Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: Who is the Almighty, all His deeds are to bestow and to benefit the other, and not at all for His own benefit because He, the blessed, has no lack that needs to be fulfilled, and also he has no one from whom to receive, also you, all your deeds will be to bestow and benefit the other.

Question: What does it mean “to bestow and to benefit the other”?

Answer: It means that I need to feel exactly what you want. And for that I need to be in love towards you, in an inclination toward you. Meaning, I need to do a “Tzimtzum (restriction)” upon myself and to assemble on all my desires a “Masach (screen)” and “Ohr Hozer (Returning Light).” Then in my qualities, that will be directed outward and not inward to myself, I might be able to understand and to feel you and reveal precisely what you want.

I need to receive all your “tastes” from you even though I don’t recognize them. And for me, you are some kind of alien that came from another planet. Still, I take upon myself your vessels in such a form I even receive what your mother fed you in your childhood.

How is it possible to feel this in my vessels, my desires, if I have no idea what you are made from and what inner reaction you feel toward anything? Here I really need to come closer to you, to love you. In the wisdom of Kabbalah we call it “nearing,” embracing,” “kissing,” “coupling,” and “adhesion”; these are concepts that symbolize measurement of connection through equivalence of desires and mutual fulfillments.

Question: I mean, what seems to me now that the other is lacking something, is it only how it seems to me?

Answer: You cannot interpret your needs in your current vessels. Yes it is true that in our world the means of communication and the influence of the environment make it possible somehow to bring the desire into a common denominator, but to really feel what is in the heart of the friend is the same as to feel the Creator. You need to make a Tzimtzum, Masach, and Ohr Hozer. Only in this way will you feel him as yourself and only in this way will you be able to exit toward the other.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: Rather, we understand Dvekut as equivalence of form between two spiritual objects, and we understand separation as disparity of form between two spiritual objects.

Question: What is “equivalence of form?”

Answer: There are two categories: internal and external. For example, I see different statues. One is made of marble, another of plaster, a third one of clay, and yet another of granite, plastic, and so on. They all have the same external form, but the material is different.

In the same way, we also are required to reach an equivalence of form. First, your material—which means who you are and what you are—is revealed in the form of cotton, wool or clay, and from this material, you sculpt an upper image. Your “material” is your attributes—your desires, thoughts, everything that you are internally.

Then, you create the image of the upper from a harder material, and, although it is less pliable, you can create more accurate forms. Each time, the material gets increasingly harder, until you reach the hardest material, and, accordingly, you reach a much more accurate resemblance to the upper. It will be total accuracy, a complete equivalence of form, adhesion.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Item 66: Bear in mind that in everything there is internality and externality. In the world in general, Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are considered the internality of the world.

“Israel” are those who have an inclination for the three lines, for bestowal. These three lines symbolize Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and Israel aspire to integrate them so that the force of bestowal and the force of receiving will connect and reach adhesion with the Creator in the middle line.

After all, there are only these two forces in reality—the force of receiving and the force of bestowal. The first refers to the created being and the second to the Creator.

If the force of bestowal is also in the created being, a spark or a point in the desire to receive, then by that the created being can build the middle line. The desire is the left line, and the point in the desire, the spark from the Masach (screen) before the shattering, is the right line, and the Light that was summoned to operate on welding them provides the middle line, above reason, bestowal above receiving.

So we need the desire and the point in it (●) and also the tension (∆) between them, due to which a person feels bad. Then his point receives an urge to become acquainted with the Creator. And in this case, all of his desires become a means that helps the point in the heart reach the Creator.

That is why the Light initially, by descending, created a desire as powerful as itself. Now when the created being uses this desire, he can reach the Creator and rise to Him.

“Abraham” is the point of bestowal, and when a person uses it correctly and looks at the desire from it, he is called “Isaac.” And then there is the combination of them, “Jacob,” the middle line. We need these three components.

Question: If the Light and the desire have the same power, where does the difference (∆) between them come from?

Answer: The spark of Light, or the Creator, enters the desire and evokes in it a feeling of another nature, of another essence.

Then a person feels bad because of his dissimilarity with this nature in the use of his desire.

The truth is that none of us knows what the desire to receive is, but everyone knows its benefits. So we are not speaking about the desire but about the intention of in order to receive; we live in the egoistic intention and not in the desire, and it is not felt in itself.

Our whole perception, our whole program, is based only on our intention, on our self-centeredness. The difference is not between two desires, the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, but between two basic characteristics.

I compare them not according to size but according to a qualitative difference. In fact, I feel the difference, the gap between the Creator and the created being. This is what pushes me to start the path to the level of the Creator, to an equivalence of form with Him. Otherwise I wouldn’t receive such an urge.

Then I climb up the levels of resemblance, the levels through which a person brings himself to an equivalence of form with the Creator.

There are people in whom there are three lines and others not. In fact, they exist in everyone since eventually everyone has to reach the same state. The shattering was total, the incorporation was total, and the correction also has to be total.

Still, the three lines are not expressed in everyone at the same time. In the general desire there is an upper part—GE, or in other words those in whom the point in the heart (•) has already risen and been revealed, and there is a lower part, AHP, those in whom it is still concealed below. Accordingly, those above are drawn to unity (Yechud), to the Creator, and so they are called “Jews” (Yehudi). Below, people have a huge amount of desires, each one seemingly living in his own world—and so they are called “the nations of the world.” Above, everyone wants to connect to one point by which to reach the Creator and below, this point has not been revealed yet and still means nothing, and so the different desires draw people in different directions.

But “the individual and the general are equal,” and every person is a small world, so this system, this structure, already exists in every one. Even if the point is revealed in a person’s heart, there are also many other desires, although they may be concealed at the moment waiting for their turn. Everyone has desires that in the meantime do not accompany the point in the heart.

Still, the people who have received the basis for the three lines from Above have to feel that they are responsible for the correction of the world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

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Rabash, “What Is a Ladder that is on the Ground and Its Head Reaches Heaven”: A person should know that the Creator hears his prayer. This means that we have to clearly acknowledge the fact that each of our requests or desires is incorporated in the general system, and all our feelings are a result of the general system. If we make an effort, then it naturally influences the whole system, since everything is connected. But this connection is concealed from us so we have to attain information about it and the feeling that all of reality is connected to one upper system that is called the “Creator” or “There is none else besides Him.”

This system receives all the signals that come from us: both our natural instinctive evolution and the additional influences of society that are above our natural development. Everything is included in the system, and it responds to this appeal: “the Creator hears a person’s prayer.”

And what he sees is that now he is in a worse state than when he didn’t pray to overcome the desire to receive, which is an answer from Above to his prayer. We cannot properly determine when in fact we really are asking from Above and when we receive a response. While it may seem to us that we are praying and asking, it’s not we who are praying and asking. We were simply given such a desire from Above, and we feel how it goes through us. This prayer is not on our account.

So a person shouldn’t say that the Creator doesn’t listen to his prayer. He should rather say that the answer came from Above, and is not what a person prepares, but what is prepared for him from Above, which is for his own good, and he should know that. It is clear from Above when to answer a person and what to give him: which thoughts or desires. He has no freewill here.

Which means that a person should know how far he is from bestowal, and that every part of his body is against it. And a person asks the Creator for something that there is not one part in his body that agrees to what he is asking of the Creator. So how can he ask for that? And then a person sees something new, which he didn’t know before he began to ask from the Creator, that he should be given the power to overcome his body, so that he would be able to act only in favor of the Creator and not for his own sake. A person sees that there is no point in these requests. …and the new recognition that a person attains is that he sees that the body doesn’t agree to pray for the annulment of the desire to receive for its own sake.

So the question is why a person sometimes does want to annul his desire to receive, which means that a person often sees that while he is asking the Creator to give him vessels of bestowal, his whole body rejects it and what he prays for is only lip service, which means empty words. In any case he sees that there are times when he can pray from the bottom of his heart. The answer is that this is already the answer to his prayer, which means that the Creator gives him the power to pray about that from the bottom of his heart. Therefore a person has to be hopeful that the Creator will bring him close to Him.

In the meantime we can’t know when we receive a desire to pray from Above and when we pray out of our own will, below. All this will be revealed later. This is done on purpose, in order to confuse a person and to let him feel disoriented in the egoistic desire, so that he will begin to ask for forces of bestowal, a desire to bestow. It’s only by the force of bestowal, the force against him, that a person can be critical of himself and see the truth.

But if a person has only one force, then it’s either an angel, when it’s only the force of bestowal, or an ordinary animal that belongs to the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and which have only the force of receiving. But it’s when a person is confused and has doubts, when he can’t find himself in these states of confusion, that he is simply torn apart, that he can find the connection between the two parts of creation: the Creator and the created being who is above his limited mind and feelings. He should rise above his request, above the actual prayer, and the answer for it, like Malchut that rises to Keter, which is called a true “prayer.” The Creator is the answer to the prayer, and then the two connect in the full adhesion of a person and the Creator.

And so a person has to be hopeful that the Creator will bring him close to Him. Since we are constantly nourished from Above, we only have to be aware of the bestowal that comes from Above and goes through us and then back up. We have to be grateful for that, to acknowledge the greatness of the goal, that “there is none else besides Him,” and that He is good and benevolent, and to yearn for connection in every situation. If we constantly try to stabilize this in the true form, and not as it seems to us in our concealment and exile, then it will be a true prayer.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/13

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Question: How do I make a covenant with the Creator if I don’t know Him?

Answer: The question is: Why is it only the groom who signs the wedding agreement (Ketubah) and not the bride? Is there a kind of one-sided commitment here? The same happens when a person signs an agreement with the group or with the Creator.

This means that my signature on this contract is enough since the agreement of the other side is certain. So, only the one who hesitates and is unsure has to sign, and thus, he is obligated to sign the commitment.

There is an upper force, and in order to reveal it, there must be a lower force. The force of the upper is bestowal and the force of the lower is receiving. The force of the lower must attain wholeness in its deficiency in order to connect to the upper force that is eternally whole.

Wholeness is attained in the lower force by the connection of 10 people, for example, then of 100, and then of 1000. We always add another zero.

Unless I connect with 10 people, I cannot be called a spiritual “unit,” and, unless I connect with 100 people, I cannot be called a second spiritual “unit,” which means to rise to the second spiritual level. The counter only counts the additional zeros, and this is considered a leap to the next level.

In order to be adapted to the whole upper force, I at least must attain the connection of the first 10. This means that I must connect to 10 people since according to our inner nature, we attain the first, minimal measure of bestowal, #1, by the connection of ten people as one heart and one mind. Now, I have the first force of bestowal.

If I can connect to 100 people in a similar way as one heart and one mind by totally annulling myself, I attain the second force of bestowal, the second spiritual level. Thusly, I must go through 125 levels.

In order to connect with them, I sign a mutual contract. We must be connected so that each one will forget about himself and connect with everyone as one whole. It is impossible to do this alone and we must help one another. We must provide everyone with the greatness of the goal, connection, warmth, and positive examples. In order to do that, we sign a contract, and this is called a covenant.

Each of us goes through states of “+” and “-,” and we need the minus in order to rise to the plus, to “straighten” ourselves. This is possible if, while I am in a state of “minus,” the society intensifies my intention. My minus grows and the plus also grows; they constantly increase. After a small plus, there is a big minus, and after a big plus there is a minus that is twice as large.

This is why I never can overcome the minus that I receive and it always knocks me to the ground. I may be totally thrown off track, and I may continue to work, but without any inspiration and thought. When I fall into such a state, into such a minus, the society has to intensify my intention.

It is a good thing that I have received such a minus since I need a greater minus; I must reach its full measure to fill my measure. The question is how to turn it into a plus. In order to do that, I need an intention! If my deficiency and the society’s intention connect, I can change the minus to the plus each time and, thus, constantly rise. This is called making a covenant.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “The Entrance into the Work”: The beginning of the work must be in Lo Lishma (not for its sake), which means that by believing in the Creator one will have a life of pleasure. This means that if he does this, which is called faith, then he feels elation and has higher mental powers than he has when he doesn’t perform this action.

It turns out that this is a unique quality by which he can taste greater tastes in quantity and in quality than he tastes when he performs other special actions that bring him pleasure… pleasures and unique qualities bring him limited pleasures in quantity and in quality. However, the unique quality of faith brings him greater pleasure in quantity and in quality. And all this is called Lo Lishma since his entire intention was only in order to attain a greater pleasure.

Only after he attains the level that is called Lo Lishma, is he rewarded with other phenomena and comes to a higher state. This means that he has no self-interest, but all his interests and thoughts are true. This means that his entire intention is only to annul himself in the true reality, feeling that he only has to serve the King since he feels the King’s supremacy and His importance.

Then he forgets, which means that he has no need to worry about himself in any way, since he annuls himself like a candle before a torch because he feels the Creator’s presence. Then he is in the state of Lishma (for Her sake), to bring contentment to the Creator, and all his worries and desires are as to how he can bring the Creator pleasure. And his own reality, which means the desire to receive, does not exist at all. Then he is considered one who bestows in order to bestow.

I think that you have already felt these two states at the convention. The first is when a person yearns to receive the spiritual pleasure for himself, whether he admits it or not, and does it only for self-benefit. By that he hopes to attain a good life in this world and in the next world, to gain more and change his fate for the better. In all his accounts there is only: “I, I, I,” and he cannot take himself out of the picture.

This happens unconsciously. Even if a person tries not to take himself into account, the moment he doesn’t succeed, he gradually returns to himself each time. Then he finds out that self-benefit, personal interest, was always in the spiritual picture he yearned for. So his participation in the group, the inclination to the Creator, the work, and the efforts depend only on his feeling that all this would pay off.

The realization that he operates only for himself is already a revelation. In the meantime he performs actions without the right intention, which means with his natural egoistic intention, and not in order to bestow by not detaching the action from self-benefit.

But thanks to such actions of Lo Lishma, he goes through four phases of development: 1. to receive in order to receive, 2. to bestow in order to receive, 3. to bestow in order to bestow, 4. to receive in order to bestow, and all this is in the state of Lo Lishma.

Thus he clarifies what is “allowed” and what is “forbidden” in Lo Lishma since these four states are the ones that determine the combination of his actions and his intention. But due to the fact that a person performs all these “malicious acts” because of his innate ego since he has no choice, the evil inclination created by the Creator, the upper Light constantly operates on him, and gradually bit by bit, takes him out of the slavery to the ego, cleaning him from the intention of in order to receive for himself.

He attains the level in which he begins to think about self-annulment, he feels a great measure of grace and attraction, he begins to value devotion and self-annulment, not under the pressure of sufferings, but because he values the attribute of bestowal itself more and more to such an extent that he eventually annuls himself.

If a person delves into this and works on this persistently, then after a short while he receives the attribute of bestowal from the Light: Then he forgets, which means that he feels no need to care about himself in any way since he annuls himself as a candle before a torch because he feels the presence of the Creator.

But he annuls himself not for self-benefit, but by raising the actual state of self-annulment. “Then he is in a state of Lishma, to bring contentment to the Creator, and all his worries and desires are as to how he can bring the Creator pleasure, and his own reality, which means the desire to receive, does not exist at all. Then he is in a state of one who bestows in order to bestow.

We began the clarifications of self-annulment in the Arava convention. We felt it in the general mass of the participants as one. Now we have to continue by focusing more on this point so that all the distances and the interruptions that come up in the time between the conventions will help us. They will provide us with the thickness that we need to annul in order to annul ourselves.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13

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Question: Sometimes by revealing the ego inside me, I feel that I can’t get rid of it; that I can’t attain the goal.

Answer: That’s true. But this is already the next level. For example, I brought a friend a present yesterday and I thought that I really loved him and that I was so devoted to him.  And today I discover what I did not understand yesterday: It turns out that I did this since I calculated things for my own benefit. Yesterday I couldn’t see my thought to the end; I couldn’t discern my desire; only my love toward the friend was revealed to me. And now it turns out that I was pursing my self-interest in this love.

Thus, what was concealed from me yesterday is revealed today, so what should I do now?

First, I don’t regret what happened yesterday. I did what I did according to my powers, and it’s thanks to my action that I reveal the next level today, a thicker desire, which is much deeper with an intention of in order to receive for myself. So what? Now I approach the correction.

This happens time after time, and so it says, “What is waste for the upper is food for the lower.” Now I try to make efforts to adapt myself to the upper, and he presents me with an example, “Look, this is Me, you can be like Me, which means not using the vessels of receiving, restricting them, and adhering to Me, doing your best to act like Me.”

This means that I restrict my AHP, and adhere to His AHP with my GE, and thus rise. First, I must isolate my GE from my AHP. I annul it and perform the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph – ZA) on it and use only the vessels of bestowal toward the AHP of the upper.

If we become equal, my GE and His AHP becomes ten Sefirot. By that I adhere to the upper and “enter” Him, and am now called an “embryo (Ubar),” and the upper AHP becomes a womb for me. Thus I constantly rise to Him by increasingly annulling myself time after time.

Question: But it is precisely in that moment that I usually want to escape from the group. How can I stay in it? How can I continue the work despite everything?

Answer: I can only say one thing: Your urge to escape from the group indicates that the Creator, the Light, shows you several additional desires by which you can now enter the upper. However, without these interruptions you couldn’t penetrate Him. So now you develop the right attitude toward Him.

The escape is also necessary since otherwise you wouldn’t feel the additional desire. You have to feel the additional desire, to regret it, to come back to the group again, and to start working in order to receive the Light that corrects the desire. When you correct the additional desire, you are incorporated in the upper again. Such a circle should be drawn.

Suppose you adhere to the upper, but you haven’t entered the upper yet. Now comes a certain interruption: (Boom!), and from the blow that you receive on the head you forget everything. This happens so that you will make the whole circle, connect to the group again, return to the starting point again, and continue.

Thus you “digest” the desire that has awoken that throws you in different directions. Suddenly you don’t come to the lessons or don’t use your spare time purposefully (you go to the cinema instead of disseminating). You have to feel the heavy desire that you received (+), regret it (-), and turn to the group. Then, when the group influences you by the Light that Reforms (O”M) you decide to adhere to the upper again, no matter what.

Eventually you return, having acquired a greater power that enables you to overcome the interruption, you enter the upper, like an embryo, and adhere to the “wall of the womb.”

So after the theoretical explanations, only a strong united group can help you, only in it can you advance. Accordingly, a person who lives far away from the friends should worry about that even more.

It’s not good if a person has to be in contact with friends over great distances; it’s even worse if he can’t listen to lessons live, and what’s even worse is if he is not part of a group. One should constantly make sure that the interruptions in the connection between us should be beneficial and not harmful.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9

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Question: How can we come to a state of balance between the men’s and women’s groups so that men meet the interests of the women’s group and there is harmony between them?

Answer: There can only be harmony if both groups connect to the Creator together, not in measuring themselves one relative to the other. Only this way! There will be no harmony anywhere, not in the family, not anywhere else, if the Creator does not fill the gap between the two objects.
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From the Virtual Lesson 1/20/13

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In a person’s attitude to the Creator, we first must develop the importance of the upper inside us, which is called “make yourself a Rav,” so that the Creator becomes great in our eyes. Now He is concealed and we don’t feel that He is important. And to the extent that we gain faith in the Creator, although we don’t see Him, but  we develop the feeling of His importance with the help of the group, the Creator seems great to us. Then we are ready to do all manner of actions in order to connect to Him. This is all our work with the Creator.

I come to the group, begin to study, listen, and get a chance to discover the upper reality. In the meantime it is concealed from me and I don’t feel it, don’t understand, don’t see anything, but I already have an urge for it, which is not quite clear yet, and I want to fulfill it.

It is hard for me to live without fulfilling this urge; I feel that life is empty and meaningless. Everything that I have has lost its meaning and has become tasteless. I am told that I don’t feel the Creator since my attributes are opposite from His, as I have certain attributes in my current reality that I have not chosen.

According to these attributes I perceive the reality according to the law of equivalence of form. We know that it is possible to perceive a certain wavelength only by the right detector. I see colors and hear sounds only according to my senses that can perceive and discover them because they have the same attributes as the observed phenomenon. Everything is according to equivalence of form.

So according to my attributes, I perceive only a tiny fragment of the world that is before me. This fragment is the world that I feel and see. There can be millions of other phenomena around me that I don’t perceive, since I haven’t developed the feeling and senses for them.

This entire reality is called the “Creator.” He created this whole reality, but He shows me only a small fragment of it in which I can live and develop independently in order to discover and to feel Him.

I develop my senses by myself, and so I understand what I do and what I feel. Thus it becomes my system because I develop my own system by myself by developing and improving myself. By this, I build the Creator’s image inside me, until I feel all of reality completely. This will mean that I have recreated the image of the whole external reality, the image of the Creator, inside me. Therefore I am called Adam, a whole human, that resembles (Domeh) the Creator.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSualm, Shamati, article 9, “What are Three Things that Broaden a Man’s Mind in the Work.” The Holy Zohar interprets what our sages had written: “Three things broaden one’s mind. These are, a handsome woman, a handsome abode, and handsome Kelim (Vessels).” It says, “A handsome woman, this is the Holy Shechina (Divinity). A handsome abode, this is one’s heart; and handsome Kelim, these are one’s organs.

We must explain that the Holy Shechina cannot appear in its true form, which is a state of grace and beauty, except when one has handsome Kelim, which are the organs, elicited from the heart.

This is about our vessels, which are desires that must be transformed since we currently don’t use them correctly; we use them for our own benefit. A “woman” that is handsome to the desire to receive is ugly for the desire to bestow and must be transformed not to be graceful or beautiful, but modest, which means that she is totally in Hassadim. A “handsome abode” is the whole human heart and “handsome vessels” are the external desires.

This is how the five levels of our vessels are termed. The vessels are corrected by envy, lust, and honor, the attributes that take a person out of the egoistic world by evoking him to rise to new values.

Today, it is not in our power to perceive and to identify any aspect of spiritual life. We cannot attain such values, discernments, levels of attainment, feelings, and understandings. However, we can “expand our mind,” which means to start bringing the attributes of bestowal into the desire to receive.

How can we fulfill this? The point is that bestowal is essentially an intention and not a desire. Therefore, it is possible if I first stop working with the desire to receive and restrict it. As of today, it isn’t the place in which I receive pleasure or sufferings. I “close” it, and this attribute isn’t in me anymore.

Then, I develop the option to receive something on the side: “I will use you now as I see fit.” When different pleasures come along that I previously used to receive in this desire, I reject them now one by one, from the smallest pleasure to the biggest one.

What do I need this for? Is it because I am simply “on a diet?” No, I reject the pleasures because I want to resemble the Creator. This means that I must recognize the importance of the Creator and not receive anything. I receive this recognition of importance from the group, and I begin to value the Creator, the attribute of bestowal. Then, I really don’t use my desire to receive. Let the pleasures come, above my desire. I want to develop and to build the desire to bestow above it.

Thus, I already stabilize the human image inside me, the image of Adam that resembles (Domeh) the Creator. I use my desire to receive, the pleasure, the group, and the force of the Light that comes and fulfills all this as means to bestow upon Him.

Bestowal upon the Creator is the means that allows us to bring Him contentment. Is that the goal? No, that is also a means. The goal is to attain adhesion with Him since it is that which He really enjoys.

This turns into the means to attain a higher goal along our way, and it is so until we reach the end.
[98567]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9

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