Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 49
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”
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Selected Highlights
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The holiday of Shavuot comes on the 50th day after Passover. For 49 days we perform the Omer count, which is like counting tied bundles, because the main work of man is to bind himself with the Creator. If we bind all of us together with our desires and intentions, we create one common vessel, we create a place for the revelation of the Creator’s light.
There are seven Sefirot in the soul, seven qualities that are developing in the head of the spiritual Partzuf (Rosh): Hessed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. In each Sefira, there are another seven Sefirot, that is: 7 x 7 = 49, and combining all together, we get 50.
Therefore, on the 50th day after exiting Egypt, from the moment we began to correct our spiritual vessel, the connection between us, we come to this special day when the connection between everybody emerges. This day is called the holiday of Shavuot.
In Egypt, we were still under the control of the desire to receive and could not connect with each other. Pharaoh kept us in slavery and did not allow us to connect with each other. When we escape from the slavery of Pharaoh, we can begin to connect, and that is why we run away from him. After all, it was very good in Egypt in the corporeal sense. It was bad only in the spiritual sense because of the inability to connect.
Those who wanted to connect, considered it a spiritual gain and were not afraid to sacrifice material things for this purpose, they came out of Egypt. After that, when we start to connect with each other, we come to the state of Omer, a bundle. So, we join part by part, counting these bundles until we reach the last, 49th day in the Omer count when we are already able to receive from the Creator the light that will fill us.
And for 49 days, we were receiving only the light of correction, so it was called the Omer. Each time, we found egoistic qualities between us that did not allow us to connect, but we tried to correct them and connect them, until on the 50th day, everything finally connected and we reached the common quality of mutual bestowal between us and from us to the Creator. Now the Creator can also give us the light and this is why it is called the day of the giving the Torah.
The symbols of this holiday are milk, the sign of bestowal, and a connected group bound together in one bundle (Omer) and in adhesion with the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/20, “Feast of Weeks”
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When a person comes to studying the wisdom of Kabbalah he does not understand where he has come. He thinks that the main thing is knowledge and study.
He is curious to know how many angels are in heaven, what their names are, what the upper world is, what our lives are, who controls us, and how we can control our own destiny. However, he does not have and cannot have the right attitude to spirituality.
This is like a three-year-old child who does not understand how the world is organized, how everything works, and what the true reasons is for everything that is happening. He lives by being close to the adults who arrange his world. And he perceives this world to the extent of his abilities.
So also a person who comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah at first hopes to learn something interesting, to gain some kind of power. However, over time, he understands what “faith above reason” means, which allows him to see with his inner vision the real world, the world of truth.
Then he begins to prepare himself for the transition from the perception of the world in corporeal sensory organs to perception in the vessels of bestowal in order to see the world as the Creator sees it. He wants to become like the Creator, to adhere to Him, to be together with Him, and to feel like He does; therefore, he always checks himself regarding his attitude to the Creator.
When he falls from this perception and begins to feel only this world, he returns to his demand to feel the Creator and all of reality as the Creator feels it, in the qualities of bestowal.
In this way, he constantly moves from the qualities of reception to the qualities of bestowal, from the left line to the right one, and begins to climb the degrees of the spiritual ladder, as though with two legs. He does not try to hop from step to step on one leg because this is impossible; rather, he first steps with his left leg, rising in the left line one degree higher, and then lifts his right leg there. And then again: the left line a degree higher and the right line that joins it. A person rises and each time changes his perception and measure of adhesion with the Creator. This is how his advancement takes place.
Therefore, the preparation for the lesson is aimed at increasing our sensitivity. It depends on what part of the world a person is in and what time of day they come to class. For many, it is early morning. They wake up from sleep and need to awaken their dulled feelings.
If a person lives in America, he comes to class after work, with the burden of the day’s worries. Therefore, we need preparation before the lesson, which should inspire the person, let him know where he is going and with whom he is dealing.
If he just woke up, he is completely detached from reality. And if he just came from work, he is immersed in his material problems and should shake them off. Therefore, we need to set ourselves up for the correct sensory perception of the study.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/20, “The Right Way To Study The Wisdom Of Kabbalah”
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “The Approach to Studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 39
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Can work in one ten affect all of humanity?
Answer: There is no difference between a small ten and all of humanity. If we awaken a higher power through our actions in the ten, then through it we influence the whole world. Such is the peculiarity of the integral system that even a ten contains all parts of reality within itself.
If we pump the ten with higher light, then it expands and so does the size of all of humanity. Imagine that there are a billion people in each friend. There are eight billion people in the world and all of them, except the point of the Creator (Keter) and the point of Malchut, are within this ten.
As we move forward, we begin to reveal all of reality within this ten, all of humanity, all the worlds, everything is inside it, you just have to penetrate deeper into it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/20, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
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The Torah describes so many different events. Can it all be just in order to achieve love for the created beings, to get closer to other people, and replace your hatred with love? Why is this written in the Torah, in the instruction given to us by the upper force? We do not understand this.
In fact, it is unclear how this is possible because experience shows everyone is ready to speak beautiful words, every religion calls for kindness and love, and as a result, the entire history of humanity is accompanied by mutual hatred and wars. This is why it is so important to understand what the Torah says. It describes the only thing that has not happened in history.
Baal HaSulam writes that the Torah speaks exclusively about one thing: about love of one’s neighbor as oneself, that is, the love of people. You have to love them as if there is nothing else besides this: to love all of humanity and every person (some people love humanity, but they do not love people). A person should do everything for the sake of love and live in this world only for the sake of it.
The only purpose of a person’s existence in this world is to bring good to all people. The Torah describes 613 actions of bestowal that a person must perform, and all of them are in regard to other people, relative to one’s neighbor. Only then does a person observe the Torah, that is, corrects his soul.
Rabbi Akiva, the greatest sage in times of the Second Temple, said that “Love your neighbor as yourself is a great rule in the Torah,” its entire essence. The Torah is intended for reaching love for people.
What should we do in order to receive the Torah? You must want to receive it! After all, why do you need it? To study the Torah means to study how to love your neighbor. Are you ready for this, do you really want this?
Little by little, we begin to understand that the attainment of the greatness of the Creator, His revelation, and reaching love for one’s neighbor are one and the same thing. The love of friends and love of people cannot be less than the love of the Creator since one is clothed into the other.
This one commandment about loving your neighbor as yourself includes all the commandments, that is, all the corrections that a person must make in his egoistic desire in order to bring him to bestowal, becoming a complete righteous. And within this love for people, he will attain the love for the Creator.
Each commandment is a correction of an egoistic desire. There are 613 desires in a person, and all of them are egoistic, and we need to turn them into the bestowing ones.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/20,Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]“
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It is not possible, yet, to explain where Zeir Anpin, Malchut, and the other Sefirot are in the ten. A ten still does not feel this, does not have such abilities. To work with spiritual concepts, one must already incorporate the properties of bestowal and engage in the love of friends above one’s desire to enjoy, above love for oneself. Thereby, we will acquire the properties of Zeir Anpin and will be able to grow Malchut, otherwise it is impossible.
Therefore, all our work is to attract the upper light that will affect us. We must ask the Creator to shine the returning light on us, which will give us the quality of bestowal. To the extent that the upper light affects us, we will want to love our neighbor and to bestow to him. We only need to attract the light and for this we need a common prayer.
If together, as a ten, we demand and ask for the light to come, it will come and unite us into one body called Zeir Anpin or Malchut. Then we will understand connection and what Baal HaSulam writes about in his article the “Study of the Ten Sefirot.” Right now, we do not understand this; we only read: Zeir Anpin and Malchut, but we do not have such workings in us and, therefore the text remains dead. These are simply lifeless letters to us.
But after the correction, we will be able to read and perform these actions inside, in our feelings. This text will become for us like notes for a musician who can play them or even sing a melody by ear. After all, he feels these notes.
If a person is not familiar with the notes, he does not understand how to sing and play them. He looks at musical notes and does not know what each note means. So we do not know what the structure of the upper worlds means. Until we acquire the qualities of bestowal, we will not be able to perform any of the actions described in the Kabbalistic book.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/30/20
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “The Approach to Studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”
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Selected Highlights
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The Creator is the absolute, which does not change and reveals itself to us as a force of absolute good. Our perceptions and our desires are changing, that is why we say that the Creator is changing.
But in reality, changes occur only in us. Therefore, in order to reveal the Creator, we need to bring ourselves to the state of similarity to Him in order to match His properties.
But how can we become similar to the Creator if we are all egoists? We remain egoists, but we must unite between us above our egoism with bonds of mutual bestowal, unity, and love despite our natural rejection. We are like an untuned musical instrument that needs to be tuned in order to play correctly.
It is written about the violin of King David that it was hanging on the wall and at some point, that is, in a special state, it began to play by itself. The group should achieve such connection between the friends, which will be in a form similar to the Creator. Although everyone remains egoistic, they overcome their egoism and unite with others in such a way that the form of our connection corresponds to the form of the Creator, perfect, one.
And then the Creator reveals Himself in us. He is not somewhere outside the group but only within it. To the extent that ten friends tune themselves for the right connection, for mutual bestowal, the Creator reveals Himself and starts to play our violin. This is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.
Therefore, it is necessary to relate to the work in tens practically, effectively, striving to achieve such a form and spirit of connection that is similar to the Creator. Of course, we are moving toward this gradually, through 125 steps, calibrating ourselves more and more accurately.
Thus, we achieve the complete revelation of the Creator in our common Kli, in the HaVaYaH, when “He Is One and His Name, One.” That is, the HaVaYaH, our ten, is correctly connected by all the ten Sefirot, by all their smallest inner sub-Sefirot so much so that they achieve complete unity, corresponding to the nature of the Creator: absolute bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/20, Writings of Rabash, “The Agenda of the Assembly – 2,” (1986)
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “The Approach to Studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 27
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”
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Selected Highlights
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