Question: How do I avoid misleading myself into thinking that I’m advancing, but also assess my advancement accurately?

Answer: You cannot assess your advancement properly since you don’t have any means of measuring it. Until you’ve reached the spiritual world, you are unable to fathom what is in your possession, just as a child cannot differentiate between playing with toys and reality.

Similarly, an adult who works in a big company, a science lab, or a vast social system, who considers himself big, important, and involved in serious work doesn’t sense that he lives on a tiny planet near the border of a small galaxy, lost in the universe. Everyone feels his place in accordance with his degree.

But how do we receive a portion of the Light so that we can measure ourselves against it at our degree? It doesn’t have to be a complete assessment relative to our final, fully corrected state (this cannot be done until the end of correction), but we will gradually move toward it along the “right” and “left” lines. And we will use the “right” and “left” impressions to correctly balance ourselves along the “middle line.”
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From the 1st part of the DailyKabbalah Lesson 4/28/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Shamati (I Heard), No. 166, “Two Discernments in Attainment”: There are two discernments: 1) the cascading of the worlds from Above downward; 2) from below upward.

First discernment: “that God has created and performed.” This means that the Creator has prepared for us a place for work. Second discernment: when we begin to engage and clothe from below upward. However, before we achieve the completion of the degree, we cannot know anything for certain. This is called “learning first, understanding next.”

A little one, who is beginning to eat bread, still has no knowledge, but only of the bread. And when beginning to grow, he begins to understand that there is a reason for the bread, which causes the shape of the bread….

Thus he continues until he comes to the state when the wheat is taken and sowed in the ground. Until then, he can only receive from the bread, meaning reduce the bread that exists in the world. But afterwards he already knows how to add.

If I simply take a piece of bread and start eating it, I will feel only pleasure which dresses in the desire and nothing else. Then, I begin to think about what the bread is made of. This is its previous stage. In order to reach this previous stage, I must delve into it, rise to it, and attain it.

It was the state that preceded the bread, for example, the dough. I have to advance and to learn about its existence. I rise one step above myself, from the bread to the dough, and attain what happened during the expansion from Above downward, from the dough to the bread.

Then, I ascend higher, from the dough to flour and water, and find out that the dough is made from them. Then, I advance even higher and understand from what source the water is taken and that the flour is made of grain. Where does grain come from?

Thus, I move higher and higher until I reach the source. From my perspective, I went toward the root, but I understand that the levels cascaded from the root down toward me until they reached “the bread.”

“Bread” means pleasure. I examine my desire all the time: It is pleasure or lack thereof, the reason why I do not have pleasure, and how to reach it. I have nothing else to explore. All of our life and its sensations revolve around this.

Through the actions, I attain the root from which come the entire attitude toward me, myself, and this entire path from Above downward, which also contains within itself my return from below upward. If I reach the root, I attain the true state. All the previous states that were revealed by me until then (which formed during the descent from Above downward and in my ascent upward to the root) were only necessary for me to reveal this single, existing state.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, Shamati #166

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Question: What lesson for my work can I take away from the fact that reality is relative?

Answer: Reality is relative with respect to the one who attains it. Presently, I’m revealing some kind of reality, which appears to me in my desire and is called “my world.”

In my world there is a concealment “from above downward,” which I reveal, and my attainment “from below upward.” This division forces me to achieve a state where my movement “from above downward” merges with the movement “from below upward” into a single whole to the greatest possible depth.

In other words, I must aspire to make my attitude toward the Creator from below equivalent to the Creator’s attitude to me from Above. This is portrayed in the example with the guest and the host. If we equalize completely, that means we’ve achieved the deepest kind of connection, Malchut of the world of Infinity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, Shamati #166

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Question: I address the Creator to help me with bestowal to a fellow human being. Could you please describe this in more scientific language because, essentially, the Creator is the law of nature?

Answer: As we know, Malchut should cancel itself before Zeir Anpin (ZA). Then, ZA accepts its desire, and their desires rise together to the mother, to Bina. In response, Bina has to give Zeir Anpin an adult state (so that ZA grows up) as well as the Light for Malchut.

This is what the giver attains. If you ever really want to give to your friend, you will get twice as much. What you give him will create an adult state in you, a higher status, so that you produce your friend’s degree and give it to him.

For him, you will be great spiritually; you will be the giver. In this role, you receive new desires from him, and from Above, you get fulfillment. Thus, you constantly “expand” by receiving desires from others and the Light from Above.

This is what it means to be the giver. However, you “expand” in your vessels of bestowal. Here, a psychological transformation is hidden. How can you grow bigger in bestowal? Where is the profit? How do I fulfill myself? What fills me up?

Our problem is that we do not feel much gain in the vessels of bestowal. But this is obvious from the graph.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: Thus, that creature develops and marches upward in degrees of the above spoken exaltedness, until he loses all remnants of self-love and all the commandments in his body rise, and he performs all his actions only to bestow, so even the necessity that he receives flows in the direction of bestowal, so he can bestow. This is why our sages said, “The commandments were given only to refine people with.”

Through the principle of “love thy friend as yourself,” we come to the end of the path: to adhesion. Whether we like it or not, we must achieve it. Our free choice is to move quickly, which we can do if we take advantage of the environment. Otherwise, nature will push us until it forces us into it—and we will want to move faster than nature anyway.

How do we advance? We advance due to internal development. How does it happen? It takes place because of “the Torah and commandments,” meaning the method of correction by which we have to refine ourselves. Of course, we are not talking about the external actions of this world. Baal HaSulam mentions an excerpt from the Gemara to make this clear to us: We are required to perform namely the internal correction of our qualities. This means that our interrelationships should be aimed exclusively at bestowal of the same height as that of the Creator.

How can it be achieved? It is done in stages. First, a person knows nothing, like a child who just started to grow. Then, he is gradually given explanations, and he understands more and more. Ultimately, everything depends on the environment, on explanations, on the efforts that are applied during his education, and on his own efforts when he practices the assigned tasks.

In essence, a person is taught to be in the environment and to use it correctly, according to the principle: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” The evil inclination is revealed namely in the environment; there is no other possibility.

Besides that, it requires the Torah as “a spice,” meaning the Light that Reforms. A person feels evil relative to the Light. The Light exposes my vessels, and I demand for it to correct them. Then, the Light fills them.

Thus, step by step, a person comes to correction.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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According to our nature, the character of our actions, we are receivers. However, the more you receive for the sake of bestowal, the higher you are as a giver. The action itself does not change, only your intention does. That is what turns you into a giver instead of a receiver.

Does the Creator feel it? It is possible to say that nothing changes for the Giver, but only for a human being. There is nothing to be added to perfection. All His responses and impressions are actually manifested in you, in the image of the Creator that you have formed.

Thanks to this, you can bring yourself to equivalence with Him: It seems to you that changes take place in Him, that you give Him more or less pleasure. You suffer or enjoy because of Him, relative to how much He suffers of enjoys because of you, and so on.

All these relationships unfold in the creature only to elevate it to the degree of the Creator, meaning to supplement the creature with perfection that comes from the property of bestowal. It turns out that the Creator plays with the creature just to educate it.

Similarly, we show children various faces: We laugh with them, become serious, and express anger. Everything is for the sake of education, in order to show a child as many nuances as possible and thereby teach him how to work correctly with himself and the environment. And in fact, nothing but love motivates us.

In his “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33, Baal HaSulam writes about this: “The truth is that there is a Godly will here that these similitudes, which operate only in the souls of the receivers, will appear to the souls as He Himself participates in them to greatly increase the attainment of the souls.

It is like a father who constrains himself to show his little darling child a face of sadness and a face of contentment, although there is neither sadness nor contentment in him. He only does this to impress his darling child and expand his understanding so as to play with him.”
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: Is it true that we can become aware of evil only after the Machsom (barrier to spirituality)? What can I do until then?

Answer: Every degree has its measurement, its standards, and its criteria. Identically, I had different views of myself at the age of four, five, six, or seven.

Even now, I have a possibility to recognize evil. Physically, I am present in the group, but am I there with my soul? No, I am not. What will this state lead me to? What will happen to me? I cannot reach spirituality like this. It’s too bad. I feel sorry for lost time, a wasted life, from which I did not gain anything.

Then, I start hating what prevents me from connecting with the friends: my difference from them. Of course, all this occurs in egoism, in the receiving desire that wants to obtain spirituality so as to not miss anything in life. However, this puts me in the correct egoistic condition of Lo Lishma (for oneself), and then the influence of the Light turns it into the altruistic state of Lishma (for the sake of the Creator).

Anyway, shame is present here as well. First, I am ashamed of the possibility of being caught for theft, then I notice that it is not worthwhile stealing, at least not always. As a result, I change internally so that I do not want anything from anybody. All I want is to bestow. This is my aspiration, and I am happy with it.

Wonderfully, this is Lo Lishma, and the will to bestow, the act of bestowal, is already embedded in it. Although, there is compensation: a good feeling. In this way, we connect with good and do not demand anything for the time being.

At the next stage, the Light Reforms a person even without his awareness, and he really connects with to the Good Who does Good. Thus first, I connect with good that makes me feel good, and then, I switch to real bestowal to the Creator.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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If the Creator, in line with His Thought of Creation, wasn’t supposed to elevate us to the highest degree of evolution, He wouldn’t have created in us the sensation of being different from Him. The point is not in the difference between the Giver and the receiver. It is clear that the Creator is in the lead. He is good that does good. He is the Absolute, and, being the Giver, He created us as receivers “by default.” We certainly won’t feel ashamed while we receive from Him. What would be the problem with receiving from the One who Gives? After all, that is the way He made us.

Shame, however, derives solely from the sensation of being different that was designed by the Creator, the feeling of separation between Him and us, which leads to our beginning to sense reception as flawed. This rule is projected onto our world as well, where we feel uncomfortable when we receive pleasure from someone with whom we have a special relationship in which the other has a higher status.

There is an additional problem here. Compared to spirituality, it takes opposite forms pertaining to us and poses a question: Can I stop feeling ashamed? In spirituality, however, my question is how can I enhance shame because it becomes an instrument to analyze myself, a vehicle to raise my awareness of my evil.

As we know, besides the awareness of evil, we don’t need anything else. All the rest is done by the upper Light. What is this evil after all? It is not about my being a receiver by nature. I realize how evil I am when I discover how truly great the differences are between my qualities and those of the Creator.

I desire greatly to enhance this sensation, this awareness, since this is what leads me to ask for correction. We regard such a plea as “the gate of tears.” The necessary details of perception are gathered within me until the awareness of my evil finally makes me scream because I cannot bear this discrepancy between the Creator and myself.

Thus, evil is not a mere distinction between the receiver and the Giver. Clearly, the Creator gives, while I receive. Such an arrangement remains at all the spiritual degrees, in the end of correction and after it. The problem lies in becoming conscious of the inner, qualitative distinction between my properties and His. That is what causes me to feel shame.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Baal HaSulam, “General Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”: …as corporeal things are separated from one another by an axe and a hammer, the spirituals are separated from one another by the disparity of form between them. And when the disparity of form increases to the point of oppositeness, from one extreme to the other, complete separation is created between them.

From the perspective of the Creator, who created the will to enjoy, there is no opposition between this desire and the desire of bestowal. It’s like a baby who receives from a mother—there is no division between them. They are inseparably connected and enjoy one another.

We see how in nature, a foreign organism consisting of someone else’s flesh receives the opportunity to grow inside the mother’s body and is not perceived by her as foreign! How is this phenomenon, a fetus inside a mother’s womb, even possible considering that when we get a tiny splinter, the body immediately begins to reject the alien object? An infection immediately forms around it and the body tries to push it out and separate it.

It’s known how during an organ transplant it is very difficult to overcome this barrier, the body’s incompatibility with and rejection of an alien body. But here the opposite happens: One body grows inside of the other, and the big body is always taking care of the small body, doing everything only for its benefit!

This is an example of the will to enjoy (the fetus) and the will to bestow (the mother) not being in conflict with one another. And the same thing happens in relation to the Creator, who created the will to enjoy. This desire does not contradict or oppose bestowal.

However, if the goal is to bring this will to enjoy to the form of bestowal, then they do become opposite to one another according to their intentions. In the initial state there is a bestowing desire and a receiving one: the Creator and the creation. But there is no discrepancy between them and they are united together. But then, creation develops and acquires an egoistic intention, and now according to their intentions, they become opposite: The intention of bestowal is opposite to the intention for oneself from beginning to the end, from zero until infinity.

What we have to correct is the egoistic intention and not the desire! The desire remains in us. We always keep the will to enjoy. But the intention has to be “for the sake of bestowal.”

However, we usually get confused about this, thinking that we have to fight with our desires. Religions and different spiritual practices try to destroy the desire or decrease it. But Kabbalah says the opposite: “Increase your desire and the intention of bestowal together with it!” Then you will be able to bestow more with your actions.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/11, “General Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: The Rambam says that the truth should be revealed gradually to those who are small. When working with children, we do not impose unification on them directly, but try to weave this message into games and studies. Can an overly direct message harm and repel a child?

Answer: As we develop we go through four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human. As a rule, on the still level objects usually take on whatever form you give them if you have enough energy to do that. By exerting the right amount of energy, you can destroy the structure of a metal and rebuild it through heating, pressure, and other such influences.

On the vegetative level the situation is different: In order to give a plant a different form, you have to understand its nature. Say, a tree requires specific types of cultivation and care, and if you are an expert at what you do, then you will receive the necessary form by accompanying the tree in the process of its growth.

Stated differently, you have to grow to a level where you can take care of the tree, which involves bringing it inside of yourself and getting to know it. Then, based on this inner image, you can carry out work with the external form and receive a result.

In order to deal with the animate level of development, it is again necessary to learn its nature, to ascend above it, and include it inside of you. Then you can tame and train animals. Of course, it has to happen within specific boundaries, but you can train them to carry out certain forms of behavior which they are able to learn. And a children’s instructor works analogously.

These levels of development—still, vegetative, and animate—are small, “childish” states compared to an adult, and they end at the degree of “age 13.” From “age 13″ on, you are dealing with the human being in a person, and accordingly, you treat him completely differently. You accept him into your group, treat him as a friend, and raise him through examples of mutual partnership, offering him a place for work.

These are the phases of work with children’s groups.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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