Question: Why is the question about the meaning of life considered more pure than just its performance.

Answer: Because this question is coming from within the point in the heart, from within the most internal desire that a man has. Everything that was created by the Creator is a desire, and in each one of us there is a part from this big desire. The innermost point of this desire is the point of truth, the question “What do I live for?” This I need to reveal.

If a man asks for what he lives, this is a sign that inside his heart exists all four levels of the desire. And the fourth, final level wants to reveal Keter: to clarify who manages me, why and for what, and what is going on in general? I want to find out if it is worth living? Because if I will not reveal this Keter, the reason, then any other fulfillment that I can receive will not satisfy me. And although I am still getting confused and I’m turning to other goals, the main thing for me is to reveal the cause and effect of all that.

I want to receive a direct and honest answer: Does this life have a purpose or not? And if there is not, then any other compensation will only worsen my despair, because I don’t need all that.

If a man reaches a question like that, meaning, that he asks from within the point of Malchut about the point of Keter, because he must reveal it! It means he is already ripe for the revelation of the Creator, to Dvekut, and the other not yet.  They still need to wait, to receive illumination through us that will speed their development. If they will join us, we will be able to take care of them. Everything depends on the desire of a man, and one needs to wait that it will ripen, because it is forbidden unripened fruit.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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From Baal HaSulam’s article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me in Behind and Before”: …who connects the two worlds, discovers His clothing in the present: everything that is done is a clothing for the revelation of divinity.

If a person believes that any change that happens to him is caused by the Creator and every moment of his life he keeps building an adequate attitude and regards everything that happens to him as a manifestation of the Good that comes from the Creator, then he becomes similar to a “horse that is subordinate to the bridle and headstall of the rider.” This means that he stays constantly aware of his unwillingness to change the world, but rather he stays alert to his desire in order to change his attitude towards it.

He clearly realizes that he’s not the one who rules and makes decisions, but rather everything is defined by the Light. A person needs to acknowledge this fact every single time, thus “turning himself” correctly towards the events that happen to him. Any situation is presented to a person to the extent of his desire to receive pleasure. He has to behave “as if” he feels and realizes everything around him from the level as if he already is in the desire to bestow.

The only emanation of the Creator is “the good.” When we want to hear the Creator’s voice, every single moment we become subject to a constantly increasing impact: impulse after impulse. Our task is to stay alert, tune ourselves to them, and set up the correct attitude at each given moment. This will allow us to advance correctly in accordance with the genuine state of affairs, which means that it isn’t the horse carries the rider where it wants, but the rider leads a horse and brings him to the right goal.

The Creator will lead us by sending us various situations. Our part is to relate to our life circumstances as good and recognize that all of them come from the Creator; this is how we can straighten the route and turn our faces directly towards the Creator. If we apply effort and ask the Creator (the Light) to help us understand things that happen to us this way, He gradually will change us and give us a chance to build the right attitude.

Baal HaSulam writes in his article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me in Behind and Before:” Hence, that way there is contact, as well, but it is back to back, meaning not by the will of the dresser or that of the dressed. But those who follow His will discover for themselves the royal dresses in the present, connected face to face through the will of the dresser, for that is precisely His wish.

We don’t reveal Malchut per se, but rather divulge Her dresses; we take off Her concealments and coverings and turn Her around so that we see Her face, as if we are lifting a veil that is covering the beautiful face of the bride. So, it means that the external shell (Klipa), our egoistic attitude, helps us invert and amplify 620 times our connection with the Creator that is gradually revealing.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The rising of Malchut to Bina is called “the sanctification of the moon.” This means acquiring the faith by which a person has to sanctify his work above reason. He understands that he mustn’t work with his desires to receive, but that all his work should be within the vessels of bestowal.

But in the meantime he has no desire to bestow, and he doesn’t even understand what it means. Therefore, the Creator points by using a “finger”: “Look, this is the form of bestowal!” That is, a person gradually begins to discover the form of bestowal and understands that this is the desirable form.

Before that, he couldn’t discover it, appreciate it, or imagine it. After all, what we call bestowal in our world is not bestowal but latent receiving, false altruism. Undoubtedly, as long as a person is managed by his egoistic desire, he must feel some pleasure in his actions, since otherwise he wouldn’t be able to move.

Even when he fills others, he must feel some profit, or that the other is dearer to him than himself. Then he feels natural love towards him, like a mother who is ready to give her baby everything. Another option is that we are so closely connected that the wellbeing of another is inseparable from my self-benefit, or that I am managed by fear!

The motive can also be benefit, an additional profit, or a desire to cut down my sufferings. It is also felt as an egoistic profit and usually even a greater profit than the pleasure.

I can feel a profit from the addition and also a profit since I don’t lose. In that case my joy is even greater.

A person can find 100 dollars on the street, feel happy and quickly forget about it. But if he loses 100 dollars, he will regret it much more than if he found that sum of money, since it is like cutting something off oneself.

Therefore, we have to understand that the power of faith is above the desire to receive and is acquired in two phases: first in the vessels that work for a profit and then in the vessels in which we feel the loss. Our whole desire is divide into two parts: levels 0-1-2 (the thickness of the root level, phase one, and phase two) that are called GE, and levels 3-4 (the thickness of phases three and four) AHP. First bestowal is performed in the vessels of bestowal and then in the vessels of receiving.

Clearly, it is much more difficult to work in order to bestow in the vessel of receiving, since a person feels an immediate loss then. He could have received a direct pleasure in those vessels, and now it is the opposite, he intends to bestow with these vessels, and so it turns out that this is a double loss for his ego.

But he “sanctifies himself,” which means that he acquires the attribute of bestowal and thus advances until he is rewarded with the “sanctification of the moon,” when the attribute of bestowal becomes holy for him.

He himself cannot shine like the moon, but he illuminates to the extent that he is adhered to the upper force, to the source of the Light, to the sun, with the help of the power of faith. Thanks to that, the moon is sanctified.

Just like the earth, the moon cannot generate any light, but it loyally adheres to the sun above the earth and thus begins to shine. It isn’t its own light, but it shines thanks to the fact that it doesn’t receive anything for itself, but only in order to illuminate for others.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, Writings of Rabash

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If the spiritual path were felt as pleasant and beneficial to our nature, our egoism, who would reject it? The entire world would run to us to study and sit at the desk. Everyone would come if he felt joy and sweetness in this.

No one would refuse such a tempting opportunity to reveal the future before him and obtain all the knowledge. Our ego would have pushed us forward, pulled us, not giving us a moment of rest. Envy, lust, and ambition would be burning in a person, promising him all sorts of fulfillment in this world and the upper world, the Garden of Eden. All this would have inspired and attracted him more and more.

Of course, this is not so, and it is difficult for us to understand and impossible to agree that all of reality, except ourselves, is opposite of what we see. It is full of contentment and pleasure, the revelation of the upper force. All this is revealed to the extent a person acquires the property of bestowal.

It is impossible to achieve spiritual fulfillment, the degree of the Creator, in any other way. So, true management is hidden behind its opposite form, and we are not able to appreciate it, to understand and taste what the intention to bestow means. We do not have the tools to enjoy bestowal.

Please give to anyone! However, you will not feel any pleasure from it because your desires are opposite. And only one in whom the spark was lit in the darkness of egoism, forcing him to seek bestowal, and one who cares about that spark, trying to increase it through studies and the environment—advances. Indeed, there are few chosen ones, of all the thousands.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/02/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What turns all our prayers into one prayer? How can we ask for the same thing together?

Answer: In order to do that we have to clarify time after time that it is impossible to raise a prayer alone. Such a prayer is not accepted.

Our goal is that the desire to receive will come together into one whole with one intention, like it was before. There was wholeness until the shattering inserted the intention to bestow into every grain of the desire to receive. Now this shattered intention is under the domination of the ego, but by that there is a connection between the two desires—the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, as if they were mixed and they can be together.

But this connection brings up the question: How should we work? How should we clarify things if we take into account that the desires are in you? Since you have to process your “private” part. The correction is not when the desire to bestow controls the desire to receive, but when after the shattering, the desires to receive are connect by the desires to bestow.

We are inclined to work individually: “I am willing to do whatever the Creator requires of me.” If He wants me to bestow, I will bestow; if He wants me to adhere to Him, I will adhere. I am ready for anything in my private vessels, “Just tell me what I have to do.” But to connect with others by the attributes of bestowal that you inherited during the shattering—no way.

In the meantime, the Creator enjoys your action that is aimed at connection. Because then you are using His power, and instead of hating others you love them. By that you develop yourself towards the force of love, by wanting to resemble the Creator, although you seem to have no relations with Him. You intend to bring Him contentment eventually, but the action itself is fulfilled among us; your unity with the friends is a pleasure for the Creator.

We are made of desires to receive that want to be filled, and also of desires to bestow that are looking for a chance to make a profit at the expense of bestowal upon others, to use others in a more cunning way. You have to turn all this around, in order to connect to others, “as one man in one heart.” If you connect with the friends in order to bring the Creator contentment, and if at the same time you become like Him in your desire to receive, then you are bringing Him contentment by that and thus achieve what is desirable.

The child He created and prepared finally wants to resemble Him, to be like his father; he wants to be independent, to resemble Him in his actions. You cannot and you do not need to do anything but bringing Him this pleasure—growing by the connection with others.
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From the 2^nd part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, The Zohar

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Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam brings a quote from Isaiah: “And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them.” When this time comes, who will it be harder for, for the wolf to deal with the lamb or for the lamb to deal with the wolf?

Answer: There is a wolf and a lamb in each of us, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, the desire to bestow is called “a lamb,” and the desire to receive is called “a wolf.” They cannot live together, for lack of mutual agreement. The wolf knows that it can fill himself only by the lamb, and the lamb is afraid that the wolf might eat him. But, on the other hand, the wolf knows that it cannot live without the lamb, and the lamb knows that without the wolf it will not be able to advance and will always remain a lamb.

So it turns out that they cannot exists without one another, and they can neither live with each other, so how can they find the balance between them. So how can the state of “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb exist? How can two opposite desires, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, coexist?

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us: how the wolf and the lamb accept one another and are incorporated in each other. When a person is neither in the desire to receive or the desire to bestow, he receives these two forces as two “angels” and combines them correctly thus drawing the image of the Creator. This is why the Creator is called Bo-re (“Bo-reh,” “Come and see” in Hebrew). This image is made of the force of receiving and the force of bestowal.

Then, and a little boy shall lead them. Which means that the human in me feels that he is little and at the same time organizes everything by constantly building himself and the world around him by the right combination of the two forces, the wolf and the lamb; the middle line is determined between the two lines, the right and the left, on different levels of thickness, and “a little boy” manages this whole combination.
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From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace:” … practically determined as “bestowal upon others,” meaning that the actual manifestation of love of others is bestowal of goodness upon others, love of others should be determined as bestowal upon others.

Question: What is “bestowal good upon others?”

Answer: It is bestowal that suits the other, according to what is good for him and not according to what I think is good for him. The good of others is determined by the service to the Creator. Without these three points: “I,” “the others,” and “the Creator,” we are lost. If I work according to the notions of others, I will be under their control, and if I work for myself I will be enslaved to my ego, I need someone who is even higher so that the right formation will be created: the lower, the upper, and the uppermost, only then can I be sure that I am holding on to the right line.

Question: Where am I while I bestow upon others?

Answer: In the last link of the chain, in the Creator, since from there I can relate to others and to myself correctly.

Question: And where is my “self” then?

Answer: Outside myself and outside the others, looking for what is good for others in order to reach adhesion with the Creator. I see the Creator as my goal and then the adhesion with Him is the only good thing.

Question: And what if others don’t know what they want?

Answer: A baby doesn’t know what it wants either, but I take care of it, and by that I understand that it needs to grow, to become strong, healthy, wise, etc. So if I bestow upon someone, he is like a baby for me, he is smaller than me. In that case, I am the one who bestows and he is the one who receives my bestowal. This means that he has a deficiency that I fill. This means that I have to discover a deficiency in him that suits my filling, since I cannot give him bread if he wants milk. And besides, I have to discover a deficiency in him that is in his favor, a deficiency by which he will get closer to the Creator.

In order to do that, I have to connect to others and together attain a connection with the Creator. In other words, I have to bring about the connection of others with the Creator, and then I will be able to fill them. After all, what can I fill others with? I am not the source of the Light, but I bring others to adhesion with the Creator, and that means that I fill them. This is why it is impossible to manage without the formation of the three levels.
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From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 42: Indeed, you should know that the reason for our great distance from the Creator, and that we are so prone to transgress His will, is for but one reason, which became the source of all the torment and the suffering that we suffer, and for all the sins and the mistakes that we fail in… “lack of our understanding in His Providence over His creations,” that we do not understand Him properly.

If we could understand the upper Providence, we would discover the upper force and learn what it wants of us, by clarifying the relationship between ourselves and the Creator, and then: Clearly, by removing that reason, we will instantly be rid of any sorrow and pain. We will immediately be granted adhesion with Him in heart, soul, and might.

But we don’t reveal the Creator Himself as people mistakenly believe. Any attainment is only possible by the comparison of attributes, and so the attainment of the Creator refers to resemblance and equivalence to Him according to our attributes. I can only check, measure, and feel Him in relation to myself.

If I want to reveal the Creator, I have to be equal to His attributes in some way, since otherwise I wouldn’t be able to feel Him. But the moment I draw close to Him according to the equivalence of attributes, I begin to discern Him, and then from that moment on I definitely make fewer mistakes and will necessarily change faster.

Even in order to advance towards the very first revelation, to the first feeling of the Creator, I have to change, so my whole way is divided into stages, the first of which is in the “dark,” when I operate and carry out Kabbalists’ advice, believing that by that I will get closer to the Creator. I believe what the books say, and incorporate and participate in the group, taking an example from the friends, and eventually I begin to feel and to discern the upper force a bit.

A kind of inner feeling and an inclination towards the Creator is revealed in me, and then it develops even more. Then I already begin to understand what the books say and what Kabbalists mean. Until then, it may well be that I have just been reading for a decade, but only now do I begin to somehow taste every word.

This text becomes close to me, as if part of me. I understand that it speaks about what is happening inside me.

It is for such moments, such situations, that we should yearn in order not to make mistakes and to understand what the upper force wants of us.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Those who have the point in the heart—which they received back in ancient Babylon and have gone through many reincarnations until today or in whom it awakens only now—are actually the only ones who have freewill. It is because there are two forces in them: the force of receiving and the force of bestowal. In all the others, there is only the force of receiving, the desire to receive, which totally manages them; the spark of bestowal is dormant for the time being and doesn’t show itself.

They don’t have these two forces between which it is possible to judge themselves and the whole to one scale or the other. But if the sparks of bestowal awaken in people, they can change their fate and the fate of the whole world. Such people are called Yashar—El (straight to the Creator) since by the attribute they received from the Creator they can choose and judge themselves and the whole world to the scale of correction.

They are very different from others even in their corporeal nature as a result of the spark that operates in them. Only those who have the spark of the force of bestowal, have freewill. Therefore, they are the innermost part of the world, since they are close to the Light that is everywhere. Through them the Light can reach the whole system, all the other vessels, all the other people we see in this world.

They have to perform the correction and they are responsible for the state of the world, the way the world is advancing towards the general correction. Therefore, we have to gather all the people in whom the point in the heart has awakened and try to form them into a strong and unified group. This union will be called the inner center, the heart of the world.

By coming together and annulling our ego, we come closer to the Creator, to the Light, to the force of bestowal. On the other hand, the influence of the Light will spread through us all over the world. This is all our work. All these efforts are only to bring contentment to the upper force. By that we discover the upper force and identify with it, which means that we attain the goal of creation.

The most important thing is the connection among us in order to increase the force of bestowal and to raise its importance, to become as close as possible to the Light, to its attribute, and thus to advance.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12

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There are two basic inner states: exile and redemption. In fact they both belong to spirituality, since you cannot feel that you are in exile if you don’t feel an echo, a reflection of redemption, which means if you don’t feel redemption in some way.

Children who were born in prison or in labor camps in Siberia, sometimes lived there for years, unable to get out, and it was their whole world, the whole planet. Yes, they were told about some other life, but they lived and were brought up under the conditions in the camps, unable to see anything else.

We learn everything from its opposite, it isn’t just a few differences, but in order to see a full picture it has to be diametrically opposite. If I want to attain love, for example, I have to reach hate, and the more hate, the more I can feel greater love, until it comes to the state of “love will cover all the sins,” and then it becomes absolute love.

It is the same with redemption and exile:

• Is it possible to reach redemption without leaving exile?
• Is it possible to acknowledge exile without being attracted to redemption?

All these states follow one another in different manners and styles and by that enable a person to find out exactly all the discernments in exile compared to all the discernments in redemption. It is only when these two pictures are placed one opposite the other that a big empty vessel is revealed, a burning desire, and also a great filling, which doesn’t put out the fire in the vessel. This is because in spirituality a person works in order to bestow, which means that he fills his vessel only in order to adhere to the Creator.

Accordingly, in our world we also go through different corporeal states, as a replica of spiritual states. Here too there is exile and redemption, but everyone understands these concepts differently, regardless of the Creator and spiritual ascents, and sometimes regardless of the nation, the state, or a certain place.

On the other hand, it may well be that “redemption” for us is connection in which we discover a good and happy life on a corporeal level, regardless of spirituality. In that case, we call the hate and the daily problems “exile.” A similar approach, without any explanations about spiritual roots is also legitimate when we turn to people.
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From the 4^th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/12, “Exile and Redemption”

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