When I say: “There is none else besides Him,” it means that I accept upon myself a certain function in the world and not just go with the flow, living one moment after the other, telling myself to “let it be.” On the contrary, each instant I focus my desires and thoughts on how to correct my connection with the world and strive to find in it a single governing force. This effort of mine is regarded as “If I am not for myself, who is for me?”

Suppose I get sick and am going to see a doctor, but while doing so, I don’t just tend to my animate body; rather, I think about how I add everything to this one force. After all, the physician, the medicine, and I are all parts of the integral system. The doctor is managed by the Creator, and the medicine was discovered because of Him. In other words, I must connect everything that seems to me as existing separately from each: the doctor, the medicine, my sickness, and myself to a singular source.

And later on when I recover, I must say that all of it from the start was unified. The Creator simply turned the circumstances so that I would unify them within myself and see His oneness.
[37073]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Baal HaSulam, Letter 16, 1925

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Question: It is very easy for us to unite during the convention because it seems to be very natural here to cancel ourselves, to “lose our heads,” to try to connect with others, and include ourselves in them. But it is very difficult to do this in your own group, once you return from the convention. Many problems arise and it becomes very difficult to feel the inner essence of the group; everything suddenly disappears. How do you overcome this?

Answer: Let us do an exercise: Let us come to a group, sit in a circle, look at one another, and think: “What is the Creator doing with us?” We want to unite, we work in the group, we have opened up a center of Kabbalah, we have gathered together, prepared a place for meeting, and nobody wants to go there….

Look what He does! We are not to blame for this; we do not have freedom of will. Look how He awakens us! What does He do this for? Why does He need it? What does He gain from this?

The only reason you do not advance is because you forget about one more component that exists among you: the Upper Force, the Creator, who arranges and prepares everything. Add Him! Become partners with Him! And then you will understand what you need to do, how to advance being connected with one another and with Him. Add Him to your group. I am serious about this: He exists among you. Start having this kind of gatherings of friends, these discussions of what happens between you, and then everything will clear up.
[37006]
From Lesson 1, Metzoke Dragot Congress 2/24/2011

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In this world I constantly tailor myself to the standards that the society imposes upon me by convincing me to buy or do something, while in the spiritual world I need to draw an example from the Creator. However, the problem is that if He were to reveal Himself, we would fall completely under His influence and would become a million times more dependent on Him than we depend upon the environment today.

We would become absolute slaves, like the still, vegetative, and animate forms of life, which do what nature commands them to do and fully follow their instincts. And then we would not even feel like we live an independent life.

But the Creator, this general force of nature of creation, wants us to be independent and equal to Him, instead of following His orders like a robot. There would be no point in creating the creature which automatically follows its nature’s orders, and where the entire outcome is clear from the beginning.

The Creator’s plan was to create man free so that man himself would choose to rise to the level of the Creator, to learn about his Creator, and want to become just like Him! Just like any person in this world wants to be loved for who he is, the Creator also wants us to become acquainted with Him, attain Him, and see that His state, quality, and force is the ultimate perfection.

Thus, He cannot reveal Himself to us so that we will not become His slaves and automatically follow His orders. He plants in us the desire to develop and strive towards Him, but He conceals Himself. So how can we become like Him in this case?

He comes up with a simple solution. He creates the creature called Adam (man), a spiritual force, a quality similar to His, and breaks this creature into a billion pieces! And now the created being itself, and not the Creator, must put together an environment for itself like from pieces of interconnecting blocks. This environment has to mirror the creature’s image of the Creator, its knowledge of Him.

Man advances and builds his own environment to influence him in the opposite direction and develop him. It follows that we build our own Creator, and this is why He is called “Boreh,” meaning “come and see.” We build our environment and in this way we build ourselves.

I am not able to create myself or influence myself. I am a finished product of my environment. But by constantly building my environment, a shell to influence me, I indirectly influence myself. It turns out that I build a system for my own education.

Then I am somewhat separate from the Creator, and I freely build myself by creating my own environment in accordance with the values that I want to instill in myself. I am not able to change myself, but I can artificially build a society to convince me of the values with which I now disagree. This society will convince me that I need to strive towards bestowal.

And since I have built this society myself, it is as if I had built myself. In other words, I constantly build the Creator’s image within me, and thus I advance to the point when these three forms: I, the environment, and the Creator draw so close that we become as one whole.

This really is free development because I do everything myself, I constantly think and decide on the ways to advance. I examine the world that now becomes revealed before me, and I test myself for ways to properly advance.
[37015]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Someone is constantly working with our consciousness in the corporeal world: all mass media, films, television, and newspapers. We receive examples of life in school, at home, from our environment, friends, and the entire world. We are constantly under this influence without even realizing how much we depend on it and follow these instilled values.

It turns out that in our corporeal world I only carry out someone else’s desires. But in the spiritual world I am left with an absolutely unfilled emptiness, and I don’t know what to do with it: Where to go, or what’s going on? And this is very difficult.

But on the other hand, we need to understand that in our world we don’t perform any independent actions and never realize our own desires; we never choose how to dress, what to eat, what to think, our profession, or partner in life. I receive all the tastes from the environment and work according to this program. When fashion changes in the surrounding world, I immediately change my direction and start chasing it.

We have already gotten accustomed to living like this, and this is why we feel confused when we are suddenly given freedom: We no longer know what to do with it. This is exactly what happens with our spiritual development. We are given complete freedom in it. What do we do with it, and where to get the examples?

But if you were given examples, you wouldn’t develop yourself as a free person who possesses freedom of choice. You wouldn’t find or reveal your soul. A person stands puzzled without knowing how to continue.

This is why Kabbalists advise us to learn from nature, from the environment. Nature, its general, upper force, is the Creator. We need to learn from Him, and we need to reveal Him. He needs to become our environment, and we need to draw examples from Him.
[37018]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The society is the only place where I can realize the act of bestowal. My attitude toward spirituality, toward the Creator, is tested by my attitude toward the society. This is the only way I can evaluate my state with regard to spirituality: Do I want to serve the others or to use them for my own benefit?

The Creator cares about the society since it is precisely the place where He can reveal Himself. It is Malchut of the world of Infinity, Shechina, His favorite child, and this is where He dwells and hides. Everything depends only on the well-being of the environment! The environment, the connection between everybody where each is aspiring to reveal the Creator, is the ultimate goal, the place where the Creator can be revealed to the created beings.

You give the Creator an opportunity to become revealed! This place and the Light that becomes revealed in it, meaning the Creator, have the same value and are inseparable from each other. Hence, as one advances, he realizes that the society in its internal essence is actually the Creator who dwells there (Boreh means "come and see"). We do not reveal anything but the corrected society which is, in fact, called the Creator.

Now we separate the two, but in the final, perfect state it’s impossible to divide anything. The Light and desire merge into one, and it’s impossible to say which is the first and which is the last. For us, all of creation starts from the fact that there is One, a point immersed in the Light. Relative to us, nothing exists before this state.

Kabbalists state that this adhesion, the Light, the force of bestowal, is nevertheless primary relative to the creature, the force of reception. But we are not able to perceive it since we act in terms of "time," meaning cause and result.

However, until we reveal a constant and eternal state, both cause and consequence exist only relative to the changes within us. But in a perfect state, there is no cause or consequence; there are no changes.

Indeed, if there is cause and effect, it means that inner corrections in the creature are still under way, that it hasn’t yet revealed the true state. In the true state, there are no changes already, and it means that there is no difference between the Creator and Creation.
[36930]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, Writings of Rabash

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At first we evolve by absorbing desires of all the others, by envying their aspiration, effort, and work. But gradually, under the influence of the collective work, our desires change, and we start feeling that unity, caring for others, and absorbing their desires is a very special state.

It is the Light that evokes these changes in us since on our own, we cannot change. We think that we keep doing the same thing, pass through the same states, and nothing really changes day by day. But desires evolve in four stages, and being influenced by the Light, they begin to change.

The final destination, the state which already exists in the plan of creation, is “inscribed” in the Light. Therefore, the Light, which expands from the very first, root stage and affects our desire from there, instills in it all the changes that are already placed in the desire created by this Light. Hence, don’t despair! Just remember it.

Afterward, having gained experience, everyone starts to feel that he or she is in the field of constant influence. Even when it seems that nothing is changing, this field still evokes processes and transformations in our desires in four stages of HaVaYaH.

Thus, we first come to a Kabbalistic group as consumers, wishing to employ it for our egoistic goals: make decisions, rule, and satisfy our ambitions. And this stage of development should be utilized to give people an opportunity to advance to a certain point, as long as it doesn’t harm the society. After all, we start with egoism, and from egoism (Lo Lishma, not for Her name) we come to bestowal (Lishma, for Her name).

And then, a person undergoes the next stage and starts to understand that unification itself has a unique value and is much more exalted than simply using the others. In truth, if he thinks about the well-being of all others, it will advance him much closer to the Creator. Thus the Light works on us, causing such transformations in us.

As a result, a person starts working with the society solely in order to delight the Creator. After all, it is the only opportunity we possess to perform any act of bestowal. We have nothing to give to the Creator, but we can take advantage of His love to the created beings and bestow to them, thereby actualizing His love.

If a person asks for grace, meaning bestowal, and desires to be able to bestow to the others, in doing so, he or she gives the Creator a chance to bestow to them.
[36934]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The Creator is playing a game with us by hiding and revealing Himself, and hiding again—all in order to awaken us. At first, it is just material sensations when we feel either good or bad, until all these changes help us grow up.

In the meantime, our desire to receive pleasure grows not only quantitatively but also qualitatively, and undergoes four levels of development: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. In the end, it becomes aware of itself and understands the reasons why it feels good or bad, where these changes come from and why.

At this point we learn to discern not only good and bad states but also truth and lie, the reason and purpose of the occurring changes, Who sends them, and how to connect this all together, meaning to actualize it in a perfect form. So we advance in our development.

Kabbalah helps us understand the causes and reasons of the states we are being made to experience, and then we start arranging a different picture for ourselves. It isn’t the Creator who changes, hides, and shows up to play with us, but rather these transformations occur in us, in our desire to enjoy, against the eternal invariability of the upper Light, the Creator, who remains at absolute rest and informs: “I did not change my HaVaYaH.”

All modifications occur in the created being, in the one who receives. It is the created being that undergoes various internal states, good and bad, and that’s why it thinks that the Beloved abandons it and keeps revealing or concealing Himself.

At that point, we start seeing everything in a more authentic light and begin to understand that we stand against the constant, eternal, and perfect upper force. All the changes occur solely in us, and they are what we should be asking mercy for so we may use them correctly. First of all, we must learn not to depend on these changes and then to use them to bestow, as the upper force does.

Thus, we arrive at the state described as: “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me” when the Creator’s concealment is viewed as a blessing, as coming close to and merging with Him. It all depends only on us, on our perception of reality.

We no longer rely on luck, but rather start seeing cause and effect, the logic behind changes. First, we learn that all these transformations occur in us, and everything depends on our getting corrected. Later on, we realize that these corrections are needed not just to feel good, but to come to the truth.

And it all concludes with the state when the created being stands against the eternal and perfect, immutable Creator and evokes a greater sensibility in itself, in order to approach the Creator’s eternal and complete form of bestowal.
[36937]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, Writings of Rabash

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“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Explanation of the Division of the Fourteen Commandments into Ten Utterances”:  Fourth utterance: “And God said, ‘Let the waters be gathered.’” The third commandment is to know that there is a great God who rules over the whole world, and to unify him daily with a proper unification, the unification of “Hear O Israel,” called “the upper unification.” This is extension of VAK of the three previous utterances into ZA, VAK de Gadlut, Vav de HaVaYaH.

Everything exists in an unchanging state, and all the changes occur only in man’s perception. By correcting his properties, a person attains degree after degree, and “utterances,” “commandments,” or “days of the beginning of creation” change for him. All of it was divided and now changes in his eyes since a person himself, his inner desire, gets reformed.

Desire within us undergoes transformations. They occur gradually, layer after layer, passing through all levels of their Aviut (thickness, coarseness): Shoresh (root), Aleph (1), Bet (2), Gimel (3), and Dalet (4) at each degree.

As we correct our desire, we begin to reveal the Lights, the sources: where this influence comes from, what correction it performs in my soul, what Light becomes revealed, where it originates from, with Whom I connect, Who the Upper One whom I reveal is.

This is a gradual correction of the soul performed by a person. Parallel to it, The Zohar describes what desires (Kelim) enter correction, what Lights become revealed out of a full set of ten utterances, 14 commandments, or seven days of the beginning of creation, meaning seven degrees of Zeir Anpin (ZA), until Nukva and ZA reach a state of the two great lights, the full correction (Gmar Tikkun). Ultimately, we are talking about the stages of our advancement.

The Torah describes the entire process of our correction. In the beginning of the chapter “Beresheet” (Genesis), all these utterances are presented as a summary of everything that subsequently occurs in the entire Torah. And then, from this chapter, as from the initial point of the letter “Yod,” all other parts toward a full HaVaYaH evolve, until the entire narrative of the Torah ends with the word “Israel.”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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What is love in our corporeal world? It is an “animalistic,” material, egoistic love which enables us to enjoy one another. Parents instinctively love their children, and children instinctively love their parents, to the extent that they both receive what is desired from each other. And all this is filled with an egoistic intention.

Dampen the maternal instinct of a mother towards her own child and she will treat him the same as other children. He may as well starve, she will not care. This means that the parents’ feelings are an instinct and not love.

Love between sexes is caused by hormones. Inject a person with a certain compound, and his love will suddenly disappear, or on the contrary, awaken out of nowhere. This refers to a hormonal attraction.

All of this pertains to the animate level, and no more than that. Geneticists and biologists can explain the reasons for this in detail. But we naturally praise this feeling and attribute it a spiritual essence only because we receive the most pleasure from it, and accordingly, we want to elevate it in our eyes.

Moreover, there can be extreme love which causes a lot of damage. This is because when there are no limits to love, when it is devoid of tremor, it leads to hatred. When somebody loves me, I need to ensure that I do not allow them to love me too much, and they must ensure the same. Everything needs to have a true measure and proper weight. When love “overflows the boundaries,” it nullifies me, and then I begin to hate the person who loves me, I reject him or her.

We see this in the example of parents and children: The extreme love for a child causes disdain and hatred within him. And the child is not to blame; it is the adult’s fault since he does not limit his love, which means that he does not have a screen to go with it. We always must control the extent of our interaction. We will only be able to acquire “unlimited” screens in the world of Infinity, at the end of correction.

So, there is no point in speaking about love in our world as we only use one another as per usual. There is no need to reject or despise it, this is our life. For example, partners live together and take care of one another for many years. However, it is necessary to draw a distinction: Ultimately, I do it as a habit which becomes my second nature, out of desire and the egoistic impulses that awaken in me and become fulfilled by it.

But love in the spiritual world is absolute bestowal.
[37082]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/2011 on Love

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A Reshimo (informational gene) is a picture, a form, which determines the future state, yet it comes from the past. Suppose yesterday I was in a restaurant and paid 100 dollars for a dinner; I ordered five dishes, a full HNRHY. But today I only have 50 dollars instead of 100, so the waiter says that I can order five dishes again, but they will be different this time: a cutlet instead of a steak, a herring instead of a salmon, and so on. Yet, I can still have a five course dinner.

I demand according to what I received before since this is the only taste I’m familiar with. But my screen (covering) corresponds to only what I can receive now. I make a calculation relative to what happened. Obviously, in the end I receive something different from what I had before, but it does not matter to me!

How can I demand the Light that isn’t in me yet and for which I still don’t have any data? How do I perform a calculation for a new state? After all, it is a new degree, an enormous, unmatched difference?

But I perform a calculation for the greatest possible bestowal to the Creator, and hence, what I receive today is not important to me. Even if it’s a steamed cutlet instead of the roasted lamb I had yesterday, that’s the most I’m capable of and I’m happy to have been able to perform this highest possible calculation for the Creator’s sake. Therefore, I accept what is being revealed to me as the most desired fulfillment.

Indeed, what matters is my intention to bestow, and not what I will receive, what piece of meat on a plate. Anything He will give me will be the most I’m capable of and hence, it will be perfect.

Therefore, we are able to perform an exact calculation of the states that haven’t been revealed in us yet. We perform a calculation not on the quality of the received Light, but on the quality of our bestowal.
[36950]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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