Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is Tisha B’Av?“

Tisha B’Av is a very important and prominent state in the development of creation. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Tisha B’Av commemorates the ruin of the Holy Temple, i.e. the shattering of the vessels, the state when we lost consciousness (i.e. the shattering or ruin) of our connection as a single entity (i.e. the Holy Temple). In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn extensively about this state of shattering and how important it is, because there cannot be correction and connection without corruption and shattering. Therefore, on one hand, there is great joy in the opportunity for correction that the shattering brings us, and on the other hand, there is sorrow and crying from foreseeing the oncoming shattering, knowing that we needed to resist it, i.e. to maintain our connection as a single entity despite the forces emerging to shatter this connection. This coincides with the spiritual principle that, in spirituality, we always encounter two opposites in the same place.

Therefore, together with the joy at the opportunity for correction that the shattering brings us, we need to simultaneously be sorry about all the ruins that have taken place, out of necessity, due to their spiritual root. However, what is the destruction that we need to be sorry about today? It is that today, after the 16th Century, the time of the great Kabbalist, the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria), which marked the beginning of the opening of the process of correction to humanity as a whole, then all we need to be sorry about is our negligence to willfully engage in this process of correction. That is, we shouldn’t be sorry about ruined Holy Temples from 1,000s of years ago, but that each day we fail to actively engage in the process of correction, we fail to build the new Holy Temple—a correction of the shattering in our connections. That is what is truly considered the ruin of the Temples.

Therefore, what do we need to take into consideration during Tisha B’Av? It’s why we cause the ruin and shattering of the Temple today. We shouldn’t cry about what happened 2,000 years ago. We don’t really know what happened back then. By crying about it, it’s as if we position ourselves as great righteous people and think poorly of the people back then, and that they lost the rule of the Temples. What we need to understand is that this ruin played out according to a necessity for a certain order to unfold. However, since the time of the Ari, the 16th Century, when we position ourselves against the process and the method of correction—the wisdom of Kabbalah—then the ruin is the shattering of human relations, the division that is spreading worldwide among humanity. We thus don’t relate to Tisha B’Av as a historical occasion, but as a state that is playing out in our daily lives.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Tisha B’Av: It’s been nearly 2000 years since the destruction of the temple, how come Jews still mourn it yearly on its anniversary?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the mourning at Tisha B’Av shouldn’t be about the ruin of the First and Second Temples that took place in the past, but the sorrow should be in relation to the failure of the Jewish people to make moves in establishing the Third Temple.

How does this work? Firstly, we need to understand that the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t relate to corporeal depictions in the Torah, but according to the language of root and branch, relates to the inner processes of human correction that are presented through its writings. Therefore, the meaning behind the establishment of the Holy Temples is the establishment of a united people above division. That is, using the method of correction that guides people to connect on a basis of “love your friend as yourself,” a group of people known as “the Jews” reached a state of spiritual unity (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]), and this is what the Torah describes as the construction of the Temples.

The ruin of the Temples that Tisha B’Av symbolizes means the detachment of the Jewish people from their spiritual unity “as one man with one heart,” and their exit into a state of exile, i.e. a state of dispersion from their spiritual unity.

This destruction and detachment is a necessary state in the process of humanity’s development. Why? It’s because we need to reveal the force of our shattered connections as a preparation to correct those connections. Therefore, on one hand, we need to resist the destruction before it takes place, and hold onto our connection as much as possible. On the other hand, since the destruction took place, we need to see that it could not take place in any other way. We thus enter a period of preparation until we are worthy of reconnecting on a new level, i.e. worthy of correction. This explains the laughter of Rabbi Akiva, a great Kabbalist, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Rabbi Akiva saw how it became possible to establish a much greater connection, one not just for the people of Israel, but one that includes the whole of humanity—the complete and final correction. In other words, he saw that the scene was set for the establishment of the Third Temple.

Therefore, if we work on developing our connection, everything should become more corrected without further destruction, wars and so on. If the people of Israel can use and spread the wisdom of Kabbalah, then we can correct ourselves and live in an upgraded harmonious reality.

However, if we fail to implement the method of correction to rise above our divisive drives and establish a new, heightened state of unity in our times, then we experience many delays and enemies on the path, such as the foreboding trend of anti-Semitism. For that reason, the people of Israel suffer from not wanting to accept the method of correction—to correct their connections to be “as one man with one heart” in “love your friend as yourself.”

Therefore, we don’t need to cry about what happened, since everything that happened in the past was necessary and there is nothing we can change about it. What we need to cry about is the fact that we fail to build the new Temple, i.e. a new movement to unite above the growing division of our times, because that is in our hands to establish—the Third Temple—and our idleness in doing so brings about myriad forms of suffering in the world, and also negatively rebounds on the people of Israel in the form of rising anti-Semitism. Therefore, there is no sorrow in terms of what happened, but sorrow in terms of what we’re failing to implement.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Tisha B’Av, Rising Above the Straits“

American society is fragmented to pieces. The polarization of the political spectrum did not start with the recent controversy involving the current US administration and four Democratic congresswomen labeled as “anti-Israeli” and “anti-Semitic.” But the dispute certainly highlighted the abyss between the Right and Left in a way that has dragged Jews and Israel into the brawl from both sides. Now is precisely the time for Jews to connect above differences and provide an example of unity to all.

We have just entered the period of time called “Bein ha-Metzarim” (“Between the Straits”), which begins on the 17th of Tammuz and ends on the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av), during which we commemorate the destruction of the First and Second Temples. This special time could never be more pertinent than now. The ruin of the temples, in fact, symbolizes the shattering of our human relations—a true reason for mourning—but we can also find joy in the situation if we recognize it as an opportunity to rebuild ties of unity between us.

Repairing the current political divide in America, especially during the already exacerbating campaign climate of the 2020 election, has nothing to do with Trump, specific members of Congress, or either side of the political spectrum. The problem is much wider and deeper. The divisions are between American Jewry and the Israeli nation, between Muslims and Jews, and within US society as a whole. The myriad aggravations signal an urgent imperative for change in human relations that Jews must initiate and lead by rising above all the divisions that separate us.

Why must Jews lead the charge? It is because the Jewish people possess precisely what America and the world desperately needs: the key for a cohesive and harmonious existence. Jewish unity must now be our first priority. It is the historical purpose of Jews to demonstrate unity within their ranks as a model of corrected social relations for others to follow.

We became a nation at the foot of Mount Sinai only when each person present accepted the condition of being “as one man with one heart.” In the centuries that followed, Jews practiced principles of connection enabling them to rise above their differences for the creation of ideal social cohesion and unprecedented human development. It was only during the long exile that followed the ruin of the Second Temple that this unity was forgotten.

Therefore, why should we mourn the destructions of Tisha B’Av at this particular time?It is because, since the 16th Century when the great Kabbalist, the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria), declared the opening of the process of correction for all humanity, our negligence in repairing the shattering perpetuates the destruction. By delaying this process we block the building of the Third Temple, meaning the correction of the shattering in our connections. Our state of shattered connection is what’s truly considered the ruin of the Temples, a state in which we have lost consciousness of ourselves as a single entity.

Thus, there is both great joy in our opportunity for correction that the shattering brings us while, on the other hand, there is sorrow over our fragmentation under the forces constantly emerging to damage our connection. Our state is a manifestation of the principle that, in spirituality, we always encounter two opposites in the same place in order to advance.

Now is the time to be proactive. We Jews, the bearers of the tenet “love your neighbor as yourself,” must rise to the challenge, put down our internal disputes, and unite above them. As King Solomon stated: “Hate stirs strife, and love covers all crimes” (Proverbs, 10:12). This is the true and positive call to action that we should take from this special period of reflection. It is the one act that will guarantee our safety and happiness in America and wherever we live.
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There are three components in perception of reality: the Creator, the friends, and me. The Creator is dressed in the friends and I want to relate myself to them. This is called: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

It all depends on what is considered illusory and what is reality. A child listens to how I tell him or her a fairy tale and perceives everything as the real reality, imagining how Little Red Riding Hood walks in the woods and meets the wolf. The child can cry or laugh, he lives it. For me, this is just fiction, a fairy tale. Everything depends on the level that we perceive what is happening.

We exist in an illusory, imaginary world. It is obvious that our feelings are the reactions of our five senses, which cannot be considered objective. If we received other senses, we would perceive a different reality and live in it. It is all a matter of conventions, consensuses between us. There is no truth in this world because there is no indicator against which it could be evaluated.

We must tune each other to a more truthful perception of the world, living according to the law of love for one’s neighbor and constantly improving. We can then gradually enter it. In this work there is a preparatory period when a person does not realize how he passes from degree to degree. Later he must start working consciously. I think it is already possible to do this in order to finish the holiday of Shavuot by taking a real half-step forward.

There is a network of connections between us that we do not feel. Yet, we must tune into them with the help of the principle “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the law of a new reality, a new way of thinking, a new desire, and new relationships.

A Kabbalist lives in two worlds, in two states simultaneously. Now I decide that together with the friends I will enter such a system of relations. There is nothing else, and only through this system I now look at the world, at reality, beginning to adapt to this new world through these new senses called “ten Sefirot.”

This world is an illusion we are born into. We seem to live in this world as if in a dream. Soon it will be revealed to us that all past life was a dream, a complete fantasy. Every time we move from our egoistic perception to bestowal, a new reality is revealed to us, such major changes that it seems to us that there can be no more than that.

In bestowal, such spaces open up that we could not even dream of. I become included in my friends and through merging with them I enter a new reality, as if in a magical dream.¹

We cannot look back—this is the law. A new reality is opening up based on our inclusion in the friends, and there is nothing more. We have to aspire only toward it. The world is revealed through connection—these are new senses, a new reality, before which you must annul yourself, and then you will enter it.

Each of us was born and educated with an egoistic perception of reality. This is how we were calibrated, like a tool with many regulators. Now I myself, thanks to the internal awakening I have received, want to calibrate myself to a different perception of reality, which can only be done with the help of my efforts, the group, the teacher, and the Creator.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/19, “Feast of Weeks”
1 Minute 56:25
2 Minute 1:06:00

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Shavuot: Brightening Israel and the Jewish People”

“Israel is all messed up with their election… They ought to get their act together,” said President Trump in relation to the political uncertainty in this country going to the polls for a second time this year. He is right, but it’s just a symptom of the wider problem of the deeply fragmented Israeli society that lacks a common vision about its future, a state of division also existent within American Jewry, as well as between Israel and the Diaspora. The timing of Shavuot and all it represents could not be more relevant. The holiday symbolizes the reception of the guidebook for the spiritual correction of our people, the receiving of the Torah, or in other words, the way out of the mess.

What was actually given to us at Mount Sinai? The Torah is not a chronicle about past events. On the contrary, it describes the seminal moment when our future becomes decided, when a clear answer becomes required from all of us: Are we ready to accept mutual guarantee (Arvut) as the law of life? Exactly this is the Torah—instruction on how to correct our shattered relations and instead become guarantors for each other by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

This is precisely the goal for which the Torah was given to us. However, we must constantly renew our state of worthiness for reception of the Torah by scaling the “mountain of hatred” (Sinah), the roar of the storm raging inside us. To do this, we must unite, connect with each other, become “as one man with one heart” and stand at the foot of the mountain. In other words, we must fully comprehend that we are given very important and strict conditions under which we must work with all diligence and ever-increasing unity.

Shavuot, like all Jewish holidays, carries a call to action. The holiday is bright. It’s full of whiteness and light, but the call to action is quite complicated to carry out. We bump into each other; people are strangled by indifference, burned with anger toward those with different opinions than their own. We are in a desert of barren and soulless relationships. If we would suddenly recognize how egoism tears us to pieces, if we would try to connect into one integral body and face our seemingly insurmountable internal split, we would then clearly realize how desperately we need help.

This state of clarity we presently face is a unique opportunity for unity. Only by increasing our connection will we be able to climb the mountain ever higher, rising above our separation. To rise means to continually increase our connection above all problems, difficulties and disturbances that we encounter in order to help us overcome more and more and to create a vessel in which the light of the Torah will gradually be revealed.

In this moment of recognition coinciding with the Shavuot holiday, we have the opportunity to receive help and instruction, a unifying force that can increase our social health and let us live happily. This is the current moment of evolutionary development we find ourselves in: either we will grow up proactively and start using the Torah according to its purpose, for the sake of unity above all disagreements, or the hard knocks of life will force us to grow up.

The Torah, indeed, is the most powerful tool that we have yet to learn how to use. A person cannot use this tool alone. The problem, however, is that we still cannot work together to put it to use. The Torah will provide us with security and prosperity and will give peace to the world, but first we must get used to the fact that it works between us and not on the individual. Egoism, after all, is revealed in relation to other people.

Therefore, the Torah is meant to connect the person with the environment at any time and level of human development. It reveals to us the force of goodness and love that ties us together. We begin to sense how we must balance our egoism, the evil inclination, wherever it is revealed with the force of goodness, and we can then hold two forces like reins by which we can advance directly to unity and love, letting us lay a solid and bright foundation of our future.

For more about Shavuot >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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A man is born and exists in this world in order to achieve independence from his nature, to break away from the inanimate level, from the desire to enjoy, and to build the form opposite to it. This means becoming independent from the previous stage. The next step does not exist in its completed form so that you could see, study, and take an example from it. We have no one to imitate; we can only aspire to the opposite properties and in this way build the next step.

Each time desires and thoughts change and grow, and a person can work on building oneself independent of them. One develops more and more at the animate level: one is no longer a simple animal one was born as, but egoism, the evil inclination, becomes increasingly apparent in him. But evil was created in order to build the opposite over it, the spiritual level, a good inclination, a man (Adam).

The human level is characterized by the fact that it requires connection with others, unlike the animate level at which everyone feels increasingly isolated and distant from others. At the same time, at the animate level, it seems that by moving away from everyone, one attains independence. But to build myself on the human level, I need to nullify myself and connect with everyone. One wonders: “Where is independence here?” On the contrary, I neglect myself for the sake of others. This is absolutely the opposite.

We need to realize how insignificant the animalistic independence we strive to through the call of nature is. And independence at the level of a man is the aspiration to fulfill the instructions of the upper force. We build our similarity to the upper one to the extent we can rise above our animal nature.

It is written: “The Creator saves humans and animals alike”—both these levels rise, supporting each other, and together they build independence from nature, from the desire to enjoy. In this way, we reach the goal of creation for which the Creator created everything with an egoistic desire so that we can build the level of man, Adam, similar to the Creator, above it in adhesion, mutual support, connection of all the desires.¹

Everything Baal HaSulam said about the people of Israel almost a hundred years ago is still relevant today—we really are like “nuts in a bag” because we are forced to hold together due to the influence of external negative forces. No one knows the great mission of these people, which still must be revealed. Therefore, we envy all other nations undisputed right to exist on their land.

But the Jews are a special people toward which no other peoples of the world have a positive attitude. This is a special phenomenon. And the people of Israel themselves are not able to unite in a natural way and they feel inner separation.

Even non-Jews in whom the point in the heart—the desire to unite with the upper force that leads them to the study of Kabbalah has awakened—also reveal how different and remote from each other they are. They have no desire to get close to others. It does not matter what nation they belong to in the corporeal world, but as soon as they unite in a group that is engaged in spiritual advancement, they immediately become similar to the people of Israel: they feel just as divided. Each group is like a bag of nuts that grind in friction against each other and do not want to connect.

This is a manifestation of the same nature: both in the people of Israel and in Kabbalistic groups around the world that want to approach the Creator. From this, it is clear that Jews are not a people, but a group of Kabbalists that existed in the past. Once, they were on a spiritual level and were able to overcome separation and unite, then they fell from this height and now exist in the opposite form.

It is necessary to study our spiritual state from its opposite form that exists today. After all, the further we develop and try to be together, the less we succeed in it. But we must rejoice that the evil, our true nature, is revealed. This nature is not ordinary, it is much worse than that of all other nations because it comes from the shattering.

All others have a regular animalistic nature and strive for the material well-being of their bodies. But the people of Israel, trying to unite and studying Kabbalah, consciously or unconsciously awaken the upper light that reforms, thus revealing the shattering, the lack of unity and spirituality. Therefore, anti-spiritual qualities opposite to the Creator are revealed in us.

It is necessary to clarify and understand them and to treat them with great respect because it is above these consequences of shattering, corruption, and rejecting spirituality and unity that we need to build a corrected state. All these states which are opposite to unity and correction, as well as those supporting unity, belong to the human stage. Therefore, we need to appreciate them and work on them.

Correction relates only to the human level; it requires us to unite and to converge in our opinions and sensations, although no one relinquishes their opinions and feelings, the connection takes place above them, as one person with one heart, like in the first person called Adam HaRishon. The last, the finally corrected person will be the same. The revelation of the past shattering indicates a future correction.

Therefore, today we are a special group, new people, people of the Creator, who are trying to raise themselves from the dust.²

There are people, that is, such a desire to enjoy, which are united at the animal level. They feel intimacy and understanding according to their corporeal properties, and therefore, they feel good together. Everyone feels that it is worth relating to this group, to his people. There are 70 such nations of the world, groups, each of which has its own spirit, extent of unity, level of existence, character, and physical genes. People naturally feel that they belong to one of those groups. Even if hatred between them appears, it is purely corporeal and has nothing to do with spirituality.

But at the same time, there may be a group at a higher level, which exists due to a connection for a special goal. This goal is not natural, it is above the corporeal nature: it is to connect above one’s egoism. Here, two opposites combine. On one hand, there is a negative connection between them because no one feels obligated to this group and connected to it. But on the other hand, they are united by an artificially set goal.

A common goal creates a common space for them because only by joining together can they achieve this sublime higher goal. Then they will be called a special people—not according to the corporeal DNA, but according to the spiritual genes (Reshimot) awakening in them.

Such a group that reaches a new type of connection in contrast to their natural corporeal disunity is called the people of Israel (Isra-El) because it wants to become similar to the Creator (Yashar-El), the upper force. It possesses a new nature, a new essence. From generation to generation, it has been trying to attain the upper force, creating a methodology for this, and establishing traditions in accordance with the upper force, like holidays, special days, and physical commandments according to its spiritual attainment.

That is, the union is formed according to spiritual laws. A group of people that establishes laws and traditions for itself according to the upper source appears in history. Every nation has its own traditions, but the traditions of the people of Israel correspond to spiritual steps, either achieved in the past, or marked for the future as a “sign for the sons.” These traditions remind a person of the spiritual levels that he or she is to achieve.³
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/19, Independence Day
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 9:30
3 Minute 19:57

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Why does Memorial Day come immediately before Independence Day [in Israel]? Everything stems from the upper roots, and in the spiritual work, it is impossible to come to connection, to the good spiritual force, without rising above the evil force, overcoming troubles, problems, and burdening of the heart. The advantage of the light is attained only over the darkness. If we want to get closer to the truth, we should be ready for the revelation of the darkness, then: “and it was evening,” it was night, and after that: “and it was morning, one day.”

Evening, night, darkness, with all its inherent attributes are an integral part of the day. That is why Memorial Day traditionally comes right before Israel’s Independence Day. Independence Day symbolizes the coming of the light and a great correction. Before that we must discover that we are in darkness, in the midst of evil and war, and we must fight and win this war to come to Independence Day.

“Love covers all transgressions.” Since we, the created beings, attain everything only from contrasts, before Independence Day there has to be Memorial Day. Everything we went through was intentionally sent to us from above and all the suffering has its goal and explanation; therefore, we have to relate to it as something necessary.

Yet, if through our connection we discover this necessity in a positive way, we even do not have to suffer from darkness, troubles, and misfortune. If we are prepared for the darkness, we hasten it and can go through it as a necessary part of our development so that evening and morning will be as one day, that is, the night and the darkness will be included in the day, in the Light.

Kabbalists understand that everything that happens is a part of the process of development, so they justify it as sent by the single upper force that brings us good in every state. If we try, we will discover there is only good and there is no evil. The angel of death will turn into a holy angel. With the correct preparation, we can go through all the difficulties with understanding and agree with them because in the darkness and in the Light we will discover the good attitude of the Creator toward us.

There are no days of mourning and states of sorrow because everything becomes connected at the end of correction: all the darkness, troubles, and misfortunes, together with the Light that opens above them, in general unity and love.

If even before the problems and troubles are revealed we ourselves search for the deficiencies and for shattered desires as necessary tools for the revelation of the Creator in order to bring Him contentment, we rejoice at the wicked being revealed. After all, the concealed wicked definitely exist as a result of the complete shattering; therefore, we rejoice at all the revealed deficiencies and regret that we have not revealed all of them.

If we reveal evil in the light of the day, “darkness shines as light.” It means that there is no darkness and everything depends on my attitude. If I reveal a disagreement between a friend and me in order to eliminate this disagreement by connecting above it and covering it with love, then I rejoice at the revelation of deficiencies no less than at their correction. The entire work depends on the correct preparation in the group.¹

Memorial Day is a sad day. However, from the past bitter experience, we must understand that we can prepare ourselves for the revelation of evil so that we will not see the evil! Evil will be revealed only on the internal level as a lack of connection, not as evil in this world, war, and hatred of enemies. As it is written, “looked at him and turned him into a pile of bones.”²

We must understand that our enemies have power and they can cause us a lot of troubles. Indeed, the Creator works through them, pushing us to correction. We will have to find a way to correction, and it is only in our inner connection with the people of Israel through which the Light will flow into the world.

Let us try, let us arrange a “truce” within the state of Israel for even one month: We will not quarrel with each other; we will not hate each other; rather, we will try to get closer to each other. The love of Israel will protect us from enemies. Let us try to allow this love to reign among us, recall what our mothers used to tell us “Be good children, stop fighting, be friends!”

Let’s see what happens after a month of this experiment. Then it will be easier for us to continue because the habit will become the second nature. Let us try and see how the attitude of the world toward Israel will change, how our shares will rise in the stock market, the army will strengthen, our children will become better, the number of accidents on the roads and the number of divorces will decrease—everything will begin to improve. Let us declare a month of unity and then check the statistics: what happens to the people of Israel when they are not in internal conflict.³
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/19, Memorial Day & Independence Day
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 16:15
3 Minute 1:54:20

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The Passover holiday stands at the head of all holidays and all times in the spiritual process because it symbolizes the exit from the desire to enjoy to the desire to bestow or more precisely from the desire to receive for your own sake toward the desire to receive for the sake of bestowal. That is why Passover is so important; after all, it is an entrance to the spiritual world, to the sensation and understanding of spirituality.

Before this, a person goes through many states, starting from his original nature when he is inside the desire to enjoy and does not even realize it. Then, he begins to ask why he lives. That is, a simple animalistic existence does not satisfy him and he wants to understand the meaning of life, its source, its cause and purpose. An animal does not ask such questions; this is the beginning of the birth of a human.

Entering spirituality begins with the fact that a person suddenly feels that he can no longer think about himself and wants to perform actions outside of his egoism. Passover symbolizes the entrance into a new world, the beginning of a new state, Lishma, the beginning of bestowal, faith, acquiring the property of Bina according to which we begin to work.¹

Only when a person feels and understands that he is unable to act for the sake of bestowal can he be considered in exile. It is an exile from the property of bestowal, which he wants to acquire and cannot. Only this measures the extent and severity of the exile.²

Humanity is divided into three parts. The first part are those in whom a point in the heart has already manifested and it leads a person to Kabbalah or makes him search for it. The other part still does not understand why all this is necessary. The third part fights exclusively for corporeal realization, without touching the intention, for maintaining the intention for their own sake. On this basis, humanity can be divided into many groups, nations, and all kinds of currents.³

The Egyptian inside of me convinces me that the main thing is to perform the actions that the Torah demands of us without paying attention to the intention, that is, exclusively corporeal commandments. If I do not ask about the results of my work, it means that I am an Egyptian, that I work according to the Egyptian inside of me. If I start taking care of the intention, then I find myself in Egypt as a slave, in exile from the spiritual world.

There is a spiritual reality in which everything is for the sake of bestowal, but I exist in my egoism. The extent to which it bothers me, more or less, determines my place in the spiritual process until I reach the state when such a life becomes worse than death for me and I feel that I have to exit the selfish intention. This means that I am already on the verge of liberation, at the exit from Egyptian exile.

My inner Egyptians are holding me and convincing me that I must continue as before and everything will be fine: the main thing is the action and the intention doesn’t matter. If I agree with this, I turn into an Egyptian. But if the inner struggle for intention arises in me, then I see that I am under the power of the Egyptians and I wish to get out of this slavery. I realize that the main thing is not the action, but the intention, and I must get rid of the intention for my own sake. This means I need the light that reforms and to flee from Egypt.

I am ready for anything, just not to remain in the egoistic intention. I do not need anything but the ability to perform this action. I have already broken away from the intention for my own sake, but have not yet reached the intention for bestowal. I still do not know what bestowal is and to whom to bestow, but I am already at the exit.⁴

The shift from an Egyptian to Israel means that I no longer have the strength to perform an action. I do not want to perform it for the sake of the ego, but I still do not know how to perform it for the sake of bestowal; therefore I do not know what to do. This is the exit from Egypt, in total darkness, when we do not know what to do. Then salvation comes.⁵

It is written that the Egyptians work with white bricks without a single speck or dirt. If I egoistically add brick after brick to my work every day, then I build a beautiful snow-white building without any dirt or shadow of doubt, feeling completely holy. The Egyptians in Egypt cannot experience any awareness of evil because they take an example from what the whole world is doing; what else does a person need?

These are seven years of satiation—when a person joins the work of Egyptians self-righteousness and secure about one’s success. He does not even realize that he is acting egoistically. Such awareness is already the result of the impact of the light that reforms that constantly illuminates in small portions, gradually promoting him. “Many pennies join into a great amount.”⁶

If there is no strength to work, then only one thing remains: a prayer. Appealing to the Creator solves all problems. After all, the purpose of everything that happens with us is to oblige us to contact the Creator. In Egypt we acquire all sorts of means and methods of connection with the Creator. We must find the solution to every hardship that Egypt poses before us through new connection with the Creator.⁷

The severity of the work depends only on the intention. If the intention is for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of bestowal, then you fly like on wings, feeling no heaviness in the work, as if you’ve left the Earth’s field of gravity and soar in space. If the work is hard for you, then you are carrying the wrong suitcase and are not aiming at the Creator.⁸

We receive the influence of the Creator through the whole broken soul of Adam HaRishon. The Creator perceives only the whole soul together. Meanwhile, I can have an initial, personal, and very limited connection with the Creator, but it still reaches me through the common soul.

“… the upper Light is in complete rest,” that is, it fulfills the common Kli. But I attain a connection with the Creator in the measure of my connection with the common soul. Suppose I have connected with one of the twenty billion, to this extent I attain a contact that always goes through the common connection. The Creator is inside all the created beings in a perfect form because everyone has already reached the end of correction, and I connect with this state.⁹

What is the difference between Matza and bread? Matza is also bread, only bread of poverty, made solely from flour and water. Even the water in it is in limited quantities. You cannot make bread without water at all, and therefore, water is added in a minimal quantity, just to knead the dough and not let it sour. This is a sign that we still cannot work with our desires for the sake of bestowal, but we no longer want to work for the sake of receiving. That is, it is a kind of intermediate state: neither there nor here. Matza symbolizes fulfilling in order to escape.¹⁰
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/19, Writings of Rabash, Vol. 1, Article 14, “The Connection between Passover, Matza, and Maror” (1987)
1 Minute 0:10
2 Minute 2:00
3 Minute 23:00
4 Minute 38:40
5 Minute 51:30
6 Minute 53:30
7 Minute 1:01:25
8 Minute 1:50:40
9 Minute 1:55:50
10 Minute 2:03:00

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New Life #193 – The Jewish Holidays
Passover

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Question: What is a leap year?

Answer: There are several amendments based on astronomy that have been introduced into the Jewish calendar. They repeat once every four years, once every seven years, and once every 50 years. We need them in order to balance the right and left lines in the middle.

In the leap year, which happens every four years, one more month is added. Once in seven years, Shemittah, the sabbatical year, comes when it is forbidden to plant crops: “Do not worry, you will not starve if you observe everything you need for six years. Do not plant anything in the seventh year.” This is an absolute ban.

Question: So, a person doesn’t question: “How so? If I haven’t planted anything, what will I eat?”

Answer: No, if one is under spiritual forces, then one functions in full accordance with astronomy, with the laws of nature, and with cosmic laws. So do not worry, you will have a harvest for this year, you do not need to plant or clean it. That is, there are special laws on how not to interfere with inanimate and vegetative nature in the seventh year.

There is also the 50th year (Yovel), when all debts are released. If someone bought or sold land to someone, then in the 50th year everything will be back to square one. In other words, the land must return to its original owner.

And who is the original owner? As stated in the Torah, when the Jews came to the land of Israel, they distributed it to everyone and wrote down every piece of land that they gave to every person to use. All this was documented, and therefore, the one who lived on this land had to return it every 50th year to the owner. And for 50 years he could rent it, cultivate it, and so on. These are very serious laws that were enacted 3,000 years ago. There are documents about how these laws were drafted, passed, and legally certified. Since many people participated in this, everything had to be formalized accordingly.

The implementation of the laws assumed that people receive from this a very serious supplement to their harvest, to their life forces. But these laws are valid only in Israel, there is no need for them abroad.
[243731]
From the Daily Kabbalah lesson in Russian, 12/30/18

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A Sabbath Of Solemn Rest In The Seventh Year
The Jewish Calendar

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The longer we are in the Egyptian exile, the more we want to come out of it. However, if we were there for a short time, then the desire to come out would be small. These two forces work in parallel—recognition of evil and coming out to the good—the greater one is, the more the other grows. Therefore, the exodus from Egypt is impossible without the sensation that you are in the grip of the egoism.¹

We only need to strive toward the goal and each one will reveal whatever is necessary according to the root of his soul. This is not going anywhere, after all we are stepping on our Reshimot (informational data) by which the way to the end of correction is paved. There is no doubt where I will step next: Reshimo on the left, Reshimo on the right and so I advance walking on Reshimot. They are already laid out in front of me, only the speed of advancement and its character depend on me.²

The entire wisdom of Kabbalah and the work of a person are to discover the oneness of the Creator in practice, by becoming a part of that oneness. When I determine that “there is none else besides the Creator,” it means that I am becoming a part of Him. If we become like a punch and a matrix, a seal and an imprint, it is considered that I have built my soul.³

At first, I perceive the Creator and the Pharaoh as two completely opposite forces: the good and the evil, as if in this world I receive a reward or a punishment. Suddenly, I begin to reduce the difference between them more and more until I discover that there is neither evil nor good, but only my connection with “There is none else besides Him.” Therefore, it doesn’t matter to me what I receive from Him, the main thing is that it is from Him!⁴

If the Creator puts an obstacle before me, it means that beforehand He already arranged everything I need in order to overcome this obstacle. As it is written: “Holiness is increased, not decreased.” The Creator always gives us an opportunity to strengthen ourselves, connect, find new strength, and move forward. He makes a step forward first, and then from the new state sends us burdening of the heart in order to pull us closer to Him. We take a step after the Creator. He leads the way and we follow Him.⁵

How can we approach Passover in complete readiness in order to be worthy of the exodus from Egypt? We need to unite more. We have enough strength to exit, all we need is unity. Let’s hope that we will reach such connection that is suitable for the exodus from Egypt. That is, that we will feel an acute need to come out of the egoistic love and to unite so that the ten will become as one. Then from the minus, from separation, we will come to one whole, and then we will begin to increase, to grow this unit, due to these disturbances.

First we come from two opposite force, good and evil, to one force, to the point of exiting Egypt. Then from this point, two forces grow again: plus and minus.

First, we connect the good and the evil forces by determining that everything comes from the same Creator. Then we increase the Creator by rising above the disturbances, above the force of evil.⁶
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/19, Pesach (Passover)
1 Minute 12:58
2 Minute 1:13:05
3 Minute 1:14:00
4 Minute 1:17:00
5 Minute 1:41:50
6 Minute 2:19:45

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New Life #718 – The Exodus From Egypt Is True Freedom

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