Question: How should I make sure that the study does not become a “potion of death” for me?

Answer: We have to reach the state in which the study becomes a “potion of death.” In order to do that, I have to discover that I am immersed in my ego and that I hate everyone including the Creator. I see that I don’t want to connect with anyone and to bestow upon anyone. But I know that this is the goal of creation and I have to attain it. This means that I already discover two lines that contradict each other.

Along with my inner understanding of the necessity to reach bestowal, I discover that my nature is opposite from it. Then I discover that it is the “potion of death.” I have to find out that receiving for myself and using others are deadly for me.

I look at the friends’ faces and understand that I want to use them all: I want to be more clever than all of them, more beautiful, more strong, and more successful.

If my approach to each of them weren’t like that, I wouldn’t feel and see that anyone exists at all. I wouldn’t discern him in my sensory organs, since behind my sight there is my ego, and if I don’t intend to use a person for my benefit, I don’t see him at all. He doesn’t exist for me!

So it is a high level if I discover that I am in a state of Lo Lishma (not for Her name) and that I want to use everyone, but understand that it is the “potion of death,” which means the opposite of what it should be. After all, I want the truth, but I exist within this lie. It is a result of a great Light that comes to a man and illuminates on him showing him the real corrupt state he is in and enables him to understand it.
[94423]
From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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Question: What do you mean, “Kabbalists passed the Light to people”? After all, they just changed their perception.

Answer: Kabbalists are the people who cross the Machsom, integrate in the upper system of management, and by their desires to become corrected, bring their activity to this system.

We study this in the system of the upper worlds, which is in a passive state and works as though idling; it has only the Light of Hassadim. And when our corrected egoistic properties become integrated into it, then the Light of Hochma appears there and the system begins to work. As if you add gas, and the engine starts working, not idling; it’s the same thing here.

That is why the Kabbalists who have corrected themselves, being parts of the entire system, both ours and the upper one, added their Light to this system. They added the Light of Hochma on their corrected egoistic desires, and thus the entire system already works on different revolutions. That is, it is capable of accepting us, processing us, and including us into itself; this is their accomplishment.

We are acting today in the same way. Correcting ourselves, we in general do the same for the future generations that follow us. Thus gradually, everyone follows one another.

Therefore, the correction of the world occurs from lighter egoistic qualities to the heavier ones. And people who will come to Kabbalah in a few years to correct themselves will be much more egoistic than we are, but we will prepare the ground for them by drawing the Light into the system of the worlds, which without us would have worked only on the Light of Hassadim, that is, it would have been in the small state (in the state of “Katnut”).
[94410]
From a Virtual Lesson 11/18/12

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Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam brings a quote from Isaiah: “And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them.” When this time comes, who will it be harder for, for the wolf to deal with the lamb or for the lamb to deal with the wolf?

Answer: There is a wolf and a lamb in each of us, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, the desire to bestow is called “a lamb,” and the desire to receive is called “a wolf.” They cannot live together, for lack of mutual agreement. The wolf knows that it can fill himself only by the lamb, and the lamb is afraid that the wolf might eat him. But, on the other hand, the wolf knows that it cannot live without the lamb, and the lamb knows that without the wolf it will not be able to advance and will always remain a lamb.

So it turns out that they cannot exists without one another, and they can neither live with each other, so how can they find the balance between them. So how can the state of “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb exist? How can two opposite desires, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, coexist?

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us: how the wolf and the lamb accept one another and are incorporated in each other. When a person is neither in the desire to receive or the desire to bestow, he receives these two forces as two “angels” and combines them correctly thus drawing the image of the Creator. This is why the Creator is called Bo-re (“Bo-reh,” “Come and see” in Hebrew). This image is made of the force of receiving and the force of bestowal.

Then, and a little boy shall lead them. Which means that the human in me feels that he is little and at the same time organizes everything by constantly building himself and the world around him by the right combination of the two forces, the wolf and the lamb; the middle line is determined between the two lines, the right and the left, on different levels of thickness, and “a little boy” manages this whole combination.
[94400]
From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “The Peace”

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Question: What does mutual guarantee mean? What does mutuality in the group entail?

Answer: Mutual guarantee is when we provide each friend with an absolutely complete feeling of security and confidence to such an extent that we cover his entire egoism and he doesn’t need anything. That is, we give him our respect and love, and treat him in such a way that he no longer thinks about himself and automatically becomes free for the work for everybody.
[93685]
From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Workshop 2

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 42: Indeed, you should know that the reason for our great distance from the Creator, and that we are so prone to transgress His will, is for but one reason, which became the source of all the torment and the suffering that we suffer, and for all the sins and the mistakes that we fail in… “lack of our understanding in His Providence over His creations,” that we do not understand Him properly.

If we could understand the upper Providence, we would discover the upper force and learn what it wants of us, by clarifying the relationship between ourselves and the Creator, and then: Clearly, by removing that reason, we will instantly be rid of any sorrow and pain. We will immediately be granted adhesion with Him in heart, soul, and might.

But we don’t reveal the Creator Himself as people mistakenly believe. Any attainment is only possible by the comparison of attributes, and so the attainment of the Creator refers to resemblance and equivalence to Him according to our attributes. I can only check, measure, and feel Him in relation to myself.

If I want to reveal the Creator, I have to be equal to His attributes in some way, since otherwise I wouldn’t be able to feel Him. But the moment I draw close to Him according to the equivalence of attributes, I begin to discern Him, and then from that moment on I definitely make fewer mistakes and will necessarily change faster.

Even in order to advance towards the very first revelation, to the first feeling of the Creator, I have to change, so my whole way is divided into stages, the first of which is in the “dark,” when I operate and carry out Kabbalists’ advice, believing that by that I will get closer to the Creator. I believe what the books say, and incorporate and participate in the group, taking an example from the friends, and eventually I begin to feel and to discern the upper force a bit.

A kind of inner feeling and an inclination towards the Creator is revealed in me, and then it develops even more. Then I already begin to understand what the books say and what Kabbalists mean. Until then, it may well be that I have just been reading for a decade, but only now do I begin to somehow taste every word.

This text becomes close to me, as if part of me. I understand that it speaks about what is happening inside me.

It is for such moments, such situations, that we should yearn in order not to make mistakes and to understand what the upper force wants of us.
[94316]
From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, ” Exile and Redemption”: The Creator will evidently show us that Israel cannot exist in exile, and will find no rest as the rest of the nations that mingled among the nations and found rest, and assimilated in them, until no trace was left of them.

Even without knowing anything about the upper force, we see that there must be a system here that is clearly written. It is as if a long time ago a sage wrote about it in a book and now it all comes true. No matter what the Jewish people do, and wherever they are, fate will always follow them, control them, and bring about the distorted relations with its neighbors, with the world, and with ourselves. It has no rest.

If this nation doesn’t want to see this system with its built-in software and program, which leads it from the beginning to the end, to the goal, then nothing will help us. On the contrary, if we delve into it, it will be clear that this it the Torah of truth. A transition from a corrupt state to a corrected state, Nature itself, by its development, demands this from us, and the wisdom of Kabbalah explains the phases and the states a person goes through on the way and the actions and the Lights that are part of the process. Woe to our nation if we don’t see the truth in this wisdom and don’t use it. Since then it still follows the same path in the same direction, but it advances in curves under a shower of blows, and by that extends time and increases the sufferings.

In fact, the path is clear, and every move has its right time, and if I don’t fulfill it on time, then yesterday’s uncorrected part is added to today’s part and thus doubles the load. This part doesn’t disappear and we will still have to correct it, but under worse conditions, which stem from the lack of yesterday’s correction. If I don’t correct this today, then tomorrow, under the load of the last two days, the conditions will be much worse and I will have to do the work that is three times greater.

Thus I constantly create greater and more difficult external problems, until I am totally surrounded by enemies who want to annihilate me. At home too, things are getting worse and the outside world surrounds us with hatred, so what can we do?

In addition, internally I feel the hardening of the heart. If before my understanding was purer, and I felt things and fulfilled the corrections, today I don’t care about anything, and I am disappointed and empty…

So if I don’t correct the problem in time, it remains and is added to the load on my back, which thus becomes increasingly heavier. This process is diverse, and it takes place everywhere, in different forms, and eventually the crisis expands and affects our health, our finances, the economy, the environment, the family, the education system, our security, and every other aspect of life…
[94206]
From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/12, “Exile and Redemption”

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Rabash; “Abraham Begot Isaac”: In the Mishna it says, “There are three things the world stands on, the Torah, labor and charity.” Abraham is called “a man of charity,” who devotes his power to do kindness towards people, Isaac is called “the pillar of labor,” who devotes his soul upon the altar. And Jacob is called “the pillar of the Torah,” as it says “give the truth to Jacob,” and the Torah is called the Torah of truth. And so every person should reach these three pillars. First these three pillars were revealed one after the other by our Holy forefathers, as each one revealed one pillar. And after the three pillars were revealed, it is also in our power to follow the same path our forefathers paved for us, and this is why we are called “The Chosen People,” because we have a merit that we have inherited from our forefathers, to observe the three pillars, by which the world can exist, which means that by them the world will exist and reach the goal for which it was created.

The Light created the desire, the Light is total bestowal, and the desire is total receiving, but by the Light, the desire has to change to “to receive in order to bestow.” This means that the Light and the desire have to connect in a special way called “above reason” or “the middle line.”

This combination is done by a person’s choice. Thanks to the fact that a person chooses the right combination each time, he includes it inside him. A “human being” is the system that is made of two parts: a Light and a vessel, a desire to bestow and a desire to receive, and by the fact that a person who is between them can choose and determine the right relation between them, he creates a greater combination between the Light and the vessel inside him.

A person’s work is to check himself and to learn from the Light. In order to do that, he already has to be incorporated of “three lines”: of the Light and the vessel and of the right attitude between them, only then will he be able to know what the Light brings him. This is called Abraham’s work, the first spiritual revelation in our work.

Then we begin to work on the vessel in the left line, in order to understand what our matter is. It is possible to see the gap within the matter only if you have the Light and you know how to work correctly with the vessel. This means that the left line itself is also made of three lines in order to learn about the desire correctly—this is called Isaac’s work.

Then there is the work in the middle line: a combination of the left line and the right line into one line, in order to know exactly what we need to do with these two forces. This is called working in the middle line, Jacob’s work, which is in the state of smallness in the meantime, in the root phase, phase one, and phase two. Then, after the attainment of the state of greatness on the third and fourth levels, this work is already called Israel. These are the phases of a person’s spiritual growth.

A person who advances this way has what we call “patriarchal rights,” which means that he receives the method and fulfills it, and he belongs to the chosen people, since he works according to the “three lines,” understanding that he is the “middle line” that connects the first two lines.

The middle line is called a human being and it is also called the Creator, Zeir Anpin, the middle pillar. On the whole, the middle line is the extent to which a person adheres to the Creator.

It is impossible to work in Holiness, since Holiness is called bestowal. Bestowal is possible only in the right combination between the two lines: the right line and the left line into the middle line.

Therefore it says that the world stands on “three pillars: on the Torah, on labor, and on charity” if we look at the process of the correction of the world on our part, from the bottom up. The Torah is the middle line, Jacob, the labor is the left line, Isaac, and charity is Abraham, the right line.
[94212]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/12

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Question: What is the difference between exile and the state of Lo Lishma?

Answer: A person feels that he is in exile after having been on a high level, and so he can understand that now he has descended into exile. Exile is a descent, after a person has understood something, felt something, has been in contact with the Creator, now he feels that he is detached from all this at least to some extent.

The levels of the forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, about whom the Torah tells us, are the levels of understanding, attainment, the feeling of bestowal, the attributes of the Creator, His revelation. While the descent into the exile in Egypt is already the hardening of the heart, which is felt after a person has attained a state called the “forefathers” (the most initial state).

While Lo Lishma is the initial level of a person who studies and tries to rise above all the states he feels, he is still in his egoistic intentions. He dreams about attaining bestowal and feels the value of this attribute and wants to detach from himself. But he wants this detachment for himself too, feeling how good it will be. This feeling of yearning for bestowal but still acting for his own good is called Lo Lishma.

But it is on condition that he values bestowal not because it helps him detach from the corporeal troubles or in the hope of receiving some spiritual reward or achievement. He wants to be in bestowal because this is how the Light operates on him. A person doesn’t even know what it means to be in bestowal. But new attributes are born in him and such vessels and inclinations are stabilized, which force him to value bestowal. He doesn’t even know where it comes from, but it is the result of the influence of the Light that Reforms.

Then this inclination becomes more and more conscious and a person begins to hold on to it by himself. Eventually he reaches a state in which he only wants bestowal, by cutting himself off from all personal interests.

In order to do that, a person must go through the hardening of the heart many times and encounter many obstacles. He is shown that there are things in life that are dear to him and from which he cannot detach himself, to what extent he still worries about them and cannot ascend above his egoistic love for some people or passions for different phenomena. At the same time, he sees to what extent he cannot ascend above his hatred towards someone or something.

The Light helps him clarify this, and eventually by much work and praying, a person tries to ascend above all that and nearly reaches bestowal. Then the upper Light completes this level for him, as it says: “I have labored and I found.”

The main thing is to hasten his advancement by intensively working in the group. Everything depends on the environment.
[94142]
From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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There are special times and periods in spirituality, “happy moments” so to speak, which we can’t predict or bring back. They come occasionally, every once in awhile and don’t depend upon us, but on the relations between Zeir Anpin and Malchut of Atzilut.

Imagine two cylinders, one inside the other. In each of them there is a little slot and in the middle there is a lamp. When the two cylinders turn, their slots sometimes coincide and then a beam of light emerges through the slots and can be seen on the outside.

 It’s the same with Zeir Anpin and Malchut who cooperate in special situations and sometimes “shimmer” for a person. This is called a “time of good will.” It comes from Above and to every individual in his own special manner, since we are all different and we all belong to different parts of the general system, going through different internal and external states.

To sum up, as a result of the shattering of the vessels, the connections between us are excellent and confused, and so there are many different conditions. But at a certain point there comes a “good time” to a person and then it’s very important that he seizes it and fulfills it.
[94052]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: What does it mean to be your disciple?

Answer: The issue here is not with me. We’re talking about a law that acts in the system of connections between the souls. We need to connect these souls in the correct system with the correct connection. The connection itself already exists; we only need to identify with it, to connect to it, to clean it from all our litter, to infuse into it the force of love from our desires.

And therefore, a “disciple” is called one that participates in this, one who performs this work. He works on the connection with me according to the principle of “Make yourself a Rav,” and with the friends according to the principle of “Buy yourself a friend.” And towards all the rest, he works according to “Judge each person to the scale of merit.” And all this is in order to attain the connection with the upper force.

Question: How can the advancement on this path be examined?

Answer: Only according to the degree of annulment. Otherwise, your examination will be egoistic. A person needs to nullify, remove his internal “partition” that interferes with connection, not to engage in anything “behind the back,” secretly, but to frankly look for the point of adhesion through which he will be able to receive the supreme wisdom.

Each one should manage this list by oneself. Ideally, you have to know what I want, even without asking many questions. By means of this clarification, you have to nullify your ego in order not to deal with your corporeal desires and indulge in them. And then, when you feel what my desire is, you execute it.

And it’s not important whether I know about it or not, or if others know it or not. You simply do it and by this acquire connection, through me, with a system that is more superior, with the Creator.

Question: In general, we disdain you, even without understanding it…

Answer: It’s natural, whether you want to or not. A moral should be learned from this: Understand your relationship to the Creator. Maybe for you it’s not obvious, but it can’t be that you will treat Him better than me.

For this the teacher and the group are in front of you; the Creator is hidden, and you can “practice” on them in self-analysis: “Who is smarter in my eyes: me or them? Who is greater: me or them? Do I want to bend them down according to my plans, so that I behave in a way that’s convenient for me? Or nonetheless, I bend my head down and do whatever is good for them? How much do I nullify my opinion in front of them?”

All the work is in this. You were given a “practice facility,” where you can do all the preparation. If you don’t want to do these preparatory exercises, then it’s a pity for you to waste your time, better go and enjoy life…
[94049]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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