Baal HaSulam, Shamati 68: Man’s connection to the Sefirot: A person cannot correct his thoughts. But he can correct the heart so it will be aimed directly at the Creator—then all his thoughts will be only about how to give pleasure to the Creator.

Rabash: Those who study #Torah not only in order to know the laws of how to carry out commandments, but to correct the heart—they are called wise of heart. If they study Torah with this intention, they are called wise of heart since they need the Torah to correct the heart.

R. Avraam Ibn Ezra: “Know that all the commandments, although most of them are carried out by actions or words, they are all intended for correcting the heart, since the Creator demands all hearts… . And know that the #Torah has been given only to those who have a heart.”

It is written that a person was created by #Torah. Hence a person in our world is not called a person in Torah, but belongs to the animate degree, since he is governed instinctively by his #egoism like all animals. A person, Adam, is likeness to the Creator created out of egoism by efforts and the upper light.

Not wishing to see the Creator’s governance as good because he will cease to believe, since faith is against reason, and he wishes to be in faith, which is above reason—one asks to be given such a force of faith as if with his reason he sees the Creator’s good governance so there won’t be any difference between reason and faith.

One should seek to accept the Creator’s authority in a state that contradicts the good Creator, with no support—then one is most certainly going by faith above reason! Have faith that this is exactly why the Creator has given him this low state. And don’t ask to feel greatness, but accept the authority unconditionally.

Time after time, a person raises broken qualities to correction, eliciting a new light of correction each time. Although he starts anew with a black point every time, he must rejoice at the new corrections. The embryo of the soul develops from such targeted corrections.

It is possible to lower yourself precisely when you aspire to be proud, to understand and see, yet you lower yourself and are ready to proceed with eyes closed, in connection and bestowal. You thus acquire new qualities since the upper one raises your request, gives forces, and then you ascend on your own.

Baal HaSulam: Just as the Creator doesn’t think of Himself—whether He exists or governs, so one who wishes to become similar to Him shouldn’t think about it. Hence one should aim all of his actions at adhesion with the Creator, which means doing everything for the benefit of the neighbor. Only then will one attain equivalence of form with the Creator.

Accepting the Creator’s authority in the lowest state, going above reason and sensations, not taking them into account—is called being between heaven and earth, with no support, going above reason.
Knowing that one has received this low state in order to place oneself under the Creator’s authority (burden) in complete humility.

The Creator pampers a person with a good childhood, accustoming him to sufficiency and knowledge. Thus, one understands that the Creator loves him. However, if he wants to understand the meaning of the Creator’s actions, he annuls himself and the Creator brings him closer. But if life gets worse, he blames the Creator and becomes distant, proud.
From Twitter, 6/6/19

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How can a person decide to annul himself? From despair. Some kind of trouble comes, stress, an unsolvable problem when you do not know what to do. The Creator blocks exits for me from all sides, there is nowhere to escape, and life is worse than death. And then I see that the only way out is to annul myself in the face of this situation, to quench my desire to somehow resolve it, and do something. Let the Creator, who arranges all this, resolve everything by Himself. I just need to annul myself.

In such states, I learn how to annul myself. It is as if the whole world is collapsing on me, and there is no way to get out of this state or to somehow hide. Then the Creator sends me the thought: “I did everything to help you. Stop controlling reality! Your job is to annul yourself before the reality created by Me.” So, a person starts learning how to restrict himself.

These actions are still egoistic. I cannot help but think about myself, but I leave these thoughts because this is my only salvation. Meanwhile, it is only an escape from the blows, but this is how I learn how to get out of myself. The Creator has to teach me the way out through my helplessness. Then I understand that this is really the correct approach.

I decide that I do not control the world, but everything is arranged by the Creator, who is waiting for me to admit that He is the reason for everything because there is none else beside Him, who is good and does good. Therefore, all is for the better—not for my corporeal benefit, but for my spiritual advancement. Now, I want to thank the Creator for the grave condition that helped me, like labor in childbirth. Otherwise, we will be unable to exit our egoism.

As an alternative, we should start working in a group, imagining various difficult conditions in it that the desire to enjoy shows us when we want to achieve the desire for bestowal. In this way, we ourselves will awaken the dawn.¹
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/19, “The Absolute Zero”
1 Minute 32:20

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The entrance to spirituality takes place through the annulment of the desire to enjoy, of an evil principle. But the desire itself cannot be cancelled. One only cancels the egoistic use of the desire with the intention for one’s own sake. To do this, one has to hold onto a small spiritual spark placed in a person in order to build oneself on its basis and transfer it to the first spiritual step across the barrier (Machsom), a tiny hole.

There is a parable about a king who wished to move his treasury to another place, and to do this, he gave a coin to every subject so that they would carry it and not yield to the temptation to steal. In the same way a person transfers himself, his great desire to enjoy, in portions. First of all, he transfers the spark, declares his affiliation and loyalty to the king, and merges with Him at one point.

We can already feel this point because we drew the reforming light, organized tens, and we understand what it means to annul yourself in the group, the friends, and accordingly, to the Creator. If we transfer our point from one world to the next in order to be loyal to the king at least at one point, then we can gradually transfer our other desires through the same narrow pipeline along the same path. This is how we will clean these desires from their selfish intent and add to them the intention to bestow.

And this is how we move from world to world: from a level below the border of the spiritual world (Lo Lishma), to a step higher than the Machsom, to Lishma.¹

In every situation, in every place, I have to try to see that I prefer myself to everything outside of me. The Creator and the Shechina are outside of me, and therefore, I have to prefer the external to myself. The external is my group, the closest circle of people I work with, or a wider circle—the world Kabbalistic group or even the whole of humanity and the whole of reality. The size of the circle depends on my attitude, but the main thing is to replace your “I” with what is outside of you.

The ten becomes more important to me than myself. I suddenly feel that I separate from my “I” as if it does not exist, and I live inside my friends. This means that I enter as a fetus into the upper one.²

The border to the spiritual world, the Machsom, is the point of me merging with the ten. Willingness to attach to the friends and shift the importance from yourself to them, dissolving into them and losing your “I” means crossing the Machsom. Separation from one’s “I” and inclusion in the ten is a passage to the Machsom. Then I begin to feel what the property of bestowal is, and within this relationship I feel the higher spiritual world. This is already a very serious understanding that to enter spirituality one does not need to “break through the Machsom,” but to break oneself.³

One could ask, how is my health associated with the group? But I can appeal to the Creator only through my connection with the group because I appeal to the property of bestowal that I reveal between us and ask for additional bestowal. After all, all the problems, including health, are a consequence of a lack of bestowal, of light. Therefore, first of all, I have to go to the place where I can realize my request.

A disease is a kind of a defect in our connection. It is possible to correct the defect only by correcting our connection. The more I strengthen the relationship with my friends, the more I pray and ask for it, the more I sanctify this place and the disease goes away.

The Creator’s worker does not accept disease with humility, but perceives it as a sign of the need for correction. What is the Creator sending the disease for? In order for me to reach a special connection with the group and fix this problem.

I only cancel my egoism because the Creator shows me a flawed place in it, and it is time to correct it. A disease is a sign indicating a flaw. Therefore, I try to join the group more and ask the reforming light to give me more strength to communicate with my friends, and I heal this way.

Any illness or loss of health and money is corrected only within the group. There is nothing else to correct except for the group, the common soul of Adam HaRishon because everything emanates from it. Until the very end of correction, we eliminate the disconnection between the friends in the ten. There is no other place to work; we reveal the damage and correct it.⁴
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/19, Annulment As A Condition for the First Spiritual Degree (Preparation for the Convention in North America Convention 2019)
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 1:05:20
3 Minute 1:08:25
4 Minute1:23:30

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New Life 1105 – Life On The Net, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

In the ideal network, everyone is included and our good relationships create a ball of love, but the human ego opposes this. The gap between our natural connection and the egoistic attitude determines our fate. Spiritual growth occurs when we correct our attitude through a device called the soul and impact the network in a positive way. The peak of development is to seize the entire net, reaching the level of God.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1105 – Life On The Net, Part 1,” 4/4/19

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “The Absolute Zero”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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One must lay low and wait for the state of “dust” to pass, lowering his head, like Rabbi Akiva on a plank during a storm in the sea. Waiting it out means making efforts while observing one’s framework, overcoming the body—this is called raising the Shechina from the dust.
Precisely by that, one pleases the Creator, since he works without taste or meaning—and therefore he is happy!

A commandment is an effort to go by faith above reason, in bestowal to the Creator, although one doesn’t want this and doesn’t feel anything, accepting it “as an ox to the burden and as a donkey to the load,” rejoicing because he thereby bestows to the Creator, and taking pride in it—therein lies the Commandment and the “Joy of the Commandment.”

The will to receive can be overcome only by going against the desire, as if one doesn’t see anything, with eyes closed, as if not needing anything, doing everything only for the Creator’s sake, despite the resistance, that is, by complete self-annulment. And constantly ask the Creator for help in this war.

The most important thing is prayer for the force to go above reason, in joy, to merit asking for this, although one’s desires refuse to be in bestowal. One nevertheless asks to feel the Creator’s greatness so he will be able to work above reason in joy, with importance, as if he is in reason.

Advancement lies in descending lower and lower into egoism, the world, and respectively, rising higher and higher into the spiritual world: from -1 to +1, from -2 to +2. As written, “One who is higher than another, his egoism is greater.” The “other” is my previous state, since ascent is the ascent of broken desires.

Ascending Mount Sinai means rising above the universal egoism, overcoming resistance to unite in the ten. This is possible only to the extent of the Creator’s greatness, as Moses asked, “Show me Your greatness.” The desire remains empty and faith above reason is filled. The reward is the Creator’s fulfillment.

Every day we face Mount Sinai, a new ego of each person from the ten. To rise above it toward unity is becoming more difficult each time, despite our experience. Our task is to reveal the Upper world in this lifetime. We grow in unity and, respectively, in egoism. But we build the connection above it.

Spiritual growth begins with a person splitting himself in two parts:
the earthly, egoistic one, reception, reason – Daat, and
the upper, altruistic one, bestowal, faith – Emuna
And he sees no discrepancy between them since he perceives these two worlds in different qualities, desires, intentions.

The goal of life, of creation, is attained in adhesion with the Creator.
It’s attained by equivalence of form, “bestowal and love,”
Between people—and then between them and the Creator.
Between people it is attained by the light of Torah by efforts to connect in the ten in mutual guarantee (Arvut).
To this degree the Creator is revealed.

Our master, Egoism, “twists us this way and that”—and we unconsciously carry out all its orders. It lives inside us, forcing us to constantly worry about everything besides the goal of creation. While we carry out its orders, we burn our lives, not attaining anything. But there is someone deliberately diverting us from the goal….

By uniting more and more, it’s as if we “climb Mount Sinai,”overcome Sinah – hatred, the ego. Ascending means connecting more and more above the disturbances that the Creator places in our way to help us unite more and create a desire—vessel, soul, for the whole light.

The system of the world is realized, moving toward the goal, without our participation (Beito). We can become included in it and, to the extent of our correspondence to it, study and influence (receive and bestow) according to its laws. That is how we can accelerate the development of reality (Ahishena), adding the positive forces of Torah.

The Torah is a system in which we exist, the program and scheme of all reality, its engine. By attaining the Torah, the laws of bestowal and love, restoring the connections of broken desires between us, we attain the Creator’s plan and Himself, as written, “Know the Creator and serve Him.”

Since the main law of the Torah, “love your neighbor as yourself,” is realized in the group (a ten, Minyan) that aspires toward complete unity, “as one heart,” mutual bestowal – love, revealing the quality of the Creator in equivalence; hence, every person can check whether he is engaged in Torah.

“Mount Sinai” (the ego—hatred between us) can be overcome only by Kabbalah—the method of reciprocally growing closer in work above egoism. Ascent means coming closer above the growing egoism. The degrees of ascent above egoism are the degrees of revealing the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love.

Realization of Torah, of “love the neighbor,” can be achieved only in a group that aspires together to change repulsion to attraction, and in its center to attain complete unity, in the quality of bestowal and connection, common to all, in which the Creator will be revealed from love for the friends.

Mechanical actions do not change a person’s nature from egoistic to love for others—the aim of the Torah. The main law of the Torah is “Love your neighbor.” Only by uniting in the group and thus evoking the Torah’s light do we change our nature to bestowal. The new desire is called a Soul—a part of the Creator, the quality of love.

What happens to our body after death?—The same as with every living organism.
Where is a person’s soul?—It’s a part of the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love. One must create it within with the help of the upper light by working on one’s egoism.
It is written: attain your world while living in this world.
From Twitter, 6/5/19

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Shavuot: Brightening Israel and the Jewish People”

“Israel is all messed up with their election… They ought to get their act together,” said President Trump in relation to the political uncertainty in this country going to the polls for a second time this year. He is right, but it’s just a symptom of the wider problem of the deeply fragmented Israeli society that lacks a common vision about its future, a state of division also existent within American Jewry, as well as between Israel and the Diaspora. The timing of Shavuot and all it represents could not be more relevant. The holiday symbolizes the reception of the guidebook for the spiritual correction of our people, the receiving of the Torah, or in other words, the way out of the mess.

What was actually given to us at Mount Sinai? The Torah is not a chronicle about past events. On the contrary, it describes the seminal moment when our future becomes decided, when a clear answer becomes required from all of us: Are we ready to accept mutual guarantee (Arvut) as the law of life? Exactly this is the Torah—instruction on how to correct our shattered relations and instead become guarantors for each other by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

This is precisely the goal for which the Torah was given to us. However, we must constantly renew our state of worthiness for reception of the Torah by scaling the “mountain of hatred” (Sinah), the roar of the storm raging inside us. To do this, we must unite, connect with each other, become “as one man with one heart” and stand at the foot of the mountain. In other words, we must fully comprehend that we are given very important and strict conditions under which we must work with all diligence and ever-increasing unity.

Shavuot, like all Jewish holidays, carries a call to action. The holiday is bright. It’s full of whiteness and light, but the call to action is quite complicated to carry out. We bump into each other; people are strangled by indifference, burned with anger toward those with different opinions than their own. We are in a desert of barren and soulless relationships. If we would suddenly recognize how egoism tears us to pieces, if we would try to connect into one integral body and face our seemingly insurmountable internal split, we would then clearly realize how desperately we need help.

This state of clarity we presently face is a unique opportunity for unity. Only by increasing our connection will we be able to climb the mountain ever higher, rising above our separation. To rise means to continually increase our connection above all problems, difficulties and disturbances that we encounter in order to help us overcome more and more and to create a vessel in which the light of the Torah will gradually be revealed.

In this moment of recognition coinciding with the Shavuot holiday, we have the opportunity to receive help and instruction, a unifying force that can increase our social health and let us live happily. This is the current moment of evolutionary development we find ourselves in: either we will grow up proactively and start using the Torah according to its purpose, for the sake of unity above all disagreements, or the hard knocks of life will force us to grow up.

The Torah, indeed, is the most powerful tool that we have yet to learn how to use. A person cannot use this tool alone. The problem, however, is that we still cannot work together to put it to use. The Torah will provide us with security and prosperity and will give peace to the world, but first we must get used to the fact that it works between us and not on the individual. Egoism, after all, is revealed in relation to other people.

Therefore, the Torah is meant to connect the person with the environment at any time and level of human development. It reveals to us the force of goodness and love that ties us together. We begin to sense how we must balance our egoism, the evil inclination, wherever it is revealed with the force of goodness, and we can then hold two forces like reins by which we can advance directly to unity and love, letting us lay a solid and bright foundation of our future.

For more about Shavuot >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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Question: What does it mean to know the essence of things through letters?

Answer: First, it is necessary to understand each letter, what elements it consists of.
Without going deeply into the details, each letter is a certain combination of the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim, receiving and giving, their variation and mutual alignment between each other.

In other words, how much can I give in order to receive something? Or vice versa, how can I receive and what should I give for it? These are different things, although they seem the same. It depends on what is ahead.

Secondly, letters cannot arbitrarily follow one after the other. There are letters that cannot stand together, they must have a certain sequence.

Letters represent light. According to the structure of the spiritual system, there are five Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, and Malchut. Until the middle of Bina, there are no letters, only abstract light.

Starting from the middle of Bina and on, the upper light enters the Kelim (vessels), desires. Therefore, there are nine letters in the lower part of Bina, nine in ZA, and four in Malchut, twenty-two letters in total.

They cannot be more or less because that is the number of Sefirot from Bina to Malchut, i.e., each Sephira corresponds to a certain letter. Moreover, at different levels Sefirot can be denoted by different letters. There are also five additional letters (Manzepach), which are placed at the end of words to complete the entire development from top to bottom.

According to Gematria (the numerical value of the letters), the first nine letters from Aleph to Tet are single unites, from Yod to Tzadik tens, and the last four letters Kuf, Reish, Shin, and Tav represent hundreds.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/6/19

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