“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Rejoicing in Holidays and Not Giving to the Poor,” Item 175: It was said that on holidays, the Creator comes to see His broken Kelim. This is because on good days, when one keeps the Mitzvot of the joy of a good day, due to all the abundance that the Creator gives him, the Creator goes to see His broken Kelim, by which man is given an opportunity to engage in Mitzvot in Lo Lishma [not only for the sake of bestowal, but also for personal profit so as to reach complete bestowal].

In this article The Zohar talks about us having to use our properties in any situation in order to elevate it to adhesion. You have to assemble a correct structure out of everything at your disposal and to identify your broken Kelim (vessels) as well as your corrected state, to the extent that you can imagine them correctly inside the group. Whether a state is corrected or corrupted depends on your attitude toward the group: the current one and the desired one.

My current attitude toward the group is as follows: I’m an egoist and want everyone to be exclusively at my service. This is a current state. And the desired one is when I see myself as serving the group, friends, reaching adhesion with them, and incorporating myself into them.

The discrepancy between these degrees is the place of my work. When, after all my efforts, I realize that I am unable to accomplish anything, I cry out, scream, ask the Creator, the Upper Force, the Upper Light that created all this reality, to correct its act. He did it, whereas I revealed what He has created. And now I demand correction.

Then the correction occurs. In what? It is in that I sense myself in adhesion with the environment, the group. Then, in this adhesion I also reveal my connection with the Creator, with the force that has corrupted and then, due to my plea, corrected the state and for this reason dwells with me in it.

And if on the contrary, I do not utilize my faculties, properties, conditions, and everything that becomes disclosed to me correctly, it means that I am negligent of everything that the Creator has prepared for me. And then there comes the time described as: “The Creator comes to see His broken Kelim,” which He has broken purposefully, in order to give us the opportunity to discover our independence.

If I do not perform these corrections in what becomes revealed to me, I as though come into a “fight” with Him, and He teaches me what I have to do in an undesirable way. This is how we educate a child who does not want to listen.
[34605]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/2011, “Introduction of the Book of Zohar”

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Question: What does it mean to engage, insert myself in the group?

Answer: On one hand, the friends and I feel equal in reference to the Creator since we equally desire to reach Him. But we ourselves are divided by hatred. In this case, the way everyone treats all the others is the way a person treats the group. And in order to engage in the group, one has to transform hate into love.

The group is defined by two parameters:

1. It is comprised of the friends who yearn to know the Creator as I do; however,
2. I hate them.

If both these conditions are met, then the path to spirituality is before me. After all, how can this triangle exist: They seek spirituality, but I hate them, and if so, how is it possible for me to also yearn for the Creator? And if I do strive for Him, how can I hate them in the first place?
[34615]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Any scientific research includes three stages: 1) a hypothesis which has to be proven, 2) materials to experiment with, and 3) the procedure itself, the process by which the hypothesis is tested. How can this be applied in Kabbalah?

Answer: It is also a scientific experiment. You start it with a question about the purpose of life. Kabbalists make a suggestion for you: “Taste and see for yourself how good the Creator is.” Perform this act and you will get the result.

We exist in a very simple system. Beside me, there is my higher spiritual degree regarded as the “group.” I need to incorporate myself into it, and if I do connect to the group, I start feeling the Light within myself. There is nothing unreal or fictional in this.

In order to ascend to the degree of the group, I have to realize my informational gene, Reshimo 0/1 (Shoresh de Aviut and Aleph de Hitlabshut). I myself am this Reshimo “0/1” that I wish to insert into the group, in which case the Light influences me from my more advanced, corrected state by lifting me up to it.

All of these states of mine are already present, up to the very last one, and I strive toward my future. In this future, I am unified with all those who are in the group in one heart, by the mutual guarantee. If I wish to reach this state, the Light affects me from there since I am already present there. The Light alters my properties and pulls me in, like on a string, so that I connect exactly at my spot where the Light is coming from to me.

And when I engage in the group at my upper degree, I suddenly see that the group is there with me: It is all I, only the new one, “the 2nd I.” As to the group, it is above, at the next degree, and that is where my next state exists.

In other words, I am shown even a greater difference, a greater force of desire, the greater hatred between us, and I must work in the same manner again, in order to insert myself in the group completely. All the ten Sefirot of the lower one must enter the Malchut of the upper Partzuf because there is nothing besides the ten Sefirot.
[34620]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: It is said that it takes three to five years to exit into the spiritual world. How do I maintain myself on this path if it has been longer than that?

Answer: You can maintain yourself on the path solely by way of the Kabbalistic group. Without it, you have no chance to advance and stay on this path not only for years, but even until the next day.

If you can maintain the desire and keep studying without receiving support from the group, you are on the wrong path and are deceiving yourself. You are probably studying to gain knowledge or to reach some other egoistic goal, but you are not moving in the right direction.

Think what you are counting: the calendar years or the effort you have exerted? You may have made the right effort worth a couple of weeks instead of 35 years. How many hundreds of years will you have to live in this world to accumulate effort worth three to five years?

But you can really finish this work in three to five years and reveal the spiritual world on the condition that you are working with the group, with the environment. Cultivate your desire to enjoy in the right atmosphere, on the right ground. Otherwise, it won’t evolve, and you will sit and study without the support of the environment, counting the hours by the clock. But this is the wrong clock: It doesn’t count your work with the environment and, hence, has no value.

You must spend these years under the influence of the environment, and it isn’t necessary to wait five calendar years for that; it isn’t the question of time. But if you are not under such influence, then you haven’t even started to advance yet. So what result do you expect in five years?

It’s really simple to verify whether you are receiving the strength from the environment. Without the environment’s force, you would have no strength at all and it would be as if you were dead. And only when you receive the strength from the group do you have the capacity to rise, come to study, read the Kabbalistic texts, and think. It is similar to an electrical system: If it receives a little electricity, it starts working, while without electricity, it stops. And this electricity can come solely from the environment.

The spiritual Kli (vessel) is namely the connection with the environment which is precisely the place where I reveal the spiritual world. And if such connection is missing, there is no place to discover spirituality.
[34627]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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We are desires, actions, and there is a force that created and is affecting us (“the Acting One”). We are its consequence, much like our properties and the feelings we experience in the properties created and filled by this force.

We aren’t even the product that would feel the force and its influence directly, in all the four stages of attainment. We are still very far from such full revelation. But we are never able to step beyond the boundary of sensation since we are desire that can know only that which unfolds within it.

This is why we can’t know the essence of things, not only in the spiritual, but even in the corporeal world, be it electricity, bread, water, the upper Partzuf, or the spiritual Light. All of them are merely the sensations I experience within my desire. It is a derivative of some impact that evokes and fulfills my desire: I feel the result of a certain act performed by some force in some properties.

That means that I, too, am a certain consequence, a certain combination of forces I know nothing about. All that has existed before and created me is unknown to me. I only know that I already exist and somehow experience myself as some mineral body that occupies space in the universe.

Nonetheless, all of them are merely my experience of myself, according to the properties assigned to me by the Creator. But whom am I truly? Could it be that I have some other form except the one that I am seeing right now? I don’t know and will never know that. I am the desire to enjoy, which perceives itself in this manner, and I attain only the matter and the form that this matter acquires by experiencing it as pleasure or pain.

As to the abstract form and essence, we do not attain them and don’t suffer in this regard since it doesn’t manifest in the matter. We don’t know the essence of the most familiar things around us. What is bread or sugar? We know only how they taste. I swallow the force that looks as a piece of bread to me and occupies a certain volume presented to me as such in my sensations. This force fills some empty area within me, and I think it is real matter since matter is a desire which receives fulfillment.

In a similar way, later on, we reveal the spiritual reality, its specific “tastes” by giving them names. We attain the Creator by His actions and start tasting the flavors of the Sefirot and Partzufim: Zeir Anpin has one flavor while Malchut another. And so, gradually, we attain all of the flavors, until we get to know the taste of how wonderful the Creator is. To know the taste of the Infinite Light means to receive it for the sake of bestowal, enjoy the adhesion with it, fulfillment, and love.
[34630]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “VaYera (And the Lord Appeared),” Item 167: When the Creator loves a person, He sends him a gift. And what is the gift? Poor, so as to be rewarded by it.

The world we live in is opposite to the spiritual world. A reward in the upper world is considered a punishment in our world and vice versa. For this reason it is said regarding the upper reality: “I saw an inverted world.”

A gift from Above is an awakening through a desire. We all originate from the still level, from “ashes.” In other words, we come from such a low degree of desires, where a person doesn’t feel his or her spiritual existence or his desire for the spiritual, doesn’t know where he came from or why, and is unaware of the purpose or the meaning of life. He doesn’t feel anything. This is our starting point.

Everything else comes only through strengthening and elevating the desire. It is said in regard to this: “I created the evil inclination.” But it’s up to the person to feel and distinguish this creation within himself. Time after time this inclination is aroused in him more, and the person has to determine that it is really evil.

The Creator arouses a desire, however, one must discern that this desire is wicked and turn it from reception to bestowal, from evil to similarity to Him. This is entirely up to the person. It is said: “I am the First and I am the Last.” The Creator gives the desire, and then the person must conduct an analysis and rejoice in the received desire. He is happy to receive the opportunity to recognize the evil within the desire through the teacher, the group, and the books. He realizes that the wicked desire came from the Creator, according to the principle: “I created the evil inclination.”

Then a person develops a proper attitude toward his desire: He wants to change it into good, into correspondence to the Creator, aspiration for bestowal. When a person comes to this decision, he begins to demand that the Creator transforms his desire.

A person then appeals to the Creator with this demand. This action is called: “My sons have defeated Me.” And the Creator grants him the strength, the screen, which transforms the evil inclination into goodness. This is the meaning of “I am the Last.” After giving a person the desire, the Creator now transforms it.

In the intermediate state a person independently determines what he received, what he wants, and what he demands of the Creator, and by means of these stages of development, he advances toward total similarity to the Creator.

Time after time a person gains more knowledge, awareness, understanding, attainment, and love for the Creator who gave him the evil inclination, thereby presenting him with the opportunity to realize how he differs from the Creator and how he can become similar to Him. Thanks to this a person can ask the Creator for the transformation and closer contact, as well as gain independence, perfection, involvement, and adhesion to Him.

A person who understands this process justifies the Creator whenever he receives a wicked desire from Him. In this case I don’t see evil in it, but rather a gift that can be turned into my new reality. I understand that the Creator acts out of love for me, in order to make me independent and similar to Him.
[34422]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Is He Who Does Not Have Children in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “Torah and Prayer,”  Item 184, Lesson 2
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “Mitzvot Torah,”  Item 189, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 75, Lesson 41
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Lesson 7
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From above downwards we are sent all of the influences that govern us: forces and material resources (for example, natural resources and the forces to develop them). From below upwards, besides actions there is a reaction coming from us, which makes additional corrections on the still, vegetative, animate and human levels; for example, mechanical engineering, agriculture, animal husbandry, the food manufacturing industry, and everything else. And at the end of it all, there are the inner corrections which are made by studying Kabbalah.

All of this is our addition from below and it unites into one pyramid in order to join the intention. Man stands at the top of the pyramid with his intention. Then the whole world becomes attached to man, who created an intention.

The fact is that man desires to erase the limitations that are imposed by time, motion, and space. Therein lies the source of the driving force that makes us search for things by which to supplement this reality of ours. We have to view time, movement, space, and the existence of reality not as disturbances that bother us, but as help!

After I perform all of the actions in order to fill myself by virtue of time, motion, and space, inventing all sorts of means for this, I reach the existence of reality. That is when I have to take hold of it, and this is the reason why the need to attain the Creator arises in me, the question about the meaning of life, about life’s source.

Conclusion: Everything descends to us in the form of Direct Light (Ohr Yashar) from above. We have to dress what descends to us from the upper level (Ohr Yashar) into the Reflected Light (Ohr Makif) from below. This is our addition.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels it is expressed in the form of all of our efforts to create a comfortable environment, in the production of artificial articles and technologies. That is why there are so many artificial processes and products that appear next to man in our world, having no direct analogues in the Upper World. On the human level, which we are reaching today, what we add to the upper influence is the screen and intention (Ohr Makif).
[34735]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: How do I know that my request to the Creator comes from the right place? Am I really there, where it is permitted to ask?

Answer: My request is valid if I feel that it is against my desire, if I can rise above it and ask from the very depth of my heart, and if I can enjoy the action which is against my initial desire.

Coupling by striking (Zivug de Hakaa) occurs in the state when internally, I feel that I want to please myself, but above it I sense that my action opposes this desire. I enjoy my ability to resist it. Then, this pleasure isn’t for me, as if I refused to steal. What matters here is to what degree I associate myself with the friends and through them, together, with the Creator.

If I am willing to arrange such an internal action, then I am close to the act of bestowal, and this is what brings me satisfaction which, of course, isn’t directed at me.
[34405]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What do I need in order to implement the knowledge of Kabbalah in my daily life? I find a big discrepancy between what I learn and what I feel.

Answer: There is only one solution: accelerate your development. To accomplish this, it will take more study and greater connection with your friends. It doesn’t require wealth, honor, power, or some other effort, only the thought to never forget about it.

The key is our interconnection. Despite one’s unwillingness, a person wants to exert effort and maintain connection with the friends in order to have continual awareness of the importance of the goal. And when he has reached it, he “passes it on,” that is, spreads it to the others.
[34408]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/2011, Writings of Rabash

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