We are destroying the world with our attitude. Every day we merely record additional species of animals and plants that disappeared from the face of the earth.

The world is becoming poorer every day, losing diversity of its forms. Even if we don’t eliminate them directly, we create conditions in which they simply cannot exist. Some say that situation is becoming irreversible.

And only by these regrettable results do we see that we’ve done something wrong. After all, we believed that we had the right to do whatever we wanted with nature. We did it instead of first examining nature and ourselves to see where we should direct the forces we possess.

Should we change the environment or change ourselves by means of the right environment? Herein lies the entire distinction between the right and the wrong approaches. Either I’m trying to fix everyone and the world, and make everyone dance to my tune, or I realize that everything that I don’t like in the world is something I need to correct within myself.

Egoism is within me. Therefore, I need the Light that Reforms to correct it. That is the foundation of the right approach.

Humanity has begun to come to terms with it just recently; it started to understand that the world is a closed system in which everything is integrally connected. A lot of time will pass from the moment we begin to see it until it will make us change.

We are like a small, stubborn child who sees that he is doing something wrong, but still continues to do it, each time receiving a spanking. It will take quite some time for him to finally wise up.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, “The Peace”

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Question: When does evil become an obstacle on a person’s way?

Answer: It happens when a person identifies it as the “evil inclination.” At first, I don’t consider my egoism to be bad. On the contrary, I serve it as much as I can. It helps me and provides the sensations of life. Without it, I stop existing.

If a person loses his appetite because of some illness, we urge him to eat a little. If a person loses his sexual drive, he tries to cure himself by using various remedies. No one can survive without pleasures; one has to receive delight.

Food, sex, family, wealth, respect, and knowledge constitute all of my life, and I want to have a good bite of everything. If I lose the desire to receive pleasure, I become desperate and almost feel that I am dying. For this reason, when it’s time for a person to transcend this world, pleasure is taken away from him. He feels that he has nothing to live for. He simply cannot enjoy the desires that are at his disposal. Where can he find fulfillment?

At the same time, he is given a spark of a much higher spiritual desire, which by itself directs him to the wisdom of Kabbalah, a remedy that enables him to achieve a new kind of delight. A person is being lead to a group, and at first, he awaits much stronger egoistic pleasures. “Give me angels, reveal spiritual worlds, bring the Creator to me on a tray, and so on.”

As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” before a person reaches a state called “thirteen years old,” he is ready to “swallow” all the material world. After reaching the degree of “thirteen years old,” he switches to pleasures of the world to come.

This is natural since we cannot enter spirituality without a full-grown desire that is eager to consume everything there is and preside. I demand that the Creator serve me, and I claim, “Why did He create this world ‘as is?’ Why doesn’t he fulfill me properly?” Later, a person begins to realize how opposite he is to the Creator. It is an immense egoistic desire that brings him to this understanding.

The same happens in this world: A small crook doesn’t consider himself to be a criminal. We, too, think of ourselves as being “innocent.” However, similarly to Pharaoh, a real, mature recidivist admits before robbing someone, “Yes, the Creator is righteous, but we are sinners.”

Thus, before the desire manifests itself to its fullest extent, a person has no way to realize that he is “bad.” It is not easy to comprehend that it is the Creator who made the evil inclination.

How many people in the world can admit that they are “bad?” On the contrary, all of them think that they are “righteous,” even “saints.” It needs much work and effort and lots of Light from Above to make a revealed ego manifest its wickedness.

It is important that we divulge our evilness only relative to the Creator, rather than to other people. I am bad only compared to the Creator, to the property of bestowal. I figure out that the desire to receive pleasure, the urge to receive instead of give, hatred toward others, the desire to take advantage of them, is, in fact, what we call “the evil inclination.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/10, “The Creator Created the Evil Inclination, and He Created the Torah as A Spice”

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The Zohar, Introduction, Chapter “Lock and Key,” Item 42: That carving that was engraved in Bina was engraved and hidden in her, as one who hides everything behind one key, and the whole of that one key is hidden in one palace. And even though everything is hidden in that palace, that key is the most important because that key closes and opens.

It is a great question and a great mystery: How is the spiritual system organized in order to correct the egoistic desire, which is opposite to the Creator in every way?

Two absolutely opposite forces, Bina and Malchut, united under the influence of a third factor, the intention. Thus, they built a system that really is able to facilitate correction with the help of the forces of reception and bestowal, producing an intention in the lower ones.

This mechanism is in the three upper Sefirot of the world of Atzilut, whereas the lower seven Sefirot are operated by the lock and key. The system is ready to be used: If we activate it, it will influence us. We do not feel how its Lights influence us, but in the meantime they descend, already organized in the right combination. They are what changes our desire so it reaches equivalence with the intention.

The Book of Zohar explains the secret of the upper system that connects the forces of the Creator and creation in order to make us similar to Him. We do not know how the process of change takes place in us, and thus we study its mechanism as a “miraculous quality” (Segula). More and more we come to understand that we do not understand anything. We grow more and more disillusioned with our own forces and not seeing any way out, we put our hopes in the upper system, and then on the contrary, we rejoice about this dependence.

Finally, we gradually begin to be included in the system. We are ready for it to make all the necessary changes in us in order to change us so we match it. If a person expresses willingness to do this, the system begins to influence him.

In this way, the first action from our end is to bow our heads. Then the upper system literally “engraves” its form in a person and he becomes similar to the Upper One.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, The Zohar

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Until now, we were able to develop according to the general program of nature. We kept on developing our egoism over the course of human history. Now, we have completed this development and need to begin evolving in a different form.

Before, nature was pushing us to develop according to program “A,” but now, it seems to be beginning to influence us from a new “orbit,” and is launching a program “B” of development. This is why we need to develop in a completely different way.

If program “A” directly developed the desire and the mind, program “B” is working in a different way. It is striving to bring us to similarity in properties and harmony with nature. This is why nature is showing us that we are connected, unified, and that we live in a global, integrated world, regardless of whether we want it or not.

Nature is revealing a new form to us which did not exist previously, and we must make ourselves correspond to it, in other words, to connect, unite, and attain mutual bestowal. We must begin to organize within ourselves and the entire population of earth according to the laws of nature which we are now revealing in society as we discover that everyone is interconnected and depends on one another.

When we do not do this, we become opposite to nature, and a “delta,” a lack of correspondence, appears between us, and it is very dangerous. When we used to work according to program “A” before, we were not opposite to nature. We simply were on the “inanimate” level. Nature was pushing me to develop my egoistic desire and search for fulfillment, and that is what I was doing.

Suffering was pushing me from behind. It always helped me when I was not advancing fast enough, but I always developed in a normal, egoistic direction. This is why those who tried always attained success.

But this no longer works today because nature has begun to influence us from Above in a different form, and we need to change accordingly.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, Special Talk on the Tragedy in Northern Israel and Balance in Nature

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Question: Why are there so many natural disasters of late, like the terrible forest fire on Mount Carmel in Haifa?

Answer: The general tendency of nature is such that natural disasters are becoming a commonplace phenomenon in the entire world. It’s unfortunate, but as we continue advancing, we hear about them more and more.

The wisdom of Kabbalah offers a simple explanation. From the very beginning of creation and to its end, the Creator is always pushing us in one direction, in a straight line, and He will not back down. In other words, there is a very simple formula whereby nature is always intensifying its influence over us, compelling us to grow.

At the preceding phase of development, we grew on account of being influenced by the Light, the Upper Force, nature, the Creator, so that our egoistic desire was always increasing. This was called the development of human civilization which lasted for tens of thousands of years.

The development conformed to one simple formula: The ego grew generation to generation and over the period of one’s life, and we actualized it directly, achieving all that we wanted and developing all possible means for that purpose. Therefore, there was no problem. We simply needed to correctly utilize all that was around, that is, human society and natural resources, so as to fulfill ourselves.

However, the end of the 20th century, which was referenced by Kabbalists long ago, wasn’t only the end of the millennium, but also the end of the entire paradigm of the past, the entire principle of development where we grew in our ego with the sole aim to keep fulfilling it. The time has come to take stock and realize we cannot continue like this for we are no longer developing or fulfilling ourselves. This has become a rat race in pursuit of an artificial prize, and we no longer wish to participate in it.

This path of development is finite since the entire development transpires along four phases: 1-2-3-4 (Aleph–Bet–Gimel–Dalet), and we have now reached the 4th phase, having fully completed the first period of development. Kabbalists calculated it long ago and gave us a date when it would happen: the year 1995.

Now, we are gradually experiencing the crisis in all spheres: family, education, culture, industry, international relations, and, most importantly, the climate. Due to the imbalance we create with our incorrect inter-relationships by not changing our approach to our development, we greatly violate the general balance in nature. We insert the imbalance of human inter-relationships into all of nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, Special Talk on the Tragedy in Northern Israel and Balance in Nature

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Question: If the Creator brings me suffering, then how can I come closer to Him?

Answer: The Creator deliberately sends you suffering to make it easier for you to rise above your ego, inside of which you feel the suffering. Once you ascend above your own ego, you will be able to develop a different attitude to other people: one that isn’t based on reception, but on bestowal.

Then you will begin to feel the Creator and a world that does not function in order to receive and to fulfill your ego, but that is based on bestowal and fulfilling the desire to bestow. That is, you will be able to acquire a sensation of the second dimension of reality.

The nature in which we exist divides into two parts. Our half resides in the tendency to assimilate reality inside of us. But when I perceive and receive impressions of the reality I am in inside of myself, I cannot perceive any more than the reality of this world. In contrast, the second half is oriented at a nature opposite to ours: bestowal without any return connection with me. By means of the science of Kabbalah we have the opportunity to acquire this additional second nature and start feeling the second part of reality.

However, by ascending above your ego, above what you feel in the will to receive, you already work in the will to bestow alone. It turns out that you can exist in two forms and accordingly, feel two dimensions. After that you can already understand why the Creator is concealed from us.

From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am Hall” on 12/14/10

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Question: In the weekly Torah portion “VaYechi” there is a very interesting relationship between the Egyptians, Jacob, and his children. They cried over him, embalmed him, buried him in the land of Israel, and much more. What does it all mean?

Answer: Our egoism or will to enjoy, which is called Egypt, cannot exist without the will to bestow. We need the Upper Light! However, the Upper Light does not come to us unless we have sparks of bestowal. When a person begins to connect qualities of reception and qualities of bestowal, then he sees that he thrives in his egoistic desires!

Therefore, the “seven years of plenty” in Egypt (where seven years do not designate a period in time, but seven Sefirot of Zeir Anpin) are possible as long as Jacob is in Egypt. As long as Jacob, the middle line, exists, he is able to correctly connect the right and left lines, reception and bestowal. Thus, he provides Light and prosperity to everyone. That is why Jacob, the combination of the right and left lines, was so respected.

However, this combination is only beneficial to Egypt. It increases egoism, but that is insufficient; one has to keep growing. Therefore, once Jacob raised egoism to a great size, he completed his role.

The egoistic desire grew by virtue of the spiritual force, and when it stops growing, that’s when “the seven years of hunger” start, forcing a person to ascend to a higher level. We see how holiness works for the benefit of Klipa and how Klipa works for the benefit of holiness. Thus, there is no such thing as “evil” or “good.” If a person uses them correctly, they all bring him to the goal.

From the program “Weekly Torah Portion” on 12/16/10

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It is written that a person who opens up a Kabbalistic book desires to save his life, his soul. He asks the question about the meaning of life and looks for this meaning, wishing to be saved from the emptiness that is worse than death itself. We see that all of humanity is gradually coming closer to this state.

When a person cries out for correction from the bottom of his heart, then what is correction for him? This is the entire problem: Does he correctly imagine the salvation for which he asks? Is the meaning of it for him to ascend above egoism, to unite with others and with all of reality into one whole? Does he understand that he can no longer use the receiving desires, Kelim? Does he ask himself: What is the point of living by reception, by absorbing inside?

If a person really wants something more, it is possible only in the bestowing desires, in the Kelim that are aimed toward the outside. Then his cry for help means, “Save me from the desire that pulls everything to itself and gives nothing!”

If a person’s heart is already aimed to the outside, if he desires to come out of himself, to establish his connection with everyone and to find the sensation of life there, then his intention is correct, and then the Light that comes to him returns him to the Source.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/10, The Zohar

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Any kind of art form, including painting, music, and dance, and all means of self-expression are also considered “science” because they come from the same ego, the desire to enjoy. Just like I research this world, meaning I study my egoistic qualities in relation to the Light, in the same way through dance, art, or music I study my own expressions on the background of white Light.

Both reflect the existing regularities. However, in the arts I study my specific, individual qualities, whereas in science I research my desire on the level of our common egoistic nature. That is why we all discover the same phenomena, calling it science.

What is physics, for example? It is research of how I see my own nature on the background of the white Light. We all receive the same results, calling them “facts” because we research them on a level where we all have the same qualities (on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature).

However, there is also a higher level of egoistic nature called “human or speaking,” and it is not the same in all of us because it contains a unique spiritual root for every person and our own freedom of will. Therefore, when using it we dance, sing, draw, or play musical instruments, and every person’s result is very unique. However, it all comes from the same will to enjoy.

Kabbalah provides a general approach to the perception of reality. It only seems to us that the strict scientific laws are completey unrelated to free art, while in fact, both are products of our egoistic desire. When we all do something the same way, we consider this form to be constantly existent in nature, declaring it a law and building our sciences upon it.

However, when we compose music, then one person composes one melody and another person composes a different one, whereas a third will compose a different one yet. We end up with thousands of different melodies, which is why we say that it is not a science because every person does it however he wishes.

On the “human” level we no longer observe the precise “scientific” regularities. This level includes psychology and all forms of art: painting, music, and dance. However, they are also “science,” meaning forms of my desire’s expression on the background of white Light, which we can see and study. Yet we can only do so practically.

It’s just that now, on the human level we are unable to understand these forms. But when we develop this “human” layer with the help of the science of Kabbalah, we will be able to research it completely scientifically and precisely. We will then understand why we draw, dance, or sing the way we do, and where it comes from. Then it will turn into a precise science that studies the expression of our desires on the background of white Light.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

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It is dangerous to study The Book of Zohar with a desire that is not ripe yet, meaning a desire that still hasn’t exhausted itself in this world. This kind of desire still doesn’t understand that there is nothing to be done in this world other than to ascend from it to the world of correction.

A person can only reveal Kabbalah if he looks for the meaning of life and has to find what to live for. However, if he still does not have this question, then he begins to interpret Kabbalah egoistically and to adapt it to his own benefit, deceiving himself by thinking that he is correcting himself. He starts selling it and using it as a weapon for his ego. Instead of using it against egoism, he uses it to conquer things for the ego, and that’s how he turns it from the elixir of life into a deadly poison for himself and for others.

That is why Kabbalists feared revealing the science of Kabbalah and invented many prohibitions, such as first reaching the age of 40, the need to first learn the whole Torah, as well as total observance of the commandments. They even scared people off by saying that you can go crazy. All of this was done because egoism was still undergoing the process of its development.

The Book of Zohar itself states that it is destined to be revealed only at the end of days. Then this wisdom would be revealed for the correction of the world, which is now ready for correction. That is when Kabbalists come out, telling us that the time has come!

That is why Rabbi Shimon cried about how to write The Book of Zohar in such a way that even if it were to become revealed at the wrong time, it wouldn’t cause harm. This is why he wrote it with the help of Rabbi Abba in a special, secret code. We read The Book of Zohar without understanding where Rabbi Shimon is concealed behind Rabbi Abba, who wept so much about the revelation of the great secret.

Rabbi Shimon used Rabbi Abba as a "shield," an external shell, an opportunity to write in a concealed manner. A person can reveal the secret that was hidden by Rabbi Shimon only on the condition that he penetrates inside Rabbi Abba’s protective shell. Then he can accept Rabbi Shimon’s secret message, but he is unable to read it before that time.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

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