People who are passionate about spiritual ascent and believe think that we live only for this, come together and assume the obligations of mutual guarantee: supporting one another and are in communication with each other.

They are incorporated in one another, work together, spur one another to appreciate the greatness of the goal, and try to connect in love and bestowal in resembling the Creator.

By working on the greatness of the goal, they feel their lowly nature and, at the same time, this doesn’t detract from it, but rather, they make an effort to annul themselves without suppressing their ego but by restricting their use of it.

Very fine work is required here: not to despise one’s lowly nature, not to kill it, because it is necessary as resistance to the upper nature, since the intensity of the soul is built in the gap, in the tension, in the delta, between them.

The spiritual world isn’t absolute in that respect. It is absolute in another respect: Everything that was created has its own meaning and a right to exist. Even things that seem most harmful to us cannot be destroyed in any way.

A great problem is created as a result: How do you work with that? On the one hand, you are ready to destroy some negative attribute so that it will not be part of this world, and on the other hand, you cannot do that since it has a right to exist.

It says in the Torah: “If someone intends to kill you, you should kill him first,” but this expression doesn’t refer to physical destruction but rather to “killing him inside you,” so that this attribute will not speak in you. It has to exist but in a dead form.

To die in our world means to disappear. But in the spiritual world it doesn’t mean to disappear but to be dead forever. The Torah instructs us that we should only annul the egoistic attributes so that they will be inactive.

This thin line dictates our whole philosophy of life. It is the difference between the wisdom of Kabbalah and all the other wisdoms.

Therefore, in many cases a Kabbalist’s behavior seems strange. I remember how I couldn’t agree with my teacher: “How can it be that I will suppress this attribute now!” And he would answer: “You mustn’t! Leave it until it withers and dies.” But this dead attribute must exist.

Question: What do we mean when we say that we must hate our ego?

Answer: To hate means to stop using the ego completely!

You cannot destroy an egoistic attribute. It appears in you and you have to decide whether you use it or not. If you don’t use it, it means that you kill it. You cannot do anything more than that. Then this attribute can reappear in you at the most unexpected moment.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/14

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