Question: No matter what I do, calculations of self-benefit will always be behind it. Thus, I’m opposite to the Creator. Does that mean I won’t be able to reveal Him?

Answer: No, now we’re going through the preparation period in a state of Lo Lishma (not for Her Name). Above us is the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). This is a very unique state. On one hand, on the way to the Machsom, you continuously aim to identify: What is bestowal? Is it good or bad? Who is the Creator? And on the other hand, you constantly think: “What’s in it for me?”

That is the state of Lo Lishma: You move forward and every time you need to justify that advancement in your eyes. No one is demanding us to take too big of a leap. Cooperation between the Light and the vessel, which began in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), brought about the division of the system into two parts. It divided into souls and worlds, vessels and Light, and both those lines, in correlation with each other, cascaded down. Now I need to combine them into a middle line and use them like reins in order to return to the point of my birth in Infinity.

Clearly, the system suits all my present needs and states, it doesn’t require me to bluff. I truly am an egoist who wants to take advantage of the whole world for self-benefit, steal from everyone, lie to all, and so forth. If I haven’t yet revealed it, I’ll soon realize that everything is that way. I only need to build all those things correctly so that receiving and bestowing will be balanced in accordance with my present degree.

I’m willing to invest in a group in order to gain a positive future for myself, the spiritual world. I don’t shut my own mouth; rather, I conduct an examination. Indeed, we’re talking about permanent rules. Nature can’t be wrapped around my finger. We aren’t hiding anything from ourselves or from others; otherwise, our approach wouldn’t be serious or practical. We learn about the forces operating in nature upon ourselves, forces destined to lead us forward to the goal. We need to conduct that study without shame and without hiding anything.
[69430]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/12, “The Peace”

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If we cast a glance at our own history, we can see that we are continuously developing. While the vegetative and animate levels of nature hardly change in the course of centuries, we develop with each succession of the generations and even during the span of a single generation.

I, for example, started life in the first half of the last century, and with the transition into the  21st century I see how the world has changed. Back then people were tied to villages, rural communities, and small towns with their set ways of life, while today everything is dynamic, everything is different: ways of thinking, approaches to life, and so on.

A question therefore arises: Is it not enough that we are born and live our life from year to year? Why do we need to change? It’s obvious that a newborn baby needs to grow in order to start living a meaningful adult life, start a family, have children, and pass his acquisitions to them so that they would continue his path. But why do people need some additional development, aside from the chain of generations inherent to the animal world? Where does this opposition come from? What is the goal of human development? This is something we don’t see.

Still, we can draw an analogy with a baby who is not yet ready for life. A lengthy development is required for a child in order to acquire reason, strength, and feeling until he or she actually learns to understand life, to arrange and alter it. Perhaps it’s the same story with us? Maybe the thousands of years of our development are comparable to the life of one person? Maybe every century of human history is like one year for a child?

However, we don’t yet see where we’re going. A child’s development proceeds on a well-trodden path, and we know how to secure for him all the necessary means, including exercises, games, and a specialized environment. And yet the goal of the universal human development is unknown to us, and that’s why we don’t notice the progress of the generations. It appears to us that this progress is random.

Like some clueless parents, we are looking at the baby and don’t understand where it came from and what for. We don’t have any idea about how to raise it, what exercises to give him, or what environment to place him in. As a result, our little one will tread through a thorny trail, lacking the necessary natural desires that would nudge him towards a true path.

With our own children, we give them knowledge, instill feelings, we teach them reading and writing, music, and drawing. They live in an artificial world in comparison to which the external world of adults seems like a feral prairie.

But where are the caring parents and educators of all of humanity? They are absent, and that’s why every generation, despite all the progress, is more miserable than the previous—it lacks more. On one hand, we achieve ever more, while on the other, we become more and more empty.

So what exactly have we come to today? What have we achieved? What did all our development give us? We went into space, walked on the Moon, but this topic isn’t especially popular these days, it’s hackneyed and superficial. We’ve achieved impressive results here on Earth, but we still haven’t found happiness, still haven’t discovered how to arrange our life.

The global crisis is escalating, families are collapsing, both parents and children are suffering, society is suffering, drug addictions are thriving, terrorism thunders, and depression is becoming the most widespread illness. Where is the joy? Where is the good mood?

It turns out that humanity doesn’t have kind parents to surround us with concern and raise us correctly.

In the meantime, we see that nature zealously cares for the correct development of each of its parts. When we become parents, we experience immeasurable love for our children, we want to give them only the absolute best, we dedicate our entire life to them. The best experts, enormous resources, and top technologies are placed at the service of children and their development.

And despite all that, we are not achieving success even though nature supplied us with all the necessary means. It gave us love without which we would remain indifferent to our children. In the same way the animals also love their offspring.

Ultimately, it becomes apparent that nature, while caring for the development of all creatures, demonstrates towards them a rather peculiar attitude. On one hand, it creates secure conditions for correct growth by inducing in parents this instinctual love towards children. As a result, we don’t have any other choice, we are simply obliged to care for them. But on the other hand, we see that the human species fails to attain any success.

A fruit on a tree is born bitter and unattractive, but in the end it ripens and appears in all its glory, juicy and fragrant. What if we are similar to this fruit? What if right now we’re undergoing transitional stages of development and simply haven’t ripened yet? It’s possible that our current state is akin to a sour, hard, unripe apple that hasn’t yet acquired its full colors? Without knowing it in advance, how can one foresee the happy finale of its development?

Similarly, looking at a little senseless child who still has a lot of growing up to do, it’s difficult to imagine that someday he would merge with the grownup life, act independently, and learn new things, changing the world. In contrast, an animal hardly develops at all beyond the few weeks past his birth. Acting on instinct, it doesn’t change itself or the world.

Hence the following conclusions can be drawn. First of all, our development occurs in phases. Moreover, the more “sour” the creation is at the beginning, the “sweeter” it will be in the end. And the further it develops, the more states it undergoes, the more magnificent is the finale of its development, and the more exalted are its achievements.

By collecting all those examples that Nature is showing us into a single picture, we can conclude that we are going along a path of particular development. From generation to generation we are developing as one being that hasn’t yet completed the transitional phases. This is why we’re so “bitter,” so unsuccessful. However, at the end of our development, a wonderful, perfect state undoubtedly awaits us.

We see that the human species dominates over the vegetative and animate world. A human being is the crown of creation. This is why the development of man takes the longest time. This is why he undergoes the most extreme states on the way, which seemingly do not relate to the same species.

And as far as nature that develops us is concerned, we can draw conclusions about ourselves and nature’s relation to us only when we will see the end of development. Otherwise we would err just like with the apple, whose early ripening stages don’t seem to promise anything useful. Only in the end we see with what wisdom nature nurtured it, forming a wonderful and delicious fruit.

According to this law we need to acknowledge that we, too, are undergoing a similar development, and its goal is to undoubtedly bring us at the end of the generations to a kind, wonderful, healthy, absolute, “sweet,” and beautiful state.
[66160] 
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 2, 12/28/11 

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Once we thought that human egoistic development could be infinite, that we would continue to invent wonderful new machines, that every person would have his own plane, and we would have unprecedented ways to connect. But eventually, the person consuming all these things suddenly discovers that he does not want any more of it; what is it all for? He feels emptiness and lack of fulfillment in all of this.

Why does it not bring him satisfaction? The problem is that the entire development happens through the desires, which are constantly growing. And suddenly they stopped growing! On the contrary, we feel many desires actually go backward.

Once a person wanted to have a big family, the bigger the better, many children, and even many wives. Then it became unnecessary; one wife and two children were enough, even one child was enough. And today he no longer wants even that. Life is becoming so hard and complicated that people do not want to leave their parents’ home in developed countries until they are 30-40 years old.

A person works and spends all his money on himself; why does he need a wife and children? He can travel, rest, have fun, and feel free. His mother takes care of him and he is happy.

We have built a society with such a developed infrastructure that we can buy prepared foods in supermarkets; just heat it up in the microwave and dinner is ready. There is no need to share an apartment with anyone; a person can have his own, and he feels free. And once I get old, I am entitled to a pension, medical insurance, hospital care, and a plot in the cemetery; what else is there for me? Is it worth spending my entire life working hard?

Our ego is becoming so huge that we feel incapable of connecting with others, investing our energy in them, caring for them so they later would care for us. I do not feel capable of connecting with anyone this much.

Or we have an opportunity to unite under mutually beneficial conditions, and my wife and I live as two friends, partners. Our life resembles more than just two people living together, a real family, as it used to be. I work, and she works. She does something around the house, and I do something. She pays and I pay.

We equally participate in everything. This is not the kind of family where the husband once was the master, the head of the household; he worked and provided for the wife who was at home bringing up the children. Now both of them leave home early, drop the children off at day care or kindergarten, come home at night, and pick up the children. And how much time do they have left at home? They almost do not even see each other. He watches a little television or sits at the computer, she quickly wipes a little dust, washes the dishes, throws the laundry in the washing machine, and that is it, the day is done.

Now they are completely equal, not like it used to be when one was higher and another was lower, where there was the head of the household, the master. In other words, family has lost its initial structure and has become a simple partnership. And if this is nothing but a partnership agreement, I will always try to see whether it benefits me. I enter this union if it is beneficial to me, and I leave it if it is not. And this is why people divorce and do not even wish to form these unions.

This is a fact. And we are studying the causes of it. Our ego has grown so much that it tells us that we should not enter the kind of partnerships called marriage.

A person’s ego has caused him to stop feeling that his children are close to him, like parts of his own soul. The children have their own lives; they study in places very far from us. The difference between the generations is becoming so huge that children are becoming completely separated from their parents. They have a different education, different interests, and they are so far from me that I can barely understand what they are speaking of, what they do, and what matters to them.

The connection between the generations has been broken. So, why would I even need these children? What pleasure is there in having them? They just want me to give them money and be quiet. We still enjoy them while they are little. But we lose any connection with them as they turn twelve.

In the good old days, a person would bring up his children, then he waited to have grandchildren and helped bring them up; he enjoyed them all. But I don’t have this today because my children do not want to marry and give me grandchildren.

A person doesn’t make these calculations consciously, but his lack of desire to have a family happens naturally based on our developed egoism.

We were developing demographically in a very rapid, exponential manner, and suddenly our development started to even out. Demographic specialists, who make prognoses for human development, predict that the number of people in the world will be undergoing a very sharp decrease in the near term. So far the population is still increasing due to a number of regions, mostly in Arabic countries, where there are still strong traditions and religious rules regarding developing and having many children.

But in developed Arabic countries, people now have 2-3 children instead of 10-15 children as it was before. So we see that they are quickly catching up to the rest of the world.
[65858]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 1, 12/27/11

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Today we will talk about the single general law of nature, which we are a part of. As we advance, we see that there is a certain pattern to the development. Generation after generation, for the duration of thousands of years there was the appearance and development of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature.

Our development occurs gradually. From generation to generation, year to year, and even from day to day, we develop more and more, but where are we going? In order to answer this question, we must clarify what this law is that acts upon us?

We see that there exists a sort of a mechanism, which is located above us and develops the whole nature in a particular direction, making it ever more complicated, of higher quality, better formed and interconnected in all of its parts. Whether we want it or not, we are forced to obey the orders of this law, which influences us and makes us develop.

This is one common law. All that exists is under its influence: everything we see on our planet, everything that is born and moves in some direction.

We study the laws of nature using science, and if we want to achieve something, the knowledge of these laws helps us achieve success. We begin to better understand how to avoid the bad and to draw nearer to the good, how to decrease the amount of mistakes and blunders.

That is why if we would know this common law, which includes all of the rest of the laws (physics, chemistry, zoology, biology, botany, astronomy, medicine, psychology, the little bit that we are already aware of and all that we are yet to discover for ourselves), this knowledge will help us succeed.

Science helps us make our life better and more comfortable. Before, a person would work from morning until the night, as it is said “by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread” (Genesis), but now one person can feed a thousand people with bread thanks to the development of technology, chemistry and the whole of farming industry. The same goes for the clothing industry, construction, education, culture, everything!

It would seem that today, with our current understanding of all of the laws and the strength that we possess, we would be able to set up a splendid, wonderful life for ourselves! Knowing the current state of the world and the characteristics of its population, we see that we produce such a quantity and assortment of products and things, which can provide a normal, poverty-free life for the entire population of the world.

The problem lies only in the fact that the human is egoistic and he cannot manage to correctly use all of that potential, which he is getting from the knowledge of the laws of the nature. We are given abundance, but some are holding great powers in their hands: money, equipment and everything else, while others, as a result of that, are not getting even the bare necessities for life.

So it means that it’s all within human nature, which does not let us create a good, comfortable, calm, confident life on a beautiful, prospering planet. That is why our goal is to understand human nature and understand how we can improve our lives so that we would want to create a good, prosperous life for ourselves and for others.

This is possible through the knowledge of the law, which is only now, in our time, starting to become revealed in nature. This is the law of the global force, which includes the rest of the forces inside of it, and regardless of our desire (because we do not want this), it forces people, countries, and civilizations to be more connected and in need of each other.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 4, 1/1/12

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In the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam raises the question: How is it possible to reach love without the revelation of the Creator? This question baffles us, because if the Host is before me and treats me with love, then I can also show the same feelings towards Him. But what can I do if He is concealed? How and who, can I love in this case?

I must have some kind of revelation, some perception, some understanding, an image and a direction in order to develop the love in me. Otherwise, how can we reach the vessels of bestowal in our world? Is it possible? After all, they are so different from my nature, from my character. It is like transcending from a protein form of life to a silicon form of life that is based on totally different elements. Actually it is simply impossible.

We count on the upper Light, but it operates only when we want it. So how can we want it, and to want it even more strongly than we want to exist in our present state? How can we yearn for something without seeing, feeling, or understanding anything?

I start from my ego, from my desire to receive. How can I kill it? I am ready to do so only in return for a greater ego. Otherwise I don’t have the power to do it. So where can I get the third force? After all, without it I can’t reach a decision and I can’t fulfill it.

To answer that Baal HaSulam gives us that we have a “precious gem” that enables us to transform ourselves so that we will be like the Creator.

But first we have to understand the question itself. It is depicted by the example of the rich man and the poor man: If the rich man loves the poor man, the poor man begins to take advantage of the situation and to “manipulate” the rich man; “If he already loves me, then I can receive from him.”

But where can I find this love, so that I can start to act? Where can I feel that the Creator loves and bestows so that I can start manipulating if not Him then myself? One way or the other, I need the connection. How is the Creator revealed to me? How does He enable me to perceive the precious gem and to succeed? We should ask ourselves this question.
[69425]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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At the animate level, we transplant and clone organs; at the vegetative one, we employ the newest agricultural technologies. If we didn’t genetically modify the produce we grow, we wouldn’t have much to eat.

In the past, fruit and vegetables would rot in a few days, but today, you can use a tomato to play football with and eat it a week later. Despite all the disadvantages, it should be understood that this serves to save the world. On one hand we “corrupt” what nature created; on the other, we perform a correction.

Therefore, at the still, vegetative and animate levels, we manage to make life more comfortable and pleasant for our egoism. Indeed, we can modify the previous levels of evolution to fit our needs by creating a comfortable environment. We don’t live in tree houses, teepees, and igloos any more, but we build houses with heating systems and electricity for ourselves. We modernize the earlier stages and see how beneficial it is for us. But the benefit expires when we transfer our approach to the level of “human.”

People don’t see this border, while at the human level, we don’t have the means to correct the situation. Therefore, by employing the same methods, we are destroying everything. By not correcting the human degree, we cause corruption at the lower rungs. As a result, although we might succeed there, to a greater extent, we do not, and the situation is getting worse.

Try as we might to improve and upgrade our life, we suffer from it nevertheless. After all, the human degree in us is above all the others, which results in their falling apart under its pressure. This is why Baal HaSulam writes in the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” there is no point in taking into consideration the lower rungs since they rise and fall along with man. Moreover, this mostly implies not the external world but primarily our inner degrees of development.
[30504]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/10, “The Peace”

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Question: How is it possible to organize clarification in the group correctly in order not to be involved with our ego and not turn the bad to Klipa (shell)?

Answer: When I clarify my relations with you, I only reach the point of breakage, and immediately ask for correction. And the group needs to participate in this. After all, I don’t just discover the bad between you and me, but I want it to be a general gain so that we will discover the connection between us.

It is specifically that these transgressions are the place where above it love is discovered, and without transgressions, there can’t be love. The entire system of work in the three lines is assembled from this, which doesn’t appear in any religion or faith. We use our ego, specifically use it, and don’t destroy it.

And in principle, the Klipa is the lack of desire to use the ego. All the mistakes made by religions, faiths, and in general, all mistakes in life are summed up by a person not understanding that in the force of bad lies the secret of life. It is forbidden for you to cover this up, to erase or change anything. You only need to cover it with a good attitude and that’s all. The forms of the bad remain; you only cover them with the attribute of Hassidim (mercy) and receive the Kli of holiness, the Kli of bestowal.

But I don’t simply need to awaken the bad in me: “where is my hatred for everyone?” The correct approach is that we long for the good, and don’t descend to the bad. There is no Mitzva (commandment) to awaken quarrels. We need to add to the longing for connection, and then certainly we will discover the impairment. Only longing for ascension is needed, and according to that we will discover the descent.

But if we don’t long for what is above, then from above we will be shown the corruptions, and they can be of different sorts: sudden unpleasantness in the family or between friends of the group; anything is possible. But all of these are signs that the group doesn’t strive upward, and then problems and tragedies are revealed at the corporeal level. Even if the group is not united enough, but aspires to unity, then the deficiency of the connection will be revealed. And if it doesn’t yearn enough for the upper level, then deficiencies at the corporeal level will be revealed and even lower than that.
[68862]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/12, The Zohar

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In the News (from Granma): The 85-year old Fidel Castro published a series of materials, “World Peace Hanging by a Thread,” in the leading Cuban newspaper Granma.

“…conflicting interests and the enormous profits gained by arms merchants led to the fabrication of even more cruel and destructive weapons, until modern technology provided the means and materials which, if employed, could lead to extinction.

“I hold the opinion, undoubtedly shared by all people with an elementary sense of responsibility, that no country, large or small, has the right to possess nuclear weapons….

“But the United States, the strongest and richest power, imposed the line to be followed on the rest of the world. Today it possesses hundreds of spy satellites and polices all inhabitants of the planet from space. Its naval, air and land forces are equipped with thousands of nuclear weapons and it governs, as it pleases, the world’s finances and investments through the International Monetary Fund….

“One even feels pity for those soldiers, separated from their families and friends, thousands of kilometers from their own homeland, sent to fight in countries which they maybe never even heard mentioned as students, where they are assigned the task of killing or dying in order to enrich transnational enterprises, weapons manufacturers and unscrupulous politicians who, every year, are squandering funds needed for the elimination and education of the countless millions of hungry and illiterate people in the world.”

Comment: How touching and true! But what did Fidel Castro do in his country during his many years of rule?

The correction of the world is not to change from one egoistic policy to another, but to eliminate the root of evil—human egoism—under the influence of an appropriate environment.
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Question: The Kabbalists are telling me about the property of bestowal, but I don’t sense it. I don’t even have the end of the thread…

Answer: When you experience the need for bestowal you can understand what bestowal is like. Try to bestow to your friends and you will see that you don’t want it. From this you will understand what it would be like if you possessed the property of bestowal. Then you will start guessing what you lack.

The reasoning is as follows. I want to achieve unity with my friends. They are united with one another while I am detached from them. Honestly I don’t want this unity, I am incapable of doing this, I keep forgetting about it. The sparkle of my desire dims. I can revive it only when I am with my friends, when I connect to them even because of shame.

I become closer to them, I work in the group and I begin to understand how much I need love. The sketches of my efforts gradually depict a picture of bestowal. I think about its benefits and this way I form a vessel, desire. Perhaps it’s still unreal and only preliminary. However, with every effort I draw the upper Light, which is built according to my desires. It is coming from perfection, from Eternity, to the very breakage, to this world. Perhaps like a child I play a guessing game, but the Light is doing its work. This makes it possible for me to move toward bestowal.
[68423]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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We have to go to a great deal of trouble in order to eventually reach “the King of Egypt died.” And afterward, “many days” begin in which we have to carry out many acts in order to reveal the correct demand within us. If we simply “scream from the lack of will to work,” that is not called “sighing from the work.”

If we don’t receive pleasure from the work, we should gradually discern: “What does it mean “the King of Egypt died?” Why are we working and for whom? We gradually discern this, until we realize there is another king and we must exit Egypt in order to be the workers of the Creator, that is, to work for bestowal.

Yet, how can I do that, if here in Egypt everything’s so simple? I’m built in such a way that I feel pleasure the moment I carry out a certain act or make an effort in thinking. The reward arrives instantaneously, within my desire. Although initially, I seemed to long for bestowal, it was with the intent of “in order to receive.” I bestow, but that is how I receive pleasure,when I identify with my egoistic desire.

However, when the King of Egypt dies, it’s great help from Above, enabling us to detach from him. Indeed, he is now dead; I am rid of him. I didn’t want that, but he has left me. My ego has detached from him.

And I don’t know what to do; I have no one to work for any more. I cry and am still. I always enjoyed him so much, and now I am left with no pleasure in life. How will I find pleasure? In what desire, thought, or intent will I be able to feel it? I begin searching.

I used to work, bestowing in order to receive, yet now I will have to look for something else, and inevitably, through beatings, I will attain bestowal in order to bestow. I think to myself: If I don’t have the vessels in which I may find pleasure, I might be able to derive pleasure from someone else.

I look at someone else: He has pleasure, whereas I have no vitality. That is why I envy him and want to join him, in order to enjoy his pleasure. Perhaps that way, at least I’ll receive some satisfaction. That is how we begin to view our surroundings. I can’t enjoy by myself any more when I work within my “Egypt” as before.

However, if I bestow unto the environment and cause them pleasure, I’ll be able to join them and enjoy along with them; even though I join with the intent of receiving something in that manner, it still is called bestowing unto the environment. That is already called Lo Lishma (not for Her name). I bestow unto them and want for them to have goodness since I’m going to identify with them and join them, so that I will find goodness within them. That’s already an advanced stage.

There are different stages of drawing near exiting Egypt. Some already realize they act in order to benefit egoism and later reach Lishma, and there are others who don’t realize it in the meantime and only act in search of pleasure. Yet, no matter what, we’re advancing.

I already have the direction: I understand that I must join the group that is exiting Egypt. Indeed, I don’t receive pleasure from the simple life. Yet, if I join them, then there, within them, in our unity, I’ll find the pleasure and reveal my unique spiritual life. That’s already a step toward salvation: There’s a purpose in detaching from egoism. After all, Egypt is already dead and that is enough. If a person feels he must bestow unto the group and reveal the collective force in it called the Creator, if he wants to be included in it so that he will also receive something, that is already called Lo Lishma (an egoistic longing for spirituality).

There are various forms and levels in each one, at different times, but it already gives the direction until we conclude the struggle, the ten beatings, which help a person detach from Egypt for good and feel the life in Egypt as darkness.

The last beating is the killing of the firstborn, which shows us that nothing will stem from this situation for us, nothing will “be born” of it. And then it’s already totally clear to a person that this state can’t bear any result. When each firstborn in Egypt dies, then he agrees to escape.

All those states the Torah tells about take place in our will to receive. Beating after beating: Either Pharoah prevails, or the Creator prevails and “Moses” sees how all this happens within him and what the values are that he gives the will to receive and the will to bestow. That is until he sees the darkness in his situation, and remains with no choice other than escaping through this darkness to the will to bestow, only to see some sign of Light ahead. And this is how he escapes from Egypt. That’s what should happen in a person who’s prepared to join the society, even if he arrives in order to find livelihood in it and egoistic fulfillment: That is already called Lo Lishma
[68776]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12, Shamati #159

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