Kabbalah For Beginners “Faith” – 11.24.10
Posted on November 24th, 2010
The Book of Zohar speaks of how Zeir Anpin and Malchut unite, how everything becomes one. This makes it clear that we all have to aim at the final action: bestowal to the Creator.
It is hard to imagine something outside of our current desires. However, the Light gradually impregnates us with this necessity. Suddenly I feel that I am drawn to the Creator. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I want to think about Him and bestowal to Him.
It is like an unknown neighbor shows up, one that I never cared about before, and now occupies all my thoughts. A relation toward him is awakening within me, and we are becoming connected. Again and again I am reminded of him.
Where did it come from? It came as a result of my studies and the influence of the environment. Either on its own or artificially, a thought about the final, even if distant state visits us. This is how the intention to bestow to the Creator is born, an intention that we try to realize on the spiritual degrees.
[27294]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”
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All Rise for The Incoming Light
Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.
Engaging in Kabbalah Requires No Preliminary Excellence
During the practice of Torah, every person must labor in it [but not by learning the text by heart], and set his mind and heart to find “the light of the king’s countenance” in it [the Light of correction, Hassadim, and later on, the Light of fulfillment, Hochma, which both are called “the Upper Light”], that is, the attainment of open Providence, called “light of countenance.” And any person is fit for it, as it is written, “those that seek Me shall find Me.”
Thus, one needs nothing in this matter except the labor alone [in attaining the property of bestowal and love].
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 97
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“The Place” Where The Creator And I Meet
The Light corrects the Kli (vessel) very simply: It comes and settles in it. And the Kli immediately gets “tamed.”
We are managed by the Lights as we speak. We can be clever or foolish, kind or cruel, and all of this is done by the Light. It affects everyone each instant in accordance with its program. We all reside in the ocean of Light; its waves lift us up and throw us down, mixing us together.
Therefore, getting to know the Creator, the Light, the property of bestowal, our mutual connection, is all one and the same. The arrival of the Light is our correction. When it comes, you become “sentenced” to it and are unable to (and don’t wish to) act otherwise. You realize that you are ruled by the Light that dictates all your actions.
This is what your connection with the Creator is. It is in you, and you feel how He works in all your desires, governing you. So, you comply with Him.
Then, beside the points that have joined your Partzuf, you will discover new points and will start asking the Light to help you unify with them. In this manner, a series of corrections continues, always at your request.
[27145]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/10, “All Who Suffer for the Public”
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Question: Where may the prayer for our unity and correction come from? How do I start asking for it?
Answer: We cry and beg for correction, but it is a pretense and falsehood. We, ourselves, don’t even realize that it is just lip service.
However, if I am working in the group and allow it to influence me, thereby exercising my only free choice, then it passes to me its enthusiasm and motivates me toward spirituality. At that point, it isn’t a lie since I am inspired by the friends. Even though I tried to connect to the group artificially, when they worked on me, I started to take it seriously.
This is how I am made: I am a particle in the collective system which has been functioning this way since the beginning of creation. That is why I cannot escape being affected by the environment, try as I might.
However, in this case, it was my wish to be influenced by the friends, and I made an effort to achieve it. If I now turn to the Creator with the desire received from the group, I will immediately receive an answer to it, a response. After all, this desire has a unique nature: the will to unite.
When I try to unite with them on my own or cry to the Creator to get this wish granted, it is a false demand. It isn’t regarded as a true prayer (MAN or Mayin Nukvin, Female Waters), but a lie. Although it is also beneficial, I will eventually see that it doesn’t work.
However, when I turn to the group, exalting it and reducing my own importance, and receive from it a new desire, a request that I further raise to the Creator, this is called MAN. As a result, there will be an answer from Above called MAD (Mayin Duchrin, Male Waters), which will truly connect me with the group, and there, inside it, I will find the Creator.
Inasmuch as I contribute myself to the group upon my own request, to that measure, the Creator will be revealed to me. However, no altruistic desire or action can come directly from me.
The group stands between me and the Creator, and we meet inside it. I raise my prayer to the Creator through the group. In response, He channels the answer to me through the group, with the help of which I may now rise to the group and find the Creator in it.
Between the Creator and me, there has to be the group. That’s why it is called the “place” and so is the Creator because there, He and I meet.
[27184]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot
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When we talk about “commandments,” we are referring to the desires that connect me with other people. There are 613 (TARYAG) such desires, and I have to correct them with the help of the Light that Reforms (called “the Torah”).
If I don’t work on establishing the connection with my neighbor, then I have nothing to correct. If a person is alone, then he has nothing to come to the Creator with, only a spiritual spark and animalistic desires which do not require correction.
If you want to correct yourself, then you have to “show” the Creator the place of breakage, yet you do not have it. One person cannot experience the breaking; it requires at least two for this. Therefore, all of the 613 desires which we correct with the Light that Reforms is the correction of our broken connection with the others.
The Light that used to fill the connection between us and sustain us has disappeared. Now we have to attract it back and return it to its place. When the Light returns, it will correct the place of our connection first, and then it will fill it.
[27200]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”
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Excerpts from people’s letters sharing their impressions of the last convention::
“I am writing to you because this time I cannot help it! THIS CONGRESS IS THE MOST INCREDIBLE, AMAZING, AND POWERFUL, EYE OPENING, AND HOPE-FILLED EVENT of my entire long life in Kabbalah! It made my endless suffering worthwhile.
All previous congresses were also meaningful to me: One was heartwarming, another significant, and so forth. But this time I felt, even if by way of the body, what you tell us about: THE COLLECTIVE HEART BEAT, TEARS, AND DESIRE, not always consciously recognized, THE SENSATION OF HIS PRESENCE, namely BETWEEN US….
Never and nowhere have I felt that all of us are together and connected by something that can be felt, and here I did feel it! I knew, unable to comprehend this fact, that those surrounding me are me….
It is impossible to properly relate in words, but you suddenly, after these feelings, explained from the stage at the last lesson, all that I felt and lived precisely, like a psychic! And how does he know everything about me so well, to the smallest details?
Now I clearly understand that the value of this convention is not only in what we felt there, but in the anticipation and yearning, in people’s ability to see that all the others around them wish the same! It is one enormous, common desire in the eyes and hearts of all. Faces glowed; the audience cried; some felt something, some didn’t yet, but it is a very powerful spiritual phenomenon. People will keep living on the emotions of this great convention.
Nothing has ended in that pavilion. I would give anything for what I experienced there! Great love filled the hall and all the hearts, and it doesn’t matter that someone didn’t feel what the others did; it is already within us….”
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Convention Impressions, Part 2
Each convention is the connection of a multitude of people: beginners and advanced students, all very different by nature. However, all of them are unified by one goal: to reveal the meaning of life, to find the place we have to reach, the place worth living for instead of wasting our life away.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is intended to lead us to the most meaningful and central point: the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. To reveal the Creator means to reach His level and status here, in the corporeal world, in this life.
To accomplish this we need great power which none of us possess; it can only be found in the connection between us. The Creator did this on purpose because in order to attain Him, I must acquire His nature. To be closer to Him means to obtain more and more of His attributes. I do not approach Him physically, but in the soul where I get to know Him better in my new properties which are identical to His.
How do I obtain these attributes? I am told that they are opposite to my nature. Yet, I don’t know what “opposite” means. I might be able to understand what “white” is compared to “black.” But what does “opposite” mean if I am only submerged in one nature, my own?
The Creator divided the entire reality into two parts: me and what exists outside of me. I either hate or love whatever I see on the outside depending on whether or not I can use it for my own personal benefit.
At the Convention I was given an opportunity to connect with a multitude of people that are on the outside. If I begin to perceive them as part of me, understand that we have united and are aiming towards one goal, then by forming, creating this unity, we are literally constructing a property similar to the Creator’s. It is called the corrected spiritual vessel.
We will start to unite, and the connection between us which used to be rejection, hate, disdain, envy, and the need to control each other will turn into love and unification. We achieve this unity not inside you or me but between us! This unity becomes the Kli (vessel) where we will be able to experience the Creator: you and me, the two of us together!
In this Kli, we will experience our spiritual life. It is similar to the blood that flows between the cells and organs of our body, carrying oxygen, life, to them. After all, our body lives because of this circulation, the bond that ties all of its parts together. Every organ bestows to the others and functions for the benefit of the whole system and not itself. This is how our body is designed on the corporeal plane.
This is exactly the kind of bond we have to attain at the “human” level of existence, and we must do it consciously and willingly.
[27106]
From Lesson 7, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/11/10
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Rabash, Article 298: “Inclusion of the Attributes of Mercy and Judgment”: During a descent, while being overtaken by the desire for pleasure, a person does not have a choice. When, however, the desire to bestow governs him, he does not need to choose. Thus, his only freedom is in deciding what will rule over him: the property of judgment or the property of mercy.
A soul is comprised of ten Sefirot. From Keter to the upper third of Tifferet, it is ruled by Bina, the desire to bestow, and from the lower third of Tifferet by Malchut, the desire to receive. Only in the middle, in the middle third of Tifferet, there rules “lawlessness”: This place is subject neither to bestowal nor reception.
Indeed, sometimes a person cannot decide which direction to take: His thoughts and desires are not inclined toward either side. This is the place of choice. Meanwhile, we are usually distracted and do not think about something specific. But time and life continue to pass by.
How then do I use my being free from the two forces that manage me from Above? To do so, I need to pick an environment, in which case it is up to me who will rule me when I am in the neutral state.
I am awakened by the calling of the point in the heart and led to the group. Now, I have to establish a correct connection between them so that the group would affect me and I the group. As a result, I will fill my free states with the power of the group that I have chosen.
Completing, filling myself with the power of the group, I acquire a Kli (vessel) into which I later receive the Light. I lower my head before the group and in return receive two things from it: 1. Huge desire of all the friends’ points in the heart, 2. A screen (Masach) or awareness of the importance to work for the sake of bestowal. Then, through the group, I draw the Light that Reforms, the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), that does indeed correct me.
The potential to choose is always ours. The more systematically we will use the available means such as the teacher, texts, group, studies, and dissemination of Kabbalah, the more opportunities to choose will emerge.
As a result, we will be unifying the properties of judgment and mercy by ourselves, in accord with our own free will, combining the forces of Bina and Malchut, the right and the left lines. We will start governing ourselves, and the place of the choice will become the middle line for us.
By drawing as much as possible from Bina and Malchut so we may link them into one whole, we will attain spiritual life and begin to climb the spiritual ladder.
[27021]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/10, “Inclusion of the Attributes of Mercy and Judgment”
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Question: When do we reach the maximum capacity of our intention to be one?
Answer: Right now, I am sitting at the lesson and trying to think about our unity so that the Light hidden in The Book of Zohar would come and unify us, allowing me to feel that we are all bound together. As soon as I feel connected with all the others and sense the network holding us all in it, I immediately reveal the spiritual world.
Once I feel the bond between us, I experience spirituality in this oneness. This is called “the exodus from Egypt.” We don’t need anything else! And it is so close.
However, I am unable to remain in this intention and inspiration longer than an instant. Why? It is because the others are not thinking about it. I need the support of my environment. But the environment thinks about whatever they want: one about his grandmother he will be seeing soon, another about problems at work, a third wants to sleep, and so on. Each is with their problems and nobody thinks about the connection.
Therefore, I can only decide at this very moment to think about our oneness, care for it, and demand the “miraculous remedy” (Segula) so that I will be able to see that we are all bound together and reside in the property of bestowal. I wish that the common quality of bestowal would rule over me. However, beyond making this decision, there is nothing I can do since I don’t receive support from the environment. What else can I do?
What is missing here is the common effort and responsibility of the friends before each other, with each person trying their best to stay in this intention. This mutual obligation is regarded as “the guarantee.” And if we think solely about how to find oneness between us, the Light will descend and do it.
We are unable to unite on our own. But we can think in order to make it happen. Yet, if we are unable to think about it, then we do not influence one another with the greatness and importance of the goal.
This point is all we need to be working on and nothing else. We don’t have anything except it. Everything is right here before us, so very close… And then we will discover eternity, perfection, and the entire spiritual world, but only on the condition that we decide to care for each other and not forget about this intention.
We only need to unite! Let the Light connect us, and the Creator will be revealed in our oneness! We will bestow to Him, and He to us.
Everything takes place in our connection. There we will experience the spiritual world, the Creator, and Infinity.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/10, The Zohar
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