The final result of our work is the establishment of the connection with the environment which becomes wider and stronger all the time, and this strengthens our bond. In the beginning I am just like a drop of semen that attaches itself to the wall of the womb. Then I develop by annulling my egoistic desire at the degrees of embryo-nurturing-adulthood of the first phase, that of an embryo. This is called the development in the three sections of the spiritual womb, whereby I rise from one section to the other.

Then I undergo the spiritual birth, meaning that I establish a new type of connection with the environment and begin to interact with the group consciously. I already check and analyze our relationships, try to make them more effective, as much as I am able to reveal my environment.

Indeed, the environment is always a degree higher than me. Depending on the stage of my development, it is either the mother’s womb for me, or the Mother (Ima), or the Mother and the Father (Abba ve Ima), or Arich Anpin. This is how I discover all the spiritual systems described in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, which become revealed in my increasingly stronger connection with the group.

And later I will reveal that it’s not just my current friends: The souls of the great Kabbalists of all generations also participate in the same group, who have already corrected themselves and join the same system, encircling us.

And if I previously judged everything “according to my own flaws,” now, as I advance, I value this group increasingly more. At each degree I undergo all the stages: embryo-nurturing-adulthood, that is, I first develop my upper part, GE, realizing my Reshimo (spiritual gene), and then AHP, until I complete my correction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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We live at the time when the entire world is entering the phase of spiritual development. And the group we are building is like the Noah’s Ark, our common mother, where we could all join in and grow ourselves. That is, the group will be the mother’s womb for the entire humanity: It is Shechina which we build between us.

The same place will accept us when we will be “exiled” from the mother’s womb and will be born. And by bringing it ever new “garments” of the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) and corrections, we will raise it higher and higher, till the very end of correction, until it will turn into the bride ready to enter the wedding canopy (Chuppah) with the Creator.

Hence, the group relative to each person and also the entire humanity is that same place which is always a step higher than us. This is the upper spiritual object, in relation to which we constantly reveal our next, higher degrees—in the extent that we are able to rise above our ego.

Egoism remains a force that separates and therefore helps us. After all, by overcoming the ego in particular, we are able to establish a tighter connection with our environment: or like an embryo with the womb, or like a nurtured baby, or like a grown-up who receives the Light for the sake of bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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Question: If the matter of creation is the receiving desire, what does it mean to bestow in order to bestow? Where is the work with desire?

Answer: The truth of the matter is that the receiving desire itself works for the sake of bestowal. It supports a fellow human being, helps him, and performs various actions in relation to him.

In general, to understand bestowal for the sake of bestowal, it’s necessary to understand what reception for the sake of bestowal is. It means that I work with my receiving desires so as to use them to grow a fellow human being and perform the actions of bestowal upon him, similar to how Bina works in its AHP.

I include the receiving desires of the other into my own and fill him with everything he demands. And what he demands is Infinity. Then, with my help his desires reach an infinite magnitude, while the Lights coming to him through me grow to the infinite size of NRNHY. This is how I work, receiving in order to bestow: I make sure to give the other everything necessary, utilizing all of my abilities for this purpose and totally ignoring my own profit.

However, for this I need the upper force absent in my nature. My inborn nature lets me perform only the actions that promise me a personal benefit, whereas the actions of bestowal are totally selfless and do not benefit my receiving desires in any way. This is why I can’t perform them unless I receive the strength from the upper dimension, that of bestowal.

Hence, I incorporate the needs of the other into my desires and then through my desires I fulfill him. In general, we are talking about the desires which relate to our interconnection since the spiritual work is performed at the level of unification of the souls where we fill ourselves with the upper Lights.

So, there is an additional option: not to engage my receiving desires, but only pass all goodness from myself to the other, to participate in his fulfillment, but not with my own desires. This is pure bestowal. As a rule, these actions forestall mutual bestowal. They correct our unification. Thanks to them we annul our egoism in order to rise above it to unity. And unity itself is activated by the direct use of our receiving desires.

In this way, bestowal for the sake of bestowal is an intermediate, small, weak, “poor” state. But we have no choice: We need to undergo it since we thereby clean our desires and rise above our egoistic qualities. Without it, it’s impossible to start working with them. First of all, we have to “clean them up,” meaning to fill them with the Light of Hassadim (Mercy).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 on The Principles of Global Education

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Question: Until we started studying the world of Atzilut in Part 9, Talmud Eser Sefirot (TES), it seemed to me that I understood the flow of the material. But in this part, I understand absolutely nothing. Can you tell in general terms what is happening there?

Answer: I can tell what is happening with you, why you don’t understand anything. It’s because you have no relation to it.

There are several levels of perceiving the study material: “I don’t know,” “I’m not familiar with,” “I don’t understand,” and “I’m unable to understand.” The latter is because your mind does not correspond to the mind of the book.

If this were written in Chinese and you didn’t understand the language, it would be one thing. If it depended on your education level and you didn’t comprehend certain formulas or basic definitions needed to master the material, you would still have something to study.

However, here you can study as much as you want, year after year, and you nevertheless won’t understand anything until your Kelim (vessels, desires)  become at least somewhat similar to the desires described in the book. When each word will echo with an inner change within you, you will start comprehending what is being described here.

You may ask: “But didn’t I understand something in the first three parts of TES?” No, you didn’t. The three parts in question describe the acts of absolute bestowal that are so distant from and opposite to you that this opposition gives you the illusion of understanding. In reality, you interpret them completely incorrectly.

It’s easy to draw a Kli (vessel), the Light, and the screen in the middle, the arrows pointing in different directions, the percentage of the Light received or given away. But it’s impossible to imagine this action for real. However, it is so inaccessible and opposite to us that it makes us think that we understand.

Meanwhile, the actions described in Part 9 of TES are very close to us. The moment you have at least one ounce of the desire to bestow, you will enter a similar act.

Hence you see that you don’t understand. Your mind has to become similar to the spiritual one—then the connection will appear and you will be able to comprehend. This is the only way!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: What does it mean to provide the other with everything he lacks?

Answer: Surely, we are not talking about the reality of our world. Otherwise, you will be reproached with hard-heartedness: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You study Kabbalah and do not give away everything you have.” Ignorant people think that you have to sweat to provide the others with their material needs.

In truth, to help the other means to show him how he can correct himself. The only exception to this rule is basic human needs. We have to provide everyone with the barest necessities of life so that there will be no people in the world who lack the basics of life.

However, beyond that we care exclusively about correction of the soul. There is no place for doubt: First of all, a person needs to secure for himself the basic, “animate” existence, and in everything else he has to provide for the “human” within, meaning the soul.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 on The Principles of Global Education

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Our mood defines the connection with spirituality, with the Creator, with the Light, the fulfillment we had in the world of Infinity. But when we aspire to a good state, we naturally think about fulfillment and forget that this fulfillment presupposes correction, the intention “in order to bestow.”

In other words, we first of all need to acquire the intention to bestow; fulfillment will follow. Hence, we are given a feeling of emptiness, lack of fulfillment, so that we focus not on it, but on the intention, meaning on fulfilling others and not ourselves.

This is needed to build within us a “neutral” attitude free from egoistic pleasure when we can use the fulfillment for the sake of others and not ourselves. Just imagine what it would be like if we were given the ability to fulfill ourselves with the upper Light egoistically! We would dream about it all the time instead of thinking about how to fulfill others!

Hence, the upper Light is hiding. Thereby it gives us the opportunity to think about the upper fulfillment unselfishly, free from our egoism which does not distinguish the concealed spiritual pleasure. Even if I’m not exactly happy, and the friends, too, don’t seem particularly joyous, this is the only opportunity to lull my egoism and thirst for pleasures to sleep and use this empty space for building my relationship with others.

This is an exceptionally valuable help, and we have to be thankful for it! Otherwise, we would probably remain in the slavery of our egoism and wouldn’t have any chance to tear away from it. And here, I’m given a chance to search by myself and artificially, meaning not according to my desire but virtually from zero, start advertising joy, the importance of the spiritual goal, of the environment, of everything that I lack!

I myself awaken this joy and importance, build them artificially, and bring this into my environment. I act like a child who plays with a toy and thereby introduces it into his life. He pulls a toy car and hums, and it seems like a car is indeed driving and the engine is working in it.

This is how we activate the upper system with our desire. This desire—the only thing we need to reach—is our plea (MAN). We express our desire so as to realize it without any readiness from the side of our ego, without any preliminary sensation, but purely artificially. This is how we start building a new form from a zero.

We shouldn’t be ashamed of it being seemingly artificial. Surely, it’s not an authentic form in a sense that it does not derive from our previous desire. On the contrary, we should be proud of it not being our true, natural (egoistic) desire and of us playing a game of bestowal!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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In the final state we have to return to where we came from at the very beginning, where we were united together, as one man with one heart. The Creator created only one creature, one desire.

When this desire divided into parts, the separation occurred only relative to us: This is how we feel it. But coming back to the state of unity, we feel as if we were in a dream. We perceive this separation and the entire world, the entire reality except for the world of Infinity as a dream.

By descending from the world of Infinity into this world though the five worlds or concealments (“world” or “Olam” comes from the word “concealment” or “Alama”), we gradually lose the sense of reality, similar to a person who gradually drifts into a dream, until falling asleep completely. And now, in the same gradual fashion we have to wake up from the dream.

However, the only, perfect state exists even now, and we live in it. We only need to clarify that our separation is just a dream and to shake it off from us. It only seems to us that by intending to bring joy and inspiration to everybody we care about others. In truth, it is an opportunity to work with myself. But it’s very hard to wake oneself up, and besides, in that case I will be driven by a small egoistic goal of this world and nothing more.

This is why, essentially, bestowal to friends, uplifting their mood, returns me to that same state of unity. I care about my own soul, aspiring to unite it with the rest of the parts, with all other souls. This in particular is each person’s mission, by fulfilling which he realizes his soul.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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While researching nature, we study many phenomena that take place in front of us and inside of us. To bring them to a common denominator, we can say that any species and any part in nature takes care of its own existence. And the more it takes care of itself, the higher is the level of its development. That is how the vegetative level of nature originated from the still level of nature, and the animate level came from the vegetative, and man came from the animate level of nature.

We understand from the science of Kabbalah that this did not happen by itself, but by means of Reshimot, the “developmental genes” that are successively realized one after another within the framework of the initially fixed model.

All of this exists inside the aspiration for self-benefit. The program instilled in all of nature’s elements places one task before us: What should I do to feel good? Be it realization of evil, conscious progress toward goodness, force, speed, connection, feeling, or mind: According to its potential, every species aspires to goodness and detaches from evil. That is our nature.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels this nature is a "one way street”—urging us to act directly for our own benefit. But on the human level there is one more special action. Man is able to feel the neighbor, and therefore, he is willing to give something to his neighbor with the expectation of later receiving reward and pleasure. We have learned different ways to use the neighbor which don’t exist on lower levels.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels there is only reception. But man also knows how to bestow to the neighbor in order to receive benefit for himself. Moreover, interaction with the neighbor is meant to eventually bring him much more benefit than regular reception. Otherwise he is simply unable to receive anything directly. But one way or another, in both cases, he acts for his own sake.

In principle, direct reception is a primate method for man. As a child grows up, he receives upbringing whereby we teach him to interact with the world, and usually that means learning how to use the neighbor in a way that avoids being harmed and that enables him to receive self-benefit at the end. This is human upbringing. If things are the way they are, then it’s best to take the neighbor into account. After all, often we wish to simply take, conquer, and steal without leaving a trace behind.

That is how our world is and that is why we only perceive what we receive inside of us. Our desire is limited and eventually it brings us to feelings of emptiness and despair.

But there is also another, opposite possibility—bestowal, where the tendency is away from myself, upwards, towards the neighbor, as well as away from myself, downwards toward myself, and then upwards toward the neighbor. In the first case I bestow for the sake of bestowal (Bina, Hafetz Hesed), and in the second case I receive for the sake of bestowal (the degree of love). This is called an exactly opposite calculation and it only exists in a human being.

Thus, we have two possibilities: reception with auxiliary bestowal or bestowal with auxiliary reception.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11 on Global Education

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Behind every word or phrase of The Zohar, we have to try to recognize forms of connection between man and his environment. In essence, this is exactly what The Zohar describes. There is nothing more in reality besides the forms of connection between a person and those around him.

Even now, when I see people and the walls of this room in front of me or hear the noises coming from outside, all of these are forms of connection between us. There is nothing besides these forces connecting us, which are forces of desire which appear this way to me in my earthly perception of reality.

In the same way, if we try, then we will begin to imagine other kinds of our connection, other forces which don’t operate inside reception, but inside bestowal among us. Then we will see that in reality, there have never been egoistic connections between us. We felt them like in a dream so that based on this illusory connection, which is opposite to the true one, we would recognize the true connection, the only one that exists in contrast from the illusory life—the desire to enjoy with all of its power.

After all, this desire existed only in order for us to transform it into the desire to bestow. The Creator supports it in this artificial form, but it does not have any real essence of its own. Only the force of bestowal exists in the world.

That is why The Zohar describes all the varieties of the force of bestowal to us, which we reveal in all the various forms, as well as the forces of reception standing opposite them, being the basis upon which the forces of bestowal are revealed in the process of man’s inner war.

This is the only thing we have to think about while reading The Book of Zohar, making efforts so the revelation of these spiritual levels will help us and will become revealed in us so we will include them inside of us.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, The Zohar

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