Rabash, “The Torah is One Holy Name”: Therefore, when the evil inclination brings a person alien thoughts, then it is the right time to take these thoughts and to raise them “above reason.”

And a person can do that regarding anything his heart desires, and he should not say that now he is repulsed by the work, but rather that he was given desires and thoughts from Above, so that he will be able to bring them into Holiness. So he is actually being brought closer from Above, and therefore he was sent this kind of work.

And about this it was said: “Straight are the ways of the Lord, the righteous will follow them and the sinners will fail in them,” which means that if a person is rewarded, he can ascend by that and if he isn’t (rewarded), he descends by that spiritually.

It turns out that there isn’t a moment in our lives when the Light is not revealed to us by revealing an additional thickness in us in different manners. It summons in us different feelings and thoughts that are evoked in the mind and heart, and we have to respond.

This additional desire can lead to a bad mood or to an egoistic ascent; it can lead to thoughts that are closer to spirituality or further away from it, to criticism of the environment, and to everything that is related to the spiritual path. All this happens, of course, only by the revelation of the new Reshimot (spiritual genes). If a person is in the right environment and adhered to the teacher, the books and the group, to all the efforts that stabilize his path, then he will not forget this. Then he will not miss any opportunity that is given to him and will constantly respond.

The response itself may seem to be good and successful or not very good and successful; it makes no difference. What’s important is that he fulfills the current moment, the given Reshimo and moves on.

But if a person doesn’t hold on to the teacher, the Torah, and the group, then he has no chance to fulfill that moment, and so life passes without a purpose. He thinks that he is advancing, but in fact he is simply accumulating wisdom. This means that he doesn’t advance in fulfilling the new Reshimot but only in developing his egoistic mind. We have to be very careful of that since a person cannot see the exact border between advancing in fulfilling the new Reshimot and the development of his egoistic mind.

Therefore, it says, “Straight are the ways of the Lord.” If a person relates to this correctly, then he will go through them like a “righteous.” If he doesn’t, then he will descend and leave the spiritual path. The main thing is to check whether you can attribute every moment to the fulfillment of the goal, which means to attain the attribute of bestowal above reason.
[101571]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/13

Related Material:
Not Entitled To A Day Off
Asking For Correction Of Our Own Freewill
Always Ask For More

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

All our work comes down to revealing a deficiency within us. It is because even before we begin to do something, the Creator has already prepared everything and is in a state of absolute rest. On His part there is always the readiness. He is only waiting for every opportunity a person gives Him, which means when he reveals an additional deficiency that is attained by his own powers, and not that which the Creator has evoked in him.

Therefore, there must be some addition to our response that is our own. But where can this response come from if we exist in the Godly system that the Creator has arranged for us? Where can I add something of my own in response? How?

The only way I can add something of my own is to exert myself on my level—not on a level above me—by connecting and by somehow spurring one another. Only due to the fact that I can awaken the others by physical actions and they awaken me can we create an additional awakening towards the upper on our part. By that we are actually correcting the shattering, correcting the gaps between us, by influencing the spiritual level from the corporeal level.

On the spiritual level, the Creator performs the correction, but we only have to start the work of connection and then the Creator completes it. In the corrected, connected vessel, we begin to discover Him.

Thus we rise, each time requiring a stronger connection under conditions that become more special, more difficult, and toward a higher sense of unity. Therefore, it says that all our freewill is in choosing the environment. By such actions a person is evoked and evokes internally more qualitative passion and desire towards the attribute of bestowal. Each time he discovers a clarion from Above that comes from the Creator calling him and summoning him to connect and to ascend. Therefore, by building a collective vessel, a person is rewarded with the revelation of the attribute of bestowal in this vessel, which is called the revelation of the Creator that is dressed and revealed in the created being.
[101564]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Waking Up Without Making A Move
Grateful For The Awakening From Above
Was I Here Already?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Unity - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 2: In order to clear all that up, we need to make some preliminary inquiries. And not, God forbid, where it is forbidden, in the Creator’s essence, of which we have no thought or perception whatsoever, and thus have no thought or utterance of Him, but where the inquiry is a Mitzva (commandment/good deed), the inquiry of His deeds. It is as the Torah commands us: “Know thou the God of thy father and serve Him,” and as it says in the poem of unification, “By your actions we know you.”

At the beginning of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam raises five major questions that a person faces on his way to spirituality, and then he adds preliminary inquiries to them that are meant “to clean things up.” After all, my questions are accompanied by confusion and are surrounded by trash and “weeds” that prevent my understanding, clear examination, arrangement of everything in its place, and the ability to differentiate things.

It is as if I search in a dirty messy place, and so the first thing I must do is clean it up and find out what it is exactly that I am looking for, where exactly, why, and according to which rules. This means that there are many additional conditions that I have to discover in order to clarify my questions and to find the answers and filling for them.

So we first get rid of everything that is redundant; we get rid of it simply, and have no contact with the Creator while we search. The Giver remains up there out of reach because He is not dressed in the matter of our desire so we cannot study Him. From the “Preface to The Book of Zohar” we know that we can study and investigate only matter and form dressed in matter; if we can dress our matter with the form of giving, then from it—which means from the Creator’s actions “by Your actions we know you”—we can study Him.

It is about the actions that He performs on me by having created me. From that moment on, I begin to work on the inner changes, having connected to Him, until I attain the whole process, until the end of my correction. Thus I get to know Him better, and He operates on me more and more. At the end of my correction, I reach the exact same form He has and the upper is completely dressed in me.

Thus, “by Your actions we know You,” I don’t know Him but His image that is dressed in me by his actions. This is the origin of the word “Bore – Creator,” which means “Bo-reh – come and see.”

We solve many problems this way: We immediately stop “floating in the clouds” in an attempt to study the upper and “come down to the ground,” to the basis of everything. It is because the main thing for us is to discover the Creator.

All our other actions are arranged around that, our whole life, all of reality. All this is only so that the created being will discover the Creator.

So we have to remember that we are innately limited by our very form. Only by the Creator’s actions can we know Him, as it says: “by Your actions we know You.” This approach solves many philosophical problems, and besides, it sets me in the right direction showing me that it is I who needs to change and not the Creator. I have to act in order to discover His actions; all the beginnings are in me. I am the changing element in the system. It is the most important thing.

We are not speaking about Atzmuto, about Ein Sof (Infinity), about eternity, about wholeness, about the absolute. It is only I who discovers the Creator according to the changes in me; it clears things up from the confusion and the usual trash and brings us closer to the right implementation.

Question: Why do we attain the Creator by His actions, as it says: “We know You by Your actions?”

Answer: If you tell me about your mother, I will probably hear about what a great cook she is and how she takes care of you. You are telling me about her actions but not actually about her! Try to take the actions out of the story and you will see that it is impossible.

Question: So what are the Creator’s actions?

Answer: You are His action. It is His deed; this is how we are made, unable to attain anything except for His actions. It is only His actions and not their essence that we see and it is only about His actions that we speak.
[101500]
From the 4^th part of Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

Related Material:
What’s Behind The Curtain
Reality Is Created By Actions
Pursuing A Mirage

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

The Writings of Rabash, Vol 1, Article 19, “The Matter of Joy”: And now he doesn’t want from the Creator that He will give him something. So he’s not asking something from the Creator. And all his aim now is that he only wants to give thanks to the Creator. It is found that he has now adhesion with the Creator because he is occupied with bestowal. So by this, from within the adhesion, the state of joy and completion is attracted to him from the force that he is now in adhesion with the whole.

But how is it possible to adhere in completeness. I feel inside myself total deficiencies and there is no adhesion in the whole. I would be willing to adhere to the whole like a baby that adheres to his mother, but what is revealed to me is an opposite picture, completely not whole: lack in everything, there is nothing, the “left line” in its most extreme form. And then “above my reason,” I adhere to the Creator. This is called “Dvekut – adhesion” to the whole. In spite of this full and complete opposite in my mind and heart, I rise to completion, and in the equivalence, I reveal Him.

The feeling of completion can ride only on the feeling of lack of completion. It cannot be one without the other. Simply, these two extreme things are not revealed in me together, rather intermittently: once night and once day, once evening, and once morning… This is how I roll between them until all these things are connected to one state in which all the components are supporting each other: “And there is no difference between “night” and “day” and “darkness will illuminate like light” and then it will be for me a day that is all good, “24 hours” of completion.

Question: But what completion is there if inside of me there is a war?

Answer: On the contrary, I don’t feel the war, rather pleasure, because only in this form do I rise above doubts and find myself in bestowal. Precisely this ascent above my inner resistance, above the collision within me, is proving that I live in the truth and not in a lie.

Question: What are the signs of this wholeness?

Answer: That I don’t need anything except this state. In my vessels dwells TzimTzum Aleph (the first restriction) and total emptiness, darkness, like a “black hole,” and above it, I assemble and stabilize wholeness where the light is pouring, where all of me is found in bestowal.

This way all my darkness, all my “black hole,” if I use it correctly by rising above it, suddenly becomes a source of Light of Infinity.

I necessarily need this dipole of two opposites of infinite minus and infinite plus. Only in this condition am I certain that I hold to the truth. Conversely, if the plus is not riding above the minus, then this is not the “middle line” and then I simply have no criteria for measurement. The joy is always being checked facing the deficiency, wholeness facing lack of wholeness. And only from within the darkness, I achieve the Light.
[101327]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, The Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Adhesion Is Always A Surprise
The Concealment Of Perfection And Even Of Its Absence
The Joy Of Bestowal, From Which The Concealment Retreats

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 241, “Call ye upon Him While He is Near,” (Isaiah 55:6): We must understand what “while He is near” means, since “the whole earth is full of His glory”! Thus, He is always near, so what does “while He is near” mean? It would seem that there is a time when He is not near.

Similarly, one who has lost the good way and entered a bad place, and has already accustomed himself to live among beasts, from the perspective of the will to receive, it would never occur to him that he should return to a place of reason and Sanctity. Yet, when he hears the voice calling him, he awakens to repent.

Hence, when the Creator wishes to bring him out of the dense forest, He shows him a remote Light, and the person gathers the remains of his strength to walk on the path that the Light shows him, in order to attain it.

But if one does not ascribe the Light to the Creator, and does not say that the Creator is calling him, then the Light is lost from him, and he remains standing in the forest…

Everything depends on our preparation, to the extent that we yearn to discover the attribute of bestowal, which is called to discover the Creator. To this extent, we begin to hear the Creator’s voice calling us and inviting us to Him, giving us different signs of His coming near us. However, a person only can feel them when he imagines the goal that he wants to attain correctly, the attribute of bestowal that is above his attribute of receiving, and not something else. This is called having “faith above reason.”

However, if a person has not corrected himself yet, he cannot feel or believe that it is the Creator calling him and he thinks that these are coincidental occurrences or that he simply has awakened by himself. He doesn’t understand that it is the Creator’s voice calling him by pulling him toward the attribute of bestowal.

Everything is determined by a person’s preparation. If the preparation was correct and sufficient, if a person has exerted himself enough and has filled his measure, then he begins to feel how the Creator invites him in every opportunity he encounters.

If a person makes efforts, then, eventually, he sees that the Creator is waiting for him around every corner, inviting that person to Him through giving different signs and clues. Thus, the connections between them are formed, and the person becomes the Creator’s partner. To the extent that the Creator is attracted to the person, that person also is attracted to the Creator, to mutual bestowal, until they meet and embrace one another.

Here, everything depends on a person’s preparation. At first, a person doesn’t even feel that he is lost in the dark forest. He is looking for the wrong place and thinks that he can break through by himself and attain what he desires by himself. Or, he simply may wait for someone to come and save him—there is also this phase along the way. It takes time until he manages to identify the Creator’s voice and understand that it is really the Creator calling him.

Then, they connect, and the Creator saves the person because the person already understands what true salvation is.
[101495]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13

Related Material:
A Step Forward
“Call Upon Him While He Is Near”
Listen To The Creator’s Hints

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception - No Comments →

Rabash, Article 19, “The Matter of Joy”: This means that the joy is a result of a certain reason. So what is the reason, so that the reason can be evoked in order to bring us joy?

And accordingly, the intention to follow the right line as much as one can is called “wholeness.” And a person is already in a state of wholeness, which is called “equivalence.” Which means that the whole, which is the person, is now adhered to the Whole, as it says: “The blessed adheres to the blessed and the damned adheres to the damned.

Of course, we cannot feel anything spiritual if it is not by its opposite form. Internally we lack wholeness, we lack control, we are powerless and under the complete control of the egoistic desire to receive that calls for the domination of all the good in the world, but we transcend this and “restrict” ourselves, holding on only to the desire to bestow as we value it more and more.

This means that joy comes as a result of our feeling of great frustration, disappointed in our own desires. We are very happy that we have found a desire, the Creator’s intention, which we can use to control our desires. There is a great gap created between what we are and the Creator’s essence. We acquire His vessels and then our vessels can connect to His vessels.

Thus, a great void is formed between the two opposites, which we can now fill with bestowal. We are filled by bestowal and this brings us joy.

In The Book of Zohar it is written, (Genesis. Item 159): “the induction of the posterior, which is a call was so strong, until all his levels were lost and he became an ordinary man, Shimon from the market, and he acknowledged that it is a call and an invitation for a very sublime attainment.”

All the spiritual discernments ride on the great contrasts. It is in the gap, in the disparity between them and the connection between them above reason, that the new vessel is revealed, that is not part of our nature and which is a vessel of bestowal in which joy is revealed.

The Light that is revealed in the vessel that receives in order to bestow is the “Light of Life.” And its inner essence that is created by identifying and adhering to the Creator is felt as joy. It is a result of a good deed, which means of the act of bestowal.
[101331]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Joy Of Bestowal, From Which The Concealment Retreats
A Key To Happiness
Adhesion Is Always A Surprise

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Rabash, “And He Shall Cogitate in His Torah (Teachings)”: And so we read in the Megillah “and after all this the king raised Haman.” Literally it is hard to understand, after all, after what Mordecai did, which was good for the king, the king should raise Mordecai and not Haman, and this needs to be explained…

When a person cannot see the true face of his evil, which means the true form of Haman, then a person cannot pray to the Creator, so that He should save him from evil. Only when a person sees the greatness of Haman, who wants to kill and to destroy all the Jews, which means that Haman wanted to destroy everything that belonged to Judaism, which doesn’t let him do anything that is related to Holiness, then he can raise a true prayer. Then the verse “the Creator helps him” is fulfilled.

Only if we yearn for unity like Mordecai who evoked the yearning for unity by discovering the plot against the unity and killing it (two of the king’s courtiers who betrayed him), then Haman is evoked. The evil inclination faces the good inclination, the desire to receive rises facing the desire to bestow, and a struggle between them begins inside a person.

Only by raising and empowering the good force does the evil force grow, and then we raise the good again and evil also grows. This process continues until we reach a state in which we have to make a decision in this struggle. We cannot ask the good inclination, since it doesn’t need anything, it doesn’t want anything, but only to bestow every chance it gets. So we always ask the evil inclination, and then we do the opposite.

This is called working in faith above reason. We know how our desire to receive feels and follow faith above reason. Otherwise we have no way of imagining what the spiritual world is, what it means to be above myself, what it means to bestow. But we know that it is opposite from our egoistic desire to receive, which we know very well.

So when the desire to bestow grows, we have to raise the desire to receive and to ask it what it thinks should be done, and then do the opposite! That’s the way it works.

It is because we don’t see the image of the good; we don’t have an image by which we can resemble the Creator. The only way is to form it as an opposite image of the desire to receive. Therefore we were given an environment that should help us turn the desire to receive, which means the intention to receive into an intention to bestow. This is called “to repent,” to return to the Creator, the rising of Malchut to Bina.

We have no idea what the image of the good is but only that is it the opposite of evil.
[101340]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13

Related Material:
The Right Hat
Celebrating The Victory Of Intention
Don’t Believe The Sweet Promises Of Haman

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Torah - No Comments →

Question: You speak about self-annulment as a means for growing and advancing. However, don’t concessions during an argument usually show that I am weak?

Answer: I certainly don’t concede because of weakness, but because I want to advance in my marital relationship with and in life in general.

In this way, I develop myself and approach a positive state. I gain by that since, by that, I expand and feel life more finely.

I give my spouse a cup of tea, but I don’t lose it, rather, I receive a cup that is twice as big. After all, by that, I acquire her desires, her aspirations, her dreams, and their fillings!

I enjoy the pleasure that she receives just like a mother enjoys the pleasure she gives her baby. We all know that a mother enjoys the sweet she brings her baby much more than the baby does.

Thanks to my concessions, I acquire new vessels, opportunities to feel pleasure. You may ask why people go to stadiums to cheer their favorite team if they can watch the game quietly at home on TV.

But in the stadium you are surrounded by thousands of people and so you enjoy the collective excitement, the incorporation. It expands your vessels of perception, your senses. You become as big as the thousands around you who are cheering and jumping.

I’m sure you agree that it isn’t the same as staying at home, lying on the couch, and watching a football game on TV.

Question: What will concessions at home bring to my success?

Answer: If you come home from work hungry, sit down to have dinner and your child asks you for a piece of what’s on your plate, you give it to him gladly, it isn’t a concession.

After all, you are acting according to your will. Must a mother go against her will in order to take care of her baby? If it were so, we would have to place a policeman next to every mother to make sure that the child doesn’t die of hunger.

So, such actions are not called self-annulment. However, if your wife asks you to do something and you feel reluctant, that is a different thing. In the first case, the self-annulment brings you pleasure, and in the second case, it is a burden.

There is no need to teach people how to concede to their beloved children. It happens naturally.

However, you must learn how to concede to your spouse so as to not act instinctively, but rather, to begin managing your own development by yourself.

Question: But if I concede, it means that I am not in control, but my wife is.

Answer: You will perceive it in a totally different manner. It all depends on how important you feel it is. If a baby were less important to a mother than herself, she would refuse to take care of him and would think about herself. However, because nature has made the baby more important to her than herself, the mother is ready to do anything for him.

Now, we must think about how to force ourselves to concede and to accept the desire of our spouse above our own desires. In order to do that, the reward that you get should be greater so that it will tilt the scale.

Suppose she says, “If you wash the dishes now instead of me, we will go together to where you wanted to go.” Then, you concede, wash the dishes, and you go out together. This means that the goal justifies the means. If that is so, we must increase the goal so that it will be the justification for our actions.

We need an environment that will value the goal and show us the advantages of advancing in this direction. Besides that, we also will see that we can avoid different problems that constantly trouble us if we follow this path.

All these claims should form such a connection that I will not be able to break the commitment to fulfill this. There must be constant social pressure that will sustain me and remind me that it is worthwhile to act this way.

Thus, I advance in every aspect: Internally, I develop my personality and improve my relationship with the environment, at work, and with the entire world. The main thing in this entire process is the influence of the environment since a person finds it hard to even lift a finger when his wife asks for it.

If he did something for himself, he wouldn’t encounter such problems. He would be ready to serve himself. However, to serve someone else and to accept the will of another is already a big problem. However, he must think right away about what he does this for and what he gains. The gain should be mutual. So, let’s agree and constantly act one with regard to the other. I am for you, and you are for me.
[101008]
From a “Talk About New Life” 7/25/12

Related Material:
A New Era Of Family Relations
A Strong Connection On The Basis Of A Double Ego
The Shared Space In Which A Family Is Born

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Family, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

There is a system which in our perception of reality is depicted as the current reality of this world. In it a person has books that were written by Kabbalists in the past, a teacher who is a Kabbalist, friends, the whole world, and the Creator who is concealed, meaning the attribute of bestowal that is opposite from everything a person discovers in his five senses. Except for this attribute, everything is at his disposal.

So how can we use all the means we have correctly, in order to reach the general attribute of bestowal?

It is external to a person, outside his “vessel,” and he can acquire it with the help of three components: books, the group, and the teacher. With their help he fulfills the study, dissemination, and the connection.

The combination of all these things brings a person to turn his vessels, his desires, from receiving to bestowal. He discovers increasingly more egoistic vessels that he turns to “in order to bestow,” according to his efforts and exertion.

What are these efforts and exertion?

A person holds on to the right intention during the study, connects with the friends in the group, and follows the advice of the teacher without which he doesn’t know how to work with the books and the group. On the whole, these three components are called “Torah,” which means a study, a method, a means for attaining the attribute of bestowal.

From that we choose the right actions and the right relations by combining the books the group and the teacher in them. Thus a person reaches oppositeness, by rising “above his reason” above his mind and feelings, towards the next level…
[101113]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
Drawing Strength From The Upper World
You Will Get More Than You Asked For!
How Can We Get To Know The Creator?

Filed under: Books, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Teacher - No Comments →

Question: What causes the delays in the spiritual work?

Answer: There are delays that are intentionally given to us from Above, but these are not delays along our way but beneficial interruptions called “help against.”

Interruptions that don’t help us to advance are not “help against,” but are actually real delays that a person is responsible for since he is the one who creates them because he does not use the means he was given and doesn’t arrange for the support of the environment. This is the reason for the delays, and so there are beneficial delays and there are delays that hold us back and draw us away from the goal.

A spiritual action doesn’t take long if a person arranges the forces, the means, the environment, and the whole system in advance. Then he responds in “real time,” which means only with the delay that was intended on the part of the Creator taking into account a person’s attributes. Therefore, it is not considered a delay.

Let’s say I was supposed to clarify a certain question in two days since that’s the time it takes for the processes I go through naturally. If I did it in two days, it means that I didn’t cause any delay and that I advanced normally. Therefore, the time of a person’s spiritual correction is called “60 years,” “70 years” or “80 years.”

But if I don’t mobilize all the means I was given in order to respond correctly, then it is I who cause the delay. Then delays can be expressed not only in time, but also in many layers of thoughts and strange calculations in which I wrap myself, and thus become blocked, unable to decipher correctly the Creator’s contact with me. It is as if I become blind and deaf and cannot make the necessary clarifications and thus get stuck in this state for a long time. These are the obstacles that a person creates by himself which prolong his advancement.

So we should constantly hold on to the right environment called “the teacher, group, and books,” which is the only means through which a person can connect to the Creator.
[101110]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

Related Material:
Please Do Not Linger, Move Forward!
A Temporary Retreat In Order To Leap Ahead Once Again
A Feather Bed Is Not An Interruption On The Way To Spirituality

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →