When I turn to The Zohar and begin to read, what am I coming with, what am I bringing in my hands for correction? I am bringing big piles of fragments and broken bonds with the other souls. To the extent I regret that they are broken, I can transfer to The Zohar my desire and my need for unity.

Herein lies our only free will: to increase this desire for unity in one another. None of us feel the need to do this, but by connecting to the group and the environment, I begin to desire what I have never desired before, something I couldn’t possibly come to desire on my own. I begin to feel the need to unite with others, and to ask for this unity.

Therefore, each time before we begin to read The Zohar, we must tune ourselves to feel the values of the group, to come under its influence, to “buy a friend,” to lower oneself before the group so that every individual and the group as a whole will be inspired by the need to unite, and will demand correction, which is the restoration of broken bonds.

With this desire, we will draw the Light of Correction. The Light will not come without a reason. We must know precisely what we want; otherwise it will be hypocrisy and not a prayer.

If we come together to reveal this singular desire for the correction prepared for us by the Creator, we will pray for the correction of the shattering. This plea will be answered from Above, and the bonds between us will be mended. Then, together, we will reveal everything The Zohar wishes to reveal to us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/10, The Zohar

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Rabash, “And The Lord Appeared To Him By The Oaks Of Mamre”: He asks, why the oaks of Mamre and not in some other place? And he replies, it is because Mamre gave him an advice about his circumcision. When the Creator told Abraham to circumcise himself, Abraham went to seek advice from his friends. …

Mamre told him, “Remember the day that the Chaldeans threw you in the furnace, and that famine that the world experienced … and those kings that your men chased, which you struck, and from whom the Creator saved you and no one could harm you. Rise up and do as your Master commands.”

Every person is a small world, and just like an element of a holographic picture, each contains all the qualities of the world. The only difference is that for every individual, these qualities exist within us in different combinations.

Malchut of the World of Infinity split into a multitude of parts (souls);  every part contains all the qualities, but with some desires of the soul presented more strongly and some weaker. The first correction of egoism lies in cutting off all the desires to receive pleasure for oneself. This action is called a covenant with the Creator (in goal) or circumcision (in action). In other words, in order to ascend to the quality of bestowal (the degree of Bina), man performs a circumcision of his desires to receive, separating them from the desires to bestow.

Man is governed by three souls: animate, intelligent, and guiding. One governs him through his feelings, one through his mind, and the third weighs which direction he ought to strive to. These souls animate us, and everything depends on which of them prevails. In the end, we have to make use of all the forces at our disposal, regardless of which makes the decisions and which governs the rest of our properties.

As every person passes through the stages of the ego’s correction, he checks whether his “body” (desires) is prepared to make the decision to join the degree of Bina (bestowal). That is when he acquires a Kli, a spiritual vessel, the desires of bestowal, and performs the correction of “circumcision” cutting off, as it were, the egoistic desires from himself.

He sees that his other desires do not agree with the Creator. He has no strength to correct them, but he is strong enough to cut them off (as it is written, “from the edge of one’s heart”). Afterward, at subsequent degrees, he will even be able to correct them so that they would willingly join the actions of bestowal and help him ascend even higher.

This force or property called Mamre, which man finds within himself, is his preparation (friend) that helps him achieve the property of bestowal.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/10, Article, “And The Lord Appeared To Him By The Oaks Of Mamre”

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The Creator fills the connection among our souls with Himself. Being closer to the other souls means being closer to the Creator and having an ability to begin perceiving Him filling our interconnection as Light, bestowal, and love. Instead of being momentary, this desire to unite with the other souls should be constant and always growing. If it lights up only occasionally and immediately subsides, it isn’t sufficient. We must strive to sustain and accumulate such states continuously.

Granted, a person cannot achieve this through his own efforts. Man is not able to control his desires and this is why he is given a group. The desires get renewed in a person in two ways simultaneously: according to a chain of informational records (Reshimot) and due to the influence of the environment. A person does not determine anything by himself.

Our error lies in the fact that we listen to our ego that tempts us to affect it by force, thereby pushing us in the wrong direction. The right direction is to induce ourselves but solely through the group. Only through the group can I impact my soul, while on my own, I have no means to reach it directly. My soul resides in my connection with the others, and only through this connection, in this indirect manner, am I able to affect myself.

Can I affect my genes or chromosomes and change something in myself with my own hands? Of course not! But there is a device – the group – with the help of which I can do it. So, I manipulate this device by my leverage: I apply simple corporeal actions and thereby affect my environment. In its turn, the environment can affect me on the spiritual level. The essence of this miracle is an opportunity to keep transforming myself till I become equivalent to the Creator.

Through my physical actions in this world, I influence the other bodies. Others, through these bodies, are able to affect me, my spiritual properties, that is, my soul. I myself cannot impact my soul no matter how much I’d like to. It is a very simple mechanism whose principle is that only connection among us leads to the revelation of the Creator.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/10, Article, “And the Lord Appeared Unto Him by the Oaks of Mamre”

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In the beginning, Malchut is merely a point. Then the Upper Light comes and develops it. Malchut adopts the properties of Zeir Anpin, expands, and thinks that it is able to receive in order to bestow. It receives this Light and breaks. However, as the result of this breaking, the desires of Zeir Anpin penetrate Malchut, and now she contains the properties of bestowal that she hasn’t thought of before.

From that moment on, one can take two different directions. The bestowing desires can be used to try to receive as much Light as possible for one’s own pleasure, in other words, to bestow in order to receive. This is exactly how mankind develops until it begins to reveal that this is a bad way to go. When it comes to this egoistic reception everything is clear: It is bad and people frown upon it. But when I bestow, I need to check if this bestowal is not egoistic. Maybe I give to others only to benefit from it?

At the end, we discover that our entire “bestowal” is egoistic. This requires thousands of years of development. Only now do we begin to understand that the true bestowal is to bestow in order to bestow and receive in order to bestow.

However, the breaking was a necessary preparation for the entire, marvelous correction to unfold. Otherwise, we would never be able to understand that there is something higher than our nature, our egoistic matter. We would forever remain in it, like the entire still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature. But man begins with experiencing the breaking! It cannot be any other way.

At first, the bestowing desires fall into the receiving ones. Egoism can still rule over them for a period of time, which is exactly what happens in our world. We develop sciences, culture, and education, and all this is due to the desires to bestow that have fallen into us. We advance with their help until we begin to see that nothing good comes out of it.

We can use the bestowing desires to bestow, but as soon as we wish to receive pleasure through this, we discover that our desire to receive pleasure is not able to receive any pleasure within. So then why should I bestow? Then the entire development gradually begins to slow down, as we are now experiencing, and ultimately illuminates the truth: We can only operate for the sake of bestowal.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/10, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The Creator will never unite us “just because”; unity won’t happen until we ask for it. We must realize that we lack and desire only unity. The desire for unity stands opposite to all the other desires that arise, desires whose purpose is to obscure our yearning for unity. Rising above all the obstacles that only increase our desire to unite, the desire for unity will grow so intense that we will start crying. That is our goal,opposite to all the other desires as it is written, “And the sons of Israel cried out by reason of the bondage.” Only with this cry will the Creator unite us. If you sit and wait for this to take its own course, it will never happen. No spiritual action will occur until there’s a definite and complete desire for it.

Such a desire must burn within the group. Make sure to awaken the others and demand that they awaken you. Be willing to pay any price for them to be awake and to keep waking you up.

Only our collective outcry can save us. There are many people who are eager to cry alone, but the Creator doesn’t hear it as this is a voice crying in the wilderness. However, if we cry out together as one and if we possess only one common desire, effort, and goal, He will hear us at once because we will be similar to Him in our desire.

Otherwise, there is no way to draw the Light that Reforms. You don’t have the desire to receive this Light. It has to correct your egoism and the separation into bestowal and interconnection. However, you don’t yet feel the need for such correction.

We have to examine ourselves to make sure that all our actions are aimed solely at attaining the common prayer: that everyone’s desire should match the common goal so that all will be united in one common outcry. This is a prayer that will receive an Answer.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/10, Article, “You Are Now Standing All of You Today”

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The World of Atzilut acts in a totally new way regarding the World of Adam Kadmon since the spiritual objects (Partzufim) that are created in it are born only after the breaking of the vessels. Since the breaking took place between the Worlds of Atzilut and Adam Kadmon, their initial data are absolutely different.

Before the World of Adam Kadmon, there was only Malchut of Infinity which was filled with Light, desires, the power of screens, and the willingness to reach the end of correction. From this state, the World of Adam Kadmon was born. However, its development ended with the breaking in the World of Nekudim; the breaking gave rise to a completely new starting point.

Now, development occurs not from Above downwards but from below upwards starting with the embryo (Ibur) of each Partzuf. Every Partzuf goes through the following three stages: the embryo, feeding/nurturing, and maturity (Gadlut). After it grows up and corrects itself, it is now able to give birth to the next Partzuf that develops in exactly the same manner by going through the stages of small, medium, and big. Each Partzuf doesn’t descend from Above downwards any more, but grows from below upwards.

However, on the other hand, these Partzufim expand from Above downward, from the head of the World of Atzilut to the end of the World of Assiya. Each Upper One, after it has reached Gadlut (the grown state), produces (in relation to itself) a lower Partzuf as an embryo. Then, the Upper One feeds/nurtures the lower one, and raises it by providing the necessary conditions for the latter to grow and mature by transferring to it all Reshimot in order for the lower one to start working independently.

A peculiar synthesis occurs here. On one hand, the Upper One gives birth to the lower one. On the other, the lower one, after being born, begins developing from below upwards.

This process occurs in all the Worlds of ABYA (Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya) that are designated to provide the environment for man’s ascension. A human being grows solely from below upwards. He goes through the stages of the embryo, feeding/nurturing, and maturity at each stage. Then, he ascends (not descends) to the next Partzuf and enters the same stages of embryo, feeding/nurturing, and maturity. The entire ascension occurs only from below upwards in the order of the Partzufim, one after the other, the higher after the lower, and following the order of stages in each Partzuf.

• In the World of Infinity, everything is one whole.
• In the World of Adam Kadmon, development takes place from Above downwards.
• In the Worlds of ABYA, expansion takes place from Above downwards, but the growth of each Partzuf is from below upwards.
• After the primordial sin of the First Man with the Tree of Life, we grow and ascend only from below upwards like an inverted reflection of the World of Adam Kadmon.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/10, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

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A question I received: Why do Kabbalists often write that they don’t want to add to what was already stated by their teachers?

My Answer: It is written that there was no greater prophet than Moses. So what can the Kabbalists after him possibly write about? What can be added to what is said in the Torah? They try to give a greater explanation of Moses’ revelation of the Creator. They receive nourishment from this primary source and try to present it to their students in a way that will allow them to understand the inner meaning more correctly.

Let’s suppose that we both went to a store, bought the same foods, and later prepared this food, but each according to our own taste. It is written that “everything that any Kabbalist is destined to reveal has already been revealed by Moses on Mount Sinai.” He revealed the Light of Infinity, which contained everything. Meanwhile, by correcting ourselves, we reveal parts of what already exists.

The Kabbalists of the past knew much more than their followers, but they did not know how to reveal their attainments. With our work, this generation is completing the general development and revealing the greatest desires (NHY – Netzah, Hod, Yesod) and therefore the most immense Light (the level of Neshama). The great Light of Hochma comes into the desires (Kelim) of the patriarchs (KHB – Keter, Hochma, Bina) and with every lesson a greater understanding of the system of creation is revealed to us.

So what is the essence of Baal HaSulam’s revelation? He arranged everything in order, in a system where everything is connected. The science of Kabbalah is a revelation of inner connections, an analysis and synthesis acting in parallel with each other, the analysis of parts and their connection. And all this occurs within the created being while he is supplied with vital energy, starting from the level of food on the animate level and continuing all the way up to the spiritual degrees. Our whole life consists of processes of fission and fusion.

For the time being, we are unable to reveal this order. We act according to the principle: “Do everything in your power.” Certainly this order already exists, but you just haven’t clarified it for yourself yet. For the time being you are not replicating all of the Creator’s actions; you are fussing like a foolish child. However, gradually your actions will become more and more sensible, and you will be careful not to do anything that is senseless. This is how a person grows in spirituality.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/10, Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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The Worlds of ABYA, through which we ascend upward like a ladder, emerge in a manner that the upper spiritual object (Partzuf) selects the “lightest” (those least damaged during the breaking) Reshimot (informational records). The upper Partzuf thereby corrects these Reshimot, giving birth to the next lower spiritual object. Similarly, at some level I choose Reshimot that I’m now able to correct, and they become my new reality, my world. It is like putting on a sharper pair of glasses, where I begin seeing a lower layer of these informational records.

The Light from Above begins to reach not only my lightest Reshimo, but because I have already realized it and created my new spiritual Partzuf according to its data, then through it, the Light begins to penetrate deeper, into the records of the next Partzuf. Thus, layer after layer the desire becomes fit to receive the influence of the Upper Light. The upper Partzuf constructed at the previous level serves as a lens, a magnifying glass that focuses the Light on the lower layer of informational records.

The records of one layer are selected and serve as the foundation for the spiritual Partzuf;  through it the Light transmits more deeply and opens informational records related to the next lower spiritual Partzuf. Hence each time, the formation of the upper spiritual Partzuf gives the Upper Light an opportunity to adapt to the lower layer of the will to receive, thereby coming in contact with it. Until then, they simply don’t perceive each other since they are too distant from one another in their attributes.

However, the upper Partzuf that is emerging becomes an adapter between the Upper Light and the informational data located in the next lower layer. Thus degree after degree, the correction takes place. Everyone who finishes a correction passes the entire package of Reshimot on to the next spiritual object selected, separating out that particular record. And after having completed one’s correction, whatever is left to correct is passed one step further.

This is how we should perform our work in spirituality: We select the lightest Reshimo-desire and work with it. As for the rest, we shouldn’t worry because it will become revealed later.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/29/10, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

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A question I received: If I give something to my son, he doesn’t feel shame because of my love for him. Why then should we feel ashamed before the Creator if He gives to us?

My Answer: A son doesn’t feel shame in receiving from his father because a son belongs to his father and perceives himself as part of the parent. He receives from the father since he is entitled to it, and everything he gets is not his, but his father’s. Yet, the son doesn’t develop independently this way.

This form of development is called “conception” and “feeding,” meaning that the son, being small, receives everything from his father, the adult. But then children grow up and don’t wish to receive from their parents any longer because by this they remain under their parents’ authority. Thus, a father starts to feel the need to distance himself from his son so that his child will grow into an independent adult, eventually becoming a parent to offspring of his own. Therefore, according to the degree of their independence, children separate from their father, no longer wishing to receive from him, and begin to make a living on their own.

The Creator wants us to become independent and similar to Him. To achieve this, He performs a restriction and hides Himself, giving us an opportunity to become like Him through our own devices, to earn our own perfection, greatness, and fulfillment. Otherwise, if we continue receiving from Him, we will remain small and all our work will consist solely of annulling ourselves and begging the Creator. So after we go through the stage of being small, while learning from the Creator how to be like Him, we acquire independence.

However, the Creator does not want us to remain in such a state. Hence after the initial stage, when we, like the little ones, learn from the Creator how to become like Him, we acquire independence. In spiritual development, even during the stages of “conception” and “feeding,” we act against our nature, and this is why these degrees are already levels of independence.

The sole problem in making a creature is in nurturing its independence, allowing it to detach from the Creator. Hence, there is no creature without separation from the Creator. Detachment is necessary and obligatory; it is our essence. Otherwise, we will not feel ourselves as existing.

However, as of yet we don’t even feel ourselves as a drop of semen in the Creator.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/29/10, Article, “The Need For Love of Friends”

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A question I received: How can we strive for bestowal if we don’t perceive spirituality and don’t have a clear vision of the goal, spiritual objects, and forms? How can I aim myself at them and take a step in their direction without doing it wrong?

My Answer: That would be correct if speaking of externality, but spirituality is called the inner world. It requires internal evolution because it occurs solely based on our inner changes.

When I choose the environment by which to be influenced, I thereby determine what my next desires and inner transformations will be. My constant examination of progress is based on what advances me. Is it based on whether or not I have received egoistical fulfillment or satisfaction from something I did, a feeling of pride for my actions, receiving someone’s praise, gaining greater understanding, or attaining better perception? Or, am I progressing in spite of the emptiness in all of my egoistic desires? Am I willing to keep going without fulfillment, but by being fueled by another force?

What is this other force? I don’t know. I demand to be granted it. It is the force of bestowal and love. This force can’t be gained from the group; the group can only instill in me the importance of receiving it. The force itself has to come from the Creator.

I suddenly start sensing a whole laboratory within me and I don’t require any external images. I begin to see that the gradation of qualities and the examination thereof occur within me. What happens outside of me has no importance. I see the spiritual goal – to keep working fueled solely by love and bestowal – within myself as well. I wish my desires to be filled with the Reflected Light, not by the direct fulfillment. I want the sensation of bestowal, not the sensation of fulfillment by the Light.

Thus, I shun my doubts such as where is the external goal and how do I reach it. I now sense that it is within me. I examine and evaluate it by analyzing what fills my spiritual vessel and the source of its life energy and what it expects: satiated fulfillment or the fuel for bestowal. Then, I don’t feel that I am lacking some vision and external signs on the spiritual path, it is all within me.

When a person gradually transfers his attention from the external parameters to the internal ones, this transformation is the measuring device as to how close he came to the Machsom, the barrier that separates the corporeal world from the spiritual worlds or degrees.

That is when a person starts, with the help of the Creator, to control himself from the outside, through the group, in such way that he can work not for the sake of advancing according to his own egoistical criteria, but above reason. A person begins to operate on some foreign type of energy that he didn’t possess before. His body, the vehicle, starts moving on its own like an “eternal engine.” It is an indication that he has begun to receive the energy of bestowal that serves as his fuel.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/10, Article, “Sometimes You Call Spirituality By the Name Soul (Neshama)”

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