We exist in the one and only reality created by the Creator, but we uncover it only to the degree that we correspond to it and are similar to it in our properties. Reality itself is constant and unchanging, and it is called the world of Infinity.

Meanwhile, we exist in the desire to enjoy, the property opposite to the world of Infinity: the intention to receive instead of to bestow. We can correct ourselves by performing consecutive corrections time after time, 125 times. Our every correction translates within us into a new attainment, and this is how we advance.

This is a step-by-step advancement that abides by the law of the equivalence of form, and there is no place for a compromise here: We are situated in a system that operates like a living organism. If you correspond to it, you receive accordingly, and if you don’t, you will receive according to this lack of correspondence. You constantly interact with nature to the measure of the similarity and strength of the forces with which you approach it.

If nothing changed in us, we would always stay in the same state. But since the Reshimot (informational genes, data) are constantly growing and changing in us, we are becoming increasingly opposite to nature and differ from it more and more. This is exactly what we feel as the accumulation and manifestation of various unfulfilled desires and problems.

This is how we feel the forces which are pressuring us increasingly stronger from the side of the evil. These forces will inevitably compel us to move toward good, meaning to search how to reach similarity to nature.
[33261]
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: What is "Zivug?"

Answer: "Zivug" is a connection according to the equivalence of form, the similarity of properties. This action is not based on what each of us used to be, but rather on how similar to each other we have become after corrections.

At first, we were completely separated and opposite. Then we performed corrections, and to the measure of these corrections we come to a "Zivug" (unity, adhesion).

Question: What is "Parsa"?

Answer: "Parsa" is a partition which separates the receiving desires from bestowing ones by the force of Bina. A person himself has to wish for such division to take place within him. And then he attracts the force of Bina, bestowal, the force of the Creator, so that it will protect and save him by separating bestowal and reception within him. This is called "to distinguish day from night, light from dark."
[33243]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: How should those coming to a convention for the first time prepare for meeting with friends from the World Kli?

Answer: No preparation is necessary. We have friends all over the world. Even if you don’t speak their language, you will not feel different from them because everyone is aimed at the Creator.

Every person who has such a spark for spirituality awakens to the same goal; you are together and feel no differences. Don’t be afraid that something will be new to you. You will feel that they are all close to you.

Question: If I am a beginner and don’t understand anything in this science but want to come to the convention, is it worth doing so? And if yes, how should I prepare for it?

Answer: First of all, if time allows, you should study the material online designed for convention preparation. But regardless, you will pick it up “from the air” that you will be breathing….
[23871]
From the Introductory Lecture Series Kabbalah for the Nation 10/12/10, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “Because Man Is the Tree of the Field”
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Yitro,” Selected Excerpts
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Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Lesson 11
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag “The Freedom,” “One Law For All the Worlds,” Lesson 12
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As we examine the universe, we see that nature together with our world are concealed from us. We are revealing the world over the course of thousands of years, from generation to generation, and we are becoming more familiar with it.

The Creator is the common force of nature, and this is why we will need some more time to attain Him. However, why is reality concealed from us? Why is the Creator hiding from us?

After all, He is not like the laws of nature that conform to Him: the still, vegetative, and animate levels of development or the human level. He is the common law which contains the thought, as well as the beginning and the end of the universe. Everything is included in Him. Then, why did He create everything so He would be concealed from us?

What is so special about attaining His revelation on our own and asking His help with it? What is this game? He conceals from us, and we need to suffer over the course of thousands of years of our development until we come to the question of, “Why is the Creator concealed?” Only then does the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method of revealing Him, become revealed. What do we get from it? So, we will reveal Him, and what will happen then?

People say that we will be happy then because the Creator is Good and does good, and we will exist in love above all the suffering once we attain His revelation. However, if the Creator is the force of infinite love and bestowal, then why did He create us to be so miserable and sordid? Why do we need to work so hard to come to the one who loves us?

We see that everything is also the same in this world. People who have been through different obstacles on their way to attaining love, unity, and revelation value it; they feel how they have benefited and discovered something great, dear, and important.

We also see that every person in our world essentially wishes to be loved for who he is. However, this kind of relationship between us cannot exist. Only a mother experiences these feelings toward her child, and this love is corporeal and animalistic. It has come to the mother from nature, and it obligates her to love her child, give him life, sustain him, and facilitate his further development.

This is the only exception. Since we do not love other people for who they are, we want to have proof of how this will benefit us. All of this helps us to understand, at least slightly, why the Creator needed this game (the concealment).

He wants us to come to this love without expecting it to benefit us. Just like we want to be loved for who we are, He also wants to be loved for who He is without our expecting any personal benefit. This is why we will not be able to understand how to begin to establish a connection with Him before we free ourselves of our ego.

The first thing we need to do in order to develop the sensation of the Creator within us is to rise above our nature. In other words, we need to rise above personal interest, above “How will this benefit me?”

This will be possible when I manage to become absolutely free from it, as if I did not exist, as if I were absolutely independent and objective, and able to see and judge things this way. Then I could begin to perceive the Creator, the force of bestowal, the force of goodness, from that moment on.

Otherwise, if He were to reveal Himself, I would come to Him because this would benefit me. This is because if I were to feel that He only evokes love, security, health, and happiness, I would be forced to love Him because He is the source of everything good. This love would be compulsory and dependent.

This is why I need to arm myself with a screen, a restriction and my anti-nature, and to become free from my own ego. Then, both of us would become carriers of infinite and pure love without personal benefit, and we would begin to understand that it is not the Creator who conceals Himself from man, but man who conceals Him with his ego.
[33053]
From the Introductory Lecture “Why the Creator is Hidden” 12/14/2010

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Question: What does a person who has experienced the ten plagues, came into the desert, and entered the land of Israel feel? I think that anyone can imagine blows.

Answer: No, these blows are completely different. These are not the blows that we are used to. A blow is not something that makes us feel bad; we can all imagine feeling that way. Rather, a blow is something that makes me understand that my egoism, my nature, is evil. This attainment is called a plague. Nothing else pertains to the ten plagues.

It is not a blow if I am just feeling bad. I suffer not because I am feeling bad, but because I feel the evil of my desire to receive pleasure, of my egoism. A blow points me to the cause of the evil. It, itself, is not evil.

In reality, these blows are not that much suffering. People suffer much more in our world. What matters most is that a person feels a direct connection between suffering and his egoistic qualities: “You suffer because of what you are. You will not suffer if you rid yourself of these qualities and rise above them.”

A person strives to escape this suffering, but it is not because he just wants to stop feeling it. It is because he feels his insignificance, the evil in him, especially in relation to those around him.

There are several terms here: the Creator, man, Pharaoh, the sensation of evil, and the reason for the sensation of evil versus good. Man does not want to escape the blows. This is not the problem. The blows help him discover the true causes, and he no longer wants to just escape the blows; he desires to rise over them toward the property of bestowal.

He wants to attain a connection with the Creator and to disconnect from Pharaoh not from the bad feeling. In other words, he transitions from evaluation according to the principle of “bitter and sweet” toward examining the principle of “true and false.” He wants to cling to the truth, and this is why the ten plagues lift him and take him out of Egypt.
[33058]
From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 1/6/2011

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Question: Does the law of “The general and the particular are equal” mean that one can undergo the ten blows both individually and in the group, or is it an exclusively internal, personal process?

Answer: Yes and no. As a rule, all Kabbalists go through this individually; I know this from my own experience. One feels so desperate in his egoism that he tears away from it and cannot use it anymore.

There is no doubt that it’s easier to do this while being in the group, even if the latter knows nothing about it. It can be a small group in terms of the number of members and level of advancement, but its general atmosphere, its determination and aspiration to the goal helps a person and doesn’t let him escape from this process. A person holds himself intact at the time he is receiving a blow, which is what matters the most, and he passes through it.

However, even if he tells himself, “That’s it, I give up! I can’t stand it anymore! I wish to live solely for bestowal,” he eventually descends deeper into the egoistic desire and gets revisited by those thoughts and internal discernments. He sees that at the deeper, inner level, he is still stuck in his will to receive where he hasn’t yet made a final and irreversible decision that he desires to rise above it all.

The ten blows are not only just different in character, not at all. They differ in their depth since they become more and more internal. Therefore, even if during the previous test a person decided that he wouldn’t be using egotistic desires any more, now he sees that he hasn’t worked on this particular desire yet. He hasn’t become aware and realized that it cannot be employed and that he can’t comply with his egoism.

If a person has a strong and correct environment, he passes through these states with enthusiasm. He is aware that he is undergoing a blow that will help him tear away from egoism and get refined. I don’t think a student can go through it without the support of the teacher and the group.

The blows themselves are very specific, and one should move through them quickly and distinctly. It all depends on our discipline, the interconnection between us, and our willingness to lose interest in our egoism which is our nature.
[33063]
From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 1/6/2011

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A Kabbalist has two functions: one relative to the Creator and the other relative to the created beings. In many cases, they are interconnected and one affects the other, but they are still two different missions.

Relative to the Creator, a Kabbalist does a special type of work within the system to which he belongs. There, he is connected with the Kabbalists of all generations who reside in this system as corrected souls. He realizes his designation in the root of his soul, in the place where he belongs within the system. By revealing the Creator, he delights Him.

Relative to the created beings who haven’t yet come to individual attainment, to the best of his ability, he shares the knowledge of the wisdom of Kabbalah and helps them to approach the upper system, consciously enter it, and take part in correction.

To accomplish this, Kabbalists write books. A book is a revelation. Every generation needs new books since with every new incarnation souls become renewed. They are characterized by greater egoism and a new type of perception. Besides, even in our corporeal world, the conditions for the Creator’s revelation are changing as well.

Therefore, Kabbalists have to keep improving the method of Kabbalah. This is the very same method that was revealed by Adam, but in every generation, it has to match the collective desire. As the desire grows, the conditions between the Creator and us change, and this is what Kabbalists write about.

When we attempt to penetrate the depth of a Kabbalistic text, we see that it isn’t simply letters and words, but rather a mechanism that works on us as we speak. The text is a program that is put on a person to work with his desire so that it starts corresponding with the upper system. That’s when the person becomes a part of it.

Through the book, a Kabbalist passes on to the students how to build the intention, how to act and interconnect. Moreover, he passes along the internal force from the spiritual system. It enters the person while he is reading, but affects him only on the condition that he desires to change to be like the Kabbalist whose words he is reading and that he wishes to penetrate the text to reveal that which is being described.
[32932]
From Kabbalah for Beginners “Who is a Kabbalist?” 12/13/2010

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