The Creator sends us troubles, problems, and all kinds of unpleasant things, while we have to discern the good intention and fatherly love they contain. The Creator is good and does good to the good and the bad.

He does not divide us into good and bad since He created us this way. However, each of us perceives the Creator’s treatment of us (his life) in his own way. No matter what happens to us in life, we have to build an attitude to Him in response, “Everything comes from Him who is Good and does good,” and everything comes from “There is none else besides Him.” A person has to ascend above the sensation of “bitter and sweet” to the assessment of “true and false.”

The truth is that everything, including sweet and bitter, comes from the single Force and it’s all for my own good, for the sake of truth. Sweet and bitter sensations are given to me in order for me to aim toward the truth above the bitterness.

That is how we learn to aspire to the Upper Force, to understand it, to feel it inside our own qualities and to feel how it relates to us, what it brings us, and what it wants from us. The answer is that it wants us to have faith above reason, loyalty, and bestowal above any kind of reception and above all sensations. At the end of the day it demands that we ascend above the sensation of “bitter and sweet” to the intention of “true and false.”

Then we recognize this Force and start to understand its goal: It wants us to relate to everything in reality according to our intention alone, instead of our sensation. That is how we reveal a new sense – the Reflected Light, Hassadim, faith above reason. In this sense we start to discern the Creator, who sends us all the feelings and situations, while we have to ascend above them by building our attitude to Him above all the sensations.

It becomes clear to us that all our work is done above egoism, above the sensations that the Creator creates in our egoistic desire. All of this is necessary only in order for us to develop our intention of bestowal, “truth,” more and more. We will live in this intention and will feel pleasure inside it as we aspire toward everything away from ourselves, toward bestowal to the neighbor and the Creator.
[23562]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “And Jacob Sat at the Land Where His Father Dwelled”

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Question: What does it mean to act solely for the sake of the Creator? It greatly disturbs me since it feels as if I am forced to slave away for someone.

Answer: This “someone” is the absolute law of Nature, the unifying force that contains the entire creation and you in it. Beside this law, there is nothing else! And when you “bestow,” you do it not “for somebody’s sake,” but in order to establish this law over all creation so that it is revealed to all.

The Creator doesn’t need it, He doesn’t receive anything; He is the desire to bestow, which cannot receive. He Himself is not perceived within you; rather, what you perceive is your own impressions of Him. The law of bestowal is similar to a wall: It feels nothing, you may consider it to be still. This law of nature is the absolute law of bestowal, which you experience reactions to within yourself.

You don’t do Him favors! He doesn’t require that you cleave to Him and love Him; He doesn’t feel our work as we do. We can’t even discuss His essence for it is unknowable. Everything we discuss about Him is our personal impressions, our perceptions of Him in our broken or corrected desires. Therefore, I can’t say that I am working for Him. Expressions “cleave to the Creator” or “love your Creator” speak about me and my correction, after which I will attain love.

That is why we were given a group, in relation to which we have to work, instead of working with some abstract principle or a force that cannot be sensed or with the factor that everyone can turn as he pleases. Take, for instance, the science of Kabbalah. It is a program of how you should treat human society. Build your attitude to it according with this program and by doing so, you will reach your full correction.

Love for the created beings that you will experience with the help of the Light that Reforms will be your attitude to the Creator indeed. Instead of acting in relation to the Light that cannot be perceived, the soul broke apart, and its parts now interact with each other instead of interacting with the Light. Therefore, they have an opportunity to connect with each other, act, and examine things together, which they cannot accomplish if paired with the abstract force.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: What do I do if while reading The Book of Zohar I keep thinking about various things including my new business?

Answer: This is wonderful! Let your egoism pray together with the group about the revelation of evil and its correction and also about the prosperity of your business. But it has to be everything together!

There is nothing outside of the system of correction. It is said that all “sinners” (egoistic desires) will be corrected and join the “righteous” (desires of bestowal and love). Why can’t your business be inside them? Don’t neglect anything; include everything into correction.

When the words “escape from the Pharaoh” are said, they do not mean running away from the Pharaoh, but rather ascending above him. It is said, “We left Egypt with great belongings.” We take everything there is, our entire ego, and exit. Thus, our ego becomes corrected.
[22826]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, The Zohar

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Question: When reading The Zohar, is “to receive the force of bestowal” the correct intention?

Answer: We do not need anything but the force of bestowal. There are only two forces in the entire reality: reception and bestowal. We do not lack the force of receiving. When we correctly prepare ourselves by working in the group and studying Kabbalah, the force of reception, our evil inclination, becomes revealed to us.

However, if I have not yet begun to arrange myself with the group or the study, I do not reveal the egoism against the Creator in me as something that hurts me, as evil. At first I need to reveal my evil. If I do not see the evil in me, I have nothing to begin correction with.

But when I reveal the evil in me, I reveal it in the group, and for this reason I already have the Light to correct it. After all, it is where I reveal my rejection of friends that I find the strength to overcome this rejection.

Question: If I do not feel the need to read The Zohar, do I still need to do it?

Answer: A person beginning to study Kabbalah needs to know that it is specifically the reading of The Zohar that helps him go through the stages of the revelation of his evil and its correction. The evil will keep being revealed, while he will keep rising above it until he reveals the entire altitude of evil, the entire 125 degrees between our world and the World of Infinity.

He will rise high, above the evil being revealed, to the top of the mountain as if he were on a funicular. This is why he needs both: the mountain, the evil that is being revealed, and the funicular, the force of the Light that lifts him to the top.

This is the reason we need to study Kabbalah, which reveals the evil to us. This is called “I created the evil inclination,” and then we need the force of correction, which is called “and I gave the Torah for its correction because the Light in it Reforms,” that brings me to the top of the mountain.

This is why in the beginning the Creator told Abraham: “Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own,” meaning that they will be under the influence of the egoism, but they will leave with great wealth (egoism), and they will need its correction: the reception of the Torah, the method of correction with the force of the Creator, the Light. Having stopped using egoism (Egypt) and having turned it into a “desert,” they will then use it for the sake of bestowal and turn it into the “Land of Israel.”

There is only one desire, but the gradual changes of the intention over this desire turns the desire into “Egypt” (in Hebrew “Mits-Raim,” “the concentration of evil”), then into the Sinai desert (in Hebrew “Sinai,” hatred), until it turns it into good, the “Land of Israel” (in Hebrew “Eretz Yisrael,” desire towards the Creator). That is, one goes through the stages of the evil inclination – “Egypt,” then “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” – “the Sinai desert,” and then “reception for the sake of bestowal” – “the land of Israel.”

The desire to receive pleasure remains the same, you only determine your attitude toward it, which becomes increasingly corrected every time.
[22830]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, The Zohar

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Question: Despite the fact that you so meticulously keep trying to explain to us the mechanics of the spiritual worlds described in Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of Ten Sefirot), I still don’t understand anything.

Answer: I cannot be meticulous because there are too many details in it, which you are unable to remember. A person can remember what he feels and not some mechanical data. Even the latter he has to translate into impressions and only then he may remember them. Although memory seems to be part of the mind, it is the sensory experiences that are preserved in the memory cells.

Suppose I am entering some information into the computer now;  this data is the outcome of my sensory experiences since my substance is based on feelings. It perceives good and bad in multitude of forms. When I enter this information into the memory, I give my impression a definition; otherwise, it won’t be recorded.

I have to assign a specific place for this in my memory, give it a title and definition, similar to how we specify the complete passage through many “slashes” when we are dealing with a link on an Internet page. In the same manner, the “address” in our memory is formed. And even though this memory is “mechanical,” it still records impressions. If I begin to remember an event from the distant past, I suddenly experience my forgotten feelings and remember a scent, a sound, and so forth.

Therefore, if we have never felt the spiritual world, we cannot remember information about it. That is why Baal HaSulam was so angry when he met “Kabbalists from Jerusalem” who were practicing mechanical memorization of  Kabbalah theory and thought that it was enough to succeed. This is not our way. We try to study Talmud Eser Sefirot, but do not evaluate our spiritual advancement by how much knowledge we obtain. We measure it by how much we can feel!

What can you possibly know if you don’t feel the words, as it is written: “Taste how wonderful the Creator is”? Does a person know what these words mean? Has he ever felt what they signify? If not, then his knowledge is worthless. We are studying in order to draw the Light that Reforms! Our desire, as described in The Book of Zohar and Talmud Eser Sefirot, gives us an opportunity to connect with the material.

But we don’t understand what it means that Zeir Anpin is falling asleep or is ascending with MAN to Bina; for us, they are merely words for now. Hence, for now, the entire Kabbalah is an empty science, but it gives us the foundation for a desire, preparation, and the cause for revelation. I wish to know it since everything in the text is talking about me and what is happening within my soul!

Who is ascending from Malchut to Zeir Anpin and Bina? My soul ascends, receives fulfillment there, and returns back down! All these actions are occurring in me right this instant, but I don’t feel it. I wish to finally feel what are they like? Why do I suddenly have such eagerness? This is because your spiritual gene, your  Reshimo, has woken up.
[22845]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Creator planted in us a special property called “shame” as a means of growth. If I realize that I am a receiver in regard to another, I feel “ashamed” since it hurts my “self,” my status, and the perception of my character. Indeed, the Creator created us with His Light, and we descend from this very high source where feeling as a receiver is opposite to it. Hence, we feel humiliated.

Only a beast doesn’t feel shame. A dog will eat food thrown at it without feeling any embarrassment. If something is thrown to a person, then his feeling will be determined by his state of existence.

If he is dying from starvation and by eating the food is saving his life, meaning that he descended from the human to the animate level, then he won’t feel ashamed either. In this case, a person either doesn’t care for shame and pain at the moment, or he grew up in the environment where it is natural to receive. But if someone tries to “throw a bone” to a person who has pride and integrity, he will feel insulted.

The Creator intentionally made us this way so that we would feel how despicable and low it is next to the desire of the Creator to bestow, and this distinction gives us strength to ascend.
[22840]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love of the Created Beings”

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Question: Am I “drilling a hole in the boat” by acting in all directions, in all 359 degrees except for one that is aimed toward the mutual guarantee?

Answer: But I signed an agreement with my friends that covers everything! My guarantee does not only apply to the tiny open gap through which I have to reach the mutual guarantee. You will not be able to concentrate one hundred percent on the mutual guarantee without taking the strengths from all the other directions and only leaving the vital necessities there.

Only when all the other directions become nothing but a necessity for you, which “is neither disapproved of nor praised” and all the strengths that remain after providing for your existence are directed towards reaching the mutual guarantee, only in this case, you are not drilling a hole in the boat.
[23347]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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The Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 696: “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.” Dan, as it is written, is the last of all the camps, the left thigh, Hod. He walks last because Judah and Reuben journey, the Levites and the ark set up banners, and the banner of Ephraim journeys to the west. The right thigh journeys according to the order that the right thigh comes before the left thigh, Dan. Thus, Dan journeys last.

In this form The Zohar tells us of the formation of the “camp of Israel in the desert,” meaning the formation of the soul in its development at the 0-1-2 levels of desire (Galgalta Eynaim), attainment of the qualities of Bina, and how all 12 parts that make up the system of the collective soul (called the “12 tribes of Israel”) need to advance along the degrees in “three lines.”

In the soul there are such notions as “banners,” separate groups or “camps,” “women,” “elderly,” and “children,” which go in the front or in the back. These are all various desires within a person, thus organized and interconnected and thus actualizing their correction: moving from one “camp” to another, from one spiritual degree to the next. And every time there is a particular order which every moving “camp” must follow (“hands,” feet,” “head,” torso,” “extremities,” or lines and Sefirot), and how they have to connect between themselves so as to advance.

This is why the Torah talks about what’s happening in the camps, all the various problems and events there, that is, about the revelation of new lows in the ego of the common soul and how they correct the ego and advance thereby. That is what the story is all about.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 675: Zebulun was rewarded with preceding Issachar in the blessings because he took bread out of his mouth and gave it to Issachar’s mouth. Thus, one who provides for one with Torah receives blessings from above and from below. Moreover, he is rewarded with two tables, with which no other person is rewarded. He is rewarded with wealth—blessed in this world—and with having a share in the next world.

The Zohar speaks of the types of connections existing between the souls for only this is concealed from us, and this is what we need to reveal. In the connection between the souls, which we reveal, we clarify the picture of forces (desires) of bestowal, the web of connections between them that manifest the degree of their bestowal to one another above the egoistic forces of each particular soul. The connections between the souls are the forces of bestowal, the desires to bestow, while every soul is an egoistic desire to enjoy.

It follows that if we work, everyone in his desire, so as to actualize it in bestowal to others, this means we are working with the right desire (Kli) equipped with a screen so as to be connected in mutual bestowal with everybody. This is the way the system of desires (Partzufim) of every soul works with respect to other souls (Partzufim). Mutual bestowal and its general force, the Creator, become revealed in the connection between them, while within every soul there remains its inherent desire to enjoy.

The Zohar speaks not of the desire to enjoy embedded in each of us, but of what happens between us, where we reveal the web that connects us. Initially, this web is called the world of Assiya, then Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the World of Infinity, where the connection between us has no end or limits. As we strengthen our connection, we reveal the Creator, the Light, inside it.

Therefore, when we read The Book of Zohar we must think of what The Zohar speaks of: the connection between us wherein the Creator is revealed.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, The Zohar

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The stage of preparation for the revelation of the Upper World stands for the attainment of the property of bestowal. This is because there is Light all around us, and receiving it depends only on the similarity of our desire to it.

Preparation is a complex process that requires the correct approach. First of all, one needs to understand that preparation is possible only in the group because all corrections result from the unification of souls into one common soul. Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Freedom” that love for one’s neighbor is a common principle, the collection of all the corrections. And its entire realization can only be done together.

Secondly, we assume that we can correct ourselves, and when a disturbance comes it  seems like I am supposed to resist it with my own strength. In reality, our work consists of uniting with the Creator, and not in conquering evil; only in this way will evil be defeated. Therefore, I do not run from evil like from the powerful Pharaoh; rather, I use this Pharaoh as a means of uniting with the Creator.

It is written that it was Pharaoh who brought the sons of Israel closer to the Creator. To me Pharaoh is like a reward because it means I have merited his force. Thanks to it, above it, I will unite with the Creator. It is impossible to do without it.

I operate in a system, a field of forces. These forces are neither good nor bad, the question is how I apply them while being between them. Everything depends on my ability to use them for advancement.

This way I never fight alone. At first, I do not have any other “weapon” but the force of analysis. When I correctly use my strength only for analysis, then I correctly identify the situation and am thus victorious using the Creator’s force.

All the situations come from the Creator in order to “train” us, like in an educational game. While “playing,” I only need to find the best means to lead me to another step towards unity and adhesion, towards love of others. In this case I see that all the forces have been summoned to serve me in this. There are no mistakes or malicious intents, only merit and good. I justify everything and I feel that everything is there to help me.

A person must constantly hold this attitude, and then the path is rolled out before him like a red carpet.
[22813]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Righteous Feels Good and the Righteous Feels Bad”

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