The most important book we have for studying creation is Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot). This book is written in a very special way. It has 16 parts, and the first part explains the world of Infinity (circle), where the circle is created by the influence of the Light.
The Light that created the desire fills it and determines everything in it. Therefore, the desire resembles the Light in its form and is under its total control. This state is called the “world of Infinity.” Part two tells us about circles and lines. A circle is created by the desire, which is converted into the line. This line, like a “pipe” that conducts Light, becomes like Him, and fills the circles. This action is performed from the lower towards the upper, which means from the created being who wants to resemble the Creator.
Generally speaking all of creation is created from above by the Creator. The egoistic created being fills the world of Infinity through pipes or through lines. This is how it is built.
Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot (Volume 1, Chapter 1, Part 5): The reason was that since Light of Infinity was completely even, it had to restrict itself evenly on all sides, and not restrict itself on one side more than on the others.
It is known in the wisdom of geometry that there is none so even an image as the image of the circle (200). However, this is not the case with the Meruba (300), with the bulging perpendicular angle, the Meshulash (triangle) (400), and all the other images. For that reason the Tzimtzum had to have the form of a circle.
We feel every revelation of the Light that comes from above, which means that the Creator influences us since He created everything. Every revelation of this force affects us in the form of a circle. In other words, this affect is totally equal on everyone. We have to understand that everything comes from Above in the form of one Light that affects us in a unique manner. There is no preference of certain desires over others in the influence from above.
There is a desire on the level of the still, vegetative, and animate nature. There are also many different people, groups, and different types and kinds. It makes no difference how they divide among themselves or which ones are unique, the Creator treats everyone equally. The Upper Light fills everything.
It never changes with regard to anyone in any way. Everything stems from the upper direct Light that fills everything. This is what is said in Talmud Eser Sefirot.
Everything that happens to us already depends on the response, on the development that awakens in the desire. The desires change according to their attributes, according to their intensity and their make-up. The desires are different and they integrate with each other. There are many desires, attributes, qualities, etc. in each of us, and although the Direct Light affects them all equally, each of us responds differently.
Interestingly, to the extent that a person can receive the Light, he can also respond to it. For example, if someone is smarter than others, his work is also greater since he is cleverer and he understands better and therefore also has to invest his efforts relatively. If someone is stronger than others, he should also do more than someone else who is weaker, since the power was given to him on purpose. But there is no difference in the way the Light regards each of us in its specific, private, and subjective manner.
Everything is calculated in a very simple manner; each of us has spiritual genes, Reshimot (reminiscences), which determine the effect the Light has on us and reveal to us the existence of the still, the vegetative, and the animate nature and human beings. The Creator affects each of us equally, and if a person feels unhappy or overwhelmed, or if he is under a positive or negative influence of fate of the Creator, of life, or of something else, he simply needs to search within himself a little. Then he will realize that he isn’t any different from anyone else in the attributes that he has. The Creator treats everyone equally and there is no injustice in His attitude. Besides, His attitude is absolute goodness, as it is said, He is “the good and that does good.” But where do we see that? It depends on how we fulfill our attribute under the influence of the “good and that does good.”
The problem is that we don’t want to learn, to make an effort, and to grow according to His influence. Increasingly greater negative attributes are accumulated in us from one generation to the next. Eventually we witness very unfortunate outcomes. Although the infinite Upper Light illuminates unto everyone equally, filling everything, we drown in it, and feel so uncomfortable and unpleasant because we find ourselves in attributes that are totally different from the attributes of the Light. The more positively it influences us, the more and more negative are the feelings that awaken in us because we feel increasingly more opposite to it.
There is the system of correction that is meant to correct this state and to teach the created beings to resemble the Creator, to raise them to the level on which they will know and attain Him, connect and reach adhesion with Him. It was given to us as the method of correction, in the form of the wisdom of Kabbalah, as exercises, workshops, and other models called integral education or the wisdom of connection.
What does this method lead to?
We perceive the world through our senses and if we begin to perform certain exercises together similarly to the actions of the Light, the circle, then even on our lowest level, if we simply and mechanically want to resemble the Light, it is enough in order to get close to it, without understanding and without wanting anything. It is because now we are not just opposite from its attributes, but we also try to resemble it somehow. If we attain equivalence of form with the Light, it affects us internally. This equivalence of form is called line (Kav).
Talmud Eser Sefirot, Chapter 1, Item 1: These lines are like a thin “pipe” through which pass water and applies Light to the higher worlds.
Every connection we reach with the Creator goes through this so-called pipe (tsinor), through the line. We try to resemble the Light, although we are totally opposite from it. If we try to turn ourselves into a circle that is similar to the perfect circle of the Light of Infinity, it is as if we connect our two circles in the pipe. In reality there are no pipes and circles in this world and it is all about the level of connection between us, about the compatibility between us, and the Upper Light. Thus, it should be clear to a person that if he tries to do it by himself, he will simply not succeed in anything. It is because he doesn’t form a circle with anyone and it is therefore impossible. There has to be at least two people.
In addition, we know that the Upper Light builds itself in relation to the desire that it has created through the ten worlds, which means through gradual changes. It builds the desire under the influence of ten levels, and so if we want to resemble the Upper Light, it should be among at least ten people. This is because in our world a man symbolizes the attribute of bestowal, and the woman symbolizes the attribute of receiving, so the smallest circle (Minyan) is ten men who connect. A physical circle is our physical gathering when we get together in a circle trying to fulfill this corporeal form by the relations between us. This means that we annul ourselves with regard to the others and connect, incorporate into one another, and each one receives the deficiencies of the others as if they were his own.
Then we connect into a chain that obliges each of its parts to be incorporated in all the other parts, and to be committed to them and to depend on all the other parts.
Baal HaSulam says in Part 2 of Talmud Eser Sefirot that Malchut of the upper becomes Keter of the lower. Therefore Malchut connects every upper with its lower, which means that there is an equivalence of form between them: Malchut of the upper connects with Keter of the lower, and thus a connection between the ten Sefirot of the upper is established with the ten Sefirot of the lower; a connection between all the levels from the world of Infinity until the world of Assiya where our world is as at the lowest level of the world of Assiya.
Thus, ten Sefirot are connected and then another and another according to the Kav. There are a total of 125 such levels and each one is made of ten Sefirot. Together they are call Kav (line) and this is the only way that the connection between the vessels and the Light of Infinity is established.
Only the Light of Infinity operates in all of reality. This is the only place all our desires ascend to and it is only from there that all the actions that we spur by our deficiencies descend unto us.
The connection between all the circles (Igulim) with each other goes through the line. Only through it is it possible to operate the system of the upper worlds so that it should influence us. It is only through the line that we can influence our reality, which we don’t feel or see now. At the moment we feel only the matter that is on a level that is lower than ours: the animate, vegetative, and still nature, and we don’t feel anything other than that. We don’t understand ourselves; we don’t feel our spiritual essence, and we don’t perceive what is beyond that at all. If we want to feel that, we have to take into account that the only connection between the circles is through the line.
Therefore, our mutual incorporation during the workshops should be so that I absolutely feel the other. I swallow him with everything he has got. It makes no difference what attributes, feelings, actions, or intentions he has or whether they are positive or negative. I am totally incorporated in him and he is incorporated in me.
When this incorporation takes place, each of us already annuls his ego by that. We already ascend and restrict ourselves according to the first restriction. That’s it. Now someone else is working in my place and I work in the place of someone else and have exited myself at least for a few moments, and have already performed a spiritual action. What is more, there is also mutual incorporation here.
Why should we understand all that? In order to begin to change and to feel what we are doing so that we will be able to examine ourselves and develop correctly. After all, every action that we make in the spiritual world, even the slightest action, leads to a response. We have to understand this connection and to activate it.
Baal HaSulam says all of creation in all its manifestations is entirely defined in advance according to the same goal: to develop out of this total creation the human race, which will be raised in their properties until you can feel the Creator as well as experience of others.
Therefore, we have to focus ourselves on working with others as if we focus ourselves on the Creator exactly the same way. Why? Because as long as our inner attributes are not focused on the attributes of the Creator, we will not begin to feel Him. So how can we focus on Him? Where is the tuning fork or other parameters of distance, power, weight, etc., which we can use in our world as the standard for that? With regard to what can I focus myself in order to get close to something?
I don’t see the Creator. I cannot measure whether I get closer or further away from Him in my particular attributes. What is more, my egoistic attributes lead me in different directions. If they take me backward, I could know that I have to constantly resist them and then I would know whether I was advancing or not, but I am constantly thrown from side to side not knowing how I should act. This means that in addition to my lack of desire to advance against my nature, I also don’t know how to do so. Therefore, I am given the right conditions: to focus on my friend and thus focus myself on the Creator. It is through the friend, as it says ” from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.”
Baal HaSulam says in his article “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence“: that all orders of creation in all its manifestations are entirely determined in advance according to the same goal. These are all the rungs of the ladder by which the human race develops and climbs up to the purpose of creation. These two realities are explained in their every detail in the wisdom of Kabbalah.”
We must understand that. To the extent that we can feel the others and not ourselves, which means other people, despite our egoistic desires, we will be able to feel the Creator. Others refer to those who are closer to us as “The Middle,” since we feel them and cannot lie to ourselves with regard to them. I can say that I love the Creator, that I want Him, but these are just words. However, with regard to others, I cannot say that because I feel no attraction to them and have no illusions. In that case I realize that I only worry about myself.
It is exactly at this point, in the initial phase, that our method called integral education or the wisdom of connection appears. We sit in a circle and by personal example gradually focus ourselves on being incorporated and on mutually getting closer by different exercises games and other means. We draw the Upper Light unto us to the extent that we connect in the circle and focus ourselves on the line, and the Upper Light influences us.
Interestingly this is an accumulative process. No matter what we do, it means that we already do something. One more little effort and another, and thus time and time again, nothing is lost. Everything that we do in our world, in our ego, is swallowed and disappears. But everything we do above our ego enters the line, which we focus on the Upper Light, and these lines remain.
Each time I am incorporated in the circle, in the workshop, I turn myself from a big round egoist, from an egoistic chunk, into a certain line and connect to the Light. Another small line, another small pipe, and then another and another… thus I turn myself into many such lines, and gradually as these lines accumulate the feeling of the force that operates in me, the force of the Creator is created in me. This is a gradual process. It invokes the influence of the Light through the pipes unto my egoistic chunk, and then it begins to perceive some of the different changes that come from the Light. Accordingly different feelings and realizations are created in me. I exit myself and begin to influence and to participate with others in a more focused manner. Thus, a person gradually changes.
Therefore, we need exercises just like in any other field: in studies, in sports, etc. We need a lot of exercises. It is like a musician who practices from morning till night playing the different musical scales. It is the same thing here; there is nothing we can do about it and it is preferable to do it 24 hours a day. Diligent musicians practice all the time. A circus artist is busy practicing all day and an acrobat does nothing but work on improving his performance.
It is the same with us! This is how we should tune ourselves. It isn’t an instinct but the influence of the Light. We have to get used to the fact that we cooperate this way all the time, even if we are in a circle. There is no other way of reaching “from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator, which means to establish inside us the attributes of the upper world. We have to make a real effort and pay close attention so that we will not end our life like other people. All our work is to reach the feeling of the Creator through the feeling of others.
Rabash says in Letter 42: And we should understand how can they be as “one man in one heart,” since we all know what the sages said, “just as their faces are different from one another, so are their opinions different from one another,” so how can they be as “one man in one heart” if they are different in their attributes, desires, and intention to begin with? And Rabash answers: If we speak about the fact that each one worries about his own needs, it is impossible to be as one man since they are different from each other. But if they all annulled themselves and each one cared only about the benefit of the Creator, so that there are no private opinions any more, and all the idiosyncrasies are annulled, and they all enter a single domination. Thus we connect on an upper level.
This means that our only goal is to ascend above our bodies and to connect by different exercises. Everyone has one spiritual body, one soul. Baal HaSulam says that only one soul was created, which means Malchut of Infinity, one desire. We are incorporated in it and ascend above our separate egoistic bodies, and while feeling ourselves, our bodies and the states of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, we feel our world. It is because according to our egoistic concepts, this is what is perceived by our uncorrected desire, and therefore, this is how we feel our reality.
However, when we begin to correct ourselves, we begin to feel what is beyond the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature and begin to feel the connections between them. Later, when we ascend above these connections, we already begin to feel our world. Then the separation that we felt disappears and so do the connections and everything merges into one drop, into one whole body.
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From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day One” 7/11/14, Lesson 1
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In spiritual work we proceed in the right line, which is towards bestowal, approach, and unification. And everything against this that is awakened in us is what we need to correct. Only this! All the rest is done intentionally and isn’t subject to any correction. We get all kinds of disturbances so that we will choose what we need more clearly. This is so that we will begin to choose from the general providence, which isn’t subject to any correction or individual, personal attainment of the Creator. This is specifically where following our efforts, we are shown how much we are not ready to do this.
