On Rosh HaShanah we ask the Creator to make us a “head” and not a “tail” in the new year. This means that we want to work according to intention and thought, not according to the force of desire. We want to rise above the desire toward the thought, which is called faith above reason, and to be concerned with the intention with which we use our desire.

We do not want the desire to determine our actions as it does today. Now, we are under the control of the desire, which is driving us, determining our actions and intentions. All our intentions are aimed only at fulfilling our desires.

We, however, want to correct the relationship between the intention and the desire so that the intention would govern the desire. The intention for the sake of bestowal, which is called “faith,” will rule over the desire that will realize this intention.

This is a big shift in the spiritual work. In the beginning of the path, we only pay attention to our desire and want to realize it. Then we begin to scrutinize our intentions, which for now are also egoistic. We then, however, see that intention can be different. The reforming Light influences us and changes our attitude toward our desire to enjoy and the Creator’s desire.

As a result of working in the group, the study, and the influence of the reforming Light, we begin to perceive the Creator as more important. We have not yet revealed the Creator, but we already feel that it is important for us to think about Him, to give Him joy, to come closer to Him, and to adhere to Him. This already pertains to the intention; we ask the Creator for an opportunity to act in this way.

It follows that there is no good or evil in the world. It only appears this way to me so that I would have an opportunity to come to know the upper force, to discern it, unite with it, to attain it,  and to understand the Creator.

That is, in the beginning, we are governed by the desire, and in the end, by the intention. It does not matter if the desire is to receive or to give, whenever possible I use every desire only for the sake of realizing my intention to bestow.
[232221]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/22/18, Lesson on the Topic: “Rosh HaShana”

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Conception”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth”

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Conception”

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 3, Part 10, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 1

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth”

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Conception”

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 3, Part 10, Item 13

Writings of Rabash, Vol. 3, “Concerning Truth and Faith” (1985)

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We cannot directly measure our attitude to each other. We can only measure how much we love or hate each other with respect to some foreign object. Let’s say that you love something and I hate it, or you love it more than I do; even this love is relative. But only in this way it can be measured.

The technique of inner, spiritual, precise measurement of people’s connection with each other is based on this because through it they also connect with the Creator. This examination should be very personal because we all have completely different desires. We should examine how much we can discern this connection at all. But you cannot doubt that if I love what you hate, then we cannot connect.

This is how we can examine our attitude to each other. There are billions of different discernments in the world, and if we want to love each other, then our attitude to each of them must coincide. Then, this is called adhesion.

How else can I check you and can you check me? It is only possible with respect to the standard that is outside of you and me with which we can compare ourselves and determine whether we coincide or not. The standard by which we examine our attitude to the Creator is the group because it is the place where we are together with Him.

If I relate to the group correctly, then I discover that the Creator is already there in adhesion with the friends. As it is written: “I dwell among my own people.” He is already in the group; the only problem is that I am not there. Therefore, all my work is to cleave to the nine friends and to complete them to a full ten.

To the extent I cleave to the group, I adhere with the Creator. There is no other frame of reference. The group is the benchmark, the standard, the tuning fork through which I calibrate myself. At that, there is no need for friends to agree. If I become included in them without any conditions, annulling myself in everything, I will discover that they accept me with all their heart and soul and the Creator is between them. The group is in the state of final correction.

The Group Is My Spiritual Tuning Fork

It is impossible to measure our attitude to each other or our attitude to the Creator directly,  but only through an external standard that is neither in Him, nor in us, but in the middle. In this standard that is between us, we can find what connects and separates us.

This standard is the group. If I cleave to the friends in the group, then to the same extent I find myself in adhesion with the Creator. The group gives me an opportunity to measure specific parameters: “height” and “weight” of my love and hatred through which I reach the adhesion with the Creator.

According to the extent of my adhesion with the ten, I can determine the extent of my fulfillment with the Light. After all, I have no way to measure the Light itself but only indirectly, through the group. Through the common desires in the group, I begin to feel the Light that is filling it.

I can only feel pleasure in my desires, and this is not enough. I need to check how, through the fulfillment of these desires, I connect with the one who fills them and whom I fill. Therefore, there is the condition: “And from love of friends one can reach love of the Creator.” We cannot scrutinize the Light itself but only the desires fulfilled by it. Just as we do not speak about electricity itself but only about electrical phenomena. It is significant that electricity does not pass through the wire, but around it. Therefore, the group is a perfect measure of my adhesion with the Creator, like a tuning fork by which we evaluate the sound of the string in a musical instrument. It is impossible to say anything about the string before I touch it and it makes a sound. Only by the desires (Kelim) is it possible to scrutinize the Light.

An example for this are the notes by which we evaluate a melody. Notes indicate which strings to touch or which keys to press. This is the score of desires with which we work to hear the sounds of music within ourselves. The note symbolizes not the sound itself, but an instrument which makes it. Therefore, by attaining the instruments of connection with the group, we reach adhesion with the Creator.¹
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/18, Lesson on the Topic: “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”
1 Minute 9:10

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Conception”, Part 1

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 3, Part 10, Item 5

Lesson on the Topic “Conception”, Part 2

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Conception”

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 3, Part 10, Item 2

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Rabash, Article 31 “Concerning Yenika [Nursing] and Ibur [Impregnation]” (1986)

Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 3, Part 10, Item 1

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

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What’s most important is the force of bestowal, the force of faith, and Malchut, the desire to receive, always remains under restriction. The restriction never disappears; it is only possible to rise above it. Within Malchut, we experience darkness and helplessness; that is, we want to grab, take, and possess everything around us, but it will never work. The restriction will always be there and Malchut will remain empty without Light.

In this world we are given an illusion that we can fulfill ourselves, but this is only so that it is possible to exist and discover the higher laws of nature: bestowal instead of reception, Bina instead of Malchut, faith instead of reason, Light instead of darkness, good instead of evil. We are building an anti-egoistic screen, separating reason from faith, the desire to receive from the desire to bestow.

We are refusing to use our desires to receive pleasure directly. Instead, we want to use them in the opposite form, rising “above them” in order to bestow. Of course, we understand that we do not have the strength for this because our entire nature is based on reception. But, in certain people in whom the point in the heart is revealed that awakens them to spirituality, there is an opportunity to actualize this.

The point in the heart is the seed of faith, a spark left over from the screen that existed even before the shattering of the collective soul. This spark appears within the desire to receive, within the darkness, within the egoistic reason.

Reason is constantly growing under the influence of the internal engine of evolution: spiritual and material development. However, faith grows within us only when we draw the upper Light to ourselves, which then draws us closer to the source. The upper Light acts on us and changes us.

The Light’s influence on us depends on our effort to rise in faith above reason, to use our desire to receive as little as possible only when it is necessary. Simultaneously, we act out building an environment within the group as if we are already in the desire to bestow and love and unity dwells between us.

Even though we have neither the strength nor the desire for this, we still make an effort and draw the surrounding, reforming Light to ourselves. This is the same Light that filled our soul in its corrected form before the shattering. This Light lights up the point in the heart—the spark left in us from the screen that existed in the collective soul, in Adam HaRishon—and the spark gradually grows into a screen.

That is how we arrive at the restriction (the screen) and the reflected Light and receive a new Kli (vessel). The desire to receive—reason, Malchut—remains in the dark, while above it, the Light builds a screen and the sensation of the qualities of bestowal and unity. To the extent that this occurs, we feel the quality of bestowal or, in other words, faith. We become aware that it comes to us from a certain force, and depending on our similarity of form with it, we experience the general quality of bestowal or, in other words, the Creator.

We can then make a comparison. Depending on the difference between our quality of bestowal and the general quality of bestowal, the Creator, we experience either concealment or its opposite, revelation and attainment. This is how, through concealment and revelation, we begin to attain the Creator. The relationship between us and the Creator is called “this world” or the extent of revelation or concealment of the upper force from us.¹

“Reason” is the way in which I see and experience myself and the world. I need to make a restriction on this. That is, I need to live not in this reason, but above it. I want to understand the world differently, in the way it is seen by the Creator, as the world of bestowal, unity, and love. Then it is as if I live in two worlds: in the reason of this world, which I perceive through my five sensory organs, and in faith, in the reality I would be in if I were corrected together with the friends, a corrected group and the Creator clothed in us.

Between us we build the type of connection where the upper force can be expressed because of the similarity of our qualities, all the way to its complete revelation. In other words, we construct a spiritual society.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 8/17/18, Lesson on the Topic “The Work Within Reason And The Work Above Reason”
1 Minute 00:30
2 Minute 10:30

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Faith Above Reason
Our Role In Faith Above Reason

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “The Work Within Reason And The Work Above Reason”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

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