“Round vessels” are of great importance to us because they contain all the Light of the final correction. All the Light that we are still unable to accept, up to the very end of correction, exists in round spheres and pressures us from there. It takes care of us, reaches us as Light that Reforms, and serves as the Surrounding as well as Inner Lights.

We receive everything from round spheres. Our whole development occurs due to them because while I still lack a spiritual vessel (and we never have a vessel for the next degree), I am situated under the pressure of round spheres. The vessel is cleansed by the Surrounding Light, and this Light exists in round spheres.

For this reason, I experience discomfort; I am thrown from one place to another like in a magnetic field that attracts and pushes me away. After all, I am still unable to control myself and be filled with the help of the screen, the “line” (Kav). Therefore, the spheres affect me.

General governance of the world also occurs through round spheres. Hence, our world is called “round”: global or integral. The circle as if is closed here: The upper governance is revealed. And until we begin to perceive it through a screen, like “direct” influence, it is revealed from Above as a “round sphere” (Igulim), which saves us from doing foolish things and blowing up the world instead of reaching the goal that is assigned to us.

Round spheres control us until we are able to take control into our own hands by accepting it from the Creator. And then it will not be called “direct” from our side. To the extent that we accept governance and control of all creation from the Creator and begin to work, we will begin to build a straight line.

But today we are 100% controlled by the round spheres. There is just one tiny spark in each of us that is illuminated by the direct ray of Light (Kav Yashar).

A straight ray of Light comes through to us from Above through all the spheres and rouses a spark in us that summons us to begin working in this direct channel upward. And everything else remains under the control of round spheres. Therefore, the whole world, where we don’t feel this awakening in the point in the heart due to the direct ray of Light, exists in round spheres.

With the awakening of the point in the heart we receive an opportunity to unite “Israel, Torah, and the Creator” as one whole in that same direct line that comes to us through all the spheres. In this case, the round spheres also become different because as the line comes through them, it fills them and creates differences. Thus I begin to feel discomfort: I ask about the meaning of life and the essence of what is happening. I already feel some excitement from within and without.
[51792]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Spiritual desire develops in such a way that its every previous stage continues to exist, and the next one is built on top of it. It does not happen like in our world where we can experience hunger in the same desires, receiving little or nothing at all in them and then becoming filled. Such fulfillment occurs on the same place that was empty previously.

However, in the spiritual world, we constantly develop desires for bestowal. Therefore, previous states of the desire to receive remain, and above them, even more unfulfilled desires in terms of receiving pleasure, the desires that are worse and more distant from the Creator, are built and revealed. We discover continuously greater uncertainty, fear, and lack of fulfillment.

And if a person can rise above all this and wish to bestow above it, this is called one’s spiritual growth. One is fulfilled by the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), bestowal. He experiences perfection in the desires in which he previously experienced complete lack of everything. And this perfection comes from the fact that precisely in these circumstances rather than comforting himself with fulfillment, he was able to aspire above them only to bestowal to the neighbor.

Therefore, we begin our path from the smallest possible state—from a point. And if we are able to conquer this point and not desire it anymore, we begin to receive various opportunities to fill it.

This point begins to widen, and continuously greater Light is revealed around it. And instead of striving to reach confidence, fulfillment, or comfort in these developing egoistic desires, we need to seek pleasure from adhering to the neighbor and bestowing to him above all these negative sensations that are revealed in our egoism.

We still don’t really understand how this is possible. However, when we realize that it is precisely what needs to be done, we begin to aspire to the Light that Reforms. We don’t do this in order to achieve rest, peacefulness, a sense of fulfillment, safety, or attainment. We only fill one vessel: the desire of the neighbor instead of our own.

I don’t wish to receive any benefit from fulfilling another human being to such an extent that I even reveal my hatred and rejection of him. He appears to me as a hated enemy that threatens me. And I make sure that this feeling and my attitude to him don’t fade. Instead, I reveal above it that I judge according to my own corruptness and see him this way with my spoiled eyes, while in reality he is not the problem since the Creator acts through him.

I see others this way because the problem is in me. Therefore, I even begin to treat a hated enemy as a close person. In this manner I work with faith above reason, revealing the Creator’s acts in all these occurrences, and due to this I grow from a point into a spiritual embryo and through all the further degrees.

Every next degree is revealed above the unpleasant sensations in my egoistic desires. And the key on this path is to limit oneself so that one does not demand pleasant consequences along the way for his desire to receive and seeks all pleasure above it—only in the neighbor’s sensations.

And the neighbor could be any person: from the kindest and dearest to the most horrible and hostile in regard to me. Regardless of all this, I constantly use this opportunity to limit my egoism.
[51785]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/2011, Shamati #53

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“The experiment was conducted by a team of researchers led by Psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four students were selected out of 75 to play the prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.”… 12 students we asked to play the prisoners, 12 students were to play the guards.

“The participants adapted to their roles well beyond what even Zimbardo himself expected, leading the “officers” to display authoritarian measures and ultimately to subject some of the prisoners to torture. In turn, many of the prisoners developed passive attitudes and accepted physical abuse, and, at the request of the guards, readily inflicted punishment on other prisoners who attempted to stop it.

The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his capacity as “Prison Superintendent,” lost sight of his role as psychologist and permitted the abuse to continue as though it were a real prison. Five of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days… instead of the originally scheduled fourteen.”

Conclusion: Most of the evil in the world happens not due to bad motivation, but because one is told: “Be part of our team, do as everyone else does.” Then, a person feels that he himself is not responsible, but this is his role, he was told so, and so he lets himself do things that he would have never done under normal circumstances.

Two months after the experiment, one of the guards said that he really could never believe that he was capable of such behavior. He was shocked that he became such a person, and when he was doing that, he felt neither remorse nor guilt. Only later, when he started thinking about that, he realized that it was some part of him that he had never noticed before.

Even when one detainee was given a chance to get out of prison and explained that the experiment was over, he was so deeply immersed in his role that he could not accept that. He worried more about his reputation in the prison, wanting to return and prove to other prisoners that he was not a traitor.

My Comment: As the science of Kabbalah explains, the environment defines and molds a person, and apart from the environment, there is no other force that affects us and determines what we are and what we become. Therefore, it is very important to create a suitable environment, in accordance with the purpose that you wish to achieve. And this is the core principle of Kabbalistic education: to be in the group that studies the laws of nature (the Creator) and wishes to achieve balance and unity with it (the Creator).
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Writers’ Envy Increases Wisdom

A person has qualities that his parents bequeathed to their children, and he has qualities that he acquired from the society, which come to him only through bonding with the society and the envy that he feels toward the friends when he sees that they have better qualities than his own….

Thus, through the society, he gains new qualities that he adopts by seeing that they are at a higher degree than his, and he is envious of them.
– Rabash, Rabash—the Social Writings, “Concerning Above Reason”

“Counters’ envy increases wisdom” because when one looks at the friends as being at a high level, both in thoughts and in actions, it is natural that one must raise his degree to a higher level. …Thus, now he has new qualities that society has procreated in him.
– Rabash, Rabash—the Social Writings, “Concerning Above Reason”
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Shamati #43 “The Matter of Truth and Faith”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled),” “A Book Above and A Book Below,” Item 105, Lesson 6
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 2, Chapter 2, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 1, Item 6, Lesson 15
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 81, Lesson 40
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“Arvut,” Lesson 2
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