Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words“: Question 25. [What is a spiritual vessel] Kli. The will to receive in the emanated being is the Kli.

However, the will to receive alone is not enough: We know that it requires the intention to bestow. In other words, this desire needs to be corrected, supplemented.

The spiritual vessel is initially created as desire: the place for receiving fulfillment. But later on, it changes and builds a new vessel above itself, which is regarded as the “screen” and the “Reflected Light.”

Before the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), the emanated being’s will to receive served as the vessel for the Light. But afterwards, by the decision of the lower ones and with the approval of the upper one, the vessel for the Light can only be the screen and the Reflected Light created by the emanated being, instead of its primordial desire to receive pleasure that it has rejected as defective for receiving the Light.

Desire is a raw material that is handed to us from Above through the informational genes (Reshimot), the influence of the upper Light. It isn’t up to the creature. But the latter says: “I reject this vessel given to me to receive the treats, and I refuse to work in this way! I don’t wish this egoistic desire to control me as a blind instinct!” I don’t want to forget who I am and thoughtlessly do only whatever pleases me. I want to make every move with an understanding, consciously, upon my own examination and according to my decision.”

“This is the way I wish to be now, from now on and forever! Please help me to become it, I am begging you! I don’t wish to remain a beast; I wish to become a human! To be human means to know who you are and make your own decisions. Please give me this chance! From now on, let us agree that the vessel (desire) that You created in me is unfit. Give me a chance to choose on my own how to use if first. And then, the screen and the Reflected Light become the vessel.

I plead with You so that You build this vessel for me, which I don’t naturally possess. I hate my selfish nature that makes me act unconsciously. I don’t want it. I want to be aware of what is going on with me from the beginning to the end and to choose on my own.”

In that case, I receive an opportunity to make clear, precise, and allegedly final choices regarding everything that concerns my nature: about reception and our relationship with Him, which will be regarded as my spiritual vessel. It is a device that I created to be able to receive the treats from the Host.

The primordial desire remains since without it, it’s impossible to do anything. But where I am concerned, I don’t wish to use it to act. The new desire requires of me to learn how the Host feels about me and how I can become similar to Him, and I reveal my primordial desire only in accordance with it.

This means that we do not reject the natural desire as it is, but only its “traditional” use.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: Does the Creator really need the created beings? It would be more reasonable to say that only we need Him, wouldn’t it?

Answer: If the Creator didn’t need the creatures, why would He create them in the first place? And yet, due to the fact that He is good who does good, He made the created beings in order to please them since that is what pleases Him! That is, the upper one has a “deficiency” as well, but it is not egoistic: The Creator desires to bestow.

It is written: “More than the calf wants to suckle the cow wants to feed.” Otherwise, whom would I bestow to if He doesn’t need anything from me? He has an enormous desire: He desires for me to be pleased! This is indeed a deficiency but a good, positive one.

The creature’s desire to please itself didn’t initially exist and was created “from absence.” But desire and the need to bestow existed all along. This need pertains to the Creator rather than to the created being. And this is the type of lack we have to inherit from Him so that we would strive to bestow and feel obligated to compensate for this deficiency; and if we don’t bestow, we suffer.

The upper one suffers if the lower one doesn’t ascend to and receive from Him. This is regarded as the suffering of Shechina which cannot bestow and bring the souls closer to itself. We only think that deficiency is always something negative, when in fact, if what I lack is bestowal to others, is it really bad?

But if the upper one has a lack, does it mean that He is imperfect? Yes, He is incomplete in terms of being dependent on the lower ones, but only because of His love for them. Until the very end of correction, this deficiency will remain, both in the upper one and the lower one.

As for us, we judge according to our own flaws and think that since He needs us, He isn’t perfect either. But where the Creator is concerned, His need to bestow derives from excessive perfection.

The Creator’s need and the need of the created being don’t disappear, but rather grow and in the end of correction become enormous! It is not as in our world when you satiate your need for love and it disappears. We were so eager to be together that now that we are—the desire vanished. I am full and don’t want anything anymore; I don’t have room for another meal.

Thus, we build a vessel within, a kind of desire that will never disappear! On the contrary, I feel greater deficiency—and greater fulfillment. But the lack compensated by bestowal to others is not a defect. It is highly valuable, honorable, and exalted! It is similar to a mother who desires to give all she can to her baby. And she definitely has a deficiency since from dawn to dusk she thinks solely of him, from the moment he was conceived inside her. But does it mean she has a defect? On the contrary, they both can delight in each other, and this is an opportunity to get fulfilled, to evolve, and to love.

The Creator is similar to the mother who suffers if she cannot give to her child as much as she can. It is a tremendous deficiency the Light contains, and it is it in particular that created desire instilled in us. When this desire unfolds in full, it will be as exalted as the Creator’s desire to bestow to us. Yet, it doesn’t demean; it exalts since it derives from love.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: I feel as if we are sitting at the bedside of a dying person, discussing what painkiller we should give him. Our priority is to engage the Light through studying. And yet, where Israel is concerned, we seem to be stuck.

Answer: Here, we receive blows in another form; therefore, we should approach people in a different way. We need to make them aware of what is going on in Europe and other parts of the world, while explaining to them how threatening these processes will be when they reach our country.

In Israel, they will manifest not in the economy collapsing but in pressure from outside, in problems with security. It is not about food and jobs; the reckoning will be done not at this level but at the level of our mission, our duty before the world. This is what we have to make people aware of.

However, at present, the nation is not ready for it in the slightest degree. Therefore, they will simply cover their ears and won’t even look at you. For now, at least they do not resent you. But if you start pushing them to take action, they will simply turn away from you. It is one thing “to join the good,” and it’s completely another matter to hear about troubles that obligate us to do something about them. “Who are you to tell us that, anyway?”

Many circles will be happy to see such turn of events and will want to crush you. On the other hand, while you are still talking about love, they have something to worry about.

Hence, we have to use a very fine approach in this case. Today, I don’t feel an impulse to make any drastic moves toward disseminating in Israel. It will only turn people away from us. For the time being, they are not willing and will not hear more. Unfortunately, this is what we are working with so far. By adding some “heat” to it, from good Samaritans, we will turn into moralists and preachers in their eyes.

We must take the path of love and good instead of forcing them into the mutual guarantee: “Let’s take care of, love, and unite with one another.” No posters with slogans: “Did you sign the guarantee?!” No, we desire to be guarantors for you.

We can’t approach this nation in any other way—only with love. Only if people begin to feel that circumstances are pressing them down will we be able to explain from where and why this pressure is put upon us.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: If I buy two pieces of bread but eat only one, does it mean that I am stealing the other roll from somebody else?

Answer: Yes, it does. We don’t know yet how precisely pre-calculated everything is. However, we are set to go through 125 degrees of development, and right now, you are not expected to make any calculations, which you are unable to do anyway. And yet, you are able to comprehend the situation: We reside in an integral system, a global interdependent world. Whether we like it or not, Nature, or the Creator, is educating us about it by sending us blows if we are unwilling to acknowledge the obvious in advance.

We can’t gain any surplus for ourselves other than by depriving somebody else. For instance, Earth has a certain amount of fresh water left in its store, and if you consume more than the others, obviously it will be at their expense. This is how Nature teaches us how interconnected we are. But if we study this interconnection with our inner, spiritual consciousness, working cooperatively, we won’t need to be taught by famines and catastrophes on the path of suffering. What for?

Employing global education, we can explain to the whole humanity that we are all brothers since we are all tightly connected with and dependent on each other. In the words of Baal HaSulam, the entire world is one family. Hence, we cannot act at each other’s expense because you are not only stealing from them (which we can’t afford to do any longer), but in so doing, you also are depriving yourself of the spiritual world.

Look what you will achieve by learning to apply the law of society balanced by basic consumption. “What do billionaires have but the zeros in the bank?” Baal HaSulam asks. After all, when the economy collapses, you will have nothing left.

“Wait, but I own a 30 million dollar masterpiece!” That’s great, but the problem is that nobody needs it. You can eat it for dinner if you’d like. “But I have a few pounds of gold in my safe!” Good, but there is no one to purchase it, so what are you going to do? Previously, it had some value and you could buy a truck full of food with it, but today nobody needs your gold.

We will have to study very hard if we don’t educate humanity in advance. Educate them about what? We have to teach them about the simple things: to introduce them to the new reality governed by global interdependence, integration, and reciprocity, where everybody depends on one another.

Take a look at Europeans who are about to disband and split. They don’t understand that the general trend is pushing them back and tearing the ties is impossible. Even the “common wealth market,” which in reality is nothing more than an ego driven bazaar of thieves where everyone hates the other, was still facilitating at least external connections. Europe cancelled the borders and hammered its own coin embossed with their collective egoism on it. That was a certain degree of progress.

This is what we have to explain. The time has come; we are literally invited, “called out to the board.” We must put forth our best effort in educating the world, stop waiting for something else, and begin working in our full capacity.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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It is time to come into compliance with the network that nature puts us in. We must gradually start to realize what conditions and forces we face, in front of what matrix we stand.

Without a proper educational foundation, rooted in the group or in the global education system, this matrix appears to me as an awful pattern. Really, will all of us be equal and receive on an equal basis?

Yes, this means that everybody receives a measure corresponding to the needs of his or her animate level. One needs to eat twice a day and the other, five. One needs warm clothes, the other, summer clothes. So, what? This is equality.

In The Writings of the Last Generation, Baal HaSulam writes that it is necessary to check everybody’s needs. In our basic needs, we are like animals, and an animal never takes too much. After catching a deer, a lion eats some part and walks away, leaving his prey. One would think why? Will it not need food tomorrow? It has no “tomorrow”; there is no surplus above necessities. As a result, it provides food for others.

In our global, integral education, we also need to explore the following topic: What does it mean to be a corrected, normal “animal.” And everything beyond that belongs to spirituality.

To build such an approach, we need public opinion and consistent education supported by life examples. It takes years, but such is correction. In order to reach its end within 6000 years, the process has to be initiated in advance. One or two additional reincarnations may elapse, and so what? A person doing this work already sees where it is heading; a perspective opens in front of him, and he feels happy looking at it.

After all, he already feels eternity and perfection that are integrated here; he is already aware that the Creator is present here; he sees the power of truth, breaking through the veils. This gives him immense strength.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Shamati #166, “Two Discernments in Attainment”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, “Truma (Donation), ‘The Song of Songs Which is Solomon’s,’” Item 346, Lesson 14
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 1 “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words,” Item 39, Lesson 32
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 16, Lesson 11
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“Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 12, Lesson 7
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Question: How can we explain our message of unity to people? Can we say that this is a natural, obvious phenomenon?

Answer: We can talk about unity by showing it from many angles. After all, unity is always beneficial if it is done for the sake of a proper and just goal. It is written, “An assembly of fools [meaning an assembly of evildoers] is bad for them and bad for the world.” On the other hand, the unity of people who desire goodness certainly benefits them and the world. We see this.

We all win by uniting. Unity is only repulsive to a person’s individual egoism because of its limited nature. It’s not that difficult to explain to people that in any situation unity accompanied by a good intention will not cause any harm to anyone and will always end up successful. Always. And only if you want to harm someone or profit at someone else’s expense and only in cases that you aim to cause direct or indirect harm will the unification be evil and undesirable.

In all other cases we can cite formulas, proofs, and examples from the lives of animals and plants, as well as human relationships, which demonstrate that unity is beneficial.

Question: Does that mean we can say that good unification is in accord with the law of nature and therefore it works?

Answer: That is what I say in all of my conversations and video conferences. Even if a person hates me, even if he is dead set against me and is pushing in the other direction, my goal is to place him and myself in a researcher’s position through the process of conversation. Even if we are the most irreconcilable enemies in the world, we are still inside of nature, so let’s take a look at it. Let’s listen to what it is saying. After all, we will definitely have to progress by its laws, and we can do it in a good way if we agree with it, or in a bad way if we don’t agree. In any case, there is nowhere for us to run from it.

And now let’s see which of us is right. Or perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle? This doesn’t matter. We, as researchers, should only recognize this picture, instead of remaining in our false, self-induced tranquility, no matter how pleasant it is.

We want to reveal the truth, and the truth is nature. You can curse at the laws of the universe, but that won’t help you because you are inside of them. This is the point we have to emphasize. More and more, scientific discoveries are indicating that we are opposite and against nature, and this opposition is being expressed as a crisis. Look at what is happening to us and where we are going because of our lack of understanding nature’s laws. That is why we have to study them.

Baal HaSulam writes about this in Item 42 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”:
Indeed, you should know that the reason for our great distance from the Creator and that we are so prone to transgress His will, is for but one reason, which became the source of all the torment and the suffering that we suffer, and for all the sins and the mistakes that we fail in. Clearly, by removing that reason, we will instantly be rid of any sorrow and pain. We will immediately be granted adhesion with Him in heart, soul, and might. And I tell you that that preliminary reason is none other than the “lack of our understanding in His Providence over His creations,” that we do not understand Him properly.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: How can we explain to people the difference between the right kind of unity and the wrong kind?

Answer: We are simply saying, “Let’s get to know nature.” I do not want to divide humanity into those who unite correctly and those who do it incorrectly, and I don’t want to analyze anyone personally. That is why we are setting up contacts with scientists—in order to show everyone what nature is. And you can decide for yourselves what to do next. Just know that the degree of your similarity to nature determines how many disasters you will receive from it. The greater is the equivalence, the less troubles and the more pleasures are waiting for you.

Everyone has to have a clear understanding of what the source of their suffering is. Humanity is asking this question, and we will give it the answer. In our times it is already possible to explain things. Previously it was impossible to explain anything because we first had to reach the maximal, global, integral egoism. But today we have reached this level and therefore we can explain the general picture of what is happening to people.

From here on we will explain it in increasingly easier words, reformulating it again and again, and using this as a basis to explain the source of people’s problems in their family, with their children, with their health, at the bank, at work, on the roads, with one’s self, and so on.

After all, the general nature is essentially your entire life. Inside of this picture you will be able to find your attitude to everything, including football, work, and death….

However, you are still not expressing yourself in this picture. Newton revealed the law of gravity thanks to an apple that fell. However, the law operated before that as well. Similarly, it would be good if someone would “get it” and recognize the universal law of nature in order to tell the world about it. But if we wait for this to happen without giving a preliminary “presentation,” then we will pay too high a price.

By now I can already talk about this with anyone. The knowledge is in my hands, but let’s check it together. It belongs to everyone and if everyone learns it, we will all win. So let’s see whether or not I am right.

This is a very sound, scientific approach, pure of any personal biases. And I am willing to check myself as well. Most importantly, look at what is being revealed by a science that has reached us through many millennia. And it is especially relevant to the present moment, to whether or not we will have the means to live tomorrow, whether we will survive or fall in war.

In short, from the entire picture of nature, you cite the facts that confirm how everything aspires to unity. All of the still, vegetative, and animate nature is in balance, in homeostasis, in a fine interaction between different species. It seems to us that they simply eat each other, but in reality this is mutual existence. That is how the cells in our bodies exist as well.

Obviously, it is not simple to raise people slightly above their current level, but there is no other choice. You cannot leave them on the “animate” level and keep them on the infusion of the upper Light to change them from the inside. They have to come a bit closer to it themselves as well.

You come closer to them by trying to give them explanations that are as simple as possible, while the Creator will awaken their interest or even nudge them forward with blows so they would gain a greater awareness of the modern troubles and will be more willing to listen to the rationale. Then you will meet in some place: You with your maximally simplified explanations, and they with the attention span they are capable of having.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”: It is said: “Harut (carved) on the stones”; do not pronounce it Harut (carved), but rather Herut (freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death.

It is said: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” What is the Torah? It is the tool that contains the Light that Reforms.

Thus, we can attract the upper Light, and it brings us back to the Source so that from the evil inclination we turn ourselves into the good inclination. In this way, we change from the receiving desire called “the angel of death” to the giving desire called “the angel of life.” This is freedom from the angel of death.

Indeed, in our receiving desire, we can perceive nothing but this world, that is, an animate existence. We live, suffer, and eventually die. We cannot even imagine how low and defective this life is.

Until we reach bestowal, all our life here is an escape from suffering for the sake of  such meager pleasures that they have no place in the spiritual world. The smallest spiritual degree is myriad times greater, fuller, and more whole than all the pleasures of this world at all times. It is impossible to imagine.

To sustain such a great spiritual pleasure, it is necessary to prepare the vessel with the intention to bestow. Be that as it may, we will be able to rise above the angel of death only in the property of bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, “The Freedom”

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