Question: From whom or what do we ask for connection and correction during the reading of The Book of The Zohar?

Answer: The Light, although this force is concealed. It holds everything in perfection, but it is concealed from us. I am shown life through all kinds of imperfect forms, so I will ask for the perfection. But I need to imagine, on my own, what this perfection is.

Perhaps the meaning of perfection is that I will be fulfilled, great, wise, knowing, and in control? Or maybe perfection is that instead of receiving all these fulfillments, I specifically degrade them and rise above them to love and bestowal? No, that isn’t perfection. So what is?

We need to learn about perfection from Above, because It is perfect. And to just bestow, or to just love someone, that isn’t perfection either. Perfection, I must learn from the upper one.

So I ask Him to reveal to me what perfection is. And this is revealed. We see we lack perfection and from each revelation of this lack of perfection, which the Creator reveals, we learn, from blow to blow. After all, there is a gap between the blows, which is designed for our recognition, understanding, and comprehending what was bad and what could be better.

In this way, people advance, as according to Baal HaSulam: They destroy the previous state after they no longer are able to endure it, and agree with the new state, which previously they didn’t want to agree with, and now they see that it is desirable. But this is the way of suffering, the way of the evolutionary development of nature.

But if we want to advance rapidly, from within consciousness, understanding, and self-participation, then we need to search for what is called “perfection” on our own. And then we ask the Creator to reveal, to give us the appropriate mind and feelings.

For this purpose he places a condition: You want to discover Me? You want to learn the system, to advance consciously, to understand and comprehend what perfection is, what life is, what the system of reality is? Please! I also want the same. I want you to be a son and not a slave.

But for this you must execute actions, exercises, like at work, so that through them you will learn about this system. How? In the group. If you are ready to connect with the friends and to learn about unity, which means One, Unique, and Unified, and to learn what love based on hatred is, then you have a system of relationships with the friends.

I organized this system for you. I brought you to it, gave you teachers from all generations who already attained this system and described it for you. Everything is in your hands. Take it and begin to realize it. According to the measure of your advancement, I will reveal more and more means to you. And thus you will understand, will attain, and  will discover what perfection is.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, The Zohar

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Question: Any group dynamic goes through several stages. The first mandatory stage is a security phase. Before a person opens up, he or she needs to feel that they are in a safe space where nobody will hurt or humiliate them.

Answer: More importantly, this space needs to possess the quality known as mutual guarantee.

In order to reach the goal, we need the support of everybody else, like, for example, in a good attack team or in the army, when they go on a reconnaissance mission and everyone feels confident in the fact that others will always back them up. You charge forward because for you the sensation of “I” already disappears and instead there’s a sensation of “we.” This sensation is so strong that it doesn’t even matter to you whether to live or die—the most important thing is to implement the common idea.

When people are united through a shared idea, they lose individual interests, while the common, the collective, begins to influence them in such a way that for the sake of executing their common goal, their shared idea, they no longer care in what form it’ll be attained for them personally.

If we reach such a state in unification of society, a person rises precisely onto the degree called “Adam.” That is, we need to have a goal that will always stand in front of us. It needs to be for us—not for a person that we work with and not for the group, but for us. Otherwise, if we don’t start striving towards this goal, nature will very painfully, through tremendous suffering, push us towards it with its coercive forces. One way or another, in the final state, we will have to reach this form of communication between us, this kind of unity.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Question: Suppose we can all decide that foreigners who came to our country to work cause harm. But how can we agree about something more positive and integral?

Answer: It’s one thing if we’re talking about a family, where people are forced to reach an agreement, that is, they have to either agree or break up. But if we’re talking about the kind of egoism that doesn’t oblige us to be together, like in the example with foreign workers, then this is a different thing entirely. Here we need to come to a sense of necessity for an integral, earthly, and civilized coexistence, which needs to be built on upbringing.

I’m often asked:

– Are you Israeli?
– Yes.
– Do you have a problem with your neighbors?
– Of course! Who doesn’t know that?
– Do you agree with opening up the country’s borders? Can you live with them in peace?
– Of course!
– Then why don’t you do it?
– I agree! But only after we educate each other.

I wouldn’t be able to live in the same apartment with my neighbor until a complete mutual understanding arises between us. But for that to occur we need to go through the process of upbringing, to mutually understand, sense, and come closer to each other. Without that you cannot open up the borders.

In Europe they opened the borders and now they want to close them again. Why? Well, it’s because during the 20 years of existence of European markets, they didn’t engage in people’s upbringing.

I would even say it was a European “bazaar,” not even a market because they didn’t pursue upbringing or people’s integration. There are an enormous number of cultures, languages, of everything. “We are Europe!” In what, exactly, are you Europe? Today it’s becoming clear that this is simply an assemblage of completely incompatible people. After all this time, has any global European nationality been created, some kind of shared culture? No. On the contrary, the contradictions are beginning to manifest externally more and more.

In other words, upbringing should precede absolutely all actions.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #6, 12/14/12

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Question: Is it possible that one minute I don’t understand anything and then suddenly everything is revealed to me, or is it a gradual process?

Answer: It’s a gradual process which leads to an instantaneous revelation. We see this happening to us. We try doing this and that and nothing comes of it, but then suddenly we acquire an understanding and reveal something. We don’t understand how it happens. It’s as though there is something inside of us that slowly grows, then just bursts, and we suddenly gain understanding, sensation and attainment both in the mind and in the heart. This process requires great concentration over a long period of time and many continuous stages that ultimately lead to a sudden breakthrough.
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 26: Also, one does not execute anything during the building, but only according to the details arranged before him in the blueprint…. Thus, there is not a single, tiny item, generated in this world, that does not extend from Ein Sof, from the first state of the souls. And from Ein Sof, it extends to the world of Atzilut, meaning specifically associated to the thing actually being generated in this world. And from the world of Atzilut, the generation extends to the three worlds BYA, where the generation appears in actual fact, where it stops being Godliness and becomes a creature, and to Yetzira and Assiya, until it extends to the lower one in this world.

Only one thing was created: a desire. The created being exists in this desire and feels, thinks and understands in it. The greater one’s desire is, the more he can feel and understand. The more varied the desire, the more ways he can perceive reality.

If the created being’s desire had stayed the way it was created, it wouldn’t have felt anything. This is a result of the four phases of direct Light. Our development begins when the Light begins to influence the desire that was created as existence from absence. All along the way, the desire developed by the Light and received attributes, changes, and urges to act from it. In the Light there is the thought of creation, so when the desire was created by the Light, this thought was put into practice in it.

When the desire developed, it began to perceive different impressions from the Light that turned into receiving. It receives, feels, understands and responds. Every action of the Light initiated the mechanism of changes inside the desire: It absorbed it again and again, felt, and responded numerous times.

Actually the Light is fixed and doesn’t move. It only presents itself to the desire this way. It is in the desire that all the changes take place, until it “turns around” so many times and accumulates so many changes that make it stop and start its way back. The Light is in a state of absolute rest and it fulfills its inner plan, which is for the desire to return to the source, but so that it itself wants to return to the point where the Light gave birth to it, and to justify its creation. Thus it justifies and understands the Light.

All the way into our world and back again is by means of the Light. When the Light shines upon the desire and draws away from it, it spreads from the top down. Then the Light performs the opposite action and the created being begins to draw closer to it, but it does so consciously, wanting to return to the Light, meaning to resemble it. Then he receives the surrounding Light that helps him, and he constantly wants to acquire the inner Light instead, in other words, wants to become like Him.

According to my free will, the Light influences me and changes me. Then I acquire equivalence of form and the inner Light spreads inside me. This is the level of my bestowal. So from a distance, the desire to receive returns to the Light and is incorporated in it.

Thus we attain the Creator’s initial plan and then different general parts of the “blueprint.” The “blueprint” itself is in the world of Atzilut, and we are in the worlds of BYA, dealing with its fulfillment, in the correction of the matter of the desire. Like an architect, a person builds his home and acquires control over his vessel.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, The Zohar

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Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Rabash “Concerning Above Reason,″ (To: “It follows that when he wishes”)
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Sling-Stone,” (Starting with: “This means that the extension of the Mochin“), Item 209, Lesson 62
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 2, Lesson 23
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“Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 96, Lesson 42
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Every person at some stage of their life begins to feel that he has to reveal its meaning. This can be a conscious search for the meaning of life, which is given to individual, chosen people, or an unconscious urge, as it is characteristic of the rest of the people. However, everyone will at some point have to find the answer to this question: What am I living for? Since the goal of development is to return all of us to our root.

When a person asks, “What is this life for?” in essence, he is asking, “What do I need this suffering for?” The suffering is personal or common, but everyone asks because his desires are not receiving fulfillment. Then a person begins to search, and some people come to study Kabbalah, while some people arrive at some other places.

Our development on the human level began hundreds of thousands years ago, from the beginning when humanity emerged, having risen above the animal level. It started from the development of the mind and language, but in fact, man was moved by that same question: “What am I living for?” Although, a person, who lived thousands of years ago, did not understand the essence of this question, just like today, when this question is being awakened in us, we do not exactly understand its true meaning. It is simply an unclear urge, which makes us move forward.

This is how the whole of humanity moves forward chasing wealth, fame, power, and knowledge without knowing that the goal of development is not in this, but in reaching one’s root, to find out: where I come from and what rules me, and really means, where should I go?

The desire to enjoy, awakening in us, asks us these questions, which are gradually becoming ever more precisely directed at the root from which the upper Light is shining through at us. This is how our system is set up.

But a person, who has already reached the last stage of development, and who has been brought to such a place where he begins to study, at first does not understand the connection between his need to find out what he lives for, what the meaning of his life is and what he studies. Often, he is not even aware of the question itself, which takes the form of various other questions, simple curiosity.

This is how he begins to study the science of Kabbalah, or at first he takes interest in some other methodologies, spending long years on this. Sometimes, under the pretense of Kabbalah, he is being sold various “miracles” and advices about how to succeed in life, and how to find out about your past, present and the future. However, if he really arrives at the science of Kabbalah, and not fortune tellers, then he discovers the Kabbalistic books for himself and he does not understand where all of this is located: the upper worlds and Partzufim.

He has no connection at all with these concepts. He does not know where all of that exists, beyond the borders of our world, our Galaxy, or even the whole universe? Is it somewhere up there, below, or maybe inside the material? It is very difficult for a person to understand how to relate to all of this.

A lot of time is spent on this. And even when a person listens, he does not hear that the science of Kabbalah only talks about the connection between people. He does not understand that by setting the correct connection, we reveal reality, which belongs to a new, higher dimension.

It is difficult for him, given his previous opinions and impressions about the science of Kabbalah, to connect it to human relationships. How can such a hidden and high science, such high names and worlds, actions and forces, have any connection to our relationships towards each other, between me and the neighbors, between me and my friends?

He simply cannot imagine that all of the upper worlds and what goes on inside of them is in essence the “psychological” connection between us, people. And if we begin to interact with each other, with bestowal and love, this means that we are using the spiritual force. In the event that we reach true love of our neighbor, and not that egoistic one, we’re used to in this world, which is calling the use of the other for the sake of my own pleasure love.

However, if I use myself for the sake of other people’s benefit, this is called love of one’s neighbor. When I relate this way to someone else, then in my relationship to him I begin to reveal the spiritual Partzufim, the upper worlds, Sefirot, angels, demons, spirits, and all of these spiritual forces, which are “for” or “against” my connection with others. They can be positive forces or negative ones, meaning the forces of “holiness” or “evil”.

All together, they unite into one common force, which I reveal in my love for the other, called the Creator, which have a number of various names that reflect the character of my connection with others.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, Writings of Rabash

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The difference between double concealment and single concealment is very great. It is a phase that takes a long time, even years. In the past, it took Kabbalists an even longer time.

The difference here is that in double concealment the person doesn’t know definitely, nor even approximately, what bestowal is, but only talks about it when he repeats what is written about it in the books. Thus, it is very difficult for him since all of these words are artificial.

We see this in his conversation, but he must do it like a child who, in the meantime, imitates the grown-ups and plays with dolls and cars. This is so, until he attains the state where the upper Light bestows on him, and it becomes enough to begin to feel the value of bestowal.

He begins to describe to himself, in his imagination, what bestowal is, how he exits himself toward others and loses himself there, how he begins to feel them and not himself. This is not even “we,” meaning, I am in connection with others. Instead, he ceases feeling himself and feels only what is external to him. It is not possible to convey this feeling with words, but it begins to be grasped within a person.

This is called reaching single concealment. Then, he begins to demand the disclosure of bestowal. It is now understood to him that it arrives only with the help of the reforming Light. In the transition from double concealment to single concealment, he sees that everything is realized only through the upper force and that only he, himself, can awaken this force through all kinds of actions, but not more than that.

Here, the demand matures in him that he must have the upper force that will produce within him the quality of bestowal. We are in this state now, before the congress in the desert, before the meeting with the Pharaoh and the exit from Egypt.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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In order to describe my state to myself, I need to see that I am within a sphere. It is the Creator who shows us everything that goes on within it. There is no event in the entire world that is initiated by another force.

All, from the cruelest enemies to the closest friends, including the Creator, are actors in a play shown to us. Everything is within a person’s perception, within his awareness.

Since he is already in single concealment, he now needs to see the world, respond, and relate to everything in a mature way, that in everything, he sees the relationship between himself and the Creator, through all of these messengers: all the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human levels of nature that are within his perception.

He feels all of his impressions in the natural way as they come; however, they actually come to him from the Creator. This is the way you need to relate to this. First of all, you need to make a calculation, and if you are able to from the result of these or those surrounding relationships, attain a connection, assimilation, adhesion and closeness to the Creator who is positioned behind them. Since they serve as signs of what he needs to correct, these imaginary images will disappear, and, in the end, you will discover the Light that will shine on you.

All of this is obtained thanks to a game called, “Come to Pharaoh.” In this game, we ask for the force of bestowal so that it will begin to rule inside us thanks to the reforming Light. Thus, we exit Egypt and enter the desert. Then, we begin to increase this force, to acquire it, to work with it, and to advance to the entrance of the spiritual world, to the land of Israel.
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From the 4^th  part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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