Question: If I once chose the path and rose above my egoism, am I free for good or must I keep choosing anew?

Answer: In order to reach the purpose of creation, we have to attain the state of “Israel (those who aspire to the Creator), the Torah (the Light of correction), and the Creator are one” and experience it in all our properties and desires.

Therefore, each moment of our evolution, we have to aim ourselves at oneness with the Creator, which constitutes our free choice. From all of these points of adhesion, we build one line and arrive at the final destination.

In other words, it isn’t enough to make a choice once so that later you may do whatever you want. You make a choice based on the conditions that are revealed to you at the moment. But next time, you will be completely different, a new creation, new world inside and out.

It’s because you keep uncovering new, stronger, desire to feel pleasure, which has different properties. And you have to discern yet again what conditions you are placed in, find the point of free will, decide what you are choosing, and move on with this new choice.

Conversely, at each point of the journey, you need to perform the work of clarification in order to “distance yourself from evil and choose the good” and realize that point of adhesion fully.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, “The Freedom”

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When we build ourselves in the middle line, we must connect the property of bestowal, Bina, the right line, and the property of reception, Malchut, the left line, correctly. Their unification forms a Kli (vessel) called a “cave,” and this cave is double (Machpelah). In the “earth,” Malchut, there is space suitable for living, while life is Bina.

But before Bina can enter Malchut, a reverse action has to take place: Malchut has to enter Bina for Bina to know how to accommodate Malchut and for Malchut to know how to demand Bina’s participation. As a result, mutual penetration of Malchut and Bina or a “double cave” gets formed, and it is the foundation of the general correction of the created being.

Since this is the place of correction, the forefathers, the desires corrected by the intention to bestow, reside in it. They had attained the correct connection of Bina and Malchut: They receive in Malchut and bestow to Bina, meaning that they work with reception and bestowal.

But what gets buried? We bury the intention to receive that envelops the desire like a shell (Klipa), thereby turning it into the evil inclination. Therefore, burial is regarded as the act of correction.

We don’t touch desires: The greater they are, the better. But at each degree, or in each generation, we bury the “intention to receive for self gratification” and get corrected by establishing balance between reception and bestowal.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 10/29/10

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Question: We talked about feeling joy from fulfillment, but what about feeling joy while exerting effort to achieve it?

Answer: I feel hate and resentment toward someone, and I have to build the attitude of love above it so as to fill him, thereby fulfilling myself. To achieve this, I exert certain effort for I must work above my egoism. If I channel the Light through me in order to fill the others, I transform my egoism into “help against it,” and instead of receiving, egoism works in bestowal. For me, this is a challenge, and I must convince myself that it makes sense.

On one hand, thanks to the fact that I channel the Upper Light through myself to someone else, my egoism gets pleased. On the other, I am attaching the desire that I am fulfilling to myself, and it becomes part of me, which also pleases me. I receive the Light from the Creator and the Light that returns to me in the form of spiritual feedback from fulfilling the other.

If I attached another’s desire to myself, it is called “love another as you love yourself.” This is described as “the righteous get rewarded twice.” Beside the fact that their own will to receive gets filled, they take pleasure in fulfilling the desire of another.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Happiness” 10/28/10

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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “The Rose (Shoshanah),” Item 2, Lesson 13
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 144
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Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 58
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Body and Soul,” Lesson 5
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My Good Environment – Questions of the Day

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The point in the heart, which has no form or direction, is similar to my spiritual “stem” cell, from which I can freely build myself up. It is the end of the rope thrown to me from the final state that I must reach. Grounded in it, I can now build everything else around it by exercising my free will.

All reality is divided into me and the external world. And if I know how to use the external reality correctly, I can change myself, thereby realizing my free will. Freedom lies solely in the ability to change oneself and not the world! The world is just the imprint of my properties.

I only need to know how to correct my properties, how to change the combination of these initial, natural qualities in me. To do this, I am given a “Kli” (an instrument), a lever, a “crane” that I can use to turn myself upside down and lift myself up! Then, the entire reality will change. I see that everything is different now, as if I were born into a new world.

So, do I replace my view of reality or the reality itself? I change the reality! After all, reality is what resides within my perceptions.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: How many people must hold the intention simultaneously in order for the spiritual connection to get revealed?

Answer: Only I. If I uncover my desire to unify with the others, I discover that they are already united. It seems to me that they are not unified in order for me to work on them and them on me. Yet, all of this is in relation to me.

As long as I am not corrected, I see my corruption in them and work on them so that they influence and strengthen me. Thanks to their support, I correct myself and then see that they are becoming more corrected as well. After all, “every person judges according to their own flaws.”

It turns out that I must worry only about my own correction. What about the others then? If I see that the world is broken, I have to correct it. This means that I correct myself. In this case, if I treat the others with the intention to bestow, I don’t see them in the broken state. Rather, I see the Shechina (divinity) in them, the revelation of the Creator Who fills the entire world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, The Zohar

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Question: What can be done if, during the reading of The Zohar, the intention weakens because the mind keeps trying to understand the content of the text?

Answer: We shouldn’t pay attention to it. Intention must become increasingly stronger during the lesson since the friends should think about it together. And if each of them holds the intention, it cannot be so that someone drops out of it.

Here we truly get connected in the spiritual communication network between us, not in the material one. If I hold the intention to bind myself to “Israel” (those who aim directly to the Creator), the Torah (the Light), and the Creator are one” so that I, the Creator, and the group became as one whole and reveal the Light that fills the entire reality; if all of us strive to experience this condition and, due to reading of The Book of Zohar, the Light has to reveal it to us, then this intention will “burn” in us more intensely. But if I feel that my intention has become weaker, in this, I depend on the all the others 100%.

In this respect, we are truly working inside the spiritual network. Thereby, we enter the spiritual world and act in it to the best of our ability to hold the intention and bind “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” together.

We already act this way in the spiritual world and only have to uncover it for ourselves. Therefore, we demand the Light to reveal it to us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/10, The Zohar

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Keter and Bina possess such special properties that they can descend anywhere they wish to and work on the lowest desires. Bina is Hassadim (mercy), and Hassadim can dwell in any place, protected by their intention of bestowal in order to bestow. But how can Keter do the same if, beside Hassadim, it has Hochma (wisdom)?

The key is that Keter fills the desires and relates to everything from below upward. Hence, it is able to descend into any desires living in egoistic intentions, just as Bina, but for a completely different reason.

Keter is the property of the Creator who wishes to fill the entire creation, Malchut, to the fullest. It isn’t the Light of fulfillment, Hochma, but the plan of creation, its initial thought, its program. In a way, it determines what the Creator wishes for us in the very end: to elevate us to His status.

This is why the Sefira of Hochma is marked with the final point of the letter “Yod”: It is the program that begins to get realized, starting with the Sefira of Hochma and below. Hochma is the Light of the purpose of creation, and, below it, Bina is the Light of correction.

Thus, there is GAR, the three upper Sefirot related to the Creator: Keter is the program, Hochma is the purpose of creation, and Bina is the correction of the created being. Further on, the realization of the lower ones takes place. It is Zeir Anpin, the system which determines how the lower one should change and what sequence of acts is necessary for that. As to the lower one, which must change and undergo these modifications, it is Malchut. This is how the created being gets arranged from five parts.

And since Keter is the point of conception, the program of creation, the original idea, it is present in any place! After all, without this idea, nothing would exist, not even the tiniest of desires.

But in relation to the lower ones, Keter acts from below upward since it is aimed solely at elevating them to correction, even if it has to descend into the lowest Klipot (shells) and commit some transgressions on this journey. But after that, as The Book of Zohar describes, all of these problems and transgressions seem to have been correct actions to us, which we had to undergo because they helped us to see our final corrected state.

All of this is done by the Creator’s hand, and we ourselves haven’t made any mistakes, committed any crimes, or made any corrections. Hence, in all its behavior and treatment of the lower ones, Keter is above all limitations and restrictions. It is the thought contained in every particle of creation and its every action. Hence, it expands everywhere and works from below upward in order to connect all parts of creation and lead them to the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

Bina works in a different manner: It is the Light of Hassadim, the correction of the created being. Correction may take place in any condition and any place according to the desire of the lower one to be corrected and to receive the property of Bina, the attribute of bestowal. If you wish for it, you will get it, without a limit!

Therefore, Bina also can expand everywhere since it is Hafetz Hesed (pure bestowal). On the other hand, Hochma is the Light of the purpose of creation that fills the desires after their correction is done by Bina, which had been received beforehand. Zeir Anpin organizes the process that determines how such correction is carried out.

Bina, wishing to be similar to the Creator, gives birth to Zeir Anpin (ZA) and works within it in order to bring it to the level of Keter. But ZA cannot attain the level of Keter as Bina desires it to do since ZA can do so only with the help of Malchut!

It turns out that ZA is the concealed Creator, Keter, the highest quality, Atzmuto, the plan of creation. ZA and Malchut work in a pair because ZA cannot become as Keter unless Malchut joins ZA and passes all her desires to him.

Hence, Malchut can correct itself only by following ZA’s example. Watching Him, she learns what desires and correction she needs in order to merge with Him. Malchut is all the souls, ZA is the Creator, and their coupling is the merging of all the souls with the Creator.

But when they finally merge, they ascend to AB – SAG, Hochma and Bina. And when they merge there, they become part of Keter. That is where the program of creation ends!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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A person living in this world does not know what will happen to him at the next moment. He does not understand why the things that happened to him yesterday happened and from where his thoughts and desires are now originating. He feels that he is controlled by unpredictable forces, as if he is hung in the air in relation to his past, present, and future. And he tries to find some kind of support, searching for an explanation to the universe with the help of logical reasoning and hypotheses.

His ego grows and asks more and more questions about life, and about what awaits him after death. The more strength we acquire through the development of technology, which opposes nature, the more powerfully nature comes out against us, forcing us to find the answer about how we are governed and what is the meaning of life. As a result, we feel as if we are in empty space.

When man lived in caves and chased mammoths, he thought that he knew everything about his life. He felt and understood the world much more than we do. We, on the other hand, are unsatisfied by any of the existing theories. We need a clear answer because we are unable to properly arrange even our day to day lives. So many questions arise that we are unable to cope with them.

It’s like mathematics: In order to find one unknown, it is sufficient to have one equation. To find out two unknowns, you need two equations. However, in our lives we end up with many unknowns while having less and less data or facts with which to build a formula.

The philosophical and religious explanations of the past no longer work on us; we cannot rely on them. We demand facts and proofs, meaning attainment. If we knew that we do not have any freedom of will, then we would build a completely different society and relationships in it, a different system of punishment and justice. The problem that Kabbalah proposes to solve is not theoretic, but very practical: to determine where and how we can influence and realize this opportunity.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, “Body and Soul”

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