Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom“: “Although our strength is not enough to face the first factor, the “source,” we still have the ability and the free choice to protect ourselves against the other three factors, by which the source changes in its individual parts, and sometimes in its general part, as well, through habit, which endows it with a second nature.”

I feel different influences and although I cannot resist them, I can “play” with their “combinations,” “juggle” them and make a decision. But what decision exactly?

Although my actions are artificial, there are different factors that can evoke them. If there were only one factor, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. When there are two factors, I can already direct the ratio between them and influence the balance of power. Thus, I can influence my fate and the changes in me; there is now my “self” that makes decisions.

Here there is a great philosophical problem which compelled people to divide reality into good and bad. One force is inconceivable, unattainable. Only the idea of multiple forces, to some extent, enables people to act and to “juggle” them. Even if people acknowledge the existence of an upper force, they still have a need to believe in different “angels” and “devils” that separately rule under It.

We see that in the spiritual work this problem is solved in a totally different way. A person is under different kinds of influences from the Creator and he can prefer one over another. It’s still unclear how this happens, but we see that the solution for our independent participation in the process is here.

Question: It turns out that I am trying to play with the reasons, although I really have no control over them because I myself am a result.

Answer: I can change a certain influence on me and for that there is another factor. I add my factor to the laws of nature and want to know what I evoke by that. Thus, I can really decide something and learn new phenomena. This can be done by scientific research and by spiritual research; with the help of my factor I begin to study the upper force.

In order to do that I have to be made of two forces, and I have them: on one hand, the ego which is great help, and on the other hand, the group in which the Creator, the upper Light, is hidden. Between them, in the resistance between them, my “self” is born. Thus, I discover the Creator according to how I manage to connect these two forces inside me. I can’t discover Him with only one of them. We need the combination of the two.

The point is that the term “one” is revealed above matter and above the Light. The Light is the measure of bestowal; matter is the measure of receiving, and the Creator above them is consciousness, the thought of creation, and not the duplicity of the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, bestowal and receiving. This isn’t even bestowal, but the desire to bestow that precedes it.

In this desire that are parts that are detached from actual bestowal. I want to reach them, to know who the Creator is, not in relation to me, but who He actually is. In Kabbalah this is called “Atzmuto,” the essence of the Creator, to which we have no access now, although we also want to attain it. This is to where our curiosity is drawn.

So I have to create all the conditions, like in a lab designing a field study. Everything stems from the Creator, but His bestowal surrounds me on all sides. I look for my place, for the opportunity to discover the Creator by this experiment. Actually we always behave this way when we study something new. We only have to arrange everything in its place, to understand what we are dealing with and how we reach the result.

On the whole, behind every experiment we discover an attitude, a formula, and a connection between different phenomena. In addition we discover the logic behind them. These aren’t just dry facts that leave us on the same level on which we discovered them. No, we always look for the reason: why are they connected this way? What forces them to be so? What’s the reason? Behind every phenomenon that I see in matter, I want to see what caused it, the upper part of the Partzuf. I want to know the reason for the data I received; this reason is the actual result of the experiment.

So in my spiritual work I develop a kind of “lab” attitude towards reality. The “lab” in this case is me and the approach remains totally scientific.
[63979]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/11, The Freedom”

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Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Rabash “What Is Half the Shekel in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Two Great Lights,” Item 112, Lesson 28
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 22, Lesson 15
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “For Social Life, the Law ‘Taking After the Collective,’” Lesson 18
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At every step of the way, we have to attain a demand, a plea, a prayer. Nothing else works here besides prayer—a request for the upper force, the Light, to carry out the action.

Many years go by until a person reaches this understanding and begins to feel this way. The mind won’t help here. This attitude toward oneself and the world, which he wants to reveal, must become revealed through feeling on the inside, naturally and instinctively. A person has to understand that this involves only the work of the Creator, the upper Light that will influence him.

Every action that he wants to make for his progress signifies a request and hope for the Light’s influence, so it would affect a person, make changes in him, and give him a different attitude to reality. And according to this, reality will become revealed and then he will feel and understand the Light’s actions.

The Light will lead him through different states, from which he will “see” (feel and understand) the relationship between him and the Source of the Light.

We must always be expectant that the Light will influence us. This is the most important thing of all. And we shouldn’t simply wait for it, but desire it passionately, constantly hope for it, and be ready and open to this influence. I cannot do anything besides this. This is our primary work.

If people get together and live for this hope for this change to happen to them with the help of the Light, then they can really awaken each others’ hearts and unite in this request. Then their demand really will attain the quality that is necessary for the Light to respond to it. After all, we don’t want to reveal the Light for our own sake, but in order for it to pass through us and influence others—those who don’t know how to ask on their own yet!

They are also waiting for this change under the influence of earthly suffering, but they do not know how to speak one language with the Light and therefore they suffer on their small level.

The Light awakens them deliberately so they would become soil, “dust under the feet of the righteous,” while the righteous would rise to the level of Bina in order to demand Light for all those who are lying in the dust…
[65295]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/12, Shamati

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Everything we do in this world for the sake of living in it, and all our discernments, which eventually bring us to the question of life’s meaning, gradually narrow down, like a cone, until we reach the very peak, meaning the intention: What do we want from all of this? Intention is the most important thing there is.

In the material world the intention arises naturally and is determined by a person’s nature, his desire. Therefore, we don’t pay attention to it. Only if we suspect that someone is lying to us do we begin to ask about his intention. That is, the behavior we see might differ from the concealed intention.

But if we act simply, without deception in the material world, then the act and the intention always go together. However, in the spiritual world it is always opposite. First of all, it only seems to us that we are doing something in spirituality. In the material world, the world of actions, we are simply used to the fact that the more we do, the more we advance, such as when we build or create something. We can end up with good results or bad, but the results are achieved through actions.

It is written about the spiritual world, “The end of the action lies in the initial plan.” This can be explained in the following way: that only after the actions do you begin to think and understand what happened. Actions eventually bring us to the understanding that they do not produce anything, that the only operating and creative force in the spiritual world is the Light, while all we have to do is ask it to act instead of doing something ourselves.

A person thinks that through his spiritual work, with his own efforts, he can do good deeds, that by virtue of inner pressure and concentration, he can find bestowing intentions within himself, attain a good attitude and love for the neighbor, spiritual aspirations. He thinks that if he pressures himself more, then there, inside he will find the spiritual forces and will reveal the spiritual world.

But the work is actually opposite: It lies in demanding an action from above, the Creator’s work, as it is written, “Call upon those who search for You!”
[65298]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/12, Shamati

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Question: What is the “stop on the way” that Chanukah symbolizes?

Answer: In the spiritual world there are no “stops” as we know it. It isn’t that you are free from the spiritual work and can go home. The meaning of “a stop” is that we acquire the attribute of Bina and now we have to make a shift. We’ve raised Malchut to Bina and here comes Hanukkah.

Now we begin to make a shift, to lower Bina to Malchut, to work with the vessels of receiving (AHP). Thus we work with a growing desire to receive until we descend to its deepest levels. The ascent of Malchut to Bina is called the Maccabean Revolt, “to bestow in order to bestow,” and the descent of Bina to Malchut is already Purim, “to receive in order to bestow.”
[64306]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: When we look at our life, we see that we have no control over it. How should we relate to this reality?

Answer: Actually we do have control. It all depends on our approach.

In this world, I am in a kind of a “bubble.” I keep the laws in this world and try to fulfill my desires. Eventually I work out the relations with the world. I have studied it in depth, I have created many technologies, and I feel that everything is fine. Apparently I should be satisfied with the world because after ages of development, I control it.

Suddenly something new comes up: New forces arrive and I discover that I cannot succeed in anything. I have built many systems in this world: family, work, education, science, etc. Everything “ticked like clockwork,” everything seemed perfect, and suddenly it seems that everything has become bad.

What happened? It doesn’t make sense. We know so much; we have the brains; we have been through so much, so what’s the problem? Are we really so foolish that we don’t learn from past experience? Are we destroying our future? Why are we getting divorced without thinking about our kids? Why aren’t we aspiring to advance? Why are we ready to destroy everyone around us only so that our neighbors will be worse off than we are? What is going on?

It is simple. We are not to blame. Today another form of control is being revealed, a new sphere of another nature that controls us. If it weren’t for this new control, we could live a wonderful life. But it has been revealed, and now we have a problem. We are not opposite from the laws of this world but from the laws of the upper world. They influence us and we are miserable, unable to escape it.

In our world we always managed somehow and we aspired to advance, to know more, to understand more, to feel more, and to develop. Eventually we meant to subdue this whole world. But today we discover something that we don’t know and that we have no control over. Like kids, we face this uncertainty afraid to move so that things won’t get any worse. We see this in the world’s leaders and decision makers who don’t know what to do. For every problem there are endless opinions and no one has a solution.

The reason is that a new leadership has been revealed. How will we manage with it? How will we manage with its forces? We are perplexed and we feel bad.

This feeling doesn’t come from the Creator, but from our lack of adapting to the laws of the upper nature. Today we have to harmonize with them. We have grown for a long time and have finally reached the beginning of the Machsom (the barrier). The crisis is the beginning of the Machsom for the whole world.

In the group, we transcend it a bit sooner from our own will, aspiring forward. We have a “point in the heart” (•), we understand and feel that there is something else and we want to break into it.

The rest of the world is also facing the Machsom, but it will need our force and the troubles that push them from behind. One way or another, we have to discover the upper nature and to keep its laws, in other words, to be balanced with it. This is the safest thing.

Nature requires connection, integrality, and mutual unity of us. It is totally interconnected, and we have to be that way as well. We are on the way to unity and wholeness.

There is no punishment here, but rather new forces that push us towards wholeness. These forces operate in nature systematically, and we shouldn’t think that the Creator is trying to fail us on purpose. He hasn’t changed anything either in the past or today—there is simply a development engine constantly working inside us. Thanks to it we grow wiser every day.

However, if we don’t operate our brain and our wisdom properly, in order to adapt to nature, we will suffer. We had to unite with nature and lead a wonderful life, but now we feel this treasure as a problem. One way or another, this is our choice.
[64771]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

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Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam wrote that nature punishes man if he doesn’t implement its laws. But man is born egoistic and is not able to implement them!

Answer: There are many ways to word this question. First all of, what kind of Creator is there if he created us with so many defects and still punishes us for them? How can such a thing be? Isn’t it like beating a baby who was just born with some defect? Did He do this on purpose so that He would have an opportunity to punish us? Is the meaning of this to enjoy our despicableness and sufferings?

It is here we need to understand that the Creator doesn’t correspond with our present logic. The Creator gives us the possibility to complete ourselves. He created us at the level of beast. I am called, “man,” a name from my future state, and not a name from my present state.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah everything is named according to “future achievements.” For example, we are called, “Kabbalists” even though we have not yet received the upper Light with the intention for bestowal and we still are not in the spiritual worlds. But we are attracted to this, and work for this, and already now call ourselves with this future “title.”

This being so, why do we suffer from lack of self-completeness? It is because otherwise we wouldn’t complete it.

The Creator created us at the low, animal level, and we need to add to this the level of man, similar to the Creator. We need to do this by ourselves, through achieving, recognizing the quality, and valuing this status. This has been imposed specifically on us. Since if from the beginning, the Creator created everything by Himself, then there wouldn’t be any benefit from this creation. What reason is there to create a world where He controls everything and His creatures have no free choice in anything? That would be like doing nothing.

The Creator intentionally created us as we are: We are not complete; we need to feel that, to deeply sense that. Afterwards, we need to understand by what means we can complete ourselves, what we are really missing in order to add the Creator’s nature to ours? And then the animal in us is not taken into account and remains only as a basis that can be turned to. Afterwards, with the acquisition of the form of man, it disappears, and man detaches from it. The benefit is found within this entanglement in order to grow, and then afterwards to exit it and no longer be in need of it. Thus we are in need of the physical world, for this “bubble,” as long as we grow. And when we have grown, the physical world will disappear.

But we need to acquire the attribute of the Creator by ourselves. For this we need feelings; thus, gradually the level of the evil inclination is strengthened in me, the recognition of evil. I feel sufferings, aspirations, and pressures. All of this is in order to awaken me to the spiritual work. Together with this, the Creator does not punish me, but gradually, bit by bit, He shows me that I still haven’t received His form.

Let’s suppose, now, according to my plan of development, I should have already gotten 10% of the attribute of bestowal from the Creator, meaning exiting from the Egypt in me, detaching from egoism, rising above it in restriction, and beginning to process 10% of my desires for bestowal. But since I have not done that, these unexecuted assignments of mine press on me and I feel them as suffering.

It is not the Creator who puts pressure on me, but those forces that are found between the “I” of now and the desired “I,” the person I should already be. The gap between these two, gives me the feeling of the crisis, the feeling of suffering. The Creator only provides the creature with the initial push, from the beginning to the end. And I understand this process as a temporary space where I move from one end to the other in the process of my receiving the form of the Creator.
[64777]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

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Question: When you want to connect to others but are afraid of losing yourself, how is it possible to overcome the fear?

Answer: It is really that way. Baal HaSulam wrote that man is frightened since it seems to him that he disappears from this world and leaves his family and his friends. This is the difficulty in the work of the Creator.

That is exactly the feeling that we must experience, and we must receive the point of detachment from self-worry with joy. It is especially from these points that we build our identity. Each man’s identity is composed from those same points of detachment. This is a physiological example of total devotion.
[65167]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What are the signs of the Creator’s work on me?

Answer: It is a feeling of pressure, as if you are a piece of dough or clay and a sculptor is working with it and constantly putting pressure on it from all directions. As a result of this, you feel that you need to act, to think, and to want in a way different than you do now. He is working on you as if truly with His hands, and you feel pressure on your thoughts, desires, ways of thinking and attitudes.
[65164]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What more can I do if I feel I’m unable to ask for correction or to inspire my friends?

Answer: Every morning you wake up to go to work in order to sustain your living. You don’t question whether to go or not because you understand that without working you can’t survive.

Why do you question the spiritual work or think that you can get by without it?

The state where you think that you can live without working for spirituality and feel too lazy to put in any effort, thinking that you’ll advance anyway, is given to you purposefully because therein lies your freedom of will.

In your corporeal life, you can’t be lazy because no one will give you free bread. You are forced to earn a living and put in the effort. Don’t you think that the same principle applies to your spiritual life?

You work eight hours a day in order to sustain your corporeal body, but how many hours did you spend working for your soul in order to fulfill it and provide it with spiritual food?

If you don’t do this, then you’ll remain on the level of your corporeal body. If you don’t know what to do, it is said: “Do all that’s in your power!”
[65045]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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