The Zohar, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 59: “And behold, the Lord stood above it.” Here in the ladder, Jacob saw the connection of faith, the Nukva, tying all the Sefirot as one. “Stood above it” is as it is written, “A pillar of salt,” a mound, since all the degrees as one are on that same ladder, the Nukva, connecting everything in one knot because that ladder was given between the two sides.

It is written, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac.” Those are the two sides, right and left—Abraham is right and Isaac is left.

Malchut is an image, a picture of the Creator. We are within Malchut. Actually, we are Malchut and we sense everything within as a picture of this world. In fact, we always sense the Creator and nothing but Him. The problem is that we sense Him in accordance with our properties and to the level of our similarity with Him.

Sensations always come from the Light, but the desire (the vessel of its perception) senses itself as a certain object depending on its opposition or similarity to the Light. That’s why the Higher Sefirot constitute properties that are present in Malchut and include the Creator’s attitude toward Malchut’s attempts to become similar with them. They are called Sefirot since they illuminate inside Malchut which “lights” them because of its corrected desire to receive pleasure in order to bestow. That’s why it is luminescent.

The Upper Light doesn’t illuminate itself; it is hidden. Only to the degree that the lower one advances and attempts to become similar to the Upper One do the properties of the lower one light up and then are called Sefirot.

Everything we feel begins and ends within Malchut. Anything we can imagine existing prior to Malchut is an illusion of our perception. Similarly, we envision a certain reality around us, but in fact there is nothing at all; everything is within us. We simply divide all of reality into “me” and “something outside of me.”

The same happens in spirituality: We divide all of reality into a soul that as of yet has no sensation of itself and something that is outside of it. But when our correction is complete, everything comes together and there is no difference between “external” and “internal”; everything merges into one point.

As a person advances, he begins to see that even though the whole picture around him becomes wider, more intense, and complicated, at the same time, it concentrates and organizes itself into ten Sefirot. This allows us to arrive at the conclusion that everything depends on our perception, that is, on the measure of our similarity with the Light.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: Why is it so difficult to carry out the condition of “buy yourself a friend”? Shouldn’t our egoism derive pleasure from this?

My Answer: You “buy” friends by lowering yourself before them and doing what they want. This is called “paying.” Rather than proudly walking into a store with a pile of money and choosing who to buy, you buy a friend by doing what is necessary for him; you serve him. You don’t buy him “from above”; you buy him “from below.” You are willing to do everything for him as though he does not need you.

In other words, you bend down before him and ask, “What can I do for you so that you will become my friend? I am ready for anything, just give my spiritual desire, my soul back to me!”

You cannot forcefully demand that he return your soul to you since it is in his possession. If now you want to receive your soul, you need to approach him from different sides, trying to find the approach which will make him free your soul. Your success depends only on his positive attitude towards you. If he does not wish to treat you well, then you are lost.

Did you ever take care of someone, trying to gain their positive disposition to you?  Imagine that you are standing before a judge who needs to announce your sentence now. He is disposed strictly against you and is just seething with anger. How would you try to change his anger to mercy?

“A person and a group” is a whole Kabbalistic drama.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, Article, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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A question I received: Why is man given too much intelligence from Above? As a result, his reasoning outweighs and rejects his actions, stripping him of an opportunity to advance?

My Answer: People receive so much intelligence in order not to be animals. An animal has just enough intelligence as it needs for life and it doesn’t make mistakes. We are given excess intelligence so that we would make mistakes, build plans for the future, have egoistic intentions and along with them, the intelligence to aspire to a higher degree, to develop, and to suffer. After all, suffering pushes us ahead.

An additional desire, a point in the heart, awakens in a person and rouses dissatisfaction in him: “Who am I? What am I living for? What is life? What is death?” An animal doesn’t ask about these things. You don’t complain about being given all these questions instead of just living peacefully as does an animal, do you?

Too much intelligence isn’t a problem. The problem occurs if a person allows his corporeal mind to control him and stop him from acting. If an action isn’t coordinated with the mind, the mind wins and stops the action.

We need to tune into the group, to build good relationships there, and to “buy ourselves a friend.” This is called action, as it is written, “We shall do and [then] we shall hear.” This means that we’ll reach the degree of Bina. After all, through the action, we draw the Light of correction from Bina. It influences us and gives us its quality of bestowal. However, if the mind stops a person from acting, then the person can’t change.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, Article, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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People always aspire to reason and don’t understand that attainment comes only from above reason, that is, in the spiritual vessel of faith above reason. Only there will true knowledge be revealed. As we now study RABASH’s articles about the group and try to build our Internet community in accordance to the principles they describe, we want people to occupy themselves with it as much as possible. How much they understand these articles is not so important. What counts is that people work on them throughout the day as well.

One may get confused, not understand anything, curse all this, and want it all at the same time. It is most important for one to constantly occupy oneself with it. Thereby we will draw the Light that Reforms which will change our desires, and then we will understand.

However, understanding is not the goal in itself. The goal is to carry out correct actions which will bring us closer to bestowal. We don’t study in order to receive knowledge; we study in order to change. Otherwise it would be too easy, just as our egoism desires: to grab the Upper, spiritual world for itself also.

The whole Torah (Kabbalah) is given to us for a single purpose: to correct our egoistic nature. That is, the Torah works in the opposite direction, meaning against our ego. You do not climb into spirituality by yourself; rather, the spiritual Force of correction enters you. And you should desire and anticipate this force of correction. It is called your Mashiach (Messiah).

Of course we need to work on these articles about the group: make a plan, write a brief summary, take certain definitions, laws, and principles from them and use them to build our statute. Yet what matters most is being engaged in it all the time. The results will come as a consequence of this work and not from understanding. Everything will depend on how much we wish for this to happen. This is called the prayer (MAN).

Therefore, working with the articles is essential. However, it should not be work to acquire knowledge, but rather work to realize them.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, Article, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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A question I received: Why is it written in the Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 55, that a person who attained “open Providence [that is, revealed the Creator] is certain that he will not sin again”?

My Answer: A person is certain that he won’t sin because he has corrected, with the help of the screen and the Reflected Light, all his desires to receive. He rose above them and now can proceed further. He needs “the Creator to testify” for his correction in order to continue working with his desires to receive and start using them for receiving in order to bestow.

I need an additional general force which is called the testimony of the Creator. Now I have to open my Pandora’s box that contains all my desires and begin to clarify in which of them I can receive pleasure and thereby delight the Creator. This is a totally new tendency, which has never existed before. I have never done it, and now I have to taste pleasures in order to delight the Creator much like a guest who partakes in the feast to satisfy the host.

In order not to err, I have to collect the unique, new forces provided by the Creator’s testimony. Otherwise, I shouldn’t even touch and start disclosing my new receiving desires. I need an additional assisting force. And “When He who knows all mysteries will testy that I will not turn back to folly,” I will be able to begin correcting my transgressions.

In this stage, transgressions have already turned into mistakes, and I should feel better, as it were. I have already corrected half of the receiving desire, and it is fully filled with the Light of Hassadim. Now I have to begin working with it in the three lines and introduce a little bit of the Light of Hochma into it.

This means that my transgressions have become mistakes. I am going to receive in order to bestow, but I already possess the intention “in order to bestow.” I only need to very carefully add reception to it.

When we attain such a high spiritual level, we will realize what this work is all about.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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At some point, we will start feeling how much text is missing in many places of The Zohar. Being the commentary on the Pentateuch (The Torah, The Prophets, and the Scriptures), The Zohar describes the whole of reality: HBD-HGT-NHY of the common soul, Malchut of the World of Infinity. But the original text was hidden from us and only a small part of it remained. Apparently, we don’t need more for our correction. The parts of The Zohar that are not relevant to our current correction most likely refer to the already corrected parts of the system.

For this reason, one can sense certain omissions and incompleteness in the text. Even though we may not be noticing it just yet, we will increasingly sense it more. We will also feel how beneficial these omissions are. The soul that strives for correction seeks perfection. Hence, the missing parts that the soul senses as if invite it to cling to the corrected souls which have corrected these parts. This is why we are missing them today.

This should make us understand that we exist within the living system of souls, where some parts complete the others. The missing parts of The Zohar invite us to join the souls that carry these missing revelations. If we unite with them, we will thus complete all souls.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: How can a person transgress at the very first stage of double concealment (as mentioned in Item 58, Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot)? At this point, he doesn’t really see spirituality; in order to transgress one has to be able to see what he is doing.

My Answer: Kabbalah says that you are a criminal from the start; you were born that way. We are all criminals! But we don’t need to be caught because we are already imprisoned by being in this world. All we can do is realize that we are jailed criminals and that such a state is given to us from the beginning. If someone wishes to leave the jail, he can go ahead, the door is open! However, in order to do so, one has to change himself.

Our transgressions and mistakes reveal to us how opposite we are to the Creator. If we don’t see them as such, there aren’t any transgressions or mistakes. This is the stage called the “Providence of reward and punishment.” Reward is the opportunity to act in bestowal. Punishment is the lack thereof.

Transgressions are the effect of double concealment; mistakes are the effect of single concealment. One concealment is over “There is none else but Him,” and the second one is over “He is good and does good.” If we err in both, it is called a transgression. If we err in one of them, it is a mistake.

Therefore, it is easier to correct the mistakes. In correcting a mistake, we correct half of a transgression, and it becomes easier to correct it in full because a transgression has now become a mistake. Essentially, we are always correcting mistakes since even transgressions first turn into mistakes and get truly corrected only when we begin to receive in order to bestow. This is what is called repentance from love rather than fear.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 51: …It turns out that she is like a polished mirror, which is concerned not with showing her own form, but only with the form of others, those who look at her or those who stand in front of her.
She resembles a mirror also because the whole quality of the glass mirror is the murky color in its other side. It reflects the rays of light, for if it were transparent, no shape would be seen in it. So is the Nukva—all her strength is in the Masach in her, which detains the light from shining from her down. Without this Masach, there would have been no light in her at all.

We read The Zohar but we don’t understand it; we read it but don’t feel anything. Ultimately we have to reach a state when the question “What is it all for?” will plunge us into despair, disillusionment, to an inner explosion and realization that we have no other choice but to unite, and in this inner unity, reveal what The Zohar speaks of.

There is no other method, no other path. We must overcome this barrier. There are many obstacles on our way: laziness, lack of understanding, and the mind’s protests due to its inability to comprehend. However, none of that matters. We only need persistence that brings us to a state of despair and the realization that there is no other choice. We must reveal what The Zohar speaks of precisely here in our unity. That which The Zohar describes is revealed only in the unity among us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: How can I be sure that my Kabbalah teacher is a real Kabbalist if I have to go by “faith above reason?"

My Answer: How can you possibly check what level your teacher is and whether he is a Kabbalist or not? Who are you to examine this? What tools do you have and what tests can you perform?

Maybe you would test how well he knows theory and the Talmud Eser Sefirot? But everybody remembers Baal HaSulam’s story about the “kabbalists” whom he met in Jerusalem. They knew all the ARI’s books and the entire Book of Zohar by heart. If they heard the beginning of a sentence they could continue it to the end of a chapter.

Yet does it prove that they were Kabbalists and had attained spirituality? They were just a computer with good memory. Beside theoretical knowledge and the ability to present it skillfully, there seems to be no other criteria to be certain. How can you test this if you don’t have the appropriate tools?

Spirituality exists in the properties that you don’t possess yet and this makes you incapable of determining whether other people do have those spiritual properties or not. Besides, any Kabbalist can conceal himself as well. Even to another Kabbalist, another can “camouflage” himself to the extent that the other won’t recognize or sense anything.

That is why the only way to check someone is with one’s own heart. You should open your heart to yourself, never deceive yourself, and then see whether you are ready to follow this person without regret or self-coercion, and without fighting your doubts.

There might be some things that you don’t agree with, but you proceed anyway in order to give them a chance. You might not like his way of teaching or his behavior, but you are ready to check the principles he uses and why.

You are the one who has to investigate; no one else can do it instead of you. Who else can you trust? There is no difference between believing your teacher and trusting a person who tells you things about him. Whose word can you rely on? “To rely on someone” means to use “faith above reason" and trust that your teacher is in spirituality and knows what he is talking about.

That’s why only your heart can give you a hint. As it is said, “One should always learn where one’s heart desires.” It’s necessary to figure out exactly what your heart wants and then avoid other people’s opinions so that you can rely on your choice.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, Article,  “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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If I rise above my egoism and come out into the desires of other people, I receive an endless spiritual vessel where I can sense the entire Light of Infinity. This works very simply. It’s like a big pipe and the Light flows in it. There is a valve on top of this pipe with which I can significantly change the flow of the Light by opening it fully. This is how it works in our world where even a little child can turn the faucet and change the flow of the water. In relation to spirituality, I can do the same.

I have only a small desire for spirituality. It’s a single point in the heart. However, if I turn to the desires of other people and include myself into the common body of the soul as one of its cells, then I bestow to this common body, and in response, it begins to take care of me. Then I receive all of its endless capabilities.

Hence, this is not a coincidence that Kabbalah instructs us to come out of our desires and enter the desires of others. By doing so, we receive “613” times greater capabilities, spiritual vessels, and desires, compared to what we had before. Previously we only had a point in the heart, but now each of us receives the entire body for our use.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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