Question: Is there an area in our brain where we can feel pleasure from being one with the group and revealing the Creator in it just as much as we enjoy food, sex, and family?

Answer: The brain, as well as desire, doesn’t care what we gain pleasure from, but the Creator is playing an “unfair” game with us. He placed a condition for us: If in this world, this life you wish to derive pleasure from sweets, you can do so, for now.

It is similar to how we treat our children. They have to grow to become adults. Hence, day by day, over the first 18 years, we give them everything we possibly can. A child breaks toys, disobeys, does things wrong, while you continue treating them kindly. What other options do you have? It’s hard to raise kids. All you can do is keep giving them what they need.

Clearly, nature also gives everything to its children: desire, strength and the will to grow. They run, play, and are always in motion. Everything is made so as to give a person a chance to grow. Have you grown? Now, it’s your turn to work and serve in the army. It’s so different from your previous life! Childhood has ended; you are a grown-up now.

In the spiritual world, the Creator puts us in a similar condition. You are given an opportunity to start growing in spirituality in a small state (Katnut) and receive all that you need just like children in this world. However, as you grow, you are placed in increasingly difficult conditions. You have to give more, pay, and love to get something in return.

The Light stays at absolute rest. Desire wants to enjoy the Light. But in between, there is a condition, like there is for a grown-up in this world: If you wish to keep enjoying yourself, you have to pay, complete your desire, the vessel that receives the Light. The pleasure remains the same, but due to the above rule, you can’t enjoy it. Hence, we have no choice: We must reach bestowal.

We say: “But I want to feel pleasure directly. Place me in Malchut of Infinity! Give me pleasure right now. Fill me up!” But, no, we are told: “Malchut of Infinity? Sure thing! But all you will find there is a horrible void.” How so? That’s because of the same condition, the First Restriction. If you are not similar to the Light in your properties, you will feel nothing but darkness.

So, all pleasures expand from the Light. Even if someone enjoys killing, that, too, is derived from the Light. There is no other source of enjoyment. However, there is a condition: If you wish to know real, everlasting pleasures, you must receive them in the will to bestow. You have no choice—this is the rule.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Desire doesn’t unfold until it has undergone the four stages of development under the influence of the Light and reached a state of awareness, sensation of self, when it is able to make autonomous decisions and respond to the Light to a certain extent. This means that in any point of creation, wherever the “root” (zero) phase is found, it signifies bestowal from the Creator who wishes to cause a certain reaction in the creature, in “existence from absence” (Yesh Mi Ain).

Starting with phase zero, from the so-called “tip of the letter Yod,” it is necessary to pass through the four phases of HaVaYaH (Yod, Key, Vav, Key), or the first, second, third, and fourth phases of the Direct Light. Only at phase four (Behina Dalet) does desire respond.

At any place in creation, no matter what point we take in the entire universe, we will discover a zero stage in it: the Creator’s connection with some point “from absence” (Yesh Mi Ain). From it, affected by the Light, a will to receive begins to develop and has to undergo the four stages in order to form into a created being, start sensing, and respond to the effect of the Light.

Thus, everything starts from the “tip of the letter Yod,” “existence from existence,” the Thought of Creation, His thought. Then, it begins to work, and stages one, two, three, and four come to light or Yod-Key-Vav-Key, until we reach the fourth phase, Dalet that at this point experiences itself as existing.

There are two forces here, the leading and the led. Each of them is active and potential at the same time. The first three phases, zero, one, and two (Keter, Hochma, Bina) still pertain to the Creator. Stages three and four (Zeir Anpin and Malchut) refer to the creature.

A similar division can be observed later on in all spiritual objects, Partzufim, the worlds. The first three degrees (GAR) pertain to the thought or the program of the upper one. ZAT (Zeir Anpin and Malchut) refer to the lower one, the creature, where ZA serves as the adaptor between the upper one and the lower one.

The upper one is Keter. Its property of bestowal is Hochma (Wisdom). The form in which He wishes to bestow is Bina. The form in which He relates to the lower one is Zeir Anpin. This is a multidimensional relationship: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, Malchut. As to Malchut, it is matter that absorbs all the previous forms since it wants to know and construct them within it in order to gain the form of the preceding phases.

Thus, Malchut implements this act internally. Hence, it needs to experience all of the previous phases, receive an impression from them, conform, and develop the desire to be like them. Thereby, in response, it creates an identical connection to the root, becoming the root itself.

The creature cannot unfold until all the four phases have come before it. It’s only at the last, Dalet, phase of development, when I have both desire and intention (meaning that everything comes from me), from here on, we can talk about the creature. Until then, there are only the properties of the Creator whereby He builds creation.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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There is a special program in the upper Light that acts on the desire to enjoy created simply as starting material, completely lifeless like plasticine or clay. The very process of development by the four phases and the force ensuring this development are incorporated within the Light.

Namely, the Light creates desire “from absence.” The Light contains everything. It is the force of bestowal which develops the desire to enjoy thanks to its ability to give it more and more, both in quantity and quality.

The Light, that affects desire, creates new needs in it all the time. Phase 2 (Bet) becomes separated from Phase 1 (Aleph) precisely because it feels a lack. After the Light fills it, a void suddenly opens in it, and it understands that this fulfillment brings it nothing.

It thinks: “What happened? I have been flooded with the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), but do I feel fulfillment? No, I feel completely empty.” “But aren’t you full of the Light of Hochma?” “No, I don’t feel it.”

Phase Aleph seems to be saying: “What kind of fulfillment is this? This isn’t fulfillment, but emptiness! I want something else. I want to be filled with the Light of Hassadim (Mercy). You brought me a gift that You wanted, but I wanted something completely different. This is not what I asked for.” (Many, perhaps, have heard this from their wives.)

Essentially, the Light that fills the creature empties it for a higher degree. The Light satisfies desire at level 1, but because of it, the desire feels emptiness. Only the Light can perform such tricks. I wish we could learn such techniques for raising children.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The entire wisdom of Kabbalah came to us from The Book of Zohar and the works of the Ari. If it were not for Baal HaSulam, we would not be able to study. The Book of Zohar is full of allegories and stories understandable only to a person who is on the same spiritual degree and can decipher these clues.

As for the Ari, he himself never wrote anything; he only talked. All his works are written by the Ari’s disciple Chaim Vital and the entire multi-volume collection of essays is based on what the Ari said over one and a half years. His group existed only for a short time; he taught it and then passed away.

By various ways, this material went to various people who compiled books from it. One part of the records was kept in some secret place; the other was buried in Chaim Vital’s grave and retrieved later, when the grave was opened. The third part was handed down the generations and passed through many people, and who knows what they have done with it.

The Ari talked about the whole system in general, and if a person doesn’t have the complete works and cannot understand the material well, he cannot compile it correctly. That’s why, although these records were collected by Kabbalists, much was missing, and the accurate sequence couldn’t be kept.

Therefore, Baal HaSulam added his commentaries to the Ari’s works so that we could follow a natural progression from simple to increasingly complex and, studying in the correct form, understand the Ari’s writings. We wouldn’t be able to comprehend anything without it. In Kabbalah, this is very dangerous because it you don’t understand what is being described, you fantasize about anything.

So, we have to appreciate the great work that Baal HaSulam has accomplished: We would have achieved nothing without it. Sometimes people ask me: “If there are so many other Kabbalists, why don’t we study their works?” But we don’t have anybody else to learn from because all of them wrote from their high degrees, for example, such Kabbalists as the Vilna Gaon or Ramchal. We can’t base our studies on their works because Kabbalists didn’t interpret them for ordinary people like us so that we could understand, use, and realize them on ourselves.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/2011, “General Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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In Kabbalah, we don’t talk about personal feelings. We do speak of love of friends, but only generally, without mentioning ourselves or any specific names.

It is necessary to speak about the greatness of the teacher, the Creator, the group, and the importance of the goal because without inspiring one another, we won’t advance. This gives us strength to work, and that’s why we need the group. But nobody speaks about it from the first person, revealing their inner feelings and desires (Kelim).

In fact, the others are not yet reformed to Bina’s degree (Hafetz Hesed), meaning not “to do to others what you don’t wish to be done to you” and therefore, may harm you with their thoughts. Hence, this ban exists.

You talk about how exalted the spiritual goal is, but not about how you or somebody else is inspired by spirituality. You should talk about the law that works in creation, the formula in the system of forces, without pointing at anyone specifically.

All our work is internal and humble. I must view the group not as individual people and faces, but as forces who yearn toward the Creator, bestowal, and who unify in order to reach this goal together. This bond of our desires, this internal connection is what we call the group.

Hence, when I speak about the group, I don’t mention people’s names. It is as if there are no people and only desires tied by the mutual guarantee! If these desires reach the level of connection when it truly becomes for bestowal in the first degree, they reveal it, along with the Light of Hassadim that fills it, meaning mutual bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Do the letters that The Zohar talks about express the forms of connection between us?

Answer: Of course! Only the connection between us! Without the connection between the souls, the authors of The Zohar could not have perceived anything. Everything is perceived in the network of connection between us.

What do we perceive? We perceive the forces of bestowal. The sum total of these forces is called the “Creator” (“Bo-Reh” or “come and see”), which we reveal in the connection between us, the property of bestowal and love.

If we perceive this in the form of forces, then it’s our desire, our vessel for the revelation of the Light. If we perceive an impression in it, the Light, this is the Creator, the Light, that is revealed in the vessel, the desire. There is nothing else.

All that we read in The Zohar or all the other books written by Kabbalists are merely man’s impressions, a Kabbalist’s perception of the force of bestowal within his desires, according to the similarity of properties. He tells us about his desires, his impressions, the force that he perceived, explaining this in an external form.

It’s possible to express this in music, songs, and beautiful words. It’s also possible to explain it in the language of Kabbalah, the Talmud, or the Legends. In the final analysis, Kabbalists explain their attainments.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/2011, The Zohar

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Everything starts with a black point “created from absence,” which the upper Light works on and thereby develops the creature. All development, except for this point of “Yesh Mi Ain” (existence from absence) is done by the Light, the force that acts in the creature, in the part that’s being “led.”

Where then do we get such different properties as individuals? From the Light! The point of creation “from absence” is a mere point. But the Creator splits His relation into billions of creatures and then re-connects them by tying them together in all sorts of ways so that everyone becomes connected with the seven billion others. Thereby, He wishes to express Himself within the matter of “existence from absence.”

He wouldn’t be able to express it in any other way except by such multiplied number of small creatures, each of which is created in a special, unique manner, unlike any other. Every creature comes to its individual correction, having renounced the part of “Yesh Mi Ain” (existence from absence) in itself and gaining a desire to consist of the properties of “Yesh Mi Yesh” (existence from existence), which can help it unify with the others. And thereby, it increases its “Yesh Mi Yesh” from a small point provided by the Creator to Infinity, to the exalted status of the Creator Himself.

How do I, this tiny point that appeared out of nothing that was created with a virtually zero connection with the Creator, come to His revelation? I unify with all the other points (desires) by cancelling my “existence from absence,” which allows my “existence from existence” to grow to the size of the entire creation that I adjoin to myself.

In other words, connecting thereby, I make out of this point the whole spiritual vessel, “Yesh Mi Yesh,” filled with the infinite connection to the Creator, “Yesh Mi Yesh,” to all. This can be done only by multiplying such tiny parts, each of which unifies with the rest, and thereby, all of them intertwine with the each other as multiple layers.

One unifies with the other; then, the previous two which became one unify with the third and intertwine within, while the new three bond with one more, and so on. So, it’s not just my connecting with all the others, but rather it is a multi-dimensional system of connection. And it is the only medium for the Creator to express Himself within the general creation upon completing this work at the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 5: The Light’s expansion and its subsequent expulsion create a vessel. It can be logically concluded that if the vessel receives the Light instantaneously, the former will be primary and precede the latter. Therefore, the fourth stage becomes the final stage of creation of the vessel, Malchut.

The Light’s expansion in the creature has to occur in four stages, until the creature feels that it receives and always wants more than it gets. For as long as desire was satisfied with what it was receiving, it wasn’t yet the creature in charge of itself. It didn’t have anything of its own, any personal addition to what has already come from the Giver.

From the Giver, we receive the vessel (desire) and the Light. If all of this expands downward without any interference on the part of the creature, and if the latter doesn’t strive to gain greater desire and the Light, then there isn’t any creature, but something that has no will of its own.

This is why the first three levels of desire, meaning the still, vegetative, and animate nature, which derive from the root phase, are not considered to be existing just yet. They are managed from Above, without any addition on their part.

As to the people who are at these levels of evolution, they live and feed on what they receive in our world from their innate qualities, the environment, media, the education system, and so forth. Unless they begin to contribute their individual desire aimed at the root to this and as long as they obey the desire’s orders, their highest level is still “animate.”

And only when a person evolves to the human degree which yearns to contribute something, to return to the root, only then does he or she ask for the root to add more desire and fulfillment, demands development, and becomes a Human who wants to become similar to the Creator. The Creator has to be revealed all the time, over and over again, as it is written: “Know your Maker and serve Him.” This is what separates man from beast. That’s what makes his plea aimed upward at the root authentic.

A human begins with the point in the heart that also comes from Above. But everything else besides this point, where one feels as “existence from absence,” man has to cultivate it on his own. This is the addition whereby one wishes to become similar to the Creator and earn the title of Human. After the still, vegetative, and animate levels of development, only the final degree is regarded as “speaking.” That is what develops the creature, while all the previous levels get included in it.

This is primarily dealing with our internal world, where the still, vegetative and animate nature rise and fall along with the speaking degree. Don’t visualize Earth with its flora and fauna in the valleys and woods. Everything takes place internally. If all other desires support the growth of a human in me, thereby, they ascend along with him in the same degree.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Why is it said that an act of bestowal always brings a sensation of joy?

Answer: If a person cleaves to the upper one, this adhesion must bring him joy since he enters the perfection of the upper one. This is not simply a good mood, but rather a sensation of being filled with perfection and eternity, belonging and dependency, of touching upon something perfect and infinite.

This sensation is experienced by a person who has a connection with a higher degree consisting of the teacher, the group, and the Creator. The more he values them, the more he feels perfection. But then the question arises: How does he use this feeling? Maybe he is simply looking for a pleasant sensation in order to appease himself? Or perhaps he is using this feeling to ascend and bestow in return?

That is, it’s important whether he is using his connection with “the teacher, the group, and the books” to acquire the spiritual vessel called “faith” or to fill oneself. If he is looking for an egoistic fulfillment, it is an impure desire, Klipa, that wishes to cling to sanctity and draw out the Light from it.

However, one has to go through such impure states as well, feel them acutely on the path, and try to overcome them. Ultimately, I have to attain that there is nothing besides the single authority: the authority of the Creator. It means that the Creator is “good who does good”; He fills my entire world, all of my desires, my entire heart and mind. I have to always feel that I’m under the Creator’s rule, and He fills me. I shouldn’t allow a Klipa (my impure desires) to torment me.

There are people who derive pleasure from such self-criticism. Or they are so used to it that they can’t come out of this state. However, this is a very bad state, and it brings no advancement.

A person thinks that suffering helps him to advance and that one day suffering will end. But it will never happen. Progress takes place specifically by virtue of us aspiring toward joy, goodness, and happiness from performing good deeds—toward the upper degree, toward faith. This is called faith in the upper one, when a person feels that he belongs to perfection, meaning connects to the upper one.

So ask yourself: Are you trying to cling to the upper one to receive pleasure from it or are you looking for inspiration and joy that can help you acquire the ability to bestow?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2011, Shamati #40

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace“: It is said in Masechet Avot (Chapter 3, Item 16): “He (Rabbi Akiva) would say, ‘All is in deposit, and a fortress spreads over all of life. The store is open and the shopkeeper sells by deferred payment; the book is open and the hand writes. And all who wish to borrow may come and borrow, and the collectors return regularly, day-by-day, and collect from a person knowingly and unknowingly. And they have what to rely on, and the judgment is true, and all is ready for the feast.’” …From the beginning of Creation, all people have reservations, and the Thought of the Creator necessitates them to come to the feast, knowingly or unknowingly.

“The feast” is the end of the correction of Malchut of the world of Infinity, which has to become filled with the Light of Infinity. This state is predesigned; it exists. We are in it and only lack the instruments, the vessels, to feel it. This is what we are talking about: their correction and tuning.

Thus, “all is ready for the feast.” It is ready, and the Creator is waiting for the “guests,” meaning our corrected desires, which is what we should care about. Everything is a derivative of this feast: the Lights of NRNHY and the vessels of KHB-ZON that descend from Malchut of Infinity by the ladder of spiritual worlds. The initial and the final forms, that is, the first and the third states, beget the second state in which we exist. They define our path in between them, all our corrections.

Hence, we should concern ourselves not with the initial and the final forms, but only with our contribution, our participation in the process. We should try, in the most effective way possible, to enter the sequence of these actions and hasten our development, making it maximally productive, intensive, and focused.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/2011, “The Peace”

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