Baal HaSulam, Shamati, #168, “The Customs of Israel”: The customs of Israel are so important, that it is safe to say that they give more spirituality to a person than the Mitzvot themselves. This is so although breaking a custom does not yield punishment, and breaking a judgment does yield punishment. Still, concerning the benefit, meaning producing fear of heaven, the customs yield more spirituality, since the great ones who established the customs arranged it so that spirituality would shine through them.

There is a great problem as for the corporeal actions that are aimed at love and connection; actions which Rabash describes in his articles about the society. We mustn’t think lightly of them and thus we perform everything relatively.

A “custom” is a condition, a law, which I can’t perform on the spiritual level at the moment and so I keep it only in corporeality. I bring the friends contentment and try to fulfill the desires of the friends, to connect them, and to connect to them in order to bring them contentment. I constantly fulfill different actions that belong to the commandment of “Love thy friend,” to connection and to mutual guarantee. Indeed, neither I nor the friends have reached a spiritual fulfillment yet; it isn’t the fulfillment of the “commandments” yet, not the drawing of the Light that Reforms that connects, that awakens, and fills us. In the meantime we are on the level of preparation and all our actions are on the level of “customs.”

So we study, work in the group, carry out the advice of the Kabbalists, and it doesn’t matter whether we understand them or not. They attached special help from Above to their advice—the Light that Reforms. So, even though our intention is egoistic (Lo Lishma – Not for Her Name) from Lo Lishma we arrive at the altruistic intention of Lishma (For Her Name).

Everything that helps you reach correction in the meantime is used with the intention of in order to receive, which means with egoistic intentions, is called a “custom.” You operate in order to connect and even if you don’t want to connect, even if you are looking for self-benefit, the Light comes and brings you a different intention, which you couldn’t even have asked for. You didn’t even think about it, but it happens—you suddenly begin to appreciate the attributes of bestowal and love.

In order to do that, we need group work: to annul yourself, to raise the friends in your eyes, to spur them and yourself. Yes, you want to gain something by these actions, after all, you benefit by such actions since this is the only way to draw the Light.

It’s a simple law: The Light comes only to the desire that is similar to it in its properties. True, you haven’t reached an equivalence of form yet, but you have the corporeal body and this is what it was created for, so that with it you will support the friends and tell them how much you love them and how important the Creator is, and give them examples of bestowal and of self-annulment. With the help of our bodies we connect to one another. Although all our actions in the group are in order to receive, they are the type of actions Kabbalists have prepared especially in order to attain true connection.

My intentions are the opposite, malicious, I intend to use the upper world and the Creator for my own benefit, but the actions I perform are right and thanks to them, thanks to the mechanism Kabbalists have created, I can correct myself. Otherwise, how could I exit the shattering? Here the “customs” are necessary, the right action that lead to the right intentions.

Kabbalists have performed special corrections in order to insert the Light that Reforms into the customs after the “shattering.” The Light can’t pour into the “vessels” that are below, beyond the “shattering line,” within the desire to receive. Still it’s possible to raise the vessels that are beginning to wake up. Thus we begin to work.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/12, Customs of Rosh Hashanah

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The Creator created a desire to receive that is in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). It is the only creation, “something from nothing,” and it is adhered to the Creator. That’s the way it is from the Creator’s perspective.

Then, by special actions, the Creator separated and distanced that creation from Him by force, and a partition was created between them that separated these two attributes of receiving and bestowal. Now, there is a gap of 125 degrees between them, and the created being is like an organ that has been cut off the body and has lost its feeling.

We don’t feel the connection with the Creator since we are cut off from Him like an organ that is cut off from the body. If a person hadn’t received an awakening from Above, he would never think about it, but would live like all the other animals.

A human being is the awakening to the upper that is evoked in us: a desire to become like the Creator, connected to Him. Without this awakening, we would remain on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of development. The level of “speaking” is determined by our attraction to the Creator. So, this level can be called human because Adam (man) means similar (Domeh) to the Creator.

This awakening is called a point in the heart, and it allows us to be called Israel, a person who yearns Yashar El (straight to the Creator). Such a person has the task of returning to the Creator through his own efforts and various exercises called Torah and Mitzvot (the commandments). The Torah is the Light that Reforms that operates on the desire and turns it into in order to bestow.

Such actions are called Mitzvot and are created by a special force called the Light that Reforms. This Light is made of 620 Lights that operate on 613 desires, thus correcting them and annulling the partition between the created being and the Creator.

The force of separation becomes the force of adhesion. It amplifies the initial adhesion by 620 times, according to our division in the world of Ein Sof.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/12, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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After a person is awakened to spirituality, the rest of his ascent depends on the deficiency. This is the only thing he is required to do—to have a deficiency called prayer, MAN.

This is possible only when a person is grateful that he has received such a yearning. Then he increases the importance of the goal by himself; the importance of the next level. In addition, it is possible if above all this he also develops another deficiency in him, to ascend not for his own sake but in order to bring the Creator contentment. It is like the famous example of the guest who wants to please the host.

Thus he prepares himself to receive help from Above which will make his desire the right one. Even if a person doesn’t understand to what extent our account is actually egoistic, it makes no difference and for the time being this is also enough. Later he will see that his account isn’t clean. This is why the time of preparation is called Lo Lishma (Not for Her Sake).

It is a natural egoistic account and it is impossible to skip above our ego all at once. It opens up gradually to the extent we can make an effort and work against it—against things we find pleasant, against our habits, and to the extent that we are ready to step on our pride in order to connect with others.

All this isn’t simple, but if a person constantly pays attention to it, he advances. Our problem is that everyone is trying to escape and to hide in his corner, to hide behind the studying, behind the desire to know what is written, which has nothing to do with spiritual advancement and the inner correction. A person fills his mind with dry facts and neglects the work in the heart.

The work in the heart is working against the heart, in order to turn the “stony heart” into the “heart of flesh.” But we forget where our main exertion should be. Everyone finds some comfortable spot and thinks that he has found the way. Thus he descends even from Lo Lishma, since Lo Lishma is when despite being in my ego I still make some efforts to rise above it.

Where is the daily work to connect with others, to concede, to step on myself, to annul my “self,” to accept the importance of the group’s opinion, to become a slave to the mission? Can I examine myself and see the state I am in? This is called Lo Lishma.

All of Moses’ work in Egypt is an example of working in Lo Lishma. He wants to escape the enslavement, but he is afraid because he understands that he is under the domination of Pharaoh, of his ego, and he doesn’t know how to talk to him. It reaches a state that the Creator Himself takes him and brings him to Pharaoh and helps him in everything that he does.

The Creator Himself fights the Pharaoh. He says: “Come to the Pharaoh!” But in the meantime a person is afraid. He knows that the ego totally controls him and how weak he is when he confronts him. He is in a constant dilemma: On the one hand, he is ready, and the other hand he isn’t. If he could at least ask the Creator to go before him, just to hide behind Him and thus stand before the Pharaoh; but he actually doesn’t want to go and he doesn’t have the guts to turn not only to his ego but also to his own attributes, called “the nation of Israel.”

But by being in a system that connects him with Pharaoh, the Creator, and the nation he has to clarify all these connections. He cannot hide behind some theory or some work that is only a means. It is very important to clarify what Lo Lishma means.

When a person enters the state of Lishma (For Her Sake), things become clearer and more decisive. We cannot say that it gets easier, but one profits from experience. In the meantime, however, during the time of preparation, a person escapes to some corner ready to sit there until his last day. It is a great problem if the group doesn’t spur him and guide him. He has to feel that he is lower than them in order to hear what they say.

The feeling of helplessness on the one hand and the necessity to advance on the other is a state called Yomim Norai’im (the Days of Awe). A person is in a state of anxiety since he has no fear of not being able to fulfill the Creator’s desire, of not being able to allow Him to be revealed to all the created beings, of not being able to sacrifice himself for the convergence of the Creator to the created beings.

All this evokes fear in him. He really wants to fulfill this stage in practice, so that it will be called the beginning of a new year for him.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/12

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Question: Kabbalists attribute envy to the qualities that help a person exit this world and enter the spiritual world. Indeed, why should I envy others? After all, everyone is special and everyone is following his own path. Why should the uniqueness of another make me jealous and empower me on my way?

Answer: I evoke the envy, lust, and desire for respect in me on purpose. It isn’t about just any ordinary person who envies the success of others or who is after respect. In this world we envy all kinds of nonsense and really want frivolous things. I, on the contrary, take only what is necessary for living and disregard all the rest. When I have all the basic necessities, I build myself for the spiritual work and in this framework I use tools like envy.

Otherwise, I will have nothing with which to advance. Envy, lust, and respect are the three egoistic approaches, and what can I work on without them inside of me? It’s these three qualities that take me out of this world; it’s like exiting the worlds of BYA into the world of Atzilut.

So if I want to work spiritually, I look at the work of others and annul myself before them. Then I see them as the greatest in our generation: They have advanced far ahead, they have attained the end of correction, and I envy them. If I don’t envy, I am powerless and can’t move. I receive all the powers to advance from my ego. The right advancement with the right intention, which means the form that is dressed in matter is brought to me by the Light while the matter itself by which I ascend is my own ego.

Question: But how can I guard the right intention from the envy?

Answer: It’s according to the envy, the lust, and the desire for respect that the intention is built. You turn the envy to envy for the Creator, the desire for respect to respect for the Creator, the lust for an urge to adhere to Him. Otherwise, what do you correct? What do you build, an airy castle in the clouds?

Question: But still, when I envy, its fire consumes me.

Answer: No, you allow yourself to evoke the envy, the lust, and the desire for respect only after the restriction, when it isn’t for you anymore, but in order to understand, to determine the “work space.” Everything must be under control; otherwise, you mustn’t even start.

In short, try it. Don’t be afraid to fall into envy. Start working on it. You’re lucky if you envy the friends; it’s good. After all, we have no other force to advance. If I lived alone without an environment, I would be like an animal. On the other hand, if the society spurs me and stimulates me by constantly showing me that the friends have what I lack, it helps me advance in life. I just need a special environment that provides me with good examples, which I envy.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/12, “Peace in the World”

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The current egoistic education erases a person’s uniqueness. Movies newspapers, the media, and the Internet all aim at that.

You assume that the Internet helps you keep in touch with others, but the truth is that it helps you be like everyone else. It locks our whole egoistic integral world in itself in the worst way possible, and as a result we are all connected to one another and are all identical.

We must admit that the Internet assists our development and brings us close to the end of correction since it reveals the evil—but in an evil way. We see standard examples through the net and consume a standard meaning. The “virtual machine” duplicates us like parts on the assembly line.

In spirituality it is the opposite; you don’t resemble others in any way. You are absolutely special and no one can intervene. After all we all have different directions; we work on different frequencies, and we don’t meet, don’t touch each other’s qualities. Everyone has ten Sefirot, but they are divided into another ten and then more and more. Eventually everyone makes a huge tangle of interwoven connections, each according to his measure and to his quality. You can resemble another, but you are not equal to him in any way.

Question: But does the environment influence a person in spirituality too?

Answer: There the environment only inspires you to use your uniqueness and nothing more than that. In our world advertising constantly imposes something upon you, while in spirituality the friends only spur you by envy, lust, and the desire for respect and you operate on your own, internally. It is as if they give you a battery, but the engine, the means for perception, is yours.

Question: In our world I also use the desires that are awakened in me by myself, isn’t that so?

Answer: No. Here you are attracted to duplicating an example that is shown to everyone; you are presented with a certain standard and whether you like it or not, you fulfill it by the way you dress, in your behavior, and mainly in your inner perceptions. The example influences you whether you like it or not.

Therefore, we develop the integral education, according to which the example is a “round” system, in which we are all connected to one another. Thus we have to expel all the other examples. Otherwise, we will simply not survive.

Question: But according to the integral education I will also want to be like someone else.

Answer: Everyone needs to be like someone who is more successful. For example, when you engage in bodybuilding in our world, Schwarzenegger is the example you follow and the incentive is the environment that respects him.

You put your desires under the external pressure and fulfill them. In other words, the ego pushes you forward and you sculpt yourself according to the generally accepted model—according to the example of Schwarzenegger. You have been told that you should be like him and you work on yourself in order to equalize your form to his.

On the other hand, in the internal work you fulfill your attributes when you focus them anew from egocentrism outwards. This allows you to use them differently, and to be in contact with those around you. You get an opportunity that you didn’t have before and build something new.

Although the group is homogeneous, you connect to every member by your attributes and these connections are different for everyone. After all, everyone has his own internal structure.

You are told that you have to reach an equivalence of form with the One who bestows. But where is He? You are called to connect with the friends as one man in one heart, but where is the example? What is the standard?

You hear from the environment very clearly: “If you don’t do that, you are worthless.” So what should I do? After all, there are no examples I can follow. You have read each article a thousand times and you still don’t understand anything.

It is all so that you will look for yourself. The environment only challenges you and that’s all. The friends don’t stick posters like those of Schwarzenegger on the wall. There is no actual example and you don’t know what to do. It is a real problem.

So you are constantly searching: “Perhaps this way? Perhaps that way? What does the Creator look like? What is the attribute of bestowal? How can I transcend the mind? I don’t know anything! So let me see and hear something at least!” But no. It is impossible to perceive spirituality in our sensory organs.

This is exactly what “self-fulfillment” is: No one is pressuring you, not even the teacher. During the lesson he can speak openly, but never personally to you—never. It is forbidden to invade a person’s inner world.

Question: Does this means that I have to despair that I don’t find examples?

Answer: Search; don’t give up. The example is in the group, and you will find it if you dedicate yourself to this search. “I have to find it. The Creator’s image is concealed there, among the friends, in the connection among them.” You don’t see it, but if you focus, it will appear like in a three-dimensional picture.

This is your internal work and no one has access to it. Only you build the attitude to what we call a “group.” You enter it and operate there until you find an image, a form, the attribute of bestowal, its limits, its imprint, the impression it leaves.

Question: But is this example concealed from me?

Answer: And how will you see it without an equivalence of form? The Creator is before you. The attribute of bestowal, the upper Light fills everything. If you want an example, bring yourself to the minimal level of compatibility with it, make efforts (this is called a prayer), and He will help you.

Then you will see Him, but through your inner sight, much clearer and “juicier,” than you temporarily feel in all your senses, that penetrates far and deep and is a thousand times clearer than our ordinary sight by which we only see the externality, without learning even the least bit about the internality…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/12, “Peace in the World”

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The way all created beings relate to me is called the Creator? Where do I reveal Him? In my attitude towards them!

When shall I reveal Him? When I relate to them with love and bestowal.

What shall I find out about them?—that they are my inseparable parts that are useful to me and that I need. There is none in the world who would do harm to me and would be my enemy.

This means that I reveal that all creatures relate to me either with bestowal for the sake of bestowal, which is called “That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor,” or with receiving for the sake of bestowal, meaning with love to the other as to oneself. In essence, this is the manifestation of the Creator’s attitude towards me as though He just generalizes all these attitudes as their highest degree.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: This is because what is found in the collective is only what is found in the individual. And the benefit of the collective is the benefit of each and every individual: Who harms the collective takes his share in the harm, and who benefits the collective takes his share in the benefit, since individuals are part of the whole, and the whole is not worth in anyway more than the sum of its individuals.

We have to accept this as operating laws, and it depends on a person’s development whether they are revealed or not.

We are all parts of the general mechanism. Every individual is like a cogwheel that spins in accordance with others and is not asked whether it wants to or not. The machine is already assembled and active and if you feel that you are free and independent it is only because you are detached from reality. You simply don’t know how you are being “spun.”

But at a certain point you are shown that from now on you have to spin in a conscious way, and if you don’t do that, you experience unpleasantness.

Let’s illustrate it in a drawing. There is a mechanism in which all the wheels are spinning ideally. There is a small engine attached to them (M), which spins them, all of them.

Then each wheel is made to understand that at a certain point in its work it has to stop spinning instinctively and start spinning according to its own will, by uniting with others, by feeling responsible for them, out of love for them.

A person feels that everyone depends on him and then in his “red zone” two forces begin to operate: the evil force and the good force. He knows that he has to use the good force, but he cannot do anything with himself and only wants to use the evil force. At precisely this gap (Δ) he discovers his free will.

So the machine is working and you are spinning. Eventually, like it says, no one will be repulsed by the Creator, and everyone will return to his root. One way or the other, we are all its workers. But if you have a “point in the heart,” you want to reveal the truth and in order to do that you want to perform special actions, then you suddenly discover reality and it is revealed to you in two manners.

Then you have the opportunity to be incorporated in it and to discover and understand its engine—the Creator and the thought of creation and its whole system. When you become part of the process and equalize yourself with that “machine” you begin to see what it is and what it is meant for, etc.

You find yourself between the two opposites. On the one hand, the ego is pulling you outwards: “What do you need this for? Live and enjoy what you have, and what will be will be.” On the other hand, you are drawn to more.

Here you have to change the motivating force. Instead of being impressed by the attraction to new revelations, you start advancing in the real sense—incorporating in the general mechanism and acting in it.

This is possible only if you are incorporate in order to help others; not because you want to understand and to feel some innovation, to take part in something great, but in order to focus your powers on helping the general mechanism, on helping others. You have to switch the reason for your participation. Now you are being spurred by sufferings and you have to switch them to pangs of love.

As for the “machine,” it will operate as usual. Our world simply “spins,” but you are prevented from opening your eyes and seeing what is called the upper World—the sphere where all the accounts and all the decisions are made…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/12, “Peace in the World”

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The spiritual body retains only the Light that descends to it from the Partzuf’s head. All sorts of decisions and arrangements regarding creation’s actions in relation to the Creator are made in the Partzuf’s head. Later, everything that was preset in the head is being implemented through the body.

There is nothing in the body that does not exist in the head; it’s essential to practically implement throughout the body what is in the head, meaning receive for the sake of bestowal with the intention to please the Creator.

As a result, all elements of a spiritual action are being revealed (the complete TANTA); however, creation realizes that the work it has just performed was “fragmental” (partial) by nature and that it has not reached the same level of benevolence towards the Creator that the Creator transmits to it.

Thus, creation cannot continue acting as before, nor can it be satisfied with its actions, since there is no such thing as incomplete relationships in spirituality; spiritual relations are perfect. If a person faces boundaries and understands that he is incapable of overcoming them, he has to stop. Although, even when he stops he should still feel at least fractional love for his Master, even though it is not sufficient compared to the unlimited benevolence of the Creator and His desire to please the creation.

Partzufim in which one receives the Light from the Creator only prove that if creation lacks even one gram before it reaches the final correction it is still equal to doing nothing at all since one still limits one’s bestowal and thus makes it incomplete! This is the most vital thing to understand!

It doesn’t matter that one has already completed 99% of work. He still has restricted borders of love, whereas the Creator always relates to us with infinite love; the difference here is qualitative and crucial. So, until we reach the end of correction, we shouldn’t lose even a single step that we have already gone through; our duty is to constantly search for what else to add.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/12 The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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All the troubles and the hardships that we come across, about which The Book of Zohar tells us, are interruptions on the way to adhesion. After all, if we were in adhesion, we wouldn’t need to explain anything or write about it. The only thing we lack is to reach adhesion—this is the correct request.

If my request is correct each time, I will constantly be in adhesion according to my request. I only need to ask, but the request has to be for the right and clarified absolute desire—relatively to the state I am in.

If I could request correctly now, I would reach adhesion, on my relative level, of course. Thus the desires, the conditions, the inner attributes and the external ones would change in me each time, and if I asked correctly I would advance straight from the bottom up through these points—from one point of adhesion to another.

So all our work is to ask correctly, when we clarify our request more and more accurately. There are many conditions for the preparation for this work: This whole world, the friends, the study, etc. all this is in order to clarify our request.

This world and the friends are the components of my desire that I need to clarify. The only thing demanded from me is a prayer—MAN. Therefore, it says that every correction is performed by a prayer and good deeds by which we clarify our desire.

The book tells us about the desires we have to ask for in our prayers. Kabbalists don’t write about anything else but that, since you will discover everything else by yourself.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/12, The Book of Zohar

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All of humanity is one spiritual body and the correction is not meant for the part that can be spurred but actually for the part that cannot.

It is possible to bring contentment to the Creator only if we perform the whole formula. I correct myself in order to connect to Israel—to correct it, and then to correct all the nations of the world.

This means that my prayer should include the following components: Me correcting myself in order to build a common desire with others, the corrected part of the desire called “Israel” or “Shechina” and Malchut.

All this is in order to connect with the nations of the world—in order to bring contentment to the Creator.

We should plan the end of the process and this is why I begin. If it weren’t for the final result—contentment to the Creator, I wouldn’t start this whole process, since then it would be an egoistic action.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/12, Shamati #46

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