Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The purpose of creation is our correction of the shattering that occurred between us, the egoistic beginning that stands between us which is killing us, creating a feeling of temporary and damaged existence, into a desire to unite “as one man with one heart.” Everyone will perceive the others as himself, not feeling any difference between his friend and himself.

Whether we like it or not, this is the goal, and all of humanity is moving toward it. But of course, there are parts that are more advanced along this path, and others less so. This is not up to us; it depends on the informational genes and desires placed in each of us that determine each person’s place in this process: whether he is at the forefront, nearing, or even entering correction, or if he is trailing in the back where this process and the goal of creation are not even felt.

Our worldwide group Bnei Baruch is honored to be at the very forefront of those who implement the correction of creation in our generation. First, we need to connect with each other, and then the rest of humanity will join us to become as one person with one heart.

Such a connection is called mutual guarantee, a special connection where everyone depends on each other and each person is responsible for all others. We are the pioneers, and the rest of the world will follow. To the extent that we succeed in uniting, we will be able to feel within our common vessel the power of unity, which is called the Creator, the upper Light.

According to the power of our unity, the Creator is revealed more and more, as the Light of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. Yechida is the highest form of connection we can possibly achieve. This power is revealed only because of our efforts and due to our success, and this is why we have been given the science of Kabbalah, the science of connection, the goal of which is to lead a person to love his friend like himself, which is the formula of good and right connection.

The goal of this congress is to scrutinize the conditions needed to achieve the principles of creation, its program, and purpose. Therefore, our goal is to reveal the Creator inside our connection in practice.

To the extent of our success, we will influence all others because we are the center in this generation where the strongest and the most advanced people are concentrated in terms of implementing correction. These forces will spread from us to all who want to join us that feel that a higher power and this entire life pushes them to unite.

These days, the necessity of such connection is becoming apparent all over the world because people are feeling not just their suffering, but also its cause. And this is already the revelation of evil that gradually leads us toward correction.

We have a big task ahead of us and each one has to feel responsible for the rest as an important part of a single system. If he fails to realize his function to the fullest extent, this flaw will be felt in the entire system on all its levels and in all the connections.

The first step in achieving this connection is to separate oneself from one’s own benefit, to raise above one’s “I” and dedicate oneself to the group, like a mother who is completely devoted to her baby. Then the only thing of importance for me will be what benefits or hinders the connection, and each moment I will check myself according to the internal or external conditions that the Creator brings us in order to lead us to the one common soul.

In this common spiritual vessel, the single upper force will be revealed to us, and it will let us enter the mutual guarantee, the feeling of unity, which is the upper spiritual force. That is why we must raise above our “I” and enter the “We.”¹
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2718, Lesson on the Topic “Revealing The Creator In The Connection Between Us” (Preparation for the Virtual Convention 2018)
1 Minute 00:20

Related Material:
A Formula With One Unknown
Introductory Lecture “Purpose of Creation” – 11.16.10
Kabbalists On The Purpose Of Creation, Part 24

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 6, Part 16,  Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 136

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 6, Part 16,  Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 133

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The deeper we delve into explaining the holiday of Hanukkah, the more we are convinced that it contains the entire path, all events, and all states that one who wishes to reveal the spiritual world, the upper force, goes through.

It might seem like some ancient story that has turned into a folk or children’s holiday: lighting candles, eating sweet donuts…

However, in reality, Hanukkah contains the entire struggle of a person as he breaks out of this world, upward. He overcomes all of the obstacles that the Creator places in front of him in order to reveal, above them, the upper world, his eternal and perfect state, the “advantage of Light from the darkness.”

It becomes revealed precisely against the transient, imperfect states that come to us in times of great calamities and wars, the realization of human egoistic nature.

Discernments, discernments, discernments… through all the states that we are destined to undergo. No one treading this path can circumvent or skip any discernment or obstacle; one has to go through them one after another. No one will receive more or less work than the others—each person might have his own accents and measures, but in reality, every one of us goes through every step on this path.

Not only are we all parts of one body, but through the breaking we have also become included in one another and every person is inside everyone. Once, before the breaking, the reciprocal penetration was there only among the bestowing desires.

However, after Adam HaRishon’s downfall of sin, the receiving and bestowing desires intermixed with each other, along with the upper Light that had filled them at the time of the breakage. As a result, every state includes all the others, and only becomes discerned through the lack of correction. Therefore, every person has to go through all of the states.

The quality of bestowal, Bina, must become revealed during Hanukkah. It explains all of our characters to us, our path, the person’s exit from revealing this world to revealing the upper world that shows him what he must separate from and become free of, what he must distance himself from and what he must come closer to, cleave to, connect to, and in what forms.

This is all contained in the holiday of Hanukkah, in the corrections that we have to go through. We could call it “the holiday of spiritual conception and nursing,” that is, a small state for now. Yet it’s already a spiritual state: Even though a person still can’t use them practically, he is already gaining the understanding and forces that belong to the upper, spiritual world.

He enters the degree of Bina, and that is the entrance to the Garden of Eden! Starting from this stage and on, he builds himself in equivalence with the Creator. Before the holiday of Hanukkah, he was only correcting himself in order to rise above his egoism, to become free from it, and separate from it. By reading articles about Hanukkah, we strive to check, discern, and understand the conditions that allow us to acquire the quality of bestowal, Bina.
[218150]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/17, “Lesson on the Topic: Hanukkah According to Kabbalah”

Related Material:
Hanukkah Is A Stop In The Middle Of The Path
The Inner Meaning Of The Hanukkah Holiday
Hanukkah Is A Celebration Of Victory Over Ourselves

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 6, Part 16,  Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 125

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”, Article “Proof of His Work by Experience”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The direct, natural reaction of the desire for the Light is programmed and known in advance, so there is no creation here. After all, “creation” (Beria) means “outside of state” (bar), that is, something new. The creation begins with the opportunity given to the desire to respond in an unnatural way, not instinctively, but according to different, extraneous criterion. The desire has to love the Light not for all kinds of pleasant fillings, but for the fact that the Light is elevated, special, giving, and has exceptional, noble qualities, peculiar only to the Light.

It turns out that the created being appreciates the Light precisely for the fact that it behaves in the opposite way to the nature of the desire: as giving and able to act outside its interest. The desire appreciates this quality. While enjoying the filling, the desire simultaneously realizes that the Light brings pleasure to it, fills it, cares for, and tends to it. It begins to appreciate this attitude like a child who grew up and appreciates his parents’ love and care. In this way, the Kli begins to appreciate the Creator.

In order to elevate the creation to its degree of bestowal, the Creator takes direct pleasures away from it, and enables it to fill itself and enjoy bestowal and not receiving.

In our life, we implement the same scenario. In infancy, we enjoy receiving from our parents, using them and demanding from them. Yet as we grow older, we gradually become separated from our parents, to this extent we begin to understand what they have done for us, and we treat our children in the same way.

The Creator leads us to independence, which appears when we move from the property of receiving to the property of bestowal, that is, when we use our desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal in order to bring enjoyment to the Creator and not to ourselves.

This desire should come from us and should not be imposed by the Light. However, this is possible only under the condition that we are in the ten and bestow to each other, internally connecting with each other. Then through this connection, we receive the Light. We demand through the ten this special power of bestowal and use it. Although this energy of bestowal does not belong to us, we can form the need for it in ourselves.

Instead of the instinctive need for filling and enjoying filling ourselves, we want the power of bestowal and enjoyment from it. This is the purpose of creation: that all created beings enjoy bestowal, following the example of the Creator.

Love Is Stronger Than Nature

The prayer of the common man is to feel pleasant at every moment, and all inanimate nature, plants, and animals ask the same. It is an ordinary, instinctive prayer felt by a person as natural self-care or as the influence of a religion that teaches a person to turn to the Creator with a request for filling.

However, there is a method that teaches us to demand not an egoistic filling in this and in the next world, but the opportunity to become similar to the Creator, to His actions, and enjoy bestowal. Also, you can enjoy bestowal only when you love the one to whom you bestow, as parents enjoy bestowing to their child. By virtue of their love for the children, a parent receives from bestowing to a child even more than if he would take for himself.

This is a proof that love can be stronger than nature. Indeed, we see in inanimate nature, plants, and animals many examples when parents die for their offspring. Their instinct pushes them to sacrifice themselves. It turns out that bestowal illuminated by the power of love is stronger than the desire to enjoy.

Therefore, there are two kinds of prayer. The first one is the prayer of “people in the street” about selfish filling, enjoyment, confidence in the present and in the future, which may be unconscious, instinctive, or conscious. The second prayer is no longer that of one in the street, but in accordance with the Torah, that is, a request for the power of bestowal. In bestowal, the action itself is important and not its result, and I enjoy the fact that I do not expect any response from this action: it comes out of me and this is where everything ends for me. This is what the prayer is devoted to: to receive the ability to bestow, to fill your neighbor according to the example of the Creator, and thereby bestow pleasure to the Creator.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/18, Lesson on the Topic “How do We Organize Ourselves for Prayer”
1 Minute 4:05

Related Material:
A Prayer For Others Helps Everyone
Prayer To The Right Address
Praying For The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Right now is a special period of time of the holiday of Hanukkah. But, in essence, Hanukkah is a process that exists until the very end of correction and is experienced at the beginning of every new degree.

Each time new informational records (Reshimot) from the shattering are revealed in us, we need to make a restriction, a screen, and reflected light, all of which is the essence of the Hanukkah correction.

We are always trying to remain within reason, to live according to our earthly intellect and experience, our habitual egoism accepted by this world. But in contrast, we need to build a different form. All that we see, experience, and understand with our hearts and minds is revealed only within our egoistic organs of perception, as it is written: “They have eyes and see not, they have ears but hear not.”

We want to experience what is happening in the desire to bestow, which is called faith above reason, deciding that everything comes from one upper force, the good that does good. And so each moment.

There are moments we are able to do this and other times we are not successful, but this war goes on continuously. Essentially, this is the war of the Maccabees against the Greeks. This war is being waged within reason, within our experience of this world, our rational minds and our philosophies, within our egoistic mind with which we built so many systems of connections between us.

We are fighting to establish a different form of existence, acknowledging that all our sensory experiences and perceptions are wrong. This is a false picture, a false perception of reality, because it appears within the egoistic mind.

Through the perception of reality within our rational minds, we need to try to feel that everything comes from only one, absolutely benevolent upper force. And every form perceived within the mind is only given to us in order to raise us to different perception, to faith above reason.

In other words, we agree that everything comes from the Creator and this is the specific form with which He can bring us to the true perception of reality, to the world of truth. We must try to establish the truth at every moment 24 hours every day, despite all the impressions in one’s earthly feelings and rational mind, which are not subject to doubt, that is, within reason.

Also, we do not run from this rational perception, because “…one against the other He created them.” We do not cross anything out, we only try to process it correctly: one against the other until we are able to develop understanding above reason for each understanding within reason.

That is how we attain the perception of spiritual reality and begin to function on two levels: on the material level, observing all its laws and rules accepted among the people of this world, and also in the true spiritual reality.

Then the upper Light is revealed because we are now able to light the jug of oil according to all the conditions, and in this way, we attain the revelation of the Creator and the upper world.

During the day, one day after the next, and every moment, we must try to see ourselves in this battle, imagining the picture within reason and juxtaposed against it, the picture above reason. This is the war of the Maccabees against the Greeks: Greeks are within reason and the Maccabees are above it.
[218105]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/17, Lesson on the Topic: “Hanukkah by the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

Related Material:
Hanukkah Is A Stop In The Middle Of The Path
Hanukkah Is A Celebration Of Victory Over Ourselves
The Inner Meaning Of The Hanukkah Holiday

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 6, Part 16,  Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 121

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”, Article “Clarification of the Excerpt from the Mishnah: “Everything Is in Deposit, and a Fortress Spreads Over All of Life”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →