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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” item 98: Now you can see that the question the interpreters asked about the Mitzva of love, saying that this Mitzva is out of our hands, since love does not come by coercion and compulsion, is not at all a question. This is because it is entirely in our hands. Every person can labor in the Torah until he finds the attainment of His open Providence, as it is written, “I labored and found, believe.”
When one attains open Providence, the love extends to him by itself through the natural channels. And one who does not believe that he can attain through his efforts, for whatever reason, is necessarily in disbelief of the words of our sages. Instead, he imagines that the labor is not sufficient for each person, which is the opposite of the verse, “I labored and did not find, do not believe.” It is also against the words, “those that seek Me shall find Me”; specifically, those that “seek,” whoever they are, great or small. However, he certainly needs to labor.
It is because exertion is the “vessel.” It isn’t just a prerequisite like in our world, when I can borrow from the bank or steal if I don’t have money to buy something. In attaining spirituality I have no choice, the money has to be mine! This is my “covering” (Kisufa, from the same Hebrew root as money) over the desire to receive, the Masach (screen). It has to be mine, since otherwise, I won’t be able to feel the filling.
We can “borrow” from the Creator and then repay Him by our exertion, as it says: “The store is open and the hand is writing.” But I can only borrow as help for my development and not for the revelation. In order to attain revelation, I must have my own vessel.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”
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Question: How can we increase the feeling of mutual dependence in the group?
Answer: This also depends on the environment. If the environment convinces me that I depend on it, then I will be convinced. If it doesn’t convince me, I will not be convinced. There has to a massive impact upon a person in order to convince him that by himself he means nothing and will not be able to do anything, that the spiritual path is possible only by incorporating in others, only through connection.
We have to think about this daily, for many hours—that the spiritual feeling is only possible in a whole vessel. We know that there was the shattering of the worlds. The same matter that we feel now doesn’t actually exist; it is imaginary. Even modern physics has already reached this conclusion. There is only a desire, which means a force, and we have to discover this force as one as it was created by the Creator.
We have to aspire to discover it as one whole, by imagining it not in the form of corporeal bodies, but in the form of desires, forces, one collective general desire to enjoy. It doesn’t matter that this force is revealed to us in different manners and that they are constantly changing. These are all desires to enjoy that must be connected. The moment we connect them, we immediately receive a filling.
The connection is only possible through concessions, by “the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph)” of our ego, and after our self-annulment there should be a connection, which is already incorporating in others, an action that is opposite to the shattering, bestowal.
I have to receive from someone in order to bestow upon him.
We use words from this world to describe the connection, but in fact these are Kabbalistic terms that refer to the correction of the desires. Don’t look at people, at the corporeal bodies around you. It is space that is full of separate forces that have to find a way to connect. The connection between them already exists; they only need to reveal it!
By discovering this connection, they discover their inclination, which is considered their exertion: “I labored and I found.” But if you don’t discover this connection, it remains concealed from you. Everything that the Creator has created is concealed from us. He is waiting for us to discover this reality by ourselves, by our exertion, which means willingly.
The Creator created the initial desire and developed it to a whole reality. But then He concealed this reality and left you only a point. Now you need to develop a desire inside you by working with the group and to discover the reality that was created by the Creator. It turns out that it is as if you are creating it yourself, by the desire that you receive from the environment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”
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The Book of Zohar, “Neso,” Item 99: “…and they shall stand at the foot of the mountain.” This is how they will be in the last redemption, under the sages of the Torah, as a slave who walks by the feet of his master’s horse.
Question: How can we bring the slave to walk by the feet of his master’s horse and not the other way around?
Answer: It is up to us. Baal HaSulam talks about it at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“,saying that if we divide our internality and externality correctly in the work, then accordingly things will be divided in our world. If, on the other hand, we don’t divide things correctly internally, then the world will not be divided correctly.
So all the attacks on the world indicate that you are not divided correctly internally; your inner spiritual concepts such as bestowal, love, Creator, group, are not above the corporeal ones. As a result, you turn the world “on its head” by lowering the internality and raising the externality as something that is important.
If you divide everything inside you correctly, no one in the world will be able to resist it. So let’s raise spirituality in our eyes, let’s raise it above us. Bestowal, love of others, connection—should all be placed above everything, and then there will be no resistance on the outside, since you are aiming according to the upper force.
Today you are denounced and rejected from every direction, only in order to evoke you to do this work so that you will raise the internality above the externality.
Question: How can I let “Israel” rule inside me?
Answer: It means placing bestowal above receiving, “faith above reason,” the group above myself. In fact it is actually the group above me, but in constant thought, in the daily care. The main struggle is here inside, in order to constantly raise bestowal above receiving, the Creator’s greatness above the created being’s greatness, the greatness of the group over my own greatness.
Question: How can we fight this war together?
Answer: By mutual help. This is all our work.
Yesterday, for example, you didn’t manage to hold on to an intention, and today? Are you holding on to one intention throughout the day? Are you filled with the Creator’s greatness, so that by the evening it will be your only concern? Does everyone worry about others, about the fact that you should all think about the same thing? The Creator’s greatness is the deepest, innermost point of our connection. It is there in that point that we meet Him.
In one word, if you don’t advance, you will not hear anything new…
[96056]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar
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Opinion (Angela Merkel, German Chancellor): “German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected suggestions on Friday that the worst was over for the euro zone, saying the currency bloc faced years of painful reforms, slow growth and high unemployment.
“’One reason I am careful with my forecasts is the adjustment process, the changes that we are going through are very difficult and painful, Merkel said.
She said the bloc would not see the fruits of labor market and other structural reforms for several years, with 2013 shaping up as another challenge.
“‘Next year, and the ECB president said this, we will have very low growth rates, we will see negative growth in some countries, and we can expect very high unemployment levels to continue,’ Merkel said.”
My Comment: No matter how gut-wrenching, they must move from propagandists to realists. Gradually, we will all get accustomed to the fact that we do not rule the world, but it is controlled by Nature, according to a strict program. Get to know it, and understand how to adapt to it; it is possible by studying Kabbalah.
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Question: How are the right amount and the right quality of the exertion determined?
Answer: Now our efforts should be aimed at trying to see that everything is fulfilled and revealed within the connection among us, in the center of the group.
A person should feel this center of the general connection as an actual reality. After all, it is our first spiritual level. We should try to imagine this connection as hard as we can, in the form of a “crimson sphere,” or as some kind of a collective plate—as a place where all our hopes and expectations should be fulfilled.
It should become the most important and precious place in all of reality. Later we will discover that it is really the most important place, and that everything else are only meaningless results of what we discover in the center of our connection. What will happen in this center at any given moment will bring about an effect that will spread in every direction and influence the whole world.
[96044]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”
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Question: In our present state, are we capable of true integrality, the way it should be ideally?
Answer: No. True integrality is something we can study from analog systems, from ideal or closed natural states, where each part is dependent on all the other parts. They are all completely interconnected through an infinite number of connections at various levels. Each part defines all the others. It’s a particular kind of holographic, analog circuit, where both input, output, and all sorts of other states happen simultaneously, and therefore, it’s impossible to say who’s first, who’s last, and what follows what.
It is a system where everyone feels absolutely everyone else as oneself. It’s an inclusion of everyone into everyone in such a complete, absolute form that the self-interests of each part are not taken into account at all, and only the work of the entire system is considered—the system becomes the main thing. And then subdivisions occur within it of what is more important for it and what is less. Each part works for the entire system and sees itself only in the capacity of a giver to it. This is called “integral inclusion.”
Naturally, our egoistic nature is completely opposite to this state. We cannot become included into one another, we can only take in, sense, and be connected with each other to the extent that we are interested: by sympathizing, and so on.
Our nature is absolute egoism. We don’t notice what doesn’t pertain to our ego: Our sensory organs capture and communicate to us only whatever is useful or harmful to it. This is why altruism doesn’t appear to us as a possibility for existence. We usually replace it with some kind of partial alliances or by drawing closer to each other, but all of these aren’t true altruistic properties, which are described in the integral system, but are the very same egoism that works in certain relationship to others in order to co-exist and no more than that. In other words, we do not have anything to do with the true integral system.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12
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We need to understand that if a person, as the highest creation of nature, strives toward unity and integrality despite being unable to achieve it, then through it, he evokes the integrality of nature, which works for him. We see it in different systems, various objects, even with regard to the way we grow.
We see how a child develops. He makes instinctive attempts to become a grownup, to succeed at something. He is always in a state of tension. Why are these attempts successful? Why do they make an adult out of him? Why, as a result of numerous efforts, does he learn, grow, comprehend, and develop? It is because with his desire, he evokes upon himself the force of nature, which develops him.
The very same nature, which develops us and which gradually created the vegetative, animate, and later human levels out of the still, responds to our efforts and our labors. If we’ll strive towards integrating with it, towards integrating with each other, then eventually we’ll discover within us the manifestation of the overall general force. That is, by striving for unity we evoke upon ourselves that unifying force which already exists in nature.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12
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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: … the truth is that the force itself is also considered a genuine matter, just as any corporeal matter in the concrete world…”
We say that spirituality is a “force.” Does it mean that this world is the matter? No, it doesn’t. A force by itself is matter. There is nothing but force. Contemporary physics arrived at the following conclusion: beyond atoms, particles, and photons, we don’t detect matter. Even when we use traditional methods of exploration of the universe and go deep down into the very basis of it, we discover that at the foundation matter “disappears” and actually works as a force. We are used to drawing a material picture of the world, but in fact it exists only in our perception, but in fact, matter is only a force, nothing more than that.
This force is divided into two categories (two desires): giving and receiving. Overall, the multiplicity of isolated forces outlines a kind of reality that Kabbalists call imaginary, illusory. It is realistic, but ephemeral, like a three-dimensional drawn in the air with a laser beam. And we live in it, and actually “come from” this “beam.” All of us are “painted” in space, and in fact, our essence is also a force, two desires and a screen that balances them.
These forces are receiving and giving desires that must incorporate and integrate with one another. But so much one of them dominates the other, and so that the resulting desire also has “access to power,” and cooperation, participation, understanding, shared common sensations all the way to love, when everyone is ready to give partnership, stay in mutual cooperation and understanding, share common sensations including love and be ready to give up everything they have for the sake of each other and at the same time they have to accept everything from others.
The receiving force has to achieve the same power of being as the power of bestowal, feel it, and develop accordingly to obtain qualities similar to the Creator. And for this it must go through special states that allow it to feel that it is alive and empowered to make decisions, to plan and to implement plans into reality. At this point, it is impossible to abide without an imaginary picture. This is where the illusion called “our world” in which the receiving desire prevails comes from.
Baal HaSulam brings an example of a coachman who used to live with his wife and children, earned enough money to keep his house properly, and was quite happy until his troubles began: His horse died, the house was burned down, and his wife and children died in an epidemic. As a result, the coachman appeared before the Higher Court where it was resolved that he would be paid for his adversity since he had suffered so much.
What was he given? He received a horse, a cart, a wife, children, and a house; the same feeling, which for him was happiness. In this “picture,” his life is again wonderful: he works, brings money to his family, and rejoices together with them. Everything is great! His desire is small, but for him it’s a real paradise where all is well and nothing more is needed. A perfect illusion.
Sometimes, we have dreams. How do they differ from reality? What if in a couple of minutes the alarm clock rings and wakes you up, and you realize that what you have seen was a dream? In fact, this is the way it is. So, what is the difference between a dream and the reality? How do we tell one from the other?
It is important to understand that our reality is “drawn” by a force and is granted to us to make our desire to receive feel independent, powerful, competent, and detached from the one who actually operates it. This is the only way to reach equivalence of form with the Creator. Otherwise, what kind of similarity would it be if I were completely under its control?
In fact, our detachment from the Creator is illusionary, and that’s why this world is called imaginary. On the other hand, spiritual realms are not imaginary, because that is where we are aware of the illusion, agree with it, and rise above reason. There, we work above our understanding, knowing that there is none else besides Him, agreeing with this more and more deeply. We are already working with a real force, despite the fact that we ourselves also are a force, and there is only force.
Question: If our whole life is just one, long dream, what practical conclusions can we make of this?
Answer: It is said in Psalms: “We were as dreamers.” Practically, I have to take this life seriously. It is given to me to rise above it, not to neglect it. Nothing should be disregarded. The current “picture” is drawn for me by the upper force, and until I complete the preparation period, I cannot get rid of it. I have to continue sensing this world until the end of correction; each time returning for new corrections. Even if I ascended to the 124th level and all that is left is the last 125th step, I still will return.
There is no other choice. This “basic infrastructure” is extremely important, since only by leaning on it we realize our choice. Thanks to it, at each step, it seems to us that we act independently and that we are equal with the Creator, and perhaps are even more powerful than He is. There is not the slightest chance to merge with Him without this sense independence. Otherwise, there is no “me”, the one who is able to merge with Him.
This is the way we work in this world. Let it be imaginary, we are aware of it, and then we accept it. We are starting to consciously play with our “independence,” and at this point, the fact that we are being governed by Him is no secret to us anymore.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”
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Preparation to the Lesson
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 102, Lesson 26
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Naso,” Item 5, Lesson 9
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, Item 6, Lesson 4
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy“
| [media 9] | [media 10] |
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