The Book of Zohar speaks exclusively about the connection among all elements of the general system. After descending, Malchut of the world of Infinity that includes the entire world of Infinity with its four stages of the distribution of the direct Light is given to us so that we do our work in the upper system, in the realms where a genuine creation (the soul) dwells.

The soul is shattered and it has to re-emerge with its broken parts. For that, it has to ascend through the worlds, and after it unifies with the worlds, the soul and the worlds return to HaVaYaH, to the four stages of direct Light.

The Book of Zohar, as well as other Kabbalistic sources, describes what one attains as a result of one’s spiritual exertion. Kabbalists disclose only what they actually reveal on their path.

In the sciences of our world, for example, physics, there are books explaining material laws, textbooks. There are numerous popular non-fiction books that describe the history of physics. They depict how major discoveries in physics were made, how the laws that were discovered centuries ago help scientists come up with current innovations, etc. When we read these books, it is as if we follow the routes of physicists who explored the laws of nature and we participate in the process ourselves.

There are two types of Kabbalistic books. The first kind are the texts that are written from top to bottom, starting with theLight of Infinity, as the ARI wrote: “Know that in the beginning of the creation there was only the Upper Light that filled everything.” However, these books do not describe the path of human attainment; rather, they outline the formation of creation from the moment of its appearance from its upper root of the most distant state from us.

There are books that are written differently, from bottom to top, in accordance with the way we ascend spiritually. This is how Rabash wrote his articles. His writings gradually lead us to the spiritual worlds, and he makes every effort to boost our advancement like a patient grandfather teaching his grandchildren: “Let’s do this, and now let’s do that.” It’s as if he opens spirituality together with us. He explains the stages of our advancement and our understanding of the stages of our development.

The Book of Zohar embraces both trends. On one hand, each part of The Book of Zohar, clarifies step-by-step the methods of attaining revelation. On the other hand, the authors immediately tell us where the revelation comes from and why. It is similar to a guide who leads us on the road saying: “Let’s take a step and you’ll see what’s ahead of you and what you must reveal.”

The Book of Zohar accompanies me every step, explaining to me a little in advance what I have to comprehend and expect. I have to make a step forward into the unknown, and The Book of Zohar tells me in advance exactly what will happen to us next.

This is why The Book of Zohar is different from other Kabbalistic books that were written for those who have already attained the upper worlds. Even The Study of the Ten Sefirot doesn’t explain how to raise MAN, but rather, it describes the processes that take place in spiritual Partzufim, whereas The Book of Zohar is written for us.
[147719]
From the 4^th part of the Kabbalah Daily Lesson 11/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What actions of bestowal are we performing now, before entering the spiritual world?

Answer: At the moment our actions are in worrying that the friends should come to the lesson and in supporting one another, keeping spirits in the group high, and setting an example for others as to how much we yearn for the goal and how much we worry about organizing our center, so that we will be able to study and hold different activities and events there in order to reach adhesion with the Creator.

Dissemination and studying in campuses etc. are all actions of bestowal. We perform many actions of bestowal, but they lack the right intentions. This is our main problem. People constantly ask me: “What else should we do in order to bestow more, in order to do more?”

Of course we should more, but we still have to pay attention to our intentions and actions, which are very important. We shouldn’t diminish our actions, neither their intensity nor their quantity. But we need to spur one another and to remind each other about the goal. Every action should make us feel the connection, and in the connection we have to start feeling the presence of the Creator that should illuminate for us there.

We receive the Light that Reforms as a result of our efforts to connect. The Light is in the vessels, in Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity), which isn’t shattered but is whole and full with the Light of Ein Sof . But with regard to us the Light of Malchut of Ein Sof that comes is in a shattered form after all the worlds, which means concealments.

First it is concealed, but then it is shattered and then it goes through many more partitions of concealments, levels of weakening the Light by the filters until it reaches us. We have to make an effort in order to connect, in order to get closer to the Light that Reforms that is in a connected vessel.

When I try to connect, the Light that Reforms begins to shine on me from the point that I make an effort. I collect and connect the shattered parts, gather and unite the society and the Light shines on me from there according to my efforts.

Everyone works according to his concealment, according to the way he is shattered, and the Light shines on me to the extent that I try to connect all the parts into one, since it is in a whole vessel that is shattered only with respect to me.

This picture should constantly be before our eyes.
[148083]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Could you please tell us how you decided to take on the mission of disseminating Kabbalah widely in the world, so that we can follow your example?

Answer: Today, you have no other choice since you live in another generation. I was still in a transition time, standing with one foot in the time where Kabbalists of all generations lived preparing their students in small groups, hidden from everyone else.

So it was with my teacher Rabash, before my arrival. Then I came along and changed that place. At the beginning, his entire family greeted me very warmly because I took care of him.

But they quickly cooled towards me because through me, forty absolutely secular people from Tel Aviv came to study. In the religious area of Bnei Brak, it was uncustomary to have these kind of students and it cast a shadow over their home. Rabash was the only one who was happy about the new students, but all his family members were upset.

I was still in the transition process and in some way helped this revolution begin. But today, you live in a different era and in a new generation. So, you only need to unite with each other and pull the whole world towards this, beginning with the closest, tightly knit circles to wider ones.

Otherwise pressure and blows will outpace your progress and will roll with great speed, not as it was in the last century. Politicians and sociologists say that the main problem today is the health of society, and the entire political struggle will be carried out around this issue.

But no one but us has the means of improving society; all other ways have long proven to be ineffective. Humanity was obliged to check them out and find out that they not only do not help, but harm.

Thus, we are shown that the entire society can succeed only through the path of Kabbalah. And if we do it together, then improvement will affect all areas of the life of the nation, such as safety and education.

Question: How can we ourselves make such a decision to really make this step?

Answer: I cannot decide for you! You are looking at me and waiting for me to say something. But I have nothing more to say. I say what to do and the implementation is up to you.

Question: What stops us from making this decision?

Answer: It should be a consensus that you have decided, committed, signed an agreement with each other, and then demanded each other to perform this action.
[148086]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/14, Workshop

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The main thing is to feel that you are in the AHP of the upper. We should try to feel that with all our might, and the group helps us do so. If I want to enter the group and feel its spirit, it impresses me and lets me feel the desires of the friends.

If I perform different actions and focus on the group, I increase my desire, connect it with the desires of the friends, and receive the Light that Reforms that is common to everyone. We want connection and want to connect since the prayer of the individual doesn’t work. The desire to bestow cannot exist in one person, and it has to settle in matter that is called a desire to bestow, which means that it is external to me.

If I want to bestow unto you, my desire to bestow has to settle and live within you and not in me. The desire to receive is the feeling of deficiency inside me that requires a filling. The desire to bestow is when I feel your desire and want it to be filled.

It turns out that bestowal doesn’t belong to me, but rather requires me to act in your desires. Thus we attain connection. All the powers that I ask for from Above are not meant for me, but are intended to be within the friend, in others.

I don’t need anything; I remain with only one point when I ask for anything. This is actually how I grow. It is because my size depends on and is measured by the extent to which I fill the desire of others. It all belongs to me, becomes my soul, and is a result of my spiritual action. Eventually, I fill all the desires that are external to my point.

The Torah tells us about such spiritual actions and people don’t really understand what the Torah refers to with concepts like Israel, the nations of the world, and all the events that take place there involving the Israeli nation. It is very hard for a person to identify with that and to attribute what is described there to himself, since he is used to perceiving everything in the corporeal sense, as in an historic folk tale.

But the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that the Torah tells us about the spiritual states that a person goes through. Therefore, we have to turn to all the nations, just like Abraham did in his time. We are in the same Babylon and same state today and must turn to the whole world with our common outcry: “Let’s connect!” There is no other correction but the Returning Light (Ohr Makif), which is what everyone needs.
[147854]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/14, Writing of Rabash

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It is said that the people of Israel went into exile in order to attach the souls of the world to itself. This means that there are many spiritual sparks that we need to find and attach to ourselves. This happens at the time when Israel is among the other nations.

Being in exile does not refer to a physical presence in a foreign place, but a fall from the degree of bestowal and love. However, illumination passes through Israel to the souls of the nations of the world, which begins to awaken the sparks, the souls for whom it is time to join the desires of Galgalta ve Eynaim and become Israel (aspiring to straight to the Creator).

They join Israel not from the very beginning, nor from the time when Abraham began to gather this people in Babylon, but later, and in other generations. But during this process, there is scrutiny and choice of suitable desires, for the sake of which the people of Israel went into exile.

The exile did not happen because the people of Israel needed to be corrected. On the contrary, Israel so corrected itself, that at the time of exile, it was capable of connecting additional desires, the spiritual genes that are between egoistic forces (Klipot).

It is necessary to treat all the representatives of other nations who today join Israel accordingly. This is our work-in-exile, and it could finish quickly. Everything depends on our work with the awakening souls. Therefore, special respect, love, and the desire to get closer to them is required.

Night, darkness, and exile is the time of work. At this time, there are certain concealments by which we can make contact with the sparks inside the egoistic forces. And by connecting them to us, we demand our collective ascent. But we want to rise just for them and not for ourselves.

If the people of Israel thus gives itself for the correction of the world, then the exile is over. Indeed, by this we realize our true destiny. We are merely the means that is designed to draw all the desires suitable for correction from the depths of egoism. Israel is an adapter, a guide, ready to descend into the sea of the impure forces to pull out spiritual sparks.

Thus, it is so important to disseminate and work with all of our groups around the world, all the friends. It is called the work in darkness, in exile.

Rabbi Chaim Vital writes concerning this in his book The Eight Gates of Kitvei HaAri. What is the reason for the exile of the people of Israel among the nations? The fact is that Adam HaRishon included all the souls and all the worlds. And after his transgressions, these souls fell into the egoistic forces and divided into 70 nations. Therefore, Israel is needed to reveal these forces within each nation and gather all the roses of holy souls scattered among the thorns. The sages said that Israel went into exile only to connect the souls of the peoples of the world to itself.

This proves that the work we do in dissemination is the most correct, and we need to invest even more strength of effort into it. We must treat every person who wants to join us, such as those who are now at the European Convention in Verona, as strong participants, which are very necessary to do the work of the Creator.

Indeed, for the sake of these souls, Israel goes through a long and terrible exile. All this is in order to spread a little Light among these souls, get closer to them, and to be able to rise from the darkness together.

Israel plunges into egoistic desires (Klipot) and pulls out the spiritual sparks. But at the same time, Israel is only an intermediary, and in reality, the Creator needs the souls of other nations. After all, they are the real vessels in which then the Light of Hochma clothes.

Israel belongs only to Galgalta ve Eynaim, the desires to bestow. Our function is bestowal for the sake of bestowal, providing other nations with the strength by which they will be able to receive the Light in order to bestow.

Therefore, night and day, exile and liberation, are relative concepts. It all depends on how a person perceives them, since night and exile are not necessarily bad times. It is such periods that were originally planned in the process we are going through and we must use them for our work.
[147656]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/14, Shamati #16

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Question: Is the sensation of the Upper perceived as pleasure?

Answer: Absolutely. The sensation of the Upper always brings pleasure. There cannot be a person who reveals the Upper and regrets it.

The Upper is the one that determines my whole world; this is the AHP within which I am like an embryo in the mother’s womb. He creates all of my reality.

If besides the world around me, I also feel the one who create this, this means that I reveal the Upper. In addition to what I can perceive now with my heart and mind, absorb into my properties, desires, and thoughts, to this whole picture of the world I need to add one more special participant.

Only it is not some person but another force that creates this world, organizes, turns on a special program in it, and holds it in this state. This is the power that created me and the world I am in, but it is above me.

Therefore, any of my claims to myself and to the whole world are accusations against this Upper force, the manager, the Master. It turns out that you cannot see Him while you dwell in these desires in which you blame Him for something. The revelation of the Upper is always dressed in gratitude, love, an explosion of beautiful sensations.
[147859]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How should we relate to the recent tragedy in Jerusalem—the terrorist attack at a synagogue that plunged the entire country into mourning?

Answer: We have to understand: All this is happening because we still do not complete creation.

Everywhere in the Kabbalistic books it is explained that we live in a unified system. The still, vegetative, animate, and human nature is one. And the first three levels, the still, vegetative, and animate, are engaged by nature instinctively.

People undergo the same process of development and as a result, they should become similar to the Creator, become as one man with one heart. It is written by the prophet Isaiah: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

The people of Israel are at the head of this process. It leads the whole world. Therefore, it is obliged to study the inner part of the Torah, as well as to make it available to all of humanity, starting with itself and then to all people. As Baal HaSulam writes in the article “Messiah’s Shofar,” before deliverance, the nations of the world have to learn about the correction, which is entrusted to the people of Israel. So, we have to disseminate the news about our work everywhere, explaining to everyone what the general system is and what we have to do.

So there is an interaction: We help nations, they help us, and all together we want to revive, to establish the broken network of our mutual connections.

Consequently, our troubles and misfortunes are a sign that we still do not have time to make the method of correction public. Hence, we need to feel a sense of our own guilt.

Indeed, everything depends on us. The “seventy nations of the world,” the seven billion people, except those fifteen million who are called “the people of Israel,” have no free will. As much as we attract the Light, as much as we broadcast the method of correction, to that extent it influences the others.

After all, every second Reshimot continue to intensify and change, even from the time of the breaking, preceding the worlds of BYA and lying in the basis of the birth of Adam HaRishon (First Man). The breaking includes all the vessels. And now we must affect the part called “the nations of the world.” It is impossible to reach correction without the people of Israel working in the current situation. This work should be shown and become clear to everyone. And we must realize it with all our efforts.

Therefore, all our groups, all the friends around the world, have to understand, as much as it is possible, they need to make their contribution, to accept our program of dissemination and implement it. If we can succeed in doing what is entrusted to us, then misfortunes will not outpace the reception of the medication. In other words, we must give people the medicine before they feel the symptoms of the disease. This is our work, and this principle is immutable.

Otherwise, there is nothing we can do about it. After all, today the situation is the same as in Poland and Germany before World War II. Then Kabbalists called the Jews to leave for the land of Israel to escape the massacre. However, no one wanted to hear them; those who stayed were killed.

At present, similar conditions are forming around the world, and Baal HaSulam writes about this possibility of a new world war, and so on. Moreover, even simple logic indicates that WWIII will break out here. If someone really wants to ignite the world, there is no hotter region: On the one hand, there are nuclear weapons, and on the other, there is a powerful external threat, leaving no room for a conventional war.

So far we have managed to stave off our enemies with conventional weapons. But in the long term, we will not be able to overcome them with conventional weapons. And then we will have no other choice, which, in fact, the whole world is awaiting. The American and European elites believe that in this way they will be able to get out of the global crisis, the fatality and mortality of which is still hidden from the eye.

So now we have to go toward the right correction, spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah in the world, so that everyone knows its message. Not everyone should study it; some are responsible for study and implementation, and others will join them. However, at least, to all the Jews in the world and to everyone who wants this, we must reveal all our materials and put them on the right path of development.
[148016]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #19: He said that we must know that there is a matter of importance in the labor, when there is a contact between the individual and the Creator.

It means that one feels that he needs the Creator, since, in the state of labor, one sees that there is no one in the world who can save him from the state he is in but the Creator alone.

This feeling is thanks to the Light. A person feels that the main goal in life in this world is to attain contact with the Creator. Then an additional illumination helps him understand that only the Creator can help him. Then an additional illumination reveals to him that he depends on the environment and that it is the essential condition by which he can call the Creator to help him. Thus, he gradually advances thanks to a certain illumination on a new level that influences him and leads him.

We exit the state of exile and in it we also go through several phases. First a person doesn’t feel any connection with the upper force at all. He has no contact with Him, not even in the form of ordinary religion.

Then people begin to believe in religions and different faiths, miracles and mysticism. A person must go through all those phases. Each time there is a special illumination from Above that grants us with a certain connection with the upper force. This goes on until humanity reaches a stage where it loses any faith in the upper force and believes only in science and in actual facts.

Then we begin to look for a connection with the upper force as rational people and study the Creator as a force. This force governs us and we agree to act mutually in response to it. We only have to clarify the relationship that can connect us.

Eventually a person reached the wisdom of Kabbalah and begins to work. This raises him to a totally different level of connection with the upper force. It isn’t thanks to his faith or different rituals anymore, but thanks to the change of his internal desire.

Then he is in adhesion with the Creator, meaning that one’s entire thought is of the Creator, meaning that He will help him. Otherwise one sees that he is lost.

This is the same attitude when people were very religious and believed in the Creator ages ago. A person also felt that he was totally dependent on the Creator, on God’s will. If the Creator was merciful, a person would live, but if the Creator didn’t help him, his life would be over.

Now we have to reach the same attitude, that if the Creator helps us we will live and if the Creator doesn’t help us, it means death. We only give a different meaning to the concepts of life and death: life means adhesion with the Creator, mutual bestowal, while death means remaining in self-love.

We see how all of humanity goes through these phases, from the egoistic approach, from greedy dependence on the upper force, to an altruistic dependence of love of others, of yearning to resemble the Creator.

The Creator says about that, “My sons defeated Me.” That is, I gave you the will to receive, and you ask of Me to give you a will to bestow instead.

A person worries about being independent because otherwise he cannot bring the Creator contentment. Who else can bring the Creator contentment? Only a person who can remain independent and separate from the Creator by his ego. He keeps his desire to enjoy and only restricts it and doesn’t allow it to adhere to the Creator egoistically.

He adheres to the Creator with the desire to bestow that he develops above the restriction. Thus he remains independent and the same time reaches adhesion.
[147444]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/14, Shamati #19

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Shamati #72, “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light”: However, when the Light of life leaves him, which is considered that he has descended from his previous level of vitality, then he becomes clever and inquisitive. He begins to calculate the profitability of everything, is it worthwhile to do it or not.

The Light of vitality is the Light of bestowal, life with love for others; this speaks about a person as a substance, which on one hand, the force of the desire to receive operates and influences. Because of this, he wants to get everything for himself. On the other hand, the force of the desire to bestow enters him and neutralizes the desire to receive and then he even wants to bestow.

So a person is found between two forces. As it is said about two holding a Tallit, this being the person, and each one pulls him to it. The two forces are holding the person: the evil inclination and the good inclination, the desire to receive and the desire to bestow.

And the person must see himself neutrally. This means that he is responsible for both the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, both of which speak within him.

The Torah also describes this as follows. It is as if there was an old and foolish king and a small and wise child. The old king is the desire to receive whose rule we are used to. And the little child is the desire to bestow that is born only after a person matures and only according to his request.

We are constantly found under the influence of these two forces operating in our substance. From the balance of these two forces, which of them wins depends on who I will be, how I think, and what side I want.

So this requires critical self-scrutiny, constant self-criticism, to find out what is acting in me at the present moment: Specifically why I am thinking, speaking, and doing this; in this way I discover myself in thought, speech, and action.

And everything is determined according to which force controls me now: the force of reception or the force of bestowal. This means that I imagine myself as being under a bilateral influence and now must ask what the Creator wants from me. I have already begun a spiritual dialog with Him by placing myself as a neutral observer: There is me, the Creator, and the two forces by means of which He activates me.

I scrutinize these two forces and from them try to bring myself to a neutral state, to attribute both of them to the Creator. In this form, I will begin to demand additional corrections from Him beyond these two forces. As a result of this, I will reach adhesion with the Creator by reaching equivalence of form with Him as much as it is possible in my present situation.

The main thing is to feel confident that I am ready to do and to realize this at every moment!  If a person understands that on the one hand, he is managed by the Creator, and on the other hand, he tries to use every means so that with all of his dependencies he will scrutinize and control his state, this means that he is involved in service to the Creator.

In this case, he will precisely scrutinize the actions of the Creator on him. And this is called “service of the Creator”: The Creator carries out all of the work on a person so that he will grow and know what the Creator is doing with him, will learn the actions of the Creator, and will want to behave like Him. So he wants to be like the Creator, become like Him and be called Adam (man), which means that he is similar (Domeh) to the Creator.
[147420]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/14, Shamati #72

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Workshop

Writings of Rabash, Letter 22

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Introduction,” “The Twelfth Commandment,” Item 245

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 50 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 71

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