Baal HaSulam, Letter 25: It says in The Zohar that the Holy Shechina is revealed to a person who is awarded with repentance, like a loving mother who hasn’t seen her son for a long time, and they made many efforts to see one another, and for that reason they encountered great dangers, and finally they have reached this long awaited freedom and were awarded to see one another and then the mother falls on his neck and kisses and comforts him and speaks to him all day and all night, telling him about her longings and the dangers she had encountered on the way until that day, and how she had always been with him, and had not left him, but suffered with him everywhere he had been, but he could not see that.

Judging by what Kabbalists tell us, the Creator, the Shechina, makes great efforts for us, for the souls, by helping us wake up and to gradually come closer by climbing the spiritual ladder so that eventually we will be incorporated in the Shechina and connect to it. In fact, there aren’t any changes in reality. All the changes are only in our understanding, in our perception, until we discover the good and stable upper Providence that doesn’t leave us for one moment and that never changes.

Eventually a person attains that all of reality is in absolute rest. Everything that is born in his feelings is the revelation of the vessels that have to be corrected. All the changes are only the appearance of the corrupt vessels, one by one. The feeling of the created being in the vessels that are not corrected is what depicts the picture of the corrupt world for him, and of the bad Providence, meaning that which is not eternal and is incomplete.

But if the created being advances correctly, he understands that he has to build external support for himself in the form of the group and a teacher, as it says: “Make yourself a Rav and buy yourself a friend, and judge every person to the scale of merit.” This environment constantly influences him and evokes him. It will shake a person and not let him forget that everything that happens at any given moment is the revelation and the fulfillment of new Reshimot (spiritual genes) through which a person sees the world, and he has to correct these Reshimot.

The environment will help him to not forget and that he will constantly be reinforced by it. So “he who chooses a better environment” according to the Reshimot that can be revealed in him in order to be corrected, will not forget for one moment the goal of his life. He has to discover the right attitude and then he will be able to advance to correction until he embraces the Creator.

The meeting place between a person and the Creator is called the Holy Shechina. The created being prepares the desires, his vessels, according to which the Creator is revealed. Thus we attain adhesion which is the goal of creation.
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From the Preparation the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/13

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Question: Many times someone has seemed to be a great man, but as I got closer to him and got to know him I discovered there was nothing there. When will the disappointments end and when will we really discover greatness?

Answer: Greatness is only discovered in the Creator. We have to work in an opposite manner towards the group, the teacher, and the Creator; we have to build their greatness by ourselves. The closer you get to them, the smaller, humbler and lower they will seem to you. They will not allow you to hold on to them and to appreciate them.

It says, “Wherever you discover His greatness, this is where you discover His modesty.” It is very hard to hold on to a feeling of greatness in spirituality.

Therefore, religions use external attributes in order to raise importance, and every rabbi or priest presents themselves as great and important before the people. This is necessary in order to attract people, since they are impressed by external appearance. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, however, it is the opposite; here everything is determined by the internality. So sometimes the study, the group, the friends, and the teacher present themselves as not being special in any way. Then a person has to overcome the disrespect and try to raise their importance on a more internal level, by himself.

We don’t even act like the great group from Kotzk, who purposefully showed each other lightheadedness and disrespect of spirituality in order to allow for more work.

We have to work on the greatness of the friend, the teacher, and the Creator, although each time we feel that they are smaller. So we have to value these moments dearly, just like during the workshops when we have a chance to be impressed by the mind and feelings of the friends when we don’t even expect it. It is because we are used to humiliating everyone by seeing ourselves as the greatest of all.

The fact that I value myself more than everyone is instinctive. Suddenly I discover that the friends are greater than I, and this shakes me in some sense. First it only shakes me egoistically, but then I begin to value them and to envy them, and then I tie it to the goal and use it in order to advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What does it mean to be impressed by the Creator?

Answer: To be impressed by the greatness of the Creator means to be impressed by His creation since we are not able to grasp Him Himself. It is “from Your actions we will know You.”

You are impressed by everything that you discover within you and surrounding you, in all of reality, that in the meantime you don’t connect to yourself and don’t feel that it is you yourself. You are shown only your inner world in a kind of external mirror so that you will study it better. We need to thank the Creator that He gives us the opportunity to see our inner pictures from the outside, and in this way can learn to know ourselves.

If you don’t connect together with the friends, the teacher, and the Creator, then, for certain, you are degrading them. It occurs automatically. If the importance of the Rav, the group, each of the friends, and the Creator aren’t completely equal for you, as something above you, given to you so that you understand yourself and the reality in which you exist, then it turns out that you degrade them.

You can’t just value the Creator. It isn’t the Creator if you don’t connect Him to the teacher, the group, the studies, and to all the components of this concept, the “Creator.” The main thing is to connect all the factors together; otherwise, it is impossible to talk about anything that is real and concrete.

“There is none else beside Him” signifies that all the rest, except for the single point inside me through which I am able to research the reality, is the Creator. And “the point of breakage” of mine that is separated from me was given to me so that by using this breakage, this special act of the Creator, I will get to know myself and Him.

We are both separated by the attribute of severance, purposefully created by the Creator. And only this one point doesn’t belong to the Creator, so that I will invert it into a point of adhesion.

And when I begin to work on this point of separation between us, it suddenly turns into five worlds, a black abyss that I constantly try to skip over. To skip, means to connect above this abyss that separates between us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: It is written in one of the Shamati articles, that you should not lie; but to unite, we often use a game and even such tricks as lying to the Creator or to each other.

Answer: This is not a lie, but playing being in the next state. Think about it, how can I be good to someone if I am still a complete egoist?

We know that the students of Rabbi Shimon, being great Kabbalists, before starting to write The Book of Zohar each time felt that flames of hatred raged between them and they were ready to turn each other into ashes.

Then, what should we do, take our friends and really “turn them into ashes,” to be true and faithful according to our desires? Or conversely, should we begin to rise above them by faith above reason, understanding that the Creator increases our egoism, and we must rise above it?

How can we do this if we do not have yet the strength to ascend? That is why in our world we are given the animal state when we are in the human/animal body, in relationships with other animals, and at the same time, our points in the heart are either in a state of getting closer to each other or in a state of rejection of one another.

The fact is that we are simultaneously in two planes: in the lower world, which exists in the material, physical form, and in the upper world in the form of contacting points. Our heart is at the lowest level and the points in the heart are at the upper level. But we want to feel and determine our existence not at the lowest but at the upper level.

That is why in our world, we are given a sense of opposition to friends, reluctance to be with them. So, we have to get up and play that upper level where seemingly we are already united and wish to reveal a new state among us. This is not a lie, but an attempt, like children to be adults.

We absolutely do not hide our ambivalence to each other. It is said that all the students of Rabbi Shimon felt tremendous mutual hatred, and then working on themselves, they corrected themselves and reached that attainment which they then described in The Book of Zohar.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

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Question: What does it mean to judge the whole world to the scale of merit?

Answer: It means to attain a level in which I am incorporated in all the desires in the world, in all the souls, in all the parts of the one general soul, to such an extent that it all becomes me. Prior to this, in the previous levels, I already attained my personal end of correction, having totally justified the Creator’s attitude to me in the past, the present, and the future.

Now I attain the general end of correction by including all the souls in me and by being in one vessel with them. This is called judging the whole world to the scale of merit and by that I actually attain the Creator’s attitude to all of them. It is because I am in their end of correction and in my end of correction, and it becomes the same thing. What is revealed in this corrected vessel is called “absolute love.”

Until then, all I have in the meantime is my own vessel and I judge according to my feelings in it. So at a certain moment I can say that the Creator is good, but the next day when something unpleasant happens to me, I don’t justify the Creator any more. I cannot annul myself and determine that the Creator is good unless I correct all my vessels. I am constantly in the slingshot, tilting from one side to another each time.

When I correct myself, I begin to incorporate with all the other vessels, with all the people, with their internality. By this love for them, I reach the love of the Creator. These are not just nice words that call me to love everyone in order to use them as a means of getting to know the Creator; they are my spiritual vessels!

I am increasingly filled with love for them that is expressed by my being able to bestow upon them. Greater desires join me each time, and I work with all this accumulative desire.

Suppose I had 50 kg of desire yesterday by which I could connect to 50 people, and today my desire to receive has grown, and I feel melancholy, but I overcome this feeling and rise, and now I have 70 kg of desire. By that I can now connect with several more people.

My process of correction is by connecting to others and bestowing upon them, by love connections with 20 more people. It is possible to explain this simply, although it actually doesn’t happen so simply, but as an integral incorporation in “circles.”

To the extent that I connect with others this way, they become me and all of reality becomes mine. Thus I see the Creator’s attitude to reality, since it is the same thing, just like His attitude to me. It is like judging your attitude to me according to your attitude to my baby. Because I love him, your positive attitude to him is the same as a positive attitude to me.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can I hold the intention correctly when I am not in my proper environment, for example when I am on the street?

Answer: It’s very difficult to hold the intention outside of your environment. Here, indeed, you need the friends’ help. When you go outside to the street or start doing external things, various problems arise. You begin to be distracted, and if you drive a car, others honk, whistle, etc. so everything disappears because you can’t yet be in two worlds. So, you constantly need to feel the support of friends, as if you are under the influence from yours or any other group in the world.

Our common concern for each other, Arvut (Mutual Guarantee), should be manifested here; otherwise, we will not be able to reach the upper world. If we don’t care about each other, we are not the general Kli (vessel), as it is written: “Each man shall help his neighbor.”
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

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We should always help, support, and respect a friend even if he is hardly working on correcting his egoism; we still need to encourage him to play along as a small child.

When we approve and support him, he feels inspiration and confidence; as a result, he is capable of doing a lot of things. On contrary, when we suppress him and take his confidence away, he suffers, withers, and loses his ability to realize himself.

Therefore, we always have to give support and encouragement to our friends.
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From the Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

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Rabash, “What is Thou Shall not Add and Thou Shall not Detract in the Work”: We should understand that when a person wants to begin the work of Holiness, he must first know what it is about. This means whom he wants to serve. This means that he must first estimate how important the King that he wants to serve as a slave is, which means that he will be as “slaves serving the Rav not in order to get a reward.” But who is the one who gives him the desire to serve the King without any reward. Only the greatness and the importance of the King fuel him to want to work without any reward. So all his work is to depict the importance of the King to himself, and to thank Him, for having given him a desire and a thought to take some part in spirituality.

The importance of the Creator is the only reason that can commit us to the real work. There are many kinds of awakenings, but they all come and work on the part of our ego. Only if we get an inspiration to work and are impressed by the Creator’s greatness, does this motivation come on the part of bestowal. The greatness of the upper obligates us to bestow and helps us to attain bestowal.

We have to divide it accurately into two. All the other types of awakenings, even those that come from the group, from the friends, all eventually influence our ego and evoke us egoistically: through envy, lust, and honor, which are on the part of the desire to receive.

It’s only the Creator’s greatness, which we ask Him to reveal to us, that motivates us. We don’t want His filling. We only want to be impressed by His height and to see His greatness. This really draws a person.

We know that without a push from behind and being drawn forward, we can’t move. Since we are naturally lazy, we don’t want anything but absolute rest. This is how the desire to enjoy is built. Only to the extent that we see a certain pleasure ahead, can we move from our place according to the pleasure that we imagine. Therefore, we want our desire to receive to move by being drawn by the Creator’s greatness, the King’s greatness, then we will undoubtedly advance correctly.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12

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Question: How can I increase my awareness of the fact that there is none else besides Him, and at the same time not turn it into mysticism?

Answer: Only by the environment! If a person is withdrawn, he doesn’t see the right picture. Only the environment can reset him and direct him to the right perception so that he’ll see every revelation as a sign from Above but not become a mystic who sees signs of mysticism everywhere.

It’s about “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” that connect at one point so that they give me the right direction. I connect everything to one path on which I want to reach adhesion with the Creator, and according to it, I clarify everything that takes place inside me and around me according to the level of importance in their relation to adhesion. Everything has to end in adhesion, which means in the Creator.

There is only one way to check if this is right: Does my action go through the group and lead to a greater connection in which I hope to discover the Creator. It has to be incorporated in this system accurately and clearly, like the last piece that is missing in a jigsaw puzzle that makes the picture whole and infinite once it’s in its place.

There is nothing but the Light and a vessel. We are the vessel and the Creator is the Light. This Light comes to us through a kind of a filter, which is this whole world, different forms and manners. But in fact, it’s all the Creator’s actions and influences.

I perceive everything you are saying to me now as the Creator’s attitude towards me, who thus wants to evoke me and to add something to me. “There is none else besides Him” means that the Creator operates through everyone. It seems to me that they exist in this world, and so I have to treat them from this point of view; for this reason, we reach the love of the Creator through the love of the created beings.

But through the group you have a different account compared to the rest of the world. It is because the Creator presents His friendly attitude through the group, while through the world He usually presents the negative attitude. These two attitudes direct you to the goal. Through the group, you get sympathy, support and understanding. By the group you acquire another force; it’s as if the Creator is with you.

A group is part of the Creator that is always with you; while the world is part of the Creator that seems to be against you. Eventually, however, all this has to unite into one whole.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What are the components of the force that affects the unity of friends?

Answer: The total sum of the spiritual force is made up of our aspirations for the next higher state. Each one individually has no spiritual force, but if we annul ourselves relative to others and begin to connect between ourselves, our connection forms the field, the network, in which the Creator is manifested.

Each of us is just a point, not even a vector. A vector appears when we mutually connect with each other.

The force that unites us is the upper Light, the manifestation of the Creator.

There is nothing but the Creator and what He has created—our egoistic desires. The manifestations of the Creator in relation to us are called the Light, and they have the other side, the direct side, Hassadim, Hochma, various NRNHY, fractions of the Light, its modifications.

By trying to unite among ourselves to reveal the properties of the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love, we draw, according to our efforts, His closeness to us, not by His command and desire, but by ours!

The law, similar to the effect of a magnetic field, functions here: I strive to connect with my friend, wish that the Creator is revealed between us, and thus I bring about the attraction of the Creator towards us. This is an absolute law, and nothing depends on Him; He does not decide anything. He establishes one law, and this law is carried out because the law of nature or the Creator is one and the same. That is why, as soon as we strive to get closer to each other, our closeness with the Creator appears immediately. This desire gradually brings us closer, revealing a mutual force between us, as if feeding it.

Similarly, a child’s development occurs in our world; he makes an effort and receives energy and knowledge; he puts effort again, and again gains energy with new knowledge. Thus, we get a regular flow to the extent of our mutual movement towards each other and in overcoming egoistic interferences.

The Creator purposefully created egoism in us, which is constantly growing and changing in us in various forms, shapes, kinds, not only in size but also in quality. Moreover, He does all this in such cunning ways that we forget that everything comes from Him and begin to assign this to our friends, ourselves, our environment. But in reality, He spins all this.

It all depends only on our reaction to discover that it is Him, not forgetting about this, supporting each other, and constantly trying to get closer to each other.
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From a Virtual Lesson 12/23/12

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