Question: You say that we should feel what The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) talks about, but to me it seems totally unrealistic. I’ve never felt what is behind these words, such as: “Partzufim,” (faces) “Sefirot,” “Bet D’Hitlabshut,” “Aviut,” (coarseness). Reading The Zohar and the essays arouses a feeling in me, but TES is like “a desert”; I have nothing to cling to. What am I doing wrong, after all I’m trying with all my strength?

Answer: What? You really don’t feel what Bet D’Hitlabshut is? It’s as if a cloud has clothed in you and released you from the burden of the ego, and suddenly you’re floating above the ground. It’s such a force that gives you the ability to detach from the ground, from your will to receive. Aviut, the coarseness, is obvious to all; it’s as if additional weights have been put on you.

Now think, what additional force you need from Above to elevate you along with all the extra burden you now have chained to your legs, and that is how you grow.

It only refers to the relationship between both desires: receiving and bestowal, two forces painting your entire reality, depending on which is greater and in what form they exist.

The same thing takes place in our world in which there are only two forces, “plus” and “minus,” stabilizing everything that exists. Whatever you feel consists of two opposite forces. And you feel them particularly as a result of their oppositeness, to the extent of which you can discern their oppositeness in all types of forms. Our entire reality is based on that, other than that we know nothing.

Actually, there are numerous additional things, but we simply aren’t capable of imagining them. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains the simple truth to us: Two forces exist and are constantly in all sorts of relationships between them.

And I stand in the middle between them and can determine the situation myself. First, I need to catch both of them and hold them. Now, I can decide how to manage them in order to paint a world for myself as I like!

At first, I need to see that no world exists. I have frozen this picture right now, as if I stopped a scene in a movie and there’s nothing else, the film doesn’t move on. And now I reveal how I can build a world like Harry Potter’s adventures by myself.

I build it myself, there I have all the means (desires), there is order to the actions, the rules. However, I learn this program and accordingly compose the reality by myself, as much as I can. The more I penetrate deeper, the more options I have until Ein Sof (Infinity), actually, from pole to pole. So, you can’t imagine anything else because you, yourself, are built in that form. Thus, you don’t feel any limitations in what you’ve been given.

In the meantime, you have been given one reality: small, beastly and temporary, so that you’ll learn to catch it, hold it and begin to build everything onward from it, whatever you wish. You have been given a single image, a frame in a movie; onward, proceed onward!

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches you this construction. It only includes two forces and a system that you are told operates based on the relationship between both forces: Hitlabshut (clothed) and Aviut (coarseness), the force of the Light and forces of the desire. Everything changes according to their cooperation, at one time one force increases, and another time the other does. You are taught the basic rules of the work with them.

Indeed, before you matured and emerged into life in this imaginary, corporeal world, you were taught how to exist in it. It’s the same regarding the spiritual world as well. Only instead of one small image, flat and temporary in this life, the entrance inside is being revealed to you. Would you like to? Go in!

However, it’s on the condition that you build your world by yourself. The spiritual world has no form of its own; you are the one painting it. You are ready, please, go in. You are given two forces to use to build in accordance with the extent of your equivalence of form with the Creator.

You may say that you’re limited somehow because you already get a certain image upfront. Truly, that is where your ability to choose is determined, yet you also won’t need anything else. If you choose the best relationship of current conditions to the extent of your abilities each time, then you’ll always build the steps of the ladder higher up and you won’t feel any limitations in them.

In our world, you actually feel yourself limited in everything. Here there are directions, but not there. Everything is open before you.

Thus, while studying TES, we constantly try to feel more. It’s a kind of physics of the upper world, and of course, we learn very dry, technical details: The Light expands, the desires act among them. However, that’s only because we don’t live in that world and don’t reveal it in our desires; hence, we perceive them as dry. Just understand that we’re learning how to build a world for each and every one!
[68856]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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We don’t go through the level of the “forefathers,” and all that happened at the beginning: “First Man,” Babel, the Land of Canaan, Jacob and his twelve sons, the descent to Egypt. We begin to discover ourselves as already in Egypt. The time before that belongs to the “forefathers” and is incorporated in us in the form of Reshimot (reminiscences, informational genes), our internal attributes.

We begin to work in Egypt until we discover that we are in an egoistic desire and that we have to escape it because we receive less and less vitality from it. Years go by until we discover this in order to escape.

If at the same time we are in a group and we help one another, it says “and the Children of Israel sighed from the work,” which means everyone together. The exodus from Egypt takes place together.

The exodus from Egypt is called the exodus from detachment and separation to connection and unity. It isn’t a physical exodus from a geographic location. In Egypt we discover that we are separated by our ego. All the work in the exile of Egypt is in trying to connect with each other and our not being able to do so. We discover that it is Pharaoh who disturbs us because he stands in our way and separates us.

And then we keep working on the connection, each time discovering that it is impossible. Then Moses appears, kills the Egyptian, and escapes to the desert for 40 years. We work on the connection all the time, until Moses returns, goes to Pharaoh and demands “Let my people go,” which means, let us connect.

I want to connect with those who seem to be strangers now. It is Pharaoh who shows them to me as strangers by depicting them as being outside myself, while I am asking for a chance to connect with them. Let Pharaoh stay. I want to connect above him. In order to do that I need an even greater force, above all his great desire and ego that spins me around as he wishes.

So I have to ask my ego to restrict itself and to stop controlling me. With this demand I come to Pharaoh. Pharaoh answers: “Do you want me to come down from my height, from my throne?” He only hardens his heart, and so I need the Creator to be even stronger than Pharaoh.

This is Pharaoh’s mission, to raise the Creator in my eyes so that I am forced to increasingly appreciate the general power of bestowal prevailing in nature. Only this will give us the opportunity to connect with each other.

We have to imagine what Egypt is correctly. The Creator should constantly become more important for me; otherwise, I will never be able to connect with the friends, and that is the “exodus from Egypt,” and I will stay in exile forever.

Egypt is called separation. And where am I running to? I want to connect above this separation, above the hatred that is revealed to me, above Mount Sinai (a mountain of hatred), and so I leave Egypt. Such an act is called “exodus.”
[68253]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12. Shamati #159

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Question: Suppose that during the time of our interaction we are singing, having put our hands on each other’s shoulders, and someone accidentally squeezes my shoulder until I feel pain. Can I tell this person that he is hurting me? Or must I endure it and work with this pain?

Answer: In this specific example, I would say that you need to endure it.

I must understand that this person is expressing himself in this way. I must rise above my feeling so that my kind relationship towards him would result in the neutralization of pain.

We know that all of these are perceptions, and I would not have felt pain if a person close to me would cause me this, for the sake of saving him. Isn’t it so? I would not have felt pain then. I would understand the necessity for this and it would neutralize the pain, meaning that the goal would justify the means.

This is how one needs to come to this. However, since we are still talking about the levels of our development, then in the process of interaction, perhaps, it is possible to somehow tell about one’s feelings.

But in general as people develop, they arrive at such a state, when any relationship, however it may be on the outside, is perceived by them correctly.
[71275]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

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It says: “There are many thoughts in a man’s heart, but the salvation of the Creator comes in the blink of any eye.” So all our claims are justified, but they should all come down to one claim: We need to reveal the Creator; otherwise, we have no chance to understand, feel, advance, or achieve success. This means that we cannot remain the way we are, not understanding anything and not reaching anything, and we cannot come out of this state.

This desperate, hopeless state is the best; it is exactly the way things should be. It is the revelation of the vessel that really needs treatment. But it has to be revealed as a result of clarifying the problems, the intentions, the “there is none else besides Him” from the start, that everything that I do is in order to reveal the Creator. What do I need it for? Because this is the goal of creation and I bring Him contentment by that.

The revelation of the Creator can only be in our collective vessel, in a collective desire. We build this collective desire from the points in the heart, which we connect when we rise above ourselves. Except for the points in the heart, everything else is our beastliness, and we lower it downwards. Thus we clarify the total structure of our general soul. That’s the way it should be.

The revelation of the Creator takes place unintentionally, which means in great confusion, and it is good. We should only hold on to the thought, to the intention, to the search, and add it to the joy of “what kind of work we, of all people, were given.” You may be dreaming of another place, of sitting at home in front of the TV, in an armchair, watching some series, or something like that. But just think of how special you are of all the billion people in the world, in order to help them, in order to discover Him, in order to serve the friends and in that to find peace and joy.

Now I’ve probably confused you even more….
[71265]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #2, 2/23/12

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Question: Since I came to the convention I am talking with the “Pharaoh” in me; I ask him questions and he answers me. He says: “whatever you do, you are enjoying it.” I go to work in the kitchen, Pharaoh says: “it doesn’t matter, you are still enjoying it.” If I clean the toilets, I enjoy that too. Finally I say to Pharaoh that I have one goal for which I came to the convention, another goal to reach the state in which everyone is connected. Pharaoh in me says that even this connection I am waiting for, is eventually for me. If so, what should I do?

Answer: Enjoy! I say this seriously. If I can do different things for the society, both physical and mental, to think about them all the time and to enjoy it, that’s wonderful. Who says that we have to suffer?

But after several such actions, you will suddenly see that you don’t enjoy it anymore. Suddenly you will ask: “What do I need all this for, why?” and so on. Then “Pharaoh” is revealed.

At first there are the “seven years of satiation,” everything is nice in an egoistic manner. Indeed, your Pharaoh is right, he says that whatever you do, you do it for him. So do it for him, like in Egypt in the first seven years of satiation where everyone works doing everything for Pharaoh and then eventually discover that it is the force of evil.

Why does the evil Pharaoh suddenly appear instead of the good Pharaoh? It is because we advance toward the Creator. As we advance, the desire that previously looked good begins to seem evil. The group is good, the study is good, the friends are good, I want to be with them and to be on duty, to clean the toilets, to work in the kitchen, everything is nice and I enjoy every minute that I am in this society—this is how every beginner who comes to the group feels. Then suddenly he begins to feel disrespect, to explode, not to care about anything, he doesn’t feel like doing things and doesn’t want anything: “What duties? What for?”

Why? This is because the “seven years of hunger” begin. What is hunger? A person doesn’t feel pleasure in being in the group, in being with the friends—and this is advancement.

Everything is revealed according to the order of the degrees. We should be happy and serious and follow that line carefully, and accept whatever is revealed along the way. The Torah tells us about it; after all, the Torah is an instruction (they have the same root in Hebrew); it tells us where you will get stuck and what you should do on the way to the revelation of Godliness.

So you have no choice, you have to enter Egypt, you have to do this kind of work, and you have to come out. Only then do you receive the Torah, the instruction of how to advance more clearly.

This is because the Torah is only about the correction of the desires. You correct your 613 desires from the intention of “in order to receive” to the intention of “in order to bestow,” and then you discover the Creator.
[71268]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #2, 2/23/12

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Question: When you are incorporated in a collective action, you sometimes feel united with the friends even in your thoughts, but at the last moment you feel that something is missing, an effort within an effort, the last drop. How can we achieve this last drop so we can come to the general cry, so that we will be able to open our hearts once and for all?

Answer: That last drop is exactly the point of birth, the point of the exodus from Egypt, and it’s the most difficult. A person is ready to go almost to the end, and then he sees a wall in front of him, something he can’t overcome, and suddenly he has endless excuses. His evil inclination tells him, “You still have to take care of this and that, you haven’t studied all of the Study of the Ten Sefirot yet, you don’t know all the Shamati articles yet, there is still so much you have to do,” and so on.

And it’s the same in relation to the friends, meaning that when you actually reach the point that you can now break your ego and connect, to make the welding point between you and the friends, you can’t do it. To create a point of soldering means that this drop of glue will now fall on the connection between you and the friends, and glue you together in a single adhesion. You can’t do that. At the last moment you suddenly pull back.

Only a general effort will help here. Therefore the prayer of an individual doesn’t help. A prayer should be the “prayer of the many,” when you pray for the friends and not for yourself, and when the entire group or most of the group prays together. But you are telling us about an individual effort. You can tell me about an individual effort for another thousand years, nothing will happen to you. The direction is familiar but it’s wrong because you don’t worry about the connection with the friends.
[71426]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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Question: What is the small effort that needs to be applied by each person in order to open his heart and finally reveal the opening into the spiritual world?

Answer: First and foremost I must include everyone in my heart. You can think it over or keep it in your sensations. It all depends on how you work in the heart and in the mind. You might not want to remain in your sensations; it depends on the person. For me, it helps to add reason because it strengthens my sensation. I absorb everything into my heart and remember that the entire universe is contained within a person, and that he embodies the entire world. I include all my friends in my heart because for the time being I’m unable to include the entire world. If I posses an aspiration toward my fellow friends, then undoubtedly they posses an aspiration toward me as well. We don’t even need to talk about it. I really begin to feel that they exist within me, like a mother that feels her children within.

Thereby I obtain a more accurate perception of reality, which exists within me. Baal HaSulam writes that the picture of the world occurs in the back of our brain and the sensation of the world occurs in our heart. There is no world outside of my sensation.

My heart is Malchut of the world of Infinity, but if I include everyone within me, then I become Adam ha Rishon (the First Man) and the picture of the Creator becomes revealed within me. My material will obtain the form of Adam and when the Creator’s form becomes enrobed in it, it’s called adhesion of the Creator with the creation, or unification of Zeir Anpin with Malchut.

I receive confirmation from every end that all I need to do is absorb all of reality within. I begin this by working with friends because we can influence and help one another. The first opening of the heart depends upon my understanding of the fact that I don’t have another option. I’ve raised my hands in despair, seeing that I haven’t achieved anything. I’ve become certain that there’s no other way to reach the source of life and to attain its purpose. Therefore, I’m ready to open up.

Although it may be that you might decide that you haven’t explored all your options. This is because a person’s egoism always tries to convince him that he can still try to obtain success on his own through different means. Only as a result of becoming totally disappointed one agrees to unite with friends. This is the last thing left for me to do. If I become disappointed with all of my pursuits, if all of my attempts to succeed end in failure, only then as a result of my hopelessness, despair, and extreme pressure do I agree to unite.

This is similar to an infant that would be glad to remain inside the mother, he doesn’t want to leave, but the pressure is pushing him out of her! Do you think that the sons of Israel wanted to exit Egypt? While they were in the desert they already regretted leaving Egypt where they had everything. No one wants to be born into the spiritual world because we’re all egoists. It’s a very difficult transition and that’s why it’s so narrow (Tzar) and it’s called the birthing pains (Tzirim).

It’s said that a pregnant doe goes high into the mountains and until a snake comes along and bites her, the doe will not be able to give birth. The snake represents the worst egoism, and until it becomes revealed in a person, he isn’t ready to be born.
[71428]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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The prayer of the many means the praying for others. You will come out of the dark, only if you worry about others. This is our only work. But see what we have to go through in this world throughout history in our evolution by different blows and preparations, until we attain this. And what is all this for, meaning science, technology, all these crises, the economic problems, everything? From the negativity of everything around us we’ll reach the understanding that there is no other choice but to connect.

We cannot reach connection directly. Only when a person examines his dealings and sees that they’re futile is he ready to exert himself in the spiritual work. Even then he is not ready, but he comes to the group and is empowered there. He is empowered positively and negatively and then he is ready for connection.

Of course, it is done by blows. The plagues of Egypt are all for connection. We experience disappointments as a group and individually, and this is in order for us to realize our own helplessness and to understand that there is no other way to advance but by connection. Only then will we be ready to exit Egypt. Through all the sufferings, all the plagues of Egypt we read about, all the hard work, and when they wanted to build beautiful cities, through hard, thankless labor, they suddenly discover that they don’t get anything from all that. All the years of hunger they experience, all the plagues are on their ego which doesn’t let them connect.

How many plagues do they have to experience until they understand that there’s no choice but to escape—into the darkness, no matter where or how—only to escape? But this work can be done easily. We are on a different level of development than the level of which the Torah speaks. We don’t have to experience all this physically. They have been through all that already. Every spiritual action must have a copy in corporeality, and this action already took place in history, so now it can take place only in spirituality.

So our path is really much shorter. There is only the spiritual effort left without suffering in material bondage, wandering in the desert, and without going through all those phases. It remains only to make spiritual effort and to connect!
[71435]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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Question: All the people who have gathered here and the whole world Kli are actually depicted inside me. They all want one thing only: that I will reach the Creator. So why don’t I want that?! It turns out that I draw this barrier, but does it really exist?

Answer: The barrier is in my heart; it is a psychological barrier. What kind of a Machsom (barrier) are we talking about? I have to change my vision from looking at myself to looking at the friends. This shift, this inversion, that I have to make is called the Machsom.

But if we make mutual efforts in order to start treating society this way, to see it as more important than myself and let it enter my heart, then this collective thought helps me. This is called “every man shall help his friend,” and this collective thought gives everyone the power to carry it out. It is as the Rabash says that in every one of us there is a very small spiritual power, this inversion has a very small power, but together, when everyone gets the power from everyone, we will be able to do it.

We will make collective efforts, everyone on his own and all of us together, in the world Kli, in all its parts, in all its kinds, all of us together. That’s how it’s done. And for sure, for sure we will succeed. Nothing will prevent us. It is our only free action. The Creator is expecting this from us; the world is expecting this from us, although it doesn’t realize that yet.

There is nothing here but the fact that everyone should incorporate himself in others or let everyone enter his heart. If we all think about that, you will see what the results will be. We have come to transcend the Machsom, so let’s make an effort. This is what we are doing here and now.
[71424]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #3, 2/24/12

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In reality, spiritual work is very short and easy if we rise above egoistic intention and want to check to what extent we exist inside of it. We need only to look from the outside because it’s impossible to explore and experience this while you are inside your ego, as it rules over you and bribes you, depriving you of the ability to study critically.

In order to be an objective researcher and impartial judge, you have to be completely independent of what you examine. And this is a very high degree. But you need to try and begin from small things, to evaluate yourself as critically as possible. This is called the realization of evil. You must constantly check what your intention is to any action, look, or movement. At this point, you can immediately proceed to request to change your nature because our nature is egoistic, but there is another form nature: bestowal.

We see in our history how many billions of years were required to develop the still level of nature, hundreds of thousand years each to develop the vegetative and animate levels. Then we see how fast human evolution was as the last stage of development of the animate level that goes beyond the normal animal. It took only 20-30 thousand years. But each degree has its set stages, called the Sefirot, and we see how much the 20th century has added to our final development in comparison with all the previous millennia.

The same will happen in our spiritual development, only much faster. Everything that unfolded in history for thousands, millions, and billions of years can happen to us in a few hours. There is no time in spirituality! These changes can be instant. And especially because we live in such a time when all of humanity (that is, the whole universe) begins to approach the realization of evil of its egoistic intention, its ego, it’s not a miracle that it will be revealed completely. Many people in the world already need this and more or less understand, but just don’t see the opportunity to do something. They all say nice words, but don’t go beyond them.

This means that our changes can be very fast, and everything depends on us. And that is why “we have gathered here to ascend to the degree of man,” who is the master of his intention whether it will be for its own sake or for the sake of bestowal. We just need to catch this intention “by its tail” and constantly analyze in what intention we are, doing only this all the time. No matter what actions we perform, the most important thing is intention.

The world that operates on the basis of action is called this world because there is only one intention. And the world that operates on the basis of intention is called the upper world. If a person reveals that his intention is egoistic, this is already called the spiritual or upper world, however only from the “left side,” from the side of the impure force, shell (Klipa). But this is already a spiritual level, so we should be interested even in discovering evil and rejoice that we have revealed it.

The main thing is that I approach studying in terms of intention. And whether it’s good or bad, for its own sake or for the sake of bestowal is not important; my task is to get deeper into it and live only in it. Thus, I move into a totally different dimension of my life, meaning I discover the relation to it only according to intention. And I worry about nothing else. If we fully concentrate on this, we will find a tiny, narrow opening into the spiritual world! It’s only in this.

The difficulty is to catch one’s intention each time and to stay in it constantly. Then, we begin to evolve at the speed of light! It will hardly take any time at all; this is already labor pains through which we are born into the world of intentions.
[71249]
From the Arava Arvut Convention 2/23/12 Lesson #1 

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