Baal HaSulam, “One Commandment”: I say that the first and only commandment that guarantees the achievement of the aspiration to attain the altruistic intention is to resolve to not work for oneself, apart for the necessary works—to merely provide for one’s sustenance. In the rest of the time, one will work for the public: save the oppressed, and every creature in the world that is in need of salvation and benefit.

In these stern but precise words, Baal HaSulam explains to us how the world should exist. We have entered this path already: The world is interconnected in all its parts and is experiencing a global crisis.

Almost a hundred years ago, Baal HaSulam wrote that humanity became one family in which all people depended on each other. We did not notice it then, but today, we clearly see it and, after many crises and with a great delay, become aware of the situation. Tremendous efforts will be demanded from us to correct the flaws and especially that terrible form of human relationships, natural for us today.

Until now, reading these words of Baal HaSulam, we perceived them as something fantastic and unreal. Why didn’t he disclose a half, a quarter so that it would not appear so nightmarish and unacceptable to us, so that it could be digested by adding a variety of spices? However, a very severe picture, opposite to our nature, is unfolding before us, and it sets its strict condition: “Whether you like it or not, here will be your place of burial or your eternal life. One or the other. The choice is yours.”

In our world, we have to implement the principle of “love your friend as yourself.” Everything that is entrusted to us is focused only on this action: to acquire practical, complete, perfect bestowal, flowing from each person to the entire world. And for himself, a person should get as much as he needs for his existence. According to his degree, he chooses the necessities and gives the rest to others.

In our time, we asked Rabash, how we could test ourselves in this calculation. He gave wonderful advice: If you were glad to get rid of the necessities, it means that is it. If you desire nothing for yourself, no water, food, or shelter; if you want only to perform bestowal, as an angel, as the force apart from the body, and you are happy about that, then you have come to the correct decision, and you can receive the necessities from the world.

In this case, you will not overdo it and will get only the vital things because you are not glad to receive them. On the contrary, you would get rid of them, but you cannot because you need them to perform bestowal. You do need food, water, clothes, a home, and things like that.

This is a very difficult condition, and of course, people immediately want to “push it aside.” We do not see life in this existence: It is better to die. How can I perform bestowal to everyone and take only the necessities? Where is life then? How can we satisfy our ego? After all, it did not disappear.

In reality, you are not required to live like an animal, grazing in the pasture and demanding nothing else. On the contrary, you must become a human, meaning to release your entire huge ego for the benefit of others, to put it in the service of others.

What will I get in return? How can I act to bestow? My egoistic desire is like a machine that can run only on fuel. I can make the whole world happy, but what is there for me? For a good reward, I will give people everything I have. But what is the payment?

We have to understand that Kabbalah is a science, physics of the spiritual world and does not deal with fantasies. Fuel has been prepared for us, and the reward is such that it is worth working for bestowal and fulfilling the entire world.

Our reward is the revelation of the Giver. There is nothing greater in the world, and this is what we will get. This means that we must work for the sake of the attainment of Him.

This is the highest reward of all: to be in the adhesion and perfection with Him, at His degree. As if He frees a place for me next to Him, and I look at others from the height of my degree: “Unhappy, how miserable and low they are. Of course, I help them, what can I do?”

This attitude is called Lo Lishma, and it is natural at the beginning. The key is to start and not to be lazy. But as a result, we become imbued with complete bestowal because this is the only law that we need to perform.
[49676]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/2011, “One Commandment”

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When we are reading The Book of Zohar, we always ask ourselves the same question: Why do we need this book? After all, it’s totally incomprehensible and speaks about some magical, unrealistic things and actions that sound like commandments we’ve learned from this world, and about people, animals, or landscapes, such as rivers, hills, or mountains.

We have to understand that The Book of Zohar has to become the revelation of the upper world for us, and our lower world is merely an imprint of the upper one. Suppose I am building a tower from a piece of clay, pour plaster into it, and then it hardens taking the shape of the tower. Next, I lift this cast off, and I get a patrix and a matrix, a stamp and an imprint.

The upper mold is the upper world, and the mold that remained on the ground is the lower world. Thus the upper and the lower worlds correlate with each other. Hence, although we are speaking about the lower world and all that is happening in it: the hills, seas, roads, animals, people, or sun and moon, we should still constantly remember that they point at its projection: the upper world.

The Zohar describes the upper world, while the lower world is its imprint. What in our world is regarded as the desire to receive pleasure, in the upper world is the desire to bestow. As we seek to enhance our desire to bestow and to reach spirituality by unifying during our studying together with the group, we will become not the individual points scattered throughout the world, but make a certain, albeit material, form, part of our lower world. This is our group in the lower world.

But in fact, there is such a group in the upper world, and we are already there, in mutual bestowal and oneness, in a completely correct state since the initial (1) and the final (3) states already exist in Infinity. We should think solely about how to draw the force, desire, and means from the state where we are corrected, in order to actually reach it, to make it real—to ascend to that upper dimension in our sensation and understanding, in our life.

Therefore, here in this world, we must get to feel our unity and visualize our being in the upper group, above, as fully corrected, in unity and mutual bestowal, in our higher state. Besides, as we desire that from Above, from that very upper degree, the Light will expand to us, affect, and pull us up.

Thus, The Zohar speaks of our upper state by using the words of this world, the language of the branches. And I, while reading it, should constantly think about my being in total union with the group, in mutual bestowal, since that’s where I find the upper world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/2011, The Zohar

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In the articles “The Giving of the Torah” and “The Mutual Guarantee,” Baal HaSulam explains that the rule of “love thy neighbor as thyself” is the formula of our correction. We can correct ourselves only in the connection with others.

Conversely, without this connection, you have no opportunity, no place for correction. What can a person deprived of the connection with others do? This is exactly why the breaking occurred and the evil inclination was created so that above it, we would extend our threads to one another. This is all that is required of us.

In the first stage, we unify as Hillel, the sage, taught: “Do not do to the friend what is hateful to you.” And then we move on what Rabbi Akiva advised: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Thus we reach the end of correction and realize ourselves according to the Thought of Creation.

“The Torah,” the method of correction, is given to us if we agree to become as one man with one heart. With this method, by working in a group, we can demand correction from the upper force, the Light, or the Creator.

Essentially, the process of correction can be called attainment of the mutual guarantee, which is a certain connection between all souls. “Souls” are the giving desires in people. If people forge a bond and desire to bestow to each other, the form of this connection is called “mutual guarantee.”

There are people in the world whose desire lights up with a spark, a seed of altruistic desire. If they unite to blow these sparks up in each and all together, if they support and help each other to grow the sprouting forces in order to tie them together, then they form a system that fulfills the conditions of guarantee. In this interconnected, integrated system, all of them are as one man with one heart, according to the condition on which they had received the method.

Thus they reach the property of mutual guarantee, and in it, the upper force is revealed. It was specifically this force that gave them the desire, planted the sparks in it, and presented them with the method of correction that enables the friends to become similar to it in properties. It is revealed in them precisely according to the magnitude of this equivalence.

Hence, in the collective work to correct the world, some people wake up before the others. These people aspire to correct themselves, to achieve the unification and guarantee, a fusion between them, and merge with the upper force accordingly. They are aspiring directly to the Creator (Yashar El) and want to realize their desire in their relationship, as well as all together before Him. This is why they are called Israel; they are special and must lead by example, as an education force for the rest of the world.

In all other people this spark, the impulse to bestow, does not emerge from within. Only sorrows of life will make them realize the necessity of self-correction, but even then, they cannot do without those who are called “Israel,” those who attain some degree of connection, who implement the method of correction. That is why at the end of the article “The Mutual Guarantee,” Baal HaSulam quotes the Bible that the sons of Israel must become the “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” Priests do not have possessions: They only nurture the people, assist, and organize it.

Thus we, those yearning toward the goal of creation, have to understand that by transforming ourselves into bestowal to each other, we are merely preparing ourselves for the real job, for bestowal to the world. This is our destiny, and for this we were awakened before the others.
[49747]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/2011, “The Peace”

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The Creator created everything to give pleasure to man. But we need a vessel, desire, to receive the good that He wants to give. He wanted to give the pleasure that He enjoys Himself: bestowal. There is no other pleasure in the world!

However, to feel this pleasure, we need to have the opposite quality, the lack of fulfillment because the opposite of the desire to bestow is the desire to receive pleasure. That is why the Creator creates the desire to enjoy, an artificial creature that did not exist before, as a reverse imprint of Himself.

And now, the creature feels these opposites in itself. On one hand, it feels that it is possible to enjoy the fulfillment of its desire. But then, it makes a calculation and begins to desire bestowal. That is, it no longer seeks fulfillment.

Bestowal is not fulfillment, but a property, a desire to give. In bestowal, a person does not get pleased by what he receives in return, but the very action of bestowal becomes fulfillment for him. Whereas in reception, an action is separate from fulfillment. And when fulfillment enters me, I feel pleased. That is, my desire and fulfillment are two opposite things, and I need to toil hard to receive fulfillment since it is opposite to me.

However, in bestowal, I need only to feel somebody else’s desire and satisfy it. And this very action, relative to the other person whom I satisfy, becomes my fulfillment. I do not expect to receive any reward in return. My pleasure is in the action of giving.

Due to this difference, a person working with reception always has to check and evaluate: How much have I given, and how much they will pay me? It’s because the payment depends not on me, but on the other, on how much he would like to pay me. But if I work in bestowal and want only it, I do not depend on anyone and can decide myself where my boundary is!

Therefore, the one who walks the path of bestowal establishes himself to what extent he wants to be in it. And the Creator agrees with him! There is only one general law of bestowal and love, which envelopes and fills the entire creation. There was no restriction or ban on bestowal! That is why each creature can decide for himself at what level he wants to be in relation to this quality, thought, the intention to bestow.

Here can be no calculation of how much I have done and how much I will be paid. There is no need to fear that if I did less, I would receive less. I am in this general law of mutual bestowal, enveloping the whole universe and filling it, as “there is none else besides Him.” I myself establish at what degree I want to be. According to this degree, I experience the revelation or concealment of my ability to bestow, and to that extent I enjoy.
[49673]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/2011, Shamati #61

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The Book of Zohar talks about the connections between us because there is nothing else to talk about in all of reality. Reality is one. We are inside of the Light, the Creator, the Maker, and we have to reveal our true state.

To the extent that we make attempts to reveal it, we are given the sensation of internal darkness, which we can disperse, cast off, with the help of mutual efforts in the connection between us. With these mutual efforts, we help the Light to become revealed.

This is exactly what we have to do. There is nothing besides our efforts, desire, concern, request, and aspiration to the state of revelation. So what’s the problem? The problem is that desiring this revelation means desiring the state that’s opposite to us. We find ourselves between two aspirations: the natural pull toward ourselves, and the artificial aspiration outwards, outside of us.

Therefore, through different efforts, by any means possible, I have to be inspired by the environment and attain a state where the aspiration outwards will become more important to me than the natural pull toward myself.

If I am able to acquire this importance with the help of the efforts and the request for the Light, for it to become revealed and help me, that means I am able to reveal the connection between us. And to the degree I reveal this connection, I reveal the Light, the Creator. That’s because the Light becomes revealed inside of our connection, but I cannot reveal it—I lack the detector.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/11, “The Zohar”

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Question: We have the basis of correction: the question about the meaning of life. What basis do the masses have?

Answer: We attribute our question about the meaning of life directly to the lack of unity. The Light is manifested in unity, and therefore, we have to take care namely of our unity. It turns out that the meaning of life for us is to be connected with each other.

As for the others, the meaning of life for them is still in various egoistic goals. At the first stage, they should understand that a means of achieving these goals is unity. By becoming united, they will get what they want.

And then, on the way to this, they will gradually begin to understand, to realize: “Affordable housing is important, but unity is more important.” Then, they will come to correction.

Our explanations start from the point that unity should be used as a proper means to succeed in life. Hence, it becomes clear that we talk about the most important, the best tool that we have. In the language of Kabbalah, this intention is called “Lo Lishma”: We want to use the power of our unity for egoistic purposes.

Then, beginning to appreciate unity, we find in the connection between us an “added value,” which in itself provides a special, incomparable status, an unprecedented feeling. Thus, we reveal the “addition” in unity: We suddenly begin to like taking care of each other; we find a unique charm in mutual bestowal, in mutual guarantee.

This pleasure from mutual bestowal is that very pleasure that the Creator originally desired to give us at the Thought of Creation. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the book Ohr Bahir (The Bright Light) that the purpose of creation is to bring pleasure to His creatures by the Light of mutual bestowal between them and the Creator.
[49557]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/2011, “The Peace”

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Question: Is the intention Lo Lishma (for oneself) a necessary step in spiritual advancement?

Answer: Naturally. Every time we discover that we are acting with the intention Lo Lishma, meaning for our own benefit. And then we demand the Light that Reforms, for it to correct Lo Lishma to the altruistic intention Lishma (for the Creator’s sake).

I have 613 desires, and if in any one of them I act for my own benefit, that is called Lo Lishma. However, if I act for the sake of bestowal in this desire, that is already Lishma. We’re dealing with two necessary states, where one is stemming from the other. First the evil inclination is revealed, and then the Torah (spice) corrects it to the good inclination. As a result, the egoistic intention becomes altruistic.

It is written: “There is no righteous man on earth who has done good and did not sin first.” We must come to Lishma from Lo Lishma. And the same goes for the correction of all our 613 desires.

And if I don’t correct my evil inclination, don’t utilize the Light that Reforms according to the method of Kabbalah, I don’t reveal then even my own evil. Whatever bad things I may do in this world, it’s not the same evil that we’re talking about here. If I don’t discover within the intention to receive, I have absolutely no connection with the matter of desire that needs correction. I remain nothing but an “angel.”
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: We often say that we have to play in a correct relationship in the group. What is this game?

Answer: The game stimulates our advancement. We attribute games to children because they grow and undergo developmental stages. And therefore those who no longer play, no longer develop.

Every time I define myself in a current state, examine it, and draw a certain picture for myself, this image of the future which I would like to be in, this transition from one state to another, is called a game. I’m playing it to be in this next image, to acquire this form.

In a game, we usually depict how we can benefit, win, and achieve something. There is an external game of reaching some external goals, and there is an internal game, when I make changes inside myself. But each is a game.

Everything that develops always has a desired state and reality, the idea of a ​​future goal, and the aspiration for it. It happens at the vegetative and animate levels, not just with man. For a plant the game is in its cell, for an animal it is with itself or with other animals, and this also occurs at the level of human physiology.

Man is regarded as “Adam” and wants to become similar to the Creator by playing precisely this game: how to become like Him. To do this, he has to think about this form all the time: What it means to be similar to the upper one, to be His equal, to adhere to him, to resemble Him in properties—and to play this game in the group.

This means that together we have to imagine a state where in the connection between us, we portray the image of the Creator in our mutual vessel. And to achieve this, there has to be total equality and partnership. The word “friend” (Haver) derives from the word “connection” (Hibur), and the connection is only possible between equals, under the condition of mutual giving and love, a mutual guarantee.

We are nothing like that at all, but if the friends and I try to play as if we are in such a relationship, in our future form, then we are constantly striving for a connection and shared desire to take the form of mutual bestowal. And at the instant when we receive this form of bestowal, we will feel the Light in it, due to the fact that we have finally completed our connection! And then the light will turn on! This is the revelation of the Creator.

And so, we light it more and more every time, above all obstacles. After all, there is no game without obstacles.
[49206]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/2011, Shamati #39

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Man was created with the desire to enjoy which aspires to be fulfilled, feels deficient if it is not, and sees the whole meaning of its existence in it. Besides this, man has no sensation. All our sensations come solely from pleasures that we see before us—that is from what our world is built. Reality is comprised of the pictures of pleasures that our imagination paints for us.

We see around us the still, vegetative, animate world, and other people because our desire is composed of four levels at which we experience images of all possible pleasures. But if we do not want to live among these illusions and wish to see the real world, we must view it not from the desire to enjoy but from the desire to bestow. In fact, it is there that we find our root and our connection with it, meaning the Thought of ​​Creation, its program and purpose. But egoistic desire separates us from it all, from the true knowledge, sensation, and purpose.

We have a unique opportunity to get closer to the true picture, to put a veil on the picture painted for us by our egoism. And it isn’t that we should stop seeing it all together, but rather stop giving it as much importance as we do today. Instead, we must search for the picture of roots that lie behind it, which emerges in the very same desires if they change direction from receiving to bestowal.

Desire is one, but all of its parts (the still, vegetative, animate, and human) must be transformed into bestowal. And then we will see the roots of that very picture which is seen in our desire to receive pleasure for ourselves.

This is done by “the shadow of holiness.” After all, when a person strives for this kind of shadow, he tries to make it himself. But soon he finds that he is incapable of it. He finds that his flight from the desire to enjoy and trying to put a “shadow” on it, meaning make the screen, restriction, and work above it, is impossible without outside help. It requires a miracle!

A miracle is something out of the person’s hands and not available to him directly as an obvious means. And gradually he comes to the conclusion that the very root, the upper force he wants to disclose, should help him and deliver the concealment.

But since a person asks for it on his own volition, it is counted as if he created this shadow. And so he conceals his desire to enjoy more and more, which is regarded as, “do not do to someone what is hateful to you,” and he acquires the property of Bina, bestowal in order to bestow (Hafetz Hesed).

And when he finishes the job and rises above all of his egoistic desires to Mount Sinai, he starts to work, even receiving in order to bestow, in “loving his neighbor as himself.” Gradually, all desire turns into bestowal, and so on until the end of correction.

All of this is accomplished by way of concealment or so-called “modesty.” It is the work when a person is looking how to hide from his desire to enjoy, to not use it directly, selfishly, and certainly not to use it instinctively without thinking, but only after rigorous analysis and testing. This is the very first stage of our work.

If the human in us learns to hide from the desire to enjoy within us, he separates himself from this desire and rises above the screen. And at that moment, he is connected with the root and makes calculations above reason. Thus he keeps walking the path and advances.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/2011, Shamati #39

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The only thing that is required of us is to cleave to the Creator. That is why everything that happens to us is arranged so as to oblige us to turn to Him, to feel the need in Him now, while we are not in the property of bestowal.

A person lives completely tied and entangled by this life. And all this confusion, problems in life, its order, and disorder gradually push him to a state when he sees that he is unable to cope with this life. He cannot understand it, feel its purpose and reason, and come to its root. And then he feels that he must find the root of life, the One who holds this life, and to reveal and know Him.

Sufferings, curiosity, even the point in the heart hiding inside a person suffering due to a lack of adhesion with the upper one, or something else gradually leads a person to an understanding that he can no longer claim that he runs his life himself, like sovereign Pharaoh who says: “Who is the Creator that I should listened to Him? I am the only ruler here!”

This is how our ego thinks, until it gets the blows that make me see that the Creator is the righteous one and I am the wicked one. And then a person understands that he must reveal the Creator.

Even when a person embarks on this path and makes the first steps, finding himself in a group and beginning to study Kabbalah, much time passes before he starts to realize that he is in a completely deterministic, closed system where everything is already predetermined. This system accepts no free movements or chances in any of its parts: still, vegetative, animate, or human. All of them exist according to the perfect law that advances the entire creation to a state where all of its elements reach adhesion with the upper root.

This adhesion is realized by the human level, the highest element of this system, which includes all the previous steps. But it does not happen due to his own efforts. He needs to ask the Creator to perform all the actions.
[49430]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/2011, Shamati #50

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