A person grows not by his own effort, but due to the influence of the environment. To achieve this, he has to interact with the group in an effective, spiritual manner.

A person wishes for the group to fertilize him with the love of others, closeness, and connection with all that lies outside of his egoism. He must view this “beyond-egoism” reality as more important than the “within-egoism” one.

Only after such calculation, when the environment becomes more important to me than I am, do I start absorbing its life forces, instead of locking the attention onto myself. And then, I start to grow.

This work is non-stop. There constantly emerge new Reshimot (spiritual informational genes, records), desires, and thoughts in a person. He has to be able to handle them every second, continuously returning to the analysis and realization of what really matters: externality or internality.

It is vital to cleave to the Kabbalistic texts, the teacher, and the group. As Kabbalists inform us, these instruments calibrate the person correctly, and then, with their assistance, he can rise above himself, above the calculation aimed for personal benefit.

Cultivating within the seed of bestowal, a person enters the “womb of the upper one,” places himself under its influence, and submits to its force, its program and purpose. As to one’s own thoughts and desires, they get nullified. This is the only way to evolve: like a seed in the ground and an embryo in the mother’s womb. One has to annul himself before the environment so it can affect him freely. This is the law of spiritual development.

Thus, gradually, we clarify for ourselves what the spiritual world is compared to the material one. We acquire an increasingly greater property of bestowal above our egoistic desire, get formed like an embryo, sprout like a seedling, and finally become a tree that will bear the fruit of bestowal.
[33326]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “Because Man Is the Tree of the Field”

Related Material:
For Everything There Is A Season
How To Roll With The Punches

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

Question: Has there ever been a couple, a husband and wife, in the history of Kabbalah who revealed the Creator specifically in their connection with one another? And have they left any sources behind?

Answer: Couples like this have existed throughout history: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Esau with their wives, and so on. The female part is always in the picture because without it, there is no contact, no adhesion (Zivug de Hakaa), no connection between the Creator and the creature.

The only purpose of the male part within us is to correct the female part within us. For this reason, from the point of correcting creation, it is the female part that needs correction. The object of correction is woman. The force of correction is man. The Light of correction comes through the man with the purpose of correcting the female part. When the female part is corrected, it births the next state from the male part.
[33315]
From Lesson 1 in Moscow 1/14/2011, “Introduction of the Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
The Companion Chosen For Me By The Creator
Husband And Wife: Where Is The Creator Between Them?
A Place Deserving Of A Woman

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A, Women - No Comments →

Question: What does it mean “to rejoice over the friend’s joy and to grieve over his grief,” and how do we achieve this?

Answer: To rejoice over the friend’s joy is to feel happy that we reach our spiritual goal together, that we are on the path together. It’s when I feel the friends’ yearning within me and don’t feel my own presence or personal eagerness toward the goal, but rather how I aspire to it with them. In fact, my “self” disappears, dissolves into the others. This is how I attain eternal life, too.

A person’s “self” no longer exists. It functions only as a conduit of the Creator’s Light to all others. So it turns out that all our “selves” disappear. And instead of them, there emerges one integral whole, multiplied by the number of the “selves” that there used to be.
[33303]
From Lesson 1 in Moscow 1/14/2011, “Introduction of the Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
This World Will Evaporate Like Smoke
Let Me Have Your Desires
Who Are You, My Friends?

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

In the beginning of our path, over the course of thousands of years according to the time of our corporeal world, we have been evolving by the influence of the Reshimot (spiritual genes), which awaken in us and force us to realize them.

Relative to nature, we reside in a state regarded as “this world” and must pass through this degree. With each new incarnation, another, greater desire to enjoy awakens in us, which is a more exalted Reshimo that we are supposed to actualize while attempting to fulfill it to the fullest.

When all informational genes (Reshimot) which belong to the part of the path called “this world” expire, we start experiencing another type of Reshimot. The first such Reshimo is called “a point in the heart.”

At this point, we are supposed to realize this Reshimo based on the new conditions, a new model: not according to the desire to enjoy this world, but according to the desire to bestow, which is now awakening in humanity. In this way, we advance, always against our will, under the pressure of the genes (Reshimot) awakening in us.

A person can do nothing else except what his soul demands of him since his Reshimot are pre-programmed with all that will occur. As to us, we are a mere desire that is completely governed by these genes (Reshimot), similar to a computer that is programmed with software and data.

But the nature of the spiritual steps in us remains constant. Our will to enjoy is divided into 125 portions or degrees we ascend by. And until we have finished correcting each preceding portion of the desire to enjoy, by having made all the necessary transformations at a given degree, it is impossible to advance to the next rung.

The nature of the spiritual rungs is a strict law, and there are no tricks that will help us to escape and hide from it or cut it some slack. Everything depends solely on how eager we are to meet its conditions.
[33258]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

Related Material:
125 Attainments Of Perfection
Windows To The Upper World
When Ties No Longer Break

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

We exist in the one and only reality created by the Creator, but we uncover it only to the degree that we correspond to it and are similar to it in our properties. Reality itself is constant and unchanging, and it is called the world of Infinity.

Meanwhile, we exist in the desire to enjoy, the property opposite to the world of Infinity: the intention to receive instead of to bestow. We can correct ourselves by performing consecutive corrections time after time, 125 times. Our every correction translates within us into a new attainment, and this is how we advance.

This is a step-by-step advancement that abides by the law of the equivalence of form, and there is no place for a compromise here: We are situated in a system that operates like a living organism. If you correspond to it, you receive accordingly, and if you don’t, you will receive according to this lack of correspondence. You constantly interact with nature to the measure of the similarity and strength of the forces with which you approach it.

If nothing changed in us, we would always stay in the same state. But since the Reshimot (informational genes, data) are constantly growing and changing in us, we are becoming increasingly opposite to nature and differ from it more and more. This is exactly what we feel as the accumulation and manifestation of various unfulfilled desires and problems.

This is how we feel the forces which are pressuring us increasingly stronger from the side of the evil. These forces will inevitably compel us to move toward good, meaning to search how to reach similarity to nature.
[33261]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

Related Material:
Pull Yourself Higher!
The Upper Governance Is Always Perfect. Am I?
Analyzing The Start After Reaching The Finish Line

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Suffering - No Comments →

Question: What is "Zivug?"

Answer: "Zivug" is a connection according to the equivalence of form, the similarity of properties. This action is not based on what each of us used to be, but rather on how similar to each other we have become after corrections.

At first, we were completely separated and opposite. Then we performed corrections, and to the measure of these corrections we come to a "Zivug" (unity, adhesion).

Question: What is "Parsa"?

Answer: "Parsa" is a partition which separates the receiving desires from bestowing ones by the force of Bina. A person himself has to wish for such division to take place within him. And then he attracts the force of Bina, bestowal, the force of the Creator, so that it will protect and save him by separating bestowal and reception within him. This is called "to distinguish day from night, light from dark."
[33243]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Let The Light Come In!
A Spiritual Trio
The System Of The Universe

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “Because Man Is the Tree of the Field”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Yitro,” Selected Excerpts
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Lesson 11
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag “The Freedom,” “One Law For All the Worlds,” Lesson 12
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Torah, Zohar - No Comments →

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Question: Suppose I reached complete bestowal and harmony with the Creator. How can I make this state continue and work from a plus to a greater plus?

Answer: The instant you feel that you are neutral and work with the Creator in total tandem, start searching immediately: "Where can I get foreign desires in order to start working together with the Creator, to act the way He does? Let Him show me how to relate to others!" And you immediately witness how He fills them all.

Your eyes suddenly open and you see: Everybody is in the world of Infinity, completely filled. In reality, the poor ones scream that they have nothing, and they curse everything. And you see them as absolutely filled, absolutely spiritual.

That is, on the next stage you begin to work as the Creator, in the same system, being ahead of Him and wishing to act instead of Him. You become His partner. You do it. You even take Him by the hand and pull Him, like a little child pulls a grown-up, asking Him to carry it out. You add your desires to it. You feel the pain of others, and you force Him to fulfill them.
[33102]
From the Lesson 1 in Moscow 1/14/2011, "Introduction of The Book of Zohar"

Related Material:
The Creator’s Greatest Substitute
Do You Wish To Make Your Own Decisions?
To Want The Creator

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Donkey Driver”: They said, “It is Rav Hamnuna Saba,” for now they have recognized his degree, that he was Rav Hamnuna Saba himself, and not as they previously thought—that he was only Rav Hamnuna Saba’s son.

Question: Usually we study that the “son” is the next level of the “father.” So why does this paragraph say that the son of Rav Hamnuna Saba is a smaller degree than him?

Answer: During the descent from Above downward, every greater degree is higher. Thus the grandfather (Saba in Hebrew) is the higher level, and the father (Aba) is beneath it, and lower still is the son (Ben).

We ascend up the levels from below upwards, going through them in the opposite order: from grandfather, to father, to son. A “son” is the most advanced level, above all of them. But during the descent of the degrees, the son is below everyone.

The levels that the “donkey driver” goes through are the levels of the worlds. These forces descend to the sages from the height of all 125 levels in the form of “grandfather” and “father” being higher than the son.

But when these sages ascend, their levels of attainment: grandfather, father, and son are expressed from above downwards, in which case the son is the most advanced level.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 1/20/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
Who Are You, Abraham?
Is It Worth It To Believe The Sages?
The Light Of Distant Degrees

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Q&A, Spirituality, Zohar - No Comments →