Question: In my spiritual work, I am unable to connect the Creator and the group. What should I do?

Answer: Who gave me this group? Who brought me to it, organized everything? Who directs all the people who are sitting in front of me?

In the group of ten, there are nine people besides me, and they are all ready to unite with me. Who is directing them all, who selects them, prepares, and pushes them towards connection with each other? What force does all that if not the Creator? There is no other force. I only need to reveal how He does this, how He guides everyone by the strings, like a puppet-master, and in what manner He gathers us together.

And where am I? Who among us has freedom of will, where is it manifested and in which precise inner motion?

Then I begin to think, to look at the others, and realize that the Creator did everything, and He gave us the opportunity to increase the desire for mutual connection in order to reveal Him, so that from the hidden puppet-master He would turn into an evident one, the one who will fill all the empty spaces between us. Suddenly, with all our strengths, properties, and intentions, with our desires and thoughts, we start to complete each other in a way that arranges a perfect system where everyone fits each other ideally.

Therefore, apart from the possibility for connecting perfectly, for aspiring for unity, everything else is done by the Creator. We only need to show movement toward the ideal connection. And this, too, will be done by Him, but we need to try to remain in aspiration for it.

We do not know, do not understand, and do not feel. We only want for it to happen, with His help.
[144727]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Looking For The Right Dialogue With The Creator
The Point From Which The Creator Approaches Us
The Neutral Zone

Filed under: Conventions, Free Will, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: If only a person who has the point in the heart has the freedom of choice, does this mean that one must not demand for others to change? This means that everything depends on us?

Answer: We do not demand anything! I always keep repeating that Kabbalah needs to be disseminated in a very discreet manner. It’s only for those who want it.

We should not solicit those who are not interested, “There is no coercion in the spiritual!” We only need to show to those people who already have acquired the desire for spirituality, “the point in the heart,” that they have a place to go with this desire and develop it.

After all, this person feels bad. He does not understand why he does not know where to realize a desire that he is feeling. So, let him find out where he can realize it, and we do not address the rest. Let them stay as they were.

However, in our world, there is a nation called Israel. These are souls that once were on the spiritual level, but have fallen from it into corporeal desire.

They all must study Kabbalah and correct themselves. This is because they have been through the breaking; at one time they already had risen to the spiritual and fallen.

Even if the point in the heart is not awakened in them right now, they still have it, and we must bring this knowledge to them, and especially those who study the “external Torah,” instead of the “inner Torah.” They must absolutely study Kabbalah, and this is the only way the world can be corrected.

There is no other possibility to improve it and free it from all the misfortunes. All the problems in the world happen because of the lack of Light!

The only way to attract the Light to the world is by studying Kabbalah, which attracts the Surrounding Light. There are no other ways to do this.

Kabbalah is the means of connection with the Upper Light, the revelation of the Creator to the creatures, the revelation of Light to the desire to receive. It connects us to the Light. It teaches you to build an anti-egoistic screen.

These are the only three components: desire, Light, and the screen in the middle. All of mankind is on the bottom, the Creator is on top, and Kabbalah is between them as the means of attaining the screen.

This is why anyone who wishes to get rid of all misfortunes needs to try to come as close to it as possible because he attracts the Light by doing this. And the way we will feel in our desires depends only on the Light.
[28793]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
Inner And Outer Israel
A Spiritual Virus
The Order Of Correction

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: At what stage of the work does a person attain freedom of will?

Answer: Only after he has acquired a soul, after spiritual revelation.

A spiritual Partzuf is divided into two halves: the upper half-Keter, Hochma, Bina, Chesed, Gevurah, and the upper part of Tifferet; and the lower half, the lower part of Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut; and between them, the third part of Tifferet.

The upper part is comprised of desires to bestow, and the lower part is made of desires to receive. What is the middle then, the third part of Tifferet? It is not related to reception or bestowal, and here is where the freedom to choose what will you do with it is.

But you, like Buridan’s donkey, can’t pick either direction, are torn apart, unable to make a choice, until we discover that herein lies an opportunity to unify these two halves: the upper and lower halves to work together in the third, middle line!

I unify these two forces, the force of bestowal and the force of reception, and they start governing me together. This is called “receiving in order to bestow,” when the two forces work in harmony with each other.

This is the essence of Kabbalah, and for this reason it is called “Kabbalah” (reception); after all, it teaches how to receive these two forces, bestowal and reception, in such a way that they complement each other. And thereby you build your independence, true freedom.

You are independent of the Creator and simultaneously like Him! You learn from His example while remaining totally independent. You don’t have any other model to follow because receiving these two forces is mandatory. But how to accept them and be like them, in that, you are totally free.

Here, in middle between these two forces, in the middle third of Tifferet, lies our soul that we are constructing ourselves. The freedom of choice begins with the revelation of the Creator. It is written: “The dead are free,” which means that when egoistic desire dies, the two forces, reception and bestowal, stand facing each other, and you are between them, and then you are free. After all, you can work with both these forces equally.

Even though it seems to you that you are standing between them not knowing where to move since on one side you have the desire to receive and on the other the desire to bestow, but when one destroys the other, only in this condition, are you in a neutral state and may act freely.

As for now, we are all under the authority of the only desire to receive, and we have no desire to bestow. Therefore, until we have acquired the will to bestow, we are as beasts controlled by nature; but once we have obtained it, we become free and solely in the desire to become similar to the Creator and construct a human (Adam), which means “similar” to Him.
[27096]
From a lesson, 10/8/10, BaalHaSulam, “The Freedom”

Related Material:
Where Lawlessness Rules
The Elusive Point Of Freedom
A Choice Without Hints

Filed under: Free Will - No Comments →

Question: You always say that people can advance through virtual study.

Then why is it so important for everyone to physically gather at the convention?

Answer: We operate in a huge and multifaceted world.

In other words, in relation to the upper force, the Creator, the force of bestowal that influences me, I can be everywhere and in different states: closer or further from the center, some virtually connected to the lessons, some don’t even have Internet and they read books, others are physically present at the lesson, some are members of outside groups, and some do not have a group nearby at all.

In other words, every person is where the upper governance has placed him or her.

According to the strength of the influence, the physical location of our convention is in the center of the circles, and everything else is either closer or further from it.

I need to understand that my presence at the central point during the three days of the convention provides maximum influence. This is why, if I have the freedom of choice to come and connect, I must come!

If I do not have the opportunity to go, I need to see where I will receive the strongest influence: in a regional group, or, if I am not able to get there, then watching the broadcast together with a friend, or alone at the edge of the earth, or maybe I am not even able to watch the broadcast, but only to listen…

But I need to find the strongest contact: this is my only freedom of choice.

If you are in the same area of the convention, you can stay at home and watch everything on the computer; this is your choice. But you should know that it is impossible to compare the experience of being inside the convention site to not being there.

You can also be an outside observer even inside the convention venue, or you can be in it with your entire heart and soul; this also falls under your freedom of will—“to receive the most influence from the environment.”

So see for yourself.
[24201]
From the lesson 10/19/20, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

Related Material:
Gifts From The Convention
Come To The Epicenter Of Unity
We Hope To See All Of You In November!

Filed under: Conventions, Free Will - No Comments →

According to logic, there isn’t any freewill. After all, there isn’t any free movement; everything is controlled by the forces acting in nature and is subordinate to one upper force encompassing the entire universe.

If someone feels differently, it is simply due to the lack of knowledge of the general system. If I am within the system in which I was born and which defines everything for me, how can I be free from it? The general force of nature acts, leaving no empty space, for the entire system is closed and works as a well-coordinated mechanism; so where can it give me freedom?

There is no thought or desire in a person where the upper governance would not be present initially determining the person’s actions. Freedom begins when we wish to unite in the group with our points in the heart and begin to look for where we have free choice. We wish to establish a connecting field between us, the former place of the breaking. And this field, created with our ties, is the place of real freewill.

It is another dimension, which has never existed before, a completely new plane of existence. If we discover a new space that never existed in creation, we exit this world into some other dimension, another world. We can say that are immersed into creation deeper and deeper and discover a tiny hole through which the entrance to infinity suddenly opens to us.

In the same manner, having corrected the state of the breaking, we don’t go back to the initial stage that preceded it, but due to the fact that we have attained it through our freewill, we enter a new realm that never existed in nature: the realm of our freewill.

We build a state among ourselves that will serve as a spiritual vessel: a new vessel, desire, will to receive (Tarach), and in it a new Light, NRNHY, which is 620 times greater! The names that existed before the breaking may have remained the same, but their essence has become completely different.

This is why it is so important for us to find this point of our freewill where we will be able to break free into the new dimension.
[24551]
From a lesson 10/22/10, “The Freedom”

Related Material:
I Am The First And I Am The Last
Where Is Our Freedom?
The Elusive Point Of Freedom

Filed under: Free Will - No Comments →

Question: Can a person be free, and if so, in what ways?

Answer: First, you need to figure out what freedom is and what is being sought? Are we looking for freedom from the angel of death as it was carved on the tablets of the covenant, searching for eternal spiritual life, or do we believe that we can be free in our materialistic everyday activities?

Kabbalists explain to us that in regular life we don’t have any independence whatsoever, but rather all our life is already predetermined and each step is previously scheduled for us. Freedom is possible only if we rise above life to the decision making level, to the spiritual level.

This is where freedom of choice exists since there are two opposing forces at this level, receiving and bestowal; whereas within our world, there exists only one force, the one of receiving, which only allows us to accept more or less depending on our understanding of what we stand to gain or lose.

In other words, everything depends on our simple understanding of where we win or lose more. Thus, there is no such thing as freedom at all! I always weigh before deciding what to choose. After I evaluate the “cost” of something, there is no freedom of will left in me to go against it. My nature is tuned to maximum receiving and minimal giving. This is how we act in everything, consciously or not.

Sometimes it looks like we can go against our earthly logic, but it is an illusion since a deeper egoistic interest that defines our actions hides behind it.

But when we rise to the spiritual level and attain the desire to bestow, which works together with the desire to receive, we begin to have balance between these two desires and remain between them, in the middle third part of Tifferet, not leaning towards either side. We are not choosing what is more attractive to us, receiving or bestowal, otherwise it would not be considered an option, but rather depends on our evaluation.

Freedom of choice is possible only if I am between two forces, positive and negative (bestowal and receiving), and if I manage to set up myself between them as if I were an engine in the circuit.

Thus, I use both forces since I have freedom to build myself by including myself in both forces; this gives birth to a new reality. The free choice that we possess in spirituality allows us to build the Creator! The Creator is me but in a corrected state. That’s why He is called “Bo-Re” (come and see).

You build a new reality out of these two opposite forces. Before we reach this state, there is no freewill. There is no way to obtain freedom of choice by selecting from one force only or from two opposing forces; only if we manage to correctly connect them together do we get a third component called, “Adam  (Man)” or “The Creator.”

Our desire is made by a reverse imprint of the Light, so if it senses only itself, it turns out to be something dreadful!
[27100]

Related Material:
Do You Wish To Make Your Own Decisions?
Straight Line Built From Multiple Points
Free Will Is Above Desire

Filed under: Free Will, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How do you attain simple faith?

Answer: Simple faith is absolute bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, when I try to be free of all my pragmatic thoughts, when I think about the friends and about the group and try to exist only in order to fulfill our connection.

The first phase is the minimal attainment of the level of mutual guarantee in the group. We begin to understand that different forces constantly are operating on us. Of course, they all come directly from the Creator’s trying to separate us and disrupt our connection, to divert our attention from thinking about the upper force, about connection, about unity, about the goal of creation, and about our obligations.

These forces arrive continuously in different forms, in different directions, confusing us, and dulling our senses. It isn’t in our power to resist them if there isn’t the right spirit in the group that can help us survive. Therefore, as it is written, “They helped every one his friend.” This is our obligation.

Otherwise, the days will go by, and everything will change, but a person will remain the same. So, each one must support the others and worry about them so that they will worry about him. A person cannot worry about himself since these forces operate on each one, pressuring him on all sides, trying to tear him from the others by forcing him to worry about himself.

The moment he focuses on himself, it is very easy to detach him from the goal of creation. It is because the real goal of creation is in the connection among everyone. Therefore the impure intentions are the Klipot; it is not thoughts that separate a person from the Creator. The entire world is ready to think about the Creator, to cry out to Him, to go and pray in different holy places. A person has no problem doing that.

The goal is unity, connection. As long as a person holds on to it, he is fine. However, the moment he breaks away from this form of connection, he is no longer a danger to the Klipot, and they leave him alone. He can study by himself, acquire knowledge, but that doesn’t disturb the egoistic forces. They allow him to observe all the Mitzvot (commandments) very carefully, everything but connection, everything but “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Everything else doesn’t disturb them. On the contrary, if he has no intention to advance toward the love of others, all the other actions pull him in the opposite direction.

So, when the point in the heart awakens in a person, it is important to know how to fulfill one’s freewill. The Creator brings a person to the good fate and tells him: “Choose!” And this is what a person must do, that is, understand that fulfilling the Reshimo (reminiscences) is only through connection.
[137432]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/14

Related Material:
Payment For The Revelation
The Light Of Faith In The Vessels Of Egypt
Believing “Above Reason” That Bestowal Is Above Receiving

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Could it happen that I might bring harm to the world?

Answer: Certainly, you can cause harm if you don’t carry out the right actions that are required of you with intellectual and emotional participation in the system by free choice. Instead of this, you become a burden to the world. This is how you destroy it.

The right action is learning where your free choice is, what it is, and realizing it. This is what we are learning. Every day, you must make it anew and perform new acts of connection with others, and when you don’t take such actions, you cause damage. In other words, you don’t yearn to be in one heart with all the inhabitants of the world. You don’t make actions to see this connection as the most important thing in life.

Question: When Rabbi Shimon fell to the state of Shimon from the Market, did he cause damage to the system?

Answer: When a Kabbalist falls and rises, he doesn’t do any harm. Instead, he only brings benefit. By falling, he discovers a shortcoming that must be corrected. He reaches this shortcoming, Shimon from the Market, through his efforts and preliminary preparation. You don’t. There is a difference between preparing ourselves for the next action and not preparing.

Question: So, it follows that everyone in a group who falls harms it and condemns it?

Answer: No, it depends upon which person falls, as it is written, “For a righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again” (Proverbs 24:16), for this is a Tzaddik and not just some corrupted person. Shimon from the Market is a spiritual concept. This is a fall into such a depth like nobody before him has fallen or after him will fall, and from such a depth he can rise up and justify the entire creation.

If someone like a baby falls, we don’t consider the fall or the getting up. Everything depends upon preparation.

However, if a person whose time has come for correction destroys, instead of correcting, apparently he reduces the world to the way of “in its time,” causing war, disasters, a Holocaust. We have gotten all of this already through our failure to correct in time.

We could have prevented the first and second world wars with all of their horrors.

Even now, we can prevent the third world war. Indeed, we are in the generation of the Messiah, which gives us free choice. This is no longer the exile that we had to endure.

In the writings of “The Solution,” Baal HaSulam wrote: I have already conveyed the rudiments of my perception in the year. I have also spoken to the leaders of the generation, but at the time, my words were not accepted, though I cried out loudly, warning about the destruction of the world. Alas, it made no impression.

Now, however, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think the world will believe me that the end of the world is coming rapidly, and Israel will be the first nation to burn, as in the previous war. Thus, today it is good to awaken the world to accept the only remedy, and they will live and exist.

We hope that we can stop this slide into the abyss.
[137410]
From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Instead Of Hierarchy, A Circle
It Is Necessary To Be “In Time”
The System Will Not Manage Without Me

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Free Will, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Opinion (Vadim S. Rotenberg, Ph.D., professor at Tel Aviv University): “It is generally accepted that free will is one of the most important human values​​. But do we truly have free will? Does a person have free will? Can he act according to his own desires, or is his behavior completely determined by the conditions of his existence and the various environmental factors that affect him?

“On one hand, considering simple arbitrary actions (I want to raise a hand and I raise it), free will seems obvious. But this does not make people different from animals. The main manifestation of freedom is the personal choice of a variety of real possibilities.

“The factors that affect us often contradict each other or complement each other, and it is impossible to calculate the single algorithm of these relationships. Such factors include our beliefs, formed in the process of personal development, relationships with others, momentary impulses, and more.

“Freedom is not to ignore all of these factors, but to be able to form holistic behavior in interaction with them, which is aimed at the target. Ignoring them is not a manifestation of freedom from them, but arbitrariness. Arbitrariness is different from freedom of will is not merely by the absence of prediction of results of one’s behavior (this prediction may be wrong), but by at the lack of the very intention to make this prediction.

“Free will is the freedom of choice of many potential opportunities, and it is limited only to a holistic sense of oneself, one’s personality, one’s image of ‘Self,’ which does not make it infinite, but fills with meaning. It may seem paradoxical, but this restriction defines a person’s freedom of will as opposed to arbitrariness and to animals that have physiological feelings, but there is no image of ‘Self.’

“The human being may not be free from himself, but should be in the world with self-image. If a person has no feeling of himself and the image of ‘Self’ has not been formed, he has nothing to do with the freedom that is afforded to him; it will result in destroying arbitrariness, and fearing that he may choose dependence on others. It is a profound problem of personality.”

My Comment: There is no freedom of will in our world. It is possible only if a person has an opportunity to rise above the nature of our world (egoism), which completely determines our decisions and behavior. See other posts in the freewill category.
[136098]

Related Material:
A Person Doesn’t Have A Choice
Involuntary “Freedom Of Will”
The Connection Between Free Will And Morality

Filed under: Free Will - No Comments →

When a person begins to study, he needs to go through all of the stages and to rise and fall so that he will feel how they influence him. One must begin to work and to deal with it. It is not possible to shout out all the time: “Why have you forsaken me, why am I helpless again, in despair and in darkness?”

These states come from Above, and it is specifically with them, that I progress, provided I go through them correctly. I must receive a feeling of rising, awakening, strength, and support from the group and must work correctly against the darkness, i.e., to transform the darkness into light.

This darkness is good, since to the extent that there is darkness, I receive freewill. I can be free! And if the Light illuminates me, then I surely am within His bestowal. The Light is higher than me. It comes, influences me, disables me, and I become anything that He wishes.

I am like a puppet on a string that plays and jumps as long as my strings are pulled, which is by the Light. The darkness symbolizes that the master has let go of my strings and I fall without any motion. I can receive awakening from the surroundings and play like that, as if I am being operated by the master.

But I will play that on my own. And of course I will receive strength from the group, but only to the extent that I invest my strength, and then I will begin to live. That is already me who is operating myself, similar to the way the Creator operates me.

One time He is operating me and one time it is me on my own. In the darkness, it is specifically me, and in the Light, it is not me but Him. This is the way I work, until the night becomes day and so that it will be me and not the Creator. I rise only to bestowal and it isn’t important what influences me, the light or the darkness.
[135709]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/14, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
The Light That Saves Me From Drowning
And Then Comes Dawn
Sons Of The King’s Palace

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Spiritual Work, Zohar - No Comments →