Question: Many times someone has seemed to be a great man, but as I got closer to him and got to know him I discovered there was nothing there. When will the disappointments end and when will we really discover greatness?

Answer: Greatness is only discovered in the Creator. We have to work in an opposite manner towards the group, the teacher, and the Creator; we have to build their greatness by ourselves. The closer you get to them, the smaller, humbler and lower they will seem to you. They will not allow you to hold on to them and to appreciate them.

It says, “Wherever you discover His greatness, this is where you discover His modesty.” It is very hard to hold on to a feeling of greatness in spirituality.

Therefore, religions use external attributes in order to raise importance, and every rabbi or priest presents themselves as great and important before the people. This is necessary in order to attract people, since they are impressed by external appearance. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, however, it is the opposite; here everything is determined by the internality. So sometimes the study, the group, the friends, and the teacher present themselves as not being special in any way. Then a person has to overcome the disrespect and try to raise their importance on a more internal level, by himself.

We don’t even act like the great group from Kotzk, who purposefully showed each other lightheadedness and disrespect of spirituality in order to allow for more work.

We have to work on the greatness of the friend, the teacher, and the Creator, although each time we feel that they are smaller. So we have to value these moments dearly, just like during the workshops when we have a chance to be impressed by the mind and feelings of the friends when we don’t even expect it. It is because we are used to humiliating everyone by seeing ourselves as the greatest of all.

The fact that I value myself more than everyone is instinctive. Suddenly I discover that the friends are greater than I, and this shakes me in some sense. First it only shakes me egoistically, but then I begin to value them and to envy them, and then I tie it to the goal and use it in order to advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What does it mean to be impressed by the Creator?

Answer: To be impressed by the greatness of the Creator means to be impressed by His creation since we are not able to grasp Him Himself. It is “from Your actions we will know You.”

You are impressed by everything that you discover within you and surrounding you, in all of reality, that in the meantime you don’t connect to yourself and don’t feel that it is you yourself. You are shown only your inner world in a kind of external mirror so that you will study it better. We need to thank the Creator that He gives us the opportunity to see our inner pictures from the outside, and in this way can learn to know ourselves.

If you don’t connect together with the friends, the teacher, and the Creator, then, for certain, you are degrading them. It occurs automatically. If the importance of the Rav, the group, each of the friends, and the Creator aren’t completely equal for you, as something above you, given to you so that you understand yourself and the reality in which you exist, then it turns out that you degrade them.

You can’t just value the Creator. It isn’t the Creator if you don’t connect Him to the teacher, the group, the studies, and to all the components of this concept, the “Creator.” The main thing is to connect all the factors together; otherwise, it is impossible to talk about anything that is real and concrete.

“There is none else beside Him” signifies that all the rest, except for the single point inside me through which I am able to research the reality, is the Creator. And “the point of breakage” of mine that is separated from me was given to me so that by using this breakage, this special act of the Creator, I will get to know myself and Him.

We are both separated by the attribute of severance, purposefully created by the Creator. And only this one point doesn’t belong to the Creator, so that I will invert it into a point of adhesion.

And when I begin to work on this point of separation between us, it suddenly turns into five worlds, a black abyss that I constantly try to skip over. To skip, means to connect above this abyss that separates between us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What does it mean to judge the whole world to the scale of merit?

Answer: It means to attain a level in which I am incorporated in all the desires in the world, in all the souls, in all the parts of the one general soul, to such an extent that it all becomes me. Prior to this, in the previous levels, I already attained my personal end of correction, having totally justified the Creator’s attitude to me in the past, the present, and the future.

Now I attain the general end of correction by including all the souls in me and by being in one vessel with them. This is called judging the whole world to the scale of merit and by that I actually attain the Creator’s attitude to all of them. It is because I am in their end of correction and in my end of correction, and it becomes the same thing. What is revealed in this corrected vessel is called “absolute love.”

Until then, all I have in the meantime is my own vessel and I judge according to my feelings in it. So at a certain moment I can say that the Creator is good, but the next day when something unpleasant happens to me, I don’t justify the Creator any more. I cannot annul myself and determine that the Creator is good unless I correct all my vessels. I am constantly in the slingshot, tilting from one side to another each time.

When I correct myself, I begin to incorporate with all the other vessels, with all the people, with their internality. By this love for them, I reach the love of the Creator. These are not just nice words that call me to love everyone in order to use them as a means of getting to know the Creator; they are my spiritual vessels!

I am increasingly filled with love for them that is expressed by my being able to bestow upon them. Greater desires join me each time, and I work with all this accumulative desire.

Suppose I had 50 kg of desire yesterday by which I could connect to 50 people, and today my desire to receive has grown, and I feel melancholy, but I overcome this feeling and rise, and now I have 70 kg of desire. By that I can now connect with several more people.

My process of correction is by connecting to others and bestowing upon them, by love connections with 20 more people. It is possible to explain this simply, although it actually doesn’t happen so simply, but as an integral incorporation in “circles.”

To the extent that I connect with others this way, they become me and all of reality becomes mine. Thus I see the Creator’s attitude to reality, since it is the same thing, just like His attitude to me. It is like judging your attitude to me according to your attitude to my baby. Because I love him, your positive attitude to him is the same as a positive attitude to me.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Preparation to the Lesson

“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 134, Lesson 34

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Naso,” Item 359, Lesson 18

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, “Ohr Pnimi,” Item 18, Lesson 12

“Body and Soul“

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Question: Once we reach the state of Gmar Tikkun (the final correction), will the feeling of the Creator, as the greatest, remain because we adhere to Him in one whole and become equal?

Answer: The special method of Kabbalah is that in adhesion with the Creator, our feelings of oppositeness to Him are not lost.

On the one hand, we become more opposed to the Creator; we distance from Him because during spiritual ascent our egoism grows. But at the same time, we become closer to Him, above our increasing egoism, and that is why our oppositeness to Him does not evaporate, does not disappear.

That is, in the state of Gmar Tikkun (the final correction), we discover that we are absolutely opposite to the Creator in our desire, and absolutely equal, like Him, in adhesion with Him, in our intention.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

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Question: Sometimes we say that our world is hell. What is the difference between the concept of “hell” in the spiritual and earthly interpretation?

Answer: In Kabbalah, the feeling of the burning fire of hatred for others is called hell. It is the feeling of alienation from friends and the Creator that is manifested in Malchut (in the desire); according to our spiritual root, it is felt like fire.

Now, it is not felt like that: “I don’t want to look at him and don’t want to talk to him; I don’t like him, thus, I reject him.” That is, today we do not have this state when we dislike or hate. Hell is a feeling of hatred that arises on the spiritual level.

But a more profound sense of hell is a state of disconnection from the Creator. This is the largest penalty, but not with respect to our current level.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

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Rabash, “What is Thou Shall not Add and Thou Shall not Detract in the Work”: We should understand that when a person wants to begin the work of Holiness, he must first know what it is about. This means whom he wants to serve. This means that he must first estimate how important the King that he wants to serve as a slave is, which means that he will be as “slaves serving the Rav not in order to get a reward.” But who is the one who gives him the desire to serve the King without any reward. Only the greatness and the importance of the King fuel him to want to work without any reward. So all his work is to depict the importance of the King to himself, and to thank Him, for having given him a desire and a thought to take some part in spirituality.

The importance of the Creator is the only reason that can commit us to the real work. There are many kinds of awakenings, but they all come and work on the part of our ego. Only if we get an inspiration to work and are impressed by the Creator’s greatness, does this motivation come on the part of bestowal. The greatness of the upper obligates us to bestow and helps us to attain bestowal.

We have to divide it accurately into two. All the other types of awakenings, even those that come from the group, from the friends, all eventually influence our ego and evoke us egoistically: through envy, lust, and honor, which are on the part of the desire to receive.

It’s only the Creator’s greatness, which we ask Him to reveal to us, that motivates us. We don’t want His filling. We only want to be impressed by His height and to see His greatness. This really draws a person.

We know that without a push from behind and being drawn forward, we can’t move. Since we are naturally lazy, we don’t want anything but absolute rest. This is how the desire to enjoy is built. Only to the extent that we see a certain pleasure ahead, can we move from our place according to the pleasure that we imagine. Therefore, we want our desire to receive to move by being drawn by the Creator’s greatness, the King’s greatness, then we will undoubtedly advance correctly.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12

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Nothing in the spiritual world is valued by its quantity, and so the smallest detail is as important as the greatest detail. Everything depends only on how things are valued in a person’s heart. We always see the same reality before us. The extent that it’s revealed to us (whether more or less) depends upon our perception, to what extent we can develop and refine our spiritual vessels and make them precise and delicate, so that they can detect the smallest discernments.

Reality itself, however, never changes. It’s said, “There is no partiality in spirituality.” Therefore, great and small only seem that way to me according to the scale of whether I am looking at it through my near-sighted eyes or whether I am wearing glasses, or using binoculars, or even a telescope. This means that everything depends upon my vessels of perception, on the desires, and to what extent I enlarge and correct them.

Everything depends on my scale. So it makes no difference whether it’s a small or a great thing: If I focus on the right goal, if I only worry about attaining the feeling of the Creator’s greatness that leads me forward, if I constantly develop it and respect it, by not letting myself disrespect it or forgetting it, then by that I will necessarily advance in the right direction towards the goal.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12

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Question: What is the use of making an effort trying to hasten one’s correction if one’s path is predetermined: all the corrections he has to go through and all his mistakes and transgressions?

Answer: If you don’t make an effort then you will never go through these mistakes and corrections. Suppose you are in the 3^rd grade and have to go into 4^th grade, but you don’t want to study so you are not allowed to go on to the 4^th grade! What happens then? You will be punished and everyone will treat you badly: your parents, the teachers, and the school administration. You will remain in 3^rd grade for another year until you complete all your assignments and are ready to go on to the next grade.

Have you gained anything by your laziness? So why do you ask about the benefit of your effort? You can’t go on to the next phase unless you complete the previous phase because the vessel isn’t prepared for it. How can you feel it, how can the next level be fulfilled in you?

It’s impossible to go on to the next spiritual level because of “favoritism.” It’s possible in our world, but not in spirituality. It’s because you don’t have vessels to feel, and you need to develop them by yourself, by the ascents and descents, by being confused and encountering problems, by making wrong decisions, by trying to break through by different nonsense, like a child who learns something.

Otherwise you will not advance. These are the laws of nature, so there will be no tolerance here and no forgiveness. Being tolerant is for someone who makes a mistake because he doesn’t know. This is acceptable only among people, but we are under a clear deterministic process in which every step is predetermined.

It’s impossible to go on to the next stage without completing the previous one first, until you are impressed by it, and acquire knowledge and feeling; until it’s engraved in your memory and you are ready to advance with this experience, until you have put together a vessel in which you now feel all the phenomena. Only then can you move forward.

In our world things don’t happen this way; here people find different detours since they don’t understand their states at all. When the Light comes and illuminates our state, we will understand the reasons why it happens this way and for what reason, the benefit in it, and how to relate to it correctly. Until then we act blindly according to our animal instincts.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What is the difference between a person who overcomes the evil that is revealed in him through his efforts and the person who doesn’t make efforts in order to overcome and waits until the suffering accumulates to the extent that in the end it will force him to move from his place?

Answer: By a person making his own efforts, he saves himself from suffering and saves time. The sufferings that were spared multiplied by the time he saved gives a huge advantage according to the intensity of the suffering that he avoided. And with all of that, one needs to multiply by another factor included in this formula, the Creator. Through this state He gives you the opportunity for contact with Him, but you degrade the opportunity and don’t go toward the connection.

All of these opportunities that you degraded and didn’t realize accumulate with you as additional Aviut (coarseness/thickness) and as punishment since you didn’t want to pay attention to the fact that it was a call that came from the Creator. Rather, you turned it into a regular problem, which came from relatives or from a friend that insulted you.

You didn’t see that the Creator sent His messenger to you, and according to your level, you should have recognized it. So what do you suggest to do with yourself in this situation? We are forced to give another few blows, pinches, so that you will feel that it isn’t by accident that all these people are surrounding you, but everything comes from the Creator since there is none else besides Him.

It’s because you are in a state of unconsciousness and don’t feel it. You need to be brought back to consciousness so that you will be able to rise to the next level. Each level, except your relationship, includes the relationship with the Creator: “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are One.” But if you don’t pay attention that everything is connected to the Creator, that from the beginning everything came from Him and in the end will return to Him, then you will not complete your clarification.

Thus, you need to see the entire world as angels—whether good or bad, meaning with pleasant sensations and unpleasant sensations—directing you towards the right path. They can be relatives or your children, those who touch your heart, or they can be total strangers, or it can be some event in the world.

No matter what form it comes to you—via your wife, your children, your friends, the police, your manager at work, health problems, the weather, or the news—you must accept it as different manifestations of the Creator. It is He who stands before you and asks: “Well, when are you coming to Me? I so want to embrace you! Come climb my mountain already!” However, you turn your back on Him and look down at your feet. You don’t pay attention that the entire world is the language of the Creator who is talking to you.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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