Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Rabbi Akiva depicts two kinds of people: the first are the “open store” type, which regard this world as an open store without a shopkeeper. He says about them, “The book is open and the hand writes.” Meaning, although they do not see that there is an account, all their actions are nonetheless written in the book, as explained above. This is done by the law of development imprinted in Creation against humanity’s will, where the deeds of the wicked themselves necessarily instigate the good deeds, as we have shown above.

The second type of people is called “those who want to borrow.” They take the shopkeeper into consideration, and when they take something from the store, they only take it as a loan. They promise to pay the shopkeeper the desired price, meaning to attain the goal by it. And he says about them, “All who wish to borrow may come and borrow.”

Question: How can a person check what type he is?

Answer: According to his intention, according to what he wants to get from the study.

First, if I am like the guest who wants to thank the host, I have to imagine the next state. I stand before the “store” or in front of the “table with the refreshments” which is actually the group. In other words, the “table” is the means by which I can receive the presents from the host and also give Him presents. The group is like the table that is set and prepared for me by the host, so that I will taste from what He has prepared for me and thus bestow upon Him. Therefore it says: “everything is prepared for the meal.”

Question: So what is the calculation that I make here?

Answer: There are two options:

• I approach the table without even asking who has set it and I begin to taste the refreshments and fill myself.
• I approach the table but first I ask who the host is and only then take something.

This is how people differ in their attitude towards the refreshments on the table, or even in their attitude towards the host. But still they take everything for themselves. There are those who enjoy the refreshments that the host has prepared for them. For them it isn’t just refreshments but refreshments that were served by the upper force, by the Creator: “How nice of Him to have prepared this whole world for us and also the next world, Heaven…” This is how people use all of creation.

For them the Creator is a source of pleasure that they can enjoy. They want the Creator to protect them and to benefit them. The creation was given to us by the Creator in order to help us resemble Him, yet people see it as a means to enjoy.

This brings up some difficult questions of course: “Why does the Creator send us such sufferings? Perhaps we are guilty of something? Or perhaps the troubles don’t come from Him? Could there be someone else? Perhaps it is just by chance?…”

But there are also other people, and if I belong to them I stand before the table and admit that “there is none else besides Him” and that everything is meant only so that I will try to resemble Him by using my own powers. Then I relate to everything in a perfect manner. I understand that everything depends on me alone and that the troubles are revealed because by that I see that I am not corrected. But if I correct myself everything will be fine.

Question: But how can I know that I have to pay for the merchandise in the “store?”

Answer: If I am already attracted to what is beyond the “store,” if I have the point in the heart, I come to a group, to friends, to a teacher, and the books that tell me everything. It’s because I have a point of truth in which I can understand that there are no coincidences. The starting point of honesty has been revealed in me and I cannot put up with a world that is so “dirty” and lowly. I cannot put up with it internally…

But there are many in whom the seed of honesty has been planted and they still put up with the daily routine as a result of their upbringing, their experience in life and different obligations, and as a result they sink into the swamp they are unable to come out of…. Others who take this world for granted feel that everything is just fine and they only need to find their place under the sun.

We are looking for people who have the point of honesty and who cannot put up with the way that the world is currently. Those who yearn for spirituality belong to this type. Although they lead their lives like everyone else, they are in a constant inner conflict, unable to accept what is going on.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/13, “The Peace”

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We have received a shattered desire to receive for ourselves so that we will be able to attain the attribute of bestowal. In addition, everyone was given a spark of yearning for the Creator. It’s about people in whom this spark was ignited, while others have no choice and are totally managed by their nature. Only people who have the spark in addition to the shattered desire to receive, yearn to attain the spiritual goal having no choice.

If during the lesson they hear that only by our connection can we receive the powers to fulfill this spark, they advance by the path of the Light, by the path of “I shall hasten it.”  But if they cannot hear, if they cannot be incorporated in the environment that can wake them up and make them more sensitive, they will advance by the path of sufferings, by the path of “in its time.” Then years later, they will feel that this path doesn’t lead to any results since everyone’s minor powers don’t allow them to exit the corporeal level.

It may take a long time to reach this recognition, even 20 to 30 years. Only later is a person forced to do some soul searching and to look truth in the eyes and accept the condition of connecting with others in order to receive their awakening, having no other choice. Then his point in the heart has enough power to fulfill itself.

Only then does he begin to hear and to work on himself, but this doesn’t happen all at once either, but gradually. Still, he advances and has a sense of direction. He understands that he has to accept and to surrender to the conditions Kabbalists speak about and that are the foundations of the Torah: the connection between people and love of others, and not try to escape from it.

People try to escape and to hide from these conditions in different religions and faiths. Every religion claims that people must keep the rituals, the external personal or public actions, such as holidays and customs that characterize it. It’s all meant to hide the truth and not deal with the correction of a person’s ego that brings him to “in order to bestow.”

But the path of sufferings will eventually bring humanity to a dead end and will force people to see that there is no choice and that they have to listen to what the Torah says. Then people will ask how to do that, so we have to prepare the active method of correction for them and to try to shorten their path of sufferings.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13

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Question: You say that all of humanity is one closed system that cannot be awakened. In his time a man from the Vernadsky Academy and his followers wrote about this. Today this has become clear to all, but you still get the sense that it’s possible to handle the system as it is, to correct its orientation.

Answer: They are trying to do this with the European Union, but are they succeeding? And the Americans are also trying to act, from a supposition that the world is mutually linked. But both in America and in Europe they don’t understand this system of mutual linkage. The Americans have wasted billions of dollars on Iraq, and what has this brought? Nothing, they have only destroyed the nation, destroyed connections, and no more than this. And now America needs to leave quietly.

What happened in Europe? Haven’t they transformed the Common Market into a “collective market?” They decided one-sidedly to “link” everyone with everyone. Certainly this only led to a crisis discovered in an even greater form. It’s not known if they can simply disconnect previous affiliations.

Question: Is it possible to manage this system somehow?

Answer: It’s impossible if people don’t change. The person needs to change. He needs to think differently, to feel the world as integral and himself as a part of the integral world. This doesn’t exist in people. We are still egoists and nobody thinks that the whole world depends on him or that he depends on the whole world. This doesn’t appear in us.

The idea is that general rules operate here, absolutely different laws and trends. We have risen to such a level of human development where integral laws operate. These are laws of an analog system where everyone depends on everyone. The beginning, end, middle, everything is mutually linked and at every moment everything is found in balance, like a self-regulating system that supports and stabilizes itself.

All of nature is like this and we need to become like it to be within it: To begin to feel all of nature, the communication, the harmony, the integrality, and ourselves as an inseparable part of it. But for the sake of this, we need to change ourselves completely and not enter it with our egoistic “boots.” We need to bring ourselves constantly to the level of a life of social participation, equality, to a level of mutuality. This is not found in us at all; and this is work that we need to do against our egoistic inclinations.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

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Writings of Rabash, “Shlavei HaSulam,” “What the Torah Being Called ‘The Middle Line’ Means in the Work“

The Book of Zohar — Introduction

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Peace“

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In the News (from European Parliament News): “One in four adults in Europe – more than 85 million people – have tried illicit drugs at some point in their lives. But is the situation getting better or worse? A new report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction gives all the facts, such as that 73 new psychoactive substances were sold for the first time in the EU in 2012. …

“The good news is that there are fewer new users of heroin and less injecting, while the use of cannabis and cocaine is going down in some countries. However, there are concerns over synthetic stimulants and new psychoactive substances being offered, both legally and illegally.

My Comment: The world is forced to give up smoking—to turn to drugs. This kills in an inexpensive and silent way….
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The German magazine Der Spiegel published an article on Kabbalah, based on the interview that I gave to the magazine’s correspondent.

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If we want to understand The Book of Zohar, we have to imagine the relationships between us: how the intensity of the connection increases and decreases according to our actions and efforts. The network that ties us together is described in detail in TES (Talmud Eser Sefirot): Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut or the Partzufim of Atik, and Arich Anpin which is Keter, Abba and Ima, which is Hochma and Bina and ZON, which is Zeir Anpin and Malchut.

We are connected by this network, included in it. The clearer this network becomes, the higher we rise. The less clear it becomes, the lower we descend. This is how we operate.

So, all our work is to evoke the strongest connection possible with the ten Sefirot in which we exist. Then, each one will see himself as Malchut that operates all these ten Sefirot, until they all take on their final form, the form of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

So, TES and especially The Book of Zohar were written in order to evoke us to see that we are in Malchut of the upper system from which we want to evoke the whole system.

We are part of a network, and we must spur this network. Then, each one will be impressed and feel the other and thus, also will be able to examine and understand how to operate this whole system.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/02/13,, “The Book of Zohar, Introduction”

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Every letter that is described in the article “The Letters of Rabbi Hamnuna Saba“ indicates a certain word or action. The letter Mem stands for the word “king,” so why wasn’t the world created by this letter? It’s as if there is a difference between the correcting force and the state to which it brings the object it corrects.

Mem is the correcting force, Malchut (the kingdom) of the forces, the King stands for domination, and the world cannot exist without a king, which means without a correcting force that persistently advances the desire to receive to correction, to the desired state.

On the one hand, a king is a very high illumination in which the Light of Hochma and the Light of Hassadim that come from the head of Arich Anpin connect. But on the other hand, this illumination cannot dominate the world since it fills up the created beings. The created beings need freedom! Although there is a king and there is Malchut, their domination should be accepted gladly and willingly below, so that the people will want to resemble the king by their own freewill.

A king should not be a dictator and a tyrant, but a role model and a symbol that one should reach. This king rules, but his ruling is good and it attracts the people. Thus the king of Israel differs from the king of the nations of the world. The king of Israel is not an example of domination. He rules by his Holiness, by being great and sublime, corrected and whole and not by force.

He is very powerful but it’s a totally different power, different than other kings.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 

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Baal HaSulam, “The Love of the Creator and the Love for the Created Beings”: If we can somehow reconcile the above text, here comes Hillel’s statement to the foreigner who came before him and asked to be converted, as it says in the Gemarah, “Convert me so that you will teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one leg.” He told him “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.” This is the entire Torah, and the rest means just go and study. We see that he told him that the entire Torah is the interpretation of the verse, “Love thy friend as thyself.”

We can correct all the corrupt desire to receive just by the right attitude toward the environment. I have all the necessary means that allow me to understand exactly what I am doing, to control and to adjust my attitude toward the friends, to get the right signs from them to check myself, and through them to get all the positive and negative forces that I need. In short, a person can correct all of reality by implementing the principle of “that which you hate, do not do to the other” on everything that the Creator has created. We don’t need anything but that.

Hillel’s condition is divided into two parts. One part is “negative,” which means that it requires self-discipline so as not to cause others harm or do evil to them. The other part requires the opposite: to guard the good of others. If another has a chance to attain something good and I prevent him from attaining it in some way, it means that I do unto him what I find hateful.

Thus, Hillel’s principle doesn’t only spread by actions that I initiate when I am full of love, trying to do my best to do something for the benefit of others.

The moment I begin to fulfill the condition of “that which you hate, do not do to your friend,” I immediately enter the business of the spiritual world, and it all becomes clearer to me. I begin to discover the connection between the different parts of reality, the general network, and in it, I discover the mutual relationship we study about in Talmut Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot). I learn to restrict myself and how to connect with others so that I can influence every state as much as I can.

I discover my connections with others, restrict myself in order to establish the right relationships with others, choose attributes I can use, and establish a balance of forces, thus reaching the union of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.

This is how Hillel actually demands that I do the spiritual work. It isn’t about giving charity or some gift to others, but about inner calculations regarding their true benefit.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/02/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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