Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Baal HaSulam, by his corrections in the upper world, prepared it so that any person can achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator. Before him, one had to be an outstanding wise disciple to be rewarded with adhesion with the Creator. And before the Baal Shem Tov, one had to be among the greatest in the world. Otherwise, they would not be able to attain Godliness.
– Rabash, Steps of the Ladder, “The Deeds of the Nation’s Greatest”

The depth of wisdom in the holy Book of Zohar is enclosed and caged behind a thousand locks, and our human tongue too poor to provide us with sufficient, reliable expressions to interpret one thing in this book to its end. My Sulam commentary is a ladder to help the examiner rise to the height of the matters and examine the words of the book itself. Hence, I have found it necessary to prepare the reader and give him a route and an inlet in reliable definitions concerning how one should contemplate and study The Book of Zohar.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 1
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Question: What is it like to bestow?

Answer: We cannot ask questions about sensations because if I feel something, I feel it. And whatever I do not feel—I am not yet able to feel. And this is why there is no answer to the question: “What is it like to feel something I do not feel?”

In our world we can ask this question in hopes to receive a clue of something similar, already familiar to us. But it is pointless to ask about a sensation I have never had in any shape or form and have nothing to liken it to. What can I compare it to, what do I point to? Nothing.

I asked Rabash, my teacher, this question. He said the following: “The first spiritual degree is the Light instead of a tiny spark that created this entire world, everything that exists in it, all the pleasure that fills all the matter of the still, vegetative, and animate nature over the entire time of existence of reality, over the course of all generations.”

It can be said simpler. There are seven billion people in the world. All their pleasure put together is a tiny spark in comparison with the Light you attain on the first spiritual degree.

But this is quality wise, not quantity wise. You perceive eternity and perfection in this attainment, and only then you are able to value them. And all of this happens according to the desires you have prepared.

Question: How can you receive all this Light without “exploding?”

Answer: You do not “explode” because you prepare the desire ahead of time. Desire must precede the Light. It is a proper question. If I tried now to consume all of this enormous Light, you would really need to “pick my pieces off the wall,” as if there was an atomic explosion. But this is when we receive within egoistic desires that absorb everything into themselves.

But when I come out of my ego into the bestowing desires, I acquire an unlimited vessel, and the Light merely goes through me towards the others. It does not stop within me. I receive pleasure from it going through me towards the others. I fulfill the desires of others to the extent that I connect them to me, and the Light goes through me without stopping. This is why I enjoy, and I do not have a problem with it. After all, I do not detain the Light, it goes through me and moves on. The Light cannot even stop for a moment; the second it stops, it disappears.

This is why the method of reception of Light is called “the wisdom of Kabbalah,” a science about reception. This is because you can only receive the Light under the condition that you transfer it to others. Then you are not limited and remain eternal and perfect.

Hence, it is impossible to receive the Light egoistically. When you approach it egoistically, you feel even greater darkness.
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From Preparation Lesson, Kabbalah Convention in Toronto, 9/16/2011

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Question: How does a person form the quality of bestowal within?

Answer: There is no Creator without the creature. And the Creator is that very quality of bestowal that we form. If we don’t form it, the Creator doesn’t exist.

What does exist, then? There is His unattainable essence, Atzmuto, the original root of everything, which is utterly unconnected to us. We form and construct the Creator by exerting efforts and producing the quality of bestowal. We generate this quality by the common work between us. If we actualize and beget it, that is what will be called “the Creator.”

The spiritual Partzuf we construct in the relationships between us is our desire to receive that we have restricted and filled with the Reflected Light, the desire to bestow, and together with it, revealed within the quality of bestowal called “the Creator.”

In other words, “the Creator” is the Light of NRNHY that we reveal in our spiritual vessels corrected to bestow. In reality, “the Creator” is the common Light of NRNHY that we ultimately attain. Baal HaSulam writes that the general Light of NRNHY that fills Malchut of the world of Infinity is called “the Creator.” And that the smaller portions at the intermediary stages are degrees of His attainment.

The Creator is not a person; He has no individual characteristics or image. This is why you cannot turn to Him for you are the one who constructs Him. The Creator has no form—you are the one who gives Him form. Over your desire to receive you place the corresponding desire to bestow, and it means that you have constructed the Creator. There is no other way.

If you think that the Creator has a form before you have constructed it, that means you worship a certain image, an idol. This is the meaning of “alien work” or idol-worshipping.

These are the principles of the right attitude toward nature. This is why you cannot picture various images or resemblances to yourself. This was Abraham’s first discovery, when he “broke the idols,” meaning he realized that he was the one forming the quality of bestowal. And until then there exists only a certain original root that we cannot imagine in any way.
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From Preparation Lesson, Kabbalah Convention in Toronto, 9/16/2011

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Opinion: (Josef Ackermann, Deutsche Bank Chief Executive): “Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will stunt bank profit for years and could kill off the weakest, Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Josef Ackermann told industry bosses, amid intense scrutiny of the sector’s finances.

“’Prospects for the financial sector overall … are rather limited,’ the CEO of Germany’s top bank said on Monday. ‘The outlook for the future growth of revenues is limited by both the current situation and structurally.’

“Ackermann said that the financial services industry needed to go beyond curbing the excesses of the past and reevaluate what role banks play in the global economy, signaling that the lender will not revive some of the risky businesses…”

My Comment: Surely, those who deal with economic relationships, more than anyone else, feel how impossible it is to manage them.

The problem can be solved only by changing the way we perceive the real state of society: We find ourselves in a interconnected world, and hence, we are obliged to change the strategy of our relationships. Unilateral egoistic profit should be substituted by multi-lateral mutual benefit to maximize our interconnection rather than individual profit—for the well-being of society. Economists in particular have to ponder over the crisis of their own perception(!) and its repair.
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Opinion: (Nouriel Roubini, co-founder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics LLC): “The current slowdown in the world economy has brought forward the timing of a new financial crisis.

“’I thought a few months ago that the perfect storm would be 2013,’ Roubini said in an interview in London today. ‘But now, the economic weakness in the U.S., euro zone and the U.K. is front loaded. So we’re going to double dip earlier. The climax of it could be 2013, or it could be already earlier. It depends on what policy tools are available.’

“Another financial crisis ‘is already manifesting itself’ in developed economies.

“Roubini said if he had large amounts of money to invest, he would ‘mostly keep it in cash,’ especially in dollars, as the U.S. currency tends to strengthen during financial crises.”

My Comment: The more frequently we will experience crises, the quicker we will understand that they have their purpose, nature, cause, and goal: to force us to realize our egoistic opposition to global, integral nature.

Nature compels us toward mutual guarantee, flexibility, and realization that we are integral parts of a single mechanism. We are entering the stage of our “human” development, and we will be forced to reach the quality of “love thy neighbor as thyself”—the law of commutation of single system elements.
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Opinion: (Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi): “Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Friday that ousted Libyan leader Gaddafi was loved by his people and that the rebellion that toppled him was not a popular uprising.

“’This wasn’t a popular uprising,’ like in other north African countries ‘where the wind of freedom begins to blow,’ he told young supporters of his People of Freedom party gathered in Rome.

“’Powerful men decided to give life to a new era by putting out Gaddafi,’ he said.

“’This wasn’t a popular uprising because Gaddafi was loved by his people, as I was able to see when I went to Libya.’”

My Comment: For a long time, everything in the world is happening by someone’s order, including terror, revolutions, and wars. Do they understand that in an integral and unified world, the harm that one inflicts upon others by acting egoistically and causing evil returns back to him, but it is multiplied by the coefficient of integrity of the world at the time of his action. That is, as they say: “You’ll pay twice.” I wouldn’t recommend it…. Although we will witness it in a near future.

With regard to the plans to annul the state of Israel, it goes against the plan of nature to raise humanity to the Biblical level, which is beginning to be implemented just now. According to this plan, the Biblical principle of “love thy neighbor as thyself” has to spread throughout the entire world from the Holy Land, and not from the Capitol Hill. This the purpose of the existence of Israel.
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“We Are for the World” Lesson 6
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“We Are for the World” Lesson 7
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We all used to be one soul that split into a multitude of egoistic parts. What does that mean? How to return to the initial state? And what force returns broken pieces to the initial state?

In my opinion, there is indeed only one soul in the world, as it is written (Genesis, 2:7), “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The same soul exists in all the children of Israel, complete in each and every one, as in Adam ha Rishon since the spiritual is indivisible and cannot be cut—which is rather a trait of corporeal things.

Yet, saying that there are 600,000 souls and sparks of souls appears as though it is divided by the force of the body of each person. In other words, first, the body divides and completely denies him of the radiance of the soul, and by the force of the Torah and the commandments, the body is purified, and to the extent of its purification, the collective soul shines upon him.
(Baal HaSulam, Fruit of the Wise, “600,000 Souls”)
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Mutual guarantee is the only way to counter the blow that nature casts upon us today (if the revelation of the Creator can even be called a blow!). Mutual guarantee will put us in concord with the blow, and instead we will sense it as a positive influence.

If today we connect by ties of mutual guarantee to the degree that we are supposed to, we will sense goodness in this world and will succeed in everything. Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation” how a person’s outlook changes. We would see healthy people, a blooming economy and industry, and perfect families. There would be no sick, unfortunate, and hopeless people. There would be no use of anti-depressants, no drugs, and no divorces.

Our world would be harmonious and we would only be concerned with achieving an even greater state of harmony with the Creator, with the force of nature, which would reveal itself to us more and more.

We must bring ourselves into correspondence with the perfect system of connections in the shortest amount of time possible. We can’t even imagine yet what a perfect connection means; however, we must achieve it in a short period of time. I can’t even imagine how fast this should unfold—each day will feel like a new life. The changes will be so rapid that people will lose their sense of time.

Today we sense that there is morning and evening; we say things like “come tomorrow,” “in a week,” or “in a month.” However, this will disappear because we’ll lose our sense of time. Time will become a change of states, to the point where people won’t even think in terms of morning or evening. These notions will disappear from their consciousness and time will only be measured through changes taking place within them.

This is how we rise above time and space. All of our sensations will no longer depend on them. We will continue to eat, drink, and do things in this world, but a new mechanism and new attitude will begin to get a hold of us, until this entire world will disappear, and we will smoothly transfer into a new state. The importance of this world will be lost to such an extent that we will simply stop seeing and sensing it.

The extent to which we rise in order to connect to one another is the extent to which this world will begin to disappear.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Rabash’s article

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For a person aspiring toward spirituality there’s no greater enemy than Amalek. When Amalek takes over, we feel tired, confused and lose the importance of spiritual work. He takes away our desire to apply efforts to reveal the Creator and become like Him. We begin to find many reasons why this isn’t worthwhile doing. And this is called the power of Amalek.

He doesn’t come at us as an obvious or revealed enemy, but sneaks up inconspicuously and implants a feeling of tiredness, laziness, making spirituality seem unimportant. You can do a thousand different things instead of doing a very important, specific, and properly defined action that will bring you to the goal. You’re ready to do anything but that! This is called Amalek.

He doesn’t reveal himself as an attacker and a hateful enemy whom you know you have to destroy.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Rabash’s article

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