A person is led from Above to the place of his free choice. Our freedom of choice does not consist of choosing between pleasure and suffering. That is what has brought us to this place, this state. Now our choice is in something else, above pleasure and suffering, something in a higher dimension.

There is some plane of this world through which we have been led, brought from one bad place to another place that seemed good, better than the last one because the suffering in it was less. And soon enough, this place, too, seemed bad, and it was time to move on. But, we see no matter where we go from here, it will only be worse (greater evil will appear).

Therefore, within the bounds of this world, we remain in the same place. What I need is to come out of it, upward, into another dimension. I need to choose completely new and different values for what I call “good and evil” – to measure it with respect to “reception and bestowal” and “truth and falseness” – instead of choosing to  measure good and evil against  “pleasure or suffering” as I currently do. Pleasure and suffering were experienced by my animal body; truth and falseness are experienced by the human being in me.

In other words, my choice is in developing from the spiritual gene I’ve been given, to the real human level. This constitutes my freedom of choice: choosing new concerns, a new goal, and a completely different dimension.

Then I will perceive everything that remains below, in this world, only to the extent that it is necessary, and I choose to engage in the human being in me. I have a point in the heart, the first spiritual gene (Reshimo), from which I begin to develop the human being in me. How do I do this? I do this by choosing the environment, the Kabbalah books, and the teacher.

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The entire evil has been prepared for us from Above during the breaking of the vessels. So how can we say that the creature sins if this is the Creator’s making, the result of His actions? Anything man does will always be the consequence of the Creator’s actions. We can always point at the source from which everything comes. Even He acknowledges creating evil and nothing but evil: “I created the evil inclination” (“Barati Yetzer Ara“).

The only freedom of will that allows us to choose between good and evil and demand the correction of evil within us is realized with the help of the environment. As a person turns to the group, he discovers an “empty space,” Klipat Noga, which belongs neither to the Creator nor to the creature. Good or evil there is determined only by one’s free choice.

As you work with the group you begin to see that the Creator has left you something where you can make a decision. This is a special point of your independence. If you begin to create the Creator’s image from this “white,” free point, and decide that you want to become like Him, you will be referred to as “human.”

However, you still need to reveal this point. So far the Reshimo(recollection) of the breaking is being revealed in you. This point is a rudiment of a screen, which you need to build from the Reshimo. It is revealed through our work with the group.

We clear away the accumulation of the shell (Klipot) and different habits with our inner efforts to suddenly discover something that does not belong to the Creator beneath them. This really is a miracle. In this point a person has to say: “The entire world depends on me. Every moment I direct it either toward good or toward evil with my decision.” Then a person spends his entire time like a tightrope walker on a tight wire; every moment he has make a new decision in the direction of good to make sure he does not fall off the tight wire. This means that every moment he chooses to walk the path of truth.

This is why Baal HaSulam says that the path towards the Creator is a very thin thread, and the person walking it must be very careful to make sure he does not bear right or left. Yet all of this happens under the condition that a person discovers the point where the rope starts: his freedom of will in his work with the environment. All of the following points on which he walks are the points of his proper connection with the environment, which he chooses as he realizes his freedom of will.

A person constructs his own rope with the points that he discovers. He himself walks through them, as every time he directs himself and the entire world towards good. Actually, nothing exists before him, neither the point that he discovers nor the rope made with these points, the path straight to the Creator.

The path does not stretch out from the Creator toward us. We only receive the Reshimot, which remain on every degree from the above-downward descent. The rope does not exist, but we build it ourselves from below-upward. At the end, this is precisely what we call “human.”

All the Partzufim that we reconstruct from below-upward are not the same Partzufim that exist during the descent from above-downward. This is because when we climb the degrees, we reveal every degree 620 times greater than it was during the descent. This is a completely different degree, which we build ourselves.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, The Zohar

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Question: Do you sometimes get angry at someone and later look back and regret because you remember from Whom it came?

Answer: I don’t get upset as long as it doesn’t concern one’s free will. If it lies within someone’s capacity for free will, I could get really mad. By “free will” I mean that it concerns spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah. In that case, beware: This has nothing to do with the Creator. This is directly connected to one’s sense of responsibility. Here I am unforgiving.

Question: But everything comes from the Creator?

Answer: No, not this. Spreading Kabbalah efficiently, correctly, and well lies within one’s free will; it’s one’s duty and one must see to it. Otherwise, why study Kabbalah? Why do we need it? We just remain as animals. We are humans only inasmuch we use the wisdom of correction that was granted to us. It is our duty to draw Light for our correction. When a person doesn’t do his part or does it poorly, especially when given an opportunity, I can’t put up with it.

It’s the only thing that causes my anger and nothing else. In all other areas, I don’t even have the power to force a person to do or not do something. I specifically refer to free will and the fact that it is given to a person to use.

Question: Does free will imply not only dissemination but studying as well?

Answer: It concerns studies, attitude to the group, the Kabbalah books, the teacher, and the Creator: everything that is related to individual and general advancement toward the purpose.

Sometimes a person needs to go through bad states. One must experience them. His free will strengthens when he suffers through them on his own. I can’t interfere. Otherwise I would be acting like the Creator, as it were, externally, from Above, but it’s not right and I am not allowed.

Question: So there are two types of free will: one with a liability (dissemination) and one without it (painful states)?

Answer: No. They are the same in that they both demonstrate one’s attitude to his spiritual growth. They are fully connected.

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In the News (From Northeastern University): Human behavior is 93 percent predictable, a group of leading Northeastern University network scientists recently found. Distinguished Professor of Physics Albert-László Barabási and his team studied the mobility patterns of anonymous cell-phone users and concluded that, despite the common perception that our actions are random and unpredictable, human mobility follows surprisingly regular patterns.

My Comment: Our individuality manifests only at the time of the Creator’s revelation within us, that is, when we start building His image within us. Indeed, it is the only new and free individual action. Beside this, everything is simply preprogrammed by the desire to receive pleasure (egoism), which acts only according to the principle of “maximum reception with minimum effort.”

Therefore, all our actions could be predicted beforehand. For that reason, Kabbalah calls us “animals.” We become “people” by realizing our only freedom of choice – in exiting egoism and becoming similar to the Creator.

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If we place our “seed” in a good environment, it develops. If we put it in “bad soil” (environment), even the very best seed will wither. Everything depends solely on the environment. This means that we need people around us who reveal the evil of egoism within themselves and want to correct it.

I have to place myself in such environment and aspire to absorb from it all that’s possible: moisture, minerals, and warmth or, in other words, everything that soil can provide for a seed.

As Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Freedom,” at the time of his death a person can’t take anything with him from this world except for the property of bestowal that he attained. One can attain bestowal only in this world, but while in this world, he can sense himself. It’s written, “See your world during your life.” However, if you have not attained anything, then you remain only as a seed which will be placed into the soil again, and thus will get another chance.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/10, Article “The Freedom”

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A question I received: What should a person do, if he feels that the environment which he chose for his spiritual development does not promote his growth?

My Answer: Today, two conditions make our physical association with a particular group unimportant. The first condition is that, at this time, the whole world has to attain correction. Because of this, the second condition is that a virtual connection among us gives everybody an opportunity to contact us through the Internet, books, and television. That’s in addition to having an opportunity to connect to or join us physically for training, coming to a convention in order to participate in various activities together, or studying at one of our campuses.

It’s not like in prior times when a person was limited by living in one place and could bond only with his immediate surroundings. Today, you can stay connected with the whole world. You can see and hear us, or come and visit us; the rest depends on you.

Today is the time when everybody in the world has to attain correction. Places and distances do not limit us at all. We desire to clarify who we are and what we belong to, under whose influence we live.

Everybody is granted freedom of will and, thus, everything depends on an individual. At this time, we’re in the process of building a virtual system on the Internet for Kabbalah students that will enable everybody to stay truly close.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/10, Article “The Freedom”

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The environment and the teacher are the only factors that define the future of a person. At every given moment, a person should evaluate the state he is in as if he already has everything he needs and his only responsibility is to connect with the right environment. Such an environment is always nearby and available; our task is to make the right choice. This is the only freedom of choice we possess. The rest is consequential and results from the choices we make.

Hence we shouldn’t worry about anything except for where we receive “nourishment” from, who we connect with, and who influences us. In other words, we have to think not about ourselves but, rather, what environment we’re connected to. If a person wants to control his growth, life, and destiny, he has to think only of who he’s in touch with.

However, these thoughts aren’t natural for us. We constantly think of ourselves, "Who am I, why, and what will happen to me? What is the reason for my life?" We direct those questions within and all of them are correct. Yet how are we supposed to answer them? What do we connect their solution with?

Kabbalists explain that the solution depends solely on the environment. That’s why we have to turn our attention to external forces that control us since it’s their influence that defines our future.

In fact, they’re not “external” but, rather, comprise a unified system of souls, an integral part of our spiritual body. This is where the breaking of the vessels occurred and what needs to be corrected. It’s the only place where we can make changes since we are unable to alter our other desires. It’s similar to digging into an archive and reading a record of events that are already predetermined. We can only influence our environment in some way. It’s a pity to waste our attention on anything else except this.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/10, Article “The Freedom”

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A question I received: Kabbalah says that a person must always strive to be in a better environment. So what specifically should I do?

My Answer: You have to try to worry at every moment about the fact that you are entirely dependent on your environment. Within this worry you will start to have thoughts and desires to connect with others, and you will reveal that the environment contains everything.

Even though these people are still uncorrected, they contain the corrected system. They don’t even feel it themselves yet, but you will reveal it through searching. Spirituality already exists in its corrected state, but its revelation depends on our desire, as it is written, “Every person judges others to the extent of his own defect.”

You have to strive to feel the influence of the environment. This influence carries energy, understanding, and the need to turn to the Light, the importance of the goal. It has everything you need to attain the spiritual goal. Thus, everything depends on your attitude to the environment; everything depends on you!

The whole world and all humanity were created by the Creator in order to give every person the opportunity to advance independently by creating the right inner attitude to the group. Otherwise, you will move toward the goal by the path of suffering.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/10, “Peace in the World”

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No one knows how much more work we will have to do in order to realistically see the new, corrected world. But the results of our work can already be seen by the awakening of the nation of Israel. As a result of this awakening, there will be great, qualitative changes and people will begin to feel the spiritual reality. But to achieve this, we will have to attain a common might called “six thousand souls.”

We have to achieve this might in quantity and in force, meaning according to the amount of people aspiring to the spiritual goal, as well as the might of their undertsanding, the connection between them, and the importance they attribute to this. As soon as we achieve this might of “six thousand souls,” the spiritual world will be revealed to us. This constitutes the goal of disseminating Kabbalah: to have as many people join this movement as necessary to reach “the first stop” in the spiritual world, which is the spiritual revelation.

When we unite together with this force and this quantity, where the quantity multiplied by the quality will give us the necessary might (P=UxI – power equals pressure times the force of electricity), then a spiritual vessel emerges, in which the Creator becomes revealed. Then, everyone who participates in this common vessel will feel the revelation of spirituality. This is called the revelation of the Creator to the creatures.

It depends only in the importance that we attribute to spirituality in relation to corporeality. We are already building this common vessel of revealing the Creator, but until we complete it, we won’t be able to discover it. It will become expressed in our sensations, along with the Creator inside it.

From the Independence Day lecture 04/20/10, “Preface to the Book of Zohar”

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A question I received: What does it practically mean “To value the inner part of me more than the external part?” Baal HaSulam writes that this is necessary in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

My Answer: To value the inner part of you means to respect your mission and responsibility to attain mutual bestowal and to unite together “as one man with one heart” through brotherly love, for the sake of revealing the Creator, the general force of bestowal and love that rules in nature. This has to be the most important thing to a person. We are talking about the Upper Force of bestowal, which fills everything, but which we don’t feel because we nullify its manifestation with our egoism. The right intention for us to have is for this force to become revealed within us to the fullest extent.

I make a simple calculation: that this is the only thing that is important to me in this life. This is why I was born and what I live for. This is what I have to achieve as long as I live in this world. In addition, all of humanity depends on the work I do in this regard, because we are all connected together inside one net.

Baal HaSulam writes that “a person from the nation of Israel,” meaning a person who has a point in the heart (Isra-El means the aspiration to the Creator) determines the direction and state of the whole world with his intention. He can say, “I don’t want anything right now. I’m in a state of descent so leave me alone. I don’t want to hear about spiritual work. I’m going to rest!” In that case, where is his responsibility and the understanding that there are millions and billions of people who depend on him? He is now determining their fate and how they will advance toward correction – whether through painful blows or through realization and goodness.

If these people depend on you, then you have a very strict responsibility to make the right choice because you are leading everyone, be it in a good direction or a bad one. You have no choice about the matter; this is how the worldwide network is built and this is the place you have been allotted in it. Therefore, you must always be in a state of upper fear and remember that you decide what will happen to the whole world.

Later you will reveal that all the people are your children, the closest thing to you! But you have to think this way even now, by faith above reason. Everything that you do is not being done to you, but to the whole world!

How important we deem spirituality directly determines the fate of all humanity. What’s important for us will be important for everyone else. That is the structure of this entire system, in which we are connected with strict connections. A person without a point in the heart does not have the ability to change anything. Only you do, who are called “Isra-El,” or “Li-Rosh” (I am the head).

From the Independence Day lecture 04/20/10, “Preface to the Book of Zohar”

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