It says that the temple was destroyed because the children of Israel didn’t bless the Torah first. They studied the Torah without a blessing. What does that mean?

There are blessings in the Siddur, for example: “Blessed are You Lord, the giver of the Torah.” But what is the Torah? It is a means for correcting the evil inclination. It says: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.”

How is it possible to bless the Torah? Only if there is such a deficiency when my initial inclination is revealed as evil. I feel that my desires are evil; I have to correct them, I can’t bear them. This is called the revelation of the true evil, when I cannot agree to it, when I have to get rid of it, to get it out of me as something that is very harmful.

Then I discover the means that can get these evil desires out of me, a special instrument that is called the Torah. It turns out that there is a special method for studying, a special book, special conditions, and all this is called the Torah. It isn’t the title of the book that says “Torah,” not the number of people, and not the place of study, but simply the fact that in answer to all my actions there comes a special force that changes the force that is inside me. It is because the desire to receive is actually the force by which I identify the evil and I want it to become good, as it says: “Since the Light in it reforms.”

So I determine that my desire to receive is the evil inclination and decide that I must make it good. What is “good?” It can only be the opposite of my current desire; there are no other options. Thus the concept of the Torah symbolizes my efforts, the group I work in, the books I study from, the teacher who teaches me this method. On the whole they are the ones who summon that force from Above that corrects me. “From Above,” since the force of correction is higher than me and stronger than the current force. Thus I acquire it and heal myself from the evil, which becomes good.

But if I study without this preparation, the Torah becomes the “potion of death” for me. In this case, I reach self-fulfillment by a long and difficult path. Along this path the Light also operates on me, but from its posterior and not in the desire that dresses and not in the desire that is dressed. I reach the recognition that I don’t discover evil the way I should, I don’t recognize the poison in it. This, of course, also leads me in the right direction, but along a long indirect path of sufferings.

So if a person is not in the direction of recognizing the evil, he is in “exile.” And when he recognizes the need to correct the evil in him, which means the desire to receive, he feels that he is under the domination of Pharaoh. The deeper this feeling is, the more he wants to get rid of the evil, which means to get out of “exile.” Then he uses the Torah correctly in order to draw the Light that changes the desire in him, which enables him to use the desire not for his own good but for the good of others. Thus the Light reforms him and changes him to the good.

As long as we don’t want to exit our desire to receive and enter the desire to bestow, from evil to the good, it isn’t considered exile. We don’t even feel that it is exile. Only the need for a means to turn the desire to receive into a desire to bestow indicates that we are ready to leave the exile. The exodus itself is that we begin to use the Torah correctly.

This is what we have to aim at while reading The Book of Zohar: Do we open it with the right deficiency? If not, then we don’t bless this action, but simply follow a timetable. This is a wrong and undesirable approach. We have to think about it the whole day before the lesson, to add the discernments that stem from different states, from the desire to receive that dominates us, into one picture. We want to ascend above it towards the friends, towards the Creator.

Then we will have something to bless in the morning lesson since we want to receive “the water of life” from the study, the healing force, and this means that we are truly studying the Torah.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/01/12, The Zohar

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Question: You always say that The Book of Zohar can sometimes be a cure and sometimes poison, what does that mean?

Answer: Kabbalists describe this dilemma by using the allegory of choosing between the elixir of life and the potion of death, or by bringing the example of the rooster and the bat. Everything depends on a person’s intention: Is it the urge for the goal that drives him? This doesn’t mean that by opening a Kabbalah book he necessarily has to focus himself on the true goal because otherwise he will receive the potion of death. It is impossible to demand such things. So the Creator gives a person the right intentions, just like a baby who is under the full supervision of a grown up.

Even if a person comes to study without any basic knowledge and thinks about anything he feels like, it isn’t actually he who thinks and who is operating. From Above he is provided with constant supervision and care. If you could see this from the side, you would see that a person is like a newborn baby, that he has nothing of his own. It is simply a system, a “body” that functions according to a plan. He is equipped with everything that he needs, absorbing and emitting what he has to and thus grows. At this point a person has no freewill and no discernments.

Gradually, however, he grows and begins to move independently. At first he doesn’t feel responsible for what is going on, but later he begins to consciously perceive something and to shout intentionally at something, etc. Gradually he begins to understand what is good and what is bad and under which circumstances he feels good or bad. Accordingly he is played with and shown what he does correctly and what he doesn’t.

There are those who hear better and there are those who hear less, it depends on your innate attributes and on your upbringing. Generally speaking, it is about a huge system called Shechina that takes care of every one and brings everyone to the end of correction.

So, I cannot tell you when a Kabbalah book gives life and when it brings death. First a person is taught all this and after several years he understands that only in a group can he fulfill himself and move on from a corporeal connection with the friends to an internal, spiritual connection.

And then it his choice to reach for the opening of the spiritual network between the friends. It may be concealed from them, but he wants to reveal it. This means that he is attracted to life since this network is totally filled with bestowal.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12, The Zohar

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Question: At today’s lesson you said that during the 24 hour day there is definitely someone on Earth who is studying Kabbalah. Why is it so important?

Answer: This is very important. We see it.

There was a great Kabbalist in the 16th century, Ramhal, who had a group in Padua, Italy. We have notes from the members of this group and their diaries. They studied in sequence so the studies would not stop. Each subgroup studied for 5-6 hours, and the rest of the people went home, to work, or to sleep. Thus the cycle of their studies never stopped. This is important when you feel that you are working constantly for the same goal. Even when you are absent others are working instead of you. It gives a special effect.

This helps all of us and this is very important because there are always people in the world who are studying according to our system.
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From the Virtual Lesson 10/14/12

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If during the lesson you hold on to the right intention, you would feel a great spiritual filling during this time. It is all according to the customer’s desire: What you want is what you get. A great Light is revealed during the lesson and it is a pity if you don’t use it.

A spiritual filling indicates that your previous raw desire is being attracted to spirituality, like GE. Then it connects with the desires of others, with AHP, that portray the Creator for me so that I will fill Him. This is what fills me; I am filled by bestowal. Just like a mother who is happy when her baby eats, wiping his round cheeks with pleasure. The fact that she filled him is her filling.

It is the same with me; I have no other goal in life but to fill the friends. By filling them, I fill the Creator. I use my vessels to fill their needs, to provide them with what they want. They want to advance towards the goal, to feel its greatness, and I provide them with that. I only evoke them positively: increasing the greatness of the goal and of the Creator by acting like the Light with regards to the vessels.

You should leave the lesson with great joy for having been in contact with the eternal infinite system, in contact with the Creator. Even though, in the meantime, this contact is unclear and unexamined, I still come out with a plan of what I am going to do from this moment onward. We should renew the fixed plan each time so that it will be relevant for each specific day. I have to decide what I am going to do every day until the next lesson.

I change my plan according to the new awakening, the new attitude, both the physical and the internal. Try it and you will see that it is a varied change, which takes place in a different manner each time. Every day is different from the next and not like it seems today. We will be impressed by every point in our advancement, each time as if it is the whole world.

I must pass all the personal awakening I received during the lesson to the society so that it will grow to the size of the whole society. I want to pass all this in the form of my gratitude and love to the Creator. If I do that, it will return to me and will increase my desire even more, the awakening will be greater in order to bestow upon the friends again.

This work is in the thoughts and our desire. I don’t need to run after every friend trying to wake him up physically. Internally I must simply explode and externally I must work very calmly so as not to harm the friends. Externally I have to dress in the state of the friend, in his desire, in order to do what is good for him and not what I want.

Even internally you will later relate to yourself and work with the vessels of the others because you will treat yourself only as a machine that serves others. You will have no other interest in yourself.

How can you check if you are working correctly? If you want to awaken the greatness of the goal in the group—general bestowal and love in the group, in all of humanity and love of the Creator in order to delight in it yourself and to make others happy—this is enough to test.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Only our persistence in feeling the necessity for connection can save us. Stop playing with other things hoping that something will change with time, enough of dealing with other things. All the related activities are necessary only in order to support the main thing: understanding the need for connection.

Here there must be an unceasing collective effort until we succeed. We mustn’t run away or divert from this goal in any other direction. Whatever we do is only meant to reinforce our efforts to connect. We should feel concern that goes from heart to heart, until we succeed. There are no concessions here and the conditions are known: constant fulfillment of the Reshimot (informational genes) according to the principle “I have labored and I have found.” If we can, we overcome, and if we can’t, we don’t. It must be a clear goal before our eyes and we must all mobilize for the mission.

There are new students who don’t understand yet and do not feel total despair; there are old students who have grown too weak and have found themselves caught up by routine. But on the whole, we have to strengthen one another. The prayer can only be for connection; otherwise, it isn’t heard. If we don’t yearn for connection, for mutual bestowal, to bestow upon the Creator, then everything else is all the “potion of death.” We must clarify this thoroughly.

The main thing is the general concern. Even if I don’t actually feel the concern in my heart, I must still show it to others. Even if I don’t feel enthusiastic about the goal of creation at the moment, I must still act before others. Otherwise I must not be part of the society.

It must be the main condition: A person is in the society in order to strengthen the hearts of the friends on the way to attaining the goal by increasing the importance and the greatness of the goal. If he doesn’t do that, there is no room for him here. It is better that a few people reach the goal, since otherwise what is the use of all the millions around us if they don’t attain anything and if the spiritual force doesn’t rule the corporeal level?

So the society should demand from everyone: You either keep your obligation in strengthening the friends as to the greatness of the goal, the greatness of the connection, or you leave. Just like that.

As for beginners, the mission should also be clarified to them to the extent that they can perceive it, since other than that there is nothing.

Many years go by before a person begins to hear to some extent and to perceive the message. But we have accumulated enough experience, powers, knowledge of the sources, and exertion in order to fulfill it. What is more, the external reality demands that we do it.
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From the Preparation for Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12

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Baal HaSulam “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 5: This is so because there will no longer be fear lest one might not sustain one’s merit and trade the wisdom in the market, as no one in the mob will buy it. The wisdom will be so loathsome in their eyes that neither glory nor lust will be obtainable in return for it.

Hence, all who wish to enter may come and enter. Many will roam, and the knowledge will increase among the worthy of it.

For generations, the science of Kabbalah was considered as mysticism, like Tarot cards, blessings and curses, black magic, spirits, devils, and all that the human imagination is capable of producing. For centuries, people believed that these tools allowed one to control the world, to win, to become wealthy, to dominate, etc. So, many people wanted to know, to understand, and to master the supernatural forces that are supposedly hidden there. Everyone dreams of succeeding and excelling over others, that is clear.

That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah was treated accordingly: “Jews possess secret wisdom that gives power…” Freemasons and sects of all kinds; there were plenty of inventions, but Kabbalists hid the truth. Thus no one knew that in reality the essence of Kabbalah is the science of unity between people.

Today, as we better understand what the science of Kabbalah is, humanity is gradually parting with its mystical aura, and as a result no longer needs it. “Why do I need it? To unite?! I was hoping for some trick, fortunetelling, success in trading, the drug for all diseases, miracle-making. But unity between people, keep it to yourself, I don’t need this, even if you pay me.”

So, people reject this wisdom, and here the moment of truth is shown because our egoism actually rejects the science of unity, does not accept it. This is the natural attitude: A person avoids others, disdains the news of unity, hates and despises it as something disgusting. But then he sees that he has no other choice. He will be led towards it by various factors: our dissemination, problems, and understanding that it is possible to get out of the crisis only through unity.

“But how can it be done? Where can we get the forces? What is the order of actions?” It is then that people will reveal the science of Kabbalah as the wisdom of unity in its correct and true form.

The revolution, connected with this science, should happen today, and we must accelerate the pace of development. And general contempt protects Kabbalah so that only those who really want to unite and apply effort, everyone according to his ability, become attached to it. So form the outer circles around Kabbalah.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/12, “Introduction to the Book, Panim  Meirot  uMasbirot”

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Question: Does the Light affect a person more when he understands what he reads or when he is totally confused and applies efforts to hold the intention?

Answer: It’s impossible to know. The Light influences all the time, but a person can feel this effect not immediately but over time. Perhaps in two weeks, or even in an unsuitable moment, suddenly a revelation happens. You can’t know how it will happen because there are so many internal and external conditions that consequently lead to such disclosure.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/12, The Zohar

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