The entire Torah, in other words, the whole method of correction, is intended to bring the human being to the degree of love, or in the language of Kabbalah, to bring him so that he corrects the breaking, and in social terms: to organize us into an integral society. Thus, we see the realization of the wisdom of Kabbalah in our world.

The purpose of creation is to bring us to an inner unity which also will be accompanied by an external unity between people. We all will become as one. As it is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” (Isaiah 56:7), and “I will yet gather others to him, together with his gathered ones” (Isaiah 56:8). Thus, we will come to a complete redemption.

According to the understanding of Kabbalists, we must realize this transition now, and everything that is happening indicates this.

So, the method is designed to accelerate us on the path to this correction. Otherwise, we face the path according to “in its time,” which is very long and full of suffering. On the other hand, by accelerating, we can make our path fast, easy, comfortable, and enjoyable. For this, we were given the wisdom of Kabbalah or the method of integral education as a means of revealing the Creator in this world.

The “Creator” is the essence of the property of the “Good That Does Good,” in other words, the property of love and bestowal that is revealed in a person and between people, in their relationship with each other. Due to this relationship, this love of the created beings, they reach the revelation of the Creator and love for Him. Thus, the method of correction is realized as it is written, “Love thy friend as thyself is the great rule of the Torah.” Starting with love for others, we reach the love for the closest One, for the Creator, and then we are in adhesion with Him, which is the ultimate goal.

As Baal HaSulam writes, everything that we create, striving to achieve adhesion, is built above the desire to receive, above our egoism, and that is why we need to learn to work with it, to learn how to handle it correctly, starting with the full spiritual incapacity at the present moment up to the state where this material of desire is ready to use in order to sculpt out of it the image of the human being (Adam), similar (Domeh) to the Creator, that is, the force of love and bestowal.

How is it done? It is with the help of the Light that Reforms in the group with the friends. It is here in the group that we have the freedom of choice, the only free action that we are capable of. Therefore, it is not worthwhile to make extra efforts in looking for other ways and means. We have power over this action while in everything else our independence is illusory, but in reality we just allow nature to involve us.

If I use my freewill correctly, I move forward by the path of hastening; that is, I set the pace of my advancement myself. Then, my states, consistent with my efforts, will be more effective as well as more convenient and fast. After all, I am preparing myself to adequately, correctly accept changes that always have an anti-egoistic character. I desire them.

However, this requires a well-organized group, studies, participation in dissemination, everything that we identify in our work.

So why do we need the force of the Light, the force of the Torah? What do the words, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice” mean? The fact is that my advancement depends on the recognition of evil. If I can identify it quickly and as clearly as possible recognize its negative effect on me, then, I am ready to get rid of it.

That is why I must focus all my efforts precisely on the recognition of evil. My egoism, my desire to receive, initially is ready to reject everything that is bad for it, depending on how bad it is in comparison with the possible pleasures and consequently with the right approach, my nature will serve me on the path.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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It is easy to work on one line, either the left line or the right line. It is most difficult to be in the middle and to connect these two lines into one authority and to remain there, in the middle, between the shell and Holiness. To be in between means to draw as much as one can from the shell and to add it to Holiness. Thus you constantly remain under one authority and advance; you fulfill your authority and look for a new place where you can be free in order to once again prefer Holiness. Thus a line is created by these points of unity of one’s freewill.

On the one hand, everything is done by the Creator, by private Providence (HaVaYaH), that descends from Above, which means that takes place inside. The private supervision is the most inner supervision (the supervision of HaVaYaH), that is closest to bestowal. On the other hand, a person says: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me,” which means that he compliments the two lines by adding all his efforts to the upper providence and adhering to it internally. The middle line expresses adhesion and mutual bestowal between a person and the Creator.

A person understands that everything comes from Above, but still annuls the domination of the Creator and says that he will do the same according to his freewill. He doesn’t do so because he is under the domination of the upper providence, but of his own free will, by wanting to identify with the Creator. Although it’s clear to him that no one has a chance to avoid the upper providence and to do anything by one’s self, he still tries to fulfill the thought that the Creator has given him, as if of his own freewill, being totally independent. This is how he advances.

It isn’t a game since the Creator agrees with his decision to perform a specific action and provides him with an illusion of life and death. It isn’t a joke but actually a question of life or death, which is a very serious matter for him. But a person receives this freewill and can change his fate from great sufferings along the path of “in its time” to great joy along the path of “I shall hasten it.” This means that he can totally change his whole life from the worst state to the best state.

It’s by creating a space where he can be independent that a person establishes the form of Adam (a human being), since if he doesn’t create a space where he can have freewill and believes that everything is managed from Above and says “thank God” about everything, as orthodox people honestly say, then there is nothing one can add. He places everything under the Creator’s domination.

If a person is not religious, he operates according to his natural instincts and the Creator totally manages him without revealing Himself. But if a person doesn’t accept either of these options and wants to fulfill his freewill, he makes room for his own authority, according to his freewill. Then in this independent authority he discovers both the good and evil sides, and these two authorities clash and struggle with each other. A person’s role is to arrange them on the middle line so that they will complement one another.

The connection between this space of freewill and the forces that operate in it is that a person attains by his clarifications, analysis, and synthesis, and turns into an image of a human being, Adam, which means in Hebrew “resembles the Creator.” This human form is established from the bottom up and is gradually revealed. By attaining this adhesion with the Creator, a person discovers that the middle line was also managed by the upper force, and he calls this revelation “the Angel Raziel.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/13

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Question: How does one recognize that he is at a point of choice?

Answer: If you see clearly what is better, this is not a choice—it’s knowledge. And if you don’t understand what’s better, this too is not a choice; it is lack of knowledge.

A choice is possible when you see two equal components in front of you, but it’s impossible to solve anything with them by preferring one over the other. You see that both the desire to receive and the desire to bestow are equally needed; you cannot get by without either of them. You are situated right in the middle between them and you are confident that you must use both of them.

After all, how can I bestow if I don’t use my egoism? I can carry out some actions only due to my desire to enjoy. Yet how can I bestow if I don’t use the desire to bestow? It is impossible to proceed without either one of these desires. So how do we use them together?

I need to first build the attitude of love toward the one to whom this action is directed. And to the extent of my love, I will feel his desire, accept it and make it my own, and then I will be able to use my two desires, two forces, in order to fill his desire in me, like a mother fills an embryo (Ubar) in her womb. And then I make it more external for me, and this is called “feeding” (Yenika) or a big state (Gadlut).

This is how these states are built due to a third force that elucidates them. Then where is this third force? It is the one to whom I wish to bestow.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Is there any connection between freewill and luck?

Answer: On one hand, luck seems to be predetermined from the moment a person is born. Everyone is born in different conditions and with different attributes, which means with his own fate. If I am born with certain attributes, then my destiny and my path to the end of correction have already been determined. It depends on one’s place of birth and on other factors that do not depend on me.

But let’s try to put aside the different conditions that are beyond our control and that vary for each individual, like cells in a body where each has its own purpose and destiny. If we look at what is left, the question is whether we can affect this in any way, whether with this freedom of choice with the option to correct myself, can I become totally equal to everyone?

One is born clever and another so smart, one is born to a rich family and another to an educated family, and still another may be the son of a shoemaker obliged to follow his father’s line of work, etc. Everyone is totally different, but if a person is awakened from above, which means that his point in the heart is awakened, he can equalize himself with all the others.

Those who have not received the point in the heart are very different: like a cat and a lion, like a mouse and a cat. On the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, everyone is different, but the level of the speaking equalizes all the human beings including the still, vegetative, and animate nature that are incorporated in a human being, and thus also reach equality.

All this is done by the freewill that is given to man, and by that he neutralizes his fate, which was predetermined by nature. From the perspective of this point of freewill, everyone has the same specific work, which is relatively equal. No one has an advantage over others in this sense.

It may seem that certain people have to make very little efforts to enter the spiritual world and there are those for whom there is not enough. But it all depends on conditions that are unknown to us. We cannot take our previous reincarnations into account or a person’s history, what happened to him and what will happen to him. All this is already in the corrected state in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), but we simply don’t know it. Therefore it is difficult for us to measure everyone’s work.

Thus it is said simply: “Do everything that is in your power!”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13, The Zohar

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We exist in this world in a unique state created by the expansion of the Light from above downward. The Light created all vessels, desires, and we are the only part of this entire reality that has the freewill to change this condition and all of the nature, the whole creation.

All of nature is given to us so that we may use it and lift ourselves to the exalted status of the Creator. Therefore, we shouldn’t expect something more from above, and if we are late in realizing the steps where we should have already changed, then we experience them as suffering.

Pressure from nature is constantly growing because included in it is a special engine of development; various Lights are constantly descending from above, manifesting with greater force, and awakening larger spiritual genes (Reshimot) in us. After all, correction starts with the easiest and progresses to the more difficult.

But if we are late and don’t correct the Reshimot that awaken in us today, then by tomorrow we have accumulated a debt with the delay, and increasing the difference to two Reshimot, today’s and tomorrow’s. And the next day, it will be tripled, and because of these multiplying Reshimot, we experience pain—the difference between me and the Light.

Instead of bridging this gap, equalizing with the Light, connecting with it, and becoming one integrated system in order to understand, feel, be filled with it, and participate all its actions, we act against it and keep increasing our oppositeness to it.

This oppositeness is the very thing that we feel as pain because our will to receive wants the Light! Even though we don’t even realize what we want, we are standing opposite something we need, but we are not getting it. And this is experienced as all kinds of suffering.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/10, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and its Essence”

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Because of our oppositeness to the Light, we live in the world of suffering and pain, and no matter how we might to escape, we only make it worse for ourselves since we tend to want to withdraw and hide from the truth, so much so that we have no idea about the correct path and corrections that we must perform.

Therefore, only after going through to the end of this painful exile, we finally receive the knowledge, the reminder, that there is a method called the wisdom of Kabbalah, which can connect us with the Light. And then, we will know how, by using it, we can correct our relation with it so that it would give us fulfillment, instead of acting against us and illuminating us from a distance, instilling pain in us!

Beyond this, we don’t have any freewill in this world except to draw the Light that Reforms, which will correct, reform, and unify us with the Light. There isn’t a greater wisdom or science than Kabbalah that helps to realize this action. There is no other means to affect our life and fate. We will not improve our lives with the help of science, culture, or education if we don’t practice them according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, in other words, without connecting ourselves with the source of our lives, the Light.

If you wish for success, it is possible only on one condition: if you draw the Light that will correct you and reform your entire world. And if you attempt to reform the world without the Light, you will only make it worse since you hide from the truth even more, forcing yourself to go through the recognition of evil instead of a good and pleasant path.

But right now we have a unique opportunity to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah and achieve correction. After all, in all of our long history, we still haven’t started to perform the correction and were only getting ready for it. From this very moment on, the reckoning with us takes full force.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/10, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and its Essence”

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Question: If man is simply a small part of nature, then where can he get the power to destroy it?

Answer: We have an additional part in us which is above the animate body and is regarded as “human.” The human can be good or evil because he possesses freewill unlike an animal. It is human, the ego, that exists above nature and that is where you have the right to choose.

All creation exists in perfection: the still, vegetative, and animate—everything except man. Each of us has an animate part, the body, and a “human” part, which is the only corrupted one. It is the part that stretches beyond the essential existence of the body; it makes me exploit nature and even destroy it if that’s what is necessary to make me feel good.

An animal deprived of freewill cannot ruin nature since it acts correctly by following its natural instincts. Therefore, our corporeal world exists only at the still, vegetative, and animate planes, which are in the state of perfection and balance. But man is above this world.

The animate part of man is also in harmony with nature. The problem lies in the “human in man,” a degree in which I started destroying the world. As long as we were undeveloped, we didn’t cause much harm to it since we were living merely as animals that consumed each other in order to survive. But when we reached the current level of evolution and received so much power, the problem immediately arose. Even Aristotle warned that science shouldn’t be revealed to evil people who may use it to destroy the world and mankind.

If they can’t use the human power correctly, then they must not be allowed to step outside the animate sphere—beyond this red line; they can do so only if they know how to use the human power correctly. To use it correctly means to make this red area similar to nature by employing one’s own consciousness and understanding by becoming equivalent to the Creator, the upper one. We must achieve the same balance with nature as all the other parts, but through our own effort, since we initially lack the balance.

It turns out that we have a nature where no freewill exists and we only need to use it correctly. The part above it relates to the Creator and human where freewill does exist, but we have no clue what do with it or how to use it. There we must reach balance in order to bestow.

In the past, the previous Kabbalists achieved attainment by placing restrictions on their body as described in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”: “Bread and salt you should eat, water in measure you should drink, on the ground you should sleep, a life of affliction you shall live, and in Torah you should labor,” then you shall reach spirituality. In truth, if the part of a person related to the animate, vegetative, and still levels lived only with bare essentials, like a beast, and on top of that he studied the Torah while thinking about how to become similar to the Creator, he did advance.

But 2000 years ago we reached a state where we started to exploit all of nature, to harm the still, vegetative, and animate parts, this whole “inner” circle. Hence, this is why we’ve come to such need for the Light that Reforms. It is the only way we can transform ourselves.

Previously, the Light of correction worked only at a highest rung. But today we need a much greater Light to work on all of nature since we have corrupted it too by making it entirely egoistic by engaging in it.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10 Writings of Baal HaSulam

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From Rabash’s article “Faith”: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say: “The day is short, the labor vast, the toilers are idle, but the reward is great, and the Master of the house is insistent.” (Pirkey Avot 2:20) If one believes that there is no capital without a Ruler and is confident that the Master exists, one feels constrained.

We are unable to wake up on our own unless the Creator awakens us because we are made of material that has no spirit of life spirit. Therefore, we are called creations; that is, we are ruled from above. Only after the Creator awakens us, we see that the labor is vast, the toilers are idle, but the reward is great, and the Master is insistent. Then, we start working.

At this point, our freedom of will turns on. The Creator places one’s hand on the good fate and says: “Take it!” In other words, the Creator’s action comes first; then it is our turn to continue the work, meaning that we take what the Creator gives us. We have to organize our environment and study so that everyday is structured to allow us to make efforts both on one and the other.

Regardless of our usual workload and dissemination responsibilities, we should never break our connection with the original sources. Only if we manage to constantly maintain connection with the sources, will we arrive at the desired and anticipated result. The labor is vast, but the reward is great, so we have to prepare our vessels to receive it.

All this requires us to distribute our time into several segments: a normal life, study, and dissemination. We should consistently attend to all three and never avoid or overlook any of them. If we neglect even one of them, we won’t keep to the middle line. Even if we don’t allot time in equal shares between them, we still have to take care of all three parts.

We should pay particular attention to these issues. Even when one has a very important dissemination assignment, one shouldn’t forget about studying. There is no excuse for missing classes just because one is busy with dissemination. It’s really bad, since it is said: “If you abandon Me for one day, I’ll leave you for two.” It’s dangerous. If you discontinue studying because of dissemination, our gains will eventually turn into losses.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/13

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Question: Why does the Creator need a “middleman,” Israel, between Him and His creation?

Answer: The material (matter) by itself is Malchut, a desire to receive, nothing more, which can only respond to pleasant and unpleasant effects in a straightforward, predetermined manner. It cannot bring any updates in nature.

If I build some kind of mechanical, electrical system that responds to my influence, it cannot be considered a “new creation.” After all,  it’s based on our thoughts, sensations, intellect, and attitude. If it’s built correctly and if we are its creators and if it’s completely under our control, then it’s just a part of us and there is nothing new or different about it. We made it the way we wanted it to be.

This explains why still, vegetative, and animate nature, as well as those people who lead a purely material life cannot be called “creation,” since they are governed directly from above. When pricked, they scream “Ow!” and when patted, they enjoy, “Ah!” Except for “Ow!” and “Ah!” there is nothing more they can do—either suffer or enjoy. Their reaction to pain or delight is obvious and predictable. Where is the creation in this picture?

Creation is one in whom there is a part of the Creator, and because it is already there, there is a certain opposition,conflict, a gap, a delta between the properties of the Creator and creation. If we can work with these two parts correctly, then between them a zone of “freewill” emerges, a special place where we do not depend on the Creator nor do we hinge on the material He created; we are positioned at the borderline between them.

This neutral zone is called “the middle third of Tifferet.” It’s a point that is considered to be true creation. We still have to work to attain this state, but at least we already know where to look for it and how to tune to it. Somewhere in the middle between the Creator and creation (not true creation but a material creation) there is a state that embraces both opposites and at the same time is not dependent on either of them.

We cannot yet comprehend what it is, but eventually we reach this state. When working with the general public, we are working with the material creation. The Creator is the force with which we want to perform the action. By that, we transform ourselves into “creation.” This has never happened before in the history of humanity; this process did not begin until today. Only after we achieve it will we be able to call ourselves “people,” “sons of Adam,” “similar” (Domeh) to the Creator.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/13

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Because the purpose is undoubtedly built over all the laws of nature, none excluded, just as the clever worker would not add or subtract even a hairsbreadth of the necessary actions to attain the goal, he who alters even a single law harms and damages the purposeful aim that the Creator has set, and will therefore be punished by nature. Hence, we, too, creatures of the Creator must not pity him because he is desecrating the laws of nature and defiles the purpose of the Creator.

We live within a complex of forces of the laws of nature. From the world of infinity each being smaller than the previous one, they close the spiritual space in order to construct this world in its center, the place in which a person has free choice and from which he can begin the way toward his correction.

If we don’t abide by these laws that are active within the “spiritual worlds,” the Sefirot,  Partzufim—then, how can we rise to the level of the Creator? The ascent is possible only through keeping the Mitzvot or, in other words, through keeping the laws of nature. These are the same thing.

This is not talking about the physical laws of nature here: cutting down trees and drying up rivers, pollution, and destruction of the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate. Rather, the main thing is that we need to begin to be in balance with the spiritual nature, with the bestowal and love coming toward us.

In the past, until we reached a stage of correction of the self, we had no ability to destroy nature. Until the nineteenth century and even until the twentieth century, we used it without causing damage, without violating the ecology. However, after that, the Creator approached the world in order to show us that the world is global, that everything among all the levels of nature is linked with the level of Adam (man), and now, first of all, it is up to the person to correct himself.

The solution is not in limiting or reducing the utilization of the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate. Rather, this is speaking about the correction of the person on his level. By means of this, he corrects the relationship with all the rest and even between everything and the Creator. That is how we rise “from love for thy neighbor to love for the Creator.”

Certainly, there exist many laws linked to the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate, yet our service to the Creator is to resemble the Creator, for otherwise, if we don’t correct our speaking level and our relationship toward the Creator, we will not know how we need to relate to nature. Here, we must correct our ego. We cannot dictate for people the laws of conduct for every given state and arrange clear guidelines for all events. It is impossible to dictate to every person how it is up to him to behave from morning to night in order to build the right relationships with the nature of the still, vegetative and animate, with the environment.

It is only if the person will correct himself with the characteristic of bestowal, with “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” To this degree, he also will correct his link with the nature around him. Then, all the levels in nature will be included with him and will be corrected through him.

By themselves, they are not prepared to be corrected. There are a multitude of malfunctions, and as of today, we don’t know what the forms of their correct functioning are. However, then we will see that they are functioning differently. Even on the level of the still, we will see natural characteristics that we haven’t seen until now.

So, first of all, the person needs to correct himself and not the stones, the plants, and the animals. The goal of creation is to resemble the Creator, and we have something with which to practice: the relationships between us. Specifically for this, there was the shattering, the Babylonian exile, and population growth to seven billion human beings. Precisely in this way, we will correct the damage.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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