Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” item 98: Now you can see that the question the interpreters asked about the Mitzva of love, saying that this Mitzva is out of our hands, since love does not come by coercion and compulsion, is not at all a question. This is because it is entirely in our hands. Every person can labor in the Torah until he finds the attainment of His open Providence, as it is written, “I labored and found, believe.”

When one attains open Providence, the love extends to him by itself through the natural channels. And one who does not believe that he can attain through his efforts, for whatever reason, is necessarily in disbelief of the words of our sages. Instead, he imagines that the labor is not sufficient for each person, which is the opposite of the verse, “I labored and did not find, do not believe.” It is also against the words, “those that seek Me shall find Me”; specifically, those that “seek,” whoever they are, great or small. However, he certainly needs to labor.

It is because exertion is the “vessel.” It isn’t just a prerequisite like in our world, when I can borrow from the bank or steal if I don’t have money to buy something. In attaining spirituality I have no choice, the money has to be mine! This is my “covering” (Kisufa, from the same Hebrew root as money) over the desire to receive, the Masach (screen). It has to be mine, since otherwise, I won’t be able to feel the filling.

We can “borrow” from the Creator and then repay Him by our exertion, as it says: “The store is open and the hand is writing.” But I can only borrow as help for my development and not for the revelation. In order to attain revelation, I must have my own vessel.

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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can we increase the feeling of mutual dependence in the group?

Answer: This also depends on the environment. If the environment convinces me that I depend on it, then I will be convinced. If it doesn’t convince me, I will not be convinced. There has to a massive impact upon a person in order to convince him that by himself he means nothing and will not be able to do anything, that the spiritual path is possible only by incorporating in others, only through connection.

We have to think about this daily, for many hours—that the spiritual feeling is only possible in a whole vessel. We know that there was the shattering of the worlds. The same matter that we feel now doesn’t actually exist; it is imaginary. Even modern physics has already reached this conclusion. There is only a desire, which means a force, and we have to discover this force as one as it was created by the Creator.

We have to aspire to discover it as one whole, by imagining it not in the form of corporeal bodies, but in the form of desires, forces, one collective general desire to enjoy. It doesn’t matter that this force is revealed to us in different manners and that they are constantly changing. These are all desires to enjoy that must be connected. The moment we connect them, we immediately receive a filling.

The connection is only possible through concessions, by “the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph)” of our ego, and after our self-annulment there should be a connection, which is already incorporating in others, an action that is opposite to the shattering, bestowal.

I have to receive from someone in order to bestow upon him.

We use words from this world to describe the connection, but in fact these are Kabbalistic terms that refer to the correction of the desires. Don’t look at people, at the corporeal bodies around you. It is space that is full of separate forces that have to find a way to connect. The connection between them already exists; they only need to reveal it!

By discovering this connection, they discover their inclination, which is considered their exertion: “I labored and I found.” But if you don’t discover this connection, it remains concealed from you. Everything that the Creator has created is concealed from us. He is waiting for us to discover this reality by ourselves, by our exertion, which means willingly.

The Creator created the initial desire and developed it to a whole reality. But then He concealed this reality and left you only a point. Now you need to develop a desire inside you by working with the group and to discover the reality that was created by the Creator. It turns out that it is as if you are creating it yourself, by the desire that you receive from the environment.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Book of Zohar, “Neso,” Item 99: “…and they shall stand at the foot of the mountain.” This is how they will be in the last redemption, under the sages of the Torah, as a slave who walks by the feet of his master’s horse.

Question: How can we bring the slave to walk by the feet of his master’s horse and not the other way around?

Answer: It is up to us. Baal HaSulam talks about it at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“,saying that if we divide our internality and externality correctly in the work, then accordingly things will be divided in our world. If, on the other hand, we don’t divide things correctly internally, then the world will not be divided correctly.

So all the attacks on the world indicate that you are not divided correctly internally; your inner spiritual concepts such as bestowal, love, Creator, group, are not above the corporeal ones. As a result, you turn the world “on its head” by lowering the internality and raising the externality as something that is important.

If you divide everything inside you correctly, no one in the world will be able to resist it. So let’s raise spirituality in our eyes, let’s raise it above us. Bestowal, love of others, connection—should all be placed above everything, and then there will be no resistance on the outside, since you are aiming according to the upper force.

Today you are denounced and rejected from every direction, only in order to evoke you to do this work so that you will raise the internality above the externality.

Question: How can I let “Israel” rule inside me?

Answer: It means placing bestowal above receiving, “faith above reason,” the group above myself. In fact it is actually the group above me, but in constant thought, in the daily care. The main struggle is here inside, in order to constantly raise bestowal above receiving, the Creator’s greatness above the created being’s greatness, the greatness of the group over my own greatness.

Question: How can we fight this war together?

Answer: By mutual help. This is all our work.

Yesterday, for example, you didn’t manage to hold on to an intention, and today? Are you holding on to one intention throughout the day? Are you filled with the Creator’s greatness, so that by the evening it will be your only concern? Does everyone worry about others, about the fact that you should all think about the same thing? The Creator’s greatness is the deepest, innermost point of our connection. It is there in that point that we meet Him.

In one word, if you don’t advance, you will not hear anything new…
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

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Question: How are the right amount and the right quality of the exertion determined?

Answer: Now our efforts should be aimed at trying to see that everything is fulfilled and revealed within the connection among us, in the center of the group.

A person should feel this center of the general connection as an actual reality. After all, it is our first spiritual level. We should try to imagine this connection as hard as we can, in the form of a “crimson sphere,” or as some kind of a collective plate—as a place where all our hopes and expectations should be fulfilled.

It should become the most important and precious place in all of reality. Later we will discover that it is really the most important place, and that everything else are only meaningless results of what we discover in the center of our connection. What will happen in this center at any given moment will bring about an effect that will spread in every direction and influence the whole world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can we perform changes in the group together, so that we can advance?

Answer: We are committed to kindle the awareness of the greatness of the Creator in the friends throughout the day, just like the “burning bush” that is on fire, but doesn’t burn. About that, everyone must think and worry. Even if you succeed to hold on to this worry a few minutes more than the previous day, it’s already a meaningful addition. Don’t underestimate the small exertions, the “pennies” that add up to a big account. These are the additions that count.

Suppose that now when you are impressed, you decide whole-heartedly to advance towards the Creator’s greatness, even though your thoughts throughout the day about what’s important depend on the Creator and on the group, by this you already obligate the friends to encourage you to this: “I am asking you, evoke me as much as you can, ceaselessly, so that the deficiency for the Creator’s greatness will grow in me.”

And you should ask the same thing from Him. It’s only by that, through the group, that you can awaken yourself. Establish this inner demand during the lesson and by that create a deficiency inside you. It seems that the friends will help you only after you turn to them, but in fact your request from the group is your deficiency contrasted to the Light. Everything else was created as an “illusion.” The Creator is concealed in the group and is revealed there, but actually this is all your desire you work with all the time. The group is also inside you, although it may seem that it’s external. You evoke the friends in order to bring the external illusion closer to you, by becoming one vessel in which the Creator is revealed.

Question: So whom am I asking for help?

Answer: The society, since you can’t say that it is you yet. But imagine that “the society is the vessels, my desires, my part, which is separated, cut off from me.” There will come a time when you will demand that the Creator give it back to you, as it says: “It is my brothers I am looking for.”

So we have to make increasing daily efforts that should be felt more strongly and more clearly. You don’t know what stages you still have to go through, but you are advancing, until you feel that this whole vessel is yours, that the friends’ desires are your essence, that it is all internal. When you cease to see the friends on the outside, you will begin to feel them inside you, like a mother who feels her baby, even though he has grown.
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From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: How can I give something that I don’t have, if I am totally in corporeality?

Answer: You don’t need to give anything! You should only know how to fulfill yourself. We are not required to give something that we don’t have. Indeed it says: “Love thy friend as thyself,” but we are not required to feel this love, we are only required to understand where we can fulfill ourselves correctly.

The problem is that we perform many actions in the wrong place. It’s like rain that falls in the desert instead of watering a sown field. Everything has to be in its place. If you sow seeds in the right place, in fertile soil that is irrigated, the crops will grow. But if you sow the seeds in the sand in the middle of the desert, nothing will grow from it.

Ninety percent of our exertion in this life is wasted on futile things. We shouldn’t even look in that direction, but we do…so the problem is not that we don’t have the power, but that we are wasting it in vain in the wrong place. That’s the whole point.

The place where we should concentrate all our exertion, except for our basic needs (food and family) is the group. If we invest all our energy in the group, we will advance as fast as possible. However, we scatter our forces and run in different directions. So we shouldn’t complain that we don’t attain any results. We have the power; we only need to focus it in the right direction.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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In reality there are no separate, cut off parts; everything is one, but we can only perceive a few parts. Every single element is due to its environment; receiving powers and support from those around him, he can express himself in relation to others. Eventually, the environment gives us the power to connect.

Each separate part has to accept all the other parts as one body; all of reality as one system. It’s because there is a law: “Israel, the Torah and Creator are one.” Without the Creator, I cannot perceive the whole reality as one.

After all, if there is a Creator, then this reality has a single root that connects everything to one whole, except for me. So if I feel this one root, I perceive all of reality as one, except for myself.

To the extent that I want to connect to this reality, I can receive through it forces from the Creator and connect to Him. Everyone in this reality has one goal and the same opportunities. It all depends only on how one uses them.

A person has to go through all the stages and can’t be awakened more than he has given to the society as a result of his exertion to connect to it; otherwise, he hasn’t earned this awakening and it isn’t his.

It’s the same with our study and with what the teacher can tell a student. It all depends on the student’s vessel. Otherwise it turns out that the teacher denies the student of his freewill and steals his chance to exert himself. This is forbidden. Otherwise it’s like a merciful mother who does the homework instead of her child. Is this in his benefit? After all, he will grow up to be ignorant.

In the spiritual work we can’t use such lies, since any reward is given only for a person’s exertion: “The reward is according to one’s sorrow,” meaning the reward is according to one’s exertion. The vessel itself brings the Light out of its concealment and reveals it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: We need to connect in an inner form, in our desires. But how can I approach the desire of the friend?

Answer: For you, your inclination to the Creator is enough. Only with this inclination, without trying to dig deeper, do you connect. Both of you do not understand this desire that the Creator “planted” in each of you. But precisely this desire in the friend, and only it, is important for you. This is a subtle inclination from the refinement of the soul. You love the friend’s spiritual spark, his inclination to the Creator. His character and his customs are not important to you; it is only the Creator who connects you, because “in Him our heart will rejoice.” It is in Him. You want to meet in the Creator.

The other desires are connected in a different way; they remain in you and simply are searching for fulfillment together. But practically this is not unity with the other, but it is taking advantage of the other.

And we on the other hand, do not connect only between us. Light comes to us that bestows upon our desires, connects us, and dwells in us, in our connection. And then all of us together are glad that we gave the Creator the possibility and the ability to be revealed.

Therefore, for you, it is enough for you to have the inclination for the truth, for the Creator, for the goal. You yourself still do not know where you are going to, but the yearning exists already, and you need to always raise and care for it. How? By connecting with the friends. As a result of it, enough yearning will appear in you that the Light will correct you, will connect to a big single desire that in it you will reveal the Creator and will rejoice in it.

From day to day it will be clearer to you how to use all kinds of means in order to prepare yourself for the new state. You will not succeed in understanding it in advance, and you don’t need to demand understanding but the force of bestowal in “above reason.” Precisely by this yearning for bestowal above reason,” the knowledge will be revealed you and you will know.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Naso,” No. 93: When the Tree of Good and Evil rules, which is the purity of weekdays and the filth of weekdays, then these sages, who are compared to Sabbaths and holidays, have nothing more than the weekdays give them. As well as on Shabbat, there is no more than is corrected with its help on weekdays.

A man by himself, in his foundation, is just a point. He receives all his “body”/desire from the environment by means of the Light that Reforms. And this “body” is filled with the Light, the Creator that is revealed in it.

That is why Kabbalists write how, through desires/vessels/Kellim received from the environment, a person each time reveals the Creator. Everything what is written in The Zohar are the levels of revelation of the Creator in the desires that we get from the environment.

The Creator is revealed inside desires, within the environment, in the same place. The Zohar describes the degrees of this revelation both from the evil side and the good side, in opposite ways, because it is impossible to try something and feel its flavor if it is not salty, sweet, etc.

That is why The Zohar takes us through different experiences. But we know nothing, reveal nothing, except the Creator. The concept of the environment and specific details of perception disappear, and all this becomes more and more connected in “there is none else besides Him,” in one whole. In the end, we discover one desire/vessel, and inside it—the Creator. And nothing else.

That is why, if a person is yearning to the greatness of the Creator, to have only that in front of him, this directs him correctly.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar 

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Rabash, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend 1”: If a person is very tired and goes to sleep at around 11 pm, if he is awakened at 3 am, of course he will say that he has no energy to get up to study because he is very tired. And if he feels a little weak or has a slight temperature, the body will certainly have no power to rise at the time he is accustomed to rising.

But if a person is very tired, feeling sick, and goes to sleep at midnight, but is awakened at 1 am and is told, “There is a fire in the yard; it’s about to come into your room. Quick, get up and you’ll save your life in return for the effort you are making,” he will not make any excuses about being tired, mindless, or sick. Rather, even if he is very sick, he will make every effort to save his life. Evidently, because he will obtain an important thing, the body has the energy to do what it can to get what he wants.

Therefore, while working on “Make for yourself a rav,” a person believes that it is, “For they are our lives and the length of our days.” To the extent that he feels that this is his life, the body has enough strength to overcome all the obstacles, as written in the allegory. For this reason, in all of man’s works, in studying or in praying, he should focus all his work on obtaining the greatness and importance of the rav. Much work and many prayers should be made on that alone.

In the words of The Zohar, this is called “Raising Divinity from the dust”

…It follows that all we lack is, “Make for yourself a rav, to sense the greatness of the Creator. Then, everyone will be able to achieve the goal, which is to adhere to Him.”

We see how in our groups around the world there are sometimes many people who arrive at the lesson and sometimes very few. It is hard to judge them, since it says: “Do not judge a friend until you are in his place.” But no matter what the hardships are, the reason for being absent from a lesson is still the same—the lack of feeling its importance.

The feeling of importance depends on the group and not on the person himself. We see different groups on the screen during the lesson: Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and many other groups. Sometimes we see that the place is full of people, but usually there are just a few. The reason for all that is the lack of feeling the importance of the goal, which we don’t develop in us. From Above, the feeling of the importance is intentionally lowered, so that a person will need the group and feel that he depends on the environment that should increase the feeling of importance. To the extent that he adheres to the group, the importance of the goal increases in him, and he is attracted to the group and advances.

But if he doesn’t feel the importance of the group and doesn’t adhere to it, then accordingly he doesn’t feel the importance of the goal. Therefore, he will not be able to advance and eventually will leave.

It all depends only on feeling the importance of the goal: to what extent a person yearns for it, studies, and demands the awareness of this importance during the study. It serves him as the fuel necessary for his advancement.

Our main concern should be that we lack the feeling of the importance of the goal, the fuel, the Creator’s greatness, that it should be enough for our advancement, so that I won’t stop thinking about Him, and will constantly worry that the feeling of importance will draw me to the center of the group in which I will find the entrance to the spiritual world.

“Rav” (big, great) is the Creator. “Make yourself a Rav” means to raise the Creator above all the other values a person has, so that nothing compares to it. According to such priorities, a person will determine his daily schedule and his attitude to everything.

“Buy yourself a friend” is required in order to increase the importance of the Rav. Therefore, you should buy yourself friends; pay them by your attitude, by your efforts, by serving them, so that they will help you acknowledge the greatness of the Rav, the greatness of the Creator.

Then during the study, we will have the right prayer for the one thing that we need—the Creator’s greatness. Everything is focused only around this greatness: the prayer, the illumination, and the love. Only the environment can help us by that, if a person evokes it by himself.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12

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