Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Spiritual Poverty

232.01Question: How can we come to the feeling of real spiritual poverty through some material flaws so that it feels the same as our ego feels the flaws in this world?

Answer: Practically one has nothing to do with the other. I can have everything I want and at the same time feel absolutely penniless. And vice versa, I can be the poorest, but feel like a king.

Question: And how does spiritual poverty feel?

Answer: The way we evaluate it, that is how it feels.

Question: How does one come to it?

Answer: This requires only communication with friends. Then you will evaluate your states through the common connection between you.
[315914]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/23, “According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward”

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Questions about Spiritual Work—2

281.02Question: All suffering is from the desire to receive. But when we are in bestowal, is it a gift from the Creator?

Answer: Yes.

Question: You said that we can choose either the path of suffering or the path of love. But it often happens that one does everything to walk the path of love, and still receives suffering. Why?

Answer: We know this from our lives. First, we receive suffering, and then in suffering, we reveal love. One cannot be without the other.

Question: If a person does not feel suffering and obstacles in his work, does this mean that he is not in spiritual work at all?

Answer: Yes. There is no moving forward without resistance.

Question: There are times when I force myself to go to a lesson, to a meeting, or to a group. Does it harm the group?

Answer: On the contrary, it helps both the group and you very much.

Question: Can we say that suffering comes from the Creator in order to strengthen the quality of the connection between us and to unite us even more?

Answer: Of course. How else can He wake you up if not by suffering? An egoist can only be awakened by suffering.

Question: How is the Kli (Vessel) built? Is it built above my desire? Or can I work with the desire of a friend and help him build a Kli?

Answer: Both are good.
[315838]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/23,”According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 8/4/23

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 7, “According to What Is Explained Concerning “Love Thy Friend as Thyself””

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “One Commandment

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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “The 15th of Av: the Day of Love”

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Selected Highlights

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How Can I Direct Myself to Bestowal

504Question: You said that we implement our choice by transforming the desire to receive into a desire to bestow. How do we do this?

Answer: The most important thing is the intention: what I do and why I do it. I do it only because this is the will of the Creator.

Question: Is it possible to work in this way with any desire that is revealed in a person?

Answer: If you know exactly what the Creator wants in one of your desires, then you can do it.

Question: How can I know what the Creator wants? How can I figure this out?

Answer: To do this, you must be inside the ten and be connected with your friends in such a way that you can try to bestow to them, set your heart toward them, and then you will gradually learn to direct yourself to bestow.
[315797]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/23, “According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward”

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Questions about Spiritual Work—1

528.03Question: As we develop, the Creator reveals new portions of evil to us. And if evil manifests itself in the group somehow cyclically, like previous stages, how can we properly enter a new stage and break this circle?

Answer: Constantly pursue the same goal: I have to rise above my egoism and act in the direction of benevolence toward my friends in the group.

Question: If a person does not raise a prayer for the correction of his nature, is it the Creator who does not honor him with a dialogue with Him, or is it a person’s laziness?

Answer: The Creator waits until a person develops the necessary qualities that will put pressure on him from the inside and force him to come closer to Him anyway.

Question: Let us say a friend participates in lessons, makes maximal external efforts, and comes to meetings, but does not know what else can be added to bring more benefit to the ten, what could you tell him?

Answer: Nothing. Let him read articles about it, there are many of them. But, in principle, what he has to do is serve his ten and be with it in heart and soul.

Question: How do I know when to annul myself and when to lessen myself?

Answer: Ideally, we should always annul egoism and always include the desires of others instead of our own.

Question: Is it necessary to keep such a line when we lower and annul ourselves all the time?

Answer: Do not worry, you are not lessening or annulling yourself yet. But if you put others above yourself, then you will begin to feel the spiritual world in the difference between you.
[315800]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/23, “According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 8/3/23

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 37, “What Is “A Road Whose Beginning Is Thorns and Its End Is a Plain” in the Work?”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 139

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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic of “The 15th of Av: the Day of Love”

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Selected Highlights

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Not Destruction but Restoration

276.02Question: Do I understand correctly that if we do not increase love, then ordinary actions are not enough and in any case there will be destruction?

Answer: I do not think there will be destruction. I hope we are going through everything in our intentions, and therefore we should see before us not the destruction, but the restoration of the right relations between us and in them the beginning of the right relations in the whole world.

Question: But Rabash in the article “What is Unfounded Hatred in the Work” writes that they did everything, but did not increase sanctity, and therefore the Temple was destroyed. We also do everything, but if we do not increase love and do not ask for it, will the destruction come?

Answer: No, it will not come. We must believe that the Kabbalists are paving the road for us, and we can restore the correct mutual connection between all the souls.

Question: How can we ask correctly for the treasure of a free gift so that the Creator will give us love, after all?

Answer: This is a special light that descends from above and elevates us above our egoism, above all of our calculations. It turns out that we can connect with each other with the ties of love and friendship, despite our primordial egoism. So it will be; although it is not very simple, and it takes time.
[315883]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/23, The Writing of Rabash “What is Unfounded Hatred in the Work”

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“According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward”

610.2Question: The sources speak about reward. Is it correct to say that according to the effort one makes so will be the reward?

Answer: That is absolutely right. That is why it is said: “According to the sorrow, so is the reward.”

Question: I did not understand this for a long time, but today I finally understood and felt great, sincere joy from it. What happens to a person when the essence of what has been said suddenly becomes clear to him?

Answer: He simply receives a very small portion of the upper light.

Question: At the corporeal level, the concept of sorrow is associated with some kind of torment. But Kabbalah says: “Sorrow is a feeling of hunger.” That is, the more hungry a person feels, the more he will feel the pleasure from eating.

It turns out that the more spiritual hunger we have, the more pleasure we will receive from the fact that the Creator fills us with light. Is it true that I should feel not my own hunger but the hunger of my friends in the ten? If I start preparing a “meal” for them and they begin to receive fulfillment, it will be a great pleasure.

Answer: I think we should aim to feel the lack of a Kli (Vessel): what do we still lack so that we can attract the Creator, fill Him, feel our real Kli, real desire and deficiency (Hisaron).
[315829]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/23, “According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 8/2/23

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 35, “The Fifteenth of Av”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 136

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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic of “The 15th of Av: the Day of Love”

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Selected Highlights

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Mercy for a Friend

938.02This is why he who pleads mercy for his friend, they cannot both receive the granting of the prayer at once because only he needs that thing, meaning that salvation—to feel the greatness of Kedusha [holiness] called “raising the Shechina from the dust” (RABASH, “What Is, ‘Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing Its Joy,’ in the Work”).

Question: What is the essence of mercy? And what do we ask for a friend?

Answer: We ask that a friend be connected with the rest in a ten in which the Creator could be fully revealed. This is what mercy is.

Question: In the same article, Rabash says that one must ask both for society and for a friend. Does it mean they are the same thing?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Without any transition? Or are they different stages?

Answer: A person loses his temper, and for him there is no difference. He simply asks that the Kli, vessel, be corrected in its external part.

Question: And how can we ask for a friend or for society if the Creator is not important at this moment?

Answer: First you must increase the importance of the Creator.

Question: But we are talking about the state when the Creator is not important, you have to ask. And how can we ask if He is not important?

Answer: Ask.
[315908]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/23, “What Is, “Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing Its Joy,” in the Work?”

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