Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Item 66: Bear in mind that in everything there is internality and externality. In the world in general, Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are considered the internality of the world.

“Israel” are those who have an inclination for the three lines, for bestowal. These three lines symbolize Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and Israel aspire to integrate them so that the force of bestowal and the force of receiving will connect and reach adhesion with the Creator in the middle line.

After all, there are only these two forces in reality—the force of receiving and the force of bestowal. The first refers to the created being and the second to the Creator.

If the force of bestowal is also in the created being, a spark or a point in the desire to receive, then by that the created being can build the middle line. The desire is the left line, and the point in the desire, the spark from the Masach (screen) before the shattering, is the right line, and the Light that was summoned to operate on welding them provides the middle line, above reason, bestowal above receiving.

So we need the desire and the point in it (●) and also the tension (∆) between them, due to which a person feels bad. Then his point receives an urge to become acquainted with the Creator. And in this case, all of his desires become a means that helps the point in the heart reach the Creator.

That is why the Light initially, by descending, created a desire as powerful as itself. Now when the created being uses this desire, he can reach the Creator and rise to Him.

“Abraham” is the point of bestowal, and when a person uses it correctly and looks at the desire from it, he is called “Isaac.” And then there is the combination of them, “Jacob,” the middle line. We need these three components.

Question: If the Light and the desire have the same power, where does the difference (∆) between them come from?

Answer: The spark of Light, or the Creator, enters the desire and evokes in it a feeling of another nature, of another essence.

Then a person feels bad because of his dissimilarity with this nature in the use of his desire.

The truth is that none of us knows what the desire to receive is, but everyone knows its benefits. So we are not speaking about the desire but about the intention of in order to receive; we live in the egoistic intention and not in the desire, and it is not felt in itself.

Our whole perception, our whole program, is based only on our intention, on our self-centeredness. The difference is not between two desires, the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, but between two basic characteristics.

I compare them not according to size but according to a qualitative difference. In fact, I feel the difference, the gap between the Creator and the created being. This is what pushes me to start the path to the level of the Creator, to an equivalence of form with Him. Otherwise I wouldn’t receive such an urge.

Then I climb up the levels of resemblance, the levels through which a person brings himself to an equivalence of form with the Creator.

There are people in whom there are three lines and others not. In fact, they exist in everyone since eventually everyone has to reach the same state. The shattering was total, the incorporation was total, and the correction also has to be total.

Still, the three lines are not expressed in everyone at the same time. In the general desire there is an upper part—GE, or in other words those in whom the point in the heart (•) has already risen and been revealed, and there is a lower part, AHP, those in whom it is still concealed below. Accordingly, those above are drawn to unity (Yechud), to the Creator, and so they are called “Jews” (Yehudi). Below, people have a huge amount of desires, each one seemingly living in his own world—and so they are called “the nations of the world.” Above, everyone wants to connect to one point by which to reach the Creator and below, this point has not been revealed yet and still means nothing, and so the different desires draw people in different directions.

But “the individual and the general are equal,” and every person is a small world, so this system, this structure, already exists in every one. Even if the point is revealed in a person’s heart, there are also many other desires, although they may be concealed at the moment waiting for their turn. Everyone has desires that in the meantime do not accompany the point in the heart.

Still, the people who have received the basis for the three lines from Above have to feel that they are responsible for the correction of the world.
[99037]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

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Question: How do I make a covenant with the Creator if I don’t know Him?

Answer: The question is: Why is it only the groom who signs the wedding agreement (Ketubah) and not the bride? Is there a kind of one-sided commitment here? The same happens when a person signs an agreement with the group or with the Creator.

This means that my signature on this contract is enough since the agreement of the other side is certain. So, only the one who hesitates and is unsure has to sign, and thus, he is obligated to sign the commitment.

There is an upper force, and in order to reveal it, there must be a lower force. The force of the upper is bestowal and the force of the lower is receiving. The force of the lower must attain wholeness in its deficiency in order to connect to the upper force that is eternally whole.

Wholeness is attained in the lower force by the connection of 10 people, for example, then of 100, and then of 1000. We always add another zero.

Unless I connect with 10 people, I cannot be called a spiritual “unit,” and, unless I connect with 100 people, I cannot be called a second spiritual “unit,” which means to rise to the second spiritual level. The counter only counts the additional zeros, and this is considered a leap to the next level.

In order to be adapted to the whole upper force, I at least must attain the connection of the first 10. This means that I must connect to 10 people since according to our inner nature, we attain the first, minimal measure of bestowal, #1, by the connection of ten people as one heart and one mind. Now, I have the first force of bestowal.

If I can connect to 100 people in a similar way as one heart and one mind by totally annulling myself, I attain the second force of bestowal, the second spiritual level. Thusly, I must go through 125 levels.

In order to connect with them, I sign a mutual contract. We must be connected so that each one will forget about himself and connect with everyone as one whole. It is impossible to do this alone and we must help one another. We must provide everyone with the greatness of the goal, connection, warmth, and positive examples. In order to do that, we sign a contract, and this is called a covenant.

Each of us goes through states of “+” and “-,” and we need the minus in order to rise to the plus, to “straighten” ourselves. This is possible if, while I am in a state of “minus,” the society intensifies my intention. My minus grows and the plus also grows; they constantly increase. After a small plus, there is a big minus, and after a big plus there is a minus that is twice as large.

This is why I never can overcome the minus that I receive and it always knocks me to the ground. I may be totally thrown off track, and I may continue to work, but without any inspiration and thought. When I fall into such a state, into such a minus, the society has to intensify my intention.

It is a good thing that I have received such a minus since I need a greater minus; I must reach its full measure to fill my measure. The question is how to turn it into a plus. In order to do that, I need an intention! If my deficiency and the society’s intention connect, I can change the minus to the plus each time and, thus, constantly rise. This is called making a covenant.
[98828]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is the meaning of the words of the Creator: “I wish they would leave me and my Torah would uphold”?

Answer: This means that man makes the wrong efforts, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and for the wrong reason. There are many conditions that must be joined together.

First of all, one must organize a group. Without a group a person doesn’t know how to exit his ego. He can talk about this with pretty words, but in actuality, will not realize anything.

And in addition to this, one must be patient, to understand that it’s an accumulative process to which all our efforts are added, which then bring us results. It’s comparable to a meter, in which there are spinning wheels, and at a certain moment, suddenly the number on the display changes and a “1” appears instead of “0.” And then again the wheels spin for a long time until outside again the number changes to “2” and so on.

We must understand that weeks or months could go by until the meter changes to the next number. But the weeks don’t pass if at that time we don’t invest efforts. Here the person begins to understand that he has no strength or desire, that he isn’t able to do anything, and just wants to leave everything. The body pulls him to empty matters, and the main thing is not to feel his state as being a difficult one.
We already understand how this happens. Here the person needs to find himself support, “Support of the Light.” This means the friends who help each other. Our weakness is that there is no mutual help, and everything is built only on it. Strength is only in connection, and if the connection stops, then no one will have strength.

The Light illuminates from the other side and slowly increases my desire to receive by just one gram, and I immediately fall. I am ready to forget everything, lie down and do nothing, just to be left alone. At least from a physical standpoint it is forbidden to let ourselves fall in this way. The environment should put pressure on me, they should call me if I don’t arrive at the lesson, and they should wake me at home.

I must make these arrangements with my environment so that it will work on me. Also at home, I build such a system that won’t let me miss the morning lesson. I do the same with the friends. I prepare myself in such a way that my conscience will suffer if I don’t arrive at a lesson.

But I must prepare all of this in advance and not at the time of descent. I must worry in advance for something to commit me to arrive for the lesson even when I lack strength. I arrange everything in this way so that I can’t stay home; otherwise, what will my family say? I can’t make excuses each day that I don’t feel well. And the friends would begin to call and ask what happened to me, where did I disappear to, and it would embarrass me.

If I receive a burdening of the heart, then only these measures will work on me. In those moments, I myself am not able to do anything, but I feel that I prepared support for myself and so it also stands in my favor.
[98317]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/13, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can we turn a person’s intention into the intention of many, into the “prayer of many“?

Answer: There is a big difference. If I think about society, trying to connect with them in order to convey the Light that they expect, it’s called a “prayer of many,” a “public prayer.”

If every individual in the group acts this way, we form the area of the collective general deficiency where everyone, by being included in everyone, already forms a spiritual progression. I think about everyone, you think about everyone, and so does the whole group. Then each one multiplies his intensity by the number of the people for whom he wants to ask for a filling. It turns out that this prayer already becomes a spiritual vessel. The spiritual vessel is a result of the connection. If I pray for you and you pray for me, then each of us includes the other inside him. Then our desires that include one another connect and create a spiritual vessel among them.

This means that the parts of our desires in which I pray for you and you pray for me connect. Their connection becomes a spiritual vessel. The parts in which each one is for oneself remain below.

It turns out that you influence the Light only by your mutual inclusion with each other, where you include him inside you and he includes you inside him. So one person doesn’t operate in spirituality, there have to be at least two, as it says: “The minimum of many is two.” As well, “Either together or death,” which means that either you have a friend with whom you perform a spiritual action or you are dead, and have no chance to draw the Light that Reforms.
[98663]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, The Zohar

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Rabash, “The Entrance into the Work”: The beginning of the work must be in Lo Lishma (not for its sake), which means that by believing in the Creator one will have a life of pleasure. This means that if he does this, which is called faith, then he feels elation and has higher mental powers than he has when he doesn’t perform this action.

It turns out that this is a unique quality by which he can taste greater tastes in quantity and in quality than he tastes when he performs other special actions that bring him pleasure… pleasures and unique qualities bring him limited pleasures in quantity and in quality. However, the unique quality of faith brings him greater pleasure in quantity and in quality. And all this is called Lo Lishma since his entire intention was only in order to attain a greater pleasure.

Only after he attains the level that is called Lo Lishma, is he rewarded with other phenomena and comes to a higher state. This means that he has no self-interest, but all his interests and thoughts are true. This means that his entire intention is only to annul himself in the true reality, feeling that he only has to serve the King since he feels the King’s supremacy and His importance.

Then he forgets, which means that he has no need to worry about himself in any way, since he annuls himself like a candle before a torch because he feels the Creator’s presence. Then he is in the state of Lishma (for Her sake), to bring contentment to the Creator, and all his worries and desires are as to how he can bring the Creator pleasure. And his own reality, which means the desire to receive, does not exist at all. Then he is considered one who bestows in order to bestow.

I think that you have already felt these two states at the convention. The first is when a person yearns to receive the spiritual pleasure for himself, whether he admits it or not, and does it only for self-benefit. By that he hopes to attain a good life in this world and in the next world, to gain more and change his fate for the better. In all his accounts there is only: “I, I, I,” and he cannot take himself out of the picture.

This happens unconsciously. Even if a person tries not to take himself into account, the moment he doesn’t succeed, he gradually returns to himself each time. Then he finds out that self-benefit, personal interest, was always in the spiritual picture he yearned for. So his participation in the group, the inclination to the Creator, the work, and the efforts depend only on his feeling that all this would pay off.

The realization that he operates only for himself is already a revelation. In the meantime he performs actions without the right intention, which means with his natural egoistic intention, and not in order to bestow by not detaching the action from self-benefit.

But thanks to such actions of Lo Lishma, he goes through four phases of development: 1. to receive in order to receive, 2. to bestow in order to receive, 3. to bestow in order to bestow, 4. to receive in order to bestow, and all this is in the state of Lo Lishma.

Thus he clarifies what is “allowed” and what is “forbidden” in Lo Lishma since these four states are the ones that determine the combination of his actions and his intention. But due to the fact that a person performs all these “malicious acts” because of his innate ego since he has no choice, the evil inclination created by the Creator, the upper Light constantly operates on him, and gradually bit by bit, takes him out of the slavery to the ego, cleaning him from the intention of in order to receive for himself.

He attains the level in which he begins to think about self-annulment, he feels a great measure of grace and attraction, he begins to value devotion and self-annulment, not under the pressure of sufferings, but because he values the attribute of bestowal itself more and more to such an extent that he eventually annuls himself.

If a person delves into this and works on this persistently, then after a short while he receives the attribute of bestowal from the Light: Then he forgets, which means that he feels no need to care about himself in any way since he annuls himself as a candle before a torch because he feels the presence of the Creator.

But he annuls himself not for self-benefit, but by raising the actual state of self-annulment. “Then he is in a state of Lishma, to bring contentment to the Creator, and all his worries and desires are as to how he can bring the Creator pleasure, and his own reality, which means the desire to receive, does not exist at all. Then he is in a state of one who bestows in order to bestow.

We began the clarifications of self-annulment in the Arava convention. We felt it in the general mass of the participants as one. Now we have to continue by focusing more on this point so that all the distances and the interruptions that come up in the time between the conventions will help us. They will provide us with the thickness that we need to annul in order to annul ourselves.
[98658]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13

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Opinion (Aditya Chakrabortty, columnist): “More than 2,500 business executives and bankers will converge on the highest town in Europe for the annual World Economic Forum. …

“The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Resilient dynamism.’

“As participants acknowledge, the real business lies in private sessions with industry peers and amenable politicians, and access to those starts at around £98,500.

“And this is what makes Davos so fascinating: it is the most perfect case study of how the practitioners of free-market, globalised capitalism give the public one explanation for what they are doing and why, while privately pursuing the complete opposite. … From its inception, the whole point of Davos has been to promulgate the gospel of free-market fundamentalism. …

“And it’s true: unlike previous generations of the ultra-wealthy, many of the modern super-rich work for a living, in running major businesses or in finance (although the Davos guestlist still includes plenty of sheikhs and royals). But that doesn’t mean they truly earn the millions they claim. …

“Take a look at who’s in the Davos set. Last spring, two American academics, Jon Bakija and Brad Helm, and a US Treasury official, Adam Cole, published the most comprehensive analysis yet of the richest 0.1% earners, based on tax returns. Of these top dogs, nearly two in three were top corporate executives and bankers. And the story in both those professions has not been of brilliant returns to shareholders or vast improvements for society, but of wealth extraction and lobbying politicians, Davos-style.

“Earlier generations would have known what to call this Davos set of wealth extractors and rip-off merchants. Andrew Sayer, a Lancaster professor working on a book to be called Why We Can’t Afford The Rich totes up the terms: Ruskin referred to such wealth as illth, the liberal JA Hobson as ‘improperty.’ Only now, the top 0.1% are able to conceal what they’re up to in plain sight.”

My Comment: Until people decide that only through changing themselves will they correct the world and that otherwise they will destroy themselves, everything will continue as dictated by our egoism, and everything will be done only for its sake, even if it does not lead to the better. After all, our nature is like the serpent that absorbs everything but is not sated. Only immense suffering will compel us to kill it (the path of suffering) … or we can come to the awareness that it is something that brings death (the path of awareness, Light).
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Question: Sometimes by revealing the ego inside me, I feel that I can’t get rid of it; that I can’t attain the goal.

Answer: That’s true. But this is already the next level. For example, I brought a friend a present yesterday and I thought that I really loved him and that I was so devoted to him.  And today I discover what I did not understand yesterday: It turns out that I did this since I calculated things for my own benefit. Yesterday I couldn’t see my thought to the end; I couldn’t discern my desire; only my love toward the friend was revealed to me. And now it turns out that I was pursing my self-interest in this love.

Thus, what was concealed from me yesterday is revealed today, so what should I do now?

First, I don’t regret what happened yesterday. I did what I did according to my powers, and it’s thanks to my action that I reveal the next level today, a thicker desire, which is much deeper with an intention of in order to receive for myself. So what? Now I approach the correction.

This happens time after time, and so it says, “What is waste for the upper is food for the lower.” Now I try to make efforts to adapt myself to the upper, and he presents me with an example, “Look, this is Me, you can be like Me, which means not using the vessels of receiving, restricting them, and adhering to Me, doing your best to act like Me.”

This means that I restrict my AHP, and adhere to His AHP with my GE, and thus rise. First, I must isolate my GE from my AHP. I annul it and perform the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph – ZA) on it and use only the vessels of bestowal toward the AHP of the upper.

If we become equal, my GE and His AHP becomes ten Sefirot. By that I adhere to the upper and “enter” Him, and am now called an “embryo (Ubar),” and the upper AHP becomes a womb for me. Thus I constantly rise to Him by increasingly annulling myself time after time.

Question: But it is precisely in that moment that I usually want to escape from the group. How can I stay in it? How can I continue the work despite everything?

Answer: I can only say one thing: Your urge to escape from the group indicates that the Creator, the Light, shows you several additional desires by which you can now enter the upper. However, without these interruptions you couldn’t penetrate Him. So now you develop the right attitude toward Him.

The escape is also necessary since otherwise you wouldn’t feel the additional desire. You have to feel the additional desire, to regret it, to come back to the group again, and to start working in order to receive the Light that corrects the desire. When you correct the additional desire, you are incorporated in the upper again. Such a circle should be drawn.

Suppose you adhere to the upper, but you haven’t entered the upper yet. Now comes a certain interruption: (Boom!), and from the blow that you receive on the head you forget everything. This happens so that you will make the whole circle, connect to the group again, return to the starting point again, and continue.

Thus you “digest” the desire that has awoken that throws you in different directions. Suddenly you don’t come to the lessons or don’t use your spare time purposefully (you go to the cinema instead of disseminating). You have to feel the heavy desire that you received (+), regret it (-), and turn to the group. Then, when the group influences you by the Light that Reforms (O”M) you decide to adhere to the upper again, no matter what.

Eventually you return, having acquired a greater power that enables you to overcome the interruption, you enter the upper, like an embryo, and adhere to the “wall of the womb.”

So after the theoretical explanations, only a strong united group can help you, only in it can you advance. Accordingly, a person who lives far away from the friends should worry about that even more.

It’s not good if a person has to be in contact with friends over great distances; it’s even worse if he can’t listen to lessons live, and what’s even worse is if he is not part of a group. One should constantly make sure that the interruptions in the connection between us should be beneficial and not harmful.
[98724]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9

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Question:  When the addition of ego rejects and throws us off the goal, we go to the group to receive help. At the same time, how can we not erase or extinguish this new situation? Because it needs to bring us benefit.

Answer: It depends on the group: it should be like a commando, it needs to value the toil.

Question: What out of all this depends on me?

Answer: I am happy about my connection with the group, and I am sorry that I am not yet in adhesion with the upper. You need to imagine the desired state and then the lack of being in conformity with the current reality inside you; you will invite sorrow that should later become pangs of love.

Let’s assume that I attained some spiritual state, and then what we call, “I hit my head” and suddenly I forgot the goal and found myself some place, in the movie theatre. I enjoy eating popcorn, drinking Coke, and seeing an interesting movie; this is not suffering, but pleasure from disconnection from the main thing. Moreover, I enjoy not only beastly pleasures, but rather that I’m disconnected from spirituality.

But then the lack of meaning in my life again reminds me of His existence, and I begin to return. I go back to the group again, listen to the friends, and annul myself to them from lack of choice until they again begin to influence me with the importance of the Creator, the importance of the goal. They wash my brain with blatant propaganda that is mixed with a lie, but I intentionally go through all this and eventually the goal becomes important to me.

Then I receive with love everything I experience: the forgetfulness, the pleasure at the movie theatre, and the descent of the value of spirituality in my eyes. Whether I want it or not, this comes from the Creator and I had to go through this in order to be corrected.

Now I begin to collect inside me other sufferings, torments of love, because I as if want to reach adhesion and connection, but meanwhile I don’t have even suffering for that, I am still not even sorry that I am not there, I don’t have a real deficiency or even a lack for the deficiency. I only have a tiny bud of something, and from this great distance, I begin the path.

The question that arises is: What am I suffering from? That the Creator, so to speak, is rejecting and throwing me out? Or that that I still did not achieve the goal? And here the main thing is to worry that my suffering will always be sweet. Because whatever happens, I receive everything from the Creator; therefore, every state needs to be justified and joined to the goal where all these situations receive sweetening and correction.

Baal HaSulam writes in Letter 5: I am glad in those revealed corruptions and those that are being revealed. How much I complain and I regret the corruptions that still are not yet revealed, and will be revealed, because corruption that is concealed is hopeless, and a big salvation from Heaven is its revelation.
[98721]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9 

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Question: When one passes to the next spiritual level the aspiration for money is transformed into some anti-egoistic property called a “screen” (cover). Then into what does a sexual desire transform?

Answer: Neither sexual desires, nor desires for wealth, power, fame, or any egoistic desires of our world become transformed into the next level. All of them are only egoistic desires at the level of our world. Therefore, we simply perform a restriction on them.

At the next level, new desires appear: desires to become closer and their opposite desires for rejection. All desires directed toward rejection are those of egoism that have to be corrected. And if you want to eat two dinners or enjoy something else, these are not the desires that a person needs to correct.

Question: Do they have to develop to their maximum?

Answer: When you are engaged in spiritual advancement you are obviously limiting them. This means that when they awaken you have to realize them in some way. However, they are simply the means for your soul to advance forward, just as is your body.
[95843]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 3/11/12

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Baal HaSualm, Shamati, article 9, “What are Three Things that Broaden a Man’s Mind in the Work.” The Holy Zohar interprets what our sages had written: “Three things broaden one’s mind. These are, a handsome woman, a handsome abode, and handsome Kelim (Vessels).” It says, “A handsome woman, this is the Holy Shechina (Divinity). A handsome abode, this is one’s heart; and handsome Kelim, these are one’s organs.

We must explain that the Holy Shechina cannot appear in its true form, which is a state of grace and beauty, except when one has handsome Kelim, which are the organs, elicited from the heart.

This is about our vessels, which are desires that must be transformed since we currently don’t use them correctly; we use them for our own benefit. A “woman” that is handsome to the desire to receive is ugly for the desire to bestow and must be transformed not to be graceful or beautiful, but modest, which means that she is totally in Hassadim. A “handsome abode” is the whole human heart and “handsome vessels” are the external desires.

This is how the five levels of our vessels are termed. The vessels are corrected by envy, lust, and honor, the attributes that take a person out of the egoistic world by evoking him to rise to new values.

Today, it is not in our power to perceive and to identify any aspect of spiritual life. We cannot attain such values, discernments, levels of attainment, feelings, and understandings. However, we can “expand our mind,” which means to start bringing the attributes of bestowal into the desire to receive.

How can we fulfill this? The point is that bestowal is essentially an intention and not a desire. Therefore, it is possible if I first stop working with the desire to receive and restrict it. As of today, it isn’t the place in which I receive pleasure or sufferings. I “close” it, and this attribute isn’t in me anymore.

Then, I develop the option to receive something on the side: “I will use you now as I see fit.” When different pleasures come along that I previously used to receive in this desire, I reject them now one by one, from the smallest pleasure to the biggest one.

What do I need this for? Is it because I am simply “on a diet?” No, I reject the pleasures because I want to resemble the Creator. This means that I must recognize the importance of the Creator and not receive anything. I receive this recognition of importance from the group, and I begin to value the Creator, the attribute of bestowal. Then, I really don’t use my desire to receive. Let the pleasures come, above my desire. I want to develop and to build the desire to bestow above it.

Thus, I already stabilize the human image inside me, the image of Adam that resembles (Domeh) the Creator. I use my desire to receive, the pleasure, the group, and the force of the Light that comes and fulfills all this as means to bestow upon Him.

Bestowal upon the Creator is the means that allows us to bring Him contentment. Is that the goal? No, that is also a means. The goal is to attain adhesion with Him since it is that which He really enjoys.

This turns into the means to attain a higher goal along our way, and it is so until we reach the end.
[98567]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9

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What Is A Spiritual Vessel (Desire)?
Climbing The Steps Of Desires Toward The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception - No Comments →