Question: What can I do if a large part of my thoughts is devoted to material matters: how to earn money, my family, and  my position in the eyes of people, and I hardly think about spirituality?

Answer: This is great if you already know that all your thoughts are only about yourself and you do not agree with this, but cannot do anything. At this point you already have the opportunity to discover that there is one additional force besides yourself, the teacher, the group, and the whole world.

There is a hidden force, which creates this egoistic relationship between you and the others, and only it can change this relationship to the correct one.

You lack only a thought, a scrutiny: Is it necessary to change this relationship? Why do you need it? You do not have enough awareness of how much you want to win it and cannot think about anyone else but yourself, and that you cannot stand that you cannot overcome these thoughts. Then, from this inner feeling that has reached a huge tension, a cry is born, to which the reforming Light responds.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/12, Shamati #153

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Our livelihood is measured by the ratio between three Lights: There is Reshimo (reminiscence) of the previous state; there is the inner Light and the surrounding Light in the present state with the Masach (screen) between them that separates the Light that comes to these two Lights.

The inner Light gives us the feeling of the present. The surrounding Light, which remains because of what we cannot overcome in order to bestow yet, gives us the feeling of the future. The Reshimo, the basis on which I make this calculation, gives me the feeling of the past.

My uncorrected egoism is what divides time into past, present and future for me. If I receive a Masach of 100% for all my desire, I no longer experience different times. The concept of time ceases to exist and only the world of Ein Sof exists.

This means that the past, present, and future don’t exist by themselves! We have simply become accustomed to perceiving and feeling these influences this way, but this is only a psychological problem. There is no time; there is only the state of the soul, which feels the influence of the Light that constantly changes. This is why it seems to us that time passes.

When I move from the concept of corporeal time to the spiritual one, to the ratio between the Reshimo, the inner Light, and the surrounding Light, which determines the past, present, and future, I begin to relate to this condition differently. It becomes clear to me that time doesn’t exist, and it all depends only on me. I can hasten time if I hasten myself and approach the present from the past, and from the present, approach the future more and more closely.

It all depends only on the speed in which I acquire the Masach, develop it, clarify my situation, and perform actions of in order to bestow in the ten Sefirot of my soul. This is all our work because there is nothing else we should do but hasten time.

If we “press the gas pedal” ourselves, we advance quickly and shorten our way, and make it pleasant, leading toward the desired goal. Then we go through it with joy and pleasure as we justify the Creator and thank Him for being good and benevolent, for arranging such a wonderful path for us.

But if we don’t make enough efforts in order to advance, if we don’t press the gas pedal, but rather are pushed from behind by sufferings, we advance in the natural pace of evolution when everything happens in “its time.” Therefore, this advancement is felt as unpleasant and brings about great sufferings because the Light that comes doesn’t find desires that are ready to receive it and so it is compelled to remain outside and to pressure us and cause us pain and sufferings.

In this case, all the Light comes without “sweetening” but as is, and so it is revealed as Gevurot, as burning fire. Everything comes from the Light, but it can be received by desires that are ready for it and that summon it, and it can come according to the natural process, in its time. So the main thing is to hasten our work.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/12, Shamati #35

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: And it is hopeless to hope for peace…. And it is a must that there will always be a large minority in society who are unsatisfied by the conditions offered to them…. This minority will therefore always remain a ready and willing fuel for the new quarrelsome people and the new peacemakers that will always follow.“

We see that on the human level, even an approach based on the best intentions will not allow us to reach truth and peace. There will always be quarrelsome people who will disturb the process.

What can be done? Nothing. Human society and human nature were intentionally made this way so as not to allow us to get along in life. We can acknowledge the fact that it isn’t in our power, but not more than that.

How much bloodshed and suffering is needed until we realize that we cannot have the minimal correct social relations among us? Nature is being revealed to us as more and more global and integral, connected and mutually dependent, and it gradually shrinks that “small place” in which we can continue to exist in the old egotistic form. The new laws are getting closer by leaps and bounds.

In order to compensate for what we cannot achieve without unity, society is using different charitable organizations, but we will soon see how this “charity” is actually leading us to destruction. Baal HaSulam says that the destruction will actually come from those who try to make peace.

There is only one solution to the problem: educating people to live in mutual guarantee. Thanks to this, humanity will be able to feel that there is something solid we can rely on. We can achieve this by creating the right environment. In addition to teaching and acquiring knowledge, education should include special activities by which the environment influences people. If we begin to organize such an environment, the internal forces to create it will be revealed through us. Without this there is no hope for peace.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/11, “The Peace”

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Question: How should I relate to the fact that there are “flavors of the Torah” that can be revealed and “a secret” that must not be revealed, in my work?

Answer: You shouldn’t worry that you might discover some forbidden secret by chance. You should think about the correction of your desires now. When you correct the desires that belong to the lower part of the Partzuf, then the Light called “flavors” will be dressed in them. In this Light you will be able to understand the head of the Partzuf and will begin to reveal the “secrets.”

The secret is not your calculations in your head about how to fill the “body” with the help of the Masach (screen). “To attain the mind of the Partzuf” is to attain the thought of creation, the attitude of the Creator to us, His intention, and not only His desire to bestow good.

As for now, we don’t have such a mind, we don’t have the vessels for this kind of attainment. You will need to build a new logical tool for decision making, which at the moment we don’t have.

After we correct all our desires and adhere to the Creator, this adhesion will raise us to an upper level about which Kabbalists do not write. The wisdom of Kabbalah only speaks about the correction of the desires that must be made in 6000 years.

During these 6000 years the correction ends and the worlds of BYA rise to the world of Atzilut. Then the world of Atzilut together with the worlds of BYA spread downwards from the Parsa until this world. But they don’t tell us about this in the books because this belongs to the correction of the “stony heart.”

We study about how we have to rise to the world of Atzilut. After all the souls that belong to “Israel” and all the souls that belong to the “nations of the world” who cannot rise by themselves but only thanks to the fact that they join “Israel” (and there are such parts in every person) rise to the world of Atzilut and receive the Light there—this is where our work ends.

When we raise all the souls, until the last one, an upper action, called “Zivug Rav Pealim Mekabtziel,” comes, which is intended from the start for the time when all of the AHP de Aliya rises. Then the Light of Gmar Tikkun is revealed—”Rav Pealim Mekabtziel.” This means that it takes all the desires with all their Lights and gathers them into the whole ten Sefirot, and they spread from the head of the world of Atzilut until this world.

This is how the correction of the desires takes place. But what will happen afterwards? The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t tell us. Well, you’ve corrected the desires, what next? You’ve finally fixed the car, where will you go now?

We are only at the beginning of the road; what’s next, we are not told—not because it is forbidden, but simply because it is impossible. We don’t have the mind or the feeling to understand what will happen next. Undoubtedly, however, this future awaits everyone. Our role is only to hasten our development!
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Writings of Rabash “The Prayer”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Illuminations of Light and Illuminations of Fire,” Item 132, Lesson 36
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6,  “The Eser Sefirot of ha Olam Nekudim,” Item 1, Lesson 1
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“Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 36, Lesson 21
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Question: Why is a person who is doing everything he can constantly being pushed back?

Answer: This is wonderful! He is shown how much more he needs to be strengthened. This is how they teach a child to walk. They are moving further and further away from him, as if pushing him away!

The child feels as if they do not want to support him. This is how he understands it. These hands, which support him, seem to always be near, but are constantly moving away, making him feel irritated and as if he has no strength.

How can we be so cruel to a child who doesn’t understand what we are doing with him? The poor child is standing and crying, and instead of taking him and holding him, we are tempting him to draw closer to us, forcing him to walk.

The Creator is doing the same thing to us.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: The yielding due to satiation causes no grief. Relinquishment out of despair is full of pain and sorrow, and can therefore be called, “partial death.”

If we rise to a new desire, to a new level of awakening, we feel a growing despair and eventually die. We don’t die in the physical sense which is expected in any case, but the point is that our spirit is extinguished.

On the beastly level the spirit dies together with the body, but while the body lives, we can find a source that will allow us to rise anew each time, a new awakening. In it we feel life, livelihood, to such an extent that we become detached from the physical existence and its dependence on the body and begin to live in an awakening that is detached from corporeality. These become two different things for us, as it says “you shall see your world in your life.”

Thus a person acquires new vessels, desires, to feel life. This begins from the descents: When a person doesn’t feel life in the vessels of bestowal, he considers himself dead. Then he changes the reason, the vessel of awakening, from receiving to bestowal, and thus gets rid of the spiritual and the physical “angel of death.”

Spiritually he moves on to the vessels of bestowal that do not belong to our world. There is no death in them when the biological body dies; it ceases to feel the livelihood connected to it when the time comes for it to disintegrate and to return to the basic materials it’s made of, as always happens. But at the same time, a person acquires an awakening in the vessels of bestowal in which he feels life and the force of livelihood.  After all, he can always add something to these vessels.

As a whole, the feeling of life isn’t measured by a person’s present desire, but rather by the addition to the desire, by an acceleration coefficient. So a person should always be like a “bent old man” who seems to be looking for something he lost. I should constantly worry about losing the yearning for the goal. If a person performs this work, then he is young in soul. Otherwise we become “children who have grown old,” who retire without maturing.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/12, “The Freedom”

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The same question arises all the time in students: What should I do? With the question about the meaning of my life, I find the teacher and the group, and I begin to study. One needs to correctly organize all of this together so that with the instruction of the teacher and the help of the studies, one will reveal this spiritual form inside of this group.

It is as if I found a whole pile of blocks: This is the group. And now, I am sitting like a little child together with his father and an instruction book with a drawing of how to assemble the blocks into a house.

I look into this book, but this is not enough since I am still small and ignorant. I need an adult to help me. My father is helping me (from the blocks that make up the group) to build a house. This is what we have going on.

Due to the fact that I am building a house, I am gaining wisdom, I understand and feel ever more. And when I finish building this house, I begin to reveal life in it! Suddenly, some kind of small lights begin to illuminate, something begins to move inside of it, some sounds begin to emerge, and scents; it is starting to become alive as if in a wondrous fairytale.

At that moment, when I correctly assemble all of the blocks, everything suddenly lights up and begins to move.

Question: But the father first shows the child how to build the house, and then builds it together with him. Why doesn’t He help us build it?

Answer: Just start building and demanding His help for this. Maybe, you haven’t even started any building in the group, and you are already asking, where is dad? But what do you need Him for, if you haven’t even started?

When you begin to build and you see that you are not able to do it, then you will want Him to be with you. You will go and bring Him in by the hand so that He will help you in this game. But for now, it still seems to you that you will build everything by yourself and you do not need a father.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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There are many ways we can check our desire in which all the clarifications take place: “What for? Why? Where does it come from and where is it leading to? By what means can I advance? How can I check whether my goal is the right one? What are my true intentions? Could it be that it is simply my egoistic desire and personal interests that naturally attract me, and that everything that is against them repels me?”

A very close and thorough examination is needed here. At the same time we should be careful not to be too absorbed in these clarifications because it is part of my work, only half of the “half a Shekel” that is my part. The other half should be expressed in action. The action is studying together with the group, feeling the friends, and the examination during the study: Is it in the same line of thought with everyone else, in contact with the teacher and the group?

The second half of the “half a Shekel” ends when a person receives the change from Above. All our efforts should end in attaining an open deficiency that waits for salvation from Above, like Nukva, the female desire that opens herself to receive the correction.

This is how we should prepare ourselves for the lesson. Here a lot depends on the greatness of the source from which we receive this bestowal, from the immense height of The Book of Zohar and its authors. The mechanism that operates in The Book of Zohar is the world of Ein Sof because it passes the upper Light from the head of Zeir Anpin, the Light of Ein Sof.

If a person works on all the levels: in his feelings, his connection with the group, with the teacher, with the state of the world, with the systems of the worlds, with the upper force, and connects it all to the one mechanism that he operates now, then there is hope that his awakening and his action will evoke an awakening from Above. And his prayer (MAN) will draw the response (MAD) from Above.

The prayer (MAN) (Mei Nukvin – female waters) is the desire, the deficiency. The response that comes from Above is MAD (Mei Dhurin – male waters), the power to overcome. We have to feel that we turn the weak, meaningless, painful, and defective state into bestowal, power, and correction, and feel inside us how our MAN turns into MAD
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/12, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: However, when he achieves the aim of Creation and the Creator receives pleasure from him, since His will is done, man’s essence, which clothes in His contentment, is granted complete eternity, like Him. Thus, he has been rewarded with freedom from the angel of death.

Baal HaSulam explains freedom in the context of the perception of reality. We live in a world of forces. There is no matter; it is only depicted to us under the influence of different forces that stabilize this feeling for us.

I perceive the inanimate nature in all its forms and manners and also the vegetative, animate and human levels of nature. These four categories that fill my field of feeling are forces that are depicted in my desire and that draw, like on a screen, the picture of the three-dimensional, varied world.

This happens because my desire to receive divides the general bestowal, called Light, into many types and degrees of internal reactions. On the whole, it makes up the picture of the world in which I feel and see of all these actions.

So from the start, I was given a feeling for which I don’t have to prepare myself. I already have the desire to receive and in it, I feel the world. Besides that I see large-scale processes in inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature and also in between these levels. Actually it is about our internal world, but we take the names of the objects and the phenomena in it from the lowest level according to the principle of a branch and a root.

The higher I rise, the closer I get to the Light through the layers of my desire. In the lowest place I see the picture of this world. Then I rise to the next level, to the desires that are closer to the Light, and these forces are before me in the form of Partzufim, worlds, and Sefirot. Then I see the connection between the branch and the root in everything, and accordingly I call the forms that I feel as desires and the relations between the forces by parallel names from our world. Thus the language of the branches is formed. [Read more →]

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