Baal HaSulam, “Messiah’s Shofar”: And because of that, Rashbi permitted himself and disclosed the wisdom of the hidden in his books, The Zohar and the Tikkunim. However, it was with great care, since he only permitted Rabbi Abba, who could disclose with intimation, so only the sages of the children of Israel would understand, and the sages of the nations would not understand.

The reason for that is that if people driven by egoism find something in this wisdom, they will not be able to advance. In another article, Baal HaSulam brings the example of an unripe fruit that can harm a person. Answers that are received without exertion, without self-advancement, only block a person’s way.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed gradually, so that a person would understand more according to his internal spiritual growth, and thus advance. However, if he received the answers in advance, without growing and developing a vessel, it would stop him and not allow him to advance. Then he wouldn’t need to change and to acquire new attributes, and it would prevent him from discovering the way to the spiritual world by himself.

This is why Kabbalists took great care not to reveal things that people are not yet able to understand. The wisdom is acquired according to a person’s readiness. We study in order to summon the Light that Reforms, and when it corrects us, we begin to understand and to feel the material that we study.

The process is as follows: We connect in a group of about ten people, and then by the power of our unity we can raise MAN to the upper force. As an answer, we receive the Light that Reforms, which means the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif – OM). This is what changes us, meaning, truly unites us (∑) and corrects us, and thanks to this correction we discover the upper world in our corrected attributes.

So these are the stages of the process:

1. We unite
2. We raise MAN for correction
3. The Surrounding Light corrects us
4. We discover the upper reality.

If we don’t perform the two initial steps, connecting and raising MAN, then nothing happens. Therefore, Kabbalists wrote their books in stages, according to our advancement in our study. When we read it for the first time, we discover our ego. Then we understand that there is only one choice, to rise to unity (∑), and then we discover that it isn’t enough either and that we have to raise MAN. If we do that then the Upper Light, the Surrounding Light (OM) completes the work.

The Kabbalistic books are revealed to us according to these stages, and it is all by the study. In the first stage, I discover the evil, in the second stage, I see that I cannot do anything and that I have to connect with the friends, and in the third stage, I understand that we will not manage without a request that the Light will connect us because we cannot do it by ourselves. Then the Light comes and completes the work. The first half of the work is our responsibility and the second half is fulfilled from Above and it is called “the work of the Creator.”
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From the 1^s part  Daily Kabbalah Lesson  6/20/12 in Toronto, “Messiah’s Shofar”

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Question: I am actually only an animalistic body and I don’t have a “soul” yet. How do I acquire it?

Answer: A soul is part of the Creator from above. It is bestowal; it is the level of Bina, the level of general love.

If you acquire this attribute, it means that you have received a part of godliness from above. “From above” means that you consider the value of bestowal and love as higher than all your other beastly desires.

If you acquire this part of the attribute, it means that you have received a soul. Why? It is because, with this part, you will be able to love others and to bestow upon them. You will feel a different world, the next world, something that is external to what you are feeling now. Every sphere that you are feeling now, as if you were in it and which surrounds you, is a sphere that you feel inside your ego.

If you acquire the attribute of bestowal, it is as if you exit this sphere and enter an upper sphere that is external to you. You get an extra corporeal feeling, a special emotional state (extra sensory), and then you begin to discover the upper world, thoughts and desires that are aimed fully at bestowal and love. This is called an “addition” above the five senses with which you currently depict this world: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and feeling.

You add extra senses to these five senses, which operate in bestowal, called Keter, Hochma. Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut in which you feel something else that is totally in bestowal. The new structure that you have acquired begins to take on the form of Adam, which resembles the Creator.

Now, you exist in an egoistic sphere called “this world,” you feel everything only within your ego, and this is your life. Suppose you expand yourself all the way to some external sphere. What you would feel in it is called the upper world.

So, the vessels that you acquire along with that, the desires and the thoughts, are called Adam, the one who resembles the Creator. The Light that you attain in these vessels, the filling, is the Creator, the attribute of bestowal and love.

Then, you attain an even greater world, the next level, and thus you advance up 125 degrees. However, there, you already have an upper mind and feelings that help you understand what is going on. The main thing is to exit the first sphere because its nature is aimed totally inward, and it is opposite to all the other spheres whose nature is aimed outward.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/12, The Zohar

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Question: Is it important to understand exactly what the Creator wants from me or is it most important to simply continue as best as one can?

Answer: The Creator wants only one thing from you: for you not to leave Him.

There is no thought, desire, or action in the world, which does not lead towards the revelation of the Creator, directly or indirectly. There is nothing besides this.

We would have revealed Him directly, but this is practically impossible to do. And since we are not capable of moving from point “A” to point “B” by the shortest direct path, a number of indirect reasons arise that direct us and make us move.

These events may confuse a person in many ways, placing obstacles in front of him and making him spin around them for many long years before he makes one step forward. Although it would seem that he could have moved directly without going around.

But in everything that is happening in the world and in the whole of the human history, there is nothing besides the movement towards the Creator. Why else should all events occur if everything is defined by the opposition of the Light and the vessel and the revelation of the Reshimot, (informational genes)? Everything is directed only at clarifying and correcting them. Either, we directly perform our work on them, or as a consequence of the separation, nature will make us come to the same result by the path of suffering. However, this will take a long time since the forces of egoism (Klipot) are stretching it out like rubber, turning each point into a long period, in this way depriving us of strength and confusing us.

As it is said: “The Creator created man straight, but people have thought up of numerous retributions.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/12, Shamati #25

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The Zohar is the Light that Reforms, and The Book of Zohar is also called “the Upper Light.” We can enjoy this Light only if we know how to draw it, when we are in equivalence of form with it.

What should we do in order to attain equivalence of form with the Light? The Light bestows, how can I bestow? If I tighten the connection with the friends, annul my ego a bit in order to connect with them, try to be a bit closer to them through different actions, events, and by dissemination, I become a bit more similar to the Light. To the extent that I get closer to it, I am rewarded by it influencing me more.

The Light is fixed in its bestowal, but by my actions I draw myself closer to it and become more like it. Thus, I am rewarded with the influence of the Light, and as a result my vessel becomes the one that bestows.

According to my internal change, when I become the one who bestows in my desires and my attributes, I begin to discover the changes that occur in me. Suddenly I discover such desires and thoughts (in the heart and mind) that are totally different from the ones I had before. Thus I feel more and more changes inside me until I acquire a new state in which I feel: “That’s it, I’ve changed!” This change reveals a new collection of attributes, desires, and thoughts in me that is called a Partzuf, man (Adam), or the Creator, which are all the same.

Since according to this new structure, the sum of the attributes, desires, and thoughts in me, I discover a new internal figure, which is a “human,” and in it, I discover its root, the reason that gave it birth, which is the Creator. Thus we discover our spiritual development.

Let’s hope that by our yearning for the level of Adam, which means that in return for the annulment of our ego, the connection with others and with the whole world, and the study of The Zohar, we will enjoy the Light that Reforms and will receive the form of a “human.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/12, The Zohar

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Preparation to the Lesson

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Shamati #30 “The Most Important Is to Want Only to Bestow”

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Workshop: How Do We Increase the Intensity of Our Connection?

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Question: What kind of exertion is the means for spiritual advancement, and can I help a friend exert himself or do I steal his work from him by that?

Answer: Exertion is whatever is above my human abilities. I cannot help another and complete his work, but I can set an example for him so that it will be easier for him to exert himself.

So I don’t steal his work, but rather help him. The more we help one another by setting an example so that it will be easier for a friend to exert himself even more, the more efficiently we will advance.

With this, we exchange the corporeal exertion with a spiritual exertion! Then the corporeal work seems very difficult and the spiritual work seems very easy because you add the force of the group to it. The result is that you have to move a load of a hundred tons and you move it, but you have the aid of a million people pushing the load with you.

You don’t have to feel the weight of the load that is 100 tons. These 100 tons are necessary only so that through them you will attain connection with a million people.

Therefore, there is no need for senseless sufferings; all we have to do is to understand why we suffer.

If you feel difficulty, pain, rejection, and sorrow in a certain place, it means that it isn’t the right exertion. As it says: “Thou hast not called upon Me, O Jacob.” If with great effort and sweat you carry the load that was given to you by the Creator, it means that you are not exerting yourself correctly, and this burden belongs to someone else and not the Creator.

The pleasure from work is knowing for Whom we are exerting ourselves.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/12, Shamati #117

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Opinion (Mario Monti, Prime Minister of Italy): “‘We stepped away from the precipice before, with the contribution of the political forces and sacrifices of the Italian people – but the hole is growing bigger and it may swallow us up. We are again in a crisis.’”

My Comment: From the edge of a precipice, you can fall down, but  you can fly.
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Question: What is love of the Creator?

Answer: Love is an opportunity to fill someone else’s deficiency (vessel) using my own vessels. In our world we love because it gives us pleasure: delicious and familiar food, people that please us, my children to whom I am naturally attached. We call this love.

But spiritual love is not when I fill my vessels by someone or something, but when I fill the vessels of others. This is the exact opposite of what we are used to thinking about the concept of love. The spiritual world is opposite from the corporeal world. If I worry about someone else’s vessels and want to fill them the way he wants them filled, it means that I love that person.

As long as we love each other and everything is fine, we make a covenant with the Creator in order to sustain this relationship, even if everything changes because of different external reasons. No matter what happens—I want to keep the same force of love and connection between us.

The question is how can this be done if I suddenly discover that the Creator is responsible for all my troubles? My faithful and beloved partner suddenly stops looking at me and causes me all kinds of troubles and problems. He betrays me in every way and does everything against me and becomes my chief enemy. So how can I maintain the good attitude towards Him under such conditions?

But the adhesion to the Creator means that I have gone through different states and have reached a state in which I receive nothing from Him, nothing but the feeling of darkness. But above all that I build a relationship of love, bestowal, and connection despite the problems and the sufferings that He causes my ego. In such a case it can be called adhesion.

The vessels in which I attain adhesion have to be restricted and concealed. Above them there is my Masach (screen) and Returning Light, and there is adhesion in the vessels of bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

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Question: How can we make a covenant among friends?

Answer: A covenant among friends is possible only if there is an upper party ensuring its preservation. A covenant can be kept only when we all connect with the upper force, which provides the union.

There is no chance that we will be able to keep this covenant by ourselves, but if we connect, we can demand this from the Creator—if we do it for Him.

The result is that “Israel,” the people who yearn for the Creator, the Light that Reforms, the Torah, and the Creator are joined together, and then the Creator keeps the covenant according to our request.

When darkness, separation, and conflicts come, this covenant is revealed and exists among us. But as long as everything is fine, it is impossible to test it. The test is only when we feel bad.

When we feel good, we don’t need any covenant; as long as there is the Light, it connects all the parts. The difficult part is to do so when the Light disappears, to keep these parts together then. This is called a covenant.

But how can you draw the Light in a time of darkness? It is impossible. But we want to reach a state in which even when we don’t feel the Light in our receiving vessels, we will feel the Light in our Masach (screen) and the Returning Light—a fulfillment in the vessels of bestowal instead of an egoistic fulfillment.

Today, I am a loyal slave of my desire to receive, and I want to serve in order to fill someone else in the same way. This will be a pleasure for me. This means that I want to make a covenant.

The covenant is tested only in the dark, when I get no fulfillment but I still want to keep the same good relations that I had before. Instead of my egoistic pleasure, I want to restrict my ego: a Masach and the Returning Light.

This is called a covenant; it is a state in which I don’t work for myself anymore but rather in order to bestow. This means that I keep the same attitude not only when I feel good, but when I feel bad too. When the good state returns, I don’t want to be confused and be enslaved by the desire to receive over and over again, and so I make a covenant for that purpose.

I want to feel pleasure in the vessels of bestowal; I want to restrict my desire to receive and work with the pleasure by building a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light above this restriction. I turn to the friend with this Returning Light and connect with him. This is called a covenant.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

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Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1]

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Rav Yehuda Ashlag “Messiah’s Shofar”

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Workshop: What Do We Bring to the 99% in the Round Tables?

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