Baal HaSulam, “This Is For Judah”: “‘This year—here… next year—free.’ It is written above that with the aim of this Mitzva (commandment) we can evoke the guaranteed redemption destined for us, as in the Mitzva of eating the Matza of our fathers in Egypt.

Thereby, we demonstrate our confidence that we will surely exit to freedom. We will come out of bondage, the hold by the alien power of our ego that intentionally oppresses us. When we grow eager to shake it off and become willing to rise above egoism, then we will break free from it.

Pharaoh hardens our heart as if adding weight to the barbell a person exercises with. With each new degree, we have to lift greater weight and more frequently in order to achieve a certain result. Pharaoh is regarded as “help against him.” The Creator intentionally sets the tyrant, Pharaoh, against us so we are forced to unify against him.

However, we are unable to unite despite repeatedly trying to do so. The more effort we exert, the more powerful Pharaoh becomes, loading us with additional burden. It looks like we are weakening on this path and our energy diminishing, but it is not so. On the contrary, we are getting stronger, while our work gets even harder in quality and amount.

If we don’t quit but continue on this path, then gradually, we build an environment for ourselves and get ready to exit from Egypt. It all depends on our preparation. Our strength must grow to such a degree that Pharaoh will run out of weights to harden our hearts. At that point, we will break free from Egypt.

We don’t know beforehand when this state will finally come, when the power of our unity and aspiration for it will grow to outweigh the heavy hand of Pharaoh and he will have nothing left with which to burden us. To the contrary, the further we advance, the denser the darkness becomes. We start building “cities of poverty” that bring us no satisfaction and moan under this heavy labor.

In other words, we will pass through difficult states. In the end, we will even pass through the “ten plagues” and the black Egyptian darkness on top of all kinds of other problems that we must overcome by way of establishing the interconnection among us. No matter how hard it is and how much discord we feel between us, if we unite still, we will break free from our nature.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011, “This Is for Judah”

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Baal HaSulam, Beit Shaar HaKavanot (The Gate of Intentions), Chapter “Concerning Passover Exodus”: The first generations, the generation of Enosh and the generation of the Tower of Babel, exiled Shechina upward to the “seventh heaven.”

Israel of the generation of the Egyptian bondage were the same Keri (wasted semen) sparks that Adam HaRishon kept dropping for 130 years until he begot Seth.

The Keri sparks are the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) which intend to receive egoistically, for their own sake. If the Light of Hochma doesn’t reach the right place, which is under the screen, and doesn’t dress in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), it is regarded as “dropping semen onto the ground” (from Hebrew, “Aretz,” land or ground, and “Ratzon,” desire or will), to “waste” it.

Every person must pass through these degrees, the generations of Enosh and the Tower of Babel, through egoistic desire that doesn’t consider anyone and wishes to receive all pleasures directly, which is regarded as “loss of semen.”

A soul is similar to gold and when it is excavated from under the “ground,” it is mixed with litter, until it is purified so that all dirt falls away and it can be named “gold.”

After the breaking of the vessels that occurred in our roots, in the spiritual world, our souls sank within the desire to receive for self-gratification and became mixed into it completely. There are very few sparks of bestowal that ended up in this egoistic desire, which are very difficult to retrieve from it.

It is similar to gold mining, digging gold from under the ground, when thousands of tons of soil have to be sifted and undergo various processes before a few grams of gold are finally extracted from it. The soil itself doesn’t come from just any location, but rather from where gold had been found before. Nevertheless, truckloads of soil must be brought in and purified, washed in water, and sieved by filters so that a few scarce grams of gold may finally emerge.

The same pertains to our souls after the breaking. Inside enormous egoistic desire, there are mere few scattered sparks that, albeit still egoistic, are able to be corrected in order to bestow. It is they that we gradually must extract, and this is the job we must complete.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011,  Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Matza symbolizes the state when the “bread of Bina” is eaten, which comes from the degree of Bina, bestowal. And even though we are still on the degree of Malchut and lack the ability to ascend, we must try as hard as we can to perform actions of bestowal and connect with one another.

Although it is absolutely clear to us that we will not succeed, it does not matter: We still need to carry out these actions because they attract the upper Light towards us, and the Light then performs its action called our “liberation.”

Man’s exit from this world, from the property of egoistic reception, pragmatic knowledge, one’s ego, does not happen in a regular manner, according to the order of the degrees. This is like the process of being born, which entirely happens in the dark, in a rush. At birth, the fetus must turn upside down and go from one world into another: from within his mother, his inner degree, into the external world.

Our soul is born in exactly the same way. And this is why no other holiday has such a precise order of actions during the holiday feast. Usually, we only bless food and wine. But a Passover meal has an entire order (Seder in Hebrew) which needs to be followed precisely. This is because man’s exit from his ego, from our world, and his attainment of the perception of the spiritual world, a higher dimension, which is referred to as his spiritual birth, does not happen according to regular laws.

Usually desires grow according to the order of the degrees: two stages of the small state (Katnut Aleph and Bet), two stages of the big state (Gadlut Aleph and Bet), alternating the internal and the external states, and once again: the internal and the external. In other words, the desires and the Light grow gradually.

But during birth, everything seems to happen “incorrectly,” the other way around. And this is why the Passover meal is called “Seder” (order), it is a special order which does not correspond to the laws of consecutive growth according to the degrees.

The thing is that this degree we are now experiencing during the “exit of Egypt” is our birth. And then the soul that was born only keeps growing, but a real “revolution” happens on this degree. This is why the entire order of a Passover meal: “Kiddush” (blessing), “Urchatz” (the washing of hands), “Karpas” (dipping the greens into salt water), “Yachatz” (breaking of Matza), “Maggid” (tale of the exit out of Egypt), and so on does not happen according to the regular order of the correspondence of Lights and desires, which they should follow in growth.

For this reason, even when being in Egypt, the egoistic desire, having an egoistic attitude towards one another and only thinking about one’s own self (after all, Pharaoh rules over you), we need to do all possible actions and try to rise above him and find a new connection between us, regardless of all his power. We need to find a connection that exists outside of Egypt. This means to tune into the future redemption.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011, “This Is for Judah”

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Whether we like it or not, in each state we must always come to feel the lack, that is, to imagine the future state out of our present one. If I construct it correctly, then despite of all my efforts to do so, I will feel how distant I really am from it. In other words, I really want it, and yet I am unable to attain it.

This is called a “lack,” preparation for the future state, which is always revealed before passing into a new state. This feeling of lack is very multidimensional and unpleasant.

The next state shines on me, and because of this luminescence, I begin to value it more, while perceiving my present state as defective and insufficient. I feel the extent to which I lack the strength to ascend and the extent to which I desire it.

As a result, I come to a convergence of my passionate desire to ascend and my realization that I have no chance of making it happen, and that is when I erupt into a prayer, a scream, and the upper Light comes to my aid. After all, this scream (prayer) shows my great desire, which draws the right kind of Light, helping me to ascend to the next degree.

I must come to a scream which comprises two components: 1) my great desire to achieve bestowal, and 2) the realization that I can never achieve it. It is only when I’m about to explode from this pressure caused by my desire and my powerlessness to actualize it, that the Light reacts to the pain and influences me.

Waiting for the Light to come by itself is pointless. It comes in response to my desire for bestowal and draws me with the force sufficient to raise me to a higher degree.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011, “This Is for Judah”

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Question: On the night of Passover we read the Passover Haggadah instead of reading excerpts from the Tanakh like we do on all other holidays. What is the reason for this?

Answer: For each holiday Kabbalists of the past have established a certain order. If a person wants to realize a certain spiritual state or a spiritual level within, even if it’s just an impression of spirituality, then these instructions from Kabbalists tell him what to do in each state.

The spiritual root touched the corporeal branch within a group of Kabbalists that came out of ancient Babylon, and through the connection between them, they were able to realize all of the corporeal traditions within the spiritual actions except for the final redemption, which was realized in the corporeal world along with the spiritual actions.

A person would kill an animal and at the same time he would be “killing” the desire to receive pleasure. He would roast the animal on the altar and simultaneously correct his egoistic desire. Then he would eat the animal and receive pleasure for the sake of bestowal on the third level of his Aviut (thickness of desire). They carried out all the customs in the corporeal and simultaneously carried out actions (commandments) along with the Surrounding and the Inner Lights and the spiritual desires.

The holiday of exiting Egypt is an exit from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow. Here we carry out specific external actions as a sign of exiting from egoism to love, from hatred and separation to connection and unity between us.

This is why when we read the Haggadah we go through all the actions that reflect the spiritual actions which help us exit Egypt: “Kiddush” (blessing), “Urchatz” (washing of the hands), “Karpas” (dipping the greens into salt water), “Yachats” (breaking of the middle Matza), “Maggid” (the story of the exodus), and so on. If we carry out this order of actions on the night of Pesach (from the word “Pasach,” to pass over, leap over), we leap over our current state and enter the new level, which is the first spiritual level.

But this order doesn’t correspond to the standard order of stages of development (“conception,” “feeding,” and “maturing”), which we study in Part 12 of The Study of the Ten Sefirot: three days of the attachment of the sperm, 40 days of the fetal formation, nine months of fetal development, the fetus turning head down, contractions and birth, blood that rises from the womb to the breasts and creates milk, two years of infant feeding, and the following stages until the grown-up stage (Gadlut): 3 years, 6, 9, 12, 13, 20, and 70.

The exit out of Egypt isn’t standard in its order of development. The Light of the big state (Gadlut) comes first before the Light of the small state (Katnut). First you enter a new world with the help of the great Lights, and then you begin to develop in it.

We don’t understand the essence of “birth” even in our world. We are simply used to perceiving it as a natural process: The fetus develops inside an animal organism, and then continues to grow outside of it. We don’t even question why these three kilograms of flesh that were inside the mother is now coming out? Why does the fetus come out whole?

After all, on the next stage of development it should have started of as some sort of a drop and then start to grow from it. The previous stage of development is over at three kilograms, and now on the next stage these three kilograms should have turned into a drop…. Where have you seen that all that was acquired at the previous level, the desire (Kli) with its entire fulfillment advanced whole to the next level, as is? How is it possible?

If I finished the development on the level of NRNHY de Nefesh, I reach the level of Nefesh de Ruach. But here I don’t attain the level of Nefesh de Ruach, and instead I exit with my three kilograms of flesh out of the mother’s womb and continue to grow. In theory, I should have started my development on the outside as a single cell, from a drop of semen, just like I began inside the mother but only on the next degree.

All of this underlines the unique order of Passover, the exit from Egypt, which becomes possible only because the Lights of the great state come before the Lights of the small state, and thereby we make a leap.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011, “This Is for Judah”

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Writings of Rabash, “What Is the Need to Borrow Vessels from the Egyptians”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Passover, Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” “The Passover Sacrifice,” Item 186
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Writings of the ARI, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot”
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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “The First of the Month”
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Baal HaSulam, Letter 10
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Passover, Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh)“
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Writings of the ARI “Shaar HaKavanot”
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Lesson with Itzik Orion, PhD, Topic: Space and Time
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