Question: How do the gradual changes happen that eventually lead us to a state where my neighbor becomes more important to me than I am to myself? What do I feel at each stage?

Answer: This kind of change happens in a person only with the help of the Reforming Light. Roughly, it can be divided into four stages:

1. We don’t sense anybody outside us; they seem so “lifeless” to us. They live some place near us, but we have nothing in common with them. We communicate with them, hug them, sing songs with them, but we still regard them as “puppets” that exist next to us.

2. Later, to the extent of the level of the affliction we go through, which is triggered by our concern that we are not advancing well enough, we start worrying: “What will happen to me?” At this time, we continue suffering and applying efforts, but we still don’t understand the ways to connect with others. This doesn’t “penetrate” our ears; they are only beautiful words, I have heard a lot of times…

The reality, the learning process, and everything we do become more and more important to us; although, our concerns about the relationships with our friends are still not quite clear to us. We don’t yet feel that our connection leads us anywhere. It seems to us to be just a sort of “morality” and even reminds us of the religious commandments.

3. Then, we begin neglecting everything that our friends do in the group: connections, dancing, singing. We are not capable of behaving this way. In our eyes, it seems very frivolous; we agree to act this way only because it creates a good and pleasant atmosphere and we know that we have to inspire our friends and stay together. So, we meet at joint meals in order to connect a little and maybe even attract new people to us. This is what we think.

4. At this point, we acknowledge that no matter what we do, it doesn’t work for us. We start noticing that at this time other people look much smarter in our eyes. We start thinking: “How do they do that?” We begin to re-evaluate our attitude and come to a conclusion that the unity is important.

No doubt, it is the result of the Light’s impact rather than a consequence of the mutual activities among friends. Although, since we still continue to participate in joint activities, the Surrounding Light descends to us. We start considering our activities oriented towards unity as useful, but still think that they are purely theoretical. We keep talking about them and continue reading and listening about group work more intently than before; previously we didn’t even pay any attention to the articles that describe these things. We thought that “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” etc. were worth reading, but the article “The Last Generation” reminded us of communist ideas.

Gradually, under the influence of the Surrounding Light, we start realizing that we have to work against our egos and overcome them. Then, we notice that overcoming our egoism and connecting with our friends are actually the same things; it’s impossible to achieve it differently. It’s feasible only while being in the group and exclusively through connecting with the friends.

Before, we never valued external actions and neglected them to the extent that we wished they would never exist. “Why do we have to unite with others? “Love thy friend sounds repulsive…Have you ever seen it happening? What are you talking about? I am embarrassed that Kabbalah books talk about things like that…”

All of a sudden, we notice that the internal content of our actions is totally oriented towards unity, the merger of our internal particles, rather than corporeal bodies. We keep neglecting our physical connections. If it doesn’t lead us to joining the points in the heart, we continue to despise the “tricks” and “slogans” like: “Let’s unite! Let’s sit together at meals and talk!”

We start changing our attitude to unity. All of a sudden we realize that it’s about connecting “the points in the hearts” with the help of the Reforming Light. That’s why we have to stay in the group. It’s different from spending time in the bar where people hug each other, sing, and feel good. Here, we also sit together, we can have a drink and hug although our intention is not to unite our bodies or some earthly egoistic ideals, but rather to try to bring our points in the heart closer and to ask the Light to impact us and connect them together. The Light influences us sufficiently to the degree of our mutual efforts and to the extent of our desire to unite.

This is the way we advance. Going through these stages is essential. As a result, we become confident that our presence in the group and the group activities are necessary to connect the points in the heart with the help of the Light. From this point on, we stop neglecting unity. We already know that spiritual realization is all about unity and our further advancement becomes more obvious to us. At the same time, we discover a new difficulty on our way: We have to figure out the way to detach our “self” from the point that we contribute to unity; we have to be concerned about giving “externality” more weight than to our own “self.” For that, we also need the Light. However, it’s the next stage and it also consists of four sub-phases.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/13, The Zohar

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As Baal HaSulam says in his article “600,000 Souls,” there is actually only one soul, one desire, Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity). The Light that enters by the Creator is stamped in the desire to receive and this gives it its different qualities but in an opposite form. Then the desire has to rise above its form that is opposite from the Light and resemble it. The oppositeness remains; it actually creates such intensity, such a connection, which enables the desire to enter the Light, to conquer it, and to absorb it. Now there is room for that.

So there is only one desire, and if it comes out differently in words, it is because we attain it in parts, and not even in parts but in tiny grains of self-attainment.

It is like a holographic picture where each of its parts includes all of it (M), but on a smaller scale (m). All the details are kept, but they lose the initial accuracy. There are the first ten Sefirot here, but the clarity is different.

The question is: If there is only one soul, why are we so different from one another? It is because on the whole, in such a case, everything has to be much simpler—the same soul grows smaller and its lines become “blurry.”

But this isn’t what happens—it seems different to everyone, since everyone has the root of his own soul. In other words, we attain the one general soul in different “angles” by our mutual incorporation in everyone.

It is because the point in the heart is actually above the desire to receive, in others. It is the spiritual root of the individual soul, while the desire itself isn’t worth anything by itself. On the other hand the “others” is the same concept for everyone, it is Adam HaRishon (first man). Thus we all attain the same thing but from different perspectives, until they connect. This is done so that we can help one another in attaining the attribute of bestowal.

Now I attribute my soul to the desire to receive, which actually doesn’t exist. My soul is in others, and I have to work outside the desire, outside myself, on “the other side of my skin,” by acquiring an ability to bestow, vessels of bestowal. I take the desire of others and receive MAN (a request for correction) from them, and provide them with what they want, and thereby develop my soul, my inclination, the yearning outward…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/13, “600,000 Souls”

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Question: If I don’t lift a finger without a command from Above, what can I do to help my correction, where is my freewill?

Answer: We have no free will with regard to our correction. Our free will is only in hastening the correction. You don’t need to delve into the states you go through. The more you delve into them, the more you will linger and delay your advancement.

The only beneficial act you can do is to hasten your correction. This doesn’t depend on the states that are revealed to you at all. It only depends on your actions of incorporation and your connection with others.

So our work is very simple, and we might say even primitive. All you need to do, no matter what happens to you, and above it, is to constantly yearn for connection. As a result of this work, you will discover that you have a new mind, wisdom, and feelings only thanks to the fact that you advance persistently in this one direction, as “an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “Article 12”

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Item 63, Lesson 5

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Question: What does the perception of reality in the form of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one” symbolize?

Answer: The perception of “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one” is the only true reality there is. We, on the other hand, are in a state of imaginary concealment, in “worlds,” which means in concealments that exist only with regard to us so that we can be corrected.

The host who faces the guest accepts the guest’s desire and creates this concealment between them so that that guest will not feel the host and his good deeds. It is because this gift paralyzes the guest! The guest wants to be like the host, but he cannot do anything as long as the host fills him with everything that is good.

Under such conditions the guest cannot say to the host that he loves him and wants to bestow upon him. Even if he says these words, they will only be said in gratitude to the host for his kindness towards the guest. This is not how love and a relationship is tested. Love is tested when you are ready to give everything that you have! Then it is evident that you love and that you bestow.

So the host agrees with the guest that he should have the right conditions to express his attitude. Otherwise the guest has no point in receiving the goodness from the host, and will only experience sorrow. Instead of enjoying the refreshments the host has prepared, he will torture himself.

This brings about great sorrow to the guest, and so he is ready to restrict his desire (restriction I). Later a system develops that enables the guest to correct himself. It is as if he is thrown away from the host to the other end of the creation, of reality, as if he falls from a cliff into an abyss.

But he is happy about it since by falling further down, he begins to discover who he is. Before, he dissolved in the upper Light that took care of everything and covered everything. The Light filled the desire to receive and the desire didn’t even understand what it actually is. This is how a person who has an important and influential patron feels, that he cannot think about anything by himself, and so he begins to lose himself.

But the created being who is thrown away from the Creator to the other end of reality can now check whether his desire was real in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) and can do everything for the host, just as the host does for him. Can the guest really do this and does he want to? Here is where his work begins.

First there is a long period of preparation, thousands years of our history, which in the meantime we cannot even be considered as if we exist with regard to the spiritual world. For the time being it is only a process that takes place inside us, like a dream. Like in a dream, 50 years of our life go by in five minutes. It is the same with us, who by entering the spiritual reality, the spiritual ladder, look back and the whole way we’ve made in our lifetime as seeming like a short and meaningless episode of a couple of days at the most. The scale of the events totally changes.

After the guest restricts his desire, he can now start working and adapt himself to the host. He is ready to receive from the host to the extent that he can bestow upon him by that. He is ready to be in the dark and to receive the darkness as Light. This means that he doesn’t need to feel the taste and the fillings of the host for his own pleasure. He receives these fillings only in order to bestow and to bring contentment to the host.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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On one hand there are many souls and each of them is divided into more parts. But on the other hand, can spirituality be divided into parts? We know that there is one whole reality and nothing but that. Even when we are confused as we see its separate parts, it is actually one whole since only one state was created from the beginning, one soul.

It is called the soul of Adam HaRishon (first man), Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity). After the preparation, we discover this inner reality behind the Partzufim and the “worlds” much more clearly. It’s about a desire that is adhered to the Creator. On the root level of adhesion, it is called Malchut of Ein Sof, and on the fourth level of adhesion it is called the soul of Adam HaRishon. It’s all about how we see this desire at a certain point of our development.

So only the world of Ein Sof was created or the soul of Adam HaRishon and nothing else. This soul is in every person called “Israel,” which means Yashar—El (straight to the Creator), who has attained spirituality. What is more, it’s whole in everyone, since spirituality is not divided into sections and parts as we see in corporeality. Only the lack of correction prevents me from seeing the real picture, but I am in it nonetheless, in the initial state of one soul that was prepared for us to reveal.

But Kabbalists say that there are 600,000 souls that are divided into “sparks.” So what does this structure stand for, a “genealogical tree”? This is the distorted picture of reality that is divided by the force of the corrupt desire in each of us. First this desire separates and totally prevents the entrance of the Light, being totally opposite from it. Then, by the force of correction, the desire starts to receive the intention of in order to bestow, or in other words, it is refined. To the extent that it has this intention, the general soul illuminates in it. This means that the desire gradually discovers its real state. First it feels that it’s a small part of the general soul, and finally it discovers that it’s the same as the soul. Then it discovers that it is Adam HaRishon.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, “600,000 Souls”

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The Zohar, “Naso,” Item 180: The blessing of the priests. May the Lord bless you, may the Lord illuminate, may the Lord carry… the blessing it Ha-Va-Ya-H, and they are also the three names of Ha-Va-Ya-H in the blessing of the priests that are parallel to the three lines, the three letters in Ha-Va-Ya-H in the filling of S”G (63) Yod, Hay Vav, Hay. That the three letters Yod of S”G, are the initials of these three Ha-Va-Ya-H.

Kabbalists have a problem. Every science in our world like physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, and botany have a language of their own, but there is no language for emotions since in our world we cannot rate them, measure them, weigh them, or divide them into different types, etc.

When we begin to discover the desire to receive and in it different types of feelings, according to the size of the desire and its type, in three lines, in all the levels of its thickness, we need a language in order to describe how to do it.

Let’s take the writing of musical notes for example; it isn’t a language. I only draw some symbols that someone else has to play and feel, and then he may understand the feelings that I wanted to convey, although for him it may be something else. This is a very big problem.

For the same reason both psychology and psychiatry are not considered exact sciences, since they are based on the little experience, which we can build up during our lifetime and not more than that. It is because we cannot measure feelings in our senses, put them in tables, charts, and graphs so that it would be an iron rule.

Therefore, Kabbalists have invented the recording of spiritual attainment by using Gematria (numerical values of letters and words) and this has really become a very laconic language that can bring together many accurate details, which can be conveyed from one person to another. This is in contrast to musical compositions where everyone can imagine what the composer thought about, while here, you cannot be wrong. In order to develop Gematria, you have to attain and to reach the same place, the same phenomenon, to be incorporated in the same soul that wrote this and then you feel the exact same state since you are united with the soul in adhesion and so you can be sure that you have really received its message.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, The Zohar

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Question: What is “a spiritual birth in the desert?” I feel a kind of disappointment from the previous conventions since we reach a special feeling of unity there, and then the fall comes. How can we use this feeling of disappointment as preparation for the convention?

Answer: We have to give birth to our first connection in the desert. This spiritual birth is the first revelation of our connection in the upper system, like a person who is born into the world, into the spiritual world.

Do you know when a person reaches the first level? When he is told: “You won’t get anything” and he is happy about it. So I don’t understand what disappointment is. The spiritual ascent is above all human disappointments; it is a spiritual attainment. You should be happy that you don’t have anything, and what is more, that the others have received everything and you haven’t. This is called being at the entrance to the first level.

So there is no room for disappointment!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 156, Lesson 41

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Item 55, Lesson 4

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, Item 112, Lesson 18

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “Which Degree Should One Achieve so He Will Not Have to Reincarnate?“

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Question: The convention “A Flame in the Desert” seems to be closing the circle that the first convention in the desert started about a year ago. We feel that the previous phase is ending and there are new opportunities before us for the emotional connection among us. What will our global group look like after its spiritual birth when we succeed in attaining connection?

Answer: I don’t think that our external form will change that much, and the inner connection cannot be described in words. There will be such a connection among us that you will constantly feel as if your child is away from you, the physical distance separates you, but you know and feel him so well that his image has become a part of you and is living in you; this is how we will all feel one another.

We won’t need to talk much since we will understand each other’s feelings internally by adhesion. There will be few words and the clarifications will be short and simpler. It is as if we are eating one salad, and I say that there isn’t enough salt and you already understand that when I say half of a word. After all, you are tasting the same dish, and feel the same reality.

We won’t need endless words and powerful media in order to create the connection between us like we do today when we don’t feel connected. We will correspond, but in a very short and to the point manner since we will understand what each one feels anyway. We will become “one man in one heart.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/13, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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