Question: The Russian experience shows that egoistic unification leads to great problems. On the other hand, we come to study Kabbalah as egoists, and I am very afraid that by trying to unite we may repeat the same mistake.

Answer: First of all, I urge you not to fear anything! There is a song: “The world is a very narrow bridge, but the key is not to be afraid of anything.” On one hand, it is a narrow bridge, but on the other, don’t worry, you will cross it.
There are two principles that lay ground for success:

• Principle 1: Consistency in studying, connection with friends, and dissemination.
• Principle 2: Connection with the group in the manner that its inner essence becomes the environment that sustains your spiritual development.

As a result, we will be able to realize all that Kabbalists have prescribed: “to become as one man with one heart,” “to love others as you love yourself,” and from unfounded hate come to brotherly love. If you adhere to these two principles: 1. consistency in studying and effort aimed at unification and 2. the group as the environment for your spiritual advancement, then you have nothing to fear; nothing bad will happen to you.

And all these thoughts will emerge as obstacles so that you stick to the goal evermore.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “The Freedom”

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My Good Environment – Questions of the Day

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Question: Is it necessary for every one of us to concede in order to achieve peace in the world?

Answer: The question is: What are we willing to sacrifice? We must sacrifice our egoism, hate, and resentment. Concession is like overcoming an obstacle. Only in this case, I overcome my inner qualities, my nature, and yield to my connection with someone else.

Rabash repeatedly said that love is not an animate sensation that arises in us naturally, under the pressure of hormones. Spiritual love is something that we create ourselves since it is doesn’t exist a priori. It is built on the basis of concessions.

A person overcomes himself, receives the attributes of the Creator, and while doing so, he starts realizing who he is going to connect with. This is how love for someone is born within him.

In the degree that a person loves the Creator, he loves the friend since only with the friend’s help can he realize his love for the Creator. It is similar to how love is built on mutual compromise in the family. One shouldn’t get married because he or she “fell in love,” which is not love but deception that will not last.

Yet if two people understand that they should form a union for the sake of an exalted goal, they will concede to each other. This will be part of their spiritual work since they will be tied by the goal, and then they will build love between them.

This will be authentic love that will lead them to love for the Creator. After all, it is the Creator who will obligate them to yield to each other and establish mutual connection of love.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, “Peace in the World”

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Question: We know that one component that refers to the “speaking” degree of nature equals the sum of all components of the animate degree. In that case, if there is just one living Kabbalist in our generation, why should we all strain ourselves?

Answer: In order for one such person to appear, all the others must exert themselves. After all, neither Moshe (Moses), nor Abraham, nor anybody else could reach full correction of the world because humanity hasn’t yet undergone the process of mutual interconnection.

The Tower of Babel hasn’t fallen yet, the ruining of the First and the Second Temples hasn’t occurred, and the blending of the souls of Israel with the nations hasn’t come to pass. It is written, “The people of Israel came into exile solely to incorporate the souls of the nations into themselves.”

The Israel (straight to the Creator) souls have to connect with the souls of the nations and mix with them to such an extent that on the inner level, there won’t be any difference between them. We can’t see it, but, as of today, it has been done.

Look how many people from the nations of the world are waking up to correction. Why would they? This is taking place because of the mutual inter-inclusion of the souls. In order to accomplish this, it was necessary to undergo all phases of exile and especially the last one.

This is why, today, the points in the heart are emerging. Only we, now, after having completed the entire process of mutual inclusion, are able to perform the corrections. If we make an effort all together, then we will surely become one soul.

When you hear that the corrections will be done by someone, it means that we will become as one, and we all will obligate him to include himself into all. In other words, one is the same as all, and this is what mutual inclusion is all about.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “The Integration” 10/27/10

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If we wish to instill good changes in the world, not through the legislature or by force, but realistically, then these changes must take place in a person’s consciousness. It is necessary to bring to public attention that the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about a person and his transformation through personal choice and by realistic methods.

We are expanding the groups and the outward circulation of Kabbalah, but the key to success lies in mutual inner connection. We represent a certain part of humanity that is connected with all the other parts. Therefore, the unity that we achieve among us will spread like light through the channels of communication without our and the others’ awareness.

Then, people will easily and naturally feel that the force of unity lives within us. This is what the correct circulation of Kabbalah is.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/5/10, “The Matter of Shechina”

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Question: When does evil become an obstacle on a person’s way?

Answer: It happens when a person identifies it as the “evil inclination.” At first, I don’t consider my egoism to be bad. On the contrary, I serve it as much as I can. It helps me and provides the sensations of life. Without it, I stop existing.

If a person loses his appetite because of some illness, we urge him to eat a little. If a person loses his sexual drive, he tries to cure himself by using various remedies. No one can survive without pleasures; one has to receive delight.

Food, sex, family, wealth, respect, and knowledge constitute all of my life, and I want to have a good bite of everything. If I lose the desire to receive pleasure, I become desperate and almost feel that I am dying. For this reason, when it’s time for a person to transcend this world, pleasure is taken away from him. He feels that he has nothing to live for. He simply cannot enjoy the desires that are at his disposal. Where can he find fulfillment?

At the same time, he is given a spark of a much higher spiritual desire, which by itself directs him to the wisdom of Kabbalah, a remedy that enables him to achieve a new kind of delight. A person is being lead to a group, and at first, he awaits much stronger egoistic pleasures. “Give me angels, reveal spiritual worlds, bring the Creator to me on a tray, and so on.”

As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” before a person reaches a state called “thirteen years old,” he is ready to “swallow” all the material world. After reaching the degree of “thirteen years old,” he switches to pleasures of the world to come.

This is natural since we cannot enter spirituality without a full-grown desire that is eager to consume everything there is and preside. I demand that the Creator serve me, and I claim, “Why did He create this world ‘as is?’ Why doesn’t he fulfill me properly?” Later, a person begins to realize how opposite he is to the Creator. It is an immense egoistic desire that brings him to this understanding.

The same happens in this world: A small crook doesn’t consider himself to be a criminal. We, too, think of ourselves as being “innocent.” However, similarly to Pharaoh, a real, mature recidivist admits before robbing someone, “Yes, the Creator is righteous, but we are sinners.”

Thus, before the desire manifests itself to its fullest extent, a person has no way to realize that he is “bad.” It is not easy to comprehend that it is the Creator who made the evil inclination.

How many people in the world can admit that they are “bad?” On the contrary, all of them think that they are “righteous,” even “saints.” It needs much work and effort and lots of Light from Above to make a revealed ego manifest its wickedness.

It is important that we divulge our evilness only relative to the Creator, rather than to other people. I am bad only compared to the Creator, to the property of bestowal. I figure out that the desire to receive pleasure, the urge to receive instead of give, hatred toward others, the desire to take advantage of them, is, in fact, what we call “the evil inclination.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/10, “The Creator Created the Evil Inclination, and He Created the Torah as A Spice”

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It is written: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” This phrase contains the entire itinerary of my inner changes, corrections. I possess not a mere desire, but an evil one. How so? It is evil because it isn’t aimed to the Creator. I don’t see value in bestowal.

However, is it really bad in my eyes not to be in bestowal? Surely, it feels good to be receiving. As to bestowal, it makes me feel quite uneasy. What should I do? There is no need to change the world since I am the whole world. Hence, all I need to do is change my own values.

Presently, I value the opportunity to receive. This is the essence of my whole life, my credo, the instinctive and rational approach to everything I do. Yet, further on, I have to perform an inner transformation and replace the value of receiving with the value of bestowal.

Thereby, I identify with the Creator and aspire to come closer to Him. I contemplate how to bestow to Him and transform myself into the vessel that receives His good. As I do to Him, so does He to me.

For this reason, the Torah is given to us as a spice, the wisdom of Kabbalah, that will eventually allow us to change the order of priorities, having placed bestowal, not reception, on the top of the list. Naturally, we can’t even think about something like this; we resist it kicking and screaming. Even when we are presented with an opportunity to do so, we avoid it at all costs.

Therefore, we were given an environment. Out of poor little egoists, the Creator formed a society that keeps talking about bestowal and love of others. Why mere talking? It is because everything else is up to a person.

A person first has to start viewing his friends in a different light, not to force them to bestow, but to change his attitude toward them. On the outside, they will always remain only “speakers,” but everyone has a chance to see greatness, bestowal, love of others, and oneness of hearts in them.

Everyone is free to see in the group what they will. If a person understands that this is his chance, then the friends’ “talking” is viewed by him as the most important aspect in life, the most exalted value. Suddenly, the environment starts affecting him, filling him with awareness of the value of the Creator or bestowal.

Self-imposed motivation brings real results, and the person draws the corrective force of the Torah to himself. This entire process lies in his own hands; he doesn’t need anything. The Creator has provided him with the desire and led him to the group, but a person arranges everything else by his own effort, not forcing anyone to do anything.

Everything depends on attitude. Some relate to the group with their egoistic benefit in mind; others keep “earning” the value of bestowal through it. There are many variables between the two. Herein lies the free will of a person: Does he acknowledge the group as a means of elevating the Creator in his own eyes?
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/10, “The Creator Created the Evil Inclination, and He Created the Torah as A Spice”

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The Light always brings me a sensation of the gap between the Light and the desires. It always gives me a bad sensation and it cannot bring me anything good. Firstly it always gives me a realization of evil, which is the truth. As much as I am able to ascend above the sensation of “bitter versus sweet” to the analysis of “true versus false” in order to clarify the truth in spite of the bitter taste, to that extent the Light is able to influence me.

But where will I get the strength to hold on to the truth so strongly even when I feel bad? I can only receive this additional force from the environment. Therefore it’s pointless for us to cry out to the Light. The Light influences us to the degree we are ready for it. It can wait a thousand years until we are prepared by way of very slow, gradual development, or it can drastically increase its influence at every second if we are ready for it.

There is no delay from the Light’s end. The delay depends only on how ready I am to tolerate the gap between the Kelim and the Lights, to be “above knowledge,” above the bodily suffering, when I am ready to be in the truth even if it’s bitter. Indeed, it really is bitter not to use the Kelim of reception, the desire for one’s own sake, while remaining in the intention of bestowal.

Therefore, we do not have any other means to speed up our development other than to connect with the environment. However, connection with the environment is also extremely painful. I cannot overcome myself. I can spend thousands of hours pleading with my friends to unite, but it will all be nothing but words. After that I stumble across my inner wall and am unable to do anything more than words.

However, if we at least try to do this together, then each person receives an impression from the others and thus reaches the point of truth: that he is unable to do this and must break precisely through this wall. Then he demands it from the Light that Reforms.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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We evaluate everything solely by how fulfilling it is for us, and there are two types of fulfillment: for our own sake and for the sake of bestowal. If I wish to please myself, I cannot receive more than our material world. I have an enormous vessel (desire), but all that I am able to receive in it is a tiny part called “this world.” And even that which I am able to receive is comprised of temporary pleasures that enter me and immediately depart. And this is my entire life.

Thus, in the course of history, I continued seeking pleasure at an increasingly higher level: still, vegetative, and animate. But in the end, I felt even greater emptiness. At first, my desire was small and gradually grew more and more until it reached its limits: the twenty-first century.

There are no greater egoistic fulfillments at this point because I have reached the limit at the degree where I consume, absorb. Hence, I ask: “What have I achieved in all of my history, in thousands of my incarnations (Gilgulim)? What is the purpose of my existence in this world for thousands of years?” The informational records (Reshimot) about the journeys made have been preserved in me, and therefore, I demand an answer.

And at this point, one special informational gene (Reshimo) unfolds in me by which I suddenly begin experiencing my outside part of the will to receive (desire) that pulls me forward, toward further development. But first, I approach this new external desire in an old fashion and check how I can receive into it, absorb something. I don’t understand that it needs a totally different approach, and the pleasure must come not from receiving, but from giving.

It takes time for me to get adjusted to this new thought, begin to comprehend it, and transition to the outside from inside. This is what we refer to as the time of preparation, when I gradually come to understand that pleasure lies in bestowal, not reception.

Baal HaSulam regards this as the “psychological barrier” (Machsom). I must agree that the act of mutual connection and bestowal, a thought about someone else, can bring pleasure. We start doing such exercises in the group, gradually absorbing the exalted nature of bestowal.

If we remained in this alone, we would repeat the communist experience in Russia. But we have one more component, the Light that Reforms, and it constantly affects us to the extent of our effort. It is this Light that reforms our nature! I suddenly begin to truly value bestowal and feel pleasure in it.

This is called a miracle. I suddenly discover that there are infinite hidden pleasures in bestowal, and the ability to bestow is limitless! But the most important and confusing component for us is the Light that Reforms. In the meantime, it still eludes us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/10, “The Freedom”

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