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Books: Our Spiritual Tour Guides

Spirituality can be attained by studying the right books, meaning books written by a true Kabbalist. Reading the right books is like being led by a tour guide in a foreign country. With the aid of the guidebook, the traveler becomes oriented and better understands his new whereabouts. We need books that are suited to our souls, books by the Kabbalists closest to our generation. This is because different souls descend in each generation, and each generation requires different teaching methods. There is a special force in books of Kabbalah: any person who studies those books under the right guidance can attain the spiritual degree of the author. Students who follow the ways expounded by the writers of authentic books of wisdom can bond with the spiritual. By delving into a text of wisdom, they gradually rise to the spiritual level of the author. Whenever you read the works of the righteous, you bond directly with them through the Surrounding Light (see Appendix). You are then enlightened, and your vessels of reception are purified and imbued with the spirit of the Creator. Living in our world, we absorb various pictures and impressions. Because of that, we can all describe what we feel. But Kabbalah books describe experiences of a person who feels the spiritual world. They describe the writer’s feelings of a world that most of us do not sense. That is why Kabbalah books and Kabbalist writers are unique. A Kabbalist teacher is not only a person who feels the Upper World, but also a person who can describe emotions in a clear language so that others can feel and understand them. By studying books of Kabbalists, we nurture the missing senses within us, the ones that must be developed in order to feel the Upper World.