Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: The collective and the individual are one and the same. And the individual is not harmed because of his enslavement to the collective, since the freedom of the collective and the freedom of the individual are one and the same, too. And as they share the good, they also share the freedom.

This becomes revealed gradually, from negation, from a negative. It becomes revealed in darkness, without forcing people to become corrected, or in other words, only in the form of suffering in order to enable us to understand, realize, and agree out of our own free choice with what we have to do and how we should accept the laws of nature.

We shouldn’t accept them instinctively or due to having no other way to act, the way it is done on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, but rather by agreement and desire. We have to desire it to such a degree that even if we weren’t pressed by suffering, we would still aspire to it.

That is why the suffering becomes revealed to us. It brings us to an empty place where we begin the search and this way, from within this darkness we build the divine system ourselves. Finding myself in a vacuum, I find threads and interconnections, building blocks of the future construction, and begin to arrange them on their right places.

I build a building and in the process of this construction I feel Nature by my side which already exists. But it’s as if I form its system myself, expressing it in bestowal, in darkness.

That is how I create and acquire the entire system of the universe. And then I understand the entire reality to the last detail, I understand and feel the force that created it, and I join the Creator until reaching total perfection.

However, I perceive the process of construction as suffering. I am pressured in order to make me start thinking: How can I fill the emptiness, what should the structure of the system be like? I have to search for the form of every linkage joint in it. Kabbalists write to us about the intention for the sake of bestowal and we say smart things at the lesson about the right approach to life, but we do not know how to actualize all of this. Even if you memorize all the texts by heart, this won’t help you.

Only by attracting the Light that reforms do I become a bit wiser in my corrected qualities and understand how to build the system. I am its material and therefore I begin to treat others correctly. This is my construction. This way, I correct myself and build the system.

Therefore, now and in the future we will only receive negative impulses, meaning suffering. Nothing can be given to us besides suffering because otherwise we would be deprived of the opportunity to gather the system on our own.

And that means that by disseminating the science of Kabbalah and explaining these things to the world, we will be able to reduce the extent of the suffering and the time required to “digest” its influence on us. No matter what, regardless of how much a person listens and how much knowledge he obtains, this will never deprive him of the opportunity to personally participate in building the system.

We have to gather all the parts of the world of infinity into one, and we have to do so ourselves. You cannot just simply shout, “Give me perfection!” You have to know what exactly is necessary for that, and what exactly do you want according to your level. On various phases of the path you scream differently—but you scream to be given the forces.
[38114]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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Question: While reading The Zohar, I feel fulfillment that later on is gone. I try to find the force that is working on me, and the sensation returns, only to leave again. Is this how it should work?

Answer: Yes, exactly so! Every time when a person continues, forgets, escapes in his thoughts, and returns, it all begins anew. It’s very good! Nothing disappears, but “penny to penny, it turns into a great sum” and then revelation occurs.

Question: What indicates that my intentions are working correctly?

Answer: It is the extent in which I start feeling more that I depend on the group and together with the friends achieve correction.

Question: What should I do if I don’t understand what’s written in The Zohar and am constantly bombarded by numberless irrelevant thoughts?

Answer: First of all, a lack of understanding is not an issue. You shouldn’t worry about it. A person must feel rather than understand.

When the time comes and one’s desires are reformed to the level of what is described in The Zohar, he will understand, but from sensation. First, he will feel, and later understand more and more. Thus a baby experiences the world without a clue about what is going on, while gradually obtaining a mind.

Hence, a person should be concerned with how to develop desire to the degree described in The Zohar. And what we read about are the forms of bestowal between spiritual Partzufim: Malchut, Bina, Zeir Anpin, Aba ve Ima, and Yeshsut. Let a person make sure that his desire is being worked on by the forces that we receive while reading about the unknown to us spiritual processes.

Therefore, during the studies, I should think about how I must change and where the force that reforms me is. It is as though I am receiving an intravenous infusion and waiting for when the medicine will finally start to work, as it is said: “When my actions reach the acts of the Creator.”

Question: How can I anticipate correction by The Zohar if I don’t feel “ill”?

Answer: This is also necessary on the path. But what do you mean that you “don’t feel ill”? Do you really find yourself in the movie of the spiritual world that The Zohar talks about?

You should feel that these actions wash through you, that you live in that world, know the difference between the spiritual objects (Partzufim) and their descents and ascents. Do you find yourself in these ascents and descents, in all types of transformations? Do you experience them or not? If not, you have something to think about.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: Do Kabbalists reduce the world’s disasters by virtue of their spiritual progress?

Answer: Of course. Moreover, no one is bigger or smaller in this regard. People think that a great Kabbalist can just pray and make a plague go away. But in reality, it’s the other way around: Precisely the newcomers who have a point in the heart that has just awakened, who are confused and don’t understand anything yet, can do more than the old-timers with their distant, small desire.

Much like a little child who becomes the head of the family, people who have just set out on the spiritual path and who still seem far away from the “real business,” can do more than the “veterans” with their simple desire and their pleas.
[37931]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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The task of the created being is to move toward new, unexpected, and unknown states by arranging for itself all the necessary conditions to attract the upper force which can transform it. Hence, these actions are regarded as the “miraculous remedy” (Segula).

The acts that the created being must carry out are clearly defined: It has to rouse its own desire, cultivate it, enter the group, and “purchase the friends for himself” by starting to bestow to and lower himself before the group. One needs to get inspired by their exalting the spiritual goal, “make a teacher for himself” to learn from him with the friends, and unify into one integral desire, one vessel (“Kli”), in order to correct the breaking.

The breaking is the place within which we reveal our correction: our reformed state and the upper Light that fills our restored collective vessel. That is, we are dealing with the actions that can be accurately described and practically applied while still remaining in one’s egoistic nature, in a still uncorrected state. This stage exists at each step of the ascent, even at the spiritual degrees.

As to the acts of the upper one, it’s the upper Light (the Light of AB-SAG or the Surrounding Light) which expands to us in the manner we can’t comprehend and affects us without our feeling or being aware of it. We only feel the effects of its work.

This is why there is a gap between the creature’s actions and the Creator’s work in response to the former if they are arranged correctly. That is, there is no cause-and-effect chain on the part of the created being, and we neither understand how the breakthrough occurs nor can foretell it. Hence, this entire work is regarded as the “miraculous remedy.”

But it is all due to the fact that the created being is preparing to receive a new nature that it presently lacks. And hence, we cannot see or feel the forthcoming transformations. That is why this is described as a miracle. However, when a person receives these inner transformations from Above, the entire chain of events he went through becomes clear to him, and now he says about the past: “I labored and I found!”

A find is exactly what Segula, a miraculous force, implicates. We must constantly strive to do whatever we can, as it is written: “Do all that you are able to do” and you will find! This is precisely what determines the gap between my present and future states. I am completely in charge of my current state: I am aware of it, understand it, and organize everything in it: “I do everything I can.” But then I “find” a completely new state that comes as a miracle. After all, I receive a totally new nature that I didn’t expect or predict in advance.
[37438]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011 on The Importance of the Study

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Question: Why do you often refuse to answer questions on the actual text of The Zohar?

Answer: What’s the point of answering? A person who attains it receives the answer on his own. But a person who does not attain it has to work on attaining it.

An answer to a question that is perceived by our earthy mind leaves us on the level of this material world, calming us down with false understanding. But this is not a real answer and does not help us. After all, in that case a person does not try to acquire a connection with the Torah, with the Light that corrects him, but wishes to attain wisdom, and that is opposite to our path.

Of course, we have to know the material a little bit in order to be slightly connected to it at least externally, like small children who come in touch with something in our world without understanding it yet. However, we shouldn’t receive answers that extinguish our desire to attain. After all, we are reading the text for the sake of attainment. When we attain it, then we will receive the answer. And that will be the true answer.

Therefore, there’s practically nothing to ask about the actual text of The Zohar, about the names, titles, forces, and angels. What’s the point of it? Who understands it? Who will give you an answer as long as you haven’t revealed it inside you?

Therefore, our entire study is only for the sake of revealing Kelim, vessels, or desires in which everything we study will be revealed.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11, The Zohar

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Kabbalists differ from one another in their degrees of development, their degrees of understanding and attainment. Naturally, this is also related to the types of souls that come down to our world in every generation.

In in his prophecy, Baal HaSulam writes that the Creator said to him: “’Take this sword in your hand….’” Essentially, this sword is a sign that the Creator has given him the power to correct the enormous human disharmony. “’Good things will happen through you, for until now, I had no such faithful man as you….’”

In one of his letters, Baal HaSulam writes that the Ari is a great Kabbalist who has revealed the method of correction to us. We are unable to appreciate their true height. For example, according to Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Akiva was naturally higher than Rashbi. However, Rashbi has revealed more to us than Rabbi Akiva, and he is more valuable in our eyes because we receive more from his instruction.

Likewise, the Ari is also extremely great and important for us. He developed the method of our correction because his soul pertains to the Messiah’s type, the son of Joseph (Mashiach ben Josef). Baal HaSulam writes that since then, there has not been a single person who was able to fully understand the method of the Ari. There have been many sages, but Baal HaSulam was the first one to merit receiving the soul of the Ari.

This does not depend on the person’s strengths, wisdom, or even his efforts in studying. This is activated by the inner purpose evoked by the system of souls, and this is why Baal HaSulam says that he simply merited it, while many others before him did not.

We do not understand this. We only see that one way or another, every person in the world has his own destiny which is referred to as his “luck,” his root. We need to be happy that we have received instruction from a person who was the new incarnation of the soul of the Ari in order to give us the method of correction in modern times.

This is why we use the works of Baal HaSulam. When you prepare for the lesson, it is very important to feel that you are about to study the primary source, the highest and most authentic source.

Even though we do not understand the spiritual world, it sometimes seems to us like someone has gotten lucky in the corporeal world, like someone has gotten ahead by chance. Success takes a lot of strength and effort for some, and fortune seems to be smiling on others.

According to Kabbalah, we understand that this comes from the root of one’s soul. This is why meriting a teacher like Baal HaSulam is a reason for great joy and a basis for assurance. We receive help from a special soul that works as a medium for the Creator to influence us and for us to connect with Him.

In the end, we receive strength from Above through the entire system of corrected souls, and we make sure to pass it on to the uncorrected souls, to every person who has not yet found contact with the force that corrects and fulfills us.
[36723]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/2011, Writings of Rabash

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As we advance on the spiritual path and go through different states, we are like babies because we do not know how to develop or what happens to us, and we get confused. This is what happens to small children: They are ready to accept anything you tell them since how could they know the truth? They are completely in your power.

In the spiritual world we go through the same “infantile” states. So what remains for us to do? After we make great efforts to understand anything through reason and the right organization of our work, as in any science, we must realize that in Kabbalah a scientist is a person who has developed spiritual qualities of perception to feel the world he is setting out to research.

Therefore, when approaching the study, we have to think about the Light that corrects us. This will enable us to enter the sensation, and then also to enter the understanding of the world that becomes revealed to us. First we feel it and then we understand what we feel.

This can be seen with babies: First they only feel “good” or “bad,” and nothing besides that. Later they start to understand what this depends on, how to come closer to the good and avoid the bad, and so forth.

Sensations come first, with sensations being specific fulfillments inside the desire. But in order to be fulfilled, the desire has to change under the influence of the Light, going from reception to bestowal. To this degree it will begin feeling spiritual fulfillment, fulfillment by the quality of bestowal, fulfillment by bestowing.

Therefore, it is forbidden for us to regret the fact that we do not understand the material we study or the ways of our work. A person who thinks he understands anything is a fool. A person who is proud of knowing, understanding, and perceiving, and who leaves the lesson full of energy, understanding, and pride, is the one that has to realize how low he is in that state because there is no prayer or request in his heart, and therefore no progress.

Precisely when a person experiences lack of fulfillment, a feeling of his own insignificance, total lack of understanding or feeling, and confusion, when he is in a total fog and does not understand what is happening to him, that is when he is in the best possible state for the upper Light to influence him. These moments come to us only at times. At first we don’t like them very much, but later we begin to value them.

So what do we have to prepare before the study? It is the desire for change. By changing our sensations we will understand where we are and what is happening. But first we must feel and be in the spiritual state, meaning to live in actions of bestowal.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/11, The Zohar

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Question: How do we allocate our time correctly? How much time should we devote to family, circulation, and the study?

Answer: It’s impossible to determine an exact amount. Everybody allocates their time according to their possibilities and desire.

History gives us an example of a student who studied for one day. This actually was his name, Bar Bi Yoma (a student for one day). He was a peasant and worked in the fields. It took him three months to journey from his home to Jerusalem to study the Torah for one day, and then he walked back home for another three months. In honor of this person, there is a tradition to study the Torah on one special day of the year.

Everything depends on how much time a person has. Our lessons and programs are available on a TV Channel and the Internet site 24 hours a day; moreover, we have study centers all over the country.

A serious study really bears fruit. And if one has a chance, he or she can listen to our lessons during the commute or when other opportunities present themselves. However, only a course of study can arrange the principles of Kabbalah into an orderly system, and there is no substitute for it.
[36434]
From the Introductory Lecture Series 1/4/2011, “What Does the Wisdom of Kabbalah Revolve Around”

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The Zohar, Introduction, “General Explanations for All Fourteen Commandments and How They Divide Into the Seven Days of ‘Creation’,” Item 1: …Rabbi Shimon explains the fourteen Mitzvot, which include all 613 Mitzvot, as the seven days of creation include 7,000 years. This is why he divided them into seven days of creation and tied each to its ascribed day. And since they include all 613 Mitzvot, it is worthwhile exerting to keep each day.

What does it mean to observe a commandment (Mitzva)? How do I even know what that commandment is? And what can I do now if I don’t even know what it is talking about?

Nevertheless, I have to read this text with the intention that it will correct me. After all, for now we don’t even know how to connect to the text or extract the spiritual action from it so it would become an instruction manual for us, the Torah, because “Torah” comes from the word “Oraa,” instructions. For it is written, “A man’s soul shall teach him.”

When each of us will have a soul instead of its embryo or spiritual spark, then inside of our soul we will reveal various phenomena. These phenomena will become “my book,” “my Torah,” my revelation, according to the instruction to write the Torah on one’s heart, where the heart refers to all of a person’s desires.
From them we will find out how to advance, how to take the next steps, and will take them inside of us. That is exactly how we will perform various actions inside of us according to the instruction manual.

But for now we are looking at the instruction manual without realizing what the instructions are saying. We do not know what it is talking about because we do not feel what each of them is talking about inside of us, where various parts of our soul are, and what connection between them is.

Therefore, we must only ask and pray to reveal the inner structure of our soul: Where are these desires in the states that are being described, what exactly is the book talking about, and what actions does it describe which we must perform inside of us?

The intention to desire and to attain this is the right intention, which Baal HaSulam describes in Item 155 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”: …through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls.”
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/11, The Zohar

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Question: Is “Segula” (the “miraculous force”) a foundation for the integral upbringing?

Answer: Segula is the basis to start with since the spiritual world is opposite to our world, and thus, is completely detached from it. The spiritual world has no connection with anything corporeal. There is nothing you can do with the spiritual world: neither draw forces from it, nor affect it. Neither cards, nor “miracles,” nor red strings will help you bridge the total gap between the worlds.

A contact by way of which you can evoke spiritual impact upon yourself is formed only by tying yourself correctly to the teacher, the Kabbalistic text, and the group on the condition that you are using them to develop in yourself the intention, the vital need, and the understanding of what exactly you desire to receive from the studies.

And then, by studying with a true teacher, the right group, and authentic Kabbalistic books, you actualize your intention. And if it isn’t for that, nothing will help you. If there were no Segula in this world for us, man would remain a beast.

That is why it is so important for us to assess what these three components should be: the teacher, the books, and the group and how they must affect me together in a mutual guarantee. All of this is focused on the necessity to attain spirituality. And spirituality can be attained due to the study which contains a hidden force. This force has to work on me if I appeal to it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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