Question: Why does the Creator send me “thorny” thoughts?

Answer: From Rabash’s article “What is the Lily Among the Thorns in the Work”: The Zohar says “As the lily among the thorns so is my loved one among the girls.” The Creator wanted to make Israel like its form Above, so that there will be one lily on earth like the upper lily which is Malchut, and a lily that has a scent and is selected of all the other lilies in the world is the one that grows among the thorns.

A lily can grow and bloom only if it grows among the thorns. It’s impossible to grow without the thorns. The thorns are the forces that help us advance. Otherwise we would peacefully fall to sleep in our desire to receive and would never want to rise above it.

The thorns are the forces of motion that push us forward and help us advance while we aspire towards rest, fulfillment, and pleasure. They appear when there is no choice, when a person disrespects the option to advance by his own efforts and tries to rest all the time, justifying himself, feeling that he does enough and that everything is fine.

Then his stubbornness and his laziness gradually accumulate until a serious thorn appears. Then he begins to cry out and to advance. Everyone will agree judging by his own experience and say that this is exactly what happens, sometimes more and sometimes less. This is how a person is taught that he should find the power to advance by himself and not wait for the thorns. But there will still be thorns since it’s impossible to totally manage without them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What does it mean that a person should only present his “half a shekel” in the work and the Creator adds the other half?

Answer: My “half a shekel” means that I have to bring a vessel, a deficiency, while the filling comes from Above. This deficiency is necessary in order to acquire the force of bestowal. If my deficiency is right, I will receive the other half.

But usually we prepare the desire to receive for our own sake and cry out: “Give me, Give me!” Then we say: “The Creator doesn’t give us anything! He must be wrong and this whole method doesn’t work.”

We are not aware of the fact that our vessel is actually aimed at what the Creator doesn’t give. He only gives us a vessel of bestowal, the Light that Reforms, which is the only thing for which you may ask. If you really ask for that, you receive it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/13, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Rabbi Akiva depicts two kinds of people: the first are the “open store” type, which regard this world as an open store without a shopkeeper. He says about them, “The book is open and the hand writes.” Meaning, although they do not see that there is an account, all their actions are nonetheless written in the book, as explained above. 

We exist in a general system, and we influence it through all our actions. No matter what I think about or what I do, everything immediately influences the whole, of which I am an integral part.

This is done by the law of development imprinted in Creation against humanity’s will, where the deeds of the wicked themselves necessarily instigate the good deeds…

How is that possible? How can an evil deed correct me and generate good deeds? The path of suffering exists for this purpose. If I generate a series of troubles, if I don’t keep the direction of the goal of creation in order to judge myself and the whole world to the scale of merit, then my bad deeds and opposite goals bring the system to such distortions that as a result, it influences me like the source of evil and forces me to change my state and become a good and useful part.

This means that eventually, my bad deeds will surely come back to me twice as intensely as the harm I have caused to the system and will force me to change for the better.

The path of suffering is undesirable. It is prolonged and continuous since all my deeds go through the system until it responds. This takes time, but it surely will happen since the system doesn’t change.

So, my bad deeds surely will influence me eventually and correct me. However, they correct me only so that I will understand that I am a negative factor in the general system, and thus, I feel bad. It doesn’t change or correct me. It is said about this: “The Creator Himself puts one’s hand on the good fate and says to him, ‘Choose this for yourself.’” I am only brought to the place where I can choose, but the system doesn’t choose anything for me. It only brings me to the decision that I must do good deeds.

“The second type of people is called “those who want to borrow.” They take the shopkeeper into consideration, and when they take something from the store, they only take it as a loan.”

So, where do such good and clever people come from? Like the first type, they also have undergone suffering since no one receives any special treatment, and the same force of good and evil exists in everyone. If your evil inclination is big, then accordingly, you have enough brains, wisdom and persistence. So, at the end of correction, no one will feel that he is deprived as compared to others, but rather that everyone has his own special attributes and that they are compatible with each other, whereas in the ideal relation they are equal.

There are people who have been through great hardships in this or in a previous life and have become wiser—not in their minds, but in their internality. They already have the inner preparation that allows them to understand that they are in a general system and that they must be considerate of everyone since there is no other way. This is worthwhile since we will suffer less this way.

They want to heal the system or even to tie it to the Creator, depending on their current level which eventually is determined by the level of pain they have experienced. So, no wonder that relatively, the nation of Israel suffers much more than others. This is determined by the conditions of the general system.

“They promise to pay the shopkeeper the desired price, meaning attain the goal by it.”

This is the price. I ask, I demand, that the Creator give me a mind, feelings, and the power to do exactly what He demands of me. I will force myself, I will succeed in convincing myself, and then, I will see that it really is worthwhile to behave precisely this way. In the meantime, I advance under the pressure of the blows I receive, but later on, I gradually will change my perspective as I reconsider what is happening and will not advance “under pressure,” but for the uniqueness that is in bestowal, in love of others.

Thus, I ask for a loan. I ask for help, which is called raising MAN, a request for correction, as I want to fill the desire of the upper one. This always requires an ascent above reason. I make a decision that is not based on my egoistic desires, but on the desires that are above them.

The first type, whose debt is collected by the collectors of the development, pay their debt unknowingly, but stormy waves come upon them, through the strong wind of development, and push them from behind, forcing them to step forward.

Thus, their debt is collected against their will and with great pains by manifestations of the evil forces, which push them from behind. But the second type pay their debt, which is the attainment of the goal knowingly, of their own accord, by repeating the actions that hasten the development of the sense of recognition of evil.

It is clear that they receive the positive force that pulls them upward toward the goal, but they are the ones who awaken it as if they actually advance according to their own freewill.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/13, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 52, “Transgression does not Put Out a Mitzva“: One must know that one does not need to uproot the evil, as this thing is impossible. Rather, one must only hate the evil, as it is written, “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.”

It is about our choice. There is a plan that leads to the purpose of creation that must be fulfilled. We cannot change this plan because the contrast between the Light and the vessel has existed since the beginning of creation, and it must come to an end so that at the end of the process, they will not oppose one another, but will merge into one whole.

Therefore, this process should include the three following states: the initial state of the created being, the process of correction, and the state of the end of correction. The only thing we can do is to hasten time, to perceive all the states correctly—that is, to manage to justify them and want them in advance. Thanks to this, we acquire the understanding and the feeling of who the Creator is, and how we can connect to Him and become similar to Him.

We learn about the choice from different examples. However, the basis of the choice is in the following: If I want to get closer to the future states that are expected along the way, to hasten my development, I must get away from the past and come closer to the future according to the timeline of the plan of my development. This means that I draw further away from my egoistic desire and come closer to the desire to bestow.

This coming closer depends on my hate of reception and my attraction to bestowal. On nature’s part, the Creator pushes me to it by the force of the Light when it reveals to me more and more blows from my ego each time. Therefore, I feel suffering, evil, and thus I hate my ego. In contrast to this bad feeling, I begin to love the acts of bestowal, the connection in which I believe that I will feel better. Thus, nature, the Creator, the force of the Light, advances me.

This is where my freewill lies: to what extent I can increase my recognition of evil that is expressed in my hate of evil. I can do that with the help of the environment. If the environment begins telling me about evil more, which I have attained by my personal blows, I will draw away from my egoistic desire much faster and yearn for bestowal. Therefore, I have to receive endless examples from everything that surrounds me which prove to me how evil the ego is and how good bestowal is.

Those around me have to let me see and feel this, to brainwash me. Eventually, the hate of evil will burn in me and I will advance much faster to what is opposite to it, to the good. Therefore, as it is written, “O ye that love the Lord, hate evil.” By that, I will know what I must do: How I can turn my desires, which do not disappear, to their opposite form by using them in a new way.

I want to feel good! And if I have to bestow in order to feel that way, I am ready to do so. If I have to treat others more nicely, I have no choice and I agree to treat them more nicely so that we all will feel good. Just as in times of war or in other difficult times when people get closer to one another since they feel that it will be best for everyone, a person feels that, eventually, he will be better off.

So, from Lo Lishma (not for Her Name) we arrive at Lishma (for Her Name). First, a person acknowledges the advantage of a good attitude egoistically when he understands that we have no choice but to connect, to be compatible with nature, and to stop harming one another. Eventually, he begins to feel that there is a special power in connection, a special new state that he has never experienced before.

Just as when two people connect, trying not to harm one another at the beginning and to bring each other pleasure, and then they suddenly begin to feel that there is something greater between them—a feeling that they have never experienced before—so, from Lo Lishma we arrive at Lishma. It is all thanks to our increasing the hate for the egoistic desire to enjoy and to separation.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/13 

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Rabash, “You Have Chosen Us”: “This is the point that it is forbidden to teach the Torah to pagans, which means the nations of the world that are within a person himself should be taught.

And Baal HaSulam said that wherever the sages say that it is forbidden, it means that it is impossible. Since “the Torah only exists in those who kill themselves for it,” which means that a person annuls his “self” and wants to annul before the Creator, and then the Creator gives him the Torah as a present.

Therefore, a person should know that the Creator has chosen only the phase of Israel in a person, and it is only with regard to this phase that it is written, “You have loved us and wanted us.” Thus, a person who says, “You have chosen us,” must respect and regard the phase of Israel in him and annul all the other desires of the nations of the world in which he is incorporated.

We must make sure that the qualities which bring a person closer to spirituality are always prominent and speak within him, whereas all the other qualities should be repressed. Then, a person’s inner structure becomes similar to the spiritual Partzuf in the attributes that he receives from the environment. It is only in them that he can receive the Torah since they are the desires that were made as a result of the connection, the bestowing desires that stem from unity.

However, if these are a person’s own attributes, then they certainly will be egoistic. He never will be able to feel the truth in them and, so, it is impossible to advance by them.

If a person makes a decision that only the desires that he receives from the environment are the desires of his soul, he understands that it is impossible to advance any other way and that everything in him except for that spark is crooked (in Hebrew “crooked” sounds like “idol worshiper”) and not straight. This way a person arrive at the formation of the right vessel in him by understanding that all his personal desires are flawed.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/13

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Question: Looking from the outside, it seems that we are engaged in a mad chase after unification, love, and bestowal. What do we actually expect in return? How can we picture the rewards?

Answer: I will receive a soul for these efforts.

I either live or die like an animal, just don’t end up as prey for wild beasts, but rot in the ground, or I acquire a soul and live an eternal life. It is not after the animate body is gone but actually now, while living in this world.

Plants, for example, don’t feel what animals feel. Animals live a much richer life than plants. It is exactly for this reason that a “two-legged animal” doesn’t understand that eventually, it lives a physical life although it could acquire eternity.

It is impossible to explain that eternal life is unlimited: I am not limited by my physical body, not by my desires, not by time, and not by motion—not by anything at all. I transcend all these limitations and exit my boundaries.

How? It is very simple. Everything is prepared for me. A whole was broken to pieces. Each of these parts feels its boundaries and limitations. However, if it wants to come out of it, it can do so. This exit of one’s boundaries is the connection with others.

I work against my animal desire and, above it, I acquire a human, a higher desire; that is, I acquire a new vessel. I live in it and feel the unlimited life in it. It has no boundary that is determined by time and space, and there is no current “self.” It is because the spiritual world is not my “self” at all. There, the competition is over the greater connection, over the greater bestowal that leads to unlimited, infinite dimensions.

Everyone must reach that. It is impossible to settle for less. The goal of creation, its plan, the current crisis, and our entire life obligate us to do so. The only problem is how to organize this. All the necessary forces for that are ready, so use them. However, we don’t want to draw them to fulfill this goal.

Still, whatever the mind doesn’t do, time does. So, it isn’t a hopeless situation and a Human can emerge from every “animal.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” Item 18: Therefore, the Tana (Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai) described the Arvut as two people on a boat, when one of them began to drill a hole in the boat. His friend asked, “Why are you drilling?” He replied, “What business is it of yours? I am drilling under me, not under you.” So he replied, “Fool! We will both drown together!” (VaYikra Rabba, Chapter 4).

We are all interconnected in a global, total, integral network. However, according to the program of creation, this network is discovered gradually.

It was first revealed on the still level during the process of the formation and evolution of the Universe, until the Earth was formed. Later, this network was revealed in a stronger form on the vegetative level, and then, as it is written in The Book of Zohar, “The flower buds appeared on the earth.” Eventually, vegetation covered the planet and the network was revealed even further, passing to a new level, the animate one.

This process is derived from the four basic phases that appear one after the other. The network is revealed more and more. Some species become extinct, others are born. Nowadays, we see the disappearance of some species and revelation of other species all the time. All this is a revelation of the general network which, in its last phase, compelled the apes to come down from the trees and turned them into humans.

Gradually, the connection between all parts of reality has been manifesting slowly, directing those who were apes not long ago to new relationships of mutual exchange, driving them to kill each other, which doesn’t happen with other animal species. Animals only test who is stronger to discover who is the leader or who owns the territory, but in humans the impulses are stronger…. Ultimately, all of our evolution is discovery of the network that links all parts of reality.

Today, on the final level of this world, having passed through the three phases of the speaking level— the still, vegetative, and animate—we have reached the level of the “speaking of the speaking,” and we need to attain this height.

In the general network, the category of Israel is the key one and it establishes the entire process. This category includes those who already have a connection with the force that manages reality, with the upper governance. And among them, there are the “righteous” and the “wicked” who affect each other.

All this is inevitable because the network is being discovered more and more, thereby revealing a comprehensive and general integral nature in which everyone has great importance for the system. Therefore, it is worthwhile for us to publish this knowledge about the Arvut (mutual guarantee) between everyone. After all, everyone necessarily influences everyone else. Ultimately, his influence turns back on him, doubling the damage that he has caused to the society as a whole.

Meanwhile, it is difficult to notice this. The truth is revealed only in exceptional cases, under the pressure of major disasters. However, in spite of all this, we can draw a picture of the general system for the person from which he can derive that he belongs to everyone and that everyone belongs to him. Today, the world has become sensitive enough to listen to this message and feel this condition.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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There can be three states in the exercise of the “tens” (connecting in groups of tens): At one time, I am below everyone else, another time, I am the upper one, the one who bestows, and the third time, we are all equal. Equality is a result of the first two states, and it is the middle line.

We cannot stand equality nor measure it. We actually don’t have it. We understand what it means to be above or below others, but we lose sensation where equality begins. Even a missile cannot focus straight on target and constantly must feel a certain degree of deviation. We have to feel a certain degree of deviation in everything.

So, we are given the balance from Above as the middle line, which comes together with the revelation of the Creator. The vessel and the Light, the middle line and the Creator, come together as a sign that you have exerted yourself enough and have attained a certain level of accuracy in different measurements that now enable you to feel the middle line and the Creator to a certain extent. For example, you have measured 10 pounds of the vessel and 10 pounds of the Light, and the fact that there is a deviation of 10 ounces in these 10 pounds is ignored from Above.

Next time, you will attain the middle line in those 10 pounds, and then you will value it as 100 pounds, and the accuracy will not be in the range of 10 ounces, but of 1 ounce. Thus, each time, you value your adhesion with the Creator more and thereby expand your vessel. The accuracy grows, that is, the middle line becomes increasingly thinner and thus more qualitative.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/13, TES 

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You will attain everything within the “ten,” which is a group made of ten friends that works on the connection between them (an exercise that we conduct at present), and not just by studying The Zohar or Talmud Eser Sefirot. You don’t know how it will all be revealed, but it will be revealed.

Question: How should I act with regards to my “ten?”

Answer: Sometimes, I have to check myself with regards to that ten, this Minyan (a quorum of ten). Sometimes I have to see this Minyan as one person, sometimes I have to see myself above the ten and to bestow upon others, and sometimes I have to see that I am lower than them and to be under their influence.

Sometimes we feel that we are together, as one force field, in which we are equally incorporated in one another and each one is made of all the ten. When each of us is already made of all the ten and is incorporated in all the ten again, it becomes 10×10, that is, 100. The 100 are incorporated in the ten again and become 1,000, and so on. Eventually we fill this area in our mutual incorporation so densely that it becomes a whole, solid surface upon which we reveal the Creator.

I can imagine that it is I who brings the deficiency to the ten and the others worry about me like ZAT (the lower seven Sefirot) of Bina. I am in them like in a mother’s womb and compel them to draw the Light that Reforms upon me so that I will adhere to them more strongly and will bestow upon them and help.

I can also discover this attitude in the ten when we all connect into one whole. After I bestow upon them and receive from them, I attain this unity with them, feeling that not only do we share everything but I also expect to reveal the Creator as a result of this unity and this partnership. The moment the “ten” attains the concept of Minyan (a connection of ten people), I reveal the Creator in it.

It says: “I came and there was no man,” which means that the wholeness in which the Creator is revealed was missing. Therefore, the Creator says: “I came and there was no man.” “Man” is the image in which the Creator can dress.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/13, TES

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: In the generation of the Messiah anyone can reach adhesion and attainment. 

We are in the days of the Messiah and can enter the spiritual world, although we will have to sweat in order to do that.

After millennia of evolution, the desire to receive has been revealed in its fullest on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature. Only the speaking level is left, which we uncover thanks to the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is the reason that it is revealed to everyone unexceptionally. We can attain all the 125 levels and reach the end of correction.

In the past, in the generation of Rashbi, Rabbi Shimon’s group, who wrote The Book of Zohar, were given this chance. Today, however, although we are small and worthless, lowly and weak, the structure of our vessels is fit for The Book of Zohar.

It is just like an embryo that is not a ripe human being yet, but still belongs to the same species and only must develop. It is the same with us who, unlike previous generations, “fit” The Book of Zohar and can use it to draw the Light that Reforms, and this is why it is revealed.

Anyone who thinks that it is forbidden to study the wisdom of Kabbalah should understand this. Things have changed since new human desires are appearing that belong to the generation of the Messiah.

“The generation of the Messiah” is the name of a period when the Light called “Messiah” comes and acts on the vessels. On the previous levels, we advanced by the egoistic evolution, according to the principle of “go and make a living from one another,” in the egoistic sense. Today, the desire of the fourth level, on the human level, is developing, and thus we all depend on each other. After all, a human being (“Adam” in Hebrew) is someone who feels that he depends on and is incorporated in the whole. This state is expressed in the global crisis of the modern world.

Everything begins from the Light that flows upon the first three levels of humanity: the still, the vegetative, and the animate. These levels are not mutually connected as they should be. They are not compatible with the upper system and the Light that comes from there. After all, the Light brings us the wholeness of the ten Sefirot, while the vessels are dispersed, their Sefirot are dispersed and separated, and so they experience a shattering, a crisis in different forms.

So, what should they do? We should unite, but how? Using their logic, they try to unite and correct where they feel the crisis—in cultural life, in education, in industry, in technology, in finance, in commerce, and so on. And, indeed, why not? “Wherever things are bad, this is where we must correct the situations so that it will be better.”

Yet, as a result, we experience even greater troubles. After all, the problem is not where we feel the emptiness, but in the means of filling this void. So, there is no point settling for a struggle in trying to fill this void.

Here, humanity faces a new source of pressure: the need for what we call Masach (screen). After all, the only way we can receive the Light correctly is if we connect with others in ten Sefirot. When you develop mutual bestowal in this connection, you become similar to the Light and its attributes, and then it fills you.

So, a totally different approach is needed today. The crisis is felt as an empty void, but the solution is not in egoistic fulfillment, but in unity.

People generally understand that together, they can manage in life. At the same time, in their attempts to unite without the integral system, they only contribute to worsening the situation. It is because the point isn’t just connection, but connection with the Creator, through Israel, according to the spiritual hierarchy.

In the past, the vessels of Israel were above the nations of the world. After the shattering, they fell, and now the nations of the world are above them, seem more prosperous, and of course don’t feel the need for Israel in order to come out of the crisis. It is because they are actually above Israel; they are not shattered, while Israel is, and so they see themselves as the religious authority, as responsible for the world and for everything in general.

In the current circumstances, this feeling is natural, and the correction must come by understanding the general picture, which will lead the nations of the world to the method of correction. Until then, all their efforts will lead to the opposite results, as is happening in Europe that has created a common market. Today, the Europeans should understand that unity is only possible according to the integral method thanks to the power of Israel in it.

This is the reason that many forms of unity in the world get stuck. We are the reason for that, those who represent the level of Israel. We must be ready to pass on the message about that to humanity: The real connection can only be through us. Otherwise, if they will begin to unite by themselves, this only will make things worse, and wars will immediately start all over the world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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