The study of Kabbalah holds a special quality. The Light, meaning the force of correction contained in Kabbalistic books, brings a person back to the source.

The Light is the inner essence of the method, and that is why the science of Kabbalah is called the inner part of the Torah. When we study it, we awaken the inner Light concealed in the study, in the group, and in our interconnection. This force really builds the connection between us, bringing desirable changes to every person. As a result, the intention of bestowal comes to replace the egoistic intention above all of one’s desires.

Together with the group, a person constantly thinks about the state he is in during the preparation to the study, and during the study itself he demands changes by means of the Light that Reforms. This is all he needs. Only this kind of preparation touches on his free choice, the only free action in his life in this world and on the entire ladder of the spiritual degrees.

Therefore, it is best to focus on this as much as possible, talk about this with yourself as much as possible, and thus discern all of the details so they become clearer and more heartfelt. That is how they will finally enable us to detach from words and shift to feelings and inner understanding. Then all of this will live inside of us as an extremely important foundation of being, the only thing we should care for. Everything else will come along of its own accord.

Then I will see that my entire life and the entire life of the world revolve around this axis in order to bring everyone to this decisive moment—each person in conformity with the root of his soul, more or less powerfully. The Creator’s goal is to bring every person to this point.

No matter what I received at birth or what I have attained thus far, this was given to me from Above. However, now, being in the group, I have to elevate the importance of the goal—bestowal and unity with the Creator. This is done by means of studying in the right environment where I demand the Light, the “miraculous quality.” If a person does not stop thinking about this, then he realizes his life as efficiently as possible.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/11, Writings of Rabash

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Not only do we have an opportunity to gain free will, but we simply must. No one will be able to avoid it since all the forces of nature are pushing and pulling us toward it. You and all the others, any person in the world, everybody, will have to realize their free will in some way.

Two paths lay before us: the path of the Light (the path of Kabbalah) and the path of suffering. The choice needs to be made every instant. Don’t assume that once you found yourself at a crossroad and chose to turn right or left, you will keep following that road.

I moved one meter ahead on some road, and now, I am facing a choice again, standing at the crossroad once more. I made my pick, took a step on this road, and I find myself at yet another intersection where I have to choose again. At each step, I am given the freedom to make a choice, and the same two paths open before me.

I must keep choosing between them every moment, from state to state, at each new point along which I advance by building from them a line, a path to my final correction, Gmar Tikkun.

At each new point, I have to decide in what direction I will move, and since a point is a circle, I chose from all 360 degrees. However, essentially, all these directions unify in two possible options: the path of Light or the path of pain.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What force lifts the worlds on Saturday after Adam HaRishon is born and before he falls into sin?

Answer: There is a force regarded as an “awakening from Above” (Itaruta de-Leila). It could simply be seen as the upper Light expanding from the world of Infinity while we don’t know how and why. But in truth, there is no “awakening from Above” without an “awakening from below” (Itaruta de-Letata), from the creature itself.

There is a chain of informational genes (Reshimot) that must unfold and become clarified one by one, which descend from the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking degrees. Reshimot of the still, vegetative, and animate degrees unfold naturally, subconsciously, on their own, because there is no free will at these degrees.

They unfold one by one and gradually arrive at the state when there is a leap to a new degree. Where it comes from, we don’t know. But it occurs due to the fact that the preparation at the still, vegetative, and animate degrees has been completed, and you suddenly start to feel how your state has changed. You start thinking, seeing things, and feeling everything differently.

The reason is that the Reshimot which are below your awareness, understanding, preparation, free will and which get naturally discerned have been actualized. The Creator prepares all the conditions for you to use your free will, and you must perform on your own now.

It is similar to how you don’t control the processes in your corporeal body. You don’t need to think about how all the atoms and molecules are moving in it, how metabolism and various internal systems work. Imagine how complex these processes with an infinite number of conditions are, and all of it works automatically.

Spiritual development is the same: The upper force brings us to the point where our free will begins. And this expands to the entire system, the entire desire created by the Creator, the entire still, vegetative, and animate nature, its enormous systems. But it isn’t our job and is automatic, thanks to the interaction of the Light and desires.

The Light affects desires; desires respond to the Light; and this is how the whole world, the entire universe, everything strives to achieve equilibrium. The only exception is man!

So it is today in our world: All of nature exists in balance, but the problem is in man who has to exercise free will and establish this balance. As it is in the spiritual world, all events that were taking place before Adam’s fall into sin, including the fall itself, were occurring under control of the force from Above (Itaruta de-Leila), through the chain of Reshimot, until we reach the place of free will. And there, everything freezes and waits until man will make a decision.

That is what is actually happening in our world today: Nature is waiting for us to make our choice. It will pressure us since while it is waiting, the Reshimot of the still, vegetative, and animate degrees get accumulated and bring us numerous problems on all planes of the external world, until we finally decide, at our speaking degree, that we must go forth for the correction.

The still, vegetative, and animate nature pressures us so we may continue on the path of correction at our human degree.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The key is to find among all our properties, among everything that happens with us in thought or in action, where we have some small degree of personal freedom to form a thought or desire. In other words, are we given any room for an independent thought, desire, or action?

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that everything depends on the genes, hormones, and information that was instilled within a person. And if a hundred years ago we thought that man is free in his life and everything is up to him, today we understand that his behavior is determined by what parents he had and what genetic traits he received.

It wasn’t up to a person when and in what family to be born, with what characteristics, and what education to receive. Since childhood, he or she had been imbued with certain attitudes to life and self, and by the time he reached 15 years of age, his character was totally formed.

A person steps into life having nothing of his own, but only what he received from birth, education, and what he will later pick up from the environment that he will end up in upon reaching twenty years of age and becoming an adult. The environment will dictate all his behavior and the decisions to be made, and whether he likes it or not, he will have to observe the same system of values that is accepted in the society.

Even if a person may wish to go against the society, he will still fully depend on it because the environment determines everything for him and he has nothing unrelated to it. Where then may he get some independent thoughts or desires, from what distant star?

In any case, they would not be autonomous. The only autonomous action was the creation of the created being “from absence” (Yesh Mi Ain). Only the Creator is capable to create something that has no previous history, something absolutely new.

Moreover, if my current state includes all possible preliminary conditions and forces that produced it, then everything that derives from them is an obvious result, pertaining to which I have no freedom. I live according to a certain program that passes through me while leaving me no choice; I act as a machine or a puppet that is pulled by the strings in all directions.

We are the product of all these alien, internal and external causes and various forces merging within and governing us. Even though it may seem that a person can do something independently, it is not an autonomous action either, but merely what these forces allowed him or her to do.

And yet, there is a chance to find free will. If a person evolves by employing the wisdom of Kabbalah, he draws additional force onto him, the force opposite to one’s current nature. And then, between these two opposing forces, a person finds the point of his free will.

On one side, there stands the power of man’s nature and this entire corporeal world, with all there is in it; on the other, there stands the power of the Light that came from Above. And between them, in the middle, we have a neutral point where one can have his say. A person can reach a condition when both these forces get equalized, and then he or she will receive free will.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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The process of development of the egoistic desire, where the desire to bestow operated very gradually, has brought man to an absolutely broken state. The still, vegetative, and animate nature, as well human society, the entire reality is now a deplorable sight.

We are in a very dangerous state, in a contradiction to the entire reality. On one hand, reality seems to be something enormous, global, interconnected, and whole, but on the other, human society on earth seems to have turned into an invasive  cancer, a harmful mold which consumes and destroys nature by covering the entire Earth with its waste and excrement.

We are discovering that we are absolutely opposite to nature, so we will have to realize in the near future that there is no other solution but to attain balance with it. And this can be realized because the two opposite forces of reception and bestowal have already been revealed in us, and they are ready for us to begin using them in a balanced manner. Only then will we begin to rise together as humanity from the still to the vegetative level of our development.

Until now these two opposite forces were developing us without our consent. Finally, they have brought us to the first free choice, and now we begin to develop on our own by evoking the force of bestowal for it to determine our development above the force of reception enrooted in us.

Before, the force of bestowal was concealed inside, and it was gradually growing like rising dough, or on the contrary, it enticed from afar: “Come this way; there is something here; there are pleasures waiting for you here.” Now we will be choosing the bestowing desire on our own as the force that we should be following in our development. Bestowal will not be helping the receiving desire, but the receiving desire will follow the bestowing desire.

We must keep making this decision over and over above our egoistic desire which does not stop increasing. As we ascend, both forces, bestowal and reception, will keep growing and emerge equally in us to give us the opportunity to have free choice. We will feel like we exist in the middle between them. In Kabbalah, this place is called “Klipat Noga,” and this is the way we will advance.

On every point of my path, my choice consists of revealing the equality of these two forces in me and preferring the giving desire to the receiving one. Bestowal must determine my direction so that the receiving desire would develop specifically in this way. By doing this, the receiving desire takes the form of the bestowing desire, the form of the Creator. And when the receiving desire is similar (“Dome” in Hebrew) to the Creator, then it is referred to as “man” (“Adam”).

And we will use these two forces the same way. The receiving desire will be constantly growing, and the bestowing desire will grow as well in order to give it a new form. In the end, we will return to the same place where we began our descent, the world of Infinity, where both of these desires exist together perfectly incorporated. We also achieve their absolute adhesion through our choice, as we act from below upward, until the entire receiving desire acquires the full form of the bestowing desire. This will become the end of correction, the completion of our development.

We live in a special time, a new era. What is new about it is that now, through our choice, the desire to bestow must reign above the desire to receive pleasure. This is called “to develop in faith above reason.”

Every day we are joined by more people whose previous mixing of desires have been completed. Gradually, they come to their first free choice: to go from the still to the vegetative degree, to emerge as a spiritually growing being from a still being.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Where do we get the strength to tolerate the corrections?

Answer: From the environment. A person by himself does not have the strength to move forward one inch. If the group gives you the realization of the goal’s importance, indicating how lowly and despicable the current state is, then you will have the forces to awaken from this state to a better, more advanced state.

Stated differently, bestowal becomes better in your eyes even though it seemed worse to you before. You used to think, “Why do I have to bestow and unite with the friends? This is repulsive to me. I am incapable of it.” But the friends show you that this is development. You see that everyone aspires to this and then envy, a passionate desire, and pride move you toward the same thing. And then you are already able to do it.

However, this is so only on the condition that you can lower you head before the environment. To do this you are provided with everything that’s necessary. You have the force of self-rejection, but if you don’t use them, there’s nothing you can do. You have been brought to the group and told, “Take it.” That is where your free choice begins: To take it or not?

“To take it” means to annul yourself, to lower your head. Go ahead, do that and you will advance forward. The smaller and more humble you feel in relation to the friends, the more you will need their help. Then you will be able to receive from them the realization of your own lowliness and the Creator’s greatness in order to advance forward according to this.

If, however, you do not lower yourself before them, then you remain a “rooster” with your head held high, and will remain on the animate degree.
From the 1stpart of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Writings of Rabash

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Today we have come up against the new generation, which can do anything only if it understands, feels, decides, and agrees with what has to be done. Otherwise it won’t do anything. We also see this by the events that are now happening all over the world. A new wave is rising, or in other words, a new level of the common soul is awakening in all of humanity.

The modern generation is contraindicative of a morally-righteous upbringing which threatens a person and forces moral teachings on him, telling him, “Look at us as an example and act the same way.” This is not enough for the young generation. They will not take this path. On the contrary, they will copy the worst examples and won’t be able to have a grip on themselves so as to abide by your wonderful models.

The new generation won’t accept anything just because that’s how it has to be. Even though a child absorbs many things automatically, still, if we raise the modern kids by reward and punishment, it won’t work. That’s because egoism grows from one day to the next and you won’t be able to withstand it. Therefore, habit will become second nature to them.

Right before our very eyes a new nature is maturing inside children, and it demands that you hand them a method. You want to give a child ready-made results that he will implement like a small machine that you operate where he looks at you and repeats everything. But that won’t work. Children see right through you. They are constantly studying and analyzing you. You are completely transparent to them.

We have to understand that this generation requires a very rational and logical method that it could understand and then use according to that understanding.

The slave generation has ended, or the generation of machines that were personified even by Charlie Chaplin. Today we have to think about how to give the youth an explanation of the process of development, reality and their place in it, the goal, the path of governance, and the opportunities standing before every person.

In short, it is necessary to show a person the limits within which he really is a free creature. The new generation is very different from us and therefore we shouldn’t develop methods to train them so they would obediently stay close by, but a method of passing on wisdom according to a person’s age. Then children will use and realize this wisdom through their behavior, and then all that will remain for us to do is to check whether we have given it to them correctly. We will see this by the results.

In the past education and upbringing were based on reward and punishment. Children were stuffed into different boundaries and held on a short leash. They were told, “This is how you have to act.” But today this won’t work because the Creator requires us to reach the realization of evil, the understanding of what happens in life. We have to learn to control ourselves according to the importance of the goal. This is a person’s independent work.

The soul has no age. It doesn’t matter in whom it awakens, an adult or a child. We have to understand that we are obligated to provide a method of correction for the young and the old so they would grow only by it.
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From the talk on education on 2/19/11

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It is written that “envy, lust, and ambition” lead a person out of this world, which means that we have to use these qualities in order to exit into the spiritual world. But the problem is that a person scatters himself in every direction and reaches for all the desires in the corporeal world.

If one employed all his strength to become a human, rise to the spiritual level, the human degree, he would succeed. But instead, he is chasing after money, fame, and power, and he lacks envy for spiritual properties that would allow him to become a human.

We need to analyze ourselves and connect to the environment which will mold us so that we focus on the most important desire of all: to become a human and fulfill the desires for power, money, and fame only as much as it is vitally necessary. All these properties must only sustain our aspiration to the right kind of envy: to envy the Creator and wish to be like Him! And if I fall and start envying somebody’s wealth, power, or honor, I will clearly not be tuned upward, to the goal.

But how can I envy the Creator if I don’t see or feel Him? This is why we are given the group: to instill the importance of spiritual qualities in us. You will never know who the Creator is until you reach His degree. And besides, His properties are opposite to yours and reject you. Hence, at this point, only the right environment where you can work can help. Only it can change your system of values.

But the problem is that even after a person completes his or her preliminary development at the still, vegetative, and animate degrees and arrives to Kabbalah, to the beginning of the human degree and free will, he may suddenly sway off the path and wander about in other directions for a few, long years, in search of wealth, power, and honor. And by the time he returns, his life is practically over….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: In the “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 3, Baal HaSulam writes: “We distinguish four divisions in the Speaking species, arranged in gradations one atop the other. Those are the Masses, the Strong, the Wealthy, and the Sagacious. They are equal to the four degrees in the whole of reality, called “Still,” “Vegetative,” “Animate,” and “Speaking [human]…. It follows that the value of one person from the Speaking equalizes with the value of all the forces in the Vegetative and the Animate in the whole of reality at that time, and in all the past generations.”

Is it correct to assume that it is enough to have one person who, by having made his free choice, can open the path of further development to all other levels of nature, which cannot evolve further without it?

Answer: Certainly, by using his free will, one person can open the path to and ensure further development of all the still, vegetative, and animate levels of the human pyramid if all of them unify with each other and join this human degree. This is how Rashbi, the ARI, and Baal HaSulam opened it for us. One person can draw and lead all the others if he is at the “speaking” level of development, whereas they are at the still, vegetative, and animate ones.

We see this in practice. How would humanity evolve if not for certain outstanding individuals who open the door to a new world for the others?

But after such a person makes a breakthrough, reaching balance is up to all others who follow him. The former has done his job, as for instance, Baal HaSulam who revealed to us the entire method of the wisdom of Kabbalah; now it is up to us to actualize it. Until our work is complete, we won’t achieve equilibrium.

He merely explains to us that the problem lies in our imbalance with nature and it’s necessary to come to balance. Nature in its integral form is the Creator. It is with Him that we must harmonize ourselves, meaning to reach equivalence of form, oneness. This is what we must implement. It is necessary to engage the whole world into it, which will require a lot of work.

You may ask who is this person that makes all the difference and must use his free will? You are this person! It is every person who received spiritual awakening within and heard about the method of its realization from the outside.

Only the initial awakening occurs within, and because of it, a person hears a call to him or her from the outside. As a result, one comes to a place where it is indeed possible to realize one’s free will.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: What is the Surrounding Light that we are trying to attract?

Answer: The Light is the upper force, the one, single, and only existing force in the universe. Besides this Force there is only desire, which becomes revealed to us as a receiving desire. Yet by using the force of the Light we can change it to bestowal.

There is nothing besides Light (the Creator) and desire. We simply call Him by different names (such as Surrounding Light, Inner Light, or the Light that Reforms) in order to provide more precise definitions.

The Surrounding Light influences me if I aspire to my next form. Even though I don’t know exactly what that form is like, I study it through a book that describes all sorts of Partzufim, worlds, and Sefirot. That is how I express my desire to ascend there and attain, and that is how I attract this state that I want to attain to myself. It begins to influence me to the extent I aspire to it.

I open myself up and become more sensitive to this influence, to the next state that I must reach. I simply accelerate my development, adding a little bit of my own desire to the natural force that develops me.

I receive this additional desire from the environment. That is how I realize my free choice and receive from them the sensation that it is important to advance to the next state. After all, being in the next state means being more connected with others, canceling myself more, and bestowing more.

I receive this inspiration from the group and then I take it with me when coming to study and aspiring to attain the future form that is more bestowing. Then I am influenced by Light from there because it has the same nature of bestowal that I want to acquire. We have the same desire, the same tendency, and therefore we are close according to the law of equivalence of form.

By myself I do not have any desire for bestowal or spiritual progress. I have zero desire. But then I turn to the group and from them I take "10 pounds” of desire to advance to bestowal and unity among us, and with that desire I come to study. I want to attain the next state with the same force of 10 pounds. My similarity to the Light is measured by this force of 10 pounds, and to that degree it influences my desire, making it similar to the Light.

This is the same Light that fills my next state because it already exists. When I aspire to that future state, the Light begins to shine on me. For now it is called “surrounding” because it must first correct me and only then clothe into me. It works in two stages, performing two actions.

The same phenomena exist in physics: If I come closer to a magnet, then I enter the field of its attraction and influence. Even you and I influence one another. There is a certain field around every person. In fact, there is not one physical body that isn’t surrounded by a field—not even any stone.

Everything operates by the same principle. The closest state you aspire to (your next state) is what influences you. However, there are many fields around you that you do not even relate to yet. You do not yet aspire to them or know anything about them. When you reveal the spiritual world later on, you will see how many different things are happening in it and how many different dimensions exist in it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

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