We are disappointed from being unable to break through our egoistic shell (Klipa) and unite into one Kli. We have revealed that there is something lying between us that does not allow our hearts to merge into one desire and leave aside the bodies and this world.

In the end, this shell must show us that we are powerless before it. The huge desire to attain the goal, together with the inability to attain it ourselves, leaves us no other choice but to turn to the Creator.

Until we become totally disillusioned in our own powers and passionately wish to attain the goal, we forget about Him. Even if we would post notices all around us saying that it is necessary to ask the Creator for help, we still wouldn’t have a need for Him. This need comes when: 1. We desire it with everything we have, and 2. We are unable to enter the spiritual world. That is when we begin to attain and realize the fact that only the Creator can help us.

We received the first, wonderful disappointment at the Convention, and that is a great possession. Now we must only understand what we received, and while constantly thinking about it, strengthen our sensation.

Thought increases the desire, bringing out all of its components, and this enables us to keep advancing without new troubles by simply trying to clarify the state we were in more and more. This is enough. That is how we will form our demand to the Creator since there is none else besides Him and only He can help us oppose Pharaoh.

Besides, we will understand that the Creator acts in both directions. Pharaoh is also the Creator, but from the other side. It says in the Torah, “Let us go to Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart.” The Creator warns us about this ahead of time, “I am standing on your path. Do you want to break through? Then turn to Me with a request because I am the one who arranged this obstacle for you, and with My help you will break through.”

It is written concerning this, “My sons have defeated Me.” There is none else besides the Creator, but in order to realize this and demand His help, we need joint efforts, aimed at one goal: How to repel Pharaoh and be born to the Light.

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Laitman.com Post: After The Convention: The First Conclusions
Laitman.com Post: Birth: The First Contraction

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Opposition of the Study of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Now you can understand the aridity and the darkness that have befallen us in this generation [lack of knowledge of the laws of life and the world], such as we have never seen before. It is because even the worshipers of the Creator [those who study the Torah] have abandoned the engagement in the secrets of the Torah [Kabbalah].
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 57

All the great Kabbalists unanimously cry out like cranes that as long as we deny the Torah of its secrets and do not engage in its secrets, we are destroying the world [since we do not attract the Light into our world any more].
– Rav Kook, Igrot (Letters), Vol. 2, p. 231
[24936]

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At the Convention we tried to pass the Machsom, to be born into the spiritual world, to acquire a new sense and feel what there is outside the desire for pleasure. This perception is called external because it is aimed at bestowal.

What we found is that this is very difficult. The incoming pressure immediately cooled us down, “freezing” us.  We no longer wanted it, thinking that we were incapable of it. “Anything but this, anything but true unity and the Upper World that is inside it.”

As a result, our expectations did not come true. Egoism, Pharaoh, pushed us back. This enabled us to feel slight hatred for it, to reveal our enemy and hater, to start to understand that without overcoming it, we will not be born. The opponent has been identified and we discern him more and more clearly.

Now we have to carry out several more analogous actions. They will take on a new form each time because nothing is repeated in spirituality. It will seem as if the actions are the same, but they will be felt differently and in the next state we won’t be able to recognize the previous state any longer.

We are talking about the contractions of birth, called “Tzirim” in Hebrew, which is also the word for door hinges. The mother’s womb that we are in resembles the form of the closed letter Mem (ם). Mem is Bina, which closes us between two doors. In Hebrew the word “door” is Dalet. In other words, we are between two letter Dalets (ד), which make up the letter Mem.

During the contractions we push on the doors so they will open by sliding around the hinges. That is how the fetus pushes from the inside in order to come to the outside. (Tzir is a hinge, Tzirim are the hinges of the door, and Rehem is a womb, which comes from the word Rahamim, mercy, the quality of Bina.)

The Pharaoh, our egoism, obstructs our birth, having been deliberately created by the Creator in order to exert the opposite pressure until we acquire a strong enough desire, until we become worthy of seeing and feeling the Creator, the external reality, and to live in it. Otherwise we would be premature and not ready for the new world. It turns out that Pharaoh is a good force. Even though he appears like an enemy to us, in reality his opposition forms a sufficiently strong desire in us in order to open up the doors of the womb and let us emerge to the outside.

We have begun the work that will bring us out from Pharaoh’s power and I am very happy that we have reached this stage. I have waited for it a long time.

The greater the disappointment and the stronger the opposition, the deeper is the despair after a person’s expectations are unanswered and he is thrown back. This is the best thing for a person because his hatred for Pharaoh becomes greater. We have gone through one of the birth contractions. A few more contractions – and we will be born to the Light!

Let us force the speed; this depends on our work. Let the force with which we are dashing forward, and the force of the Pharaoh who pulls us back, unite into one decisive leap toward birth!
[26390]
From the lesson on Rabash’s article 11/12/10

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 1
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 437
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 16
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” Lesson 1
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