Question: How will The Book of Zohar bring about the correction of the Internet?

Answer: The Book of Zohar can help correct the Internet because people using the net are looking for a real connection. However, they do not understand their own desire yet and it seems to them that it’s enough for them to just make contacts, to chat with each other, and to entertain themselves with games and other such things.

But later people will see that this doesn’t help, that all of this is limited and a waste of time that does not bring any benefit, and that the “social networks” do not really connect people with each other. Nevertheless, as long as people are spending time there, they reveal the evil contained there. They reach the understanding that all of this is false, that it exists for the sake of making a buck, and is an attempt to lie to and rob each other. They will understand that this entire Internet connection only harms them.

It would seem: How could the connection between us harm us? But the matter is that we are egoists and cannot connect well and usefully. We cannot create a network that brings us pleasure. And this will bring about the realization of evil.

Then we will have to give people the explanation that inside of this Internet network there exists one small network that lives by different laws. The people that have gathered there desire to attain goodness. This is exactly what our television channel’s motto says, “We’re connecting to goodness.”

There are completely different rules and people operating there—people who want to be brothers. And by virtue of that they reveal the upper life, instead of simply hugging and attempting to keep everything polite and pretty on the outside.

These people attain the state where inside of their relationships they begin to feel the upper, spiritual life, which is perfect and eternal. They reveal the Creator, the spiritual world, the upper force that is concealed inside of that network!
[36174]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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On the spiritual path I ask myself what seems like an insolvable question about how to overcome my evil inclination, egoism. Kabbalists tell you, "You have to try." Understand this: The Creator really is opposite to your nature; the quality of bestowal is extremely hateful to you; you cannot even think about love for the neighbor, not to mention its implementation.

So what should you do? Move gradually. Make actions that will bring you to the prayer. Resort to all possible means and tricks in order to nevertheless feel the importance of the quality of bestowal and to place it above the quality of reception. Even if it’s repulsive to your nature, even if you feel that you don’t want to bestow because you find bestowal very bitter to the taste, then at least with your mind you will nevertheless begin to value this quality for its height and greatness for the fact that it is the quality of the Creator. It governs the world and it is respected by the environment which you have entered.

By using various tricks, you will evoke the Light that Reforms. In other words, by studying, working in the group, and disseminating, you will prepare your intention: “I want the influence of the Light. I want the Light, the force of bestowal that created my desire, meaning the force of reception, to influence me, to influence my desire, and to add the intention of bestowal to it.”

You do not know exactly what you are asking for, but try it anyway. After all, you want to reveal the Creator, meaning the quality of bestowal. You want to feel the upper world, to live in the quality of bestowal. You want to reveal the common Kli, the common soul, meaning to live with the care for all the other desires, which will become revealed to you in the form of the system of the single soul. Gradually, thanks to the intention before and during the study, together with the friends you will reach something called a “miracle” and will begin to feel that more and more, you really do respect and value the quality of bestowal.

Suddenly, it becomes very important to you. It reigns in the whole world because bestowal does not have to be expressed. It is primary; in fact, it is the entire life force in all of reality. This quality supports the still level, raises the vegetative level, gives vital forces to the animate level, and gives man unity and connection with the Creator.

When this “miracle” happens to a person, he suddenly feels love and connection with that quality. A special feeling emerges inside of him in relation to the quality of bestowal. He is ready to receive from it everything that it wants to give, to do anything just to become similar to it and to give it pleasure. A person feels that he is able to do this and that he thereby brings goodness to the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

All of this happens inside of me under the influence of the Light. However, it only happens to the extent of my efforts, in conformity with their quality and quantity. Before studying, I prepare myself by asking: What am I studying for? Why am I opening up the book? The answer is that it’s only in order to acquire the quality of bestowal, to reveal the force of bestowal, to reveal the Creator and merge with Him. In other words, it’s in order to unite with the force of bestowal so it will rule inside of me, so it would turn into my intention above the desire.

That is how a person advances until the entire egoistic desire becomes revealed in him, whereas the force of bestowal will become an intention to him, the bestowing desire above the receiving desire. Then the receiving desire and the intention for the sake of bestowal will be together and a person will reach adhesion with the Creator.

That is how we realize ourselves correctly. It is written about this that “Israel carries out the Creator’s will.”
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/11, Writings of Rabash

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Kabbalists teach us the path to the root so each of us would attain the root of his soul. They tell us that the most important thing is the intention. There is a force Above intended to correct us and lead us through all the phases to the final, exalted state. However, we have to precede the ascent with our own actions by anticipating it with our request or desire.

In the end we have to feel something that we are unable to currently perceive. We do not have anything to grab hold of, no opportunity to. This “something” appears insignificant and meaningless. Why is that? The reason is because the phenomenon we have to feel is bestowal and love for the neighbor. This is the force of the Creator, the quality called “the Creator” which envelops and fills all of reality.

We don’t understand it or feel it, and are unable to come closer to it. We were deliberately created opposite in order to see the Light from the darkness, and then to understand, feel, and manifest it.

The simple Light as such would blind us. Therefore, we exist and develop in the quality of reception, gradually acquiring more and more details of perception. Then comes a moment when we despair of reception and acquire an impetus toward the quality of bestowal. This spark that awakens inside us is called “the point in the heart.”

Then we are brought closer to realizing it. We are brought to an instructor, books, and environment. Now we can develop this spark into the real quality of bestowal and love for the neighbor. Our work lies in making all the possible actions that can help us increase our value of the instructor, the primary sources, and the environment. When we elevate them above our egoism, above the quality of reception, the quality of bestowal becomes more important to us and we start to feel greater respect for the Light than the darkness, or for the Creator than creation.

I read about this in the primary sources, and that means I have to make efforts to this end. However, when I come face to face with it, when I make a plan to begin respecting and raising bestowal over reception in my eyes, what I discover inside is futility and lack of all interest in the subject. I feel that I don’t care one bit about the instructor, the group, or the books. Everything loses flavor.

Why? It’s because my egoism, my desire for pleasure does not smell any profit here. On the contrary, from that moment on it feels that what lies ahead are losses.

How can I cause anything bad to myself if I am entirely the will to enjoy? I am simply incapable of this. The possibility of harming myself is not inherent in me.

So what should I do? It turns out that my advancement towards the Creator lies in constantly separating from what now appears as “goodness” to me. Moreover, it is coming closer to “evil.” Is that even possible?

The answer to this question can only be received from the science of Kabbalah.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: When I feel repelled by the group, should I remain patient and not judge my friends?

Answer: You should judge yourself instead of them because the only reason you perceive them negatively is because that’s how your egoism sees them. The Creator gathered all these different people in a group and wants you to unite with them. He evokes dislike of them within you, and your egoistic desire pushes you away from unifying. This is called revealing evil inside of you, as it is written, “I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah for its correction.”

Now I have to attract Light during the study only for the sake of one goal: To unite with people in the group, whom I reject. I don’t need anything else. If my attitude to them changes as a result of the study, that means the Light of the Torah has influenced me and I have acquired the quality of bestowal.

In other words, the goal is not to unite with a friend or to correct your egoism. These are just means. The goal is to attract the quality of the Creator, His image, by means of attracting Light.

That is why things are arranged so that I push the friends away. It’s so I would need the influence of the Light, which will give me the quality of the Creator. Otherwise there is no need for it. That is to say, we shouldn’t think about the need to correct something, but about the fact that we attain the goal by means of the correction.
[36029]
From the lesson on 2/18/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can I measure how important the goal is to me?

Answer: The goal is as important to the same degree that you value the environment as the means to attain it.

For example, suppose I want to be healthy and to achieve that I have to take medicine. How much am I willing to pay for it? Exactly as much as my desire to be healthy will allow. No matter what I pay for, the price is determined by the degree of the importance.

Question: Money is a precise yardstick. But how can I know how much I am paying on the spiritual path?

Answer: You can measure this in relation to the environment. To the extent it is more important to you than yourself, that is how much more important the spiritual goal is for you than the material goal. To what degree are you included in the group, how much are you willing to invest in it, how much higher than you are the friends, how much do you value them in order to invest time and energy to acquire them? This is what is written, “Buy yourself a friend.”

This is the yardstick: The aspiration to put everything you have into the group, which is like a treasured purchase. For example, you want to buy some stocks at the market or an auction piece at Sotheby’s. How much are you willing to pay? That is how we make the measurement, except that our competition is held between egoism and the spiritual goal. Give it a try sometime.
[36046]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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Work in the group takes a lot of time, but a person can approximately measure the degree to which the desire for bestowal becomes closer, clearer, more real, and more necessary to him. He slightly understands that he really does have to come to this, that bestowal is spirituality, that the Creator is the force of bestowal and love. Apparently, the altruistic intention of Lishma, detachment from oneself, is the goal.

The person does not yet know what this is. He doesn’t yet realize that he really is able to attain this. Obviously, he does not want this, yet the game builds an increasingly more serious attitude to bestowal inside him.

That is how we grow, similar to children. At first a child plays at adult life, but then he gradually matures and we find ourselves having to treat him as an adult, like a completely formed individual with mature desires. We have to treat him as a person.

That is how we go from the natural desire for pleasure to the game of bestowal, and acting deliberately, we evoke the Light that Reforms. It brings us to the realization and the desire to bestow, and then we understand that this entire process is realized by means of several factors.

We are not aware of their power very much, and this was also arranged deliberately so we wouldn’t run away from them. In reality the environment is Malchut of the world of Infinity, the system of souls. The more we value the environment, the clearer we imagine our inclusion into this system. We participate in the life of the friends with all our might because we can never elevate ourselves single-handedly. This can only be done by a force from outside, the force of the Light that a person attracts through his environment.

The Light influences me to the extent that I raise the value of the environment in my eyes. At the same time the environment does not have anything of its own. The friends just talk about bestowal, not having anything besides words. But if a person bends down before their discussions as if they are true, then that’s enough. Playing “as if” evokes the Light that Reforms upon him, the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

As a whole we go through three states:

1. The egoistic intention of Lo Lishma in which we attain our egoism. This is a very complex state, which is no longer detached from spirituality. That’s because the only way to discern the egoist in you is in the Light of bestowal.
2. The process of shifting to the altruistic intention, where we play as if the spiritual world is important.
3. The spiritual state of Lishma where the quality of bestowal already reigns in us over the quality of reception.

[36049]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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Our spiritual path begins from the state of this world. From here we gradually begin to attain its nature, the nature of creation – the will to enjoy for one’s own sake. We acquire a part of this desire by way of the natural development in material egoism from one generation to the next.

Then we are faced by the necessity to acquire the desire for self-gratification on the human level. We undergo the still, vegetative, and animate levels within their boundaries, but the only way we can acquire the human level is by opposing the Creator.

That is where the spiritual work begins: In conformity with the Light and its qualities, we have to transform our natural quality, the will to enjoy, by the principle, “the advantage of the Light is attained from the darkness.” These two qualities develop in us equally – first one and then the other, through ascents and descents.

It happens in the following way: At first a person receives a desire or impulse to something unknown. Then he is brought to the group and the studies, where he starts making actions whose meaning he doesn’t even understand yet himself. However, they evoke a small illumination upon him. And then he advances.

At this stage the spiritual construction HaVaYaH is also present, and a person develops inside it on the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of the human level. With time he begins to think about and later, perhaps even to heed the words that it is necessary to acquire the quality of bestowal. He begins to play this game, doing so conscientiously, like a child. And even though it is only a game, it is called “faith above reason.” It’s as if a person ascends above his reason and seems to want bestowal. In the very least, he says that he aspires to love for the neighbor.

Even if it happens “as if,” he is still acting together with the group and is inspired by the friends by virtue of envy, a great desire, and self-love. He talks about the quality of bestowal and becomes permeated by this idea. Thus, he evokes the Light that Reforms upon himself. A person does not know the entire truth about the spiritual development, but the Light influences him and thus, gradually, he changes.
[36053]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Egoism is very shrewd, so how can I be sure that my game with it is really leading me forward and isn’t another trick that egoism is playing on me?

Answer: If I include myself in the environment and am permeated by what is important to it, then I advance by faith above reason. I deliberately bend down before the group and adopt its values because they are spiritual. I place myself in front of them so they will raise me.

I never have the forces to ascend independently. At the same time, I am always in some environment that directs me toward specific values. The values of the material environment are also artificial and false. Society motivates me to buy a car, a house, and furniture, but who said that I really need all of that? After all, the body is an animal and all it wants is to rest. Give it a specific number of calories and a comfortable place to lay down. It doesn’t want anything more.

However, society tells me what I have to buy and what I have to aspire to. Otherwise people don’t respect me. Thus, instigated by the environment, I spend my whole life trying to do things to make it like me.

But now, when I am already full to the brim, I no longer want to dance to its tune. Instead I enter a new environment. I choose a society that has a spiritual goal. Now all I have to do is raise it in my eyes and then I will grow with its help.
Thus, I build an artificial environment for my spiritual growth. Therein lies my entire work. The higher I raise the friends in my eyes, the higher I will ascend.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash, “What Does It Mean the World Was Created for the Torah”: Torah and Israel are the same thing. At first the Torah is instructions on correcting evil, called 613 recommendations on correcting 613 parts of egoism. After the correction, the Torah is potions of the Creator’s Light, corresponding to each of the 613 corrected organs of the soul.

Question: How is it possible to simply explain what is Israel, Torah, and the Creator, and what their unity means?

Answer: We are in an unchangeable state, as it is written, “I did not change Myself.” This single state is called “Malchut of the world of Infinity.” The Creator wished to do good upon the creation, and thus He created it in the corresponding state of goodness. But in order to feel that goodness, creation has to go through various twists and turns that will raise its desire or appetite by bringing about despair, troubles, and worries, or stated differently, various sensations that are opposite to the sensation of the Good who Does Good. That’s because otherwise creation would not feel Him.

However, in order to make sure that the sensation of the Good who Does Good together with His oppositeness do not become a double blow for creation, the Creator arranged things so we would collect the unpleasant sensations drop by drop—gradually, in small potions. “Ouch!”—and that’s enough. Then “Ouch!” again, and that’s enough. That is how we advance along the path, discerning our desire and learning what is good and what is bad.

As a whole we have to be sensitive and perceptive to good and evil. The more sensitive a person is to the realization of evil, the higher his level and the deeper he penetrates into the matter of creation.

Therefore, the unchanging state that the Creator made already contains the desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal, corrected by the right intention, as well as the Light that fills this desire and intention. There everyone is one without any differences. This state is called “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Israel (ישראל) is a vessel, a Kli with the intention of bestowal to the Creator. In other words, it is “straight to the Creator,” Yashar – El (ישר-אל). “Torah” is the entire Light that corrects and fills it. And they are one because they have attained the sate where they are absolutely equal and are in adhesion.

Equality and unity of the Creator and creation is the only form in which they exist. And every creature gradually reveals this form once the desire to reveal it awakens in him.

By bringing to light the emptiness in our current state, in the events of this world, the Creator gradually brings us to the feeling of emptiness, futility, and purposelessness of our lives. And at the same time He awakens the beginning of the spiritual Kli inside us, the embryo of the realization of evil. My state isn’t despicable because it is nauseating to the taste, but because I lack adhesion with the Creator.

I come to realize this gradually. At first I don’t understand at all what exactly I need, like a child who does not know himself why he is crying. But gradually the details come through, become clearer, and surface in me, and then I already begin hearing something.

Then I come to the group and the teacher, and spend several years subjecting myself to the influence of the Light in various states, which I undergo together with the teacher, books, and group. As the process continues, I become slightly more perceptive to the realization of evil. The evil lies in the fact that I do not want to join the books, the teacher, and the group. When I begin to feel that this is exactly my evil, then I start moving in the right direction toward correction.

At the same time I understand that I have to unite with the friends, receive awakening from them, acquire their mind and feeling, and dissolve in them. I become included in them, in their desires and intentions that are aimed at the goal. And upon this inclusion I have to evoke the Light that Reforms, or in other words, study together with them and attract the Light. If this happens, then I accumulate the necessary quantity and quality of efforts and reach the correction of my Kelim.

Of course, this process consists of an entire series of actions. After all, I cannot tolerate great corrections or great leaps in one go. That is why there are many degrees that divide into more tiny degrees. They are the means by which I attain the state that is described by the verse, “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one.” I already exist in this state, but it surfaces in me gradually.

We would not be able to tolerate it all at once because this unity is too opposite to us.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Why is spiritual work also called a “yoke” or “burden”?

Answer: It’s because a person has to accept it by faith above reason. Every time he is about to become corrected, he is inside an egoistic desire. Therefore, when taking this work upon himself, which is aimed at the intention for the sake of bestowal, he does not see any benefit in it and perceives it as a burden.

My correction cannot be based on profit. If something is profitable for me, then I am acting egoistically. And on the contrary, if I accept the quality of Bina into my desire for pleasure, with Bina being above Malchut, then Bina becomes a “yoke” for me—something that lies above reason, feeling, and all calculation.

How can I achieve this? I tune into the environment and it influences me, showing me that it’s worthwhile to do this. This way, there is a benefit, after all, but it is of a different sort: It is evoked by the environment instead of coming from my own considerations. Then, while being under the social influence, I receive the realization of the goal’s importance from it.

Without this importance I would not be able to work, but it is built on preferring bestowal over reception. I would not be able to do this by myself. Only the environment can obligate me and change my values so much that I will nevertheless desire this.

That’s what it means to accept “the yoke of heaven.” This is impossible to do without an environment that builds the appropriate value system inside of me. In addition, I work above reason, above the rational approach, above logic.

It would seem: Why should I bestow? What will this give me? I cannot explain to my egoistic desire that bestowal is worth a thing. How will I feel better? Fine, if I would see at least some kind of potential benefit, then I would agree to it, but here we are talking about a real “burden,” where I have no justification for this work in any way. However, the group helps me to realize its importance and then I nevertheless work.

Without this importance I would not be able to work. I would not be able to devote even a tiny bit of attention to bestowal. That is why the group as a means is as important to me as the goal.
[35822]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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