The solution is primarily in the organization of the environment in which everyone would be able to fill up on the fuel for working above reason, that is, egoism. In order to do this, we begin working with a few married couples and conduct exercises and discussions.

It’s similar to how people come into a specific society, for example wanting to lose weight without having any clue about how to do it, but only having a big desire. In the same way, we gather 10-20 people into groups and influence each other. From that, each one feels the strength, the importance of the goal, and pressure.

`We are united by a common goal, to build good family relations. All couples look at your family and impart to you the force to stay above mutual egoism, in mutual love and bestowal. They are constantly feeding you with energy, importance; they supply you with the means to remain above the ego. The more couples in such a group, the better and stronger they are. Besides that, it’s important how connected they are with each other.

We have not yet come to the realization that our nature is the most important obstacle on the path towards the good life. If you still don’t understand what your egoism is, ask your wife and she’ll tell you about who you are. Likewise, you can tell her about all of her shortcomings.

However, the shortcomings that everyone wants to change in the other are actually their own egoism. We see the negative qualities in a partner as a reflection of our own egoism, just like in a mirror. Everything bad that I see on the opposite side belongs to me, beyond any doubt. Even if I am sure that such qualities are absolutely not characteristic of me, rather the opposite side has inherited them from their mother or grandmother, in actuality, all of them are my own flaws.

However, we understand that we have no choice and we must get rid of our criticism, to rise above it, above the entire negativity that we see in our partner. While at the same time she behaves in exactly the same way towards me, rising above her criticism, and we relate to each other as to complete perfection. My spouse is really ideal and my only wish is to make all her wishes come true, I am ready to do everything for her. And in exactly the same way, she wants to do everything for me.

If we have the necessary fuel, then we’ll realize all of that. And then we won’t be demanding proof of slavish devotion from each other day and night. On the contrary, we’ll see that by the virtue of our love, we demand almost nothing of each other. I am happy to do everything for my spouse by myself, and she for me. It turns out that we enjoy the smallest, simplest things, and from this get great mutual pleasure.

I won’t need to buy expensive gifts; just an internal feeling that fulfills us in such a way that we no longer need anything. We feel similar to how newlyweds feel, ready to live in a small flat in the most modest of conditions, only to be together. This is what “love covers all transgressions” means. There is no transgression or shortcoming, which cannot be filled with love.
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From a Talk About New Life 7/12/12

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Question: What is love above the ego?

Answer: First by the efforts a person makes in the group, in the study, in using all the options, he should value the attribute of bestowal very highly. A person goes through many states of giving and bestowal that he isn’t aware of at all, as he feels himself as “dead.” He can be in opposing states, wanting only to receive, or feel disappointed about the way or the opposite, meaning to be in high spirits. But a person should rise above all these opposite polar states. There is the state itself and I rise above it. The state was sent from Above by the Creator who thus wants to check how we respond and rise above every state.

A person usually feels indifference and disrespect. But if he says that he doesn’t want to believe what he sees and starts doing something about regaining his inspiration, the sensitivity, the feeling of vitality in bestowal, his special attitude towards his correction, meaning above the indifference and the disrespect, then he will gradually draw upon himself the Light that Reforms.

I begin to value the attribute of bestowal, the advancement towards the Creator, towards His revelation, the states that are above this world. If I already value this and aspire to bestow, I have a vessel. I want to feel that I’m lost within the attribute of bestowal, that I value it more than anything. Why did this suddenly happen? This is how the upper Light bestowed upon me and now I want to have this attribute too.

The question is also why do I want it? I may feel that I’ll feel better with it, that it will free me of all troubles and worries. Is it bad to feel that I don’t belong to this world? Many people want to detach themselves from it.

So I should check the reason why I’m doing this. The upper Light stimulates me and inserts the appreciation of bestowal into me, but what kind of bestowal, perhaps egoistic bestowal? I check myself with the help of the group and the friends, to see whether I can, with the help of my apparent aspiration for the attribute of bestowal, attain it and feel it. Do I want to bestow in order to bestow upon others, or am I doing this in order to receive something: respect or appreciation? I check all this within the group.

Why do I do that? So that I’ll feel good? No! So that others will feel good? Yes! But do I know that it’s so and that inside I don’t actually hope to get something in return? I check it by asking whether I aspire to bring the Creator pleasure through the friends. Here my true distant goal has to be revealed. I suddenly discover that I want to direct all my actions of bestowal towards the Creator.

But here too I still have to clarify things, since to bestow upon the Creator is undoubtedly worthwhile. After all, He will certainly understand, discover and pay me for my loyalty, and if I reach this, my whole life is filled with different priorities. But no! I want to bestow so that the Creator knows nothing about it and only in order to be in the attribute of bestowal.

I examine my actions according to the extent that I can rise above my egoistic desires. If I don’t constantly examine myself as to how to raise bestowal above receiving, I’ll not be able to hold on to bestowal under any circumstances. I must constantly check what I have gained and what I have lost and whether I can ignore my losses. This means, whether I can receive a filling and be above this.

I have constant calculations in my desires to receive as to what extent I can remain in true bestowal. One is based on the other. After all, there is no way to assess whether or not you are doing this for yourself, in the vessels of bestowal, in the aspiration to bestow, but only if under all this there are desires to receive which I restrict to build upon them a Masach and the Returning Light, which means my actions of bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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It is important to clarify exactly how we can change our desire to receive under the influence of the Light so that we will not waste our powers in vain. All we can do is to hasten the pace of our development by using the environment as a magnifying glass that brings the influence of the Light closer to us. This is actually the only thing we can do and the only thing we need.

By starting to work in a group, we learn to focus this telescope: We bring together all the rays of the Light that Reforms so that they will go exactly through the center of the group and will be focused exactly on our desire to receive. Then the desire to receive will be changed by the Light that Reforms.

We want to learn how this is done: how this ray of Light that goes through the magnifying glass grows, concentrates and is intensified, and then falls on the desire to receive and puts it through four phases. Then we will see how changes begin to take place in the desire to receive and how it becomes the opposite of what it was initially. A person begins to live not inside himself, but to rise above his desire, above the restriction and the Masach (screen) towards the Returning Light, towards bestowal, instead of receiving, and thus reaches correction.

This work in hastening the development of our desire by the Light that Reforms actually provides us with the power to understand and to attain the whole system. Although it is only the hastening of a process, it is in it that we discover all the means and all the details of creation and the process of its development. It is because in every stage that we go through, we have to orient the group differently.

So the focus through this magnifying glass constantly changes and becomes the opposite of what it was before, depending on the new external and internal conditions. We are constantly changing the influence of the group on us, and we change it with regard to the Light, with regard to the Creator. Eventually we build a new system inside us, above our desire to receive. The group becomes my world. Instead of a tiny point of desire, I receive a whole world, the enormous system of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

It is thanks to the desire we have that we begin to attain this system called the “group,” an infinite system in its finite form, and thus receive the means that raises us above our desire to receive.

The whole level of bestowal is called “self-sacrifice.” It means that a person has totally detached himself from his desire to receive, which means that he “sacrifices himself.” Of course, the whole correction is done by the Light, and we only have to adjust and to focus its influence on us through the environment, to connect these three components like a gun sight, so that they are all arranged in one straight line.

Then we will have no more doubts that we have to get close to the Light’s nature and so we imagine the society this way and want the Light to influence us through it. Eventually all these components become one whole.

The level of love is revealed after the level of self-sacrifice. Then a person understands what the goal of creation called “to do good to His created beings” means.

We gradually rise by keeping a certain condition and thanks to this we discover a little more understanding as to the Creator’s intention regarding the creation. Thus we advance: First there is the correction of the vessels by the Light that Reforms and then we attain the thought of creation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/12, Shamati #219

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We attain the Creator, which means that we reach the attribute of bestowal, the revelation of the spiritual world, only if we acquire two discernments:

• A great desire that is aimed at that, which is clarified enough and which is one degree lower than the level of attainment. A person imagines what the revelation of the Shechina (Divinity), the Creator’s face is, what the Light and the attribute of bestowal are.
• A person must feel great pain since he doesn’t have the attribute of bestowal. A person suffers and he knows that the attribute of bestowal symbolizes the rising above his ego and a complete detachment from his previous life and from all his personal accounts.

It’s very hard to reach that, since we act against our nature. Therefore a person advances on two legs, step by step, between two lines: left right, left right…from his part a person should try to start from the right line and fall to the left. But from Above, he is always given the left line, darkness first. On every level, by the darkness and the Light the “letters of the work” are registered in a person, the relations that are drawn between the types of darkness and the Light, the attributes of receiving and bestowal in different manners.

The letters are different on every level. Each time the darkness and the Light are depicted to him in different attributes according to different criteria. Accordingly the letters also take on different forms. This is why each time a person has a new Torah, a new Creator, a new world, everything is new and he is also new.

Thus a person grows by his consistency that indicates how much patience he has, and thereby he advances and comes closer to the right forms of the great deficiency that are aimed at true bestowal. Here we see the principle of “I have labored and I found,” meaning a person is looking for the Creator’s face, the greatness of the attribute of bestowal. Connecting to the attribute of bestowal, the force of bestowal summons in him the feeling of belonging, warmth, up to the actual feeling of love. Since to love the Creator is to love bestowal, to love the attribute of love itself, it begins to fill a person and enables him to dwell in it.

We have to go through great changes in our nature by detaching ourselves from our old values, from the previous understanding of what exertion means and what the goal is, who the Creator is and what the Torah is. Each time we re-evaluate the great desire that is required of us and the suffering that we experience. The values naturally change in the transition from one state to another, and a person constantly changes and becomes another, a new person.

Therefore it says in the Torah, “Abraham is an old man.” “An old man” is someone who has acquired knowledge, who has been through and “plowed” the whole path. A person acquires the attribute of bestowal gradually, the mind and the understanding of how to work with it, the feeling, the loyalty, the self-sacrifice, and how to identify with the Creator. Thus he attains the level of “an old man” which means his point of adhesion with the Creator. Then the attribute of bestowal fills him, and he feels love and appreciation towards it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Writings of Rabash, Volume II, Letter 8: And once I have acquired this above-mentioned clothing, sparks of love promptly begin to shine within me. The heart begins to long to unite with my friends, and it seems to me that my eyes see my friends, my ears hear their voices, my mouth speaks to them, the hands embrace, the feet dance in a circle, in love and joy together with them, and I transcend my corporeal boundaries. I forget the vast distance between my friends and me, and the outstretched land for many miles will not stand between us.

It is as though my friends are standing right within my heart and see all that is happening there, and I become ashamed of my petty acts against my friends. Then, I simply exit the corporeal vessels, and it seems to me that there is no reality in the world except my friends and I. After that, even the “I” is cancelled and is immersed, mingled in my friends, until I stand and declare that there is no reality in the world—only the friends.

Of course, it is impossible to achieve such a state by my own simple efforts. Only the upper Light can bring us to this state as it operates on us for a long time until it evokes in us the collective desire. Then, we all are incorporated in one network, and then each one feels the society.

Each one will see that this is the center of his life, and this is where he receives the force of vitality and its impression. In this mutual connection, he gradually discovers the Creator’s form since by mutual bestowal, the friends stabilize a field from which, like in matter that develops and discovers, the Creator’s from is depicted and revealed.

Thus, when we attain a collective desire, the corporeal conditions cease to exist. The desire is the only matter from which, by mutual bestowal, we begin to stabilize and to sculpt the Creator’s image by revealing it to everyone. A person sees that outside this general network there is nothing but the friends.

This is why we are in this state in such a world, and through the actions and through the corporeal states, we can attain the spiritual world. Otherwise, we couldn’t do anything.

It can only be this way, through corporeal actions and the Surrounding Light that raises us to spiritual actions, but the impression comes from the general connection between everyone. I believe that it is already among us to some extent.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/12

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Question: How can I relate to the Creator if He is the property of bestowal?

Answer: Really, what is “the property” anyway? Is it a physical force? Can I really love or hate gravity? For example, I can like it on the condition that it does something good to me. But that doesn’t mean that I love or hate it. I realize that it’s something inanimate and therefore I relate to it according to my feeling, according to the benefits I get from it.

I enjoy the sun. But, do I really “love” it? How can we love the sun compared to loving a plant, an animal or a person?

So, how do I relate to the Creator? First of all, it is said about Him: “I HaVaYaH change not.” The upper Light is in absolute rest; it is “Good that does good to both the good and the bad”; the Creator treats us with absolute love.

On the other hand, the Creator is called the Great, the Terrible, and so on and so forth. All evil comes from Him; all the good originates from Him. Everything is so contradictory that I get confused.

If something is unchanging, it’s bad. Why do they tell us that the Creator doesn’t change?

Baal HaSulam explains in his letter number two, that if a father relates to his son with absolute love, it makes the son hate him instead of love. After all, if there is no reaction whatsoever on the father’s behalf, the son sees that it doesn’t matter how he treats his father; in any case, his father responds to him with absolute love. It prevents the son from developing love, and it does not allow him to change, see the connection and stay in contact. It’s as if he is facing an inanimate object. Plants have a certain level of reaction, animals respond even more strongly, not to mention the human being. Then, positive and negative reactions penetrate in each other and create a new liaison, a mutual inclusion.

But if the Creator doesn’t change, and at the same time He is so kind and loving, then what can I feel for Him? There is no way I can take Him into consideration. And yet, if I cannot consider Him, then I leave Him out of the picture, as if He doesn’t exist at all. Why would I consider someone who never changes?

It’s a very deep notion that was explored not only by Kabbalists. However, Kabbalists strove to demonstrate that at all times the Creator is “Come and See”; so I reveal Him. I cannot reveal Him Himself, His essence, but only His form that is dressed into matter. That’s why when we attain Him in His full entirety, we reveal His ultimate and perfect shape and really see Him as the Absolute, the Perfect, the Eternal, the Good that does good.

In all other states, we regard evil or good that come from Him depending on the level of our own corruptness, as it is said: “Everybody judges according to his own flaws,” and then, we have the opportunity to relate to Him to the degree of our own deficiencies and corrections, and thus see Him as good or bad.

And yet, we have to believe what the great Kabbalists who revealed Him in His true form, say, that He is absolutely good and bestowing.

So we have to relate it to our desires (Kelim): At this moment, we see the Creator to the extent of the correctness or corruptness of our desires, but when we attain Him at the end of the ladder we will reveal Him as the Good that does good.

Then all contradictions will be gone; we will get a “roadmap of advancement” which is scaled to our attitude to the Creator. It allows us to see how we change and accordingly how the Creator changes in our eyes.

We express gratitude to the Creator for giving us the ladder of concealment; with its help we can attain connection with Him. Otherwise, we won’t be able to connect with perfection.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, “The Book of Zohar”

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Everything depends on the preparation and there is the issue of the group here, since the connection is the expression of the acquisition of the attribute of bestowal, the closeness, the adhesion between those who work together and follow one path; it is an expression of the attribute of love that they acquire.

The unity among them is similar to the uniqueness of the Creator, since if they want to be “as one man in one heart,” which means to be mutually incorporated in thought and desires, without any differences between them, as one integral system, they yearn to resemble the Creator who is One.

Thus they prepare themselves, all of them together and each one on his own, to feel the true taste of the meal that was prepared by the Creator.

This is why we were given freewill in our world, in order to enable us to reach the meal of the wicked or the meal of the righteous. You decide whether you prepare yourself seriously, or whether you play with toys!

We speak about those who have reached the wisdom of Kabbalah. We cannot demand anything from those who have not reached it yet. They simply continue to suffer from the general crisis that pushes them to correct themselves from below. These poor people don’t understand what is going on. They expect salvation, but salvation can only come from those who have prepared themselves correctly for the King’s meal. Then through them, the meal will reach all the others who have not started preparing yet.

So all our work is in the group, in mutuality, “as one man in one heart,” as it says: “Each man shall help his brother,” “Don’t do unto your friends what you hate,” “Love thy friend as thyself,” and “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.”

All these principles can only be fulfilled through connection, since this is the preparation for the revelation of our relationship with the Creator, so that He will be revealed within our preparation, within the connection. This means that the attribute of bestowal and love is revealed in the vessels that we have prepared and corrected, in order to reveal this attribute according to the law of the equivalence of form.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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In our world we are in contact with physical bodies, and it seems to us that we have free choice, independence, and that we ask and receive answers and responses. But afterward, we discover that we simply were standing in front of a mirror and there were no others. My attributes seems to be as humanity, as a great world around me with which I, as if, work.

Therefore, we need to understand that what we do to others, we do to ourselves. It doesn’t just come back to you in roundabout way, but you directly act against yourself. Everything that you see around you are your own internal qualities extended outward.

And this is the only opportunity to gradually discover yourself. Since if we would discover within us that same desire that the Creator created us with, we would constantly be stuck within it, then we wouldn’t try to examine it, but we would grasp it as a good thing, and we would only think of how to fill it. We would care about it like a loving mother who is not worried about anything, only that her child will be fat and healthy. She doesn’t criticize his personal attributes.

Thus we are in this special reality. It is said, “A person is a small world,” and everything that is inside, he sees outside. All the world that surrounds you is you, yourself, inversely as if it spilled out. And now, since you view everything existing as if outside yourself and relate to it egoistically, you can try with all of your egoistic attributes to attain love.

The result is that everything was created only for the purpose of its correction. If all of these attributes would stay within you, you wouldn’t be able to discover them and correct them. And thus you wouldn’t receive the Kli (vessel) for the disclosure of the Creator. But because all of this appears to be outside of you, you are able to see it and clarify the relation to it, to discover it 613 times greater, and in this way to discover the Creator. Thus, within you, only the “point in the heart” can be discovered.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, Writings of Rabash

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Inside of each nation, there is concealed an internal force that unites it. However, the sons of Israel, as Baal HaSulam explains, are not like the rest of the nations who possess this natural interconnection. If there is no love among them, they disperse easily. Only the hatred of other nations holds them together and protects them from complete assimilation.

Baal HaSulam uses the example of a bag of nuts. They are so unwilling to unite that they even rattle and hit against each other, but the “bag,” meaning anti-Semitism, doesn’t let them fall apart. However, this is not love and not unity. So, how long will they last?

That is why now the time has come for them to unite with each other and not due to the “bag” that shrouds them, but based on love and interconnection. Then, the external pressure will not be needed and it will cease. Suddenly, the Arab cousins will change their relationship and actually will become like brothers to them. This is because the point is not in someone else, but this is how the higher governance influences the Jewish people.

If the nation will merge, the “bag” will no longer be needed, and in this way, all of the negative forces in the world will be eliminated, only by the means of unity. Realizing this methodology, people will feel something that is instilled in their soul and forgotten long ago.

The seed already has been planted, and that is why Baal HaSulam writes that the Jewish nation needs to awaken the love within it again while, of course, it is necessary to be open to everyone. Who knows where the ten tribes who fell away during the time of the First Temple have gone? Who knows where their descendants are now and how many there are.

Anyway, if the entire world has to arrive at the same unity, then, of course, the Jewish nation is ready to accept all of those who want it. There are no accounts in love. Those who wish it so, join in.
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From a “Talk on 5/6/12”

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A person constantly cancels himself, constantly carries out the will of the Creator, constantly “sends himself into nothingness” on top of the desire, growing in him.

At the beginning, I nullify myself above the small desire of the still level, and then I am as if in the mother’s womb, in the “nine-month slumber.” Then, a group of desires, belonging to the vegetative level, awaken in me, and again, I have to nullify myself against them.

However, in order to nullify myself, to make myself nothing, I need to engage myself. Through the actions opposite to the Creator, I create what is called “help against Him” and cancel myself by bestowing to Him.

In the end, I discard nothing. All the desires are used, as it is said: “Everything is added to the general account.” I ask only to nullify myself, but this comes only through my understanding and feeling of myself and everyone, the whole world. Precisely this allows me to adhere to the Creator.

Question: Can I say that self-nullification is love?

Answer: Love is manifested not in self-nullification, but in greatness, when I use all my properties to give, to bestow. Love means that I bestow, establish connection, and in general am active.

And self-nullification is the quality of a fetus or baby, and not an expression of love.
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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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