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When reading The Zohar and wanting to imagine the next degree, one should try to join the efforts at this degree and this world, and the internal world, and the group, so that everything is in one structure because there is nothing else besides it.
If one is able to do that and discern “Israel (striving for the Creator), the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator are one,” it is the sign that one has already obtained the right focus, the correct attitude to the true reality, which is correctly represented in it, but not outside of oneself.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/12, The Zohar
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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 5: We must first understand why the Torah was given specifically to the Israeli nation and not to all the peoples of the world equally. Is there, God forbid, nationalism involved here? Of course, only an insane person would think that. In fact, our sages have examined this question, and this is what they meant by their words (Avoda Zarah 2): “God gave it to every nation and tongue and they did not accept it.”
But what they find bewildering is why, then, were we called “the chosen people,” as it is written: “The Lord thy God has chosen thee” (Deuteronomy 7:6), since there was no other nation that wanted it? Moreover, there is a fundamental question in the matter: Can it be that the Creator came with His law in His hands to negotiate with those savage peoples? Such a thing has never been heard of and is completely unacceptable.
The upper Light brought the Babylonians the feeling of the shattering, the feeling of destruction, the feeling of a crisis, when everything fell apart before their very eyes. People felt hatred and an inability to sustain themselves.
So what did they do? The same thing that we do when a family cannot live together anymore, the parents separate and get divorced.
In fact it was a very clever solution, and they did the right thing: “Why should we torture one another? Let’s separate, you go to one side and I will go to the other.” This is also what Abraham said to Lot: “You go to the right and I will go to the left, or you can go to the left and I will go to the right. You choose which way you want to go. We shouldn’t go the same way, why should we fight?”
This is how the crisis in ancient Babel was solved. It raised the collective question: “What should we do?” And as an answer, some began to think about the purpose of life and about what to do with this life; how to raise it to a higher level, while others pursued their self-benefit in order to simply manage in life.
Of course, the crisis brings along troubles. Here there should be an external awakening, some pressure that makes a person feel bad. The new phase doesn’t just arrive, but is accompanied by some blow by fate. The masses encounter massive disasters, which leave them on the same level but with the question: “How do we get along? Perhaps we should create new situations? Revolutions for example? Or perhaps some element of bestowal, an internal or an external one?” The other, small part is evoked by being drawn from Above. So the Creator turns to everyone, but only a few who connect wake up and they are called the “nation of Israel.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”
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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: Our sages tell us about that, that the world had not been created but for the purpose of keeping Torah and Mitzvot, meaning, as our sages have explained, that the aim of the Creator from the time He created His Creation is to reveal His Godliness to others. This is because the revelation of His Godliness reaches the creature as pleasant bounty that is ever growing until it reaches the desired measure.
How do we, the lower ones, ascend to perfection? We do so by understanding the truth. We ourselves do not know this; however, applying efforts in the given circumstances, we act in an “alternative” manner, and although this is not our goal, we form the vessels for attaining the truth through the “secondary” activities. Then we reveal what it is.
That’s what rising from the lowest level to the level of the Creator means. This is done only through special help from Above. We have no direct connection with those degrees to which we ascend, and only indirectly we initiate this rise, according to the principle “labored and found.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”
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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: This perfection is expressed in the words of the Torah and the prophecy and in the words of our sages in the simple word, “Dvekut (adhesion).” But for the widespread use of this word by the masses, it has lost almost all its content. But if you linger on that word for even an instant, you will be overwhelmed by its wondrous stature.
We do not come to adhesion at once. There are measures, and every time when they are revealed in a person, he stands still, startled.
This cannot be described, discerned, from a distance. We are organized in this way, when adhesion is manifested even in small measures, anxiety and uncertainty are replaced by amazement before a whole new world, which suddenly opens to a person. And it is clear that he received it as a gift from the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”
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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 7: One who eats and enjoys the labor of one’s friend is afraid to look at his face because by doing so he becomes increasingly humiliated until he loses his human form. And because that which extends from His wholeness cannot be deficient, He gave us room to earn our exaltedness by ourselves, through our work in Torah and Mitzvot.
The creation is opposite from the Creator in its internal attribute, in the egoist desire of “I shall rule.” The only thing that can stand opposite it is the shame that stems from the defect in your own “self.”
In fact, these two discernments merge into one, and it is quite sufficient in order to bring the created being to correction. This is because a person is ready to do anything so that he won’t have to feel the defect of shame in his desire to receive. We can stand shame only if it is possible to cover the desire to receive so that it won’t actually be hurt. Even if the desire to receive may be hurt on the first levels, we cannot accept it on the fourth level, since then it will immediately force a person to put an end to the current state and to stop the feeling of shame immediately in every way he can.
Usually we compensate for the defects by learning from our environment. The whole system is built that way, so that in the opposite three lines we will somehow cope with the shame. But in fact, it is a great feeling that was prepared for high souls.
Question: How is shame related to adhesion, which we have to attain?
Answer: Shame and adhesion, fears and anxieties, whatever you want, are all components of adhesions. In adhesion each of them participates fully in the highest, most open way.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”
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The Book of Zohar, “Kdoshim,” Item 1: And the Lord spoke to Moses and said: “Speak to the whole congregation of the children of Israel and tell them, you shall be holy because I am holy, your Lord.”
The Creator is called Holy because He has the attribute of bestowal. The commandment of “you shall be holy” indicates that we also have to attain that by the Light that Reforms, the same force that influences us.
Although we are submerged in the attribute of receiving, this force changes us, and we can even use our attribute of receiving in order to bestow. It is a very special thing to turn receiving into bestowal since there is no intermediate stage between them. If there were something neutral, some shapeless raw material like stem cells, then you could do whatever you want from it: receiving, bestowing, Gevurot, Hassadim, Dinim, etc. The desire to receive, however, is not neutral, but rather operates in order to receive, although it is in order to receive small, trivial, false things and in between them we exist.
But when the Light comes, it changes us. The desire to receive remains, but then we can differentiate between the desire to receive and the intention to enjoy. Before, we weren’t able to do so because our desire and our intention were inseparable and in every desire, in every grain of desire, there is an intention to enjoy. Although the desire itself can totally lack any intention, it is possible to “peel” it and take the intention out even though it is a big problem. It all depends on the development of the desire.
Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah we learn that the only created being, the desire to receive, developed according to the four phases of the Direct Light and only in the fourth phase did it begin to feel the special form of the Creator, not like a dog, for example, that feels his owner because a dog is connected to his owner and wants to enjoy him. It is even ready to devote his life to him and all for self-love. So we see that such love within the desire to receive is possible.
In the fourth phase, however, the created being begins to feel the Creator, who bestows upon him, is detached from this bestowal without receiving anything back. He enjoys that fact that He bestows upon the created being; a bestowal that stems from Him, but does not return to Him. When the created being begins to feel the Creator’s action upon him, he feels shame. And from this is the root of shame, from the bestowal that the created being discovers, we receive the “point in the heart,” the root of our soul. From this point we develop. If the point in the heart is revealed in someone, he can certainly realize it.
So “Holy” means that we are detached from ourselves and adhered to bestowal.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, The Zohar
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We need to get the power to advance not by the desire to receive. In it, we do not want to receive any gifts. Otherwise we would always remain on the level of this world, as we see in science and in general that every egoistic motive doesn’t lead to any spiritual advancement.
Spiritual advancement is possible only by the force that is revealed in the vessels of bestowal. So what should we do if in the meantime we don’t have such vessels, how can we advance? Where can we get the energy for these actions?
Here we need faith above reason. This energy, this mental power, also comes from Above but in faith above reason, which means not in our vessels of receiving, but through the environment. To the extent that we can work with the group on the Creator’s greatness, we impress one another and are empowered.
This force is not part of our personal vessels in any way, yet it comes by our connection and bestowal upon one another. By that we draw the Light that Reforms, which enables us to advance.
Eventually the vessels that work with the intention to bestow, with the force of bestowal, are built in a person. It is a totally new mechanism that operates according to the laws of spiritual physics. A person is allowed to work for bestowal, for Heaven. This is what we have to reach.
This means that we don’t have to chase knowledge and the revelation of the Creator, the Light, but you yearn for the acquisition of vessels of bestowal, for the ability to perform true spiritual actions, without any self-benefit. If the group has accepted this as its goal, it receives an illumination from Above, which builds in it such a vessel of Bina that is also called Noah’s ark.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12
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Opinion (Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, Economist and Historian, Politician, member of the British House of Lords): “More equality would not only produce the contentment that flows from more security and better health, but also the satisfaction that flows from having more leisure, more time with family and friends, more respect from one’s fellows, and more lifestyle choices. Great inequality makes us hungrier for goods than we would otherwise be, by constantly reminding us that we have less than the next person. …
“The nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill had a more civilized view:
“’I confess I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think…that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human kind. …The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.’”
My Comment: A human being is a psychological system and determines his state only in comparison with his peers. Therefore, the future, how it is felt and perceived, depends on the “settings” of the system “individual-society” in in every human. This is realized in integral education and upbringing.
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Opinion (Vince Cable, UK Secretary of State for Business): “Europe could be plunged into war if the euro collapses, Vince Cable warned… .
“’We tend to forget, until we were reminded last week of that Nobel Prize, the European project was constructed in order to rescue Europe from extreme nationalism and conflict. There is no automatic guarantee that won’t return.’ The Business Secretary described the euro as ‘very valuable’ and said the UK would ‘be heard very loudly if it does unravel.’
“He added: ‘My sense is that the Germans in particular realise how much is at stake. A series of sensible measures have been taken in recent months.
“‘I think deep down there is enough common sense and a sense of survival to prevent this getting out of control. If it does, I’m afraid the consequences for us will be awful.’”
My Comment: The problem is not in the euro and not even in Europe, but in the general program of human evolutionary development. Humanity must move to the next state, similarity to Nature, meaning unity and reasonable consumption. Unity, because in this we level our egoism and become like all parts of nature, interconnected with it. Reasonable consumption, because in this we are in equilibrium with the still, vegetative, and animate nature.
Through this change in ourselves, we go out of our egoism and begin to feel the next level of nature, the sphere of bestowal, besides the sphere of receiving in which we exist for the time being. So, the euro plays just a small role, pushing us towards the change.
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