A person’s advancement depends on his ability to ascend above the sensation and his previous mind by separating from them and always holding on to the Light, the Creator. However, this is impossible during a descent since the Creator disappears from one’s sensation and awareness. Then only the group can help a person by holding him on the level where he keeps the right attitude or the right perspective on what is happening to him.

That is why it is so important to be connected with the group, with its mindset and approach. The group never loses understanding, willingness, and a connection with the Upper One. It always knows that there is no one besides Him, who is Good and Does Good.

If a person absorbs the spirit of the group, then he quickly goes through all the states and always benefits from them. As he checks his sensations in his egoistic desire, he adds to them what he feels and thinks higher, above the desire. And that is something that comes from the group.

As a person advances along the path, he starts to understand that there are two fundamental elements inherent in his perception:

1. Inside the egoistic desire his thoughts correspond to the sensations; his mind and heart are unanimous.
2. When he shifts to the desires and thoughts of his friends in the group, he analyzes himself and builds faith above reason.

Everything depends on what a person identifies himself with and where his point in the heart is: below or above. That is one’s free choice.
[24778]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/10, “Show Me Your Honor”

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At the still, vegetative, and animate levels, nature is an integral system whose parts have no free will in observing its laws. Man, however, is given free will: He can either act in harmony with nature or against it.

Today, as the egoistic development of civilization is running its course, we’re beginning to recognize the deficiency of the egoistic approach which brings us to self-destruction. Our ego has grown so much that we are destroying the system of equilibrium on Earth while, in fact, it is we, the highest degree of development, who must establish this equilibrium.

By restoring balance with nature, we will create the conditions for the correct behavior of all its other parts. For that we will need to become like one man, to achieve a state of mutual love and care. This is why the notion of “love thy neighbor as thyself” lies at the very foundation of humanity’s systems of values. We realize that in order to co-exist in a global world, this condition is necessary, today all the more so.

This is the reason the science of Kabbalah is being revealed today. For thousands of years it has been awaiting its hour so as to present our generation with the opportunity to rise to the degree of bestowal.
[24168]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/10, “He Who Strengthens His Heart”

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Question: I don’t understand: What is the freedom that we must attain?

Answer: Our freedom amounts to attaining the desire for bestowal that will fill us with infinite enjoyment. The goal is to achieve the most comfortable state of existence, although it requires us to first change and correct ourselves.

The Creator, Who is Good that does good, wished to create a being in order to bestow pleasure to it. And He will give this pleasure to us! Yet, like a little child, I dream only about one thing: that my parents would give me a bicycle for a present. For me, it is the greatest dream, but my parents fear that I will ride on a dangerous highway between the cars. Instead of buying me a bicycle, they wish to teach me to play the violin. Do you see the difference?

Similarly, the Creator wants us to “play the violin,” but we want a “bicycle” for our egoism to ride. Yet, when we make our desire as His, change ourselves and realize that to play the violin is the greatest joy, then we attain all the pleasure prepared for us by Him. After all, the Creator placed enjoyment in the “violin,” not in the “bicycle,” and I will have to change my desire for I have no choice. However, as a result, I will attain pleasure as conceived in the plan of creation.

My reward in this world is to gradually build for myself the necessary environment. I seek and discern which environment is needed to advance me to the example that the Creator gave me, and by doing so, I construct myself. From all the opportunities given to me, I build myself a “wrapper” that I can dress in.

A person creates for himself a new world, his next spiritual degree. He doesn’t simply give himself into the hands of the Upper One, permitting Him to do anything He desires. Rather, he has to know precisely what kind of person he wants to become, by way of which forces and influences. He creates himself and his entire world anew.

It is the kind of freedom that makes you the Creator. You start to understand all of nature’s components and to assemble them like a new puzzle game every time according to your opinion and advancement to the form of the Creator. You are constructing this world. This free choice grants you new desires and instruments of perception. By building it, you get to understand and know the Creator, His Upper force, the program of creation, and its laws that everybody follows. Hence, you can control it all.

It turns out that you are in place of the Creator and are governing everything. By inviting this force to govern you, you accept it, and with its help, you rule the world. It will be you, and your free will is the foundation for it. You are not the one who is governed anymore, but the governor. To do this, we just need to find out what our freedom is.
[23699]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Freedom”

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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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