other or to a family. As the ego runs amuck, people cannot stand to be near one another. Family relationships in general, and spousal relationships in particular, are the first to be harmed by the ego’s outburst, as our spouses are the closest people to us.

In the past, the family was sheltered from fluctuations—it was an island of stability. When there were troubles in the world, we left home and fought, but longed to return to it. When we had troubles with our neighbors, we could relocate, but our family unit was always considered a safe haven. Even when we did not really want a family, we kept the family unit alive to care for our children or elder parents.

Today, however, the ego has grown so much that nothing can contain it. We keep trying to handle our egos and fail repeatedly. It is true that in some places, the situation is not yet so extreme. However, this will soon change, due to the awakening of the ego throughout the globe.

The solution to this problem is to begin correcting our nature—correction of our egos. If we do nothing to correct our egos, we will all plunge into drug abuse or suicide, or experience the violence of global terrorism. We will certainly not want to have children or raise families, a trend we are already seeing. Even without ecological catastrophes, we will decline into chaos and self-destruction. Our present situation requires that we ask ourselves what we are truly living for, and if there is a way out of our plight.

This is the point where we arrive at the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalists have written that at times such as ours, the Kabbalah will surface to help us correct our nature. We can thus use Kabbalah to rise to a new level of eternal and complete existence.

Personal Fate and Collective Fate

Dr. Satinover: What is the Kabbalistic explanation of personal fate and collective fate? I understand the importance of unity among people, but does Kabbalah have a position concerning each individual regardless of the fate of others?

Rav Laitman: The wisdom of Kabbalah specifically promotes personal growth. We can demonstrate it through the Kabbalistic approach to education; Kabbalah maintains that the proper education is achieved solely by means of personal example. It is pointless to try dictating to people.

Proper rearing is based on building a correct, effective environment in addition to providing good personal examples. People will act according to the examples they observe and use them according to their personal level of evolvement. We must treat every person according to his or her individual strength, since everyone in the world is unique.

All of us are segments of one collective soul, and each of us possesses a unique part of the whole. If even one part of the general soul is absent, the structure will be incomplete and we will not reach the purpose of Creation. Hence, we must cherish the personal part of each and every person. We must allow everyone to evolve in a way suitable for them to flourish.

Kabbalah distinguishes between a proper social life and personal, individual evolution. To sustain society, everyone must certainly adhere to the rules it has set. But when it comes to personal growth, the uniqueness of every person must be fervently guarded. Kabbalah explains in great detail how personal growth and adherence to society’s rules should be intermingled, and specifies how to build a correct society that allows for all of its members to evolve in their own unique way.

Kabbalah strictly objects to any cultural or educational coercion from Western countries toward third-world countries. This is harmful to both. Coercion ruins the uniqueness of these peoples because it does not let them evolve at their own pace and according to their own rules and culture. This situation is creating a real deformity within humankind and producing deplorable results.

The Tzadik (Righteous)

Dr Satinover: What is the nature and role of the Tzadik (righteous person)?

Rav Laitman: The term Tzadik refers to a person who is at a degree where he or she Matzdik (justifies) the actions of the Upper Force. The Tzadik justifies everything that happens in Creation because he or she has come to sense the whole of Creation, not just the part accessible to our five senses. The righteous sees the rules that govern the realm beyond the boundaries of our five senses—the rules that affect our world, create everything within it, govern the unfolding of every event, and lead it to the purpose desired by the Creator.

Thus, clearly a Tzadik is a Kabbalist, one who discovers the Upper World, the World of Forces, the level at which plans concerning this world are made, and from which they come down to operate it.

The nature of the Tzadik corresponds to the level the individual Tzadik has reached. Kabbalah explains that all that we feel in reality adheres to the principle of “equivalence of Form,” the “congruence principle.”

In each of our five senses, we perceive a certain span of reality. For example, our sense of hearing enables us to hear a certain range of frequencies, and our eyes can see a finite range of colors. If we had additional senses, we could perceive reality differently and perhaps perceive additional dimensions.

Actually, we cannot even imagine how we would perceive reality if we had other senses. It turns out that our five senses with their specific spans create limits defining our sense of reality. We cannot exceed this limit.

There is, however, a method that allows for perception beyond this picture of reality, including the forces that govern our reality, which we call “the Upper World.” The way we are able to perceive them is based on the same principle that applies to our perception of reality, namely “equivalence of Form.” In other words, we must match ourselves to these forces.

Our task is to cultivate the attributes that inhabit the Upper Sphere, which conducts our world. However, it is impossible to know these attributes before we reach them. Hence, here we are assisted by Kabbalists, those who are already “there,” who teach us how to acquire these attributes. They explain how one can develop an additional, internal sense, a “soul,” through special activities. Using that sense, we can perceive an additional reality that was previously hidden; hence the epithet of Kabbalah—“the wisdom of the hidden.”

Perceiving that hidden reality brings