The purpose of Kabbalah is specifically to help us attract the Light that Reforms and feel the world as good. We only need to become similar to the Light.

I and other people around me currently exist in a certain frame of the motion picture called life. When I draw the Light upon myself, I transform this picture into a good one, filling it with light, goodness, confidence, and eternity. Accordingly, I develop in a pleasant way.

One can certainly say that wanting to change our fate for the better is an even greater form of egoism than that of an ordinary life. And that is correct: we aspire for a good life since the purpose of creation was to delight the created beings. Yet, the means to achieve this is to rise above our egoism.

Therefore, our first and foremost task is to clarify how Kabbalah defines our freedom of will. Let it explain what depends on us in particular. Everything else we can investigate out of curiosity as a nice addition, but it is essential to clarify what we can really influence to change. Otherwise, when we look back on our lives, we see that we were unable to change a thing. Did we make our life that way, or did someone else?

We don’t do anything but draw that Light that Reforms everything. All the actions performed by a person are not in his control whatsoever. The only power one has is how he will see them, from what angle: egoistically or for the sake of bestowal. This alters the entire picture for a person.

This is the only freedom we have! There is a force in the world which is waiting for us to desire its influence in order to change our nature, our qualities. It is in our power to draw it and make it change us. Then we’ll see the whole world as good; at that moment the world will change. Everything will turn upside down!

Right here and now we will see the spiritual world instead of this material one. As if through a transparent reality, we will see the spiritual world through all these manifestations of desire, all these people, and everything that surrounds us. We then will understand what is really going on and why everything is spinning around us this way. We will be able to justify this state and recognize it as good. We will see the connection of all that is happening right now with a sublime and beautiful purpose.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/10, Shamati #38

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Do you remember the story about the good magician? It says that stones, flowers, and animals were unable to give the Creator a sufficient desire for the fulfillment that He wanted to bestow upon them, or to return His love and bestowal. Only man can understand Him, feel Him, and be like Him. That is why the two are able to attain unity with one another.

We have to attain the same kind of unity among us, just as this man (who incorporates everyone within) did with the Creator. We have to understand that unity is the best thing that can possibly be, and it is the reason why the Creator broke us into parts – in order for us to unite among ourselves. He tells us: "If you can become such great, beloved friends that you unite as one man with one heart, then you will be able to understand and feel Me, and join Me!"

Clearly, this requires tremendous work. The Torah talks about how the angels (meaning the forces of nature) did not understand the Creator’s plan before creation developed to the final, fourth phase. Understanding comes only at this final, human level, as it is written, "This field has been sown for me." This means that everything is done for man’s sake, but it is impossible to understand the final goal until the desire develops to this level. That is the meaning of the verse, "Do not show a fool a job half done."

Angels are forces inside us which are still underdeveloped and don’t understand the Creator’s plan or the need for this development. Two points – the beginning and the end of creation – are already set in advance and they determine everything that will happen on the path between them. If we unite these two points, the initial point and the final point, then we will immediately reveal the Creator’s entire program from beginning to end. It will be clear, along with all its details. Then we will only have to implement it in practice, but we won’t have any questions or doubts about what is happening.

Nevertheless, there is just one small addition that occurs inside this program: It is called our freedom of will! This is the necessary effort that comes from man himself, where man has to understand and desire of his own accord to become part of the Creator’s higher program.

So let’s agree with the program, just like the angels listened to the Creator’s explanation and agreed with it.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/10, Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot UMasbirot

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Karl Marx, Wage-Labour and Capital, Chapter 6: Our wants and pleasures have their origin in society; we therefore measure them in relation to society; we do not measure them in relation to the objects which serve for their gratification. Since they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.

My Commentary: The difference between Kabbalah and Marx’s methods for attaining a perfect society is as follows:

According to Kabbalah, a person is transformed with the help of the Torah (the Light that Reforms). According to Marx, human nature can be changed only by the influence of the surrounding environment and social relations.

It is possible that Marx was aware that he was only describing the first stage of correction: unification. And that afterward, in the attempt to unite, people would understand their inability to overcome their nature. Then they would reveal that they can use the Upper Light to unite. (See Baal HaSulam’s article “The Criticism of Marxism,” in the “Hauma” newspaper.)

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Let us remind each other of and get inspired by the greatness of the spiritual goal and the environment that aspires to it; let us appreciate the unique opportunity for free choice that we have been presented with. How many people in the world can act freely? If everybody is blindly following the commands of their nature, then nobody truly “acts.” If I’m completely governed from Above, then “I” don’t exist, as it is said, “I came and there is no one.”

There are billions of people in the world, but they don’t exist, as it were, since none of them are free in their actions. Without a person with free will there are no worlds; there is nothing but the World of Infinity. With regards to the Creator, nothing else exists. Only a person who carries out a free action does. Imagine this picture of the world: total emptiness. Only a few desires that arose and are capable of performing free actions protrude into it.

You, too, have an opportunity to acquire freedom and become Human. May we recognize the greatness of this unique opportunity.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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A question I received: Why did the Creator create the world the way it is? Why does He conceal Himself from our mind and senses? Why did He create us to be opposite to Him and to the ultimate goal?

My Answer: He did this because He wanted to give us freedom. He wanted us to have a desire to reveal Him through our own free choice. He wanted us to want to become givers like Him. If we felt the Creator as He is right from the start, we wouldn’t object to it or want to do anything differently.

In the same manner, none of us wants to resist the egoism that rules over us. We automatically perform our egoistic program. Similarly, if the program of bestowal was instilled in us, we would automatically realize it as well, and then we would be called angels, “automatic” forces of nature. However, there is no freedom in either of these forms.

Freedom is only in the middle. It is between impurity and sanctity. This state is called Klipat Noga. It is the middle third of the quality of Tifferet.

The Creator must place us at the point of instability so that we won’t know how to balance, which way to sway. We don’t know what is good or what is evil, what to prefer or what to aspire to. This is where the point of our free choice is situated.

We form a line out of such points of free choice and progress from this moment up to the end of correction. Our only task is to understand the extent of the concealment and its forms and to realize the reasons and need for it. In this way, we build ourselves into an independent being.

The Creator has no other goal except our independence. After all, He needs an independent creature to delight. How can He delight a machine that He created and that He fully controls? However, to the extent that a creature becomes independent, the Creator receives pleasure by delighting it. Now there is someone that He can delight; there is someone who really exists.

That is why He did not create us to be good right away and did not give us the World of Infinity in the beginning. He was forced to create us to be opposite to Him and place us between two worlds. After all, precisely here in the middle, between these two worlds, where neither the Creator’s nor the creature’s rule is at work, in this neutral point that does not pertain to either the Creator or the creature, only there do we have freedom.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The only effort we are able to make in our spiritual work is “to plug” ourselves into the group and allow it to influence us. The environment possesess such strength that its size isn’t significant. What is important is the extent to which I consider it as my own.

We already see that those who are close to us influence us more than strangers. There are seven billion people on earth, but I don’t feel their influence as much as the impact of my immediate family which may be limited to as few as seven people.

Hence, if a person organizes his life so that his environment inspires him, it influences him, and thereby annuls the “authority” of the rest of humanity over him. The rest of the world as if ceases to exist. As a result, a person acquires strength, spiritual discernments, and big desires. By this he has the means for advancement.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter 1 – 1920

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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.
[14473]
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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