Let’s draw a spiritual scheme of the present world order. In the center of the circle is the global organization of Bnei Baruch (BB). The first circle around Bnei Baruch are the Jews who are in Israel (Common Israel), the next circle is all the Jews around the world. The outer circle is the nations of the world, the rest of the world. Baal HaSulam wrote about this in this article, “Introduction to The Book of the Zohar,” where he clarified the question of the internality and externality.

The correction, without a doubt, depends only on the inner group. It begins to influence and to transfer this correction to the outside, and only in this consistent way, this correction spreads through all the circles, from the inner circle outwards. Thus, the faster we can reach the Israelis, the faster, easier, and more correctly can we work with the rest of the world.

It is clear that in the meantime, it is in the intermediate stages. Through the Jews in Israel and outside of Israel, we will be able to reach the most outer circles. And this is a big problem, a most serious obstacle on the way, especially the Jews that are outside of Israel. In Israel, at least, it is somehow possible to shake and stir them, but the next circle is very problematic.

But in any case, this is the way the spiritual ladder is built. The Jews who live in other countries of the world, they anyway comprise the inner part in comparison to humanity in general.

Until we correct this inner part, the Jews of Israel (ISR) and outside of Israel, especially the Jews of the USA, the process won’t include the nations of the world (World). There is no other way, only in this way will the upper light spread, bringing the general correction.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Rabash – The Social Writings “Sometimes Spirituality Is Called a ‘Soul‘”

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Naso,” Item 311, Lesson 13

Rav Yehuda Ashlag “The Peace“

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Pharaoh will remain in Egypt. We need to escape from Egypt and Pharaoh’s vessels. We do not work with the desire to enjoy itself, but we fight against it. It puts on the brakes or even shifts into reverse, but we want to break out from it, ahead of it to carry out the work of the Creator outside the borders of Egypt.

The battle that we fight during all the ten plagues of Egypt creates our vessel. I work above the desire to enjoy, which holds back the point in the heart, and this battle is called: “I labored and I found.”

My attempts to get away from egoism create the derivative, which is my new vessel. The same will be repeated on the next degree: Every time I build a more flawless, accurate, and finer vessel. After all, the desire to enjoy is the same, but my job becomes more refined and more precise, aimed at more internal clarifications. That is why, each time, a new vessel is created, more selective and of higher quality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Book of Zohar, “Naso,” Item 172: “The image of man,” like a man who includes all forms, the three faces, lion, ox, and eagle that are included in mans’ face, on the side of Malchut in him. Since a man includes Zeir Anpin and Malchut.

The form of a man is what we establish in the connection between us, until we have the form of the first man. Everyone’s exertion in the connection forms this new image called Adam HaRishon, “the first man.”

First man was created from above during the descent of the worlds, and was like a prototype, an angel, because it was created without our exertion. Together with our exertion, it turns from an animal into a man.

We see the same thing in the process of evolution: We have reached the full end of the animal development, and now we need to rise to the next level called the “Human Being.” So the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed, and there is a crisis in every aspect of our lives, and there are the right conditions to build the form called the human being by our exertion. It is because it is built only by the connection between everyone with the help of the integral education.

Before there was no such thing; Adam HaRishon was only a first example, like the levels of still, vegetative, and animate nature during the descent from above and the shattering. We have fully developed on the levels of still nature, the vegetative, and the animate. It was the right development in the light form of egoism. Now we need to start to put together the image of man, both inside us and throughout the world.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 102: This is why it is written that all who learn Torah Lo Lishma, their Torah becomes a potion of death for them. Not only do they not emerge from concealment of the face to disclosure of the face, since they did not set their minds to labor and attain it, the Torah that they accumulate greatly increases their concealment of the face. Finally, they fall into concealment within concealment, which is considered death, being completely detached from one’s root.

This is what happens if a person doesn’t make an effort through the environment, through the study and all the means he has, in order to reach the revelation of the Creator, which means to discover the attribute of bestowal and love of others inside him, in order to arrive through the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator. He has to focus on that so that the result of his study will be the revelation of the attribute of bestowal upon others, no matter how artificial and meaningless it may seem to him at first and contrary to his own nature.

At first he refuses to hear about it and to agree to it. But if he returns to it time after time, despite all the obstacles, and performs all the requirements as required and determined by nature, by the Creator, as a result of the crisis, and all the other conditions that are revealed to him, he gradually agrees that the goal of the study is to reach self-negation.

It is a very special action, not the kind we imagine at the beginning of the way. But to the extent that the changes occur in us along the way, we discover new definitions each time, what—restriction, the other, connection, mutual guarantee, Creator, the attribute of bestowal and love, etc.—mean. We already begin to understand what “the potion of death” and the “potion of life” mean and why the Torah brings such opposite phenomena. Thus we gradually begin to clarify the right way and direction.

A person often falls into situations in which he does not see how wrong he is. But “what one’s mind doesn’t do, time does.” The only way out is to advance as “an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load,” to go on studying day after day as it says: “Do anything but leave!” He doesn’t understand what is happening: The ego is given to him from above and so are all the conditions he is in; everything is done by the upper force.

He exerts himself, does something, but so far he doesn’t understand what is going on. The main thing is not to leave, but to at least perform the simplest actions mechanically. If he can somehow carry on this way, then he should be happy that he manages to do at least this.

So we should respect anyone who makes efforts to go through each day and to participate as much as he can, as much as he is allowed from above. It is an essential condition to come to this place, to this state. Afterward there is already the work of clarification: Why, what for, what will I get from it, why am I participating in this, what is the desired outcome that I expect?

I have to learn from the example of Rabbi Shimon and his students since we want to connect and to be like them, to sit among them. They felt hatred or love toward one another. We have to reach these contrasting discernments.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Why can studying the Torah incorrectly be harmful, and even “the potion of death?”

Answer: The incorrect study of the Torah is the wrong use of the system that was designed to perform a gradual correction of the desire to receive. Instead, it draws the part that is meant to be corrected away from correction. Thus, it prolongs the way and fills it with sufferings, which brings the Creator, who loves us, a great deal of sorrow. Thus, this path is undesirable.

From the point of view of a person’s ego, this path is also undesirable since it brings about sufferings. But if we speak about the form of bestowal and value it with regard to the Creator, we have to see how much He suffers.

If we didn’t participate in the system of correction, but were corrected by it unconsciously, instinctively, like the still, vegetative, and animate nature, then there would not be reward and punishment for us. The system wouldn’t change with regard to us, but would push us in one direction by its rigid, absolute laws, like a train moving on a track.

But because a person is on a level that he himself participates in this process, he has to become more sensitive to the influence of the system on him. So he learns to understand this system and grows feelings towards it, which means towards the Creator who is on the other side of the system. “From Your actions we shall know You” and we connect to Him.

It is impossible to attain any discernment this way, not even the smallest one, if you don’t go incorrectly at first. The point is only that a person should constantly try incorrectly only in potential but not in practice.

It is said: “There isn’t a righteous in the land who did good and didn’t sin.” So the mistakes have already been prepared for me every step of the way, and I must sin. But I prepare myself, try, and am careful and afraid to sin, which means that I am afraid to break away from the feeling of “there is none else besides Him” who is “the good and the benevolent.” I am afraid that I will stop yearning for love and bestowal, that I won’t be able to rise above my desires, above my instinctive thoughts, which means above my animate level.

I need self-clarification, self-recognition; I constantly ride my donkey (hamor), my egoistic desire (homer) (which has the same root in Hebrew), and I compare what I feel and what the donkey thinks to what I would like to feel and how I would like to think. Thus I discover my donkey together with the human in me.

“God shall save man and beast,” and thus I advance. My mistakes bring me to my successes and help me advance. My mistakes and successes are revealed in me as the left and right lines. In this case, they are both legitimate and they complement one another correctly, since without mistakes, I wouldn’t discover new discernments and wouldn’t understand where I am.

I have to sin and to do Mitzvot (commandments), since there cannot be one without the other; everything begins from the recognition of evil. But it could be better if I discovered this evil in the Light. The Light comes and helps me see the dark, and not the darkness revealed first when I don’t understand that it is darkness and by a long path of suffering advance towards the Light.

This is why Kabbalists and the Torah give us advice as to how we should prepare ourselves for the right revelation of the sins, for the revelation of evil.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Letter 52”: It says, “Call Him when He is near,” which means when you call the Creator asking Him to bring you closer to Him, you should know that He is already close to you. If it weren’t so, you would surely not call him… And it is clear that when one knows this, he grows stronger in pouring out his heart, since there is no greater privilege, as the King of the world is listening to you. Like the sages said: “God yearns for the prayer of the righteous,” because when the Creator yearns for a person to get close to Him, great longings are evoked in a person and he yearns for the Creator. And it turns out that a prayer and hearing a prayer go hand in hand, until they become a whole measure and acquire everything… and pay attention to these things, which are the fundamental elements in the ways of the Creator.

We have to find a direct wave that goes to the Creator and back from Him in order to feel that we are on the same channel of contact with Him, as it says “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me.” Everything that happens in me comes from Him, and if I want to answer Him correctly, I have to connect to Him and to find the right answer in Him as to how I should answer Him.

On the first wave of connection that initially comes from Him, I have to see how to answer Him correctly on the same wave, so that everything will end in Him. Thus I receive my form from the Creator; He constantly teaches me, and I constantly ask Him to show me how I should be, how to answer Him, and how to respond.

If a person continuously works on this point, it turns out that he only has this one point of detachment from the Creator, the one point in which he feels that he doesn’t belong to the Creator. It is from that point that he wants to reveal the Creator as the one who builds different attributes, questions, and appeals in a person by stabilizing different external and internal conditions for him.

Thus everything is done on the Creator’s account, and the person is only the point that separates and discerns that. From that point, a person turns to the Creator asking what he has to do next and how to respond. He always remains on the one point of discerning. It turns out that everything a person has comes from the Creator.

So we should constantly try to discern that everything that speaks inside me is only the Creator, and the way I intend to respond to that is also Him. Thus I discover that “There is none else besides Him.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12

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Preparation to the Lesson

“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 111, Lesson 29

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Naso,” Item 304, Lesson 12

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, Item 8, Lesson 7

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy“

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 101: Thus, as long as one has not attained Providence of the revelation of the face, the abundance of Torah and Mitzvot he has performed makes his concealment of the face much heavier. This is the meaning of, “the Creator hides Himself in the Torah.”

Indeed, all that heaviness he feels through the Torah is only proclamations by which the Holy Torah itself calls him, awakening him to hurry and give the required measure of labor, to promptly endow him with the revelation of the face, as God wills it.

The closer a person gets, the more distant he feels that he is. But he also understands that this distance is given to him on purpose so that he will hurry to complete the necessary sum of his exertion. But a person who doesn’t have the right connection, who doesn’t advance correctly, simply feels the “hardening of the heart” increase, which eventually throws him off track.

We should understand this difference clearly. Both feel the “hardening of the heart,” the one who advances correctly and the one who does not advance correctly. But they interpret it differently and feel their state differently. The one who is advancing correctly is connected to the teacher, to the group, to the Creator, to the study, and doesn’t miss a chance; he is constantly looking for ways to tighten the connection, the mutual guarantee. He understands that only by adhesion to the environment will he be able to discover the Creator inside it.

Thus he feels support. The more he discovers the evil in his attitude towards others, the more it pushes him to connect with them and obligates him to demand from himself and from others to tighten this connection. He envies the success of others who advance and is frustrated when he compares himself to them, but it pushes him to connection and correction.

However, a person who does not advance correctly, which means that he doesn’t look for bestowal and connection with the environment in order to discover the goal of creation in it, but rather aspires for personal success, he cannot receive support from the environment since he hasn’t established this support. Then he feels that this path is not for him. It seems to him that others don’t understand anything, that they are dealing with nonsense, and it is impossible to reach this goal. Eventually he leaves the group.

So we should pay close attention to whether or not we are building the right connection with the environment that must constantly support us. When a person falls, the environment helps him rise, and when he is full of strength, then he has to invest it in the environment, building up “stock” there, thanks to which he will later receive help.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Who is to blame for the fact that a person stalls and advances slowly?

Answer: The main reason for that is laziness. He doesn’t make sure that the friends awaken him and obligate him. After several unsuccessful attempts, the society stops paying attention to him; it’s not obligated to deal with him forever.

It has to call on him twice, like in the example from the Talmud of the donkey that falls and that is helped to rise twice. If this doesn’t help then that’s it. He can’t ask the group to constantly pull him forward, since they have their own work among them.

They tried to revive him once, but he didn’t wake up, and they tried a second time, and again it didn’t work, so there is no third try. If he wants to leave, let him. We have to write our protocol and determine the attitude to the friends according to these conditions.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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