Question: It is known that while a man does not become a father himself, he cannot understand what it means. Even the numerous examples in front of him will not help, until he assumes father’s duties and feels responsibility, caring, and loving. We also study the future states theoretically, not understanding what it is in reality to be responsible for the lower degree…

Answer: Absolutely. However, we were given the possibility to realize it. First of all, a person annuls himself before the teacher, group, studies, the world, and the Creator. Being in your environment, check how far you are able to advance in this direction. By this, you will prepare yourself for more qualitative self-annulment.

Question: But this is still not real—theoretical self-annulment. Just as one listens to advice on healthy living until the disease forces him to follow doctors’ suggestions.

Answer: That is why our method contains several parts. The world has an influence on you; you join the group that studies with the teacher by special books written by sages. Here you are affected by a range of factors and, in addition, you have to feel that the upper force is behind this, and there is nothing except it. And then, according to these manifestations, you see how to annul yourself before them.

Besides, they explain to you that in reality the “external” picture is woven of your internal parts of perception: You have to join one of them and reject the other one.

In a word, you are given a field of work and everything depends on whether you accept this or not. You cannot isolate yourself from everyone, “What is a teacher for me? Everything is clear without him. Why do I need friends? I have my own head. I can understand the books myself better than others. I don’t owe anything to the world, it can burn…”

On the other hand, if you feel that you need all this, that this is the projection of your soul, you have to get closer to these parts, include them in yourself according to the principle, “I dwell among my own people,” then the picture appears in a different light. Thus, you increase your sensitivity, go towards change, and save a lot of time. Moreover, your attitude towards change is transformed; now you desire it.

This is preparation, a mandatory stage before the transition from theory to practice.
[102441]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/13, ”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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We constantly go through opposite states since basically there is a desire to receive with all its egoistic attitude, understanding, and feeling. The Creator’s desire, however, is a desire to bestow, and it is opposite from our desire.

We don’t know what this opposite attribute means for us; we don’t know it. We only feel how it operates on us even if we don’t know what it is and who it is. We still have to clarify this. This is why this world was created in which instead of the Creator we are surrounded by different forms and creatures that seemingly influence us instead of Him.

We have to show understanding towards them; that it isn’t them who operate on us, but rather the upper force who is behind all of that turning to us through different people or through different events in life. I have to accept these actions and these influences as essential, in order to mold me, like dough, and to create the right form that is ready to be baked.

If I accept these things and try to find the powers to cope with the Creator’s work on me, I begin to know Him through this work, and His hands that hug me like dough.

Thus I go through two phases: First I agree and am ready that He should perform all the necessary work on me. I feel the strong pressure of His hands on me, like on a piece of dough, until He molds me correctly, in the form of bestowal, the level of Bina“, to bestow in order to bestow.”

I am ready for anything, as long as the Creator shapes me in this from. It is very hard for me, since as He works on me, He applies strong pressure. Then I want to go on, even to the state of to receive in order to bestow, in order to ascend and to rise like yeast. This means that the desire to receive itself already participates in this motion and yearns for the form that the Creator shapes him into. Thus we attain an equivalence of form with the Creator. To bestow in order to bestow is called “Matzah,” and to receive in order to bestow is called “Hametz” (leavened food), the real bread that in its corrected form joins the Creator’s form that is imprinted in the created being.

But first all our work is to accept all the forms that come to us that imprint the attribute of bestowal in us and to accept them as desirable. In order to do that, we should use the help of the environment as much as we can and all the means that were given to us in order to prepare ourselves for the receiving the Creator’s bestowal, His work on a person.

It may seem to a person that he does that, but if he doesn’t use the external support that is meant especially for that, then it is only an illusion that he is advancing towards accepting the upper forms, but in fact, he is not ready yet to become a spiritual embryo.
[102422]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/13, Shamati #15

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In every spiritual state on the spiritual levels, there is the Inner Light and the Surrounding Light. But in our state, as long as we do not attain restriction and a Masach (screen), we can be assisted only by the Surrounding Light.

The force of the Surrounding Light depends on how much we value it, on our appreciation of the upper, of the next level, which means the Creator. But we cannot value Him. We were only given a couple of means by which we can develop an inner feeling of the greatness of the upper. The upper for us is the group, the teacher, and the books, meaning the study that tells us about the spiritual world and the Creator hidden behind all these means.

We begin to value the upper who is external to us by using all these means: the group, the teacher, the books, and the intention of attaining equivalence of form with the Creator in order to bring Him contentment. Although we don’t feel it for the time being, even if we just talk about it trying to feel it from time to time, we raise the greatness of the upper in us by that. Then at a certain point He becomes so important that He allows us to feel His presence next to us.

It’s because everything that is external to a person is the Holy Shechina, the Godly presence. But everything depends on how much we value Him. All the other rules of behavior in the group as to how we should speak, what to demand of it, and how to treat it, stem from this condition, from the need to value the upper.

Accordingly, the Surrounding Light shines upon a person. It is the real upper Light, but in the meantime it operates on the lower as the Light that Reforms, which means that it brings about changes in us by gradually bringing us closer to bestowal. Then finally it will give us the “restriction” and the Masach, which means the ability to work spiritually.

Then we will begin to understand where we are and what is happening to us, but at the same time, we have to work in faith above reason and value the upper despite all the problems the upper sends us and all the reasons for an opposite attitude. This is our work that is based on our great appreciation of the upper until we adhere to the posterior of the upper as if it were His face. Then we will see that it was never His posterior, but that He has always turned His face full of light to us. Thus we leave exile and reach redemption.

At first it was as if you were unconscious, but then you begin to feel that you are in exile, so, step by step, you begin to get closer to redemption and finally you leave exile and come into the Light. These are the levels of ascent according to your appreciation of the upper, and later your adhesion to Him.

We have all the means, all the roads are open, and everything depends on us. There is nothing else that we need. The Creator has given us every possible opportunity and everything else is up to the person. We will not be forgiven and there are no concessions from Above if we don’t do our work, since otherwise we will not build our spiritual vessels.
[102235]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/13

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Question: Why is the Creator so uncompromising with the created being by setting tough, immutable laws for him? Why can’t He be more merciful, like a father with his son?

Answer: A child can never justify his father’s toughness. He cannot understand the father with his childish mind and see the future results and the benefit that his father’s education will bring him. The child wants to play from morning to night, to eat only sweets, and to watch TV. He cannot justify the parents’ constant demands and so he listens to them reluctantly since he feels his dependence on them and not because he justifies them.

In spirituality everything is much more complicated since we don’t feel to what extent the upper Providence treats us gently. In a child’s world, his oppositeness is not an indication of what he is about to become; if a child is obedient and does his homework and cleans up the messes he makes, the parents cannot come complaining to him since there is nothing more they can demand from him.

In the spiritual world, however, it is different: There you are always a criminal, since you arrive there with shattered vessels to begin with. You are treated kindly and are taught the method of correction; a group is organized for you, just like a kindergarten with a caretaker and with different toys. This is huge help from Above and mercy; all your sins are forgiven and you are given support in every way, just so that you will be able to reach correction and understanding to some extent.

In our world, we understand “education” as coercion directed at the child. But in the spiritual world, coercion is impossible. I can see that a student doesn’t change for years, repeating the same mistakes, falling into the same pits, and I cannot say a thing. I was the same way and it lasts throughout the entire path.

This is our path and there is nothing we can do. Unless a person determines the lesson, the method, his Torah by himself, he will not be able to advance. There cannot be coercion here, only recognition.

Therefore, we cannot complain that we are under the dominance of a cruel father despite all the terrible events of our history. We cannot justify them but later we will see that all the actions of the upper Providence stemmed from love. Although we cannot justify this in our current state, since we are too far from that, when we discover the truth, we will see what great correction it brought about.

“He has given a law that cannot be broken,” means that there is one law. There is a Light and a vessel which are opposite from each other, and this is the law. Later, when they are incorporated in one another, the law of evolution appears by this incorporation, called the law of equivalence of form. It all stems from one thought as one law.

Eventually I have to reach a state in which I want to keep this law by my own will, by myself, as if there is no one else, as if there is no Creator. When I become like the same creator looking at his creation determining the law according to which it should exist, it will mean that I have reached an equivalence of form with the Creator.
[102143]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The main thing is to correct our attitude to reality and to understand that all of reality is the Shechina, the revelation of the Creator. Now, however, it is revealed to me as still nature, the vegetative and the animate levels, as human beings, and the whole world that surrounds me that I believe to be external to me. In fact, all this is the revelation of the Creator who, in the meantime, is concealed in the opposite form of what we should see.

This whole opposite picture is explained only by the oppositeness of our attributes. It is possible to correct it only if we try hard to see this reality through the teacher, the group, the books, and dissemination by trying to perceive it as the whole reality, to look for what we lack in order to attain such an attitude and to be strengthened by the environment. Then gradually, by the efforts that we make, as “many pennies add up to a big account,” we begin to feel that we only need to correct ourselves and that everything which is external to us is the Holy Shechina or the soul.

Every moment we have an opportunity to work on our evil thoughts and on our criticism of reality, of the upper Providence, and even of myself, of my attributes, of the inner incompleteness or the external incompleteness, in order to clarify them, to overcome the criticism, and to judge everything to the scale of merit. Then the true, whole reality will be revealed.

Then we will see that all the deviations from wholeness—all the deficiencies that we constantly feel, the self-corruption and the corruption of the external world—were merely forces that were meant to strengthen and increase a person’s connection with the Creator. Reality is now revealed to us as an illuminated field glowing in the Light of many rays, in different discernments of wholeness. Thus a person meets the goal of creation.
[102091]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/13

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Question: When do I begin to bring contentment to the Creator consciously?

Answer: At the stage of spiritual maturity (13 years), when I already have vessels of receiving that are ready for correction in which I can receive the Light with the intention of in order to bestow; to the extent that I receive, I actually bring contentment to the Creator.

Until then there is only the preparation, the state of “smallness” in which we are not required to do “mature” things yet and are treated forgivingly. We demand from a child because we want to educate him and not because he must. He doesn’t have to fill all the requirements.

Question: How many years does it take to reach maturity?

Answer: There is no time in spirituality. “13 years” is a level and we really yearn for it, really want to enter the state of Ibur (gestation), to enter the upper system, and to feel it as a womb, a friendly environment, an environment in which my friends think only about how to help me and the teacher guides us towards the goal. I adhere to them and through them, like through the umbilical cord, am “nourished” by the Lights that influence me. This environment is a womb for me, something round, whole, a round sphere that I am in. I am also like a sphere and I don’t limit anything, but constantly restrict myself in order to adhere, nothing more than that.

I value the wholeness of the external environment, the friends and the teacher, and they reflect and project the right attributes on me. Then my “piece of flesh,” my desire, begins to take on the form of Adam, a human being. The environment imprints its form on me, not the environment that I see today, but a different environment that I value more and more.

Thus I develop like an embryo, constantly adhering to the environment, although I am constantly sent different interruptions and complaints regarding the whole group or each of the friends. I accept everything in “faith above reason” and continue working not towards the Creator but rather towards the environment, the friends among whom I already identify the inner essence.

Then, after I feel them, I want to receive their imprint, their impression. I wait for their bestowal because I discover wholeness in them. I want them to “imprint” themselves in me forcefully. I am ready for that and I make efforts so that it will happen. I actually match myself to them and ask that they don’t leave, that they will work with me and imprint themselves in me.

Everything depends on the Ibur, it is the most dangerous stage in our development. If it is successful, then the rest is much easier. Every time I receive a greater defending force, a stronger force of inner overcoming that allows me to overcome all the negative things I see in the group. It is because I look at the desire to bestow of the friends through my ego and I discover terrible things.

But I continue to rise in faith above reason and tell them to continue working on me, to process me, to continue imprinting me with their stamp. I want it! I lower my head before them and I am ready in advance to accept everything that comes from them.

If a person really wants that, he receives a full imprint and then he is ready to be born.

Question: But, at the same time, I still don’t reach an equivalence of form with the environment.

Answer: True, but not more is required at this stage. It is as if I am standing before a puzzle in which one piece is missing—my part. And I shove my piece of clay in the gap so that its shape corresponds to the contours of the other parts.

How do you do that? I ask the friends to push me on all sides, to squeeze me, to knead me, and to push me into the group until I take  the right form. This form is the right “me” together with all the Sefirot and Partzufim, with all the right components.

The Creator is revealed in this puzzle when it is whole. We design the correct desire, build the corrected Malchut, and in it we discover the Creator according to the principle of “come and see,” Bo-re (Creator in Hebrew). There is no other way; we can only do it together, only if we put together at least one piece of the human puzzle. The bigger this piece is, the greater the revelation will be.

Question: How important is it that I enter this puzzle consciously?

Answer: You must agree that the group will imprint itself, its external form, in you. In order to do that you have to agree with the friends on every issue that is related to spirituality, value them as the greatest in our generation, ask them to influence you, and lower your head before them since the Creator lives in them.

Question: But if I see something that is totally opposite…

Answer: This is exactly our work. The egoistic desire remains (in black), but on the outside, it takes on a form, the form of bestowal (in red). This is our spiritual education, which is a “formative” education. Simple matter that is a desire to receive isn’t enough. Everything depends on the form; when two different types of matter make different forms, we receive an education which means that we begin to understand reality.

Question: Why is it so hard for us to be incorporated in the spiritual environment?

Answer: Because here the evil inclination is increasingly revealed to me. Each time new “thorns” are revealed and I have to take on a new form each time, to give in, to annul myself, and to look at all these problems in faith above reason.

Only yesterday everything was fine but today it isn’t anymore, and I have to work on myself again in order to see, in the obstacles, the right forms that belong to the embryo’s body. The next day, the hardships increase and demand that I change my attitude. Thus I constantly rise above the interruptions in faith above reason and correct myself.

[102033]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How do you suggest we prepare for the convention in Germany at the end of the month?

Answer: We should understand that on the first level we are in now we are operating in the framework of time, motion, and place. These are corporeal limitations against which we are powerless for the time being and are under their strong influence.

When we get to the spiritual levels it will be much easier and we will not have to feel the corporeal presence. We will already live in a different reality; the spiritual life will be part of the corporeal life.

In the meantime I don’t see any way of leaping over time and distance. This problem is only on the current level of preparation.

The first spiritual level already brings us together internally, totally freeing us from corporeal limitations. But in order to break through to the spiritual world, we have to work on this current level and to connect as if time and place do not exist.

It is exactly for this reason that we have workshops and conventions, which unite us, connect us physically, and strengthen the ties between us. There is no other choice since this physical feeling still operates on us. It isn’t by chance that this world was created, and it isn’t by chance that we feel this first level in it. Without any contact between the shattered desires, without being able to feel one another, we wouldn’t be able to advance.

It is just like a corporeal couple in which a man and a woman have to be together, not just next to one another, but actually enter one another. We have to learn from these corporeal examples that the new continuity is born of this close connection.

So we have to come to the convention and reach this strong embrace. It doesn’t matter if we actually embrace one another or not, what’s important is that we will actually feel the closeness by sitting next to each other, by studying together, by eating, singing, dancing, and having discussions. There has to be a physical contact of at least two or three days a year or every couple of months. This already leaves an impression that enables us to later feel it over and over again as and to feel one another better.

If we never see each other, we don’t use the means we were given. It is impossible to advance without it. Kabbalists were always together. Baal HaSulam brought equipment for tanning hides to Israel and wanted to open a small plant for tanning in Jerusalem. He thought that his students would work on these machines, make a living, and also study there.

Tanning is a dirty work accompanied by a terrible stench. It is impossible to be near a tanner because of this smell; Baal HaSulam wanted to open this plant so that people would keep away from his group. Usually such plants are far from the living quarters of a city.

He worked as a rabbinical judge in Warsaw, but he decided to deal with this dirty work because he dreamed of a close Kabbalistic group.

This means that it is impossible to succeed without physical contact. I cannot imagine a student who refuses to come to the convention and meet with me although he can. If a person has a will, then he will be ready to walk for a month if he has no money for a plane or train ticket. I remember that many times on the way to Rehovot (where I used to live) my car would get breakdown since it had a problem with the carburetor. Then I would leave the car on the side of the road, hitchhike to a certain point, and then walk the rest of the way. All this is also part of one’s exertion.

But without physical contact, without sitting next to each other at the table during the lesson or in a workshop, singing together or dancing, it is impossible to advance.
[102023]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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According to the Creator’s part, you are always in a corrected state. But according to how you see it and understand things, it appears very different and this is the flaw. Absolute good comes from the Creator, but He has to hide it and reduce His bestowal upon you so that it will not seem so bad. It is because you are opposite from Him and you receive everything in an opposite manner.

So the Creator cannot pour infinite bestowal upon you since you would feel an infinite minus and would not be able to bear this horrible state. Therefore, the Creator has to diminish Himself, by reducing Himself to practically zero level, leaving only a tiny spark to sustain life, a tiny drop of Light. And even this minimal Light is perceived by you as a cruel world full of evil and pain.

Gradually, through the study and the influence of the friends and the teacher, according to your efforts, the Light comes, reforms you, and changes begin to occur in you. Then you gradually find out that you are actually in a good state and that you feel it as bad because of your uncorrected attributes. Then you begin to work in order to change yourself by using all the means you have: the group, the study, dissemination, and the teacher.

If you work correctly and make efforts in order to see yourself in a state of bestowal, love, and connection, through the teacher, the study, and by yearning for the Creator, then it operates on you. It is not immediate of course, but gradually you discover that bestowal and love, the best attitude, surround you; finally you understand, feel, and interpret this correctly.

Thus you rise to your first spiritual level. You agree with the Creator and see that all the powers you have invested were for the correction of your perception, for the correction of your vessels. You didn’t have to pay anyone, but you corrected yourself. Thus you have corrected the vessel of perception and now you feel a whole state.

You have to feel the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), the perfection in the current state without changing anything in it, except for your inner attitude. If you don’t feel that, it is a sign that you are cursing the Creator instead of thanking Him and blessing Him.

We can say that about every state, no matter how terrible it is. Nothing changes in reality, except for our attitude, which is called the correction of the vessel of perception.
[102017]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is the difference between spiritual cooperation and a corporeal, egoistic union?

Answer: A union of egoists will produce an egoistic outcome. Suppose a group of people get together to beat up someone. In this case, they certainly would get some benefit for themselves. The same thing is true in business and everything else where the strong win over the weak.

And how is an altruistic connection manifested? How can they connect at all? I want to give, you want to give, he wants to give, but where, and to whom do we give? Can we give to someone on the outside? Then, we would not be understood at all.

When altruists come together, they create an altruistic field between them where they discover a good force called “Nature” or the “Creator.”

They reveal this force between them, between their mutual altruistic movement, and it turns out that their achievement is felt as attainment of eternal life beyond our world, above our world. They exist in a new dimension, in a new field created by them as part of a “spiritual bubble,” and they exist in it.

Out of this “spiritual bubble,” which they created between them through mutual altruistic movement, they do not see our world the way an ordinary person sees it. They do not see matter and images, but the forces that are behind our bodies and the objects of this world. They have a completely different perception of reality.

They feel the matter of our world not only through their five senses, but also through the general property of bestowal that they have achieved, and they see the forces that govern the universe. This is called: They have reached their soul. That is why a union of altruists, in contrast to a union of egoists, takes them to the next level, the next dimension.

Question: Do they set this goal, or is it the result of the action?

Answer: They set an absolutely clear goal for themselves: to reach the level of the property of bestowal, the level of the altruistic upper world. This is the goal from the side of the Creator and from the side of man.
[102005]
From the Virtual Lesson 3/3/13

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Baal HaSulam, “A Sage’s Fruit”: During a common prayer a person is prohibited to separate from the others and to ask for himself, even if he wants to bring pleasure to the Creator, but he is going to do it himself, and not with the others. After all, he who disconnects from society and asks for his own individual soul does not build it, but on the contrary, he damages his soul, by becoming the “proud man, with whom the Creator cannot be together.”

It’s not easy to overcome this difficult psychological problem. Our ego does not allow us to understand, to remember, to learn, and to adopt the rule that only by coming out of the boundaries of our body will we find the vessel of our soul. And everything that I psychologically see now as my “I” exists only in my fantasy so that I must cancel this thinking, annul myself, and see myself outside of it.

To accept this fact, this worldview, and to live with it, we need the strong support of the environment and studies and hard work in mutual guarantee. Any action of correction starts from this because every time more egoism is added to us, we have to work with this additional load in order to decide that, in spite of it, our vessel is above it.

These messages: “That which is hateful to you, don’t do to others” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself” seem to us simple rules of courtesy, “cultural” behavior, moral homilies. But no, we talk about an internal orientation that must exist in a person if he wants to find his inner part, his soul, and begin to correct it.

That is why the one who prays for himself not only does not advance in spirituality, but also causes great harm to himself because by this he cuts himself off from the others, worsening the breaking. Although it’s clear that negative actions are also inevitable because a person needs to come to the realization of evil before he understands and feels that this is an incorrect attitude.

But we are about to complete this work, and that is why we must understand and constantly reinforce the general opinion that spiritual existence, advancement, and the result of work are only in “We,” not in “me,” but only between us. This where we need to draw all our forces, trying to accustom ourselves to this view and replace ourselves with “We” in order to live inside the soul.
[101778]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/13

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