Rabash described the entire spiritual path that lies before us and explained what we have to do to ourselves in order to receive the Light that Corrects and Fulfills us. There is no other Kabbalist in history who did the likes of this for the sake of the Creator’s attainment. But of course, this became possible because he was the right person at the right time.

It is impossible to even imagine how we could advance without the detailed instruction manual we received from him. Without his explanations we would not be able to actualize the method of Baal HaSulam. Now, when we are nearing the practical realization of this method more and more, we are gaining a better understanding of how much we need the detailed explanations of Rabash.

There are thousands of Kabbalah books of tremendous height, but none of them can be used practically in our time. The same is true for the Torah: It can only be understood by a person who already attains spirituality. However, the only thing that can help a person who desires to enter the spiritual world are the compositions of Rabash.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, “What is the Difference in the Creator’s Work Between the Collective and the Particular ”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: In Memory Of Rabash
Laitman.com Post: The “Shocking” Truth From Rabash
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam And Rabash Opened The Door To The Spiritual World For Us
5 Minutes Of Light From The Daily Lesson: Rabash, The Successor Of Baal HaSulam

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays - 1 Comment →

Filed under: Group Work, Television - No Comments →

The greater an obstacle on my path, the greater “help from the opposite” I see in it, meaning that I become similar to the Light according to the character and properties of my egoism. If I rise above my egoism, in all of its properties, I can become similar to the Light. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know how to equalize myself to it.

I have to feel all these obstacles to the smallest detail. I become included in them and I rise above them through the force of the Light. However, they are precisely what shape me in the form of the Light since neither the Light nor the desire to enjoy has their own form. How else can we achieve this similarity? How can we connect two absolute opposites: the desire and the Light?

For this reason they are divided by partitions, rungs of the ladder, or degrees as a way of connection between them. The desire to enjoy, by absorbing all these obstacles, eventually becomes similar to the Light. Inside it remains the same desire to receive pleasure. However, these filters help it become similar to the Light. It only needs to rise above these filters! It should not take them as obstacles which weaken the Light, but rather include them into itself in the opposite form. This is called to advance by “faith above reason.”

We need to rise from the state where Bina is included into Malchut and Malchut rules over Bina to the opposite state: where Bina rules over Malchut and the properties of Bina become the defining ones. All these forms between Infinity (Keter) and the final, fourth stage (Malchut) are called the names (properties) of the Creator. They serve as examples for the Light to create Malchut and influence her.

At the same time, Malchut can use the opposite HaVaYaH (from herself toward Keter) and be clothed in the Light (to converse with the Light) in order to become similar to it. These eight Sefirot between Keter and Malchut are like a common language possible between the Light and the desire, between the Creator and the creature.

For this reason they are called the holy names since a name is a revelation, meaning the attainment of the Creator’s specific property in relation to us, Malchut. However, whatever I do not attain I cannot define by a name.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How To Acquire The Upper Mind
Laitman.com Post: Examples Of “Faith Above Reason”
Laitman.com Post: Attaining The Names Of The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: How do we help and support the friends who are in the state of descent?

Answer: First of all, support them internally, through a prayer, request, and collective thought about everyone. We have all “signed” an “agreement” about a mutual guarantee (Arvut) and mutual assistance on the spiritual path. Hence, we must make certain that everyone participates one hundred percent, and this depends solely on the group’s support.

I shouldn’t blame a friend if he is unable to exert maximum effort in reaching the goal; I should blame myself for his weakness, that I am unable to awaken him. In truth, he completely depends on me. A mutual support at the time when nobody has strength and yet each gives a hundred percent, this is called a mutual guarantee.

If I signed the agreement, it means that I pledged to provide spiritual advancement for all. I agree to help everyone attain the goal; like a co-signer on a bank statement, I guarantee that my friend will have the strength to stay focused on the goal.

If I signed it, it means that now it depends on me! If my friend falls, I have to understand that he falls in my eyes, in relation to me, in order to give me an opportunity to awaken him. And by reviving him, I revive a part of my soul.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/10, “And Jacob Went Out”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The General And The Particular
Laitman.com Post: Introductory Lecture: What Is Prayer?
Laitman.com Post: Being Impressed And Dependant At The Same Time

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

In Letter #38 from the book Fruits of Wisdom, Baal HaSulam writes to his foremost student and son, Baruch Ashlag (Rabash) that a person cannot give up and stop in the middle of the spiritual path. Until a person reaches the goal, he needs the force of constantly overcoming greater and greater obstacles.

You cannot rely on past victories. On the contrary, everything you attained yesterday turns into a new desire today, which pushes you toward the goal even more. Therefore, the things you received yesterday cannot heal your wounds and let you rest.

Until a person attains the final correction, he must take care to ensure that his desire to reach the goal grows at every moment. Everything you attained immediately disappears. A person remains "naked" and that’s how he has to advance.

Obviously, Rabash performed a huge task while being next to his father, constantly being by his side and participating in all the lessons. He was very loyal to his father and always took his side in all the family quarrels that emerged among Baal HaSulam’s relatives. Some of them were opposed to the study of Kabbalah because it set them apart from the religious community.

Rabash was a successful student and he attained spiritual revelation. We cannot tell what height he rose to; he is too great for us to be able to measure that. We can only surmise about his greatness and his huge heart based on the explanations he gave to our states and the need to unite.

We don’t yet realize how deep his articles are and how vital his practical advice is. That is why we must study them all the time.

While working on the articles, the most important things are: 1) to make a concise summary of each article, and 2) to draw conclusions from the summary. Without doing this work, we are not really studying the articles.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter 38

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: I Will Reach Something Good
Laitman.com Post: The Muse of A Kabbalist
Laitman.com Post: Between The Two Great Lights

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalistic Sources - 2 Comments →

Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →

Here is a simple intention to have while reading The Book of Zohar:

1. I connect to every letter and word, and they enter me like a medical infusion that is administered drop by drop, which I perceive as “the elixir of life.”

I go from one word to the next, not knowing what hides behind each one. Yet I am convinced that word after word, like drop after drop, this “elixir of life” gradually pours into me.

2. If I am able to hold on to this thought at all times, then without really delving into the text but through the text or inside it, I allow myself to discern the Creator and my attitude to Him.

The text is what happens to a person, and the intention is a person’s connection to the Creator. At first we hold on to the intention, and then through it we try to reach the Creator, the One from whom we hear and from whom we receive. The text is the state of my desires which I want to attain.

If a person is also able to imagine that right now he really hears the text of The Zohar from the mouth of the Creator, that the Creator passes this knowledge to him, telling him about his own higher states, then this is one of the best ways to connect to the Creator. This is called “Hearing or studying the Torah from the mouth of the Creator.”

3. If we try to unite our intentions together while reading The Zohar, then deep down, inside our joint efforts, we will feel that The Zohar talks precisely about this.

The Torah describes only how we should unite together, in what degree, form, and manner. Therefore, the text of The Book of Zohar is not separate from the intention. It does not exist by itself, but talks only about realizing the intention.

From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Expect To Be Healed By The Zohar
Laitman.com Post: A Thin Bridge Into The Spiritual World
Laitman.com Post: Open The Door To The Creator!

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Torah, Zohar - No Comments →

When I read the text of The Zohar, it’s not good if the text conceals the purpose of reading from me. I must constantly check: What exactly do I desire by reading it?

First and foremost, I desire for the reading of The Book of Zohar to reveal my illness: egoism, and then to heal it by helping me acquire the quality of bestowal instead of it. I want to acquire unity with others who aspire to the same goal. This is called the intention before the study.

After preparing the intention or the reason why I read The Book of Zohar, I can then start to read it. If I am consistently able to maintain the intention, then I can allow myself to also listen to the text and its meaning.

This is similar to a sick person who is in a critical state: He reads a medical book only in order to find the remedy. Nothing else interests him! He doesn’t care about the style of the text or the details of the story. He only looks for the remedy (the elixir of life: the Light)!

Therefore, first and foremost we must have the right intention, and after that we can listen to the details about what The Zohar narrates. There is nothing more important than receiving the “medical procedure” because we don’t understand any of the actual story until we enter that state ourselves.

Why then did the authors of The Zohar write all of these stories for us? It was in order for us to make efforts to keep the intention. Only after that, to the extent it is possible, can we allow ourselves to listen to the story while desiring to reveal it through the intention. We have to realize that we are not living these states and don’t understand the text, but we do desire to reveal it and aspire to be inside the state that is being described. Then we can understand the text and connect to it.

My primary desire is to attain the spiritual quality through the right attitude to The Book of Zohar. After that I can pay attention to the text and be sure that I will understand it correctly. This is called “desiring to attain what you study,” as written in Item 155 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot.”

The text of The Zohar is the place where I perform my inner work and make the inner discernments regarding where I am. First I must have an intention in relation to the goal, and then a sensation in relation to the text.

We have to feel the depths of the layers of attainment. This is called “Engaging in the Torah and the Commandments,” and “Studying the Torah.”

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Zohar Is The Link To The Upper Force
Laitman.com Post: The Strongest Medicine: Drops Of Fortune
Laitman.com Post: Reveal The Zohar Within Yourself

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Torah, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Question: What does it mean to “appreciate the state of spiritual ascent?”

Answer: Ascent is a state where I can justify anything that is happening to me, to justify the friends and the group by seeing them as angels helping me to realize my free will and to reach the goal. From the elements of this condition, I can assemble myself and my relationship with the Creator who is revealed within such a state.

The group, home, work, studies, health, and so forth comprise the components of my state. I have to determine that all of them are secondary in relation to the group. I have to “collect” everything but the group and enter the group with it even though the group is just one element among the many others. In the group, I also have to discern the multiple components until I select only the one: the desire to attain the Creator.

I go deeper and deeper in this work and these discernments, into the center. I am as if coming to the King’s palace from afar until I finally reach it. I narrow down and contract my focus verifying the route until I come to the goal.

At first, I feel there is a whole world around me. Soon, I see that there is only the group and the various situations within it. It remains so until I come to the realization of a very simple scheme: Everything around me is merely angels, forces aiming me at the Creator and helping me to reach Him.

What is this group? Is it a local group closest to me or the world group? The group is all souls. We begin with the entire world and gradually contract the circle.

The group for me starts with the physical bodies, the people I know around the world to whom I feel are connected to me through the common goal. These are the people who understand and sense me despite the fact that I don’t know them in person. However, in the spiritual world, we reside in one collective system. In this world, we may not have ever met, but in the spiritual one, we are together.

It is, undoubtedly, an opportunity for salvation because we are connected, support, and depend on one another. It’s not only the people of my generation who exist today in a similar state in relation to the Creator, but all the Kabbalists of the past beginning with Adam who was the first to discover the Creator 5770 years ago and to realize free will.

From that moment, the created being, a point of desire, began its journey of attaining similarity with the Creator. Since then and until today, all Kabbalists connected by this goal belong in one system regardless of their rung on the spiritual ladder. In regard to those who are not yet working in this system, they also belong in it, but we have to awaken them.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/10, “And Jacob Went Out”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: 125 Steps Of Oneness
Laitman.com Post: One Life For All
Laitman.com Post: The Creator Is Our Innermost Attainment

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Filed under: Society, Spirituality - No Comments →