Preparation for the Lesson
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Workshop
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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “The Rose,” Item 1
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 11
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 1
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Question: Is the inner concern we feel regarding the public’s suffering the right indicator for building the spiritual Kli?
Answer: When we invest our forces in working with the public, we want to succeed for egoistic reasons. Therefore it’s easy for us to continue this work. We invest so much in these people that we already feel them as if they are relatives and we want their success. Therefore dissemination expands our vessels. If we are “cooked” only within the group, ultimately it will degenerate and remain in a static state. We will find it more and more difficult to take steps toward one another and to come closer to each other. This is really what happens.
But if we take care of people, we begin to be concerned for their advancement and success. It’s reasonable that we will advance together with our students, even though each one of them advances according to his level. And when you come from your students to friends, then you already relate to them differently, not like before.
It’s very difficult to reach an immediate and strong connection directly with people who are on the same level with you so as to be like one man with one heart. But only after you are concerned about the people who are on a lower level than you, do you soften and get the feeling of bestowal within your desire to receive, and as a result of this, you will pass to that inclination a desire to bestow toward the friends.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/14
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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 64: …with respect to the wisdom of the Torah, it is increasingly revealed in the latter generations. This is so for the reason we have mentioned, that the overall measure is completed specifically by the latter ones. This is why more complete Lights are extended to them, although their own essence is far worse.
This stems from the reverse order of between vessels and Lights. The purer and more refined the vessels are the less Light is in them, even though these vessels are expressed and corrected by the vessels that precede them. And conversely, the greater and deeper the “thickness” of the vessels, the more difficult it is to correct them. In contrast to this, the Lights in them are greater and are revealed by means of their correction.
These lights are specifically clothed in the finest and most refined vessels, being that the Lights are implemented in the order of NRNHY, while the order of the correction of the vessel is KHB ZON. In other words, the vessels are revealed from Keter to Malchut, from the highest to the lowest, whereas with the Lights it’s the opposite, from Nefesh to Yechida, from the smallest to the greatest. They are linked between them in such a sequence.
This principle is not simple and confuses us and it’s very difficult for our understanding of the reciprocal relationships within the system in general, in every world and between the worlds. Sometimes we simply need to accept this as a general rule, as a law, until this gradually “settles” and is integrated with new internal vessels. And only after a person feels the essence does he begin to understand it. In the beginning the feeling comes within the corrected vessels to a particular degree; after that, understanding comes. So intellect always follows feeling.
People who are not linked to the inner essence of the Torah and are guided by their external intellect don’t understand this principle and therefore don’t see the uniqueness of our time and generation. They are familiar with the process of general deterioration; yet together with this, they remove themselves from the responsibility to correct the world. They suppose: “If we have deteriorated so much already, then all that is left for us is only to hope for the coming of the Messiah.”
Yet this is not right. Our generation is the most important for the general goal. And even though we are bent under the heavy burden of our ego, it is intended that we will work on it and will not be rid of it. Through work like this, we attract very great Lights for the highest souls that are beginning to correct humanity, and these souls are Adam, Abraham, and so forth. And we receive a thin and small Light according to our place in the general system, and we advance in this way until we reach the complete ten Sefirot of the entire creation.
Then in fact, we reach attainment and understand what difficult work we have carried out. Even if we were to make a mistake and be confused, even though we don’t succeed in solving and interpreting, even though we have erred and violated, this is unimportant. Otherwise it is impossible. In the end everything will reach the right analysis, the true account, and only then, on the highest level, can we correctly evaluate our state and discern its significance. And in the meantime, it’s up to us to proceed with “faith above reason” and believe in Baal HaSulam who wrote that the first generations were significant because of their refined desires, whereas we are significant because of our “thickness.”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Section 63: ….this is the rule in all the Partzufim (plural for Partzuf) of the worlds and of the souls, that the purer one is the first to be selected into the Partzuf. Therefore, the purer Kelim, HBD, were selected first in the world and in the souls.
Thus, the souls in the first two millennia were much Higher. Yet, they could not receive the full measure of Light, due to the lack of the lower parts in the world and in themselves, which are HGT NHYM.
Baal HaSulam explains the gradual decline in the generations, as a result of it, our generation is the lowest and has sunk to the bottom.
Today we don’t know where we came from, where we are going and why. We don’t know our root or our purpose, or what we need to do in our lives. We have no connection with the sources; essentially we have no concept of what the Torah and Mitzvot are in their true and inner sense.
For what and why we are alive? What is the reason for our lives? All this is unknown to us. There are no longer any of the great Kabbalists who could lead us as shepherds, guides. But the main thing is that the connection with the source, with the foundations of the nation, is lost; it has disappeared. And therefore, we are found in total darkness.
It’s not by accident that we find ourselves in this darkness. This is because the revelation of the Creator to the creature, from beginning to end, is divided into six thousand levels that are called the “six thousand years.”
We begin to count these levels from the first revelation of the Creator to the creature, who is called, Adam HaRishon. This was the first human who discovered the Creator; this was the first Reshimo to be realized, meaning that he corrected himself. And further, from him until the last Reshimo that must correct itself, six thousand levels must be traversed which are divided into three periods of two-thousand years each: HBD, HGT, NHY.
From this it’s understandable to us that the decline of the generations is not derived from anyone’s fault. From the start, we had to descend to the present state, until our present life. And precisely from this wretched life, from the deep abyss, we can begin the ascent to the summit. Then we will understand how great the difference is between the vessel and the Light, and thanks to this we can truly appreciate the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Question: It says that the Light is revealed according to a person’s need and desire (yearning) for the Light. But how can we long for it if we don’t remember anything about the shattering?
Answer: We can long for something that we never had and not necessarily for something that is lost. I can long for some special car that costs a lot of money. This means that I feel pain because I don’t have the Light and constantly feel a hunger, a deficiency, a desire for it.
It can also be interpreted as longings for a past filling since we have its Reshimo (reminiscence). We don’t awaken to anything if a new Reshimo isn’t wakened in us because we are in a closed system of all of reality. There was a desire to receive that was shattered and all its parts drew away from one another, but there is a chain of Reshimot in each part that should recreate its connection with the other parts, until they are all connected into one whole vessel.
If we feel a yearning, if we feel sorry about something or long for it, then it means that we already had it before. Whatever I can imagine stems from the shattering of the vessels. Otherwise it couldn’t be revealed, not in our feelings, not in our mind, and not even in our imagination.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/14
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Workshop
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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”
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Question: What happens when a person can annul himself?
Answer: He feels that he is already on a higher level in his connection with the upper, with the one to whom he has annulled himself. This is a question of equivalence of form. A higher level is a higher attribute.
Now I have a certain attribute of receiving or bestowal that depicts the world for me. When I annul myself with regard to the upper, I feel myself and the world, which means the inner and the external part of my attributes, in a more sublime manner. So I feel that I am in a different world.
Question: So it turns out that self-annulment is simply impossible and unbearable for a person.
Answer: We cannot annul ourselves and perform any spiritual action at all. But we must be convinced that we are helpless, and then we will be ready for a prayer. Our goal is to do whatever we can, to pay any price, to do whatever is in our power, and to see that nothing helps. Then we will cry out and stretch our hands to the Creator.
Question: If everything is predetermined, why can’t I save time and skip this intermediate phase?
Answer: But how can you turn to the Creator? A prayer is a real desire in answer to which you receive the perfect Light. Your request must also be perfect and then it will draw the perfect Light. This is actually what the whole period of preparation is concerned with. Reaching the perfect request can take a decade. Then you already have everything: You receive the Light that Reforms and you have a new attribute, the first spiritual state.
Then you advance to the second state, to the third…but all the following states are not as corporeal. It’s like the geological periods in the evolution of the Earth that lasted billions of years; there was the evolution of the animals that lasted a billion years and that of the plants that took half a billion years, but the evolution of the monkey, and of man that evolved from it, took only 100-200 thousand years, while the evolution of humanity has been only 50,000 years.
The development time reduces exponentially like on a logarithmic scale. It’s the same with the period of our preparation for the spiritual work, which is the longest and most exhausting. The other phases are much shorter. We have also developed in our technology, moving from DC to AC appliances, and now are working at high frequencies with lasers.
Question: How can a person hold on to this process which exhausts all his powers?
Answer: We can only count on the Creator’s help and on luck. Luck means holding on to the group, the teacher, the study, the daily schedule, as if you are in an army where everything is like clockwork: you get up, go to the lesson, from the lesson you go to work, and the whole day is according to this alarm clock. This is called God’s work.
After all, only at the end of correction will you be able to get rid of your desire to enjoy and until then you have to work. If you raise the importance of the goal to the right height, you will constantly feel elated. If you curse the Creator who gave you such hard work, it will not end well. You will suffer your whole life, torture yourself and your environment, and will come to nothing.
You should at least continue your participation in the group, even passively, as it says: “Anything but leave.” Eventually you will change, whether you want to or not; the influence of the environment will have its effect. We should understand that our state is perfectly arranged so that we will change, and there is nothing else we can do in this life.
We need to continually adhere to the group. If you are incorporated in it, you will feel that the group is an ideal state: that it is high, strong, and that you can always receive powers from it and adhere to it like a baby adheres to his mother.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14
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Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 9, Item 1: Although this return is annulled during the shattering of the vessels, as we know, it turns out that the vessels of AHP fell once more to the level of the lower like their initial state of smallness. Malchut wanted to use all the ten Sefirot in order to bestow and discovered that it cannot, and so all the AHP were annulled. Now, we must correct them, and only then will we be able to use them, when this is the end of all the correction to the end—which means only to return all the AHP that returned and were corrupted as a result of the shattering of the vessels and fell to the level of the lower of each one, to their places, like they were in the state of the greatness of Nekudim, which means after the new Light that came out of the MAN of NHY of AK already corrected all the fallen AHP and raised them again, which means the time of the seventh Malchut Malchin Kdmain that spread until the point of this world.
We correct the real vessels of receiving, the AHP and then we reach the end of correction. The world of Atzilut spreads until the point of this world, the central point of all the worlds, as it is written, “His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives.”
Thus, we can use all the vessels and every person will attain all 125 levels. This may seem strange because this world is built like a pyramid and we all stand one on top of the other, as one is part of the hands and another of the feet of the general spiritual Partzuf. Yet, it doesn’t matter which organ each one belongs to since we all reach the end of correction and connect into one system, and so every individual, even the smallest one, attains everything, just like the greatest individual. All the differences are eliminated.
This means that everyone’s feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, and their heads will reach Malchut of the world of Infinity, as it says that at the end of all the correction when the Messiah comes, “He will gather everyone in Jerusalem.” This means that everyone will spread form Malchut of the world of Infinity to Malchut of this world, because everyone is incorporated in everyone, and there will be no differences between us.
Everyone will perform his specific individual work with regard to the system, but throughout the whole system, from one end to the other. Thus, we will complement one another and reach the same level. We all will drown in the great sea of Light and will celebrate by “eating the Leviathan,” which means that we will receive all the Light of Hochma in order to bestow.
I am incorporated in all of reality and I operate in it in order to bestow upon the Creator, and you are incorporated on the other side and operate in it for the same goal. It turns out that we attain an equal level because each of us uses the whole system, but I am different from you according to the root of my soul, and so our work is also different. Therefore, each one is envious of his friends’ achievements, and everyone will have a different Masach (screen). I am impressed by how much everyone does, to what extent each one is greater, and the height he reaches being initially more corrupt than me.
It seems that we don’t need all these impressions if we complete the work and reach the end of correction. However, they are essential in order to advance. In the meantime, we don’t understand what will happen after the end of correction. It says that when we complete the correction the Creator makes us wings.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot
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Question: What if I advance faster than my wife?
Answer: That’s the wrong attitude. Advancements of men and women are different in nature and style, and the comparison is inappropriate here. What a woman makes in the creation is not the same as a man.
Sometimes men and women can find a common language, but as a rule, they are unable to do so. Start reading any article or listening to a lesson and you will see that she thinks differently from you, as if addressing the subject matter from a different perspective. Eventually, women come to the same details of perception, but the path and the analysis of men and women are very different.
Men and women can discuss common questions, but when it comes to details, you need to take their current level into consideration.
Question: I see that our impressions complement each other from different sides. But at the same time, my wife has to spend a lot of time and effort with our child.
Answer: This is the women’s correction. Women care for their children and sometimes it looks like it is done at the expense of their self-correction. However, this is exactly how women advance, and a woman’s duty is to be a mother.
Some wonder, maybe I shouldn’t have children and should completely devote myself to studying, dissemination, and correction? No. Women should correct their souls by taking care of their children, by being together with them, and in the measure of time and desire remaining after this.
If a woman has the opportunity to marry and have children, she must do so. Women should take care of children even though it would seem that without children they could have done much more and advance much farther on their spiritual path. She could, but this is not a woman’s path of correction.
Question: Should women with children compare themselves with those women without children who have more time to study and disseminate?
Answer: No. If a woman with children participates in the study or any other activities to the extent she can, it produces correction many times greater than that of a woman who “refrains” from having children because she wants to be involved in Kabbalah. This kind of “abstinence” doesn’t help.
We just don’t realize that this world is built according to spirituality. If we bring sparks of spirituality into this life, we come closer to correction. One cannot rise to the next spiritual level if one has not laid a basis for it in this world. That’s why we have to marry, have children, and move on from there.
It would seem great if all of my students were disconnected from the cares of this world and were devoted to the spiritual. Imagine: everybody studies and disseminates. But instead they marry and women are almost immediately cut off from the process and men are obliged to support their families and resolve endless problems together with their spouses.
This is exactly what correction is. We cannot hide from this fact. Later, you will understand that this is the optimal way to do our job in the best possible way.
Conversely, those who avoid marriage reject the chance for correction. This applies to both men and women. So, if there is a possibility, you should start a family and carry the burden.
Anyway, a family is preferred over anything else because it is a basic part of the world’s correction. It is no coincidence that today the world is faced with the collapse of the family structure; this situation precedes the basic correction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”: All these worlds and everything in them are included in the holy name HaVaYaH, Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey, and the tip of the Yod. We have no perception in the first world, Adam Kadmon. Hence, it is only implied in the tip of the Yod of the name. This is why we do not speak of it and always mention only the four worlds ABYA. Yod is the world of Atzilut, Hey – the world of Beria, Vav – the world of Yetzira, and the bottom Hey – the world of Assiya.
Question: Why are we using different words for the same things?
Answer: Let’s assume I’m expecting guests and I go to a market to buy meat for a barbeque. There are twenty different sorts of meat, different cuts of meat from various animals. All of them are just meat, but various kinds of meat are named differently since each of them has a taste of its own.
The same applies to spirituality where everything has its own “flavor” – ten Sefirot of their own with a screen and the Light that fulfills them; each of them is a separate reality.
The same applies to the different names of the same entity. You are not familiar with them at this time and that’s why you are confused and perplexed. You haven’t yet tasted them or felt their “edges,” nuances, shades, or forms in this world.
Without having the slightest impression of spiritual details, you see different names just as duplications. But as soon as you taste the “spiritual barbeque” comprised of numerous kinds of the Light, you will discover their “flavors” and will recognize their names; you will understand why they are called this way and not another.
In this world, we describe flavors using words that are a part of our language: let’s say chips flavored with paprika or onion. In spirituality, you will see the essence of each name and realize why this particular flavor is called “onion” (batzal – בָּצָל). The word stands for “in the shadow” (be-tzel – בְּצֵל) – a certain type of concealment or revelation. When one starts distinguishing the essence of names, one won’t have to memorize them by heart. They will turn into spiritual vessels that are obvious in one’s sensations.
Now you don’t feel any taste. Like a sick person who has no appetite, everything seems bland. Different dishes can be prepared for him, but he eats without distinguishing any flavors and only does so because his doctor demands him to.
Here, as we approach spirituality we are “sick,” but we have “eat” in order to get well. Later, when we recover and become healthy we’ll find huge differences and wonderful tastes in food that seem so tasteless to us today.
So there is a process, “tasting” a new level, you yourself define its name, the names of the Lights that fill it and the vessels. Where do we get them? From our sensations. If we compare the names that we assigned to various objects and phenomena with the original sources, we’ll see that they coincide. It means that we don’t have to read a description of a phenomenon in books; everything emerges from within.
It is said that Adam gave names to everything in this world. After all, he was the first one to reveal the spiritual world and attain spiritual roots of everything, the source of all their properties and hence their names.
“Attainment” of something means that we penetrate to the very root of creation as if we attain Infinity, from which an object of our material world derives. And then you have no problem with names. After all, they stem from the Lights and vessels, and you yourself will determine their names.
The power of ten Sefirot with a screen and the inner Light forms the name of a Partzuf, the amount included in each set of forces. That’s why we label a Partzuf not as we usually name a newly born child according to our choice, but rather in accordance with the internal structure of the object. We can’t just give it a different name. This also applies to each of us; when we change, our names also change.
Consequently, a vessel, the Light that opposes a vessel, and a screen that connects them together allow us to perceive the entire reality without referring to any books. We don’t just name the details. Their names are a revelation, the spiritual attainment of a person.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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