Freedom starts at the point where I make a decision as to whether I am governed from Above or not, whether the Creator exists or not, and whether I depend on Him 100 percent? If not, then what does freedom mean? If there is no freedom at all and we cannot change anything, then there is nothing to think about. However, if we are capable of autonomous actions, then what are they?

Here is the point at which I begin to clarify why I live, what is the essence of my life, what will happen to me further, and what is the use of my life. In other words, I would like to know if I am managing my own life and whether I can modify anything in it. These questions emerge at a “speaking level” in a human being.

The whole clarification is about whether I can act on my own and contest the Creator (nature) that governs everything there is. Is there a “free” point outside of me that doesn’t belong to nature?

At a regular, animate level of this material life, we cannot change anything, and, therefore, it is so predictable. However, not a single fortune teller knows what will happen in the Upper life, at the “speaking” level, within our connection with the Creator, our freedom. A fortune teller can guess only what might happen at the level of this world, with our physical body.

Below the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality), there exists no freedom of will whatsoever; it subsists only in spirituality. An animal doesn’t possess any freedom of will at all, so why would our physical body be any different? However, the soul exists beyond this level and obeys different forces that are present in another world, another dimension. We can only speak about freedom in relation to the soul.

What kind of freedom can exist in this world if our biological bodies are rigidly governed by pleasure and affliction? Freedom of choice exists only in spirituality in the “middle line.” Don’t waste your energy for material things that are beyond your prime necessities. You won’t get anything worthy from this bodily life, and if you persist in demanding more than you really need, you only make your life more complicated.

However, if you use your vigor to attain spirituality, you will win. This is the law of nature: You have to provide for a normal material existence, but the rest of your energy and intellect has to be devoted to attaining spirituality. That’s where you will find genuine fulfillment.
[23726]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Freedom”

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Our soul is divided into two parts: Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE) or 248 desires, and AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh) or 365 desires. We have to correct the desires of GE to “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” and then AHP to “reception for the sake of bestowal.” Our freedom of will lies between them, in the middle, in the special area called the middle third of Sefira Tifferet.

Above, in GE, there are Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Below, in AHP, the lower third of Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Between them, there is the middle third of Tifferet called Klipat Noga (the Noga Shell), the very place of our free will.

It is like a narrow neck in an hourglass. Above it, there are our desires to bestow, beneath it our desires to receive, and in the middle, between bestowal and reception, I am left with an empty space. It is not ambivalence when I don’t know which egoistic fulfillment to favor and choose; rather, it is a passage to a totally new space, a new dimension. If I find and step through it, then I will live there in one dimension with the Creator.

Through this narrow tunnel, we are brought into the new world as if we are born from the mother into the world and realize our free will.
[23729]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: Is it possible to change one’s destiny?

Answer: By exercising your free will you can change your destiny any way you want, turn it in any direction, a full 360 degrees. But you can only do it if you know for sure where you need to influence your fate, meaning which tiny hole you need to use to affect all the worlds, all the way to the World of Infinity. You have an opportunity to do this, but it is very narrow.

It is specifically this opportunity that we need to clarify. And after we clarify it, we discover that we want to act specifically in this direction.

There is an entire world around me, which connects with another, perfect world through a thin straw. I am at the bottom with my properties and strengths, my freedom of will is in the straw, and the perfect world is above.

Please go ahead, enter the perfect world! You only need to find the tiny opening, the point of your freedom, among all the directions toward which your desire throws you. And once you discover the opening, how can you concentrate all your strengths into one action in order to go through it into the Upper World?

This is what the entire wisdom of Kabbalah is about! Instead of scattering your forces in all directions where you lack the freedom of will and where everything is predetermined, you find this path of your free choice, gather your strength, and then you reach the spiritual world.

Then you understand that fulfilling the condition of the mutual guarantee, love for the created beings, is exactly the same as meeting the condition of advancement into the Upper World. This is because mutual guarantee is another definition of the same formula that directs you to the exit out of this world, into the passage, and birth in the Upper World.

Naturally, we change our destiny this way. After all, you acquire the free point that Archimedes spoke about when he said: “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.”
[23354]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Before you enter the group, you have the freedom of choice to enter it. After you enter it, you have just one choice: to strengthen your connection with the group. You must decide for yourself that this is your free choice, and you must always continue doing this. Therein lies your freedom!

Freedom is not when I do something I want, but when I continuously add my efforts to this connection. We don’t have any freedom of will in any other regard; everything else will happen automatically.

This is a very important principle. I don’t have any freedom in my entire life. I am a complete puppet. There is freedom of choice only in one regard: After the Creator brings me to the group and gives me a spark in my heart, I have one single freedom: to include myself in the group, to grab onto it with my hands and teeth as much as possible.

Once you "latch on" to the group correctly, you depend on it, on the influence of the environment, and you don’t have freedom in this regard. So where are you free? You are free inasmuch as you add your own effort to strengthen your connection with the environment in spite of your egoism. You thereby increase your dependence on the environment and its influence on you. There is no other freedom but this!

This is the mutual guarantee and we must always add more and more principles to it including love for friends, love for the neighbor, and your justifying them by faith above reason. Everything is inside this freedom of will, this approach by which I attain the goal.

The rest of my life unfolds according to a specific "script." You can even go to a fortuneteller who will be able to tell your future. You can predict everything in advance besides the one thing that belongs to your freedom of will. Everything else is driven by "blind" faith.

It is forbidden to predict the future because then a person might think that he has freedom of will in his regular life. However, if you know that there are no free actions, then the future becomes revealed to you. Yet, you can never reveal the future that relates to your freedom of choice because it depends on you.
[23360]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Freedom of will is the most important topic because it poses the main question of our lives: Are we absolutely controlled from Above like any other part of nature? We see that everything operates under the governance from Above, meaning the governance of Nature (the Creator). There is nothing beyond Nature. We can discern the governing force in some actions, but in others, their governing force is concealed from us.

When we are young, we think we master our own lives, but as we mature and acquire life experience, we come to understand that it is life that controls us, and not the other way around. Indeed, where is the possibility for freedom of will when we discover strict and constant laws operating on all levels of nature: physical, chemical, and biological? And if there is a place where we do not see a law, it means that we haven’t yet revealed it as opposed to there being no law that operates with absolute certainty.

How can there remain an uncontrolled part of nature that wouldn’t be affected by any law? This is simply impossible! In all places where we reveal nature, we discover a strict regularity.

Then what is freedom of choice? Is it a possibility to do as I please without being subject to a deterministic law of nature? Where can freedom of choice come from? Can there be a white spot in nature that doesn’t comply?

It turns out that all of our apparent freedom is an illusion of a small child left to play in his room under strict supervision, yet thinking that he is free. That is, free will is explained only by our ignorance. And is this what we call freedom? Then what is man? Another part of nature completely controlled from Above without even being aware of it? If we are nothing but puppets, then we neither do good nor bad. What can be expected of me when everything I do follows the law?

All the things I suddenly wish to do are natural instincts that manipulate and control me from both inside and outside. There can neither be reward nor punishment if we are just ordinary “cogwheels” in creation. But what is the meaning of it all, if the entire existence is a prepackaged game?

It means first and foremost that we need to figure out whether we still have any freedom of will, and where it lies. After all, if there really is a choice here, then it is possible to either score very well or lose everything.

Therefore, freedom of will is the main theme in Kabbalah because it is the beginning of the next stage: whether we have freedom, and if so, how and where can I use it to the maximum benefit.
[23021]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: If I come to a pharmacy and see a line of 70 people, I go to pick up some other items and come back in an hour, when my turn comes. Why do I need to engage in spiritual work now, if I don’t know when I will be corrected? What do I need this for? I can go back to my business in this world for the time being.

Answer: There is no coercion on the spiritual path! If you don’t want to stay, then leave! You shouldn’t stay and hinder others. If you decide for certain that you do not wish to proceed by this path, tell your friends, and they will understand and wish you luck.

If you think that you’ll spend five years bettering your life in this world, and then you’ll return to a stronger group and continue the path together with them, these are false hopes. In five years, you will have to perform a much greater work: You will have to compensate your five-year-long engagement in egoism and catch up to the group in everything it went through during these five years.

Consequently, you are not shortening the path, but on the contrary, making it longer. Do you think that you’ll come to a group that is already in spirituality, and it will be easier for you? However, will you have greater equivalence of qualities with the friends? No, you will reveal even greater differences in qualities! After all, they will go thousands of miles ahead, and you will go ten miles back. The distance will increase! As a result, you will need to wait in line even longer.
[22745]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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We cannot imagine what freedom of will is. To a certain extent, we feel free, but, in fact, we are completely governed, which includes our thoughts about freedom. Therefore, we don’t understand what the spiritual world is.

When we face the Creator, we perceive Him to be a vital, defining, and implementing Force. At the same time we have a certain “point of preparation” within which we are able to detach ourselves from Him. This is when our freedom of choice uncovers itself; after this point, we repeat the restriction and begin to shape our freedom.

So far we are similar to a fetus in the mother’s womb. Is it in any way independent? No, it is the one who is being developed. Its reality is a reminder of the future; its freedom is still ahead of it.

In our world a person represents a collection of pre-set qualities. There are no conditions for freedom of choice, but only its illusion in protein matter. The initial condition for freedom is to become similar to the Creator without “hints,” from scratch. If something awakened you in advance, that isn’t freedom.

This is why a special point of the Creator wakes up in us. We develop it in opposition to our egoistic nature. “A point of desire” against “a point of Light,” they both emerge as a result of the breaking. By correcting a connection between them, we independently achieve similarity to the Creator. Without this “tool,” we wouldn’t be born and become equal to the Creator.

GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim), sanctity, is above, AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh), wickedness, is below, and Tifferet, the middle third, is in the middle. It is a special state that is called “Klipat Noga.” Above is the property of the Creator, below is the property of the created being, and the middle is my “neutral territory.”

This is where an equal fight between sanctity and wickedness is taking place. I am the one who defines the outcome of the struggle between them. It is the place where I can correctly control these two forces that the Creator made on purpose so that I can build my freedom and independence.

[21913]

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/10, Shamati #97

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It seems so easy to just let the force of the Light come and correct us, making us love our neighbor! So why is the process of correction so difficult? The difficulty comes from the fact that this entire process is concealed, and that is in order to give us the freedom of will.

To be free means to go against my desire and understanding, when I don’t want it directly! My animalistic body does not aspire to this and my egoism does not help me do this. I have to find a new motivation to advance, which does not stem from my qualities. Otherwise I would just be increasing my animate egoism.

The reason for my advancement must be outside of me, in the environment. In order to advance, I have to use something that does not belong to the egoistic desire, and therein lies the entire difficulty. If not for this, every person would aspire to correction. Who wouldn’t want to receive perfection and eternity, feel the Creator, see all of his fate from beginning to end, and control it!?

Any person would agree to exchange this temporary world for an eternal one. However, people feel that this is too exalted, too difficult, and unattainable. And it’s all because we have to reveal the point of our free choice, called "the middle third of Tifferet."

We understand what love is and what hate is, but it’s not clear what a neutral state is, "the middle third of Tifferet." On every degree we have to make our choice while in that state. Otherwise we won’t be independent of the Creator.

What’s the point of creating a miserable creature that suffers in this world, and then giving it the knowledge that there is a perfect state and one must only use a means called the Torah to go from a bad state to a good one? In fact, any machine could do the same thing if there is good and evil, and a means to go from evil to good. There is no free choice here.

Religions operate according to this scheme of two lines. The difference between Kabbalah and religion is free will, the third line. A person has to find the point where he can carry out actions independently of himself and his earthly choice, so he won’t look for self-benefit.

If we find this point and act based on it, it means we freely build ourselves and are independent of our previous nature. We cut ourselves off from it and give birth to ourselves, instead of having the Creator do it.

This point of independence poses the difficulty. It constantly confuses us and erases everything we understood and felt a moment ago, immersing us into a "fog" all over again. But it is happening because we are being led into a completely different dimension of life where we will reveal the true reality instead of the unconscious state we are in today.
[22062]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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At a certain moment after many incarnations (Gilgulim), an initial awakening for spirituality, the point in the heart (Reshimo), is roused in a person. It is comprised of two forces: 1) emptiness that one feels from the worthlessness of this transient, vain existence and despair from being unable to find fulfillment in this world, and 2) some inner “spark” that makes a person seek something unknown that exists beyond this world.

On the one hand (downward), there is despair; on the other (upward), there is a spark. As a result, a person sets his course. Together, these two forces form within a person the Reshimo: a new direction in his existence.

This Reshimo leads him to the teacher and the group who study Kabbalah. Later on, he gradually realizes that he will be able to build the force of bestowal or equivalence to the Creator only by connecting with other Reshimot similar to his. This is his only free choice and act of free will in life.

A person’s success is determined by the degree to which he is able to increase his spark with the help of the group, against all personal obstacles. If he manages to enhance it, he will feel the need for faith (bestowal) and for the others (the means). It is all defined by the luck in reception (absorption) of the effects of the spiritual environment (the teacher’s recommendations and the collective opinion of the group).

The environment is not just the group or the friends, but Shechina (Divinity). My connection with them is the connection with the Shechina, Malchut of the World of Atzilut, the collective soul of Adam. Unity of the friends in annulling their egos and attaining the property of bestowal evokes a response from Shechina and receiving the Light of correction from her, Ohr Makif.

Thus, a person enters interacting with the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) that advances him to the revelation of the property of bestowal (faith) within himself. And within this property, he reveals the Inner Light (Ohr Pnimi). All our work is aimed at increasing the desire for the property of bestowal through the correct environment and the importance thereof. It can’t be learned; this work is described as “we shall do, and we shall hear.”

A person exerts effort in connection with the group despite the fact that he may not feel the need to do so. In return, he receives support and the collective need, the desire, accumulated by the friends in the group: the need for faith and bestowal.
[21672]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/10, “Who Testifies for Man”

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