The goal of creation is to reach love, and the meaning of love is not the customary meaning of physical attraction generally not related with love but about receiving personal satisfaction.

True love is connection by which we feel the deficiencies of others and act in order to fill their desires. The deficiency grows during the ascent. It is prepared for us in advance on every level. However, in order to attain it, we must ascend from the bottom, from the shattering upward. This means that we always advance against our ego, against the shattering.

So, we must increase the desire that was prepared for us from above 620 times by our exertion, and then we will discover the connection that was between us before, 620 times more strongly.

It is like a drop of semen, a point of the desire that was adhered to the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) and now has grown 620 times more since it must exert itself each time against its shattered desire. Thus, it goes through the phases of Ibur (conception), Yenika (suckling), and Mochin (mind), until it reaches an equivalence of form with the Upper Light.

Baal HaSulam writes in Letter No. 11, “…but you should feel the love, and it is felt only in a place of deficiency. This is the meaning of, ‘He who shares the suffering of the public is rewarded with seeing the comfort of the public…’”

The preparation for adhesion to the Creator is achieved by working with the public where all the deficiency for Him is concentrated. Thus, I can establish my yearning for love. To the extent that I can develop the love of others within me, I prepare myself to the adhesion with the Creator.

“…and ‘To the extent that a person allots, he is allotted.’” Intervention from above cannot be more than intervention from below since everything is measured according to the deficiency, and the Upper Light has no measure.

“You have often heard that all the good of the awakening from below concerns only our learning how to feel the deficiency…” I cannot receive a readymade deficiency, but rather must establish it by myself, step by step, by searching, by ascents and descents, with regard to the environment. It isn’t the deficiency that matters but acquiring the art of attaining the deficiency. Thus, I learn God’s ways.

“…as it is set before us by the Creator.” We don’t establish the deficiency by ourselves, but rather discover it through our efforts.

As it is written, “A prayer makes half,” because as long as one does not feel half of the deficiency—the part that was cut off from the whole, and the part does not feel as it should—one is incapable of complete Dvekut (adhesion).

There is a deficiency, and there is a derivative of the deficiency, in other words, a deficiency that is a deficiency like a prayer before a prayer. We feel a slight deficiency of spirituality, but it isn’t real. It wears us out and causes us pain, and we don’t know what to do with it.

“It is so because this will not be considered advantageous for him, and one does not keep or sustain a needless thing.” We don’t feel any deficiency for this deficiency, and so the actual feeling of the deficiency is the reward.

“Our sages told us that there is a remedy for this feeling by the power of the prayer. When one is persistent in praying and craving to cleave unto Him perpetually, the prayer can do half, meaning that he will recognize that it is half. When the sparks multiply and become absorbed in the organs, he will certainly be rewarded with complete salvation and the part will cling to the whole forever.”
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/14

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Question: The friends in Sochi are doing great dissemination work. How can one strengthen the connection with them in heart and soul?

Answer: Be envious! Envy is a very good emotion.

Tzimtzum Bet (the Second Restriction) was created from envy: The creature was detached from the Creator to become independent. Then everything also developed with the help of envy, even Arvut (mutual guarantee) and corrections. And everything is in order to realize envy correctly. Envy is a feeling of someone outside of me.

If I differ somewhat from the other, how is that exactly? Even if it is by one gram, is this gram better or worse? Is this other greater or smaller? This means that I am always examining the difference between us in pleasure or suffering.

So envy is the main feeling.

I believe paying for  a school as in Sochi, is worth it. There is something of which to be envious. The friends are doing amazing work, meaning amazing work is being done on them from above. This doesn’t exist anywhere in the world; the beginning of the realization of the correction of the masses. This summer will go down in history.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 3

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes to his students in “Letter 48” that an arrangement has been built for them that will make it possible for them to remain in their state and not withdraw backward. What is this arrangement?

Answer: Every Kabbalist during his tenure in this world goes through a particular process of correction and organizes his students so that they will gradually be ready to hear about the wisdom of Kabbalah, and, after that, he begins to work with them gradually on the scrutiny of the wisdom itself and to guarantee them with actions that, in a direct manner, are relevant to correction.

In our group, we have passed through many states. In the beginning, we just studied, although, as was understood even then, we spoke about the connection and closeness between us. Gradually, we began to be involved more in the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah in publishing books.

Thanks to these activities, we have begun to feel the system more and understand that it is closed and connected in all its parts and we cannot do so without external dissemination.

When we began to be involved with external dissemination, we began to change ourselves. Our manner of studying and the way of acquiring material changed. As a result of this, we have reached a stage where serious changes have begun to happen in the world. In the meantime, people don’t see all the changes, but we already have re-examined the entire path through which humanity has passed until today.

This entire way was egoistic; the ego grew and pushed us forward. However, now we are beginning to understand that this entire process is destructive and leads nowhere. So, we soon will reach the conclusion that it will be necessary to change the entire structure of human society somehow, from the family and the person himself to the society, the nation, and the entire world. Everything is in a serious crisis and demands change.

Crisis means both the destruction of the old world and the birth of the new. Accordingly, we are beginning to work differently among us and with the entire world. We are studying other chapters from the sources and going into them deeper.

The work is being made more practical, in other words, is directed toward realization: connection, love of friends, awakening their hearts, and adhesion as one person with one heart.

This is our main goal: above our ego, above Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred [Sina]), to agree to be as one person with one heart, and always in response to this agreement, this aspiration, to receive the Light that Reforms which is called Torah.

In this way, we constantly advance and change, and most importantly, our present changes depend upon the entire world, and vice versa. Through the changes in us, we influence the entire world. Soon, we will begin to feel this whole system, how the entire, integral world advances, turns, and changes its form according to the decisions that we make here and that we realize among us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah first began to be revealed from its complete concealment and gradually unfolded in a theoretical manner. And then it was completely stripped of its mystical clothing. As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”: However, when I begin to speak to anyone about this study, his first question is, “Why should I know how many angels are in the sky and what their names are? Can I not keep the whole Torah in all its details and intricacies without this knowledge?”

We already have been actively realizing this method. Our goal is to build a platform for the general correction of the entire world for those who step forward as leaders of this collective movement and for all the people who will go after us, in order to spare them from the blows.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Every person on the spiritual path must fulfill a correction regarded as “Brit Mila” (circumcision). It is called “Brit” (union) because it establishes connection between spiritual structures (Partzufim). The upper Partzuf can pass to the lower one only what it has from Sefira Keter down to Sefira Yesod, but not further below.

Below are desires that cannot be corrected. Therefore, they need to be severed (cut off) and the remaining desires used to bestow. Every person must analyze his every action and cut off the “Orla” (foreskin), the desires that are currently not suitable for spiritual advancement.

This correction takes place in Sefira Yesod. But Malchut cannot be used because the Upper Light cannot get through to and correct it.

So I sever Malchut and perform other corrections thanks to which I can be certain that I am using the remaining desires correctly.

Question: If this correction is mandatory for spiritual advancement, does it mean that a woman who is progressing spiritually has to perform Brit Mila on herself?

Answer: Correction is performed specifically by the female attribute in a person, as the Torah states, Abraham was circumcised by his wife Sarah, and Moses by his wife Zipporah.

It comes from the very will to receive: by examining itself, the will to receive turns to the will to bestow, is included in it, and in this way performs circumcision.

In this sense, there is no difference between a woman or a man studying Kabbalah; any desire is subject to circumcision.

Of course, women have the same desires as a man’s, desires that cannot be used; and she must perform the same corrections, in the same manner, in the same order as a man does. Therefore, she also performs the correction of Brit Mila, since her soul consists of the same 10 Sefirot.
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From KabTV’s Parashat 10/15/10

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Question: At what stage of the work does a person attain freedom of will?

Answer: Only after he has acquired a soul, after spiritual revelation.

A spiritual Partzuf is divided into two halves: the upper half-Keter, Hochma, Bina, Chesed, Gevurah, and the upper part of Tifferet; and the lower half, the lower part of Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut; and between them, the third part of Tifferet.

The upper part is comprised of desires to bestow, and the lower part is made of desires to receive. What is the middle then, the third part of Tifferet? It is not related to reception or bestowal, and here is where the freedom to choose what will you do with it is.

But you, like Buridan’s donkey, can’t pick either direction, are torn apart, unable to make a choice, until we discover that herein lies an opportunity to unify these two halves: the upper and lower halves to work together in the third, middle line!

I unify these two forces, the force of bestowal and the force of reception, and they start governing me together. This is called “receiving in order to bestow,” when the two forces work in harmony with each other.

This is the essence of Kabbalah, and for this reason it is called “Kabbalah” (reception); after all, it teaches how to receive these two forces, bestowal and reception, in such a way that they complement each other. And thereby you build your independence, true freedom.

You are independent of the Creator and simultaneously like Him! You learn from His example while remaining totally independent. You don’t have any other model to follow because receiving these two forces is mandatory. But how to accept them and be like them, in that, you are totally free.

Here, in middle between these two forces, in the middle third of Tifferet, lies our soul that we are constructing ourselves. The freedom of choice begins with the revelation of the Creator. It is written: “The dead are free,” which means that when egoistic desire dies, the two forces, reception and bestowal, stand facing each other, and you are between them, and then you are free. After all, you can work with both these forces equally.

Even though it seems to you that you are standing between them not knowing where to move since on one side you have the desire to receive and on the other the desire to bestow, but when one destroys the other, only in this condition, are you in a neutral state and may act freely.

As for now, we are all under the authority of the only desire to receive, and we have no desire to bestow. Therefore, until we have acquired the will to bestow, we are as beasts controlled by nature; but once we have obtained it, we become free and solely in the desire to become similar to the Creator and construct a human (Adam), which means “similar” to Him.
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From a lesson, 10/8/10, BaalHaSulam, “The Freedom”

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Preparation for the Lesson

Workshop

Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

Lesson on the Topic: “Unity of the People”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot“, Item 119: This is also why the great privilege, when one is awarded sentencing himself to a scale of merit, is still not enough for one to attain whole love, meaning the fourth discernment. This is so because now he does not attain His merit as being good who does good to the good and to the bad, but only His Providence over him.

Yet, he still does not know of His Providence in this sublime and wonderful manner with the rest of the people in the world. Thus, we learned above that as long as one does not know the dealings of the loved one with others, until none of them is missing, the love is still not eternal. Hence, one must also sentence the entire world to a scale of merit, and only then does the eternal love appear to him.

On the way to complete adhesion and attaining the goal of creation, we attain all our deficiencies and all of the Creator’s actions on us during the whole process we have been through when the upper Providence was concealed. Then a person sees how in all the stages, in everything he has been through, the Creator was good and benevolent to him in absolute love.

As a result, a person feels that he loves the Creator back. But this isn’t enough, since he also has to work on the future, so that he will keep the same attitude. This means that he has to develop vessels inside himself that are called faith and confidence, so that in every stage in the future he will not lose faith in the Creator’s love for him.

Even this is not enough in order to determine that the Creator is good and benevolent, since it is all true only with regard to a person himself, and now he has to determine the same thing in regard to everyone else.

This means that at the end of correction, he attains everyone’s end of correction, and from this point he sees the whole human history and the entire path all the souls have gone through in the process of their correction.

These separate souls discover the connections between them above the sea of hatred in which they are immersed that separates them and keeps them apart. Through these connections of love, they feel how the sea of the ego separates them, and thus discover that the Creator constantly takes care of them in the best possible way, and that all the sufferings, the blows, and the problems that they have been through during all of human history and the ascent of the souls through all the worlds until the world of Ein Sof (infinity) were all out of the Creator’s great love.

When a person ascends the spiritual ladder, he becomes detached from his ego as he ascends, and then he sees that it was only in the ego that he felt the afflictions. If it weren’t for the ego and the desire to receive for himself at the expense of others, he would always feel only the love and great care of the Creator for him.

This means that he sees and understands that all the negative feelings don’t come from the Creator, but rather stem from his connection to his egoistic desires. Thus he determines that he is in contact, in a covenant with the good and the benevolent, and that this connection, this covenant, is full of love.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How is the soul connected with the body?

Answer: Only the soul exists; whereas, our body and all the other physical bodies around us are imaginary existence, given to create the start of an altruistic connection between us, so that we will not create an egoistic connection between us but an altruistic connection, and to the degree that it is created, our body (and all of physicality as a whole) will take up less and less space in our consciousness, until it absolutely disappears from our feeling.
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Question: Is it possible to move backward in time?

Answer: Yes, it is possible. If I manage my states, then what I feel in the desire to receive, which is part of me now, is my present.

I can go down and divide my desire again into parts, and this will be my past. And I could make some kind of calculation about the future, where I have not connected with others in the meantime. That future connection is my future.

Question: But why would I suddenly want to go back?

Answer: Maybe I will want to be clothed in a smaller desire so as to connect with new people on their level. But basically, I only want to go forward, to the future, to greater and greater connection with all the desires that exist in humanity to merge them into one desire.

And then I will receive a complete fulfillment that is beyond time. There is no time there anymore, no space; everything is found in one desire. After all, in all of reality there is nothing besides the substance, which is the desire to receive.

Question: What is this feeling?

Answer: This is a very pleasant feeling, it is impossible to say more! But it is necessary to learn the method: to learn to immerse into it to raise myself to a good life with its help, which is found beyond time.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/17/14

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