Question: Is “Segula” (the “miraculous force”) a foundation for the integral upbringing?

Answer: Segula is the basis to start with since the spiritual world is opposite to our world, and thus, is completely detached from it. The spiritual world has no connection with anything corporeal. There is nothing you can do with the spiritual world: neither draw forces from it, nor affect it. Neither cards, nor “miracles,” nor red strings will help you bridge the total gap between the worlds.

A contact by way of which you can evoke spiritual impact upon yourself is formed only by tying yourself correctly to the teacher, the Kabbalistic text, and the group on the condition that you are using them to develop in yourself the intention, the vital need, and the understanding of what exactly you desire to receive from the studies.

And then, by studying with a true teacher, the right group, and authentic Kabbalistic books, you actualize your intention. And if it isn’t for that, nothing will help you. If there were no Segula in this world for us, man would remain a beast.

That is why it is so important for us to assess what these three components should be: the teacher, the books, and the group and how they must affect me together in a mutual guarantee. All of this is focused on the necessity to attain spirituality. And spirituality can be attained due to the study which contains a hidden force. This force has to work on me if I appeal to it.
[36185]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: What do I do if I am feeling everything is great, if I don’t have a desire to rise to a more exalted state?

Answer: Let’s take a convention, for example, after which we felt a descent, it was an opportunity to reach an authentic plea, a cry, a prayer. It may be that we need more such actions. Think about it before going to bed and when you get up to attend a lesson, ask yourself: “What for? Why? How?”

Kabbalists suggest that we should take lesson preparation very seriously and take hours if necessary. Preparation is more than the lesson itself. The Light doesn’t require much time; a person doesn’t need to study all day long; one or two hours is enough. If during the day a person keeps building the intention and preparing himself for the encounter with the Light, then what matters occurs in mere minutes.
[36145]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

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We must change in order to attain the Creator since we attain Him in new vessels of perception, in new desires. Obviously, the desires themselves are not new, but they connect within us in a new way.

We have the desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow. In order to reveal the Creator, we must create such a connection between these desires within ourselves that would enable us to recognize Him. The Creator has 125 consecutive forms of revelation, when He reveals Himself to us closer and closer, sharper and sharper. It is 125 degrees, along which we ascend and become able to see and feel Him more and more.

How do we find the Creator? As soon as we create a connection between our desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow, where the will to bestow would rule over the will to receive at the first spiritual degree by giving it a form similar to the Creator, we instantly see the Creator through these desires and their unity.

In other words, I must create within me a common property between the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow so that it becomes identical, equal, and adequate to the Creator at the first, the smallest degree of His revelation. In that case, I will see, understand, and feel Him.

In our world, there are various phenomena as well. To understand them, I have to become more intelligent, acquire additional sense, and study some more. Then, I will start sensing what is going on, in what way, and what these phenomena are.

The same happens in the wisdom of Kabbalah. In order to arouse a merger, a mutual permeation of the desire to receive and the desire to bestow in each of us at the first spiritual degree and further on, at all 125 degrees, I need the Light which would make this change in me. I, myself, am unable to perform it since while I am at the lowest degree; I do not have the slightest idea of what I must become at the next one, like a baby that doesn’t know how it will look when it is one year old.

This is why we are given the studies. We must sit and learn from the authentic sources, and the most powerful source from which to draw the Light is The Book of Zohar. When we study this book together, it is regarded as “faith above reason” if while doing so, everyone thinks about how he will unify with the others. This is because in the connection between us, we create the Creator’s form, the correct pairing between the will to receive and the will to bestow so that the desire to bestow rules over the desire to receive, thereby giving it the right form.

If I wish for it to occur during the studies, it is sufficient. There isn’t a greater commandment, and there is nothing more vital. In that case, I draw the Light so that it would align these desires for me.

It is the Light that performs it. I don’t need to know anything else. So does a small child wish to grow, and that’s why he runs, plays, and does whatever he may. So do I, like a child, do whatever it takes only to get the Light to come, reform me, and bring me back to the source, to the Creator.
[35681]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How can I reveal the root of my soul faster?

Answer: When a person connects to the group, he attracts the influence of the Light upon himself. It exposes to him his opposition to this connection, his distance from others, his disregard, hate, and repulsion from them.

What does the root of a soul mean? It is my place in the system of the common desire which was created by the Creator. I can reveal it only on condition that I am fully connected with the rest of the souls since only then do I understand my role in the common organism.

Therefore, our correction consists of awakening the Light which will connect us with the entire system. Then even a feeling of repulsion from unification helps to reveal our place.

The process of discernment of my place with regard to other souls is gradual and lengthy since a person reveals his true place and role in the common system only after he reaches attainment and becomes included in everyone. Then the power of bestowal in him begins to shape the form of receiving, meaning that bestowal becomes greater than receiving, which occurs because the Light has sufficiently affected him.

Thus, you should agree to receive the property of bestowal and let the Light act!
[36032]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can I, during the preparation period, when I haven’t reached spiritual revelation yet, determine that each day I value bestowal more and more?

Answer: You can evaluate it by your own internal sensation, thoughts, goals, and importance of the group, by how much you appreciate and hear the friends, by how strongly you feel that you need them all the time, like an infusion, and that if you don’t receive their support, you will fall.

This feeling is very important. To depend on the environment is to be free from your ego! You must strive to always depend on the friends and feel them as strongly as possible so that they influence and protect you as much as possible, which means to constantly receive from them a special illumination, an impact of the force.

We need to try feeling that only this keeps us in the correct direction. If the environment doesn’t impact me from the outside, I lose the aim for the Creator.

And then, try to connect everything in one place, in one integral desire: yourself, the friends, and the Creator. I, they, and the Creator should not exist separately, like the vertices of a triangle; rather, we have to came together into a single desire, in the same area.

And if I and they are concerned with each other, care about, and bestow to each other, it means we free between us the space for the Creator’s revelation. He becomes revealed between us!

If the environment doesn’t affect me, I am not able to break free from my egoism and think about something outside of its interests. And hence, to depend on them is to be free from egoism. If the society influences me, I feel how it directs me to the goal.

I appeal to the environment (1); the environment influences me (2); I aim myself to the Creator (3). It cannot be otherwise! If not, I will be pulled back into my egoism. I will actually feel how it is sinking me and pulling my legs down. But the environment will immediately give me strength to tear away from it and ascend, and then I will become one with the Creator.

Every time you feel that it starts pulling you down more and more, give it another round (1-2-3).
[35610]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: When I feel repelled by the group, should I remain patient and not judge my friends?

Answer: You should judge yourself instead of them because the only reason you perceive them negatively is because that’s how your egoism sees them. The Creator gathered all these different people in a group and wants you to unite with them. He evokes dislike of them within you, and your egoistic desire pushes you away from unifying. This is called revealing evil inside of you, as it is written, “I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah for its correction.”

Now I have to attract Light during the study only for the sake of one goal: To unite with people in the group, whom I reject. I don’t need anything else. If my attitude to them changes as a result of the study, that means the Light of the Torah has influenced me and I have acquired the quality of bestowal.

In other words, the goal is not to unite with a friend or to correct your egoism. These are just means. The goal is to attract the quality of the Creator, His image, by means of attracting Light.

That is why things are arranged so that I push the friends away. It’s so I would need the influence of the Light, which will give me the quality of the Creator. Otherwise there is no need for it. That is to say, we shouldn’t think about the need to correct something, but about the fact that we attain the goal by means of the correction.
[36029]
From the lesson on 2/18/11, Writings of Rabash

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When reading The Zohar we have to focus on the connection between the souls because that is exactly where the breaking occurred. We have to imagine the corrected state in which we attain unity among the souls.

The souls are the aspirations to reveal the Creator. Every person who has this aspiration has to desire to increase it by connecting with others. Then he receives the same aspiration from them, and that way he grows.

It is known that with the help of hatred, passion, and the lust for power, we can be impressed by the friends’ aspiration to unite with the Creator, to reveal Him. This is exactly what we want to “buy” from them.

Therefore, during the study each of us desires to attach to himself the group’s entire aspiration to reveal the Creator. This is possible only in the unity between us. After all, I cannot steal a friend’s aspiration. But if I connect with him, then each of us already has the common force. And then, once we combine enough forces, each of us can attain the revelation of the Creator.

However, a connection between us cannot emerge only because I want to unite with my friend’s aspiration. I do not have the strength to connect with him. I need the Light to perform this action.

We are in a broken state where there is no connection among us. I want this connection to emerge, and then with the common force, I attain revelation. This is what we have to think about while reading The Book of Zohar. Everything we study in The Zohar are just corrected forms of connection among us.
[36068]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, The Zohar

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Work in the group takes a lot of time, but a person can approximately measure the degree to which the desire for bestowal becomes closer, clearer, more real, and more necessary to him. He slightly understands that he really does have to come to this, that bestowal is spirituality, that the Creator is the force of bestowal and love. Apparently, the altruistic intention of Lishma, detachment from oneself, is the goal.

The person does not yet know what this is. He doesn’t yet realize that he really is able to attain this. Obviously, he does not want this, yet the game builds an increasingly more serious attitude to bestowal inside him.

That is how we grow, similar to children. At first a child plays at adult life, but then he gradually matures and we find ourselves having to treat him as an adult, like a completely formed individual with mature desires. We have to treat him as a person.

That is how we go from the natural desire for pleasure to the game of bestowal, and acting deliberately, we evoke the Light that Reforms. It brings us to the realization and the desire to bestow, and then we understand that this entire process is realized by means of several factors.

We are not aware of their power very much, and this was also arranged deliberately so we wouldn’t run away from them. In reality the environment is Malchut of the world of Infinity, the system of souls. The more we value the environment, the clearer we imagine our inclusion into this system. We participate in the life of the friends with all our might because we can never elevate ourselves single-handedly. This can only be done by a force from outside, the force of the Light that a person attracts through his environment.

The Light influences me to the extent that I raise the value of the environment in my eyes. At the same time the environment does not have anything of its own. The friends just talk about bestowal, not having anything besides words. But if a person bends down before their discussions as if they are true, then that’s enough. Playing “as if” evokes the Light that Reforms upon him, the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

As a whole we go through three states:

1. The egoistic intention of Lo Lishma in which we attain our egoism. This is a very complex state, which is no longer detached from spirituality. That’s because the only way to discern the egoist in you is in the Light of bestowal.
2. The process of shifting to the altruistic intention, where we play as if the spiritual world is important.
3. The spiritual state of Lishma where the quality of bestowal already reigns in us over the quality of reception.

[36049]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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We read The Zohar and understand none of it. And it’s true, there is nothing for us to understand there. After all, it is for the people who already attained spirituality and feel the spiritual world.

They are already in the state where the force of bestowal, not the force of the will to receive, defines their internal life. In their case, the mind works differently; they have a different kind of sight; they see the spiritual world, and hence, understand what the Book is describing.

In fact, the Book is written for those who live in spirituality, and therefore, a person who enters it can understand it. And someone who lives only in the material world cannot since it describes a completely different world that I know nothing about, haven’t heard of or seen. And hence, these words don’t tell me anything.

What do I do? I can only desire to enter that world, not to understand it intellectually. If while reading The Zohar I constantly think about how to make it effect me and that is my sole desire, it is enough! It is regarded as “Segula” (a “miraculous remedy”). When after all these efforts I will suddenly receive the force of the Light and start sensing what is happening in the spiritual world, I will read or listen to the Book and understand what it is describing.

Then, I will engage my mind as well since at that point I will sense the spiritual world. Using my awareness, I will start working on the sensation. But if I don’t experience a certain phenomenon, how can I work on it mindfully? After all, awareness results from a feeling. In the mind, we only connect the phenomena that fall into the field of our vision and sensation.

Therefore, before anything else, we must start sensing the spiritual world and only afterward start studying it. As a matter of fact, until then we have nothing to feel. Do we have any idea what stands behind each word of The Zohar and what each of them points to: an “ox,” a “whole ox,” a “throne,” and so on? What ox and what throne? These are spiritual forces that carry such names. But it means nothing to me.

The entire spiritual world is the world of forces. The whole material world is a picture that these forces draw on my material screen. Therefore, we should think solely about how to experience what we are reading about. I must ask to feel rather than to understand. And that is possible only if we are together, create one desire between us, and strive for the Light to affect this desire and project a picture onto it.

The integral desire is like a computer screen, while the Light is like an electromagnetic force that draws an image on this screen. I want it to happen! And this is regarded as revealing the Creator to the created being.

[35678]

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Our spiritual path begins from the state of this world. From here we gradually begin to attain its nature, the nature of creation – the will to enjoy for one’s own sake. We acquire a part of this desire by way of the natural development in material egoism from one generation to the next.

Then we are faced by the necessity to acquire the desire for self-gratification on the human level. We undergo the still, vegetative, and animate levels within their boundaries, but the only way we can acquire the human level is by opposing the Creator.

That is where the spiritual work begins: In conformity with the Light and its qualities, we have to transform our natural quality, the will to enjoy, by the principle, “the advantage of the Light is attained from the darkness.” These two qualities develop in us equally – first one and then the other, through ascents and descents.

It happens in the following way: At first a person receives a desire or impulse to something unknown. Then he is brought to the group and the studies, where he starts making actions whose meaning he doesn’t even understand yet himself. However, they evoke a small illumination upon him. And then he advances.

At this stage the spiritual construction HaVaYaH is also present, and a person develops inside it on the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of the human level. With time he begins to think about and later, perhaps even to heed the words that it is necessary to acquire the quality of bestowal. He begins to play this game, doing so conscientiously, like a child. And even though it is only a game, it is called “faith above reason.” It’s as if a person ascends above his reason and seems to want bestowal. In the very least, he says that he aspires to love for the neighbor.

Even if it happens “as if,” he is still acting together with the group and is inspired by the friends by virtue of envy, a great desire, and self-love. He talks about the quality of bestowal and becomes permeated by this idea. Thus, he evokes the Light that Reforms upon himself. A person does not know the entire truth about the spiritual development, but the Light influences him and thus, gradually, he changes.
[36053]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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