What in our development is up to us? We inherited certain attributes; we have been influenced by the environment since childhood. How can we decide what our development should be like from here on? What do we need to do for it?

On His part, the Creator has done what was in His hands: He laid our path through internal and external Kelim (vessels), our own nature and the environment. And now, finally, the upper force is offering us free will. Naturally, this is a very narrow area. After all, our internal development has already brought about numerous details of perception, and moreover, we exist in a specific environment.

As it is written in the article “The Freedom” and in “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” the Creator brings a person to a certain state, a certain group, an environment, and says: “This is for you; take it.” And a person has to strengthen himself in what he takes. And what he takes is a bond with the environment.

So it follows that if a person strengthens this bond, then with its help, he or she receives “supernatural” values. This is the only way a person can adopt principles that on his own he would never choose to respect. The environment has the power to affect him and alter the scale of his priorities to such a degree that he totally replaces his values and is willing to do things that are against his nature.

This is why, while talking about lesson preparation, we primarily speak about the environment. A person prepares himself in the right environment and, by participating in its life, discerns the true values: bestowal, love of others, adherence with the Creator, and altruistic intention Lishma (for Her Name). On the whole, in the eyes of a person, the Creator’s nature must become incomparably more exalted and profound than the nature of the created being.

A person receives awareness of this importance from the group: “It is desirable to make it so.” The group cannot provide more than that; it only elevates the importance of the goal in our eyes. How profound the goal is depends on the level of the group and to what extent a person is willing to lower himself before it.

However, it isn’t realization just yet. A person merely arranges values for himself: “If the Creator is my goal, I go for this goal, which means that I change to fit it.” But who transforms a person? Who performs these changes in him? After all, by nature, from birth, he is immersed in the desire to receive pleasure. Desire itself will always remain as is. Who will reform its intention from wanting to receive to wanting to bestow?

That is what the method of Kabbalah is intended for.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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A big stage on our path is the stage of acquiring the quality of faith, or in other words, the quality of bestowal. To the degree we acquire it, we ascend above our nature and dress the quality of bestowal over our quality of reception.

As a result, we receive a full vestment on all of our desires, on all of their facets, and all the various kinds of mixtures between them. After that we continue our ascent, but already towards total faith. This means that we go from simple faith to the second stage of correction and acquire the quality of love. Then we correct our desires, filling them with the light of Hochma, pleasure, and by means of that we achieve bestowal.

Thus, the first stage is Hafetz Hesed, the level of Bina where we just correct the receiving desire by the altruistic intention, which clothes on it by the quality of faith, bestowal. That is how we attain the first three Sefirot of Bina.

Then we go on to its seven lower Sefirot, acquiring the ability to attach foreign Kelim or desires to ourselves, thereby correcting and filling them. Just like Bina, which fulfills the lower ones, we can also fulfill other Kelim.

How is this so if they are foreign for now and I cannot do this? The fact is that I fill them when I attach them to me so they are inside of me like at the stage of conception, or nursing, or the adult state (Mochin). That is my attitude to them.

This is already called perfect faith, the light of Hassadim with the fulfillment of the Light of Hochma.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/1/11, Writings of Rabash

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Kabbalists have prepared for us an easy and simple way of correction.

However, we find and see in the words of the sages of the Talmud that they have made the path of Torah [correction] easier for us than the sages of the Mishnah. This is because they said, “One should always practice the Torah and Mitzvot [correction of egoism], even Lo Lishma [for one’s sake], and from Lo Lishma [for one’s sake] he will come to Lishma [for the sake of others and the Creator] because the Light in it reforms him.”

Thus, they have provided us with a new means instead of the penance presented in the above-mentioned Mishnah, Avot: the “Light in the Torah.” It bears sufficient power to reform one and bring him to practice Torah and Mitzvot [correct egoism by the way of Light] Lishma [for the sake of others].
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 10
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Question: How can we accelerate the rate of the group’s development?

Answer: An egg, for example, won’t hatch before its time. It relates to the animate nature and obeys strict laws of development. In time, people watched a hen and learned how to simulate these optimal conditions in incubators. In contrast, not only should we take example from nature, but we also can employ natural forces and accelerate our own growth, modifying its quality. In other words, it’s all about how we perceive it.

In truth, our evolution is not limited to one beaten path. It’s not just that I enhance my own properties a few times. It isn’t enough. I must change myself, transform myself into the opposite.

Hence, I need auxiliary forces that first and foremost will let me become aware of these transformations. If we were not supposed to reform ourselves in the process of spiritual growth, who would mind? Who doesn’t want to grow? Even an egg wants to become a duckling, and a duckling wants to be a duck. This is a law.

However, if we shift from the property of reception to the property of bestowal, then receiving won’t help me achieve bestowal; it will only form a negative attitude within me toward myself. In that case, I will feel evil in receiving, start hating it, and wish to transform into its opposite.

It turns out that in order to evolve, I have to build an environment for myself. I have to create conditions that will assist me in being constantly aware of my current internal state as harmful for me so that I may wish to step out of it, to change.

My development is not that I simply grow, but that I become transformed. I don’t need to become big from being small. Rather, I must become similar to the Creator, assume an opposite form to my own. That is why I learn from the Creator to have qualities that must become mine. Then, I arrange the environment that will help me view these qualities as desirable, while viewing my current attributes as undesirable, evil, and harmful. Acting thereby, I do create a “green house” that will raise me correctly.

Thus, I am working with two opposite forms of nature: the nature to receive that characterizes this world and the nature to bestow, the force of the Light that characterizes the future world. I form an environment that will help me replace my values and realize that my current values are evil as compared to the spiritual ones that I will assume tomorrow. This is the only way I can advance.

What is necessary is not just to “warm” the current condition up. It must constantly stand before me in contrast to today’s and tomorrow’s qualities, showing me the direction I need to take to change and enhancing the importance of these changes. Then I will want to become “great” not in receiving but in bestowal. Knowing that my current state is evil and harmful, I will be happy to leave it behind.

In brief, you must arrange all the necessary conditions for yourself. We must work not on ourselves, but rather on the environment, on the “green house,” the “incubator,” and it will accelerate our growth. Then, we will reach a desired state not at the end of the allotted time period of 6,000 years, having gone through suffering under Nature’s hand, but we will come to it earlier, in a nice, easy, and pleasant way and in the shortest time.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Still, Vegetative, Animate and Speaking”
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While reading The Zohar, you mustn’t forget that it talks solely about relationships between us. The wicked and the righteous, a Saturday eve and weekdays, night and day, the still, vegetative, and animate nature, man, a Temple, a field and a tree, all these words describe only the types of relationships between souls, their connection at the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels.

They speak of nothing else beside this because nothing else exists. Within this connection, in the types of it, we experience the world. Combinations of forces tying the souls together draw the pictures of our world on a screen for us. Thus, we perceive reality.

Kabbalistic books describe only the connections between us since there is nothing else to write about. There is nothing else, and the worlds are descriptions of the levels of connection between souls.

There is a formless desire to feel pleasure, and what is described are the stages of its transformation in order to connect with others. By unifying with others, making efforts, and drawing the Light that reforms, discerns, and fulfills, the created being reveals the web of connections between all parts of one integral soul, Malchut of Infinity. That is what we are reading about.

Kabbalists do not perceive anything more. The created being experiences the reality detached from connection with others and calls it “this world,” or it feels ties with others in the forces of bestowal that give it life, and in that case, the upper world becomes revealed to it.

The upper world is relationships with others and all that I find in them. What do I find? It’s the property of bestowal. This is regarded as “to bestow in order to bestow.” Relationships of this type are described as “Do not do to others what you hate.” Later on, these relationships become stronger, and we feel love in them, which is regarded as “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The relationships of bestowal conducted by the principle of “Do not do to others what you hate” are regarded as the Second Temple, the level of Bina, Mochin de Neshama. The relationships of “Love your neighbor as yourself” are the First Temple, the level of Mochin de Haya.

Everything speaks solely of ties between people. All of the words that we can use, the entire reality that we can reveal, everything is still nothing more than the connection between people.

The lack of connection in which we are presently living appears as this world to us. My vision, my perception in the egoistic net between all, in its minimal degree, is regarded as “this world.” Consequently, I reveal the real, powerful, egoistic connection between us all as the left line, a Klipa (shell, impure force).

However, we don’t have another perception or understanding, another reality and existence, except in the connection between us, no matter whether it’s good or bad. The Book of Zohar speaks solely about the types of this connection.

What else can Kabbalists write about? There is nothing else in reality. Everything that seems to me as the still, vegetative, animate, and human realms, various objects, acts, thoughts, decisions, buildings, furniture, and vehicles, all that we can imagine is human relationships in their correct or incorrect form.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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There is an enormous difference between the broken world of Nekudim and the world of Atzilut which was created to correct the former. The world of Nekudim emerged from unification (Zivug) over the Reshimot (informational genes) “2/1” (Bet/Aleph), and the world of Atzilut over the Reshimot “1/0” (Aleph/Shoresh).

Therefore, the corrections of the world of Atzilut stand no comparison with the flaws existing in the world of Nekudim since Atzilut is a billion times weaker than the world of Nekudim. It was born with the desire force of the “zero” degree, relative to the “first” degree that Nekudim possesses. It is as the still level relative to the vegetative level.

How, then, does a mineral reform a plant? It "swallows" it into itself as if we planted a flower by digging its seedling into the soil. Similarly, the world of Atzilut draws the world of Nekudim close, stores it inside, thereby receiving forces for its growth: first, the vegetative ones, followed by the animate, and finally the human. All of this is due to the fact that it absorbs the forces from the others.

Hence, it is written, “Everything derives from the inanimate, from the earth.” In truth, it is not alive either and is incapable of any growth and development, but since it can contain the vegetative within, its value ascends to the level of the plant that will grow in it. Thus, it is regarded as fertile soil.

Fertile means giving birth to new life. But how can the inanimate beget something new? It can do so solely by helping a plant to sprout.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: How can I keep trying to unify the world if I see an enormous amount of weapons and preparation for war in it?

Answer: We need to do what is up to us. The world has reached a threatening state and is rapidly moving toward undesirable events, but regardless, it still remains divided into groups, and no one is willing to yield their interests, even in the face of an imminent threat of explosion.

Every country defends itself and conducts a policy of protectionism, trying to separate from all the others. This tendency leads to war. After all, no one wants to unify with the others and take their interests into account. It is similar to children’s games where little proud egoists come into conflict, except that each of them holds a deadly weapon in their hands.

We need to accept this as conditions placed on the collective soul that needs to be reformed and try to instill the correction of all these phenomena. We ought to perceive everything we see in the world as a testament to our lack of effort.

All other people are deprived of free will and the ability to comprehend what is going on. How, then, can they correct anything? They are managed from Above. We need to make it so that on the scale of the world, the cup of mercy may outweigh the cup of guilt. This choice is in no one’s hands but ours.

All other people are blameless, and the states they are going through are merely the consequences of our actions. Their distancing from each other shows us how rapidly the flaws instilled in nature unfold in comparison to how quickly we make corrections on our part. We are lagging so far behind!

Those who are given free will and are shown to what degree the world keeps shifting toward the cup of guilt must be aware of what they are doing. It is written, “One should always consider oneself half sinful and half righteous,” and “if one performs a good dead, he sentences himself and the whole world to a scale of merit.”

So, where are they, our “good deeds”? It looks like we are able to do much more than we do. If you see that the world is experiencing greater problems, it points directly at you, all of us, telling us that we haven’t achieved that unification, dissemination, oneness, self-annulment, and guarantee that we were supposed to achieve. Let’s hope that we will wake up, as well as all our friends around the world.

We must think it over really well since the condition of the world is very threatening, and everything depends on us. I appeal to all who are listening and join us around the world. It is only we, our thought of oneness, who are capable of correcting the world and not letting this dangerous state grow to such an extent that it may enter confrontation and collapse.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: What is the connection between the root of a person’s soul and his ability or inability to connect with others souls, the degree of his desire for unity?

Answer: Every person in the world has a root of the soul: a spiritual spark, a point in the heart. This point can develop to such an extent that the person will feel attracted to something higher, beyond this world. Then he comes to the science of Kabbalah and enters the group.

There are also people whose point in the heart has not developed yet and each of them lives his private, material life. But even if this point “burns” strongly in a person and he passionately wishes to attain spirituality—the Creator, the goal of his life, and its meaning—this is just a point and no more.

What should he do next? He has to understand that a person’s soul is formed out of the spiritual sparks that he attaches to his point of the soul from each person of the seven billion people. The soul of every person is the aggregate unity of all of these points together. Therefore, if I now unite with everyone who is here at this convention, if I attach these 600 spiritual sparks to myself, then I attain the might of unity of all 600 points together.

How is that possible? How can I unite with their desires to attain spirituality? I can only do it with the help of “love your neighbor as yourself” in order to become “as one man with one heart,” as it is written in the article, “Matan Torah.”

If I connect with them in this way, then I acquire a field of unification—a desire consisting of many sparks. It’s as if we become “as one man” and inside of that desire I can reveal spirituality.

This desire is called the vessel or Kli of my soul because I have attached all of these points to myself. If someone else, one of these points which I attached to myself, also attaches everyone else to it, this will be called his soul. Meaning, his point is the initial one and he attaches other points to it. This is his soul.

Every person attaches all the points outside of him to himself, and that is how his soul forms. But if he hasn’t attached them to him, then he has no soul. He only has a point, the root of his soul.

According to the force of unification of these points inside me, their quantity and the force of the unity among them, inside of them, I reveal Light, life, and existence. As they connect with each other, they begin to unite and to be revealed in the form of a single system, similar to a living body through which blood and lymphatic liquid circulate, nervous impulses are passed, and many different actions take place. I begin to feel life there.

I attach the points to myself gradually. By connecting to them, I begin to feel how a tiny device forms inside of me: an embryo. Then it grows, developing over the course of nine months. I feel how I attach more and more points to it, and that is how it constantly grows.

Various inner actions already take place inside of it. Some kind of life emerges. I begin to recognize various processes in it, until finally, it is born. That means it begins to live its own life. Then it breaks away from the upper force and lives by itself. This is the soul. That is how each of us builds his soul.

From the 1st lesson at the Dead Sea Convention, 2/24/11

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