Comment: In our age of satiation I know in advance that I need not exert effort to buy a Mercedes because in a month or two the charm will evaporate and I’ll begin to want something else.…

Answer: That’s true, but we’re talking about a spiritual goal now, not a Mercedes. If there’s something more important for you than the goal, then you will stray off the path. That’s obvious.

Comment: But the spiritual goal itself isn’t clear to me. I don’t even know what it is.

Answer: This begs a question: Does that prompt you to search for the truth? If it doesn’t, then you’re not advancing. Every day you need to conduct an inner calculation: “What do I have on the one hand, and what do I lack on the other? And when will I obtain that which I lack?”

Otherwise, if you’re missing the direction and the pressure, how will you advance to achieve your desire? If you don’t set a goal before yourself at every moment, you will not achieve it. Or do you presume you’re riding in a train with a paid ticket?

In other words, you’re being lazy like the others, waiting until suffering starts spur you forward and convincing yourself that simply putting in the time will have an effect. Is that it?

Comment: Naturally. But how do I compel myself to conduct these daily checks? It’s not like I have power of my thoughts.

Answer: Ask your friends to egg you on. They are one thousand degrees above you, so why aren’t you jealous of them? Why aren’t you ashamed before them?

There are people around you who have crossed the Machsom. Granted, you don’t know what that is, though you’ve heard the word before. These people sense spirituality, to a small measure, but still. And what about you?

But you don’t see this and that is why you aren’t jealous of them. That is correct. But you don’t see it because the intention to bestow reigns in them. If they were to reveal it to you even a little, you would run right back to your Mercedes. And that is why they don’t reveal themselves. Still, try to be jealous of their attainment somehow. You simply must.

The Creator is ready to give us Infinity, but we’re unable to receive anything but the thinnest illumination that He sends to sustain our present existence. You need to think about how to achieve shame, and for that you need exercises between you and the group. Otherwise nothing will happen.

Until you build a system of relationships with the group as you would want to have with the Creator, nothing will happen or will be revealed to you. It’s like you were given a construction kit with lots of little pieces to put together into a certain structure. If you do it, you’ll be given a more grown-up challenge.

But without it there is no advancement, for better or worse.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work | 1 Comment →