There are two steps along our ascent to the spiritual world, and the first one is to obtain a desire (Hissaron). In our corporeal world, we are born with a desire to reveal this world and to rule, take advantage of, and connect with it. But in the spiritual world, it is different since we need to earn this desire.

It is the Light that helps us with this. We use it to arrange our egoistic desire in an opposite, altruistic form that enables us to obtain the desire for bestowal, that is, a spiritual Kli (a spiritual vessel is a desire to bestow).

In our world, we are given the desire to receive, understand, and feel. Likewise, in the spiritual world, there is a desire to bestow, love, connect, and unite. How are we able to obtain it? Clearly, we can receive it only from the Light that Reforms and nothing else. And for this we need at least some initial desire to receive the Light’s impact. This tiny initial desire is called free will which is given to us in a very simple and distinct form: as one singular point that we can find and discern within our current state.

This can be achieved solely through the connection between us and our collective effort, provided that we have the desire to bond and depend on each other. If such relationships are found between the souls (or people that carry them), then according to our efforts, the Light reveals itself, begins to give us a new desire, and passes its own desire to us.

This is the only real work that a person has as Baal HaSulam explains it in his article “The Freedom”: We need to exert the minimum effort, in a selective, narrow, and clear-cut direction in relation to the environment, and as a result of the measure of this exertion, the Light descends upon us. It clarifies our desires (their opposite side), gives us the sensation of a lack, according to which we reveal all the holy names of the Creator until the full revelation of the Light (all the names of the Creator).

Thus, a person attains a spiritual state where “Israel (the soul yearning for the Creator), the Torah, and the Creator become one,” meaning all of man’s desires become equivalent to the Light that reformed them. Through these sacred names a person attains all the general Light called the Torah and the Creator (the purpose of creation “to delight the creatures”) which is revealed in this Light.

All this is revealed within a person’s desire. The Torah is the revelation of the spiritual world attained through a person’s individual, partial revelation of the Creator’s names.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, “You Should Always Discern Between Torah and Work”

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We exist in an ocean of the Light of Infinity which contains all the sacred names of the Creator. These names have to become revealed in our desires to the extent of their similarity to a particular quality of the Creator included in this Infinite Light. This general force, the Light, is called the “Torah.” Of course, today we are unable to value and know it. This is beyond our capabilities and desires.

However, here is what we can do: If we desire to become similar to the illumination that reaches us from this infinite Light, we can reach some partial similarity and feel it within us as the revelation of the “Creator’s sacred name.” Sanctity is above the “body”; it is bestowal or the quality of Bina. After all, the “Creator’s name” is a spiritual vessel, a “Kli,” or a corrected desire (meaning desire with the intention to bestow).

Due to the power of the Light, our desire acquires such a form (intention) that it can establish a connection with the Creator, which is to say, with the Light or the Torah (names of the Creator). In this way, by being influenced by Ohr Makif (the Surrounding Light), we gradually reveal separate qualities and actions within us that are similar to the Light or the Torah.

All this is perceived and measured within us and in relation to us (the receivers) to the extent that we are similar to the qualities of the Light according to the law of equivalence of form. Only by becoming similar to the Light will we be able to feel it.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, “You Should Always Discern Between Torah and Work”

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Question: Besides the desire to understand The Zohar, I also really want to remember the definitions of words in order to connect them to each other. What should I do if I constantly forget?

Answer: You need to demand to feel! It is very good that you forget. Kabbalists prayed to forget everything they learned every minute. There is always a break between the degrees when everything you attained on the previous degree is forgotten and erased from your sensations and memory.

We attain in sensations in the corrected desire. All the names and titles about which we read in The Zohar (HaVaYaH and Elokim in all the various combinations and manifestations) are revealed in the corrected desire. When they are revealed one after another in my desire, I begin to work with my feelings just like in our world.

It seems to a person that feelings are less important than the mind. However, feelings come and unite with the mind in order to help or serve it. If we learn all the parts of Study Of The Ten Sefirot, this is just to rouse us to use all this knowledge as a basis to demand feelings. After all, “learning” means “uniting,” and “knowledge” is unification or adhesion (Zivug).

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, The Zohar

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Question: You said that in order to comprehend The Zohar we have to make an “an opening in the heart.” Who makes this “opening?”

Answer: The Light! I myself am unable to do this. Only the Light can. As if through a magnifying glass, the beams of Light concentrate and become so powerful that they “burn through” your desire to feel pleasure thereby creating an “opening.”

Question cont.: Why can’t we make this “opening?”

Answer: It is not our job to make this happen. When two hearts unite through their desires, it is called the “openings” in the walls of their hearts. A wall in the heart means a whole heart, but we need the broken hearts. If our hearts, yours and mine, are “breached” and we connect these “breaches,” the job is done. I want what you want, and you wish what I wish. We are bonded already. If two have united and are connected in the quality of bestowal, that’s where the revelation takes place.

How powerful this revelation will be is based on everything you and I have in our hearts, besides the breaking and these “breaches” connected together. There are thousands of obstacles in your heart, all sorts of thoughts and worries; I have them too.

To the extent we are able to overcome these obstacles and stay connected, grounded in them all and constantly holding ourselves above them in order to remain in the common sensation of the quality of bestowal (since only through partnership can we stay in it), to that degree are we able to attain the property of the Creator in the connection between us. Thereby, we try and discern the taste of bestowal.

Question cont.: How do we connect the “breaches” in our hearts?

Answer: It is done by the Light. Our job is only to wish for it to happen. No other action is necessary! While reading The Book of Zohar, you wish for its words to “drill” and open a “porthole” in you.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, The Zohar

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In order to attain The Zohar a person needs to open the channel that leads to the heart. And the tendency to understand it with the mind is given in order for us to resist this and wish for The Zohar to be revealed in the heart. Otherwise it will not work.

It is necessary to make an “opening in the heart” so that the text of The Book of Zohar is felt in inner attainments, in the desire, rather than just in the external mind where one connects words to each other. After all, the external picture which one imagines in the mind, remembering the meaning of words and building logical connections between them, does not allow him to constantly aspire to feel The Zohar.

Such an approach is doomed to fail. A person receives satisfaction from the fact that he seemingly connected a few things in his mind, and the problem is solved for him. He has no regret or desire left to feel and attain. He learns the external (comprehensible to him) definitions from the Book and builds a “Lego” out of them by connecting them to each other.

However, only under the condition that a person already feels what is written in The Zohar and wishes to connect the sensations, can he look at the words of the text and connect the sensations according to these words. If there are no sensations, it’s better not to activate the mind and just to wait for “the wonderful force” (Segula) that is contained in The Book of Zohar to affect you.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, The Zohar

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Before Rosh Hashanah (New Year) it’s customary to repent for one’s sins and ask for forgiveness.

From Rabash’s article “Request for Forgiveness”: If a person asks the Creator for His forgiveness, it means that he realizes the true reason for his sins. If he lacks complete faith, then he prays to the Creator to give him power to obtain faith in his heart.

Herein lies the difference between someone who has already obtained faith (property of bestowal) and thus is called “Israel” (aspiring towards the Creator) and someone who hasn’t obtained faith and thus is called “Gentile” (“stranger,” meaning the one with a different set of desires since the desire [Ratzon] comes from the word Aretz [land] and therefore, “Gentile” is the one who doesn’t aspire towards the Creator).

Those who attained permanent faith are able to tell the difference between two levels of spiritual development and bless the Creator for being able to ascend from the level called “Gentile” to the level “Israel”: “Thank you, my Lord, for not making me a Gentile.”

A “stranger” is a person who acts for his own sake; “Israel” or “Yehudi” is the one who wants to unite with the Creator in order to bestow to Him. Both parts are present in each person: the uncorrected part (where egoism rules) and the corrected one (where the property of bestowal governs).

This constitutes the difference between a “stranger” and “Israel” and is an indicator of all our sins. We have to always keep to the middle. This type of self-analysis signifies the beginning of a New Year (new change).

Everybody has to feel like a “Babylonian” who faces the choice of where to go: follow Abraham and become “Israel” (the one who seeks the Creator, the quality of bestowal) or follow the path of the rest of the world, the path of egoism.

Everything is measured only relative to the property of the Creator (bestowal), that is, the extent to which we want this property to control and direct us in everything we do, consciously or not. We have to imagine the Creator only as an internal force that governs a person, rather than as an external influence.

It is obvious that a person sins not by having egoistic desires since he was created this way. However, if he chooses to stay within his egoism, then it is called a sin. The first time it happens it’s not called a “sin” (as it is said about Adam HaRishon’s sin); it is only the first clarification of the action, its cause and consequence. But when I have already revealed my sin (ego) and agree with its governance over me, then it means that I’ve “sinned.” This is a test that shows what I really strive for.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/10, “Preparation for Repentance”

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Don’t blame the Creator if your spiritual progress is very slow and unnoticeable! We must first and foremost reveal the desire inside ourselves. Without it we will not be able to feel a change in our states.

If I don’t feel the spiritual world yet, it means I still don’t want it! It is here, right next to me, but I don’t want to see it and that is why I don’t reveal it. There are no presents from Above. How I reveal the spiritual world depends only on me and my desire. As soon as my desire grows and reaches the level of the next, higher spiritual world, I immediately reveal it. But if I don’t feel a need for it, then I can’t reveal it.

Everything is up to a person. Our only task is to influence each other in order to discern our desire correctly. We may be yelling and burning with desire, but it’s a desire for the wrong thing, both in quantity and quality.

What we need is a clearly discerned desire where the most important thing is the quality of the desire: What exactly do I want, rather than how much I want it. In spirituality the quantity is not important, only the quality is. We call the quality of a spiritual desire, “force.“ The force of a desire in spirituality is defined by how sharp and precise it is and what exactly it is aimed at. This requires constant worry to make sure that your desire has the right direction.

If you ask people how they imagine spirituality and what they desire, you will get a different answer from every person. This can only be discerned by working in the group and using help from the Light which we all attract together during the study because we understand that for now we don’t have the right desire for bestowal and faith. Therefore, we want the Light to come and explain it to us, to show us examples and create a desire in us! This is called a necessity without a necessity, the prayer before the prayer.

However, once a person is brought to the group, from then on everything is up to him.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/10, “You Should Always Discern Between Torah and Work”

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What is “faith above reason?” “Faith” is bestowal, and "above reason" means that it is more important than reception. In our state, this property only manifests through my attitude toward the group because only in a group can I clearly see that I prefer the group’s well-being to my own, both in my actions and thoughts.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/10, “The Importance of Faith that Always Takes Place”

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Receiving pleasure in our desires of bestowal is completely different than receiving it egoistically. First, we need to acquire an anti-egoistic screen, then draw pleasure, reject it for the sake of the Host, and finally gain the capacity to receive pleasure in order to delight Him. In this way we receive doubly. We receive the very sensation of pleasure within us and, most importantly, the sensation of greatness of the Host. His greatness is infinite and depends only on what value it has in our eyes.

The ratio between the pleasure received from direct fulfillment and the pleasure received from knowing the value of the Giver is such that we agree to receive from Him “symbolically”; it is just a tiny seed, a drop that merely defines the point of contact. However, His greatness lies in our eyes, meaning that we expand this point to infinite value.

Therefore, “sinners” lose double, and “righteous” win double by receiving the entire World of Infinity solely because they possess a screen. If we have a source of energy, that is, two opposing forces of “plus” and “minus,” then we can run a device that produces useful work. Meanwhile, trying to connect these two opposing forces without this device will cause a short circuit between them.

If we desire fulfillment, then we have to find the correct way to connect ourselves with the Creator, which is called a screen, the ”device” that brings benefit to the others. In that case, all of the Light will pass through us down to the others, and we will feel as the source, as the Creator.

If we use the vessels of bestowal, we feel the following: 1) pleasures within ourselves, 2) pleasures in Him, and 3) pleasures coming from Him, meaning we simultaneously reside in the past, present, and future, enveloped in all of the existing pleasure, all of the Light of the World of Infinity. This erases the sensation of time, motion, and space.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/6/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: What does The Zohar mean by, “When a person lies asleep and the soul leaves him and testifies to that person” (Chapter “Lech Lecha [Go Forth],” Item 359)?

Answer: The soul is the Light in the desire (Kli). We can correct our desire to receive only in the Sefirot of Keter, Hochma, and Bina, while correction in the Sefirot of Zeir Anpin and Malchut can only be partial. For this reason, the largest Light that can manifest in us for now is the Light of Neshama, while the Lights of Haya and Yechida can serve only as small supplementary illumination from below upwards.

Therefore, our collective desire is called “the soul” (Neshama), by the name of the greatest Light that the soul can contain within it until the end of correction. If the desire exists in a state where it is able to attain the Light of Neshama, it is called the soul (Neshama). That’s because we name desires by the names of the lights which fill them. However, if the desires cannot contain these lights and be filled with them due to the lack of the screen, there is no soul. It is because the filling is the screen and the Reflected Light, the property of bestowal.

The soul is not my reception of Light from Above. The soul (Neshama), like all of the Inner Light in the desire, is formed by my giving this Light to someone else, by passing it through myself and thereby getting filled by it. This is called my Light, the Light that I receive. I receive the opportunity to bestow, and that’s what fills me.

This is why “at night,” when I am not yet able to correct my desires and gain control over them with the help of the screens (the property of bestowal), I receive a negative impression in my desire called darkness. But what is “darkness”? Darkness is when I cannot bestow and this state feels as “night,” meaning the lack of bestowal on my part. I feel regret and prepare to correct my desires.

I merit the “day”  through my work “at night.” I got up at dawn to attend the Kabbalah lesson and united with my friends; I made various corrections and obtained new desires and screens. In all of these screens and desires I create a new form of bestowal that fills me. This means my “day” has begun.

Hence, “night” is also a spiritual state for it is the preparation of desires. And if a person doesn’t have a desire to attain bestowal, even the “night” doesn’t exist for him for we define “day” and “night” according to our spiritual states.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/10, The Zohar

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