What does escaping from yourself, from your Egypt mean?

I grab onto everything that I can possibly carry and run just to hide myself. But where is there to run, if there is sheer Egyptian darkness around me? I am locked within my desire, so where can I run from it? After all, I don’t have anything else.

I may be incapable of doing this on my own, but I need to aspire to it. Otherwise, I have no chance to survive. A person takes all the vessels of the Egyptians and runs from Egypt at night, in the dark. Where can he run if there is darkness around him? The next state is also dark, but he feels that it is closer to freedom.

Even if I hate others right now and I am not connected to them, I still know that the next state is more advanced. In other words, I come out of my desires into the desires of my neighbor as much as I possibly can. I simply run away. However, I don’t see any Light in them for the time being. I need to show my readiness to come out of them in spite of the darkness.

I achieve the Final Sea (the Red Sea), and I’m ready to jump into it, since I see that there is nothing shining to me in the back, and I am incapable of remaining in my ego any longer. I am ready to kill it just to enter the common desires, the desires of my neighbor.

Despite the fact that I won’t receive anything for myself there, I see that the next degree, a spiritual one, is situated there. A person understands that the external desires of other people are a higher degree in regard to one’s own, inner desires.

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We are in the seven special days of the holiday of Passover.Throughout these days we must maintain a correct, uninterrupted intention, because this is a special time. We don’t celebrate religious rituals or customs. We are very distant from actions people carry out simply because they were taught to do so as children, or because they are driven by egoistic goals to receive a reward, either in this world or the next.

First and foremost, those who study Kabbalah want to reveal the Upper World and the spiritual actions, and only after they see their consequences (branches), they are prepared to also respect and observe them with the same intention as the spiritual actions above.

Abraham and his students were the first to attain the connection between the roots and the branches. Before then, Abraham was an idol-maker and a priest in ancient Babylon. But having revealed the spiritual world and its consequence in the corporeal, having discovered the forces that descend from the spiritual world into our corporeal world and having set it in motion, he created the language of branches. This language is a description of the Upper World, the roots, using words of this world, the branches.

That was when he revealed the whole reality, both the corporeal and the spiritual, as one whole. That is why both the spiritual and the corporeal actions merged within him into a whole, and that is how he taught his students.

Of this it is written that the forefathers (the first Kabbalists) observed the entire Torah even before receiving it at Mount Sinai. Indeed, they have revealed the Torah by attaining the spiritual world with its spiritual actions. Based on that, they carried out the same actions in our world, perceiving all of reality as one whole.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come unto Pharaoh),”… And the Lord your God brought you out of there..Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt…And brought thee out with His presence, with His great power, out of Egypt…The Lord brought you out from this…Fifty times is the exodus from Egypt mentioned in the Torah….

Fifty is the full degree, the ten Sefirot of Malchut together with the forty Sefirot of Bina. Malchut in its entirety needs to rise above itself, to its full degree. These two forces need to be felt inside of a person – one against the other.

Therefore, salvation will not come until we end the exile, after reaching a horrible sensation that we have no strength to exit our egoism, and feeling at the same time, it is absolutely necessary for us to do this! When we will feel this opposition to the full extent, the waters of the Red Sea (in Hebrew called the Final Sea) will open up, and we will cross it.

A person doesn’t know how it is revealed. This is called a miracle. However, this miracle is caused by the person himself, when he comes to a dead end. On one hand, a person doesn’t understand how it is possible to exit – he has no power or strength for this. Furthermore, he doesn’t understand that there can be some force from Above, which can somehow change his nature. On the other hand, this force that exists above nature is revealed.

This occurs only like a miracle. It occurs above that state, that nature, which is called “Egypt” and comprises the whole inner sense of a person.
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Spiritual roots also have an influence on their material branches. Everything is determined by the order of dissemination of the forces of Light, which affect our material, the desire to receive pleasure. There is a special periodicity and causality in the affect of these Lights.

They have a mechanism, which puts into gear and controls everything from the head of the World of Atzilut. From there, from Arich Anpin, Aba ve Ima, YESHSUT, and ZON, which exist in special relationships to each other, we receive changes, which are called: year, month, week, days, minutes, nights, as well as many different more internal states.We are talking about qualities and the combination of qualities, which have a great influence on this world.

If a person wishes to connect himself to the spiritual root and to place himself under a greater influence of the Upper Light, in order to become closer to it, then one must use these periods of a special influence on us from above. If one wishes to ascend spiritually, then during such periods in our world, which are called holidays, he needs to unite with the intentions that pertain to such influences.

In ARI’s book, The Gates of Intentions, he explains how a person should act during such special periods of influence on our world, as Rosh HaShana, Sukkot, Pesach (Passover), Shavuot, and so on. If we are talking about Pesach, then its most significant characteristic is the Light of Hassadim. When a person receives the Light of Hassadim for the first time in his life, he acquires the quality of bestowal and rises above his ego.

Therefore, it pays for us to think more about the Upper Light, which, at this time, has a greater power to raise us above our egoism and to keep us above it, in the quality of bestowal. Subsequently, we will already be able to advance further and to feel the spiritual world with all its details.

Thus we should spend all the days of Pesach thinking about the unification between us and the Upper Light, which raises every one of us above his personal egoism. This needs to be our main intention over the course of the whole holiday.
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In his book, Gates of Intentions, the ARI explains the meaning of all the spiritual actions of Passover and their reflections in material customs. The commandments (Mitzvot) refer to the correction of the 613 egoistic desires (of the soul) to altruistic ones with the help of the Upper Light (the Torah). Many are familiar with their reflections or corporeal copies in the customs or traditions (Minhagim) of the holiday.

Many follow these traditions because they are willing to carry out corporeal actions (customs) under the condition that they will help them achieve the results, the execution of corporeal actions (commandments). This is the only reason these traditions are followed.

The more we ask ourselves about the goal and the meaning of every material action (tradition), the more it will help us connect more tightly to their spiritual roots. In this manner, we will learn about the Upper World from the lower world. It is only its connection to the root that gives a custom importance and the right of existence.

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A question I received: What needs to be done in order to start life with a clean slate during the upcoming holiday of Passover (Pesach), which is the celebration of our exodus from our ego?

My Answer: Starting life “with a clean slate” is a necessary condition. We live in a new era, a period when all the old laws stop operating. We cannot continue to live as before because the world has become global. There is a new law operating within it: the law of the common system, meaning the unity of the souls and their adhesion with the Creator.

This state did not exist previously. The state that is to be revealed now is that the entire world is in exile, just like Jews once were while in Egyptian slavery. Until now our civilization continued to develop and people did not feel that they were in exile, which means living in an uncorrected world.

We thought that we were developing, advancing, conquering, building, and better realizing our ego. But now, the entire world is discovering that it is in exile in relation to the absolute global system. However, the world will not be able to do anything on its own in order to come out of this exile. The G-8 and the G-20 conferences will not be able to help. The world will not be able to unite on its own.

Only that part of the world called “straight towards the Creator” (Yashar El, Israel) will be able to bring it towards this unity. And we need to begin this unity with a clean slate for all of humanity for them to see that there are people among all nations striving towards the Creator.

Look how many groups and individual students there are around the world studying with us. This is because there is an inclusion of Malchut into Bina and Bina into Malchut with both needing to be corrected. So all of us, together, need to bring the world to unity.

Moreover, we need to connect to us the people who were once on the spiritual level and went through the breaking of the common soul during the times of the destruction of the Temple, who are the corporeal people of Israel. The moment these people start connecting to us, the other ten lost tribes of Israel will become revealed and they will also connect to us.

In the end, an enormous force will be revealed, but what matters most is its single, qualitative, inner part, which can create this unity. The whole world needs an explanation for this feeling that they are in exile in relation to the global, common system, and that all the souls must unite.

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The holiday of Pesach (Passover) is an exodus from our ego. Our ego locks us in a capsule called “this world” and prevents us from seeing the reality outside. In order to break free from this shell we must perform a “circumcision,” by drawing the Light of Hochma from Above. It acts like a sharp knife and removes our great egoistic desires that cannot currently be corrected. We are given the opportunity to rid ourselves of them and to not use them, in essence to become free!

To be a “free people in our own country” (the word “country” comes from the Hebrew word “desire”) means to escape the rule of our desire. When we become free from our desire and can rise above it, we are ready for the exodus from Egypt.

We then exit our evil inclination (Yetzer HaRa) out of Egypt (Mitzraim – Mitz Ra, concentration of evil) and toward freedom. Having been slaves to our desires, we now come out of slavery and become free of them, meaning we refuse to use them egoistically.

Presently we are drowning in our ego, in our desire to receive for ourselves, and immersed in this world, we are subject to waves of all kinds of problems and desires. Suddenly we receive a strong desire to rise above this world, this life, and to feel a spiritual life.

This doesn’t mean we discard all of our corporeal desires; rather, with the help of The Book of Zohar, we receive the strength to rise above our desires and become masters over them. The moment we ascend, we immediately stop feeling trapped within an egoistic capsule with its sensation of this world, and we begin to feel the spiritual world. That is the real meaning of the exodus from Egypt.

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The following is an excerpt from Rabash’s article on the holiday of Purim, “Concealment and Revelation”:

“Darkness is the Babylonian exile, which the nation of Israel brought upon itself because the Creator (Zeir Anpin) was asleep. The sinner Haman, who was a great astrologist, cast lots (Pur) to determine fate. Haman and his ten sons are the ten Klipot (impure forces) because he knew that the Creator slept and thus His upper governance did not protect the nation of Israel (those who aspire toward the Creator). Therefore, Haman thought that the time has come to annihilate the nation of Israel.”

Haman is our entire will to enjoy, which stands opposite the entire Light of Hochma. He knows that the Light is about to be revealed. However, he doesn’t know that this can only happen in the middle line, and that later even that will be revoked when the transition to the state of the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Alef) takes place. Malchut unites with Zeir Anpin in the middle line and they ascend to Bina, where they attain the state of the End of Correction.

Annihilating the nation of Israel means annihilating the intention of “for the sake of bestowal,” which holds a person back from receiving the Light of Hochma egoistically. Mordechai is the intention of bestowal, but if he acts alone, without the desires of Haman, then it is just bestowal for the sake of bestowal. That means he blocks the Light of Hochma, preventing it from being revealed.

In other words, if a person does not work in the middle line, then even his best actions of bestowal will block his path of development. This is why Mordechai needs a connection with Haman. When they start to argue with each other (an argument between the intention of bestowal and the egoistic desire), they come to understand how they are able or unable to unite.

The intention of bestowal enables the desires of Haman to be used. However, these actual desires will not be fulfilled, and this is why a clash occurs between Haman and Mordechai. This story is talking about how a person can create the right unity between two conflicting forces or two opposite intentions. It is also describing the battles, confusion, and doubts that await us on the path of correction until we find the right method.

This is what “Megillat Ester (The Scroll of Esther)” tells us about.

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Every new state is born only under the condition that the former state completely exhausts itself, similar to how a grain planted in the soil needs to rot completely in order for a new stage of life to be born from its former state, which is then perceived as unneeded and useless. This is why it is written about the holiday of Purim that Zeir Anpin sleeps while Malchut becomes immersed in darkness due to this. Only from this state of darkness do we attain the greatest Light, the state called Purim, which corresponds to the End of Correction.

If Zeir Anpin does not bring Light to Malchut, we feel that we are in exile and cannot tune into Malchut and unite. However, suffering and darkenss force us to demand strength from Zeir Anpin to accomplish our unification, in order to tune into Malchut, the one common soul. This is how we give rise to our next degree.

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The Pesach (Passover) holiday stands for Pe-sach (skipping or selection) – selecting only those qualities from one’s entire egoism that can be corrected and used for bestowal, for the benefit of others.

When a person becomes convinced that his own nature is the only evil thing in the whole world, that it destroys him and others, he comes to the conclusion that he wants just one thing – to get rid of this evil that’s inside him.

When he tries to do this (by studying Kabbalistic texts which speak only about this, together with a group that strives to rise over the evil), he discovers that he’s unable to rise over his egoism. The recognition that it’s necessary to come out of his egoism, and the realization that he is hopeless and cannot do it on his own, produce an inner outcry to the Creator, to the One who created this. And that’s when the salvation from egoism comes!

So, let this salvation happen to everyone who wants it during this holiday!

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