Kabbalah Moments: Coming Out Of Egypt
Posted on April 18th, 2011
It isn’t easy to answer a question of where is the point from which a person can determine whether he’s going to receive pleasure from egoism or from bestowal? Does a person want to be a slave to Pharaoh or to the Creator?
Our main task is to reach a point where we ask to change our ruler so that the force of bestowal would rule over us instead of reception. We study Kabbalah and carry out all the recommendations of Kabbalists in order to be able to make this choice.
We can come to this choice either by the path of suffering, through the natural progression of time (Beito), or by the path of Light (Achishena). On the path of natural development, only blows await us. This is when the Creator takes away all possible pleasures from Pharaoh, our egoism, or the desire to receive for oneself, and therefore we experience suffering. That’s why we are ready to exit from Pharaoh’s rule and to distance ourselves from him. After all, nature itself is forcing us to avoid that which causes us to suffer.
And then there’s the path of Light, “hastening of time” (Achishena). This is when our egoistic desire is still allowing us to receive pleasure, but we carry out various actions in order to build a new attitude toward the desire to bestow. And even though I receive egoistic pleasure and I’m under Pharaoh’s rule, I don’t feel that this is something negative: I’m enjoying life. However, I begin to look for a way to rise above him and to no longer depend on him, to start to value the quality of bestowal.
This means that I try to walk the path of Light so that the quality of bestowal would effect me and give me the understanding that Pharaoh is an evil ruler. His evil isn’t in the pleasures that he gives but in my receiving these pleasures for my own sake. This entirely new criterion is based not on pleasures, but on their direction, on who receives: I or the others (or the Creator along with others).
And then instead of judging the path through sensations, according to pleasure or suffering, I switch to a logical calculation of what’s good and evil, of true versus false. I come to realize that truth is bestowal, the upper force, the Creator, and I want this truth! And even if I feel good under Pharaoh’s rule, I still want to adhere to bestowal.
If a person comes to such a realization, he rises above the natural or the animal evaluation (Beito) and makes decisions on the level of “Achishena,” thereby pushing himself toward exiting from Pharaoh’s rule. And then he doesn’t need to go through physical suffering and receive blows to the desire to receive through various crises we feel in the world today and which will only increase in the future if we continue to progress by the natural flow of events (Beito).
His suffering becomes the suffering on the path of “Achishena,” the suffering of love. After all, he’s aspiring toward bestowal, something opposite to love of self. He asks the Creator, or the upper Light, to change his pleasure from egoistic to from bestowal. This is how a person advances.
[40773]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/2011, Writings of Rabash
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Attempts to be in faith above reason constitute preparation for the Machsom. We must desire this state, even though we are not yet ready to achieve it. Sometimes we are given a chance to feel “faith above reason,” but as we approach the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality) we now want to remain in faith above reason, to have at least some contact with it, and not fall into only one point: hatred (ego) or love (bestowal).
We must live with this fear at all times. Indeed, if I regard reality from only one viewpoint, I am nothing but a beast. If I want to be a human, “sitting atop my donkey” (my egoistic desire), I must include these two opposite points within myself.
The first point is my criticism and disagreement with others. And the second point is my “I” which disagrees with my criticism of others. (To be clear, we’re not talking about dissemination work, but inner work within the group toward unity, when I criticize a “friend,” his qualities which are unrelated to the work.) And although I understand that my criticism is true, I still wish to reveal the Creator between us. It is He who plays the role of Pharaoh, turning my love into hatred, unity and connection into resistance, criticism, and discord.
He plays this role so that I would want to connect with the friend above Pharaoh, in spite of my heart rejecting and hating him, and being unwilling to unite with him. I have heaps of complaints against him, but with all of this we’re still building a relationship of love, harmony, and total unity. Within my friend, I wish to see the Creator.
I don’t run away into the exalted point where everything is fine; rather, I maintain these two opposite points within me at all times and keep advancing in between them. At that point I already have the beginning of a spiritual vessel, Malchut and Keter, two opposite points. And I am in the middle, maintaining the condition of restriction between them.
And then the distance between them continues to grow, until it forms a certain spiritual object. All this work is carried out practically in the group, and only in relation to the friends.
[40629]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/2011, Shamati No. 59
We are standing at the threshold of great joint efforts. Opportunities are unfolding before us according to the spiritual schedule, so let’s realize them. We are able to perform a series of attacks and send them like bullets to the center of the target until we reach the result.
I see perfectly real opportunities ahead. We shouldn’t think that we still are not ready, that we still lack something, or that we still don’t understand everything. Nothing is clear in Egypt; we just slide into darkness and welter here. The more we put into place, the more everything gets scattered by the next thrust of confusion.
It’s important not to despair from this turmoil. Judging by the action that is next in turn for us, I see that we are able to do something now. “How can we be able to do anything?” you might ask. That’s true, but when we truly will discover that we are unable, suddenly redemption will come.
I have no doubt that we are presently in a very good, wonderful state. We are being invited to the spiritual world. The holiday of Passover comes as a way of helping us.
And besides that, we need to feel a responsibility for the whole world which, on the contrary, has come into trouble. If we don’t achieve a spiritual breakthrough, great misfortunes await us ahead. Enormous collapses in different countries are approaching. The situation is becoming more and more complicated, and we need to restore balance—just not the former but the spiritual kind.
[40652]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/2011, Passover Brochure
Our desire has to be common. Each of us has two parts: the male and female. I influence you, and you influence me and others, while others influence me again and so forth. It can’t be that I care solely about myself. I will never be able to fill myself.
Within the common organism I can only fill others by passing them my desire or my fulfillment. I will not be able to independently direct something straight to myself.
This is the meaning of the integral system. Its essence lies in the fact that no one is able to provide anything to himself through his own power, but only through the environment. And this, too, is only possible if one does not think about himself, but only about his friends. Then his efforts come back to him if, of course, he does not think that they will indeed come back to him.
[40657]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/2011, Passover Brochure
Question: I understand that I have to pray about fulfilling my friend’s desires. However, how can I know his desires?
Answer: It is necessary to see your friends as the greatest of the generation who are connected with one another in one corrected, flawless network. I am the only one who still exists outside of this wonderful connection and has to unite with them, to support their connection as much as possible.
Therefore, you have to see your friend’s desire as the desire to connect with you and with everyone else. This is called to enter the network of connection between them, like a cell that joins a unified organism. The other parts of the organism are already connected among themselves in unity and harmony.
[40789]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesosn 4/15/2011, The Book of Zohar
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Question: What are the main signs showing that a person has come close to exiting Egypt?
Answer: A great desire to unite with others is a sign of being close to escaping from Egypt because a person understands that only by uniting with others can he be saved. At the same time he sees that he’s unable to do so because there are no sparks of bestowal within him.
He also senses the existence of the upper force: “There is none else besides Him.” This force gives him the two aforementioned states and he is ready to rise with this force out of his state in order to reach connection.
My connection with others is called the “exodus from Egypt.” It means that I’m running away from my antagonism to others and from my own evil toward freedom and goodness. This is freedom from the angel of death, separation, which I perceive as death. And I obtain a connection with others, which for me represents life.
When I tune into the network where everyone is connected, this is called “entering a new land,” a new desire ruled by the Creator, the force of bestowal.
[40708]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/2011, Shamati No. 90
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Question: What is the act of bestowal and how do we achieve it?
Answer: Rabash writes in his letters that I attack the friend’s heart with gifts as if I shoot arrows or bullets at him. And even though he has a “stony heart” (Lev HaEven) covered with a powerful armor (Klipa, shell), as do I, but hitting it again and again, I gradually break through the armor and into his heart.
And afterward, I fill it with my gifts and love. That’s how I win the friend’s heart and acquire the property of bestowal thereby. I do so because I wish to penetrate his heart and feel as if I am in it. It isn’t our normal egoistic heart, but rather that very spiritual space, the “place,” where I desire to unify with him. That’s where I strive to break through to. Rabash’s Letter #40 reads:
Each gift…that he gives to his friend is like an arrow or a bullet that makes a hollow in his heart….
And even if he sees that his friend’s heart is like a stone…[yet] through the bullets that he shoots repeatedly, multiple dents become a hollow…where the love of the gift-giver storms in and fills this whole dimension with it. And the burning warmth of love brings out the friend’s sparks of love, and then these two loves form one common clothing of love that covers both of them.
This means that one love surrounds and envelops the two of them and from now on they become one man. In fact, they are covered under one common garment, nullifying themselves before each other.
We can spend a long time, say nice words, and discuss numberless questions, but after all the questions and answers, there is only one act that most likely will advance you in the right direction. This is what Rabash writes about. This work among the friends may be invisible on the outside, while they are burning on the inside.
[40451]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/2011, Shamati No, 86
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Question: No matter how much I try to rise above my reason, where is the guarantee that everything I do will not end up being within my reason? How can I check whether I have risen above it, and what will help me rise?
Answer: Reason always strives toward knowledge and reception. And above reason are faith and bestowal. Now I need to elucidate: Am I heading toward bestowal because my reason wills me so or because faith wills me?
If I am situated only in one of two points, and depending on my state, I will certainly act within or below my reason, meaning that I will work for my egoism. Two points together are always necessary. Imagine that you hate the teacher, you boil with anger toward him, thinking that he is not right. And along with that you build a relationship of love, bestowal, and total rejection of yourself, and you adhere to him. Then your desire develops precisely between these two points, in their difference, due to the fact that you maintain yourself in one of them in opposition to the other.
Otherwise, what use is there from Pharaoh if you do not build your love over him, over all this hatred and confidence in you being right, to accept the teacher’s opinion in spite of your knowledge, opinion, and reason? However, if you lose one of these points, you won’t rise anymore. Usually in this case, people descend below reason.
[40632]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/2011, Shamati No.59
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