The first phase of the Direct Light (Behina Aleph) in the world of Infinity is the desire to receive pleasure, which was created from the Above and filled with the Light of Hochma (Wisdom). After that, the creature discovers that it is a receiver, it does not wish to receive, but instead, wants to give. Thus the second phase, Bina, appears.

This is a natural reaction within the creature, created by the Creator. From this it follows that the natural form of the desire to receive is that it strives to bestow when it is filled with Light! And this is what we lack. If the Light was to fill my desire to receive pleasure now, I would immediately wish to become like the Light: a giver. This is referred to as the “Light that Reforms.”

But why are all the corrections performed by the Light of AB-SAG that helps us be born in the spiritual world? Partzuf AB is the desire to receive with a screen, which operates in reception for the sake of bestowal. It has the strength to be near the table, across from the Host, and say: “I am able to receive this and enjoy so as to bring contentment to You. I enjoy, You enjoy as well, and we are united and connected due to the treats or pleasures that exist between us. But the pleasure I receive does not come from the food on my plate, but from adhesion with You.”

Partzuf SAG has a smaller screen, and it is not able to receive for the sake of bestowal, but can only give. It can give the creature what it has: the desire to bestow, the Light of Hassadim (Mercy). Whereas Partzuf AB can give its power—the desire to receive for the sake of bestowal—to the lower one. The union (Zivug) of AB-SAG, which produces the Light of correction, is like father and mother, the masculine and the feminine parts together, and not just a single Partzuf.

You would think, why wasn’t AB able to correct the creature on its own; after all, it is stronger that Partzuf SAG? SAG is only able to bestow, while AB is able to receive for the sake of bestowal. But SAG adds something special due to their connection with one another, their position.

In order to clarify this, it is very important to understand the difference between reception for the sake of bestowal and bestowal for the sake of bestowal. Bestowal for the sake of bestowal is the intention. It is not an action yet; I only want to bestow to Him, but I do not do anything in practice. Whereas when I receive for the sake of bestowal, I already work with my matter.

The creature that is doing the evaluation really needs to possess both notions in order to understand what it means to only be in the intention to bestow in comparison to an actual opportunity to bestow. After all, all the problems happen when we transition from our nice and good intention towards the actual possibility to bestow, which is exactly what happened during the breaking of the worlds. The intention was wonderful and correct, but look what happened at the end when it came to actual reception.

This is why for correction neither the Light of AB or the Light of SAG alone is not enough, we need them both: the Light AB-SAG. When they manifest in the lower one together, they make it understand that there might be wonderful intentions in its head, but all these intentions can collapse in the body, when it comes to real desires. After all, it is not the same thing.

But in our case, before we acquire a spiritual head and body, like those of the Partzuf, it manifests in the form of ascents and descents. When we are in a state of ascent, we become euphoric and ready for anything because we think that it is very easy to bestow. But as soon as a little desire to receive pleasure is added, we immediately fall into it, no longer want anything, and become simple animals. This is how the difference manifests between the way we act due to the Light of SAG and due to the lack of the strength of the force of AB.

The descent shows us how much we still lack. The intentions were wonderful, but what has come out of it? And then we have to raise a prayer, MAN, in response to which the Light AB-SAG comes and makes up this correspondence between intention and action.

All corrections must be done by the Light of AB-SAG, the Light of Hochma and the Light of Hassadim, which connect together. When they come to the creature, they teach it “the father’s ethics and the mother’s teaching.” In other words, both forces are necessary here, each acting on its own. Later, we will see the mutual work of these forces everywhere. All of this is so the creature could figure out the difference between the desired state and the actual one.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/2011, TES

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Question: At the December Convention, we want to celebrate the birth of a new world. What should we concentrate on?

Answer: We must unite for the sake of the values that we want to highlight at the convention. Day by day, we should put more and more effort to feel ourselves living in a new world. We need to play it, imagine it in the relationships between us, in all our thoughts and actions.

As Baal HaSulam writes, we must create a model of the new society, which will form the basis of the new world and will allow everyone to learn from our example. So, let us first discover this new world between us. Then we will see how opportunities that we have never dreamed of open up for us in communal life, industry, commerce, education, and so on.

We don’t really understand these stages, so leave them to the Light. If you do what you can, everything else will work out. Our job is to exert effort, and opportunities will open. All our efforts need to be directed at the new world, new relationships, new society. This work should take each moment of our lives, setting the tone and creating a mood in dissemination, in the preparation for the convention, and in the relationships between the groups so that we feel ourselves as one group more and more….

Every day we should see to the growing unity and bridge the gap between the desired and current reality. If we still see negative phenomena in the world, this means that we have not achieved the correction between us. And this is the only reason.

After all, humanity develops according to what has been prepared for it, while we have freedom of choice and the ability to attract the Light, which then pours onto the entire world and establishes order in it. Thus, the convention is nearing, and everything is very serious.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/2011, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Kabbalists put a lot of emphasis on the group, and the entire question of spiritual attainment is related to this notion. This is because the group is a method, an instrument, for the attainment of the Light. It is the well, the source, of Light in our world.

The Light is the only thing that works. It does everything, awakening all the desires. Hence, if we wish to change reality, we need the Light that shines in its usual direction, but we can add our own efforts to it and accelerate our development, as well as make it desirable and good.

If we wish to be masters in the spiritual art, the Light must become the method, the instrument in our hands, and make these changes. We can only attract the Light that Reforms in the group. This is why the purpose of the group, the environment, is to reveal the Light contained in it and to let it act upon yourselves and the entire world. And the Light is revealed in our world through the group.

The direction of the Light’s influence depends on us. We cannot change its influence at all; we can only accelerate our development, make the Light shine more strongly than it naturally does. In other words, we can only increase the velocity.

However, changing the velocity means to agree with its actions and change our sensation from development. Then, development will stop being forced and undesirable; it will no longer happen under the steamroller of evolution. Instead, we will develop according to our desire and aspiration to advance.

This way, group work becomes the main work that the revelation of the Light, the Creator, and the speed of development depends on. It does not matter that we, of course, do not understand in which direction we are developing and what we need to demand. After all, once the Light becomes manifested, it will explain and illuminate everything to us, clarify our thoughts and desires, and turn us in the right direction.

We completely depend on the Light. This is why we depend on building an environment, a group. In reality, this is the only thing that we have the power to do.

In regular life, we develop the obligated way, and no one asks us where, how, and why they should turn us. We simply turn as we should, without even realizing it. The Light either turns us in a concealed way in our world or openly in the spiritual world. The only difference is whether we understand this.

In the spiritual world, we act because we agree to act, and we want the Light to operate and do all the work with us. Let it do whatever it wants with us. We are ready for it, and we cancel ourselves before its actions.

In our world, every person cancels themselves before the actions of the Light, even though they neither understand nor realize it, like a small child who plays and thinks that he is given all the freedom in this world.

I do not have freedom in the spiritual world, but I already know that I am not free, and I agree with it. However, we are given freedom of choice in the middle, between that world and this world, in the so called “middle third of Tifferet,” for us to consciously choose to want to be under the influence of the Light.

In other words, here, I always remain independent, although we do not think that this is the condition of our independence— making the decision to put ourselves under the influence of the Light that Reforms. We do not understand what the point of our freedom is—to the extent we do not feel and do not understand what it is to be free. We exist in absolute darkness and are controlled from Above.

In the spiritual world, we also exist in the Light that controls us, but here, in Klipat Noga, in the middle between the forces of sanctity and impurity, we build our path from all these states, the points of freedom that, one after the other, add up to make a line. We follow it to absolute independence and at the same time to absolute adhesion and similarity to the Creator, something that is hard for us to understand now.

All of this is analyzed and realized in the group, in society.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: I’ve been studying Kabbalah for a few years, and it’s clear to me that what matters most is my internal work. However, it still seems to me that I don’t really understand what it is. Will you explain in greater detail what our internal work is?

Answer: My internal work is to try as hard as I can to join the collective internal work of creating the vessel for the reception of the Light. The end of an action is in its initial thought. First, I yearn for the state in which I reveal the Creator. What is that state? It’s the state in which several points in the heart join together. If I create the right unified system with these points in which the power of bestowal resides, I will discover the force called the “Creator” in it. I will discover Him according to the level of our unity.

So our internal work is about unity, mutual guarantee. It is said: “Love thy neighbor as thyself is the great rule of the Torah.” A rule (Klal) is the vessel (Kli) that contains all the Light. This is the only thing I need, and this is why I stay focused on it.

I try to do different things that will lead to the internal unity of the points in our hearts. I look for opportunities to unite and to awaken the friends towards it. I am concerned about all of us being in one intention, thought, about being inspired and connected so that the fire among us will burn. Then we will reveal the Creator there.

His revelation is the only thing we need. The essence of the entire wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created being in this world.
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From Lesson 2 at Arava Convention 10/28/2011

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The Creator created a perfect will to enjoy made of two forces: the force of receiving and the force of bestowal. They were perfectly balanced and receiving took place only in order to bestow. Later however, in order to allow the created being to grow, the Creator shattered these forces in it and totally disconnected the desire from Him. This was done so that the created being would be able to choose how to use the opportunities he was given, meaning these two forces, on his own.

Our world begins from a tiny spark. It contains an enormous force that until today moves the whole world and will bring it to the end of correction. The desire to receive appears in our world in the form of matter. We perceive this desire as if there is something material about it.

As this matter develops, it begins to connect, to unite. This is its correction after all the breakings and the fall, as the result of which it has reached the lowest possible point and was finally shattered.

Then, different parts of the matter begin to connect. At first they can hold one another only by physical gravitational forces. Then the connection becomes closer, and they can exchange materials. This is how biological connections are formed, in which each party gives and takes and also passes materials on to a third party.

This instinctive connection leads to the creation of life, to growth, to a process of life and death. This is the vegetative level that appears after the lower levels, in which there was only inanimate matter. The vegetative level evolves into special species like the “dog of the field” mentioned in the Ari’s writings, which is something intermediate between a plant and an animal.

The animate level is much more intricate and independent. It moves easily, and it absorbs and emits materials in a very clear manner. Every individual has its own unique character, and these creatures connect in a special way. They bear new creatures; they live and die.

So we can see that evolution is moving in the direction of connection, of mutual incorporation of opposite forces. The more forces there are and the further apart they are in quality, the more intricate and advanced the creatures they produce are when it comes to their own sensations and to the way they sense their environment.

And so through the monkey, the animate level, evolution reaches the level of man, the “speaking” level. At this level there are also those who only worry about their beastly existence, about preserving their life, which is just a bit more than that of an animal. After all, animals also build themselves a home, look for food, and take care of their offspring. This is also the life of undeveloped humans.

However, the more a person develops, the more the “human” desires, which are beyond the level of the living, awaken in him: desires for money, respect, power, and knowledge. Then human feelings awaken in us: envy, hatred, lust, and ambition.

Thus, developed people are very different in their qualities and tendencies. They are divided into different levels according to the goal of their lives and to their desires, which can be only material or more abstract, like the desire to enjoy music, art, philosophy, or science.

Still, each of them wants to use others, and the more developed a person is, the more he is attracted to it. The only difference is what one wants to gain from others, whether it is money, dominance, or knowledge. The evolution of these attributes is what advances humanity. All of it is in order to control the world and to understand it. After all, knowledge is power.

But there are people who have an additional desire, the desire to understand the meaning of life. They look for a way to reach this totally abstract goal that is beyond the limits of ordinary science. These people come to study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

They are different from others as they want even greater control—control over their own lives. They don’t ask about material things, but rather about their own essence, their goal that is beyond corporeal existence. They have the initial desire, which is outside this life and which draws them beyond this world’s limits.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/27/2011, Writings of Rabash

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A person should do whatever he can in order to connect with others and to reach bestowal. As a result of one’s corporeal, egotistic efforts, he feels how reluctant he is to connect, how opposed he is to unity, mutual guarantee, and being as one man with one heart. He finds it useless and only feels repelled by it.

Thus, he discovers the desires that need correction, the desires that the Creator has created in man as “the evil inclination.” After this revelation he begins to see the help he receives from Above, despite his reluctance.

The discovery of the evil inclination comes from Above as part of the correction process. The Creator makes a covenant with a person that He won’t leave him and will help him advance. Even if a person doesn’t want to connect and is repelled by it, he will still be inspired by the previous state in which he made efforts to advance, and this will support him.

Gradually, a person discovers, ever so slightly, what bestowal is, what the power of love is. He begins to understand that his goal is only to discover a need for that. Then he can consciously and unconsciously understand, feel, and cry out asking for the force of correction.

The right request (MAN) is added to the right desire, the demand to leave the present state and move on to a better one. This desire can still be egoistic, which is called “Lo Lishma,” but it is already in line with the right path.

And so gradually, step by step, a person clarifies his desires and intentions. Of course, he is not the one who determines the steps of his development. In fact, they are awakened according to the Reshimot (informational genes) in him. The upper force, the Light, determines the whole process. A person only needs to constantly yearn to advance and to perform even the slightest actions that will advance him in any way towards the goal.

Then he will achieve the desired goal: He will receive the Light that Reforms, will acquire the attribute of bestowal, and will be filled with the Reflected Light that provides the sensation of spiritual life—life in bestowal!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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It is said that everyday a person should see himself as if he has left Egypt, which means that he should search for the evil inclination within him in order to need the Torah, the Light that Reforms. If a person reaches this state, from that moment on he begins to live—gets on the right track.

If he doesn’t feel the need to correct himself, if he doesn’t sense the shattered desire inside him (the ego, Pharaoh, the vessels that were taken from Egypt, from the state in which he discovered his evil inclination with regards to connecting to others), then he has nothing with which to come to Mount Sinai. It’s because you come there only to connect.

If we are ready for that, we receive the Torah, the reforming Light, which realizes our connection. With reference to that it says: “You are all here today….” But if this doesn’t exist, there is no point from which it can all begin.

So first there is the simplest work that we can do in our position. It is this corporeal world that enables us to start working because we can do things in it even without the right intention. This is why I connect with others, although I have no desire for that or I try to achieve different egoistic goals hoping to gain something from it.

This is why we were brought into this corporeal world, and from it we begin to ascend. We try to play the spiritual state more naturally each time and thus draw the Light that Reforms upon ourselves. The spiritual world is in concealment, and if we yearn for it, it’s enough to draw the Light from there.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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In order to spur us towards more advanced states, these advanced states glow in the distance for us. Something good is glowing for us in the distance. It’s like when you show a child some ice cream from a distance. It makes him feel bad rather than good because we tease him with the ice cream he doesn’t yet have.

It’s the same with us. And hence we begin to strive forward. It seems that our present state is bad, and as we aspire for a better state, we advance.

Each time a higher and more advanced spiritual level is revealed, and we have problems with it. While a child understands that he will feel good if he eats the ice cream, we are not so sure about it because our state is opposite to the spiritual advancement. This is why we experience unpleasant states, a descent. This is why we need additional means of support: the group and the study, to convince ourselves that a better future glows for us in the distance.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/2011, The Zohar

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During the reading of The Zohar, we need to begin to feel the kinds of connections and relationships between us that it talks about. Let’s assume that there exists some kind of hidden form of connection between us, unknown and secretive, but there is no doubt that this connection exists. We want to discover it: Who is connected to who, in what way, in what manner, to what dependency, and how can they influence each other?

The Zohar describes all of these forms of connection, and not only ours, but of the entire world. Now, the world is in a state of confusion, and we don’t know how to find the correct connection between us all or how to behave in the correct way in relation to others. The Zohar describes all that. If we knew and understood the entire system, we could easily organize everything that exists in the world.

Thus, on one hand, The Zohar is being revealed, and on the other, problems appear in the world, which we cannot manage. Problems arise in different forms, different areas of human activities in this world. We need to find the connection between them, to understand exactly what The Zohar is speaking about. Then, according to what is revealed to us from The Zohar, we need to build a corresponding reality in this world. This is called to discover the spiritual world between us.

Let’s suppose that the corrupted and shattered state in which we exist is revealed to us today. The Zohar talks about the corrected states, the very advanced ones that are a few degrees ahead of us. However, in any case, if we want to advance to these states, to correct our present situation even a bit, then that is already a prayer.

We want the same relationships that are described in The Zohar to be revealed to us in place of the broken connection that is being discovered now. This is so because that which was broken was the connection between the parts of the collective soul. This is why we want to correct it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/2011, The Zohar

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Question: It is written, “Do not do to another what you hate.” Who is “the neighbor”?

Answer: In principle, “the neighbor” is every person in the world. But for us that is too much. For now we do not yet know how to treat our enemies and opponents correctly. This has to be learned separately.

Therefore, for me the “neighbor” is my friend in the group, a person who wants to unite with me to attain the spiritual goal. This is the condition we have to carry out in the group. We might think badly of our friends and look at them critically, but if we nevertheless try to create the right network of interconnection among us in our spiritual work, if we don’t want to hold grudges against others in any of our thoughts, desires, aspirations, or intentions, by that we already extend threads toward each other.

Until then, this network will only bring us troubles and bad sensations. But as soon as we breathe life into it with our attitude, devoid of criticism and mutual blame, we will immediately feel the electricity flowing between us, will feel how the air in the group grows thicker and turns into “jelly,” connecting us all into one whole.

That is exactly the feeling one gets: The air gets denser around us, turning into a liquid and then into a viscous substance, becoming a gradually solidifying “dough” until we see that we are like raisins embedded into our common “pie.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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