Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 92
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Newspaper, “The Nation”
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Turning to the upper force, the Creator, is the most important thing we have. A worker of the Creator, that is, a person who wants to advance on the spiritual path faster than usual, is distinguished by the fact that he or she asks to advance. Everyone advances, every creature, everything is returning to its root, to the complete adhesion that already exists but is concealed from us and needs to be revealed. The natural course of development requires a lot of time, suffering, and blows along the way. However, a person has an opportunity to pursue the advancement by oneself.
Initially, he does not feel such a need in himself; otherwise, everybody would be asking and begging for this. We must look for the correct deficiency and if we discover this deficiency for the Creator, we will be advancing faster than by the usual path of suffering. This path of acceleration (Achishena) does not depend on time but only on our efforts, on our yearning to connect and reveal the next desired state, to want it to be revealed.
By raising our prayer, our request, we accelerate time, and that is why we are called Israel; otherwise, we are considered the nations of the world. This is the whole difference between Israel and the nations of the world. Israel is aiming straight to the Creator (Yashar-El), yearning to reveal Him and adhere to Him above time, that is, faster than it was set by nature. By accelerating time, we become workers of the Creator.
There are periods of such descents when we agree with everything that will happen, losing any hope. We fall to the state of an ordinary person, but then we wake up again by the influence from above. So we move through descents and ascents, that is, a relative disconnection from and connection to the Creator. In the descent, we come to terms with everything that we have, falling to the degree of a beast. Yet, during the ascent, as soon as the Creator awakens us, we are prepared to invest efforts, searching how to strengthen ourselves and to advance more.
States are constantly changing: a black band, then a white one. The Creator seemingly helps us more, then less, and we need to raise our prayer. In all the descents and ascents, our participation is minuscule, but it is precisely what is included in the correction and develops us. In spirituality, it does not matter how big or small you are but how much you have added to your desires and develop them.1
The truth is not as we imagine it according to our mind and feelings. “They have eyes and see not; they have ears and hear not.” It turns out that we will never be able to discover the Creator directly but only through the concealment, by faith above reason.
In fact, the Creator is closest to us exactly when we feel His concealment. He comes closer to us and then we discover that we do not feel Him, do not understand, and do not know. After all, a certain force approaches, elusive to and unattainable by our perception.
But this is not a state of an ordinary person who simply feels and understands nothing. We feel the concealment before us and our inability to reveal it through our sensory organs. It is precisely because the Creator is coming closer that I discover that I am unable to reach Him. What we call concealment, descent, is the time of greatest closeness with the Creator.2
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/19, Prayer
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 11:00
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Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 92
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Newspaper, “The Nation”
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There are people who are used to praying and there are those who have never prayed and are not accustomed to thinking of themselves as dependent on a higher power, on fate. However, for the one who studies the wisdom of Kabbalah, all these differences become insignificant. One no longer relates to prayer as to a habitual action familiar from childhood. The study takes a person through all kinds of states that cleanse one from all previous confusions. Now a person understands that he or she does not have any connection with the Creator and all requests were artificial.
It takes a long time until one begins to feel that nothing will help one advance, understand, feel, and connect with the system of creation. No matter how much effort one invests in the friends, in the study, nothing helps. A person understands with more and more clarity the complete hopelessness of one’s attempts and comes to the only conclusion: “Only if the Creator helps me, will I be able to do something and come out of this state.”
Only the Creator can help me, no one else, not even myself. With the help of all means, I managed to undergo different states, ascents and descents, to experience all kinds of sensations in order to eventually understand that nothing will help me but the Creator. Here I truly reach the need for prayer. If the Creator does not help, then nothing will.
So, what should one do to receive the help of the Creator? How can I convince myself that help will only come from above in order to reach this correct request that the Creator will answer? This is what Kabbalah teaches: how and what to ask and how to prepare myself so that the request will bring the help of the Creator.1
Prayer is work in the heart. The heart determines all desires and the brain only helps to realize them, to prioritize them. Working in the heart means arranging desires such that they will be ready to change.
This is work above reason. If you pray for what you know, then it is a usual egoistic prayer of a person of this world and therefore does not cause any significant changes in you. Any animal prays because prayer is the feeling of lack in all the atoms, molecules, and organs, the whole body. The Creator initially created a deficiency; He Himself is complete, and therefore, He created a created being that feels a deficiency.
True prayer does not come from the deficiencies created in us by the Creator, that is, from the lack of money, health, and other problems that the Creator awakens in each of us. We see that the entire world is suffering from some kind of deficiency because the matter of creation is the will to receive, which lacks fulfillment.
However, by creating such a creature, the Creator wanted a person to ask to be elevated so that he will not remain inside the desire asking for its fulfillment, but to rise to a higher degree, above these deficiencies.2
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/19, Prayer
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 11:10
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Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Newspaper, “The Nation”
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The main work of a person is to add to the ascent the lack of the greatness of the Creator that he felt previously during the descent. These states are called descents precisely because the greatness of the Creator disappears—there is no Creator between us. We want to add the lack we felt in the descents to the ascent.
It is clear to us that both ascents and descents come from above and do not depend on a person. The only thing that depends on us is how to work with both states, meaning to connect the minus, the lack of the greatness of the Creator within me, to the plus, to the greatness of the Creator, that glows upon us now during the ascent. I myself awaken the lack of the greatness of the Creator, trying to feel, evaluate, measure, and add it to the ascent, to the feeling of the greatness of the Creator that I now receive.
This is the person’s work, everything else comes from above. We need to learn this art of evaluating ascents and descents only with respect to the Creator and not with any other feeling. We need to feel with our whole being the full depth of the separation from the Creator, the absence of His control, and also how this greatness of the Creator fills us in order to work between these two poles.
During the day, we should try to live only according to one parameter: the greatness of the Creator, checking whether it is smaller or greater, disagreeing with its diminution. I constantly check the intensity and character of the greatness of the Creator that fills me so that it will be the only thing that directs me in life.1
My whole life should be examined only with respect to the greatness of the Creator. This is how I check all my words and actions, trying to increasingly feel the greatness of the Creator. It is my only goal; everything else is secondary. Gradually, this whole world loses its importance and I enter another world, another dimension, where I am connected with the upper one.2
The greatness of the Creator is measured by the extent to which it compels me to love my friends. It is written: “From love of the created beings to love of the Creator.” But why should I love the created beings? It is because I want to bring contentment to the Creator. The Creator is the goal; He is the first, and because of Him, I need the love for the created beings, for the friends.
The Creator is the cause, but the implementation is in the group where I must reach love of friends. Therefore, the Creator becomes the means. Once I attain love of friends, I can concentrate on love of the Creator.3
As soon as I feel that there is no longer the Creator amid all my thoughts, I immediately grab the lifeline: the group. Together we undergo ascents and descents as if floating on a raft in a rough sea. One side rises and falls, then the other side, and we maintain the balance between us. Together, we think how to maintain the general balance and try to feel the state of each of us, which is best felt in such an unstable situation. Our life depends on this.
There is a common feeling of the greatness of the Creator in the group, and therefore our ascents and descents become common. Each one invests his part in them so that we would constantly rise. Each one rises and falls rocking our raft on the waves, and so we advance.
This is our game with the Creator: we stand on one side, the Creator on the other side, and the egoism created by Him in the middle. We keep the raft in balance by trying to connect in one heart.
We try to hold onto the Creator in the center of the group so that His greatness would hold us and connect us together. The Creator is in the center of the raft and is playing with us. We are overcoming both external disturbances: the waves of life, underwater rocks, and the internal ones, constantly balancing our common feeling of the greatness of the Creator, keeping Him between us. He must be the first and the last, that is, we receive everything from the Creator and constantly come back to Him in our work.4
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/19, To Learn From the Descent in the State of Ascent
1 Minute 0:25
2 Minute 23:10
3 Minute 24:50
4 Minute 39:10
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Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 85
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Lesson on the Topic “Preparing for Unity day”
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The laws of perfection must operate in the ten, the HaVaYaH: equality, mutual integration, mutual bestowal, annulment before each other. It is very important to build relations of equality in the ten in every possible way. All the differences that we see today between us, distinguishing some as more successful, smarter, faster, in fact, do not mean anything. As it is written: “They have eyes but see not.” I can say this from my own experience.
It is the people who can hardly perceive any word associated with spiritual work, but, at the same time, persistently make efforts to continue at all costs that will achieve the greatest success. They will rise above everybody, not those who were given exceptional abilities from above: a high intellect, intelligence, and sensitivity. These corporeal attributes do not help in entering spirituality, but on the contrary, they stand in the way. There are stories about how disciples cried, begging the Creator to take away their natural talents and lower them to an ordinary level.
Therefore, with understanding, we should relate those friends who have difficulty sitting in the ten, studying, associating one word with another in order to understand the material. In the end, these people will succeed in spirituality more than others; it will just take more time and effort. Therefore, we cannot neglect or give up on any friend because of him not understanding anything. If the Creator brought someone to the group, we must take care to ensure that he or she is treated the same as everyone else.
There can be no neglect or preference toward anybody in the ten—everyone should be absolutely equal, not just externally, formally, but I must really feel inside that I perceive everyone in this way. Difficulties in understanding do not relate to spirituality. It is not an exam.
Building equality in the ten is even more important than developing a deficiency for the revelation of the Creator. If there is no equality, then the deficiency for the Creator will also be distorted because we will be turning to Him from an imperfect Kli.1
We should not neglect any friend in the ten. The heart should ache for everyone who does not come. We must pray for him and work on this, feeling that everything depends on us.2
Equality between the friends in the ten is built by the fact that I compensate for my attitude. One seems smarter, the other more devoted, the third one quick-witted, the fourth cunning, and I have to complete my perception of everyone so that each would be perfect and flawless.
Each one is perfection itself, there is nothing to add—this is how I should perceive the friends. In this way, I correct myself so as not to see any flaws in them. I bring everyone to one general level and they become a perfect ten for me, elevated and corrected in my eyes. The more I integrate in the ten, the deeper I penetrate into the Creator, who is in the friends. After all, it is the Creator who develops and supports them.
By connecting the friends together on an equal level, I open the path to the Creator for myself, to His revelation. The ten is like a sight of a gun through which I see the Creator, or like binoculars that need to be focused.3
In the ten, it is necessary to invest all our strength in unity and connection so that all become as one to such an extent that it will become clear that this one—the connection between us—is the Creator, not the group, not simply a connection. By penetrating deeper inside, we will begin to feel the essence of our connection, and this will be the Creator. There is no other way.
There are people for whom it is very difficult to hear this, but it is specifically because they have a very high soul and this is still distant from them. It could take another ten years of persistence and effort, but then they will achieve more than anybody else. Therefore, there should be no difference for us in what way one perceives and understands. It is said that “one does not learn with the mind” but through equality. One who can perceive everyone as equal and himself as the smallest of all, as the only one in need of correction, is on the right path.4
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/19, “Deficiency For The Greatness of the Creator”
1 Minute 16:00
2 Minute 1:22:30
3 Minute 1:23:00
4 Minute 1:35:00
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If you make the correct, true estimation, it will immediately become clear that you cannot ask for yourself. After all, by this I separate myself from the common soul in which the Creator resides, from the Shechina. By asking for myself, I cut myself off from the Shechina. It is necessary to ask for everyone, and to the extent in which I can connect with the Shechina and immerse in this union, I will feel that the Shechina is where the Creator lives, and I can reveal Him, get closer and even adhere to Him. Everything depends only on how I increasingly attach to the general Kli.
Therefore, asking for yourself is equivalent to cutting yourself off from the source of life. We just do not feel it and get confused. But a person who sees the system understands that it is very simple and that the Creator is inside it. We need to ask only for one thing: to belong to this Shechina, to the system in which we are all included but do not realize it because of the concealment. It is stupid to ask for yourself because by this request a person distances himself from the good.1
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/19, The Ten is One Whole HaVaYaH
1 Minute 1:50
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Everything is not so difficult: you need to join the structure called the ten. By entering it correctly, I prepare myself for meeting the Creator. I look into the ten as if through a magnifying glass, focusing it on the Creator, and begin to see and discern Him.
This is a simple system: me – the ten – the Creator. If I want to reveal Him more, then I need a larger device called the ten, that is, including an increasing number of details involved in focusing and directing toward one heart. The Creator will then reveal Himself more.
This goes on and on until all the circles, all the participants gather into one common Kli of the whole of humanity. Accordingly, the Creator will be fully revealed to those who nullified themselves before the ten, before the HaVaYaH, built by Him from all the inhabitants of this world.
Therefore, it is written: “As though you have made Me.” The Creator does not exist by Himself but only as the correct total result of all the participants in His revelation. This device is at our disposal and we are obliged to use it without being distracted by any other work. Everything that happens must be invested in the creation of this instrument, the ten, in order to reveal the Creator through it.1
By working on our connection, we achieve love for our neighbor as we love ourselves. And through it, one can already attain love for the Creator, focusing all of one’s desires and aspirations through the group on the Creator. This is how we connect all of creation together, which is concentrated in the group and attains adhesion with the Creator. Therefore, first, it is necessary to achieve love for one’s neighbor, and only then will we be able to say: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” according to the rule: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one,” that is, a person, the group, and the Creator.
We make an instrument for the revelation of the Creator from the group. It is similar to binoculars, where we need to adjust the sharpness in order to see the desired goal. All our lines of sight should focus at one point so that we look directly at the Creator.
If we do not initially aim at the Creator, then we have nothing to focus on. As long as the group is out of focus, then I do not see the Creator called “come and see” (Bo-Re) behind it. In order to “come” and “see” Him, I need to keep everything together: myself, the Creator, and the group focused on Him.
It is impossible to create the focus in the group if I do not imagine the Creator behind it. Otherwise, I have nothing to focus on, that is, the Creator should be first. But how can it be possible to focus on the Creator without a group? Where will I adjust the lens? I am the one who twists the lens, inducing sharpness.2
In order to focus the group, I must imagine the Creator, that is, the ideal properties of bestowal and love. Then, I try to see the group as an instrument, a magnifying glass, binoculars, with which I direct sharpness on these qualities, focusing all our aspirations on them. Although we have different desires, we concentrate them on one goal, uniting them into one desire and essence.
We do not focus on any distant object, but we imagine the Creator being revealed within us: “come and see.” We focus not on the Creator Himself, but on our Kelim where the Creator will be revealed. All this work is aimed at achieving the right connection of our desires (Kelim) in the group.
If it seems to us that there is no success, then it means the opposite. We become closer and move closer to the Creator, and therefore, we reveal our own defocusing within ourselves with ever higher resolution. We must ask the Creator to help us unite, to reveal the ever-growing similarity of our intentions despite the ever-increasing differences in desires.3
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/19, The Ten is One Whole HaVaYaH
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 5:15
3 Minute 21:35
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Daily Audio Version-MP3
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