Question: In order for me to want to satisfy the desires of others wholeheartedly, I have to love them or at least put them as high as possible in my eyes. How can I achieve this?

Answer: There are times that people take care of other people’s children, begin to care about them, and these children become dear to them, sometimes even more dear than in the case of a biological relationship. Where does this feeling come from? It is produced by caring, efforts. It is not by accident that people say “put your heart and soul” into it; this is exactly so: I put my desire, which is the soul, and then I treasure my creation.

Accordingly, when caring for the external audience, I also invest a lot of effort and begin to empathize with people’s needs, desires, and lives. This becomes important for me, dear to me, especially as time after time I discover that because of them I can reach spirituality, and only by bringing them the Light that Reforms can I help them.

After all, I promise people the fulfillment of their desires, but how can I fulfill them? Someone wants a car, so how do I get it? And anyway, how do I get all the things they lack? However, I know the main and only thing; correction is made only by the Light that Reforms. I am a “transmission channel” and need to make sure that the Light passes through me to them. Nothing but that is needed.

In fact, we do not deal with the material problems. We promise people a good life, but that does not mean that after a while they won’t come to us with complaints like: “Where is my car?” No, our task is to deliver the Light to them. You’ll give it to them if you care about them. Then, you will want to bring them goodness out of your evil, egoistic qualities, as well as the positive properties of bestowal, and love. Shame will encourage you to do that because in the case of failure, they will mortify you.

So, go and invest in them to the fullest. Above all, don’t worry about the future, the threat of disgrace will turn you in the right direction, “I must accomplish this otherwise what will they think, and say? It will be worse than bankruptcy, a complete default on all counts, and the darkness will come…” The very situation will oblige you to find a solution. But to do that, you deliberately have to put yourself into it or nothing will happen.

Otherwise, you will not be able to raise MAN, a request for correction. This request always comes from serving others; you work for someone and ask for him and not for yourself. Moreover, you ask the force of bestowal.

“Whom do you want to help?” asks the Creator. “Please, I’m ready.”

And what will you tell Him?

“No, first You give to me, and then I’ll think of something…”

This will not work. It is not a request, not MAN, if you do not care about the other.

Thus, those who do not go to disseminate, deprive themselves. I am glad that our groups  “go to the people.” This gives us hope that they will now understand what the wisdom of Kabbalah talks about; they will understand it from the inside.

After all, we are looking for love. What are its indications? Love means to give gifts, bring fulfillment, reject one’s own desire and prefer the desire of the other in order to fulfill it. In this case, I really love.

The “material” of creation is the desire to enjoy. And if instead of my desire, I prefer to fill yours, it is a sign that I love you.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/13, Writings of Rabash

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We find it strange that the Creator, who created this world and who has all the capabilities, requires our help. Yet He depends on us like a mother depends on her child. If we were on the inanimate, vegetative, or animate level, then He would really control us 100%.

However, if He wishes to raise us to the degree of a human being, to His level, He cannot give us everything in a ready form: We need to develop the mind and feelings in us through our own efforts. The entire growth occurs due to our own participation. To the extent that I feel, I grow, and if I don’t participate, I won’t grow and I am not considered a human being!

If I were a simple animal, I would just receive from Him and get fatter and fatter. However, a human being is a qualitatively new degree, which can grow only as a result of one’s own clarifications, analysis, and synthesis in an aspiration to become similar to the Creator. Only due to this do I grow.

And it turns out that the Creator waits, He depends on me in this regard! If a child does not wish to learn and receive knowledge in order to go from one grade to the next, if he doesn’t do his homework or pass his tests, the teachers are powerless to do anything. And everything here depends on the person, not the teacher.

This is the only thing that He cannot do for you; otherwise, you won’t grow. The degree of the speaking, the human being, should grow in us as a result of our own preliminary work, elucidations, understanding, and the mind. We need to set our minds and hearts to this ourselves, rather than waiting for the Creator to make a human being out of us. The human degree cannot be given from the outside, it needs to be conquered from below, from the inside.

The Light can only hasten our development until we receive the point in the heart. However, all the desires above it need to be earned by us. After all, if the Creator clothes you into a ready human image, you will be a monkey rather than a human being.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How do I become the Creator’s helper and why is the Creator unable to give the Light to the others without my help?

Answer: If you rise above your ego and wish to employ it to bestow to the others, then the Creator will be your partner in this work. He will give you the entire Light so you may pass it onto the others. He cannot give anything to them, but you can! You will become His equal partner as if all other people are His beloved children and He can give them the Light only through you.

But at present, you don’t want to do it, and that is why you and He are opposing each other. All creation, the entire world and mankind are the Creator’s children who are suffering because of you! If you want to help them, the Creator will give you everything, just bestow. You will be equal partners, you will be helping Him. Do you realize what an honor and power that is?

All of the Light will be available to you, but you can take as much of it as you can give to others. The other people are the Shechina and Malchut. And you merge with the Creator, Zeir Anpin, and how exalted you are is determined by how big your ego is, which you use in order to bestow.

He wishes to make you identical to Himself for you to be partners. To be like Him is real pleasure. He wants to do it with you and all the others. But everyone has the whole world to bestow. As many souls there are, there are as many worlds as well. Each of us has his own world, Malchut of the world of Atzilut, his own Shechina. You feel that a person next to you suffers, but the one you see is within you. You don’t know who he really is!
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, “Igrot,” Letter 8

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The Book of Zohar — Introduction

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings“

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Question: Is there any connection between freewill and luck?

Answer: On one hand, luck seems to be predetermined from the moment a person is born. Everyone is born in different conditions and with different attributes, which means with his own fate. If I am born with certain attributes, then my destiny and my path to the end of correction have already been determined. It depends on one’s place of birth and on other factors that do not depend on me.

But let’s try to put aside the different conditions that are beyond our control and that vary for each individual, like cells in a body where each has its own purpose and destiny. If we look at what is left, the question is whether we can affect this in any way, whether with this freedom of choice with the option to correct myself, can I become totally equal to everyone?

One is born clever and another so smart, one is born to a rich family and another to an educated family, and still another may be the son of a shoemaker obliged to follow his father’s line of work, etc. Everyone is totally different, but if a person is awakened from above, which means that his point in the heart is awakened, he can equalize himself with all the others.

Those who have not received the point in the heart are very different: like a cat and a lion, like a mouse and a cat. On the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, everyone is different, but the level of the speaking equalizes all the human beings including the still, vegetative, and animate nature that are incorporated in a human being, and thus also reach equality.

All this is done by the freewill that is given to man, and by that he neutralizes his fate, which was predetermined by nature. From the perspective of this point of freewill, everyone has the same specific work, which is relatively equal. No one has an advantage over others in this sense.

It may seem that certain people have to make very little efforts to enter the spiritual world and there are those for whom there is not enough. But it all depends on conditions that are unknown to us. We cannot take our previous reincarnations into account or a person’s history, what happened to him and what will happen to him. All this is already in the corrected state in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), but we simply don’t know it. Therefore it is difficult for us to measure everyone’s work.

Thus it is said simply: “Do everything that is in your power!”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13, The Zohar

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If people understood that all the misfortunes that befall them—hunger, war, and disease—could easily be eliminated by one appeal to the Creator, that we only need to move toward Him before all these hardships, haunting us for thousands of years, fall upon us; what a light and easy life we would have!

After all, we are all in a common boat in the same current. But how many thousands of years has humanity been under pressure so that we finally realize that there is no alternative, we have to get closer to the Creator. All problems come just for that reason.

How much unhappiness and misery throughout history could we have avoided had we listened to Abraham in ancient Babylon and united as one man with one heart? All our history would have been different. We would easily have achieved a higher dimension and lived as in Paradise, in a harmonious union of the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow, developing our attainment to perfection.

We should not forget that all the troubles and problems are designed to push us toward the Creator. But as long as a person is developing on the still degree, he advances very slowly, through a lot of suffering. On the vegetative degree, development becomes more intense, and on the animate and human, even faster. We see that the rate of change is increasingly growing, that is why in the course of our life we can accomplish many various actions every hour.

We have an opportunity to check how one affects the other and how our advancement toward the Creator affects the fact that we avoid troubles. It is said, “Thou embrace me from the front and from behind.” “From the front” is the direct control of the Creator if I seek Him and draw the Light that Reforms to myself, according to my efforts.

And “from behind” is His indirect control if I am too lazy to make efforts and to advance myself. Then, the same Light that was supposed to be revealed before me as Surrounding and Reforming Light affects me from the reverse side in order to turn me toward the source by the path of suffering. And this advancement is stretched out for a long time and is accompanied by suffering.

As it is sung in one Sabbath song, “Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear! Though war should rise up against me, even then will I be confident.” “Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear!” is a high state when a person reaches the realization that he is pushed by pressure from behind because that is the form of advancement now. But he relies on the Creator, on the Upper governance, understanding that everything comes from there, and that is why only by striving upward can he save himself from all troubles. And most importantly, he relies on the help of the Creator so that he will be able to seek the Creator not out of fear but to bring Him pleasure.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13

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Question: Why do I keep forgetting and lose the line of thought that we have to be as “one man in one heart?”

Answer: It is because you don’t feel it as a critical need; that’s the whole problem. When a person is sick he constantly thinks only about the medicine that can heal him. It is said that the Light is a remedy for all ills, but we don’t feel it.

We don’t regard the wisdom of Kabbalah as a means for personal and general advancement, since we feel good this way. We cannot spur ourselves so that the goal will attract us so strongly that we will be ready to do whatever is necessary.

So what happens in this situation? It says: “I am placing upon them a king like Haman…” and then having no choice we will have to do what has to be done, which means by the path of suffering. The sufferings are necessary, but we can replace them by inner sufferings, to shake ourselves and to ignite our desire for the goal. If the goal is important and I am far from it, I feel pain. I don’t ignore the pain, but rather, I make an effort to overcome the gap between me and the goal. This means that the pain pushes me forward.

But instead, we relax each time and think that it isn’t so bad and that we can wait. Baal HaSulam, however, warns us in his book The Sages’ Fruit, “Letter 13”: …and the truth will show him the way, and the one who feels sorrow makes his sorrow known and he cannot hide it or restrain himself. Indeed this is how I will feel all of you together when today will become tomorrow and instead of now you will say later. And there is no remedy for that, except to make an effort and to understand this mistake and this distortion that the one who is saved by the Creator is saved if he needs the salvation today, while he who can wait for tomorrow will become wise only when his life is over. You feel this because you have neglected my request to exert yourself in the love of friends, which I have explained to you every way I can that this merit is enough to provide everything that you lack.

Everything that happens to us is only in order to strengthen love of friends because to the same extent, we draw the Light that Reforms that corrects everything. If we perform a certain action, we have to first check if it leads to a stronger connection or whether it leads to separation. Then we will immediately understand what should be done and what shouldn’t be done, what we should get closer to and what we should run from. It is because we draw the Light by the connection between us. When we connect, we draw another portion of Light, and so on and so on. This is the whole secret, and there is nothing but that.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/13, The Zohar

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Question: How do we overcome the desire to postpone everything till tomorrow, till the next lesson, till the next convention? There is a feeling that there is still enough time and that we can wait.

Answer: It is the illusion of the ego that a person cannot overcome by himself. If you are alone at home you will surely deal with different foolish matters and it will lead to nothing. It will just be a waste of time today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and also in a year and two years from now. You will never be able to use the time efficiently as long as you are by yourself. It is “either a group or death.”

Everyone must make a certain commitment that cannot be postponed or that he cannot escape. These commitments should tie you to the friends and you should work on something together.

You have to constantly tie yourself to the need to advance in different ways:

1. work committments
2. friends
3. shame of not finishing, that everyone would know and see what you haven’t completed.

The feeling of shame should be as strong as the fear of death. Being among the friends is the only thing that will push you to make good use of the time. If you are alone and you can use the time as you wish, you can be sure that it will fool you. Time is a shell (Klipa) and a very strong egoistic force. It will draw you to different silly dealings.

But when we work together, we suddenly work easily, gladly, and pleasantly!
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/13, The Zohar

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What is called “faith in the sages” is when I follow everything that is arranged for me from above. In every Partzuf, in every situation that I see before me, I see the Creator.

I see the whole wide world before me and I need to understand that all of these things are pictures that the Creator draws for me. I don’t know what I truly see. However, if I take the entire world as a picture within me from the Creator, then I am moving in the right direction in the right degree of truth and falsehood.

This direction is true, and so I see before me conditions that must exist: Israel (my yearning directly to the Creator – Yashar El), Torah (all of the shattered Kelim with the Light that must bring them to unity), and the Creator. All three of these conditions gradually transform into one, for I try to identify the Creator that acts within the world and presents this world to me in a new form all the time.

I accept this world as a picture of the Creator for He wanted me to feel this, understand this, taste the bitterness and sweetness, the truth and the falsehood, and unite this together with Him in a single point. Ultimately, these three components must reach unity, which is called the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

All of our work with truth and falsehood and bitter and sweet are essentially clarifications that we must make. To do this, we need to be in a group to clarify our relationships between us,  to learn to draw the Light that Reforms. As a result, we must connect all of reality, on one hand, attributing it to the Creator and on the other hand, to myself accepting it as a display that the Creator shows me so that I will be able to connect all parts of reality to it.

That is how we reach the common point of everything called the end of correction. In our world now everything is bitter and false, whereas at the end of correction only sweetness and truth are left.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/13, Shamati #148 “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”

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An extract from the book The Light of the Sun: …and what is more, when Israel are untied and engage in the Torah, they overcome all those who rise against them by that.

We conquer and neutralize all the forces of evil by keeping the unity between us. They are no longer necessary because all the forces belong to one force: There is none else besides Him, the good that does good. But it is felt as good only if a person yearns for the good according to his level and his ability.

If he doesn’t yearn for that, the same force operates in an opposite manner. Its action is still good and benevolent to the sinners and to the righteous, of course, but a person who is inclined oppositely from the good and the benevolent feels this force as evil. This evil is revealed in different manners according to the attributes and desires that he has to correct by the same Light that Reforms. So it is in this Light that he feels darkness, like a bat that is blinded by the sunlight, in contrast to a rooster that gladly receives the dawn.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13

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