Question: What turns all our prayers into one prayer? How can we ask for the same thing together?

Answer: In order to do that we have to clarify time after time that it is impossible to raise a prayer alone. Such a prayer is not accepted.

Our goal is that the desire to receive will come together into one whole with one intention, like it was before. There was wholeness until the shattering inserted the intention to bestow into every grain of the desire to receive. Now this shattered intention is under the domination of the ego, but by that there is a connection between the two desires—the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, as if they were mixed and they can be together.

But this connection brings up the question: How should we work? How should we clarify things if we take into account that the desires are in you? Since you have to process your “private” part. The correction is not when the desire to bestow controls the desire to receive, but when after the shattering, the desires to receive are connect by the desires to bestow.

We are inclined to work individually: “I am willing to do whatever the Creator requires of me.” If He wants me to bestow, I will bestow; if He wants me to adhere to Him, I will adhere. I am ready for anything in my private vessels, “Just tell me what I have to do.” But to connect with others by the attributes of bestowal that you inherited during the shattering—no way.

In the meantime, the Creator enjoys your action that is aimed at connection. Because then you are using His power, and instead of hating others you love them. By that you develop yourself towards the force of love, by wanting to resemble the Creator, although you seem to have no relations with Him. You intend to bring Him contentment eventually, but the action itself is fulfilled among us; your unity with the friends is a pleasure for the Creator.

We are made of desires to receive that want to be filled, and also of desires to bestow that are looking for a chance to make a profit at the expense of bestowal upon others, to use others in a more cunning way. You have to turn all this around, in order to connect to others, “as one man in one heart.” If you connect with the friends in order to bring the Creator contentment, and if at the same time you become like Him in your desire to receive, then you are bringing Him contentment by that and thus achieve what is desirable.

The child He created and prepared finally wants to resemble Him, to be like his father; he wants to be independent, to resemble Him in his actions. You cannot and you do not need to do anything but bringing Him this pleasure—growing by the connection with others.
[94430]
From the 2^nd part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, The Zohar

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Question: How should I make sure that the study does not become a “potion of death” for me?

Answer: We have to reach the state in which the study becomes a “potion of death.” In order to do that, I have to discover that I am immersed in my ego and that I hate everyone including the Creator. I see that I don’t want to connect with anyone and to bestow upon anyone. But I know that this is the goal of creation and I have to attain it. This means that I already discover two lines that contradict each other.

Along with my inner understanding of the necessity to reach bestowal, I discover that my nature is opposite from it. Then I discover that it is the “potion of death.” I have to find out that receiving for myself and using others are deadly for me.

I look at the friends’ faces and understand that I want to use them all: I want to be more clever than all of them, more beautiful, more strong, and more successful.

If my approach to each of them weren’t like that, I wouldn’t feel and see that anyone exists at all. I wouldn’t discern him in my sensory organs, since behind my sight there is my ego, and if I don’t intend to use a person for my benefit, I don’t see him at all. He doesn’t exist for me!

So it is a high level if I discover that I am in a state of Lo Lishma (not for Her name) and that I want to use everyone, but understand that it is the “potion of death,” which means the opposite of what it should be. After all, I want the truth, but I exist within this lie. It is a result of a great Light that comes to a man and illuminates on him showing him the real corrupt state he is in and enables him to understand it.
[94423]
From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam brings a quote from Isaiah: “And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them.” When this time comes, who will it be harder for, for the wolf to deal with the lamb or for the lamb to deal with the wolf?

Answer: There is a wolf and a lamb in each of us, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, the desire to bestow is called “a lamb,” and the desire to receive is called “a wolf.” They cannot live together, for lack of mutual agreement. The wolf knows that it can fill himself only by the lamb, and the lamb is afraid that the wolf might eat him. But, on the other hand, the wolf knows that it cannot live without the lamb, and the lamb knows that without the wolf it will not be able to advance and will always remain a lamb.

So it turns out that they cannot exists without one another, and they can neither live with each other, so how can they find the balance between them. So how can the state of “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb exist? How can two opposite desires, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, coexist?

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us: how the wolf and the lamb accept one another and are incorporated in each other. When a person is neither in the desire to receive or the desire to bestow, he receives these two forces as two “angels” and combines them correctly thus drawing the image of the Creator. This is why the Creator is called Bo-re (“Bo-reh,” “Come and see” in Hebrew). This image is made of the force of receiving and the force of bestowal.

Then, and a little boy shall lead them. Which means that the human in me feels that he is little and at the same time organizes everything by constantly building himself and the world around him by the right combination of the two forces, the wolf and the lamb; the middle line is determined between the two lines, the right and the left, on different levels of thickness, and “a little boy” manages this whole combination.
[94400]
From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “The Peace”

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If the upper Providence were revealed to us, then all the people in the world would become absolute righteous. They would be forced to obey the law of bestowal, which means that they would be compelled to be righteous and not from their freewill.

This is what would happen if the Creator were revealed to us. We are all waiting for Him to be revealed, but we would immediately lose our freewill. We would be like animals that blindly perform all of nature’s orders, just as we are forced to obey our egoistic nature now. We would carry out the orders of the nature of bestowal in the same way. If there is a law of nature, I obey it like a machine.

So we shouldn’t expect the Creator to be revealed to us before we are independent and have the force of the Masach (screen). Then we will be able to receive His revelation by the Returning Light, by rejecting the pleasure. Until then, the revelation will not be in our favor, of course, since it would force us to be become sacred animals. We have to rise above this level in order to become human beings.

Therefore, the Creator is revealed only to the extent that a person remains independent. Now we are managed by the egoistic intention and obey our ego. Then the point in the heart awakens in us, and we begin to struggle against that dominance, organizing a group that will be on the side of this new force, the point in the heart.

The struggle will succeed if I can diminish the external society, so that I can leave its dominance. Behind my ego there is all of society, and behind the spark of bestowal, the point in the heart, there is the Kabbalistic group. I have to raise and to increase the importance of the spark and of the group as much as I can, and on the other hand, to lower and reduce the influence of the ego and of the external society as much as possible.

To the extent that I do that, I increase the importance of bestowal in my eyes, and the Light influences me according to my efforts. This exertion operates like my prayer (MAN), and the Light that Reforms comes in response to it and changes me.

Eventually my new structure is formed: from Above I have a Masach and Returning Light that serves as my new vessel in which I bestow upon the Creator. From below, under the Masach, there is my restricted desire to receive, my ego.

To the extent that I have performed such a restriction, the Creator can already be revealed.
[94383]
From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1]

[media 2]

“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 54, Lesson 16

[media 3]

[media 4]

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Emor,” Item 259, Lesson 21

[media 5]

[media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 8, “Seder Siba uMesuvav,” Item 4, Lesson 46

[media 7]

[media 8]

“Exile and Redemption,”The Difference Between a Secular Ideal and a Religious Ideal,” Lesson 5

[media 9]

[media 10]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Baal HaSulam, “The Peace:” … practically determined as “bestowal upon others,” meaning that the actual manifestation of love of others is bestowal of goodness upon others, love of others should be determined as bestowal upon others.

Question: What is “bestowal good upon others?”

Answer: It is bestowal that suits the other, according to what is good for him and not according to what I think is good for him. The good of others is determined by the service to the Creator. Without these three points: “I,” “the others,” and “the Creator,” we are lost. If I work according to the notions of others, I will be under their control, and if I work for myself I will be enslaved to my ego, I need someone who is even higher so that the right formation will be created: the lower, the upper, and the uppermost, only then can I be sure that I am holding on to the right line.

Question: Where am I while I bestow upon others?

Answer: In the last link of the chain, in the Creator, since from there I can relate to others and to myself correctly.

Question: And where is my “self” then?

Answer: Outside myself and outside the others, looking for what is good for others in order to reach adhesion with the Creator. I see the Creator as my goal and then the adhesion with Him is the only good thing.

Question: And what if others don’t know what they want?

Answer: A baby doesn’t know what it wants either, but I take care of it, and by that I understand that it needs to grow, to become strong, healthy, wise, etc. So if I bestow upon someone, he is like a baby for me, he is smaller than me. In that case, I am the one who bestows and he is the one who receives my bestowal. This means that he has a deficiency that I fill. This means that I have to discover a deficiency in him that suits my filling, since I cannot give him bread if he wants milk. And besides, I have to discover a deficiency in him that is in his favor, a deficiency by which he will get closer to the Creator.

In order to do that, I have to connect to others and together attain a connection with the Creator. In other words, I have to bring about the connection of others with the Creator, and then I will be able to fill them. After all, what can I fill others with? I am not the source of the Light, but I bring others to adhesion with the Creator, and that means that I fill them. This is why it is impossible to manage without the formation of the three levels.
[94397]
From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “The Peace”

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The process of correction is divided into several stages that determine the order of our advancement. If we were allowed to feel now in our vessels of receiving the pleasure that comes from the Creator, that He is good and benevolent, we will never be able to correct them so that they will be in order to bestow. They would understand what pleasure there is in the upper Light and it would be impossible to restrict and to correct them.

So during the first stage, a person must attain faith, which means to acquire the force of bestowal that is born in him by the influence of the Light if he makes efforts in working in the group, yearning for bestowal, to the extent of his understanding of this attribute. Then the force that suddenly obligates him to feel that bestowal is good is gradually stabilized in him.

It seems that he prefers bestowal for egoistic reasons too, but it’s not so. He enjoys the fact that he isn’t selfish. The Light, due to its influence gives him this inclination, such values, that force him to value bestowal. Then a person is ready to perform actions of bestowal for the sake of the actions themselves. He only asks to be able to perform such actions towards those around him.

To the extent that he acquires the force of bestowal, he begins to understand how to work with his vessels, which is called observing the 613 commandments, which means the correction of the 613 desires to which a person’s general desire is divided into. Then, of course, he uses his whole desire only in order to bestow.

To the extent that he can use his own desires in order to bestow, he begins to feel not the force of bestowal anymore, but the force of love. Thus, as a result of keeping the 612 commandments, he reaches the last commandment, the 613^th commandment, love of the Creator.

Then the permanent eternal pleasure is revealed to him by all these commandments, which was the goal of creation, by which the Creator initially intended to fill man.

It turns out that not one step along this path is possible without a person’s deficiency that precedes it. In that a person totally depends on the environment. So to the extent that it directs a person and increases his deficiency for bestowal, he raises his environment so that these deficiencies will be their common goal.
[94394]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12

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Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”: The Creator will evidently show us that Israel cannot exist in exile, and will find no rest as the rest of the nations that mingled among the nations and found rest, and assimilated in them, until no trace was left of them.

On the whole, the vessels of reception are divided into 70 parts called “the nations of the world.” During the shattering they have all become integrated and were also integrated with the desire to bestow.

But there is another problem here: On the one hand, the integration of the desires to receive doesn’t create a collision. Even if they are different, they don’t contradict one another by nature. On the contrary, they operate according to a collective plan of receiving, and they certainly understand one another. On the whole, the nations of this world also understand one another and feel that they belong to the human race.

But it isn’t so with the desires to bestow, with those in whom there are sparks of bestowal. What is more, they were also in the corrections during the time of the Temple. There are Reshimot (informational records) of bestowal left in them and so they belong to a totally different species. This is where the conflict is created: The desire to receive, by its very nature, hates the desire to bestow, which is opposite from it and which seems to force it to bestow. The desire to bestow, on its part, doesn’t feel hatred towards the desire to receive, since it was sent by the Creator to take care of the desire to receive and to help it and not to be hostile to it.

So on the part of the Jewish people there is no hatred towards the nations of the world, but there is some weakness. The nations of the world, however, hate the Jews, because the desire to receive wants to catch the desire to bestow and to enslave it under its dominance. That’s the way things are, when “something from nothing” encounters ” something from something.” The events in our world stem from the upper nature.
[94389]
From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Exile and Redemption”

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If there is one desire to receive in us and nothing but that, then we operate like robots. The moment some pleasure illuminates for us, we immediately begin to chase it and the moment we feel sufferings, we try to escape them. It is the natural behavior of every created being: the inanimate, vegetative, or animate.

An ordinary person in our world is no different from animals when it comes to this, because the desire to receive also operates in him, but his desire to receive is simply more sophisticated and confused since a person doesn’t understand where it comes from all of the sudden.

Animals operate according to their natural instincts and there is nothing external that influences them. A person, however, is motivated by attributes such as envy, lust, and honor. He is impressed by the environment that can influence him to value things that are against his nature and which destroy him.

Society doesn’t operate in favor of the individual, but in favor of the general egoistic, broken society. If one person is an egoist, then he simply operates like an animal with his small ego. He tries to get along in this world as well as he can: to build himself a better home, with healthier, more comfortable conditions. He tries to do what is beneficial for his body.

This is how people developed in ancient times. But when their ego grew and forced them to connect, in order to make a greater profit one at the expense of another, this egoistic connection generated a phenomenon called “public opinion.” This environmental effect became harmful for the individual, since not only did the ego grow because of such a connection, but it also took on distorted forms that are far from the natural forms.

It wasn’t a natural connection, but a distorted connection of desires, since when many egoists connect, their desires are opposite to the other desires and it is impossible to understand how they can even connect. So the influence of the environment on each individual brings about such distortions and corruptions of the natural desire, such as: envy, lust, honor, and power.

This is how humanity developed: The individual ego grew, and as a result of the distorted connections of egoists under the negative influence of the social system on every individual, society developed in a direction that is opposite from Holiness, from the corrected state which we eventually have to reach in the future.

Our social values have drawn light years away from the natural human needs… and as a result we all operate according to artificial, egoistic values that only harm us. But we are compelled to operate this way since we are subordinate to the law according to which the environment affects a person.

The whole problem is in the fact that this environment is bad and our big, complex, and distorted ego has mutated in different ways from one generation to another so we don’t even understand that it affects us and leads us in ways that are opposite from the natural correct way.
[94386]
From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1]

[media 2]

“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 44, Lesson 15

[media 3]

[media 4]

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Emor,” Item 247, Lesson 20

[media 5]

[media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 8, “Seder Siba uMesuvav,” Item 1, Lesson 45

[media 7]

[media 8]

“Exile and Redemption,” (Starting with: “And we should clarify”), Lesson 4

[media 9]

[media 10]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →