Baal HaSulam, “A Sage’s Fruit”: During a common prayer a person is prohibited to separate from the others and to ask for himself, even if he wants to bring pleasure to the Creator, but he is going to do it himself, and not with the others. After all, he who disconnects from society and asks for his own individual soul does not build it, but on the contrary, he damages his soul, by becoming the “proud man, with whom the Creator cannot be together.”

It’s not easy to overcome this difficult psychological problem. Our ego does not allow us to understand, to remember, to learn, and to adopt the rule that only by coming out of the boundaries of our body will we find the vessel of our soul. And everything that I psychologically see now as my “I” exists only in my fantasy so that I must cancel this thinking, annul myself, and see myself outside of it.

To accept this fact, this worldview, and to live with it, we need the strong support of the environment and studies and hard work in mutual guarantee. Any action of correction starts from this because every time more egoism is added to us, we have to work with this additional load in order to decide that, in spite of it, our vessel is above it.

These messages: “That which is hateful to you, don’t do to others” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself” seem to us simple rules of courtesy, “cultural” behavior, moral homilies. But no, we talk about an internal orientation that must exist in a person if he wants to find his inner part, his soul, and begin to correct it.

That is why the one who prays for himself not only does not advance in spirituality, but also causes great harm to himself because by this he cuts himself off from the others, worsening the breaking. Although it’s clear that negative actions are also inevitable because a person needs to come to the realization of evil before he understands and feels that this is an incorrect attitude.

But we are about to complete this work, and that is why we must understand and constantly reinforce the general opinion that spiritual existence, advancement, and the result of work are only in “We,” not in “me,” but only between us. This where we need to draw all our forces, trying to accustom ourselves to this view and replace ourselves with “We” in order to live inside the soul.
[101778]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/13

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Correction is possible by great sufferings that cannot even be described since it requires the full recognition of evil in each individual property in order to refuse to receive in each one and to move on to the path of bestowal. This path is impossible since a person cannot bear such sufferings.

Therefore, the advancement is usually somewhere in the middle, between the path of sufferings and the path of the Torah (the path of the Light), between “I shall hasten it” and “in its time,” along what is called “Derech Eretz (the path of earth).” A person advances as he is pushed from behind by the sufferings or drawn forward by the Light. He cannot be on the same path all the time.

It’s impossible to move to the path of the Torah from the beginning, unconditionally, but to the extent that we try to do it—especially by actually building the Shechina, which means by building the connection between us in mutual bestowal, according to our exertion and our responsibility for others—then, to that extent, we leave the path of suffering and advance towards the goal along “Derech Eretz,” along the middle road.

It isn’t that the “middle line” is better for our spiritual ascent, but the “middle road” is a compromise between the two roads on which we should remain. The only choice is to strengthen our society so that it will influence everyone. We should see the friends as the area where the Creator will be revealed, the attribute of bestowal. Thus I see my soul and not myself.

A person can check himself and his advancement according to how he worries about the friends and the group so that the revelation will take place in them, like a mother who worries about her babies. Then one can be sure that he understands what advancement means, that he knows what to add to it, and that he can actually fulfill this in this world now and bring his intention to wholeness.
[101859]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13

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Question: What is the concealment made of?

Answer: The concealment was made of our corrupt feelings and mind. It is as if I am trying to understand something but do not succeed. I make efforts, “breaking my head”, trying to approach it from one direction and from another direction, but I cannot understand this. I find different points to hold on to, but I cannot penetrate it so that it will make sense to me. The reason for that is lack of connection, which means lack of vessels of perception.

It is like a puzzle that has to be put together so that each bulge will perfectly match the designated dent. It is the same thing here, I lack the right dents in my deficiency so that the part of the puzzle will enter me and connect with me. And then I will understand, realize and feel, and the picture will suddenly be revealed to me.

I remember that when I was Rabash’s student, I came complaining indignantly to him that the concealment lasts for so long. But the concealment stems from lack of equivalence, from lack of compatibility between your inner attributes and deficiencies and the world that has to enter you. For the time being, your deficiency cannot perceive this form, so what can be done here? You are like a child who is trying forcefully to put a cube through a round hole. But the child does not understand that he will not succeed and so he keeps on pushing the cube and crying.

We too don’t understand the need for compatibility here, and that it is attained by observation and by efforts. It is hard and we see how a kid cannot stand this situation. It is the same with us as the reason is always incompatibility, lack of equivalence. Whole and perfect pictures come from Above, but we have to become compatible to them.

So every event in your life, every situation that is not felt as totally perfect, like the Creator’s image, indicates a lack of vessels of perception, some kind of your incompatibility with the upper.

First, be thankful for the feeling of deficiency; it is already a revelation. You don’t need to calm and to silence this feeling, but rather work with it purposefully. Rejoice that the evils are being revealed and start correcting them.
[101686]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How can I keep the Light of Purim all year round?

Answer: There is no need to hold anything; this is wrong because it is an egoistic form of the desire to grasp, to possess, to dominate. I don’t care what will happen in the next moment!

If I am in the property of bestowal like Mordecai, I do not need anything else! The main thing is to be similar to the Creator and I am not interested in anything but that.

That is why you should not think about how to become fulfilled quickly and inflated like a bubble. On the contrary, you must think how to achieve such a property when no event will be able to influence you, to touch you. All the time, you will break away from yourself and rise above higher and higher to be completely only in the property of bestowal.

And the fact that you have such a healthy appetite, “I want to be full all the time,” is also good. This is useful; it drives a person forward. So, go on!

In the end, you will be able to be content only when the Light of Hassadim and the Light of Hochma fill Malchut in a balanced way. Then, you will really be able to fill your entire Malchut, all your desires together with the whole world. But on your own—no way.
[101679]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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Question: How can we deserve to feel the holiday of Purim internally?

Answer: It’s very simple. Don’t we feel it? When we try to work on the connection with each other we constantly have some problems; suddenly we begin to criticize each other, etc. Or we arrive at a convention and everything seems fine. We invest our efforts as much as we can and after it, we suddenly feel a descent such as we have never experienced before.

As a result, we begin to understand that these are necessary states of cause and effect. Of course, this doesn’t make feel us better. But we can’t get away from them in any way because we still don’t have the Light of Hassadim, a clear intention to bestow.

When we acquire this intention, we have nothing to fear. No matter what happens to me, I am still in the property of bestowal; I rise above my world, above egoism, above what I have; nothing is important to me, I am afraid of nothing. I need nothing but to correct and pull the world to the same state, and in this case a person does not fall.

Sometimes, he is a little tired of his work, but he meets this extra load with gratitude, with an understanding that it’s necessary because it’s advancement. It can’t be otherwise because this is “joyful suffering,” the suffering of love, when we strive to fulfill all the conditions in order to unite.
[101624]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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Question: How can I tell Haman from Mordecai?

Answer: Haman is our simple, straightforward egoism: I want, I need. “I want to rule over everyone, I want to be great, I want to…I-I-I.” Moreover, it’s not simply the egoism with which we were born but the egoism that we cultivate in the group.

When we start treating each other nicely in the group, preparing meals together, studying together (we are good guys, we are friends), suddenly something unexpected explodes between us: distrust, rejection, and hostility. This is the secondary egoism that appears as a result of our attempts to get closer to each other, and it’s called “Haman.” We need to reveal it as much as possible and not to be afraid of it.

That is why it’s necessary to prepare ourselves for the fact that there are very serious revelations of egoism ahead of us that work against our connection of unity in a single Kli (vessel) in which we can reveal the Creator. That is, this is the egoism that is clearly directed against the Creator.
[101619]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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Question: What is the difference between Haman, the desire to receive for himself, and Esther, also the desire to receive?

Answer: Esther is the desire to receive that operates secretly. It hides under the Light of Hassadim and is necessary only for drawing the Light of Hochma. In fact, the Light of Hochma gets into the Light of Hassadim as if ennobled at its expense: I want only to bestow! Like a guest who, in front of the master, does not want to receive anything for himself even though he has huge egoistic desires, but he restricts himself and only wants to please the master—to bestow.

How can he bestow? Then he discovers that he can do so only if he receives from the master. He begins to weigh how much he can receive. And the part that he can receive inside the Light of Hassadim for bestowal in order to please the master is called “Esther.”

Haman is the entire Kli (vessel), huge desires. It will never be fulfilled directly; the first restriction was done on it, and it will go to Esther. In the end, Esther brings her entire hidden desire under the Light of Hassadim that becomes clothed on the Light of Hochma. That is, by changing our intention to receive in order to bestow, we raise the Light of Hassadim.
[101616]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 3, Inquiry No. 5: The matter of the rising of the dead: Since the body is so contemptible, that immediately at birth it is doomed to perish and to be buried. Moreover, The Zohar said that before the body rots entirely, the soul cannot ascend to its place in the Garden of Eden, while there are still remnants of it. Therefore, why must it return and rise at the revival of the dead? Could the Creator not delight the souls without it?

Indeed, why should “the body” be revived? What about the soul? Will it come down from Heaven again?

Even more bewildering is what our sages said, that the dead are destined to rise with their flaws, so that they will not be mistaken for another, and after that He will cure their flaws.

Nothing remains of the body after it rots. So why does it have to revived? What difference does it make if someone says something?

We must understand why God should mind that they would not be mistaken for another, that for that He would recreate their flaws and then would have to cure it.

“A body,” which means the desire to receive, has always been holy and has always been in adhesion. The whole round we make is necessary only in order to rise higher towards the Creator so that we will feel all the 125 degrees, so that we will have the fineness and the sensitivity and will clarify and sharpen our perception in feeling the Creator, and will rise from the level of the created being to the level of the Creator by ourselves.

Therefore, the desire to receive has to go through this whole cycle and at the end of correction to come back and acquire all the flaws. Then we will be able to compare what it was at the beginning of creation and what it has become at the end of creation after it has been through all the levels and has rotted.

All this is fulfilled by our work at the end of which, after the “rising of the dead,” we acquire a new discernment of the desire and by it can adhere to the Creator.
[101567]
From the 4^th part of Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

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The Writings of Rabash, Vol 1, Article 19, “The Matter of Joy”: And now he doesn’t want from the Creator that He will give him something. So he’s not asking something from the Creator. And all his aim now is that he only wants to give thanks to the Creator. It is found that he has now adhesion with the Creator because he is occupied with bestowal. So by this, from within the adhesion, the state of joy and completion is attracted to him from the force that he is now in adhesion with the whole.

But how is it possible to adhere in completeness. I feel inside myself total deficiencies and there is no adhesion in the whole. I would be willing to adhere to the whole like a baby that adheres to his mother, but what is revealed to me is an opposite picture, completely not whole: lack in everything, there is nothing, the “left line” in its most extreme form. And then “above my reason,” I adhere to the Creator. This is called “Dvekut – adhesion” to the whole. In spite of this full and complete opposite in my mind and heart, I rise to completion, and in the equivalence, I reveal Him.

The feeling of completion can ride only on the feeling of lack of completion. It cannot be one without the other. Simply, these two extreme things are not revealed in me together, rather intermittently: once night and once day, once evening, and once morning… This is how I roll between them until all these things are connected to one state in which all the components are supporting each other: “And there is no difference between “night” and “day” and “darkness will illuminate like light” and then it will be for me a day that is all good, “24 hours” of completion.

Question: But what completion is there if inside of me there is a war?

Answer: On the contrary, I don’t feel the war, rather pleasure, because only in this form do I rise above doubts and find myself in bestowal. Precisely this ascent above my inner resistance, above the collision within me, is proving that I live in the truth and not in a lie.

Question: What are the signs of this wholeness?

Answer: That I don’t need anything except this state. In my vessels dwells TzimTzum Aleph (the first restriction) and total emptiness, darkness, like a “black hole,” and above it, I assemble and stabilize wholeness where the light is pouring, where all of me is found in bestowal.

This way all my darkness, all my “black hole,” if I use it correctly by rising above it, suddenly becomes a source of Light of Infinity.

I necessarily need this dipole of two opposites of infinite minus and infinite plus. Only in this condition am I certain that I hold to the truth. Conversely, if the plus is not riding above the minus, then this is not the “middle line” and then I simply have no criteria for measurement. The joy is always being checked facing the deficiency, wholeness facing lack of wholeness. And only from within the darkness, I achieve the Light.
[101327]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, The Writings of Rabash

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We must discover all the deficiencies since the good is revealed only in its opposite. So, we must rejoice when we discover the negative form; it is the first level of revelation after which there is already a correction and fulfillment.

So, we must understand that if a person follows the right path, then there is no room for despair and disappointment. A person who advances correctly always should be happy since he goes through all the phases along the way, justifying them as he understands that they are necessary for the revelation of wholeness.

Corruption is, above all, my disagreement with my state—feeling reluctant to justify it and to accept it as necessary—that must be revealed. All the states already are imprinted in the root of my soul in my nature.

The states are revealed from lighter to the more difficult: Ibur (gestation), Yenika (suckling) and Mochin (adulthood). First, I am only a tiny embryo who lacks all self-awareness. Then, I am born, which means that the awareness is born within me, the understanding. Before that I simply felt something without knowing where I was and what was going on. Then, I begin to feel pleasant and unpleasant feelings, different changes of states. Next, I begin to come to know the Upper a little, who He is, and how He manages and changes me.

I am connected to Him. He seems to be cunning since He hides from me while I look for Him and chase Him, not knowing where He is. I am told that I can discover Him through the environment, but I don’t want this environment. However, it turns out that this is to the same extent that I don’t want Him since it is the same thing.

This means that I must go through many states before I understand and reach the recognition, Mochin, which is the last level of our evolution that comes after Ibur and Yenika. It is natural since I cannot understand anything unless I have enough experience and attain the reasons for what is going on, the connection between them, and begin tying one with the other. Thus, the states begin to illuminate for me a little from within, and I understand what is derived from what. Through the connection between the events, I discover their source, which is actually external, outside the actions that I feel.

Therefore it is very difficult for a person to advance since one cannot justify the actions that one feels, which seem coincidental. One doesn’t even understand their order. He would like to see who is working on him, but he doesn’t. It is a hard way since we don’t attribute everything that happens to us to the One—that there is none else besides Him and we don’t acknowledge the fact that this One is good and benevolent.

Because we don’t try to trust this one, good force, we don’t discover anything on the way. There is even a phase during our development when a person fears any new discoveries and prefers that nothing new will happen. He simply feels the physical pain because the revelation is discovered so painfully that everything within him is an unpleasant feeling.

If a person were to expect more revelations, he could make efforts in order to attain them and not just for the sake of acting externally while lying to himself that he is working, but actually fearing to take a step forward.

Only if he has a good and strong environment—which means that he overcomes his ego and turns to the environment—he annuls his ego that comes between him and his independent vessels that seem to be external. Then, he retrieves these vessels and these means, and through them, he can discover the next states with joy and bring them near. It is possible only to the extent that he annuls his ego before the society, understanding that it is not the external society, but his internal attributes.
[101487]
From the 1^st part of Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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