Question: What does adhesion with the Creator imply?

Answer: Adhesion is a great correction, unification on the basis of equivalence of properties or “form.” We don’t need to change the substance of the will to receive itself. Yet, this substance has an egoistic form (intention) that is regarded as “evil,” opposite to the Creator.

The will to receive in itself isn’t considered bad and opposite to the Creator, just as the still, vegetative, and animate nature aren’t considered bad and opposite to the Creator. And until a person gets to feel that he is opposite to the Creator, he isn’t considered to have the “evil inclination” either.

First, it is necessary to recognize that your intention or the “form” of desire is opposite to the Creator. If not, a person has no evil: He simply acts in accord with his instincts. In Kabbalah, evil is defined as a property opposite to the Creator, the Good, or the Light. A person can sense evil only when the properties of goodness, connection, and love are revealed to him, and he can see himself as opposite to the Creator.

At that point, a person becomes a “human,” no matter how bad this human is at the moment. And this occurs only with the studying of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Before then, there is nothing to correct in a person and in all egoists of the world. It isn’t the form which requires correction.

Only the breach between me and the Creator demands correction. I must transform the form that is opposite to the Creator to a good one, similar to Him. And when we become equal with Him in mutual bestowal, then, as it is written, we attain connection called “adhesion” (Dvekut). This inner work (revelation of evil or brokenness and its correction) occurs solely by way of the Light that is drawn during the group studying of Kabbalah.

In one of his incarnations (Gilgulim), a person suddenly feels a “shot” into the heart, a “spark” that draws him to some new, non-materialistic life. He wants to rise above the mundane, earthly existence and comes to the studies and the group. As time progresses, he begins to feel how inadequate he is to bestowal. From that moment on, he realizes that his nature is opposite to the Creator. Only then can it be said that the “awareness of his evil” has surfaced in him.

But people usually think that “evil” means being just a bad person in the society, and not being against everybody’s unity with the Creator. Kabbalah doesn’t correct the earthly evil (not helping an old lady cross the street or not giving money to the beggars). This evil cannot be corrected at all; it only keeps growing untill we get rid of the spiritual evil.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: What is selfless bestowal to another? What do I have to bestow to the friend outside of the egoistic pleasure?

Answer: You don’t need to give him anything material. In your desires you offer him support so that he wouldn’t forget about advancement toward the Creator. This is what your bestowal is exactly. What can souls give to one another when they are apart? They can only awaken each other and give each other strength. It isn’t required to fill the friend’s pockets or refrigerator. Only the correct interconnection is needed, and the Upper Light will fulfill all the needs.

Provide the friend with energy, involvement, and joy from the goal for this is your duty. Without this obligation and spirit there is no group. The Creator has made it so that we exist in one place, meaning one spiritual space, one collective desire of all the friends from all over the world. But it still doesn’t mean that we are a group.

A group begins with the promise to inspire each other. Moreover, we are not talking about external actions, but the inner desire where we are interconnected. Everyone passes the collective impulse and confidence in the path to the others, and this is what is called mutual guarantee.

If you lose capacity to inspire the others, it means that you are drilling a hole in our boat. “And if I am tired, can I rest?” If you do, then you are unable to receive inspiration from the others and are drilling a hole under yourself in the common boat, and because of you, all the others drown.

You either take part in the mutual guarantee or you don’t. This is the way we have to strengthen our troops. Everyone and all of us must see how we depend on each other more and more. This is practical work: A person examines his demand for connection with the group day by day. This is the exact point of interconnection that has to become a foundation for all our hopes.

The boat will reach the point of destination, and in the meantime, our job is to keep it safe from holes and see to it that the certainty in achieving the goal and awareness of its importance gets passed on to everyone. Indeed, there is nothing more important than unity and revelation the universal force of bestowal – the Creator, the Light – among us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/10, “In Everything We Must Discern Between Light and Kli”

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Question: How do we use the upcoming World Kabbalah Convention in order to bring us closer to adhesion with the Creator?

Answer: It is exactly what we aspire to achieve. We are building an environment in order for it to affect us all, to instill new values into us, and to make us feel ashamed that we are not yet in bestowal and don’t feel the same way that we will during the congress.

I realize that during these three days I will feel a burning flame within me, excitement and inspiration. Then why can’t I always feel that way? Before and after the congress, I will probably undergo difficult states, ascents and descents. During the congress, too, there will be moments when I will and will not desire unity, when I will be “for” and “against” it at the same time.

This teaches us how much we need the group and the pressure we feel from the friends so that thanks to their impact, we could attain adhesion with the Creator sooner. This is what we should experience at the convention.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: Is it true that one can love another only in relation to the desire for spirituality because in this case I am not required to fulfill another person’s corporeal desires? After all, I clearly see that now I am not even willing to share a piece of meat at the table.

Answer: For now, it is enough for us to unite in our desire to attain the Creator, but later, you will feel as though you are sitting next to your little son at the table. Would you be able to grab his piece of meat and eat it? This is how you will treat the whole world.

But why is this necessary or what will you receive in the end? We usually forget the answer to this question, that is, the purpose of bestowal, and this is why this action feels so artificial to us: You will feel similar to the Creator and will bestow pleasure to Him, after having attained such a great correction.

Currently you have no need for this at all, and that is why an act of bestowal looks forced and unreasonable to you. There is only one goal: similarity to the Creator. It only seems to you that the world is suffering, that there are poor and unfortunate people. But once you correct yourself, you will see that they are all rich and happy, intelligent and healthy (see Baal HaSulam’s article “The Creator’s Revelation and Concealment”).

We can’t comprehend what an illusion all the suffering in the world is. Each person is being shown an ugly world on purpose so he can feel how much he needs to correct in order to see perfection. We see how everyone thinks differently and has his own opinion, but where does it come from? It is the result of everybody seeing a different picture of the world because there is no picture or form: Everything is revealed within the properties of a person.

When I start unfolding the truth, I realize that behind all the pictures of the world, which appear before my eyes like mirages in the desert there stands one Thought which is projecting the reality that I currently see. And this form is so vague, like Fata Morgana that soars in the air and is constantly changing.

I can steer my way through all these fantasies and the unknown only by leaning on the group because it constantly corrects my focus toward the truth. The truth is the attainment of the single force that governs all of the Fata Morgana. Having attained this force, we can understand how it creates all of these forms and why, we become one with it, and work together with it to reveal the true picture of this world.

It is written: “A man will give anything to find the truth.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/10, "The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings"

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Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

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The Creator conceals Himself from us; if not, we would never step out of our egoism. We would feel proud of our connection with Him purely egoistically. This is why He gave us this world in His place.

He says: “Learn to love them, and it will indicate that you love Me!” And then we will become one, you and I, and we will enjoy each other! And know that I am giving you this game so you may see great means of advancement in these relationships with other people, which you and I cannot have!

After all, I am eternal and I am perfect: You cannot come to me with one attitude today and another tomorrow. I am the law of absolute bestowal, and today you are inadequate for it. Hence, you have no chance to approach Me, and we can’t be together!

But, in the meantime, play with this world. I arranged it so as to make you believe that people and you yourself change. I am giving you friends who aspire to the same goal and desire to come to me. It may be a game, but they are able to evoke in you the yearning for Me. You will play with them, and they play with you, and if you organize them so that they would seek Me, it will indicate that you yourself are on the path that leads to Me.

Start correcting your connection with the others and attain love for them, and you will suddenly realize that it is the same as to love the Creator. I myself cannot play with you as you are today. But I have set up the whole world for you at your level! Everything is designed just for that!”

If I perceive the world as such, then this entire world transforms into the means of reaching the Creator for me! Otherwise, no matter what my attitude to the world is, it will be getting worse. It will still try to awaken me to aim myself at the Creator.

However, instead of being my friend and walking to the Creator with me, he will act against me. After all, he will have to reveal to me to what extent I lack connection with the Creator and don’t wish to use this world accordingly.

Life will keep beating me to shake me up and say: “What on earth are you doing? Start using me correctly!” Hence, we see that all attempts to correct this world at the corporeal level make it even worse.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: If I come to a pharmacy and see a line of 70 people, I go to pick up some other items and come back in an hour, when my turn comes. Why do I need to engage in spiritual work now, if I don’t know when I will be corrected? What do I need this for? I can go back to my business in this world for the time being.

Answer: There is no coercion on the spiritual path! If you don’t want to stay, then leave! You shouldn’t stay and hinder others. If you decide for certain that you do not wish to proceed by this path, tell your friends, and they will understand and wish you luck.

If you think that you’ll spend five years bettering your life in this world, and then you’ll return to a stronger group and continue the path together with them, these are false hopes. In five years, you will have to perform a much greater work: You will have to compensate your five-year-long engagement in egoism and catch up to the group in everything it went through during these five years.

Consequently, you are not shortening the path, but on the contrary, making it longer. Do you think that you’ll come to a group that is already in spirituality, and it will be easier for you? However, will you have greater equivalence of qualities with the friends? No, you will reveal even greater differences in qualities! After all, they will go thousands of miles ahead, and you will go ten miles back. The distance will increase! As a result, you will need to wait in line even longer.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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We are completely severed from spirituality, the property of bestowal, but we have a “training simulator,” the group, which is a part of humanity that is willing to exist in mutual bestowal in order to become similar to the Light. Therefore, we have to examine ourselves solely in relationship to the group, and the more we are willing to bestow to the group, the more we get to know who we are.

This work is correct in its basis since another person (whom we hate and bestow upon only in order to receive some benefit) is a substitute for the Creator or the Light. If we understand that the only chance to approach the Light is through the action of bestowal inside the group, then this action evokes the Light that Reforms even though the group is egoistic.

This correction does not require an intention (Mitzvot Lo Tzrichot Kavana) because the very act of bestowal within the group leads to the correction according to the rule, “We shall do, and we shall hear” (Naaseh ve-Nishma). That is, from one’s actions one attains the property of Bina (Shmiya, Lishma).

As a result, we no longer evaluate everything according to “bitter vs. sweet” and instead, shift to the scale of “true vs. false” since we want to regard the friends as already corrected and great and see flaws only in ourselves. Thus, the group is the condition for correction because we can completely correct ourselves from egoism by examining ourselves in relationship to the group: What is the extent to which we are equivalent to the Light, the Creator.

The Creator intentionally broke our Kli and made us feel its parts as something alien to us so that we would learn to treat these parts as we treat Him. He planted the property of bestowal, which is opposite to our desire to receive, inside the foreign parts, and that is why we hate them. The problem is that a person is obligated to examine himself in relation to the environment that he is egoistically unable to view as important, but this is exactly what determines the magnitude of egoism inside us.

When the egoism is discerned within oneself, a person shouldn’t run away from this sensation, but rather engage in the correction through an action in the group and a request (MAN, prayer) during the studies. It turns out that working in connection with the group evokes the Light hidden inside it, the Creator, Who gives us the group as a substitute for Him in order for you to ask the Creator to correct your attitude towards the group.

Thus, we are dealing with only two concealed spiritual levels: the group, slightly disclosed and the Creator, fully concealed. While working in the group we must hide our feelings of resentment and rejection in ourselves, and then with the help of the Light contained in the group, we will discover our correction. As a result, I, the Creator, and the group will merge into one whole so that the vessel (Kli) and the Light would become one.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/10, “In Everything We Must Discern Between Light and Kli”

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We have difficulty understanding the language of Kabbalists. The very subject matter of the discussion is concealed from us, and we don’t know what the Light and Kli (vessel), the Creator and the creature, the spiritual worlds, or the correct and incorrect relationships are. We are unable to compare what is written in the text with reality because spiritual reality is aimed at bestowal and doesn’t exist in our perceptions that are still egoistic.

In memorizing the words of Kabbalists, we don’t get to know their essence, but use the clichés that we had previously agreed on. Even if we bring some understanding into them, how do we know that it is correct? After all, the spiritual states that the wisdom of Kabbalah is talking about haven’t left sensations and impressions in us yet.

All that we feel in our egoistic desire is not related to spirituality. In order to understand Kabbalistic texts, we need to internally jump over our egoism, freeze in this inner flight, and start absorbing the meaning of their words. This is why we need to shift the words of Kabbalists into the realm of sensory perception. In the World of Infinity, everything is simple: The Light fills the vessel (Kli).

However, at the stages of development from below upward, while studying the text without feeling it, it is impossible to visualize what is being discussed, understand, or even mechanically memorize it since we are not undergoing any of what the Kabbalists are describing. As an effect of studying, some ideas are kept in the memory, but since there is a lack thereof in the feelings, we get tangled and lost in them.

This continues until we are able to feel the spiritual states being described to the degree of our equivalence with them in our properties of bestowal. This can be achieved solely by way of working with the friends since love of the others leads to love for the Creator.

While remaining in egoism, we must first discover our hate in the yearning to be connected with the friends; then, we have to correct it until we have come to love as to a bridge that lies over an abyss of hate. Thanks to this correction, the abyss will be filled with the Light.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/10, “In Everything We Must Discern Between Light and Kli”

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Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

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