Question: Has the world already entered the period of Egyptian plagues, or do they still lie ahead?

Answer: They lie ahead. And yet, we shouldn’t compare previous stages of development with those that await us. In truth, the material nature of our path gets gradually replaced by the spiritual one.

Try telling your ancestors who lived a few centuries ago that you have everything yet are not satisfied with life. To them, you live a fabulous life. In your home, there is a device in the wall that makes water run when you turn it on. You have a button that when pressed, makes the light shine brighter than day. And you have a screen that shows you a full view of the entire world.

People would simply not understand what you lack. And you, amidst all this abundance, don’t know what to do with yourself. The rich interior of your home and your world signifies how empty you are within.

Therefore, Egyptian plagues are not corporeal but internal troubles. Time after time, you discover the lack of inner fulfillment; each blow reaches deeper and deeper into a complex, multi-layered desire. However, these plagues take place very quickly, penetrating a person’s inner feelings. On the outside everything stays calm; one does not need to be ill or physically suffer.

Of course, if we don’t take advantage of the Light, the plagues will arrive in the form of corporeal misfortunes. The principle is simple: If we advance ourselves and the world in the spiritual direction, the plagues will be taking more of a spiritual form. If we fail and the world doesn’t choose spirituality, it will experience them in a material form.

In the Writings of The Last Generation, Baal HaSulam writes that there may even be world wars, followed by enormous suffering. But we must try to undergo these blows internally. The Torah and the method of Kabbalah provide man with an opportunity to make the entire analysis very quickly by completing it internally, without involving the corporeal world.
[30701]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “Perfection in Life”

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Question: Why are Egyptian plagues necessary if a person has already chosen the spiritual path?

Answer: Are you sure he has? In an instant, he will be attracted by something else. Is it possible to rely on one’s desire? With only a slight push, without thought, he will begin chasing new bait.

Our sages say: “Do not trust yourself until the day you die.” Do not trust yourself until you have undergone the ten Egyptian plagues and decided that you must get out of Egypt. Do not trust until the Pharaoh within you will not hear: “Let My people go so they may serve Me!” Do not trust until you have risen above your desire.

Until then, a person is a machine controlled by the desire from within and by the pleasure outside. From the description of the Torah, we see how much one has to go through.

In the beginning, Jacob’s sons resist Joseph, who collects (Osef) them together for a special job. In Egypt, seven years of plenty give way to seven years of famine. Then the Pharaoh’s oppression begins, followed by plagues, that is, disasters running over egoism. Only then does a person stop identifying with egoism, breaks away from it, and builds a screen.

The plagues disconnect us from our desire, and we get a chance to look at it from aside. In fact, a person naturally withdraws from what makes him suffer. But before the Egyptian plagues arrive, he doesn’t yet feel that his desire and he himself are not the same thing.

It is not just about the troubles being implied. It is written: “Come to Pharaoh.” The Creator appears next to you and says: “Side with Me rather than with your desire, and together we will go to Pharaoh.” You step out of your desire and rise above it, and this is what the exodus from Egypt is all about: time after time, plague after plague, until all ten Sefirot have been worked out.

I can’t break away from egoism until I realize that it is evil. Only then can I start breaking free from its embrace and more clearly see how alien, evil, and opposite it is to me. And I finally come to a complete darkness, the darkness of Egypt.

Desire no longer appeals to me. How do I live now? I have turned myself off, renounced everything I used to be and lived by, all qualities, ideas, and desires. Rising up, I look at it all and don’t understand what I should do now. This is the threshold of breaking free, fleeing from Egypt in the night.

After this, we acquire the power of the Torah and begin consistently working with the lights, correcting the desire. And then, into our intention, we receive the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), clothed in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy). In other words, we enter the land of Israel.
[30707]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “Perfection in Life”

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Question: I haven’t realized all my material desires yet, but I have already come to Kabbalah. What does it mean?

Answer: It isn’t a problem, continue [with your studies]. As the Torah states, and as Baal HaSulam explains in the “Introduction to TES,” a person need not abstain. Our path is not the one of deprivation; we advance only by way of the Light that Reforms. By working in the group and arranging the intention correctly during the studies, we draw the Light, and it reforms us.

Our body has nothing to do with it; there is no need to torment and deprive it, or submit life to strict limitations. The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t demand of a person anything but to study with intention. Everything will work out, despite our evil, inclinations, lust, and irrelevant thoughts. Let the Light work it out and do your best not to stand in its way.

When we feel “smart,” we tend to act independently, inventing artificial restrictions, as if we know what is good or bad for spiritual attainment. It is a completely incorrect approach. If we give the mind absolute power, nothing will be achieved. In truth, your mind always derives from egoism, the corrupted desire. How can it unilaterally define the next step of its correction?

Hence, we only arrange correct conditions for the Light to work on us. This is what the method is all about. Nothing else is needed. Don’t interfere with the Light; on the contrary, assist it to the best of your ability to affect you.

Use anything that evokes the Light’s influence: the group, unification, gatherings of friends, dissemination, the studies, events, and meetings. After all, the Light pours only on the unity of souls from where it departed during the breaking and whereto it returns if the souls make an effort to reunite.

First and foremost, you should be doing inner work on the background of external actions, with all the fibers of your soul, and keep trying to unite with the friends, anticipating the Light that will come and unify us for certain. This is the source of correction.

In our world, there are no other means, neither inside nor outside of a person. Only this will allow you to reform yourself and the entire world that is sinking into a global crisis.

Today, everything we have achieved in thousands of years begins falling apart, demonstrating to us that the Kli (vessel) is an empty desire which we have to do something about. Nowadays, emptiness has become the common fate.

Therefore, we need to reveal the correct method which is based on unity. We need to find the place of the breaking and draw the Light that Reforms, that is, that unifies us and brings us back to the collective soul. Only the Upper Light that appears in our unity will endow us with the sensation of an authentic life.
[30710]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “Perfection in Life”

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Question: When you are “being stewed in the same juice” with the group, you start feeling hate toward the friends. How do I apply a “spiritual mind” to this specific point in order to rise above hate? What exactly should I do?

Answer: You wish to find a solution to the issue at the level where you are and don’t understand that the problem emerged in order to drag you to another place. Do you wish to resolve it or get rid of it? You have to move yourself to another place until you discover hate and resentment once more, and you will have to move yourself from that point as well.

In the end, in order to rid ourselves of hate, we have to correct our mutual connection each time. Sometimes, it can be done with the help of a shared meal, a joint action, some artificial change, and, at other times, by studying together; or, perhaps, time will accomplish this.

However, the most reliable means is a prayer. When you are in a state of inspiration, when you feel hate and simultaneously realize that you must rise above it, try to write a prayer, and let the group read it every day as an act of unity. It will work.
[26012]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10., “Come unto Pharaoh – 2”

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Question: How can concentration of thought bring a person to the revelation of the spiritual world?

Answer: Everything is clarified in the thought. We are not talking about our mind which was artificially “pumped up” in a university so that we would become “smart.” The mind is the power of analysis and synthesis, the power of the connection of opposite opinions in one person.

Bina, which we consider to be the desire to bestow, is thought. Thought is Malchut de Hochma,, while Malchut that receives from Hochma is Bina. The collective Malchut which rises to Bina and becomes its Nukva is also Nukva de Hochma since it desires to reach Hochma, not Bina.

In other words, thought is fundamental. Thought is my ability to perceive in Malchut the higher qualities of Hochma and Bina and to work with them. The mind is my ability to build equivalence to the Creator. The universal connection that I reveal is the mind, wisdom, the network [of interconnected souls].

Our brain is arranged in the same, exact manner. The intellect or the mind is the measure of life force, the ability to understand, control, activate, and perceive.

Where does it come from? It is a consequence of two forces: the force of Bina (the desire to correspond to the Creator) and the force of the Creator (who clothes the creature to the extent of this correspondence). This is the mind of the creature: the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) clothed in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy).

Therefore, if we try to attain this network, to understand what connections exist in it and according to what laws it operates, and if we want to know how to reveal and recognize the connection that already exists between us, we achieve what is called “the creating mind,” the Creator, and attain Him. As it is written, “From Your actions, we know You.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, “Come unto Pharaoh – 2”

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Loving another as I love myself implies that I become imbued with the desires of another as my own and even more as with my own. Like Bina, I “absorb” his desires with my AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh) in order to provide him with everything he desires.

This is what love is. This is how a mother loves her child. To love like that, I need to reach the spiritual degree of Bina, having undergone the degree of Hafetz Hesed (exiting, rising above my desires). In the beginning, when a point in the heart awakens in me, I acquire free will, enter the group, and study while remaining in the egoistic intention, Lo Lishma (not for Her Name).

Then, I ascend to the first level of altruistic intention, Lishma (for Her Name), which is regarded as Hafetz Hesed. At this degree of Bina, I first obtain the desire to bestow, GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim), followed by the desire to receive in order to bestow, AHP. I rise above the mountain of egoism of the zero, first, and second degrees (GE) and afterwards, over the mountain of egoism of the third and fourth degrees (AHP).

Finally, I engage my AHP in order to relate to others as Bina relates to Malchut. At this point, it is a complete intention of Lishma, the spiritual degree of love. Why love? It is love because I am mutually included in the others, absorb their desires, and fulfill them.

This is how we start loving others. In this love, we find love for the Creator which signifies the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, "The Need for Love of Friends"

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Question: If I do not fill my desire to enjoy or I fill it incompletely, I feel suffering. You said that in the desire to bestow, I also feel the deficiency of fulfillment, but this does not arouse suffering in me; rather, it gives a sensation of life. Why do I suffer in the desire to enjoy, but in the desire to bestow, I do not?

Answer: Suppose I love someone. I want to be together with him, to unite with him, to spend time with him since I love him, and everything that we love, we want to draw closer to us. But at the moment, he is far from me, and I only long for him. In any case, however, it is still a pleasant feeling, even though it is called the “suffering of love.” You love and you feel pleasure; love attracts you and fills you. But at the same time, you feel suffering because you have not yet realized your love; you have not yet united with the beloved.

In spirituality, bestowal means love since we give to those whom we love. If I love someone, want to fill him, and fill him, it is called bestowal. But since it’s based on love, bestowal is pleasure.

That is why in spirituality, in bestowal, even if you feel a lack of bestowal and, hence, a lack of fulfillment, which makes you suffer, this is the suffering of love. It is sweet as well since it derives from love and the connection with the beloved.

And since there are no restrictions on bestowal, it means that you will necessarily reach the opportunity to give to the beloved because it only depends on you. And that is why the suffering of love definitely comes to its realization.
[30698]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “Perfection in Life”

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Question: Everyone is asking what specifically do we need to do in order for the Creator to correct us? There is a desire to hear a simple and clear answer!

Answer: Everyone wants to hear a simple answer: “Tell us exactly what to do without these complexities!” People want to work like a robot on an assembly line, to keep pushing on one button, and not to think about anything. It won’t work this way!

You will have to exert effort yourself and “do everything that is in your power to do.” It’s because our spiritual vessel (Kli) is extraordinarily complex and includes in itself 613 (Taryag) desires, 10 Sefirot, 3 lines, 22 letters, numerous characteristic properties, and very different components.

For this reason one simple action is not enough here; it is necessary to study (in a physical group or virtually, through the Internet or television), participate in the gatherings of friends, and come to the conventions. I exist among the fragments of the broken soul and have to restore the connections with them in order to correct the breaking.

In order to feel the spiritual world and the Creator, I need to connect with the rest of the souls, and only in our connection will I feel spirituality. It does not exist anywhere else but in the network that connects us. Only when I reconstruct the collective body of the soul and when it starts working properly, then inside it, I will feel the Light, filling it and flowing from one place to another.

I will feel that there is the flow of life and special events in this body, the exchange of energy from one to another. This is what is called spiritual life!

In reality, the task is very simple. There is me, an egoist, with my point in the heart and I have to connect it with others, with the same points as mine. But from this simple principle, thousands of necessary actions arise: collective study, preparation for and participation in conventions, work in the kitchen, and so on. All of this together is called “work in the group.”

But why do I need all this work? I need it in order to reveal the connection and love among us. Based on this simple principle, you will be able to derive everything else, more or less, connected to the goal. But the spiritual life is only in the connection between the souls.
[30743]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: If I simply help people in this world, can I extract from these actions the Light that corrects the soul?

Answer: That depends on your intention. If you truly have the intention to bestow, then you will surely attract the Light. But if you’re going to be walking an old lady across the street and thinking yourself righteous for doing so, you will only hurt yourself.

There are millions of people in the world willing to help others, and it appears that they do good things on the material level, but for some reason their actions don’t make the world any better. All the deeds of philanthropy do not produce any positive results because it is intentions that change the world, not actions.

The Creator doesn’t need your actions if you’re doing them out of your ego. First, you have to ask whether these actions correct the heart? Before performing a commandment or any other good deed, you have to first arm yourself with the right intention. And if you don’t have the intention, ask yourself whether the action is even worth doing.

If the action is essential to your livelihood, you have to carry it out even without an intention since it pertains to the bare necessities, and hence, is “neither condemned nor rewarded.” But if the action goes beyond what the animal body needs, you cannot do it with an egoistic intention. By performing egoistic actions you corrupt the world since you distance yourself from spirituality and bring misery into this world.

The collective state when actions are done without an intention is called “exile.” And returning to actions with altruistic intentions is called “redemption” for with each such action you reveal the Creator.
[30741]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: The Russian experience shows that egoistic unification leads to great problems. On the other hand, we come to study Kabbalah as egoists, and I am very afraid that by trying to unite we may repeat the same mistake.

Answer: First of all, I urge you not to fear anything! There is a song: “The world is a very narrow bridge, but the key is not to be afraid of anything.” On one hand, it is a narrow bridge, but on the other, don’t worry, you will cross it.
There are two principles that lay ground for success:

• Principle 1: Consistency in studying, connection with friends, and dissemination.
• Principle 2: Connection with the group in the manner that its inner essence becomes the environment that sustains your spiritual development.

As a result, we will be able to realize all that Kabbalists have prescribed: “to become as one man with one heart,” “to love others as you love yourself,” and from unfounded hate come to brotherly love. If you adhere to these two principles: 1. consistency in studying and effort aimed at unification and 2. the group as the environment for your spiritual advancement, then you have nothing to fear; nothing bad will happen to you.

And all these thoughts will emerge as obstacles so that you stick to the goal evermore.
[30739]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “The Freedom”

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