Question: Why did the Creator set up such a cruel joke: There wasn’t a drop of rain for a very long time, which resulted in a horrible fire, but as soon as people put it out by making unfathomable efforts, the very next day a heavy rain came down that only interfered with agricultural work? If the Creator controls everything, why didn’t He send the rain sooner?

Answer: Along the same lines, you could ask: Why did He cause the fire to happen to us? After all, what would be the point of igniting a fire and then sending rain in order to put it out immediately? If I love someone, I won’t beat him up in order to then be nice to him.

Clearly, everything comes from the Creator. As soon as the airplanes put out the fire, the rain immediately began, and this happened on purpose in order to teach us something.

The Creator ignites the fire and He also puts it out, while we have to learn from this and draw conclusions. We are inside a system that is entirely governed by the Upper Light and nothing can come out from its power, as it is written, “The hearts of the ministers and kings are completely in the hands of the Creator.”

All of nature is the Creator, and there is no freedom of will there. Our freedom lies only in our attitude to what it happening.

If I adopt a different attitude, then will the fire happen or not? Your attitude will change your reality or the way you perceive it.

Instead of perceiving Upper Light that comes in the form of harshness (Gvurot), as a consuming fire, you will feel it as the warmth of love. This depends only on your attitude: Do you love it or hate it?

Imagine that the person you hate most in the world is now hugging you. You will turn to ice, horrified by this embrace. And now think of how different it would be if you were hugging a person you loved.

The only thing that comes to us from the Creator is love and Light, but we do not feel it and cannot accept it. From Above there is always Light coming to us, wishing to fill the common desire of the whole world and the entire universe overall. This Light methodically advances this desire to the goal, to equivalence of form with itself.

If the creation below organizes itself in the appropriate manner, then it will feel a good attitude from Above. And if it doesn’t, then it will feel the reverse.

Everything depends only on you! Nothing changes from Above. Even when we say that we can change something with our prayer, that we can raise MAN and receive a response from Above, MAD, which brings us Light and returns us to the Source and changes us, none of this affects the influence of the Upper Light in the slightest. The Light constantly comes to creation, leading it to the final goal.

All the changes take place only relative to our sensation. No matter what, the train is moving forward and nothing can stop it or slow it down.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/7/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

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Question: Do I have free will to ask my own questions, or it is also done by the Upper Governance?

Answer: Free will doesn’t lie in your asking one or the other question. Free will means not sitting inside your ego getting blows. After all, submerged in your ego, you are unable to understand anything because you lack one more factor existing on the outside.

Identifying yourself with someone or something outside of you, you will be able to see yourself from aside. It will teach you to recognize two conditions: the Light and the dark. And then you will be able to advance faster.

But if you don’t enter the group, live in bestowing to it, and being affected by it, you do not advance. It is so because spiritual advancement lies in understanding the process of creation. In order to gain it, you need two initial points: one is within, the other-outside yourself. Hence, the group is given to you so that you may find this second point.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/10, Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot”

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Question: What is the secret of life?

Answer: The secret is to change the direction of this life from reception to bestowal, to “love for the neighbor” or at least to the principle, “Do not do to another what you yourself hate.”

As soon as you start to go in the direction of bestowal, you come out of your narrow world where you are locked and operate like a robot, following specific, deterministic laws that are set in advance. Nothing can escape the boundaries of the law. We only think this way because of concealment and lack of knowledge.

For example, suppose I am looking down at what is happening from the 10th story and I see how a car is about to turn the corner, whereas a person who is entering the street does not see the car and therefore gets run over by it. Or I see how a person leaves his car in a place he isn’t supposed to, but there is already a policeman coming in his direction in order to give him a fine.

I see all of this from above, but the people below don’t see any of it! But does this lack of knowledge enable them to say that this event is pure coincidence? For me it isn’t a coincidence because I see how everything was interconnected ahead of time. This is not just a fantasy, but a certain revelation.

Sometimes we look at a baby and understand that something is about to happen as a result of what he is doing. We already know it ahead of time, but he does not know because he lacks knowledge about himself. Therefore, we have no freedom of choice; there is only lack of knowledge.

The deeper we reveal this world, the more we feel how we are bound in iron chains. There is no freedom – not in thought, nor in desire, nor in action. The only thing we can do is change our direction. Our current paradigm is entirely aimed at reception for our own sake; it is completely limited and it is limited by ourselves or our desire.

However, we are able to change it to the opposite, from minus to plus! Start bestowing and you will see what you can do through it! You already have the root of that future altruistic desire, “the point in the heart.” You must only attract the force that will develop it. Then you will no longer be limited in this regard because you will come out of yourself to the outside!

After going through all of our development we will eventually reveal that the animate body we are placed in contains nothing “human” besides one single point! If you focus on the body, then you are an animal, and if you are focus on this point in the heart, then in it you reveal the human.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/10, “Body and Soul”

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The first and most important question is: Do we have free will at all? Or, do I go through life as a mechanical toy moved by the key in the back or like a puppet on strings?

Indeed, we are totally controlled by the instincts and our actions are programmed. Even though we think we are free to make decisions and pick our path, it is just an illusion. Everything can be predicted by checking combinations of internal and external data: Reshimot (spiritual records, genes), background, habits, and all other conditions.

In other words, there is no instant in life when a person would be making an independent decision, and frankly, based on what would he decide? If he is programmed with all the informational data, a person simply makes a calculation like a machine.

Is there really any unknown factor that could be selected freely? It is unknown in relation only to us; therefore, we think that we can choose freely. In reality, everything is completely predetermined, as it is Nature.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches: “There is none else beside Him.” Do you wish to make your own decisions? Then rise to the Creator’s status and partner Him in decision making.

Your only freedom is in choosing to agree with Him, and in a way, to start walking ahead of Him. If you rise to His level and equalize with Him in qualities, He will allow you to decide before and for Him (as He does). And that is when it will be as it is written: “The righteous decides, and the Creator carries out.”

Until then, there is no use in talking about some freedom.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: If Kabbalah offers us a means to grow an eternal soul in us, it’s as if we choose from two possible conditions: One is the “I” who is handsome, rich, healthy, young, and eternal, whereas the other “I” is weak, transient, and mortal. Then why do people have such difficulty agreeing to study it?

Answer: Is this choice really up to us? If your egoism were given a choice between a good and bad condition, you would undoubtedly choose what is good. If you were given an empty and a full glass, you wouldn’t hesitate to pick the full one.

It isn’t a choice per se. You simply act instinctively as Nature dictates and you cannot do otherwise. If you chose incorrectly, it means that you either made a mistake or were sick. In other words, there isn’t any free will here.

However, the problem is that this opportunity to become healthy, handsome, perfect, and eternal is blocked from you by a wall, a concealment. You don’t see this state; you don’t feel it in your egoistic desire.

In this corporeal life, I feel and see what can give me pleasure, and even though it is temporary, at least it is clear. Such pleasures are approved by my ego, my animate body, my “Self,” all my family, all that I am connected to, and public opinion. This is how the entire world is living.

Suddenly, I am offered something that I have neither desire for, nor support from the others. How, then, may I choose it? Clearly, I will go with my beastly interests.

Therefore, we need to cultivate the desire for this hidden part called “the desire for bestowal.” It is something totally new, and when you get to know it, it will be a completely different world, a new reality. You, yourself, will be different because you will grow new organs of perception and new desires within you.

You will simply split yourself into two with a clear-cut line: On one side there will be everything that you have today and, on the other, everything new, without any connection between them. What you will have on this new side will be called your soul. However, you will have to cultivate this system from only the point you possess at the moment, which doesn’t have any aim or direction.

The problem lies in the fact that you don’t see what your benefit is. It is impossible to see it in your ego. And if you think that you picture and desire some spiritual world in your ego right now, it means you are seeing the same material world. You just think that it is part of spirituality, but, in truth, all of it is nothing but matter.

Yet, all this deceitful, illusory picture is needed solely to build the authentic one specifically with its help.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, “Body and Soul”

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Question: Why are we given the illusion of freedom in this world?

Answer: We consider ourselves free for as long as we do not think about it much and identify ourselves with our animate body. But if we rose above our body a little, we would see that it strictly obeys the laws and processes it is subject to.

I think it is up to me when to go to sleep and when to go to work. But who is it really up to? I am placed in certain conditions and given certain internal qualities. Meanwhile, our will to receive pleasure (desire) acts as an engine that works according to a simple principle: maximal pleasure at minimal effort, that is, maximal gain at minimal investment.

This is the calculation we perform at each moment of our lives, in every aspect, any direction, any place, and in relation to everything there is. This is how our nature works, taking into consideration various conditions: how tired and healthy I am, how big the danger and possible pleasure are, and so forth. Understandably, as such, we remain inside our ego, and there is no free will there.

We have to realize that free will is possible only if I control my desire and am above it. For as long as I remain in my egoistic nature, I will always be an obedient puppet, fully controlled by my egoism.

If, however, I wish to take control in my own hands, I have to manage my desire, rise above it. In other words, free will is possible, but only above desire. And the only question is: How do I rise above my nature, by what means?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: If I once chose the path and rose above my egoism, am I free for good or must I keep choosing anew?

Answer: In order to reach the purpose of creation, we have to attain the state of “Israel (those who aspire to the Creator), the Torah (the Light of correction), and the Creator are one” and experience it in all our properties and desires.

Therefore, each moment of our evolution, we have to aim ourselves at oneness with the Creator, which constitutes our free choice. From all of these points of adhesion, we build one line and arrive at the final destination.

In other words, it isn’t enough to make a choice once so that later you may do whatever you want. You make a choice based on the conditions that are revealed to you at the moment. But next time, you will be completely different, a new creation, new world inside and out.

It’s because you keep uncovering new, stronger, desire to feel pleasure, which has different properties. And you have to discern yet again what conditions you are placed in, find the point of free will, decide what you are choosing, and move on with this new choice.

Conversely, at each point of the journey, you need to perform the work of clarification in order to “distance yourself from evil and choose the good” and realize that point of adhesion fully.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, “The Freedom”

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The point in the heart, which has no form or direction, is similar to my spiritual “stem” cell, from which I can freely build myself up. It is the end of the rope thrown to me from the final state that I must reach. Grounded in it, I can now build everything else around it by exercising my free will.

All reality is divided into me and the external world. And if I know how to use the external reality correctly, I can change myself, thereby realizing my free will. Freedom lies solely in the ability to change oneself and not the world! The world is just the imprint of my properties.

I only need to know how to correct my properties, how to change the combination of these initial, natural qualities in me. To do this, I am given a “Kli” (an instrument), a lever, a “crane” that I can use to turn myself upside down and lift myself up! Then, the entire reality will change. I see that everything is different now, as if I were born into a new world.

So, do I replace my view of reality or the reality itself? I change the reality! After all, reality is what resides within my perceptions.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, “The Freedom”

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All souls root in one creature, one soul of Adam HaRishon. All of the events unfold in it. The soul was divided into multiple parts upon introduction of the will to receive into it, which is opposed to unity. The breaking is necessary for correction, and otherwise, it was impossible to break the soul into pieces.

Following the example of the king who transferred his treasure overseas by handing a coin to each of his couriers to assure success of the delivery, the soul of Adam HaRishon also gets corrected (transitions from the corporeal world into the spiritual one) part by part.

Breaking into parts is regarded as a “sin” although in truth, nobody sinned. In fact, a force aimed at receiving entered the collective soul in order to saturate each of its parts and separate it from the others. From that moment onward, each soul’s work lies in overcoming this force and reattaching its part of the common treasure to the unified interconnection.

In relation to me, all other parts are complete, and their seemingly broken and corrupted state is the effect of my own flaw. This is how a person should view the world, not fantasizing but inwardly working on himself. In that case, his outlook will change, and he will see that the surrounding world is filled with perfection and only he is corrupted.

Thereby, a person gets to know the initial breaking of the unified soul. By correcting himself, he returns to its parts as Adam, meaning that he acquires the collective intention toward all parts, all “transgressions,” and toward the entire force of detachment that penetrated the system and cracked it into 600 000 souls.

The correction is performed from light to heavy, according to the unfolding of the Aviut (coarseness, thickness) of the given part or, in other words, according to resentment it feels toward the others. After all, no matter how high a person ascends, the evil inclination rules over him anyway. However, a person is always given the exact measure he is able to correct. We need to realize free will by way of unifying with the group.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/10, “Which Degree Should One Achieve so He Will Not Have to Reincarnate?”

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Question: If I am the one who creates and projects the film of my own life, this entire reality, then why do people create unpleasant films for themselves?

Answer: Creating a film is not yet in your power. You cannot yet be a producer. You need to rule over your desire, the Light, and be able to determine exactly how they can vary according to strict laws and not just the way you want them to. This way, you gradually build a better reality.

This is your only freedom of choice, and this is exactly why we study the wisdom of Kabbalah. Until you gain power over the film of your reality, the Creator is in charge of it in order to obligate you to create your own film. This is why our entire life and all our reincarnations are meant to “inspire” us to make the proper film, an authentic one, not an imaginary one.

This is what makes the perception of reality in the wisdom of Kabbalah so interesting. It is because this is neither a theoretical study nor a scholastic discussion, but a special method which I can use to really change my world, to escape to different dimensions, as it were.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Perception of Reality” 10/26/10

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