Question: What greater evil should we disclose within in order for the Light to illuminate us?

Answer: We must come to see that our innate nature is Pharaoh (ego) who does not allow us to rise above ourselves. We ought to hate it, but we still love it; we keep enjoying living in it. When, similar to our present predicament, we start receiving blows, we become disappointed in our nature and understand that we cannot reach spirituality.

So, for the first time, we got to see our nature as the evil inclination, as our rival who is the opposite to the Creator, spirituality. This is regarded as the first plague of our Pharaoh.

As to the other nine plagues, I don’t think we will need another nine such conventions. We will be able to undergo them in our mutual connection on daily basis during our lessons. We will pass through them quickly because the key at each spiritual stage is its first degree.

Later on, it will all be just a routine until a certain stage is completed. For example, right now, we are to become aware of our own evil, and we have started this process. Next time, it will be the escape from Pharaoh, exodus from Egypt, and this is what is called spiritual birth.
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From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 11/12/10

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Question: A lot of newcomers mentioned that on the second day, they had neither the strength nor the desire to come to the Convention. However, having arrived, they felt that a warm wave of love suddenly engulfed them. What happened to them?

Answer: That was a so-called “sweetening” which occurred even though we have not yet reached a perfect state. The fact is that each line also consists of three lines. Although we have revealed only the left line, it, too, has the left, right, and middle lines within it. That’s what swept through them. In other words, the second day of the Convention saw a revelation of the right side of the left line.

Question: Many people told me that they felt something special on the third day of the Convention. They don’t know what it was, but it completely changed their inner perception of the event.

Answer: True. Although the middle line belongs to the left line and despite the fact that we have not yet attained revelation, this line still brought us a certain illumination from Above. That’s why many people felt so.

However, we shouldn’t overestimate what happened; it was, after all, a very small illumination. Together with our core group, a lot of new people also attended the Convention, so it was a bit difficult. Nevertheless, we reached a very significant change in the way we are progressing. That, by the way, was an actual entry onto “Jacob’s Ladder,” just its left side, however.

After all, we have only come to the recognition of evil, realizing that we are unable to attain spirituality in our own selfish desires, that it goes against our nature, but we do not know how to break it yet. Still, that was already a beginning, and from now on, we will be able to use completely different concepts.
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From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 11/12/10

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What is the end of correction for which we are striving? It is a special and constant state that the Creator has initially created.

We exist in this state even now; nothing else was created, only the World of Infinity. However, in order for us to perceive and realize that we exist in this state, the Creator has prepared an exit from this state into the sensation of “this world” and the consequent return to it.

The path downward is referred to as the descent of the worlds, which has also translated into the breaking of the Kelim (vessels) and the formation of the 125 spiritual degrees. All of this is the preparation which manifests for us from Above downward, and then we return home.

Initially, each one of us is a point (like a drop of semen) in the World of Infinity. In our world, each one of us is also a point. Simply, this point has become egoistic (an egoistic aspiration to the Creator, to the meaning of life) during the descent from Above downward, and it has become overgrown with egoism (the desires for this world).

We return to Malchut of the World of Infinity through five worlds of ABYA (Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) and Adam Kadmon. As we ascend, we grow in our desire for the Creator, the property of bestowal, and we acquire independence.

As a result, everyone becomes Infinity (with regard to size and quality). Then, unlike before, everyone’s Infinity becomes filled with the Light of NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida) instead of the previous Light of Nefesh.

In this world, one has a spiritual Reshimo (spiritual gene, reminiscence), similar to the drop of semen which contains full information about the body and the entire process of its development. The point of Reshimo, too, contains all the information about one’s spiritual path and the way he will see the World of Infinity in his perception.

However, everything is predetermined. As I realize my Reshimo and push it to develop, I acquire the sensation of independence. Now I consciously exist, feel, and make conscious decisions. I acquire my spiritual “I” which develops from the Reshimo just like a grown, independent human being forms out of a drop of semen in our world.

We have one point and, with regard to volume, it needs to develop infinitely. Every person must become like the Creator. At the same time, every person ascends to their World of Infinity, and then all the infinities unite.

To find out what this process depends on, read the post, “You Must Be Ready For Me!”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/10, Rabash, Letter #40

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Question: How can we find the strength to advance because as time goes by we feel greater opposition and less strength?

Answer: That is wonderful! If you feel less and less energy, it is help from Above so you wouldn’t think that you can do anything at all. If you feel greater opposition, this is also help from Above so you would see that you will never be able to break through on your own.

This is help! Pharaoh, the Egyptian King, the ego, the evil inclination, is opposite to the Creator – the reverse side of Him. The Creator deliberately creates this image for you. Your entire nature, your egoism, is a reverse mold of the Creator. The Creator inserts Himself inside you and acts in a way that stops you. He does everything! There is none else besides Him.

When we say that “There is none else besides Him,” this does not mean that I exist and someone else exists opposite me. I also don’t exist! All the forces inside me that act for and against, that are good and evil, are all Him. And who am I? I am the point of discernment. I only discern what is for and what is against. From His two forms I discern with whom I desire to be.

The Creator is an actor that plays all the roles; he alternatively clothes into good and then into evil. It is how you play with a small child in different ways so he would learn to differentiate one thing from the other and understand what he should be like. He will learn about good only to the degree he attains evil.

Therefore, if you feel heaviness now, it’s the Creator who makes it happen. If you feel that you cannot do anything on your own, He gives you this sensation. Why? So you would turn to Him.

If I want to teach a small child that he has to turn to me for help, then I deliberately act in a way that prevents him from accomplishing something in order that he will need me. That is how we act in the relationships between us.

Suppose I want you to become my friend and to respect me. In that case I do something behind your back so you would feel that even though you do not desire it, you will not succeed without having a connection with me. You suddenly understand that I am great, that you have to respect me and ask me, and now you know that I am great and you depend on me. I have arranged your life so you are left with no other choice but to come to me and ask for it.

That is what the Creator does to us. Of course, He is not motivated by the egoistic intention to trick us, but the desire to teach us and raise us to His level, the best state, since He is called “Good who Does Good.” However, He acts precisely in this way, creating all kinds of misfortunes, problems, messes, and confusion constantly in the world, in all areas of life and in all the worlds so as a result you would desire to come to Him, to ask for help and this way to come closer to Him.

Then you will desire to become the same as Him. When you look at someone who is great, wise, or powerful, you desire to become the same. It’s not enough for you to just receive from Him; you want to be in His place. This is exactly what the Creator does to us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/10, The Zohar

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What is the source of joy? If we are speaking of egoistic joy, its foundation is receiving fulfillment. A child is happy when you give something to him, and he cries when you take it away. A more developed person experiences joy from good or bad actions. I stole and didn’t get caught so I am happy, or perhaps I did something good for another and enjoyed it.

Everything depends on what pleases a person. But joy is always triggered by the fact that we fulfill our egoistic desires. Our basic needs are food, family, wealth, power, and knowledge. Yet the problem lies in our inability to fulfill ourselves through them.

The Upper Light, the pleasure that wishes to fill our desire, is a plus and the desire is a minus. When the plus meets the minus, a short circuit occurs, meaning that as soon as I touch the pleasure, it disappears.

But there is another form of receiving pleasure, and we find an example of it in electronics. Instead of “shorting-out” the plus and the minus directly or receiving pleasure into my desire, I create a resistor between them, a resistance screen. Connecting the plus and the minus, desire and pleasure, through resistance is now possible without annulling either of them, and it can bring a positive result. Therein, we experience life.

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Question: I try very hard to cross the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality), but Pharaoh always wins. At a certain point, I lose faith and unite with the group only out of habit, not genuine aspiration. It makes me angry. What shall I do now? Ask the Pharaoh to let me pass to the Creator?

Answer: No, you should beat him. He hates you and does not let you pass through to the Creator. He is standing between you two.

You should understand that the Creator Himself has put Pharaoh before you. In order to develop a strong and correct desire in you; he placed a special obstacle on your path. This obstacle, your egoism, Pharaoh himself, “sculpts” you, forms a new type of striving, a new and mighty aspiration to the spiritual world out of you. If not for Pharaoh, you wouldn’t search for spirituality. You would desire corporeality, assuming that it is “spirituality.”

However, Pharaoh straightens out this lack of correspondence. You exert pressure, he gives you blows; you exert pressure, he gives you blows, again and again. Due to these beatings he shapes the clod of your desire into the desire to bestow (Tzura Melubeshet Be Homer).

As a result, you, like a key, fit the lock precisely, and the door opens. This is why it is said, “Pharaoh draws the sons of Israel (those who aspire to Him) closer to the Creator.”

We think that there are bad forces in nature, but in reality, it is not the case. When the property of bestowal will reign within me, I will discover that there is no evil, and all negative factors were called to form out of me the desire to bestow. They are all help from Above. As soon as I assume the form of bestowal, they will have no reason to pressure me any longer.

We just need to understand how to work with these forces. The faster we do, the sooner we will acquire a new form and will be born.
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From the lesson on Rabash’s article 11/12/10

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that a person will reveal the Creator only out of despair. Does it mean that at a certain point we have to yield, to refuse to continue fighting?

Answer: No, we do not yield. We fight to enter the spiritual world by our own forces. And then we despair of our power and understand that we cannot break through the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality) on our own. But it is only then that we truly feel the need for the Creator, evoke His force, and break free from the imprisonment.

It is impossible to feel the need for the Creator until we despair of our own efforts. Now we want to unite, change, and straighten up our relationships by ourselves, by our own power. We try to act by ourselves, as if the Creator does not exist.

However, when we truly desire to draw closer to each other, we will understand what we felt slightly during the Convention: We are incapable of it. Everyone is separated from the others by a partition, and he cannot break through it. Each is sitting in its own cell, like bees in a honeycomb, isolated from the others.

When I want to break free from this cell, when I exert all the effort and understand that I am helpless, then it will become clear to me that there is the Creator who can give me strength and save me. I read about and heard of Him before, but He was not in the field of my desires and aspirations. He was not my partner yet. Now I felt for the first time that I’m helpless without Him.

This is how the Creator awakens the Pharaoh within me. After having experienced a few such actions, I realize that I cannot break free without Him. As soon as I will feel it, I will cry out to Him, and He will immediately “un-bolt the door” for me.

My entire work is to desire the Creator, to want Him to manifest within me and change my nature, to want His force of bestowal to clothe me.
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From the lesson on Rabash’s article 11/12/10

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The Zohar, “Introduction of The Zohar,” Chapter “BeLaila De Kala (Night of the Bride)”: … the members of the bridal chamber must be with her on that night and rejoice with her in the corrections that she is corrected….

Question: What is the criterion of our advancement? Is it hatred that becomes revealed to us in the beginning or the opposite, joy?

Answer: First of all, I advance if I do not cease to mentally gaze at the place which I want to reveal. It is called the “bride,” and it is precisely there that the “groom” (the Light that will fill the “bride,” our unification) will descend to. (In Hebrew, a groom is “Hatan” which comes from the word “Nochet,” a descending one.)

If a persistent demand to reveal that place lives in me, then I’m glad for the effort that I can exert constantly. And it’s not important how often I stray, forget, or get distracted by a rational analysis.

It is said about this, “From Zion shall go forth the Torah.” In other words, advancement is comprised of these exits (Yetziot) from the attempts to re-define the place of our unification.

Each time I have to lose my concentration. After all, any state consists of 10 complete Sefirot. In spirituality, an action is performed only if all the 10 Sefirot are present (Ein Mi Ksat Be Ruchaniut). If I correct something, I have to correct a full measure. Each part of the desire demands separation from the previous state and a new approach to unity, to a new 10 Sefirot.

This is why we disconnect from the goal again and again, even if it just for a split second. Time after time we lose the target and catch it again at the crossroads.

Due to these efforts at night we “adorn the bride” (clothe her in the Light of Hassadim [Mercy]). That is, we build the Kli (vessel) until it becomes fully disclosed and ready to accept the groom, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”

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We forget that we mustn’t do anything besides asking the Creator to do it! Instead we think about how I should force my heart to open up, how I can connect with others, or how others can connect to me. However, we shouldn’t think about this at all! We imagine the connection inside our egoistic mind, yet it is nothing like what we think!

This is the level of the Upper World; we are revealing a new reality! We must only ask and that is all! We learn that everything happens by virtue of request. We raise the prayer, the MAN, and in response comes the Surrounding Light, MAD, and corrects everything, while we are simply present during the correction. Everything comes from Above, and on our part only a demand, plea, and aspiration are necessary.

The problem lies in this point: Do we turn to the Creator or do we try to do everything independently? This is the point where we make a mistake and get stuck for many years, unable to change the direction even slightly, to understand that there is nothing besides an address, a demand, a request!

In order to achieve this request we have to make efforts, but it is only to accomplish this. If we try to independently build the right social system based on love and friendship, this will be a lengthy path that will bring us to the understanding that we are moving away from the goal, that we are insincere, that we hate each other and do not move closer to unity.

Kabbalah has to bring us to a very precise analysis: Don’t try to connect to another person, you are unable to do this, you are an egoist and so is he. Only the Upper Light can do it; it has to come and meld us together – only it!

Therefore, don’t look for a connection with each other because it is written “husband and wife and the Shechina between them,” meaning there is me and my friend, and the Creator between us. “He who makes peace in the Upper will make peace in us” (Oseh Shalom BeMromav, Hu Yaseh Shalom Aleinu).

Any time we turn toward one another without the force that connects us together, it is a false address. When we hug, we do not want to hug or we do it on the level of our world. Do we really demand love, unity, or friendship from one another? It is only on the level of this world. Who of us can become a guarantor for another, or even for himself? Where do we have the strength for it? We can only aspire to each other through the Upper One, who fills all of the space between us.

If we demand for Him to fill the emptiness, to connect us together, and to always be present among us, then it will happen, and easily so. The science of Kabbalah is meant to bring us to this correct attitude, while we always run away from it, being inside our egoistic nature.

Let us not forget that “There is none else besides Him”! The Creator carries out the action, but in order for it to happen we have to precede His action with our desire. This is called “making a covenant,” where we sign an agreement with the Creator: We demand and He carries it out.

Similarly to how small children walk and pull adults after them, we are pulling the Upper Force so it will correct the nature it created; then we will become equal to the Creator. We cannot attain mutual guarantee or even really desire it. As soon as we start to talk about unity, we have to remember the condition: “Israel, the Light, and the Creator are one.” Myself, my neighbor, and the Creator between us; only the three of us together will be able to achieve true conciliation and perfection.

Precisely the aspiration to unite in the group will quickly bring us to the realization that we have to turn to the Creator for all the help!

From Lesson 8 , World Kabbalah Convention 2010,  11/11/10

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Question: Many years ago at a convention in Sitrin (Israel), you said that in order to break the Machsom, we must be in one thought at the same moment and have a very big, single desire. During that entire time we tried many times, we did a lot of actions, but we were not ready.

I feel that at this moment now everyone is ready. I spend the entire lesson trying to break this membrane in me, the egoistic Klipa, I want to make “an opening in my heart.” I lack everyone’s synchronization. I do not want this tomorrow; I want it right now, at this very instant! Please help us become synchronized right now so that we would be able to break this barrier!

Answer: Once I turned to Rabash with almost identical words, and he responded that he is not standing between the Creator and me. One must find this connection himself. He himself must demand it. And mainly, he needs to understand that he does not break his own membrane, the Creator does it.

If you are trying to break it and find yourself unable to do it, then it is a good thing, but you need to stop trying to do it on your own. Which forces are you using to do this? The same force of egoism? How are you breaking it – are you using a big ego to break a small one or vice versa?

Only the Creator can do this, and no one beside Him! A teacher is a guide on the way. He only brings you to this state, but he cannot do anything for you. And the Creator cannot do it unless you demand it from Him. This is because your desire for an inner change must precede His action.

From this follows:

1. Stop attempting to break the membrane, the egoistic Klipa of the heart, on your own.

2. Stop awaiting anyone’s help but the Creator’s in responding to your request.

We have been studying this for many years in all the Kabbalists’ articles: Everything is only done by the Upper Light. It created the desire, it changes it, it prepares it for changing the intention, and just like it broke the desire, only the Light is capable of correcting the intention over it, if the desire were to demand it.

There is no one in between; everything depends only on the desire itself: the request, the raising of the MAN. And the action from this is only realized by the Upper Light. Begin to only concentrate on two actions: I ask, and the Creator executes.
From Lesson 4, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/10/10

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