Question: How can we increase the feeling of mutual dependence in the group?

Answer: This also depends on the environment. If the environment convinces me that I depend on it, then I will be convinced. If it doesn’t convince me, I will not be convinced. There has to a massive impact upon a person in order to convince him that by himself he means nothing and will not be able to do anything, that the spiritual path is possible only by incorporating in others, only through connection.

We have to think about this daily, for many hours—that the spiritual feeling is only possible in a whole vessel. We know that there was the shattering of the worlds. The same matter that we feel now doesn’t actually exist; it is imaginary. Even modern physics has already reached this conclusion. There is only a desire, which means a force, and we have to discover this force as one as it was created by the Creator.

We have to aspire to discover it as one whole, by imagining it not in the form of corporeal bodies, but in the form of desires, forces, one collective general desire to enjoy. It doesn’t matter that this force is revealed to us in different manners and that they are constantly changing. These are all desires to enjoy that must be connected. The moment we connect them, we immediately receive a filling.

The connection is only possible through concessions, by “the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph)” of our ego, and after our self-annulment there should be a connection, which is already incorporating in others, an action that is opposite to the shattering, bestowal.

I have to receive from someone in order to bestow upon him.

We use words from this world to describe the connection, but in fact these are Kabbalistic terms that refer to the correction of the desires. Don’t look at people, at the corporeal bodies around you. It is space that is full of separate forces that have to find a way to connect. The connection between them already exists; they only need to reveal it!

By discovering this connection, they discover their inclination, which is considered their exertion: “I labored and I found.” But if you don’t discover this connection, it remains concealed from you. Everything that the Creator has created is concealed from us. He is waiting for us to discover this reality by ourselves, by our exertion, which means willingly.

The Creator created the initial desire and developed it to a whole reality. But then He concealed this reality and left you only a point. Now you need to develop a desire inside you by working with the group and to discover the reality that was created by the Creator. It turns out that it is as if you are creating it yourself, by the desire that you receive from the environment.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Book of Zohar, “Neso,” Item 99: “…and they shall stand at the foot of the mountain.” This is how they will be in the last redemption, under the sages of the Torah, as a slave who walks by the feet of his master’s horse.

Question: How can we bring the slave to walk by the feet of his master’s horse and not the other way around?

Answer: It is up to us. Baal HaSulam talks about it at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“,saying that if we divide our internality and externality correctly in the work, then accordingly things will be divided in our world. If, on the other hand, we don’t divide things correctly internally, then the world will not be divided correctly.

So all the attacks on the world indicate that you are not divided correctly internally; your inner spiritual concepts such as bestowal, love, Creator, group, are not above the corporeal ones. As a result, you turn the world “on its head” by lowering the internality and raising the externality as something that is important.

If you divide everything inside you correctly, no one in the world will be able to resist it. So let’s raise spirituality in our eyes, let’s raise it above us. Bestowal, love of others, connection—should all be placed above everything, and then there will be no resistance on the outside, since you are aiming according to the upper force.

Today you are denounced and rejected from every direction, only in order to evoke you to do this work so that you will raise the internality above the externality.

Question: How can I let “Israel” rule inside me?

Answer: It means placing bestowal above receiving, “faith above reason,” the group above myself. In fact it is actually the group above me, but in constant thought, in the daily care. The main struggle is here inside, in order to constantly raise bestowal above receiving, the Creator’s greatness above the created being’s greatness, the greatness of the group over my own greatness.

Question: How can we fight this war together?

Answer: By mutual help. This is all our work.

Yesterday, for example, you didn’t manage to hold on to an intention, and today? Are you holding on to one intention throughout the day? Are you filled with the Creator’s greatness, so that by the evening it will be your only concern? Does everyone worry about others, about the fact that you should all think about the same thing? The Creator’s greatness is the deepest, innermost point of our connection. It is there in that point that we meet Him.

In one word, if you don’t advance, you will not hear anything new…
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

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Question: How are the right amount and the right quality of the exertion determined?

Answer: Now our efforts should be aimed at trying to see that everything is fulfilled and revealed within the connection among us, in the center of the group.

A person should feel this center of the general connection as an actual reality. After all, it is our first spiritual level. We should try to imagine this connection as hard as we can, in the form of a “crimson sphere,” or as some kind of a collective plate—as a place where all our hopes and expectations should be fulfilled.

It should become the most important and precious place in all of reality. Later we will discover that it is really the most important place, and that everything else are only meaningless results of what we discover in the center of our connection. What will happen in this center at any given moment will bring about an effect that will spread in every direction and influence the whole world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: … the truth is that the force itself is also considered a genuine matter, just as any corporeal matter in the concrete world…”

We say that spirituality is a “force.” Does it mean that this world is the matter? No, it doesn’t. A force by itself is matter. There is nothing but force. Contemporary physics arrived at the following conclusion: beyond atoms, particles, and photons, we don’t detect matter. Even when we use traditional methods of exploration of the universe and go deep down into the very basis of it, we discover that at the foundation matter “disappears” and actually works as a force. We are used to drawing a material picture of the world, but in fact it exists only in our perception, but in fact, matter is only a force, nothing more than that.

This force is divided into two categories (two desires): giving and receiving. Overall, the multiplicity of isolated forces outlines a kind of reality that Kabbalists call imaginary, illusory. It is realistic, but ephemeral, like a three-dimensional drawn in the air with a laser beam. And we live in it, and actually “come from” this “beam.” All of us are “painted” in space, and in fact, our essence is also a force, two desires and a screen that balances them.

These forces are receiving and giving desires that must incorporate and integrate with one another. But so much one of them dominates the other, and so that the resulting desire also has “access to power,” and cooperation, participation, understanding, shared common sensations all the way to love, when everyone is ready to give partnership, stay in mutual cooperation and understanding, share common sensations including love and be ready to give up everything they have for the sake of each other and at the same time they have to accept everything from others.

The receiving force has to achieve the same power of being as the power of bestowal, feel it, and develop accordingly to obtain qualities similar to the Creator. And for this it must go through special states that allow it to feel that it is alive and empowered to make decisions, to plan and to implement plans into reality. At this point, it is impossible to abide without an imaginary picture. This is where the illusion called “our world” in which the receiving desire prevails comes from.

Baal HaSulam brings an example of a coachman who used to live with his wife and children, earned enough money to keep his house properly, and was quite happy until his troubles began: His horse died, the house was burned down, and his wife and children died in an epidemic. As a result, the coachman appeared before the Higher Court where it was resolved that he would be paid for his adversity since he had suffered so much.

What was he given? He received a horse, a cart, a wife, children, and a house; the same feeling, which for him was happiness. In this “picture,” his life is again wonderful: he works, brings money to his family, and rejoices together with them. Everything is great! His desire is small, but for him it’s a real paradise where all is well and nothing more is needed. A perfect illusion.

Sometimes, we have dreams. How do they differ from reality? What if in a couple of minutes the alarm clock rings and wakes you up, and you realize that what you have seen was a dream? In fact, this is the way it is. So, what is the difference between a dream and the reality? How do we tell one from the other?

It is important to understand that our reality is “drawn” by a force and is granted to us to make our desire to receive feel independent, powerful, competent, and detached from the one who actually operates it. This is the only way to reach equivalence of form with the Creator. Otherwise, what kind of similarity would it be if I were completely under its control?

In fact, our detachment from the Creator is illusionary, and that’s why this world is called imaginary. On the other hand, spiritual realms are not imaginary, because that is where we are aware of the illusion, agree with it, and rise above reason. There, we work above our understanding, knowing that there is none else besides Him, agreeing with this more and more deeply. We are already working with a real force, despite the fact that we ourselves also are a force, and there is only force.

Question: If our whole life is just one, long dream, what practical conclusions can we make of this?

Answer: It is said in Psalms: “We were as dreamers.” Practically, I have to take this life seriously. It is given to me to rise above it, not to neglect it. Nothing should be disregarded. The current “picture” is drawn for me by the upper force, and until I complete the preparation period, I cannot get rid of it. I have to continue sensing this world until the end of correction; each time returning for new corrections. Even if I ascended to the 124^th level and all that is left is the last 125^th step, I still will return.

There is no other choice. This “basic infrastructure” is extremely important, since only by leaning on it we realize our choice. Thanks to it, at each step, it seems to us that we act independently and that we are equal with the Creator, and perhaps are even more powerful than He is. There is not the slightest chance to merge with Him without this sense independence. Otherwise, there is no “me”, the one who is able to merge with Him.

This is the way we work in this world. Let it be imaginary, we are aware of it, and then we accept it. We are starting to consciously play with our “independence,” and at this point, the fact that we are being governed by Him is no secret to us anymore.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy” 

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Preparation to the Lesson

“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 102, Lesson 26

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Naso,” Item 5, Lesson 9

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, Item 6, Lesson 4

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

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Kabbalists talk quite a lot about the “horde,” about the mixed forces that left Egypt together with Israel. This is actually the great problem that is standing in our way: the use of the Torah and the wisdom of Kabbalah not for the purpose of correction. Horde also refers to “those who fear God and worship Pharaoh.” On the one hand, they fear the Creator, but on the other hand, they wish to fill their egoistic vessels of receiving.

Question: What is the “horde” in my feelings, inside me?

Answer: They are revealed when you use what you acquire while you study the wisdom of Kabbalah for your own good and not for the Creator. Here you can say: “But in such a case all I am is the horde, I am all the evil inclination.” So what can I do if it’s still not a clarified state?

Actually it is about high levels. When the Light reveals my desires, I discover these parts in me. A man is a small world, so all the parts exist in each of us. Our work is to sort them out, to define them and to allocate a place for them, to cover them by the Masach (screen) and to know how to use them correctly. Just like a baby who learns to control his body, so do we have to control our desires: to cover some of them, to reveal others, and what’s more, to do it in the right time. A person behaves differently in different places and in different situations. It’s the same in spirituality.

But the moment I activate myself, I learn about the upper desire and about my desire; I learn to use different means correctly in order to resemble the Creator; I understand which “organs” I should activate in me and which not, in order to be called “human,” Adam (one who resembles the Creator), under different conditions, at different angles, and in every situation. I operate my “puppet” in order to resemble Him, and then internally I actually become Him. The “puppet” remains a puppet, and later when I acquire all His thought, there will be no need for it anymore.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

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Question: What does it mean that “by exerting yourself in the Torah, you are rewarded with the revelation of the Creator’s face?”

Answer: The Torah is the method for the correction of the evil inclination, as it says: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice,” I have also created the Torah as a means for its correction. I study in order to draw the Light that is concealed in the higher levels, the Light that Reforms that is in the Torah. After all, I hope that this Light will change me, that it will give me a new mind and a new heart, that everything will be so new that I won’t even recognize myself.

But the main thing about this new “me” is that the Creator will be revealed to me. This means that the force of love and bestowal will begin to control me. So in order to achieve this, I “exert myself in the Torah.” It isn’t in order to receive abstract knowledge but because I want to connect to the material that I study. To “know” means to arrange the connection.

Then the power of bestowal and love is revealed in me, meaning the Creator’s attribute through which I know Him, as it says, “from Your actions we shall know you.” We don’t know His actual essence, as we don’t know the essence of electricity, our own essence, or the essence of the air. We only know our impressions from these phenomena, which we call “electricity,” “air,” “the world around us.”

So the upper force is called the “Creator” (Boreh), which means “come and see,” a certain attribute that is revealed in me. I call this form that is revealed in my desire to enjoy “Creator,” since I “came and saw” it. My goal was to bring Him contentment by this revelation.

“To exert in the Torah” means to do everything in your power when you fulfill the Kabbalists’ advice: to study and to work in the group. The action itself is to gather the group and to organize the study in it. Everything else belongs to the intention. All this is called “exerting in the Torah,” according to the rules: “Don’t do unto your friend what is hateful to you,” and then “Love thy friend as thyself,” in order to reach the love of the Creator.

These principles not only describe the study of the Torah, but also the direction the whole creation is moving toward, all of the upper worlds and our world including everything in it: humanity, the still, vegetative, and the animate nature. It isn’t just the Torah that someone studies, but the trend in which all of creation is developing.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Torah is the means by which we can attain the spiritual goal. “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” This means that the Torah is part of creation, the whole system of worlds by which we can draw upon ourselves the force that will correct us and gradually raise us up the levels of the spiritual worlds until we reach the end of correction.

But the corrections are necessary so that by performing them we will get to know the Creator who intentionally made this flaw. I can only know Him and become like Him in my corrected desires. All this comes together as in one skein of yarn. We must constantly yearn to see this world as one whole. If we don’t see the unity, it means that we are not focusing on the goal correctly.

When you look at all of creation, at people, at the group, at the study, at humanity, at politics, at all the events, at the upper worlds, at Kabbalists, at history from different perspectives, no matter how you study it and from which perspective, you have to see the same thing. If all this doesn’t come together, it means that you still have to correct something in your perception. Eventually, you will see how it connects to one ideal skein of yarn, and all you have to do is just arrange some masses on both ends in order to connect them and to receive one perfectly smooth sphere that is built like a hologram.

There was a physicist David Bohm who gave a very clear example for this: There are two cameras focused on an aquarium from different sides. First it seems to the viewer that he sees different fish in different places. But when he begins to relate one picture to the other, he sees the connection between them, the mutual dependence, and then he begins to understand that it is the same fish in the same place.

In the same way, we also perceive everything separately as disconnected images: our fears, love, the group, the study, this world, politics, and history. But the truth is that we are simply looking at the same “aquarium full of fish,” at the same situation, from different angles.

Try to practice this in order to reach a unified picture. When we reach such an attitude, everything becomes simple.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What kind of exertion brings a person to a spiritual revelation?

Answer: A person’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences constantly change, and it isn’t by chance that it says that there is a clear and accurate law: “I have labored and I found.” The vessels and the Light can’t connect on the speaking level without our exertion. Exertion is the extra deficiency without which the Light can’t be revealed in the vessel on the speaking level, but only on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature.

The reason is that first man was born circumcised (without desires to receive), which means that he was a holy animal, an angel. Thanks to the shattering of the vessels, the vessels that carry the essence of the Creator mixed with the vessels that are actually the essence of the created being. Thus, part of the Creator and part of the created being connect inside one vessel.

A person’s feelings, experiences, and thoughts change, but they don’t belong to him. These are the results of the game between the vessel and the Light that create these feelings in us. But by exerting myself, by trying to connect the vessels that are separate from one another by an abyss of mutual hatred, I seemingly overcome this hate and thus add my participation on the part of the vessel.

This is my exertion. Thus I judge both myself and the whole world to the scale of merit.

It turns out that the level of the speaking was not created from above. From above, we only received the level of animate. The first man, our initial soul, was an animal. But after the shattering, we receive very opposite discernments by which we can establish our own deficiencies. By our exertion we attain a new deficiency that didn’t exist previously, and this new deficiency is on the speaking level.

It’s different from the other deficiencies on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature in this world, and which are not considered a created being in the soul. A created being is actually the deficiency we generate by our exertion! This deficiency wasn’t created by the Creator, and so it can rightfully be called a free, created being that wants to bring the Creator contentment. This is in fact a new desire, a new created being that was created by our exertion.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can we perform changes in the group together, so that we can advance?

Answer: We are committed to kindle the awareness of the greatness of the Creator in the friends throughout the day, just like the “burning bush” that is on fire, but doesn’t burn. About that, everyone must think and worry. Even if you succeed to hold on to this worry a few minutes more than the previous day, it’s already a meaningful addition. Don’t underestimate the small exertions, the “pennies” that add up to a big account. These are the additions that count.

Suppose that now when you are impressed, you decide whole-heartedly to advance towards the Creator’s greatness, even though your thoughts throughout the day about what’s important depend on the Creator and on the group, by this you already obligate the friends to encourage you to this: “I am asking you, evoke me as much as you can, ceaselessly, so that the deficiency for the Creator’s greatness will grow in me.”

And you should ask the same thing from Him. It’s only by that, through the group, that you can awaken yourself. Establish this inner demand during the lesson and by that create a deficiency inside you. It seems that the friends will help you only after you turn to them, but in fact your request from the group is your deficiency contrasted to the Light. Everything else was created as an “illusion.” The Creator is concealed in the group and is revealed there, but actually this is all your desire you work with all the time. The group is also inside you, although it may seem that it’s external. You evoke the friends in order to bring the external illusion closer to you, by becoming one vessel in which the Creator is revealed.

Question: So whom am I asking for help?

Answer: The society, since you can’t say that it is you yet. But imagine that “the society is the vessels, my desires, my part, which is separated, cut off from me.” There will come a time when you will demand that the Creator give it back to you, as it says: “It is my brothers I am looking for.”

So we have to make increasing daily efforts that should be felt more strongly and more clearly. You don’t know what stages you still have to go through, but you are advancing, until you feel that this whole vessel is yours, that the friends’ desires are your essence, that it is all internal. When you cease to see the friends on the outside, you will begin to feel them inside you, like a mother who feels her baby, even though he has grown.
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From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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