Entries in the 'My Similarity to the Creator' Category

Before Spiritual Birth

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: These days before the Arava convention, the friends are experiencing great pressure and fear of the unknown. How can I help them during the lesson to focus this pressure in the right direction?

Answer: A person should reach such a level of fear and pressure like at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “You either connect or here will be your burial place.” It is because a person should bury his desire to receive, not identify with it, and rise above it. This is called the receiving of the Torah. He asks the Light to perform an action that is the opposite of burial. But he must see that this is what he wants to do with his ego in order to connect with others and to reach bestowal.

Of course, at the same time he must feel tension and pressure. There isn’t a more tense situation in all our lives than this passage. It is birth and birth is a most natural process, but at the same time, it is the most dangerous and dramatic event in a person’s life.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/12, The Zohar

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Mount Sinai In The Midst Of The Arava Desert

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we reach the correct plea during the congress in the desert? Various desires are constantly changing inside of me and I am afraid that I won’t be able to arrive at the correct thought.

Answer: A person arrives at Mount Sinai in such a state when inside of him there are Moses, Aaron, the Cohens (priests), Levites, and the nation of Israel—600,000 men, it would seem such a force. Even though it exists, it is not yet clear for a person that it exists inside. Besides this, there are women and children inside of him. There are even Egyptians, completely unrelated to the nation of Israel (Yashar El – straight to the Creator), who fled along with them.

Even the mixed multitude (Erev Rav) is intermingled within them, meaning that there are impure forces (Klipot) concealed inside, which cannot be corrected now, but will only be corrected later after all of the corrections. And all of them are standing and facing Mount Sinai before receiving the Torah.

Who must receive the Torah? Everyone receives it to the extent that he needs it, according to these levels. And so, there are strong men under the leadership of Moses who is standing before everyone (the point in the heart), and there are desires that are simply connected to them. While there are also ones who, as soon as possible, even as soon as tomorrow, will cast the golden calf, and will act against the Creator, against Moses, and in general will want to return to the Pharaoh, to make such a revolution.

Such different desires coexist inside a person, yet he still reaches Mount Sinai. He cannot arrive there otherwise! He carries Egypt inside of himself, even Babylon, the whole of the path he has traveled, all of this is inside a person. While now he reaches the so-called resistance before Mount Sinai, bringing the entire burden with him, as yet, he has never corrected anything in himself! He only occasionally felt these qualities inside of himself, one against the other: Babylon and the land of Canaan, and bad and good deeds.

He was imprisoned, confined to a pit by the Pharaoh, and he was also the young Moses who sat on Pharaoh’s knee and grew up in his home. He escaped from Pharaoh’s palace, slew the Egyptian, and suffered from his nation Israel. Everything that is written in the Torah is contained inside of this person who is now standing in the desert of Arava: All of this happened to him.

Therefore, it is important for us to prepare ourselves for unity as best as possible. If you want to be in the mutual guarantee, then you will receive the Reforming Light. You may not receive the correction yet. The giving of the Torah is only the beginning. You are now given the methodology of correction, and from here, you begin to realize the corrections according to this methodology.

This is the receiving of an instruction book that explains how to correct yourself! This is precisely what we should be ready for. There is no need for something more. I must know that I am going to receive the force for such a correct connection with the group, inside of which I will reveal the Creator, the spiritual world, the higher system, the higher dimension.

It is not demanded of us to be righteous people and real friends, feeling love for each other already. I only need to be ready for it, to have the willingness to do so, the need for me to make this calculation and cry from the bottom of the heart that I want to change. That’s all.

I have desires of all levels inside of me, starting from Moses and ending with the mixed multitude; all of them are with me. And the difference between Babylon and the land of Canaan, Egypt and the Mount Sinai is only in the clarifications. All of this is the same desire, only ever more clarifying itself, and that is why, instead of Babylon, it starts to be called the land of Canaan, instead of the land of Canaan, it starts to be called Egypt, instead of Egypt, the Red Sea, Mount Sinai, and so forth.

But all of this is the same desire, just passing through different states bearing such names.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/12, Writings of Rabash

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A Bridge Of Love Over An Abyss Of Egoism

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabbi Elimelech from Lizhensk, “A Luminary and the Sun”: The main thing is to unite with each friend in love, serve the Creator with the single heart, to give a hand together, to extend connection among us and solder with each other’s hearts to become one whole and serve the Creator wholeheartedly.

In general, all our work is in one action: to unite as one man with one heart, to solder with each other’s hearts to become one whole and serve the Creator wholeheartedly. This is how we correct the breakage created specifically for us in order to reveal the degree of our separation and to build a bridge of love over it.

It’s in this manner of working with the help of an obstacle given from Above, the height of a bridge extending over the abyss of our egoism, that we build our common spiritual Partzuf and reveal the eternal reality in which we are to live. Thus, we’ll be getting even more blows of separation on the way and will be building a connection of love in mutual guarantee, unity, and complement like a perfectly tuned mechanism of an integral system. Each time we have to aspire toward perfection. Malfunctions and new details that need to be added to our system to become perfect will be revealed to us. And we’ll be happy to find and fix these details because corrections lead us toward true perfection.

We have to be happy with the evil being revealed. I am happy and rejoice in these apparent and appearing impairments, writes Baal HaSulam in the Igrot (Letters) 5, P. 11. He continues: I do indeed regret and complain about the impairments that are still covered, and are destined to be uncovered, for a covered corruption is in no hope. Thus it’s very important for the flaws to be revealed. And they have to be accepted with joy. When a person is connected to a group in the right way, he accepts all the obstacles, problems, and difficulties with joy because he understands that by overcoming them and building a proper connection above them, knowledge, wisdom, and love will become revealed above evil. To the extent of an evil abyss’s depth, he climbs a spiritual height and perceives the Creator’s eternal world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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Don’t Be Afraid To Be Infected If You Want To Be Charged

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, Shlavey Hasulam (Steps of the Ladder), “The Need for the Love of Friends:” There is a special power in the adhesion of friends. Since views and thoughts pass from one to the other through the adhesion between them, each is mingled with the power of the other, and by that each person in the group has the power of the entire group. For this reason, although each person is an individual, he contains the power of the entire group.

When children are together they learn good things from each other. Actually they sometimes “infect” one another with bad things, and in general, if a person is ill he infects others. Can this be happening in the group too? What do I need this for? Isn’t it better to stay at home?

There are those among us who think that it is better for kids to stay at home, and not be with children their own age, although this is absolutely contrary to our approach. Of course they receive both good things and bad things from the environment. There is no doubt about that, but a person can’t grow without the two things.

Therefore there is a special power in the adhesion of friends, if it isn’t a society of criminals or a gathering of jokers, of course. It’s said that dispersing the evil is good for them and good for the world. But we’re talking about those who want to reach adhesion with the Creator. In such a case, adhesion, the connection among them is only for their own good. In the mutual connection among us we want to discover the upper force, the force of bestowal and love. If we discover it among us, according to the law of equivalence of form, we will discover its root, the Creator.

The views and the thoughts pass from one to the other, if we are on a certain level of adhesion, in connection. Therefore each one is mingled in the power of the other, and that is the main thing. I need the power of the friends. Alone, no one has enough powers to attain spirituality. Whoever sits by himself and doesn’t connect with others has a problem. It could be that he hears talk about unity, but he doesn’t act and doesn’t carry it out. Many hear, but they don’t actually listen, they don’t connect to the action. I understand that it’s necessary, that there is no other choice, but something inside stops me. I don’t know what to do. I make “Herculean efforts,” come very close and retreat again. Everyone has this strong internal psychological barrier. No one can approach others easily.

The external ease doesn’t reflect what is happening inside at all. A person who finds it easy to hug the friends will soon discover that it’s actually very difficult. There are people who are very easy going, they connect, and converse with others easily. But in fact they can’t even imagine what an internal connection is.

Therefore, we should understand that it’s about working on internal unity. Even if it’s very hard, it’s thanks to this that a person begins to receive spiritual powers from all the friends. Rabash says, each one is mingled in the power of the other and by that each person in the group has the power of the entire group. When I am incorporated in the group I acquire its power. If I had the true power of the group now, even one gram from each one, it would be my net profit.

Therefore, although each person is an individual, he contains the power of the entire group in which he is incorporated. Everyone becomes equal to the group in his powers. Then we connect again and not just to connect or multiply our powers, but we actually raise them in the power we have attained, for example, one thousand in the power of one thousand. Thus it isn’t just power but the power of a “nuclear explosion.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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We Must Not Withdraw

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the last convention in Israel I felt an unprecedented sense of connection. But afterward, for a week I felt such a descent, which, too, I had never felt before. Now I am afraid of conventions. What can I do?

Answer: It is very good. It is excellent. We should really be afraid. We also see that before the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt.

Just imagine that you are being thrown out of the place you are used to, and that you escape in the middle of the night, not knowing where to. Pharaoh’s cavalry is chasing you. You are confused, you jump into the Red Sea, and suddenly a miracle takes place. Actually it isn’t so delightful. Then the people praise the Creator: “The horse and rider drowned at sea.” But we should understand that a person goes through very extreme states that resemble birth; he feels great pressure like an embryo during labor pains.

Then after the journey in the desert almost a thousand laws are “imposed” on you: what you should do and what you must not do, and what punishments you will receive if you don’t follow these laws. In other words, you get the plan of your future correction, even before you are at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “This is what is expected, whether you want to or not. It makes no difference. Take it and start doing it.”

Only now do you discover what the work of the Creator is. Up until now you thought that you are a hero among zeros and now you see a list that reaches the sky before you. In every line it says: “if you don’t perform—you will get problems, catastrophes, death….”

Furthermore, you are also told: “On the whole, if you don’t connect—this will be your burial place.”

Then the point of Moses gladly comes out of every heart, the point that pulls us toward the Creator. We connect these points and discover to some extent the connection with the upper force. It is done gradually: At first only the point of Moses discovers Him, while the other points—the sages, the elderly, the priests, the Levites, Israel, the women, the slaves and the children are standing at the foot of the mountain. They say, “We shall do and we shall hear.” In other words, all our desires that are ready to surrender receive the force.

It is happening today, and the next day we immediately build the golden calf.

It is important that we understand: It is all within our reach. We escape the ego, and we really need to feel this escape. You come to the convention, fully ready, fearing that you might not fulfill the mission and reach the desired goal. You are afraid of being restricted and obliged, just like the escape from Egypt.

On the other hand, you feel obliged to all the friends. You look at them and you desperately look for our collective point of connection.

Eventually, we should bring all our powers to one moment. But for that moment we should be taut during the whole convention, like a taut string. We should be connected in time, movement, and place, in the connection among us. It is said: “Israel the Torah and the Creator are one.” This is like the situation of the great priest in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur….We should reach that one single unique moment and then it will happen.

Then the path will continue, but it will be with the connection to the Reforming Light.

These are the conditions: You are actually running away; it isn’t in your power to go back to your previous life; you must achieve the desired goal; and at the same time you must pull together all your powers for that single moment. This aims you very sharply at the target. Let’s see how all this will happen.

In The Book of Zohar, (Nasso [Take] Items 98-99) it says: “…and they shall gather at the foot of the mountain. At the foot of the mountain they were told: ‘If you receive the Torah, good, and if not, there shall be your burial place.'”

This means that we with our egoistic desire will see the beastly life as “wonderful.” We will feel that we are in this “beastly burial,” and some won’t even feel that. Then instead of internal mental, goal-oriented, human disturbances, we should expect beastly problems from which the whole world suffers.

Therefore, we must prepare for the convention very seriously. If we’ve taken it upon ourselves, we mustn’t withdraw. It is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is not to be afraid.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/12, “Advice for the Arava Convention”

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My Wonderful Addition To The Completeness Of The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What do the “black letters on the white background” signify in spiritual work? Are the letters the deficiencies (desires) that are revealed on the background of the white light?

Answer: It is impossible to discover one without the other. We are the creatures, and the Creator is the force of bestowal. We don’t understand His feelings and attainments since we are built completely differently. The only thing that we are able to attain is the preference of light within the darkness. So we comprehend reality only on the contrast between light and darkness, between bestowal and reception.

A letter is a symbol. It is possible to look at it as black lines on a white background, and it is possible to see the white light that has something missing. In both ways it will be the same letter, but from different points of view: from the side of the Light or from the side of the Kli, the desire.

It all depends on how you understand deficiency. It could be that your deficiency is perceived within the Kli and you are waiting for a more pleasant feeling in order to receive fulfillment for yourself? Or it could be that your deficiency is felt in relation to the Light: When will I be able to bestow and be included within the Light? This means that I am waiting for the Kli to be included within the Light and not that the Light will enter the Kli.

The work is always possible from two directions. Everything depends on how you consider adhesion to the Creator: Is the Creator included in the creature or is the creature included in the Creator?

The Creator joins the creature in concealment since after all, He is always within him, directs him, and loves him. But He gives us an opening, a small deficiency, so that we will move towards Him and yearn to adhere to Him.

The measure of adhesion is the “letter,” the black lines on a white background that show the extent to which I am adhered to the Creator. On one hand, the letter, so to speak, is missing the white light. But on the other hand, I cover the white light myself.

I am now in the white light, but I am detached from it; however, I add to it my letter. And because it is black, I succeed in writing something from myself on the white. Thus, even if the letter is black, in any case, it expresses the extent of my adhesion to white.

The letters clarify how much the creature is similar to the Creator. And despite that the white light, as it were, appears to have some kind of deficiency—that is my addition to it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/12, The Zohar

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The Zohar is the source of the power. But this power is like electricity: it all depends on what you connect to it—a heater or an air conditioner, a device that creates pressure or vacuum. This power can perform whatever you want.

Our desire is called an intention: what we want the power to do for us. And it does. Even our worst requests and our best requests that are aimed at the goal or at the opposite from it, the power performs everything according to the request of the lower. But if my direction matches that power, the benefit I receive is maximal. If my direction doesn’t really match the direction of the power, then according to my diversion from it, according to the cosine of the angle between us, I reach only partial fulfillment. If I aim at the opposite direction, then I am opposed to this power, the power neutralizes my power, and I suffer. But through the loss, this power still turns me towards the goal. This is because I always receive a combination of the positive or negative powers in the measure of my direction coinciding to the thought of creation.

There is a straight line to the goal and I should follow it. If I follow this line—our powers unite. If I digress from the line, then although our powers are the same, I lose the cosine of the angle, according to my diversion.

But if I aim in the opposite direction, not totally opposite but in a certain angle—then according to the cosine of the angle in which I am the opposite from Him, the Creator neutralizes the power. So in any case, I get a response from Him, although it is a negative response. This negative response is the combination of His power and my power. Therefore, eventually He turns me in the right direction through suffering.

If I am below the zero, I feel pain, and if I am above the zero I feel pleasure. In any case, all of humanity advances with or without intention. The power that directs us works constantly. We call it the Reforming Light.

So the main thing is what we want because the Light operates, especially while reading The Book of Zohar.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/12, The Zohar

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Look Into The Root

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to “bring contentment to the creator”?  The Creator is the attribute of bestowal, so to whom am I bringing contentment?

Answer: This is how you imagine your world: in the form of images that you can do something to and get a response from. You don’t feel that the Creator is behind all these figures, and that they are all just figures that He keeps alive and through them presents Himself to you in billions of ways.

The attribute of bestowal is the one who bestows. After all, you are building your attitude towards someone not according to his externality, but rather according to his essence. It seems that he is made of many discernments, but where are they? In the flesh or in some figure? Try to imagine a figure of a person “in the air” without a body. Take all of the spirituality out of him and all of his desires, his passions, and his thoughts, which are actually outside the beastly body. Undress the body and turn to the essence of the person.

Then turn in the same way to the essence of the Creator. The difference between the two is that the essence of the Creator is whole and it includes everything. It manages everyone. This is the general force of nature, the general law of nature, its general mind that is all good and benevolent. The general mind is good and the executing force is benevolent.

We shouldn’t be confused by what we see. It is time to consider the essences. The body does not exist. A person’s essence is truly eternal and I want to connect with it. It may be depicted to me as some “ghost,” but it is actually infinite and limitless. All our essences are the different facets of Malchut of Ein Sof. When we connect, it is as if they all “spread” on it and eventually make it up and create the corrected vessel.

Don’t forget that you should look at the group with internal eyes.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Building Our Home

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 26: Also, one does not execute anything during the building, but only according to the details arranged before him in the blueprint…. Thus, there is not a single, tiny item, generated in this world, that does not extend from Ein Sof, from the first state of the souls. And from Ein Sof, it extends to the world of Atzilut, meaning specifically associated to the thing actually being generated in this world. And from the world of Atzilut, the generation extends to the three worlds BYA, where the generation appears in actual fact, where it stops being Godliness and becomes a creature, and to Yetzira and Assiya, until it extends to the lower one in this world.

Only one thing was created: a desire. The created being exists in this desire and feels, thinks and understands in it. The greater one’s desire is, the more he can feel and understand. The more varied the desire, the more ways he can perceive reality.

If the created being’s desire had stayed the way it was created, it wouldn’t have felt anything. This is a result of the four phases of direct Light. Our development begins when the Light begins to influence the desire that was created as existence from absence. All along the way, the desire developed by the Light and received attributes, changes, and urges to act from it. In the Light there is the thought of creation, so when the desire was created by the Light, this thought was put into practice in it.

When the desire developed, it began to perceive different impressions from the Light that turned into receiving. It receives, feels, understands and responds. Every action of the Light initiated the mechanism of changes inside the desire: It absorbed it again and again, felt, and responded numerous times.

Actually the Light is fixed and doesn’t move. It only presents itself to the desire this way. It is in the desire that all the changes take place, until it “turns around” so many times and accumulates so many changes that make it stop and start its way back. The Light is in a state of absolute rest and it fulfills its inner plan, which is for the desire to return to the source, but so that it itself wants to return to the point where the Light gave birth to it, and to justify its creation. Thus it justifies and understands the Light.

All the way into our world and back again is by means of the Light. When the Light shines upon the desire and draws away from it, it spreads from the top down. Then the Light performs the opposite action and the created being begins to draw closer to it, but it does so consciously, wanting to return to the Light, meaning to resemble it. Then he receives the surrounding Light that helps him, and he constantly wants to acquire the inner Light instead, in other words, wants to become like Him.

According to my free will, the Light influences me and changes me. Then I acquire equivalence of form and the inner Light spreads inside me. This is the level of my bestowal. So from a distance, the desire to receive returns to the Light and is incorporated in it.

Thus we attain the Creator’s initial plan and then different general parts of the “blueprint.” The “blueprint” itself is in the world of Atzilut, and we are in the worlds of BYA, dealing with its fulfillment, in the correction of the matter of the desire. Like an architect, a person builds his home and acquires control over his vessel.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, The Zohar

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The Spiritual World, As Is, Without Any Miracles

Dr. Michael LaitmanEvery person at some stage of their life begins to feel that he has to reveal its meaning. This can be a conscious search for the meaning of life, which is given to individual, chosen people, or an unconscious urge, as it is characteristic of the rest of the people. However, everyone will at some point have to find the answer to this question: What am I living for? Since the goal of development is to return all of us to our root.

When a person asks, “What is this life for?” in essence, he is asking, “What do I need this suffering for?” The suffering is personal or common, but everyone asks because his desires are not receiving fulfillment. Then a person begins to search, and some people come to study Kabbalah, while some people arrive at some other places.

Our development on the human level began hundreds of thousands years ago, from the beginning when humanity emerged, having risen above the animal level. It started from the development of the mind and language, but in fact, man was moved by that same question: “What am I living for?” Although, a person, who lived thousands of years ago, did not understand the essence of this question, just like today, when this question is being awakened in us, we do not exactly understand its true meaning. It is simply an unclear urge, which makes us move forward.

This is how the whole of humanity moves forward chasing wealth, fame, power, and knowledge without knowing that the goal of development is not in this, but in reaching one’s root, to find out: where I come from and what rules me, and really means, where should I go?

The desire to enjoy, awakening in us, asks us these questions, which are gradually becoming ever more precisely directed at the root from which the upper Light is shining through at us. This is how our system is set up.

But a person, who has already reached the last stage of development, and who has been brought to such a place where he begins to study, at first does not understand the connection between his need to find out what he lives for, what the meaning of his life is and what he studies. Often, he is not even aware of the question itself, which takes the form of various other questions, simple curiosity.

This is how he begins to study the science of Kabbalah, or at first he takes interest in some other methodologies, spending long years on this. Sometimes, under the pretense of Kabbalah, he is being sold various “miracles” and advices about how to succeed in life, and how to find out about your past, present and the future. However, if he really arrives at the science of Kabbalah, and not fortune tellers, then he discovers the Kabbalistic books for himself and he does not understand where all of this is located: the upper worlds and Partzufim.

He has no connection at all with these concepts. He does not know where all of that exists, beyond the borders of our world, our Galaxy, or even the whole universe? Is it somewhere up there, below, or maybe inside the material? It is very difficult for a person to understand how to relate to all of this.

A lot of time is spent on this. And even when a person listens, he does not hear that the science of Kabbalah only talks about the connection between people. He does not understand that by setting the correct connection, we reveal reality, which belongs to a new, higher dimension.

It is difficult for him, given his previous opinions and impressions about the science of Kabbalah, to connect it to human relationships. How can such a hidden and high science, such high names and worlds, actions and forces, have any connection to our relationships towards each other, between me and the neighbors, between me and my friends?

He simply cannot imagine that all of the upper worlds and what goes on inside of them is in essence the “psychological” connection between us, people. And if we begin to interact with each other, with bestowal and love, this means that we are using the spiritual force. In the event that we reach true love of our neighbor, and not that egoistic one, we’re used to in this world, which is calling the use of the other for the sake of my own pleasure love.

However, if I use myself for the sake of other people’s benefit, this is called love of one’s neighbor. When I relate this way to someone else, then in my relationship to him I begin to reveal the spiritual Partzufim, the upper worlds, Sefirot, angels, demons, spirits, and all of these spiritual forces, which are “for” or “against” my connection with others. They can be positive forces or negative ones, meaning the forces of “holiness” or “evil”.

All together, they unite into one common force, which I reveal in my love for the other, called the Creator, which have a number of various names that reflect the character of my connection with others.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, Writings of Rabash

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