Kabbalah Moments: Miracle
Posted on December 1st, 2010
Rabash, Letter 43: The candles will not glow until three conditions are met:
1. There is a candle, which is a vessel into which oil is poured,
2. There is oil,
3. There is a wick.
When these three conditions unite together, it becomes possible to rejoice for the light they produce.
These three conditions that are necessary for the light also reflect our structure. We consist of the will to enjoy, which acts egoistically.Therefore, when we look at the world, we see that it is full of suffering and problems.
No one acts honestly, everyone harms one another, and I can’t understand why the Creator (if He even exists) has created such a bad world. I would have made it much better if I were Him! I look at everything through my evil, egoistic desire, and that is why I see evil all around.
However, if I begin to override my confusion by thinking that the Creator is good and does everything well, whereas I feel evil only because I am bad, then all of these thoughts and desires collide inside me and contradict one another. This is called the “wick” (Ptila) because I discern where is the “waste” (Psolet) from my desire and what is bad about it.
The desire is a vessel and there is a “wick” inside it that is produced by overcoming the desire. These discernments (Birurim) give rise to the fuel (Beirut), meaning the oil – the Light of Hochma.
These three components are also present in the human soul, which desires to figure itself out and light up like a candle. They are also present in the regular candle, which is a symbol of the soul.
The vessel or desire was egoistic by nature, wanting “for its own sake.” That is how I was born. With the help of studying Kabbalah in the group, I create a “wick” that can light up because I begin to fight back and discern who is the Creator and who am I. The “oil” is the result because this state gives rise to the “fuel.”
I wage a struggle: I want to attain bestowal, but I am incapable of it. I dash forward, but my nature pulls me back. Pharaoh does not let me come out of his power. However, that is how I discern myself and the Creator, as well as the kind of system through which I can be connected to Him.
And after overcoming this a person merits the Light of the Creator that illuminates his soul, called the Light of Hanukkah. This is the revelation of the Upper Providence, carrying goodness to the creatures.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/10, Writings of Rabash
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I always have some kind of attitude to what is happening to me, to my environment, my loved ones, and the world. If I attach the Creator to that attitude, then I delve into discernments of why it is happening, for whom, whom will it benefit, and so on.
As I do this, I am inducted in an entire war for every state! If I discern these states “inside knowledge,” it is called a “Greek” approach, meaning according to my mind, feeling, understanding, and all my notions. Alternatively, I can advance by “faith above reason” and search for the force of bestowal, wishing to see everything from this point of view. In that case I do not want to receive knowledge and understanding into the desires that awaken in me, but I want to come out of myself with the help of these desires. I want to step to the outside, enter others, and there receive all the knowledge and fulfillment by faith above reason, inside the Kelim of bestowal.
The fulfilment I am able to receive inside myself is called “this world.” What I can receive on the outside, coming out of myself to the outside, is called the Upper World. I am fighting for this approach which I want to maintain, and this is called the war of the Maccabees against the Greeks. The Greeks are just a symbol for all rational thinking that exists in the world, the human mind, the scientific approach. The Maccabees are above this because they personify the work of the priests (Kohanim) that belong only to bestowal.
A person must always wage this war until he ascends above the battlefield. In this war you have “spies” whom you send to the “market,” meaning to the place (desire) that is ruled by “multiple authorities.” Among your thoughts and desires, some are still ruled by “many,” which sometimes pull you in one direction and sometimes another, all for the sake of their egoism. This continues until just one power is established in all of your desires! When it does, it means you leave the “market” and enter your “house.”
The market turns into the house and the “spies” leave there, as it is written, “Until the last foot leaves the market.” You remain alone with the Creator, together with Him, in adhesion, in your desire or house.
In the spiritual world we do not shift from one place to another. There exists only one place or desire. However, you change it and build it by changing your attitude so it goes from being a “marketplace” to a “house” in which you light a candle, “praising the miracle” (Persuma de Nisa).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/10, Writings of Rabash
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The first and most important question is: Do we have free will at all? Or, do I go through life as a mechanical toy moved by the key in the back or like a puppet on strings?
Indeed, we are totally controlled by the instincts and our actions are programmed. Even though we think we are free to make decisions and pick our path, it is just an illusion. Everything can be predicted by checking combinations of internal and external data: Reshimot (spiritual records, genes), background, habits, and all other conditions.
In other words, there is no instant in life when a person would be making an independent decision, and frankly, based on what would he decide? If he is programmed with all the informational data, a person simply makes a calculation like a machine.
Is there really any unknown factor that could be selected freely? It is unknown in relation only to us; therefore, we think that we can choose freely. In reality, everything is completely predetermined, as it is Nature.
The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches: “There is none else beside Him.” Do you wish to make your own decisions? Then rise to the Creator’s status and partner Him in decision making.
Your only freedom is in choosing to agree with Him, and in a way, to start walking ahead of Him. If you rise to His level and equalize with Him in qualities, He will allow you to decide before and for Him (as He does). And that is when it will be as it is written: “The righteous decides, and the Creator carries out.”
Until then, there is no use in talking about some freedom.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, “The Freedom”
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Freedom of will lies only in strengthening our environment so that it influences every one. This is in our hands. There is absolutely nothing else that we are able to change in this life.
You entered the Convention hall and felt a powerful tension. This is because a common desire that was there influenced you. Everyone burned with an enormous desire to reach the might that would enable us to make a leap up, and this affected you.
So, why are you not able to organize your environment so it would influence you the same way now? There are many thousands of people participating in the daily lesson with us, so why are we not able to influence one another?
We have the same connection, and we are in the same common field. Does it matter that much that we are not sitting in the same hall, in the same physical space? Is this the only problem? Why do we lack that common joy and enormous happiness?
We simply lack preparation. Several months before the Convention, we all waited for this day with hope, fear, trepidation, and worry. We read and listened about it, memorized special songs. We all prepared ourselves for this event.
It took an enormous amount of money, time, and physical effort. Of course, when all of this gathered in one place and exploded at the same time, it led to an impressive result. Everyone who was there as well as those who followed this event behind a screen received this strong impression. Why are we not able to continue the same way?
We achieved this degree, this elevation of the spirit, with our common work from below (Itaruta de Letata, awakening from below), and now it is ours. We bought it; we paid for it. So, why are we not able to hold on to our possession?
We need to remember that we have kept this attainment after the Convention because “one is elevated, not lowered in spirituality.” Everything I have attained is now mine, but now I am being swamped with a new, uncorrected desire that obstructs anything that happened previously because it reveals a new height to which I need to rise. I need to regard this new mountain as a means to ascend.
So, let us understand what happened to us. We did not fall; we acquired an opportunity to ascend. Then, we will see a precise goal before us, and we will simply need to combine our strength. After all, this is the only action that can enable us to ascend, only through joining together.
We unite even more strongly in the group, and this will mean that we are ascending. The Light lifts me; I myself do not need to do anything. I just need to connect with others more strongly than ever. Then, the Light will lift me to a new height, a new degree.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Body and Soul”
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The stronger we unite, the more sparks of bestowal we can include into the quality of reception. Essentially, by working on unity, we work on combining these qualities.
We are unable to work with the desire for pleasure in its pure form. When coming near it, we see that it is not intended to work for bestowal at all. So what can we do with it considering that it has the opposite nature?
It turns out that we don’t have the possibility to receive for the sake of bestowal, and that means we cannot give any pleasure to the Giver. There is a barrier standing between the Creator and the creation, blocking all of creation’s efforts to attain mutual bestowal.
Our only way to go is to combine qualities. How can we do this? We have to elevate Malchut and include it inside the quality of Bina.
Our work is built upon the same principle: A person in relation to the group is like Malchut in relation to Bina. By becoming part of the group, one nullifies himself similar to how Malchut nullifies herself before Bina.
It doesn’t matter what kind of people make up the group and whether they have already attained the spiritual quality or not. By rejecting himself, a person receives the Upper Light through them. He does not receive it from their external qualities, but from their inner essence which is already corrected in some regard.
Thus, the group is an inexhaustible means, pure Bina. By nullifying myself, I can receive anything through it. If I am small then I receive a small influence of Surrounding Light from the group. If I am great, then I receive a great Light from the group, which corrects me. With my attitude to the group I determine what the group is for me.
This does not depend on the friends. They may be total beginners who just encountered Kabbalah, yet by bowing down to their spiritual desire, I penetrate and tune into their corrected state even if they haven’t started correcting themselves.
We are all in the final correction already and therefore with my attitude to the friends I can awaken and revive any of the intermediate forms leading there. Everything depends on me, not on them. I myself determine the level on which I will activate this structure called “the group.”
Then love for friends becomes love for the Creator. The right attitude to them is the right attitude to Him. I cannot step away from my friends and give the Creator anything more than what I give to them.
The group is the means which helps to “form” itself, to give itself the form of bestowal. By funneling my desires through the group, it’s as if I modulate them and then I address the Creator the right way,
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/10, The Zohar
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Understand that you did not fall, but rose to the next degree and received a new desire, specifically because you did such a good job! Now, we simply need to join forces in order to turn this darkness, this apparent barrier (Machsom) into Light. And then you will receive an even stronger inspiration than at the convention.
We received some initial impression there, and now we need to realize it in a clear and practical form. Now, we need to methodically break that wall, the Machsom between us, which we have felt slightly. We need to keep hitting it in one place, and it will collapse after several blows.
This happens suddenly, “in a blink of an eye,” as it is written about the coming of the Creator’s redemption. Revelation occurs suddenly: Efforts keep accumulating and, all of a sudden, the escape route opens for us to run in extreme haste.
We need to do all of this now, but instead we keep remembering how nice it was at the convention, unlike here, where I am now. However, this is the actual time for work. We did not work during the convention. It was the result of everything we had accumulated in the past, which combined all the efforts, hopes, money, and nerves.
The time to work has come again. The work is always the same. Our ego, the desire to receive pleasure, constantly keeps growing and shows itself in different ways. You need to recognize it and understand that this is “help against us,” that this is sent to you for a specific purpose, out of great love.
The Creator is playing with you like with a small child who is given small obstacles on purpose in order for him to learn to overcome them and grow up. This is how we advance.
However, a child has a natural instinct that pushes him to develop, and he never sits in place, as he is constantly trying to overcome something, do, understand, feel, or break something. Meanwhile, you need to work on your desire yourself.
Imagine the fate of an indifferent and bored child who is too lazy to play with toys, and he sits in class like you, all sleepy with his eyes closed. Will he develop and grow up? This is exactly what is happening to you now.
However, the Creator will not deviate from His program. He must raise you to His level until you become equal to Him. So, what is there to do when you sit with your eyes closed? He will have to beat you until you wake up.
Yet, if you want to do the walking instead of going down the path of suffering, there is one simple law: “He who chooses the best environment every time, advances.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Body and Soul”
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No matter what we are reading, The Book of Zohar, the Babylonian Talmud, or the Bible (the Torah), all “sacred” texts speak of the work I am unable to perceive and understand. I have no comprehension of any of its tiniest details.
How does the mind, “understand,” work? When my mind possesses an example of what I see, hear, or read about, I am able to collect and arrange an image within myself, which corresponds with what is taking place outside of me. However, this method doesn’t work when we study Kabbalah. I don’t have any matching example. How, then, can I put an image together?
Suppose I say that ZA (Zeir Anpin) is “10,” and Malchut is “5.” How much smaller is Malchut than ZA? 10 – 5 = 5. Excellent! It means you do know. But what is it you know? Do you understand what ZA is? No. What about Malchut? No. What is “5,” the difference between them? You don’t know that either. Then, what do you really know?
However, we study these definitions since they are the Upper roots, and they affect our points in the heart, expanding them. It is the only possible act from the entire science of Kabbalah upon us, who are situated below the border dividing us from the Upper World. Therefore, as Baal HaSulam informs us in the “Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 155, Kabbalists obligated every person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah since this action draws the Light that Reforms and returns us to the Creator.
The entire Torah was written without the use of commas, periods, and spaces between the words; from the very beginning to the end, it is one unbroken sequence of letters. Letters are desires, Kelim (vessels). The attributes of bestowal and reception, Hassadim and Hochma, which share a special connection build for us the shapes of the letters.
However, I have to create the same properties, Kelim, within me from my will to receive. When my desire exists in the properties of Hassadim and Hochma, then it will acquire the same forms of the letters. These attributes will live in me as 22 sets of spiritual stencils. I will be able to create words or actions from them. From words, I will build phrases, complete programs.
You have to equalize your desire with these symbols. Kabbalists passed this information to us in the form of symbols so that you could make the same forms from your will to receive as described in the Torah, starting with the first letter, Bet (the first letter of the word Beresheet, “In the beginning”), and to the last letter of the Torah, Lamed.
Take your desire, use it as dough, and sculpt these forms from it. The result will be a completely corrected you.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, The Zohar
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Question: I feel that we do not extract everything we can from The Book of Zohar. How should we use a Kabbalistic text?
Answer: To start with, imagine that between you and the others there lie all the worlds, from the point where you are right now to the World of Infinity (Ein Sof). If you reach the other person and become completely one with him, it means you have reached the World of Infinity.
On this path, you travel the worlds, Partzufim, and Sefirot and obtain all sorts of details of perception. The Zohar colorfully describes them and tells you about various actions that make this connection possible.
Having begun approaching what the text is describing, you will start experiencing the spiritual world. The stream of bestowal from you to the others and from the others to you is, in fact, the Upper Light that you wish to uncover. It is the renewed connection with the others that you wish to correct.
While establishing this connection in the egoistic desire, you will probably receive a good life for a short while. However, following the example of the Russian Revolution, we see what such a path leads to. But if you are aimed at bestowal and wish that your connection be corrected by the Light, The Book of Zohar, and if you keep trying to find within yourself that what you are reading about, to know, unite with, and uncover it, then the text brings you corrected connections, and you extract from the book all that it offers.
Maintaining constant attunement, you truly sense how The Zohar expands your perception and fills it with new colors and inspiration. You see the renewed connection with your own eyes, and the states The Zohar is describing start emerging in it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Night of the Bride”
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Question: How do I detach from everything I know and receive the Light from the lesson as if I am a white screen and learn as a child does?
Answer: Sages say that teaching a child is similar to writing on a clean sheet of paper. That is how we begin our journey. A person must always imagine that his desire faces some “field” of other desires that seem alien to him. He has to assemble all these desires into one.
It doesn’t mean that they all will melt into unified oneness. No, each of them will exist independently, but the relationships between them will create wholeness and harmony similar to that between the parts of a healthy body.
In the initial state, in Infinity before the breaking, all of us were as one body. Then, it fell apart because the ego emerged in it. We must preserve our individual ego, but correct it. What does that mean?
Each part feels separated from the others and is distanced from the rest. Now, on one hand, we have to preserve our individuality and character, but on the other, above it, we need to discover such a connection as if the ego doesn’t exist. Yet, I don’t nullify it; rather, I work with it in order to overcome the gap.
As a result, the abyss remains below. Above it, I erect a bridge to all the other parts. Thereby, we receive the complete Light of NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida) instead of the minimal Light of Nefesh de Nefesh that we had in the initial state.
The Creator created us as a drop of semen. Later, getting corrected and returning to Him, we use all the “matter” of our ego to grow in order to become similar to the Creator. After all, egoism totally matches Him in power. This is the “help equal to Him,” the reverse side of the Creator. We, however, turn it into the face side by correcting the egoism that separates us.
Everyone feels as one, singular, and unique, and everybody uses his individuality to serve the others, directs it toward our mutual connection, bestowal. Thanks to that, I receive a bond 620 times stronger than my egoism and experience the Light of NRNHY.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “The Night of the Bride”
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