Question: Why was the wisdom of Kabbalah hidden from the people? Was it not to harm those who were not ready for it yet? What has changed today? Is it that we became ready, and it can help us now?

Answer: People might have started to use Kabbalah egoistically, just to gain pleasure through it, and that is a type of Klipa (Shell) of improper use. Until man’s desire ripens for the wisdom of Kabbalah, he shouldn’t approach it because his unripe desire will turn Kabbalah into a completely different activity.

We see how many people use Kabbalah to produce (and sell) all kinds of beliefs, religions, and meditation practices. However, if a man’s desire has ripened for spiritual evolution, it guides him in this collective field of souls that is filled by the Light, and he moves like an electron in the field, reaching the right place. That is how it evolves.

Therefore, throughout our whole history, we had to wait until people’s desires would sufficiently develop and it would become possible to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to them. Now it is up to every individual as to how he or she will realize themselves.

Kabbalah was hidden until the souls matured to make use of it. Man’s desire was not prepared for it since it was unclear what desire was related to. In the instant when desire reaches maturity, it becomes clear that it relates to the correction of self, the wisdom of Kabbalah, or the masses who simply follow Kabbalists. However, until all souls have completely intermingled, it was impossible to say this.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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There is a state when the will to receive and the will to bestow unite, fill each other, and remain in each other to such an extent that it is impossible to tell them apart. This state is called the “world of Infinity,” and it is the original state of existence.

And then there is a descent, a “step by step corruption,” when from the state of unity, they begin to withdraw from the state of oneness, and through an expanding cone, descend downward, distancing themselves from each other.

At a certain stage of their separation a special status was formed, and they discovered an opportunity to reunite. However, when they attempted to do so, it resulted in a breaking. These desires not only stand on opposite sides, with one on the right and the other on the left, but now each of them must also include the other. That is the cause of their breaking: Once desiring to unite again, as in the world of Infinity, they failed and broke. In other words, the failure in unifying resulted in their absorbing each other’s properties.

After this, evolution continued down along the expanding cone, moving them even farther away from each other. But at this point, the force of bestowal, that is, the primary force, the Creator, is completely permeated by the properties of the will to receive, the force of the creation, while the creature is totally imbued with the properties of the Creator, the will to bestow.

The Creator is filled with the force of bestowal, while the receiving force is included in and is subordinate to it. Whereas with creation it is the other way around: The creature is filled with the force of reception, and the force of bestowal is subordinate to it, internal and concealed.

And then they descend into our corporeal world. At this point, the creature, the force of reception, begins to evolve. In the beginning it doesn’t feel anything at all, what and who it is. It is automatically governed by internal forces and evolves by way of their influence. What forces are they? They are the creature’s basic force, the desire to receive pleasure, and hiding within it is the internal force, the desire to enjoy bestowing pleasure.

The will to receive evolves, while the desire to give is practically not felt. It manifests solely to the extent of maintaining the desire for pleasure, by supplying life force to it, and creating all types of communication between the forms of its matter.

When the Big Bang lay ground to processes in the still nature, its entire development derived from the will to bestow instilled in matter. After all, the will to receive, in itself, doesn’t move; it simply wants to enjoy and remains stationary while simply keeping its “mouth” open. What changes and gives it the force of life is namely the will to bestow that is hidden in it.

Thus, these two forces evolve: The giving desire, despite its being concealed, drives the receiving one and pushes it forth. In this way, our entire universe had developed, followed by Earth, based on the interaction of the two opposing forces: cold and heat, attraction and rejection, and so on. In nature, everything we see is comprised of these opposites which are actually included in one another.

All the changes occurring in the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature are caused by inter-inclusion of these two forces: the desire to receive and desire to bestow. They blend together in various combinations, while the giving desire manifests, prevails, and rules over the receiving one more and more. And the will to receive goes along with it because this development brings benefit to it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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“Existence from absence” was created from “existence from existence,” meaning the upper force, the one, unique, and unified, besides which there is nothing else. And this creature is regarded as “the will to receive pleasure.” The nature of the upper force is to bestow; hence, it created the will to receive pleasure as opposite to itself so that it could exist outside of this force.

The second force, the desire to receive, wants to receive the property of bestowal that the primary force wishes to endow and to fill it with. Thus, the desire to receive and the desire to bestow match and oppose each other. And this is how the wisdom of Kabbalah begins: the exploration of authentic, universal reality.

Further on, the will to receive evolves influenced by the will to bestow, and both these forces affect one another as plus and minus. Being secondary to the will to bestow, the desire to receive yields to the former, accepts, and receives it into itself. The primary force created affects and rules over it, and thereby, the will to receive changes while undergoing various transformations.

Initial changes along this way are regarded as the “four stages of the Direct Light” or the name HaVaYaH. It is the stencil through which the will to bestow acts in the will to receive.

After the four stages of this work are complete, the will to receive becomes aware of what it is, where it is in reference to the will to bestow, and starts experiencing itself as a created being that exists outside of the giver, outside of the Creator. Then, the desire to receive autonomously defines the process it wishes to implement. And what it wants is to achieve equivalence of form, in order to become absolutely equal to the will to bestow that begot it.

Undoubtedly, all that exists in the will to receive came from the will to bestow. The desire to give brought it to life, linked into it, and endowed it with its own power and properties. Obviously, all there is in the creature, in the desire to receive, came from the giving one. After all, there is nowhere else from which to receive anything. From where can something new within it suddenly emerge?

And still, experiencing itself as a creation, it is able to perform an autonomous act. To do so, it has to be present between the two opposite forces of nature: its own desire to receive and the Creator’s will to bestow. If the creation manages to position itself in the middle, it will be free to choose with what it wishes to be associated.

And hence, the Creator’s intention in creating the will to receive was not for it to simply receive pleasure and become aware of itself or who created it, but rather so that it would find itself between the two forces. Let it end up not in its own or the Creator’s nature but in the neutral “zero” nature, equal detachment from either force, between the plus and the minus, the two poles of a magnet, “hanging in the air” between heaven and earth.

In this state, the choice indeed will be solely up to the creature itself.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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We read The Zohar and understand none of it. And it’s true, there is nothing for us to understand there. After all, it is for the people who already attained spirituality and feel the spiritual world.

They are already in the state where the force of bestowal, not the force of the will to receive, defines their internal life. In their case, the mind works differently; they have a different kind of sight; they see the spiritual world, and hence, understand what the Book is describing.

In fact, the Book is written for those who live in spirituality, and therefore, a person who enters it can understand it. And someone who lives only in the material world cannot since it describes a completely different world that I know nothing about, haven’t heard of or seen. And hence, these words don’t tell me anything.

What do I do? I can only desire to enter that world, not to understand it intellectually. If while reading The Zohar I constantly think about how to make it effect me and that is my sole desire, it is enough! It is regarded as “Segula” (a “miraculous remedy”). When after all these efforts I will suddenly receive the force of the Light and start sensing what is happening in the spiritual world, I will read or listen to the Book and understand what it is describing.

Then, I will engage my mind as well since at that point I will sense the spiritual world. Using my awareness, I will start working on the sensation. But if I don’t experience a certain phenomenon, how can I work on it mindfully? After all, awareness results from a feeling. In the mind, we only connect the phenomena that fall into the field of our vision and sensation.

Therefore, before anything else, we must start sensing the spiritual world and only afterward start studying it. As a matter of fact, until then we have nothing to feel. Do we have any idea what stands behind each word of The Zohar and what each of them points to: an “ox,” a “whole ox,” a “throne,” and so on? What ox and what throne? These are spiritual forces that carry such names. But it means nothing to me.

The entire spiritual world is the world of forces. The whole material world is a picture that these forces draw on my material screen. Therefore, we should think solely about how to experience what we are reading about. I must ask to feel rather than to understand. And that is possible only if we are together, create one desire between us, and strive for the Light to affect this desire and project a picture onto it.

The integral desire is like a computer screen, while the Light is like an electromagnetic force that draws an image on this screen. I want it to happen! And this is regarded as revealing the Creator to the created being.

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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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The key is to find among all our properties, among everything that happens with us in thought or in action, where we have some small degree of personal freedom to form a thought or desire. In other words, are we given any room for an independent thought, desire, or action?

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that everything depends on the genes, hormones, and information that was instilled within a person. And if a hundred years ago we thought that man is free in his life and everything is up to him, today we understand that his behavior is determined by what parents he had and what genetic traits he received.

It wasn’t up to a person when and in what family to be born, with what characteristics, and what education to receive. Since childhood, he or she had been imbued with certain attitudes to life and self, and by the time he reached 15 years of age, his character was totally formed.

A person steps into life having nothing of his own, but only what he received from birth, education, and what he will later pick up from the environment that he will end up in upon reaching twenty years of age and becoming an adult. The environment will dictate all his behavior and the decisions to be made, and whether he likes it or not, he will have to observe the same system of values that is accepted in the society.

Even if a person may wish to go against the society, he will still fully depend on it because the environment determines everything for him and he has nothing unrelated to it. Where then may he get some independent thoughts or desires, from what distant star?

In any case, they would not be autonomous. The only autonomous action was the creation of the created being “from absence” (Yesh Mi Ain). Only the Creator is capable to create something that has no previous history, something absolutely new.

Moreover, if my current state includes all possible preliminary conditions and forces that produced it, then everything that derives from them is an obvious result, pertaining to which I have no freedom. I live according to a certain program that passes through me while leaving me no choice; I act as a machine or a puppet that is pulled by the strings in all directions.

We are the product of all these alien, internal and external causes and various forces merging within and governing us. Even though it may seem that a person can do something independently, it is not an autonomous action either, but merely what these forces allowed him or her to do.

And yet, there is a chance to find free will. If a person evolves by employing the wisdom of Kabbalah, he draws additional force onto him, the force opposite to one’s current nature. And then, between these two opposing forces, a person finds the point of his free will.

On one side, there stands the power of man’s nature and this entire corporeal world, with all there is in it; on the other, there stands the power of the Light that came from Above. And between them, in the middle, we have a neutral point where one can have his say. A person can reach a condition when both these forces get equalized, and then he or she will receive free will.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: When separate cells in a common organism of the group lack the realization of the importance of the goal, then how can this importance appear between them?

Answer: First of all, I turn to the group outwardly in order to awaken my friends. This is my duty. However, the inspiration I receive from them in return does not necessarily come in an external, “showy” form. In general, Kabbalists have a tradition to avoid expressing their feelings through artificial love, pretty words, and so on. Everything that matters is on the inside.

And on the inside, I must judge my friends favorably. I value them because the Creator has gathered them and given them the realization of the importance of the goal. How well they comprehend the goal is irrelevant since they are still small. However, the Creator is among them; He awakens and unites them with one another. It was He who unified them into a big world group. And this is why they are as important to me as the Creator. He wants them, brings them closer, and cares for them. For Him they are His sons.

This means that I must treat them accordingly. I do not look at their appearance, but at their inner strength. There, on the inside, the Creator connects and supports them, and I want to join that connection between them, which He actualizes, realizes, and sustains. I want to connect to it.

My friends might not understand or feel it, but I want to seriously join it through my own decision and desire. And when I join their connection, there where the Creator sustains them, it means that I connect to the group. This is the group, and not an external expressions of any kind. From there I receive the strength of the Creator who supports my friends and dwells in them. That is precisely where I receive my inspiration for the importance of the goal, and I acquire the strength to always strive towards it.

And all this depends on me.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, Shlavey HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), Article “What Is a True Act of Kindness in the Work”: One should begin his work in “true kindness,” which means without any reward, so that everything he does may serve not one’s personal benefit but to delight the Creator.

We are born with the desire that acts in a certain way: “for one’s own sake,” “in order to receive.”  Each of us feels that before and outside of him there is a world that includes four evolutionary degrees: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. Additionally, we ourselves wish to only enjoy this entire external world in order to feel pleasure.

We could reverse it and say that man will feel good if he uses the world in a certain manner: for self-gratification. In general, all these things are quite relative since we are unable to see anything opposite to them.

But later on, man falls into despair from this tendency to seek pleasure. And then, a new desire, a new approach, awakens in him: “I must treat the entire reality differently. All of it is mine and is similar to me. I can’t enjoy it on my own, but only together with the others.” Obviously, this impulse does not come from man. The desire created by the Creator along with its Reshimot (informational genes) “keep rolling” further and further, unfolding to the person who feels it in this way.

By using the method of correction in the right way, a person starts showing a different attitude to the reality he feels within. In his 613 desires, he discovers that the parts he used to see as external are, in fact, related to him. To the degree that he is able to change his attitude to them and recognize them not as “foreigners” but as “relatives,” “kinsmen,” to the same degree he advances in a different type of perception of reality: a global, all embracing one. It turns out that everything is him.

In that case, when a person begins to link his own perception into the unified desire unbroken into individual parts, he alters the picture of his reality. Nothing is external: neither rocks, nor plants, nor beasts, nor humans. They are all parts of his desires.

A person changes his attitude. In other words, he arranges the unified desire, and thereby reveals the “additional element” as well, a unified force that fulfills this desire, regarded as the Creator. Thus, due to the correction of the desires, a person merits a new attainment and merges with the Source.

This is what is called the “true kindness.” If a person works on his will to receive and corrects himself, his attitude, and perception of reality, he merits a great “addition”: revelation of the Creator and adhesion with Him.

And that is why there is work in kindness, which means correction of the Kelim (vessels), and there is true grace, receiving in order to bestow, when a person reveals reality that includes the One who begot it: the Creator. Thereby, from correction of the created being, we reach its purpose.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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It is necessary to constantly remember that we are reading The Zohar only in order for our desires for unity to connect under the influence of the Light. All I can do is aspire toward unity, expecting that by reading The Zohar and Talmud Eser Sefirot, the Light will connect us together. I have to imagine that besides me, everyone is one. And I am the only one who has to become included in everyone.

I am unable to do this alone. This “click,” connecting me with everyone, can only happen as a result of the study. That is how when soldering two wires we place them together and influence the place of contact with high temperature, smelting them with a welding alloy that connects them.

That is why I bring myself to contact with the group and imagine that I connect with them. I expect that the study will solder us in the point of our connection.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, The Zohar

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Writings of Rabash, “What Does It Mean the World Was Created for the Torah”: Torah and Israel are the same thing. At first the Torah is instructions on correcting evil, called 613 recommendations on correcting 613 parts of egoism. After the correction, the Torah is potions of the Creator’s Light, corresponding to each of the 613 corrected organs of the soul.

Question: How is it possible to simply explain what is Israel, Torah, and the Creator, and what their unity means?

Answer: We are in an unchangeable state, as it is written, “I did not change Myself.” This single state is called “Malchut of the world of Infinity.” The Creator wished to do good upon the creation, and thus He created it in the corresponding state of goodness. But in order to feel that goodness, creation has to go through various twists and turns that will raise its desire or appetite by bringing about despair, troubles, and worries, or stated differently, various sensations that are opposite to the sensation of the Good who Does Good. That’s because otherwise creation would not feel Him.

However, in order to make sure that the sensation of the Good who Does Good together with His oppositeness do not become a double blow for creation, the Creator arranged things so we would collect the unpleasant sensations drop by drop—gradually, in small potions. “Ouch!”—and that’s enough. Then “Ouch!” again, and that’s enough. That is how we advance along the path, discerning our desire and learning what is good and what is bad.

As a whole we have to be sensitive and perceptive to good and evil. The more sensitive a person is to the realization of evil, the higher his level and the deeper he penetrates into the matter of creation.

Therefore, the unchanging state that the Creator made already contains the desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal, corrected by the right intention, as well as the Light that fills this desire and intention. There everyone is one without any differences. This state is called “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Israel (ישראל) is a vessel, a Kli with the intention of bestowal to the Creator. In other words, it is “straight to the Creator,” Yashar – El (ישר-אל). “Torah” is the entire Light that corrects and fills it. And they are one because they have attained the sate where they are absolutely equal and are in adhesion.

Equality and unity of the Creator and creation is the only form in which they exist. And every creature gradually reveals this form once the desire to reveal it awakens in him.

By bringing to light the emptiness in our current state, in the events of this world, the Creator gradually brings us to the feeling of emptiness, futility, and purposelessness of our lives. And at the same time He awakens the beginning of the spiritual Kli inside us, the embryo of the realization of evil. My state isn’t despicable because it is nauseating to the taste, but because I lack adhesion with the Creator.

I come to realize this gradually. At first I don’t understand at all what exactly I need, like a child who does not know himself why he is crying. But gradually the details come through, become clearer, and surface in me, and then I already begin hearing something.

Then I come to the group and the teacher, and spend several years subjecting myself to the influence of the Light in various states, which I undergo together with the teacher, books, and group. As the process continues, I become slightly more perceptive to the realization of evil. The evil lies in the fact that I do not want to join the books, the teacher, and the group. When I begin to feel that this is exactly my evil, then I start moving in the right direction toward correction.

At the same time I understand that I have to unite with the friends, receive awakening from them, acquire their mind and feeling, and dissolve in them. I become included in them, in their desires and intentions that are aimed at the goal. And upon this inclusion I have to evoke the Light that Reforms, or in other words, study together with them and attract the Light. If this happens, then I accumulate the necessary quantity and quality of efforts and reach the correction of my Kelim.

Of course, this process consists of an entire series of actions. After all, I cannot tolerate great corrections or great leaps in one go. That is why there are many degrees that divide into more tiny degrees. They are the means by which I attain the state that is described by the verse, “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one.” I already exist in this state, but it surfaces in me gradually.

We would not be able to tolerate it all at once because this unity is too opposite to us.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is the essence of our realization of free will?

Answer: It is lowering oneself before the group in order to receive from it the importance of the spiritual goal, the Creator, bestowal. That is, my free will is exercised in my choice to lower myself before the group so that everything they have may settle in me as the most important thing in life and that their thought about the Creator may rule over everything I have within me. And then, I will think only about that.

I don’t act blindly, as if I am hypnotized; rather, I intentionally work in my egoism against it. I link into the friends, yield to them, and view them as the leaders of our generation, all in order to adopt their importance of achieving the spiritual goal.

Should I then view this world with its desires for wealth, power, and honor as something low and unworthy? No, I shouldn’t since if I do, it means that the Creator is hardly any greater than this lowness, while I must achieve a different kind of status.

Therefore, I have to highly value wealth, power, honor, and this entire world, but I have to place spirituality even higher. In other words, I must not reduce the value of this world as religions and belief systems suggest; on the contrary, I should appreciate everything it offers, but use it solely for the goal of reaching spirituality. And that’s the essence.

If instead of despising this world, we will exalt the spiritual one, then as spirituality grows, this world will become important ever more. So, don’t ruin and devaluate it, but elevate spirituality even higher over it! And in this way, you will be ascending from the level of this world to that of the next one time after time.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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