If we don’t cultivate in ourselves a sensitivity to good and evil, we won’t know how to employ them in the right way. Everything depends on the subtlety of perception.

Moreover, it is important how we determine what is good and what is bad since, usually, whatever is good for a person’s egoism he considers as good, while whatever harms it as evil. So, what is the reference point by which to define good and evil? Is it in relation to me, the society, or the Creator? What are “good” and “evil” anyway?

Today, we find ourselves facing a big problem. For our entire history, we have been doing what is best for ourselves, taking the liberty of distributing crude oil and gas, polluting our habitat, and not worrying about anything up until we got a chance to watch in horror at what we have done. However, there is no going back. Scientists say that the fate of the globe is decided: We have passed the point of no return and can’t restore its ruined well-being.

So, what we used to see as good has turned into bad. Had we been more sensible in the past and able to see things in the right way, we wouldn’t have done what we did. At this point, our ability to make decisions greatly depends on our feelings. After all, desire is the primary force, and the mind develops next to it in order to actualize what the desire wants. Intelligence grows solely in order to help achieve what is desired.

I think about what I wish to achieve, and the more I wish, the more I think about it. In accordance with that, my mind develops in my attempts to obtain what I desire. Therefore, next to a big desire, there is always a big mind, while next to a small desire, there is a small mind. This is the way we are made. This development also takes place in the living cells as well as inside the entire person.

Hence, as we develop a greater inner sensitivity to good and evil, our mind will grow along with it to the same degree, and we will get wiser. The only question is what criteria do we use in order to determine when we are dealing with good and when with evil?
[35697]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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Not only do we have an opportunity to gain free will, but we simply must. No one will be able to avoid it since all the forces of nature are pushing and pulling us toward it. You and all the others, any person in the world, everybody, will have to realize their free will in some way.

Two paths lay before us: the path of the Light (the path of Kabbalah) and the path of suffering. The choice needs to be made every instant. Don’t assume that once you found yourself at a crossroad and chose to turn right or left, you will keep following that road.

I moved one meter ahead on some road, and now, I am facing a choice again, standing at the crossroad once more. I made my pick, took a step on this road, and I find myself at yet another intersection where I have to choose again. At each step, I am given the freedom to make a choice, and the same two paths open before me.

I must keep choosing between them every moment, from state to state, at each new point along which I advance by building from them a line, a path to my final correction, Gmar Tikkun.

At each new point, I have to decide in what direction I will move, and since a point is a circle, I chose from all 360 degrees. However, essentially, all these directions unify in two possible options: the path of Light or the path of pain.
[35702]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can I reveal the root of my soul faster?

Answer: When a person connects to the group, he attracts the influence of the Light upon himself. It exposes to him his opposition to this connection, his distance from others, his disregard, hate, and repulsion from them.

What does the root of a soul mean? It is my place in the system of the common desire which was created by the Creator. I can reveal it only on condition that I am fully connected with the rest of the souls since only then do I understand my role in the common organism.

Therefore, our correction consists of awakening the Light which will connect us with the entire system. Then even a feeling of repulsion from unification helps to reveal our place.

The process of discernment of my place with regard to other souls is gradual and lengthy since a person reveals his true place and role in the common system only after he reaches attainment and becomes included in everyone. Then the power of bestowal in him begins to shape the form of receiving, meaning that bestowal becomes greater than receiving, which occurs because the Light has sufficiently affected him.

Thus, you should agree to receive the property of bestowal and let the Light act!
[36032]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Is Torah and Work in the Path of the Creator”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Twelfth – Fourteenth Commandments,” Item 245, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 92, Lesson 52
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Lesson 8
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Question: How will The Book of Zohar bring about the correction of the Internet?

Answer: The Book of Zohar can help correct the Internet because people using the net are looking for a real connection. However, they do not understand their own desire yet and it seems to them that it’s enough for them to just make contacts, to chat with each other, and to entertain themselves with games and other such things.

But later people will see that this doesn’t help, that all of this is limited and a waste of time that does not bring any benefit, and that the “social networks” do not really connect people with each other. Nevertheless, as long as people are spending time there, they reveal the evil contained there. They reach the understanding that all of this is false, that it exists for the sake of making a buck, and is an attempt to lie to and rob each other. They will understand that this entire Internet connection only harms them.

It would seem: How could the connection between us harm us? But the matter is that we are egoists and cannot connect well and usefully. We cannot create a network that brings us pleasure. And this will bring about the realization of evil.

Then we will have to give people the explanation that inside of this Internet network there exists one small network that lives by different laws. The people that have gathered there desire to attain goodness. This is exactly what our television channel’s motto says, “We’re connecting to goodness.”

There are completely different rules and people operating there—people who want to be brothers. And by virtue of that they reveal the upper life, instead of simply hugging and attempting to keep everything polite and pretty on the outside.

These people attain the state where inside of their relationships they begin to feel the upper, spiritual life, which is perfect and eternal. They reveal the Creator, the spiritual world, the upper force that is concealed inside of that network!
[36174]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: How can I, during the preparation period, when I haven’t reached spiritual revelation yet, determine that each day I value bestowal more and more?

Answer: You can evaluate it by your own internal sensation, thoughts, goals, and importance of the group, by how much you appreciate and hear the friends, by how strongly you feel that you need them all the time, like an infusion, and that if you don’t receive their support, you will fall.

This feeling is very important. To depend on the environment is to be free from your ego! You must strive to always depend on the friends and feel them as strongly as possible so that they influence and protect you as much as possible, which means to constantly receive from them a special illumination, an impact of the force.

We need to try feeling that only this keeps us in the correct direction. If the environment doesn’t impact me from the outside, I lose the aim for the Creator.

And then, try to connect everything in one place, in one integral desire: yourself, the friends, and the Creator. I, they, and the Creator should not exist separately, like the vertices of a triangle; rather, we have to came together into a single desire, in the same area.

And if I and they are concerned with each other, care about, and bestow to each other, it means we free between us the space for the Creator’s revelation. He becomes revealed between us!

If the environment doesn’t affect me, I am not able to break free from my egoism and think about something outside of its interests. And hence, to depend on them is to be free from egoism. If the society influences me, I feel how it directs me to the goal.

I appeal to the environment (1); the environment influences me (2); I aim myself to the Creator (3). It cannot be otherwise! If not, I will be pulled back into my egoism. I will actually feel how it is sinking me and pulling my legs down. But the environment will immediately give me strength to tear away from it and ascend, and then I will become one with the Creator.

Every time you feel that it starts pulling you down more and more, give it another round (1-2-3).
[35610]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: You say that The Book of Zohar is the only means that can help us attain correction and unite. But it’s unclear how the world will be able to use it since it’s impossible to understand anything in this book!

Answer: But we correct ourselves in our world using the same unclear means! I come to a doctor without understanding anything about the treatment or the means. This person sticks needles into my body and pumps out blood with a tube, and I even pay him money and say "Thank you"!

Then he prescribes some kind of chemicals for me to take that contain nothing but poison. Surely, you must know that every medicine is poison; in fact, the very symbol of medicine is a serpent with a cup of poison. We pay a lot of money for this medicine and we don’t understand how it works, and there is no doubt that it is based on poison. But I swallow it and it helps me! I get better!

My body was sick so I added more poison to it, and it suddenly became healthy. Can you explain that?! But that’s how it works! Is this logical in any shape or form?

In the same way, we have to inject “poison” inside of us because the upper Light is the most real poison there is for us. We have to take it inside of us and then we will get better! We need something completely opposite to our nature and this seems completely illogical.

But even in our world, taking medicine is an illogical action, and it is more so if we are talking about spiritual correction. Tell me, do I really need the upper Light that will teach me to bestow and love the neighbor? I feel nauseous even thinking about it. I don’t want to see anyone and I hate everyone, cursing this entire life and the Creator. But I am told that you have to add a bit more poison and bring the Light, the Creator, closer to you.

But what am I bringing closer? The force of bestowal, the Light that seems to bring me more of what I hate! And this is exactly what I do not want! This works as a double negative, an opposite over an opposite—and that is the entire meaning and logic! It’s just hard for us to understand it.
[36177]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: What force lifts the worlds on Saturday after Adam HaRishon is born and before he falls into sin?

Answer: There is a force regarded as an “awakening from Above” (Itaruta de-Leila). It could simply be seen as the upper Light expanding from the world of Infinity while we don’t know how and why. But in truth, there is no “awakening from Above” without an “awakening from below” (Itaruta de-Letata), from the creature itself.

There is a chain of informational genes (Reshimot) that must unfold and become clarified one by one, which descend from the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking degrees. Reshimot of the still, vegetative, and animate degrees unfold naturally, subconsciously, on their own, because there is no free will at these degrees.

They unfold one by one and gradually arrive at the state when there is a leap to a new degree. Where it comes from, we don’t know. But it occurs due to the fact that the preparation at the still, vegetative, and animate degrees has been completed, and you suddenly start to feel how your state has changed. You start thinking, seeing things, and feeling everything differently.

The reason is that the Reshimot which are below your awareness, understanding, preparation, free will and which get naturally discerned have been actualized. The Creator prepares all the conditions for you to use your free will, and you must perform on your own now.

It is similar to how you don’t control the processes in your corporeal body. You don’t need to think about how all the atoms and molecules are moving in it, how metabolism and various internal systems work. Imagine how complex these processes with an infinite number of conditions are, and all of it works automatically.

Spiritual development is the same: The upper force brings us to the point where our free will begins. And this expands to the entire system, the entire desire created by the Creator, the entire still, vegetative, and animate nature, its enormous systems. But it isn’t our job and is automatic, thanks to the interaction of the Light and desires.

The Light affects desires; desires respond to the Light; and this is how the whole world, the entire universe, everything strives to achieve equilibrium. The only exception is man!

So it is today in our world: All of nature exists in balance, but the problem is in man who has to exercise free will and establish this balance. As it is in the spiritual world, all events that were taking place before Adam’s fall into sin, including the fall itself, were occurring under control of the force from Above (Itaruta de-Leila), through the chain of Reshimot, until we reach the place of free will. And there, everything freezes and waits until man will make a decision.

That is what is actually happening in our world today: Nature is waiting for us to make our choice. It will pressure us since while it is waiting, the Reshimot of the still, vegetative, and animate degrees get accumulated and bring us numerous problems on all planes of the external world, until we finally decide, at our speaking degree, that we must go forth for the correction.

The still, vegetative, and animate nature pressures us so we may continue on the path of correction at our human degree.
[35603]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The only thing we can take from our study is to turn it into a “miraculous quality” (Segula), to attract “the Light that Reforms” to us. That is why we choose to study the books recommended to us by Kabbalists, the people who have already realized their correction, have attained the revelation of the Creator, adhesion with Him, the upper attainment, and have returned to the root of their soul.

That is to say, they carried out their task, which is incumbent on every person in this world, and attained their finally corrected state, Gmar Tikkun, the world of Infinity, unity with the Creator. That is why we listen to their instructions, and what they advise us is to study only the Kabbalistic books because they contain the Light that Reforms.

The Light contained in other books that also speak about the spiritual world (such as Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud) is insufficiently powerful to return our souls to the source. That does not mean they do not have spirituality! They were all written by great Kabbalists who had spiritual attainment, but these books are not intended to give us the force of correction. That is why we use them only as a small addition, while the entire study is based on The Book of Zohar with Baal HaSulam’s commentaries, as well as Talmud Eser Sefirot.

These are precisely the books that bring us the surrounding Light that is most suitable for the souls of our generation and have the force to correct us. A person who studies these books is called a sage or “a student of a sage” (Talmid Hacham) because he learns from the Creator (a sage) about the quality of bestowal. That person is “wise of heart” because he wants to correct his “heart,” his will to enjoy in order to turn it into a vessel for the Light of Hochma.

That is how we regard our study, group, teacher, dissemination, and our entire lives, so all of it will turn into a means to acquire this “miraculous force” (Segula), the Light that Reforms. This is the only thing we should think about from morning to night and from night to morning! After all, a person’s entire success in life depends on this Light.
[36181]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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