Question: It is written that the head of the lower Partzuf gets clothed in the body of the upper Partzuf. What does it mean “to get clothed in the upper one”?

Answer: The “body” of the upper one is his actions, work above desires, while the “head” is decision making. The lower one cannot accomplish anything with his “head,” at his degree. It is written: “From your actions, I shall know You.” In other words, the lower one has to include itself into the “body” of the upper Partzuf.

And when he learns what the upper one does by example, while repeating his actions, only then does he start to understand what the upper one meant to tell him. Until you have done what the upper one told you to do, you won’t understand what he is saying.

It isn’t by any means some thoughtless, animate action when you are required to do what the upper one says; you have to do it so that you may learn! Look how children copy what grownups do: They imitate our behavior without understanding their meaning. When a child is given a plastic hammer and nails, he doesn’t know what to do with them. But he sees how you hammer the nails and does the same, from which he begins to comprehend what it means.

One can’t learn otherwise. We must keep this in mind while designing education programs: Teaching can be successful only if we teach by example. We see that the cause originates in the spiritual roots and is embedded into nature during the expansion of Partzufim (descending of the connection of souls) from Above downward.

The mind given to the lower one is necessary solely in order to be able to copy the actions of the upper one. The head of the lower Partzuf must work only in such form. If the lower one’s head looks up to model and perform his actions by those of the upper one, the lower one is destined to succeed. But if he thinks that he can use his own head to judge, make decisions, and do something, he is headed for failure.

He will think that he is at the degree when he can do something on his own. But all of the acts take place in the “body” of the upper one. If the lower one is smart enough to cancel his intelligence, reason, he ascends and receives wisdom, the mind of the upper one.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: If I cannot reveal the place of the breaking, does it mean that there is nothing for me to correct?

Answer: A person has nothing to correct except the breaking between him and other people who have the same aspiration to the Creator. However, why is it particularly with the people who aspire to the Creator? Can’t I correct my relationship with other people such as at work, in the family, or at the market? There are plenty of people around, and everyone needs to reach complete correction.

Then, why can’t I work with them? This is because their desires are not aimed at the unification of souls. Each of them desires only to fill their ego with something, and this is the animate level of egoism, not the degree of the human being. I do not reveal the breaking there.

The breaking is on the human degree. Meanwhile, I have nothing to correct on the animate degree. There, people are polite, pleasant, and kind.

Therefore, correction pertains only to those who aspire to the Creator. We might ask then: “Why is the whole world suffering? Why are we all entering a global, integral, and broken world now?”

This is because all the other people also need to be corrected to the extent that they can join or adhere to those who aspire to the Creator. They will not correct the connections between them on the animate level since, then, they would be like the communists in Russia. However, in the end, they will be forced to unite due to adhering to us and through us to the Creator.

We only correct the connections between souls on the level of man who is similar to the Creator. Therefore, this correction pertains only to the group of Kabbalists or those who join them in various forms to the extent that they are able.

Thus, Baal HaSulam writes in the end of “Introduction to The Book Of Zohar” that everything depends on Israel. “Israel” are those who aspire to the Creator, those who feel hatred between them and need to correct it. The whole correction depends on them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

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Until we clarify our desire to enjoy and reveal the whole system of connections and qualities in it, it seems to be just a desire to us, nothing special. However, when its depth is revealed, we see just how complicated this system is.

This is how in quantum physics, scientists penetrate deeper and deeper into matter, each time revealing a whole world within, consisting of smaller and smaller elementary particles that seemed inseparable before. Similarly, we penetrate deeper and deeper into the desire to receive pleasure.

What do we see in it? We see how the Upper Light that created the desire to enjoy influenced it and created the four phases of the Direct Light in it. Since the Light entered the desire to receive, during these four phases, it builds its own structure in it.

In the desire to receive itself, there is nothing except the desire. However, the Light creates differentiations in it according to the five phases of Aviut (the thickness, coarseness of the desire): Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet (root, one, two, three, four), as well as the Sefirot, worlds, Partzufim, lines, and an infinite number of types of connections and forms, each of which has its own characteristics. There is an infinite number of differences, and they all come from the Light.

Therefore, the more we reveal the desire to receive, the more we reveal the Light, the Creator, and His nature. However, we reveal Him from the material, the desire to receive, and this is called "form clothed in matter."

We do not reveal the Creator Himself. We reveal the actions that He has performed in the matter, and from these actions, we know the Creator. As it is written, "From Your actions, I shall know You."

We penetrate into the matter itself. The Creator brought Himself into the matter, we reveal ourselves in that same matter, and there we encounter the Creator. Therefore, Atzmuto (His Essence) remains unattainable.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

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Only when we start assembling the broken pieces of Adam HaRishon (the First Man) into one whole, do we begin to notice how everything that happened to us in this world starts falling into places in some miraculous way. All events, from the very unpleasant to more pleasant ones, important or not, unexplainable and seemingly accidental, become ordered and match the other pieces perfectly, to the smallest detail.

Then, we begin to understand the necessity of all the pressure and crisis that the world is going through today as well as the necessity of the painful states each person is experiencing in his individual life. All of this is designed solely to push every one of us toward his place, mission, and its correct realization. If only we heed what the Creator wishes to do with each of us, if we exercise “There is none else but Him,” welcoming Him to do His work on us and listening to Him, it will suffice.

But to hear Him, we must prepare for it with our actions, as described in “We shall do, and we shall hear” since to hear what the Creator is doing means to have reached the level of Bina (hearing is the level of Bina, a very exalted degree). Therefore, first, certain acts must be carried out, as standing at Mount Sinai is described: “We shall do, and we shall hear.”

We have to undergo the same process by striving to become closer to one another in the hearts, as one man with one heart, and to reach mutual guarantee by helping each other unite. After all, only together, yearning to connect all our points in the hearts, our desires, we are re-constructing this broken Kli (desire), assembling it from parts, and restoring it anew.
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From Lesson 2, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/31/10

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When speaking of actualizing the wisdom of Kabbalah, we should take into consideration that our current Gilgul (life cycle) is far from being the first. We have gone through multiple cycles, and nobody knows exactly how many each of us has. It will be revealed to us farther down the road, but frankly, there isn’t much use in reviewing our past incarnations since all of them were at the still, vegetative, or animate levels of the evolution of the will to enjoy.

Based on this, our evolution went on. First, we existed at the still level of development, followed by the vegetative one when we experienced reality like plants do. Further on, each of us evolved at the animate level, perceiving reality similarly to animals.

Thus, we have gone through several lifetimes until, as written in the ARI’s The Tree of Life and Baal HaSulam’s The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 3, from the animate level, through the apes (an intermediate level between beast and man), we have finally come to the human level in this world. Humans are also an animate species, but much more advanced than beasts.

At the speaking level of this world, we, too, have undergone many lifetimes until we have reached our present condition. Now, in this incarnation, we are doing a special type of work in order to ascend to a completely new degree and experience a new, spiritual reality: the Creator’s reality.

During any transition from degree to degree and state to state, there are intermediate stages. As the ARI describes, between the still and vegetative levels, there are corals which combine both the still and vegetative characteristics. Between the vegetative and animate levels, there is an intermediate creature, a tiny animal called the “dog of the field” that lives in the ground and feeds off the land like a plant, but whose body acts as a beast. Between an animal and a human, there is the ape, a mammal with rudimentary human characteristics.

At present, we are in transition from a human of this world, who lives just like all the other seven billion people, and something spiritual. We don’t quite know yet what this “spiritual” means, but we are in between.

For the first time, in these transitions that we have undergone from the degrees of still to vegetative, from vegetative to animate, and from animate to speaking (human), unaware of what has been happening to us and living like all people in this world, we now have to make the transition consciously, fully participating in it. It is we who decide whether it will or will not take place, and in what manner. It is only our will that can make it happen.

This evolution is up to us. This transition is extremely unique and unlike any other because it is we who cultivate a human in us, a human identical to the Creator.

Therefore, for the first time in our history, in our entire evolution, the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed to us. It is destined to accompany us as an instructional manual, a prime directive, a code of laws, a science, with the help of which we will complete this transition. After all, if we don’t clarify it for ourselves, don’t wish for and don’t study it, we won’t be able to make it.

This is why we are named “Jews” (“Ivrim,” from the Hebrew word “Laavor,” to cross over) since we are crossing over from the state of human of this world to the level of a spiritual human, similar to Adam HaRishon, or the image of the First Man. Eons ago, he seemed to have broken into fragments, and now we have to re-assemble him anew, his male and female parts.

All of this has to be implemented in our collective work. We have all the necessary tools for it, but it is up to us to clarify it all, to learn what we lack in order to become this Human, and actualize it.
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From Lesson 2, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/31/10

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Question: How can a person choose bestowal instead of reception?

Answer: First of all, this requires preparation on his part. He has to desire for this to happen. Even if he will get knocked off track later on because the Creator will increase his egoistic desire and alien thoughts, the preparation he made will still do its job.

Secondly, one must set apart a time for studying and doing things related to bestowal. This will also give him forces to return to the path.

Thirdly, a person must motivate the environment to bestow and reach mutual guarantee so that not a single one of the friends would stop thinking about it, but will always aspire to ascend above reason and egoism. The constant, common thought of the group is the surest guarantee there can be.

It is written: “Do everything that is in your power.” At the end of the day, our common efforts awaken the Light that Reforms. A person has to understand that it is necessary to obligate the Creator to give him Light. The Creator constantly increases his egoistic desire, and only at times does He awaken a person with the bestowing desire, the Light, in order to ignite his inner spark which he has to bring into the group. However, this can only happen several times and we shouldn’t wait for it to happen because this kind of awakening is linked to a very unpleasant calculation.

That’s because the Creator cannot give you a bestowing desire “for free.” Therefore, if you are waiting out for it, you will have to experience suffering and pay back for the support in full. On the other hand, you can ask for it ahead of time according to the principle, “Turn to Me and I will give it to you.” You can ask the Creator for the forces of bestowal and then pay for them.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/11, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash, “He Who Has Not Made An Effort On Shabbat Eve…”: The main efforts are made in the work against knowledge, when a person does not know for what sake he must work. This is very difficult.

Question: Why is it so difficult?

Answer: Because it completely contradicts everything that I am. In reality, this is not just very difficult, but impossible. I won’t reach success here with my own forces because I don’t have any means to make any action in my mind or feelings that is above knowledge.

I always act based on my own thoughts and desires. Can it be otherwise? What else does a person have?

Nevertheless, in order to make the right action, one must be equipped with the mind of the Creator rather than creation. That means I need His head instead of my own. But how can I achieve that?

That is why Kabbalists give us advice. When a person wants to serve someone great, the group, or the friends, he tries to turn off his mind and his feelings, accepting the mind and feeling of the neighbor instead. With the help of these exercises, we then build the same attitude to the Creator.

A small person always lacks a “mind” or understanding. He does not know how to become similar to the Upper One and does not understand Him. That is why he has to receive or accept a part of the Upper One’s mind. Working with the mind of the Upper One instead of your own is faith above reason.

Why “faith”? Couldn’t it just say, “the mind of the Upper One”? The matter is that the lower one acquires the head of the Upper One, rejecting his own mind in the quality of Hafetz Hesed, the quality of bestowal. Otherwise he cannot do this. He cannot see the action of the Upper One and become similar to Him.

The most effective means enabling one to acquire wisdom and greatness of a new level is to try and neutralize one’s mind and feeling in order to accept the mind and feeling of the neighbor, who is higher than me. Otherwise I grow only in the animate part of me, growing quantitatively rather than qualitatively.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Can the reading of The Book of Zohar help us acquire a general, universal perception? Would it not cancel out the uniqueness of each human being?

Answer: What uniqueness can there be at the moment? What human being?.. We are talking about your “beast” which we have to turn into a Human Being.

You have a “donkey” (“donkey” in Hebrew is “Hamor,” from the word “Homer” – “matter”), and there is only one spiritual spark in it. We want to help you extract this spark from the “donkey” and connect it with the rest of the sparks shimmering above the herd of “donkeys.”

Imagine seven billion “donkeys” and a twinkling spark above each of them. We want to unite these sparks together and then build from them Man similar to the Creator. Only then will they acquire a general perception of the collective soul of Adam HaRishon.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

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When I came to study to Rabash, I was 33. I was a strong and successful person; I had a family, house, and successful business. I asked him, “Now I am going to invest all my life into you. I will be next to you until the very end because otherwise it is impossible to learn anything. I am ready to go for it, but how can I be sure that I am in the right place?”

Rabash replied that I had every right to ask this question. However, I have to choose what teacher I want to cling to by myself. Nobody should interfere or influence my decision. He said: “Go and check out other places!”

But after you make your decision and choose your place, you should cast away any doubt about it and not swing from side to side in the middle of the path. You cannot be under any other influence but your teacher’s.

In other words, if you become my student, you are obliged to receive only my spirit and not to listen to anybody else. After all, you are going to develop and it is forbidden for a person to listen to other opinions during his growth.
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From Lesson 2, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/31/10

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Question: What should we do with the people who study the material independently and come with established, self-imposed “axioms” with which they confuse other students?

Answer: The group should isolate itself in its Kabbalistic center like an embryo in the mother’s womb. A developing soul needs to be protected. It must be surrounded with love and care like an embryo or a baby, by building a nurturing atmosphere around it, similar to “Noah’s ark.”

While students have not yet reached spiritual revelation and don’t quite understand what they are doing and where they are going, they get tossed from side to side, from state to state because each time new systems are formed within us. And while we are constructing ourselves, we continue going through unstable states; hence, we cannot be under the influence of several factors, but only one.

Baal HaSulam writes in “A Speech in Celebration of the Conclusion of The Zohar” that if a student doesn’t cleave to the teacher, like an embryo clings to the mother, and doesn’t adhere to the upper one, then he doesn’t advance. This law rules in the spiritual world as well as the material one while we are in the preparation stage and work with our egoistic desires.

If a student doesn’t conform, nothing will help. He may be very smart and have outstanding abilities, but he won’t reach spiritual attainment. Hence, the sages said: “A thousand [disciples] enter the class, but only one comes out to the Light.” And the only reason for this is negligence, reluctance to accurately follow the spirit of the teacher, the person that passes spirituality to you.

I myself don’t need this in the least; you know how I loathe any kind of worship. But a student has to develop such an attitude. At the very beginning of the path, one has to make up his mind, according to the principle: “A person learns where his heart desires.” So how can you allow someone to enter your center, your home, and confuse you? I would never allow it.

We still cannot determine who is right and wrong, everything is relative. And if you wish to advance spiritually, don’t trust anyone; you must choose the source you want to drink from on your own. Everyone must unilaterally select a teacher who will answer his questions and meet his expectations, and who is qualified to guide him or her on the path of spiritual growth.
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From Lesson 2, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/31/10

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