The Sukkot holiday is about building a screen (Shach) to cover the Sukkah and creating a place for the soul. We restrict and correct our desire to enjoy, and build a screen over it. With this screen that separates us from the Creator, we create a barrier that will not allow us to receive the upper light from Him directly but only through the screen (Shach).

The roof and walls of the Sukkah and its dimensions symbolize the details of our soul, the rules of its construction.

The roof of the Sukkah hides us from the light of the Sun, which symbolizes direct light. The sun shines on everyone equally without any obstacles. In the Sukkah there are four columns and walls, but the main thing is the roof (Shach), which does not let the light of the sun pass directly to a person sitting in the Sukkah. This is the meaning of the Sukkot holiday—building a common Kli.

The roof is constructed from the waste of barn and winery. You can use branches cut from the trees in the garden. They cover the roof so that rays of the Sun cannot shine directly through it into the Sukkah. In fact, we refuse to receive direct light for our own sake.

Therefore, we build the Sukkah together with the group and sit in it together and enjoy our unity and the fact that we can connect and hide from the rays of the Sun, from the direct light, because we built a screen.

Each supports the other in order to protect them from receiving pleasure, which can come directly into the egoistic desire. Therefore, we hide under the screen and unite to help each other stand against all pleasures and temptations that confuse us at any moment, and we are thus saved from egoistic receiving.

Everyone should have a place under the roof of the Sukkah where he or she can eat during all seven days of the Sukkot holiday. But the main thing is to build an inner Sukkah in our desires, meaning, to build a common spiritual Kli and be under a common screen.
[303976]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/22

Related Material:
Warm Waves Of The Sukkot Holiday
Sukkot: Adhesion With A Single “Embrace”
Four Species (Arba’at HaMinim) Of Sukkot

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Sukkot is considered gladness, considered “rejoicing Gevurot,” which is repentance from love, when sins become for him as merits (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 97 “Waste of Barn and Winery”).

Sukkot symbolizes the end of the spiritual path when all the overcoming, resistance, all the problems we encountered on the path now lead us to repentance from love. All crimes turn to merit. All egoistic desires with all their transgressions will be corrected and will turn into commandments and merits.

This is what the  holiday symbolizes. It appears that we really took the “waste of barn and winery” and raised it over our heads.
[303980]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/22, “Sukkot“

Related Material:
Warm Waves Of The Sukkot Holiday
Under A Temporary Shade
In The Cycle Of The Holidays

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Moses had several roles, but his main task was to bring the concept of faith and the method of connecting to the Creator to the people of Israel. Therefore there is no other person or rather no quality or task that is more important than Moses. This is called the Torah of Moses with the help of which we reach the purpose of our creation.

The problem is that we do not understand what faith is because it is not what people think. Faith is a force that draws a person to the Creator from below upward.

Therefore, without faith, even the slightest advancement, even one step toward the purpose of creation is impossible.

Faith is a force that raises us from the below upward, from the desire to receive pleasure to the quality of bestowal. Faith is the force of the Creator.

We should not underestimate the word “faith,” as if it is something minor. After all, it is the force of the Creator that a person acquires.

Faith is a higher concept than knowledge because faith is boundless; it has no limitations that can hold it. After all, faith is bestowal, the force of the Creator, which no one can stop. It is not limited by the Kelim of the one who has faith, but only by those Kelim that he acquired outside of himself. And outside of himself is infinity, the Creator, and people, and he himself is like a point.

It turns out that the quality of faith is unlimited. This is why we must reach faith in order to feel ourselves in the same state as the Creator. It is impossible to imagine in any other way what spirituality, bestowal, love, and exiting oneself is. It is like going into outer space beyond the limits of gravity where all the vastness of the universe opens before you.

This is how the entire creation is revealed before us, and only the measure of faith that you have acquired limits the sphere of your attainment. Therefore the quality of faith is the most exalted quality. It allows us to begin to feel ourselves somewhat like the Creator.

It happens that faith contradicts knowledge, but Kabbalah teaches that all our knowledge is perceived within faith. To the extent that we can rise above egoistic desires, we learn the desires of bestowal and what kind of fulfillment can be inside them, as well as who gave us the desires of reception, the desires of bestowal, the screen, and the reflected light.

Therefore the study of Kabbalah and acquiring faith does not limit a person, but on the contrary opens him up.

It is impossible to transfer faith from one to another or demonstrate it. One can only advise what to do to rise to a higher degree of faith. This is a quality that is revealed only within one who has acquired faith since faith can only be reached above the reason of a person.

To the extent that he himself makes efforts and rises above his egoistic desires, he acquires vessels to attain faith. This is how he builds the Creator within himself, and therefore he is called man, Adam, similar to the Creator, specifically through the force of faith.
[304002]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/22,”Ushpizin Moses—Sefirat Netzah“

Related Material:
The Holiday Of Sukkot: Moses
The Secret To Abraham’s Success
Abraham Is The Property of Bestowal

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The holiday of Sukkot symbolizes the beginning of the construction of the soul. The soul begins with the quality of the Creator, the quality of Abraham, which is called Hesed, bestowal, an open heart, where everything is directed toward love for the created beings and toward their benefit.

But of course in this form it is impossible to reach the purpose of creation because in the quality of Abraham there still is no quality of creation, no will to receive, which must be present in all this process. After all, it was for this desire that this process was conceived.

We need to correct ourselves because the thought of creation is to bring a person to the degree of the Creator, to adhesion and equivalence with Him. The quality of Abraham is not enough for that; we need to connect to it the matter of creation, to the will to receive.

The quality of Abraham, Hesed, fills the entire space created by the Creator. There the Creator wants to see all created beings connected with each other in love and unity together with Him. But so far there is no creation. Creation appears only after the birth of Isaac, the will to receive, which connects to the quality of bestowal of Abraham.

Abraham and Isaac are opposite to each other. What is received from their combination is still not enough to reach the purpose of creation and complete adhesion with the Creator, but it is still a huge step that brings us closer to this. This is mainly due to the sacrifice of Isaac, which is the main action performed with this quality, with the will to receive, to which the second day of Sukkot is dedicated.

The forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David are not people, but rather, they are the main spiritual qualities that exist in the system created by the Creator, qualities through which we can correct our souls.

Every person also must go through all these changes within himself. First he must completely nullify himself in relation to the quality of Hesed. Then he must awaken his critical attitude a little and allow the will to receive to be revealed. Then he begins to combine the quality of Abraham, Hesed, with the quality of Isaac, Gevura, through faith above reason.

This means that we use our will to receive only in order to establish control of the will to bestow over it. Only in this form do we allow ourselves to work with our egoism. When we correct it that way, the middle line will come out of this, namely Jacob.

How do we make the left line in the ten obey the right? Everyone bows their head and allows the others to be higher. We compete to see who can humble himself the most. The one who is lower than everyone wins the most and rises above all. This is a competition in using will to receive for bestowal.
[271861]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/20, “Sukkot“

Related Material:
Warm Waves Of The Sukkot Holiday
Sukkot: Adhesion With A Single “Embrace”
To Cover The Earth In The Sukkah Of The Light Of Correction

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Jacob is the most important spiritual quality, and therefore he is called a forefather. Abraham symbolizes bestowal from the Creator and Isaac the revelation of the desire to receive in creation.

Jacob is a combination of two qualities bestowal and reception, the right line and the left, due to the inner work of a person. A person connects these two lines that come from above in order to become like the Creator.

Man, Adam, means “like” (Dome) to the Creator. Therefore, Jacob is the most important of these three because these are qualities that are revealed inside a person to the extent of his similarity to the Creator. And that is why the quality of Jacob is called Tiferet (splendor, beauty, honor), meaning, the qualities of the Creator revealed within creation.

It is through this work that a person becomes spiritual. We receive these two qualities from above: a good inclination and an evil inclination. A good inclination comes from the Creator, through Abraham. And the evil inclination that reveals itself in creation also comes from the Creator who created it. But the right combination of these two forces is realized thanks to human work, and we are obliged to do it.

The left and right lines do not extinguish each other; rather, they emphasize each other. If there is a right line, bestowal, then it is allowed to awaken the left line, reception. And it is due to the fact that the left line is opposite to the right that it increases it and highlights it.

Therefore, Jacob includes both lines and increases them. The miracle of proper spiritual work is that the opposite qualities stand out and increase even more, and each emphasizes the other.

It is due to the fact that against the force of bestowal there is the force of reception, and against the force of reception there is bestowal, each of them becomes more vivid and important. The quality of Jacob is called Tiferet (splendor) because it combines two opposites together.

When they combine in the correct form and increase each other in the middle line, it turns out in a person not as a simple sum of the right and left lines, but as a demonstration of each of its opposites and its exaltation.

In our world there is just darkness and just light. But if we mix darkness with light, we get a lot of different shapes that cannot be seen either in bright light or in darkness.

Our whole life is based precisely on the mixing of the left line and the right. If we want to reveal the Creator, we need the two forces bestowal and reception. By creating all possible combinations of one with the other in all forms, we will reveal the quality of the Creator relative to the quality of creation.

Abraham is the desire to bestow, Isaac is the desire to receive, and Jacob is the combination of one with the other, the desires of bestowal and reception together. Combining these two qualities begins to grow each other and emphasize one another. As a result, the right and left lines are revealed in Jacob 620 times larger than they existed before their connection in him.

It turns out that the correct combination of the force of reception and the force of bestowal allows us to imagine the force of bestowal against the background of reception 620 times more. It is due to the middle line that we increase the creation created by the Creator to the scale of the entire infinity light from a tiny Kli, one black dot, in an infinite white light. As it is said that “Darkness will shine like light.”

And then we reveal the Creator in our Kli and attain the whole light of Infinity there. But this Kli begins with a black dot, with a slight change in the light.
[271867]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/20, “Sukkot Holiday”

Related Material:
Three Pillars Upon Which The World Stands
Who Is Responsible For Correction?
“Aliens” From Ancient Babel

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The days of the holiday of Sukkot symbolize the stages of building the spiritual vessel (Kli), that is, the soul, which includes seven Sefirot.

The three upper Sefirot of the ten: Keter, Hochma, and Bina come to us from above because these are qualities of the Creator that He wants to present to us. From these qualities, we already build a special quality inside of us based on the connections between us. Despite the fact that it exists inside the created beings, it is completely similar to the Creator and is pure bestowal.

The seven days of Sukkot are seven stages of building the complete Kli of our soul. It is when something that resembles the Creator is being built inside the matter of creation. This is the inner meaning of the holiday of Sukkot and in general our entire life and existence. Therefore, we need to study how to build our connection, our unity, from different, opposing forces.

The first day of Sukkot is associated with the first quality that comes to us from the Creator, which is called Abraham. This is the quality of the right line, correction up to the quality of mercy, that is, the desire for simple, unlimited bestowal.

The second day, the second quality, is Isaac, who walks in the left line, in overcoming, in working with the will to receive in order to bestow. This is a different quality, which is opposite to Abraham. A person overcomes his egoism and wants to make his will to receive similar to the quality of Abraham who is entirely in bestowal, and then from the right line he receives life, the force of mercy.

How can we build these degrees of Abraham, Isaac, and so on? We are trying to advance in our connection so that it grows stronger day by day. Then everyone feels what addition they have received from a stronger unity. In this form, we gradually reveal what the spiritual Sefirot and their mutual interconnection mean and what a spiritual Partzuf is, which appeared as a result of the correct combination of these forces called Sefirot.

In essence, the spiritual Partzuf is the intersection of the qualities of the Creator and the qualities of creation, of the will to receive and the will to bestow. From the two forces Keter and Malchut, in the gap between Keter and Malchut, all kinds of properties are born, all the forces and their connections with each other from which all the properties that exist in nature appear.

People want to know and understand nature and to feel what it is, but they are not yet able to do it. All of nature consists of forces of reception, forces of bestowal, and their combination with each other.
[303898]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/22, “Ushpizin Isaac – Sefirat Gevura”

Related Material:
Sukkot: Adhesion With A Single “Embrace”
The More Impenetrable The Darkness, The Brighter The Light
More Shade Than Light

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

On the first day of the Sukkot holiday, we receive a new addition to our Kelim: the clothing of the Sefira Hesed in us, which is called Ushpizin Abraham. We are gradually reviving the body of the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which was shattered. And first of all we collect a spiritual Partzuf that is ready to receive the light of Hesed.

Hesed is the highest quality that we receive from the head of the spiritual Partzuf (Sefirot Keter, Hochma, and Bina); therefore, it is clothed in us first. We feel that a new state has come and brought with it a new spirit and a new understanding. It is given as a gift; we just have to expect it, wish for it, and ask for it. If I want to give to a friend, then I become worthy of receiving a gift.

It is said that anyone who wants to get close to the Creator must first accept the quality of the right line, that is, the quality of faith.

A group that seeks to unite must first of all achieve the quality of Abraham, the quality of faith. When the attribute of mercy reigns in all desires, it means that Abraham has clothed in them.

It is said in The Book of Zohar: “There is no one in the world who can compare with the greatness of Abraham, who showed mercy to all creatures.” The bestowal made by Abraham was the greatest, and therefore he is called the father of the people, the first of the forefathers.
[303845]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/22, “Ushpizin Avraham – Sefira Hesed“

Related Material:
Guest Of Honor — Abraham
Sukkot: Adhesion With A Single “Embrace”
Sukkot—The Beginning Of Building The Soul

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

All the holidays celebrated by the nation of Israel are derived from the science of Kabbalah. The Sukkot holiday is a symbol of the spiritual Kli.

We must build such a form out of our desire to receive that the Creator can clothe in and reveal Himself in it so that we understand who the Creator is, what He wants from us, how we can be in connection with Him, and how to rise from our degree of creation, from the level of dust, to a level similar to the Creator.

And to do this, we need to know how to build our Kli from the material of desire with the help of the restriction, the screen, and the reflected light.

The Sukkah is a symbol of the corrected Kli. This is a structure that serves as a model of our inner spiritual vessel. Therefore, there is a custom on the holiday of Sukkot to build a structure, not within our heart or the connection of hearts, but to build a Sukkah in an external form as a symbol of a corrected heart, a corrected soul.

The Sukkah is built from the simplest natural material. Iron or concrete cannot be used for its construction, but only wood, stones, branches, and leaves, things that the earth gives. This is how we build our corrected Kli, soul, in the form of a hut, a Sukkah. Like a child’s game, we build the desired spiritual state in material form.

Based on the details of the construction of the Sukkah described by Kabbalists, we can understand what a soul is, what it consists of, and what states it passes through.

Baal HaSulam and Rabash were very sensitive to this holiday and took care to build a good, beautiful Sukkah because it identifies a person’s attitude to correcting his soul.

Sukkot symbolizes that we have reached the corrected Kli in which there are four degrees, the four walls of the Sukkah, and the screen on the whole desire to receive, which is called “Shach,” the roof of the Sukkah. We are inside the Sukkah, inside the soul, and nothing remains outside because we have corrected the whole soul and we connect with the Creator inside it.

During the seven days of the Sukkot holiday, we invite guests to the Sukkah, the seven Sefirot. Keter, Hochma, and Bina are above the roof of the Sukkah, and under the roof are the Sefirot Hesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. This is how we celebrate the entry of light from the degree of GAR into the VAK, into the body of the soul.
[287559]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/21, “Sukkot”

Related Material:
Warm Waves Of The Sukkot Holiday
Sukkot: Adhesion With A Single “Embrace”
Four Species (Arba’at HaMinim) Of Sukkot

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself (George Bernard Shaw).

My Response: This is not an easy task.

Question: Let’s say “finding yourself” is more or less clear: finding yourself in a profession… What do you mean by the words “creating yourself “?

Answer: Creating ourselves is what we are facing. In fact, this is not such a sky-high thing. This is the requirement that is imposed on us from our life, to make ourselves similar to the Creator.

Comment: I do not know what the Creator is, I do not know who He is…

My Response: This will be explained to you in detail. Write down: “The first condition is to love everyone.”

Question: So the first point is: Should I learn to love everyone? Does this mean to be similar to the Creator by and large?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it a prayer if I write it down and look at it all the time?

Answer: Yes, that is a prayer. Imagine that you are like a parent, maybe strict, maybe kind, no matter which, but loving. The way such a parent treats his children, so you should treat people.

Question: At the moment when I read this daily and realize that I cannot, is this a prayer: “I cannot!”?

Answer: This is not a prayer, but a state when you check yourself and see how much you need to be corrected. Then you have already prepared some claims or requests for correction. So you wait for the day of atonement and present them.

Question: Is this the real prayer of Yom Kippur?

Answer: Yes. You judge yourself, you come and demand the Creator to correct you because you cannot correct yourself. The only one who can is Him. But only in accordance with your demands, requests, and pleas. So hurry up!

Question: You started from loving everyone. Is this, in principle, the basis of Yom Kippur?

Answer: Yes, it is called “Ahavat olam“—love of the world.

Question: Is this what I want to come to and I cannot, and I ask?

Answer: Absolutely! So get ready.
[303620]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 9/29/22

Related Material:
Judge Yourself
Judging Yourself
Nothing Will Help But Prayer

Filed under: Holidays, News, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Repentance (Teshuva) is the main content of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) because this is the main thing we need to do to return to the place, to the state, in which we existed before the sin of Adam. This is our goal and purpose, our duty to return to exactly the place where we were and then fell.

We were all in adhesion with the Creator, inside Him like an embryo in mother’s womb. Then we fell from this stage of adhesion into our egoism, and now we have to return from one pole to the other.

After all, now everyone thinks only about himself and cannot think about anyone else unless it is profitable for him. However, we are not able to take care of others selflessly, simply love and help each other by giving ourselves to others.
In order to return to the state we were in, we need to change our egoistic nature, which we received as a result of the shattering and separation, as a result of falling from that high place.

Rabash writes: “Repentance refers to Adam HaRishon prior to the sin being adhered, but became removed because of the sin. Hence, each and every one, because he is a part of the soul of Adam HaRishon, must approach spirituality once more,” that is, return to its root, to the state where he was before the sin.

This is an extremely exalted state where we are inside the Creator and adhered to Him like an embryo inside the mother. It is impossible to even imagine such an exalted state, but we must come to it and we certainly will. That is why we are so happy to be in a group that is learning and yearning to implement this return, and we are firmly confident that we will reach it soon.

First of all, we need to study what thoughts and feelings dwell in us today, and then we will learn how to correct our heart and mind in order to come closer to the state we were in before sinning, before falling and distancing from the Creator. How did it happen that we fell from spirituality as if there was a miscarriage and the mother lost the child? The same thing happened to us when we fell and were distanced from the Creator. But today, we have a happy opportunity to return back to Him!
[303653]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/22, “Yom Kippur—The Day of Atonement”

Related Material:
Returning To Bestowal
Getting Ready For The New Year
Man’s Birthday

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays, Spiritual Work - No Comments →