Writings of Rabash, “Until The Ruler Of Egypt Fell”: One must work for the sake of the heavens, meaning for the sake of bestowal. In exile this assessment was made under the power of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt.

I do not know what real bestowal is or how it is possible to give anything to a person who is completely detached from me, when there are no “common foundations” for kindness, such as commonly accepted morals, the respect of others around me, or anything else.

Some people throw money around and squander entire fortunes, and they feel pleasure from this. They receive sufficient compensation for their “bestowal.” One person is satisfied by a kind word, another by being remembered well by the future generations, and a third by self-respect.

In the West there is a new trend called “a dollar a day.” A person contributes a dollar a day to feed a hungry African child who will never find out who he is. Yet, contributions like this also bring satisfaction because I am giving someone life. What is a dollar compared to the feelings this elicits in me?

However, we are talking about total separation from self-gratification. We cannot imagine or feel such a thing in our life. We do not understand how it is possible to give to someone without any response in thought or sensation. This is concealed from us.

This is the meaning of exile when we first encounter it: It turns out that I do not know what pure bestowal is. I am separated from spirituality precisely in this regard.
Egypt (Mitzraim) means a notch (Metzer), and a notch means a scantity of mercy when a person only knows how to receive, without bestowing anything.

We are yet to discover that we are devoid of any premises of bestowal and only know how to receive. If I receive, then I give. But in general, this is not bestowal. I just call it that way because in our world we judge a person by his actions instead of his intentions. Intentions belong to the science of Kabbalah, while actions belong to the opinion of this world.

“Width” is generosity, great bestowal. A “notch” is the opposite, a lack of bestowal. Thus, the power of Egypt was that every person could make actions only in return for payment.

This is us. But we don’t really realize this and that is why our state is still not considered exile. Our lives our OK. True, we’re Egyptians, but so what?
He does not let them carry out even one action without payment, only for the sake of bestowal.
This is our Pharaoh. And we don’t even realize that he controls us. The power of Pharaoh becomes revealed only when you want to do something for the sake of bestowal and discover that you are unable to. That is when Pharaoh, the Egyptian King, is revealed. But until then, you are sitting on the throne yourself and doing whatever you want.
This means that Egypt was a notch for Israel.
In other words, it obstructed the direction of straight to the Creator (Yashar El).
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/11, Preparation to Going Out From Egypt

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The Zohar, Chapter “Passover, Shemot (Exodus),” Item 246: Why did the Creator wish to bring Israel down to exile in Egypt? Why the exile, and why specifically in Egypt?

If you don’t belong to “Israel” (in Hebrew “Isra-El” means “straight to the Creator”), meaning if you don’t aspire to attain the Creator, to become equal to Him by the quality of bestowal and love, then you don’t have to descend to Egypt, meaning to suffer due to the lack of a connection with the Creator. Instead, you continue living without these problems.

But if you do aspire to attain the Creator, then you have to want this very much and prepare this desire. And the way to prepare it correctly is in the state called “exile,” the sensation of exile from the perfect state.

In exile we acquire the aspiration, need, and desire in all the tiniest details, forms, and qualities which later participate in revealing the Creator, the redemption from exile. Therefore, the exile is an important preparation and it does not end until a true desire for revelation is ready.

That’s because there is no Light without a desire. The Light is simple, but only when the desire attains the qualities that have to be present in it with their depth, force, and form, only then does the fulfillment become revealed inside of it.

Therefore, there’s no use crying about why we haven’t attained revelation yet. That means we still haven’t completed preparing the desire in its entire fullness so it would become revealed as the correct, suitable vessel for revealing the Light. We have to work on the desires, while the Light is at absolute rest and is ready to be revealed.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/11, The Zohar

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You cannot turn to the masses with our spiritual message. It is completely not intended for them. On the contrary, they do not have to connect to it because otherwise you will already seem “corrupted” to them. Your goal is opposite to the masses. It is written about this, “The opinion of the Torah is contrary to the opinion of the layman.”

By now we have done enough to disseminate the science of Kabbalah to those with a point in the heart all over the whole world and in different languages. Whoever has a point in the heart will always be able to find us.

Now our problem is to educate humanity as a whole. This is the beginning of the general correction. Until now we have disseminated Kabbalah to the people called “Israel” in order to gather them from the whole world. But now the time has come to do what Baal HaSulam writes in the article “Messiah’s Horn”: to disseminate the science of Kabbalah to the nations. And at the first stage, that means doing so without mentioning the world Kabbalah.

We have to bring people to a new understanding and sensation which will enable them, on the next stage, to agree with what the science of Kabbalah says about this. Let them get a bit wiser. The Rambam says that the essence has to be revealed gradually to the “women, children, and slaves.” And we are acting according to what this great Kabbalist wrote.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/11, “The Freedom”

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On one hand, nature treats me lovingly. Even if I can’t see this with the naked eye, when penetrating a bit deeper, I can see its true attitude. People who are close to nature feel that it is entirely good.

At the same time, externally it is very harsh, similar to a loving but demanding father who scrupulously takes a child through the phases of development. That is how we must view what is happening. Otherwise we won’t understand good and evil and will only get confused.

If I want to feel nature this way, then I must reject the externality and immerse myself inwards. Precisely from nature’s external attitude, which seems negative to me, I must start to develop based on the realization of evil. In reality nature is showing me a negative of myself. By correcting it, I will enter inside and will feel its love.

All the negative external phenomena are intended to show me what I must correct in order to attain love. It’s exactly how parents raise a child: The father looks at him with a strict gaze and the mother is nervous. It’s very hard to recognize their love. But this is the discernment that I have to be very sensitive to while developing the inner feeling of the realization of evil.

Perhaps I don’t notice the negative. The parents are only giving me hints, but I don’t understand what they want from me or perhaps I don’t feel that they need something from me at all. Instead I continue fooling around. Then they tell it to me directly, but I still don’t listen. At the end, after all the persuasions and warnings, the troubles start, and that is something I understand very well. “Why didn’t you tell me that right away?” I wonder.

This is the problem of all of us and of each of us separately – a lack of sensitivity. If I now felt what I lack in order to discern nature’s love, then I would immediately correct myself. Therefore, we have to take care of just one thing – our receptivity to the realization of evil between us and to the love coming from the Creator.

We don’t lack examples. Open your eyes and you will see them. So what is standing in our way? The problem is that the world does not imbue us with a basic attitude to goodness. I need a society or environment in which I will reveal goodness and compare it to my own evil.

The realization of evil begins the moment a person feels that he is worse than those around him. He sees them all as interconnected and united by love for one another, but he cannot join them and feel that he shares that unity. This gap is the evil that a person has to reveal and correct.

By realizing the evil and by trying to correct it, a person discovers that he does not have the slightest shred to grab hold of or the slightest access. He clearly sees that the friends are united and he is separated from them, and he does not see any opportunity to join them, having no loophole into their unity. For that he needs the Light that reforms. Only the Creator’s help will save him.

That is where we finally come in contact with the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/11 on Global Education

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All of the events described in the history of Purim are hints at the corrections we have to go through. It’s important to translate these corrections from the poetic, colorful language of legend to the language of qualitative inner changes in order to understand that it is talking only about how to strengthen the connection between us.

In the beginning of the Scroll (Megila) it talks about the nation of Israel, saying that there is one nation that is dispersed among other nations. This means that egoism enters in between the people who aspire “straight to the Creator’ (Isra-El, Yashar-El). This ego that separates them brings this nation to the threat of annihilation.

But when the nation of Israel (meaning all of us who aspire to the Creator) understands that it is necessary to unite together, and they make actions for the sake of this unity, then the force of Mordechai ascends and the force of Haman falls, and we are able to take control over our egoism, over the hatred that separates us.

Each of us contains our own Haman, and we can “hang him up on the tree”—on the tree of death which turns into the tree of life. That is how we reach the revelation of the Creator. Megilat Ester (the Scroll of Esther, “the revelation of the concealed” because “Megaleh” means to reveal, and “Ester” means concealment) conceals and reveals the Creator. By working with these forces called Mordechai and Ester, we attain the revelation of the Creator.

The Creator, the upper force, is never mentioned directly in the Megila. It talks about the King Ahashverosh, but not about the Creator because He is concealed as a result of the filling of uncorrected Kelim. The Creator is only felt in the corrected Kelim as their mutual bestowal. The same love that we feel for one another in our uncorrected state is the revelation of the upper force, the Creator.

When we read Megilat Ester, what is important isn’t simply to decipher which spiritual qualities hide behind which characters: Where are Zeir Anpin, Malchut (Queen Esther), what she conceals and how she joins Zeir Anpin, and Mordechai (Bina). Mordechai is the quality of bestowal, Bina, whereas Haman is all the impure worlds of ABYA, the impure desire, Klipa, the snake, the “monkey” instead of the human (a monkey, Kof, is written as the letter Kuf, a long line that descends beneath the line of the letters like a monkey’s tail and nourishes the impure desires). Yet, the most important thing is to find which feelings are signified by these notions in the relationships between us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/11, Shamati

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Usually it is customary for different nations to hold holidays as a way of honoring certain historical events that took place in this world. But since the nation of Israel once separated from the other nations to carry out a special mission, to realize the correction of human nature upon itself and then to bring all of humanity to this, its holidays, therefore, have a special meaning related to that.

The Scroll (Megilat) of Ester, which is devoted to Purim and which talks about Mordechai, the King Ahashverosh, and Queen Ester who saved the Jews from destruction after the evil Haman planned to kill them, actually explains how to attain that goal. That is why it is written that all the holidays will be canceled in the future with the exception of the holiday of Purim because on that holiday, on that level, the greatest Light shines, which includes all of the previous levels.

All the holidays of the nation of Israel are symbols of special states on the ladder of the spiritual levels which we ascend from this world to the world of Infinity, attaining increasingly greater equivalence to the Creator through bestowal, love, and unification among us. Therefore, every higher level includes all the lower levels as its constituent parts. Purim, the highest level, obviously includes all the previous, smaller levels which are canceled before it and enter it. In the end, not a single holiday remains besides the holiday of Purim.

How do we reach this holiday? Our entire work is based on raising a prayer (MAN) for unification and love among us, which we are trying to attain. All of our work is devoted to correcting the division. At first we have to unite on the level of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal,” which means the quality of Mordechai.

When we reach “the king’s gate” (as the story tells about Mordechai who sat by the king’s gate), there we meet our Haman, the huge and horrifying egoistic desire that becomes revealed to us. Then we have to correct it and receive Light into its Kelim with the intention of Mordechai, “for the sake of bestowal.” That is how one can receive the Light of Mordechai into the Kelim of Haman and attain the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

We have to take the force, the “spiritual vessel” from our nature, our egoistic desire, and add to these desires the intention “for the sake of bestowal” so it would begin to rule over us, “to saddle the desire” like Mordechai who rides on top of a horse.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/11, Shamati

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The picture of the “external world,” as Baal HaSulam writes, is created by the “camera” in the reverse side of our brain, which projects my qualities onto what seems like the external screen, with those qualities being flawed or corrected to various degrees. Inside of me they exist in the form of different forces. By combining or dividing in different ways, they form the vessel of my soul.

However, I am unable to distinguish these forces because they are projected onto the screen of my consciousness in a way that enables me to see them. Therefore, I see various forms of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels. All of these forms are in motion, undergoing changes, and this is what enables be to maintain a connection with my inner forces.

How, then, can I attain the right state? It can be done by the principle of loving your neighbor as yourself. You have to make all of the “external” reality become yours. After all, it really is you, but in your deceptive perception it appears as something external. So come back to yourself, return this external picture inside, turn your view from the projection to the “camera.” How can you do that? By bringing your parts closer to you and feeling them as yours.

For now we perceive the world’s problems as disasters happening to other people. In contrast to this, Rabash was very worried in these cases because he felt that the disaster was happening to him. A person who moves towards equivalence with the Creator inclines the whole world toward the cup of judgment or the cup of justification. Therein lies the solution to the problem.

Thus, due to the spiritual breaking my perception divides into internality and externality, myself and the world. By correcting myself, I bring all of the reality which seems external to me closer to myself in order to feel it inside of me. Then I shift to a spiritual perception of the world: There is nothing on the outside. Everything is inside of me and takes place inside of me. There is nothing outside of me. I live in my Kli and only a “camera” creates the external picture for me.

Based on this we must decide once and for all that precisely the people who have received an awakening from above, a drive to become corrected, are the ones able to change the world by changing its perception in their sensations. Everything depends on how much they try to bring the whole world closer to them in order to feel it as an inseparable part of them. This is the realization of the principle of loving the neighbor as yourself. We have to bring all the levels that appear external to us, including the still, vegetative, animate and human levels, closer to ourselves and see them as an inseparable part of us.

Therefore, our attitude to all of reality must be at least the same as to ourselves, although Baal HaSulam explains that I must elevate the desires of others above my own desires. Being an egoist, I think about myself instead of my neighbors. But when I am an altruist, I have to think about others inside of myself.

That is why the world’s correction depends precisely on the people who have received from above a call to correct themselves, to the truth. No one else felt this awakening and therefore they have nothing to demand.

That means we must feel responsible for all the disasters of humanity. And it is in our power to correct them—and not just after the fact, but even before all the bad occurrences take place. We have to make sure that this won’t happen on the still level as well as all the other levels, until the human degree.

For now the catastrophes are manifesting in the form of natural disasters on the still and vegetative levels (such as tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and fires), as well as in human society in the form of the economic crisis and so on. However, other forms are also not exempt, similar to the Egyptian plagues which were very unpleasant, much more dangerous, and horrible to the sensations than those occurring now.

It is incumbent on us to perform corrections and prevent the world’s problems. Baal HaSulam writes about this for us in the end of the "Introduction to the Book of Zohar." All of the world’s suffering is caused by the fact that Israel does not correct itself in time, with “Israel” (which means straight to the Creator) being every person, regardless of origin, who has the opportunity to correct himself because he has been awakened from above. And it doesn’t matter what level he is on.

This way, every one of us and all of us together are responsible for what is happening.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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Our world started with a tiny spark of Light that broke into the void and embarked on its evolution. Thereby, the Light made, begot, created, produced (the four stages of the Direct Light, corresponding to the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature) everything there is in our Universe.

And the further development suggests that man, meaning all of us, must reach the root from where this initial spark once came. Now we are passing through the last stage of evolution so we may rise to this spark all together, and break through the tiny opening in our system into the place where our root is.

This return is possible only by way of our unification: We must come so tightly together that we may become as small as this spark. Therefore, people who attained the spiritual world strove to tell about the necessity of reaching oneness, the unification of sparks that reside in everyone into one spark.

This development has continued since the time of Adam HaRishon, up to Abraham in ancient Babylon, followed by the exodus from Egypt and further on; until two thousand years ago, we hadn’t come to an undesirable state. In truth, Kabbalists who lived throughout those times, starting with Abraham, lost their spiritual root and fell from brotherly love to unfounded hatred. This fall occurred in the time of Rabbi Akiva.

The region of the Dead Sea, Qumran and the nearing areas, is the place where people used to flee, unwilling to succumb to the descent that occurred in Jerusalem when even the post of the High Priest could be bought and everything had taken a low, despicable form. This remote place remained the last sanctuary for those who desired to keep unity and love between them in order not to lose spiritual connection with one another. So they fled there since they felt that they could stay together, far away from all those relations that were coming in force in Jerusalem.

That is why, almost two thousand years later, we have gathered here in order to continue this process. After all, there is no time in spirituality! We came from a sacred state where we were all bonded and felt the spiritual world, spiritual life, and another dimension, but then lost our awareness as if we were hit on the head and stopped sensing the spiritual world in which we lived. Today, we wish to return to that reality.

To achieve this, all we need to do is arrange the same kind of society that existed years ago since the spiritual laws haven’t changed. As we did then, so do we now need to become as one man with one heart and achieve brotherly love and oneness in accord with the laws that the Light and desire obey in the spiritual world. And then we will find ourselves in it!

Our corporeal bodies have to accompany us until we attain the spiritual world fully. But for the time being, we have to reside in these bodies; after all, we haven’t received the right to live in spirituality permanently and must remain the permanent residents of this material world. As to the spiritual one, we will ascend to and descend from there until we have established ourselves in it for good.

At that point, we won’t have to live in these corporeal bodies, and they will dissolve from our perception. This world regarded as “illusory” will dissipate as well, and we will start living in the new reality eternally.
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From Lesson 2 Metzoke Dragot Congress 2/25/2011

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The whole world today from small to big is in need of an educational method. And it’s more difficult to get to the adults than to the children. I hope that the mass media will change and we will find additional ways besides television and Internet sites to enable our method to be accepted in the world.

On the other hand, we are building the necessary mechanisms for children and in this realm we can quickly achieve clear, demonstrative success. After all, this is a very painful topic for parents, departments of education, and overall, for every society. The young generation is literally “seeping through our fingers” and no one knows what to do about it.

That is where we can show clear examples of what is happening to our children at Bnei Baruch. They want to be with their parents, which is a very strange thing indeed. At the age of 15 to 18, a young man is next to his parents, and it’s not because he is retarded. It’s just that he wants to adopt the values of the adults and participate in what they do. Where else in the world can you find such a thing?

As a rule, a child comes home, demands food, and shuts himself up in his room with a guitar or a computer, and then leaves with his friends and comes back in the morning. Basically, he leaves home and visits occasionally. This is considered normal. But in our families at Bnei Baruch, this is not the norm.

Therefore, we have something to show the world. This is actual dissemination. If we show everyone our interconnection and mutual support in all the groups, if we show the people of Israel that all of Israel are friends, that there are thousands of people in the country who want to be together and who feel that precisely by being together they reveal the upper world, this will be true dissemination. And it will be educational dissemination because we actually change the world, turning people to face each other.

That is why this summer we are planning to organize an international children’s camp, as well as other activities in order to show the world the results of our way of upbringing. We don’t even have to say anything: Let them just find out about it and see it. Even now many people and external organizations are impressed by what is happening with our children.

So let’s view the science of Kabbalah as an educational method that raises everyone—kids and adults alike—by means of the environment, helping each of us to become Human, similar to the Creator, without any reservations.
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From the 3rd lesson at the Dead Sea Convention on 2/25/11

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