Question: How can an attribute that is totally opposite to the will to enjoy and seems to be killing it nonetheless unfold in it?

Answer: If it were two types of matter, matter and antimatter, then it would be impossible to unify them indeed. But if it is matter and an opposite intention to it, then it is possible. Besides, it gets revealed to me on condition that I will manage to unify them in the middle line.

Therefore, my natural desire to enjoy and the intention to bestow work in two different areas: one in desire, the other in intention. And all my calculations and struggle are aimed at how to bring them together.

Suppose I have the desire to enjoy that I live in. In addition to it, I receive the intention to bestow, which could be either below the will to enjoy, or at the same level as the will to enjoy, or above it.

Now I need to somehow connect them together. Pertaining to intention, I acquire it only by way of the “Light that Reforms,” the Surrounding Light. I draw it if there is an aspiration for bestowal within me, the “point in the heart” that I cultivate by being in the group.

All of this resides within my desire and unifies as one: I, the group, and my will to receive. If my desire remains below, in the degree of its importance, but the group and the point in the heart are above, and from within them I desire to bestow, then I raise a plea (MAN). And in response, I receive the Surrounding Light that supplies the intention to bestow to me.

Now, having received the intention, I can choose between three options:

1. to place it below my will to receive (desire), that is, to use it for my desire to receive pleasure, my personal benefit, what is regarded as impurity (Klipa),
2. to place the intention at the level of the desire and bring them together which is a state of ambivalence, or
3. to place the intention above the desire, which is “holiness,” bestowal.

That is what constitutes my work: In which of the three states I am able to reside. If a person starts paying attention and feeling what is really happening within him, he will realize that he constantly faces a choice, as if standing between the weighing pans of a scale. On one hand, there is reception; on the other, bestowal. And in the middle, there I am with a dilemma: What should I choose?!
[33350]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: Where does our desire to bestow come from?

Answer: The desire to bestow awakens in us under the influence of the Upper Light, the “Light that Reforms.” We don’t know what desire to bestow is; bestowal lies outside of us.

We exist in our nature to receive. Suddenly some external force comes in and affects us, and we don’t know what this force is. We recognize it solely by how it manifests and acts. By observing the actions of this force in me, I start recognizing the Creator.

He is those effects that He causes in me. But I don’t know Him for what He really is. In essence, I don’t really know what phenomena of this world are: what electricity is, what bread is, what I myself am! I cannot attain the essence of things since only derivatives of the manifestation of this essence are revealed to me.

Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah (like any other science) studies solely what can be known: matter and form clothed in matter. And when this unique, foreign, outer force comes in, we don’t know where it comes from and Who it is. It is even evoked by me in some unique, odd way regarded as a “miracle” (Segula).

After all, I have no chance to know how exactly I affect it, how it is set in motion and starts working on me in response. I judge solely by how it appears in me, how I feel in my matter, in desire. Within myself, I experience changes as the results of this external act. This effect, a new form in me, is what is called the desire to bestow.

It is a very strange and special property which is totally unclear and unknown to me. When it suddenly emerges, I realize that I have never felt it before. But if you talk to regular folks, everyone will say that they are perfectly aware of what the will to bestow is and that he gives unto others. They don’t realize that all their giving is merely another form of receiving.

One can comprehend the difference between reception and bestowal only having received both of these desires. One comes to us from outside, while the other is hidden in our nature. In this specific case, a person is able to discern one from the other and starts to understand who he really is.

At present, we don’t even understand that in this world there rules just one law: the law of egoistic reception. We will comprehend it only when we acquire the desire to bestow. Only having exited Egypt can one realize what the Egyptian bondage really was compared to life in freedom! Everything is known and evaluated only from its opposite.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: When we are in the common system of souls and attain the Creator’s level, do we still remain cogwheels in this system?

Answer: Yes, when we are in this system and similar to the Creator, we still remain cogwheels. However, each one of us gains absolute freedom because when spinning together with everyone according to the desires of all the others, precisely through this one feels total freedom.

If I love them and spin only for their sake, with all of their qualities, then I am absolutely free. Of course, from the egoistic point of view this appears opposite. But if I treat them altruistically and with love, then this is precisely so. That’s because I don’t have any other desires besides spinning for their sake. If I have this opportunity, then I am free.
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From the lesson in Moscow on 1/14/11, The Zohar

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Shamati #187: In order to make the right choice, one must choose that which obligates him to increase his efforts.

Plants, animals, and other organisms that do not develop by their own efforts see a picture that is set in advance. We, on the other hand, must rely on the help of books and a teacher in order to build our future state on our own and to imagine it in the group. What is it like? What should the relationships between us be like?

Then each one of us will aspire to become more similar to these relationships and we will constantly build the Creator out of ourselves, inside ourselves, and outside ourselves. We will do it ourselves. We have to create Him on our own, imagine him ourselves, choose Him, and design this future form among us. That is why we are considered similar to the Creator. Just as He created us, so we create Him. It says in The Book of Zohar that we “make” the Creator.

A person’s work amounts to this search for the perfect model. And it is built in the group. That is why the Creator broke creation into many parts so we would have the opportunity to build Him. After all, our ideal state is Him. We have the opportunity to work, making efforts and continuously building ourselves in a more ideal form, in bestowal, through consolidation in spite of our egoism. That is how we form the new state. We simultaneously form Him and ourselves by adding our current state to the desirable next state.

This is our spiritual work to reveal the Creator. We ourselves “draw,” reveal, and research Him: What is that ideal state called “the Creator”? By conducting the search we arrive precisely at this ideal, where the quality of bestowal and the quality of reception become fully revealed. They mutually complement one another, never becoming annulled and never losing anything. That is how the ideal picture called “the world of Infinity” is created, being the unlimited state of the whole creation.

As Baal HaSulam says, the choice of progress forward always lies in greater effort. As clearly as possible, we must discern two opposite qualities which make up all of nature: the quality of reception and the quality of bestowal, and we should try to combine them together. This mutual combination, their maximal participation will give us the following picture, the next level. They come together in the middle line by means of the screen.

Every subsequent level that we build is called “the presence of the Creator.” Once we build it, we discover new flaws and new lack of similarity. Once again there is overbalance to the left side, the left line of egoistic desires which disturb unity, harmony, and the integral picture. Then we must once again build the surrounding environment that will help us establish balance between the right and left lines, making the middle line from them that combines these two forces of nature.

The choice always lies in maximally using them—in greater effort.
From the lesson on 1/17/11, Shamati

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Question: It is written that creation has to attain the Creator independently, but what does that mean?

Answer: What is my independence and where can I find it?

I have to find out what my dependence is, who or what do I depend on, and what depends or does not depend on me. It’s possible that I am independent or not, and I have to or don’t have to agree or disagree with it. After making all the analyses of my state, I discover that I am outside of the Creator.

This is possible because the Creator is expressed as the influence of two forces upon me: positive and negative, right and left. That is why there is a state between us where they neutralize each other like the field between two magnets.

I am in the neutral zone. The right line is the force of bestowal, while the left line is the force of reception, and I am between them. I am influenced by two forces, yet at the same time I am not influenced by anything. Their neutralization is inside of me. That is to say, on one hand the Creator exists and these two forces influence me, but they influence me in such a way that I do not feel their influence on me because they neutralize each other inside of me.

So on one hand, “There is none else besides Him,” but on the other hand, “If I don’t do it for myself, who will do it for me?” This neutral state is called the middle part of Sefira Tifferet. If I find this state, then it is the basic point from which I personally determine what I prefer: the right, bestowing, or the left, receiving, direction for my development.
[33099]
From the lesson in Moscow on 1/14/11

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Question: What is the purpose of our studying all that incredibly complex system of the worlds of Atzilut and Nekudim described in The Study of the Ten Sefirot?

Answer: We need to learn how to correct the breaking and which spiritual objects (Partzufim) and their parts will help. The world of Nekudim is the broken world, and the world of Atzilut corrects the breaking. We need to know which attribute corrects the corresponding attribute and who is responsible for each act of correction.

Each correction requires accurate knowledge as to what has been damaged, where the flaw is, and how, by what means, it can be corrected. All of it is clarified down to the tiniest detail, and only then is the correction made.

The problem of humanity is that we want to correct the world while lacking the faintest notion of what it really is. The world of Atzilut serves as the correct example for us. Until I know the cause of the breaking, which parts were broken, and how they functioned before, I can’t perform a correction.

The entire correction is based on the knowledge of the flaws. Only then can you build a system of correction. Humanity has no chance of reaching a good life and correcting something if we don’t understand what’s happening to us. Without this knowledge, how can we reach correction?

Therefore, our freedom of will is exercised solely in performing a correction. We study the system of correction which spreads from Above downward and contains the knowledge of the whole process from the beginning until the end.

When we rise from below upward, we cannot define either the beginning, or the process itself, or its end in advance in order to build the system of correction. Thus, we are using an existing system that evolved during the descent of the system from Above downward. However, we can use it only on condition that we are able to enter inside it and activate the entire system.

Therefore, we stand no chance to succeed by feeling our way forward, blindly, the way all of humanity is still does. Only the wisdom of Kabbalah will serve us as the instruction for correction.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: Where is a person’s free choice if everything comes from the Creator? It seems like I can’t do anything myself.

Answer: If I am creation, then everything I have inside came to me from the Upper One. I am beneath Him, being a lower level.

You can say that you have been stuck on this level for too long and you are not advancing in the slightest. But this also comes from the Upper One! Only a part of His actions is expressed clearly, while a part is expressed unclearly. Therefore, even the simplest logic tells us that there can be nothing in the lower one that is absent in the Upper One. Then where is my freedom?

The Upper One put you in a specific state. He made you in a specific way, creating you and the environment so that through the relationships between you, you would be able to generate a new quality.

If you aspire to mutual bestowal with your environment, then a force comes to you from the Upper One that connects you, the environment, and the Upper One.
This is where your freedom of will is expressed. That is how you earn the opportunity to become equal to the Upper One.

Question cont’d: But Kabbalists say that everything that happens afterwards also comes from Him!

Answer: Of course everything comes from the Creator! But we are talking only about what relates to our level. I don’t know what will be revealed to me after the end of correction.

Imagine a child who is allowed to do anything he wants in his room. At that moment he thinks that everyone has forgotten about him. But when he becomes an adult, he understands that this was done deliberately and in fact, he was always under supervision. Someone was watching him so he wouldn’t harm himself, while he felt that he was free.
From the lesson on 12/31/11

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Question: Since a person has to realize his freedom of will, could we be taking it away from the children by teaching them Kabbalah from an early age?

Answer: We are specifically teaching them how to use their freedom of will! States keep changing, egoism grows, the surrounding society changes. Every moment a child needs to make a new decision about who he wants to be with, how to treat and perceive things, and what he needs to do. If they keep relating to the changing environment correctly, they will develop very well.

Everyone knows about the teenage crisis, when everyone revolts. We need to use this wonderful quality and never repress it. It will help children make an easy leap from corporeality into spirituality. We only need to properly prepare the children prior to this age so that the coming-of-age years (12-15) would become their years of spiritual ascent and entrance into the spiritual world.

For this reason, children need to be educated ahead of time in a way that would help them realize what they have learned in practice later. Nature intentionally lays this period of inner explosions in our genes: on the levels of hormones, egoism, and the desire for power.

This is the age for working with a person in order to raise him or her into spirituality. They start “growing old” afterward. Beginning with the age of 20, people start moving in the direction of the cemetery. They “enter life,” end up in an ordinary society, and become concerned only with providing for themselves in the corporeal world.

A child needs to be educated from the age of six or seven so he would acquire an opportunity to act in a correct manner, grow up, and become “big” in the spiritual sense before he enters adolescence and grows up. We must not miss the childhood years; otherwise, it will be too late!

It would be the same as beginning to teach grammar at twenty. Imagine all the opportunities this person would miss in his life. But in our case we are referring to the fundamentals of nature, which need to be instilled in a child. We teach him to properly organize all his desires and qualities.

This is absolutely essential, and this is why we are so concerned with creating an educational system according to the method of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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When we are “pulled by the sleeve” to get acquainted with our egoism, we should rejoice since thereby we acquire spiritual degrees. When a person loses faith in this world and is burdened with questions about the meaning of life, these questions derive from the point in the heart. Then, one is given an opportunity to construct spiritual degrees, the levels of the Creator’s revelation, until the entire Light of NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida) is revealed.

Moreover, even the smallest degree gives him a sensation of eternity, of the life beyond the body, detached from the flesh. This is described as: “You will see your world in this life.” At these degrees, a person feels that he resides not in the receiving Kli (desire), but rather above it. Thus, he experiences his life as connected to the Creator; he feels that he has entered eternity.

This is why the Torah is regarded as the means of ascent to freedom from the “angel of death.” We abandon the desire to enjoy for self-gratification, which, in essence, is the “angel of death,” thereby arriving at authentic, endless life.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: When I watch how humanity lives, I don’t see any kind of free will. Someone established the initial and final conditions for us, and we just keep running from this starting point to the finish line. Where is our freedom then?

Answer: You are absolutely correct. We can choose neither the states of creation: one-two-three (start-change-finish) nor the stages of our advancement from state one to state three. Everything is predetermined already.

I was born with pre-set characteristics and must actualize the program installed in me; I am corrupted and must come to final correction (Gmar Tikkun). It is clear to what extent I am corrupted and what I will be like once repaired. Furthermore, my entire path to correction has been written out, step by step.

If I become aware of this path, I begin to understand how strictly connected everything is, as if in an engine where each part moves after the other in a certain sequence. The “Torah” derives from the Hebrew word for “manual” (Oraa) which means that you are given precise instructions that don’t leave room for any degree of free will except one! Do you wish to achieve it through your free will, through your personal choice, or do you prefer to be forced into it? Now choose whether you will do it by exercising your free will or by getting beaten until you do it willingly.

And this choice doesn’t imply avoiding suffering. When you choose to evolve with your own will, you walk the path of attainment, development, and you experience the greatness of spirituality, feeling it as something infinitely exalted.

The point you have within that wishes to know the spiritual world, having risen above your material, egoistic desire, is called your “Self.” You can’t avoid this state but it is up to you how you will enter it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, “The Freedom”

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