Question: When I receive for the sake of bestowal, the abundance flows through me. May I enjoy it?

Answer: You do not enjoy the abundance that goes through you. It is a completely different kind of abundance, not like the egoistic fulfillment. You, like a guest, want to try a delicious cake in order to do the owner, who prepared it, a favor. It would seem that the cake should have the same taste, but it is not so.

Question: But, when I love someone wholeheartedly, forgetting about myself, this feeling emerges in me nevertheless. Love is directed towards another, but I am the one who feels it.

Answer: Yes, the feeling emerges inside of you; however, it consists of several parameters. After all, you receive the pleasure of wanting to bestow to the loved one.

Imagine this. There is the receiving desire of the Creator and the receiving desire of the creation, which is what you are. You must feel His receiving the desire, feel how He wants to bestow to you, to assimilate this receiving desire inside of yourself and to please Him.

Mainly, you are experiencing pleasure in the “head”, meaning in the desire you received from Him. So it turns out that there, inside of His desire, you make the calculation, “How can I fulfill him?—at least to the extent of how much you will involve your receiving the desire.” In other words, in your desire you feel the extent, to which you are fulfilling Him, and this is already the garment of the Light of Hassadim.

As a result, we are talking about pleasure of a very different kind.

Question: So how does separation emerge if everything is inside of me?

Answer: The intention lays out the difference between the one and the other. When the urge towards bestowing to the Creator reigns in your “head”, accordingly, pleasures become different as well.

Question: May we compare this with the love towards our own child? Do I give him a cake without even having tasted it?

Answer: No, pleasure passes through you, but now everything is defined by his desire, not yours.

Question: How do I carry out this differentiation inside between me and him?

Answer: In the first stage, we rise above our own desire and only at the second stage are we able to perceive something foreign, making it ours.

In order to please the Host, I must feel His pleasures, feel how much He enjoys the bestowal to me and what pleasure I must receive from Him. I must feel that this pleasure has arrived from Him and is gifted out of love, and not reason.

By the means of this love, He conveys to me the feeling of shame, which now helps me cope with the situation and to understand it in order to build a different relationship. I take His pleasures, I receive them for Him, but I do not make the calculation for the “cake”, but specifically for this bestowal. The “cake” is the lowest level, Nefesh de-Nefesh, and the pleasure, which I give to Him, it is the whole of the NRNHY.

Here is where one should beware not to consider oneself: “Since I am giving pleasure to the Creator, Himself! Just look at how He enjoys me!” It is here, where the main calculation is located, and not in the “cake” itself, which was given to you simply as a means, allowing you to build the connection with all of the worlds. The calculation in the head of Partzuf is directed at the relationships with the Creator.

And that is why you need to know who is the Creator, how He acts, and how to please Him, since His vessels, desires, are infinite. So how to protect oneself in such a situation? Compared to it, the direct pleasures are no more than a spark, which has created the desire, while everything else is conditioned by the greatness of the Giver.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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In the News (from LiveScience): “Saying ‘thank you’ may be a simple way to boost marital happiness, new research suggests. This cycle of appreciation may also make for longer-lasting relationships.

“‘Feeling appreciated by your partner influences how you act in your relationship, and how much you want to stay in that relationship,’ study researcher Amie Gordon, of the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience. ‘Instead of just waiting for the other person to make you feel good, you can jumpstart that cycle and take it into your own hands by focusing on what’s good in your relationship.’

“‘What goes wrong in a lot of relationships is if you start to take your partner for granted,’ Gordon told LiveScience. ‘You get used to having them in your life and forget why you chose to be with them.’

“They [the researchers] found that, the more often a participant acted understanding, validating and caring toward their partner, the more appreciated their partner felt, and the happier both were in the relationship. These behavioral displays — leaning in to your partner when they are speaking, making eye contact, giving comforting touches — are important ways that people show gratitude.”

My Comment: There is nothing new in these suggestions. The question is how to overcome pride, enter into the feelings of the other, and to think not about one’s own fulfillment, but about good fulfillment of the other? How can we transform egoistic love into altruistic? This should be taught in a short Kabbalah course because it is the method of correction of our nature from reception to bestowal!
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Baal HaSulam, “Letter 13”: … and this shall be your tractate of negligence ignoring my request to make efforts regarding the love of friends.

Baal HaSulam writes to his students that the problem of the group is neglecting the love of friends, which means the mutual help necessary for the spiritual birth.

How can you reveal love and unity? By taking a desire from every friend who wants to fulfill it; with the help of my attributes, my desire becomes an assistant, a “midwife” for the friend’s desire. Of course, I take the desires that are aimed at spirituality and constantly try to empower him and to raise him. Thus, mutually, we help one another according to the principle of “each one shall help his friend.”

To love the friend means to receive his desire instead of my desire. I constantly look for an opportunity to fill him and to empower him, to help him and to push him forward, to make the goal seem important to him, to give him energy and help him be in a good mood.

I explained to you in every possible way (in seventy languages) that this merit is enough to fulfill all your needs.

In other words, he used all the attributes, all the possible types of bestowal. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the upper Partzuf with regards to the lower Partzuf is like Zeir Anpin with respect to Malchut; Zeir Anpin has seven Sefirot while Malchut is one Sefira. Overall, ten Sefirot multiplied by seven is called seventy “languages,” which means the types of bestowal that Zeir Anpin can bestow upon Malchut. And besides, it also means the pivot that determines how the scale will be tilted.

This is what Baal HaSulam speaks about: “I constantly try to convey the feeling that it is up to you to raise the positive force above the negative force. So fulfill it, exert yourselves, it is in your power and it is enough in order to complete everything that you lack. Even if you are callous and lazy, even if you are egoists and individualists, it makes no difference; everyone has received his own nature. What matters is that you make an effort.”

And if you cannot rise to Heaven, I have given you those who walk upon the earth.

To “Heaven” is the level of bestowal, Bina, and we shouldn’t think that it is unattainable. Of course you cannot do it, but try and then your efforts will summon the Light that Reforms, the upper force. By trying to come closer to the Light, you draw its influence upon you that matches the tension you display. It is a law of nature: You receive the force to be born, by your efforts.

Why did you not add to this work at all?”

Because you are only required to try and the Light always completes the other half of the work. In our egoistic world we don’t see the beginning of our actions: where the desire stems from? Why do I want this in particular? Why am I drawn in this direction? Suddenly I feel an urge, suddenly a thought is evoked, but I don’t know where it comes from. The Creator says, “I’m the first.” But this initial factor that spurs me is concealed from us. I suddenly yearn for something, exert myself and see a result as in the case of success and in the case of failure. I don’t even see that it is the actions of the Light that are aimed at the goal that have brought about this result and not my own actions.

I don’t see the beginning of the process nor its end, and in the process itself I don’t pay attention to what motivates me. I am like a baby instinctively responding to the different stimuli.

There is no such thing in spirituality. The spiritual revelation that we want to attain is the revelation of the Creator’s actions, the actions of the Light. This means that with all our efforts I demand Its overt participation. I always fulfill my first half of the work by wanting to discover his second half. Thus I find my partner, the Creator, create a vessel for His stimulus, and thus advance time after time.

Now at the beginning of this process we don’t feel it and don’t understand it. In the meantime we have to discover the second half to such an extent that we can learn to work with the Creator, just as a horse and its rider operate mutually, like two dancers dancing arm in arm. Eventually I will discover that the Creator is dressed in me and fulfills everything, but only if I agree to it, if I want to discover His leadership, His control over me.

Then it is as if I disappear by filling everything with Light. My self and the Light become one whole if I rise above my ego and exit myself.

The whole Kabbalistic method is about that: how we can exit ourselves and feel the movement of our tango “partner.” The main thing it is to follow Him harmoniously. In order to do that we need to know His attributes, and the steps He wants to take with us.

The first step is called “submission”: We only try to annul our ego, that wants to go wherever it likes to, and create a place for the actions of the Light. Thus, we help it give birth to us; we enable the “force of midwife” to pull us out of this gloomy world.
[81357]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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Question: What is love of the Creator?

Answer: Love is an opportunity to fill someone else’s deficiency (vessel) using my own vessels. In our world we love because it gives us pleasure: delicious and familiar food, people that please us, my children to whom I am naturally attached. We call this love.

But spiritual love is not when I fill my vessels by someone or something, but when I fill the vessels of others. This is the exact opposite of what we are used to thinking about the concept of love. The spiritual world is opposite from the corporeal world. If I worry about someone else’s vessels and want to fill them the way he wants them filled, it means that I love that person.

As long as we love each other and everything is fine, we make a covenant with the Creator in order to sustain this relationship, even if everything changes because of different external reasons. No matter what happens—I want to keep the same force of love and connection between us.

The question is how can this be done if I suddenly discover that the Creator is responsible for all my troubles? My faithful and beloved partner suddenly stops looking at me and causes me all kinds of troubles and problems. He betrays me in every way and does everything against me and becomes my chief enemy. So how can I maintain the good attitude towards Him under such conditions?

But the adhesion to the Creator means that I have gone through different states and have reached a state in which I receive nothing from Him, nothing but the feeling of darkness. But above all that I build a relationship of love, bestowal, and connection despite the problems and the sufferings that He causes my ego. In such a case it can be called adhesion.

The vessels in which I attain adhesion have to be restricted and concealed. Above them there is my Masach (screen) and Returning Light, and there is adhesion in the vessels of bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

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The whole of reality is divided into three parts: me, the spiritual spark inside of me, not letting me be at peace and wanting to discover another reality, and the world surrounding me.

The world around me is divided into people who are close to or distant from me, inanimate nature, vegetation, and animals. Behind all of that, there stands yet another, higher force. For now, I perceive the whole of the reality as foreign, not related to me. Yet, all of this are parts of me that I do not perceive due to the separation that occurred in my consciousness and feeling.

It is as if I had been given an injection of painkiller into my arm and as a result it completely lost feeling and I don’t feel that it is mine. It could be cut off and I would not even notice, so powerful is the anesthetic.

This is how I perceive the whole of the world as if it doesn’t belong to me. And the work is to fight against this anesthetic, against this feeling.

This is intentional because if I think that this world does not belong to me, as if it has been anesthetized, I can turn from my egoism and relate to it altruistically, bestowing, as if to someone else. I can learn to love it.

I do not need to develop love towards myself; I love myself egoistically anyway. However, now I can learn to love others who are separated from me by the means of this anesthetic, this illusion of separation. After all, love is a quality of the Creator, not the quality of creation.

By the means of this separation, the Creator gives us the opportunity to receive a quality, which is not characteristic to us by nature and does not belong to us. We don’t understand what love is at all. But when I try to learn to love those who are outside of me as I do myself, meaning, to relate to my neighbor the way I do to myself, this is called love.

I am working on it against my egoism. This is a special force inside of me that constantly resists it. Thus, there is an opposition of two forces acting in two different directions. Desire attracts pleasure towards itself, but above it is a screen (the force of my resistance), which pushes this pleasure away and is ready to give it upwards.

And then, from the interaction between these two forces, I can understand what it is to truly love someone else rather than my own child, my own little dog, or my own body.

And as I develop more, my hatred towards my neighbors constantly grows, but I develop the force of love above it. It is called love only if it rises above the hatred. As it is said: “Love covers all transgressions.” Due to the collision of the two opposite qualities, the creation is able to obtain the quality of the Creator. Otherwise, it would be impossible and we would remain inside of the nature with which we were created.

However, if we want to be creations (Nivraim), meaning, independent personalities outside (Bar) of the Creator, and at the same time, to reach His qualities and the high state, then we are obliged to build such a resisting mechanism inside of us. There will always be two opposing forces functioning inside of it: the force of the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow that we build above our egoism by ourselves, love above hatred.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/1/12, Writings of Rabash

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All the vessels can be filled only by each other and by bestowing upon one another. To the extent that you bestow on upon others, you bestow upon the Creator. The more you can connect with others, the more you connect with the Creator. This is called: “I dwell within my people” because if you connect with others, you find the Creator there.

Therefore, “Love thy friend as thyself is the great rule of the Torah” since by bestowing upon your friend, you bestow upon the Creator. It is the only thing you should do, and there is nothing more than that. To bestow upon the Creator refers to the general vessel and the general Light that fills it. With regard to others, we perform individual correction that cannot be fulfilled through them if you don’t intend to bring contentment to the Creator, meaning the general vessel.

We cannot perceive the Creator in any other way but through the general force of bestowal that is revealed in the general vessel, in the general desire. If we want to avoid the bestowal upon others within the general network, it prevents us from doing the right thing and it cuts us off from reality since all of reality is based only on the connection among us. There, the general bestowal called the upper Light, the general law called “the Creator,” is revealed.

Therefore it says “Love thy friend as thyself is the great rule of the Torah.”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/07/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What does it mean to bestow to another when you’re only preparing to enter the spiritual world?

Answer: It means to do everything in your power to unite with others, and in that bond to reveal the common bestowing force, the Creator. But you do it precisely because you fulfill His desire to be revealed to the creatures. To this end they must prepare an altruistic desire in which the Creator’s force of bestowal will be revealed. The creatures will reveal a need for love, and the Creator will be revealed as Love.

In order to connect to others, I need a screen. Otherwise I cannot unite with anyone, as I desire only to consume everything within. Therefore, don’t think that you are capable of unifying on your own: It’s the upper Light that unites us. It puts a screen before me over my own ego and raises me over it, where it concerns my heart, the concentration of desire. And it is there, in the space above it, where the source of all my desires, goals, and aspirations is transferred. Like a mother who as if exits herself and lives within her child.

This kind of attitude is called Yesher (straight line), but before this my desire was Igulim (circular). To the degree that I can make a straight intention toward others, it means that I have built a “straight line.”

Now I exist in a straight desire, but it is similar to the Surrounding Light, or circles. This is somewhat of a paradox. In my ego I am similar to the Light; the Light is circular in its bestowal and I am a circular egoist, open to everybody.

But in my work, I am like a straight line, which is opposite to the Light, for the Light is circular. How do we then connect together? The circles and the straight line are connected by the restriction done within them both. It is thanks to this restriction that a mutual point arises—their point of contact.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What does it mean to work above reason?

Answer: Work above reason means bestowal. That is, I want to take the form of a giver, like the Creator, to become a loving person, to leave my ego and make use of myself for the good of my neighbor, to unite with others in order to exit myself. It means that I appreciate bestowal more than my own qualities of reception.

First of all, I want to break free from the power of my selfish desires and to rise above it. It means escaping from “Egyptian slavery” and reaching the quality of Bina above Malchut. When I become free and rise above my ego, which can no longer grab my legs and drag me back, now I even can begin working with this desire within it.

The stages of embryo (Ibur) and feeding (Yenika) is a rise above my desire to enjoy, but the stage of adulthood is working within this desire. Work on the desire to enjoy is in fear, in bestowing in order to bestow (Hafetz Hesed), in the properties of Bina, by becoming included into the Creator, staying in His shadow like a baby clinging to his mother and fully entrusting himself to her and thus receiving the power to rise above his ego.

Then, when the child grows up, he can get in touch with his egoism and begin working with it. This is called a return to love.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/4/12, Writings of Rabash

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The difference between spiritual perception and corporeal perception is in the fact that a person feels that the spiritual world is inside him, in his desire to receive, and the feeling that the world that is outside of me doesn’t belong to me is this world. The difference between the two is determined by the ego that distances certain attributes that are in me and seems to place them on the outside. This separation is created because of the shattering of the desires that made them alien and distant from one another, as if they were not part of the egoistic interests of others and of those who are opposite from their own desire.

But it is exactly for this reason that we have a chance to connect, as in the beginning, in the final, corrected state, but now with the feeling, understanding, and attaining its existence to its full depth. After all, we’ve been through a long way of recognition towards the final state, comparing what we feel inside us and outside of us.

This is possible thanks to the fact that my ego separated me and threw millions of my attributes away from me: the attributes of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human, which I feel as foreign. Now thanks to the fact that I compare them to myself and draw myself forcefully closer, whether I want them or not, I intensify my feelings and increase my understanding until I begin to love all the others.

When I bring them back inside me I acquire such a wide perception of reality that encompasses all of Ein Sof (Infinity), 125 spiritual degrees.

Just think how hidden and unfelt are all the processes that take place inside us. But on the outside I immediately pay attention and react strongly to every change, even the slightest one, whether it is good or bad. After all, my ego increases them as it looks at them as if under a magnifying glass.

With regard to what happens inside me, my ego is not as picky as toward what happens externally. Therefore, I am so sensitive to anything that happens around me, but if the same thing happened inside me, I wouldn’t even notice it. A person doesn’t know himself; he doesn’t feel and doesn’t see himself as others see him. Sometimes it is a real shock for him to discover what others think about him. They open his eyes, and he cannot believe that he is really so.

We don’t know ourselves! We don’t feel ourselves and don’t know our own attributes. We only want to fill ourselves, but we are not familiar with the internal intricacies. While everything that takes place on the outside concerns us, and we passionately judge those who act in a certain way with regard to us and contemplate what we should do about it.

So thanks to the shattering that has brought all of my internal attributes outside and has left only a very small desire inside me, I can begin to work with what seems to me as external to bring it back inside in order to connect the Light and the vessel into one desire. Thanks to that I acquire a fine perception since I have to take into account and understand every stranger. I may hate him, but I have to love him when I turn my whole perception to the other pole.

Such an understanding rewards me with a Light that is 620 times stronger and the understanding of where I am and what I feel. This is the difference between the world of Ein Sof, that was initially created by the Creator in which the created being was only one small point, and our world. We increase that small point until Ein Sof by adding everything that is on the outside by bringing the whole world inside according to the rule: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/01/12, The Zohar

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A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah

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