According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the “body” of the Partzuf is called a desire to receive in order to bestow, and the “soul” is the Light that fills it. In order to acquire a soul, we are building a connection between us, which means that we make a desire to bestow from the desire to receive. In order to do that, we connect with the group above the ego, give up the desire to receive, and turn it into the opposite use; thereby the desire to receive works in order to bestow.

The switch from the ego to bestowal is done by the Creator, I obligate Him to do so by my work in the group, in the environment, like it says: “My sons have defeated me.” He operates on me and then my desire to receive can work in bestowal.

Accordingly, I now treat the friends this way and we establish the connection among us by building forms of bestowal from the thickness of the desire to receive, which turns it into the purity of the desire to bestow.

The desire to receive is divided into five layers of “thickness,” from the root phase to phase four, and there is also a “spiritual embryo” in it, a point in the heart (•) that constantly evokes me, “shakes” me. In order to fulfill the “point in the heart,” I enter the group and summon upon myself the Light that Reforms, the Surrounding Light. First it performs “the first restriction” in me, according to which I cannot take my desire to receive into account. Then I can even work with my desire to receive in order to bestow, not in thickness but in purity, which is also divided into five levels. Accordingly I acquire five Lights: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida, from the bottom up NRNHY.

Thus my desire to bestow is formed by the desire to receive that was in me before. This desire to bestow is called “a vessel for the soul.” Why for the soul? Because up to this level we receive the Light regularly, by using the thickness of the root, the first, and the second phases (NRN), while the Lights of Haya and Yechida cannot receive the Light regularly and so they reach us only as an illumination (HY).

So the vessel of the soul is the purity of the desire to bestow, and the Light that fills it is called the Light of Neshama (the soul). On the whole, it is my soul that gradually turns my entire ego to its side, to purity. This means that the desire to receive doesn’t disappear, but we only change our use of it.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/13, “Body and Soul”

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Question: Scientists have long understood that it is possible to continue to advance only if we change our attitude toward reality, so why don’t they discover that changes must be made in the researcher himself, in man? What is stopping them from following this direction?

Answer: It is true that this realization was born in the time of Spinoza and Kant, but because they lacked practical tools, this approach remained theoretical. Scientists are reluctant to step into this field because it belongs to philosophy.

Psychology also deals with changes in man, but it isn’t a science since it doesn’t control the processes. We cannot change something in the body, for example, to disturb the balance of acidity, to add some more electricity, and by that change a person’s perception of reality, record the results, and repeat them several times in order to determine a certain law based on our statistics. We don’t have standard “buttons”; we don’t know exactly what every person discovers.

So what can we do? We cannot conduct similar experiments since this area is beyond human nature and remains unattainable. In order to study ourselves, we have to rise to a higher level. For this reason, science deals with concrete facts, and in the main direction it finds itself in a dead end.

There is nothing scientists can do about that, but at least they aren’t carried away by fantasies any more. It is true that they do talk about “boundary” areas, and deal with abstract ideas that sometimes turn into the popular science, and that is natural. After all, there are no new scientific challenges anymore, so why not “spice” it up with philosophy or with fantasy for the general public?

I don’t blame the scientists at all. They are looking for challenges and are filling empty niches, but it all stems from inner despair. In the conceptual aspect science is over. A person who wants to know reality better sees that his hands and feet are tied. A true scientist has an urge to discover things, but when he delves into the secrets of matter he sees a border that he cannot transcend, and this border is inside him. Beyond the inner border, his mind and feeling and even his imagination don’t work anymore. He discovers that he is in a “matrix,” a “pattern” that exceeds the limits of his abilities.

I understand this tragedy, the inner frustration that throws scientists in different directions, whether it is practical science, technology, or the opposite, philosophical theories and populism. There is nothing they can do…

A few days ago, for example, there was an article in the paper about stopping the particle accelerator project for the next year or two; this is after great efforts and resources have been invested in it and we are told that it is because the system is being upgraded, but in fact it is about a general trend of decline. Everything is stopping, even the space program humanity dreamt about. If space flights are not profitable today, then they are not funded. Romanticism is dead. It was affected before, but people still hoped for something bigger until the ego totally covered the whole desire. In the past there were all kinds of “bright ideas,” but now the fourth phase (Behina Dalet) is in control, destroying the remains of human conscience and good intentions.

Money determines everything. The rich also control politics and every other aspect of our life. Once it wasn’t only about money, but today it is the opposite, there is no other account. There is no pride, no respect, no offenses; they all belong to the past. Today you can only hurt people’s pockets, since this is what the wealthy take pride in…

Unfortunately, outside the wisdom of Kabbalah, people are still looking for a method to change the external form and not man himself. They would like to reach the essence, but they simply don’t have an inner point in order to see where the essence is and how to work with it. They try to connect, to love one another, to work for the good of society, but they are only declarations and not real internal changes. It is because a real change is possible only with the help of the Light that Reforms since otherwise everything is limited imaginary idealism. They think that it is enough to call everyone to connect generally, and then you are already corrected, that it is enough to speak about “love the others as thyself” and then you are already special… it is human nature and so there is no future in these connections.

As of today, there are two areas that are very close to Kabbalah—education and psychology. It may well be that people who study the global crisis seriously will somewhat agree with us, but then again, it is only to a certain extent, above which we still remain by ourselves…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/13, “Body and Soul”

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Question: What should we care more about: a friend’s physical health and his material well-being or the greatness of the goal?

Answer: We have to show a friend as much as possible what you think about his material and spiritual wellbeing. The problem is that we are in a particular state where our resources are limited: We are separated by distance; we are surrounded by a lot of outsiders, and we have different possibilities.

However, a friend should feel that you care about all his material and spiritual life. You are all ready to make him free from any concerns. Then, his egoism dies and there is a state when he feels as if he is on a hovercraft created by your care.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/30/12

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 133: It is rather like a king who wished to select for himself the most loyal of his subjects in the country and bring them in to work inside his palace. What did he do? He issued a decree that anyone who wished, young or old, would come to his palace to engage in the work inside his palace.

However, he appointed many of his servants to guard the palace gate and all the roads leading to it, and ordered them to cunningly deflect all those nearing his palace and divert them from the way that leads to the palace…

And only the heroes among them, whose patience endured, defeated the guards and opened the gate. And they were instantly awarded seeing the King’s face, who appointed each of them in his right place.

The guards are appointed in order to guard a person. He mustn’t come near the King’s palace and pass the place where the guards stand, unless he establishes an inner guard.

The Creator has many policemen and they are on each of the 125 degrees, preventing a person from coming nearer. They show you that you are allowed to rise only to a specific level, and you are not allowed to pass above that for the time being. It is because they see that you are not ready for the upper level yet. This is what happens each time.

The guards make sure that a person will not advance any further (although it is impossible, since there are rigid laws of conformity in the spiritual world). The guards reveal deficiencies to a person—a place for self-checking. They evoke him and don’t let him relax in his current state by bringing him all kinds of troubles.

They guard the person; the Light and the Creator don’t need to be guarded because it is impossible to harm them if you are not worthy of seeing them. It is all done according to the equivalence of form; if I am not suitable for a higher level, I don’t recognize it.

What does it mean that I cannot advance? Do I see that the road before me is blocked? If I haven’t corrected myself yet on the previous level, I cannot advance and climb the mountain a few meters further, but the guards help me and point me at the problematic point. They are there in order to protect me, to hasten me, to bring me closer, and to help me reach the necessary discernments. Everything is in a person’s favor and for his correction.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/13, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How do the guards guard me?

Answer: Let’s imagine a corrected world. A policeman, a guard, a teacher, and several other people come to you and start telling you what is wrong with you, and you are surprised and don’t agree with them.

But they say: “You are judging according to old standards. It is true that a month ago there were different conditions, and so then we didn’t have any complaints against you. But now we see that your behavior is undesirable. If you go on behaving like this and don’t correct yourself, then gradually your behavior will turn from undesirable behavior to intolerable.”

“You must correct your attitude towards the environment. Everyone suffers since they cannot advance because of you. You are delaying the general correction and do not allow everyone else to reach a good life! They are ready to do everything, but you don’t respond, so what can you do? You have to subdue yourself before the environment, to connect to it, to be correctly integrated with the others, and thus reach the end of correction. We speak for everyone, they have told us to talk to you and to tell you what is wrong with you.”

This is how a police car or a public representative comes to you and tells you all this, they worry that you may go on living like you have been living so far and that you may not advance. After all, the demands, the Reshimot (spiritual genes) are constantly renewed, revealing a new world, but you see it like you did before, and for you nothing changes. This means that you are on the “animate” level, and with regard to the spiritual world you are even on the level of “still nature.” You simply float with the currents of life wherever they take you, and this is wrong.

On the advanced levels, the guards and the policemen come to you and point out the fine details and special conditions that you have to pay attention to, but cannot identify. Then they tell you that you have to go down to that level. There is no place for you in this “neighborhood,” and there is no time to wait. You have to leave the city and move to the suburbs, to a neighborhood of thieves, and live among criminals.

You resent this, “How can this be!” But they tell you that you are not worthy of living among good, corrected people who are open to one another, since you don’t behave like them. You thought that you were worthy! But the guards tell you that they have checked and seen that you are not… there is nothing they can do.

At that moment you resent this and are angry at everyone, but later you look at things objectively and agree that it is really so, and that you are not worthy of living in this place with your wife and kids.

I must constantly adapt myself to an increasingly more advanced generation and even set an example for others. This is what Baal HaSulam says in his article “The Last Generation.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/13, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Rabash, “What is Thou Shall Not Add and Thou Shall Not Detract, in the Work”: The matter of “right” means to the right.

This means that a person should believe above reason and depict to himself as if he has already been awarded with God’s faith, feeling it in his body, seeing and feeling that the Creator rules the whole world and is totally good and benevolent. And although when he sees things within reason, he sees the opposite, in any case he has to work above reason and he should feel as if he already feels it in his body, that that’s the way things actually are, that the Creator rules the world as the good and the benevolent.

And he feels that he has the power to say to the Creator, “You have chosen us of all the nations, You have loved us and wanted us,” since he already has something to be grateful for with regard to the Creator. And according to the importance of spirituality that he feels, he arranges the Creator’s praise.

After a person already feels the importance of spirituality, which is called, “a person should always arrange the Creator’s praise,” then it is time for him to move to the left line and check how he really feels the importance of the King within reason, and whether he is really ready to work only for the Creator’s benefit.

And when within reason he sees he has no strength for this, and that the importance of spirituality is only above reason for him, this calculation can generate a deficiency for him, pain and sorrow since he is in a state of absolute lowliness, and he can then pray a true prayer from the bottom of his heart, for what he lacks.

A person should imagine two points: to what extent he is “within reason” and “above reason.” Then he will really want to rise “above reason” and draw himself to the upper level and come to a prayer. Thus he can advance.

A person should examine his current state and rise above it in “faith above reason,” in order to see that the Creator, the ruler, is good and benevolent in everything a person has. He examines himself in every way and justifies the Creator “above reason.”

Then he checks whether “within reason” he is also ready to reach the same conclusion and sees that it isn’t so, since his reason is based on what his eyes see. Then a prayer grows in the gap between what he sees “within reason” and “above reason.”

But this is true if a person feels happy. The right prayer in spirituality is made of opposite discernments. On the one hand, I should be happy since I am in contact with the Creator and I have someone to turn to. I am sure that He will help me and that He is good and benevolent and everything is fine!

I never ask the Creator to improve my situation, but I ask Him to change my perception of my situation. It is because now I see that I am in a sea of absolute love and that there is nothing else besides that. But because I am not corrected I see something else. We have never left the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), but we have to determine the right attitude towards it.

Each time new details are revealed to me, I have to change my attitude, which means my intention. This is why I pray to the Creator to correct me, to allow me to see Him as revealed mercies. It is a very important moment. I shouldn’t ask the Creator to correct my state, as if I ask the Creator to correct His actions, but rather to correct me so that I will see His creation as it actually is, which means only in a positive way.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/13

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Question: Now the whole global group is anxiously preparing for the Arava Convention and there is a great emotional intensity in the air. A while ago, you advised us to try to rephrase the mutual guarantee declaration in one paragraph, so that it will touch the heart of every individual. What would you write in the declaration?

Answer: The meaning of mutual guarantee is that we must give each friend the feeling that he will automatically, naturally, having no choice, stop feeling the need to care about himself. By that we neutralize his ego. Therefore, the sources say that mutual guarantee is essential for spiritual advancement.

Clearly, the spiritual field is above our ego, and we have to be above it, in the attribute of bestowal. But we cannot imagine how it is possible to be in this attribute of bestowal. Time after time we encounter the same ego, but in different variations. It constantly surrounds us and does with us whatever it feels like, and we cannot get rid of it and rise above it.

This is intentional, so that we will be able to attain the attribute of bestowal only through connection and unity, since that’s the main thing. It isn’t the ascent above the ego, but the connection and unity between us that’s important. When we connect and in this connection influence the friends, they begin to lose their ego. We care about them like a mother who cares for her baby, and they feel fully confident and don’t think about themselves, feeling no worry. What is more, this bestowal that is focused on the friend automatically denies him of his ego and allows him to focus on the spiritual work. This is the power of mutual guarantee, its wonderful attribute.

So if we develop such mutual cooperation among us, by making each other feel mutual guarantee, people who receive this feeling from us will simply start “jumping” out of their ego, ascending in “faith above reason” and will immediately start feeling the upper world.

It is not up to a person, but rather to his environment, which we create by ourselves by mutual guarantee by totally focusing on filling one another until we reach this state in which each of us feels the collective support.

So mutual guarantee is the guiding, mutual cooperation among us that summons the absolute feeling of confidence and the natural exit from the ego.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/30/12

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Question: Who are the “guards?” Are they some forces that throw a person backward if he isn’t ready for the next level?

Answer: A person should create such guards for himself. It is written: “Make yourself guards and policemen in all your gates.” If you are thrown without your knowing, then it isn’t guards and policemen. Guards and policemen are those a person is in contact with and uses to check himself.

Guards and policemen are a person’s internal clarifications as to whether he is suitable or not suitable and what else he has to correct internally in order to get closer to the goal. It is a perpetual movement: a step to the right, a step to the left, when the Gevurot and the Dinim increase on the next levels.

A person discovers all this himself and asks the court for an internal trial. He wants to know what else can be done in order to advance. He checks his attitude towards the environment; he wants the environment to help him, to act on his side. This depends on how strong his connection with the environment is.

All the 125 spiritual degrees are determined according to how strongly a person adheres to the environment. Now too, we see ourselves through the environment. If I didn’t feel anything outside myself, I wouldn’t feel that I exist. One individual cannot exist; he feels that he exists since he feels the difference between himself and the environment. This is also how the concept of life and death is determined.

The final corrected state means the absolute, inclusive connection between everyone and the return to one soul, without any distinction, in which the light of NRNHY is revealed equally for everyone, becomes infinite and limitless, identically for all the parts of the soul. This is why I always check myself with regard to the environment.

If I attain such a level in which I constantly check and assess myself according to the degree of my connection with the friends and see my advancement only in this, seeing this as the only measuring tool, it means that I am already at the beginning of the spiritual ladder.

Unless I discover these guards and policemen inside me and clarify all the conditions my level presents to me, meaning, until I discover what is considered good and regret that I haven’t reached it, I will not start looking for the means to fulfill these conditions that will eventually fulfill them: Until I go through all these stages, I will not make one step forward.

The guards and policemen become my spiritual vessels.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/13, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Once we reach the state of Gmar Tikkun (the final correction), will the feeling of the Creator, as the greatest, remain because we adhere to Him in one whole and become equal?

Answer: The special method of Kabbalah is that in adhesion with the Creator, our feelings of oppositeness to Him are not lost.

On the one hand, we become more opposed to the Creator; we distance from Him because during spiritual ascent our egoism grows. But at the same time, we become closer to Him, above our increasing egoism, and that is why our oppositeness to Him does not evaporate, does not disappear.

That is, in the state of Gmar Tikkun (the final correction), we discover that we are absolutely opposite to the Creator in our desire, and absolutely equal, like Him, in adhesion with Him, in our intention.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

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Opinion (His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama): “He said that the source of our problems is self-centredness. Theistic religions tackle this by complete submission to God, whereas Buddhism reduces self-centredness by focusing on selflessness, the lack of a single, autonomous self, and the advice to regard others as more important than us. He counselled that once we understand that our different religions have common goals, we understand the grounds for granting them equal respect. …

“‘Compassion brings peace of mind and with it better health; so cherish compassion. … As human beings we are all the same; we are born the same and we die the same. We need to emphasize the oneness of humanity, how we are all the same as brothers and sisters.’ …

“He said that when we are in the grip of destructive emotions we are unhappy, but when we develop love and compassion for others we feel happier and more at ease. Competitiveness and jealousy give rise to fear and mistrust; we lose friends and become lonely. When we are free from fear, trust and friendship grow. When our minds are at peace, we are less anxious and free from fear. And today, scientists and thinkers recognise that true happiness comes from peace of mind. …

“His Holiness then turned to the topic of secular ethics, his belief that in a materialistic world we need to find ways to foster and encourage people to nurture fundamental, humane, inner values. He feels that this can best be done through the medium of secular education, using the word secular as the Indian constitution does, not to exclude religion, religious believers or non-believers, but to accord all of them an inclusive respect. He encouraged his listeners to understand that if they passed on their interest in what he had to say about this to others, the word would spread.”

My Comment: Religions will never come together because they are based on the egoism of believers. They divide people. Rising above them and uniting, that is, accepting unity above all the differences, including religious, is the way out of the crisis. The appeal must be towards unity, despite the differences. We see in religions only hatred of strangers and people of other faiths and never true calls for unity and love. That is why, the Dalai Lama talks about non-religious ethics as appropriate to address the challenges of the 21^st century.
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