Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12/2/24
Preparation to the Lesson
1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”
2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “A Prayer Lishma“
Selected Highlights
Preparation to the Lesson
1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”
2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “A Prayer Lishma“
Selected Highlights
Question: It is said that a person has both a good inclination and an evil one, and he must test whether his body agrees to fulfill a certain commandment. On the spiritual path, the body (our evil inclination) always disagrees with the good inclination. What does it mean to gain its agreement?
Answer: You must make some effort as if you genuinely wish to fulfill the commandment, and feel how much it contradicts the nature of creation. Then step back from this and find the strength to ask the Creator to help you perform the same action.
Question: And if I performed the action and made a mistake?
Answer: Then you made a mistake. This means you can ask the Creator to explain to you that you were wrong, that you performed a bad action, perhaps even a terrible, awful one, against the Creator, but now you’ve realized this and deeply regret it. In such a case, the action is erased, as if it never happened.
Question: In the work of the ten it often happens that some friends agree to take a certain action toward unity while others believe it is incorrect. How can we be guided by the fact that it’s better to act and see if the action was right or not?
Answer: You must carry out everything you believe is necessary in practice. Even if the action was wrong, unproductive, or against the Creator’s will, you will still learn a great deal from it. Therefore, under no circumstances should you hold yourself back; do everything you can.
[337058]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Act Is What Decides”
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How can we strengthen the tens? I believe this can only be achieved through mutual study and mutual work.
Mutual study means connecting to the lesson, discussing it among yourselves, and creating a common field in which everyone works together.
But the most important thing is collective dissemination. When you write, process, and translate materials, and post them in various sources, you create a connection among you. In this way, the Creator relates to you as one organism.
[337170]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Does the Creator send us sometimes unnecessary desires to confuse us so we can accurately choose the true ones?
Answer: If He does so, then this is also help.
Question: How can we emerge from this confusion correctly and use it to come closer to Him?
Answer: It will pass. You will go through many such states, and eventually, it will all clear up.
Are you confused? Write down your tangled thoughts and send them to us, and our friends will analyze them and respond to you.
Question: Why does the Creator allow us to make mistakes?
Answer: So that we have something to correct.
[337065]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Act Is What Decides”
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Question: When we strive to reveal love, hatred is also uncovered. This leads us to fear or a sense of paralysis. What should we do next?
Answer: If you imagine that the Creator is before you, and He is presenting this to you, then why should you feel fear? It is said that one must love hatred just as one loves love. This is called “kissing the stick that strikes you.”
The fact is, there can be no light without darkness. Therefore we can advance toward spiritual revelation only by accumulating various negative impressions. And when we gather them and sufficiently enrich ourselves with negative impressions, we will then be able to reveal positive impressions, which are called the “Creator” or “light.”
At this point, we need a group to support us, so that we do not fall into despair or a sense of powerlessness from the small negative influences we encounter. We must understand that all of this is revealed to us by the Creator. He adds darkness to us so that later He can reveal the light, as the revelation of light requires very great darkness. As it is said: “The advantage of light is revealed through darkness.”
Thus, a very deep darkness is necessary, where a person realizes that in all their feelings, desires, and impulses, they are egoists. They see themselves as a thief, as brazen, as someone who does everything “for their own sake,” and not just for their own sake, but to ensure that nothing benefits others.
Essentially they see themselves in all their flaws, in their egoistic miasma, and they feel repulsed by it. Yet even so, much more darkness is needed for the light to manifest within it.
Therefore we must be prepared for this. And here the main thing is the group, because without it, it is impossible to endure.
[336975]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What does patience transform into in the state of Lishma?
Answer: Into humility.
Question: Every day, we write a prayer in the ten. Is there value in sharing these prayers in the general chat to form a collective prayer for the world Kli?
Answer: Yes, it is beneficial because it fosters mutual integration of one group’s prayer into another group’s prayer.
Question: While we are not yet in Lishma, does every act of bestowal have a bitter taste?
Answer: As long as you are in Lo Lishma, any act of bestowal has either a bitter taste or no taste at all.
Question: As we progress, should we sort out good and bad desires, meaning come closer to the good ones and distance ourselves from the bad ones? What is the force that enables this?
Answer: It is our desire to ascend, unite, and feel something good, kind, and upper. That is what we must strive for.
[337101]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Shamati 20 “Lishma (for Her sake”
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Question: Does the black point, my “I,” nullify itself before the Creator? Will it disappear or will it remain a black point?
Answer: Why should it disappear? If it disappears, I would cease to exist. This black point must always remain because it separates me from the Creator, without it, the “I” would vanish.
Therefore it remains, but around this “I,” I create a complete equivalence of form to the Creator.
[337121]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: We feel that we have reached a certain level of mutual inclusion. But if the connection needs to be stronger, fear arises, a fear of commitment. What is the connection between this fear and our commitments?
Answer: Fear is a very useful feeling. It keeps us from many problems, prevents us from making mistakes, from running away from difficulties, and instead encourages us to ask for strength to rise above them and move forward. One must realize that neither the fear nor the problems ahead matter to me anymore. I am not afraid of dying, and I no longer wish to live the way I do.
I set a condition: I want spiritual ascent, to detach from the egoism in which I exist. I desire to rise above it and act independently of it. This feeling will come; it is near to you. We will master it.
[337153]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: We need to reach a state where all the pleasures we experience are directed for the sake of the Creator. How can we cultivate this state within ourselves?
Answer: We cannot achieve this on our own. However, if we gradually direct ourselves toward this goal and relate our actions to the Creator so that He may accept them, then corresponding sensations, desires, and intentions accumulate within us. As a result, when we have gathered enough strength in our intentions, we are granted the quality of Lishma (for the sake of the Creator).
I was created as an egoist, and my primary concern is to fulfill my own egoism. But if I rise above my egoistic desires and prioritize only my friends and the Creator, it turns out that I am working for their sake. This constitutes the transition from “for my own sake” to “for the sake of the Creator.”
Question: But in order to transition to “for the sake of the Creator,” should there be a filter “the Creator and friends” before each of my desires and only then reception?
Answer: Yes, absolutely. First, there must be an intention: for what, for whom, and for whose sake am I performing this action?
Question: So does the intention of Lishma inherently contain the power to scrutinize and separate what is for the Creator and what is not, what I can receive and what I cannot? In other words, is it a calculation?
Answer: Yes, it is a calculation. Moreover, it is a calculation within feelings, knowledge, and sensations where you can precisely identify the state you are in in relation to Lishma.
[337104]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Shamati 20 “Lishma [for Her sake]”
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Question: Suppose a person faces a choice. The first option is that they absolutely cannot work without receiving a reward; the second option is that their true work can only be done without any reward.
At this point, fear arises as they have no different nature to choose the second option. Where can they find the strength to choose the second option?
Answer: They receive this strength from above, from the Creator, only from Him.
You must raise your desires together with the friends and strengthen them between you. Then turn to the Creator through the friends and to the friends through the Creator. As a result, the desire to work without any reward will arise within you.
Question: When we act in the ten, we make an effort again and again, but no result is visible. What else can we base our knowledge on to overcome disturbances?
Answer: On connection! And from the point of your connection, turn to the Creator. Through this, you will begin to understand what He desires.
[337061]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Act Is What Decides”
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