Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

613 Suggestions and 613 Deposits

In several places in The Zohar, he calls the 613 Mitzvot, “613 counsels” [of how to correct the Kli] and in many other places in The Zohar he calls the 613 Mitzvot, “613 deposits” [the Lights that have to enter the corrected Kli]. This is so because at first, one must keep the Torah and the Mitzvot in order to refine his body [himself from egoism] and enhance his soul [the aspiration for bestowal and love].

At that time, the 613 Mitzvot are as 613 counsels [this type of correction] for him, “suggestions” by which to gradually refine and be awarded coming before the King [rising above egoism], and receiving the Light of his face. This is because keeping the Torah [attracting the Light] and Mitzvot [correcting 613 egoistic desires] gradually purify him [from natural egoism], until he is rewarded with the Light of the King’s face [the general, universal property of bestowal and love]. [Otherwise, there is no use of his actions.]

Also, it is written similarly in the Gemarah: “The Creator cares not if one slaughters at the throat or slaughters at the back of the neck [meaning that mechanical actions in and of themselves do not carry any meaning]? Rather, we were given the Torah and Mitzvot only to purify Israel [those who strive for the Creator, the property of ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’].”

However, after one has been sufficiently purified [from egoistic desires] and merits the Light of the King’s face [the property of bestowal], one’s eyes and soul [the will to bestow] open and he is awarded the attaining [within himself] the 613 Sacred Lights found in the 613 Mitzvot [corrected desires]. These are His Holy Names [attainment thereof], the ones he can attain.

By keeping each of the Mitzvot [correcting each desire], one takes [receives into it] the part of the Light deposited in that Mitzva since the Mitzva is a Kli (vessel) [desire] where the Light is clothed, meaning a Holy Name [His individual property] that belongs specifically to that Mitzva. This is the meaning of “The Mitzva is a candle and the Torah—Light.” At that time, he calls the 613 Mitzvot “613 commandments (deposits).”
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the book, From the Mouth of a Sage”
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Question: What do I do if I am feeling everything is great, if I don’t have a desire to rise to a more exalted state?

Answer: Let’s take a convention, for example, after which we felt a descent, it was an opportunity to reach an authentic plea, a cry, a prayer. It may be that we need more such actions. Think about it before going to bed and when you get up to attend a lesson, ask yourself: “What for? Why? How?”

Kabbalists suggest that we should take lesson preparation very seriously and take hours if necessary. Preparation is more than the lesson itself. The Light doesn’t require much time; a person doesn’t need to study all day long; one or two hours is enough. If during the day a person keeps building the intention and preparing himself for the encounter with the Light, then what matters occurs in mere minutes.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

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In truth, the Internet has a hidden force, the Creator! This means that within the virtual connection between people (if it evolves and increases in gaining a benevolent form) the upper force becomes revealed.

The Internet emerged specifically in order to connect people and demonstrate that a connection based on our egoistic nature can bring only evil and harm, while unification with the upper nature is good. The upper nature elevates us to another dimension, to eternal life, and liberates us from all problems. That is what the Internet will reveal to us, and I am certain that it will occur very soon judging by how quickly it is developing.

It’s impossible to stop it now, and no one will be able to unplug people from the Internet. In some places of the world they are trying to do just that, but they won’t succeed. People will feel that they are willing to destroy those who remove them from the Internet, as if they are being cut off from life itself.

We will not be able to return to the previous life that didn’t connect us all via the Internet. If anyone attempts to do so, he will become the greatest foe of humanity, and he will be annihilated just because he unplugged the Internet.

After all, it is the instrument of connection between people. By now a person has come to realize that the Internet allows him to step into another realm of existence where the entire world is before his eyes! But when this world discovers how empty it actually is, that will become a springboard to make a leap into the future world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The Creator created a perfect state where we are perfect and exist in adhesion with Him. However, in order for us to feel this state, we must first develop a sensibility to it and learn to discern its components. This sensibility must come from within us; we must acquire a spiritual perception. It’s impossible to receive the sensation externally, even though the Creator is omnipotent.

The creature has to sense its own state in relation to the Creator’s. It has to delight in adhesion and the perfection between itself and the Creator and feel the similarity to Him because there is nothing more perfect. For this, the creature has to contain two states, two details of perception, or two qualities: what it is and what the Creator is. It must be able to distinguish the difference between these qualities in depth. Only then will the creature feel the value and the loftiness of adhesion with the Creator.

The created being must include two opposites within itself. Coming from a perfect state created by the Creator, we must first of all get to know our own nature, as if the Creator doesn’t exist. And then, step by step, we have to go through the stages of getting to know the Creator’s nature.

Then we will reach the goal: We will feel our nature and the Creator’s nature, and the separation and unity between them. Ultimately, this will give us strength and a sense of greatness of the perfect state in which we already exist.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Let’s imagine that in 48 hours an asteroid will collide with our planet and completely destroy it. How can correction be accelerated in these remaining 48 hours before the destruction of the planet?

Answer: If people felt that there were 48 hours until the end of the world, they would be overcome with such a great desire for salvation that they would perhaps hear that everything depends on the desire! If for the sake of salvation we would aim our desires toward connection between all the people in the world and wish for the upper force to correct our connection, it would happen instantly. This is the law of nature: If the desire evokes the Light, the Light acts upon it and correction happens instantly.

When the Light acts upon a common desire to unite, then in this common desire we instantly begin to feel the upper world. And if we’re all connected in our perception of the upper world, we no longer sense our reality and our world. Let it blow up! However, there will be nothing to blow up since all explosions are forces that we weren’t able to correct.

First of all, if we unite, our world won’t blow up. There will be no force of destruction because by uniting we cancel out the evil force on all levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human.

Second, if this was the desire of all humanity, we would reach a state where our world would disappear from our senses and we would exist only in our perception of adhesion, without any material form that is now imagined in our desires. Our desire will draw forms of bestowal.

Question cont.: What if people say: “We have 48 hours, so let’s have fun!”

Answer: This is unrealistic because unless you can prevent or change something, the knowledge of the impending end will erase the remaining minutes and prevent you from really living. Imagine that you are heading toward an abyss, and the moment you’re about to fall, your car turns into an airplane. But if you don’t have this solution that allows you to rise to a higher level above the catastrophe, you are already dead.

Question: How can we start feeling the necessity for uniting?

Answer: We’ll have to unite on our own; otherwise, nature will force us to do so.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Is Peace in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Fourteenth Commandment” Item 250
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 92, Lesson 53
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Lesson 9
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We must change in order to attain the Creator since we attain Him in new vessels of perception, in new desires. Obviously, the desires themselves are not new, but they connect within us in a new way.

We have the desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow. In order to reveal the Creator, we must create such a connection between these desires within ourselves that would enable us to recognize Him. The Creator has 125 consecutive forms of revelation, when He reveals Himself to us closer and closer, sharper and sharper. It is 125 degrees, along which we ascend and become able to see and feel Him more and more.

How do we find the Creator? As soon as we create a connection between our desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow, where the will to bestow would rule over the will to receive at the first spiritual degree by giving it a form similar to the Creator, we instantly see the Creator through these desires and their unity.

In other words, I must create within me a common property between the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow so that it becomes identical, equal, and adequate to the Creator at the first, the smallest degree of His revelation. In that case, I will see, understand, and feel Him.

In our world, there are various phenomena as well. To understand them, I have to become more intelligent, acquire additional sense, and study some more. Then, I will start sensing what is going on, in what way, and what these phenomena are.

The same happens in the wisdom of Kabbalah. In order to arouse a merger, a mutual permeation of the desire to receive and the desire to bestow in each of us at the first spiritual degree and further on, at all 125 degrees, I need the Light which would make this change in me. I, myself, am unable to perform it since while I am at the lowest degree; I do not have the slightest idea of what I must become at the next one, like a baby that doesn’t know how it will look when it is one year old.

This is why we are given the studies. We must sit and learn from the authentic sources, and the most powerful source from which to draw the Light is The Book of Zohar. When we study this book together, it is regarded as “faith above reason” if while doing so, everyone thinks about how he will unify with the others. This is because in the connection between us, we create the Creator’s form, the correct pairing between the will to receive and the will to bestow so that the desire to bestow rules over the desire to receive, thereby giving it the right form.

If I wish for it to occur during the studies, it is sufficient. There isn’t a greater commandment, and there is nothing more vital. In that case, I draw the Light so that it would align these desires for me.

It is the Light that performs it. I don’t need to know anything else. So does a small child wish to grow, and that’s why he runs, plays, and does whatever he may. So do I, like a child, do whatever it takes only to get the Light to come, reform me, and bring me back to the source, to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How can a little person bring many people to the unification on which his correction depends? Does he really have the necessary instruments to accomplish that?

Answer: There are no little or big people. We reside in the world of Infinity, a complete, integral system. However, if there is some flaw in what is whole, it is not complete any longer, and its wholeness is broken. Therefore, everyone is as important as all the others.

Imagine that this system has an input and an output, but the path through it leads through all its elements without exception, which are linked into one chain. In this case, does it matter how many internal elements are flawed and are tearing the chain apart, a thousand or just one?

Obviously, the fewer flawed elements that remain, the easier it is to fix them, and from this point of view, one flawed link is preferable to a thousand. However, if we examine the output of a flawed, fragmentary system, we see that one flawed element is sufficient to break the system.

Therefore, every one of us is important, and there are no little or big men. All of us are needed, and we must think about all. From the Creator’s point of view, there is no difference between people, between the souls, whatsoever.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: What is the path of the Light and the path of suffering? What is this suffering for? Is it our egoism?

Answer: Undoubtedly, we experience suffering in our will to receive pleasure. However, pain can be felt even in the will to bestow. It all depends on how you define suffering.

Imagine, if you will, that I found Kabbalah, entered the group, and studied for a long time. But in the end, I suddenly won a multi-million dollar lottery! Now, my life has changed. Is it, in your opinion, the path of the Light or the path of suffering?

I can call it a path of suffering because now this money confuses me, and I don’t know what to do with it. I was thinking only about Kabbalah, but at this point, I have to think about the money since it is such an enormous sum. In what do I invest it so that it doesn’t devalue? How do I use it correctly?

As it turns out, this is the path of suffering since instead of advancing in a smooth, simple, and straight way, I am swayed off the path to go around, make a long loop. Whether I like it or not, I have to become involved in material matters, giving it my time and loading my mind with these thoughts. I cannot break away from it, and it is a huge problem which is a true pain where the desire to bestow and the spiritual goal are concerned.

As to the will to receive pleasure, you ought to say that it is the path of the Light and that you have received a reward for your righteous work. You think that it is a blessing sent to you from Above. Therefore, everything depends on which scale you use to measure it, from what have you chosen to receive pleasure.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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There is a law: “In spiritual life, ‘take after the individual,’ and in corporeal life, ‘take after the collective.’” However, it doesn’t mean that I need to run to a town square where thousands of people are gathered, ask them what they want, and start sharing their desires. “To take after the collective” means to care about the unification of many people because only through this unification will I transform my Kli (vessel), my desires.

I run after them in order to add them to myself and link to their internal desires. I don’t look at their material, animate needs, but rather I strive to uncover their internal desires that tie them into one network.

If I desire to become engaged in this upper spiritual network that connects all into one, it is regarded as “taking after the collective,” where my desire is to bring the collective to oneness and participate therein. As a result, the many become as one for me.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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