Lately we have been speaking a lot about self-annulment. And this is no accident; I hope that we really are approaching it. Even though the ego is propelling us, we need to be directed to adhesion.

At the time of adhesion with the upper, I see myself as a part of some machine and I need to connect to it with each cell, each organ, every part of my “body” so as to integrate exactly into the work of this machine.

I don’t have a “head,” meaning, self-understanding; I need to annul all my thoughts, all my calculations, and all my desires. My only pleasure, my singular intention, and my singular desire are directed at how to integrate with this machine. Let everything pass through me, but I do not participate in it to begin with. I do everything as if I do not exist. They will activate me 100%, not only will they tell me what to do, but they will also activate me; this is called self-annulment.

After that comes disagreement, criticism, bad impulses, clarification, disappointments, complaints…and together with all this, I need to annul myself all the time to participate in the work of this machine. I find myself in it “outstretched and open to it as if I do not exist, and even though the desire and the mind begin to work inside me, I, with all this, still continue to annul myself. That’s how the fetus grows inside the womb: The Light of Ein Sof passes through me, but I take it only in the Behinat Nefesh.

The fetus annuls himself in the level of Nefesh, in the level of still, in Aviut Shoresh, the root level of the desire. Precisely because of that, all the Lights of NRNHY de Nefesh can pass through me. All his work in Mocha and Liba, mind and heart, in Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE) and AHP, in all his participation with Partzuf Ima, with Bina, is by him annulling himself. No matter how many thoughts and desires will pass through him, no matter how much he will be confused, no matter what obstacles will stand in his way, he continues to annul himself, and by that he is able to be part of the “body” of Ima (mother), to be inside her.

The fetus does not activate itself in any way even though all its parts are growing. They grow and work in annulment. The mother does everything through the umbilical cord, and the fetus completely annuls itself; each part of the fetus works only in annulment. Otherwise, he is not ready to be born; he could not become a complete newborn. He still doesn’t have the form of “man.” Therefore, he must finish his work of annulment toward the upper.

He moves, his heart, his lungs, and all the rest of his parts are working properly, but only in annulment. We don’t understand this, we think that this is simply a small man and that everything works in a regular way, but the whole form of the work is in annulment towards the upper. Otherwise birth is in danger.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: What symbolizes the correction in three lines?

Answer: Correction in three lines is the ability to differentiate the influence of the Light, the desire to bestow (right line), from the influence of the desire to receive (left line), and the ability to be in the middle between them, in order to couple them and connect them together in the middle line.

If a person works in above reason in order to connect his vessels of reception with the force of bestowal that exists in him, this means that he is the middle line, in his middle point and is doing corrections in three lines.

In this case, he does not use his real Malchut, but only Malchut that rises to Yesod. It means that he scrutinizes the vessels, which will be in the correct connection and participation of Malchut and Bina. Correction in three lines is possible only after the second restriction (Tzimtzum Bet) when it is clear to us that Malchut is not capable of receiving any Light in herself, but only under the condition that she rises to the level of Bina. (Rising in spirituality symbolizes correction.)

At the time that Malchut rises to Bina, they partially connect. Malchut clarifies which of its qualities it can use in order to be in contact with the Light, with the Keter.

In order to be similar to Keter and to be bestowing like the Keter, it must connect with Bina and become similar to her, the same as Bina. At the time of Bina expanding from top to bottom, she wanted to be similar to Keter with all the depth of her coarseness (Aviut). A correct joining between Malchut and Bina brings Malchut to the calculation in the middle line.

It cannot be a prayer (MAN) without correction of three lines. However, the upper receives our prayer the first time when we request the first contact and are ready to turn into a spiritual fetus that annuls and restricts itself completely. Meanwhile, we don’t have correction of three lines. But later we start the period of the “three days of the absorption of semen” in which the three lines: right, left, and middle are created. From here onward begins the development of these three lines.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: Hence, those with attainment can compose books and put their attainments to writing in intimations and allegories. They will be understood by all who have been rewarded with the degrees that the books describe, and they will have common attainment with them. But those who have not been rewarded with the full measure of the degree as the authors will not be able to understand their intimations. It is even more so with those who have not been rewarded with any attainment; they will not understand a thing about them, as they have no common attainments.

If a person attains something, then according to his understanding he can imagine and clarify, at least a little, what Kabbalists on other levels feel. But of course, a person who has not been through the levels that the books speak about cannot understand what they are like. Of course, if a person is only in this world and has not acquired any spiritual attainment on any level, he will certainly not be able to imagine correctly anything that is said in Kabbalah books.

Question: Can we say that two people who are in the same spiritual world attain the same level of annulment?

Answer: But each one does only in his own way and according to his specific measure.

Question: So in what way is their annulment equal and in what way are they different?

Answer: Suppose I started studying in a university together with my clever talented friend; he is clever and I am not so clever, and so we are each required to make different efforts. He, along with his study, manages to have fun and to look for work; everything is easy for him, while poor me, I have to sweat over my books from morning to night and don’t see the light of day. Eventually we both graduate: He has a diploma and I have a diploma. This is what usually happens in our world.

But in spirituality it’s different; the whole point is the efforts a person makes. I feel the level that I acquire to the full depth of NRNHY, while he attains the minimal level of Nefesh. Therefore it says, “The reward is according to one’s sorrow.” The sorrow in this case is a person’s exertion. This is the way the opposite value between Lights and vessels is arranged.

Question: So what does it mean to be in the same world with someone?

Answer: We are on the same level, but the depth, the recognition, the understanding, the reasons, and the outcomes are different for each of us. On every level there are the Lights of NRNHY, the Sefirot KHB-ZON, the levels of the still nature, the vegetative, the animate and the speaking. A cat lives in our world just like us, but what does it understand compared to us? It’s the same in spirituality: What will a desire on the level of a “cat” understand and feel?

Question: If two people worry about one another and each one does his best, how can their effort be compatible?

Answer: Each one’s specific personal force doesn’t change, just like stem cells. It is rather the efforts and the exertion that change: to what extent each one has made efforts and is incorporated in everyone. If I am incorporated in everyone at my root point, at the end of correction I attain what you attain and we are totally adhered. But each of us can reach this adhesion from this root point.

Thus we differ in the initial “root” point in which there is no thickness (no “thickness” of the desire), but only the difference, the root, the posterior of Nefesh of Kedusha. We take everything else from the whole general vessel, eventually, we become equal in our attainment, in our understanding, in everything, but each one still sees it from his initial point. We remain different, the root disparity that comes from the Creator remains, and from it we begin to see and to discover His richness and variedness.

Question: The picture at the end of correction is clear, but what happens along the way?

Answer: All the friends are in the same world, but each one thinks and understands differently. Each one has his own abilities and skills: one is more talented in music or in painting, another writes books, and another makes movies, and still another only knows how to fix a flat tire. It’s the same in spirituality: At the end of correction there are no differences, but in the intermediate levels during the ascent, everyone attains the world in his own way, of course.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: What can a woman do if dissemination takes 5-6 hours a day and there is no time left for group work, in particular, to participate in workshops? How can we prioritize our time?

Answer: I think that one must necessarily devote a certain amount of time to their inner work. Although dissemination to the general public is very important because without it we will not advance, but if you do not pay attention to internal spiritual advancement, it’s not good.

You will fall behind in the material; you will not be with everyone as in one team, etc. We must still prioritize so that the inner work, meaning participation in women’s workshops, in general lessons and workshops, does not suffer because of external dissemination. You should tighten the schedule and not miss our general activities, especially workshops.

But without dissemination, it’s impossible as well, not because someone calls us to it, but rather because we reveal internally those gaps that will be filled with the upper Light. If we study without passing it to others, we remain just empty smart alecks because only mechanical knowledge will enter us, but not spiritual.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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Question: In what vessel does a person discover spirituality?

Answer: In the Returning Light, which means in bestowal, when he worries about the other more than about himself, when the other is more important to him than he is.

Question: What does a person have to annul in order to acquire the spiritual vessel?

Answer: Thoughts about himself. How can I, who can only think about myself, switch to a state in which I will totally change myself for the good of others? Where can I get such a desire? Where can I find the powers to make such an effort?

Here the Light that Reforms helps me. It’s called the “miracle of the exodus from Egypt:” I take my feelings (heart) and mind out of the control of my desire, of the caring for myself and put them into the other. Of course, I can’t do this by myself. A prisoner can’t release himself from prison, and you can’t pull yourself by the hair out of a swamp. After all, the desire and worrying about myself are all that I have.

But the Light comes and takes this concern out of the desire and puts it into someone else. Then I begin to care about him like a mother worries about her baby. After all, the same thing happens with her, but on an egoistic level: It’s as if she is hypnotized in her concern for her baby, looking at him all the time and worrying about him. If we didn’t know about such processes in this world we might think that she had lost her mind.

This is also the work of the Light, but a mother is not required to ask to be able to love her baby, she is simply given this love from Above. In our case, however, it’s different. A person is given a choice, “Do you want to remain on the “animal” level? Go ahead. But if you want to rise to the spiritual level, then you need to activate this force.”

You need to constantly improve, become wiser, and, in short, you need to acquire the Creator’s mind in order to activate Him. This is the difference between the two levels—the fact that you activate Him. It’s about this that it says: “My sons have defeated me.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: If I have to totally annul myself by remaining as one point while everything else comes from the Creator, where is the volume in which I feel my existence, my spiritual reality?

Answer: This is called the “spiritual world.” Think only about how to penetrate it. Your existence there begins after you cease to exist. When you cease to exist in your current form, you will appear there.

Now it seems unclear, but from this negative form you already begin to move towards the Light; you have the feeling that this place may actually exist and is real, but that it’s beyond the Machsom (barrier), beyond the border after which the “I” אוי(: aleph – nun- yod) becomes “no I” (אין: aleph – yod – nun).

This point of “no I” is in the new space that is felt by this negative form as a very solid, strong field, that fills it and that is essential. But with regard to the previous state, with regards to my egoistic “I,” it is called “no I” and this fills me with joy.

In our world joy is felt as a filling in the desire to receive, but in spirituality joy is felt as “in Him our heart shall rejoice.” I am very happy that you have such thoughts and that they make you suffer since you feel disoriented. Later you will feel the joy when you attain the goal. Now you have to be happy that you are on the way to it and that you have at least risen above your ego a little. The stronger the Light shines and the more the group strengthens you, the more you can rejoice that you have transcended yourself.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion for The Zohar“: The soul is like that, too: After it has acquired equivalence with Him, it knows His Thoughts once more, as it knew prior to the separation from Him due to the will-to-receive’s disparity of form.

Question: What are the Creator’s thoughts?

Answer: As it is written, “By Your actions, we shall know You” or, in other words, from my actions, I will get to know the Creator.

I try to act “in order to bestow,” to perform actions of bestowal, but I cannot. I ask for help and I get it. There are changes in me whose essence and root I don’t understand. I exert myself and become like the Creator according to my understanding of the sources and the examples that the group presents to me. Thus, I study the Torah, which means the method, the system, the actions of the Creator who is concealed in the Torah. By imitating His actions, I begin to know Him, to know His attributes of love and bestowal.

Today, I interpret the words according to my understanding, not knowing their real meaning. Then, through my corrected desires, I really will get to know the Creator. It is because the corrected desire feels a kind of an awakening inside called “Light.” Generally speaking, such desires create the Creator’s image for me in a way. It isn’t a figure and not a drawing, not a form, but I simply understand what the attribute of bestowal is, the attribute of love. I understand it as a result of my corrected actions.

Therefore, it is written, “By Your actions, we know You.” By my corrected actions aimed at bestowal, I perceive the concept of “the Creator.” In that system, I am connected and, later, adhere to Him; thus, “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one.” “Israel” refers to the person who yearns for bestowal. ”The Torah” refers to my inner system of connection, the system of the soul, its 613 corrupt desires that I must correct by the Lights that evoke it. Then, the vessels and the Lights work together. When the vessel and the Light equalize in the direction of bestowal, it means that the Torah is revealed in me.

I work systematically on the five levels of Aviut (the “thickness” of the desire) and go through stages of attaining the Torah, by starting from Sod and ending in Pshat when everything is revealed and I have not only the Lights of NRNHY, but also the Light of Yechida, not different kinds of vessels, but the vessel of Keter. By that, I return to complete adhesion, but I return by myself with a Light that is 620 times greater than the initial Light, and, by that, I correct my vessels. I increase them 620-fold, and, by that, I know the Creator. First, I was in Him in the form of a point that He created as “something from nothing,” and now, with His help that comes as a result of my asking, I develop this point by myself from the “drop,” and stand in His place, equal to Him on the level of Adam (a human being).

Question: The Creator has one thought, which means that I must be incorporated in everyone and insert in them the one thought that is directed at Him.

Answer: Otherwise, I will not be able to put my soul together. It includes all the other souls in it. I am just a point, and, in order to build my soul, I need to attach everyone to it.

Question: What is hidden in my soul that is aimed at the Creator?

Answer: For the time being, I have a shattered Reshimo (spiritual gene), a spark, the posterior of Nefesh of Kedusha, which means a beneficial desire. The beginning of the previous connection with the Creator was revealed to me in a shattered form. I want to gain at His expense, to use Him.

Thus, the spiritual awakening appears in a person. I want to gain something, and, at a certain point, I cannot find anything satisfying in the entire world. How long can you play in this “sand box?” I want to grow and do real stuff, and then I search egoistically for a partnership with the Creator on equal terms. “You are for me and I am for You. I know that I must pay. Oh well, I agree, but what will I get in return?” This is already a state of Lo Lishma (not for His sake).

Question: So, what is our general corrected thought?

Answer: It is total identification with the Creator, an “embrace,” a “kiss,” “coupling,” which, on the whole, is called adhesion.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Baal HaSulam, “Letter 34”: Even those who were awarded with forgiveness for their sins, which turn into rights, in which it turns out that there is no flaw, will still need more power to stand in the King’s palace, which means to stand and pray and wait, without getting tired… until they acquire a complete desire from the Creator.

And so we have to learn this art before we enter the King’s palace, which means the palace of power and might, and stand as an iron pillar…

Question: Why does Baal HaSulam say that a person must stand like an iron pillar if we know that, on the contrary, we should reach a state when we despair of our own powers?

Answer: If a person despairs of his own powers, it doesn’t mean that he becomes weak. He doesn’t cry out of weakness, but is rather joyful as a hero for having risen above all his egoistic powers (the “shells“) that used to confuse him and draw him in different directions. After all, he is standing in front of the Creator now, asking for help!

So, why does it seem that he should reach total exhaustion? He understands that he cannot enter the spiritual world by his own powers since it is a totally different nature. However, he knows that he was helped from Above every step of the way and, thus, brought toward the spiritual world, and he actually is standing at its doorstep.

He is sure that, with the help of the Creator, who gave him the power to overcome the egoistic forces (Klipot – shells), he is now totally free.

If he doesn’t have the power to take the step into the spiritual world, it doesn’t mean that he is weak; it is just the realization of the fact. But the fact that every time he tried to advance with the Creator’s help means that he is a hero. A hero is not someone who foolishly fights using his own powers.

Overcoming is a war against myself, against my desire to do everything by myself, to determine everything by myself, as if there were other forces besides the Creator. It is the greatest foolishness to think that we should win by ourselves. Then, a person feels happy that he has fought and won this war.

He has won not because of his own powers. The reason why he wanted to start this war didn’t come from him, and the request for help from the Creator and the situation that was created afterward also is not to his credit.

So, why is he called a hero? It is because he has passed through all the stages along the way and, thanks to them, has adhered to the only Upper. This is what it means to win this war. Being a hero is to discover that “There is none else besides Him,” despite all the disturbances.

So, it depends on what we call “weakness.” A person clearly doesn’t have the powers to fight against himself, but he attains that he has no powers and that everything is done with the help of the Creator who has given him the powers with which a person builds himself the image of Adam (human), which resembles (Domeh) the Creator.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: If a person must be ready to remain in a state of “smallness,” where can he get the desire and the motivation to advance?

Answer: But I want to advance in order to be more like the Creator! The Creator is an example of humility for us. I must reach a state in which I feel as if I don’t exist, just as the Creator does not exist for me now. Thus, I become like Him.

It seems that I really must fight myself in order to attain this, but this a wonderful war since in it, I need the Creator so that He will fight in my place. If I fought this war by myself, I would be in a critical situation.

However, since I need the Creator’s help, it makes me extremely happy. It is because, now, I have the reason to turn to Him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How is it possible to integrate nullification of yourself towards the group and the desire to understand the meaning of the text being studied?

Answer: One feeling does not cancel the other. I have to yearn together with everyone to connect in one common point. In this point of connection where we are together, we feel some phenomenon that is called Malchut.

First of all, everyone’s yearning to integrate together with everyone else is required. For this, the following components are needed: self-nullification, greatness of the goal, and importance of the friends and of the group. I have to focus all of this together and yearn for that point of general connection.

Other people participate together with me in this yearning. We act together, each one nullifies what he has. We leave this whole world at the bottom and all of us strive forward. Through our connection, we want to form the vessel of bestowal from which our relation to the Creator, the desire to bestow, will be born.

Then, in this yearning to bestow to the Creator, we will begin to feel Him, the upper Light that lands on us and fills us. The more this yearning is clarified, growing according to the thickness of the desire: 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, the more developed it will become. And to the same extent, the force of bestowal, adhesion with the Creator will be revealed in us. This is in fact all of our work.

The question is: How can this yearning to self-annulment and understanding the material be combined? To understand means to know, meaning to reveal or connect. The Sefira Daat (Knowledge) symbolizes connection, as it is said, “And Adam knew Hava (Eve), his wife”.

When I nullify myself at the bottom, I help myself prepare for connection. Without this, I won’t be able to connect with others. In order to rise to the point of connection, I must nullify myself.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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