Question: How does a person feel that he is performing a service for the Creator, that he is studying the interior of the Torah and is not found in external activities?

Answer: The difference between the exterior of the Torah and its interior is that a person tries to see the relationship between him and the Creator in everything that is happening to him.

The whole world, the friends, the inner feelings, all kinds of images, events, and situations, this is the only language that we speak with the Creator. If I begin to relate to reality like this, it is said that I have I have begun a dialogue with the Creator and I am found in inner work.

Every professional feels his work finely and minutely, which is not understood from the side. If you are installing an air conditioner in a building, the consumer wants it to work and cool the room, but you are thinking about a multitude of details and subtleties, deciding how best to do this. Everything depends upon the development of the senses, the sensitivity.

This is because with each piece of metal you have a connection with an internal sense and decide to do it this way or another. Everything passes through the language of the senses, just as a violinist feels every note that he plays. So every expert feels the material with which he is working, no matter how coarse it is.

In spiritual work, as well, a feeling is required that is attained by going deeper and deeper into it. We really begin to feel it on the physical level, in the body, in the heart. The substance of creation is a desire for pleasure that perceives everything in feeling. The mind only helps us to understand what we are feeling and arranges a comparison between phenomena comparing qualities, forms, and colors.

The mind works in a dual system like a computer, with zeroes and ones only: yes/no. So understanding comes only with experience. The main thing is to try to go deeper into sensations that are relevant to connection between the Creator and us, and not to let one’s mind wander to external things. Concentrate mainly on the center of the connection, the interior of the connection.

Nobody is as wise as the experienced. But if we work in a group, then we are integrated with each other, we are stimulated by others, by their words, by their questions, and we advance much faster.
[134462]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

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The Zohar, “The Night of the Bride,” Item 126: Then those who feared the Creator spoke with each other, and the Creator hearkened and heard, and a Book of Remembrance was recorded before Him for those who fear the Creator and honor His name. “They shall become chosen for Me on the day that I shall determine…” (Malachi, 3:16 – 3:17).

…The thing is that at the end of correction, when the great general Zivug of Atik manifests, great Light will be revealed in all the worlds, and in this Light everyone will return to the Creator in absolute love.

After all of the corrections, the great operation must occur that completes all the particular actions, both in quantity and in time, that connect everything into the general adhesion with the Creator.

Question: Who are those who “fear the Creator?”

Answer: Those who fear the Creator are the parts of the desire that pass through corrections. Every layer within the desire to receive, including the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, works according to its laws and is found within a system of particular forces.

The level of the speaking must be aware of the higher power that manages and animates everything. A person’s work is to acquire a desire for whomever leads him, to become aware of the Master, meaning to ascertain whoever it is that is doing all of this and how he is doing it. As it is written, “…for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them…” (Jeremiah 31:33).

It turns out that it is up to us to acquire such a great need for the Creator, His might, the desire to attain Him, to understand His actions in all of their depth and essence, and understand why and why He is doing this. To understand the Creator is possible only from the opposite state, “…as far as light excelleth darkness” (Ecclesiastes 2:13). Otherwise, we will have no feeling. The feeling is built from the resistance between two opposites.

So, the greater the darkness and the Light, the good and the evil, are in contrast to each other, our feeling is more intense. Besides the intense feeling, the intelligence develops that helps one to feel, understand, digest, and move closer to the good, or conversely, to move away from evil.

It is up to us to prepare an empty desire that corresponds in every way to the Light but in the opposite form, in other words, Malchut of Infinity is completely darkened in all of its intensity and all of its parts precisely match Malchut of Infinity that is filled with Light. However, it is clear that we are not ready to tolerate darkness like this, for we flee from even the smallest problems, as it is written, “…a thousand enter a room, and one comes out to teach” (VaYikra Rabba 2). After all, we don’t even tolerate the smallest darkness in our lives, and spiritual darkness is much more terrible than physical darkness; it is a terrible feeling.

So, we must receive support from the group and the importance of the goal that we receive by means of the Light, and then with their help, it could be that we are able to leap above the suffering, above the feeling of emptiness within our desire to receive, above the lack of expected fulfillment.

I must feel the empty Malchut of Infinity. This is called the “illumination of Malchut,” an especially difficult feeling that is worse than death. It is as if you find yourself on the threshold of a black, infinite, endless abyss, facing a thundering silence. This is a terrible feeling.

The creature is not prepared to tolerate even a drop of this feeling so that afterward, in contrast, he will discover the Light as good. This is not possible; so the great desire is divided into a multitude of desires for many generations in time and people in a plurality of states in each of them.

All of the particular corrections are gathered, and in the end they bring us to the completion of correction (Gmar Tikkun), to the day of the marriage, and in that marriage, all of us are “friends of the bride,” in other words, the desires of creation.
[135781]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/14, The Zohar

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Question: How can we explain to the public that we can feel the force that gives us the feeling of the meaning of life in the connection between us?

Answer: We feel the meaning of life in the connection between us where the upper force of nature is revealed. All of nature is bestowal and therefore this force of bestowal created all of creation.

Only the one force of bestowal operates in the universe since the Big Bang until our very day, and we are its outcome. If we learn to get along with this force, we will live a good life.

It is because we see that life is dedicated to reviving matter. If we knew how to adhere to this force, we would actually become eternal. We wouldn’t simply prolong our life as medicine allows us to do these days to live until the age of 200 since this is meaningless.

We can attain eternal existence on condition that we get closer to this force of bestowal. This is possible only according to physical laws on condition that we resemble it and become equal to it.

There is only one means we can use in order to resemble it, which is in contrast to our nature: to start uniting and connecting. This is the reason for the current crisis that forces us to unite. But we can prevent the blow by advancing and reaching unity without waiting for the evil force to come near us.

The same wonderful, pleasant warmth that we feel when we connect during the workshop isn’t just pleasant but actually has great power that can heal many problems in our life. We can feel this warmth everywhere: in our relationships with others, in stores, at work, in the family, in communicating with children.

We can bring this warmth into classrooms in schools where our children study, we can bring it to work, to the street, to the government, and to the whole world in order to direct it towards us in a friendly manner. We can work with this force by using it as a good weapon, as a general medicine, that heals all the illness of the world.

We can promise people that we will demonstrate how the force of connection heals our relationships with children the next time we meet. Anyone who has bad relations with his children will want to improve them. When we leave them we give them Reshimo Hitlabshut (reminiscences), a feeling of warmth, on the one hand, and on the other hand, Reshimo of thickness (Aviut), a bit of hunger and appetite for our next meeting.
[135572]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: We can hold on to the group and the Creator up to a certain level of pain, but what should we do when the pain becomes so strong that you simply feel like a small beaten animal?

Answer: The question is whether this small animal has the end of the thread leading to its owner, which means whether it understands where the pain comes from, whether this animal is part of its herd, in a group, whether the friends remind it of the owner, or whether it is just an ordinary person who suffers.

If we are speaking of ordinary sufferings, then all of humanity has suffered for ages until our sufferings have gradually been focused on the Creator. In the transition from the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature along a path of terrible sufferings, we have evolved until we emerged from the bottom of the ocean and rose to the surface of the earth and have been through the age of the dinosaurs.

The desire to receive has been through all that until it has developed into a state of the basis of its connection with its source. Today we are at the peak of our evolution compared to all the previous levels, but even at our peak we reach contact with the upper force only for short moments and this contact is constantly disrupted.

The question is how can I control this contact so as not to lose touch with the upper force. I want to be in a continuous contact with the source regardless of whether I feel good or bad.

This is the reason that I need a group, an environment, some external pool that I can fill like a storehouse that I can use later. In it I will find the Creator, and the friends will help me and guide me towards the goal, to the Creator.

Without them I don’t know whom to turn to when I feel pain. If I enter the group with my pain, the friends guide me towards the Creator correctly and I begin to grow stronger quickly. Together with them I am ready to perform corporeal actions and to focus myself correctly so that the pain and the problems will disappear.

My problems disappear because I operate a bit of the Light of Hassadim by myself and not because I have been pitied from above and my situation has been changed according to the upper plan of natural evolution. I acted on my own in order to advance and participated in bestowal.

We should learn from every state how worthwhile it is to prepare yourself for it. We are never put in states in which we are doomed to fail. A new, stronger, and deeper negative Reshimo (reminiscence) is revealed each time according to the order of the levels and the relationship between the Light and the vessel under the influence of the Light with which I have to work.

I can only blame myself as to why I haven’t prepared all the means correctly so that the moment a problem arises I can immediately correct it. Ideally this is exactly what should happen.
[134673]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

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The Light and the Sun: “And the main answer is to unite with each and every one with love and in one heart, to worship the Lord and to join an effort, and thus the world of repentance awakens and the world of mercy and the world of desire.”

We reveal everything only according to our vessel because we don’t feel anything outside our desire. Therefore, the more complex the desire is—but at the same time, the more united it is—the greater discernments we can make both in the intensity of the Light and in the quality of the Light.

Therefore, we should try to be both heroes in quality and heroes in quantity, simultaneously. A hero in quality is a result of the quantity. At the beginning, every state grows in quantity and only then it raises itself to an upper level and unites many individuals that ascend from the lower level into one whole, into one individual on the upper level.

Thus, the work is first in quantity and then it turns into quality. It says that there isn’t a wiser man than the experienced, which means that after a great quantity of actions, comes the wisdom, the understanding of these actions themselves and the connection between them.

This is the reason we should exert ourselves as much as we can. You should do everything that is in your power, and the feeling and the mind stem from that. It is because a certain Light does arrive for every mechanical exertion, even if it is very simple, and it eventually brings us to the feeling and perception of the new reality.

It is true that we must unite our hearts, desires, and intentions, but we never do that. We always do only half a shekel’s worth, and the Creator completes the rest of the work for us, as it is said, “The Lord will complete the work for me.”

We only say that I must unite the hearts, but of course I cannot do anything but find out and clarify the right deficiency. If I find the right deficiency—which is called raising a prayer, MAN, investing the half shekel I am required to—it is called a sacrifice (Korban); in other words, I get closer to the Creator [Karov with the same root in Hebrew|, and the second half always comes from above.

Then, we become partners. I invest the deficiency, and the Creator performs the action in correcting and filling it.
[135787]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/14

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Question: With the help of what does a person open and close the faucet so that the Light will flow?

Answer: The faucet is opened with the help of the group. The more I reach equivalence of form with the group, connect to it more, the more power I get, the more of a feeling of connection, and I understand what I must change in myself and how I must accommodate myself to the Creator. The Creator is the power of unity and connection. When He shuts off the faucet for me, He shuts off the power, but demands intelligence from me; He wants me to learn to do this by myself. He will give me the Light, but it is up to me to want to be like Him for His work.

The Creator shuts down my reasons, and it is up to me to activate the connection and not the reasons. The Creator plays with me with the help of plates full of food and I play at having a “personal relationship” with Him, trying to be like Him. He influences my “belly” and I influence Him through my personality, through the Adam (man) in me. I work with the help of the society and He influences my body. And that is how I grow by means of this game. This is exactly what the Creator wants, through His influence on my body he makes me into an Adam.

I stand facing the “Master of the House” and facing the plates of food that He is offering to me on the animate level. But I transform the situation into a personal, human relationship, on the level of Adam, on the level of the Creator. I utilize the Kelim of the desire to receive. That is why this reception is called the “wisdom of Kabbalah,” for with its help I can lift myself to the level of divinity.

I am satisfied on my animate level so that I can elevate my relationship above the deficiency that I feel within my belly. I play a bit with the help of the hunger and the appetite that I feel, try to honor the Creator instead of honoring the plate that He offers me. And in this way I raise myself to the spiritual level.

So when “Bina” refuses to receive, she becomes “Keter,” and after that “Malchut” which receives in order to bestow. And all of this is within one spark of Light that was created as “something from nothing,” a small black point. So everything that is needed for building the image of Adam is found in this world.

Until the end of development we will have a “heaviness of heart” not by means of high states but only in this way. But this will be enough for building all of the levels of the five worlds when faced by all situations.

The group opens the faucet through connection. The more I connect with the friends as “one person with one heart,” the more the faucet opens. And in order to push me to connect, the Creator turns off His faucet. So then I am in a “night,” which I must transform into “day.”

The Creator makes one condition for us; we receive or don’t receive within our desire to receive. Everything else is added through the greatness of the Creator that we must attain through the greatness of the group.

The Creator says that His suitcase that He lets us carry is very light. This means that there is no significance to physical pleasures and we build the entire spiritual ladder above them. Everything that is required to begin climbing the rungs of the ladder that is placed in front of us is in the group. And the situations that seem like darkness to us are opportunities, a call to begin to ascend. This is as it is with a child whom they stand on his feet so that he will begin to walk by himself.
[135625]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What depends upon us?

Answer: Only the building of the right deficiency depends on us; whereas the Upper Light is found at absolute rest. Only to the degree of the power of the deficiency and its components is it possible to see the Light according to its intensity and quality.

According to how many discernments there are within the deficiency, we will see the simple Light, the Light of Nefesh—that is found in rest (Nefisha), without movement—or the Light of Ruach (wind) that already moves and is found in motion. After that, we discover the Ohr Neshama that already shows us the source that the Light comes from. We begin to see in it the desire of the Upper One that is ascribed to us.

After that, comes the Light of Haya that shows us how, with our strong, complex, and versatile desire, we also can enter into contact with the Upper Light and begin to work together with it.

Then comes the last Light, the Light of Yechida, when everything is united through mutual bestowal.

Question: What is the difference between the intensity of the Light and the quality of the Light?

Answer: Intensity and quality are two components of the intensity of the Light. Similar to this, in electricity, there is a power supply that is determined according to voltage times current. This determines how much you can produce from the power supply, in other words, the ability to operate and perform the required work.

The quantity and quality are connected together. In the Upper Light, there is no difference between quantity and quality. It is only in reference to the receivers. All of the substance of the still is equal in value to one vegetative. It follows that one vegetative is great in quality, in contrast to the entire nature of the still, which is great in quantity.

Question: So, what do we need to ask for?

Answer: We need to ask only for a deficiency. It is good that we now are receiving a deficiency during dissemination. There is nothing more valuable than that. Feeling ourselves obligated to the entire world is the best thing. This is the same deficiency in which we discover all of the reality, all of the phenomena of the Creator.

This deficiency will oblige us to feel how much we require the Creator. Up until today, we didn’t need the Creator, but, today, He has become a necessity for us, like air, and so, not for nothing is it written, “Come to Pharaoh!” for, without Pharaoh, we would not need the Creator.
[135790]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/14

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Shamati #33 “The Lots on Yom Kippurim and with Haman”

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

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Psalms 91:1 – 91:4, 91:11: He who dwells in the covert of the Most High will lodge in the shadow of the Almighty. I shall say of the Lord [that He is] my shelter and my fortress, my God in Whom I trust. For He will save you from the snare that traps from the devastating pestilence. With His wind He will cover you, and under His wings you will take refuge; His truth is an encompassing shield. For He will command His angels on your behalf to guard you in all your ways.

The person who is found “in the covert of the Most High,” meaning that he feels the concealment that approaches him and must be careful not to fall into double concealment. In regular concealment a person understands that the concealment comes from the Creator, and in the double concealment, he already forgets that it is sent to him by the Creator and he succumbs to despair and discouragement.

Only mutual Arvut in a group and a rigid schedule can save him from regular concealment, that is something that works on the level of the still: the connection with the group and the rigid schedule. And besides this, it could be that they will have mercy on him from above and will give him awakening. But the main thing is how he prepares himself for these states from the start. It is impossible to rely on miracles and a special relationship; rather, he must constantly think about how not to depart from the process of advancement.

If a person is found a bit above double concealment, meaning in regular concealment, he must understand that he is “In the Covert of the Most High,” meaning that both the concealment and its form are sent from above. Everything, down to the last smallest detail, is arranged according to the relationship between the Light and the Kli that are optimally arranged for the person’s purposeful advancement.

So he must be thankful for this concealment. It is clear that he has no elevation, no power, nothing illuminates him or draws him forward, and nothing pushes him forward. Yet together with the absence of the power that attracts and pushes, in spite of the lack of energy that he has in general, he must draw conclusions in order to clarify his desire: How much is he ready or not ready to overcome?

He must analyze his life when he is awakened and illuminated from above and his life is in concealment.

What is the difference between this and that? How much does his system depend upon the awakening from above? Can he attain it through awakening by the group? After all, it is said: “They helped every one his neighbor” (Isaiah 41:6), “The envy of the scribes increases wisdom” (Baba Batra 22a),”Envy, lust, and honor take a person out of the world” (Pirkei Avot 4:28), meaning, from the bad state in which he is found to the good state.

It is impossible to submit to states where you are in a shadow, in concealment, “In the covert of the Most High”; rather, it is necessary to try to find signs of the work in them. As with the piano, where there are white keys – major, and black – minor, and it is impossible to play without the black, they are required.

Even though spices are only an addition to food, it is impossible to do without them as then the food would lack taste. So in darkness there are many discernments and it is necessary to prepare for it well. It is said: “Don’t be afraid of the dark night,” for if you use the states of darkness correctly, then only with them can you discover the courage, your good preparation, stability, and proper organization.
[135244]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/14

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Shamati #33 “The Lots on Yom Kippurim and with Haman”

Questions and Answers with Rav

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