Question: You are saying that the force of reception will continue to grow as the force of bestowal keeps developing in us? Will it not diminish?

Answer: A new force of reception will grow in you as much as the force of bestowal will develop in you. It is not the force of a little egoist, which you were using on the animate level or on the level of a person of the “old world.” Now two forces are developing in you together, forces of a person of the new world.

Until now you were developing instinctively, like any animal. But unlike an animal, you have developed to such a level of egoism that it has simply become unbearable. And now you are trying to develop the force of bestowal with the help of the environment.

Bestowal assumes more than a gift; it is giving, mutual participation, closeness, support, mercy, to the point of love. Love includes all the other manifestations of connection and the ability to feel the desires of another. This is called the force of bestowal.

The moment I begin to develop this force within me, a second force begins to grow parallel to it, the force of reception, and it helps me to bestow. Because I do not have anything myself, I am unable to give to others, there is no way for me to establish a connection with them. But by using my entire force of reception, I can bestow to others.

I have only the force of reception by nature, and I have existed with it from the beginning of the universe until now. And now a question arises: How can I learn to bestow to others, to society, which will not accept me otherwise and will think that I am a savage, a nobody. I will feel shame in front of my children, my wife, relatives, all the people I care about, my closest environment, which even an egoist has.

I feel like everyone regrets my existence. And then I begin to understand that I need to begin to bestow. But how can I bestow? I can bestow through the force of reception that I have and connect to bestowal.

I have a big egoism that enabled me to win, to build, and do things. And now I use the same force to benefit others. This is called the force of bestowal. But these are very internal things, which a beginner probably cannot understand. They will not summon an inner response, a reaction, because we are not built this way. From this point on, we already need the force of correction contained in the Light that Reforms.

So, our conclusion is: By acquiring the force of bestowal, I develop an inner ability to see the entire world as if it were transparent, to see through it, to know what happens, to fix myself, my family, my immediate and distant social environments, and to arrange my life in a perfect way.

It enables me to attain the state of absolute happiness. I feel included in the eternal reality, and I rise to the human degree that gives me the feeling that life is worth living, existing, and continuing our species, having children. I feel satisfaction and fulfillment in life.

And all this happens by acquiring the force of bestowal though the proper environment.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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Question: You say that all of our development is meant to raise our consciousness about who we are. So, who are we?

Answer: First of all, we are not animals existing inside of our bodies and only caring about how to fulfill it. Second, we are not simply egoistic creatures obliged to please our ego, which plays us and pushes us toward various false goals, only giving us suffering throughout our whole lives. It is written: “A person dies without having achieved even half of the desired,” meaning that no one is left satisfied about his life and while dying, does not take anything with him. Now, we have arrived at such a state where we are left with nothing, even prior to death.

However, we are creatures who have an absolutely unique potential, and we are located at the very top of nature that created the entire universe and, as a result of this wondrous process, developed life on earth along with us. This is what the goal of human development consists of.

This development, by the good or forceful path, must end with everyone attaining the whole of all-encompassing nature, identifying themselves, and reaching balance and perfect connection with it, which in Kabbalah is called “adhesion.” All of the person’s qualities have to be used for the sake of bestowal, serving the force of bestowal, like all of nature.

Then, we will see where our development has been leading us, in the form that existed before the planet earth was formed and afterward, in the periods of the formation of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and then the development of man. All of these forms up until today, when we have begun to enter the new world, the world of bestowal, all of the past development in our egoism, in the world of consumption where we search only for how to receive more, all of it was only preparation for the human level that we now have to develop within ourselves.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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A person doesn’t care whether he receives or bestows, but rather how he feels about it. If I feel good, I am ready to bring you a present every day, every moment. The main thing is that it brings me pleasure.

The problem is not giving the present, but feeling pleasure in this. The moment I feel that bestowal fills me, I will give you whatever you want. I don’t think about whether to give or not to give, but about how to derive pleasure from it.

There isn’t much room for philosophy here because we are merely the desire to enjoy, and so we can do anything if it brings us fulfillment. The question is how to perform actions without receiving any fulfillment?

This is why we were given the desire to fill ourselves egoistically so that above it, we will build our attitude to the form of fulfillment. I have to check myself: How do I enjoy? This means that I grab myself by the throat and now decide how I should enjoy: this way or the other. Until then, I strangle myself and don’t allow myself to receive anything.

Then I become independent. I am free with regards to the filling, and am able to stop myself from receiving fulfillment or, on the contrary, to fill myself. This makes me similar to the Creator because He is the master both of the desire and the fulfillment, and so I also become the master and have control over the two.

We don’t understand how we can strangle ourselves with our own hands and how free we are once we reach that! It is such a high status that only in it am I called “Human.”

Until then there is only an automatic calculation in me and nothing more than that. It is like wanting to stop smoking because it is unhealthy. It all depends on what is more important to me.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, TES

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We have gathered to lay the foundation of the group for those interested in learning the laws of nature and following them. Our development represents a path that allows us to rise from unconscious development under the pressure of the forces of nature at the animate level and reach the level of conscious development appropriate to the human level. The difference between animate development and development at the level of human is in the understanding of the process of our natural development and its conscious realization.

The essence of the human level is that instead of developing under the compelling forces of nature, a person studies the laws of nature and follows them consciously. Thus, he wins twofold: He moves on his own accord and quickly, without suffering blows and gladly accepting all the changes within himself. He penetrates the laws of nature and becomes the master of his destiny.

It should be made clear that the cause of all our suffering is our lack of understanding of the laws of nature with respect to the individual and society. We study and are able to understand nature at its still, vegetative, and animate levels, but since we are at the level of human, we cannot comprehend this level, that is, the attitude of nature toward us. We can study only what is at the level below us.

Nature is integral, whole, and it gradually develops all its parts, including us, to this state. Until our time, we were developing in a simple, linear, egoistic progression, instinctively obeying the orders of nature within us. However, recently, we have completed the phase of our linear, egoistic development and further must become, individually and all together, similar to integral nature. The objective of our natural development is to learn the essence of nature, its program and purpose.

By studying the laws of integral, analog systems, we recognize that it means our complete unity in a single society, mutual bestowal and love. We realize that this is completely opposite to our egoism, the nature in which we were created. We wish to fulfill only our personal desires. This is opposite to that level of full interconnectedness that we have to achieve according to the plan of nature.

By uniting in spite of everyone’s egoistic desire through our actions of mutual bestowal, we are building a model that is similar to nature, to its quality to give to and to fulfill its parts. Through our efforts of mutual bestowal and love, we leave behind the impact of the harsh driving forces of development and advance toward the goal: complete integration and similarity to nature.

We can be proud that we evolve consciously, not running away from the blows like an animal, but by attaining the force that governs us. This raises us to the highest level of nature, to its complete attainment, toward being fulfilled by its upper force and goodness.

Although we have not reached the goal, we have the desire to achieve it. This also should be important for us, although we are still at the beginning of the path. However, we hope that we will reach this exalted goal.
(On the basis of Rabash’s article “Purpose of Society (1)”
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Question: What should I do with the hate towards the friends that I reveal on the spiritual path?

Answer: Learn from the authors of The Book of Zohar. Gathering together in order to “engage in the Torah,” that is, discover the Creator, they felt hatred towards one another first. This was the result of the great work of connection they did previously. Each time a new state, a new desire to receive, a new Reshimo (the informational gene), was revealed to them—and everyone felt it as corrupt: “I hate the others and I love myself, I want everything for myself.”

This is the right preparation: the revelation of new conditions that I have to correct now. First I discover the corruption and then I work on the correction, for which I need the Torah. It says: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” When the evil inclination is revealed, I can turn to the Torah for help.

If you don’t discover the evil from the start, you don’t reach the Torah either. In this case you don’t learn the method of correction, but theory. The “Torah” is the Light that Reforms that you draw from the writings of Kabbalists to the extent that you discover the evil within you and suffer because you don’t want it. This is because you yearn for bestowal, and the evil that is revealed to you disturbs you by not letting you reach it. It’s not that it brings you misfortunes or bad luck in this life; it prevents you from reaching bestowal in particular.

So the preparation for the lesson is the most important thing, as Baal HaSulam writes in “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 17. This is how one should approach the study. Wherever people study you can check: Do they reach the recognition of evil? Do they not just beat themselves on the chest and confess, but truly discover the evil in them?

A person doesn’t discover this with regard to his neighbors, colleagues, or family members, but only in relation to the friends, when he hates them instead of loving them. He tries to connect with them with all his heart, with all his might, but he cannot. Instead, he feels how hateful and repelling just the thought of it is.

There is no greater rejection and disapproval—after all, it is as if you are being forced to love. It comes to very difficult sensations. And it is then that you should engage in the Torah, that is, the method of correction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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Question: What should we focus on while reading The Zohar: the Light or the deficiency?

Answer: What can you do with the Light? We only know that there is a great, perfect force in nature that is good and benevolent to the good and to the bad, that is, to those who want to advance according to its laws and those who do not.

We are actually in a field of Light where the attribute of bestowal is. It is similar to the laws of physics that determine the behavior of any force field, such as electromagnetic or gravitational. In order for this field to influence us most effectively, we should keep its conditions and resemble it. Then, it will operate on us most strongly.

Our sensitivity to this field depends on how much we want to correspond to it. All the still, vegetative, and animate nature move naturally toward the Light, whereas man does not. He needs to determine his attitude to the Light by himself each time, as if to turn himself and place himself under the most suitable and effective influence.

Thanks to the fact that a person turns in different angles with regard to the Light, he studies the Light, gets to know his nature, desire, and the order of his development and its form. He understands why he has to turn himself specifically this way. As a result, the attributes and desires are evoked in him that oblige him to look for the appropriate influence concealed in the Light.

By doing all this work, a person studies creation and the forces that operate in it: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. There is nothing else besides that. The mind he attains during this process belongs to the upper level, to the Creator. This is because neither the Light nor the desire belong to the upper level, to Godliness.

The mind of the Host who creates and controls everything is what manages both the Light and the vessel. As a result of a person’s turning his vessel each time relative to the Light, he begins to understand creation and to know the mind that is above the vessel and the Light. This is the chance we were given: to attain the acting mind. It is like looking at a table and by that attaining the mind of the carpenter. This is all our work.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/2012, The Zohar

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Our correction consists of acquiring a “head.” This is the entire difference between the initial Malchut of the world of Infinity from which all the worlds have expanded, and the Malchut of the world of Infinity in its final, third, state to which we return as we complete the correction.

The entire difference is in this head because Malchut of the world of Infinity is completely filled with the Light both in the first and the third state—only the mind is added. A simple desire, which existed before, now operates with intention and makes a calculation about how much it can receive for the sake of bestowal, how much it can give for the sake of bestowal, and whether to not receive at all or to receive egoistically.

From the Creator’s authority all these decisions are passed on to the creature, to man himself. Then, a person acquires an opportunity to please the Creator in the same way that the Creator pleases him, like a guest who accepts the host’s treats. For this reason, he attains the same position, the same degree, as the Creator.

We need to work on our intention on this path, but sometimes it is necessary to separate from the Light, the Creator, the Host, so that His greatness and absolute power that spreads to the entire universe will remain hidden from us, allowing us to keep our independence. Even when I feel free, like a child left home alone by his parents, I still try to behave well, as if the Host were always with me.

And this is despite the fact that my nature constantly resists, conceals the Host from me, and leads in the opposite direction. Everything is made the way it is so that I imagine the Creator before me and thus, study and reveal Him.

This is why our world is called the revelation in concealment, “Megillat Esther (scrolls of Esther).” We begin this work the very first time we begin to feel the desire to understand the meaning of life. From that moment, I remain confused and unable to understand who I am and why I exist, where I am going.

The first thing I need to do here is to calm down and understand that every moment, I am in the best state for advancement. There is an entire system of Partzufim, worlds, Sefirot, and Reshimot (spiritual genes) operating above, and this entire mechanism is only intended to help me. All the worlds are only created for man to constantly provide him with the best state for advancement toward the goal of creation, his perfect state.

The one who accepts this a priori already has a different attitude toward everything that happens to him. Then, he stops complaining and seeing problems everywhere, disagreeing with his states, and everything that happens to him and the world. This only testified to his foolishness and nearsightedness. Now, he begins to search for how, according to what formula, with what attitude, he will be able to derive the maximum benefit from every state for the attainment of the goal.

There are certain conditions set ahead of time that I do not understand because I am unfamiliar with the entire system. This is why we need to accept as given every current state where I have ended up with my desires and thoughts, my heart and mind, and direct it toward the attainment of the goal.

The goal is adhesion with the Creator, the attainment of similarity to Him. This is why I need to try to imagine the Creator in every state and become like Him, take my example from Him like a guest from the host. As it is written: “I to my Beloved, and my Beloved to me.”

One who understands his state, accepts it as given, and correctly directs himself so that “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one” advances this way. Then, he finds a mentor, books, the group, and the goal. All this is before him; all the roads are open.

This is a gradual, step-by-step process that ends with a great miracle. We can see the end of all the corrections in it because all corrections are intended for revealing the “stony heart,” the point that separates us from the Creator, called “existence from absence.” We are “absence,” while He exists. We want to overcome this difference, which is called the attainment of adhesion.

However, we discover that it is an abyss that cannot be stepped over, just as one born a woman cannot become a man, and one born black cannot become white or red. We cannot change the qualities we have received from nature.

The biggest difference of all the possible differences is the one between “existence” and “absence.” We reveal this difference in the form of the stony heart, which is corrected through a miracle called Purim.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/2012, Writings of Rabash

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Question: You have defined the modern world order in the following way: “The lack of mutual participation has led us to the loss of a point of reference.” Is this the final outcome?

Answer: This simply is the consequence of our inability to use the two forces: bestowal and reception (which is referred to as lack of mutual participation). This leads to the loss of a point of reference, and we do not understand where we are. The lack of mutual participation means that the force of reception and the force of bestowal within me are not balanced, and this is why I am not able to compromise with anyone.

I do not understand where I am because of my inner lack of balance. This is because I see through my channels of perception, and when they are crooked and not balanced, I see a crooked world and do not understand what is happening with it.

This is obvious in government officials, economists, and bankers who are not able to find the way for our world. And they will not find it! They will do whatever they can to stretch things out and postpone the end as much as possible. In this way, they will keep dropping us into even worse states until millions of people come into the streets and start trouble to the point of a world war, epidemics, and natural cataclysms.

This is about the world of forces, and we possess the highest force in all of nature. As we bring the forces inside us into balance on the human level, the highest level of the entire system, we bring into balance the entire universe, on all the other levels of nature: the animate, vegetative, and still.

This is because we are on the highest degree in power and comprehension. We have the ability to establish balance among the most delicate forces that exist in nature: the power of thought. All the other forces are lower than the power of thought. These are very corporeal forces activated by the power of thought.

This power is not the power of our thoughts, but the thought contained in nature, the common program, the engine that works and spins everything.

So, we are at a special point of our development. Until now, nature was fully ruled over us, and it has brought us to the lowest point of our development. Now, we must rise on our own and acquire the force contained in nature: the force of balance between good and evil, between egoism and the desire to bestow, between the force of reception and the force of bestowal.

If we manage to acquire this instrument that will help us combine these two forces, we will gain power over all of nature before us. After all, we and nature are in the same system, and we are becoming an active element in it, a live, moving, and developing element that gives life force to this entire system.

We can call this force the Light that enlivens this entire system. So it follows that you bring this entire system to life.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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Question: What can a person do while reading The Book of Zohar in order to stay in contact with the group throughout the day?

Answer: You receive some medicine in the morning, an injection. Suppose I have high blood pressure. I take a pill in the morning so that I will feel good the entire day. The pill does its job because it works on the same level: the still, the vegetative, and the animate.

On the other hand, our spiritual development depends on our efforts. My healing depends on my participation. Why? It is because thanks to the healing, from the animate level I attain the level of man.

So, it isn’t enough to get a “pill” in the morning, for example, half an hour before reading The Book of Zohar, when I am very enthusiastic and moved to tears by the strong emotions. It isn’t enough. I have to organize a daily schedule so that I will be under this influence all the other 23.5 hours.

In our world, the pill has an effect on me for 23.5 hours if I suck on it for half an hour. Gradually, as the digestive juices are extracted, the pill releases all the substances it contains so that they are absorbed by the body for several hours.

We have to do the same. However, a person cannot do that because he is constantly on his level, while here, he has to be between two. Two levels, as it says in The Zohar, are the letters of the upper “Hey” and the lower “Hey.” The upper “Hey” is Bina that operates on me, and I am Malchut, the lower “Hey.” What should be between us? It is the Creator.

So, I have to place the Creator before me, which means that all the awakenings that my Malchut feels, my desire, as a result of receiving half an hour of “infusion,” all its potential preparation for correction, all must be revealed practically during the 23.5 hours. I have to assist it by trying not to detach myself from the goal of “Israel (one who yearns for the Creator), the Torah (the Light that Reforms), and the Creator are one.” For that, I received the injection.

Of course, I can only do it with the help of the group where we are in one thought and thus influence one another. There is no other choice. A person cannot do it by himself. Even if he writes himself a thousand memos and puts them everywhere, he won’t see them. Even if he takes a servant to remind him, he won’t hear him.

It is possible only in the form that is above him, when the force that obliges him to hear, that is, to establish a connection between the two letters of “Hey,” comes to him. You can do that only in the group.

Therefore, mutual guarantee is expressed when you are in this activity, in absorbing the medicine that is already within you. If you swallow it and don’t use it, it is as if you received poison from a snake because every medicine is poison. It isn’t by chance that the symbol of medicine is a snake coiling around a cup of poison.

If you don’t use this means correctly, it becomes the potion of death. Then you will discover it through suffering and not by the Light. This is mechanics, and it must operate this way. There is nothing but the laws of nature here.

This is the root of all the mistakes people make throughout their lives and throughout human history. You could write entire novels about it, but humanity already has no time to read them….
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2012, The Zohar

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The power to bestow is the power of connection. Without it, I have no connection in my family or contact with other people or children; I have no connection with human society as a whole. We are simply killing ourselves and our community by failing to use the power of bestowal.

This is why it is now becoming absolutely necessary for us to acquire this power. It simply is a matter of life or death. This is why the crisis has come to show us where we are. We have gotten ourselves into this state on our own. Now we only need to examine and evaluate it to understand what we are lacking. We are lacking the power of bestowal. So how do we get it? It is only by building a good environment.

This environment does not exist in nature. We need to build it artificially so that it will serve as an example, pressure us, and push us, helping us to start giving a little. This society will treat everyone as if it were giving them a warning: “You will not get anything if you do not give. Not only will you not receive anything, you will also lose any respect you now have so that you feel like you are nothing, an absolute zero whom everyone disdains.”

The society will influence you through your children and other people whose opinion you value. It will undermine the feeling of self-worth and self-respect in every person who will not strive toward bestowal by showing how low and corrupt he appears in the eyes of society. Everyone will simply turn away from and not wish to be near him or her.

In this way, we will obligate a person to think about acquiring the power to bestow. Let him learn what it is and let him want to be like it. Then, society will treat him the opposite way: It will respect and value him highly.

We do not have any other choice because we need to learn what it means to bestow. When I come to learn, I am interested in having my environment work with me in these two planes: with a stick against my egoism, punishing me with their disdain, and on the other hand, praising me for bestowing. In this way, my egoism will choose to value the power of bestowal directed against it.

I will receive fulfillment and social approval when I bestow. Society will come closer to me and will not offend my big egoism, and it will not shame me.

In other words, we see that in this way, we act above our egoism that has grown and blown out of proportion in every one of us. We can educate a person specifically with the help of egoism through the influence of the environment. This is called integral upbringing because we teach the person to be integral, connected with everyone.

A person begins to appreciate the force of bestowal by virtue of which he acquires the respect and honor of the environment. People envy him for growing so much and being valued so much by his environment. In this way, an egoist begins to value the force of bestowal, to see what can be done with the right environment.

Here, the environment plays the role of an educator, like a father and mother in relation to an infant, like educators and teachers in relation to a child, or like a professor in relation to a student. The big human society acts the same way in relation to every adult.

The way the environment treats a person depends on his or her advancement. Then, thanks to these two forces: reception and bestowal to society, a person acquires an instrument to dig deeper inside themselves, society, and nature. He or she begins to understand what happens in the field of forces, in their own inner psychology, and the inner psychology of nature and society.

This helps a person to begin feeling the way these two forces act in all of reality, the way they operate in a still rock, in plants and animals, inside man, and in the surrounding environment and family—everywhere. He works with these two forces like their owner. In this way, he examines them and learns about everything.

He enters a network that connects all of reality, a network created by the intertwining of these two forces. This is why he understands the entire program of creation, our entire process of development and where it leads.

After all, everything conforms to a certain process. It is only that we do not see it now because we only operate with one force. When a person begins to use both of these forces on his own, it gives him a scientific instrument for research, which he uses to examine everything that happens in nature. In this way, he becomes the true master of his destiny and of everything that happens. All this is done by raising consciousness to a new level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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