How do we advance in a group? Together we know that our goal is to attain love and bestowal. And the force of correction only comes to us through studying the corrected system. This is the wisdom of Kabbalah.

This is why we unite and study together as we build the maximum intention for unity. Along the path we discover real hatred (Sinnah), Mount Sinai, between us, but at the same time we discover the need to attain love and bestowal. After all, there is no other solution—this is the goal. And that is how we gradually advance.

A person strives toward love of friends, checking his efforts and successes, and to him this is no different than being close to the Creator. Even though the Creator is concealed, these two corrections—work with the neighbor and work with the Creator—are similar, in fact, identical.

This is because a “neighbor” is everything that exists outside of a person’s desire, be it the Creator or a friend. Both of them are as one since they are both foreign to man. Thus, if he is able to entrust himself in relation to a friend, he needs to know that by doing this he entrusts himself in relation to the Creator.

Besides, in the group he receives help from friends because they expect work from him and they motivate him to do it. That is why he can definitely succeed here.

We unite with the friends as must as possible in order to correct the quality of our unity through the study. This is the method. And when we do this with the purpose of attaining bestowal and love for the Creator, we structure ourselves according to the principle of “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one.” When we unite with the friends through the study of Kabbalah, we evoke the Light that Reforms, the inner force in us, the Creator. Then we reach unity with Him through the unity between us.
[35381]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabaah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
All The Means Are Equal
Plant A Concern For Your Friends In Your Heart
Through The Prism Of Environment

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Kabbalah Study, Unity - No Comments →

One should not think about the correction of egoistic desires separately or compare them to the altruistic ones. It says at the end of the "Introduction to the Book of Zohar" that “the nations of the world” within us receive the correction from “Israel.” In other words, AHP receives its correction from Galgalta ve Eynaim.

Therefore, if we aspire to correct the connection between us, the rest will join it. The entire world will join us. We do not have to worry about this.

We only need support from the “nations.” We need a stream of those who can already become part of the category of “Israel,” whereas everyone else will be corrected through our work and then they too will receive an awakening. The power of correction will flow from us to them similar to the Light that comes from Galgalta ve Eynaim and then corrects and fills AHP.

It says in the Torah, “This is your wisdom and your mind before the eyes of the nations.” In other words, “Israel” must perform the corrections and as a result, the “nations of the world” within us will also become corrected.

When we read the authentic sources, it is important not to mix up these things with anything that surrounds us. At first we have to reveal and explore these things within ourselves. Only after that will it be possible to draw some conclusions about the external, imaginary world.
[35374]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
All The Means Are Equal
The Answer To All My Questions
One With The World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Israel, Torah, World - No Comments →

Question: Why am I unable to clearly comprehend the importance of the environment?

Answer: You feel that you do not fully comprehend its importance because you are not finding the corresponding desire within you. You understand the words, but your heart is not responding yet. Sometimes you even get sick and tired of hearing about it.

This is natural. You just need to continue working on the common desire. Everyone has to begin thinking that this is important and that this is exactly what we need. We artificially strive to care for one another: I care for others so they would direct their thoughts towards the goal together with me. I constantly worry about it and then a real fear ripens inside me: Will they be able to keep their thoughts on the goal?

And then the heart of the group appears before me, not their names or faces, but the deep desire that reigns among the friends. Is everyone’s desire ready to unite with others so all of them would aim at the goal? This is what concerns me. If this comes true, then we will attract a little bit of Light to this common desire over a brief period of study, and then we will attain the goal.

The problem is not the Light that influences us. The problem is for all of us to connect our desires to be together on the path to the goal. Primarily, this is the concern that has to settle in everyone’s heart. This is mutual guarantee.

When we have a common desire, it “flows” from one part of the friends to another, and therefore it is always working. When we strive to study in order to realize this desire and we don’t get distracted by any other goals, then we evoke the Light with this common desire that’s aimed at mutual bestowal, the Creator. Then we will be full of desire as we prepare to study and during the study.

There can be nothing beyond this. It is written: “Habakkuk came and reduced everything to one thing: a righteous man will live by his faith.” The greatest effect comes from an action by which you want to attain bestowal. Bestowal is also referred to as “faith.”

At the end, this is a very simple thing. Overall, Kabbalah keeps being revealed in an increasingly simplified manner. And even though the path is difficult and it takes years, we have the opportunity to greatly accelerate our development.
[35370]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Receiving To Bestow
The Desire For The Creator Is The Sum Of Common Desires
The Inner Work Of A Kabbalist: “Concerning Love Of Friends” – 05.23.10

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A, Unity - 1 Comment →

Question: For thousands of years, the method of Kabbalah has been drafted by special people, Kabbalists. Today, we spread it among the masses. Aren’t we thereby losing the depth of this wisdom?

Answer: We definitely are. But we have to do it anyway. We are the ones through whom it flows to the others.

Your parents, for instance (with all due respect), were regular people, not holy saints. They brought you into this world and gave you an education at their level. We do the same.

Obviously, by spreading Kabbalah among the masses, we “corrupt” it. It is what we call lowering the spiritual degrees which descend from the world of Infinity. Nevertheless, we have no choice. Can a child receive an entire science all at once? No, we have to give him a simplified version, well adjusted to his level. No matter what I may explain, show, or feed him, everything has to fit his present state.

The model for it is the text of The Zohar for All. We took Baal HaSulam’s commentary on The Book of Zohar and removed all supplementary materials from it which are not related to the main idea. However, in fact, they are necessary as well. Baal HaSulam didn’t do anything in vain. Yet, at the present stage, it prevents us and, even more so, our vast audience from approaching The Zohar.

When I opened the first book in my life, I saw the words written in huge letters, “MOTHER, HOME, SUN.” So, we have to provide people with information they are able to digest. Later on, as they learn, they will ascend to the higher degrees.

The spiritual ladder does “corrupt” the upper Light which gets greatly reduced as it descends to the lower degrees. This is its nature since; otherwise, the lower ones wouldn’t be able to absorb even a drop of Light.
[35063]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Living Letters
Unique Spiritual Material
How To Break Through Egoism’s Armor

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: In regular science I study its terminology and formulas, and gradually I start to understand the laws by which reality operates. But why is it that I don’t understand anything when studying the science of Kabbalah?

Answer: First of all, you can study and somehow discuss what is written, and imagine the laws of Kabbalah even though it does not talk about our world and you do not really see them. But you do not need anything more than that. If you aspire to this form of bestowal, this is enough in order for you to start changing yourself.

The science of Kabbalah is used completely differently than the sciences of our world. When you study a triangle in geometry, you do not become a triangle! But in Kabbalah when you study Partzuf ZON, you turn into Partzuf ZON. You aspire to it and from it you attract that Light that changes you. This is the entire difference! You take on the same form that you read about.

You develop and advance along the line connecting you with your root of the soul in the world of Infinity, and all your future forms and states are already fixed. You attract Light upon yourself from these future states, and that Light influences you, making you advance.
[35414]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Science About The Nature Of Bestowal
The Most Important Thing Is The Connection With The Root!
It Won’t Help Us To Play Love

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Science - No Comments →

Question: What is the Surrounding Light that we are trying to attract?

Answer: The Light is the upper force, the one, single, and only existing force in the universe. Besides this Force there is only desire, which becomes revealed to us as a receiving desire. Yet by using the force of the Light we can change it to bestowal.

There is nothing besides Light (the Creator) and desire. We simply call Him by different names (such as Surrounding Light, Inner Light, or the Light that Reforms) in order to provide more precise definitions.

The Surrounding Light influences me if I aspire to my next form. Even though I don’t know exactly what that form is like, I study it through a book that describes all sorts of Partzufim, worlds, and Sefirot. That is how I express my desire to ascend there and attain, and that is how I attract this state that I want to attain to myself. It begins to influence me to the extent I aspire to it.

I open myself up and become more sensitive to this influence, to the next state that I must reach. I simply accelerate my development, adding a little bit of my own desire to the natural force that develops me.

I receive this additional desire from the environment. That is how I realize my free choice and receive from them the sensation that it is important to advance to the next state. After all, being in the next state means being more connected with others, canceling myself more, and bestowing more.

I receive this inspiration from the group and then I take it with me when coming to study and aspiring to attain the future form that is more bestowing. Then I am influenced by Light from there because it has the same nature of bestowal that I want to acquire. We have the same desire, the same tendency, and therefore we are close according to the law of equivalence of form.

By myself I do not have any desire for bestowal or spiritual progress. I have zero desire. But then I turn to the group and from them I take "10 pounds” of desire to advance to bestowal and unity among us, and with that desire I come to study. I want to attain the next state with the same force of 10 pounds. My similarity to the Light is measured by this force of 10 pounds, and to that degree it influences my desire, making it similar to the Light.

This is the same Light that fills my next state because it already exists. When I aspire to that future state, the Light begins to shine on me. For now it is called “surrounding” because it must first correct me and only then clothe into me. It works in two stages, performing two actions.

The same phenomena exist in physics: If I come closer to a magnet, then I enter the field of its attraction and influence. Even you and I influence one another. There is a certain field around every person. In fact, there is not one physical body that isn’t surrounded by a field—not even any stone.

Everything operates by the same principle. The closest state you aspire to (your next state) is what influences you. However, there are many fields around you that you do not even relate to yet. You do not yet aspire to them or know anything about them. When you reveal the spiritual world later on, you will see how many different things are happening in it and how many different dimensions exist in it.
[35411]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
It Won’t Help Us To Play Love
Anticipating The Light That Reforms
Lift Your Head To See The Friends

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Kabbalah Study, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: My spiritual desire emerged and I came to the group. I study and understand that a single law accompanies me during the entire course of the path. However, on the other hand, the Creator wants me to be autonomous. What does my independence entail?

Answer: The Creator lets you be independent in the point of choice and nothing besides that. In the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam says that the Creator Himself “places one’s hand on the good fate and says to him, ‘Choose this for yourself.’” In other words, you can choose what will influence you: the education you have received, your internal qualities, or the environment.

How do you choose, then? Try to take everything that occurs in the group, all its values, with the minimal inner obstacles coming from you, as you are in the present state. Currently, you view life based on past experiences. Until now, nothing was up to you, but now you are told: Try to neutralize everything you have absorbed and built yourself from and instead, receive the influence of the new environment.

Imagine you are a child who looks at the world with wide open eyes and wants to know everything, learn everything, and re-create everything he sees. Try to look at the new environment exactly like that, if you indeed made up your mind to walk with them to the goal. In that case, you don’t have any other choice but to become a child who is hungry for the influence the environment provides.

Until now, you evolved at the animate level and now, you wish to evolve spiritually, which is a totally new degree. Therefore, try to be the least in the group. After all, a younger child automatically learns from the older ones. This kind of attitude toward the group is what your choice entails. Now, choose!
[35067]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
If The Group Divides Into Factions
To Grow From A Zero
Your Choice: 3-5 Or 35 Years

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: If I bring children up according to the method of Kabbalah, could it be that I am taking away their free will?

Answer: What does it mean to bring children up according to the method of Kabbalah? It implies that you strive to introduce them into the environment, to prepare them for Kabbalistic texts, to lead them to the point of free choice so that they realize that man is brought up by the Light that Reforms. It is precisely what they have to evoke.

Initially, “man” (Adam) is the root of the soul, and he is supposed to draw everything else to himself with the Light that develops him. This is what our free will is about. We are either led by Nature, or we evoke a special force that lies above it. It isn’t easy. This requires a person to overcome, to struggle against the impact of the ordinary environment, and toil in order to attract the influence of the Light. If I lead my children to this, do I take their free will away? No, I don’t.

First of all, they may ignore not only traditional “baby food,” but also what you are teaching them yourself. There is no difference between them.

A person receives free will only when a point of a new desire emerges in him which craves personal development that will allow him (and not you with your notions of "education") to make his decisions. So, by teaching him what you, yourself, adhere to, you still don’t go beyond tradition, although this tradition is closer to the point that has to unfold.

We see that this is how it happens in the world today. But previously, humanity had to develop by way of religion. It is written about Abraham that he sent out to the world the sons of his concubines and ordered them to enforce various religions.

Judaism was also founded after the wisdom of Kabbalah disappeared from the people’s view during the fall of the Temple when we fell from the degree of bestowal and love into hatred and egoism. Since then, the Jewish people act only on the external, corporeal level. Instead of working internally on transforming the soul, purifying desire with the Light that Reforms, we are carrying out physical actions mechanically, without correcting the heart.

This is what religion is about, unlike the wisdom of Kabbalah; it is externality instead of internality. For this reason, Kabbalah is regarded as the inner essence of the Torah.

However, exile is coming to an end since it was allotted a certain time. Changes have begun, and the point of free will is hatching in human hearts. They wish to get out of the enforced education and test themselves: “Whom do I wish to be? How can I be my own guide?”

Then, a person makes a choice: He needs a new type of upbringing. It’s not the kind that society is providing for him—he wants to receive it directly from the Creator. Let the Creator give it to him so that he may be called “man” (Adam) who is similar (Domeh) to the Supreme.

Usually, our upbringing is based on us receiving examples from those who surround us and becoming similar to them. Now, I wish to receive an example from the Creator so I may become like Him.
[35070]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Tied By The Single Network
Children And Free Will
Upbringing Has To Catch Up To The Times

Filed under: Children, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Free Will, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: If the world is integral and global and is governed by the Creator through the plan of creation that permeates it, then why can’t we be in direct correspondence and harmony with it?

Answer: We exist “in concealment,” meaning that we don’t sense the actual connections between us. The fictitious picture which we currently sense, with the distorted connections between people, is called “this world.” As soon as we discover the real picture of the connection between us, we will feel as though we exist in a new world. It will be a global, spiritual world which doesn’t depend on our physical bodies, in which birth and death do not exist since we are not tied to the body.

Instead of sensing one’s tiny part in the enormous system, each of us will feel this huge system in full. And for this reason, everyone will feel eternal.

We will feel the force that connects us with each other. It is called “the Creator,” “Boreh” in Hebrew, which comes from the words “come and see” (Bo–Reh). That is, one simply needs to come and see!

Above the animate level in which a person exists in his or her physical, animalistic body, he has an additional, upper level of consciousness, thought, desire, understanding, and knowledge. This is the degree we have to reach.

Beside this system, we also reveal the general life force that drives it. It’s similar to how in addition to a biological body, a person also has a human personality. This is exactly what we reveal in the general system: An additional force that enlivens it, which we call “the Creator.” When we reveal Him, we become like Him.
[35163]
From my lecture in Paris 2/1/2011

Related Material:
We Work With The Friends, But We Mean The Creator
The Answer To All My Questions
To Know Is To Bestow

Filed under: Body and Soul, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Is A Lily Amongst the Thorns in the Work”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Fourth Commandment,” Item 213, Lesson 3
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 79, Lesson 46
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Lesson 2
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →