Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Rabbi Akiva depicts two kinds of people: the first are the “open store” type, which regard this world as an open store without a shopkeeper. He says about them, “The book is open and the hand writes.” Meaning, although they do not see that there is an account, all their actions are nonetheless written in the book, as explained above. 

We exist in a general system, and we influence it through all our actions. No matter what I think about or what I do, everything immediately influences the whole, of which I am an integral part.

This is done by the law of development imprinted in Creation against humanity’s will, where the deeds of the wicked themselves necessarily instigate the good deeds…

How is that possible? How can an evil deed correct me and generate good deeds? The path of suffering exists for this purpose. If I generate a series of troubles, if I don’t keep the direction of the goal of creation in order to judge myself and the whole world to the scale of merit, then my bad deeds and opposite goals bring the system to such distortions that as a result, it influences me like the source of evil and forces me to change my state and become a good and useful part.

This means that eventually, my bad deeds will surely come back to me twice as intensely as the harm I have caused to the system and will force me to change for the better.

The path of suffering is undesirable. It is prolonged and continuous since all my deeds go through the system until it responds. This takes time, but it surely will happen since the system doesn’t change.

So, my bad deeds surely will influence me eventually and correct me. However, they correct me only so that I will understand that I am a negative factor in the general system, and thus, I feel bad. It doesn’t change or correct me. It is said about this: “The Creator Himself puts one’s hand on the good fate and says to him, ‘Choose this for yourself.’” I am only brought to the place where I can choose, but the system doesn’t choose anything for me. It only brings me to the decision that I must do good deeds.

“The second type of people is called “those who want to borrow.” They take the shopkeeper into consideration, and when they take something from the store, they only take it as a loan.”

So, where do such good and clever people come from? Like the first type, they also have undergone suffering since no one receives any special treatment, and the same force of good and evil exists in everyone. If your evil inclination is big, then accordingly, you have enough brains, wisdom and persistence. So, at the end of correction, no one will feel that he is deprived as compared to others, but rather that everyone has his own special attributes and that they are compatible with each other, whereas in the ideal relation they are equal.

There are people who have been through great hardships in this or in a previous life and have become wiser—not in their minds, but in their internality. They already have the inner preparation that allows them to understand that they are in a general system and that they must be considerate of everyone since there is no other way. This is worthwhile since we will suffer less this way.

They want to heal the system or even to tie it to the Creator, depending on their current level which eventually is determined by the level of pain they have experienced. So, no wonder that relatively, the nation of Israel suffers much more than others. This is determined by the conditions of the general system.

“They promise to pay the shopkeeper the desired price, meaning attain the goal by it.”

This is the price. I ask, I demand, that the Creator give me a mind, feelings, and the power to do exactly what He demands of me. I will force myself, I will succeed in convincing myself, and then, I will see that it really is worthwhile to behave precisely this way. In the meantime, I advance under the pressure of the blows I receive, but later on, I gradually will change my perspective as I reconsider what is happening and will not advance “under pressure,” but for the uniqueness that is in bestowal, in love of others.

Thus, I ask for a loan. I ask for help, which is called raising MAN, a request for correction, as I want to fill the desire of the upper one. This always requires an ascent above reason. I make a decision that is not based on my egoistic desires, but on the desires that are above them.

The first type, whose debt is collected by the collectors of the development, pay their debt unknowingly, but stormy waves come upon them, through the strong wind of development, and push them from behind, forcing them to step forward.

Thus, their debt is collected against their will and with great pains by manifestations of the evil forces, which push them from behind. But the second type pay their debt, which is the attainment of the goal knowingly, of their own accord, by repeating the actions that hasten the development of the sense of recognition of evil.

It is clear that they receive the positive force that pulls them upward toward the goal, but they are the ones who awaken it as if they actually advance according to their own freewill.
[106648]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/13, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 52, “Transgression does not Put Out a Mitzva“: One must know that one does not need to uproot the evil, as this thing is impossible. Rather, one must only hate the evil, as it is written, “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.”

It is about our choice. There is a plan that leads to the purpose of creation that must be fulfilled. We cannot change this plan because the contrast between the Light and the vessel has existed since the beginning of creation, and it must come to an end so that at the end of the process, they will not oppose one another, but will merge into one whole.

Therefore, this process should include the three following states: the initial state of the created being, the process of correction, and the state of the end of correction. The only thing we can do is to hasten time, to perceive all the states correctly—that is, to manage to justify them and want them in advance. Thanks to this, we acquire the understanding and the feeling of who the Creator is, and how we can connect to Him and become similar to Him.

We learn about the choice from different examples. However, the basis of the choice is in the following: If I want to get closer to the future states that are expected along the way, to hasten my development, I must get away from the past and come closer to the future according to the timeline of the plan of my development. This means that I draw further away from my egoistic desire and come closer to the desire to bestow.

This coming closer depends on my hate of reception and my attraction to bestowal. On nature’s part, the Creator pushes me to it by the force of the Light when it reveals to me more and more blows from my ego each time. Therefore, I feel suffering, evil, and thus I hate my ego. In contrast to this bad feeling, I begin to love the acts of bestowal, the connection in which I believe that I will feel better. Thus, nature, the Creator, the force of the Light, advances me.

This is where my freewill lies: to what extent I can increase my recognition of evil that is expressed in my hate of evil. I can do that with the help of the environment. If the environment begins telling me about evil more, which I have attained by my personal blows, I will draw away from my egoistic desire much faster and yearn for bestowal. Therefore, I have to receive endless examples from everything that surrounds me which prove to me how evil the ego is and how good bestowal is.

Those around me have to let me see and feel this, to brainwash me. Eventually, the hate of evil will burn in me and I will advance much faster to what is opposite to it, to the good. Therefore, as it is written, “O ye that love the Lord, hate evil.” By that, I will know what I must do: How I can turn my desires, which do not disappear, to their opposite form by using them in a new way.

I want to feel good! And if I have to bestow in order to feel that way, I am ready to do so. If I have to treat others more nicely, I have no choice and I agree to treat them more nicely so that we all will feel good. Just as in times of war or in other difficult times when people get closer to one another since they feel that it will be best for everyone, a person feels that, eventually, he will be better off.

So, from Lo Lishma (not for Her Name) we arrive at Lishma (for Her Name). First, a person acknowledges the advantage of a good attitude egoistically when he understands that we have no choice but to connect, to be compatible with nature, and to stop harming one another. Eventually, he begins to feel that there is a special power in connection, a special new state that he has never experienced before.

Just as when two people connect, trying not to harm one another at the beginning and to bring each other pleasure, and then they suddenly begin to feel that there is something greater between them—a feeling that they have never experienced before—so, from Lo Lishma we arrive at Lishma. It is all thanks to our increasing the hate for the egoistic desire to enjoy and to separation.
[106800]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/13 

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We are all connected by a “cobweb” of forces that penetrate all our relationships. On the whole, these are either the forces of reception or the forces of bestowal. If a person discovers neither of the forces, it is as if he is hanging in emptiness. Usually, however, either the positive or the negative forces are revealed to him, and together they weave the general network.

So the “cobweb” exists and it is up to a person to what extent he feels it, to what extent he is in it, and to what extent he wants these forces to be either corporeal or spiritual.

We may say that we are in a “fixed” position in this network, regardless of our physical location. And the saying “he who changes his place changes his luck” refers to spiritual “coordinates.” If I move from one country to another and see different people and a different environment around me, it doesn’t mean that I have changed my position in the system in any way.

I am in the same point, in the same network, but now it simply seems to be different. Even if my “luck” has changed, meaning the forces that act upon me, it doesn’t mean that I have changed my location in the spiritual network. Only the manifestations, the “garments,” the scene in the Creator’s theater, by which He manages me, have changed. But the director is the same, and the play is the same play, and behind the new set there are the same side scenes.…

Question: But what should I emphasize? Where should I make an effort?

Answer: The Creator tells me: “I have brought you to a point of choice, now realize it.” He has brought me to the group, but it is only the place of choice, while the choice itself is in my hands. It is like coming to the ballot box that has already been prepared for me, and now the choice is mine.
[106354]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: What is my free choice in relation to my thoughts?

Answer: All thoughts that are within me at the moment, all sensations and understandings, all data that I as if “scan” and then process, through synthesis and analysis, all these parameters are given from Above. What I feel, how I feel, what kinds of decisions I make, all this is already predetermined from Above, right up to this moment. One can ask now: What will be from this moment on? In this “from now on” there is a parameter called my free choice.

With regards to thoughts, free choice is in the external desire and the external mind that belong to the group. After the shattering I am divided into two parts. In my sensations, one part is outside of me, whereas I perceive the second part internally as myself. Thereby my inner heart and mind appear, meaning myself, as well as an external heart and mind, meaning the group. All that I need to do is to begin to connect these two parts together, into one Kli.

Here my struggle and problems begin, and this comprises the order of the work and all corrections. By trying to come to terms with the part that constantly demonstrates to me its confrontation and opposition, I feel that I need the Creator, the only one who can connect these two parts together. The stronger I need Him to reconcile these two opposing parts together, to that degree I agree with the Creator, with His nature, with His existence, and with His rule, I agree that this property would govern me.

The more that I try to annul myself before the group, the more obvious it becomes to me that I am not ready to subdue myself before the others. Ultimately, I will “beat myself black and blue” to finally clarify that I’m not ready to yield under any circumstances. I reach such hatred that it’s like Mount Sinai (“Sinah” means “hatred” in Hebrew). But because I’ve tried to annul myself so many times I realize that I must do this, and therefore I feel the need for the help of the upper force.
[105639]
From the 1^st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13, Shamati #68

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All our work is in making the right choice, as it is written: “Choose life!” We constantly have to ascend the ladder to a more qualitative choice. The Creator wants to be revealed to the created beings. He wants them to reveal Him and to feel that He is the only force in the world, good and benevolent. However, we have to discover this by ourselves, in our desires, that is, we have to change ourselves so that we will see that the Creator is good and that is nothing else in the world but His goodness.

Our first choice is by trying to see the revelation of the one upper force in everything that happens in the world. A person should picture himself standing in the middle: On his left side, there is this lively, active world, and on his right side the Creator. A person stands in-between the two and chooses which one will win and who will conduct this entire orchestra: the world itself or the Creator, or perhaps alternately, the two of them together, or perhaps it is the Creator that operates through this world?

It takes quite a while until a person clarifies this. His first choice is that “there is none else besides Him.” And after he determines that there is nothing but the upper force, he then will clarify that it is good and benevolent.

This means that it isn’t enough to see the world under the rule of the single Creator. It’s also necessary to justify His governance of the world and be sure that it is absolutely thanks self-correction.

A person faces this double choice. Later, he begins to clarify even higher levels by “faith above reason,” but the main thing is to make this first decision. This is what the phase of preparation is about, when a person must change himself since nothing changes but the person himself. Thus, he attains the spiritual world.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/13

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Question: What characterizes our free choice in the work?

Answer: True free choice, as opposed to all “false free” choices, is possible during preparation for, and not at the time of the deed itself. When the action is taking place, then it’s no longer possible to influence it. Some kind of state comes from Above and only in the beginning can we establish how we will accept it.

Nothing depends on us other than this. The plan of creation already exists and cannot be changed. We can only hasten our development. Besides this, we still don’t understand our connection within the entire great system. How could it be that I will advance faster than others if we are in a single system in which all components have to develop in harmony? It follows that all of us depend upon each other.

But if you want to know what our free choice is, it’s in the preparation. I have to isolate that single datum that I’m able to influence and work to change it. All of this change depends solely on how I raise the society so as to succeed in evaluating every state as given by the Creator, by “there’s none else besides Him,” and the “Good that does good.”

Only the environment that I organized for myself will determine how much I will succeed in rising above the forces of separation that deny the unity of the Divine Providence, “there’s none else besides Him,” and the darkness that opposes the “Good that does good.” Then I can see whether or not I can justify every state both personally, internally, and also in general, in the entire group.

Suppose that some general problem, a great trouble is discovered. Here we can check whether we are prepared to deal with it and overcome it all together. Have we prepared for it or not? So accordingly, everyone must check himself, how much is he joining with everyone and strengthening them all.

All this depends on preparation and on the recognition of our evil, the clarification of our egoism, and the aspiration to do good. Here we also examine the person: Is he really controlled by his ego or does he feel the importance of the environment, group, which is above all of his personal, egoistic evaluations? This is our entire preparation, meaning our free choice.
[105261]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/13, Writing of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 44: When he begins to delve in Torah and commandments, even without any intention, meaning without any love and fear, as is fitting when serving the king, even in Lo Lishma, the point in one’s heart begins to grow and disclose its action.

When the point in the heart awakens in a person, he comes to an environment in which he is provided with all the conditions for his inner spiritual development. It is said that “the Creator puts a person’s hand on the good fate and tells him: Choose it.” This is exactly where his free will is: to advance to the center of the group and through the group to the Creator.

Then a person begins to understand the system, the “kitchen” where everything is “cooking.” From that point on, if he looks for how to focus correctly on the goal by using the influence of the environment, subduing himself to the environment, and yearning for the Creator through it, then his point in the heart expands and grows.

Here his basic participation with the intention that is not yet aimed at pure bestowal is enough. Even if a person doesn’t feel sorry about that yet and can’t think about that seriously, it’s still a start. If he already has a “point in the heart” and, most importantly, is already incorporated in the right environment that influences him, that’s development.

Even acts without an aim can purify one’s will to receive, but only in the first degree called “still.”

A person doesn’t have the right intentions yet and he can’t see himself as one who bestows yet, but he can at least choose to “lower his head” with all his might, to annul himself, and thus advance. The greatness of the still level is its ability to subdue itself before the group and the study. This level ends when a person totally annuls himself before what has been revealed to him on the current level. This is the climax of the still level.

Afterwards, on the vegetative level everything changes: If before he only had to restrain himself while rising above his ego, now he has to open up as much as he can. Such a change is typical in each transition from one level to another.

Question: So, it turns out that the still level is not as “coarse” as one may think?

Answer: I may not understand or feel anything and may not be able to participate in real bestowal, but I need to acknowledge the lack of feeling, mind, and the right attitude, the lack of anything spiritual. I am 100% outside the dimension of bestowal. So how can I enter it?

To do that, I have to annul everything that awakens within me. I don’t delete and don’t cover up my attributes, but I know that I can’t enter spirituality with them. So, I cling to the dominion of the environment. They tell me to join something, and I do that without understanding what it means. They tell me to read, to study, and so I read and study. They tell me to do something, so I do it. I do it specifically because I am told to do so. In other words, I subdue myself before the group and the study with all my might. I accept this dominion as I relinquish myself thus advancing to the correction of my still level.

After all, my still level can’t move by itself, and so the only way to do that is to have the friends move me from the outside. In order to do that, I have to be in their hands.

In this nobody has any obstacles. Everyone is capable to perform these actions upon himself. A person just annuls himself before others and depends only on this. Self-annulment automatically puts him into their hands. Later he will be asked to perform actions that are based on interdependence and cooperation, but on the still level he only has to renounce himself. The desire grows, the interruptions increase, there is greater confusion along with disagreement, and the answer to all that is self-annulment. One needs to lower his head time and time again and thus advance. This is the first phase on our way.
[105267]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/13, “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: If all of my states are determined by the upper force, where is my responsibility for bad deeds?

Answer: I cannot change the state I’m already in. I prepared this state with the Creator like His partner. I had an opportunity to prepare myself so that the state approaching me now would have manifested in a better form, but I didn’t do that.

The present state itself cannot be changed already. It is the natural end result of all the previous conditions that I certainly could have influenced.

I could put an egg under a hen, I could put it in the sun, or I could put it in an incubator and accordingly, I will get results determining the speed of my development and my attitude. Everything will be different!

But when I find myself in some situation, it is already too late to do something about it. Having acted according to the principle of “if I am not for myself, then who is for me” and in the end, recognized that “there is none else besides Him,” I received this outcome. I make the most out of this and realize from the start I had to reach a state like this.

So, if everything is already established from the start, where is my free choice? But only having justified my present state as correct and already established from the start, since “there is none else besides Him,” can I decide what to do next and say: “If I am not for myself, then who is for me.”

“If I am not for myself, who is for me” is the period when I am acting and working as if the Creator is not next to me, since I don’t know where He is, this is hidden from me. But why do I need to act like this? If I make the right effort, then ideally I will accept the entire state revealed to me as coming from the upper force, from “there is none else besides Him.”

Working like this, I prepare my perception for the coming states. The Creator can reveal a state for me that today seems simply terrible. But after the preparation that I do now, working according to the principle of “if I am not for myself, then who is for me,” I will accept this state as the manifestation of absolute goodness of the Creator, which benefited me. This will be my reward at the conclusion of a “complete workday.”
[105435]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/13, Writing of Rabash

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Question: People in whom the point in the heart has been revealed have freewill, while 99% of people feel depressed. It turns out that we are one big family that has a goal in life, and therefore we are happy.

Answer: Of course we are one big family since only one vessel, one desire, was created initially. Then it was shattered to billions of individual desires. So there are seven billion people in the world today. Now we have to reconnect, but this time by our collective efforts. This, of course, happens under the influence of the upper Light, since we can’t do it by ourselves. The Light does everything, but we have to take this whole system through the integral connection, which means to become one unique whole again.

What’s going on here? First, we were one unique whole. Then under the influence of the upper Light, we began to feel egoistically repulsed by one another, and our vessel was shattered.

This means that the Light has inserted its opposite attribute into us, and now there are gaps between us, emotional distances: I can’t stand the other and he and I can’t live together, why? It’s because the Light has inserted an ego in us, the resistance between us, the darkness.

If we annul this opposite attribute now, by demanding that the Light influence us, then it will illuminate for us again, but according to our desire to rise above the ego now. So it turns out that if before the Light illuminated us on the level of the Light of Nefesh, which is a very faint Light, now it illuminates on the level of the Light of Yechida for us, which is a great eternal Light.

This is all our gain. In other words, the repulsion that we feel, all the gaps and the spaces between us, have to be filled with the Light.
[103561]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/22/13, Lesson 2

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In all of creation, from the world of Infinity and all the upper worlds, Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, and all the Partzufim and Sefirot until this world, which is the last and the lowest one and includes the whole universe, the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and people on earth, only man has free will. And of all the people it’s only those in whom the question of “what is the meaning of this life?” awakens.

If a person suddenly feels a need to know what he lives for, it means that together with this question the chance to correct his life and to fill it with meaning has appeared. The question itself indicates that there is a certain connection to the source of life. This means that he has a chance to correct his relationship with the source. Today this question awakens in many people, and so we see that depression is widespread.

If we could determine what the lack of communication between us is, what the failure in connection is, we could correct ourselves. We could incorporate the bad system and the good system in us, and we could see which connection is broken and which is intact. But we can’t do that because man was created only with the evil force. I don’t feel anything at all other than the desire to enjoy. I don’t understand anything and can’t think about anything else. This is my inner program.

Everything I look at, everything I see and feel, everything I relate to, all my conscious and subconscious behavior, every day of my life is focused only on one question: “How can I enjoy on the account of every moment and every opportunity.” This is how man is built, and he can’t break this circle.

If I want to do something good for someone else, the reason is my special relations with that person because of which I feel close to him. My good feeling depends on his good feeling. Not only man but also all of the still, vegetative, and animate nature operates according to this principle. We can see this principle everywhere: from the tiniest elementary particles and the waves to gigantic objects and whole galaxies. There is only one desire in everything—to grasp what is good for me and to reject what is harmful.

The egoistic desire to enjoy on the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature operates only in this way. But on the speaking level we also receive a special freedom of choice. Man develops from the animate level, from the monkey, and at a certain point he begins to ask: “What am I living for, what is the meaning of life, what is the source of life, does it have a purpose?”

Throughout his evolution, as a result of blows and everything he has been through, man gradually begins to see the general picture. Then the question about the meaning of life forces him to clarify his desire, he has to understand why he lives. Even if his life is fine, the question whether it has a goal and what he can achieve in this life rises.

Some turn to religion and it gives a person a certain hope since it promises that things will be better after his death. But this is not a solution since by that a person doesn’t actually attain the answer to his question. He only calms himself by other people’s stories.

The wisdom of Kabbalah gives a person a real chance to see reality beyond the boundaries of physical death. It says: “You will see your world in your lifetime.” This means that by changing his attitude to reality, a person begins to see the opposite reality that is outside of him. He exits himself to the external world, as if identifying himself with the external world, and thus leaves his body, the animate level, and acquires new senses and new attributes called the human attributes.

A person identifies with and connects to all of nature that is outside of him. Thus he acquires an out-of-body existence, the spiritual life. We have to do it here, in this world, in this life, and then we will transcend to the next reality. After all, we are on the animate level of reality now. In our world there are the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, and we belong to the animate level but are more developed than other animals.

We have to move on to the human level, the level of Adam, meaning “similar” (Domeh in Hebrew) to the upper force, the force of love and bestowal. When a person exits himself, he begins to see and feel this different reality. He begins to experience life outside the body, like in a collective matrix existing above matter.

Specifically this kind of existence is called the human level. We attain it by drawing the force of bestowal that exists in nature, adding it to the force of receiving, the force of the ego that we have, and then starting to correct it by changing it to bestowal. Thus we reach the spiritual level.

Today we are in the transition from one level to the other and in the near future we will see how the whole world will have to move on to the next phase of our evolution.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, Writings of Rabash

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