Israel’s “Book Week” is starting soon and some call it “The Festival of the Hebrew Book.”

In general, a book is a source for the revelation of the human essence itself. It is here that the main difference between a human and a beast is found; at a certain point in our evolution, man began to write. Although at first it was carving on rocks and later writing on parchment, one way or the other, it was already human. Beasts pass on a lot of information to one another, but they have no written form to pass it to distant or succeeding generations.

Thanks to man’s ability to write, he can overcome distances, motion, and time and transcend the temporal axis and the three spatial axes, and overcomes nature’s control over his body. By knowing how to write, it is as if I exit my body since my writings reach those whom I will never actually meet. This is the essence of being human.

It is about very deep roots. In the past, books were parchment scrolls, but in the modern world there is still a form different from the electronic form. Although it is much more convenient to read from a computer screen and many have gotten used to it, I still don’t think that the paper pages of a book will disappear so fast.

We feel by seeing visual images: Clips can be moving and can evoke you, but written texts give you an understanding. The wisdom comes through letters and the feeling through visual images.

Therefore, it is worthwhile to publish books in any form. Everyone can disseminate them no matter if you are a veteran or not. Every group has a chance to participate in the correction of the world through the corporeal action and to “earn” a spiritual reward.

Because our world is the last and special degree in the ladder of the worlds, we can exert ourselves physically here and receive a spiritual reward. By embracing the friends despite the hatred we feel, I still summon the Reforming Light. So from an egoistic intention of Lo Lishma (not for His sake), we advance towards the intention of in order to bestow Lishma (for His sake), from the evil inclination to the good inclination. The Light comes in reaction to my physical action and changes my desire. This doesn’t exist in the spiritual worlds. We only need to know how to use it.

Similarly, by disseminating books, I actually bestow. Not even knowing how, by my inclination, I open up the way for the Light, which later passes through me to people. Thus I become a “pipe” that passes on the Light. What can be better than that? This is actually all of our mission: to pass on the Light from the Creator to the world. So it is actually an action that belongs to the Kabbalistic method, and there is nothing more beneficial to a person than to follow exactly this way, directly.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)“

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We grow only with the help of the environment, like children who take examples from adults. To the extent that I appreciate my environment, it will serve as an example for me. If I see those around me as ordinary people, no better than me, what can I learn from them?

If I work on myself, on my ego, in order to raise the friends, I see them as the Creator’s emissaries. After all, besides a person there is only the Creator, as it says: “There is none else besides Him.” In such an environment I can grow.

I grow precisely with the understanding that there is no one else besides the Creator. I constantly have to see myself in contact with the Creator, and as a result, to check which attributes and thoughts separate me from Him in “words” and especially in “deeds.”

This is woven and becomes a request, a prayer, because a person begins to fear disconnecting from the thought and from this feeling that may be the very first, and very weak feeling of connection with the Creator. If I manage to feel the fine thread that ties me with the Creator, I have to be careful that it doesn’t break or disappear. No interruption can negate the recognition that I have that I am tied to the Creator by this fine thread.

This fear begins to live in me, and so I accept all the troubles and problems that arise in my extraneous thoughts, desires, and confusion, I take as a “helpmate.” I see that the Creator sends me all this in order to let me overcome the obstacles and to strengthen our connection.

I cannot overcome any obstacles by myself, and I must ask the Creator to help me. Then the Creator gives me power, and instead of one thread that ties us together, there are already two!

Then another obstacle comes along and thanks to it, I receive a third thread. Thus, gradually, the threads are woven together and become a thick rope that strongly ties me to the Creator.

I shouldn’t ask that “all the evils that are revealed should die,” which means that all the obstacles should disappear. Otherwise, how would I build my connection with the Creator? I have to ask that the evil be “reformed” and turned to the Creator, which means to use these obstacles, and as I rise above them, to strengthen my contact with the Creator.

If I am constantly careful to preserve and strengthen the thread that ties us together, it gradually becomes a pipe through which flows the energy of life.

At first I receive the power of life only from the feeling of my connection, but later I begin to learn its character, its different faces, its different forms. I accumulate experience: Which obstacles did I face, how did I overcome them, thanks to which request, how did the Creator arrange these obstacles in order to make them the threads that tie us together? So I learn how the Creator treats me as I turn the negative states into positive ones.

I work on this contrast of black and white: Once, I see the Creator’s angry face on the background of some disturbance, and once, His kind and loving eyes. So I begin to know Him according to these two looks, like a father who sometimes turns to his son with a loving, smiling face and sometimes looks strict, and in this way teaches him.

I constantly strengthen the connection between us, and the levels of this connection determine the levels of the spiritual ladder. At first the connection is very weak, just in order to hold on to him like an embryo in his mother’s womb. But later, a person begins to be more active, a state called Yenika (feeding). Then he becomes an “adult,” which means that he knows how to use this connection consciously; he evokes it more or less and through it receives the Light for a certain goal.

All this depends on how strongly a person holds on to the group that provides him with support, constantly learning. Then a connection is formed from the hair of these tiny threads that are created by his endless efforts not to allow this connection to break even for a moment, which brings a person to revelation. But all the work begins from the reverent fear that a person’s connection with the Creator may be cut off.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, Shamati #61

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 138: Yet, you should know that the distance between the dresses of the Torah in this world and the dresses of the Torah in the world of Atzilut is immeasurable. …

“Dresses of the Torah” stand for imaginary pictures. In fact, there are no dresses whatsoever, but rather there exists the Light and a vessel that portrays its own “reality” against the Light to the degree of their similarity. The Light stands for absolute bestowal, and the sensation of the vessel depends on the level of its correspondence to the Light.

This is what is meant by dresses of the Torah, the wrappers that conceal the Light from the vessel, from the person. And of course, at the level of this world where one is maximally corrupt, these screens that cover the Light happen to be the greatest possible cover-ups.

Yet, the Torah itself, meaning the Light within the dresses, is unchanged at all between the Torah of Atzilut and the Torah of this world, as it is written, “I the Lord change not” (Malachi 3:6).

The Light constantly remains in complete rest; however, it descends to a person depending on one’s level. It goes through the “dresses,” which are intended to help in a way that a person acquires them, and covers his ego, and by doing so reveals the Light, since he manages to change the type of dresses from obscuring to revealing.

This is so because the concealment is the reason for the disclosure. After its correction, during the disclosure, the concealment is to the disclosure as a wick is to the light that grips it. The greater the concealment, the greater Light will cling to it when it is corrected. Thus, all these crude dresses that the Torah is clothed in, in this world, their value is not at all inferior to the Light that clothes it, but quite the contrary.

Let’s mark the Light with red and the dresses with blue. The lower we descend through the worlds of Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya (ABYA), the more dresses we find. The Light of Infinity is constant; everything depends on the place where the receiving person is. Of course, major dresses of the world of Assiya finally disclose the most powerful Light to a person. It is called “the opposite order of the Lights and vessels.”

Answer: Concealing screens. In spirituality, there is a law of similarity of properties: If you possess a certain negative potential (-), the Light will manifest itself negatively (-) so that there is equality between them (=). Otherwise, you are unable to stay alive.

The Light has to diminish itself to your degree. That’s why the system of worlds (Olamot) exists—the system of concealments (Alamot): The Light decreases to the extent that you can tolerate it.

Question: What turns concealing dresses into revealing?

Answer: A person does. By rising above reason, one makes a decision to create a dress and demands that it hide his egoism; at the same time, he strives to be above his ego and to rise to the level of bestowal. This is how a person acquires a screen and starts working “on top” of it.

In the same way, the fire clings to the wick: The depth of our desires, our separation from the Creator, and our aspirations eventually transcend into the Light. There is no Light on its own. Our efforts enhance the thickness of the desire, and the darkness starts to illuminate. Without the wick there is no fire since fire cannot burn in a void; it needs fuel, which will shine and illuminate as the Light.

Question: What do we need for that?

Answer: We need to accept concealment as the biggest help that allows us to gradually move on and approach the giving force.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Shamati #126 “A Sage Comes to Town“

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “Beresheet (Genesis),” “This Is the Generations of Adam,” Item 470, Lesson 111

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 2, Chapter 2, Item 5, “Ohr Pnimi,” Lesson 4

“The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” (Starting with: “For this reason”), Lesson 3

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Question: What is Shechina?

Answer: Shechina is all the desires created by the Creator united into one equivalent desire that merges with the Creator in the same kind of bestowal as He is. That is, the desire to enjoy is fully corrected to bestowal.

But in relation to us, Shechina is “in the dust.” The Creator created the desire to enjoy, and brought it to the final correction: the final, third, corrected state already exists. However, we feel like we’re outside of the Shechina, to such an extent that we are hidden by concealment, fog, and deception.

Therefore, we feel as though we don’t belong to that common, corrected desire, and we need to work hard to unite with it. Imagine that everyone is completely corrected but you, and you see the world completely corrupted. Therefore, you must correct your perception and join the rest of the world, the Shechina.

You should ask the Creator to make you equivalent to Him; that is what it means to belong to the Shechina. But how does one ask since it cannot be done artificially? The request comes from the depth of the heart in a way that it cannot be stopped.

Imagine that all the desires of your heart were visible to everyone on a big screen, as if the sensors to a cardiogram were attached to your heart, showing everyone your desires, your thoughts about others, and your dreams about the future. And you were unable to stop this broadcast, and you had no control over your heart. Obviously, you would feel ashamed if you related these desires to yourself. But if you link these desires to the Creator, knowing that He sends them to you, that you have nothing to be ashamed of, then you are not ashamed of the desires waking up in your heart. You only feel ashamed about something that you could have done to correct your heart but haven’t.

And then you start checking that. You see that the Creator sends us different desires, making us think about forgery, theft, murder, violence, about ways to deceive and use everyone. You would see such pictures if your heart were displayed on a screen. But all these thoughts are awakened in you from Above, and you are not the master over them.

And along with that, you would see that you had the opportunity to make every picture like the Creator, but you didn’t use it. And now you are ashamed of the fact that you didn’t correct yourself or ask about correction. Perhaps, you didn’t even make an effort to correct anything, or possibly tried and realized that you cannot do it, but didn’t ask the Creator for help.

All of these states which you could have corrected but didn’t, cause a feeling of shame in you now. This is what you feel ashamed of but not about the most terrible pictures that unfolded in your heart and come from Above.

If you try bringing everything that you have in your possession into equivalence with the Creator, then you begin revealing all the details: where it comes from, why, what for, how to ask for help, and how to make it work. But if you have no intention to correct yourself, then you do not even open the package sent to you or realize what comes to you.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/12, Shamati #50

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Question: Why does it say that a person is responsible for his own exile?

Answer: Once we existed in the upper world in our roots, but because of the sins of Adam, the “first man,” who received the Light egoistically for himself, the “shattering” occurred, and we found ourselves here in this world. Instead of feeling the five stages of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity): Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet (0-1-2-3-4) and the five spiritual Partzufim: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, Malchut, we found ourselves feeling the corporeal reality that is perceived through the five levels: the root, soul, body, clothing, and palace.

We feel a reality that actually doesn’t exist and we don’t know that there is another reality that is real and that was created originally. We are in exile from it, as if we were exiled to some distant foreign land, as they used to send criminals by ship  to Australia in the past.

Being in this world, a person doesn’t feel that somewhere in his homeland he has a home and a happy life. He has already gotten used to this exile! But there are people who feel that they are in exile, and who are told a little about their homeland where the real life awaits them. Then a person understands that he is in exile. He has to worry about holding on to the first piece of information that doesn’t evoke any feelings in him and to begin examining it and tightening the contact with it.

This is a very fine string that was thrown to us to hold on to, which sometimes totally disappears and is sometimes evoked in our feeling. From this moment onward, everything depends on a person’s work. The Creator has given us the end of the string, He has started the connection, but it is only possible to tighten it by a person’s desire, by his concern and fear that he might lose it.

It all depends on how important a person sees this connection without fearing any interruption. He should be ready to give up everything for it. Suppose you could call home but it costs a thousand dollars for five minutes. And you are willing to work for a whole month in order to make this call.

Then you rise to a new level of connection, and you are allowed a videoconference, but this costs ten thousand dollars. Again you are ready to work only to be able to make the call. This is how you advance until you suddenly discover that you can be constantly connected. But the advancement is made by concessions that express that you appreciate the connection with the Creator more than anything in this world, more than any possible pleasure, by acquiring a Masach (screen) over the first, second and third level, one level after another.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, Shamati #61

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It is very important in which way we fall asleep in the evening, and even more so, how we wake up in the morning, how we trained ourselves to get up. Even a short wakeful time left before the morning lesson should be used in the most effective way in order to awaken the heart. It happens thanks to a single, common desire shared by everyone, one topic, or one song that helps all of us to aspire to one center together.

Such preparation for the lesson is necessary so that everyone will approach it in full readiness, as one.

The readiness is tested by your desire, aspiration to attain something new both in your heart and mind. To obtain a sensation of being the one who bestows, a person has to agree  to pursue the property of bestowal with all of his devotion and to refuse any profits of reception. He has to “warm himself up” a little and feel the difference between his desirable state and the real one, to sharpen his perception and readiness to grasp the deepest details.

It is very important to prepare yourself before the lesson this way. Otherwise you will be listening and will hear nothing, as if you are just beginning to wake up. And this is a great loss. A person who happened to be unprepared as if wasn’t at the lesson.

From Above, only the preparation is taken into account for us since this is where we put forth our efforts. If I am sitting and waking up at the expense of the lesson itself, then it happens not because of my personal efforts, but thanks to the environment. Such preparation is no longer attributed to my account, and hence it’s better for me to do it myself.
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From the Preparation for the Lesson 4/23/2012 

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The Creator isn’t a personality. It is forbidden to imagine anything in the immaterial spiritual world. It is a world of qualities, not even of forces in our current understanding of the word.

Today, when we think of a force, we imagine physical forces. And for the time being, I don’t argue with that. I don’t want to correct this degree of relation to spirituality because at least it gives us certain sensation of the field.

We envision a field, its intensity, characteristics, and the decrease or increase in its force proportionally to the square of the distance. This is how any physical fields expand. This gives us an opportunity to operate with at least something that exists around us in nature and technology. Therefore, for the time being we can imagine the spiritual forces and the spiritual field in this manner.

But in general, the spiritual field is a quality, a property. It’s not even a force.

However, we say the “force of reception,” the“force of bestowal,” “collision,” “mating while striking,” and so on. In other words, we speak of forces. But afterwards, we will feel that it’s simply just two properties that are interacting with each other in this manner: the property of the Creator and the one opposite to Him, the property of the creature that He made. They interact so that between them, between these two properties, man, consciousness, would arise. Consciousness—it’s what man is.

And when it comes to matter in our world, any quantum physicist will tell you that there is no matter, there aren’t even any elementary particles. Everything blurs, turns into a cloud, disappears into nowhere, and spreads like shagreen leather. There is no point, no forces, nothing, only nebulous cloudiness in the place of what previously appeared as particles simultaneously existing in all locations. That is, physicists are approaching the boundary of the physical world.

This is why it’s impossible to talk about something figurative. On the contrary, we will come to the point where all of our subsequent attainments, which we will call spiritual, meaning above-egoistic, will not be figurative, but qualitative.

For example, a dog sees the world as patches of scents. And we’ll perceive the world not as figures or images, but in a form of various qualities: greater egoism, smaller egoism, greater bestowal, lesser bestowal, interaction while striking, penetration, and so on. Only qualities! This is the upper world. And we’ll perceive ourselves in a form of qualities as well.

Even today you would like to see the essence of man and not his body.
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From a TV Program “Foundations of the Integral Society” 4/8/2012

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Question: When I want to pass an exam or find a job, I automatically get a passionate “prayer,” a powerful craving for the desired result. Why doesn’t this happen on the path towards the Creator?

Answer: Putting it differently, when will you finally get a real reason for turning to the Creator?

Say, something very unpleasant happened to you. For example, someone has dealt you a serious insult, so much so that you’re ready to disappear on the spot just to prevent others from finding out. At the same time, there’s nothing you can do about it. And it is here in a completely hopeless state that you receive “a gift from above”; you begin to feel that there is none else besides Him and that the Creator sent this to you for a specific purpose; you only need to turn to Him and ask that it wouldn’t be happening.

You turn to Him with this request and suddenly feel shame: “What do I want? To avoid misfortune? Or to be with the Creator? Let the fear and shame remain if only through that I would maintain a connection with Him.”

This is how we move forward: We need the fear, which we cannot handle, coming from our egoistic desires, and then we will truly have a need for the Creator.

Are you ready for that? Do you want this to happen? Without any reservations or concessions?

Question: So there’s no way of escaping disturbances?

Answer: Join a group, and together with the friends you’ll fly forward like a rocket. Because then, instead of shame and other “animal” troubles, you’ll receive other disturbances caused by the inability to love your friends and unite with them. You exert efforts but aren’t able to achieve that.

Either way, disturbances are necessary since you won’t turn to the Creator as long as you see even the tiniest possibility of correcting yourself some other way. Only complete helplessness gives rise to your request to Him. And this means that you need to grow your desire, striving for unity and elevating it above all the others. Then you’ll discover that you can achieve anything except for that. And the gap between the desired and reality will evoke a cry to the Creator.

Question: What exactly needs to happen in a group so that the situation would reach the necessary escalation?

Answer: Exert all possible efforts and obligate the group to influence you. This is precisely what we call “mutual guarantee.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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