Question: Who or what gives me an example of the next level?

Answer: The example of the next level is given to you by darkness. That’s because the next level first becomes revealed as darkness. However, I have to try to discern the Light in it, which is something great and special. It only seems like darkness to my ego, but if I had a desire to bestow, then I would see the Light and the entire system of souls that are filled by infinite Light.

Therefore, darkness is the example of the future degree, until I turn this darkness to Light.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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Once a person gains experience, he sees that he is unable to do anything by himself. All of his notions of good and evil are built on personal benefit, and therefore the ascents and descents that he experienced were actually unreal. He evaluated his good attitude to spirituality, the inner ascent, as “day,” while his negative attitude to spirituality seemed like “night.” But that is incorrect.

“Night” is a state where a person makes discernments, firmly knowing that they are egoistic and that he is unable to ascend above his egoism. And if he is able, then it is only thanks to the Light that grows slightly stronger and gives him these moments. The Creator helps a person to “peek” out of himself to the outside, and only then does he merge with bestowal. This is “day” for him.

I have to be ready for the constant “therapy” of the Creator, who takes my evil that hides beneath the grain of good and transforms it to bestowal, revealing new goodness to me. It is impossible to convey these things. They come only as a result of inner work. Until then, Rabash writes that “You cannot greet a friend” because your “friend” is not good yet. First you have to attain peace (Shalom) or perfection (Shlemut) with the Creator, and then you will reach conciliation with your “enemies,” meaning you will return to your egoistic desires above which you have ascended. You will take them and complete your work with them.

At first a person greets his “friend,” meaning his desire, acquiring bestowal for the sake of bestowal. Then he also greets him with reception for the sake of bestowal, meaning that he returns to his desires and works with them. That is how he attains the final correction.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Is joy a criterion of advancement?

Answer: When I merge with the Creator and place myself under His influence, I feel that I make Him happy.

Question cont’d: But don’t we come from despair? Should I be happy myself or just know that He is happy?

Answer: Sometimes a person feels despair, but this does not bring about progress. I cannot come closer to the Creator in this state. It’s best to do everything possible to avoid immersing in despair. It is written, “A fool sits with his hands folded and eats himself up.” It is Klipa to think that we advance out of despair.

When I grievingly revel in my evil hoping to advance, the Klipa obstructs the truth from me. I do not see the Light, the Creator, the world full of corrections, joy, and fulfillment. I am in the evil like a worm in a radish and there is no way for me to move forward from here.

We never advance out of evil. Imagine a child immersed in evil. How will he grow? He will be barely able to, or won’t grow at all.

We grow only out of joy, fulfillment, and good influence. Therefore, we have to put all our energy to coming out of despair and running forward, away from it. An extra moment spent in despair is already bad. You’re better off going to take a nap; anything but to get used to being in despair.

Question cont’d: What does it mean to greet the Creator first and then to greet people?

Answer: This means that first of all you have to make contact in your thoughts with the goal of your life, the reason you were created, and why are you doing, thinking, and deciding this? And of course, it’s in order to reveal the Creator inside of you. This means that you have greeted Him. After that you already turn the person inside of you and greet him in order to bring him to the Creator’s level.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: The request to correct my repulsion from the friends seems very mechanical to me. Don’t I have to attain a need for correction?

Answer: If you wait for a need for correction, you will never attain it. It’s not the necessity that precedes our work, but the work that precedes the necessity. Then the necessity emerges.

If I work according to necessity, then I am an animal. If I work above the desire, then I am human.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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Question: If our entire reality and world are imaginary, then isn’t the fact that we are now reading The Book of Zohar also an illusion?

Answer: Of course! The Zohar is not a book, but a higher illumination. It is Light that comes to us from the system of souls, the Light filling our souls.

Similarly, who is Rabbi Hamnuna Saba about whom we read in The Zohar? This is a special, great Light and a very high degree. How do I attain him? If I attain a specific degree of connection between the souls, then the degree of their connection, the mutual bestowal among them becomes revealed as Light which is called Rav Hamnuna Saba, and if it happens on a small degree, it is his son. The Light is the degree of bestowal between the souls.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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Question: What does it mean to enter the environment?

Answer: To enter the environment means that I feel or imagine myself as being inside the system where all souls are connected together. I advance together with them and depend on them. They are higher than me and through them I can receive the Light that corrects and fulfills me.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, The Zohar

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Question: You said that inner discernments begin even before the Machsom. But what should I discern if I still haven’t acquired the quality of bestowal and am entirely immersed in my will to enjoy?

Answer: It is precisely before the Machsom that you must discern just how much you desire everything in life only for your own good. However, these discernments are made with the help of the Light.

I constantly check: Am I doing this for myself or for the sake of others? I do this in relation to everyone and in all directions. I constantly discern what my thoughts and calculations are: “I hate him, but I have to ascend above this because my hatred comes from my ego, my will to enjoy. But if I ascend above my ego in the intention of bestowal, then I will start to love this person and act for his good. Even though this will evoke negative sensations inside the will to enjoy, in my intention I will feel that I have ascended to holiness and bestowal.” These discernments take place constantly before the Machsom.

Try to enjoy the fact that you are trampling your ego. One might think that this is masochism, a psychological disorder. But it’s not a disorder because at the same time you are united with your future inner quality of bestowal, which is good. You identify yourself with this new quality.

This does not mean that you like suffering. No! You like being inside this new quality of bestowal, and therefore you try to ascend above your will to enjoy. Even though you suffer inside it, you still enjoy in the quality of bestowal. And after making the discernment, you suddenly feel, “There’s absolutely no reason for me to suffer! On the contrary, I have turned my will to enjoy to the will to bestow, and this enabled me to ascend even more!”

This is not simple. But by virtue of several such actions, it happens. In any case pleasure is a sign that an action has reached completion: either in reception, Klipa, or in bestowal, holiness. Either way, pleasure has to happen as the completion. We enjoy in any case because the goal of creation is to enjoy.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/11, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Is the Prohibition to Greet Before One Greets the Creator in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Donkey Driver,” Item 109, Lesson 7
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 60, Lesson 35
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Lesson 1
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We exist in the opposite form to the Creator’s property of bestowal: the egoistic will to enjoy. On the spiritual path, all desires that gradually unfold within us, from the lighter desires to the heavier ones, have to be transformed into the intention to bestow.

In contrast to the still, vegetative, and animate levels, as we humans evolve, our egoism does as well. Our entire history is a non-stop growth of the will to enjoy and a chain of attempts to satisfy it. This is our nature. Therefore, we constantly wish for this desire to be realized, fulfilled.

So it goes on until at some point of his development man arrives at the question: “What do I need this for?” His desire completes its quantitative stage of evolution and transitions to the qualitative one. Now, a person needs not just a better car, bigger home, and more comfortable world. He starts asking questions regarding why things occur the way they do: “What for? Why? What is happening with me and what does it give me?”

New questions rise above the previous levels of evolution. At the human degree, we start evaluating and analyzing life, not being satisfied with the role as a “go-for” person who thoughtlessly serves egoistic desire. In previous generations, very few contemplated such questions and attained the source of events, the essence of the process and its purpose. These individuals are called Kabbalists, from the Hebrew word “the one who receives” (Mekabel) since they receive the revelation of the upper governance, advancing thereby. As for the others, they didn’t feel the calling for the answers to such questions.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah which assists a person in finding answers to the questions regarding the purpose of life (the source and goal), it is written that the time would come when many would wish to know for what we are living. In their gradually emerging egoistic desires, the masses will start transitioning from the animate level, from seeing a good life, to the human degree, to the question of for what is it worth living.

Kabbalists marked the time when such a transition was supposed to begin: the end of the 20th century. And it truly did. Today, “the highest priority questions” arise in a great many people around the world and to a certain degree among all of humanity. We see how growing despair, drug abuse, divorce rates, and the human crisis in general demonstrate that the questions regarding the purpose of existence halt our normal egoistic development, and they demand that we seek answers. Only then will we find the strength to continue the journey.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “Because Man Is the Tree of the Field”

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Today, the wisdom of Kabbalah must be revealed to the world. In our times, everyone must know what the purpose of life is and how to attain the root of creation. Attainment of the root can be compared to fruit, where the spiritual life of a person and their spiritual development equates with tending to a fruit bearing tree.

In one of his letters, Rabash explains how to “tend” to desire by using the analogy of tending to a tree in our world. We cultivate it in the four stages of HaVaYaH until we acquire the desire to bestow, after which we start employing the will to receive in order to bestow. That is the “fruit,” meaning the end of correction of man, his maturity.

But in the meantime, having faced the question of the meaning of life, a person comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the place where it is actualized by the individuals who have similar questions. This is the period defined as “Lo Lishma” (not for Her name). The person’s approach is still egoistic, but now he desires to obtain the spiritual world and collect upper “fruit,” thereby answering the question of what is the purpose of life. Due to man’s nature, he doesn’t comprehend how it can be achieved otherwise.

This is how we plant the seed in the soil, and it begins to evolve. First, a person walks on the egoistic beaten path as he always has and relies on himself, seeing a bright future ahead. But after a while (sometimes a few years), he experiences a feeling evoked by the Light that Reforms: He begins to feel what an egoistic nature really is.

Then, he discovers that the spiritual world cannot be attained by using his usual feelings and mind; he realizes that it can only be attained in opposition to what has been until now. And a person seems to be losing his wings. He can’t move ahead with determination opening every door as he did before. At this point, he has to start working with himself seemingly from the outside, which is through the environment: in the group, with a teacher and Kabbalistic texts.

One must stretch from inward outward, and only then, having completed a circle, can a person treat himself as a seed planted in the soil. He will learn to tend to this seed so it may germinate and not dry out in the sand. He will provide nurturing conditions for it: minerals, moisture, and light, whatever is necessary for its growth. And only then will his seed sprout.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “Because Man Is the Tree of the Field”

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