Thanks to quantum physics, the deeper we penetrate into matter which, in and of itself, is inanimate and can be researched using a purely deterministic approach and mechanical discovery, the more we suddenly discover reason and feeling there. Although it’s we who endow matter with these properties, we find thought, a plan, there. We understand that we encounter someone’s thought.

Astronomers also claim that they feel as if behind the stars and the entire cosmos there stands a certain thought. If a person is developed enough, he comes to feel that way.

At my recent lecture in Moscow, I mentioned that if we were to magnify an atom, we would find a void between its nucleus and electrons. I’ve already received objections from my friend, a physicist, who denies that emptiness can exist inside an atom because all the entire space there is full.

Today, we understand that the electron is not a particle which is local, but a certain blurred cloud that fills the entire space of its orbit. That seemingly contradicts the way I presented it, but who knows what will happen and what physics will tell us in another twenty years? It’s clear that the entire theory will become even more abstract because as we advance, we find that our universe is not an assembly of solid particles and can’t be explained by ordinary mechanics; rather, the universe is approaching the spiritual form.

When I said that there are empty spaces in an atom, I meant the qualitative voids that are inside it. No matter how loudly our research claims that the entire space of the atom is full and that one electron fills the entire volume, together with that, we discover a void which hints at something with this emptiness. That’s the thought that’s hidden there.

It’s the same with states between the spiritual degrees. When we are passing from one degree to another, we get into the same kind of empty gaps. We fall there and become renewed. Therefore, each next degree is an entirely new structure.
[33255]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011,  “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Question: How does a Kabbalistic prayer differ from a religious one?

Answer: Kabbalah fundamentally differs from all other methods and from everything there is in our world. In short, Kabbalah is one thing, and everything else another.

What is the difference then? It is in the fact that Kabbalah is based on changing a person himself rather than something outside of him, his surroundings; neither is it built on asking some “dear God” to start treating me better or to change other people’s attitude toward me. I do not ask Him to change my state of health or fate, nothing of the sort. I ask Him to transform my egoism, only that!

The entire method of Kabbalah is arranged so that a person can transform himself. On the other hand, all other methods and religions are founded on the idea that the Creator should change His attitude to a person: I ask Him to be more merciful and kind to me while I bribe Him.

Kabbalah doesn’t allow anything of the sort. In connection to the Creator, I am like man that changes in the face of the Absolute. And this Absolute is unchangeable. If the Creator is a primordial cause, the beginning of all, and if He is absolutely good, absolute, eternal, and perfect, then He cannot change. Only that which is imperfect can change. He cannot change.

Therefore, all changes occur solely in man. In other words, depending on my strengths, internal states, and properties, I feel more or less comfortable. But it is just me because I can change. The Creator never changes; He is a constant, omnipotent force of Nature.

Accordingly, all the prayers Kabbalah describes constitute man’s plea to be transformed. Who does one address these to, a wall? If the Creator is constant, eternal, and complete, then He doesn’t react to you in any way.

However, when you appeal to Him, you become different and receive a different response because you increase your sensitivity while doing so. You are still present in the same constant field regarded as the “Creator,” in the same constant force. Yet you are praying while wishing to change, and as a result, this field affects you with greater intensity. This is what we call a “prayer.”

The word “to pray” in Hebrew (Lehitpalel) means self-imposed judgment. “To pray” means to judge, evaluate, and rebuke oneself. It isn’t an appeal to someone, in order to be shown mercy or favored. No, it is self re-evaluation. This is what a prayer is.

Hence, although religions use the same word, in Kabbalah it has an opposite meaning, much like everything else.
[33395]
From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/2011, “A Prayer of Many”

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Question: You mentioned that evil is revealed in relationships between friends. However, if a person studies over the Internet and is not engaged in mutual work with others, how can he reveal evil?

Answer: I see that people enter Facebook and a number of other social networks and are simply living there. Passions are seething and love is in full bloom; people even get married – if it turns out that the couple is indeed a man and a woman.

Although the network is full of lies and filth, we should respect it. Once, we were walking with Rabash past a stadium, and he said: “We have to respect this place, it brings joy to people!” The same is true of the Internet. With all the garbage that’s in it, it connects people. It provokes people, forcing them to stir up all the evil hidden deep inside of them: envy, hatred, lust, hunger for fame, and lies. It’s has all kinds of things in it, but it helps us actualize many Reshimot (informational genes).

All of humanity is there and everyone is lying non-stop, wanting to outsmart each other, arguing and bickering. Do you have any idea of what it does to the ego? What other common ground could you find to bring them together? Which other place? Instead, with the help of the virtual connection, people realize (and process) their Reshimot and are moving forward in the understanding of their egoistic nature.

So why can’t we, those who are seeking to reveal the Creator, the property of bestowal, fulfill our spiritual Reshimot correctly through such a virtual link, too? I’m sure that the entire Internet has evolved just for that. We’ve come to the final stretch of the path and it’s time to accelerate our advancement. Thus, in order to satisfy their need as always, people have come up with such a connection.

That’s why we need to set up a social network between us so that every one of our friends, regardless of whether he or she is part of a physical group or not, will feel close to everybody and will be permanently connected to our general idea, the purpose of our joint effort, work, study, and communication.
[33406]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Question: How can an attribute that is totally opposite to the will to enjoy and seems to be killing it nonetheless unfold in it?

Answer: If it were two types of matter, matter and antimatter, then it would be impossible to unify them indeed. But if it is matter and an opposite intention to it, then it is possible. Besides, it gets revealed to me on condition that I will manage to unify them in the middle line.

Therefore, my natural desire to enjoy and the intention to bestow work in two different areas: one in desire, the other in intention. And all my calculations and struggle are aimed at how to bring them together.

Suppose I have the desire to enjoy that I live in. In addition to it, I receive the intention to bestow, which could be either below the will to enjoy, or at the same level as the will to enjoy, or above it.

Now I need to somehow connect them together. Pertaining to intention, I acquire it only by way of the “Light that Reforms,” the Surrounding Light. I draw it if there is an aspiration for bestowal within me, the “point in the heart” that I cultivate by being in the group.

All of this resides within my desire and unifies as one: I, the group, and my will to receive. If my desire remains below, in the degree of its importance, but the group and the point in the heart are above, and from within them I desire to bestow, then I raise a plea (MAN). And in response, I receive the Surrounding Light that supplies the intention to bestow to me.

Now, having received the intention, I can choose between three options:

1. to place it below my will to receive (desire), that is, to use it for my desire to receive pleasure, my personal benefit, what is regarded as impurity (Klipa),
2. to place the intention at the level of the desire and bring them together which is a state of ambivalence, or
3. to place the intention above the desire, which is “holiness,” bestowal.

That is what constitutes my work: In which of the three states I am able to reside. If a person starts paying attention and feeling what is really happening within him, he will realize that he constantly faces a choice, as if standing between the weighing pans of a scale. On one hand, there is reception; on the other, bestowal. And in the middle, there I am with a dilemma: What should I choose?!
[33350]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “The Freedom”

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Does It Mean that the Blessing Does Not Dwell Upon Something Which Is Accounted in the Work”
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All creation is the will to receive pleasure, and that is why it requires transformation and fulfillment. But this can be done only by some part in it that will gain understanding, wisdom. This part doesn’t belong to creation itself; it descends to it from the Creator, from the desire to bestow.

There is nothing in the universe except these two forces: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. From the relationship between these two properties, the creature starts analyzing itself and the nature of the force that affects it.

As a result, in the desire to enjoy a mechanism gets formed, which is regarded as a “head” (a “Partzuf’s Rosh”), meaning a mind, thought, and discernment. With the power of this thought, desire begins to attain itself.

At the still, vegetative, and animate levels, the desire to enjoy acts instinctively. And a creature of this world called “man” who acts instinctively as well is also included herein. Try as we may to measure and evaluate ourselves by our own devices or by the view of others, we always judge within our egoism.

All our “compassion” is solely for our own sake, and all our actions are for our own benefit. But remaining locked inside ourselves, we can’t know who we are. We can only weigh and prefer greater desires to the lesser ones. And the ability to make such a calculation is called “thought” or discernment in our world. But in essence, it is merely an evaluation: What is greater, more vital, and beneficial for our egoism. That’s all our mind is about.

All these discernments take place at the animate degree, at the level of our animate body. This is how we live and evolve for thousands of years. But when we acquire an additional property, the property of Bina, bestowal, it is at that point that we begin to perform an assessment based upon two attributes: reception and bestowal. That’s when the mind, the “head,” which makes decisions is now called spiritual since it makes a calculation pertaining to bestowal, the attribute of the Creator.

Relative to Him, it evaluates what the created being should or shouldn’t do and how. Hence, work only within the desire to enjoy is regarded as animate since it’s the highest degree it can attain. This is how we all exist, as it is written: “All are similar to the mortal beasts.”

But one who acquires the desire to bestow is regarded as “human” (Adam) since he is “similar” (Domeh) to the Creator. That is the Kabbalists who attained the property of bestowal, the Creator. Then, they calculate coming from the two properties, reception and bestowal, meaning that they analyze how to connect within a person the desire to enjoy and the intention to bestow, to what degree the intention to bestow can rule his desire to enjoy.

Such a person has a different mind, “the head.” And even though all his actions continue residing in the desire to enjoy, the aim of these actions and their intention which moves and governs them is bestowal. And it is evident that this is a completely different type of calculation as well as perception, which cannot be comprehended by those who for the time being view things with mammalian eyes. It is written: “The view of the Torah is opposite to the view of the laymen.”

The “view of the Torah” is bestowal, whereas the “view of the laymen” is egoistic reception. And although the matter remains the same, the desire to enjoy, it all depends on how it is used, on the intention governing this matter: Will it be egoistic or altruistic, for my benefit, or for the benefit of others? This will be the test for our desire.

In all upper, spiritual worlds, only one law of bestowal governs everything, while the desire to enjoy obeys this thought and such an intention. And only in our world, in the state from which we start our ascent, the governing law is the one that submits everything to the interests of egoism.
[33348]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: Where does our desire to bestow come from?

Answer: The desire to bestow awakens in us under the influence of the Upper Light, the “Light that Reforms.” We don’t know what desire to bestow is; bestowal lies outside of us.

We exist in our nature to receive. Suddenly some external force comes in and affects us, and we don’t know what this force is. We recognize it solely by how it manifests and acts. By observing the actions of this force in me, I start recognizing the Creator.

He is those effects that He causes in me. But I don’t know Him for what He really is. In essence, I don’t really know what phenomena of this world are: what electricity is, what bread is, what I myself am! I cannot attain the essence of things since only derivatives of the manifestation of this essence are revealed to me.

Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah (like any other science) studies solely what can be known: matter and form clothed in matter. And when this unique, foreign, outer force comes in, we don’t know where it comes from and Who it is. It is even evoked by me in some unique, odd way regarded as a “miracle” (Segula).

After all, I have no chance to know how exactly I affect it, how it is set in motion and starts working on me in response. I judge solely by how it appears in me, how I feel in my matter, in desire. Within myself, I experience changes as the results of this external act. This effect, a new form in me, is what is called the desire to bestow.

It is a very strange and special property which is totally unclear and unknown to me. When it suddenly emerges, I realize that I have never felt it before. But if you talk to regular folks, everyone will say that they are perfectly aware of what the will to bestow is and that he gives unto others. They don’t realize that all their giving is merely another form of receiving.

One can comprehend the difference between reception and bestowal only having received both of these desires. One comes to us from outside, while the other is hidden in our nature. In this specific case, a person is able to discern one from the other and starts to understand who he really is.

At present, we don’t even understand that in this world there rules just one law: the law of egoistic reception. We will comprehend it only when we acquire the desire to bestow. Only having exited Egypt can one realize what the Egyptian bondage really was compared to life in freedom! Everything is known and evaluated only from its opposite.
[33345]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “The Freedom”

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