Question: How do we prepare for the convention in the desert as it says, by “cancelling ourselves completely.”

Answer: First, you have to figure out what it means, “to eliminate oneself.” Does it mean to stop existing? What will happen afterwards?

“I”: This is my reason, emotions, mind, and heart. If I am deprived of them, only my corporeal body would remain. So, what’s next? My intellect and emotions do not depend on me either. This is the way I was born and brought up; I was carved into some form: Is this me? Is this what I really am? What can I eliminate here? Where is the “I” that I am rejecting?

If you don’t sense that you have anything to cancel, but if you are working through the group to cling to the Creator (as it is written: “from love of creatures to love of the Creator”), and if you discover rejection and hatred, then you know what to eliminate. This is what we call “I,” the revealing of its true essence, resistance, and unwillingness to connect with others.

It is the force of shattering that hides in me, the same Reshimo, the information that descended to me after the shattering occurred. Formerly, I used to be connected with others; now I detect my former connection and make sure that it still exists. Depending on whether I feel connection with others or not and whether I still possess a desire to connect or not, I start to elucidate my broken Reshimot (informational genes).

My discovery that I am in opposition to others is the first revelation of the Pharaoh. However, if I don’t apply effort I’ll never discern it. Maybe I haven’t come to Egypt yet, or I am already there but my “seven years of abundance” are not over yet? So, I still enjoy common meals, assemblies of friends, pleasant surroundings, and spending time with my loving friends.

When the seven years of abundance are over, problems, troubles, arguments, and disagreements emerge, but a person realizes that this is given to him on purpose and he doesn’t try to run away from them. He tries hard to overcome his detachment, hatred, and contempt towards his surroundings.

At this point (if the person doesn’t abandon the path,) he starts realizing the importance of such conditions and understands that there is no choice and it is the way it should be.

Now, he finds himself directly across from Pharaoh. It is all about internal work that cannot normally be traced from outside. It’s a whole period of effort and realization of the fact that there is nothing he can do about it because it is the Creator who reveals the force of shattering to him; as it is said: “Let’s approach Pharaoh, since I hardened his heart.”

The Creator shows a person how weak he is and his to love his neighbor.  At this time, a person is ready to do anything to achieve brotherly love. He is ready to go through all “ten Egyptian plagues”, to cross the Red Sea (Yam Sof – Final Sea), and to accept mutual connection and responsibility in order to bring closer the power of the reforming Light called Torah for the sake of self-correction and attainment of love of the created beings, because by doing so he will eventually attain the love of the Creator.

Can you imagine, how much support and care one has to get from his environment and from Above so he doesn’t run way with his egoism that is getting stronger and always pursues him? He has to understand that “the Creator made one against the other”: There is either “a stick or a serpent” (bestowal or egoism) and there is nothing in between—one or the other.
[66932]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/12, Shamati #59

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