The First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) brought about the shattering of the worlds. Without the prohibition, there would have been nothing to break and no sin. When there is an opening, everyone can come and take whatever they want to. But if I install a door and say that the place belongs to someone, from now on, you need permission to get in there.

You need to follow certain rules according to which you can receive something from that place. Pay and you will get something. If you have a screen, the Reflected Light, and the equivalence of form, you can go ahead and receive.

So until the Light reaches phase four in every Sefira of the world of Nekudim, nothing is shattered. Only when phase four begins to receive from the upper Light does it bring about the shattering. And now the problem is that these vessels are corrupt and distorted. They distorted the goal, and from now on they no longer feel that altruism is an exalted, great property. They don’t see any point in bestowal. On the contrary, all their aspirations, their search for pleasure, and inner genes are aimed at receiving for their own sake.

If the genes, not corrupt by the shattering, were active in us, things would be totally different! Then we would yearn for bestowal having no other choice, like beasts. All our internal genes, all our desires, everything stems from the shattering.

I “carry” all the world of Infinity that tried to receive egoistically after me. You can imagine what a “bag” of ego I am carrying. New egoistic desires keep popping out from this bag, revealing my big ego to some extent.

This is all a problem that was created after the shattering, when I felt some taste in receiving for myself, and how this taste attracts and lures me. I know that it is the “potion of death,” but this can’t stop me either. I am ready to die, just to enjoy! This is what happens in our life, and we feel it very clearly.

Rabash says in one of his articles that a person can reach such love of friends that he is ready to die for that love, to give his life for the society. It isn’t some accidental urge, but a sober calculation because the upper Light operates in a way that a person begins to appreciate bestowal more than himself. But in our egoistic state everything is the opposite: I appreciate the pleasure I receive more than I appreciate my life.

That is, we see from these two examples that pleasure is the foundation of the entire creation. Man is not afraid to die—if he experiences pleasure before that.
[72767]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, TES

Related Material:
Being My Own Master
Everything Comes From The Earth, But Depends On Man
A Spiritual Person In A Carrier From Earth

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - 2 Comments →

Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), “Concerning the Importance of Society”: Therefore, when it comes to the work on the path of truth, a person should seclude himself from other people. This is because the path of truth always requires strengthening as it is against the world. This means that a person should be absorbed only in thoughts about “single authority,” called “bestowal,” and not “public authority,” which is self-love. This is called “two authorities”—the Creator’s authority and one’s own authority.

This is all clear, but the problem is in implementing it. Each of us is under their own authority, and we don’t understand what it means to be under someone else’s authority: “So do I have to become a slave? For if there is an authority, there is also a master?”

Actually we should be under the authority of the altruistic desire instead of under the authority of the egoistic one. It is very hard to understand these things. We simply don’t see where and how all this takes place.

But eventually, thanks to the study and the participation in the life of the group, a person summons a slight illumination upon himself, and he begins to gradually wake up. Then he is ready to hear about “public authority” and “single authority,” about the authority of the Creator and the authority of the creature, about the attribute of bestowal and that of reception…. It  is very hard to clarify these details but when a person identifies them, he begins to understand what is happening to him.

The sages said that it is a long path, but we can shorten it if we listen to their advice. The advice is simple: Do you want to feel that you are on the higher degree, in the next dimension? Build it and form it. Connect with those who want the same thing, and then together summon the upper force so that it will build the network that will become your next degree.

Everything takes place in a person’s perception. The Creator Himself is inconceivable. We perceive Him only in the mutual relationship between all parts of reality, which we are able to perceive. If you change your attitude towards reality, this attitude will become your Creator (Boreh), from the words “come” (Bo) and “see” (Reh).

Now the “Creator” for you is the egoistic force that dwells in the entire reality you perceive. This is how you perceive and feel it. So change it by the Light that Reforms. There is this force that you can evoke, and it is your next level.

All the degrees already exist in that dimension, in that “channel” of information and power, from which you can receive everything. Join it and you will receive everything. Do you want to know what tomorrow will bring? You will know what tomorrow will bring. Do you want to know how to change things? You will know how to do that. Just connect. This, in fact, is the Light that Reforms.

On the whole, our approach is to connect to one another and to summon the Light that will perform this connection correctly. We should show our readiness according to the state we are in and ask for correction.

It is very easy to do that. Therefore, Rabash’s articles about the society are so simple and clear. They are not many, and all these materials can be printed on a few dozen pages. The whole method is in them. Everything else is additions that help us draw the Light, while in order to describe how to organize a group to which we draw it, ten pages will be enough.

As for today, our work is first of all to organize ourselves correctly and then to ask for correction.
[71523]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/2012

Related Material:
A Narrow Bridge Into The Creator’s Domain
How To Transcend The Boundaries Of The Universe
Love Of Friends Is Our Common Treasure

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

If we are guarantors for one another, we are guarantors in everything, in happiness and sadness. This is because mutual guarantee is not just signing a document. We bind ourselves so that all the states come to us as to a single whole. This is the way a guarantee works in a bank: If a person doesn’t pay, then you pay, without any arguments.

And for us it is even more than that: You must love your friend more than yourself. After all, the commandment of loving thy neighbor demands that you put another in place of your precious self. That is mutual guarantee: a pledge that is impossible to withdraw from.

The upper Light knows how to arrange unity, but we must pave the way for ourselves. In the beginning we become partners and connect to each other. But all of that is still “we”: many and not one. And afterwards our desire will merge into one, and this complete whole will be above us, like a baby whom everyone worries about.

It is written: “The eye of the Creator is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His loving kindness” (Psalm 33). We constantly look at this baby and constantly support him with all our heart, hoping that he just grows up, that he is sound and healthy, that he is happy and feels good.

This is the way we look at our baby that is above us and belongs to all of us. We all, in our mind and soul, are there, in that one desire. We want to discover within him the spirit of life: the Creator.
[72761]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2012

Related Material:
What Is Mutual Guarantee?
Mutual Guarantee Is The Key To The New World
Focus On The Mutual Guarantee

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee - 1 Comment →

Let us shed light on several questions related to the notion of “love of friends”:

1. What ground is there for the need to attain love of friends?
2. Should I choose the friends, and should they choose me?
3. Should each friend openly express his feelings toward the other group members, or is it enough for him to feel love for them in his heart, without expressing this feeling externally? Should he remain modest and not boast about his achievement?

Certainly, every person should openly express the love of friends that is in his heart because open expression of this feeling can awaken the friends’ hearts to the same. As a result, the friends’ feelings will unite into a common feeling, which will be much greater than their arithmetic sum.

Thus, every member of the group will receive a strong feeling of love of friends and will also sense a need to expand this feeling. On the other hand, if the group members do not express their feelings openly, they cannot be imbued with the common, collective force and overcome their personal egoism.

In this case, it is very difficult to view the friend in a positive light. Every person thinks that he is the only righteous one and that only he loves his friends, while they do not reciprocate his feelings.

It turns out that a person’s forces are too weak to be able to attain love for his friend and to express his feelings explicitly instead of hiding them.

One must constantly remind oneself of the purpose of the group’s existence since otherwise, one’s egoism will try to blur this goal because its sole concern at all times is its own benefit.

A person needs the group in order to attain the quality of being engrossed in the thought of delighting his friends without requiring anything in return, and not in order for the group to help fulfill his egoistic desires. After all, if every group member expects only to receive help from others, the group is founded on egoism and works only to increase it. In this case, a person sees the group only as a means to satisfy his egoistic needs.

Therefore, we must keep in mind that the group must be built upon love for the neighbor. What every group member must receive from the group is love for the neighbor and hatred for his own egoism. When a person sees that his friend tries to suppress his egoism, this gives him additional forces to fight his own egoism. Then all of the friends’ intentions merge into one whole. Thus, if the group consists of ten members, each of them will receive the forces of all ten friends who suppress their egoism and aspire toward love for the neighbor.

But if the group members do not express their feelings toward one another due to their feigned modesty, then their feelings do not grow stronger and each of them gradually loses the desire to progress towards love for the neighbor and regresses back to self-love.
(Based on Rabash’s article “Love of Friends (2))
[72489] 

Related Material:
Love Of Friends
The Purpose Of Creating A Group
The Goal Of The Group

Filed under: Education, Group Work, Inner Work, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

We don’t realize that we are enslaved by our egoism. It rules over us and tells us what to do. And we don’t even feel that we operate according to its orders because we are connected to it to such an extent that its desire becomes my desire, and we merge into one whole. Then a person does everything his ego wants thinking of it as his life and his own desire.

But that is an example of the opposite state that we must reach by uniting with the Creator, cleaving to him to such an extent that I stop feeling the difference between His desire and my desire. As for now I fulfill all the fancies of my egoism with devotion, which shows me where to turn, when to inhale, to act one way or another.

I feel the same way being united with the Creator by rising above my current desire and fulfilling His desires, without hesitation or any calculations, so I will become corrected. And naturally, I have to go against my desire and personal calculations by investing great efforts to reach such a correction. But in the end, my goal is to reach the same level of unity with the Creator as I have now united with my desire to receive, without feeling any difference between it and myself.

And when I’m able to break free from my egoistic desire, I begin feeling that it is my enemy, that it harms me. Sometimes I love someone, and we are great friends, but then it turns out that he uses me and harms me. It takes time before I’m able to break free from him and certain things about him become revealed to me. Only then am I able to break free from him, to see that there is no other choice but to leave him, and to start hating him.

Thus the whole world starts learning that its ego is its enemy. Every person reveals that to the extent that he works on it. As a result, we begin realizing the need for change because we feel at loss in this race against our egoism. This is a big advancement because a person becomes separated from his nature, from his initial quality that forces him to only take care of himself, and he begins to critically analyze it.

This means that he becomes separated from his evil inclination and starts listening and searching for what he can do next. Thus he finds the Torah, a means for correcting egoism. He needs a force that is able to change his attitude toward his egoistic desire and that gives him the ability to become completely separated, to no longer make any calculations of what is worth getting and when.

This transition is called Lo Lishma. A person is still inside a desire to enjoy, but he has to imagine to himself that working above it would be more beneficial, that he would gain more from that. So he already works above his desire to enjoy, not willing to follow its orders. But the result of these actions and this work is still inside egoism because otherwise a person would not have the fuel for doing it.

At this stage a person goes through various states, starting from working in order to receive pleasure in his desire to enjoy to have energy and fuel to keep on working. But in fact, he wants to be in bestowal. Thus he asks the Reforming Light to give him the power to make calculations on the desire to enjoy not in his egoistic interests, but only out of hopelessness because he is a machine that needs to be fueled.

In fact he would rather remain in the quality of bestowal, but not for the sake of receiving pleasure from it. He realizes that there is no other way, and he has to pay to be given some freedom while he is under the power of the master, the egoistic desire. He works this way until he becomes completely separated.
[72703]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/12, Shamati #20

Related Material:
People: Who Are We?
What Is Egoism?
What Is Our Life? A Game!

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

A person in our world is similar to a person who has lost his way in a field. In our time, all of humanity can also be likened to a great mass of people who, having lost all reference points, are wandering around the enormous field of life in the dark.

The way out of this situation, which arose as a result of our egoistic development, lies in creating an integral society. That is, it lies in searching for people who have realized that the current situation is at an impasse and that the only solution is to establish an integral connection between people.

In this case, the field of life transforms from a wild, empty field to a blessed field of life because the people in it desire to work on their egoism to attain the quality of mutual bestowal and thus, to become equivalent to Nature. In this case, their path is called “the path of bestowal.”

Because our egoistic nature is completely contradictory to this path, there is just one way to set out on this path: to be in an integral upbringing group that works on developing “love of friends” and where every person can help his friend progress precisely down this path.
[72484]
(On the basis of Rabash’s article “Love of Friends”) 

Related Material:
The Goal Of The Group
The Purpose Of Creating A Group
The Inner Work Of A Kabbalist – 5.20.10

Filed under: Education, Group Work, Inner Work, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

As man undergoes evolution, all of his development occurs by way of the development of the will to receive pleasure, called self-love or egoism. Therefore, if a person does not feel that he will receive something, he is incapable of making even the smallest action. He feels it within as a lack of motivation or energy, necessary for him to make an inner or physical movement.

But Nature is the quality of altruism, bestowal and love, opposite to egoism. And it drives man to acquire this quality by developing him in ever-greater suffering, which he gradually comes to see as a derivative of his own egoism and the overall egoism of all mankind. In other words, the objective that Nature sets for our development is for man to attain equivalence with it. And this objective is intended expressly for man because egoism is absent on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, which are governed and exist instinctively, simply obeying their nature.

Since suppressing egoism is contradictory to our nature and our entire being, we therefore need a group of single-minded people to give us a greater force to suppress it. That is why we need a group that unites people who have one desire: to achieve an ascent above egoism and mutual repulsion, and to rise to mutual love.

The result of uniting towards a common goal is that instead of being totally weak and unable to resist our egoism, each of us acquires a great force that helps him rise above his egoism to unity.

This great force emerges as a result of us putting together our small, individual forces, or rather, not even forces, but just wishes. These small forces of ours will combine together and multiply one another, allowing each of us to rise above his small egoism to unity. That is how every person acquires a tremendous desire to rise above his own egoism and attain a single goal.

But in order for this to happen, every group member has to suppress or lower his “I” in relation to others. This can only be done by not noticing the friend’s flaws and paying attention only to his good qualities. If one member of the group considers himself at least slightly better than others, he is no longer able to truly unite with them.

During the group’s engagement in integral upbringing (unification), we must be serious and not deviate from the goal for which we have gathered here, the achievement of a single desire of mutual bestowal and love, as similarity to Nature demands of us.

But with outsiders, we should behave simply, courteously, and politely, taking care not to impose the idea of unity, mutual bestowal, and love upon them. This is because efforts to rise above one’s egoism cannot be made in chance meetings, but only in a constant group of friends under the guidance of an instructor. During their work in the group and generally, in life, members of the group must try to bar light-mindedness from their desires because thoughtless behavior or even thoughts destroy all personal and group efforts to unite.

But if an outsider has accidentally found his way into a session held by the group, it is first necessary to politely eliminate his presence and to continue the studies only after that.
(Based on Rabash’s article “Purpose of Society (2)”  
[72465]

Related Material:
The Goal Of The Group
Love Of Friends
The Inner Work Of A Kabbalist – 5.20.10

Filed under: Education, Group Work, Inner Work, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Since the wisdom of Kabbalah raises a person from the “beastly” to the “human” level (“Adam” or “man” comes from the word “Domeh” or similar to nature, to the attribute of bestowal and love), a person who rises faces the problem of “going into the unknown.” To help us rise into an unknown state again and again, we are offered a game, an exercise, to prepare within ourselves, together with the group, our next, more altruistic state. Moreover, even if we fail, it leads to the right solution: a request for the force of bestowal, an ascent above our egoism.

Today all of humanity should master this method of advancement in everything that it does. We should also be ready for descents, for feeling the mistakes, and from them to understand that only the upper force of nature can provide us with the new attributes in order to investigate, to attain, and to build ourselves, family, society, education, and economy correctly.

Until now the mistakes and failures were not acknowledged by people, but only by Kabbalists because only they rose above the general nature of humanity, egoism, to the attribute of nature, love. But today we must acquire this new attitude regarding ourselves, those around us, and the world and to teach our children to develop by learning from their mistakes.

We must not only learn from our mistakes, but also understand where they stem from: from the appearance of the new level to which we are not adapted. So a mistake (a descent) is the attainment of our lack of correspondence to the new state, and it should make us yearn to implement it internally. This is attained in the group, by yearning for nature’s general force and for similarity to it.
[72269]

Related Material:
The Creator’s Game
A Game Arranged From Above
From Savage To Human Being

Filed under: Education, Group Work, Inner Work, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

The Babylonian Talmud, Treatise Taanit 7: He who engages in the Torah for its sake, the Torah becomes the potion of life for him, and he who engages in the Torah not for its sake, it becomes the potion of death for him.

If there is such great danger concealed in the Torah, perhaps it’s better not to engage in it? After all, if you study correctly, you “rise to heaven,” and if you don’t, “you sink into the ground,” into the abyss.

The problem is that if you don’t study correctly, the Light concealed in the Torah puts you into states that are opposite from the truth, but you don’t even notice that. The Torah doesn’t bring you death, but rather “the potion of death,” when you don’t feel that you are dead. You can study the Torah day and night, memorize page after page by heart, and at the same time be dead, meaning not understand that this is totally opposite from the goal for which the Torah was given.

The Torah was given to us so that we will reach the love of others. It says: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice because the Light in it reforms.” What does it mean that it reforms? It’s the “great law of the Torah”—”love thy friend as thyself,” or in other words, the general goal of everything that we do according to the Torah.

In every precept we perform, in every detail, we must advance towards the love of others. Only through the love of others will we reach the final goal, the love of the Creator and adhesion with Him, according to the equivalence of form between a person and the Creator.

Therefore, before the study, we have to prepare ourselves and keep all the necessary conditions so that the study of the Torah will bring us the desired goal: adhesion, that is, the correction of our intentions from egoistic to altruistic. This work is clarified only in the group, where we can check ourselves practically.

Each time we will discover hate among us and will get a chance to rise above it towards love. To do that, we need to organize ourselves correctly: We want to connect in order to reach adhesion and to discover the Creator in it, thereby bringing Him contentment. It’s possible to discover the Creator only in our collective vessel of bestowal. It’s necessary that we prepare ourselves for the lesson in this way so that we’ll approach the study correctly.

Question: If the potion of death doesn’t let me feel that I am dead, does the potion of life enable me to feel death?

Answer: I feel that I am living from the “potion.” It isn’t an ordinary existence anymore. In the intention of in order to bestow, above my nature, I attain life. The potion has the effect of making me lie to my egoistic desire and not to myself. On the other hand, the potion of death drowns me in the lie, which I don’t notice, and then I see myself as “righteous,” although I haven’t even entered the rank of “wicked.”

Question: How can the wisdom of Kabbalah save a person from the potion of death?

Answer: It can do it by the Light that Reforms. If you arrange all the conditions for yourself correctly, if you enter the group and disseminate, which is an inseparable part of the preparation these days, and if you participate in everything that the group experiences in order to reveal the connection, then you are preparing correctly for the study, and your intention during the study is not to read yet another paragraph, but to receive the Light that Reforms. It isn’t by chance that Baal HaSulam wrote in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 18: “…that while practicing Torah, they did not set their minds and hearts to draw the Light in the Torah….”

Everything is solved by the preparation. The right study is the study that you have prepared yourself for correctly. Then you read the text correctly, with the right intention, in the right group, with all the necessary conditions. And what do you get from the study? You get the chance to work and to rise: the feeling of hate and rejection of the friends….
[72543]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2012, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
Being Forced To Love
Taking The Medicine Together
Don’t Play With Fire

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Torah - No Comments →

Question: How do you relate to the missile attacks in the south of Israel?

Answer: During the operation “Peace for the Galilee,” my teacher, Rabash, was very worried about the situation. He listened to the news every hour, and when he was asked why, he replied that he was worried about his children.

This is an example for us—we also need to worry in this way. A person needs to feel that all the people in the world are inseparable parts of him. Then he will worry about them just as he worries about himself, being in concealment and not feeling the oneness of the world within him.

One should not wish for anyone’s death, even for the death of one’s bitter enemies. We want them to become corrected and in general, we wish only good for everyone, and especially to the citizens who find themselves on the firing line. Of course, one shouldn’t allow anyone to take his life away, and thus in the Torah there is a law: For the sake of self defense, it is preferable to kill before being killed. But this is on condition that it’s really necessary and there is no other choice. In this situation, death serves as a correction. However, if you are able to correct the person during this reincarnation, do it.

In addition, we must remember our friends in the South of Israel. Together with them we pass through the process of our and the world’s correction. We must be with them in mind and soul.

Before the lesson, I watch the news in order to know about events that took place in the previous hours. We all need to be connected to this. We hope that all of this will be included into the framework of correction. If we exert effort faster, the states that come upon us by the path of suffering will invert to the path of the Torah. Then everything will be arranged in the best possible way, and we will acquire life without limits, in the entire world. We are able to initiate it, and there is no doubt that the Light can do this.

It’s very good that the friends join the lesson from the shelters. Rabash and myself did the same thing during the Gulf War.

And in general, we are in favor of a cease fire, in favor of ending all the conflicts in the world, in favor of destruction of all weapons, and in favor of man’s correction. This is mutual guarantee. Since we have become, against our will, guarantors of each other in a system that ties us together, the time has come to open our eyes and feel it in action. There is no other choice: We have to feel that we are each other’s guarantors.

However, when the mutual, inner connection appears before a person, he goes into shock. It turns out that it is all me: my parents, my children, my friends, strangers, and those I hate. It is such a huge variety of so many relations, and all of them are me, one Partzuf, the 10 Sefirot.
[72445]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/2012, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
Why Are The Guns Roaring?
No War!
“These Are My Children”

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Israel, Mutual Guarantee Movement, Q&A - No Comments →