Introductory Lecture “Light Of Purim” – 03.15.11
Posted on March 15th, 2011
The 613 Mitzvot (commandments) and the building of the Tabernacle signify the correction of the 613 desires in man. In order to construct the correct, reformed connection with the others, we must connect with them through 613 channels, similar to the vessels that connect all the organs in our body.
We need to correct these desires by having changed their egoistic intention to use others for self-gratification to the desire to bestow. Thereby, we will achieve a state where we will be interconnected by a global, integral connection as it exists in Nature and as our current world demands us to do.
Imagine that from each person, 613 desires expand like tentacles, stretching toward all the others. All of the desires intertwine and create a binding grid between us. In addition, each desire contains five levels of coarseness: 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. All of this interweaves and tangles into one big, thick layer permeated by an enormous amount of the various types of ties.
This collective desire consisting of all our desires is regarded as Shechina (Divinity), the Tabernacle (“Mishkan” or dwelling place), the Temple, the receptacle, our integral vessel of bestowal, Knesset Israel (Assembly of desires for the Creator).
People who strive to go “straight to the Creator” (Yashar El) and desire to reveal Him bring all their desires together (Knesset or assembly) and build the collective desire where the Creator is revealed. This is the work to construct the Temple, the “house” of the vessel which you have built from your desires so that Divinity would unfold in it, meaning the spiritual property of love and bestowal, or the Creator.
In addition, you receive what initially had been prepared for you and all of us: the Light that fills this collective desire. So, it is regarded as the deposit, a guarantee (Pkudin, deposits, from the word Pikadon, recommendations, commandments, Mitzvot). You sacrifice (Makriv) your desire by nullifying your egoism and, thereby, bring yourself closer (Mekarev) to the Creator’s revelation.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Chapter 3/3/2011
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There is a rule: “For social life, take after the collective, in spiritual life, take after the individual.” For example, I enter a group. Does this group represent the majority for me? Do I have to listen to my friends? I see three hundred men before me—this is a force.
If they demand something from me on the corporeal level, that’s one thing, but what if they are dictating their terms on the spiritual level? Do they understand more than I do? Are they, taken together, smarter than I am? How should I behave in regard to them? Do I have the right to influence the group? After all, if they are the majority, then I have to lower my head and accept their opinion.
On the other hand, we are talking about spiritual life and therefore, one must follow an individual as opposed to the majority. Am I that individual?
These aren’t simple questions and they are relevant to every group. In the corporeal sense, everything is pretty clear when it comes to the majority. However, even there we see many movements, parties, governments, and mafia. There is no common opinion in the world.
It’s actually quite simple for us. I establish a separation between the spiritual and the corporeal life, and then my corporeal existence is narrowed down to the vital necessities. I should be content with that.
I ensure a normal life for myself: home, work, family, bank, social security, health insurance, vacation, pension, and so on. This is where I follow the majority and do what’s considered the norm. Here my obligations toward society end. In our world I’m set. This is how I realize the concept of “follow the majority,” which refers to obligatory social conditions.
Besides this, all of my attention and strength are directed at my spiritual development. In my spiritual life, I work with the group. Rabash writes that one must lower himself completely before the group. I lower myself before a spiritual society as I do with the majority.
Where is my freedom then? After all, I have to follow my own opinion when it comes to spirituality.
In reality that’s exactly what I do because I determine the degree of my connection to the group. No one is taking this freedom away from me. This is the meaning of the law of “follow the individual.” Each one of us is an individual and decides freely to be a part of the group. There are no laws obliging us to do this and no external pressure. We apply the same principal in our dissemination of Kabbalah: Whoever wants it takes it, and who ever doesn’t is free to say no.
And so your freedom consists of you lowering yourself before the society without there being any pressure to do so. In the corporeal world, the society obligates you, but in the spiritual one, no one does, including the Creator. You must mature and come to this decision on your own.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2011, “The Freedom”
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Question: I cannot aspire to bestowal since I don’t have the slightest idea what it is. What is bestowal?
Answer: Any spiritual property such as bestowal and love is revealed from the state opposite to it since we don’t know what it is. Actually, if I knew what bestowal is, I would already possess this property.
But I do not possess it. So how can I acquire it? I can do it only by performing mechanical actions: I influence the group, while the group acts upon me. And all these actions have no relation to spirituality, which is the reason we perceive ourselves as presently living in this world.
It is an imaginary reality that contains some desires and even corporeal bodies in it, meaning that they are not, in fact, desires, but rather something that doesn’t possess free will. The spiritual world, however, is full of desires, aspirations, and forces, such as love, hate, and lust, which are manifestations of man’s will. And without this manifestation of will, there isn’t a world; it doesn’t exit.
It is similar to a laser image: I turn on the laser, and the picture appears in the air. If I don’t turn it on, there won’t be one. This is how we perceive the spiritual world as well. As to the material world, it exists even without my expression of will. In this reality, I pass through life cycles, and it transforms me without my being aware of it; it asks for no participation on my part.
Therefore, this reality seems to me so “material.” All changes in it occur without my conscious participation, my strive for bestowal; they simply unfold naturally under the impact of the upper force that pushes everything to evolve.
But when in this corporeal world I reach a state when I want to take an active part in my development, the question about the meaning of life arises in me. And from this moment on, I start seeking the answer.
Yet, it is all so that I start activating the spiritual reality. At the instant I become ready for it, I will discover the part of reality that was activated by me. It is what you can regard as your first spiritual degree.
Hence, all our actions must begin with corporeality, with the idea that I force myself to influence the environment and the environment influences me in all possible forms by using all available forces and capacities, as it is written: “All that you can do, do!”, meaning grab any opportunity, no matter what it may be.
After all, if you perform all these actions in the material form, that is, without the correct conscious participation, you still awaken this reality. This is the way it is built.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/11 on Prayer
When the created being starts to clarify what free will is, he sees that if the property of bestowal in him is above the property of receiving, then the former leads him to the truth and freedom! Thereby, the created being chooses bestowal since he understands that only bestowal carries completeness and independence from one’s desires, meaning the absolute truth that is above the Creator as well as the creature.
Man achieves such an exalted state. After all, both the Creator and the creature reside in their corresponding properties: those of the Creator and the creature. But man has to make a choice that is independent of both these properties.
It looks like the force of the Creator and the force of Creation stand against each other, whereas man performs a unique act regarded as a “prayer.” He makes a choice that lies above both of these forces. Thereby, his new desire (Kli) is produced in which the property of receiving and the property of bestowal, or the attribute of the Creator and the attribute of the creature, unify as one above these properties.
This is how man receives a unique result: He finds the Creator’s Keter. It is not the Creator’s acts by which man himself is made, but rather His thoughts, the plan that precedes creation. This is an outcome of the middle line that rises above the first two: the right and the left, the properties of the Creator and those of the created being, which reach man in action. But in the middle line, man rises above the beginning of Creation.
Herein unfolds a new opportunity given to the created being: to rise above all existing forces and properties. Indeed, all forces, properties, desires, information genes, everything that exists in the universe and is revealed to us—the matter of reception, the force of bestowal—are only the instruments to bring the creature to more exalted notions preceding the act of Creation.
Hence, in every state where the creature needs to make a correct choice, it feels totally helpless relative to the point that precedes its entire birth. It needs to discern the vessels and the Lights, the desire to receive pleasure that it possesses and the desire to bestow, while the choice lies above both of them.
The prayer is born when the created being realizes that in the state that he has reached as a result of all of his discernments, he does not and cannot have any chance to rise above these equally valuable options and make a decision. Here the Creator has the final say!
We think we need the Creator only to defeat the force of egoism with our own force of bestowal, to dethrone Pharaoh. But there is more to this than a simple confrontation of desires when man stands between the two forces: the Creator and Pharaoh. The essence is not in clarifying who is more powerful and thus will win, but rather in unifying both of these forces as one in the middle line and ascending over them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/11 on Prayer
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Question: What is a prayer?
Answer: The Creator created only the desire to receive pleasure. Desires can unfold automatically, triggered by the inner engine that activates in me one desire after another, by actualizing the sequence of the Reshimot (informational genes). A prayer is methodical work on a desire that unfolds in a person.
Every desire or Reshimo consists of 613 (Taryag) desires. These 613 desires, by surfacing up, paint the picture of the world for me: Each instant in new desires, I discover a new frame of reality, a new world.
But I, myself, can wish to work on my constantly unfolding desires, speed up the development of new Reshimot in me, control how they unfold, and not allow my evolution to take a random course. I can look forward to the emerging of new desires so as to work on them, justify the Creator every moment, advance in adhesion with Him, and see the necessity and purposefulness of each state.
Such work with desires is regarded as a prayer. A prayer is work in the heart, and the heart is a collection of all the desires of a person. Hence, the work with our desires is regarded as a prayer. This is why it is written: “May one pray all day long!” which means let a person constantly work with his or her desires, motivating themselves to corrections.
It radically differs from the opinion of the masses who think that by reading prayers from a prayer book, they perform spiritual actions or anything at all. Our entire history demonstrates to us how pointless and worthless this interpretation of “prayer” is. They are mere external actions that are carried out during preparation for the true spiritual work on ourselves during Kabbalah studies. Only then is the work aimed at the correction of one’s self regarded as the “work of the Creator” since it is done by His Light, Ohr Makif.
Authentic work lies in accelerating desires. I want them to unfold in me as quickly as possible so I could work on them, having prepared myself and the environment: the teacher, the Kabbalistic texts, and the group; so I would always be ready and trigger my own development, “bring on the dawn” myself. It is dawn because each desire unfolds in me as the dark void, while I immediately bring it to the Light.
Hence, a prayer is all our work, and there is nothing but work with desires.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2011, The Book of Zohar
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We see that discussions on education taking place around the world leave us helpless. Nobody knows what to do about it. Everyone raises their hands. And this is why we need to grow stronger and emphasize this topic, highlighting its importance in our eyes, showing that we have a position and an understanding, a method that comes from Nature itself.
On one hand, we can prove that all our principles come from Nature. But on the other, we deliberately build on this foundation, wishing for every individual and for society as a whole to reach a certain correspondence with nature and become Human, similar to the Creator.
If we openly, seriously, and boldly demonstrate this to everyone, nobody will be able to resist it. After all, this is the place of our only free choice, and this is why humanity is so confused and lost in this area. The Creator left it to us. We are able to make everything else work one way or the other, with one exception: We do not know how to give people Light in their lives so that they can find their optimal place in it. To do this nowadays, we need to know the entire system and understand what the upper force demands of us.
We expect that the method of education will open the doors for us to different mass media channels and Internet portals, and that the governments, the UN, and UNESCO will finally hear us. And the process is already rolling since no one can steal this “copyright” from us even if they were to repeat it word for word. This is because they lack a method to realize childhood and adult education, a method that applies to all the people around the world, the method that everyone can use because in practice, human education goes straight from the upper Light to the human soul.
This is why we have joined the International Year of Youth announced by the UN. Let us hope for this to advance us and spread the method of correction around the world with the help of our groups and mentors. The method of Kabbalah can definitely be referred to as an educational method, the method of shaping a Human.
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From Lesson 3, Metzoke Dragot Convention 2/25/2011
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Education is the most important thing. We see that this is rooted in nature: Even animals educate their young until they grow up. Education is even more crucial for human beings since they need time to get started in life and acquire skills necessary to live in the world.
People do not acquire this naturally, but do so through complicated systems which every generation constructs for itself. What separates man from animals is his need to gain knowledge. People need to seriously learn and educate themselves, and it takes a lot of time to do this.
We see that the primary difference between this generation and the previous ones is increased egoism. Respectively, we need to update our educational system for this part that has grown in man. This is our problem. We do not fully understand that we need to do.
We flawlessly accept the natural component. In reality, this, too, is no longer the case today, although until recently, mothers took care of small children and nurtured them. However, when it comes to artificial things which are meant to prepare a person to enter the world and help him find his place in society, regrettably, there are a countless number of methods. Everyone chooses whatever they want, and in the end none of them leads to success.
But it is specifically the area of education that nature has left to our discretion. Essentially, nothing is more important: A person will become what we make of him. And this is why it is so important to explain to the world the Kabbalistic view of this problem.
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From Lesson 3, Metzoke Dragot Convention 2/25/2011
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