Preparation for the Lesson 

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 14

Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Congress”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 33

Lesson on the Topic: “Selections from the Source on the Topic of Connection Between Internality and Externality in the Torah to Israel’s Redemption”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Comment: One of our listeners wrote that his child has no interest in life and says that he wants to die.

Answer: An aspiration for something else that is beyond this life is already appearing in the world and is especially apparent among children. Previously there was never such a problem as childhood depression. But today it is appearing at a very young age.

Depression among adults didn’t exist 100 years ago either. It appeared as minor sadness or melancholy because of boredom, especially among the nobility. But it has manifested intensively only in our time. And this disease is a lack of meaning in life, and many people suffer from it.

However, this is also progress since nature intentionally arouses such sensations in us.

Question: How long does it take a person to reach a state in which he can look at his body as if it were a foreign object, as if it were a little puppy by his side?

Answer: This is independent of time, since the wisdom of Kabbalah has become part of our lives in the 20^th century, people are continuously developing internally. So it is impossible to say now how long it will take every individual to reach that state.  

A person who reaches it now may have tried to attain it for years, while it may take someone who comes five or ten years from now only a couple of months. People are born today with a different potential of spiritual power, and in a couple of months, they perceive what took us years.
[167809]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/15

Related Material:
Rising Above The Gaping Emptiness
From Depression To Creativity
Depression -The 21st Century Plague

Filed under: Children, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Depression, Inner Work, Perception, Society, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Preparation for the Lesson 

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 6

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 27

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Preparation for the Lesson 

Writings of Rabash, “Dargot HaSulam,” Article 818

Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Congress”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Inheritance of the Land”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Preparation for the Lesson 

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 37

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 25 

Lesson on the Topic: “The Answer to Terrorism — Strengthening the Foundations of the Nation”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind And Before”:

Surrender, Division, Mitigation (Sweetening) 

There are three discernments required of a man in the desirable path: surrender, division, mitigation (sweetening), meaning “Lights with deficient writing,” since the Light of this world was created out of darkness, “as far as light excelleth darkness,” and “What good is a candle during the day?”, its light does not shine in the daytime. This is the meaning of the Klipa (peel) that precedes the fruit. For this reason, who becomes a partner to the Creator in the act of creation, brings the Light out of the darkness, meaning considers how lowly and base one is, compared to the sublime Kedusha(holiness), and how filthy are one’s clothes. Through it, the Light becomes surrounded.

And in regards to the Creator’s question, “to fear the Great and Terrible Name,” he intensifies with great strength to subdue the evil within, so the evil servant and evil maid will surrender to the mistress, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanness, until he feels in his soul that the awakening for externality has expired and surrendered. At that time, he will be rewarded with “division,” distinguishing between the Light and the darkness, and will not replace bad for good and good for bad. And should he replace, meaning awaken to a necessary inclination, it will be dedicated to the Creator only. This is considered “mitigation,” the craving for the Creator, as in genuine love.

This discernment comes after he separates between the good and evil, between the Creator’s sublimity and his own baseness, and keeps “So shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee” in himself, for he will be so very ashamed of its doers. Then he will be rewarded with mitigating the remains of his inclination, which cannot be rooted out, and elevate them to their genuine root.

Here again the basic principle with which it is so hard for us to come to terms with is mentioned. It isn’t so obvious in our world that the good is built only on top of evil. Sometimes, it does happen that way, but we don’t see a constant pattern.

We are attracted to the good in our world, unaware that it is built on evil because, of course, the connection between the branch and the root is kept. There is no appetite if you are not hungry, and if there is no appetite, you cannot enjoy a meal, and it is so with everything. People pay lots of money and invest great energy and effort in order to awaken the desire within them. When there is no desire, a person doesn’t want to live. He doesn’t want to enjoy or to move. The lack of desire is a very problematic state for a person.

But in the spiritual world, desire is all our matter. The entire spiritual world is made of desire. We are not aware of it in the corporeal world because the desire is dressed in different forms and appears to us in the form of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and humans. We need to get used to, understand, and get closer to the perception that there cannot be any good without the revelation of evil that precedes it. Therefore, it is created as the advantage of the Light from the darkness.

But we can distinguish the Light from the darkness. If I discover in all my senses to what extent my nature is egoistic—that it is only a desire to receive for myself, and I suffer from my recognition of evil—I can surrender and distinguish the good from the evil and then reach the stage of mitigation. These three phases are necessary in order to turn the darkness into Light.

I don’t erase the previous evil state. It always remains below so that in contrast to it, I will be able to build my stature, my attainment, the gap between the Light and darkness. This contrast is very important. So, if darkness disappears in spirituality, the Light also disappears.

Thus, we should be ready to face the fact that evil doesn’t disappear from the world, but it is actually above it that we build the good state, in faith above reason. These two states are kept one in contrast to the other, and that’s the way it is until the end of correction. This contrast seems to disappear there; good and evil are built one against the other by our exertion and they become one that stem from one force, from the Creator.

These three phases—surrender, division, and mitigation—match the three states of Ibur (Conception), Yenika (Nursing), and Mochin (Maturity). First, a person surrenders, then he differentiates between evil and good, and annuls his evil before the upper. Then, he begins to distinguish, check, and clarify which attributes are good and which are bad, i.e., he begins to grow inside the upper. Then, he begins to mitigate evil by building the good above it.
[127988]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/14

Related Material:
The Ego’s Evil Under The X-Ray Of Hatred
Patience Is The Most Important Quality
Through Kabbalah, It Is Possible To Suffer With Understanding And Love

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

Preparation for the Lesson 

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 30

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 22 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Nation”   

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam tells us in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” how a person’s soul grows and how he attains his spiritual Partzuf when he ascends the spiritual ladder from one level to the next.

Our desire to receive is revealed in its shattered form on the levels of shattering. First these are big, general, simple, and easy levels. After all, the whole correction is fulfilled from the simplest level to the most complicated and the first steps help us advance to more difficult steps later on.

This is why we begin with the root level of the shattered vessels, from level of zero Aviut (thickness) , from the upper level of the still nature in us. When we correct it, we go further, deeper, into the second level and correct the vegetative level in us. Then the animate level follows according to the same principle, and finally we correct the speaking level in us. This is how we advance both individually and generally.

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” item 52: “After he permanently purifies the vegetative part of his will to receive, he permanently rises to the world of Yetzira, where he attains the permanent degree of Ruach. There he can also attain the Lights of Neshama and Haya from the Sefirot Bina and Hochma that are there, which are considered Neshama and Haya of Ruach, even before he has been granted with purifying the animate and speaking parts permanently.”

We permanently attain what is typical of each world, while we attain what belongs to upper worlds temporarily as an addition.

Therefore, the acquisition of the Lights of Nefesh Ruach of the world of Yetzira permanently is accompanied by additional temporary attainments of the higher Lights of Haya and Yehida because every spiritual part includes all the other parts inside it.

Similarly, in the world of Beria, in addition to the Lights Nefesh and Ruach, I finally attain the Light of Neshama, and the Lights Haya and Yechida remain a temporary addition.

Question: I don’t understand what a permanent attainment or a temporary attainment mean.

Answer: Permanent means that I don’t lose my current level because I am already in it. I have corrected it and now it is mine.

On the whole, spiritual corrections are accumulative. Every state that I correct includes Sefirot that operate from the bottom up, and I attain them permanently. But there are Sefirot that I attain temporarily. I have corrected permanently everything that is below, but every level includes all the vessels KHB ZON and all Lights of NRNHY. I correct part of them temporarily, only in the framework of the current level.

Question: How can I correct something permanently if I enter the state of Ibur (conception) each time and discover increasingly more internal states?

Answer: Ibur is the building of the spiritual vessel in faith above reason, while permanently means something else.

If I reach the level of “professor,” for example, but like Steven Hawking, I discover a mistake in my earlier perception, does that mean that I lose all the previous knowledge I have? No, now I simply discover a greater Aviut of my desires, which is actually an ascent. It is actually the high level of professorship and the great scientific basis that enable me to experience such a dizzying descent and the collapse of all my earlier theories.

Although this leaves me in a great deficit, it is on top of all the earlier “pros” that haven’t disappeared. Later I will rise from the fall to an even higher level.

Here the question regarding the constancy remains and we’ll come back to it.
[127700]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/14, Writing of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Gradual Implantation Of The Creator Into The Creature
Equal And Different
Born Again On Every New Degree

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

Sometime after we reach a group, we hear that it is up to us to work on the connection between us, to become “as one person with one heart,” meaning to reach Arvut (Mutual Responsibility). So, we try to get closer to each other. For this, everyone needs to make some preparation.

Sometimes it takes several months and sometimes years until a person hears that it is only within the connection between friends, within a group, between people, that the Creator, the characteristic of bestowal, is revealed: the Kli and the Light.

It takes a lot of time until a person ultimately begins to work on the connection, on the importance of the goal, the importance of the upper force, bestowal, and the importance of the connection within which he realizes this idea, and the more effort he invests in love of friends, the stronger the rejection and various disturbances. They begin almost immediately.

There are people who are willing to endure all of the difficulties and work on the connection between them, despite all the obstacles. And others don’t realize that this is how it should be, and when they feel rejection, they don’t understand that this rejection comes from the Creator. They think that the rejection is justified, and they leave the game and quit the study.

If the person still invests effort in connection with the friends and wants to see his relationships whole and illuminated by the importance of the goal and the importance of the Creator, then with the passage of time, he begins to receive the Light that Reforms. He feels how a particular characteristic of Hafetz Hesed (Delighting in Mercy) is created within him. He already thinks less about himself and is more concerned about realizing the goal, wholeness. This is called “his father gives the white.”

The more that the person invests in holding onto the state of Bina, the state of absolute bestowal, the white of the father, the sensation of wholeness, the importance of the goal, and all the means that lead to it, the more he advances. Even though he experiences more ascents and descents, they are on the same line, the “right line.”

After that, the “mother gives the red” reaches him: criticism, the sensation of deficiency, meaning the “left line. Here, what is required of him is a confrontation, passing from left to right and from right to left. Clearly, it is up to him to yearn constantly for the right—for Hassadim (Mercy), for bestowal, for the “white,” for wholeness, for the importance of the goal, for connection with friends; whereas the criticism, the red of the mother, will arrive by itself and be revealed at the right moment and to the right degree.

So, they complement each other: the right line and the left line, wholeness and deficiency. It is up to the person to invest only as much effort as it takes to complete these lines as quickly as possible to their fullest extent, until he discovers despair within himself. After all, he will feel the deficiency all the time, the red of the mother, the left line more than the right.

As in ordinary life, we remember the unpleasant moments more than the pleasant ones since our substance is a desire for pleasure. Enjoying, is taken for granted, because it directly corresponds to my desire. If instead of the pleasure I suddenly get suffering, lack of pleasure or pain, the negative content in my desire, it is natural to think that it was undeserved.  After all, I expected something else.

So, in a person’s opinion, the left line always overpowers the right. He must fulfill these two lines as quickly as possible, until a prayer erupts from him to the “middle line,” that the Creator will reconcile his condition. He asks for help because he is not interested in being in the left line, in the feeling of deficiency, because this doesn’t allow him to thank the Creator. It is only for this that he is asking for the middle line, clarifying the letters of his prayer and completing the right and the left so that the deficiency in both of them will cause the creation of the middle line.

From this moment on begins the Ubar (Fetus) state. “His father gives the white, mother gives the red and the Creator gives the soul,” that is the beginning of the spiritual Ibur (Conception).
[127778]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/14

Related Material:
Direct Beam Leading To Infinity
Where Does A Human Being Begin?
Putting Together The Human Being In Me

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

Preparation for the Lesson 

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” “On My Bed at Night”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 21 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Nation,” “The Individual and the Nation”  

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →