Question: I cannot tie the relationship between us with what we are reading in any way. It seems as if the material we are reading is hanging in the air and has nothing to do with me. How can I tie it to myself?

Answer: At the moment, you are not feeling any connection with the material you are reading because you are not connected to the friends, to any of them. The moment you start to bestow upon someone, you will immediately understand what a Partzuf (spiritual organism), a Tzimtzum (restriction of desire), and a Masach (anti-egoistic screen) are, how to calculate with the intention to bestow, how you are connected with others through the spiritual Partzufim, and what is referred to by Ibur (conception), Yenika (nursing), and Mochin (maturity).

What is the meaning of begetting someone? I beget my attitude toward someone else. When I beget all my attitudes toward all the others, it means that I beget all the Partzufim of my Malchut, of my desire.

I beget all the Partzufim from the bottom upward, from my Malchut (desire to receive) to Keter (desire to give) of the world of Infinity. This ascent is made of ten Sefirot, and I have to beget my relationships toward the whole world within them.

How can I feel the entire world and all the people? It’s simple. The closer I get to the spiritual system, the more clearly I discover the network of connections before me. It even is said about our corporeal relationships that through six people we know, we can connect to the rest of the world. That is, we see that this is possible.

In the spiritual world, you will feel as if everyone is actually by your side. It is hard to grasp, but all of humanity is by your side. You will connect with each one, not indirectly like in our world where we discover that through six people, we can come in contact with everyone, but directly, with everyone.

It isn’t like our body in which there is a certain order and system of connections. By bestowing upon each part of the spiritual body, I connect with each one directly, like a point on a sheet of paper, folded several times, is glued closely to all the other points. I connect with everyone and bestow upon everyone, by creating the Partzufim.

Astrophysicists actually are discovering that our universe exists in this “folded” form.
[61099]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/6/2011, TES

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The stages of the development of the desire are often called “spies.” A person is under the influence of the Light and feels frustration and weakness; he is in disagreement with the Light, its program, and with his own goal. He is displeased with his desire, natural qualities, and the help the Light gives him. He gets to a state where all power is taken from him.

However, these impressions are necessary for our desire to determine what it lacks to become similar to the Light because inside of the desire, naturally, there is no independent power or mind. There is nothing but a reaction to the Light. The desire to receive is built like an imprint of the Light. Everything that exists in the Light is absent in the desire, meaning that the desire is nothing more than “absence.”

However, the Light exists; it is “existence.” Thus, the entire abundance, all that the desire to receive acquires, is the attainment of the difference between “existence” and “absence.” Something that it lacks in order to add to itself is called a Masach (screen) that the desire uses to reach the degree of the Light.

However, the spies revealed within us, who curse creation, the Creator, and the desire to receive created by Him, are the states that help us advance. We just have to try to gain strength with the help of the group, the environment. Advancing together with them, we overcome the spies.
[61002]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Desire is the creature’s substance, the place where we feel alive and reveal the reality within and around us. The Light works with desire and develops it according to its program. At first, the Light develops desire directly in order to shape it. Then, inside the created desire, the fourth phase of the world of Infinity, the Light begins to create the conditions for its correction.

After all, this desire is still raw material. It does not feel, understand, or have freedom of will. It only operates according to the orders of the Light, which control it. This way the Light creates different forms of desire called worlds or concealments. The Light reveals and conceals itself a little, and the desire goes through changes, until it absorbs all qualities of the Light.

The further the Light distances the desire from itself, the more I begin to feel who and what I am, even though the desire does not yet have any freedom or independent development. Everything happens because of the Light. The desire, being an innate substance, acts according to set laws, and it does not have any choice in its reactions. A desire, a natural material that acts in accordance with established laws, has no choice but to respond.

In this way, development reaches a special structure called “man” who receives the choice either to act within his reason or above it. “Within reason” is an action that corresponds with the Light’s action—the matter’s natural reaction. But it is possible to achieve a reaction above your desire, which does not conform to the natural laws of nature—it is possible to create an ability to react in a way that is opposite to the reaction to the Light’s orders.

This opposite reaction is called “man” namely because it is similar to the Light. After all, when he follows the Light’s orders inside his desire, he is called a created being. However, when he doesn’t follow the Light’s orders but wishes to rise above the level of matter, to rise to the degree of the Light and become like it, then he must have an opposite reaction. In accordance with this reaction, he is called “man” or Adam, which means “similar” (Domeh) to the Light.

Thus, matter receives the name of “man” and its new development begins there. It has a variety of forms imprinted on it by the Light during the period of natural growth. However, now, this desire begins to work on its own. It strives to become like the Light. In other words, it constantly strives to have a different reaction to what the Light awakens within it.

The Light awakens reactions within him that are opposite to the Light’s behavior, but man must accept this game and, above it, become like the Light. This is referred to as work by “faith above reason.”

This work can have different forms. The Light sometimes reveals or conceals itself. Sometimes, it awakens bigger or smaller desires in man. Through these influences, it keeps awakening new reactions in matter. This way, matter learns through its reactions. It studies itself and the Light, which is an example for it. Gradually, it becomes closer to the Light in its qualities, until it completely merges with it.

It is clear that on this path, the desire collects understanding and sensations of itself and the Light. It learns the Light’s program and learns the Creator’s attitude toward the creature by the way the Light treats it. And to the contrary, it learns to overcome its own nature and become like the Light. In this way, desire’s substance gradually attains the degree of the Creator.
[61005]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash “Concerning Above Reason,” (Start with: “However, it is precisely here,” To: “Similarly, we can interpret”), Lesson 2
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “He Carved A Carving in the Upper Light,” Item 1, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 8, Histaklut Pnimit, Item 13, Lesson 22
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Lesson 9
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Question: In the group, we need interaction, contact. That is the only way I can reveal love and hate for my friends. When we work together on dissemination, I receive a real inner response. But in all other regards, we just sit together at lessons or meals, sing and dance together. I don’t find any interaction there….

Answer: Still, try doing this together with the group more and more. In reality, this is the work: to sit together with friends, to eat with them, to dance and sing with them. This will cause greater repulsion to be revealed inside of you. Overcome yourself and try to submerge deeper into the group—and you will discover your weakness.

This is already the expression of the truth. The more you try to take control of yourself, the more negativity you discover toward the friends. This is the entire essence and nothing more is necessary.

The sons of Israel received the method of correction only when a strong egoistic desire ripened in them. This was no longer a clan or a family, but a great number of people who felt that they didn’t belong to one another. That is how a nation emerges: I am part of a group, I was brought to it, and I participate in the life of the friends, who are connected by a common goal. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t harbor any warm feelings for them.

And now I must form the deepest connection that can possibly exist in reality—the same as the connection with the Creator. Can you imagine: to cleave to the friends like to the Creator, without any excuses, and to feel them closer than myself. Is this possible? Yes. You make efforts, and in response, Light comes from above and corrects you.

In mutual actions, everything that’s important is inside. You can take physical measures only if you can vest the intention into them. Otherwise, you shouldn’t. We need actions that will become an expression of our interconnection. This includes conventions and dissemination work. But in reality, if a person is really dear to me, then I invite him to a coffee shop or to my house to socialize with him in a friendly setting. I try to be as close as possible to him.

The gist of the matter is not for every person to prepare for the convention in his own niche, hoping that these external efforts will unite us. Rather, we must feel a much greater proximity, which is what we were slightly able to achieve at the convention in the Arava dessert. After the December convention, we will continue acting in this direction to come even closer to one another.
[61440]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/11, “Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: What does it mean to aspire towards a past state that we achieved at the desert convention? Shouldn’t we be going forward?

Answer: That is correct. But for the time being, you are awakened by the desire to rouse a state you have already experienced so that it will manifest now. You live in the past, like an old man. In spirituality, you are not a “man” or a “youth” yet to be building new degrees. Right now you are not able to achieve a connection with others in order to attain even higher states. You live in your past memories.

This is why I say: “Fine, awaken the past! But make the past new in the sense that now you are changing the reason, your attitude towards it.” And this is a good thing! Do not neglect the past; it is the Reshimot (reminiscences) from a past state. After all, even now we live in the past as we have Reshimot from our descent from Infinity.

But now the time has come to build a new desire for my past state, like in TANTA, when I attain a new desire (vessel) as the screen becomes thinner. Right now we are approaching practical work. This is only for those who go through these states in the sharpest possible form, who have the Reshimo, the memory of what we have attained. Every one of us has this Reshimo, and we can awaken it.
[61313]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/2011, The Zohar

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Everything is gained through the power of prayer. If I am the desire to receive, I can’t do anything with myself because I lack the second force: the desire to bestow. The presence of these two forces existing in creation is necessary for me to fight, make decisions, and do something to one with respect to the other.

The first force is egoistic. It is given to us at birth. But how do we get the force of bestowal that comes from the Creator? That is the problem, and our prayer is about that.

Why do we need the second force? If I feel a lack with regards to the first, egoistic force, I begin searching for how to fill it. And this is also called a prayer. Even a thief, who is planning to steal but is feeling anxious about his success, creates a prayer for a successful robbery through his desire. And it also receives a response just like any other lack.

Thus the problem is not in the desire, but what it is directed to. It shouldn’t be a desire toward filling my egoism that develops in a natural way, making me act for my own good. The still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature are instinctively developed in such a way.

But the human level doesn’t exist in nature as a result of its natural development. “A human” not in the sense of a physical body of this world, which essentially is the highest level of the animate degree, but a spiritual human who is similar to the Creator can develop only under the condition of acquiring the second force, the force of bestowal in addition to the first one, the force of reception. Thanks to this, man becomes similar to the Creator.

But how can this force be passed to a person if it only belongs to the Creator? This transition cannot be direct. Rather, it can happen through some influence or example from the Creator, either in a hidden or revealed form, when the desire to receive in a person changes its shape and behavior. And instead of receiving directly, like it is intended by nature, it starts working differently.

The desire to receive inside a person will change itself. It’s not like two opposite forces becoming revealed inside him or her: the human desire to receive and the Creator’s desire to bestow. The force of bestowal exists only in the Creator. It can only be passed to a person through the influence of the Creator. And then the person’s desire will change its shape and external manifestation.

He starts acting in bestowal for the sake of bestowal, restraining himself and not harming or using another person. Or, he receives for the sake of bestowal by working the same way he used to, but with the intention to bring good to the other.
[61324]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question (from the Italian group): We want to pass joy onto our friends. Do you feel it?

Answer: It’s not just joy because joy can be frivolous and carefree.

I feel a long lasting joy that is based on facts, a solid matter, a strong group, on the current condition of the world. My joy is the joy of a person who stands on very solid ground. He knows that his joy is constructive, that it opens a new path for humanity. Surely, everything is done by the upper force, but we are involved in the process. We participate in it, and that is why I feel great joy.
[61328]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” (abridged version): The role of the people of Israel is to prepare the world to a particular purification so that it could accept the principle of love towards the fellow man, similar to Israel. Everyone makes a contribution to this, and thus, each of the people of Israel brings the whole world to good.

The correction of Malchut of Infinity occurs in stages. Some of its parts are more “transparent” and others more “coarse,” as there are more and less important organs in the body. This difference is characteristic of the period of corruption, while after correction more corrupted parts may reach a greater height.

Now, we do not see the real situation. For example, the nations of the world are the most “coarse” vessels; however, after being corrected last, they will rise above the rest. And vice versa, the vessels that are starting correction today are simply purer, and that is why they wake up first. On the other hand, they are “coarser” than previous generations.

Thus, the process goes in stages. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that corrections are carried out from light to heavy, and they are started by those who came to this need, in other words, by Israel, which means “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-El).

If in the general desire there is an impulse to move forward, the point in the heart (•) that feels this calling, then this layer of desires is called “Israel.” The next layer feels pains in life and suffers from the lack of the meaning of life (?), but it still does not feel enough aspiration to reveal the purpose of creation. Finally, there is a layer that simply suffers, albeit perhaps not a lot, and that can be satisfied with little.

In essence, it all depends on the upper layer: If it corrects itself, the Light comes from it to others because AHP can be corrected only by connecting with the carriers of the upper force, with those who have the vessels of bestowal.
[61028]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: What should I do when I feel elevated and awakened during the reading of The Book of Zohar? How can one request correction in this state?

Answer: During the reading of The Book of Zohar and any other authentic source (the articles, letters, and The Study of The Ten Sefirot), I first of all need to build the correct picture of where I am. The picture of the reality I exist in arises in my senses, in my desires. It is the Light that forms me so that I feel and think that this is reality: me and my world. This way I have a connection with the Light, with the upper force, that wants to teach me to identify exactly where I am. This is because from the beginning, I don’t know or see anything. I am like a baby that has just been born.

Therefore, I need to first of all design this picture correctly. There is the desire and the Light operates in it, which wants to awaken the desire within and to become revealed in it according to the law of equivalence of form. The Light is within the desire, not outside of it. In its relation to this desire, it is called the surrounding, inner, external, distant, circle, line, and so forth. These are the forms of the Light that are revealed in relation to the desire. After all, we are talking about everything from the side of the desire.

If I understand that the entire world, all of reality, all the worlds, all the Light, is in me, then I now need to rearrange myself correctly. That is, I need to clarify how and in which way do I act in order to arrive at the maximum understanding and consciousness possible in my present state, and each time to discover more.

Thus, when I read the various authentic sources, I want to perceive the picture of reality and discover it in its most true, correct, and powerful form. And it’s not important which sources to read and in which styles. If these are the books that awaken the forces of my soul from the side of the desire and also from the side of its fulfillment, then it doesn’t matter. It can be The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Zohar, the letters, or the articles. The essence is to awaken my development.

And then I understand the importance of my involvement in the Torah: the Light in it reforms, that is, it brings me closer to the revelation of the real picture of reality, where I reach adhesion with the Creator—a state that is concealed from me.

Thus, we first of all design the picture: There’s me, and everything is concealed within me. I must awaken the forces of my soul and in them discover the real reality in which the Creator and I merge into one.

After I have molded myself in this form, I work on the next step: How do I awaken myself through the studies? And then everything that I read speaks to me about my advanced states. They can be distant from or close to me, it doesn’t matter. What is important is that with the help of the story that I read, I try to identify these forces within me, these forms.

And I don’t forget that it talks only about my desires, about my soul’s inner forces: reception and bestowal. It isn’t important if they are called strange names or names that are familiar with my present reality. I constantly think: How do I discover all these forces as components of my connection with the Creator?
[60899]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, The Zohar

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