Our egoism is “help from the opposite,” which we have to use in order to ascend to the Creator’s level. And it works in two areas. The first is a person’s connection with the group where his egoism works against “Israel” (the intention “straight to the Creator”). The second is when our ego comes forth against the only force that controls the world, meaning against the Creator. Our ego rises up against these two forces and resists them by every means possible and at every moment. That is why all of our work is aimed only at this.

The more we aspire to attain a connection among us in bestowal, love, and mutual guarantee, the faster we will reveal that we are incapable of this! And then we will have to turn to the Creator and deal with Pharaoh who stands against Him. We know from the story of Egyptian slavery that Moses, the leader of the nation of Israel who spoke with the Creator, did not appear right away. All of this occurs after many years of exile in Egypt when the nation of Israel already cried out from the difficult work and screamed out to the Creator. Only then did one Jewish woman give birth to a boy Moses, and then this entire story begins to unfold. This new force called Moses rises up in a person.

That is where the work against Pharaoh begins. We discern whether it is worth it for us to attract the upper force in order to create a connection in the group that will fuse us together as one nation with one heart, so much that we will reveal the Creator inside of that unity. That is to say, the work takes places in two areas. First of all, this is difficult work that made “the sons of Israel cry out,” which is when we want to build our spiritual vessel (desire) and are unable to. And then we scream, not knowing what to do.

That is when the second phase begins, where we discern: Whom do we yell at and how? We have to reveal the upper force. We want it to be present inside of our union, and not just in order to make our connection with each other come true. Our entire connection has to happen in order to reveal the force fo the Creator, the force of bestowal and love.

We work through these two phases, and as long as we don’t complete them fully, uniting all of Israel and attracting the Creator instead of Pharaoh inside of us, we will not be able to come out of Egypt. This exodus occurs as an escape in darkness, extremely rushed.

There are several steps that we have to make in the direction of this exodus. The Light that illuminates these steps leads us to realize that there is just one upper force, “There is none else besides Him.” Only He influences us and leads us through all of these steps and all of the states. All of our sensations, thoughts, and desires comes to us from above. What depends on us is only one single point of freedom: To relate everything that is happening to the Creator.

We realize this free choice in the group by uniting as one man in order to reveal Him, and He is present inside of the group. That is how we prepare for the exodus from Egypt in order to ascend above our ego and to shift to being ruled by the force of bestowal.

This is the greatest event in a person’s life. It’s not an accident that the whole Torah starts with the Exodus, and the month when it happens is called the beginning of all the months. The beginning is enumerated from the exodus from Egypt because all of the Torah and all spiritual life is built only on this foundation. This is the beginning of a “human being” who starts to grow up from the animate existence, the growing force of faith called the force of the Creator, which rises above the earthly, animate knowledge. All of this begins with the exodus from the egoistic Egypt.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/11, Writings of Rabash

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The convention in America has just ended and now we must already start preparing for the next convention which will be held in Moscow in the summer. We do not have time to get depressed and later think about how to come out of the descent. And we have no right to do this.

Suppose I caught the flu, but I have a baby at home who is also sick. What will I think about: my own illness or the baby’s? Obviously, I will do everything I can to make him get better.

And we are in the same situation! We are facing a more serious problem now, so can we really allow ourselves to get depressed? There is no time for that. Only two months are left to prepare! Afterward, time will become compressed even more and we have to prepare for this right now. Period!

But here you are, telling me that today you are experiencing some kind of depression, as if you’re in a fog. What are you talking about?! We don’t even have a moment to cool down. Right after the convention, as I was traveling from New York to Toronto, I already started thinking about the next one.

Our work is simple: to strengthen the connection between us until its inner content, our mutual bestowal to one another becomes identical to bestowal to the Creator, completely equivalent to it and equal to it in size and quality.
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From the lesson on 4/8/11, “Preface to Ptiha”

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Yesterday while watching our TV channel I saw a broadcast of the cultural program that was held at the big Convention in Israel last fall. It included performances by different groups and special dances of different nations from all parts of the world where people came from to attend the Convention. There was a huge audience and a very special atmosphere, making it impossible to take your eyes away from the TV screen. I had to watch it until the very end.

I didn’t see any disappointed or dejected faces there because every person was influenced by the common inspiration and the entire hall was filled with joy, hope, excitement, and inspiration. And it wasn’t even because any special spiritual revelation was taking place there, but simply because the mood of the society influenced every person in this way. Every person that was part of it felt happy and joyful at that moment.

That is the power of social influence and it is the only thing we lack in order to advance at every moment in time. On the path we cannot demand any revelation other than the revelation of bestowal, meaning the correction that enables me only to bestow, to connect to others and not to demand anything else, like Bina which does not desire anything for herself (Hafetz Hesed).

The Creator demands for us to become the same as Him: To bestow for the sake of bestowal, and then to receive for the sake of bestowal. That is why our advancement always happens “above knowledge,” meaning we cannot ask for any other quality or fulfillment to manifest in our sensations besides the quality of bestowal. Moreover, I don’t even care whether I will be given the opportunity to bestow. I don’t expect anything in response form the Creator besides the very aspiration for bestowal which will always develop in me, more and more.

The world does not understand this attitude yet and we, too, are only gradually coming closer to being able to hear and understand what is the essence here. But there is no other way to go. All of humanity has already entered this process of correction and we have to understand that there’s no way back. We cannot stop history. The whole world is undergoing very swift development in the direction of this new quality – the quality of bestowal that will begin to rule the world.

That is why Kabbalists say that we don’t have any other means besides organizing an environment that will support us on the path to the goal and will give us strength, inspiration, and joy. We cannot receive all of this from the Creator and especially not from ourselves, but only from the society.

That is why our dissemination should emphasize inspiring events such as, for example, the cultural programs at the Conventions. This means “joining the good,” which is our motto of choice. The more programs like this we will have, which convey joy, unite, and might that has been acquired, the greater is the life force that this will give to every person.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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The Zohar, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” Item 199: His forehead is big but not so much, its lines are five—three across from one side of the forehead to the other, and two are not across. He is confrontational, especially in his home, all his actions are quick, he seems good but he is not so. He praises himself with what is not in him. … He is lenient in his speech, but nothing more, pushes himself where he does not belong, and one who collaborates with him should be careful of his greed, but will succeed with him.

The Zohar is telling us about how complicated we are inside. Every time we reveal new qualities inside of us, which may be good or bad and which constantly come to replace one another, we must use them to discern all of our opportunities to realize ourselves in the current state, to discover all of our weaknesses and limitations. That is how time after time, a person attains himself more, and that means he attains the Creator, as it is written, “I will know You from Your actions.”

When all is said and done, our entire path is the path of self-attainment, the attainment of ourselves. In essence, the entire science of Kabbalah explains to a person who he is—the Creator’s doing. Therefore, you don’t need anything more: To the extent you understand how the Creator created you, what He created in you, why, and in what form, that is how much you will attain Him.

Therefore, when reading the descriptions of these images of man, we have to understand that not one of them becomes erased. All of them complement one another through their qualities, which are similar or opposite to the Light, and in the end they attain the image of the Creator.

Besides, we have to understand that it is talking about a person who advances in spirituality and this is how he sees himself for now, with his positive and negative qualities compared to the Light, the Creator. But the person himself is judging himself, and he discerns these qualities himself. Another person would see them differently because “every person judges to the extent of his own flaws.”

If a certain picture appears before him now, it only seems to him, but does not exist by itself in reality. The only picture that exists by itself is the image of the Creator. But these images are depicted inside a person by his inner qualities.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11, The Zohar

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The first principle of upbringing: Nature is united and we are opposite to it.

Part one: Research of nature and society shows that we are all interconnected. People are a single organism or a single system inside of nature’s system.

Just as it befits the parts of a living body, so we should unite with one another above all the differences for the good of the whole body.

Today we are gradually discovering this and therefore we are calling humanity’s present state global and integral. It is global because in our days the interconnection among the world’s entire population is forcefully being revealed. Among all of its parts and in all of its differences, no matter what it is, the connection is being revealed as a necessary factor.

This is coming from the side of nature rather than our desire to be interconnected or not. It is simply a fact that from one day to the next we discover more and more ties among us.

A question arises: Did this connection exist before? Or were we disconnected before and now our interconnection has formed and is being expressed?

This question needs to be divided into two parts. On one hand, we are and always have been interconnected and are in total, perfect unity. This is our state relative to the Creator and it is not a criterion for measuring anything. This unity is called Infinity (Ein Sof): the state of Infinity, the world of Infinity, Malchut of Infinity. However, we are yet to reach it in our sensations.

Right now, we, all of humanity, are going through the levels of development. We have to modernize our interconnection at every moment. Throughout history we developed on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, until we attained the human level, and after that on the human level, we again went through the same sub-levels: still, vegetative, and animate, until reaching the modern era of the human degree on the human degree—the “human in man.”

That is how we have gone through the entire process of human preparation and have begun to develop the human in us. “The human in man” is the likeness of the Creator which we must acquire today. The likeness of the Creator is the same thing as the global, integral interconnection among all of us. Today we stand at the beginning of the phases of unification—unity that happens out of realization, awareness, and desire. That is how it has to be from our end.

That is why now we are not being assessed in relation to the world of Infinity, but in relation to how much we understand, realize, and are ready to take on the form of unity that nature or the Creator places before us. Don’t try to be a righteous man, regardless of how you envision this concept. You have to be corrected according to the conditions you are in. “Corrected” means united. There is just one thing we have to do—unite with one another.

On the path to unity we go through the phase of bestowal for the sake of bestowal (“Don’t do unto others what you yourself hate”) and then reception for the sake of bestowal (“Love your neighbor as yourself”). Yet the principle is unchanging: All of man’s upbringing lies in unifying with his neighbor.

Nature is becoming expressed as more and more global and therefore we must also be global and unite with it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11

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The Zohar, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” Item 190: This is an angry man, but not quickly. He detains his state of rest, pretends to be wise when he is not, and always raises his head to look. Outside, he is quarrelsome, but in his home, he is not. He does not regard the Torah, to observe it. People’s words are a burden to him and he responds to them vigorously.

The Zohar talks about the person in us, who is constantly being revealed. There are 125 layers inside of our common desire to enjoy, and each of them contains its own inner layers or states. And each time, inside the new desire a new layer of qualities becomes revealed—a new image of a person in me, the image of my equivalence to the Creator, the image of the Creator inside of me, the image of my similarity and oppositeness to the Creator.

The entire combination of the inner and outer qualities that are present in the Rosh (head), Toch (body), Sof (the endings of the Partzuf of the soul), Kelim (desires) which can be used, and desires which cannot be used for now since there is no screen over them, as well as desires that cannot be used until the full correction, called “Lev HaEven” (the Stony Heart)—the entire aggregate of these desires is called the human in us.

Each and every time, at every moment of my path as I advance toward the state of the perfect human, I reveal the image of the human in me. How can I recognize what kind of person has become revealed in me now and who am I at this moment according to the inner the outer signs that I discover within myself?

By all the various special characteristics that I reveal in the Sefirot of Rosh, Toch, and Sof of the Partzuf of my soul, I can tell which image is now inherent in me. It’s as if I read about myself in my identity card that has a detailed description of my features.

From here I understand who I am and what I am. I get to know myself, meaning my qualities, which of them work for the sake of bestowal, which work against it, which are still egoistic, how much I have restricted them, how much are they in Klipa, and to what extent they are subject to corrections.

All of this is the image of a person and there is nothing besides him. This image incorporates everything.

Therefore, while reading this chapter in The Book of Zohar, we must constantly think about our spiritual states as if stills of a film strip are unraveling before me, continuously revealing a new image of the person in me until all of these images gather together and I attain a single state. However, all of the previous images are also saved. Then, based on all the sins and transgressions, I attain the true, perfect image—the Human who is similar to the Creator.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/11, The Zohar

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The first commandment that was given to us is the commandment of fear. This means fearing whether I am advancing down the spiritual path, whether I am acquiring the spiritual world, whether I understand what I read the right way, and whether I really act in the group.

In short: Will I succeed? I have to be consumed with this worry all the time. If I relax, then I immediately get off the track leading to the goal.

In our world, psychology enumerates over 800 kinds of fear. Do I earn enough? Am I healthy? Will something bad happen to me?

However, in Kabbalah, we are not talking about derived fears, but the primordial fear: Am I going toward the goal? Will I be able to bestow? This is already worry for something for which I don’t feel the slightest need.

Will I feel this need? Will I acquire it sufficiently in order to make efforts and aim toward the goal? I have to carry out an entire process: from the smallest worry that isn’t even clear yet, to full fledged fear aimed precisely at the goal like an arrowhead, which brings me to the realization, “Do I sufficiently give to the Creator? Do we become equal in this way? Am I not in a lower position, like a guest who receives the host’s feast in a way that he isn’t ashamed?”

This fear is the first commandment. But it is something we have to acquire. We do not have it initially. The goal is invisible and I don’t care about the quality of bestowal. Do I really need love for the neighbor? But I have to come to need it to such a degree so as to feel fear, “What if I don’t attain it?”

This is simply an outrage from the perspective of egoism. It’s completely unnatural.

However, by means of the environment and the Light that reforms, we can attain this. Fear helps us attain the worry: Will I receive the Light so it will turn me into a person who worries about bestowal?”

Therefore, we are yet to go through a big process of building the necessary conditions. However, in reality it is possible to actualize it simply. In this regard everything depends on the extent of the efforts we make.

First of all, I have to really be scared for my spiritual path. “Am I advancing toward the goal correctly?” Secondly, only once I acquire fear does the quality of love come to me because there is no love without fear.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbaah Lesson 3/4/11 on Love

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The Creator becomes revealed through various forms of bestowal, but He becomes revealed in us, in the receiving desire. Otherwise we would not feel those forms. They come from above, but we must accept them and become similar to them from below, from our end.

This makes all the great difference. We have a similar example in our world when we understand, see, feel, and taste something, but then we have to replicate it ourselves. There is great work contained in this. In the spiritual world Ima lowers her lower part into Zeir Anpin and gives him an example with her Reflected Light (Ohr Hozer). When the upper one acts that way, the lower one cannot fail because he sees a ready-made example.

In the same way, we give small children tested, reliable examples that do not allow them to make mistakes. But when a child wants to replicate what we have shown him on his own, this is already a problem. He makes a mistake and sees that he must first acquire strength and knowledge.

Analogous processes happen in the spiritual world. Even though the Creator gives us examples and even though all the levels come from Above, they come in the opposite form. They lack our efforts, connected both to the desire and the understanding, meaning efforts in the heart and the mind.

Only by adding our efforts in the desire and the mind do we realize the examples given by the upper one, thus turning them from darkness to Light. After all, at first they are immersed into darkness for us because we feel that we are unable to do this ourselves. Rabash writes about this in the article, “The inclusion of the quality of mercy into judgment.”

The Creator is called a “sage” because He has the Light of Hochma and all the necessary forces. A person who takes an example from the Creator is called “the student of a sage” because he copies the Creator’s forms of bestowal.

However, we have to understand that this is not just copying an action. First of all, we have to agree to take on these forms because that is something we do not want at all. If we agree to it, meaning we restrict ourselves in some way and create a place inside of us where they can manifest, then we are ready to perceive these forms in our receiving desire, and then to understand how they are built and replicate them. This is talking about studying in spite of our desire, together with the desire and the mind, until we see how we can express and realize the Creator’s examples in practice on our own.

A long chain of actions lies between our willingness to receive an example and bringing it to life. And all of this is called “the Creator’s work” because we use the example we received and realize it ourselves by means of the force and the wisdom that also come from above.

Throughout this entire process we must only have the desire to advance—the desire we receive from the environment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/11, Writings of Rabash

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Our spiritual work is called “the Creator’s work.” But why is that if we are the ones who have to carry it out? This work is difficult, confusing, and demands great efforts. We devote so much time and effort to it, in fact giving away our entire lives…. Yet it is called “the Creator’s work” because in doing our work we take Him or Nature as an example.

Everything moves forward and returns to its root, including the still, vegetative, and animate levels. However, these levels develop by the program inherent in them. It is impossible to change that program, nor is it necessary. Besides, there is no one who could change it because these levels do not have freedom of choice. They are devoid of understanding and the perception of what happens to them and who governs them.

But onwards, beyond these levels, the human being develops. This is not just a creature on two legs, but a being that is able to take the law of development into his own hands and realize it independently. This is the “human” degree (Adam). In order to fulfill his purpose, he must take the Creator as an example, and not wait for the Creator to develop him like is done with the still, vegetative, and animate levels. A human is someone who wants to develop on his own, at an accelerated rate.

That is why he observes the Creator’s work: What does He do to creation? Where is He leading it? What does he want to make out of us? We want to develop on our own, faster.

Baal HaSulam illustrates this with the following example: A person does not wait for a chick to develop from an egg that’s warmed by a chicken, but establishes the mass production of eggs in the necessary quality and quantity in order to satisfy his needs. He does not ask the chicken about what it is able or unable to do, but builds incubators that provide him with chicks according to the rate of development he has taken into his own hands.

The same thing is true for the spiritual path. If a person does not want to sit and wait for the “developmental press” to push him toward the goal, then he discerns the goal and the means of attaining it in order to take those means into his own hands. He also builds an “incubator” or “greenhouse” inside of which he can place himself in order to be under the influence of laws that accelerate his development.

By searching for similarity to the Creator, a person learns how the Creator works on him, and accordingly builds an environment for himself, a “greenhouse,” in order to accelerate the process of his development so the same forces of development would operate in his hands. This is already “the path of Torah,” the path of Light, which is the developmental force. Accordingly, a person then needs Light that is more powerful than the one he receives during the natural course of development.

On the spiritual path we are called “the Creator’s workers” because we take Him as an example and realize this example on ourselves. We build a special environment, a “greenhouse” that enables us to absorb a greater force of development and tolerate its influence in order to develop ourselves.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/11, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash, “What Does It Mean the World Was Created for the Torah”: Torah and Israel are the same thing. At first the Torah is instructions on correcting evil, called 613 recommendations on correcting 613 parts of egoism. After the correction, the Torah is potions of the Creator’s Light, corresponding to each of the 613 corrected organs of the soul.

Question: How is it possible to simply explain what is Israel, Torah, and the Creator, and what their unity means?

Answer: We are in an unchangeable state, as it is written, “I did not change Myself.” This single state is called “Malchut of the world of Infinity.” The Creator wished to do good upon the creation, and thus He created it in the corresponding state of goodness. But in order to feel that goodness, creation has to go through various twists and turns that will raise its desire or appetite by bringing about despair, troubles, and worries, or stated differently, various sensations that are opposite to the sensation of the Good who Does Good. That’s because otherwise creation would not feel Him.

However, in order to make sure that the sensation of the Good who Does Good together with His oppositeness do not become a double blow for creation, the Creator arranged things so we would collect the unpleasant sensations drop by drop—gradually, in small potions. “Ouch!”—and that’s enough. Then “Ouch!” again, and that’s enough. That is how we advance along the path, discerning our desire and learning what is good and what is bad.

As a whole we have to be sensitive and perceptive to good and evil. The more sensitive a person is to the realization of evil, the higher his level and the deeper he penetrates into the matter of creation.

Therefore, the unchanging state that the Creator made already contains the desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal, corrected by the right intention, as well as the Light that fills this desire and intention. There everyone is one without any differences. This state is called “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Israel (ישראל) is a vessel, a Kli with the intention of bestowal to the Creator. In other words, it is “straight to the Creator,” Yashar – El (ישר-אל). “Torah” is the entire Light that corrects and fills it. And they are one because they have attained the sate where they are absolutely equal and are in adhesion.

Equality and unity of the Creator and creation is the only form in which they exist. And every creature gradually reveals this form once the desire to reveal it awakens in him.

By bringing to light the emptiness in our current state, in the events of this world, the Creator gradually brings us to the feeling of emptiness, futility, and purposelessness of our lives. And at the same time He awakens the beginning of the spiritual Kli inside us, the embryo of the realization of evil. My state isn’t despicable because it is nauseating to the taste, but because I lack adhesion with the Creator.

I come to realize this gradually. At first I don’t understand at all what exactly I need, like a child who does not know himself why he is crying. But gradually the details come through, become clearer, and surface in me, and then I already begin hearing something.

Then I come to the group and the teacher, and spend several years subjecting myself to the influence of the Light in various states, which I undergo together with the teacher, books, and group. As the process continues, I become slightly more perceptive to the realization of evil. The evil lies in the fact that I do not want to join the books, the teacher, and the group. When I begin to feel that this is exactly my evil, then I start moving in the right direction toward correction.

At the same time I understand that I have to unite with the friends, receive awakening from them, acquire their mind and feeling, and dissolve in them. I become included in them, in their desires and intentions that are aimed at the goal. And upon this inclusion I have to evoke the Light that Reforms, or in other words, study together with them and attract the Light. If this happens, then I accumulate the necessary quantity and quality of efforts and reach the correction of my Kelim.

Of course, this process consists of an entire series of actions. After all, I cannot tolerate great corrections or great leaps in one go. That is why there are many degrees that divide into more tiny degrees. They are the means by which I attain the state that is described by the verse, “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one.” I already exist in this state, but it surfaces in me gradually.

We would not be able to tolerate it all at once because this unity is too opposite to us.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Writings of Rabash

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