Question: Does a person feel the effect of the Light that Reforms? And if he does, how does he feel this influence?

Answer: The Light that Reforms constantly affects us. But its effect is revealed after a number of stages through which it puts us. It’s just like in the four phases of the expansion of the Direct Light—only when Malchut reaches its completion and the entire realization of Keter occurs in it, only then does a leap to a new degree take place and Malchut of the upper Partzuf becomes Keter of the lower one. And once again there is a multitude of inner actions from Keter to Malchut, the degree becomes completed, and a birth on a new degree takes place.

This is why the Light always acts upon us, but naturally, as strongly as the power one uses to activate it. But even when the Light affects one in a good way, there is still a need for certain inner actions, until one begins to recognize Keter, the root, inside these actions: Why things happened the way they did, who did it, and so forth.

This is why when we begin to feel Who works with us, what for, what He wants from us, how He created us, how we need to react to Him, and the way we react to Him now, this means that we have reached the point of Malchut within us.

This way in the four phases of the expansion of the Direct Light Malchut suddenly feels: “Keter is an absolute giver, and I am an absolute receiver. I cannot tolerate myself the way I am! What do I do with myself?! I want to restrict myself!” Malchut has the power to restrict itself. Kabbalists tell us that on such a high level the power to restrict oneself and to stop working with the egoistic intention really exists.

But we do not have this power. Why not? It’s because we need to attain love and bestowal. This is why we have to connect with others. This is how we learn what bestowal is, and together we demand for the root, Keter, to give us this power.

Everything fully corresponds to the four phases of the Direct Light, either directly, from Above downward, or in the opposite direction, from below upward. There is nothing else.

Hence, when a person feels within him that he is beginning to perceive where the influence of the Light is coming from, this means that he has not only attained the realization of evil, but also the root of this realization.
[71171]
From Lesson 1, The Arava Convention 2/23/2012

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Question: If we intend to receive only for our own sake and wish to come out of this intention and bestow, what can we give? We have nothing to give because we only wish to receive….

Answer: We can give our desire to bestow to the group. This is enough. The fulfillment comes from the Creator, and the desire to bestow comes from us. I have nothing to give, nothing to bestow. I will give you what He will give me to give to you. This way we examine the connection between the Partzufim: The upper one, the one who receives first, gives to the lower one what it has received from its upper one.

We only need to build the intention between us, for me to desire to bestow instead of worrying about what I can bestow.
[71165]
From Lesson 1, The Arava Convention 2/23/2012

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Question: According to our reason (“within reason”), we don’t value the friends: We disregard them and we hate them. However, with faith above reason we must accept society’s opinion that it’s worthwhile to see them as great in order to get inspired. So it turns out that I can force my material body to smile and play, but it doesn’t yet enter my feelings. Is this called faith above reason?

Answer: If you feel hatred towards your friends and yet must arrive at the state when you begin to feel love towards them, this is not called faith above reason. It’s the same as when someone brings me a culinary dish that I am unfamiliar with and I don’t like it at first. I don’t even understand how people can eat such a thing. However, if I keep trying this dish every day, after a month it’ll seem to me that there is nothing more delicious.

It’s as if I have been told: “Check above reason that this is delicious, try once, twice, and then you’ll taste it thoroughly and will be convinced. Then, you will ask for it yourself.” However, this is not the kind of faith above reason about which Kabbalah speaks. We don’t value this kind of faith at all. If I am simply following my friends’ advice, this is how the whole of humanity acts; all of the commercials are built on this, convincing you to accept faith above reason that you need this thing and to buy it.

This is not faith above reason but is simply getting accustomed to any new thing that is still unfamiliar. We are drawing it closer and begin to love it within reason; we acquire a taste for it.

However, in faith above reason relative to the Light, I want it to be as elevated as possible in my eyes, meaning higher than all of my doubts. But I want those doubts to remain in their full height. My feelings and reason don’t agree with it, but I want to be similar to it to an extent that’s higher than my agreement with it. This means that I am connecting to a higher Light.

Let’s say that there is a wise man, the more I don’t understand him and simply realize that he is wise and decides things in a completely different way from my reasoning, the more I am impressed by him. Meaning that we should develop our faith above reason relative to the form clothed in our matter, relative to the Light, the Creator, and keep holding on to it.

The Creator suddenly clothes in me and says: “Let’s hug like brothers!” And at the same moment when I am about to hug Him, I must raise Him higher than me, exalt Him even more. Otherwise this is receiving within reason, receiving for the sake of myself, shattering.

Do you feel where the border lies here? This must always be above my reason, against my desire. And in this form I will be ready to connect to Him.

The difference between how I feel Him inside of myself, unite with Him, have contact with Him, and how I raise Him above myself, this difference is created by the screen. And then, even if I receive from Him, I receive it for the sake of bestowal. He reveals Himself each time and shows me that it’s as if He is the same as me, while I constantly want to see Him higher than myself, raising Him ever higher. This means that I am protecting myself and I take care so that I always have the screen.

Faith above reason is my protection from receiving for my own sake. One can speak about this endlessly, while on the other hand, there is nothing else besides this. You must unite with all created beings, beginning with Adam HaRishon, like one man with one heart, and the Creator must constantly remain on the very top of the mountain for you.

If I intend to attain this within myself, to unite as equals, then this is called within reason. However, if I aspire to constantly retain it above myself, this will be above reason. What is important here is my tendency, my aspiration, so that the Creator will be above me. I don’t connect with Him simply, on equal terms, like two friends who feel themselves as equal, but I always retain Him being above.

That’s why I wish that there always remains something that I don’t fully understand or feel. This will mean that I am aspiring ever higher and higher. As long as a person has questions and doubts, it’s thanks to them that he keeps developing.
[70804]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/2012, Writings of Rabash

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We see that in their explanations Kabbalists always return to the same principles. There aren’t many rules in spirituality. One and the same state of ascents and descents, as well as their reasons, comes back to us in different ways, but essentially, it’s the same principle all the time. We don’t receive a new force until we reach a true deficiency.

A servant of the Creator is a person who constantly looks for new ways to come closer to Him. This coming closer involves the acquisition of a new vessel, the desire to bestow, which goes against our desire.

A person who begins to study doesn’t really understand yet what “for” or “against” the desire means. It goes on until he begins to see that to acquire spirituality is actually both easy and difficult. A lot of time passes until he begins to hear what it is about.

It is a kind of latent, internal period that transpires secretly within, whereby a person participates in spiritual work rather passively. He still imagines spirituality as something pleasant to his egoism, an acquisition that will give him knowledge, greater power over others, and will fulfill his desires. This is actually what he comes for, having lost his hope to fill himself in this world. This is why he decides to receive spiritual fulfillment.

Everyone thinks that way. Otherwise, why study? This is how it is arranged from Above, by nature, so as to attract a person. And even if you tell a person something else, he doesn’t hear you. But this beneficial lie holds a person during this period in the feeling that he is about to acquire more and more in his desire to receive, in his ego. He doesn’t really hear what he is being told, and although he repeats the words “the desires of bestowal,” “faith above reason,” he does not truly realize what it is.

He ascribes to these notions his own internal interpretation, and he is unable to perceive otherwise. This goes on until eventually, thanks to the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah and some light blows here and there, he begins to somehow understand the true meaning of such concepts like the desire to bestow, love of the other, and rising above egoistic goals.

He begins to hear more and is ready to reach bestowal. First, it is a general, theoretical agreement, something abstract: bestowal upon the whole world, humanity, the Creator… These concepts are rather vague; they are distant from a person himself, his circle, and actual realization.

This is why he is ready “to bring contentment upon his Maker.” But when it comes to practical actions and him needing “to love the other,” the friends, he is not ready for that. Again, a lot of work is needed here.

And again the upper Light operates upon him, changing his vessels, until he actually begins to hear that bestowal is realized within the group. The Creator demands that we actually realize the love of others, as much as we can.

This is of course a lie, but it’s a start. By that a person becomes a servant of the Creator—if he actually performs actions that eventually lead to the desire to bestow. Of course, a person does not create this desire to bestow himself, it is not a direct consequence of his actions. He as if plants the seeds and sees that nothing sprouts. And then again he starts with no results, which brings him many disappointments.

At the same time he sometimes sees some partial success: a bit more understanding and feeling. Eventually, however, he comes to “those who sow in tears” and sees that his work doesn’t really lead to anything but the demand, a request, a prayer, to the Creator. When he comes to this state, it is called “a prayer of the many,” and it opens up the gate of Heaven. All the gates are closed except for the gate of tears, which opens up. This is what a person discovers.

“Gates” (“Shearim” in Hebrew, comes from the same root as the word “assumed” – “Meshuar”) and  indicates the way a person imagines the expected reward. He wants to receive something in all these gates, anything but bestowal, and about bestowal he cries only because it is clear to him that he cannot reach it by himself. He also doesn’t really want to attain it until he understands its importance.

So a person actually sheds a lot of tears until he builds the gate of tears, until he finally finishes building it by wanting bestowal and not being able to reach it. And this is why he is forced to turn to the Creator. Until this time he had no need for Him, but now he sees that the Creator is necessary.

So as a result, he wants bestowal and he can receive it only from the Creator. He comes to all this in the group because it’s impossible otherwise, and then he “reaps the fruit.” The Light that Reforms comes and connects him with the friends, and within them the Creator becomes revealed. Then a person “rejoices” in the fruit of his spiritual work. This is the path of the Creator’s servant.
[71099]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2012, Writings of Rabash

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The authors of The Zohar attained the spiritual degrees and describe them to us, arranging them so that the flow of the impact of the Light from the description of our state will benefit us as much as possible and help us realize the state we are in.

They are in the system called the world of Infinity, a corrected, working system. However, it is concealed from us, and we don’t know where we are. We are like babies who don’t know what state they are in, in what world, what is going on, who is taking care of them and how. It is as if they receive everything ready made, but they don’t know where it comes from. They have a world of their own that they can feel, and they live in it.

We, too, are still detached from the actual reality; we are in a kind of fogginess, concealment, like in a dream. If we can picture the spiritual state to some extent, no matter how accurate it may be, and try to be in it, we summon the Light that Reforms from that state.

But it isn’t enough to just imagine some spiritual state, even if this view is more authentic: that humanity is united together, in the desire to bestow upon one another, in mutual guarantee, in different correct forms of connection, and even in the desire to reach the comprehensive property of bestowal, the Creator. It isn’t enough because all the descriptions that we try to imagine are nothing more than our imagination, they are no different than our earthly fantasies.

If we want these images to be realized and to take on a more realistic, sensible form, we need a force that will influence this imaginary picture of the upper degree and will turn the fantasy into the actual spiritual reality, a force that will realize it in practice. This force is called the “Light that Reforms.”

This is why we read The Book of Zohar, since reading it, we summon upon ourselves the Reforming Light in the most beneficial and strongest way. It doesn’t matter what we read. What’s important is to what extent we want to be in that feeling, in that intention, in that state, like the authors of The Zohar who tell us about it in words that are beyond our comprehension. But if we want to be in the same circle with them, it works, it influences us. This is how we attain the power to develop.

In our world, a child who makes efforts summons the developing force from nature as it is arranged for him by the system. Be it a young puppy or a small child—the same law applies to everyone. They are both little beasts, animals.

In the spiritual world, however, everything follows the intention. There we have to make great efforts to draw the Light that Reforms. This is called “engaging in the Torah.” We start reading The Book of Zohar by our free choice, with the help of the friends, the group, and great inner work and preparation, wishing to draw from it the Light that Reforms.
[71102]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/2012, The Zohar

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The most important thing is to start feeling that there is no world separate from us, and that the entire world is one group. The group consists of many parts: desires and thoughts, which we need to bring closer and work with each one of them.

All of nature, other than people, depends on our state, on the degree of shattering and confusion in our human thoughts and desires, on how far we are from participating in the work of the common system as its partners. The entire world, except for man, is its imprint, its consequence. The parts that exist around the inner desire called “man ” or Adam, are merely its copy, an addition that ascends and descends together with the movements of a person who works on connecting himself into a single system.

We are already able to see that the development of humanity, together with everything that happens to it, is headed in this direction. The world is advancing toward this goal, subconsciously carrying out the program of creation. Right now, we are in its very advanced stage, at a special transition between subconscious and conscious realization.

This is why we are experiencing a crisis in the world on every level. In our state, we also feel it on the human level. The rest of the world is experiencing the crisis on the animate, vegetative, and still levels. The purpose of this crisis is to bring us toward the realization of the entire process that is happening to us.

By the same token, the world we perceive is the projection of our consciousness. It does not exist on its own; it is imaginary, illusionary. Our consciousness will continue to rise, and we will begin to feel how parts of a divided, broken desire connect together—that’s the extent to which we will perceive the world through this desire in particular. We will sense all the other parts that surround its matter only as the shadow of this desire that temporarily exists in our perception and gradually keeps disappearing.

This process that we experience is unique and incredibly important. Most significantly, it drives us to discover the engine that moves the entire process of development, its program. After this, we will discover the upper force, the Creator, who arranges all this so that we will begin to know Him at the end of this process, as if He were coming through a fog, a cloud.

It is as if we are regaining consciousness, taking certain actions after being unconscious. It is as if we are coming out of the fog and now are able to connect separated and broken pieces of perception between us, turning them into a single image and thus forming our understanding and perception of the Creator. The image of the Creator manifests within us, as it is said: “Call yourself by His name.”

In this way, we acquire a quality of connection, mutual bestowal, a very strong connection and understanding, like being one person. This is called love. The separate parts that we are, where every part has its own function in the common system, merge into one whole that exists for a single goal: to reveal the upper force and let it manifest within us.
[71034]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/2012, Writings of Rabash

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“Commandment” in the language of Kabbalah means correction of the desire created by the Creator. Desire develops with the help of the Light that influences it during the four phases of the expansion of the Light. At the end, the desire “inflates” into an enormous size and obtains everything that the Light is willing to give to it: love, fulfillment, and abundance.

In the beginning, the desire was as tiny as a drop of semen. Then, with the help of love it is “blown up” into a huge ball. So, at some point, when the desire senses love, it suddenly starts to realize that its own nature is opposite to it. It then immediately gets “deflated” and returns back to its starting point.

What happens to the love felt by the desire? It turns into trepidation and fear, that is, into its own limited world. The desire cannot cope with what it received from the root through the four phases of the expansion of the Light and thus restricts itself.

It makes an effort to handle the situation, obtain similarity, and merge with the previous sensation. After all, this sensation is in fact the attainment and revelation of the Creator and His Essence. So, the desire tries to “inflate” again and become similar to Him, more and more. At first, it performs correction in the five Partzufim of the world of Adam Kadmon (AK); later, it proceeds with NHY de AK in order to obtain the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) in the world of Nekudim, the place of the world of Atzilut.

It then becomes unable to continue this process, and the shattering occurs: The desire begins to realize that its properties won’t allow it to attain perfect love. However, on the other hand, the desire acquires a certain sensation and understanding, and it builds the worlds of Atzilut (A) and BYA.

Thereby we attain the relationship we used to have in the world of Infinity, in other words, we attain love. This is what we strive for, constantly checking and measuring the level of love we have managed to attain.

This is why the Creator made the group: I have friends; I have somebody to love. “Practice with your friends and check the results you received,” He says. “When you achieve correct interconnection between you, I will reveal Myself within you.”

The Creator broke the collective vessel, and today we are a broken group. By doing so, He gave us a chance to sense and to reveal Him through correction we perform between us. On our side, our readiness to love is called the “vessel,” and on His side, His readiness to love is called “the Light.” At the end, they meet: Our corrected vessel is the “divine Shechina,” the “assembly of Israel,” and the Creator settles in it.
[69398]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/9/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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Coupling while striking with the Light happens at the screen, which is standing at the Partzuf’s head. Afterward, it descends from there onto the place in the desires that are possible to be fulfilled. These are not geometric places, located on one side or another, but these are desires.

At the head, coupling while striking happens with the Light and the decision is made that some desires can be fulfilled, while others cannot. All of these desires are gathered together and a calculation is performed on them. Similar to how there are numerous places in the human organism where the decisions are made in the head and then they are activated.

Let’s say that an order to make the blood vessels narrower has been issued. Now, this order goes to any place where there are blood vessels in the body, and it is to only them and the special muscles located at the vessel walls that constrict them. One effect of the decision applies to all of these vessels.

In the same way the action takes place in the Partzuf’s head, which results in an order being issued. The head is the place which sends the orders. An order is formulated from below, above in the head and it controls the implementation of the action bottom-up in the body of the spiritual Partzuf.

This action is done by that same Light, which has made the decision in the head: what to receive, how much and how, with what intention, to bestow at the expense of what, with the help of what vessels, desires, with what connection between them.

Here, it is like in a musical scale, there are no more than the eight notes “Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do”, while the order is issued thanks to their connection, the chord, a combination of various particular actions uniting together.

That is why the Light, which is being disseminated in the head, has a special form of a Light’s order. And it is the one to implement this action in the body and everything happens there according to the force, coming from the head, and activating the nervous and other systems. And this is how the body implements an order.

If only the GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim) are activated in the head, then in the body, in each of its parts and cells, in each desire, only the GE are being activated due to the combination of orders, which the head has taken considering the thousands of various conditions: onto what depth of the desire to disseminate this action (Aviut), relative to what, and so on.

It seems to us that coupling while striking is a simple collision, like the strike of the pendulum, but this is not so. It is a million times more complicated and full of details than the orders of the brain, which the human organism is regulated by.
[70747]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/12, The Study of The Ten Sefirot

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Question: I have many qualities that I do not like. They weigh on me heavily and I do not want them. What can I do?

Answer: Instead of eliminating the bad qualities, you should turn them into their opposite. But you need the Light to do that; “here, you cannot get by with gifts instead of a fight.” I must change internally in such a way so my bad quality is turned into its exact antithesis.

Question: Suppose, I have a “short fuse” and I’m already itching for a fight, when I fly into a rage at someone,  I  get angry at myself for being angry. What would be my correction in this case? Will I stop getting angry?

Answer: No, you will be angry, but for different reasons because anger itself is not necessarily bad. All people are different, and the Light gives everyone his own line. You cannot correct what seems bad to you now to what seems good to you now because you are guided by egoistic criteria. While egoism sits in the judgment-seat, you cannot see the truth.

Only the Light will show you what is good and what is bad, and then it will give you an opportunity to decide what you prefer. It leaves the middle third of Tifferet, the middle line, with the scales set in the middle. It is said that a person always should see himself half-guilty and half-righteous. This is what you will feel with the help of the Light.

But now you are in the “bubble” of egoism, and if you decide yourself, you will be like the “world reformers,” all those smart people who from morning till night utter proclamations and warnings, building a system of education on the fear of punishment. They have nothing, but this. They are egoists, and so is their following.

Unlike them, we do nothing without the Reforming Light. The desire to receive has no mind, feeling, and strength for the correct decision, only fear remains, and it runs away from the truth. As a consequence, conflicts are exacerbated, and people grow apart.
[70796]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/8/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: After the Arava Convention, we are returning to our groups. What would you suggest in order to strengthen the connection we attained even further?

Answer: We need to carefully consider what took place at the convention, the feeling generated there. If we watch everything that happened over and over again, we might be able to feel those things once more, to relive them, in order to proceed forward with them. Most important is not to descend from that level, to realize that the obstacles are particularly designed for us to ascend. We can’t spend our whole life being at a convention, that doesn’t do us any good. It is no coincidence that everything is arranged so that now, after the convention, we can include in the degree that we attained all the rest of the masses who couldn’t participate in it, who couldn’t be inspired themselves.

We are situated at the fourth degree of sensitivity of matter (material desire), at the speaking degree. The animate, vegetative, and inanimate now need to join that same degree in order to build this degree in its complete form. This is called “obstacles,” coming from all of humanity, meaning from the animate, vegetative, and inanimate degrees. They have to bring us the complete comprehension of the progress we have attained and we must view these obstacles as “help against him.”

Overcoming these obstacles can be divided into two stages:

1. I try to constantly remain in the perception of reality that other than the group, nothing exists. There is a system, I observe it, and through it I view the world. This system is the group, and everything taking place in this world is only the result of the quality of connection among us. Hence, I want to try to constantly remain in this perception. That’s because it’s true, it’s correct. The more we try to feel it, we will see that truly, that is how the world is governed.

2. I can maintain that to the extent I ensure that everyone is a part of it, all the friends. Here, there should be mutual concern. If I am concerned for them, I receive the concern from them, and then I don’t exit the perception of the system.

That means, I should constantly maintain myself viewing the world and feeling the world through the prism of the group, accordingly regarding all my parts, all my friends, in order for that perception not to dissipate from them either: for us all to be together in such a perception of the world. If I want to maintain this form and if I am concerned for them, I receive the Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) from them. And this means that I sentence myself and the entire world to a scale of merit.

That’s actually a person’s point of scrutiny and the point of choice. For now, that’s how it’s becoming clear to us. If I can’t scrutinize anything with such an approach, I shouldn’t go out to the world. We should maintain it as much as possible. Going out to the world, other than through this system, eventually causes us problems, collapse, confusion, unpleasantness, until death. All the troubles come only from our suddenly ceasing to see the single, unified system, even minimally. Parting with it is death, that is, the lack of connection between its parts plunges us into spiritual oblivion.
[71008]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/12, “The Purpose of Society”

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