A question I received: Who is our “Upper One” in spirituality?

My Answer: We don’t know that. We exist in the womb of the Upper One as a mere point, a droplet of semen, our spiritual Reshimo (record, gene). Beyond this Reshimo, we have nothing else!

In fact, our corporeal body, mind, and feelings have no relation to the spiritual world and cannot be seen there. In the spiritual world, there is only a womb of the Upper One (Malchut of Infinity) and us inside it. And each of us is a Reshimo (0/1, Shoresh Aviut/Aleph Hitlabshut) or in other words, a point in the heart.

Our task, as a point in the heart, is to try to cling to the wall of the spiritual womb! Beginning with the three days during which the semen is absorbed, the first problem for the embryo (us) is to attach itself to the wall of the womb. Attaching to the womb is establishing the very first contact with the Upper One.

In order to do this, we must annul ourselves before the Upper One. But where is this Upper One, this wall of the womb? What is it exactly? The Upper One is the Kabbalistic group, my environment! This is how the Upper One reveals the Creator for me.

Thus, there are the group and me, who adheres to it, despite all the obstacles. I accept the entire force of the group’s desire for bestowal, and I am willing and ready to take it all in through annulling myself before them.

When I attach myself to the group, my Aviut, which is the strength of my will to bestow, begins to grow and cause unpleasant sensations in me: disappointment, growth of egoism, and burdening of the heart. But I must go even deeper in, like a leech, clinging to the group which is the “wall of the womb.”

Then, between us, the first connection will appear, not through a point, but through the tube through which “blood” will start flowing into me. This connection, so far, is on the inanimate level (“Dam”- blood, from “Domem” – inanimate), but I will have already received spiritual sustenance from the Upper One.

All of this takes place through my connection with the group. There is no other “wall” through which I can enter the spiritual world!

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, Article “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

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The Upper One is in a constant state of perfection, it needs nothing but bestowal. It is not something that senses or changes its mood. Rather, it is a system, an unchanging law that has been set in place. To the extent that you align yourself with this law, it influences you positively.

But if you don’t abide by it, if you are not similar to it, it acts upon you negatively. Our initial and ultimate states in creation are predetermined, and they have to become completely realized regardless of whether you are going along with or resist it, understand it or not.

The lower one (you) has only one good opportunity: to participate in this process consciously and pass the desire for it to the Upper One. This desire is what we need to reach; we need nothing but the desire! We also need to know how to “raise” this desire in order to pass it to the Upper One. The Upper One is in a state of perfection; it is always ready to give everything required to the lower one.

The lower one is a collection of all the souls, while the Upper One is one: one Light, one Thought of Creation, or one Force. If the lower one wishes to resemble the Upper One (meaning it is willing to unite and become as one), it is able to raise its desire to the Upper One. The Upper One hears no other requests but this one. This is what is called a prayer, MAN, that is, a desire to become a single whole.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/10, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

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A question I received: What does it mean that the Upper One supplies me with the Light of Hassadim, the properties of bestowal?

My Answer: It means that instead of problems, suffering, darkness, and evil, I begin to perceive goodness, light, abundance, love, kindness, and mercy. Why has it changed? It is because my perception and my desires are beginning to change. My desires become corrected, and suddenly I see the very same darkness as goodness. I understand that bestowal is good. It isn’t darkness, but quite the opposite. It’s a new life that I hadn’t previously known. I perceived it as death, but it turns out to be the land of real life.

This happens to a person who unites with the others and wishes to connect to them, who does everything he can, but discovers that it’s not within his power. So, he asks the Creator to work with him and help him annul himself before the group. Thus, the Creator becomes his partner and all three unite: the person, the Creator, and the group. A person can’t enter the society without the Creator. He must invite the Creator to participate.

When I prepare my desires this way, I suddenly feel that bestowal is not darkness but life. The Light works on me so that subconsciously I begin to avoid reception and to value bestowal. My attitude to the others suddenly changes.

It seems to me as though this intrinsic change occurs in me on its own. I don’t yet understand how the Light has effected this change in me. First, I start to appreciate and honor this quality of bestowal from afar, as it were. However, soon, I desire it and yearn for it so much I simply crave it, and the Light grants my demand and reforms me.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, "Preface to the Sulam Commentary"

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There is no holiday greater than the holiday of receiving the Torah. If not for the Torah, we would be confined to leading an animalistic existence for as long as the Earth goes ’round.

Yet, we have received the opportunity to use the Upper Force and with its help, to enter the Upper Dimension, where we continue our existence and life in the spiritual dimension. We can go smoothly from our world and this reality that we now feel, to a new state, a different world or dimension that is in no way connected to the planet Earth and this universe. We can reveal our existence in an eternal and perfect form, complete harmony, without the limitations of the material world.

With the help of the Upper Force, we can reveal the passageway from our world and this flawed life, to a perfect existence. The means of making the transition from our dimension to the upper one is called “Torah.” This is a special force that gradually changes us, leading us into a new state. To the degree we change, we smoothly make the shift to that state, until all of our “earthly” (egoistic) qualities change to spiritual, altruistic ones.

We then gain the opportunity to lead an eternal, perfect existence. Therefore, receiving this opportunity is the most important event of our life, a true holiday!

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/10, “What is the Preparation for Receiving the Torah”

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As a person rises from one level to the next and goes through various states, he mustn’t forget that there is just one force in reality. It’s not him or the environment, but only the Upper Force, the all-inclusive Nature, the Creator, who organizes all these states for him, and he exists in connection with Him.

It’s true that I have to lower myself before the environment and that I have to study the Kabbalah books that were written by wise people, Kabbalists, and that I must continuously build myself anew. But through all of these means, this wrapper, this entire theater, I am connected with the only Director who arranges everything by the rule, “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before.”

Then I don’t just go through levels and states or build a relationship with the group, but I am always connected to Him through all the means He has placed between us. They are like adapters that help me to reveal Him. Gradually, as I study them, I see that all these obstacles and degrees of concealment between me and Him are intended to help me change so I will become more and more similar to Him, to the Director who organizes everything for me.

Then I begin to perceive the surroundings, the atmosphere, the friends, studies, and teacher, as His representatives. I stop attributing any significance or existence to them in and of themselves, and they gradually disappear in my eyes. I no longer see them as having their own forces, power, and influence.

I relate them to the Creator more and more, and to this degree I justify them and the Creator, who acts this way with me. That is how I acquire a connection with Him. Then I love everyone, since they helped me attain adhesion with Him. And the whole world is then called “the holy Shechina” – one desire, inside of which the Light fills everything. And this desire is mine.

From the 8th lesson at the World Zohar Convention 5/9/10

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A question I received: I came to the science of Kabbalah, the science of reception, in order to receive. But suddenly I see that it teaches about how to increase one’s desire. Where is the reception here?

My Answer: This is reception. I receive a special force from the Creator called “love,” which is something completely unknown to us. With the help of this force I attach all the desires existing in reality to myself. They all become my desires and I receive them along with their fulfillment.

This is called the science of Kabbalah, which is about how to receive desires full of goodness. They are all yours. All you need is to feel love for them. Then you will discover that they are in the state of the End of Correction, and all of it is yours.

When you acquire the force of love, you start to feel the desires of your neighbor better than he does, and you then fulfill him according to your sensations. It’s like a mother feels what her child needs.

In spirituality the Upper One knows best what the lower one needs. The lower one simply screams, revealing his desire to you. But you know all the components of his desire, even though he does not. That’s because you are the upper one. If you are the one who bestows and you fulfill him, then you are the upper one in relation to him and you know more about him than he does.

This is the law of upper love, which does not have anything in common with the notions we attribute to the word “love” in our world.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/10, “Matan Torah”

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A question I received: What is essentially the gist of the method that you want to convey to the whole world?

My Answer: It’s the method of how to properly organize human society. Right now society is broken and feels the need to unite. However, it doesn’t have the method to attain unity.

Everyone understands that our egoism is destroying us and we have nowhere left to go. There are no other methods left. Our entire history and the entire path we have gone through have brought us to the understanding that we cannot do anything to affect human nature. All research shows that we are complete egoists and every person thinks only about himself.

However, we cannot keep advancing in this manner. The ego is constantly growing while the world we live in forces everyone to be interconnected. Nature has pushed us into this tight connection, yet we are striving to do the opposite, to separate as much as we can. We have no way to balance these two forces that are opposite to one another: our ego, which separates us from each other, and the force of nature, which pressures us and locks us all together like in prison.

We find ourselves in one small room where we all hate each other. The situation is becoming unbearable and we don’t understand: What should we do next?

Humanity is gradually revealing this state of affairs. On the other hand, the science of Kabbalah is being revealed, which is a method offering a way to resolve the contradiction and transform it to perfection. It is possible only with the help of an external, Upper Force, which does not exist within the plane of our reality.

This seems unrealistic to you because the force that can correct our state does not come from our world. Yet, we can discover it and use it just like the other forces of nature that we did not know in the past, but we learned about them and now use them.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/10, “Matan Torah”

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A question I received: What should I do if I can’t concentrate during a Zohar lesson for even 5 minutes? I don’t know where to look for all of this within myself.

My Answer: By all means keep searching within yourself for all the properties described in The Zohar. If a sick person were told that this text bears the information on how to become healthy, escape trouble, bankruptcy, and other problems, he would greedily “swallow” the text, trying to absorb every single word of it. If he were scared and sought salvation in the text, he would try to comprehend it even if the book was written in a foreign language.

But the lack of spirituality does not frighten us. Only the environment can bring about this desire within us.

So even if you don’t know where to look for it within yourself, keep looking anyway. Imagine that you are entering a new, dark, unknown place and you can’t see anything. You have a flashlight, and each time you hear something, you point the flashlight around, hoping to find something.

As adults, we study by filling our intellect. But sensations do not develop through the intellect. As infants, however, we evolved through listening and observing, without understanding what we heard or saw. This was precisely why we developed our feelings and mind. We were being told stories, things were being shown to us, but we did not understand them. The connections between things were being explained to us, yet we did not grasp them. However, precisely because of our efforts to understand, we turned from an animal into a human being.

Hence at this time, when I strive to develop within myself new senses and mind, I read The Zohar without understanding what “it” is all about. However, my efforts uncover new abilities within me and eventually I start sensing and understanding something that was hidden from me before.

The Upper World is among us. We only need is to continue developing from being a human of this world toward becoming a "human" of the Upper World. Make every effort to see. That’s how your senses develop. After you start sensing, your mind will start working as well.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/10, The Zohar

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In every state, there are two lines: the Creator and the creature, or bestowal and reception. These two lines are opposite to one another; there is absolutely no link to be found between them. In addition, the more we advance, the more these lines diverge. The middle line that runs between them is not exactly a point of contact. These two lines descend all the way down, while the middle line begins above, in the upper degree.

I’ll never be able to unite these two lines in my current state, but only if I connect to the Upper One by canceling myself before it and ascending to the next degree. Once I am there, the two lines that I felt at my previous degree unite into one. They no longer oppose one another even though, before, they were polar opposites.

The middle line is always above the other two and it’s attained by rising above reason – that’s the definition of the “next degree.” There, the contradiction disappears.

We’re given these contradictions purposefully. As we are unable to deal with them, the contradictions force us to ascend upward.

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A question I received: What kind of “just” social framework does Baal HaSulam write about in the article, “The Nation”? Is he really concerned with organizing a more comfortable, well-fed life within the boundaries of this world? How can this be the concern of a Kabbalist who knows that everything is governed by the Upper Force, and we are temporarily placed within this world only in order to correct our soul?

My Answer: Despite what you say, Baal HaSulam also knew that people will reach a point in their development when they would reveal that they lack the Upper Force to correct their relationships. Then they will need the science of Kabbalah because only the Upper Light can correct the relationships between people. There cannot be a good relationship between people unless they are connected by the Creator. Only through Him can people unite with one another. In other words, life itself will force people to reveal the path and forces of correction.

Two people can never be connected with one another directly, but only through the quality of bestowal, which is called the Creator. Baal HaSulam understood this very well since he possessed the highest spiritual attainment. However, in order to bring the regular reader closer to this, he starts his explanation from afar. When a person understands what kind of unity and connection we have to attain according to nature’s plan, and that this is inevitable, the only thing remaining for him to do will be to reveal the means of implementing the correction: the Upper Light that Reforms.

Of course, Baal HaSulam did not think of socialism or communism as a goal in and of itself in order to create a well-fed life for the average person in this world. Rather, he had great understanding and personal attainment of the goal of creation.

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