In truth, the upper Light, the Creator, is revealed in a quiver. I restrict my desire to receive pleasure and fear that the Light will be revealed while I won’t be able to hold back this desire and will want to receive the Light.

Thus, by trying to restrain myself, on one hand, I feel my desire, but on the other, I sense the screen and exist in a tension between the two, which is called a quiver. To the extent that I am able to restrain myself, I strengthen my vessel—and the Light can become revealed.
[56777]
From the 6th lesson at the Toronto Convention 9/18/11

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We cannot evaluate each other in any way because there are no true criteria for comparison. Suppose you produce fifty products a day, and I produce only thirty. As a result, your salary is higher than mine, and I, feeling helpless, am angry at you because I measure the two of us by the same standard. At present, we both judge things this way.

We have to understand that every person has their point of the soul, and we have no right to judge others. We only have to help one another so that everyone will fulfill himself in the best possible way. Besides that, there is no other way, attitude, or standard that determines the right mutual connection. I can only evaluate myself and others in bestowal. We will never be equal and right in receiving. Even if both of us feel that we manage to “work well together,” others will start looking at us suspiciously.

The world will never come to good according to the laws of egoism. You can forget about reaching some fair calculation in receiving, which will be perceived as right for more than a moment. A person’s best calculations will never please others.

Therefore, let us not get even with each other according to power, success, brains, feelings, parents, or education. Let us simply disregard this. The world should understand that if we demand people to give each other something or to take something, we will never create anything stable and lasting. Any theory will be refuted.

We must therefore switch to the track of bestowal.
[56709]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/2011, “Peace in the World”

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The sages said that the “three reasons that increase man’s reason are: a beautiful woman, a beautiful house, and beautiful Kelim (vessels).” These are desires to enjoy, which are called “house,” “woman” and “vessels.” To the extent that I worry about these desires, for them to assume the form of bestowal, to that extent I expand them.
[56654]
From the 6th lesson at the Toronto Convention 9/18/11

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The purpose of the whole process that we are going through is the revelation of the Creator. We reveal Him by His actions upon us. For this purpose the Creator creates a system, laws according to which it exists and operates, and man in this system.

Then He sets man and the system into motion. A person has to listen to the influence of the Creator, to what is happening inside him and on the outside because it is all the Creator’s motions. As it is said: “There is none else besides Him.”

If a person agrees that everything comes from Above, from the Creator, he becomes sensitive to everything that is happening inside and around him, to the way that it affects him. Thus a person tries to understand what the Creator wants to reveal to him.

By analyzing all sorts of actions: good and bad, those that are close to him and those that are distant, those that he perceives as good or evil, a person begins to decipher the Creator’s plan concerning him. And when he discovers the great abyss between him and the Creator, the oppositeness of their thoughts, he begins to reveal the two opposites, one in contrast to the other.

On one hand, he feels that he wants to act according to his own nature. But since he has already discovered that it is better to follow the opposite nature, he understands that he should act differently. In such a way he discovers the evil inside him, the malicious thoughts.

But he is happy about it! After all, the more sins he discovers inside him, the more efforts he makes to reveal them, the closer he will come to a true prayer, meaning to the request to correct them. The request for correction is called “atonement.”

The malicious thoughts don’t need to go away, but they should be “sweetened.” That is, we have to acquire a new intention over all our egoistic desires that turn into bestowal.

The discovery of the sins and crimes happens with the help of a great Light, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), that shines to a person and confronts him with the fact of how evil and opposite to the Creator he is. Then according to his exertion, he can approach correction.

All the corrections, just as all our sins, are the work of the Creator. Eventually, all the sins and their correction, all the Light that we draw to clarify the evil and to correct it, the Light of adhesion, is only to bring contentment to the Creator. It turns out that by revealing the sins and their atonement, a person reaches an embrace with the Creator and then adhesion with Him.
[56705]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/11, Shamati #177

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The shadow means that I am in the dark. I feel impotent. I do not feel the flavor in spiritual work. I do not wish to do anything. I feel tired of everything as if my tires have been deflated. So, what do I do?

If I understand that all of this comes to me for the purpose of advancing me forward and to make room for my efforts, I begin to regard the shadow as a flirtation, the Light playing with me. It conceals itself on purpose so that I would reveal it. It turns away from me on purpose so that I would step toward it.

Through these games, I begin to feel that I am interacting with it. Its concealments serve as an invitation to me. Kabbalists compare it to the way a woman behaves in relation to a man. She conceals herself on purpose so that the man would reveal her. This is the entire purpose of clothes, external appearance, make up, and so forth.

When I discover an invitation in the concealment of the Light to make a little more effort and to show my attitude, inclination, and desire, this is referred to as the holy shadow. However, if I am incapable and the concealment does not attract me, then everything is bland and completely tasteless. “Why do I need all this? Leave me alone; I do not need anything.” It is said that the shade of Sitra Achra (the evil inclination) pushes me away.

The way we advance is with the help of the holy shadow, when we are pushed away by the shade of Sitra Achra. Everything depends on one’s preparation. Even before he reveals the shadow, he is already prepared for the descent, the lack of flavor. He knows its purpose is to reveal his desire for the Light, the Creator, or bestowal.

I can reveal it precisely where I do not have any personal, egoistic interest. This is because my ego is not attracted to it, and there, I can show that I really do not desire the Light for myself. This work is above desire.
[56416]
From the 6th lesson at the Toronto Convention 9/18/11

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It’s not important if I understand what I read in the book correctly or how confused I am—what counts is my desire to understand! A person advances thanks to the influence that he receives from the upper system as he studies it, hears about it, wants to be included into it, performs all kinds of activities towards it, and works with his environment and in dissemination.

Gradually he begins to feel this system from afar:  He begins to discern that it is Aba ve Ima, inner and outer parts, and the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) or Gevurot (harsh forces of restriction, limitations), which influence him according to the measure that he is included within this system.

It is a complete world, and it’s impossible to explain it to someone who doesn’t live in it. It just like it’s impossible to briefly explain to a creature from another planet about what happens in this world. He would need to be in it himself, to receive our tools, feelings, intelligence, and tastes. If he embraced our life, then after a while he would absorb all kinds of impressions from the society surrounding him and would understand what happens in this world.

It is impossible to understand anything through words. It all has to go through you and leave internal impressions in you. Then you will understand, as they say, “one thing within another.”

We are also like that. By awakening the Surrounding Light on ourselves with our desire to enter this system, we begin to feel what is before us: that the entire system is based on love and bestowal.

“I am for my Beloved”—after all, I yearn to bestow through this system composed of my friends. “And my Beloved is for me”—because then I will begin to feel how He changes me with the help of the Surrounding Light from the same system that I want to enter into. And thus my correction occurs.
[56433]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, Shamati #42

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If we want to behave between us according to the same rules that the upper system operates by, this will be called “practical Kabbalah.” After all, we will desire to discover between us the same ties that exist in the spiritual world.

The spiritual world is a permanent structure, like a still, switched-off engine that I operate through my desire. The moment my desire disappears, the engine stalls again. The engine will work according to the amount of “fuel” I put in, depending on how I influence it, and thus I will awaken and put in motion all of this system. In this way, I will fill everyone through this system.

The preparation to enter this system is called the beginning of the New Year, whereby a person tries with all his might to feel the tremendous value of bestowal. Through the group and dissemination, he tries to summon on himself the external influence that will change him and bring him closer to bestowal, as it is said: “From the love of the created beings to love of the Creator.”

Thanks to his good attitude towards fellow human beings and his good influence on them, meaning, thanks to the attempts to bring them closer to the Creator and to get closer to Him together with them, he merits the Creator’s Light that Reforms. And thus he enters this special “club” and begins to know it, through the sensation of the Light of life that flows through him.
[56430]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, Shamati #42

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Contrary to animals, we develop with the help of science. However, this isn’t free will yet. Science only advances us a bit forward. Animals are driven by blows and their instincts, but since we hardly have any instincts, we develop by blows and science.

Scientific advances allow us to see and resolve problems in advance. For example, x-rays enable us to identify a disease and to start treating it without waiting for it to actually appear. Without x-rays, only the pain could tell us that there is a problem.

Thus science helps us suffer less, and we pay dearly for scientific knowledge. However, it is still the same beastly tendency: the desire to be free of troubles. Science doesn’t raise us to the human degree since it is part of the animate level. By using it, we compensate for our lack of instincts, that’s all.

Animals manage very well without doctors. They know how to eat right, how to give birth, and how to build their shelter. Animals do everything by instinct, while we replace instincts with science. This is actually the role of science—to serve our egoism so that we will suffer less.

So we also examine our development on the animate level. Even when people become aware of the necessity to unite and connect, they don’t know how to attain it.
[56425]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World“: Four properties are provided for that purpose: mercy, truth, justice, and peace. Those attributes have been used by all world reformers thus far. It is more correct to say that it is with those four attributes that human development has advanced thus far…

It is only by these four attributes that we manage ourselves in order to bring ourselves to the end of correction. So how do we discern them? Many can speak about mercy, truth, justice, and peace for hours, but can we agree on what these attributes are?

It isn’t simple, but Baal HaSulam, knowing the spiritual nature, wrote that this is what we have to clarify in order to manage ourselves and the world. We don’t know what a corrected world is. We are all corrupt and so it seems to us that any egoistic improvement is already correction. However, for Baal HaSulam, the corrected world is a world in which all the possible deficiencies are totally filled. How is that possible? We will have to find that out.

First, we have to understand that we will never be able to fill ourselves egotistically, but only in bestowal because while there is no restriction on bestowal, there is on reception. So how can we desire to receive in such a way that receiving itself will make us understand that it is worthwhile to bestow?

We can develop in this direction by blows: Every time that I want to receive something, I receive more and more blows, until I finally come to the conclusion that it is better not to want to receive egoistically. Then I begin to hate my desire to receive, and I don’t know what to do with it anymore. “So, perhaps I will enjoy bestowal?”

And so different flaws bring me to a point where I ask for the desire to bestow, for the power to bestow, the power to connect to others. This is the road of suffering and asceticism about which it says: “Eat bread with water sparingly and sleep on the ground.” In the past people used accept this and thus advance to bestowal.

It is the same today, if people don’t accept the wisdom of Kabbalah and the explanation about the development of the world, they too will advance in the same way. They will want more and more, but will get less and less, and as a result of suffering, people will begin to feel that it is worthwhile to be together, to bestow upon each other, to connect, to restrict our ego, and even to totally erase it.

We see that in wartime, when the troubles descend upon everyone, people begin to connect. Even animals are not afraid of one another when there is a fire in a forest or an earthquake, and they all escape the danger together. The common problem unites them because the fear of death is greater than the fear of hunger. Clearly, they don’t become “righteous,” but the desire to satisfy their hunger is pushed aside by a greater desire to survive.

We are the same. Of course, we can advance towards correction by suffering. It will compel us to aspire to bestow and to destroy our ego, the source of all the evil in our world. But this is a long and painful way.

This is why we were given an alternative—the way of the Torah. Why? Why do we need this other way? It is because we don’t reach free will by suffering. We only run away from it, like animals. Out of despair, we are even ready to bestow, but it is only because we feel bad when we receive. We don’t choose bestowal by our own free will, but as a result of our suffering as we have no choice. This is the degree of a beast, not man.

In order to bring us to the human level, we need two forces: the force of bestowal and the force of reception, with free will lying between the two. This is the path of people who have the point in the heart.

People who don’t have the point in the heart will also have free will: They can choose to follow those who can lead them forward.
[56427]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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When we raise children, we always try to accustom the child to take certain actions so that they would become a habit, such as to wash himself, brush his teeth, or clean the table after himself. We insist on these things day after day, until a person can no longer do without them—he begins to feel uncomfortable. Eventually, this habit frees him from effort.

My mother reminded me to brush my teeth so many times. I tried to get out of it, but she would not let me. Now, I am bound to brushing my teeth, even without my mother’s reminder, because I became used to it.

This implies that we can create habits that will literally become innate and will not require any effort on our part to do them. On the contrary, it will be difficult not to do them because they have become part of our nature. All of this comes from actions that we constantly repeat until they become habits.

How does this law of habits becoming a second nature work? We receive a correcting force every time we make the effort to repeat an action so many times that it becomes imprinted upon us. This is the rule according to which habit becomes a second nature.

This is why a person can become accustomed to anything. One can also attain feelings that he has never experienced before. In this way, he will become accustomed to the upper Light that he has never felt before. Right now, we are in an ocean of Light, but who perceives it? So, what do we lack? We need to become accustomed to it.

We must always try to become sensitive toward the Light. Where is it? How does it operate? Do you feel it? Is it already here? It comes closer and closer, and I can almost feel that it is here. What do I need to do inside myself to start feeling it? What do I need to change? What do I need to do to become more sensitive to it?

When a person tries to reveal the Light in this way, he begins to ask questions: “How can I feel it? I lack the quality of bestowal, a little greater sensitivity toward what exists outside of me, and then I will perceive these vibrations until the Light reveals itself, and not temporarily, but constantly.”

Everything materializes through habit, and this is why our work consists of acquiring habits. All the advice that Kabbalists give us are directed toward accustoming us to actions relative to our friends, dissemination, and study. Why is that?

Try to come out of your “beast.” Start becoming accustomed to the fact that you exist outside of yourself. As soon as you really acquire this inclination, you will perceive the Light. You will never reveal it within yourself, only outside.
[56301]
From the 6th lesson at the Toronto Convention 9/18/11

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