Question: People who are new to Kabbalah are taken aback by the word “Light” and associate it with something mysterious.

Answer: The Upper Light is a vital force that animates us like the sunlight on which our lives and health depend. That’s why the Upper Force is also called the “Light.” As sunlight “animates” our material life, so the Upper Light conveys spirituality to us.

The entire system that operates in this world (the earth, the sun, and the moon) corresponds to work of the World of Atzilut where all influences originate and where the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) clothes in the Light of Bina and descends to our souls. This is the reason why spiritual objects are given these names, in accordance with the “language of branches.”

The Upper Light, like sunlight, brings us life. But in this world, we are not surrounded by the real Light. Rather, we are enveloped only by the light that animates our “protein matter,” maintains our metabolism, and thus allows us to stay alive for approximately 70 years.

We strive to receive the real Light of life that illuminates our souls and is able to grant us eternal, perfectly fulfilled life. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method of attracting and receiving that Light by a person. When a person receives the Light, it means that he has attained the wisdom of Kabbalah which makes those who are empowered by it “alive.”

Our life stems out of the Light of Hochma. The Light of Hassadim (Mercy) represents correction, but everybody in this world is eager to be fulfilled by the Light of Hochma. That is why the science of Kabbalah bears a name of “wisdom of receiving” since it teaches us how to receive the Light of Hochma.

It is prohibited to receive the Light of Hochma directly, but only within the Light of Hassadim. That is why we study how to dress the Light of Hochma into the Light of Hassadim and eventually obtain the whole Light.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/20, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Our state right now is like the state preceding the exodus from Egypt. The closer we come to the exit, the more densely time becomes compressed as it becomes filled with actions, events, and happenings. Therefore a person experiences doubts and everything becomes mixed up inside him: myself, Pharaoh, Moses, the Egyptians, the nation of Israel, inside of Egypt, and outside of it. All of these are my inner states.

• If I am inside my ego, it is called Egypt.
• If I want to ascend above the ego, it means I want to run away from the Egyptian slavery.
• If my egoistic desire rules over me and I have doubts, this means Pharaoh rules over me.
• If I want to run away from the ego and look at it from afar, this means I am Moses.

All of these states whirl through a person and if he realizes that he is under these influences, it’s wonderful. He performs very fast and significant discernments at great speed.

During the Convention we will fall under the influence of a great common inspiration that has great power. Therefore, we must only continue and not let the state calm down. The most important thing is to be joyful even if it seems like the things that are happening are unpleasant and worrisome.

Even if bad thoughts and doubts greatly outnumber good thoughts and clarity, this is our inner work and we have to advance. We shouldn’t forget that the deepest darkness is felt before the actual breakthrough, before the exit from Egypt.

We shouldn’t wait for that darkness, but should constantly think about the Light and the escape. However, together with our aspiration for the Light, understanding, and greater sensation, it’s possible to experience a completely opposite tendency and to be immersed in darkness, fog, and confusion. That is how things should be and we will go through these states together!

Let’s help each other by expressing how we accept all the states with joy. Joy is the most powerful force because despite everything, you are happy because you are carrying out the Creator’s work and are advancing spiritually.

It is necessary to go through difficult states in order to break out of one’s ego and ascend above it. Good luck to you!

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/10, “Ve Zot Le Yehuda”

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Question: Three or four times a week I get up and go to the lesson, and I don’t really understand why. What’s going on here? Why do I do this?

Answer: You receive an example from Above: the Creator forces you out of sleep, and you come to the lesson. This is meant to show you that you are capable of getting up and coming to the lesson, but only three times a week, when the Creator awakens you. The rest He leaves up to you. Now let’s see what you do when you don’t get this impulse.

If you don’t understand why you are here, you should analyze the situation. It appears that you come here because if you don’t, you’ll feel bad. It follows that you come in order to escape evil.

Question cont.: So what can I do to start coming every day and on my own?

Answer: For that you need another kind of fuel. You need to come here not to escape from evil, but in order to realize the importance of the goal. You need to get up not because otherwise bad things will happen, but because a lofty goal is awaiting you.

Question cont.: How do I exalt the goal in my eyes?

Answer: You are incapable of doing this alone. The goal cannot be achieved individually. Here you need to see your true state: There is a single system of souls, similar to the Creator, within which the Inner Light of life (NRNHY) is revealed. This is the Creator. We are separated from this state by 125 “filters” which weaken the Light. I want to receive the strength to return to that state.

Looking at the system of souls I see that it unites everybody into a single whole, and thanks to this the Light fulfills them and gives them life. Consequently, in order to ascend, I must establish a stronger connection with the friends.

The Creator does not relate to any individual alone. Any step toward correction ought to be regarded as an even greater level of unification in the group.

It follows that if you were to unify with the friends ahead of time, you would receive from them the inspiration and fuel to come to the daily lesson. Whereas now you are isolated from them, and even on the corporeal level the flame burning within them does not rub off on you.
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From 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/10,  “All of Israel Have A Part in the Next World”

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Question: Why is the term of “Sodom” associated with bad relationships between people?

Answer: If we look at this quality per se, it is seemingly meant to protect the society by establishing a strict order in it: Everyone takes care of oneself and their family without stepping out of the acceptable norms. There is something quite rational in this, and it’s not easy to achieve this state.

The rules of life in Sodom are very simple: “Mine is mine, yours is yours,” “Don’t touch me, and I won’t hurt you.” It is prohibited to lend, and it is not allowed to borrow. Everyone lives according to the effort they exert: What you earned is all yours.

We will kill the thieves, destroy the liars; anyone who helps another spoils him since charity leads to laziness and lies as a person now always wants to receive and stops working. In this sense, our world is worse than Sodom!

The property of Sodom means that I don’t envy anybody: I have what I am entitled to, and you have what you deserve. This life philosophy is unique and complex! We use this word to scold, but we haven’t even come close to it.

The attribute of Sodom is negative not per se but in relation to the Land of Israel, the desire to attain love of others, the quality of Abraham. On this path, Sodom halts a person, but in itself, this approach is quite useful for the will to receive.

If we don’t transition to the desire to bestow, then the level of Sodom represents the most favorable relations in the society: Don’t give anything to anyone and don’t receive anything from them! This is a healthy attitude to the will to receive: If you are entitled to something, live, and if not, die. After all, anything received beyond necessity harms our will to receive since through luxuries it gets accustomed to using others, which harms it.

The residents of Sodom understood that they shouldn’t indulge in the will to receive. You receive according to the exerted effort, as it is said, “The measure of suffering determines the measure of reward.” So, what is wrong with that?

Hence, it is difficult for Abraham to part with Lot, and their relationship lasts a long time. And only when Abraham sees the need to advance so as to turn Sodom (the land of Canaan) into the Land of Israel in the future, he revolts and switches the positions of the will to receive and the will to bestow in terms of their importance. This is described as an earthquake in Sodom.

It is a very serious decision of a person who feels the need to change his attitude to egoism. Having made this decision, a person truly becomes free.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 10/15/10

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Regardless of the fact that we exist in the unified system, the connection between us is broken. A person is given a chance to feel the initial point of his connection with all others, and this sensation is life in our world.

Thereby, I receive an opportunity to renew and enhance this connection based on the principle of bestowal in order to live a spiritual life. If I fail to do so, the spiritual spark in me expires.

Further on, I am given a new desire, a new spark. In other words, I undergo a Gilgul (reincarnation or a new life cycle) and arrive at a new reality. Here, I discover a different connection with the system of Adam HaRishon, and I feel that I am living in this world anew, at one or another point on the timeline, and within a certain framework of relations between people. This is my other chance, at another level of desire and mutual connection.

If I fail to take advantage of the setting yet again, I once more will be transferred to another degree of mutual connection. In other words, I undergo a Gilgul in order to appear in another generation, another timeline, and receive one more chance to unify.

Every time, I am shown a specific level of interconnection with the others so that I can find a way to unite with them through ties of love. In the corporeal world, I am forced into a minimal degree of connection. If I obtain some degree of connection founded on love on my own, then instead of our corporeal world, I experience a much more exalted and intense form of existence: the spiritual, eternal life.

Now, instead of the chain of Reshimot (spiritual records, genes) that create in my perception a constant revolution of life and death, I myself keep restlessly renewing the connection with others and rise above the chain of “reboots.” The connection no longer breaks; life doesn’t stop with the loss of the body.

No matter how we look at it, everything lies within the unified system, where the law of correct interaction of the parts rules. This law is the Creator or love.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, “Klalut Adam”

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We exist in a general system. If we actualize the right connection between all its parts, we will create a web that connects our desires correctly.

It is as though we correct a “pipeline” between us, whereupon the Upper Force (the Creator) comes and begins to run the Light of life through these “pipes.” Everything depends on how we establish the connection between us, meaning the diameter of the “pipe,” to what measure is it the right kind of connection. And then the Light of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida (NRNHY) flows through it.

Thus we advance along the 125 degrees of connection between us, until we reveal the entire Light of NRNHY, which means we exist in the World of Infinity.

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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, The Zohar

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Question: How can we become like the Creator whose property is to bestow, while having been created with the desire to receive and having forever remained with it?

Answer: If you begin to bestow to others through your desire to receive, you will only increase your bestowal.

There are two natures:
1. The Light = the Source of Light = the Creator = the Giver,
2. The desire = the receiver = the creature.

The creature always only receives, it can never give. When we read that the creature becomes like the Creator, this refers to “reception for the sake of bestowal,” meaning to receive and pass it on!

But I cannot pass the Light like an item can be passed in our world from one person to another. So how does this work? How can I give you something? I receive from the Creator and it cannot be any other way because I am the desire to receive pleasure.

The desire to receive cannot bestow; this does not exist in nature. Our nature only works to consume and absorb. This is a law of nature that cannot be broken. So how do I bestow to you, a stranger? A very special action takes place here.

The Surrounding Light comes from that same Creator, and this Light Reforms. This Light performs a correction and connects us together. And then I do not bestow to you, I receive, but I receive in your desires. This is what it means for me to bestow to you.

I connect the entire “body” of the collective soul to me, all of it becomes mine, and then I receive for it, but it is referred to as my bestowal to this “body.” This is the marvelous trick that happens here. When I perceive another person as a part of me, I receive for him, and it is like I am bestowing. You can object: What kind of bestowal is this, it is the same reception!

Let’s say that there is someone I did not want to give anything to, and, suddenly, I find out that he is my son. And then I am ready to give him everything because I perceive him as part of me. However, can we really call this bestowal? For example, if I had given to him before I knew anything about him, then surely. But now, what kind of bestowal is this when this is my own son? It is the same as giving to yourself.

All of this would be true if I were to reveal that other people are absolutely a part of me. But the problem is that hatred remains between us. This is a great asset, and we must love it. Another person still remains a stranger to me, but the Surrounding Light comes and creates a loving attitude over my hatred. Love and hatred remain as two lines: the right and the left, with me in the middle between them. This is why this is still referred to as “bestowal.”

In the right line, I perceive another as someone close to me, like a part of me, like someone who I am ready to sacrifice everything for because he may as well be me. In the left line, I hate him and am ready to destroy every last bit of him. And both of these lines exist simultaneously and unite in the middle line.

This continues until the very end of correction, Gmar Tikkun. And no one knows what will come after.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: Does the perception of reality depend on the environment?

Answer: If I wish to see a different, more advanced reality, compared to the corporeal reality of this world, I can see it only on the screen that I build from our mutual connection. Wishing to build a different reality, I must connect with the friends’ points in the hearts and create a network between us as it was before the breaking of the collective soul. This network of communication between us is the screen on which I see the picture of the world.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Perception of Reality,” 10/20/10

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We have a single free action in this world in our life, and everything else unfolds absolutely inevitably, upon the orders from Above. But it isn’t easy to find this freedom that had been left to us since we are strictly governed from Above by pain and pleasure, being tied by a thousand strings that control our desire, thought, body, words, and acts.

We are the obedient puppets that are being pulled by these strings from Above. We are complete slaves to our nature, from the moment we are an embryo’s cell developing in the mother’s womb and up to the age when we think that we are finally able to act and live independently.

Man is governed by the forces of Nature, so if everything is Nature, how can something new emerge in him? Therefore, there is no freedom of will in this world. A person always picks what pleases him most and flees from suffering as any other creature, be it vegetative or animate.

Despite this illusory freedom that man was initially bestowed with (since we think we can do whatever we want!), it is still an illusion. The true freedom lies in stepping out and rising above our nature, which means stepping out and rising above egoism.

It is written in the Torah that this is the “freedom from the angel of death.” No man can disregard such words! Freedom from death doesn’t imply that our animate body will live forever to infinitely languish in this corporeal life full of pain and so very little pleasure to enjoy.

Freedom from the angel of death replaces this life with attainment of perfect and the most comfortable existence, which is eternal and complete at the same time! And this can be achieved by what we refer to as “freedom of will.”

Such freedom becomes truly enticing and desirable since in the ordinary life, we don’t usually need any freedom, and we are the most satisfied when life is steady like a well tuned clock: home, family, and work. The less freedom, the less headache there is. But if we can attain eternal life and perfection, having freed ourselves from the angel of death, what can be better?

Moreover, it is necessary to understand that the angel of death is our own ego that is digging us into the grave. It gives us a horrible feeling that it’s impossible to become fulfilled and that life is limited and transient.

Freedom from the angel of death signifies attainment of bestowal, its infinite fulfillment and engagement in the eternal flow of life. Knowing this, let’s try to clarify from the writings of Kabbalists: How can we attain such freedom?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Freedom”

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The Creator is constant, existing, and unchanging. However, the creature cannot experience something that doesn’t change. We neither recognize nor feel permanence.

All our sensations operate by measuring contrast since “everything is attained through comparison.” We recognize something only if it changes or moves, if there are differences between occurrences in terms of time, motion, power, and thousand other measurements. But we have to have them first!

Therefore, the Creator demonstrates Himself to us and gives us an opportunity to get to know Him through multitude of modifications that do not exist either in Him or in the will to receive (desire). But He must arrange billions of changes in the relationships between Him and the desire to receive so that the latter may get to know Him.

After all these changes, we attain contentment and completeness. But in order to achieve this and know the Creator, we have to go through them. All these modifications are artificially created by the Creator.

The desire to receive and the desire to give, reception and bestowal, Klipa (shell) and sanctity, are all created for a single reason: to give us an ever lasting impression of the Creator. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to recognize anything in the simple, white Light. We wouldn’t even know that it is “white.” It is impossible to pass to the creature unwavering perfection and permanence but only through infinite number of changes.

To a certain degree, it can be observed in electronics. In order to transmit some phenomenon, we must split it, divide it into a multitude of impulses or discrete data, and pass them on at high frequencies. With the help of such partition (discretion), transmission of multiple tiny modifications, their reception and further integration (unification), we can pass information through the communication lines.

Another person can also be known only by various changes you observe in him, by you encountering  him or her, and not in any other way. But after you have collected all your impressions, you may say that now you know that person.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, The Zohar

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