Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 93: These are the words of our sages “I labored and found, believe.” And we ask about, “I labored and found, believe,” that the words seem self-contradictory, since labor relates to possession, and a find is something that comes without labor at all, absentmindedly. He should have said, “I labored and bought.”

However, you should know that this term, “find,” mentioned here, relates to the verse, “those that seek Me shall find Me.” It refers to finding the face of the Creator, as it is written in The Zohar that He is found only in the Torah, meaning that one is rewarded with finding the face of the Creator by laboring in the Torah. Hence, our sages were precise in their words, and said “I labored and found, believe,” because the labor is in the Torah, and the finding is in the revelation of the face of His Providence.

We act in order to discover a deficiency, a need for a certain phenomenon. If this deficiency is right, if it matches that phenomenon, then this phenomenon is revealed. Only then can we see what it actually is, because it is a “find.”

I lack the power of bestowal, the Light of bestowal, but I don’t know what it is. This is because my deficiency comes from below and it doesn’t exactly match the final phenomenon. This phenomenon belongs to an upper degree that is so different from me, like the degree of animate differs from the degree of vegetative. Every new discovery raises me to a new qualitative level and every time it is as if I turn from a dog into a man.

When the Light fills the vessel, it gives it a Godly mind and feeling that stem from the root that preceded the creation of man. The Light gives a person the knowledge, the feeling, the perception of reality that is above his root. We can hold on to this only if we come to life and want to resemble Him by that, above ourselves.

Therefore it says, “I labored and I found.” This find is always one level above the deficiency and the current exertion. This is how all the Partzufim of the spiritual ladder are built. There is nothing to be ashamed of here, because when I work on a lower level, I prepare myself for the total self-annulment before the higher level.

This is how the love of parents in our world bears children, takes care of them, and fills them. It is the same here, of course, where there is the love of the Creator, but at first I use it to rise to its level and to complete it to resemble the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can I check if my appeal for correction is correct?

Answer: The appeal is correct if a person wants to unite with the friends and connects to this his desire to attain the Creator. Everything should lie on one single line, on one axis: me, the united group of friends, and the Creator. In this case all desires are in the correct order.

Find out if you can clearly draw this picture for yourself, if you can skewer together all the necessary factors.

Then you will move on to the other form to circles: outer, middle, and inner. The outer circle is you. You contain the second circle, the group, which in turn contains the third circle, the Creator. In the end they all merge into one whole. Then there is no difference between you, the group, and the Creator. Everything is one.

In this way every person, every soul comes to perfect attainment.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Reaching the goal is based on practical work in a society, in a group. The group is meant to be joined by people who aim toward the same goal and received a natural aspiration toward revealing the Creator. The same way, the upper Light, the Creator, gives these people a desire to reveal Him and get close to Him. He gathers them around their teacher and passes this knowledge on to them to reach revelation of how to realize this desire, which the Creator invokes in them.

The Creator creates all the conditions–gives books, a teacher, a group, and a desire–everything except for something that should come from the person himself who needs to organize all these conditions, to focus and direct oneself toward one goal.

Friends help every person come to the lessons, participate in the group work, and study, just like in regular corporeal studies and groups. But the main thing is that one hears that it is impossible to reach the goal with the mere desire that was invoked by the Creator because it is not more than 10% of the desire that is needed to require revelation.

And you have to obtain a full, perfect desire which you get by being inspired from friends’ desire to reveal the Creator, by seeing that they are eager to reveal the Creator, by their talking about it, and by seeing how much they do and how many efforts they put toward it. All of that inspires and evokes the desire inside of you because by nature, we are made this way.

But in spiritual work, a person needs to make his own efforts to notice his friends and be inspired and impressed by them. After all, you can neglect them and everything they do and all their work will remain unnoticed. On the contrary, it is possible that you can pay attention to every little thing, get inspired from how much effort everyone puts into waking up early to come to the lesson even though it is hard for them, how many foreign desires appear in them, but they overcome all of them heroically, how they yearn to be together, etc.

On one hand, the group should open itself and show its strong desire toward revealing the Creator and reaching the goal of Creation. This inspires a person and gives him that additional desire that he lacks. In fact, we get every desire toward the Creator from the environment. The point in the heart is just an initial spark, which ignites this whole process, but afterward we have to advance.

There is work here that needs to be made on a man’s side: to lower oneself and see friends higher than oneself. There is work that comes from the group: to show itself as high, exceptional, and strong with respect to everyone. This is the individual work of each person and work of the group as a whole. We need to take care of that and not to accept a disdainful attitude.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 94: It is written: “Those who seek Me shall find Me.” One might think that no special effort is required here, and even a small person who isn’t ready to exert himself in any way will find the Creator as well. But the sages warn us not to believe this interpretation. On the contrary, effort is essential here, and if one “didn’t labor and found, don’t believe.”

If a person walks alone, he has absolutely no chance of correction. It is written, “Group or death.” When the nation of Israel stood at Mount Sinai, they were given a condition: Either you unite as one man with one heart, or this will be your burial place. In other words, if you don’t unite, you will never acquire spiritual life. At least some part of the vessel must be corrected.

You may think, “How can that be? This means that everybody must be corrected. Am I only expected to correct a certain part of the common vessel?”

It only appears to us that we perform individual corrections. In truth this process encompasses the whole world, only in part (99.9%) of the vessels the correction happens without them realizing it, while in the other part it happens consciously, after they raise the required plea (MAN) and perform the necessary scrutiny. As a result the entire common vessel connects to the correction process, and this is something we should know. It is also why we need to care for everybody else.

We should also understand the principle of “labored and found.” Our entire work amounts to our efforts to unite, which lead us to “finding” the Creator. Only after these efforts are exerted does the answer come in the form of the upper Light, which makes the correction. We must present to it our genuine desire for unity, and it will then influence this desire, welding and merging us all together, once again turning us into a whole vessel.

Then all the desires—everything that was revealed during the breaking—connects to this vessel with us in it as Aviut, and we acquire a vessel that’s 620 times greater than before.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: From whom or what do we ask for connection and correction during the reading of The Book of The Zohar?

Answer: The Light, although this force is concealed. It holds everything in perfection, but it is concealed from us. I am shown life through all kinds of imperfect forms, so I will ask for the perfection. But I need to imagine, on my own, what this perfection is.

Perhaps the meaning of perfection is that I will be fulfilled, great, wise, knowing, and in control? Or maybe perfection is that instead of receiving all these fulfillments, I specifically degrade them and rise above them to love and bestowal? No, that isn’t perfection. So what is?

We need to learn about perfection from Above, because It is perfect. And to just bestow, or to just love someone, that isn’t perfection either. Perfection, I must learn from the upper one.

So I ask Him to reveal to me what perfection is. And this is revealed. We see we lack perfection and from each revelation of this lack of perfection, which the Creator reveals, we learn, from blow to blow. After all, there is a gap between the blows, which is designed for our recognition, understanding, and comprehending what was bad and what could be better.

In this way, people advance, as according to Baal HaSulam: They destroy the previous state after they no longer are able to endure it, and agree with the new state, which previously they didn’t want to agree with, and now they see that it is desirable. But this is the way of suffering, the way of the evolutionary development of nature.

But if we want to advance rapidly, from within consciousness, understanding, and self-participation, then we need to search for what is called “perfection” on our own. And then we ask the Creator to reveal, to give us the appropriate mind and feelings.

For this purpose he places a condition: You want to discover Me? You want to learn the system, to advance consciously, to understand and comprehend what perfection is, what life is, what the system of reality is? Please! I also want the same. I want you to be a son and not a slave.

But for this you must execute actions, exercises, like at work, so that through them you will learn about this system. How? In the group. If you are ready to connect with the friends and to learn about unity, which means One, Unique, and Unified, and to learn what love based on hatred is, then you have a system of relationships with the friends.

I organized this system for you. I brought you to it, gave you teachers from all generations who already attained this system and described it for you. Everything is in your hands. Take it and begin to realize it. According to the measure of your advancement, I will reveal more and more means to you. And thus you will understand, will attain, and  will discover what perfection is.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, The Zohar

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Question: Is it possible that one minute I don’t understand anything and then suddenly everything is revealed to me, or is it a gradual process?

Answer: It’s a gradual process which leads to an instantaneous revelation. We see this happening to us. We try doing this and that and nothing comes of it, but then suddenly we acquire an understanding and reveal something. We don’t understand how it happens. It’s as though there is something inside of us that slowly grows, then just bursts, and we suddenly gain understanding, sensation and attainment both in the mind and in the heart. This process requires great concentration over a long period of time and many continuous stages that ultimately lead to a sudden breakthrough.
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 26: Also, one does not execute anything during the building, but only according to the details arranged before him in the blueprint…. Thus, there is not a single, tiny item, generated in this world, that does not extend from Ein Sof, from the first state of the souls. And from Ein Sof, it extends to the world of Atzilut, meaning specifically associated to the thing actually being generated in this world. And from the world of Atzilut, the generation extends to the three worlds BYA, where the generation appears in actual fact, where it stops being Godliness and becomes a creature, and to Yetzira and Assiya, until it extends to the lower one in this world.

Only one thing was created: a desire. The created being exists in this desire and feels, thinks and understands in it. The greater one’s desire is, the more he can feel and understand. The more varied the desire, the more ways he can perceive reality.

If the created being’s desire had stayed the way it was created, it wouldn’t have felt anything. This is a result of the four phases of direct Light. Our development begins when the Light begins to influence the desire that was created as existence from absence. All along the way, the desire developed by the Light and received attributes, changes, and urges to act from it. In the Light there is the thought of creation, so when the desire was created by the Light, this thought was put into practice in it.

When the desire developed, it began to perceive different impressions from the Light that turned into receiving. It receives, feels, understands and responds. Every action of the Light initiated the mechanism of changes inside the desire: It absorbed it again and again, felt, and responded numerous times.

Actually the Light is fixed and doesn’t move. It only presents itself to the desire this way. It is in the desire that all the changes take place, until it “turns around” so many times and accumulates so many changes that make it stop and start its way back. The Light is in a state of absolute rest and it fulfills its inner plan, which is for the desire to return to the source, but so that it itself wants to return to the point where the Light gave birth to it, and to justify its creation. Thus it justifies and understands the Light.

All the way into our world and back again is by means of the Light. When the Light shines upon the desire and draws away from it, it spreads from the top down. Then the Light performs the opposite action and the created being begins to draw closer to it, but it does so consciously, wanting to return to the Light, meaning to resemble it. Then he receives the surrounding Light that helps him, and he constantly wants to acquire the inner Light instead, in other words, wants to become like Him.

According to my free will, the Light influences me and changes me. Then I acquire equivalence of form and the inner Light spreads inside me. This is the level of my bestowal. So from a distance, the desire to receive returns to the Light and is incorporated in it.

Thus we attain the Creator’s initial plan and then different general parts of the “blueprint.” The “blueprint” itself is in the world of Atzilut, and we are in the worlds of BYA, dealing with its fulfillment, in the correction of the matter of the desire. Like an architect, a person builds his home and acquires control over his vessel.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, The Zohar

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Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Rabash “Concerning Above Reason,″ (To: “It follows that when he wishes”)
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Sling-Stone,” (Starting with: “This means that the extension of the Mochin“), Item 209, Lesson 62
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 2, Lesson 23
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“Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 96, Lesson 42
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Every person at some stage of their life begins to feel that he has to reveal its meaning. This can be a conscious search for the meaning of life, which is given to individual, chosen people, or an unconscious urge, as it is characteristic of the rest of the people. However, everyone will at some point have to find the answer to this question: What am I living for? Since the goal of development is to return all of us to our root.

When a person asks, “What is this life for?” in essence, he is asking, “What do I need this suffering for?” The suffering is personal or common, but everyone asks because his desires are not receiving fulfillment. Then a person begins to search, and some people come to study Kabbalah, while some people arrive at some other places.

Our development on the human level began hundreds of thousands years ago, from the beginning when humanity emerged, having risen above the animal level. It started from the development of the mind and language, but in fact, man was moved by that same question: “What am I living for?” Although, a person, who lived thousands of years ago, did not understand the essence of this question, just like today, when this question is being awakened in us, we do not exactly understand its true meaning. It is simply an unclear urge, which makes us move forward.

This is how the whole of humanity moves forward chasing wealth, fame, power, and knowledge without knowing that the goal of development is not in this, but in reaching one’s root, to find out: where I come from and what rules me, and really means, where should I go?

The desire to enjoy, awakening in us, asks us these questions, which are gradually becoming ever more precisely directed at the root from which the upper Light is shining through at us. This is how our system is set up.

But a person, who has already reached the last stage of development, and who has been brought to such a place where he begins to study, at first does not understand the connection between his need to find out what he lives for, what the meaning of his life is and what he studies. Often, he is not even aware of the question itself, which takes the form of various other questions, simple curiosity.

This is how he begins to study the science of Kabbalah, or at first he takes interest in some other methodologies, spending long years on this. Sometimes, under the pretense of Kabbalah, he is being sold various “miracles” and advices about how to succeed in life, and how to find out about your past, present and the future. However, if he really arrives at the science of Kabbalah, and not fortune tellers, then he discovers the Kabbalistic books for himself and he does not understand where all of this is located: the upper worlds and Partzufim.

He has no connection at all with these concepts. He does not know where all of that exists, beyond the borders of our world, our Galaxy, or even the whole universe? Is it somewhere up there, below, or maybe inside the material? It is very difficult for a person to understand how to relate to all of this.

A lot of time is spent on this. And even when a person listens, he does not hear that the science of Kabbalah only talks about the connection between people. He does not understand that by setting the correct connection, we reveal reality, which belongs to a new, higher dimension.

It is difficult for him, given his previous opinions and impressions about the science of Kabbalah, to connect it to human relationships. How can such a hidden and high science, such high names and worlds, actions and forces, have any connection to our relationships towards each other, between me and the neighbors, between me and my friends?

He simply cannot imagine that all of the upper worlds and what goes on inside of them is in essence the “psychological” connection between us, people. And if we begin to interact with each other, with bestowal and love, this means that we are using the spiritual force. In the event that we reach true love of our neighbor, and not that egoistic one, we’re used to in this world, which is calling the use of the other for the sake of my own pleasure love.

However, if I use myself for the sake of other people’s benefit, this is called love of one’s neighbor. When I relate this way to someone else, then in my relationship to him I begin to reveal the spiritual Partzufim, the upper worlds, Sefirot, angels, demons, spirits, and all of these spiritual forces, which are “for” or “against” my connection with others. They can be positive forces or negative ones, meaning the forces of “holiness” or “evil”.

All together, they unite into one common force, which I reveal in my love for the other, called the Creator, which have a number of various names that reflect the character of my connection with others.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, Writings of Rabash

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The difference between double concealment and single concealment is very great. It is a phase that takes a long time, even years. In the past, it took Kabbalists an even longer time.

The difference here is that in double concealment the person doesn’t know definitely, nor even approximately, what bestowal is, but only talks about it when he repeats what is written about it in the books. Thus, it is very difficult for him since all of these words are artificial.

We see this in his conversation, but he must do it like a child who, in the meantime, imitates the grown-ups and plays with dolls and cars. This is so, until he attains the state where the upper Light bestows on him, and it becomes enough to begin to feel the value of bestowal.

He begins to describe to himself, in his imagination, what bestowal is, how he exits himself toward others and loses himself there, how he begins to feel them and not himself. This is not even “we,” meaning, I am in connection with others. Instead, he ceases feeling himself and feels only what is external to him. It is not possible to convey this feeling with words, but it begins to be grasped within a person.

This is called reaching single concealment. Then, he begins to demand the disclosure of bestowal. It is now understood to him that it arrives only with the help of the reforming Light. In the transition from double concealment to single concealment, he sees that everything is realized only through the upper force and that only he, himself, can awaken this force through all kinds of actions, but not more than that.

Here, the demand matures in him that he must have the upper force that will produce within him the quality of bestowal. We are in this state now, before the congress in the desert, before the meeting with the Pharaoh and the exit from Egypt.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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