The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Vision of Rabbi Hiya,” Item 57: At that time, the Messiah comes to Rabbi Shimon’s seminary crowned with high crowns from the heads of the seminaries.

…Now, however, after all those members of the seminaries have been rewarded with the degree of heads of seminaries, the Messiah was crowned with the Torah of the heads of seminaries. It follows that he is crowned with the highest crowns from the heads of the seminaries.

This passage talks about spiritual degrees within a person who discovers his inner structure. His entire inner construction is his collective desire (will to receive pleasure), divided and arranged by spiritual degrees (levels), capacities to bestow.

He has the structure of the world of Atzilut. Within this outer design, there are more internal structures according to the levels, from inside out, of Shoresh (root), Neshama (soul), Guf (body), Levush (garment), and Heichal (chamber). As in the corporeal world, there are still, vegetative, animate, and speaking (human) levels.

There is no difference between the material and spiritual design. Our material form is a mere projection of our inner properties that are painting a certain picture within us, just as we see this world before our eyes right now when, in fact, it is our inner reflection.

Getting to know my inner spiritual structure, I witness how, by way of transformations performed on me by the Light, all my properties become elevated from being “members of the seminaries” to the “heads of seminaries,” from the Messiah who has come from a certain level to the Messiah at a more exalted spiritual degree. Suddenly, I see Rabbi Shimon, the rung that hasn’t revealed within me before.

All of these are the degrees in a person’s soul, all the forefathers and their sons: Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. This explains how a person learns the design of his soul in more thorough details, wherein he discovers a great measure of bestowal in various forms. This is what we call getting to know the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Vision of Rabbi Hiya”

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Kabbalah for the Introductory Lecture Series, “Opportunities for Development”
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The world is full of problems, and try as we might to correct our situation from generation to generation, we do not succeed. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains why we are haunted by all these problems and misfortunes: They are pushing us to the correct development so we may rise above our egoism and transition to another dimension, that is, to the property of bestowal, a different force, another perception of the world, the kingdom of bestowal rather than the kingdom of egoism.

Therefore, the aim of our entire evolution is to reveal the suffering and worthlessness hidden in the egoistic desire. The more we attempt to use it, the greater disappointment it brings in order to show us that we cannot use it for pleasure and fulfillment since the receiving desire is unable to receive anything.

We don’t understand this and keep repeating our mistake, but we finally have to realize that it is impossible to fill the desire egoistically because it is against the law of existence of desire and the Light. Starting with the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) and on, I can never receive something into my egoistic desire and become filled; it can never occur in history or reality.

When we feel that we are fulfilled and are enjoying ourselves, it is due to fact that we are stretching the pleasure we felt from the moment we encountered it to the moment when it is gone. For those brief instants while it is in us and we can feel it, we will have to pay in full with the pain that comes as the newly formed emptiness unfolds within.

This emptiness is comprised of the force of pleasure and the time of its presence within the desire. For example, in our world, power equals tension multiplied by the force of an electrical current. The same occurs with enjoyment. I can receive 10 grams of pleasure and feel it for an hour. Then, 10 grams multiplied by 1 hour equals the power of enjoyment. I can feel 1 kilogram of pleasure, but only for 1 second, which will also determine the power of enjoyment.

Therefore, eventually, no matter how much pleasure we sometimes manage to experience, all of it will turn into the suffering of the empty desire. We won’t be able to become fulfilled in our egoistic desires since it is against the nature of creation and its purpose.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/10, “Peace in the World”

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Today’s world is designed in a way that no country can lock itself in and close its borders. If I lock myself out, there will definitely be something wrong inside the country.

We won’t understand why. We will think that we have created a society that supplies itself with all the necessities, like a huge collective farm that provides meat, dairy, fish, and vegetables. We will think that we can have a natural economy independently from everyone else, but no country will be able to accomplish this.

It is not because the country is unable to provide itself with material products like water, electricity, and other natural resources. It’s because this is how it works in nature. All our cogwheels have locked themselves in with each other, and no one can break away from the others.

You will not comprehend why you keep having problems. One time, the cows will stop producing milk, another, the hay won’t grow, or the harvest will get lost. You won’t know where such misfortunes suddenly come from, but it won’t work because, internally, the cogwheels are linked so tightly that you must be connected with the whole world. Today, we will have to explain it to everyone!

However, the G8 or G20 won’t be able to help us unite. Even if everyone agrees to it and decides to lock their hands and hold on to each other, they will cause even greater destruction. They will hold each other’s hand one instant and start a war in the next. If it isn’t for the Creator, for a spiritual purpose, their unity will lead to a world war. It will be worse than when Russia wanted to unify people in this manner.

Therefore, beside the explanations that we are all connected by nature (but not by our own desire which opposes it), we also need to reveal how we can change our desire for unity so that we, by our own will, wish to spin together with all the cogwheels in the right direction. To do this, we need the Light that Reforms and unifies us. However, this is possible solely by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.

First, we can prepare a person by familiarizing him with all the conditions that surround the final moment, when he only needs to be handed the key contained in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Gradually, he will begin to understand that there is a common, mandatory interconnection, and he will learn what our free will implies.

In this manner, we should narrow the circle down until he has left only one unsettled, central question. This is the time when we can give him the answer, and at this point, a person will accept it.

This is how wise we have to make our dissemination so we can approach people gradually, demonstrating to them that it has nothing to do with any stereotypes, mysticism, religion, or Judaism. This is a natural science about how a person can become a harmonious part of this world.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains to you the law of nature that governs the world and the inner law within a person. In other words, it explains who you are and how you fit in this world.

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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/10, “Peace in the World”

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Question: What should I do when I am in a state where I have no strength, don’t feel anything affecting me, and don’t know what to do?

Answer: This is described in the weekly chapter of the Torah: “And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage.” After a person comes to the realization that he has no power, all that he can do is beg.

Before, he thought himself big, smart, and understanding, thinking he could advance on his own, constantly gaining knowledge by adding effort and action. However, if up to this point he has performed a sufficient number of actions, he gets to see that nothing has been achieved therewith.

Why then does a person needs to perform all these actions? In order to realize that he won’t achieve anything. To reach the state of emptiness, a person has to exert a tremendous amount of effort.

I work and think that by doing so, I am building the beautiful “store-cities of Pithom and Ramses,” gaining knowledge, and that soon I will unveil, see, and feel everything. I exert more and more effort, immerse myself in the studies deeper, only to suddenly realize: “How much have I put into it, and what have I achieved? I have nothing. What do I do next? What will become of me?” I don’t know, but I am willing to fall into a deadly sleep. Just give me a sleeping pill so I may sleep and never get up.

This is how a person feels at that moment, exhausted and powerless. In fact, he begins to understand that he will achieve nothing like this. At first, he doesn’t even know it and only feels that he has no desire for anything. Then, he wakes up and still goes on. However, at some point, he begins to understand that, on his own, he will merit nothing, and he needs the Upper Force: “If the Creator doesn’t come and help me, I, myself, can do nothing.”

He starts thinking this way only after 15 to 20 times, or maybe even 30 to 40 times that he has tried to advance on his own only to face disappointment and fall into despair. This is called the years of Egyptian exile, until they have “sighed by reason of the bondage.” For my ego, I build the “store-cities, Pithom and Ramses,” but for the human in me who desires to attain spirituality, these cities are poor and miserable, empty, and can give me nothing.

I start dividing myself in two. So what if I have knowledge, intellect, can discuss the wisdom of Kabbalah beautifully, and even seem to understand everything? It serves nothing. In truth, I don’t have spirituality. I can talk about it all day and all night, but am I attaining it or just talking about it? I am just talking.

Then, a person understands that at this point, he needs only the help from Above, some upper revelation, the Upper Force, something different which is not up to him. He understands that with what he has, it is impossible to reach spirituality. Finally, he really cries out, as it is written: “And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage.”

It is a challenging path. A person has to undergo such states many times. Only the environment can help him in this and nothing else. The environment can support and protect him as well as promote his development.

Otherwise, who knows when he will wake up again? If not with the help of the environment, it will be by way of a changing Reshimo (spiritual information record) that he will be granted mercy from Above and given a new state. However, nobody knows when that will happen.

Therefore, when a person remains in a good state, when he is illuminated by the Light and has power, he has to bond with the environment as much as possible in order to receive the strength put into it when he gets weak again. Then, he will experience a descent as if by inertia and will start ascending again since he had accelerated the speed before he fell.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “Perfection in Life”

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Question: Every person wants to be unique and realize the unique root of his soul. That’s why he is frightened by the explanation that he is a mere cogwheel in the common mechanism. He is afraid to lose his individuality in the society.

Answer: But why should you get lost in the society? On the contrary, you can become a righteous one who is regarded as the “salt of the earth”: to bestow to all and pull the entire world forward. Who is stopping you? There is no restriction on bestowal. Please, do bestow!

You are complaining that you are prevented or not permitted to use all the others. Obviously, nobody wants to let you take advantage of them. On the other hand, if you become great not at reception, but at bestowal, nobody will stand in your way.

One can be unique in the positive sense of the word, in bestowal. Why, then, do you insist on being different in the negative form, in egoism? Everybody wants to be special, so, please, do let them. Realize yourself in spirituality.

A person may be frightened by the very look of the linked cogwheels. He imagines being a robot or a screw, but it is a fact of reality, a picture that does exist in Nature. In Nature, nothing can be bad or good; it is simply a fact.

You may agree or disagree with it; it won’t change reality. You will only evoke blows upon yourself if you don’t comply with it. You may claim that you disagree with the law of gravity and deny its existence. Go ahead; we will see later how you will be falling off the roof.

It’s the same case here. We don’t understand how strictly we are connected with each other and we are still trying to do as we please. Everybody is pulling the blanket over their eyes. Later, we witness how everybody suffers, time after time, for thousands of years.

Now, we are entering such a state where our ego has grown to its maximum in all our earthly desires and tied us all to one another all over the globe. Nonetheless, we still don’t wish to admit it and we keep trying to deceive and use each other. However, we don’t understand that by doing so, everyone brings the very same pain onto himself that he brings to others.

We don’t see it, but if it were clearly revealed to me and I got an immediate, reciprocal blow at the moment when I harm someone, I would act like an animal that doesn’t have free will. I would keep swinging between blows and pleasures, working like a machine, if the law of mutual connection affected me openly.

Therefore, this law is concealed in order to give me an opportunity to add to it by using my free will. The law does exist, albeit  hidden, and I can make up for concealment myself as if it were revealed. After all, I wish it to work this way: I want bestowal to be enormous and powerful and prevail over receiving. It may be a law written out in every book, but I wish it to become revealed in practice. This is where my free will lies.

I was given one white spot which means that the Creator is concealed. I can bring Him out of concealment and fill this white spot with His presence. It will be my own presence since I will be exactly like Him. I will come to the place where He is hiding and replace Him. It will be as if He and I are partners, and I pledge that I will do His work for Him where He is hidden.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/10, “Peace in the World”

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What’s the Difference Between ‘The Gate of Tears’ from the Rest of the Gates”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “You Are Partners With Me,” Item 63, Lesson 2
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 35, Lesson 21
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In reality, it’s not the group that has to influence you, but you have to tune into the group yourself. When we say that the group has to influence a person, we want to inspire each person to bestow to the group.

The group’s response may be powerful or weak, but that will not affect a person. That’s because our connection and interaction is with the inner group, not the external one. The external behavior of the friends does not play such a substantial role.

Here everything depends on how strongly I tune into them, how much I try to feel their inner aspiration, which does not depend on me or on them. This is a spiritual reality, the unity between us on the level of Infinity.

Therefore, the group influences you to the degree you tune into it and desire to receive its influence, its bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/10, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Is there a phase in spiritual work when a person can tell exactly whether or not he is similar to the Light through his qualities?

Answer: On various phases we feel closer or farther, but the most correct example is a person’s attitude to the group: How much does he feel that the group’s inner essence is the place where he wants to tune in, where he wants to “dissolve” like an embryo in a mother’s womb, like a child in his mother’s hands, to disappear and lose himself?

If a person still has something that hasn’t disappeared, that he hasn’t lost, it means his egoism is still alive. But as soon as a person dissolves in the group, from that moment on he begins to grow spiritually. Inside his sensation, desire, intentions, and effort a person can measure where he is: in which Reshimot, in which Sefirot, in what state, and how many Lights enter his Kelim.

He measures everything exclusively by his relationship with the right environment. After all, a person cannot measure anything in relation to the Light. The Light is a phenomenon inside the vessel, but not a notion in and of itself. According to Baal HaSulam’s definition, everything that enters the vessels is called “Light.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/10, Writings of Rabash

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