Question: What is the inner meaning of the holidays, of all the symbols that Kabbalists gave us: Rosh Hashanah (the New Year), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles)? Do they symbolize some special connections between us?

Answer: These are connections, but between the souls on high spiritual levels. The souls raise a prayer (MAN) to connect and to reach mutual bestowal, and from the mutual bestowal, their common vessel, they have an opportunity to bestow upon the Light, upon the Creator. These souls connect in Malchut of the world of Atzilut, and then in their prayer they determine to what extent they compel Malchut of the world of Atzilut to rise together with Zeir Anpin: either to YESHSUT or to Aba ve Ima, or that YESHSUT together with Aba ve Ima will rise to Arich Anpin, which in itself consists of many steps.

The ascent from Aba ve Ima to the head of Arich Anpin constitutes the essence of all holidays, Sabbaths, and the beginnings of the month (Rosh Hodesh). Even every weekday is a certain ascent of the souls with regard to ZON of the world of Atzilut. All the holidays, festivals, and special years (like Shmita [Sabbatical Year] and Jubilee) are special degrees that symbolize to what extent I compel ZON to rise upward and pass down on me the Surrounding Light so that I can bring about the general connection and create a corrected vessel.

Some ascents take place according to a plan from Above for the souls that need correction. And some take place due to a prayer raised from below.

Similarly, we too assemble in conventions and large gatherings, which allows us to feel as if we rise above our ordinary level. There are cases when this ascent occurs on its own, and we don’t know where it comes from. Suddenly our condition becomes more illuminated, more pleasant, and spirituality becomes more esteemed in our eyes. Similar ascents also occur on the spiritual ladder.

If you want to know the exact meaning of every holiday, you can refer directly to the Ari’s Beit Sha’ar HaKavanot (The Gate of Intentions) or to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 15 by Baal HaSulam. Beit Sha’ar HaKavanot explains every holiday in great length, but in a very dry Kabbalistic language: ZON rise to Aba ve Ima and Aba ve Ima to Arich Anpin and describes the finest details of every ascent. This is because every ascent, even the smallest one, is a whole world by itself. At this height, every minor difference between the levels leads to an immense addition of the Light.

At the end of all the holidays and ascents we reach the end of correction. Then all the holidays are annulled except for Purim because it symbolizes the end of correction—all the Light fills the entire vessel completely.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/2011, Shamati #85

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We attain the Creator depending upon how much we exalt Him and how important we deem Him to be. What does “Him” mean? The universal quality of bestowal.
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From the 6th lesson at the Toronto Convention 9/18/11

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Question: Social protests are spreading throughout the world. How should we operate in these conditions?

Answer: We have to give the demonstrators materials that explain what is actually happening in the world and why it is awakening. These materials have to refer whoever reads them to our websites where they will find more detailed information about current problems and their solution.

We don’t incite revolutions. On the contrary, we want everything to happen peacefully, through internal work, through one’s inner changes. It is good that the demonstrators are shouting in the streets, but then they should realize that it all depends on inner correction.

Our friends should take part in the demonstrations, give out flyers, and be among the demonstrators in order to feel them in order to understand who they are and what they want, in order to absorb their desires. They need to be closer to them—it will help to prepare better materials with our message. They don’t need to shout with them or to join the riots. They should only look for the right way to approach people and to explain to them that correction is only achieved through connection between us, only through mutual guarantee.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/2011, “One Commandment”

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If we want to realize the purpose of creation and feel the pleasure prepared for us by the Creator, we have to feel ourselves as creatures who are opposite to Him. On the other hand, we have to become like the Creator because perfection is only possible at this state.

It turns out that we have to include these two opposite points, states, and properties inside ourselves. And when they awaken in us, we celebrate our spiritual birth. After being born spiritually, we already include the two qualities within ourselves: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, one against the other, and we exist between them, feeling them both.

That happens as a result of a gradual, step by step development, whereby we pass through all the previous forms: still—vegetative—animate—monkey—man of this world. After that, new sensations and experiences awaken in a person: He feels bad and wants to learn the reason for which he lives, the meaning of his life.

The development of true man begins with this. But it isn’t a spiritual birth yet. It can take a few decades or a few life cycles until a person actually starts using the true criteria to research his nature with respect to the nature of the Creator.

And if his time has indeed come and a person can analyze these qualities, he is brought into a group and to the study. A person learns that he or she consists of the desire to receive, above which there is the desire to bestow, the Creator. He discovers that there is the goal, and he is in the process of achieving it; that the main thing is the environment, which needs to be built to correct and improve himself.

A person learns that all the corrections will become realized by him building the means for reaching the Creator and becoming just like Him. By that, he realizes his free will and shows that the purpose of his life is to become similar to the Creator.

For that reason, he builds the means that affect him with the attributes of bestowal. Then, the quality of bestowal that he receives from the society, from his environment, begins to contradict his natural egoistic inclination.

One always gets torn apart between these two qualities and thus, acquires free will. He can choose who to be with: his egoistic desire, his own nature, or with the quality of bestowal, the Creator’s nature. And perhaps he may even use the Creator’s nature to pull his desire to receive pleasure towards it and use his will to receive for the sake of bestowal. Thus, the left line gets included into the right.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/2011, Shamati #167

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It all depends on a person and is based on the creation of means for spiritual advancement, that is, on building the environment. Through this environment, a person draws the force that reforms him. By building his environment, he essentially builds his future spiritual world.

Being included in this environment, a person begins to feel that he exited his ego and is included into his fellow human being, whom he loves as himself. He comes out of himself and instead of his inner world, which he felt as “this world,” he feels the upper, spiritual world in the society, in the connection between everyone.

And inside this spiritual world, he reveals its property: the property of bestowal that fills it, that is, the Creator. Everything begins with this first change called “the beginning of the year” (Rosh Hashanah).

Before that, the person has done extensive preparatory work: He tried to form the environment around himself and draw the forces that would change him, fulfilled everything that was written in the books, and disseminated this knowledge to others to increase the number of people aspiring to the goal of creation. In this way he increased the total, cumulative desire to reach the goal, and it started to affect him more powerfully.

Nevertheless, he sees no success. Kabbalists write a lot about this condition, this point, this stage on the path. It is a special critical point called the “day of judgment,” when it is decided whether you will advance or fall, sentence yourself to life or death.

In fact, a person determines this decision by his previous work: whether he managed to build for himself the group‘s support and to receive from them the force of mutual guarantee so that they hold him against harsh judgment, that is, immense egoistic desires, which get revealed in the person and which he cannot resist on his own.

It is clear that we cannot stand against the egoistic desire that gets revealed in us, even against the smallest one. And only due to the power of the environment, through it, will we be able to receive the upper force. It is said that “the Creator dwells among His people,” meaning that the power of the connection called the Creator dwells in the connection between the souls, between the friends.

The Creator is the general property of bestowal, which we collect in parts. That is why the Creator is called “Boreh,” which means “come and see (Bo-Reh).” After all, we have to approach this state and see this phenomenon inside our desires.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/2011, Shamati #167

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We cannot manage our world today. I want to correct certain things in the financial system, the economic system, commerce, or in the relationships between nations, people, and a husband and a wife—and I can’t. There are certain plots, additional obstacles, and conditions, which I don’t take into account, and so I don’t succeed in anything. I lack knowledge; I don’t have a clear connection with the new world that is suddenly revealed to us, and I cannot be in clear contact with it.

Where does it stem from? It stems from the degrees that descend into our world from the world of Infinity. These degrees are already in us, they exist within us. They also appear under the influence of Reshimot (informational genes). That is, the forces of bestowal that are revealed to us are also inside me, in my perception of the external space. Yet these are not the egoistic forces anymore, but rather the forces of bestowal, and this is also my “layer cake,” my internal feeling of the world; it is also me. All this is within me. There is nothing that is outside of me.

“I” is actually the soul.

If I begin to divide myself this way, I begin to see that today’s world helps me. The “evil” egoistic force seems to appear in us as the dark past. And the altruistic force appears too. These layers are revealed in me: I begin to feel them not simply outside me, but within me. This is why I am “confused,” so perplexed, and I cannot find my way around in today’s world.

When we begin to understand this system and to find our way around in it, we see how it happens with other people. We understand that a “multilayer cake” appears in us like this: the informational genes from the past, from the present, and from the future, the egoistic powers of the past, the feeling of the present, and the indefinite, incomprehensible feelings of the future—the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of connection.

The layers that appear in me are not connected into one system yet, and this is why they are called “our crisis,” the separation between these parts. The crisis is called “integral” because it doesn’t let us see the connection between all the parts—we don’t have it in us. This problem will persist until we learn to control it.

Where is the problem? On one hand, I drew a question and a crisis, and on the other, I called the same thing “the soul.” In other words, today we are actually on the path, at the stage, and on the degree of discovering the soul within us. When we will unite all these parts within us, we will see a very interesting picture instead of them: We will see that we are made up of three lines.

On one hand, the egoistic forces are the bottom part of the cake. The altruistic forces, or the bestowal, are the upper part of the cake. The middle force is the connection between them; it is when we collect all this inside us and can work with them together. The middle part of the cake will connect the altruistic plus and the egoistic minus and will be able to work with them. This is actually all our work—in the middle line.

So today, with the crisis and the internal discord, we are about to discover our soul. Of course, the world is still very far from this. It will not discover it this way, but with our help, in much simpler ways, by joining us, and so on. We are about to discover this and should continue to advance towards it. It is all part of our nature.

The building of the screen and the formation of Partzuf takes place after the First Restriction. Our future state is already in this Partzuf. The Partzuf is made of the head that decides how to correctly connect the two parts in us: the part in which we can bestow and the other part in which we cannot. Rosh (the head) is above that, and thus it manages us.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 9/25/2011

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The crisis is not outside a person or in the systems that we’ve created externally; rather, this crisis is inside us. It is first of all in everyone’s understanding of what our real condition is. It “comes” namely from the system that stems from the world of Infinity, which we are beginning to study. Everything is predetermined. We are simply discovering our internal reserves, our inner Reshimot (informational genes).

And so we will advance until we discover that we are in a totally new system. In the drawing we can see one system, the second system under it, and the third on top of it.

The middle system is us in our ordinary sensations. The lower system is the new egotistic forces that appear in us. But at the moment we don’t clearly feel that they are ours. They appear in us out of nowhere, as if we are controlled by them. There are many theories about this issue, including some cosmic ones.

There is another system that seems as opposite from us: the altruistic system, the system of bestowal, connection, the integral system. Our egoistic system is opposite to the new system.

All these systems are revealed in us, in me. Why did I draw myself “inside myself?” it is because I feel that the egoistic forces inside me are not mine. They begin to appear in me as strangers, as coming from below. On the other hand, I already feel that I have gotten “entangled” with some other system, which isn’t the one I have created.

Until today, only the middle part of the system existed for me, the part that is colored in yellow, “me.” I exist. This is me. This is our world, in which we found our way around easily. Everything was all right.

Now I see that there are certain thoughts that aren’t exactly mine, and also certain feelings, as well as desires. Why? It’s because I don’t feel that they bring me self-realization, that this is exactly what I need. This is why people escape to drugs, divorce, or different kinds of terror. They don’t feel that it is them. The feeling of my individual “self” disappears. We begin to feel that certain forces (not ours) are filling and pushing us.

We feel that our egoism is external to us. It is the force that arrives from the outside. It isn’t me. I am something different.

There is something else in me, something natural, and I am simply being loaded with egoistic forces. They irritate me. Thus, I begin to feel that my egoistic forces are not mine, and I call them “the evil inclination”—the evil desires, the malicious desires, the desires that are not mine, that were instilled into me.

A person becomes detached from his nature. The “I” begins to identify with the addition above one’s previous nature. He already has the feeling that “I” is not my desires, “I” is not my thoughts. I can detach myself from them, I can rise above them, and I can change them.

This is why I have drawn the system as two parts. It is very important because in this form I already begin to see myself as something complex. There is the “I,” and there are my desires and the egoistic attributes that simply exist in me, but I can somehow annul and change them. I am not tied to them at all.

As a result of the discovery of “who and what I am,” I begin to feel that at the same time I am in another world. That is, everything around me seems the same, yet something is different, something has changed.

I seem to find myself in an environment where there are other thoughts, other feelings, some conspiracy against me. I still don’t get what it is, but I am in a space where there are many different forces, different thoughts, and different ties that flow around me. I feel that they exist, but they don’t touch me. Rather, they only wrap me, and I can’t do anything with them.

This is our feeling in the world: It is very clear and leads to clear results.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 9/25/2011

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Question: You said that about 10% of the people who come to study Kabbalah are drawn to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. Do we need to consciously raise the importance of reading the original sources if a person is attracted to it from the beginning? Or is circulation above everything else in our time?

Answer: In other words, 10% of those who come to Kabbalah want to study it as a science, to climb the mountain of knowledge, and to understand it with the mind. The rest don’t. Yet, the latter are the ones who do advance forward unlike the 10% who simply study and that’s it.

The study has to be sensual, attained from life. When you enter this system, you exist in it, adapt to it, sense everything, and start understanding it from your sensation. You start working with it by being in it. By connecting with other souls, you begin to understand what this connection with a fellow human being is all about, why it is mandatory, and so on. In other words, all of this is actually a direct, natural, sensual knowledge. I wish all of us to come closer to it.

This is a special year, a special time. We have entered a stage of true practical Kabbalah, when we attain this entire system inside of humanity, which is beginning to unfold now, like linked cogwheels. And we have to take part in it, discover it, and help all others.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 10/2/2011

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The word pomegranate (Rimon in Hebrew) comes from the word loftiness (Romemut). The more the attribute of bestowal is elevated in my eyes, the more I can advance above all my personal calculations.

From where can I take this greatness of the attribute of bestowal? It is only if I place myself under the influence of the environment. And then the external force of all the friends will come to me, and they will “brainwash” me, will penetrate my heart, and most importantly, will give me the sensation that the attribute of bestowal is most important.

We are in an ocean of Light, but we don’t feel it because we belittle it. How can we receive the sensation of its greatness that will enable us to feel it?

In any vocation, the most important point is to be sensitive to the smallest details that non-experts do not feel or understand. If I am a tailor, and I look at some shirt, I can tell you everything about it: What material was used and exactly how it was sewn. But if I am not a tailor, for me it is just a rag.

At present we are in a sea of Light, but we have no ability to “grasp” it, to discover it, or to see it. It is because we don’t see its importance. Why? Because this Light is the attribute of bestowal, and I don’t feel any importance in it; it is the farthest thing from me. I don’t want it and won’t want it.

It is only if an external force will come to me and “brainwash” my mind and heart, commit me to think that this is exactly what I am missing, and constantly influence me, only then will I say in the end: “I want it!” And then I will discover it. This is called that I have built the vessel for the property of bestowal called “importance.” And then I reveal this property, and this is called the “Light.”

From this we see how important it is to give the correct definitions, the correct meanings to words. In spirituality it is the secret of success.
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From the 6th lesson at the Toronto Convention 9/18/11

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No one before Baal HaSulam ever discovered the true meaning of love of others. This idea appears quite frequently in all the sources, many great novels and other masterpieces praise the love of others, brotherly love, love among friends, and the need to concede. Who hasn’t talked about it! Every politician who wants to be elected speaks about how much he loves everyone. Every thief thinks that he is fighting for justice.

Baal HaSulam sets a criterion for the true test; he puts everything on the right scales and bases everything on an analysis by which one cannot be mistaken. When we read his compositions, we can be sure that we cannot keep our previous views. You can either close your eyes and try to forget everything he writes about and then somehow continue to exist like before, living your beastly life for your ego, or you must change!

He created the entire method of clarification so that it is impossible to stand up against its revelations. After reading all his articles, you begin to feel that you must clarify everything to the end. He writes in such a way that only if you know all of them and reread them again and again, examine them from every angle, read them thoroughly, only then do you finally begin to understand the whole picture.

You can’t just read some small part and then relax, feeling that you have understood everything. The understanding comes only by reading and rereading, from the beginning to the end and from the end to the beginning. Only after reviewing it several times, are you able to tie the concepts together and to analyze yourself. Then you won’t be able to escape anymore.

A person who doesn’t study Baal HaSulam usually thinks that he is a perfect righteous and believes that there is nothing to ask for, there is nothing to regret. Only when a person begins to study according to Baal HaSulam’s method, does he begin to understand how opposite he is from bestowal, how corrupt he is, and that the Torah was written for him because the Light in it reforms.

If we read Baal HaSulam’s writings in order to clarify our evil inclination by them and thus draw the Light that Reforms, they operate upon us and help us advance, according to the Creator’s plan: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice.” We fulfill all these stages thanks to our work with the compositions of Baal HaSulam.
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From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11

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