The economic system is a sort of egoistic imprint of the calculation we make in the “body” of the soul when we prepare it for spiritual action. In economics we aim for maximum profit with minimum investment and risk. These are practical, egoistic calculations where everything is clear.

Even if egoism is repressed formally, it is only because we cannot characterize it qualitatively since it belongs to feelings, to familial connections, to the interests of a country, a nation, and so on. In reality everything can be enumerated and if we were able to do that, we would find ourselves in a precise system, analogous to the one operating in the spiritual world.

Except there, the calculations are made in the “body” of a Partzuf, in the aspiration for bestowal. When you are on the path leading to bestowal, you make a precise calculation, like in an ideal economy: How much do I have to extract from every desire, from every situation, from every factor in this action or maneuver in order to receive the maximum benefit? But obviously, that benefit is selfless.

Here we count on receiving, whereas there—on bestowing, yet the calculation remains. The only question is how to shift from one mode to another. Explaining the final state is also not simple, yet it is characterized by mathematical precision. The current economic disasters are essentially revealing the traits of our egoism which we lacked to conduct the most precise of calculations.

“I love this person. I hate that one. This one is repulsive to me. This one is far from me. This one is close to me. This one is more important in the general system. This one is less important….” How can we take all of these parameters into consideration? And how will every person act individually according to them, renewing his calculations at every second? This will be the real economy which we will have to uphold. In other words, we will have to get to know the correct, healthy system in which egoism works correctly, using two forces.

Today our economic complex is based on just one egoistic component and therefore, without knowing the second half, we cannot manage it. However, when the forces of bestowal join the forces of reception, we will start to interact with the people around us differently, balancing out bestowal and reception in conformity with our own level and the level of society. This will be the real calculation.

We will have to measure and consider our interconnections, which we are unable to do today. We will have to consider all the possible threads extending between us in thoughts and feelings, levels of our closeness and the “bestowal coefficient,” bringing all of this into the economic calculation that will have a purely mathematical character.

If we add the qualitative variables to its parameters, which reflect feelings and the states of humanity as a whole, we will receive a reliable and indisputable result. The same calculation is made in the head of the Partzuf: I consider the inner and surrounding Light, the Reshimot, TANTOT, my inner and outer desires, and methods of working with them…. Precisely this is economics.

Only spiritual calculations are made in the desire and therefore all numbers are precise and authentic. In the desire I can classify factors and give them values, extracting TANTOT from them. In essence, books of Kabbalists are the economics of the universe. Lights are “money,” meaning life, while vessels, desires, and screens allow us to acquire fulfillment, profit. Inner profit is inner Light, and future profit is the surrounding Light. We make mutual loans: For example, the upper one loans to the lower one in the first type of Gadlut. And in the second type of Gadlut the lower one receives Light from the upper one in order to pass it on….

It’s not accidental that the main blow of the crisis affected none other than the economy because it is the most important thing to us. It wasn’t the destruction of the family unit, a collapse of upbringing, or the ecology, but precisely economic problems that have forced us to seriously talk about the crisis. And this corresponds to the spiritual processes.

With time we will begin running a healthy economy, will begin deducing it according to the spiritual system and feeling out the transition to it. This transition will become possible only on the condition that we bring the mutual guarantee component into the calculation, if we measure it, weigh it, and designate it numerically. We will consider it when making calculations on the stock market because otherwise it is impossible. Tomorrow’s success depends on how much the mutual guarantee component grows in our economic formula.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/11, Shamati

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It’s not important if I understand what I read in the book correctly or how confused I am—what counts is my desire to understand! A person advances thanks to the influence that he receives from the upper system as he studies it, hears about it, wants to be included into it, performs all kinds of activities towards it, and works with his environment and in dissemination.

Gradually he begins to feel this system from afar:  He begins to discern that it is Aba ve Ima, inner and outer parts, and the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) or Gevurot (harsh forces of restriction, limitations), which influence him according to the measure that he is included within this system.

It is a complete world, and it’s impossible to explain it to someone who doesn’t live in it. It just like it’s impossible to briefly explain to a creature from another planet about what happens in this world. He would need to be in it himself, to receive our tools, feelings, intelligence, and tastes. If he embraced our life, then after a while he would absorb all kinds of impressions from the society surrounding him and would understand what happens in this world.

It is impossible to understand anything through words. It all has to go through you and leave internal impressions in you. Then you will understand, as they say, “one thing within another.”

We are also like that. By awakening the Surrounding Light on ourselves with our desire to enter this system, we begin to feel what is before us: that the entire system is based on love and bestowal.

“I am for my Beloved”—after all, I yearn to bestow through this system composed of my friends. “And my Beloved is for me”—because then I will begin to feel how He changes me with the help of the Surrounding Light from the same system that I want to enter into. And thus my correction occurs.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, Shamati #42

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If we want to behave between us according to the same rules that the upper system operates by, this will be called “practical Kabbalah.” After all, we will desire to discover between us the same ties that exist in the spiritual world.

The spiritual world is a permanent structure, like a still, switched-off engine that I operate through my desire. The moment my desire disappears, the engine stalls again. The engine will work according to the amount of “fuel” I put in, depending on how I influence it, and thus I will awaken and put in motion all of this system. In this way, I will fill everyone through this system.

The preparation to enter this system is called the beginning of the New Year, whereby a person tries with all his might to feel the tremendous value of bestowal. Through the group and dissemination, he tries to summon on himself the external influence that will change him and bring him closer to bestowal, as it is said: “From the love of the created beings to love of the Creator.”

Thanks to his good attitude towards fellow human beings and his good influence on them, meaning, thanks to the attempts to bring them closer to the Creator and to get closer to Him together with them, he merits the Creator’s Light that Reforms. And thus he enters this special “club” and begins to know it, through the sensation of the Light of life that flows through him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, Shamati #42

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Contrary to animals, we develop with the help of science. However, this isn’t free will yet. Science only advances us a bit forward. Animals are driven by blows and their instincts, but since we hardly have any instincts, we develop by blows and science.

Scientific advances allow us to see and resolve problems in advance. For example, x-rays enable us to identify a disease and to start treating it without waiting for it to actually appear. Without x-rays, only the pain could tell us that there is a problem.

Thus science helps us suffer less, and we pay dearly for scientific knowledge. However, it is still the same beastly tendency: the desire to be free of troubles. Science doesn’t raise us to the human degree since it is part of the animate level. By using it, we compensate for our lack of instincts, that’s all.

Animals manage very well without doctors. They know how to eat right, how to give birth, and how to build their shelter. Animals do everything by instinct, while we replace instincts with science. This is actually the role of science—to serve our egoism so that we will suffer less.

So we also examine our development on the animate level. Even when people become aware of the necessity to unite and connect, they don’t know how to attain it.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World“: Four properties are provided for that purpose: mercy, truth, justice, and peace. Those attributes have been used by all world reformers thus far. It is more correct to say that it is with those four attributes that human development has advanced thus far…

It is only by these four attributes that we manage ourselves in order to bring ourselves to the end of correction. So how do we discern them? Many can speak about mercy, truth, justice, and peace for hours, but can we agree on what these attributes are?

It isn’t simple, but Baal HaSulam, knowing the spiritual nature, wrote that this is what we have to clarify in order to manage ourselves and the world. We don’t know what a corrected world is. We are all corrupt and so it seems to us that any egoistic improvement is already correction. However, for Baal HaSulam, the corrected world is a world in which all the possible deficiencies are totally filled. How is that possible? We will have to find that out.

First, we have to understand that we will never be able to fill ourselves egotistically, but only in bestowal because while there is no restriction on bestowal, there is on reception. So how can we desire to receive in such a way that receiving itself will make us understand that it is worthwhile to bestow?

We can develop in this direction by blows: Every time that I want to receive something, I receive more and more blows, until I finally come to the conclusion that it is better not to want to receive egoistically. Then I begin to hate my desire to receive, and I don’t know what to do with it anymore. “So, perhaps I will enjoy bestowal?”

And so different flaws bring me to a point where I ask for the desire to bestow, for the power to bestow, the power to connect to others. This is the road of suffering and asceticism about which it says: “Eat bread with water sparingly and sleep on the ground.” In the past people used accept this and thus advance to bestowal.

It is the same today, if people don’t accept the wisdom of Kabbalah and the explanation about the development of the world, they too will advance in the same way. They will want more and more, but will get less and less, and as a result of suffering, people will begin to feel that it is worthwhile to be together, to bestow upon each other, to connect, to restrict our ego, and even to totally erase it.

We see that in wartime, when the troubles descend upon everyone, people begin to connect. Even animals are not afraid of one another when there is a fire in a forest or an earthquake, and they all escape the danger together. The common problem unites them because the fear of death is greater than the fear of hunger. Clearly, they don’t become “righteous,” but the desire to satisfy their hunger is pushed aside by a greater desire to survive.

We are the same. Of course, we can advance towards correction by suffering. It will compel us to aspire to bestow and to destroy our ego, the source of all the evil in our world. But this is a long and painful way.

This is why we were given an alternative—the way of the Torah. Why? Why do we need this other way? It is because we don’t reach free will by suffering. We only run away from it, like animals. Out of despair, we are even ready to bestow, but it is only because we feel bad when we receive. We don’t choose bestowal by our own free will, but as a result of our suffering as we have no choice. This is the degree of a beast, not man.

In order to bring us to the human level, we need two forces: the force of bestowal and the force of reception, with free will lying between the two. This is the path of people who have the point in the heart.

People who don’t have the point in the heart will also have free will: They can choose to follow those who can lead them forward.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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The desire to receive pleasure that the Creator created is opposite to Him, the Light, the quality of bestowal, and this is why it only wishes to receive. However, when the creature reveals its opposition to the Creator and desires to become like Him, to bestow, it rises higher and higher in the qualities of bestowal that it receives directly from the Creator. Yet, its very central, original point remains concealed.

The desire to receive that becomes revealed to us in Malchut of the world of Infinity absolutely does not know anything about itself. It is just like an infant who sees something happening in front of him and wishes to participate, thinking that everything adults do is good.

In this same way, Malchut of the world of Infinity restricts itself and says that it wishes to be just like the Creator and nothing else. The Light agrees and plays with the child. It gives Malchut all the necessary strength. If you want a screen, here it is. Here are the Partzufim of Galgalta, AB, SAG, MA, and BON, and the world of Nekudim.

The first time the Light, the Creator, reveals the creature’s true essence to it is during the breaking of the vessels. Imagine the “cruelty” with which it was done. However, at this point, there is no creature. We are only referring to the matter of the desire to receive pleasure. During the breaking, just how opposite the creature is from the Light becomes revealed .

However, this is not yet its own revelation. It is the Light that breaks the desire, and itself together with the desire. In this way, the system of the world of Atzilut and the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya) are created, and a certain perfect state is attained, where everything is prepared for the birth of man.

Man is born out of a special union of Malchut and Bina. When this unique creature, based on the union of the qualities of reception and bestowal, appears, it acquires the possibility to make its own conscious actions with the purpose of gradually attaining the purpose of creation.

This is a very complicated topic, and there are not enough words to express it. The Study of The Ten Sefirot reveals the structure of man in a very general form, without going into any special details. We only know that man arises from the middle third of Sefira Tifferet of the world of Yetzira, but it is impossible to understand the meaning of this without sensing the spiritual world. It is similar to speaking about a phenomenon in this world that you have never encountered.

So, man is born, and he begins to work with the entire system that was created before him, the system he came out of and thanks to which he was born. The system of worlds has a special interweaving of the forces of reception and bestowal with the purpose of leaving this special creature called man with the freedom of choice. Once the creature was broken, the broken souls begin to raise a prayer, MAN, and build Malchut of the world of Atzilut.

This is what our inner work consists of. If we want to connect between us and become like “one man with one heart,” we must become included in this Malchut and obligate it to rise toward Zeir Anpin of the world of Atzilut in order to connect with Him. We must work within the same boundaries and on the same levels where the Creator played with the creature, when it had no knowledge or understanding of anything: in Malchut of the world of Infinity and all the worlds that spread from there downward, until the creature acquired individual perception and consciousness.

We are not able to work within the area of our original qualities, our own “I.” We can only work on becoming included in the upper one, the Creator. This is because our root remains concealed until the very end of correction.

Thus, when we awaken Malchut, we do it through faith above reason. We only ask to be included in the upper one, only to become like Him, to join His actions. This adhesion is also done by the upper one, just like the entire descent of the worlds from Above downward. In the same way, we must obligate the upper one to lift us back from below upward.

However, we never touch upon our true, natural “I” anywhere along this entire path, and we never play with it. We do not touch upon the Creator’s essence, but only His attitude toward us. In the same way, we do not touch upon our own essence, but only our attitude toward Him. We work with the entire range of attitudes between us, except for these two extremes, these last points where, for now, we are absolutely powerless.

Once we complete our full inclusion in one another, Malchut in Bina and Bina in Malchut, me in the Creator and the Creator in me, a special union happens that is called “Rav Paalim uMekabtziel,” and the end of correction, Gmar Tikkkun, is attained.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/2011, TES

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Shamati #177 “Atonements”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts)” “If the Lord Does Not Build the House” Item 103, Lesson 5
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 6, Chapter 15, Question 143, Lesson 8
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 144, Lesson 62
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World,” “Practical Difficulties in Determining the Truth,” Lesson 3
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Question: What is cancellation before the teacher?

Answer: It is cancellation relative to what the teacher explains, the message that he conveys. You may be able to discover this in a book, but he conveys this to you in a more lively manner. Theoretically, you can study without a teacher, but this is extremely difficult. You still have to awaken the soul that precedes you in the hierarchy, but if it is not next to you in some material embodiment, this is much more difficult.

The teacher is a whole system, rather than a “person.” This is a system that transmits the method, teaching, the Light to you, produces difficulties and problems in you, and works on you and your friends. This is the job of a guide who cares about the group and awakens in them desires and spiritual needs, who confuses and thus stimulates them to come to the solution sooner. But he should not rob them of the freedom of choice and turn them into blind admirers or hasidim; this is the most important.

The teacher should reveal himself before you and present himself in a way that you would not obey him fully and disappear before him. He should leave you room for your own efforts, keeping you in constant doubts about him, in the feeling of rejection, disregard, and darkness. Otherwise, it would be just worship, and you will not have a request to the Creator.

The teacher opens you to knowledge, but does not reveal himself. He shows you just the opposite to give you the opportunity to ask the Creator.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/2011, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We are required to always accelerate time since a constant speed does not count in spirituality. What matters is an addition to the usual speed, acceleration that constantly increases the speed. From this we have to draw a conclusion on how we are required to act.

Baal HaSulam explains that this addition to the usual actions is called faith above reason. One cannot make this addition by his own, human effort. However, we are trying to reach it, and therefore, we cry out to the upper one, and our scream draws the Light that Reforms upon us.

This Light doesn’t just come when you are doing something. It comes when you open for it a new, empty place—and then it appears! Another empty place, and once again the Light appears. However, if everything remains the same way, as usual, then there is no reason for the Light to come since it already did its work and performed some action within you.

Therefore, we constantly have to add within ourselves new empty and dark voids in order to ask only for the force that will allow us to work as if we were full of Light.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/2011, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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When we read The Book of Zohar, we have to imagine the network of all the people in the world and how this upper system is revealed. Then we will understand that Aba and Ima, YESHSUT and ZON that The Zohar describes are the types of connections between us.

We are in a system that ties us to one another. In the ties among us there are ten Sefirot. Ten Sefirot is a whole world: Zeir Anpin and Malchut are ZON, Hochma and Bina are the upper Aba ve Ima and YESHSHUT (Israel Saba ve Tvuna), Keter is Atik and Arich Anpin, half of the upper one and half of the lower one.

We can divide the connection between us into five worlds or five Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, Malchut, or into ZON, Aba ve Ima, and Keter, and so on. We learn about this whole structure in the world of Atzilut.

If I become similar to you, by this I actually have to correct myself in all these relationships. Of course, it is only to a certain extent and not at the level of Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction). As I do that I get closer to you.

There are 125 degrees between one person and another. When each one attains his friend to the fullest, he attains the whole system because the individual and the general are equal. This is how we advance.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us about what is among us; not about ourselves, but about the strings that tie us together, the types of connections among us. This is the main thing. This is why, for example, we study what the beginning of a month (Rosh Hodesh) is, and what the beginning of the week, the end of the week, Sabbath, or the holidays are. These are different forms of connection that exist in this network, according to special actions that take place in this system.

The network works according to its aim. Each of us is the desire to receive. This desire is nothing, a dummy, the still level of the still—the dust from which everything was created.

The system awakens the dust and gradually revives it, and then we—the blocks of raw matter—begin to develop. This system alone develops, strengthens, and maintains everything. There is nothing besides it. We live in this system.

Therefore, it says that the upper Light that dwells in this system revives the whole world. It awakens us in two ways. On one hand, it stirs in us the deficiency to connect with others since otherwise we don’t receive enough vitality. After all, our vitality depends on our inclusion into the system in which different exchange processes take place, just like in our body, in the circulatory, lymphatic, nervous, and other systems.

Life is the connection between the elements, the exit and the entrance of energy, metabolism. In the network of connections among us the exchange is on the level of our desires.

Therefore, we should imagine how we can awaken the system by ourselves, not waiting for it to wake us up “in its time (Beito),” according to the plan,which usually has unpleasant effects on us.

If we can awaken the system, we will feel it as pleasant because while it awakens, we will begin to understand it, to agree with it, to agree with the idea that we have to bestow, to be tied to one another, to be incorporated in this system. The general law of the system is the law of mutual guarantee, the absolute mutual connection among all the parts. This is the law of a healthy body that is in harmony, in a perfect global, integral connection.

This is why we read The Book of Zohar, that speaks about this system. Kabbalists don’t tell us anything else but that. There is nothing other than that to speak about. Our world is an opposite copy of this system, a totally corrupt copy. This means that the ties seem to exist, but we don’t see them, we don’t study them correctly and don’t know how to use them. Everything is the other way around.

The crisis that is revealed today is actually the revelation of the network among us. In Greek, for example, the word crisis means a turning point, meaning correction and not corruption. And it is indeed a correction.

In Hebrew, the word “crisis” (Mashber) also refers to “birth stones,” a special place where women in labor used to sit on in the past. RASHI wrote about it in his commentary to the Torah (Exodus 1, 16).

So let’s read The Book of Zohar and hope that the network between us will be revealed.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/2011, The Zohar

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