Question (from a woman): We have been talking about the fact that we have to ask for everything only from the Creator. But what should I do if I am shy? Or maybe I am not even worthy of asking Him for anything?

Answer: I would advise you not to ask, but to demand. And women know how to do this very well. 🙂

On a more serious tone, if we are ashamed to ask the Creator, it means we feel that we are still distant from Him, that we don’t have anything in common with Him.

Men often feel proud at first and behave like little roosters: "Why would I ask Him for anything? What should I ask Him for?" So on one hand, there is shame, and on the other – pride. Yet, both of these sensations will gradually pass. If a person becomes included in the group, it happens very quickly.

I would advise you to be more insolent. 🙂 The Creator likes it when a person says, "I deserve this. You have to help me!"
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From the lesson on the article "There Is None Else Besides Him" on 11/12/10

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Question: How can we find the strength to advance because as time goes by we feel greater opposition and less strength?

Answer: That is wonderful! If you feel less and less energy, it is help from Above so you wouldn’t think that you can do anything at all. If you feel greater opposition, this is also help from Above so you would see that you will never be able to break through on your own.

This is help! Pharaoh, the Egyptian King, the ego, the evil inclination, is opposite to the Creator – the reverse side of Him. The Creator deliberately creates this image for you. Your entire nature, your egoism, is a reverse mold of the Creator. The Creator inserts Himself inside you and acts in a way that stops you. He does everything! There is none else besides Him.

When we say that “There is none else besides Him,” this does not mean that I exist and someone else exists opposite me. I also don’t exist! All the forces inside me that act for and against, that are good and evil, are all Him. And who am I? I am the point of discernment. I only discern what is for and what is against. From His two forms I discern with whom I desire to be.

The Creator is an actor that plays all the roles; he alternatively clothes into good and then into evil. It is how you play with a small child in different ways so he would learn to differentiate one thing from the other and understand what he should be like. He will learn about good only to the degree he attains evil.

Therefore, if you feel heaviness now, it’s the Creator who makes it happen. If you feel that you cannot do anything on your own, He gives you this sensation. Why? So you would turn to Him.

If I want to teach a small child that he has to turn to me for help, then I deliberately act in a way that prevents him from accomplishing something in order that he will need me. That is how we act in the relationships between us.

Suppose I want you to become my friend and to respect me. In that case I do something behind your back so you would feel that even though you do not desire it, you will not succeed without having a connection with me. You suddenly understand that I am great, that you have to respect me and ask me, and now you know that I am great and you depend on me. I have arranged your life so you are left with no other choice but to come to me and ask for it.

That is what the Creator does to us. Of course, He is not motivated by the egoistic intention to trick us, but the desire to teach us and raise us to His level, the best state, since He is called “Good who Does Good.” However, He acts precisely in this way, creating all kinds of misfortunes, problems, messes, and confusion constantly in the world, in all areas of life and in all the worlds so as a result you would desire to come to Him, to ask for help and this way to come closer to Him.

Then you will desire to become the same as Him. When you look at someone who is great, wise, or powerful, you desire to become the same. It’s not enough for you to just receive from Him; you want to be in His place. This is exactly what the Creator does to us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/10, The Zohar

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My new book in Russian titled The Point in the Heart (gift edition) has been released. The book is comprised of the best of the blog’s material and is a wonderful gift for everyone whom you want to introduce to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

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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

I see that the primary reason for the lack of success in everything being done to strengthen Judaism [revelation of the Creator] and Israel’s status everywhere, is that the Divine Light [for correcting their nature] has been neglected, completely abandoned by heart and mind. Everyone is now turning to correct simple ultra-orthodoxy [traditions called “commandments”] alone, as if the world could be revived in a body with no soul [without the intention to bestow and love one’s neighbor].
– Rav Kook, Letters 1, 160-161

Woe unto them that make the spirit of Messiah [the power of correction of our egoism] leave and depart from the world, and cannot return to the world. They are the ones [because of their attitude to Kabbalah] that make the Torah dry [by talking only about mechanical actions], without any moisture of comprehension and reason [without any understanding of the purpose of creation and the role of a human being in this world]. They confine themselves to the practical part of the Torah [observation of rituals], and do not wish to try to understand the wisdom of Kabbalah, to know and to understand the secrets of the Torah and the flavor of Mitzva [the essence of which is correction of human egoism]. Woe unto them, for with these actions [detachment from Kabbalah] they bring about the existence of poverty, ruin, and robbery, looting, killing, and destructions in the world.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 70
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What is the source of joy? If we are speaking of egoistic joy, its foundation is receiving fulfillment. A child is happy when you give something to him, and he cries when you take it away. A more developed person experiences joy from good or bad actions. I stole and didn’t get caught so I am happy, or perhaps I did something good for another and enjoyed it.

Everything depends on what pleases a person. But joy is always triggered by the fact that we fulfill our egoistic desires. Our basic needs are food, family, wealth, power, and knowledge. Yet the problem lies in our inability to fulfill ourselves through them.

The Upper Light, the pleasure that wishes to fill our desire, is a plus and the desire is a minus. When the plus meets the minus, a short circuit occurs, meaning that as soon as I touch the pleasure, it disappears.

But there is another form of receiving pleasure, and we find an example of it in electronics. Instead of “shorting-out” the plus and the minus directly or receiving pleasure into my desire, I create a resistor between them, a resistance screen. Connecting the plus and the minus, desire and pleasure, through resistance is now possible without annulling either of them, and it can bring a positive result. Therein, we experience life.

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 128
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 1
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 18
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” Lesson 3
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The Zohar, “Introduction to The Zohar,” “The Night of the Bride“: There is a book of remembrance before the Creator about the sins and transgressions taking place in the world. For He needs them for the day when He will perform a miracle (Segula).

Question: What is Segula?

Answer: The Upper Force, or the Creator, or the Light, is inside the group. I can receive corrections only if we study the primary sources together with the group.

This is Segula – the special means, the works of Kabbalists, which make it possible to unite a person, the group, and the Creator into one whole. Their unity is possible only on the condition that the system they are in is used correctly.

Even now we are part of it. The worlds and Partzufim are all here, but in order for them to come through we have to evoke the influence of spiritual forces upon us. Desire alone is not enough. We need a means that will set the system in motion so it will start working on me through the group.

The system is set in motion with the help of the primary sources. That is why we study the works of Baal HaSulam, Rabash, Ari, and Rashbi. Without this I cannot establish a connection with the spiritual system and set it in motion.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/10, The Zohar
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We have acquired something big and precious during the Convention: We have discovered for the first time that Pharaoh is sitting inside us and hates us, and we have to get rid of him, to run away, to exit Egypt…but are incapable of it.

We would have never realized that we must run away from him. We hoped that we could reveal spirituality in our egoism, in “Egypt.” But we did not even think that this is “Egypt.” Yet now we are beginning to understand that we must break free from it.

Our egoism, Pharaoh, received a blow, and this disappointment passed through him. Now we see that we have to distance ourselves from the desire in which we reveal disappointment and bitterness.

However, had we not gone full out till the end, we would not have felt disillusionment; we would have sensed that, truly, something is stopping us. There is no middle ground in spirituality; we have to go till the end.

Hence, now a certain new sensation has manifested in us. That same disappointment, the force of suffering that we now feel (since I invested so much effort, had so many hopes, and nothing happened) is my Pharaoh, who received a beating and is now suffering.

However, the Pharaoh has to feel the beatings since otherwise we will not be able to run away from it. Indeed, we run only from evil.

If I reveal my egoistic desire, my nature as evil, I will want to escape from it. And, perhaps, I will have to experience more of such blows before I decide that I must do it. I literally have to come out of my skin, to exit my “body.” This is called that Pharaoh is receiving blows, the “ten plagues of Egypt.”

We achieved this only because we nevertheless united between us. One is always revealed against the other, as it is said, “in Your Light we will see the Light.” Thanks to this unification and our preparation, we realized that we suffer because of our egoistic nature. And this is a big achievement!

Millions of people who participated in the Convention virtually were together with us. They, too, went through the same states.
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From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 11/12/10

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1. Malchut and the first 9 Sefirot

The first 9 Sefirot are the properties of the Creator, and Malchut is the desire to receive pleasure with regard to the creature. How then can Malchut receive the Light at all? It can do so only due to the fact that all 9 Sefirot are included in it. Malchut absorbs all 9 Sefirot and becomes the 10^th Sefira. In other words, the creature, Malchut, becomes like the Creator. All 9 Sefirot, His properties, enter Malchut. This is achieved by way of mutual inclusion.

2. Bina and Malchut

We study that all our work lies between Malchut and Bina. Malchut rises to Bina and is included in it. And then Bina descends into Malchut and includes itself in it. Due to this mutual integration of Bina and Malchut, we receive an opportunity to correct ourselves.

After all, Malchut, per se, is an egoistic desire to receive pleasure, whereas Bina is the desire to bestow. Thus, their mutual integration into each other brings the properties of the Creator to the creature.

To the degree that we ascend to Bina while desiring to become similar to the Creator, the Creator is able to descend to us and bring us to His properties.

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From Kabbalah For Beginners, “The Integration” 10/27/2010

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