We undergo four exiles, one after the other. They root in the four phases of the collective soul, HaVaYaH (Yod, Key, Vav, Key). Long before, in the World of Infinity, the common will to receive was created in four phases. Hence, all evolution and correction occurs in the same four phases.

Until we reach the final stage, Malchut, we must undergo the alterating expansion and disappearance of the Light from the desire, between the degrees, which repeats four times. When the Light enters, it is redemption (from its absence or darkness), and when it departs, it is exile (disappearance of the Light).

The presence of the Light in the vessel is regarded as the presence of the Creator in the creature or revelation of the Creator. Therefore, redemption (clothing of the Light in the vessel or soul or desire) is always followed by exile of the Light, its departure. There is no growth without this, as it is written, “Getting filled with the Light and becoming empty makes the desire suitable for achieving the goal (equivalence to the Creator).”

This is why even the first Kabbalists knew what humanity was going to experience. Abraham used to ask the Creator, “How can I know that my descendants will inherit this land?” When he received the answer that they would go into exile, Abraham felt contented for he knew that after four exiles and four redemptions, everybody would come to the final correction.

We are now at the threshhold of exiting the last exile, in the system of the fourth level which contains all the previous exiles and redemptions. We only have to perform the final, complete redemption (of the entire Malchut) which is very near.

However, to reach redemption, we must experience exile. Long before exile comes, we need to contain within, in the negative form, the complete form of this future redemption, the form of the corrected world, meaning that we must expect that it will come not only to Israel, but to all humanity.

For the first time in human history, Israel (our world group) acts as a conduit for the Upper Light, and we must unify for the sake of the correction of the world. Redemption means being in full adhesion with the Creator, the property of bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/10, “This is for Judah”

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Question: The Convention is our next state. What do we need to do now in order to come to it with the correct desire or demand?

Answer: At present, we still need the feeling of lack, aspiration, and longing, just as before an anticipated meeting and expectation of a joyous event. We need the desire to unfold the connection between us so that it would open in all its might and, within it, the force of bestowal, the Creator, the Light that fills this collective soul, would emerge.

Right now, we are preparing ourselves for this revelation. However, we should not seek the lack itself. Rather, we should constantly think about the desired state. As a result of this seeking, from my ideas about unity, I will start feeling that I don’t possess it. Because of this, the void (the desire) will appear within me. The Light creates the desire!

A person who doesn’t seek a good state of existence will not feel what he is lacking. After all, when you seek it, the Surrounding Light of that state affects you and increases your desire for it. You will yearn for the good states, for love and unification, and, accordingly, you will discover the opposite states: rejection and hate. In fact, we all act in two opposing systems: reception and bestowal, the left and the right lines.

Man is the reversed imprint of the Creator, the form of egoistic desire. All the Lights that affect us only turn our form inside out, bringing us to the authentic form from “for the sake of reception” to “for the sake of bestowal.” This is what the Light does with me. But in the beginning, I always discover the reverse or egoistic form.

If I aspire to the good form, then, inevitably, the descent will come, and I will discover hate and resentment. However, there is no need to dive into the depth of evil and make discernments. This egoistic form will emerge on its own and will force me to study it. Inasmuch as I make efforts to get rid of it, will I get to know all its details in order to transform it into bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/10, “This is for Judah”

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Once, there was a belief that it is the heart that pumps the blood through the entire body. But after some studies, it was discovered that this is incorrect.

It was believed that our heart needed to be an enormous and powerful “pump” in order to move the blood through the entire organism. After all, there are extremely thin capillary vessels in the organism, and we thought that only a huge, powerful pump would be able to pump through them, and only under the condition that the walls of the blood vessels will be able to withstand the pressure.

However, later the scientists discovered that the heart only sets the speed and nothing more. The rest is done by the organism itself. There are valves in the circulatory system, in the entire “pipeline.” As the muscles contract, the capillaries open the valves and allow the blood to circulate in the necessary direction. By themselves, they operate like a pump.

In other words, this entire circulatory network activates itself. This is a live connection, and, essentially, it is precisely this connection and not the heart that supports the functioning of the body. The heart only manages the process; it sets the rhythm.

From this we need to understand that when it comes to the system of connection of the souls, the entire job is laid on us. It is we who must make the connection between us come alive by opening and closing the “valves” at the right time, creating “pressure” in the right places in order to move the Inner Light (the spiritual life energy) between us.

When we bring life into this system though our search, our inner work, it’s only then that we reveal the life force in it. Before our revelation, this entire system is a spiritually dead formation, “a drop of semen” which is still to develop.

This is why nothing becomes revealed in its complete form; nothing prepared can exist. There is only that which we enliven. And the main principle is cooperation, the mutual guarantee, just like in our physical body.

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From the Preparation to the Lesson 10/29/10

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Question: How can I stop pursuing the pleasures of this world and acquire an interest in connecting with others?

Answer: The external “race” stops when we include ourselves in a group and start concentrating on its interests. Baal HaSulam and Rabash explain to us that in this world, we should only pursue our immediate needs. That doesn’t mean that we have to limit our requirements to plain biological necessities in our everyday life. The limitations concern mostly mass media.

If we need to get information for further dissemination of Kabbalah or for our professional advancement, then it really is mandatory for us. Nobody forbids us from listening and watching the mass media, nor demands that we isolate ourselves from the world. However, you have to understand how to choose the right information since it clearly affects us.

It is impossible to absorb something and, at the same time, manage to stay away from it. When you let the information flow through you, the impression stays. That’s why we have to protect ourselves from the wrong information. Otherwise, we expose ourselves to the whole world, and it “infiltrates” us.

Maintaining connections with other people is essential, but they have to be thoroughly calculated. The measure that we have to absorb in order to advance spiritually is called “necessary” or “essential.” Of course, no one suggest that you cloister in a monastery or go back to living in a cave, but at the same time, it is not good to expose yourself to the mess that the world around us produces.

In everything else, we have to stay under the right influence of our environment and study the authentic sources. With the correct intention and the help of the group, we will enhance our desire and will view our goal more clearly.
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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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When a person is worthy of spiritual advancement for the benefit of the common system of souls, the Light guides him forward toward self-realization. This way, one is brought to the group, and he has to believe that the group was given to him from Above.

From that moment on, a person has the freedom of choice to establish himself among the friends. Establishing oneself in the group begets several positive points:

1. The person abandons selfishness. The Light grows the person, raises him above egoism, and returns him to the Source so he would incorporate himself into the common network and reveal the Creator there.

We need to understand that now we are also interconnected in a single network. However, we are unable to feel it since we are overly grounded. We lack purity and fine sensibility in order to be able to see the system where we also exist at this moment.

According to The Zohar, our eyes are directed inward, and we do not see the actual reality and do not understand where we are. Moreover, we even despise this fine sensibility. We reject it and do not allow ourselves become even a tiny bit more sensitive toward the connection between us. However, the connection is present within. We only need to be attentive and look, and we will reveal it. Then, due to this revelation, we will begin to receive the Light that Reforms.

In reality, it is not the Light that comes toward us, but we go toward the Light. A person becomes closer to the Light to the extent of his gravitation toward the system of connection between the friends. This is because the common system is constant and perfect, but it manifests gradually, according to the extent of our sensitivity toward the Light. The Light is constant, and we only need the desires that are directed toward it.

2. The group allows one to resist the external environment. Now, he can save himself from the power of the surrounding world which influences every person with its desires, thoughts, and goals. A person enters the group, incorporates himself in it, wishes to submit to it, and he receives different kind of thoughts, desires, and goals from it, ridding himself of the external dictate.

3. A person receives the strength of the entire group, and now he also begins to represent the strength of its common soul. Naturally, this gives him a much greater aspiration toward the Light than the one that has brought him to the group.

Through this powerful impulse toward the Light and correction, a person evokes the Light’s influence over him, and the Light raises him from the egoistic intention, Lo Lishma (not for Her Name) toward the altruistic intention, Lishma (for Her Name).
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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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I discover unity by acting directly and indirectly. Acting directly, I care for the friends, assist them, make coffee and tea for them, serve them. In other words, I unite with them. This is customary in the corporeal world: We become close with people by giving them presents.

As to the spiritual actions, I must see my friends as the greatest people of our generation. They are bound as one, but I am outside of their bond and bow my head to become a single whole with them. I especially yearn for this correction while I study.

As a result of my efforts – internal and external, in deed and in intention – the illumination from the Upper degree that I see as corrected comes to me. I visualize that at that level we are all one and, together, we discover the Light among us, in accordance with the equivalence of form.

My work is now to renounce myself and evoke the influence of the Upper One. The key is not to interfere but only to connect. This period is called “three days of attachment of the semen to the uterus.” All I need to do is get absorbed inside it, deeper and deeper, constantly cancelling myself above egoism in order not to become an alien object inside the Upper One. Otherwise, poisoning will occur.

“The Upper One” is not some abstract notion but the friends. They look worse and worse in my eyes, and I must consistently resist this view by way of faith above reason. It seems that the outside world offers me a beautiful environment comprised of clever, healthy, positive people who know how to have a good time. And here, I find the opposite; I am irritated by the stupid talks and hypocrisy. But I work harder and harder so that in each state, I could find uniqueness and greatness in my friends.

The conception period is a lengthy process, and its goal is renouncement of self. I am in the mother’s womb, that is, in a unique group, among the friends with whom I have to unify and through whom I have to receive the help from Above. The state of embryo is a transition phase. An ascent to the first spiritual degree is the most difficult.

But how can that be? After all, I am told that correction is done from light to heavy. And still, Baal HaSulam writes in his article “One Law”: “The main moment of heaviness in serving the Creator is the first bonding.”

There is no other choice because we are talking about the shift of paradigm, attitude, and perception of reality. Numerous parameters shift in a person, and he starts seeing the world in a radically new way.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/10, “Which Degree Should One Achieve so He Will Not Have to Reincarnate?”

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All souls root in one creature, one soul of Adam HaRishon. All of the events unfold in it. The soul was divided into multiple parts upon introduction of the will to receive into it, which is opposed to unity. The breaking is necessary for correction, and otherwise, it was impossible to break the soul into pieces.

Following the example of the king who transferred his treasure overseas by handing a coin to each of his couriers to assure success of the delivery, the soul of Adam HaRishon also gets corrected (transitions from the corporeal world into the spiritual one) part by part.

Breaking into parts is regarded as a “sin” although in truth, nobody sinned. In fact, a force aimed at receiving entered the collective soul in order to saturate each of its parts and separate it from the others. From that moment onward, each soul’s work lies in overcoming this force and reattaching its part of the common treasure to the unified interconnection.

In relation to me, all other parts are complete, and their seemingly broken and corrupted state is the effect of my own flaw. This is how a person should view the world, not fantasizing but inwardly working on himself. In that case, his outlook will change, and he will see that the surrounding world is filled with perfection and only he is corrupted.

Thereby, a person gets to know the initial breaking of the unified soul. By correcting himself, he returns to its parts as Adam, meaning that he acquires the collective intention toward all parts, all “transgressions,” and toward the entire force of detachment that penetrated the system and cracked it into 600 000 souls.

The correction is performed from light to heavy, according to the unfolding of the Aviut (coarseness, thickness) of the given part or, in other words, according to resentment it feels toward the others. After all, no matter how high a person ascends, the evil inclination rules over him anyway. However, a person is always given the exact measure he is able to correct. We need to realize free will by way of unifying with the group.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/10, “Which Degree Should One Achieve so He Will Not Have to Reincarnate?”

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Question: What kind of work do the people attending the upcoming Convention have to do? What is our role in the unification of the global world so that we may become the people through whom the wisdom will pour onto the nations of the world?

Answer: This work is exemplified by the law that governs the existence of any living organism. Suppose that receptors of the nervous system are placed throughout the body. In the same manner, the vascular, lymphatic, and other systems spread through the entire organism. Likewise, people from all over the world are arriving to the Convention. On one hand, they all belong to one system, the system of Israel. On the other, they all live in different countries located in various corners of the globe and seem to belong to diverse, alien nations.

Each place where they reside is affected by various spiritual forces. The entire globe and each of its parts is affected by a certain Upper Force “responsible” for the continent, country, or nation. Therefore, a person who is part of the system of Israel and is arriving from some other country or place in the world is, in a way, our representative in the collective system.

Let’s take, for instance, the nervous system whose receptors exist in the leg, arm, chest, and stomach areas. And now, these parts of ours (as it were) that are located in different countries are arriving, and we unite together. It turns out that, together, we awaken our collective system, for instance, the nervous system of the collective soul called Adam. And then, through our friends living in various places in the world, we, together, awaken the whole world.

We see that after our conventions, awakenings occur in previously unheard of places, and people whom we have never heard about start joining us. Each of them is a force able to awaken billions of people. After all, in spirituality, if the contact is made, the Light immediately reaches the organ wherein this soul belongs.

Thus, we observe that our collective soul expands throughout the entire world and exists in all humanity. And the response of this collective soul clothed in all humanity is amazing. We begin to feel that this is, indeed, the integral global mankind, for the first time beginning to understand that we all depend on each other.

Thus, by means of such gatherings, when we unify together with our friends (the integrated system of Israel in the whole world), we thereby revive the entire system of individual souls that are mutually connected not by the egoistic principle, but by the principle of Isra-El (aspiring directly for the Creator).

This is what is called the correct, internal circulation of the wisdom of Kabbalah in the whole world. Uniting, we thereby fulfill our role as Israel in relation to all nations of the world. Thanks to that, we will be finally graced with unity and the Creator will dwell in the assembly of our souls.
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From Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Israel and the Nations of the World” 10/26/10

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I want to warn you that all Kabbalistic texts should be perceived only in their inner sense. They discuss not the corporeal world, but the correction of man’s desire.

The desire to receive is divided into “Isra-El” (straight to the Creator) and “the nations of the world” (desires not aimed at the Creator). Such desires exist in every one of us: Some (for now, only “the point in the heart”) are aimed at the purpose of creation, while others (called “the nations of the world”) are not directed at reaching this goal.

“Exile” is the exile from the Light, from the spiritual world, meaning from the property of bestowal. “Redemption” is appearance of the force to bestow, to unite with the others, to love, within me. “The Creator” or “the Light” is the property of love and bestowal.

This is the only way to view all Kabbalistic texts: only within oneself and solely for the correction of self. Otherwise, you will drown in corporeal images (idolatry) and start growing new religions based on Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/10, “Exile and Redemption”

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Question: In “Introduction to The Study Of Ten Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam writes that a person must strive to understand what he is studying. Does this apply to studying The Zohar?

Asnwer: Of course! After all, in both TES and The Zohar we understand nothing. But to understand means to aspire to know. Know, not understand! Understanding comes later. First, we must know, meaning we must reveal the Upper world and connect with it in the equivalence of form, as it is written: “And Adam knew Hava (Eve).”

In spirituality, mind (the Light of Hochma or Wisdom) comes in the degree of the desire’s corrections, in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), and not according to the excellent work of the cells of the cerebrum, memory, or electrical impulses passing through the brain. We can attach electrodes or add memory cells to the human brain, but it won’t help to attain knowledge! It is described as: “Not the wise one learns.” It all depends on the correction by the Light of Hassadim since then the Light of Hochma has something to clothe in.

The connection between Hochma and Hassadim is regarded as “And Adam knew Hava, his wife.” Adam is Hassadim, and Hava is Hochma clothed in Hassadim. We can advance only in accordance with this principle.

Hence, no matter what we study, The Zohar or TES, we must think solely about the correction of desire, the place which the Light of Hochma will clothe. Thereby, we will indeed become wise for we will obtain inner wisdom, when the Light of Hochma will clothe in the inner Light of Hassadim.

We see little value in the external wisdom that characterizes “Kabbalists from Jerusalem,” as Baal HaSulam labels them. No matter how well a person has memorized everything written in the books, it will only confuse him.

It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know these texts, but we must aspire to have them revealed as the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim. We shouldn’t strive to fill the mind with information from the book.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/10, The Zohar

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