Excerpt from a lesson by Rabash: The analogy is somewhat complicated. What is clothing in corporeality? When a person is naked, he is lacking. If he is clothed in any clothing—that’s his filling so he won’t be naked.

The lesson is: Previously, man was naked and had no Light. The vessels were empty. Now, the Light comes from the lower one and fills him, as if filling his deficiency, not a hundred percent, but in a certain way it resembles the upper clothing. Similar to a person who lacks clothing fills his lack; likewise here, the Lights from the lower one fill the empty vessels.

In what way does it resemble clothing? I wear clothing; I cover myself with clothing. That is why I say: “When I’m naked, it’s a deficiency for me, it’s not nice, I am ashamed. If I have clothing, I cover the deficiency I had when I was naked.”

What can we learn from that regarding spiritual work? Just like clothing fills the deficiency of the upper one in corporeality, arousing the aspect of shame in him; likewise, the empty vessels are the aspect of deficiency. And when the Light comes and fills it: it is like clothing.

Corporeal clothing is similar to spiritual clothing from a certain aspect, since we wear it as a result of shame. Without that, we feel a deficiency in our egoistic desire. We want to maintain our honor, pride, and protect our ego; that’s why we need corporeal clothing.

Whereas spiritual clothing is the screen and the reforming Light with which I want to clothe the upper one in order to enable His revelation in me. I suffer and am included in the lack of the upper one and it becomes my primary desire. I begin to love the others even more than myself, and their desire becomes my desire. The significance of spiritual clothing is that instead of my individual ego, I begin to appreciate the upper one, who becomes more important to me.
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Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12

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Question: Right now, before the congress in the desert and the beginning of a worldwide dissemination effort, what should our plea to the Creator be in order for it to be heard?

Answer: At the congress in the desert, we must feel the first degree of our connection and within it reveal our aspiration to bestow to the Creator so that this bestowal to Him would clarify the fact that only through our connection can we have a greater influence on Him.

Today we view the necessity to connect with friends and the opportunity to obtain a connection with the Creator through our connection with friends as two separate things. We perceive the connection with friends as book-learned, as though it’s a teaching for good children, where as connecting with the Creator is something everyone will agree too.

However, we don’t connect the two terms: One is a vessel and the other is the Light that fills it. The connection between us is the vessel and the Light that’s revealed in it is the Creator. Let’s hope that during this congress we’ll realize how inseparable these two conditions are.

This realization will leave an imprint that will allow us to advance correctly. After all, our work is left unfinished. We apply efforts, but each time they’re limited to a half or a quarter of the whole. But applying efforts to the full measure, even in relation to one gram, is greater than applying a partial effort measurable in kilograms or even tons.

After all, if there is not the full 10 Sefirot then you work and you scream, but it’s all in the wrong place! It is like it is said about the rainfall that goes to waste because it rains in an uninhabited desert. What difference does rain make if it falls into the sand? If at least 10% of that rain fell on your field, it would provide your livelihood!

The same thing happens with us. We cry out to the Creator, but we don’t do it through our connection, therefore these cries go unheard. We would already be in the world of Infinity with all of our work and screaming; however, we don’t cry out in the right way. We must fine-tune ourselves and then our cries will be heard.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12,  “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Should I, as a psychologist, paint a realistic picture for people and tell them that it will only get worse in the future, while we offer them a solution?

Answer: If you’re talking about a family conflict and its resolution, here everything is very simple. I would organize courses to educate couples about their mutual psychology and human psychology in general.

Comment: But people can’t tolerate the truth….

Answer: I disagree with that. Truth can in fact be tolerated if I know that I am this way by nature: I love to deceive, steal, cheat others, and use them for my own benefit; I don’t want to acknowledge my shortcomings, but automatically notice the shortcomings of my family members, wife, and so on. And she has the same problems, like any other person. We need to talk all that over, to clarify everything. Perhaps along with that we need to produce films and television programs showing examples of spouses’ sincere revelations, where people open up to each other in absolute objectivity, without any shame or discomfort.

These two biological organisms, two psychological entities live together. They tell each other how each of them perceives and senses their own self and the other person. Such conversation ultimately let them objectively view themselves, their partner, and something common between them. Now everything needs to be brought to the kindest possible state with an understanding that this is nature and there’s nothing to be done about it. And if you’ll keep resisting, there’ll never be an end to this.

I live with my wife for over forty years. Naturally, during this time we repeatedly tried to point out each others’ shortcomings, reproached each other, but in the end each of us held our ground. This “ground” remains within a person, and we need to rise above it since it is impossible to change our nature. We need to educate people about all that.

By rising above it, you begin to see that by “colliding” correctly, all that is negative, all the individual and general shortcomings unite into something good. And it turns out that there is a reason why you are brought together and are completing each other. Above all the disagreements and contradictions you attempt to create a comfortable zone of inner existence for each of you, as well as a comfortable zone for your co-existence, the kind where you cannot even imagine your new suddenly emerging family.

In other words, each of us has something that is our own and this is given by nature. Each spouse accepts what exists in their partner, and together they build a mutual agreement, having risen above themselves. I believe that their agreement—above egoism, which they don’t touch—is entirely achievable. For that it’s not necessary to transform their environment and all the rest. It’s simply regular work with any couple.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #6, 12/14/12 

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Question: How important is it to grasp that the whole of reality is inside of us only? Should we strive to connect the desires we know as external with those we attribute to ourselves?

Answer: To the extent that you work with yourself and the group, you will begin to feel that all of them and, in general, everything is within you.

Question: Can we say that the still parts in our physical world are a seemingly external picture of Behina Aleph (the first phase) of the four phases of the Direct Light?

Answer: Yes.

Question: If there is ego in the receiving part, there must also be ego in the creating part. There must be a Force above Heaven and Earth, although not “above” as we understand it.

Answer: It is our ego in its corrected form that creates bestowal.
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Eventually on the spiritual path, we reveal love. An expression of love is bestowal.

If I discover love towards myself, then I experience hate towards the other. I am looking for an opportunity to please myself everywhere, no matter at whose expense. I take others into account only when necessary. Thus, we initially love ourselves and hate others.

Then, I start to work in the group, study, become involved in dissemination, and thereby attract the reforming Light. Only It changes and improves me. Time after time, I change until suddenly I begin to feel respect for the property of bestowal.

Then, I have to relate this property to the group of friends because it is realized among them. This is already the next stage: Here I need to work against my egoism. Now, it is not enough just to be inspired by the upper Light. Yes, I would like to bestow, and this is wonderful, this adds fuel and  elevates, but if you really want this, try to show this in the group, in your relationships with friends.

“Yes, I am ready! I already have a good attitude to them!”

“Really? Let’s see. First of all, how often do you forget about them?”

Indeed, in everyday life, if I love someone, I think about him or her all the time. A mother does not forget about her baby: He is constantly in her thoughts in feelings. Here is a check for you: How many times a day do you care about the group of friends and their unity? How often do you want to feel in connection with them in order to reveal the reforming Light and the desire to love?

Remember, you need to put all the pieces together: the desire for love and the group.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What does it mean to unite with the Creator?

Answer: With the help of friends and study, due to the surrounding Light, I obtain the aspiration for the Creator, the desire to bestow upon Him, to be in bestowal, disconnected from myself so there is no longer my “I,” and I am entirely in this property of bestowal. Then, I discover that I become similar to Him because He is the very desire for bestowal, not a body, object, or entity.

Thus, the Creator begins to appear to me more and more as the property of bestowing force governing the Universe. And when I rise above myself and exit myself, I discover that in essence, I am a force, a desire, aspiration itself. And then I loose the feeling of my body, and I feel that there are only two mutual desires: His and mine.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, Shamati #16

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Question: How do you combine “faith above reason” and the principle that “you may only judge what your eyes see”?

Answer: You must only base your critical assessment on your real sensations, as it is written: “A judge has only what his eyes can see” and not on what I think is written, what I was taught, or what someone said. What matters is what a person feels in his desires and what he understands with his mind.

This is our foundation: I don’t have more than what I am feeling now. And now I need to see how I can rise above it. This is because all spiritual growth is based on rising to a new degree every single time. But how can I rise to a new degree? In corporeal life we ascend the degrees through our egoistic desires and deeper, comprehending thoughts, in other words through the growth of the heart and the mind. But when it comes to spiritual ascent what matters is not the quantitative growth, but elevated qualities.

This is why I don’t work on growing my mind and feelings. I don’t strive to feel and understand more in my studies and regular life. It’s not that I limit myself; this simply is not the direction I see for myself. After all I want to acquire a new quality which is not inside the old heart and mind.

I need a different heart and mind! It is like two different pictures. The heart and mind which operate in the new picture of the world care for their neighbor even though I don’t yet know what this is. But back at the old picture it’s the other way around, I only care for myself.

And both of these pictures have an absolutely equal right to exist. But I need to reveal this second picture, the second reality. And it’s impossible to imagine it until it becomes revealed. We are only preparing ourselves for it. Light comes to us from that new picture according to the efforts we make to attain it from our previous position. This Light gradually forms the ability in us to begin to distinguish this picture from afar and gradually imagine what it’s like. But that which happens there we call the “higher knowledge,” beyond our mind, as it is written: “I have seen an opposite world.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/12, Shamati #16

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Hochma and Bina can be in four states (as well as Partzufim Aba and Ima in the world of Nekudim):

1. Back to back (Achor be-Achor): no Light of Hochma and no need (from downward or upward) for Hochma and Bina to be connected.

2. Face to back (Panim be-Achor): there is Hochma in Aba, but Ima has no need to receive it;

3. Back to face (Achor be-Panim): Ima needs the Light of Hochma while Aba doesn’t have it.

4. Face to face: (Panim be-Panim): Aba desires to bestow, and Ima desires to receive the Light of Hochma in order to pass it to the lower ones.

The state “Face” means handing over the Light of Hochma; “Back” means connection solely in Hassadim or the lack of connection.

Face to back is a constant state in the world of Nekudim, when there is Hochma in Aba but Ima is unwilling to receive it. This state can be permanent since it doesn’t result in breaking. This state can continue in the world of Atzilut, like during the preparation stage, in the state of anticipation (standby mode).

The system is ready, and as soon as a desire to be corrected is raised by the broken souls, Aba and Ima’s adhesion (Zivug) immediately occurs, thereby passing down the Light from Above. But MAN, a plea, the prayer of the lower ones, is mandatory. It serves as an agent opening the so-called faucet holding back the flow of the Light, and it starts streaming downward.

This can be likened to a transistor to which the appropriate voltage is applied (MAN), and then the electric current flows. No matter what systems we are discussing, be they mechanical or electronic, thoughts or desires, the principle remains.

A state in which the system stands by is regarded as face to back. Aba turns its face to Ima, who turns its back. But as soon as MAN, the lower one’s desire, rises up, it affects Ima, which turns to Aba, followed by their adhesion (Zivug) in the state of face to face, and the Light of Hochma passes downward to the souls.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Yitro,” Selected Excerpts
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