It is idolatry to think that the Creator can change. It is written: “I did not change my HaVaYaH.”

The Creator constructed a strict system of laws, and “the Upper Light remains at absolute rest.” Desire is also already made as it is; it only gets developed by the Light and keeps feeling (discovering) itself, comparing itself to the Light.

The Light affects the desire, enters it, and passes through all its layers: 0-1-2-3. And when it reaches the 4th level (Behina Dalet), only there free will emerges in us. But it lies solely in our ability to change our attitude. However, by changing our attitude, we change our perception.

If you wish to understand the Creator and become like Him, you begin to feel His goodness. Baal HaSulam writes in his “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” that our only problem is that we don’t comprehend His Providence.

We stand against Nature (the Creator), so to whom can we make claims? During our entire history, we were developing by the steps of 0-1-2-3, as the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature. We were forced to evolve unconsciously, led either by the pressure of pain or attraction of pleasure. But when we reach the 4th level, we must familiarize ourselves with this process and learn from it about the Performer of all actions.

In other words, we need to learn about His work, understand what He does, and transform ourselves in order to bestow, that is, become like Him. Then, “from His actions we will know Him.” When we get to know Him, we start justifying Him and become similar to Him, meaning that we ascend to His level.

And all of this is based on intention. It isn’t just an attitude; thanks to intention, we start getting to know the Creator and feel His actions within us, in their authentic form.

When I rise above my egoism and make a restriction, the screen and the Reflected Light, I become equivalent to the Light! Conversely, I begin to comprehend His true attitude toward me.

In the Light that dresses me, I experience “tastes” (Ta’amim) or the Creator’s attitude toward me: what He expects from me and how He feels about me. I get to know the Source from where everything comes to me and thereby cleave onto Him. I begin living not by my own desires but by His.
[29061]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/7/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

Related Material:
Why Fight A Kind Embrace?
A Joke Or A Strict Law?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: If the Creator’s plan is to bring man to the purpose of creation, what did He gain from the events that took place in Israel at the beginning of the month? What is their outcome?

Answer: I am not going to check how the people changed. We act along the axis of time: There was a state before the fire, then there was a fire that took people’s lives and destroyed vegetation, and when it was over, the rain fell.

What changed in this period of time? You started asking questions: “Why did the rain start the day after the fire had been put out? Was it some kind of joke? During the fire we needed rain so much and begged for it so passionately, but there was no response. And when we didn’t need it any longer, it started raining cats and dogs bringing so much damage. We were struck twice.”

Indeed, it is exactly as the Torah describes: If Israel is unworthy, the rain falls at the wrong time in the wrong place. It is the law of nature. Above there is the Light, and below there is the will to receive (desire) that must reach equivalence with the Creator. The Light constantly works on desire, and the latter keeps changing.

The Creator does only this calculation: two states, the initial and the final one, must be the same. Based on this, He acts. Just as the Light created four phases of expansion of the Direct Light, it continues to develop everything within them.

The Creator doesn’t react; it is the law or Nature. What do you want from Him? Would you be willing to approach an erupting volcano and beg: “Do me a favor, stop erupting for a few minutes, I need to pass through?”

Why then do you think the Creator will respond to your prayers? In this case, you are worshiping an idol. You view Him as wishing stars that bring luck, as if with their help you may change your fate. It’s true that you can learn something about the future, but changing it is beyond your power.
[29064]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

Related Material:
Revelation Only Bring Benefit
Good Turned Into Evil

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Israel, Q&A, Suffering - 1 Comment →

Question: How do we calm down the ego which demands constant fulfillment?

Answer: You’ll never be able to overcome your ego with your own strength. Even if you think that in the past you were able to do so, that was only an illusion. You were simply fulfilling your desire to receive pleasure.

We are going through a preparation period, and at its first stage we seem to be able to achieve something with our own strength, to advance with the help of knowledge by overcoming ourselves. But it all ends after our desire to receive gets some fulfillment. However, without this desire you wouldn’t be able to study and gain the foundation for the beginning of spiritual work. In other words, at first you are led by your ego, and this is called “seven years of plenty.”

Then you suddenly cool off to studying; you ran out of fuel and feel tired of everything. Now you’ve entered the second stage of the preparation period. You are no longer led by the ego and you need a new stimulus: studies with intention and the environment.

Now you have to advance by receiving strength from the group and not from your own desire. The purpose of your studies shouldn’t be to obtain knowledge, but rather to build the correct intention for your desires, which you receive from the group. You must unite with the group in order to reveal the Creator.

For now you’re doing it for the sake of self. However, by continuously doing this work and as a result of the Light’s influence, you gradually begin to feel that bestowal is good. You receive the desire to bestow from the group and begin to demand this quality from your studies. Bestowal frees you from the ego, from your evil inclination, and elevates you above this corporeal life.

Later, due to the influence of the Upper Light and connecting with friends in the group, you begin to understand that your goal is not to reveal the Creator and the spiritual world, but rather to adhere to Him, to bestow to Him rather than to receive from Him. By uniting Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one, by striving to give the Creator pleasure, you receive the perfect formula for your spiritual ascent.
[29014]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Who Doesn’t Wish To Be Eternal and Happy?
The Benefit Of Pretense

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

The Creator intentionally confuses us with His governance so that we can’t find where it starts and ends, as if He doesn’t exist at all. But if He revealed Himself to me right now, my “self” would cease to exist since it is He who carries out and controls everything one hundred percent.

It is hard for us to understand that in the spiritual dimension, we simply don’t exist for our present nature is egoistic. My individuality begins emerging only when I start resisting Him. My spiritual reality starts with Pharaoh from whom I must take all his might. This is what we call “to resist the Creator.” Otherwise, how will I grow?

Later on, grounded in this resistance, I acquire the form of the Creator. However, it occurs in accordance with what I myself have planned having examined, discerned, and decided that this is exactly what I have to and should do.

Therefore, I have to include two opposites within myself: darkness and the Light, or I will never grow independent. That is why the Creator gradually awakens us by sending all sorts of problems to us so that we may aim ourselves correctly.
[29018]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
The Most Materialistic Approach
Working In Two Directions
A Person With A Refined “Taste”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: What should I do if I don’t wish to be part of the group and am only pretending because I am told that it is necessary for reaching the goal?

Answer: I should pretend not because I must but in order to help the friends, give them strength. In truth, I play against and confuse my egoism. I put in all my strength, but it is insufficient. In the meantime, I realize that if the group radiates all its might toward me, I will get inspired and be able to rise above myself. So how do I instill such “illumination” in the group?

To achieve this, I perform bestowal to the friends. I pass my awakening onto them, envelop them in warmth, and inspire them despite lacking it myself. I intentionally pretend in order to receive the same from the friends in response, only one hundred times more. After all, my pretense ignites them, whether they like it or not. And it doesn’t matter that I am lying; they get inspired nonetheless and radiate it back to me.

Hence, it turns out that my artificially blown out spark becomes a real flame. I started with pretense, but as a result, got truly ignited. And all this fire coming from the desire is mine. By utilizing the environment, I have accomplished the goal of transforming egoism into bestowal.

The group, like an amplifier, has multiplied my first meek inspiration manifold. And now, with this hard-earned desire, I turn very seriously to the Creator and without any falsehood.
[28899]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
“The Place” Where The Creator And I Meet
The Perfect Formula For Spiritual Ascent
A Speech At The Alternative Medicine Congress, 10.27.10

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: If the lower Partzuf is in the dark, where does it get the strength to rise up and receive the Light?

Answer: Clearly, the lower Partzuf has no strength to rise to the upper Partzuf, but it does receive the desire to do so. A person receives the first awakening from Above, but later he has to realize it on his own. It is written: “The Creator lays a person’s hand on the good fate and says, ‘Choose this.’”

If you don’t, you will be given a second chance although it will happen in a different form. It is taken into consideration what states you are going through, but only in the context of free will. This means that you must respond correctly, or next time the setting presenting a choice will be more “aggressive” and not as favorable.

If the second time you miss what is expected of you, another awakening will occur yet again. After all, the plan of creation must come to fruition. But the settings will be getting tougher and more unpleasant. And so on.

Every time a person doesn’t act on an awakening sent to him from Above, the situation presenting the same choice gets more challenging. If he didn’t accept the properties of mercy (Hassadim) and didn’t use them for correction, then mercy turns into harsh properties of overcoming (Gevurot).

Thus, everything is determined by our responsiveness to what is happening around us.
[28905]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
Allow The Creator To Work On You
A Good Fate
A Speech At The Alternative Medicine Congress, 10.27.10

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Inner Work, Suffering - No Comments →

Question: I wish to see the whole world awake and aware. How do I achieve that?

Answer: You cannot step out of the boundaries of what the common system of the souls’ correction reveals today. And it reveals a great deal. The question is: To what extent can we can affect it?

The world does not yet feel the need for Kabbalah as it cannot tie what is happening to its correction. Man doesn’t want it. When something bad happens to me, I seek someone to blame and never blame myself. That’s natural for egoism, so we always turn our back on correction.

In such a setting, we must do whatever we can. And what we can’t, we should then at least lay a path by which the next generation will be able to walk upon and follow. The place of work is given to you by the Creator, and He can’t be argued with.

The world is awakening but not at the rate we would like. The Creator has other plans. After all, the impressions that are being imprinted in the souls on the path of evolution have to reach their depth. And this takes time.

We would prefer to charge forth; however, having learned the design of the soul, we realize that between its two states, there lie millions of actions performed in the will to receive (desire). At times, a computer “freezes” for thirty seconds, and there is nothing you can do but wait.

And still, with time the process accelerates. It used to take half an hour to download one simple program from the Internet, and now we download whole movies in half a minute. And yet, in any case we need to be patient: There are too many actions that have to manifest in the collective desire of Shechina (Divinity). Our urge to rush derives from our ignorance of the importance and necessity of each such action.

Therefore, we simply “press the gas pedal to the floor,” meaning that we give the world as much as we are able, regardless of whatever its response. It isn’t up to us. The world has its own evolutionary pace. Look at the tremendous efforts there were made by Baal HaSulam, and only 60-70 years after his desperate appeals something is beginning to move.

We don’t see the entire scope of egoism approaching correction. We need to thoroughly count our modest forces in order to utilize them for dissemination with the utmost efficiency. If not, our words will miss people’s ears and won’t plant anything in their hearts.

I spoke about it with Rabash and some other Kabbalists with whom we used to visit. I saw them burning within and being patient at the same time. They were truly “charged,” but what can one do with a child who is playing with his toys? He needs time to evolve.

Therefore, we need to work harder within, among ourselves. In this way, we will be able to pass the awakening onto the world, through the inner network of souls, and people won’t even have to turn on the TV or attend introductory lectures.

Put all your desire in action aimed at building the correct connection in the group as previous Kabbalists used to do. As to the outside audience, release the necessary knowledge in small doses in the degree of their readiness. Feed it from a teaspoon, as you would feed an infant.
[28918]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
Between Slumber And Awakening
Living In The Stream Of Endless Light

Filed under: Collective Soul, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A - No Comments →

We are studying an article from “Introduction from The Book of Zohar” titled “MI created ELE.” It speaks about Bina of the world of Atzilut and how its three upper Sefirot (GAR or MI) created seven lower Sefirot (ZAT or ELE).

GAR created (Bara), meaning it drew from within itself outward (Bar) its lower part, AHP. Having descended to Zeir Anpin and Malchut, AHP is now able to interconnect with the souls that ascend to Malchut from the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) and are willing to be reformed and unified.

The souls ask for the strength to unite, and they don’t need anything except that. They understand that by doing so they will acquire a Kli where the Creator will be revealed. Besides, they realize that their own strength is insufficient to accomplish such unification and the upper force is necessary.

Therefore, they raise their desire to Malchut of the world of Atzilut, causing it to merge with Zeir Anpin as one whole, ZON. At that point, ZON discovers that in Malchut and Zeir Anpin, there is the lower part of Bina, ELE, and this part elevates them to Bina, MI, itself.

As a result, the souls, Malchut, Zeir Anpin, and both parts of Bina, unify Above and receive the Light’s force there: the property of bestowal that rules in the upper part of Bina completely. Thereby, MI creates ELE and later reforms the souls that ascended to Bina.

If we wish to act following the example described in The Book of Zohar, we must strive to find among us the desire, the need, to ascend to Malchut de Atzilut in order to enter Bina’s AHP. This need will flame up in a person when he gets eager to become part of the group because Malchut of the world of Atzilut recognizes and responds solely to this specific desire.
[28924]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
Don’t Try To Argue With The Creator
Do I Exist Or Not?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: During the lesson, we are constantly trying to build the same plea, which makes it less acute. How can I renew it every day and plea as if for the first time?

Answer: This is the key, and if you succeed, you don’t need anything else. But I don’t know how to help here for this is exactly what is described by “Whatever is in your power, do it!”

No work is more important than preparation to the lesson. Dissemination and everything else you do in this world, everything must revolve around one point: to build an inner plea during the lesson, the anticipation of the Light that will descend and reform us.

This must become our obsessive thought, an internal ache, a feeling that without it I will die, and it will be even more frightening than to die in the corporeal world! It is impossible to arrive at such powerful desire on your own; a person needs the group, support, and collective inspiration. We need to feel despair which accumulates over the years of effort….

It is the most profound point around which everything revolves. If you reach it, you will succeed in everything. There is nothing more; this is the point where you connect with the Creator. Through it, from below upward, the prayer, MAN, is raised. His response, MAD, arrives through it from Above downward, for now as the Surrounding Light.

This need, the aching point, must stand out clearly and conspicuously as the most meaningful need. We need to constantly care for it and think how to enhance it, how to come to the studies with a broken heart so we may bond together during the lesson.

The rest is not important; what you know and what you’ve done does not matter at all. The final outcome of your entire life and all your effort is contained only here, in this point. If you come to it, you will attain everything; if not, nothing else is worthwhile.

Nothing else is taken into account but this point for only it is called the "human" within me. It determines whether I do exist or not.
[29053]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/7/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

Related Material:
The Game Of Bestowal
The Spirit Of The Group
Help Me Today And I’ll Help You Tomorrow

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: I don’t understand how the Kelim (vessels) of GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim) broke. They are Kelim of bestowal, and there is no restriction on bestowal, is there?

Answer: There is no such thing as bestowing desires (vessels, Kelim). A vessel can only receive. The Creator created the will to receive pleasure.

The created being can bestow only if it receives the property of love from the Light. Only then does the created being have a screen, the ability to feel the desire of its beloved within, and fill it with Light because it accepted the other’s desire as its own, just as it is written: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

A vessel is a created being, and it acts only one way: It can only receive and has nothing to give. The Kelim of Galgalta ve Eynaim are also the will to receive pleasure (desire) and when they lose their screen (intention to bestow), they receive Light for self-gratification and break.

There is only desire and the Light, one or the other. The desire to receive is all that the creature is made of, but if it has an anti-egoistic screen, then the property received from the Light holds it up, like a magnet holds a piece of metal. In this case, the creature remains in bestowal. But as soon as the Light disappears, this desire immediately becomes egoistic due to its nature. Nothing can be done about it.

Any one of us can be placed in such conditions that will force us to abandon a civilized, refined lifestyle and return to our “primitive state.” It all depends on corrections. As soon as the corrections are gone, the egoistic desire is completely exposed, uncovered. If the corrections are added, we “appear” like desires to bestow.

Therefore, Kelim of Galgalta ve Eynaim receive just like the AHP. The only difference is that the former ones are more illuminated and not as coarse as the latter; hence, they can undergo a correction that will make them look like “bestowal.” But as soon as the Light and the screen disappear, they immediately turn into receiving Kelim just like all the others.

They are easier to reform, but they require correction nonetheless. The created being is nothing more than the will to receive pleasure (desire).
[29056]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/7/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

Related Material:
Do I Exist Or Not?
The Order Of Correction

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →