Question: What does the law of loving the other give us?

Answer: By means of loving the other we can reach love of the Creator, which is the purpose for which we begin our development. The purpose of creation is to reach love of the Creator.

The Creator initially had a perfect love of the creature according to His nature of good that does good. Bringing the creature to this goodness means bringing it to the point of adhesion with the Creator.

It turns out that love of the Creator is the purpose of our development, its final point. It is reached through keeping the 612 commandments (various preparations in our 612 egoistic desires in order to turn them toward bestowal), which are necessary to reach the last, 613th commandment of love and bestowal toward each other.

Each rule consists of a connection in a variety of details. Following the example of the “holy group,” that is, the society built on the laws of bestowal and consisting of a few people united by one goal, our aim is to reach a higher purpose through giving to each other.

Giving in itself is not a purpose. If we gather together only to give to each other, we build an egoistic formation by enjoying each other. Such a union is advantageous to me because ten of us can reach more fulfillment than one. Everyone will receive pleasure from the other nine.

However, such bestowal doesn’t take us out of the egoistic law of receiving for oneself. Only if we bestow upon each other in order to bestow upon the Creator can we be called a holy group that wants to reach bestowal. Otherwise, we would build an egoistic society in order to mutually profit from each other.

A perfect spiritual structure should consist of not less than ten people, according to the ten Sefirot of a spiritual body. Then bestowal of one toward the other will bring us to bestowal toward the Creator since together, we want to become the full ten Sefirot.

Malchut is included in the first nine Sefirot (Tet Rishonot). Thus, ten Sefirot of bestowal (ten Sefirot of the Direct Light) are formed. And the first nine Sefirot get included into Malchut and form ten receiving Sefirot (ten Sefirot of the Reflected Light). Thus, we come to mutual bestowal. The need for such an action gives us the right to receive the power, the fulfillment from Above, and is called a prayer.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash “Letter 26”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let There Be Light,” Item 39, Lesson 17
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 7, Lesson 5
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “External Factors,” Lesson 8
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Question: Why does it say that our generation is the most egoistic? It seems to me that we don’t have any egoism because we’ve lost the desire for all things. We no longer want anything at all.

Answer: Our generation is the most egoistic. When we began our development thousands of years ago, we didn’t have egoism. Today we don’t sense egoism because it pretty much ended its development approximately in the 1960s.

We feel that egoism has come to an end because it stopped changing. Today we live on autopilot without the desire and enthusiasm of the past generations. Where are the space exploration programs and scientific breakthroughs that inspired us in the past? All of this has come to an end.

However, this doesn’t mean that there is no egoism; we simply have reached its peak. It couldn’t develop any further in its previous form; therefore, it’s becoming global. Previously egoism was individual, an impulse within each person.

Today it is becoming global and we have totally stopped sensing it. I have nothing to run after because my egoism is no longer drawn by anything. People are content with their animal existence as long as they are left alone. They no longer aspire to reach new heights because egoism has stopped its development.

Moreover, things suddenly become more complicated because globalization reveals that everyone is connected. In the past a person didn’t care, he just wanted to be left alone. It’s as if the world was in a deep sleep. And then suddenly an integral world emerges where we’re all interconnected and this prevents us from sleeping.

What did we want in this state of sleep? We wanted to have plenty of everything: food, sex, family, money, honor, power, and knowledge, a new mobile phone with more advanced functions. We didn’t search for any exalted things, but we did want to be satisfied. We simply weren’t ready to search and strive for it, we wanted everything to come to us.

However, in order to awaken us from this sleep, we are being shown a global world, and we are forced to awaken to it. Here another problem arises which the world does not yet understand. The world sees this new phenomenon, but doesn’t realize this state is inevitable and that we must be a part of it.

We agree that we must establish international and cultural connections, as well as connections in banking, trade and agriculture. However, what we don’t understand is that we must create connections between us. The crisis is aimed at delivering this message to each one of us. Our connection must be internal and not through the banks, industries and other external systems.

People are the ones that have to connect into a single network. Through this crisis, nature is awakening the need for mutual responsibility, only we don’t understand it yet. Nature is obliging us to reach this state as it is written: “Either you come to this state by your own will (by the path of Light and correction) or this will be your burial ground.”

You will see what is going to happen. Nature will triumph no matter what.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/11, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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It is written, “Choose life!” Of course we are not talking about the animal life, since a person already has questions that are higher than our regular existence—questions about real life, receiving the Light into corrected desires and becoming similar to the Creator. This is called human life, since all previous existence was imaginary, like preparation for the human degree.

However, life without achieving bestowal and true existence is harder than death. And this is not because it is difficult physically. Humanity is reaching a state where half of it is in depression and the other half is in fear. Consequently, life is becoming unbearable, not only due to natural cataclysms and disasters, but because of the intolerable inner pain.

We can have all the benefits in our material life, and yet feel horrible because it lacks meaning. A life devoid of inner correction and the inability to answer the question regarding the meaning of one’s life is becoming more horrid than death.

After all, a question emerges in a person, as well as new desires from the human level, and then a huge problem arises because every question from a higher degree cancels out everything one has. One does not understand why he needs all these fulfillments if he fails to find meaning on a higher degree. People are not committing suicide in countries that lack food, but particularly in the most well-off regions, such as the Scandinavian countries.

A life without the correction of desires is very difficult for a person who is asking this question. He begins to suffer not only because he does not receive pleasure from anything, but also from the fact that he brings suffering to others. He criticizes himself for his past, present, and future. He considers himself guilty in regard to his children, close ones, and strangers—in regard to everyone because he feels that he is the source of misfortunes for other people.

He is shown an overview of his whole life, and he sees how evil he was in regard to every person he encountered and how much he used everyone. In these circumstances, it’s difficult to remain without an understanding of the goal, which is the opposite: good and does good. He has no hope for the future, for the days to come, which will only be worse. A person feels that he will spend the rest of his life in the same useless manner, without receiving any fulfillment in the present or the future—no inner or surrounding Light.

However, one who lives for the sake of correction and rouses inner and surrounding Lights not only becomes worthy of receiving pleasure from life itself (when Light is clothed into desires), but he is happy to “bring sons into this world” (new states). That is, he advances further. He develops his desires and sees that he needs the whole world since it represents his own desires, which he joins to himself and fulfills. It turns out that they all are his sons.
[63586]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/11, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The system is arranged in such a way that a person in search for the meaning of life always finds a teacher. If now some person awakes on the other side of the world in a life full of all the material joys, yet he begins to suffer and eat his heart out due to not being able to find the meaning, he will undoubtedly “accidentally” find us on the Internet. Or, he’ll fly to some other country and suddenly discover our book at some store.

This will happen without a doubt, since it is all a field of desire. We don’t need to look at people, books, some material objects—they all are manifestations of the energy field that exists in constant movement to achieve inner balance.

I am not worried about any person in whom the point in the heart is revealed because the moment that he needs to, he will find all that is necessary for him. I remember how once a friend and I would sit together every evening, reading Kabbalistic books and trying to study them on our own. Obviously we didn’t understand anything. And suddenly I told him, “Let’s go to Bnei Brak and find ourselves a teacher.”

I remember that moment perfectly. First I uttered the phrase, and only then did I begin to think about what I had just said. This is how it works: Instantaneously, in a flash, when the required inner potential in a spiritual charge is achieved and you come into contact with the pressure of a new field, your charge and this field reach such congruence to each other that you begin to flow on a different level of this field, Light. And this flow once again brings you to state of balance, but now on a different degree.

But physically this new state of balance is expressed in your finding a teacher, your coming to a place where you can receive fulfillment. A Kabbalist looks at this and sees everything that is happening inside, like he is watching a computer screen from the other side, from the inside.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/11, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Malchut is the desire to enjoy, and it understands nothing but that. But if due to the Light, which constantly comes from Above, it develops to the extent that it desires to feel what is above it, then it starts to seek the first nine Sefirot.

At first it strives towards the higher Sefirot only to receive from them for itself because it thinks that they have something that would fill it. This is similar to a person in our world who wants to absorb the entire world, all opinions, scientific knowledge, and culture and thinks that thus he will be able to fill himself, obtain knowledge and power.

But communicating with the first nine Sefirot even egoistically, Malchut receives from them illumination, which begins to “spoil” it. On one side, it starts to understand that the higher Sefirot have nothing that it can understand, get, and become filled with. This is the conclusion that humanity draws in the course of its history.

On the other side, the received Light awakens in it a sense of its insignificance: the feeling that there is something above it, that it is controlled, and it will never take power. This way a person begins to connect with the environment more for he sees that he depends on it. And thus, he comes to correction.

But the entire correction is also within the environment, not within oneself. Everyone has only one point, and a person finds himself only by becoming included in the collective desire existing outside him.

A person understands that his “I” is not in his point, which he first wanted to raise and satisfy. To the extent he gives himself to the world, there he finds his true spiritual vessel and his real attainment. There he remains—within the others. And then he becomes independent from his starting point, as well as eternal because this point is cancelled. Thereby he reaches Infinity.

The mutual inclusion of Malchut in the first nine Sefirot occurs at all levels, and at the level of this world it is manifested as our evolution. Today, we are at a special transition: Humanity begins to switch from the feeling of inclusion of the first nine Sefirot in Malchut at its level to the inclusion of Malchut in the first nine Sefirot.

That is why we begin to understand that it is impossible to exist without the inclusion into others. We will no longer be able to live in a consumer society and will need to build new, different relations.

The same processes that occur in the world of Infinity and at every stage take place here, in this world, only in another matter.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, TES

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What is my “self?” I exist, feel, live, and perceive reality…. But I don’t know what the “self” is. I only know that it’s the way in which I feel myself: There is the “self” and there is my environment. Where does this feeling come from? It comes from my desire to receive. I feel all kinds of pleasures and deficiencies one way or another, and they are part of my perception, feeling, cognition, and understanding.

On the whole, my vessels make up the desire to receive. To some extent they are full and to some extent empty. The desire that is divided into five levels of development (the still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and the root) makes up the feeling of my personal body, my life, my “self,” and the environment. Eventually I have to attain the essence of my desire with everything that is within it. What is this desire? What does it mean to feel it?

I am in it, and it radiates the feeling of itself and of external reality. The feeling of the self is my body. The feeling of external life is made up of many people and of the whole universe. All of this is depicted and presented inside my desire.

These things should be clarified in the light of free will: How can I use them? Which way should I direct them? Can I do anything that I want with these feelings? Or can I use them only if I turn in a certain direction? Do I have to find the right “frequency,” the right range of frequencies in which I’ll see the whole picture and the way to the goal? In such a case, all the other ways are closed. They’re not for me.

A very delicate approach is needed here, the only approach that will enable me to see the picture in the right light. All the other paths provide me with false and distorted pictures, and I will pay dearly for their falsity. The main point here is to understand what I should do and where to go. In order to do that, I tune myself to the desirable range of frequencies, choose the correct “crack,” in order to look at my internal and external reality. Such approach brings me to the only possible action I should perform—that of a free choice.

Everything else is irrelevant. Even if I don’t know anything else, it makes no difference. The main point is that I know this. My whole life and future depend upon this. By fulfilling this “subtle” principle, I can also change everything else, and extremely so. I should deal with what’s important and not with anything else because then I will only mess things up.

Thus, free will should protect me from false and harmful actions that will take great efforts to correct. I need to reach the essence in the shortest way possible and to realize it.

For that Baal HaSulam explains that every state I am in is divided into four parts. If I know myself, I am under their control. These are the factors:

• The source;
• The unchanging conduct of cause and effect;
• The internal conduct of cause and effect;
• The conduct of cause and effect of alien things.

The source is the unchanging nature, the essence, which I received even before I felt myself here and now. One may ask about it questions like, why, and what for, but it won’t change reality. You are what you are, and you advance on a one way street, from the beginning to the end. The distance you have traveled is the past, and there is no point complaining about it. All you have to do is find out how to make the future better.

As for the conduct of cause and effect, here too, as Baal HaSulam says, there is nothing you can do. Of course, wheat will grow from a grain of wheat, and rice will grow from a grain of rice. These changes are additions to the source, they dress upon it. Besides the initial data that exist in the Reshimo, in the “particle of information” which contains everything, there is also the rest of the development, the second factor, which is also predetermined. And this means that one should look for free will in the third or fourth factors.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “The Freedom of Will”

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The Ari writes in the book The Tree of Life (16th century) that upon exiting the animal world through the transitional stage of apes, we acquired the human form. This occurred both on the physical, bodily, level, and on the emotional, spiritual one: We develop within the desires of the still, vegetative, and animate nature until we arrive at the egoistic desires of the fourth, human, degree. The human degree is also subdivided into these four levels, but as a whole, humanity is distinct from the rest in its unique pattern of development.

Previous development proceeded at the material level, limited to absorbing and excreting substances. The still nature is almost always restricted to internal processes; the vegetative one exchanges substances with the surrounding environment: It breathes, consumes, and secretes, but only to a tiny extent.

Given all that, the vegetative level of nature wholly depends on the external conditions; it doesn’t move from its place and is subject to the cycling of the seasons. The animate nature has fewer restrictions: Its representatives move from place to place, possess a more developed desire, have specialized ways of producing offspring, and can better consume nourishment and excrete waste. And this, in essence, is the conclusion of the external, material, development.

From this point on a special fourth degree becomes added to it. But first let us ask ourselves: Why couldn’t the process be completed at this level? Why couldn’t the third phase of the Direct Light become the final one?

Keter, also known as the root, zero phase, created the desire to receive, the first phase (Behina Aleph) and filled it. Then this desire longed to become like the upper one, which is already the second phase (Behina Bet), the will to bestow. In order to perform bestowal upon the upper one, the second phase makes a decision: “I must receive.” Then from the center of Bina it forms a new state for itself, the third phase (Behina Gimel), Zeir Anpin, which receives in order to bestow.

What, then, is missing here? Seemingly, the third phase has everything? It has everything except its independence, self-awareness, and perception of the upper one, everything except its own “I.” It lacks the inner development relative to the upper one. In other words, it requires a connection with its root, the one thing that would allow it to continue on its path.

It is here that the fourth phase arises (Behina Dalet) or Malchut. This is a unique phase, characterized by inner, qualitative development.

Up to this point the desire has already developed in its due course. We see this in our world, which has more than enough egoism. And now we have to develop qualitatively in order to attain the upper root. The world has already realized its egoism and understood what can and cannot fulfill it. All forms have been tried, as a result of which we grew up and destroyed everything. The only thing that remains now is the question of connection with the upper one, the Creator: Where do I come from and where am I going?

And this precisely is the fourth phase: the degree of true development of man, accompanied by the desires of the other phases. From here it is necessary to understand what “religion” is in the context of development. It is a special mechanism, a special method that allows us to grasp the distance between me and the Creator. And it pertains only to the human degree.

Who, then, can start doing this work? The one who senses the separation from the Creator, who feels the inclination towards this. In other words, it is only those who have the point in the heart. All the rest are in the previous stages of development: still, vegetative, and animate.

This is why we perceive this difference, the separation, the pressure, the drive towards something. It develops within us the feeling of recognition of evil.

What is this evil? Perhaps I am experiencing negative sensations because I wasn’t able to steal something and escape unnoticed? Or is it because I am aware of the evil relative to the Creator? Thus, “religion” in this sense is a school of internal and external education, which reveals to me how distant I still am from the Creator and how I can overcome this abyss.

This has absolutely no connection with the traditional notions of “religion.” There is man, and there is the upper force. The question is only in recognition of how opposite we are and in overcoming this gap.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: Take, for example, a stalk of wheat that has rotted in the ground and arrived at a state of sowing many stalks of wheat. Thus, that rotten state is deemed the “source,” meaning that the essence of the wheat has stripped off its former shape, the shape of wheat, and has taken on a new discernment, that of rotten wheat, which is the seed called “the source,” which has no shape at all.

Why is the stalk of wheat of the previous degree not deemed to be the “source?” It is because it still possesses a form of its own and is not the root of the next state. The seed of wheat must disintegrate, turn into “power,” the potential of the future state, and then it will be able to germinate as a new sprout. Thus, the state of disintegration is necessary in the middle.

Answer: To lose the previous form in order to take on the next form. It cannot happen in another way. This way Keter turns into Malchut, which springs into a new Keter, over and over again.

Question: What should a person aspire to in his work: to lose the current form or to acquire a new one?

Answer: To accelerate advancement, that is, to increase the frequency of change of states. And every time I should strive for a new form. Let the stage of disintegration be on the way to it, I do not care. I understand that it is necessary.

It’s the same way that we need to sleep, as if disappearing into nonexistence. Is it not a pity to lose these hours of life? However, we know that without sleep the mess of the past day will not get organized into shelves and drawers inside our head. All my experiences need to go through processing, indexing, and storage. Only then will I be ready for new work and new perception.

Question: So how do you accelerate the speed?

Answer: Through the help of the environment that forms the right desire in me.

Question: And one always needs to strive towards the next state?

Answer: One always needs to strive towards unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. This is the next state. The same unity every time, only on a higher degree, more powerful, more “juicy,” of better quality: I, the group, and the common force of bestowal, the Creator, in us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, “The Freedom”

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Baal HaSulam opened his “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” with these words: “At the outset of my words, I find a great need to break an iron wall that has been separating us from the wisdom of Kabbalah, since the ruin of the Temple to this generation. It lies heavily on us and arouses fear of being forgotten from Israel.”

According to its definition, the wisdom of Kabbalah is a means of revealing the Creator to the created beings. The Creator is the only upper force that exists and rules over creation. The created being is completely detached from Him and doesn’t know why, for what purpose, and how he exists. And here appears the means called “the wisdom of Kabbalah,” designed to connect the Creator and the created being.

This connection is called “revelation of the Creator to the created being,” and it is carried out according to the development of the created being. The Creator is concealed not because He hides Himself from us on purpose, but because the attributes of the created being do not allow him to attain the Creator and discover Him.

Thus, it is necessary to change the attributes of the created being, given to him from the beginning, to other attributes. Then the created being will discover the Creator and become similar to Him. This means that he will arrive at the same form of existence.

Up until the destruction of the Second Temple, the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed. This means that the Creator was revealed to the created beings who were in contact with Him and were called the “nation of Israel.” But afterwards, after the fall, the attributes of those who were in connection with the Creator were damaged. This is called “the destruction of the Temple.”

And then the wisdom of Kabbalah disappeared. The connection between the Creator and the created being came to naught, and it hasn’t existed since then. And now Baal HaSulam wants to restore it, which means to restore it in the same form that existed previously, before the destruction. Now we need to restore this connection for the broken desires that were completely severed and distanced from the revelation of the Creator and from equivalence to Him.

Thus, the wisdom of Kabbalah that Baal HaSulam reveals for us is different from the one that existed in the past. In the past it belonged to the already existing system of connections and forms. But in our days people don’t know what the Creator is. The created being is broken and scattered. It is no longer a small group that is more or less corrected, but is a huge humanity in which these broken desires are scattered.

Thus, we must awaken them and make a long journey until humanity begins to discover the Creator. Until then we will need to go through a great number of stages of correction.

These stages of correction aren’t similar to those that the small group that was once shattered has gone through. Now a large group of people are involved, including “the stony heart (Lev ha Even)” and all the attributes of the AHP (the receiving desires). Thus it is not just revealing the wisdom of Kabbalah. We also must pass it on correctly to our generation.

Baal HaSulam calls this separation, the barrier, that exists within us and doesn’t allow us to discover the Creator and the spiritual world “the iron wall.” It is named so since it is indeed so great and strong! And he doesn’t expect it to go away and disappear by itself; he intends to break it.

This barrier exists in the heart of each person. And Baal HaSulam wants to reach the heart of each and everyone and perform this work in it. This means that he, being sure that he has enough strength and one could even say “impudence” to declare that he is able to do this, takes the responsibility upon himself to penetrate the created being.

Indeed this iron wall is the existing separation between the Light that rose to the world of Atzilut after the scattering and between the broken desires that fell to the worlds BYA (Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya) and were separated from the Light. The difference between them is that very wall that grew as egoism developed and added to it all our stigmas, traditions, religions, and beliefs about Kabbalah, and slander against this wisdom and Kabbalists.

Baal HaSulam will need to break all of these barriers in his introduction. But also we must take part in this breakthrough. After all, we receive from it only the means with which we must continue working on our own, for the sake of breaking this partition.

This declaration is the headline for all of Baal HaSulam’s teaching. It explains why he disclosed Kabbalah and offers it to us, which is specifically for the above mentioned purpose.
[63490]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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