The Creator treats the created being with absolute goodness and full bestowal, but if the created being felt this attitude, he would have no chance to do anything by himself; he would have nothing to add to that. This would beat him and calm him down.

Therefore, there is the system of concealment that hides the good and benevolent Light and weakens it so that a person can have free will. Then the absolute love, the good attitude, doesn’t paralyze the created being, but rather gives him a chance to add his attitude and his work.

If the Light were revealed in its full intensity carrying the goodness and the delight, a person wouldn’t have a single desire left, and he wouldn’t be able to move or to change in any way. So he wouldn’t feel himself and his existence at all.

This is why we act within the concealment; this is the Creator’s first concern in His attitude towards the created being: to hide Himself in order to give the created being the entire world of Infinity. It’s thanks to the fact that the Light is concealed that a person can acquire the world of Infinity and become the master in it, the manager, its filler and its creator. Thus, a person attains the same level of wholeness, which he calls the “good and the benevolent” towards the Creator.

All this is possible because of the concealment of the absolute love that comes to the created being from the Creator. To the extent that a person can bear this absolute love, when he prepares himself in advance to not be paralyzed by the revelation of the love, to this extent this love is revealed.

All this is only the revelation of the love:  Although there are many spiritual levels and very different states, the principle here is only the revelation of the darkness and the Light, and all this is the revelation of absolute love, from which the creation begins and ends. All the other states exist only for its revelation.

On every step of the ladder, a person should reveal this absolute love to a certain extent, according to his vessels (desires), because there is no measure of the world of Infinity or of any other world, level, or state. Everything is measured only according to the desires of the created being.

If a person attains even the smallest filling, if this filling is whole, it seems like the world of Infinity to him because it becomes his world. When he rises to the next level, he sees that the previous state was small, and again the present state seems like a whole world to him. When he comes to its end, it seems that he is in the world of Infinity and that there is nothing to add because he has attained absolute love on that level. But he should see in what way this love isn’t whole yet.

Here there is the concept of the three lines, and the division to the head, the inside, and the end (Rosh–Toch–Sof) of the spiritual Partzuf because of which not all the desires are incorporated in the connection between the Creator and the created being, and there are still real desires to receive left (AHP de Yerida), “the stony heart (Lev Ha Even).” So clearly, absolute love has not yet been attained. Still, part of it is felt at the end of every level.

Essentially, the created being should constantly work according to “keep away from evil and do good.” To do good means to try to do the hardest work: to see where one can add more love. This is the hardest thing because it’s where you have to work directly with the desires.

Every level has its problems, its world, and its results. But we should always remember that all the states we go through in our corporeal and spiritual life stem from the Creator’s absolute love and the need to fully reveal it to us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/2012, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Before the upcoming Arava convention, should the group outline the desire, the feeling of deficiency, that is closer to the higher degree?

Answer: We don’t need the feeling of deficiency. We have to yearn for perfection, and from that we will arrive at the right deficiency. We are going with songs and joy; we are drawn to connection and to mutual guarantee, and to everything that is concealed in this higher degree.

No one intends to sit and cry, having covered his head with ashes.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Question: Next Saturday, more than 250 people from our groups throughout Israel are going to assemble in Rehovot. What should our attitude be in order to acquire the right deficiency?

Answer: First, you should rest before the gathering. I recommend that you go to sleep early, without any unnecessary talking, at 8:00 p.m. at the latest, or even earlier, so that you will be full of energy and lively the next day.

When you get up, you should spend at least 45 minutes preparing yourself and the classroom. You shouldn’t speak much with one another. It is better to sit and read inspiring passages, and perhaps sing a little.

We must be in a calm atmosphere, in spiritual upliftment, in a delicate feeling. This is the preparation for the lesson. Then we will connect, all the groups around the world.

Question: Should we evoke the joy toward the Arava convention at the same time?

Answer: A morning lesson is a serious matter. We should be happy internally because we are coming in contact with something that is eternal and unique, where we go through serious states. The joy during the lesson is a general feeling that doesn’t burst forth.

Our general preparation, the general thought during the lesson, is aimed at mutual incorporation. However, everyone does his own work, personally, when he corrects himself in order to incorporate with the others.

Then we will take songs and preparation passages with us to the Arava so that, with them, we will go happily to connect among us. There, the atmosphere will be a bit different: self-annulment reinforced with general activity.
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From 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 93: These are the words of our sages “I labored and found, believe.” And we ask about, “I labored and found, believe,” that the words seem self-contradictory, since labor relates to possession, and a find is something that comes without labor at all, absentmindedly. He should have said, “I labored and bought.”

However, you should know that this term, “find,” mentioned here, relates to the verse, “those that seek Me shall find Me.” It refers to finding the face of the Creator, as it is written in The Zohar that He is found only in the Torah, meaning that one is rewarded with finding the face of the Creator by laboring in the Torah. Hence, our sages were precise in their words, and said “I labored and found, believe,” because the labor is in the Torah, and the finding is in the revelation of the face of His Providence.

We act in order to discover a deficiency, a need for a certain phenomenon. If this deficiency is right, if it matches that phenomenon, then this phenomenon is revealed. Only then can we see what it actually is, because it is a “find.”

I lack the power of bestowal, the Light of bestowal, but I don’t know what it is. This is because my deficiency comes from below and it doesn’t exactly match the final phenomenon. This phenomenon belongs to an upper degree that is so different from me, like the degree of animate differs from the degree of vegetative. Every new discovery raises me to a new qualitative level and every time it is as if I turn from a dog into a man.

When the Light fills the vessel, it gives it a Godly mind and feeling that stem from the root that preceded the creation of man. The Light gives a person the knowledge, the feeling, the perception of reality that is above his root. We can hold on to this only if we come to life and want to resemble Him by that, above ourselves.

Therefore it says, “I labored and I found.” This find is always one level above the deficiency and the current exertion. This is how all the Partzufim of the spiritual ladder are built. There is nothing to be ashamed of here, because when I work on a lower level, I prepare myself for the total self-annulment before the higher level.

This is how the love of parents in our world bears children, takes care of them, and fills them. It is the same here, of course, where there is the love of the Creator, but at first I use it to rise to its level and to complete it to resemble the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can I check if my appeal for correction is correct?

Answer: The appeal is correct if a person wants to unite with the friends and connects to this his desire to attain the Creator. Everything should lie on one single line, on one axis: me, the united group of friends, and the Creator. In this case all desires are in the correct order.

Find out if you can clearly draw this picture for yourself, if you can skewer together all the necessary factors.

Then you will move on to the other form to circles: outer, middle, and inner. The outer circle is you. You contain the second circle, the group, which in turn contains the third circle, the Creator. In the end they all merge into one whole. Then there is no difference between you, the group, and the Creator. Everything is one.

In this way every person, every soul comes to perfect attainment.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Reaching the goal is based on practical work in a society, in a group. The group is meant to be joined by people who aim toward the same goal and received a natural aspiration toward revealing the Creator. The same way, the upper Light, the Creator, gives these people a desire to reveal Him and get close to Him. He gathers them around their teacher and passes this knowledge on to them to reach revelation of how to realize this desire, which the Creator invokes in them.

The Creator creates all the conditions–gives books, a teacher, a group, and a desire–everything except for something that should come from the person himself who needs to organize all these conditions, to focus and direct oneself toward one goal.

Friends help every person come to the lessons, participate in the group work, and study, just like in regular corporeal studies and groups. But the main thing is that one hears that it is impossible to reach the goal with the mere desire that was invoked by the Creator because it is not more than 10% of the desire that is needed to require revelation.

And you have to obtain a full, perfect desire which you get by being inspired from friends’ desire to reveal the Creator, by seeing that they are eager to reveal the Creator, by their talking about it, and by seeing how much they do and how many efforts they put toward it. All of that inspires and evokes the desire inside of you because by nature, we are made this way.

But in spiritual work, a person needs to make his own efforts to notice his friends and be inspired and impressed by them. After all, you can neglect them and everything they do and all their work will remain unnoticed. On the contrary, it is possible that you can pay attention to every little thing, get inspired from how much effort everyone puts into waking up early to come to the lesson even though it is hard for them, how many foreign desires appear in them, but they overcome all of them heroically, how they yearn to be together, etc.

On one hand, the group should open itself and show its strong desire toward revealing the Creator and reaching the goal of Creation. This inspires a person and gives him that additional desire that he lacks. In fact, we get every desire toward the Creator from the environment. The point in the heart is just an initial spark, which ignites this whole process, but afterward we have to advance.

There is work here that needs to be made on a man’s side: to lower oneself and see friends higher than oneself. There is work that comes from the group: to show itself as high, exceptional, and strong with respect to everyone. This is the individual work of each person and work of the group as a whole. We need to take care of that and not to accept a disdainful attitude.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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I have often given the example of the mathematic structure (according to Landau) of two digits: 1 and 0, (the Creator and the created being, the Light and the vessel). But how do the two connect?

The point is that our world is integral and infinite and if we try to imagine it in numbers, we will cut off the connection with Ein Sof (Infinity). There is a gap, Ein Sof, between every two consecutive numbers. In every event (we observe), which is real and concrete, there are its past, its future and all the other possible events (states), which exist simultaneously.

Can we attain what is missing between the numbers, the events, the attainable and the unattainable, the existent and the non-existent, the something and the nothing?

There is a void between two fixed torques, but it is in this gap that the changes take place when the old picture of the world disappears and a new picture appears “as if from nowhere,” but with slight modifications.

The source of this is the raising of MAN (prayer) from the previous state, through all the worlds, to Malchut of Ein Sof, that includes all the analogous states which later descend, down the ladder of His Providence, taking on the form of the concrete, numerical, quantal future states.

Hence, through the world of Ein Sof, the past and the future are locked, and this is a step (a change of step is the Reshimo—reminiscences, and a quant is the minimal change) in the development and the movement of the world towards its goal. Thus, there are constant gradual changes in the world, and every change is discrete and fragmented. But eventually they all fill themselves until the perfect state, because every discrete change is recorded in the world of Ein Sof.

Anyone who can (by using the method of Kabbalah) connect to the source in the world of Ein Sof, finds the answers to all the questions in the Upper (above consciousness), and feels the new existence internally.
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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 94: It is written: “Those who seek Me shall find Me.” One might think that no special effort is required here, and even a small person who isn’t ready to exert himself in any way will find the Creator as well. But the sages warn us not to believe this interpretation. On the contrary, effort is essential here, and if one “didn’t labor and found, don’t believe.”

If a person walks alone, he has absolutely no chance of correction. It is written, “Group or death.” When the nation of Israel stood at Mount Sinai, they were given a condition: Either you unite as one man with one heart, or this will be your burial place. In other words, if you don’t unite, you will never acquire spiritual life. At least some part of the vessel must be corrected.

You may think, “How can that be? This means that everybody must be corrected. Am I only expected to correct a certain part of the common vessel?”

It only appears to us that we perform individual corrections. In truth this process encompasses the whole world, only in part (99.9%) of the vessels the correction happens without them realizing it, while in the other part it happens consciously, after they raise the required plea (MAN) and perform the necessary scrutiny. As a result the entire common vessel connects to the correction process, and this is something we should know. It is also why we need to care for everybody else.

We should also understand the principle of “labored and found.” Our entire work amounts to our efforts to unite, which lead us to “finding” the Creator. Only after these efforts are exerted does the answer come in the form of the upper Light, which makes the correction. We must present to it our genuine desire for unity, and it will then influence this desire, welding and merging us all together, once again turning us into a whole vessel.

Then all the desires—everything that was revealed during the breaking—connects to this vessel with us in it as Aviut, and we acquire a vessel that’s 620 times greater than before.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Is it possible that one minute I don’t understand anything and then suddenly everything is revealed to me, or is it a gradual process?

Answer: It’s a gradual process which leads to an instantaneous revelation. We see this happening to us. We try doing this and that and nothing comes of it, but then suddenly we acquire an understanding and reveal something. We don’t understand how it happens. It’s as though there is something inside of us that slowly grows, then just bursts, and we suddenly gain understanding, sensation and attainment both in the mind and in the heart. This process requires great concentration over a long period of time and many continuous stages that ultimately lead to a sudden breakthrough.
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 26: Also, one does not execute anything during the building, but only according to the details arranged before him in the blueprint…. Thus, there is not a single, tiny item, generated in this world, that does not extend from Ein Sof, from the first state of the souls. And from Ein Sof, it extends to the world of Atzilut, meaning specifically associated to the thing actually being generated in this world. And from the world of Atzilut, the generation extends to the three worlds BYA, where the generation appears in actual fact, where it stops being Godliness and becomes a creature, and to Yetzira and Assiya, until it extends to the lower one in this world.

Only one thing was created: a desire. The created being exists in this desire and feels, thinks and understands in it. The greater one’s desire is, the more he can feel and understand. The more varied the desire, the more ways he can perceive reality.

If the created being’s desire had stayed the way it was created, it wouldn’t have felt anything. This is a result of the four phases of direct Light. Our development begins when the Light begins to influence the desire that was created as existence from absence. All along the way, the desire developed by the Light and received attributes, changes, and urges to act from it. In the Light there is the thought of creation, so when the desire was created by the Light, this thought was put into practice in it.

When the desire developed, it began to perceive different impressions from the Light that turned into receiving. It receives, feels, understands and responds. Every action of the Light initiated the mechanism of changes inside the desire: It absorbed it again and again, felt, and responded numerous times.

Actually the Light is fixed and doesn’t move. It only presents itself to the desire this way. It is in the desire that all the changes take place, until it “turns around” so many times and accumulates so many changes that make it stop and start its way back. The Light is in a state of absolute rest and it fulfills its inner plan, which is for the desire to return to the source, but so that it itself wants to return to the point where the Light gave birth to it, and to justify its creation. Thus it justifies and understands the Light.

All the way into our world and back again is by means of the Light. When the Light shines upon the desire and draws away from it, it spreads from the top down. Then the Light performs the opposite action and the created being begins to draw closer to it, but it does so consciously, wanting to return to the Light, meaning to resemble it. Then he receives the surrounding Light that helps him, and he constantly wants to acquire the inner Light instead, in other words, wants to become like Him.

According to my free will, the Light influences me and changes me. Then I acquire equivalence of form and the inner Light spreads inside me. This is the level of my bestowal. So from a distance, the desire to receive returns to the Light and is incorporated in it.

Thus we attain the Creator’s initial plan and then different general parts of the “blueprint.” The “blueprint” itself is in the world of Atzilut, and we are in the worlds of BYA, dealing with its fulfillment, in the correction of the matter of the desire. Like an architect, a person builds his home and acquires control over his vessel.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, The Zohar

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