From Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 78: “Even if the whole world says you are righteous, be wicked in your own eyes,” specifically in your own eyes. In other words, as long as you have not attained “opening of the eyes” in the Torah, regard yourself as wicked. Do not fool yourself with your reputation in the entire world as righteous.

People are not at will to do good or bad deeds. Regarding spirituality, the natural qualities of a person, which he was born with, don’t count: how nice and polite or how rude he is. Until one merits a revelation and the Creator’s testimony, that will guarantee his good intentions, until then, one will remain wicked.

But when a person achieves a revelation and the Light keeps holding him up, from then on, he will be a good, righteous. Therefore, we don’t make calculations about each other, who is bad and who is good. Regarding the spiritual path, everything is determined by crossing this cherished border—the “Machsom.”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 20: You are carved … on my heart, all day and all night and like incinerators of thirst after your goodness and your wholeness, and the Creator knows what exertion and powers I have given on your behalf, and you are sure that it will not be in vain and God’s word will be eternal.

From this day onwards we will grow stronger in the Torah and the Mitzvot (commandments), “like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load” to raise Divinity from the dust, and the sins will become merits, since His honor will fill the land. And thank God, I am very sure that our salvation is soon to be revealed, and we will be rewarded to worship the Creator together, in expansion and God willing, we will succeed.

Baal HaSulam writes about his investment in his students and about his helping them. However, in the spiritual world, in contrast to the corporeal world, the lower has to make efforts so that the upper can help him.

In the corporeal world, a baby is naturally attached to his mother first by the umbilical cord in the womb and then to her breast, to her body, and so he receives her treatment. Nature forces him to annul himself this way. He doesn’t make any efforts on his part. On the contrary, he feels that his mother is the source of his life, and he is inclined to adhere to her.

However, in the spiritual work, we have to do this action against our ego, toward the group, the teacher, and the Creator. Only to the extent that we annul ourselves will we receive nourishment from them, either through what we call a “spiritual umbilical cord” or through the spiritual breast of the upper Partzuf, through the Surrounding Light and the Inner Light.

So, if a teacher writes that the students are carved … on my heart all day and all night, it means that they also have made a great deal of work in order to reach such a mutual connection.

What exertion and powers I have given on your behalf, this is possible only if the students allowed the teacher to bestow upon them. If a baby refuses to eat, how is it possible to force him? Here, it is a matter of his own freewill.

First, his freewill is only in annulling himself. Then, it is also in agreeing to accept the bestowal from the upper, which is always in contrast to one’s own mind and feelings. It is a very big problem. Even to just annul yourself and to accept everything as Hassadism isn’t easy. The embryo is in the waters of Hesed, but it isn’t simple to receive everything as Hassadim in total self-annulment.

So, a student should begin to accept actions that are opposite to his feelings and his mind, and to accept them in order to see the upper’s grace in the greatest sufferings, just like Rabbi Akiva in his painful death.

This isn’t simple at all, and we have to prepare ourselves for that. The main thing is to want that our attitude to what is happening with us will change. We are required to ask and to beg, to pray, so that we will be able to justify everything that happens, and to receive the Creator’s actions upon us with love and to ask for help in order to adhere to the group, to the teacher, and to the Creator so that love will cover all our sins.

This work is called like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load. We must constantly feel that There is none else besides Him, and the vessel for this feeling is our connection and love. This is why it is called the great rule of the Torah.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12

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Question: What does it mean to “correct past mistakes and transgressions” and become a “complete righteous?”

Answer: We reform desires that have gone through the breaking. A person comes face to face with his evil inclination, and he perceives it as his own; that is, he takes the blame for it. He doesn’t identify himself with the point in the heart and cannot observe his desire from aside as the material given to him for correction. So far, he doesn’t cling to the Creator, who created this evil inclination, but identifies with the evil inclination itself. The Light has not clarified his desire yet and hasn’t severed it from the person to move him to the Creator’s side. So, one thinks that it is he who is bad and not the evil inclination.

The Light has not sufficiently reformed him, hasn’t illuminated his desires, so a person doesn’t see the source of all evil and then of all good. In other words, he doesn’t consider himself subject to a singular power beyond which there is nothing else, and he doesn’t realize that he is always ruled by one source, which determines how bad the desires are and how to correct them.

He doesn’t understand yet that he must ask to have selfish desires revealed and how to correct them. After all, everything is done by the Light that Reforms, which reveals the left line first. To the extent that one strives to reach total correction, bestowal, according to how much effort he exerts, the Light comes and reveals his evil inclination to him.

He has to pray for the Creator to show him what he is lacking for perfection. The prayer is to reveal the desire to be human, to be perfect, faithful to the Creator, and to bestow. Revealing what I need for perfection is to see the deficiencies that I have to correct in order to achieve the good.

But I don’t ask for my deficiencies to be revealed; a person is unable to do so. Due to our nature, we can only ask for good conditions.

Our work is to come to this understanding that all desires, corrected and uncorrected, are in the Creator’s hands. And man is that small clever child who knows how to ask the Creator correctly. And then this whole monster will become revealed: the evil inclination, egoism, Pharaoh, which later on will change and get transformed into a good inclination, by way of restriction, the screen, and the Reflected Light.

All of this descends from above, as it is written: “I created the evil inclination and the Torah to correct it since the Light in it reforms.” So where does a person come in, if at all, since the Creator said that everything comes from Him? What a person needs is awareness, a prayer for a good state.

But he doesn’t want to ask for what is good; after all, his nature is the evil inclination. So he has to use the power of the group that will infuse him with these good values although he may not necessarily sense them. It looks as if they are playing a game; they are staging a good state and through this influence each other. Thus, a person achieves a greater and greater desire until the Light has finally reformed him.

All of this is arranged so as not to rob a person of his freewill. He has to be aware that he is merely acting, while, in reality, has no desire for any of it, and that he opposes the true, perfect state. And the closer he moves to the right state, the greater freewill he is given, the more of the sinner in him is revealed, and greater doubts in needing this path unfold in him. He has to discern these things, matching himself against the other side, comparing good and evil.

Hence, our entire work rests on our freedom of choice, and all we have to do is to offer ourselves to the influence of the group that we have built according to our understanding of the spiritual world. We should play so as to have the group affect everyone as if all of this is true. And then, everyone will come to the true prayer.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Why does the desire, the fire in the heart, which was felt earlier, disappear? How do we support this desire? How can we keep ourselves in the desire to reveal the upper force, taking into account that we do not feel it?

Answer: The Creator gives us our primary aspiration to attain Him, pushing us forward with all kinds of troubles in this life, a feeling of emptiness, and pulling us with the expectation of revealing the truth, meaning. But we have to go further by ourselves. This initial push from behind and pull forward are temporary; do not expect that they will propel you forward all the time.

You have to cultivate this thrust forward yourself, and it can only come from the environment. You must build your group, your environment, so that it excites you, pulls forward, teases, so that you see friends who succeed and strive forward more than you do, so that you become jealous, envy them, so that they give you the importance of the goal, and you feel support in that from them.

In order to be impressed by them, you have to annul yourself. If you consider them greater, then even a small drive towards the goal that you see in them will seem great to you.

This is the basis of all Rabash’s articles about the group. The Creator gives us only the initial impulse and nothing more: the negative force from behind and a small attracting force forward, and only for a certain time. And then He begins to give us more and more egoism, the hindering force, so that we develop our own pull towards Him on this hindering force. You can get it only from the environment. That is why freewill is only in the creation of the environment suitable for us.

So, if we do this seriously, we will definitely reach the goal, but this is the most important thing, this is a guarantee of our advancement. So, I am very happy about our unity at the Siberian Convention where we will try to unite to feel our next state there, on the spot. It is before us; this is our next step. Let’s make it together, and it will bring success. “Let’s join our hands, friends, so not to be lost one by one.”
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From a Virtual Lesson 12/2/12

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From Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot:” “Indeed, it is to resolve this great riddle that the verse writes, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Here is what is meant by a “vague riddle”: What is the meaning of life and its goal? What does this entire universe exist for? Why are we here? Why do we feel what we feel? If one starts asking these questions, one definitely has to find answers to them to discover the meaning of life.

Then, we stop asking whether our material life is good or bad, nor do we strive to understand it more or to accomplish anything on this plane. We are preoccupied with a question that concerns the very basis of life: “Where does it all come from?” Everything around us has a meaning. So, what is the general purpose that nature or the Higher force pursued at the time of creation? What does our existence mean in general?

Indeed, in regard to resolving this obscure riddle, it is said: Taste and see that the Lord is good. Those who keep the Torah and Mitzvot correctly are the ones who taste the taste of life. They are the ones who see and testify that the Lord is good… In other words, if a person observes certain laws, he tunes himself up in a way that he begins to feel the purpose of life, its basis and origin. It is about having a feeling of the source of the entire universe, not just of man or even of humanity, but rather nature as a whole: Where did it start, why, and what purpose is it leading us to?

Kabbalists say that it becomes possible if a person makes special internal corrections. Because now we can’t catch answers to these questions, so we only have a question per se. Although, having a question signifies that we are already capable of finding a solution. Consequently, the sum of a question and the observation of the “Torah and the commandments,” that is the correct calibration that leads us to resolution of this dilemma that is, as it sounds: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” It means that one will feel and understand the benevolence of the force that is the source of nature.

We don’t yet understand the meaning of good and evil. The meaning of life is the attainment of the essence of creation, not just feeling its pleasant taste. If we experience a sensation of the Creator’s benevolence, it means that we fulfill our empty cavities that need answers with Him.

We are the ones who have to make internal changes, since our efforts give shape to finding the answer. We don’t have a choice: Either we fulfill the commandments (make corrections) or we don’t. The entire process is built in a way that a person advances without being asked whether he or she wants it or doesn’t. But if we constantly strive to find support that helps us move faster in the direction of the answer, then to this extent we implement our freedom of choice.

It is said that “The wicked, in their lives, are called dead.” If one doesn’t exercise the method of correction, advancement, or use the Reforming Light, then one’s life becomes pitiful. While in the material plane, one can even be quite successful, but he will never move forward toward the goal. And so his life will remain at the animate level of existence.

The human level means that a person uses the Light that Reforms and constantly rises from the animate level to the human level, to the level of man, Adam, which means similar (Domeh) to the upper force.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“

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Those who have the point in the heart—which they received back in ancient Babylon and have gone through many reincarnations until today or in whom it awakens only now—are actually the only ones who have freewill. It is because there are two forces in them: the force of receiving and the force of bestowal. In all the others, there is only the force of receiving, the desire to receive, which totally manages them; the spark of bestowal is dormant for the time being and doesn’t show itself.

They don’t have these two forces between which it is possible to judge themselves and the whole to one scale or the other. But if the sparks of bestowal awaken in people, they can change their fate and the fate of the whole world. Such people are called Yashar—El (straight to the Creator) since by the attribute they received from the Creator they can choose and judge themselves and the whole world to the scale of correction.

They are very different from others even in their corporeal nature as a result of the spark that operates in them. Only those who have the spark of the force of bestowal, have freewill. Therefore, they are the innermost part of the world, since they are close to the Light that is everywhere. Through them the Light can reach the whole system, all the other vessels, all the other people we see in this world.

They have to perform the correction and they are responsible for the state of the world, the way the world is advancing towards the general correction. Therefore, we have to gather all the people in whom the point in the heart has awakened and try to form them into a strong and unified group. This union will be called the inner center, the heart of the world.

By coming together and annulling our ego, we come closer to the Creator, to the Light, to the force of bestowal. On the other hand, the influence of the Light will spread through us all over the world. This is all our work. All these efforts are only to bring contentment to the upper force. By that we discover the upper force and identify with it, which means that we attain the goal of creation.

The most important thing is the connection among us in order to increase the force of bestowal and to raise its importance, to become as close as possible to the Light, to its attribute, and thus to advance.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12

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Question: Why should the states of unity, love, and cooperation be particularly important to us?

Answer: They are indispensable to us because we have to “advertise” them to each other by playing a game that allows us to enhance these states before afflictions hit us from behind. We draw a bright and happy picture on purpose. We don’t see this picture as of yet, but we can make the group influence each of us in a way so that we all want it. With the help of envy, jealousy, and pride, one can be forced to advance before afflictions strike him from behind. We really want to be stimulated this way.

It’s bad when suffering pushes us “from behind”; we prefer conscious advancement. We should build a group in which every member expresses and shares an opinion that unity and interconnection are wonderful, so we are the ones who deliberately approach the Creator by advancing towards Him consciously.

Question: So, where is the “freewill” here? Even if we run away from the blows that hit us from behind, even if we consciously move ahead and pursue our connection with the Creator, we still act out of our animate egoistic nature. How can we really detach from it and act differently (not egoistically), and manage to rise to the Creator’s level irrespective of our egoism? Where is the elevation over our animal nature here?

What does “voluntary participation” mean? How can we escape blows and afflictions, avoid pleasures and rise above them? Why is the state at which we are either “whipped” or “motivated by a candy” considered animate? How can we rise above the animate developmental level and grow sensibly?

Answer: Finally, we begin to realize that the Creator has prepared a perfect condition for us: the group. The group is not only a method of transitioning from love of friends to love of the Creator, but it’s a concrete place where we can implement freewill, a place where we “don’t depend” on our friends. We depend on the Creator; thus, we relate to Him in a good way, whereas, we “don’t depend” on our friends in the group, so this is the point at which we get an opportunity to advance. It’s based on the right attitude to the unity among friends—the kind of relationships in which we don’t get anything in return!

This is the point at which we finally realize the special condition that the Creator prepared for us at the time of the shattering of the whole, the complete creation into many fragments, granting them a chance to reunite. Only after they regain unity can they express free will without any kinds of sensations, either bad or good. Only then will they obtain a chance to rise above their nature. Only then!
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From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Lesson 1

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When a person carries out spiritual work, he usually doesn’t feel that he is really performing it, that he is investing efforts. They somehow get lost, as if into space, into a hole, which afterwards slowly, slowly becomes filled. A person doesn’t see it, and only when his efforts reach the edge of the hole, ready to spill outwards, then he begins to feel the results of his work. Thus in filling this space, mutual support is very important.

Baal HaSulam gives a very good example, when a person enters the treasury of the King and gradually takes out a certain amount of coins, as much as they give him, and then the guards knock them from his hands, and then again he enters and again they spill them, etc. This means that constant and most serious efforts are required.

A person is not able to work in this way. He needs to see results; either the troubles push him from behind or some kind of intentions pull him, some worthy cause. And when none of this exists, he finds himself as if in space, he makes movements, but there’s no energy. And here the group needs to give him this energy. Also it isn’t important if it was correct or not correct, or if it was real; the important thing is that he will receive inspiration.

Thus the main thing in our work is to constantly discover the greatness and to show to the others that you are already there.

When a person sees that others have some kind of intention, suddenly think, suddenly show him that they exist in inner tension, then he is also forced to wake up: “What is happening with me? Where am I?” In this way he returns to the intention. Gradually these intentions connect together and give their influence, the results. Thus, there is no need to forget this, but from necessity to see it.

In this sense, women can do even more than men, since from the beginning, from their nature, they were created in order to create desire and in that to push the men to implement it. Thus they need to work together and not to forget that during all our activities.

It doesn’t matter what we do. We can add our intention to everything.
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From a Meal at the Georgia Convention 11/7/12

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Question: How do we achieve freedom of will from our egoism through the connection with each other? How can I consciously be free and develop freely, not pushed by a stick towards happiness or by being attracted by a candy to the same happiness? I want to become aware, understand, and realize myself and my free will, independent of these motives. How is this possible to implement in the group and by what conditions? After all, this problem exists even after the Machsom when I already know and understand everything.

Answer: A person attains independence from the Creator when he asks the Creator for the sake of the group and asks the group for the sake of the Creator. If he is one-on-one with the group or with the Creator, this cannot be achieved. This is a triangle.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Workshop 1

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot:” Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? Or even more precisely, whom do I delight?

Humanity is suffering, everyone is suffering; this whole life is an ongoing suffering. Only sometimes are we allowed to rest for several years, but the rest of the time we have to carry on an endless war of survival—this is the life that nature has designated for us. So what is life about? Does it really have to be that way? Can we make it better? So far we haven’t found a way to make our life better and happier. Baal HaSulam isn’t talking about a perfect eternal life above this corporeal life, or about the Creator and the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). In the meantime he is referring to the changes in our ordinary life in this world and how we can improve it.

He doesn’t start by lofty ideas, but rather from the simplest thing: Do we all suffer? Yes we do! Do you want to suffer less? Yes, we do! The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t steal your Torah and the joy of life from you; it doesn’t cut you off from life and doesn’t interfere with your corporeal actions; it only wants to add a bit a joy to your life, some taste, so that you will feel better! It’s a very gentle approach. Baal HaSulam identifies with human suffering and explains that it is possible to bring more joy to our lives.

After all, all our life is an eternal escape from suffering and today is the same as yesterday. But life can be happy, full, and good for you and for your environment, living in mutual concern for one another, feeling completely secure. Otherwise we sentence ourselves to an existence that is worse than an animal’s. After all, the greater our desires, the emptier we feel life and the more we suffer.

No one enjoys the life we are living and no one delights others, so it turns out that we suffer both ways. We simply cannot fill anyone because of our egoistic nature and cannot receive anything from anyone. So everyone is in mutual conflict and in an eternal struggle, making this life hard and terrible. Our egoistic nature destroys our life, making it a difficult experience. For example, the world we live in today with all the technological advancement could be paradise, but instead we have made it into a true hell.

We could live in a happy family in a prosperous society, free of any troubles, having everything that we need: health, security, a respectable job, freedom. Everyone could fill himself the moment he wanted to, working several hours a day and spending the rest of the time on some hobby. However, instead we kill ourselves at work, destroying the environment and the last resources we have left. Our egoistic nature doesn’t let us enjoy nor delight others, and eventually makes everything sink into darkness, bringing us to a dead end.

All we can do is hope that this crisis will teach us as gently as possible and will force humanity to recognize its egoistic nature, with which we can no longer exist. We will not survive if we don’t change our nature, but it’s impossible to change it just like that—it can only be done with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Until a person reaches this conclusion, he will have to suffer much more.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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