Bina is an abstract property of faith, but this faith is realized in Malchut because faith can work practically only where there is a property of receiving. The desire to enjoy appears first at the level of Hochma, but it has not yet been realized by the created being. And the desire to bestow appears in Bina but still without its practical realization. From the combination of both appears the fourth stage, Dalet, where there should be faith, and to the extent of faith, reception. The desire to receive in Malchut is a consequence of the desire to bestow in Bina and the desire to receive in Hochma, which Zeir Anpin completely connects together.¹

The 15th of Av (Tu B’Av) is considered one of the best days for Israel. A good day is the day when you can bestow to the Creator the most. Tu B’Av symbolizes receiving for the sake of bestowal, but for the benefit of the future, when Malchut will already be corrected. In the meantime, although the ascent of the worlds takes place, it is due to the awakening from above, not to the work of the lower.

The end of correction takes place on Purim. Tu B’Av is a combination of the receptive desires of Malchut in the presence of all the right conditions that have come out of the four stages, represented as four groups of girls looking for suitors: Hochma, Bina, ZA, and Malchut.

The beauties said: “Turn your eyes to beauty, for a woman is for beauty.” The noblemen said: “Cast your eyes on family, for a woman is for sons.” The wealthy said: “Cast your eyes on the wealthy.” And the unsightly said: “Take us in the name of Heaven and crown us with gold ornaments.” In this way, all the stages passed by: Hochma, Bina, ZA, until the turn of Malchut came, and it turned out that Malchut Shamayim (the Kingdom of Heaven) must be poor and meager, not wealthy, beautiful, and noble. Only through our work can we become loyal to it.

This holiday represents our searches and disappointment in our own strength, our readiness to separate ourselves by any means from the desire to enjoy and our becoming devoted to bestowal, that is, to not demand anything for ourselves. I ask the Creator to provide me with protection against my desire to enjoy, my major enemy. I must hate my egoism to such an extent that I do not succumb to any temptation.

Let my egoism die—it will not get anything! Let me disappear—it does not matter because I have to go through the point of complete restriction and be born on the other side of the barrier, which means the death of my desire to enjoy for my own sake. This will be life and light for me: life is only on the other side of this barrier (Machsom).

To do this, one must reach the fourth stage, Malchut, an ugly, poor, lowborn bride called faith. If I am able to remain faithful to her despite her being poor and meager, then I have gained faith. This is the condition for gaining Malchut: consent to cleave only to her, despite other seductive images.

Faith is accepted without any conditions, otherwise it will not be faith but a calculation or a deal. Faith cannot have any selfish basis. I want to get rid of the egoistic calculation. Otherwise, I will not enter the spiritual world. This is a condition for entry: to cleanse myself of egoistic desires and remain only in bestowal. The property of bestowal is the absence of any calculation of self-benefit.

If I try to achieve faith, I go through all these stages, one after the other, getting acquainted with the “brides” preceding Malchut: beautiful, wealthy, and noble. But in the end, I reach the state when I want nothing but to get rid of all this “nobility.” I want only the Creator to exist and not me. This is how spiritual life begins.

I am ready to give up on all my calculations and cling to the Creator without any reasoning. This is how I become a spiritual seed. I want the Creator’s program to govern me, defining all my behavior, thoughts, and desires. Let a different engine work in me.

An egoistic engine is currently spinning in me, looking for how to gain more, to succeed, and to enjoy itself. I want a new engine to constantly turn me toward the Creator and not to seek anything for itself so that a new program of bestowal will work within me. This means that the upper light is being revealed in me, giving me a new perception of life, and with these new eyes, I see the upper world.²

Of all the “brides,” of all the desires, after a long clarification, we choose the one that requires nothing but adhesion and wants to base all of its reception only on faith. This is the condition for gaining Malchut, receiving for the sake of bestowal.

This bride seems ugly to our desire to enjoy, lowborn, poor, and meager. But precisely when I get nothing for my ego, I can be faithful to the Creator with all my soul. I am ready to die in order to remain faithful to Him. This is the condition for crossing the Machsom.³

Tu B’Av means choosing Malchut Shamayim. After the 9th of Av, I had nothing left for myself; everything collapsed: both the First and the Second Temple. Then the 15th of Av comes when I can base my attitude toward the Creator only on the property of bestowal. Therefore, the 15th of Av is considered the greatest holiday.

Thanks to the revelation of the shattering on the 9th of Av, on the 15th of Av I gain the ability to hold onto the Malchut Shamayim, to choose the right bride, Malchut.

The four brides from whom we choose is our attitude toward the group, the expectation to receive wealth, knowledge, and nobility from it. But in the end, I see that I will get only one thing—through my devotion to them, the achievement of devotion to the Creator. For me, this is the greatest asset.

All this seems ugly to my desire to enjoy. I see nothing good in this group and I would be happy to do away with everyone, but this is exactly the form through which, if I accept it, I can reach the Creator.

The whole world shows me how it hates me because I am engaged in bestowal and how it would support me if I were as egoistic as everyone else. The world is becoming very harsh in this regard. No one blames me for egoistic reception, but everyone attacks me for the aspiration to bestow. If I change, then I am immediately promised a good life and the return of the three profitable brides: the stages Aleph, Bet, and Gimel.

Here, one has to be very straightforward and must not make any compromises. The Creator will confuse me in every possible way. But the condition for crossing the Machsom is to say: “I am better off dead than living such a life.” Then, I will see how all these mirages dissipate and disappear.

A real bride is the one who will be with me provided that I agree to accept her anyway, may she be the ugliest woman in the world. She has neither beauty, nor wealth, nor nobility—nothing attractive. Why do I love her and get close to her? It is because only in this image she brings me to the Creator.

I see that the Creator plays with me through all these mirages, seducing me with wealth, intelligence, knowledge, nobility, bribing my ambition. But in the end, I understand that the greatness of the Creator is in His modesty. Therefore, I need to reduce my pride and my requirements and look not for beauty and nobility, intelligence and wealth, but only for the desire to adhere with all my heart, and then I can get married.⁴

The period of the 9th of Av is the time of death and destruction. But starting from the 15th of Av and further on, from the joyful day of Tu B’Av on which we chose the correct Malchut Shamayim, we begin preparations for the congress: for the connection between us and merging with the Creator already with the correct desire.⁵
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/19, Writings of Rabash “The Fifteenth of Av,” Article 35 (1986)
¹ Minute 25:30
² Minute 29:30
³ Minute 45:55
⁴ Minute 48:40
⁵ Minute 1:16:45

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“Tu B’Av, Building Love Above Hatred” (The Times Of Israel)

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him” (Preparation for Convention in Moldova)

Preparation for Convention

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Conversation with the Kishinev Group

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“The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (Pticha) begins with these words: “The Creator wished to cleanse Israel; hence, He has given them plentiful Torah and Mitzvot (commandments)…” The Creator has a goal and He works toward it. The goal must be achieved through the process that the created beings undergo. The Creator placed this goal before us and He wishes for us to achieve it not by some miracle, but through our own effort and gradual internal changes.

This goal is primary, it precedes our creation; in order to achieve it, we must go by means of Torah and Mitzvot, meaning, to change our desire with the help of the light that reforms. This goal existed prior to the creation of a person in this world, as was the ladder of spiritual degrees that the person must ascend in order to achieve it. The Creator thought about everything in advance and organized it for us; everything is ready.

We must cleanse ourselves of our egoism and by doing so achieve the goal. But we do not negate it because nothing was created in this world needlessly. Thus, if we have the correct attitude toward our nature, made by the Creator, and strive toward the state He has in store for us, we find ourselves on a given path that we must go through.

It is impossible to skip over this path because we acquire the qualities we need while on it, we purify ourselves. We must cleanse our egoistic desire and, through this work, arrive at the intended goal. Such is the desire of the Creator.

This is how Baal HaSulam starts his article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” trying to explain to us, in the briefest way possible, the beginning, the middle, and the end of the path of the person’s spiritual work and the study of the system of the upper worlds. In this article, one must understand that the higher spiritual laws, expanding from the thought of creation, consist of only two parts: the nature of the Creator and the nature of the creation, which must be opposite to the Creator. The final goal is to bring the creation to the full adhesion with the Creator without changing its nature but giving it a different form, which resembles the qualities of the Creator.

Through studying the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” the system of the upper worlds and its unfolding from top to bottom as a result of which our whole reality was built, we realize that all of it sprung from the thought of creation, for the purpose of bringing us to the final goal. This top-down development of the worlds, the spiritual degrees, states, obligates us to conduct certain actions here below in order to use all the means at our disposal and achieve the purpose of our lives. Our inner work must reflect the spiritual qualities described in this article.

We learn about the light working on the desire, building and disseminating from top to bottom, Partzufim, Sefirot, upper worlds. But in fact, we are learning about the actions we must perform in order to have a clear understanding of what our spiritual work has to be like. Thus, we eliminate all prior misconceptions and clearly see what must be done to achieve the goal.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” item 11.
¹ Minute 5:05

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Lesson Preparation

Conversation with the Nuremberg Group

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We must build the Third Temple and after that there will be no exiles. Everything depends on our correction. But it does not mean that we are actually correcting anything—we only raise a prayer and the correction comes from above. We need to understand that only the request depends on us, the need for correction. We need to scrutinize this request, understand what exactly we want to correct: our nature, desire, intention, aiming them toward unity.

The prayer for unity is our main concern. If we raise the right prayer, we will feel how the whole upper force is helping us, building the Third Temple from us.¹

The Creator created the system and when it spread from top to bottom, it revealed an overwhelming desire to enjoy, making it impossible to remain in the intention to bestow. Therefore, the system broke first on the level of Mochin de Haya, the First Temple, and then on the level of Mochin de Neshama, the Second Temple.

Afterward, there was no sanctity left, that is, unity and bestowal. All the parts of the Creation broke and distanced themselves from each other. Our task is to make a correction, to bring the broken fragments, ourselves, back together, and reconnect them. Then, we will realize that it is impossible.

The people of Israel were in spiritual attainment during the First and the Second Temples and were exiled after their destruction, which has been going on for 2,000 years now. All that is left to do, after the breaking and unsuccessful attempts at correction, is to understand what the correction entails. Correction lies only in unity. We are not the ones to execute the unification because we have no such power; all that depends on us is the prayer, the request. This is what we need to learn.

In order to reach the prayer, we must try to connect between each other. We should not be discouraged by our inability to achieve this. Every time we try to unite, we are faced with the futility of this task, but we can not back down. We must go on and on until we reach utter despair and raise our hands in defeat.

We have no knowledge of when this will happen but it surely will at some point. Our task is to keep repeating our efforts until we are certain of our inability to achieve it and come to realize that only the Creator can help us. Because He is the one standing in our way, preventing us from uniting. So, we begin to scream and cry, raise our prayer, and receive the strength from above to unite. When the power of unification begins to work on us, through it, we will understand where we are and what is happening. Until this light comes from above, one can not understand anything. But the light only comes as an answer to our prayer. Therefore, our work is in constant efforts to unite, attempt after attempt, until we reach despair.

On one hand, we do not back down and yearn for correction; on the other hand, we understand that we are unable to do so. This disappointment at our own powerlessness is felt at the same time as the of finally reaching connection with the Creator through our demand of Him. It is written about this: “My sons have defeated me.” Then, we receive the power of correction from above that arranges everything.²

The First and the Second Temples were destroyed from top to bottom. But the Third Temple must be built from the bottom up. After the destruction of the First and the Second Temples, we are left with broken desires that are intertwined with each other. All that is left now is to raise a prayer for their correction.

But we have to know exactly what it is that we are asking for. What can we ask for if we have not attempted anything ourselves? Our request must become more clarified. We want to become one man with one heart in order to reveal the Creator in this single heart. This will become the Third Temple from which the light and understanding will spread to all the people of the world. The whole world will begin to rise with us up the spiritual degrees and corporeality will gradually fade from our senses.³
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/19, Tishaa BeAv (Ninth of Av)
1 Minute 1:20
2 Minute 2:58
3 Minute 10:43

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Building The Third Temple
The Third Temple – In Stone or In the Heart?

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If my goal is to give to the Creator, then it should not be important for me whether I do it from the state of ascent or descent. I make a restriction on myself as if I do not exist, and I am only looking for any opportunity to please the Creator. I constantly live in such a “sandwich”: I only pay attention to my goal to bring joy to the Creator, whether I rise or fall.

Then my attitude to the ups and downs becomes constructive: I evaluate them in terms of what will help me more. Perhaps it is more useful for me to reveal more darkness and all kinds of defects. Already by the fact that I thank the Creator for the evil revealed, I give Him pleasure because I understand that this is preparation for merging with Him. I want to be faithful to Him in bad states just as in good ones and not wait for Him to correct everything.

If I solve the problems and stay in joy, this is a sign that I am on the right track and keep the right direction. There is no good without evil. Evil is a solid foundation with which I can confidently advance to perfect work. I always check where and how, in what form and with what power can I please the Creator as much as possible, attach to Him. I do not strive for Him so that I feel good, but because my whole intention is to merge with Him for the sake of bestowing to Him. Therefore, we can feel perfection in any state so that darkness will shine as the Light, and there will be no difference between darkness and light, day and night, and everything will be united in one great day.

If I do not see myself in such a sandwich, then life will constantly throw me up and down, I will not feel that these jumps are targeted, and I will not be happy about the ups and downs equally.

The Creator is the healer of all diseases. Therefore, when I reveal some kind of breakage, I already have the right medicine. When I reveal the disease, it already means I have a cure: these two processes are inextricably linked. The main joy comes from revealing the flaws. The more we reveal them, the more pleasure we can deliver to the Creator.

If I am ready, I will always be glad for any fall: “Look, there is still a flaw! And here is another one, and more!” I will enjoy and rejoice in revealing defects and regret those that have not yet been revealed. After all, a hidden problem has no chance of resolution, and discovering it is a great blessing from above. If it is manifested, it means it existed before but in disguise.

If the Creator reveals bad qualities, conditions, and broken relationships to us, it is a sign of our progress. We must accept them all with joy because they are sent to us by the Creator with love. We must immediately answer Him with love, gratitude, and blessings for the bad as much as for the good^.1

It is not good if everything goes quietly and smoothly in the group. This is similar to a family: if a husband and wife never argue, then it is not life. According to nature, there must be conflicts so that we understand each other’s weaknesses and love each other no matter what. There must be gaps and connections, and only their alternation gives a sense of life.

We do not need to wait for the relationship to be smooth like a horizontal line. After all, it is known that a flatlined electrocardiogram means death. Life means beatings, blows and overcomings: there must be ups and downs.²
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/19, “To Learn From the Descent During the Time of Ascent”
1 Minute 2:40 – 11:24
2 Minute 16:00

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A Descent Is Really An Ascent
Descent – Ascent

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Submitting Myself to the Influence of the Environment” (Preparation for Convention in Moldova)

Preparation for Convention

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When the importance of spirituality falls in my eyes, it is as if the rod falls out of my hands and turns into a serpent. But these two states are connected: we cannot rise up without going down. “God has made one opposite the other.” The rod holds me up and the serpent drags me down.

If spirituality falls in my eyes and I elevate it, it means that I am walking with the rod. The nature of the rod is such that it constantly falls and each time I have to lift it up. The rod falls, I lift it; it falls again, I lift it again with the help of the ten and the reforming light. At first, we just study this theoretically, but later it turns into practical work. I begin to work with these forces, feel how the ten gives me energy, desire, and support by attracting the upper light and revealing the Creator.

Such a powerful compression occurs inside the group that the force of bestowal is revealed in it. Through this pressure, we squeeze all the egoism out of ourselves and it flows outside. An empty vessel remains there, already without egoistic desires, filled with the light of Hassadim.¹

If someone humiliated me, just spat in my face in front of everyone, what should I do? If this happens in ordinary life, with outside people without any connection to inner work, I must react as it is customary in this world, the same as everyone else: defend myself, complain, that is, act according to the situation. In the external world, I must look like everyone else and not appear strange.

However, if such a conflict occurs with a friend and the friend suddenly insults me, then I have to accept everything. There is no room for calculations. The calculation here is the opposite: everything the friends do is for my benefit.

The Creator shows us His actions more clearly and we must become more delicate and sensitive in order to understand where everything comes from. ²

It is written, “Anyone who is proud, says the Creator, ‘He and I cannot dwell in the same   abode.’” Proud means the one who thinks that he has his own thoughts, his own desires, actions, that he has at least something of his own. To think that I have even a grain of something that belongs to me personally is already pride.

All our work is in completely annulling ourselves so that there will be no one else beside the Creator. From this absolute zero, we must lower ourselves even further, until negative infinity, so all the work that is required after our complete annulment will be done not by us but by the Creator, according to our request.

It turns out that from plus 100 percent of egoism, we descend to zero and then further to minus 100 percent of egoism. In this way, we reveal the right desire, the vessel in which the Creator clothes and begins to act. This is called the revelation of the Creator to the created beings in this world.

We must work with our desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal, meaning, use our egoism to the fullest. By doing our work, we grow our egoism 620-fold and attain a corrected desire that is 620 times greater than the original one.

We lower our egoism all the time, it again erupts and grows even more each time. The light that enters us at the next degree only inflates our ego. Through our work, the light of infinity enters into us for the sake of bestowal, but we immediately fall and want to receive this light for our own sake. Thus, the light throws our little egoism up to the degree of the light that was going to fill us for the sake of bestowal and eventually was received egoistically.

The next egoistic degree comes from the light that I drew for the sake of bestowal, but then I fell and wanted to have it for myself, This is the rod and the serpent: the importance of bestowal drops in my eyes and I must raise it higher and higher. This is how we ascend. Therefore, we reach 620 times more power. 620 times more is the degree of the light from Malchut to Hochma.

It is as if we are inflating our desire to enjoy the upper light with a pump and it expands 620 times. Only we can do this because we are in two opposite states: for our own sake and for the sake of bestowal. The Creator cannot give this to us already prepared; this can only be achieved by working on our correction, through the Torah and commandments. Therefore, it is written: “ There is not a righteous man on earth who will do good and will not sin.” How else can he be able to become even greater righteous if not through the fact that the upper light has entered the desire to bestow and turned into egoistic reception. ³
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/19 , Baal HaSulam, Shamati 59, “About the Rod and the Serpent”
1 Minute 52:40
2 Minute 56:30
3 Minute 1:04:50

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How Do I Not Fall For The Tricks Of The “Serpent”?
Remember The Stick You Throw Away Turns Into A Serpent

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him”

Lesson on the Topic “Dissolving In The Friends” (Preparation for Convention in Moldova)

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