Question: How is the unity of the vessel of the general soul expressed?

Answer: The vessel itself is the unity. A vessel isn’t seven billion parts, but the connection between them. The connection between me and all the others is my spiritual vessel.

By establishing a relationship with you I restrict my ego and begin to treat you in bestowal and love and discover the Creator in our relationship and thus bring Him contentment. I know that I bring Him contentment by treating you well. It says, “from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.”

So I had to choose you and to start loving you although I didn’t want to. I thought that you had nothing to do with me, but I do it only for the goal, which you raise so high that it gives me enough power to begin to fix my relations with you.

When I begin to restrict my ego and to treat you with love, when I do it in order to bring contentment to the Creator, the Creator, the upper force, is revealed in our relationship. But in the meantime He is revealed on the level of the still nature, Nefesh. I begin to feel His presence, which is passive for now. After all, the extent to which I discover Him is up to me.

Then I develop my attitude towards you in order to bring even greater contentment to the Creator and discover in our relationship the Light on the next level, on the vegetative level, Ruach. I begin to feel that I, you, and the Creator are changing and advancing in our relationship. There is a kind of vitality in it, support and mutuality that fills me with life.

There is someone I can mutually cooperate with; I am not facing a wall. Then I continue to develop my relationship with you in order to bring contentment to the Creator on the level of Ruach, to learn this like a flower that lives and dies, that responds to the sunlight, to day and night. I discover that I can revive this love and to feel what weakens or deteriorates it.

Thus I develop my sensitivity and rise to the next level, to the level of the animate. This means that I am already independent to some extent. I don’t just respond to different conditions, I can also move from place to place and give birth to new life. I begin to feel more and more deeply the desire to receive that I have discovered before, and I see I can continue working with it, to change it and to generate new actions and to be independent as the animate level should be. I begin to feel the Creator as the Light of life.

Then I build the relationship until the level of the speaking and attain self-management from the Creator. It’s just like in our world when a child grows up and becomes old enough not to be under his parents’ supervision. In the same way, the more I do that, the more I resemble the Creator and merge with Him. It’s because I begin to perform His part and by that become totally independent. The Creator doesn’t control me; I perform this function by myself.

It all depends on how much we work with our desire to receive. Only in it do we discover all of reality, by penetrating deeper into it and discerning more and more details there. Thus you will suddenly discover the spiritual world in this world. It was here all along, but you simply lacked the sensitivity to see it. Your detector didn’t have enough determination; it didn’t have the desired frequency range to perceive the spiritual world.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot 

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Question: Why is it said that I do all the corrections in me?

Answer: I don’t correct myself, but only my attitude and connection. The evil inclination is not in me, but between me and others—in my attitude towards them.

I need to be in a connection with someone in order to figure out whether it is good or bad and requires a change. The first stage is in revealing that this network exists. From this moment onwards, I start moving forward further and further, consciously revealing what needs correction: which relationships and qualities are required now and which qualities will be required later.

So I gradually reveal the whole system of relations between me and others. But then I find out that it was actually a connection with the Creator. These are two stages in the work.

If I can confidently work without any reference to myself, I reveal that the Creator was hiding behind the neighbor. Until that point it isn’t clear, I can steal a little here and there, and do some egoistic calculations. The Creator helps me figure out which calculations are right, and therefore, appears to me in the form of friends or some other more tangible images with which I can mutually work.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How best can I prepare for the convention in Kharkov, Ukraine? What depends personally on me to make it most effective?

Answer: First, it is advisable to attend our classes because they are revolving around this topic.

Secondly, you should read the materials required for the convention that have been published in Russian and other languages. I am guided by the fact that the convention will be completely in Russian. Of course, there will be translation into other languages.
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Throughout the process of creation there is a constant fixed connection between the Light and the desire. The Light created the desire, tied it to itself, and it is thus tied to the Light forever. We cannot break this connection.

The created being can restrict himself and by that it’s as if he stops receiving the Light; he can do all sorts of things, but he can’t want to stop desiring that Light! This is the foundation of creation; this is the nature of the desire to receive that was created by the Creator.

So with regards to our desire to receive, the Light is always in absolute rest and we always want it! No matter how much we restrict ourselves, how many Masachim (screens) we have, we do all that above the desire to receive. The desire never disappears and always yearns for the Light. No concealments and revelations, partitions or degrees will change that; the desire exists only if it feels the Light and yearns for it. If there is no Light there is no desire.

So we can perform different actions only above the desire, since this is our nature and it’s impossible to escape from it. We can’t do anything with our desires, but only above them, meaning different coverings and corrections. The desire constantly remains since it’s the fixed matter of creation. We must understand this so as not to fight the desire to receive and try to correct the world naively, but instead we must rise above the desire and use it differently.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What counts as our efforts?

Answer: The main effort is in the work against one’s indifference, against disregard, the sensation of the unimportance of bestowal. The main and permanent war should be carried out against the disrespect for bestowal. In it, we always have to look for things that would make us stronger.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33: And you must know that any contentment of our Maker from bestowing upon His creatures depends on the extent that the creatures feel Him—that He is the giver, and that He is the one who delights them. For then He takes great pleasure in them, as a father playing with his beloved son, to the degree that the son feels and recognizes the greatness and exaltedness of his father, and his father shows him all the treasures he had prepared for him.

Question: Why is it so important for the created beings to feel that it is the Creator who brings them pleasure?

Answer: The created beings can feel only that in which they have an equivalence of form. If they want to feel the Creator as the one who bestows, they have to understand what it means; they have to be included in bestowal and actually rise to that height. Then they will receive that pleasure, the same level of existence and power of vitality that the Creator possesses.

Question: There is the example here of a father playing with his son wanting him to regard him as the source of all pleasures. This seems to be a very egoistic act.

Answer: But there can be another example of a similar attitude: A father had the son not in order to enjoy him, but in order to bring him goodness. The father does everything in his power until the son grows in order to bestow upon him. Then when the son grows and receives all the father’s treasures, in understanding and feeling a whole eternal existence, it brings the father contentment. This means that if the Creator enjoys, it’s a sign that I have reached perfection. This is how you should see it, that it stems from His love.

On our part we have to try to bring Him contentment and to bring full and infinite bestowal to the upper force. We receive deficiencies from it, empty desires, and from it we receive the Lights that correct these deficiencies by turning them from in order to receive to in order to bestow. Thus we advance towards resembling the Creator. This is the only correct and desirable way by which we can advance. Accordingly we feel the force of the spiritual life that fills us, called Light.

This process is described in our language, in corporeal language, and so it seems that the Creator cries and feels sorry if we don’t act as we should or if we don’t keep up with the desired pace. Thus Kabbalists convey the reactions that we summon in Him by our undesired actions. However, if we succeed, they say that He is happy.

In one way or another, “the Torah spoke in the language of humans.” This is where the example of the father who intentionally changes his expression towards his son, thus expressing dissatisfaction, desire, or happiness, comes from in order to allow the son to establish the connection with him. But it’s only an expression, since the father himself summons different states and moods in the son, and he is the one who creates the circumstances that accompany his growing up. The child totally obeys his father internally and externally. Therefore, different images appear before him: he either sees that his father is serious, laughing, dissatisfied, or satisfied.

In general, my whole inner world and my environment are all the Creator. Inside it’s totally concealed from me, and on the outside I can attribute the major role to fate and even to the upper force, although I don’t see it yet. The goal is to understand where the “cut,” the difference is, where the self is here.

It says: “There is none else besides Him.” The Creator sends me everything that I feel internally; He controls my thoughts and desires and everything that happens to me, how I receive it, and how I respond to what is going on. In an x-ray, I could see that I have no control over anything, that He manages everything.

So what am I? “I” is the point that wants to reveal the Creator, that’s all. It’s a point that is outside the Creator, the point of separation, of the shattering, the point of my “self,” my basis from which I must discover the Creator and His uniqueness.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How do the desires on the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature differ? Which parameter changes in this scale?

Answer: Part of the Creator that is in still nature turns it into the vegetative level. Another part turns the desire of the vegetative level into an animate one and another part raises the desire of the animate level into the level of the speaking. Each time another qualitative force is added: Malchut of the upper turns into Keter of the lower. The Creator’s force that is concealed in it erupts upwards and gives birth to a new lower level.

The form of the new level is determined directly from Above, while its content, the filling, the essence of the level according to which the level is determined, comes from the Creator. So in all the four phases of the Direct Light there is the same typical matter of the desire to receive, but they are totally different, since each phase has a new supplementary part of the Creator.

The level of still nature can only preserve itself the way the Creator created it. It is called “an embryo in its mother’s womb.”

The vegetative level doesn’t totally annul itself before the upper; it already wants to add something of its own; it receives food only when it wants to eat, etc. It can bring the mother contentment, and accordingly it suffers when it is away from her and happy when it is close to her.

The animate level already comes closer and draws away independently. It already has a mind and it can be opposite or similar to the upper one. Shuddering by the oppositeness, it resembles it again, thus bringing more contentment. It isn’t by chance that we love naughty kids more than quiet ones. It is because you sometimes don’t feel a quiet child, while a naughty child, who causes trouble, makes you feel the discrepancy between the states, and you love him more and feel closer to him. He spurs you and changes your mood and eventually summons love. He constantly carves a “notch” in your heart and sometimes “spreads” something good on it.

As for the level of the speaking, it can take the Creator’s place in the creation. It takes care of everything and sees all of creation as a chance to bestow upon the Creator.

This is what is typical about this development: The more the created being is adhered to the Creator, the more clearly he discovers his oppositeness from Him.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Why is it that when I get stronger and invest in the group, I encounter greater difficulties?

Answer: In order to help you advance, greater obstacles are placed in your way. Thus, you reach a state when the obstacles become huge, but your desire to overcome them is also very big. However, if you quit and fail to overcome a certain obstacle, your desire will not grow, and then the same obstacles will be placed in your way, and you will feel as if your car is stuck and only the wheels are spinning.

This means that you are not saving time, but that you actually are wasting it in vain. So, instead of advancing in a few years’ time and entering spirituality, you will crawl until you get there in thirty or forty years, or you may not get there at all. It will seem that you have dedicated your entire life for that, that you have worked for the Creator and yearned to attain Him, but, in fact, you did not yearn for anything.

So, before a convention of connection, we set external conditions so that, at least externally, a person will be able to check himself and see whether he is investing in his advancement or not. Does he attend the daily lesson? Does he take part in dissemination every day? Does he pay Maaser, a tithe?

He will have to fill out a form every week about what he does for the group in order to assess himself critically. How will you advance if you don’t make constant efforts to create a new vessel inside you, by preparing it for the revelation of the Creator?

You are in a system, like a spider in a web, and all your thoughts and desires that are connected to the internal work, to the spiritual goal, are under the influence of the Light. The Light influences you and helps you advance through all the hardships, problems, and rejections since “the Torah will come out of Zion” (the Hebrew root of exit).

However, you will not be able to do it by yourself. If you don’t attend the daily lesson, don’t think about dissemination, don’t work together with the friends, don’t fill out a questionnaire about “what I have done for the group,” then you won’t advance. It isn’t just a demand of you; it is because we want to help you advance at least mechanically since if your car is stuck, we want to move you and oblige you to advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 29: This is regarded as being under the Sitra Achra and the Klipot, whose role is to expand and enhance his will to receive and make it exaggerated and unrestrained in any way, to provide one with all the material he needs to work with and correct.

During the first phase of the correction when we are drawn to goodness, we discover evil. This revelation is necessary and so we have to prepare the environment and ourselves in advance in order to be able to bear it. We have to understand that this is the “matter” that we should correct and that its correction depends on the recognition of evil.

The point is not the suffering itself, but that we discover that the ego doesn’t let us bestow. I attribute the evil not to the unpleasant feeling that the desire brings about, but to the obstacles that it places on my way to unite with others and through them with the Creator.

This is the reason that the ego is called an “evil inclination.” On the whole, it can bring me pleasure and not troubles. Let’s take the seven years of satiety in Egypt for example, were they good or bad for the people of Israel? What if a person is detached from spirituality and under the domination of his ego? What if he knows that, is sure of that, and at the same time experiences pleasant feelings in his desire to receive, but feels bad in his soul?

Could it be that it is a sign of positive development? After all, despite the egoistic pleasures that I feel while I am in exile in Egypt under the domination of evil, the ego rules me and doesn’t allow me to advance towards spirituality, towards the Creator. Then comes another phase, when my ego begins to receive blows. Is this better? Is this easier?

On the one hand, yes, since the troubles of the ego enable me to escape it. On the other hand, it’s the ego that agrees to escape from Egypt because of the troubles and not in order to adhere to the Creator. In this case, my work is double: I have to rise above my egoistic feelings and use them as an accelerator for advancement.

Let’s draw this dilemma. Within my desire to receive I can experience either good feelings or unpleasant feelings (good and evil). If I feel good in Egypt and my intention is aimed at myself, then how do I assess the new state? If it’s according to the egoistic desire, then I feel good on the animal level. Then I do not intend to escape anywhere.

But what if I feel bad within my desire to receive? If I tie myself to this bad feeling, I’m in a general crisis, in a global crisis. If I understand that this bad feeling helps me aim my intention towards others, at bestowal, then I consider this state as good since it helps me advance just like Pharaoh brought the people of Israel closer to the Creator. No matter how bad it may be, there is a mitigating factor—the advancement towards the goal.

But at the same time, the desire I am in helps me assess the state I am in, and supports the decision. Let’s look at another option. I feel good, but I want to aim my intention towards others, at the Creator. Does this good feeling help me rise to Him? No. It turns out that this is a bad state (evil).

But I have grown stronger after “seven years of satiety” during which I felt good, and my intention was altruistic. Now comes a bad state, “seven years of hunger.” Do they help me on my way to the Creator?

On the whole the trouble of the egoistic desire can, on the one hand, raise me above it in an attempt to escape, when it’s easier for me to choose spirituality, and on the other hand, it can make my advancement more difficult. Why? The Torah tells us about a famine in the Land of Canaan that forced the sons of Jacob to go down to Egypt. They felt bad and they moved forward. In Egypt, they felt good at first, and then there were troubles again. So why did the evil that was revealed at the end of the exile help them leave it?

The answer is that when I feel bad, I have to treat it not as a bad feeling that pushes me in a certain direction and that’s it. No. I have to resist the evil and to check myself and what makes me escape. Do I escape because it hurts or because I want to reach bestowal?

Thus the evil requires double work. In a good state it’s hard for me to escape the goodness. But if after the goodness trouble comes, the level of difficulty rises. We escaped the troubles of Egypt in the past, and now I have to rise above the bad feelings and to feel the blows not from a bad life but from the domination of evil.

At first the domination of Pharaoh seemed good to the people of Israel, and now they feel bad because of it. And it isn’t because of despair; they are not hungry. Later they will complain when they remember the pots full of meat.

Today too, there are nations that are satisfied with a “full bowl,” and don’t care about their rulers, while others are so developed that they cannot put up with a hateful regime; even if it threatens them and despite all the material benefits, they feel a need to break free. Thus the desire to receive develops according to its four phases.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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The point of truth is revealed today: The whole world is like a kindergarten without a teacher. It doesn’t know where to go and feels puzzled and lost. This is an excellent state. We’ve already spoken about that, although we assumed that it would happen much sooner. Now we must prevent the problems and riots that can result from all this mess.

We are facing a very painful crisis and a world war. We are sliding towards it according to the laws of creation. Today those who “rule” the world have lost their power and think: “Perhaps it’s better to resort to military actions in order to start from scratch.” There is undoubtedly an option to resolve the situation, to stop the war and to “sweeten” the way, and its success depends on us. Baal HaSulam says that if we don’t stop this deterioration, humanity will be heading towards a nuclear war. This is the natural course of events guided by the ego if we don’t bring the Light into it.

What is more, Baal HaSulam mentions a fourth world war, which means that there will be someone who will manage it after the third world war. Is this possible? Of course. And it may even be very soon.

So what can we do? It’s dissemination and the reinforcement of inner unity. We need these two powerful forces: the external and the internal. There is no other force in the world that can change the balance but us. Think about this seriously. We need as many teachers, as many educators, as many lecturers as possible and we are preparing them the best way we can to go to the general public.

The situation is really critical. All the current crises that are revealed are just a very small tip of the iceberg compared to what is concealed from us. The elite are spending lots of money to hide the real situation in the world. It’s only since they have no choice that they release drops of information through the media.

In addition to the economic problems, there are ecological problems: We are facing dire disasters compared to those we’ve just experienced are nothing. There is going to be shortage of water and food, and our actual existence on this planet is under threat. The point is not to cut off the “layer of fat,” to cut down on food and to move into one room with the whole family. No, it will be much worse.

Question: This means that I have to dedicate all my life, all my powers to connection and dissemination?

Answer: Yes. And as to everything else, make do with the basic necessities, to such an extent that I will also be happy to get rid of it, but I can’t because it’s necessary to sustain my body.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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