Question: What kind of changes should take place in me in order to draw the Light that Reforms? What can I do in order to draw this Light?

Answer: This is exactly what I have to find out, that’s the whole point. From now until the end of correction I only need the Light that Reforms. This is the Light that fills my soul, that is incorporated in all the other souls, as all the differences between the souls disappear and the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) fills everyone 620 times more than in the initial state. This is where the Light that Reforms comes from, exactly like every MAN (prayer) rises to Ein Sof, and in response MAD (a response) comes down from there.

So all along the way, from now until the end of correction, I have to worry about one thing only, the maximum Light that Reforms that I can draw. It is as if I am sunbathing and calculating: Which way should I turn, how long should I lie in a certain position, at what time, etc.? This is how I should clarify my internal movements: How should I operate in my desires in working with the group, with individual friends, with the teacher, with the study, at home, everywhere.

In everything that I am, I have to clarify how I can make the most of my different actions 24 hours a day, so that each time the Light will operate on me most efficiently. There are no other worries except for this worry. What else is there in life? After all, everything depends on the Light, including my corporeal life.
[92998]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/12, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 9: Now I know that the Creator has granted me special preference over other people my age, which I have investigated for quite a while, to know why I was chosen according to God’s will, and after all the humiliations that stem from the wicked, which is the shell that dominates my time, and after I realize its true measure, I will be grateful to the Creator who is with me, for having distracted my heart now and always, from hearing the question of the wicked, “What is this work that you do?” Since I find that I am compelled and that I must be like an ox to the labor and a donkey to the load these days. I will not rest all day and all night looking for a way to bring contentment to my Creator, even on the day that I feel that I like the labor and the great load, even seventy years together, not knowing about its success, even all the days of my life, I will be following the way I was ordered to, to follow all His ways and to adhere to Him, having heard it all in advance.

At the same time, I cannot exempt myself by any reflection and contemplation not to do any kind of work for the Creator, because of my lowliness. And I think and yearn all day for the height of the Creator’s work, and the essence of the height is so that I cannot express it in writing now.

No one knows what he is destined to and what the root of his soul is. We all start from a small desire for spirituality, and we must develop it, each according to the extent that the desire in him operates. A person tries to listen to it and to carry out this requirement by fulfilling it through the environment.

A person’s role is to build the environment in which he can develop. For us it’s like a mother’s womb, but we have to build it ourselves. According to our advancement, we gradually build the motherly womb, building the environment, the group, constantly laboring in order to adhere to the teacher, the friends, and the books since these are the means to attain adhesion with the Creator.

If a person hears this and uses this only means correctly, building an environment that will take care of his spiritual development, it gradually enforces him and he is nourished by it. He adheres to the group and by this adhesion joins the power source that flows to him through the environment and raises him by bringing him new intentions each time, helping him to develop and see things from a new perspective. Then he advances.

Everyone begins this way, both great Kabbalists and ordinary people. No one knows exactly what his path will be. A person’s role is only to use the one means he is given, to build himself a group, to choose the right environment, and by that to realize his free will.

If a person makes such efforts only, he saves a lot of energy and has enough opportunities to achieve the goal. If he doesn’t do that, he will eventually find out that life has gone by, and he hasn’t managed to do anything. It all depends on how focused he is on this goal in order to subdue himself before the only means he has.
[92911]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/12

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Now we are reading The Book of Zohar. How can I tie this text with the Light that Reforms, with the changes I have to feel that I go through, and by them to reach the goal of creation? How can I feel that? What do I have to do when I read or listen to The Zohar?

Actually I am required to find an inner expression to what the authors of The Zohar say. In what desires, in what feelings, in what internal states or changes do I see the fulfillment of what I read about in the book? A person is a small world. All the worlds are in a person. All these states, all these patterns are already inside me. I only need to reveal them; I want to see them. I want to reveal in me what we read about in The Zohar.

Question: Does it mean that I must always look inside myself and try to find the inner reactions to what we read about? But we always try to incorporate in others and to feel them.

Answer: Of course, everyone is in you, and you also see us inside you. The same system by which you reveal everything, including the Creator is in you.

Question: I can understand it in my mind…

Answer: No, it has to be in your feelings. Gradually you will feel that everything is inside you; there is nothing on the outside. All this resistance, all the conflicts between me and what is on the outside is gradually erased, this disparity, this distance is emotional. It disappears.

The more we speak about the fact that what is external to me is increasingly more important for me, all the way to “love thy friend as thyself,” when your friend who is external to you becomes more important to you than yourself, the more you erase the distance and you advance towards the state in which what is external and what is internal become the same for you or close to that. You begin to perceive reality in a more realistic way and that it is inside you.

Where does this perception come from? From the fact that what is on the outside becomes emotionally closer to what is inside. This is where the feeling that all of reality is internal comes from. This is how a mother feels her child inside her, although he is actually on the outside. Therefore, first he is in her womb and then he comes out.

These are the phases of our development. But it doesn’t mean that he is getting further from her. On the contrary, a person grows, gives birth to children, and what is external seems to exist internally too. In fact there is no internality and externality, everything becomes one whole.

Here we have to overcome an emotional barrier, so that I will feel that what is on the outside is equal to what is on the inside. Then I will discover that all of reality is inside me. It isn’t in our mind but in our feelings. The mind is already a result of this correction.
[92907]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/12, The Zohar

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Preparation to the Lesson

Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 16, Lesson 6

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Emor,” Item 112, Lesson 9

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol 3, Part 8, Item 54, Lesson 35

“The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah“

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot:” Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? Or even more precisely, whom do I delight?

Humanity is suffering, everyone is suffering; this whole life is an ongoing suffering. Only sometimes are we allowed to rest for several years, but the rest of the time we have to carry on an endless war of survival—this is the life that nature has designated for us. So what is life about? Does it really have to be that way? Can we make it better? So far we haven’t found a way to make our life better and happier. Baal HaSulam isn’t talking about a perfect eternal life above this corporeal life, or about the Creator and the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). In the meantime he is referring to the changes in our ordinary life in this world and how we can improve it.

He doesn’t start by lofty ideas, but rather from the simplest thing: Do we all suffer? Yes we do! Do you want to suffer less? Yes, we do! The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t steal your Torah and the joy of life from you; it doesn’t cut you off from life and doesn’t interfere with your corporeal actions; it only wants to add a bit a joy to your life, some taste, so that you will feel better! It’s a very gentle approach. Baal HaSulam identifies with human suffering and explains that it is possible to bring more joy to our lives.

After all, all our life is an eternal escape from suffering and today is the same as yesterday. But life can be happy, full, and good for you and for your environment, living in mutual concern for one another, feeling completely secure. Otherwise we sentence ourselves to an existence that is worse than an animal’s. After all, the greater our desires, the emptier we feel life and the more we suffer.

No one enjoys the life we are living and no one delights others, so it turns out that we suffer both ways. We simply cannot fill anyone because of our egoistic nature and cannot receive anything from anyone. So everyone is in mutual conflict and in an eternal struggle, making this life hard and terrible. Our egoistic nature destroys our life, making it a difficult experience. For example, the world we live in today with all the technological advancement could be paradise, but instead we have made it into a true hell.

We could live in a happy family in a prosperous society, free of any troubles, having everything that we need: health, security, a respectable job, freedom. Everyone could fill himself the moment he wanted to, working several hours a day and spending the rest of the time on some hobby. However, instead we kill ourselves at work, destroying the environment and the last resources we have left. Our egoistic nature doesn’t let us enjoy nor delight others, and eventually makes everything sink into darkness, bringing us to a dead end.

All we can do is hope that this crisis will teach us as gently as possible and will force humanity to recognize its egoistic nature, with which we can no longer exist. We will not survive if we don’t change our nature, but it’s impossible to change it just like that—it can only be done with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Until a person reaches this conclusion, he will have to suffer much more.
[92771]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash, “Article 28”

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Emor,” Item 105, Lesson 8

“Peace in the World,” “Rewarded-I Will Hasten It, Not Rewarded-In It’s Time”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Nation“

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There are many levels of understanding and attainment of the system in which a person is in mutual cooperation with the upper force. It is very hard to discover this path of suffering that is called “400 years of exile,” which are unbearable. If the two forces, receiving and bestowal, the Creator and the created being, frontally collide, the created being will have to go through this whole path again starting from the four phases of the direct Light, the whole process of development. This is a horrible path.

But we are in a system that operates according to a certain upper plan in which there is already the final outcome, the starting point, and the final state. All the Kabbalists that operated throughout all the generations and all the books that they wrote are incorporated in this system. There are people who have attained the Creator living in concealment among us in this world who are working to bring humanity closer to these ideas.

All this brings us to what is called Derech Eretz (the way of Earth) something that is between the path of suffering and the path of the Light, which allows us freewill. If we were to advance only by the stick, we would have no way to develop our mind. We would be busy only trying to avoid the next blow that may come on one side or the other.

But if we receive all this through the system in which there are both judgment and mercy, the combination of these two forces allows us to develop. Like a baby whose parents develop him, so do we receive help in our spiritual development. Imagine what would come out of a baby who developed without the help of his parents. Even if he could survive, what problems and sufferings would he have to go through; the most he could attain would be a simple animal existence, to somehow live and die.

This is a life of an animal. A man’s life is based on receiving support from the previous generations, as each of them develops and completes the one that preceded it. Human desires develop from one generation to another.

So today we find ourselves in a state where on the one hand no one wants to receive the wisdom of Kabbalah and doesn’t understand what he needs it for. No one knows this wisdom and imagines some kind of mysticism and miracles instead. Different groups have different attitudes toward the wisdom of Kabbalah, people who are religious or nonreligious, who belong to the Israeli nation or to other nations.

The most stubborn ones are those who already assume that they are dealing with the Torah and don’t need anything else. They consider themselves to be perfect as they study the Talmud and observe the Mitzvot. We can somehow approach a nonreligious person and explain things, since he feels that this corporeal life has no meaning and that he wants to reveal the upper world, the system that manages life.

But in fact, no one feels a real need for the wisdom of Kabbalah, including those in whom the point in the heart has been revealed, and they suddenly light up and want to know about it and come to study. The desire that they have in the meantime is simply a desire to acquire something new and not to change their nature to the opposite form. Such a desire isn’t natural for a person and it simply doesn’t exist. Because between any person in this world and the true science of Kabbalah there is an iron wall, which must be broken.
[92774]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Rabash, “A True Prayer Is Over a True Deficiency:” When a person wants to observe the Torah and Mitzvot (commandments), in order to bestow upon the Creator, it natural for body not to move if it doesn’t see any reward in it. So there is no way he can work for the sake of Heaven and not for his own good. Here the exile begins, which means the sufferings, that no matter how hard he works, he doesn’t see that he advances, but that everything is based on self-love.

It turns out that the suffering and the pain he experiences are because he cannot work for the Creator. He wants to work in order to bestow and the body, which is totally enslaved to the shells doesn’t let him aim at this goal. Then he cries out to the Creator for help, since he sees that he is in exile among the shells and that they dominate him, and he sees no way out, so that he can be free of their domination.

Then his prayer is called a true prayer, since it isn’t in a person’s power to leave this exile…and since this is against nature, only the Creator can take Israel out of this exile.

A person goes through the states of exile and redemption internally, in his attitude to his nature and to the Creator; there are these two forces, two goals for which a person can work and aim himself at: either for his own benefit or for the Creator’s benefit.

He knows instinctively what it means to work for his own benefit and he does so naturally. Then he begins to criticize himself. This recognition usually comes from the work in the group, in the study, in dissemination, in using all the options to draw the Light that Reforms upon himself.

Then a person sees that all his intentions and his appeals, all his movements were aimed only at his own good. In the meantime he determines only this fact, like a psychologist who understands that this is nature. But if he begins to disagree with this, it is already an influence from Above, a real call from Above.

Thus a person begins to feel that he is in exile. The more he tries to stop working for his own good in different situations and to turn to bestowal upon others, upon the Creator, he feels that he is more in exile, under the domination of Pharaoh.

If he actively struggles and tries to leave his intention to receive so that he won’t constantly think about himself, then the contrary happens, and he sinks more deeply into his ego, like into a swamp. The more attempts a person makes to get out of the swamp, the more it swallows him.

He cries out and gets no response! On the contrary, the Light that comes and that seemingly reforms, shows him more clearly how immersed he is in his desire to receive, that has absorbed everything up to the most subtle appeals, thoughts, and desires. Previously he didn’t see that he is such an egoist and now he discovers it more and more in great detail.

He sees that he is totally in Egypt, thinking and worrying only about himself.

The more he tries to get out of exile, the more he sinks into it, until “and the Children of Israel sighed from the work,” which means that he has reached such a dead end that the only thing he can do is cry out…

A person cries out when he sees that there is no other way to change his situation by himself. This is called a true prayer, which in response he gets the force of bestowal, the force of the intention to act for the good of others. This is what he calls redemption.
[92810]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/12

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Question: Why does Baal HaSulam say that an iron partition separates us from the wisdom of Kabbalah and that we have to blow it up?

Answer: Baal HaSulam feels the absolute need for the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah, but that the people see no need for it at all. On the contrary, they reject the wisdom of Kabbalah as strongly as they can by using all sorts of excuses. The people are like a sick person who doesn’t want to recognize the only medicine that can save his life. So we have to try and give him this medicine in different ways, like to a child, in a nice wrapping with all sorts of persuasion and preliminary explanations. After all, something must be done!

An ordinary person doesn’t feel any partition between himself and the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is only later that we begin to discover this. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method for the revelation of the Creator to man in this world. Such a revelation is contrary to our nature. If we felt that the revelation of the Creator were sweet and beneficial to our desire to receive and would bring us more food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge, we would gladly accept it; if the Creator satisfied our corporeal desires, everyone would yearn for Him.

But if the Creator is love of others, as it says: “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator,” then no one needs Him. Everyone rejects Him and at the same time the wisdom of Kabbalah as well.

Subconsciously we reject the wisdom of Kabbalah in its natural form and are 100% opposite from it as we are from the Creator. Instead of the real Kabbalah, we simply imagine some kind of mysticism, some kind of miracles and blessings, and thus, we can use some parts of it, deceiving ourselves that we are dealing with the wisdom of Kabbalah. But in fact it is something else entirely.

We can turn to the Creator this way and pray to Him in order to receive something good from Him. This is the only reason we need Him—in order to feel better, and we don’t need a Creator that will make us feel bad. Everything is fulfilled according to the customer’s order, the receiver’s order. So although the wisdom of Kabbalah has been with us for ages, we are detached from it by an iron partition.
[92802]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can we assess the state that the group is in, and is it worthwhile to do so?

Answer: When a person is sad, angry or experiences some strong emotions, we say to him: “Relax, rise above yourself”, and so on. Meaning, we always invoke him to ascend above his emotions.

Our work in the group should all the time be based on us always ascending above our ego. We understand it, appreciate it, because it is precisely it that pushes us forward and does everything that is possible for us, so that we rise above it. Therefore, the ego is called “help against”. Meaning, all the thoughts, desires and intentions that pop inside us each moment, everything that we have internally, everything that flows within us in an unceasing current is required only so that we rise above it and “swim” above it.

When a person grasps and understands this and begins to work with it, he attains the goal very quickly. This is in the group and also personally in each one of us. Meaning, in the group we have to treat each other in this way, also towards the general state of the group, that includes all sorts of discernments and everything that is just possible.

What discernments can be in a group if we don’t rise above ourselves? Are we like scandalous neighbors in a building that begin to inquire into the relationships, or sloppy drivers that argue between them?!

We need to ascend above, to connect, and afterwards clarify what the problem is. And it could be that this is not a problem at all, but actually a special assistance that helped us connect. But without connection, it’s not a group, Kabbalistic discernment, but just a quarrel, a regular mundane condition.

Therefore, we must first and foremost connect. For this, a third person may be required, or some sort of additional conditions, but without connection we will never clarify anything. There will always be someone right and someone guilty.

I mean our group relationships, and not dissemination work, like in every enterprise there are those that understand more, managers and employees that are subordinate to them. In a group, we can solve all the problems only from the point of view of connection and unity.
When we connect together in the point of unity and hold on to it (since this is the main thing for us, and the Creator intentionally arranged everything for us so that we will attain this connection and hold on to it), then we will see what is bad, what the problem is, and not gloss over it, but try to understand its essence.

This is required only to realize that the connection solves all the problems. “Love will cover all sins.” Meaning, in principle nothing has to be corrected, because all the quarrels and oppositions are required only to rise above them and to connect. There is nothing else in them. There is no need to turn to them; you in any case won’t find the truth in them.

By the way, it’s the same thing in a family. Rise above all the problems and connect! And what happens with what was before? There was nothing, in any case you won’t be able to help. Each one of us is opposite to the other and most importantly, always different.

What is the point in you starting to inquire about something? The Creator deliberately arranged for you such conflicting new traits that cannot even be imagined. All our lives are composed of them. Everything that we see now around us is like a movie in which only all of our incompatibilities are shown to us, from which this picture of the world is composed. When you begin to ascend above, then you “swim” in a completely different plane: in unity.
[92392]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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