There is nothing more important than freedom. When I am in chains, when someone controls me, it does not matter who it is in particular. It makes no difference to me whether it is nature, or the Creator, or the upper force, or God. I do not care if He has a mind and feelings or on the contrary, is faceless and indifferent. This is not what matters.

When I am in the hands of someone or something, I do not exist. My “I” does not exist. There is only a certain being under total power of a force of a higher order.

Any item that we speak of has its own essence in our eyes. It exists on its own. Even if it is a chair or a house, we attribute an independent existence to it. We subconsciously personify it. For example, we get angry at a frozen computer or a broken car. Nothing has value in our eyes without a certain share of independence.

Thus, the notion of freedom is fundamental. We perceive things only if we see them as independent, self-existing. Otherwise, we simply do not distinguish it; we do not recognize it. I attribute independence to things. To the extent of this independence, they acquire weight and meaning for me, to the point of becoming a source of threat or pleasure. I weigh everything in the world on the scale of freedom. Only then do I recognize and form a corresponding attitude.

This individuality of things, people, and phenomena varies according to my tastes and scale of values. Overall, the notion of freedom represents the foundation of my existence. It forms my view of the world. Nothing enters my field of vision without this parameter.

For example, in life, a certain person suddenly becomes important to me because in my eyes, I attribute to him individuality, freedom, a personal opinion, power, and the ability to influence me. On the other hand, when someone loses the “halo” of freedom, importance, and influence in my eyes, he moves aside or completely leaves the picture of my reality. So freedom is a very significant and important notion.

This pertains to my own freedom as well. When I fully, one-hundred percent, depend on someone or something, I simply do not exist. Just as in similar situations when I do not see others, I also do not see myself when I am fully subject to someone else’s will, for example, in prison or captivity.

However, if we go even further, if we acknowledge that the upper force or nature controls all of my cells and physiological systems, all my thoughts and desires, every breath, if there is nothing mine within me, nothing that doesn’t come from somewhere outside of me, then I do not exist. I do not even belong to anyone because in order to be subject to someone, you still need to be. However, in the case of absolute submission, nothing at all remains of me.

This is where the self-ness criterion brings us. It originates in the Creator who, being distinctive and unique, created us and gave us the feeling of the same distinction. Every one of us evaluates himself and others only according to this measure. In this way, we weigh and distinguish details of reality according to the Creator’s presence in them, the force that gives everyone uniqueness and independence. This is why nature is a basic notion.

However, a reasonable question then arises. When I strive for perfection, I become one-hundred percent like the upper force, which means that I carry out its will precisely. I become the Creator’s slave. I forfeit everything I have, I renounce myself, I restrict my desire. My intention is only to bestow. I am ready to do everything the Creator wishes. But do I not annul my distinction, my freedom this way?

Kabbalists say no, on the contrary, this is the way you acquire your freedom and individuality. Right now, you only have a tiny point of freedom and distinction. Then, you acquire the Creator’s full image from Him and dress into it. The only way to achieve absolute freedom is to acquire the Creator’s qualities from Him, His image.

In other words, even my altruistic intention, similarity to the Creator, comes from my egoistic desire. In the end, I consist of two opposites: inside is egoism, the desire to receive, and on the outside, the intention to bestow to the Creator. This is why I do not disappear.

We must understand that our egoism saves us from disappearing. As I ascend the spiritual ladder, my egoism grows on the left, and it is opposite to the Creator. The intention for the sake of bestowal, which is similar to the Creator, grows on the right. I acquire His qualities through this contrast. I acquire them independently, personally, and without becoming dissolved in Him.

This is the gift the Creator has given us: the opportunity to exist independently. In this way, we gradually acquire independence in our spiritual development. In comparison to it, our current state is called “death,” “non-existence,” while spiritual attainment and overcoming is life. The Light that Reforms is called the Torah. It is salvation from the “angel of death.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: You said once in a lesson that a person needs free choice only when he isn’t sure. Will we have free choice after the end of correction?

Answer: The more we advance towards the Creator, the less we agree with Him, and still we find the internal power to agree each time. When I enter Infinity, I discover that there is no one worse than the Creator.

I don’t agree with Him on anything. I hate Him more than anything. But at the same time I also have the power to rise above this feeling and to feel the opposite: that there is no one higher, more perfect, stronger, and more certain than Him. And so I have to choose: Which way to go? Meanwhile, there is nowhere to go. This is what Infinity is.

In general, we should understand that no matter how high a person rises, the evil inclination is still greater than him. We actually discover creation as “existence from absence,” in contrast to “existence from existence.”
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Question: How can I exactly recognize the point of my free choice?

Answer: First of all, we discover that we are absolutely, one-hundred percent not free. This is the realization of evil.

However, on the other hand, what is so bad about that? If I am entirely under the power of the Creator, or Nature, then there is nothing to ask of me. I am neither good nor bad. What is there to demand of me? No matter what I do, it is not me doing it, as it is written: “Go to the craftsman who made me.”

Religion is based on this. I am a small person. I do everything that He wants. If He says do, I do. In this way, all my charges are removed, any questions are canceled, and I rid myself of problems.

However, on this path, you lose independence and freedom. Just by following the Creator’s decrees, even if unwillingly, you will always find a reward for yourself and ease your task—at the cost of your real “I.” This is why religion is good for the masses. When everything comes from Above, it adds a feeling of comfort to life and provides psychological support to flow together with everyone.

On the other hand, in Kabbalah, I demand independence, instead of self-cancellation. I want to find the beginning of my “I.” In this search, in this rational and logical evaluation, I discover that in reality, I do not exist. I did not make the decision about being born in this world, I did not chose my qualities, my genetics, my parents, my country, or my environment. I was reared and educated by already formed systems and institutions such as kindergarten, school, mass media, and so forth. Who am I after all this? I am a piece of dough baked in a common oven into a regular loaf of bread.

When I see this, a question arises in me: Is this what life is? What does it give me besides never-ending concerns, a constant flight from suffering, and brief moments of pleasure? This is the realization of evil: I begin to think about the essence of what is happening, about my journey and its end, and I understand that I do not exist. There is only a machine that I neither launch nor control. When there is an algorithm conflict in the computer, it gives an error message. I too respond to problems, albeit in a sensory way. The pressure jumps somewhere, and I feel pain. That’s all it is to it.

In this case, I simply have no reason to live. Many people come to this conclusion. The only thing that holds them back is an instinctive fear of death, and even that does not always work.

This is where I begin the search for true freedom, my true essence. The path to it lies through becoming like the Creator, not in worshiping and canceling yourself before Him, but actually becoming like Him. I must grow and become more like Him. Absolute independence and freedom is inherent of the Creator. There is none else besides Him in all of nature. I can grow according to the same principle when there is no one else besides me in all of nature.

This is the Kabbalistic method. We search for freedom and independence. The most painful thing is the fact that I do not exist. Where can I find my “I?”  This pursuit of my own “I” is my entire life. I want greater self-expression. I want to rule over everyone and receive. What is all this for? It is for my “I” to form and grow. Here, Kabbalah explains that to acquire your “I” means to acquire the qualities of the Creator, in other words, to acquire freedom.

Question: So how can I find my “I” without free will?

Answer: The initial point of my “I” manifests itself through questions about the meaning and essence of life. A person who comes to Kabbalah already has this point of choice, a point in the heart, a spark, the other side of the middle line, the reverse side of freedom, the feeling of emptiness and lack.

I have no freedom, and this is why I ask questions about the meaning of life. This is exactly what I lack. I do not care about life itself; I need to find my “I.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: In the post “I Do Not Want To Be A Mountain Climber” you write: “When the system becomes completely revealed, we will see that it is global, integral, and all its parts are completely binding, like an enormous live organism. Its individual parts do not have any freedom of will to do whatever they wish to do because this does not exist in nature. Everything abides by the law of determinism.”

I don’t agree with what you say about determinism. There are certain things out of our control, but still there is some choice too. For examples, cells can become cancerous….

Answer: Freedom of will is specifically in being either a healthy/giving or cancerous/receiving cell.

Question: How do we stop cursing emptiness in our heart and embrace it with gladness as part of the path? Or should we always expect some part of us to disagree with bestowal?

Answer: Don’t curse emptiness, but fill it with any of our fulfillments, although you will feel it from time to time.
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Question: Why do we need the desires of the animate level if we don’t correct them? What’s their use?

Answer: We need these desires to exist outside of the spiritual world. They give us the opportunity to ascend without being dependent on the spiritual world, without being bribed by it.

This allows us to live without “spiritual favors.” We continuously decide whether or not we should unite with our neighbors, the group. Sometimes we want to drop everything and leave, and we really do have that opportunity.

On the other hand, if we only had desires related to the group, we would be similar to, say, ants. Without having anything else, we would live the life of society involuntarily, and would again be on the animate, bodily level.

However, I live in my body and can aspire to spirituality or not aspire to it. This allows me to be a spiritual person because I reach the form of bestowal on my own, in spite of my natural, initial desire. The Creator made the evil inclination in me so that by overcoming it, I would become a free person. And I decide whether I want this or not by my own free choice.

Otherwise I would live in the spiritual world, but on the animate level. I would be an “angel”—a “spiritual animal” that instinctively loves everyone.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/11, “Mutual Guarantee”

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Desire is the creature’s substance, the place where we feel alive and reveal the reality within and around us. The Light works with desire and develops it according to its program. At first, the Light develops desire directly in order to shape it. Then, inside the created desire, the fourth phase of the world of Infinity, the Light begins to create the conditions for its correction.

After all, this desire is still raw material. It does not feel, understand, or have freedom of will. It only operates according to the orders of the Light, which control it. This way the Light creates different forms of desire called worlds or concealments. The Light reveals and conceals itself a little, and the desire goes through changes, until it absorbs all qualities of the Light.

The further the Light distances the desire from itself, the more I begin to feel who and what I am, even though the desire does not yet have any freedom or independent development. Everything happens because of the Light. The desire, being an innate substance, acts according to set laws, and it does not have any choice in its reactions. A desire, a natural material that acts in accordance with established laws, has no choice but to respond.

In this way, development reaches a special structure called “man” who receives the choice either to act within his reason or above it. “Within reason” is an action that corresponds with the Light’s action—the matter’s natural reaction. But it is possible to achieve a reaction above your desire, which does not conform to the natural laws of nature—it is possible to create an ability to react in a way that is opposite to the reaction to the Light’s orders.

This opposite reaction is called “man” namely because it is similar to the Light. After all, when he follows the Light’s orders inside his desire, he is called a created being. However, when he doesn’t follow the Light’s orders but wishes to rise above the level of matter, to rise to the degree of the Light and become like it, then he must have an opposite reaction. In accordance with this reaction, he is called “man” or Adam, which means “similar” (Domeh) to the Light.

Thus, matter receives the name of “man” and its new development begins there. It has a variety of forms imprinted on it by the Light during the period of natural growth. However, now, this desire begins to work on its own. It strives to become like the Light. In other words, it constantly strives to have a different reaction to what the Light awakens within it.

The Light awakens reactions within him that are opposite to the Light’s behavior, but man must accept this game and, above it, become like the Light. This is referred to as work by “faith above reason.”

This work can have different forms. The Light sometimes reveals or conceals itself. Sometimes, it awakens bigger or smaller desires in man. Through these influences, it keeps awakening new reactions in matter. This way, matter learns through its reactions. It studies itself and the Light, which is an example for it. Gradually, it becomes closer to the Light in its qualities, until it completely merges with it.

It is clear that on this path, the desire collects understanding and sensations of itself and the Light. It learns the Light’s program and learns the Creator’s attitude toward the creature by the way the Light treats it. And to the contrary, it learns to overcome its own nature and become like the Light. In this way, desire’s substance gradually attains the degree of the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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It is an adult’s obligation to teach a child and to give him all of the necessary preparation for adult life during childhood. And the same thing happens in the spiritual world: The upper level gives the lower level all of the “keys,” all of the means for continuing to build itself.

The lower level just has to figure all of this out and make a free choice to keep going. There is nothing else to do but this. All the forces are already at our disposal.

Therefore, the small state (Katnut) is considered fundamental, while the great state (Gadlut) is an addition that sometimes appears and sometimes disappears, depending on the efforts of the lower one. But he always keeps the small state, which serves as a good, healthy foundation for creating the next great state, which is new every time.

Therefore, the small degree, called Hafetz Hesed (one who desires mercy), fear of the Creator, the level of Bina, “artistry,” or faith, is what has to be transmitted to the next state, from the fathers to the sons, from the upper level of the spiritual ladder to the lower level.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/08/11, Writings of Rabash

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There is a desire to receive and there is a desire to bestow. The whole creation is nothing but an opposition of one to the other. The desire to bestow manages the desire to receive in order to bring it to the identification of itself and to make it equivalent to the desire to receive.  That is the initial program of the desire to bestow.

The nature of the good, according to the science of Kabbalah, is benevolence (doing good). As the Creator is perfect, to that extent he has a program of improving the creation. And there exists just one path toward perfection: The creation has to feel the Creator’s state. He created the creation as opposite to Himself, separated from Himself, and He guides the creation through a sequence of states through which the creation attains the wisdom of the Creator and feels what there is in the Creator.

But it is not enough just to understand and feel, the creation attains the Creator’s nature by itself including everything that is in the creation and its management. So, the force of giving is called “Light” and the force of reception “a vessel”. Similarity in their qualities is called “an intention of bestowal” or “a screen“. Due to the altruistic intention and by the nature of its action, the desire to receive becomes the one of bestowal. If it receives to please somebody, it, in fact, commits an act of bestowal using reception as a means: It doesn’t have any other way to establish contact and give anything to anybody.

How can we participate in the process? How do we gain more understanding? How do we reach the degree of the Creator? How do we feel His actions? In short, how do we become like Him? After all, this is the goal—to become like Him.

We still don’t understand what it means “to bring pleasure to the Creator,” but “equivalence to the Creator” is closer to our current egoistic understanding. To be like Him means to bestow, to understand bestowal, to take upon oneself, to govern the creation… Everything is in that.

But in fact, to be like Him is to understand the whole program and the complete course of actions assumed by it from the beginning to the very end in the first place. Such an understanding requires the whole to be disassembled and then put back together. In this way, we reveal the gap between the Creator and the creation together with the connection that brings them into equivalence. In that, Light and darkness, plus and minus, positive and negative connect on every level.

In the process of our development, under constant influence of the Light, a vessel acquires various shapes until it reaches the “final stop”—complete equivalence of qualities with the Creator. But the vessel has to go through these states of sequential changes with understanding, in agreement, by desiring them, and even acting independently.

Thus, we need to realize our oppositeness to the Creator, want to change and become like Him, understand the program that will change us, enact it by our own desire, and carry out the whole chain of sequential actions ourselves, upon ourselves and at the same time upon all the levels of the creation under us: inanimate, vegetative, and animate.

This ascent from the breaking to the correction, we must realize with our full personal participation. According to the changes required at the moment, we have to gain mind and feeling, become included into the common program, and make the actions to invoke and guide the necessary forces.

Only in this way will we reach equivalence of form with the Creator and become like Him in force, understanding, and everything else. That is the highest degree of our development.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/11,  “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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We will have a hard time until we acquire one more force besides nature, meaning the Creator, who influences our receiving desire and drives it forward like a train moving down a set track. Without an additional force, this process is entirely predetermined. Everything in it is set, including the deadlines and the final point. Sometimes I even notice that life rolls along of its own accord and does not depend on me at all.

But the science of Kabbalah enables me to evoke a third force that helps me control my own development. The force of the Light still drives my express-train forward, and nothing can be done about it. But I can use an additional force to advance consciously and sensitively, understanding the process and knowing what kind of train this is, where and why it is rushing, what drives it, and so on. By figuring all of that out, I see what auxiliary force I need and what I can change with its help.

Thus, we don’t have any chances of changing anything until we understand what our nature, our egoism is and until we realize its evil, until we reach the force of nature that pushes us forward without asking our opinion or our agreement. First of all, we must learn the real state of affairs.

That is why Kabbalists call the science of Kabbalah the root of all sciences. It’s because it researches the essence of matter, as well as the forces that influence it, control it, and develop it. Besides, Kabbalah allows us to independently attract the third force, which will make our path easier.

By means of the science of Kabbalah, I establish a connection with that force. After all, it is not present in me initially. This is not the Light under whose influence the desire evolves towards the goal. This is another force, “the Light that reforms,” which is something completely different. It comes only when I evoke it. Otherwise I am still driven by the opposition between the Light and the vessel.

“The Light that reforms” is a special, additional force that first and foremost, provides the human level for me. It does not do anything on its own. I control it and activate it to the extent I have figured out the process and learned the mechanism. And even if I don’t know exactly how it is activated, I still want it in spite of my desire, in spite of the standard development, in spite of the train that moves along without my participation.

Precisely the science of Kabbalah gives me a connection with this third, alternative force, with the Light that reforms. And then I really am able to move forward as a person who is similar to the Creator, controlling the process and looking at it from above. From a bird’s eye view, I look at the matter of my desire, at the force that pushes it down the pathways, at the program that is guaranteed to bring it to the final point in due time by combining the forces of the Light and the vessel. Similar to the Creator, I look down from above upon the two forces through which He controls creation.

But at the same time, I desire for the third, additional force to rule inside of me, the middle line, the screen. This is the human being whom I build inside of myself. And I want to advance only with its help. It contains my decisions, my actions, and their results. Everything is present there, in the middle line. We move in two lines like animals that are drawn to goodness and run away from evil; but the third force is the true mind by virtue of which I first make a restriction on everything and check or analyze the situation. I realize evil and good, and then I reach a decision. Next, I already “press on the pedals,” knowing how much and in what way I will advance in this third line.

I set the necessary restrictions myself, and they all come down to activating the general program of the joint evolution in my own way. I halt it, I control it, and precisely this control over the evolution makes me human. But first I have to understand what it turns me into.

That means that the giving of the Torah, meaning the method of correction, is intended to enable us to ascend above the natural process of development and rise to the human level. Today this is happening to all of humanity, which is discovering that it is completely subdued by the program of governance. Everything we have ever done in the world was actually not done by us. The systems we formed are essentially fruits of our egoistic nature. It was nature pushing us forward, forcing us to build our society and all of its subservient mechanisms in a very certain way.

And now we are discovering that this process is not enough for us. A situation has come about where it is necessary for us to rise above this process, to understand that until now, it was realized by nature, but now we must learn to control it ourselves. The egoistic methods no longer work because the time has come for us to learn the program and upgrade it ourselves.

Each of us received a personal awakening, but humanity will receive an awakening on a global scale. We were driven by qualitative blows and disappointments on the level of the inner search, while humanity will receive the necessary reasons on the material level, from problems with security, food, ecological catastrophes, the climate, and so on. And all of this is intended to bring people to the search for the alternative force that will enable humanity to control itself. The crisis is growing worse, the disasters are gaining might, and there is nowhere for us to run until we find this force.

This will be the general ascent. Therefore, all people will need the science of Kabbalah. After all, they won’t find the third force anywhere in the world. It is not present in their sciences or methods.

In the meantime, we have to help them. Even if they can’t find the solution yet, we must nevertheless go towards them.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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