From Rabash’s article “For Those Who Were on the Faraway Path, Passover is Postponed to a Second Passover”: The greater one’s faith in the Creator is, the stronger one feels detached from the Great King and the more one senses one’s sinfulness—proportionately to the degree of one’s faith in His Greatness. Consequently, a righteous man (the one who apprehends the Highness of the King) sins more than a regular man.

If one acknowledges that one is a sinner, it means that this person was allowed from Above to slightly approach Divinity and was granted a chance to understand that he had sinned.

It is said: “The Creator niggles at the righteous by a width of a hair.” If one feels that he sinned, one shouldn’t be afraid of it, since it is a sign that he has been elevated from Above. That’s why one has to self-strengthen and accept the burden of Heaven, then one achieves success.

To the extent of one’s closeness to the Creator, the feeling of insignificance, wickedness, and detachment from Him becomes stronger, meaning that everything works upside down. A common religious person doesn’t pursue a spiritual path; he prays and thinks that he is close to the Creator. However, the one who happens to connect one’s proximity to the Creator with one’s personal properties is already able to evaluate oneself more fairly, thus one evaluates the distance between him and the Creator accordingly. Each next assessment gets more accurate; it allows one to see how far from the Creator one really is.

We realize that the distance between us and the Creator increases and that we have to observe lots of conditions in order to overcome the remoteness and become closer to Him. This explains why it’s written that “the Creator “picks” at the righteous for the width of a hair.” It’s not because He treats them bad; rather, those who are already quite close to becoming righteous (meaning those who are at the doorstep of a complete and pure bestowal) calculate their similarity with the Creator on a very fine scale. This kind of reckoning allows them to see that they are still extremely far away from the Creator and that they have to undergo multiple corrections.

That’s why there is the concept of the “Second Passover.” It’s for those who failed to exit from Egypt during the first Passover. In a month, they are given another opportunity, which is called “the Second Passover.” People who feel that they are big sinners and whose path is particularly long reach their goal only at the time of the Second Passover.

It means that one shouldn’t worry and despair because the Path seems too long to him, even though many people are taken aback by this fact which forces them to quit their path.

On the contrary, it’s a sign that they are approaching the goal! We have to eventually reach a state when Pharaoh admits that the Creator is the one who is righteous and that he (Pharaoh) is the one who is wicked; this is the state when the exodus from Egypt takes place.
[104372]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/13

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There is no other way but to stick with the right line to the best of our ability by following “faith above reason.” My extensive personal experience shows that many of my students find it hard to understand what the right line is, since it requires annulling oneself, remaining joyful, and observing “faith above reason.” Our conventional vocabulary does not even contain accurate words to describe it.

Perhaps it will be clearer to you if I explained it in a different way. While we are at a lower level, we receive help from the upper to the degree of our desire to become similar with the upper. This process takes place at each step: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking, both in this world and in the upper worlds. To the extent of exertions applied by the lower in its effort to become similar with the upper, the lower draws energy from the upper and forces the latter to take care of it. This is how material and spiritual laws of physics work.

That’s why if we apply efforts to cling to the right line, that is, to become like the upper, if we try to approach Its form and copy Its actions, it means that we tend to acquire the shape of an embryo. We incline to annul ourselves in front of the upper. Despite the fact that we continue to be all in continuous self-interest, we still want to cancel ourselves in front of the upper, enter into It, so that there we remain unnoticeable and imperceptible to completely surrender ourselves to It.

This is what we call “faith above reason,” since we do it beyond our knowledge, feelings, and desires. Because of this, not only do we receive the surrounding Light from the upper, but also we can focus together with other friends and use their support in a way that our surroundings will deliver the Light to us, thus practically allowing us to grow into spirituality.

We come into direct contact with the upper. Not only do we let the surrounding Light influence us, but we also receive a real internal Light, the spiritual “blood” (“dam” – from the word “domem” – inanimate) that nourishes the fetus, the Light of Nefesh – an inanimate level of sanctity.

Why is it called “sacred”? It’s because it is determined by the things we aspire to. There are numerous teachings, religions, and methodologies. We have to make sure that they lead us to adhesion with the Creator, to acquiring equivalence of form with Him, to love our neighbor as ourselves, from which our love to the Creator begins.

If a methodology pursues the above goal and practically brings people to achieve it by teaching them day after day how to expand the desire to love other creatures and how to later learn to love the Creator, then this teaching is called sacred and spiritual. Otherwise, it might become a deadly poison instead of a potion of life.
[110922]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/13, Shamati

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Even if we know that there is only one force that acts in our lives, in spite of all this, if we see something we don’t like, experiencing something undesirable, we immediately forget that our vision, our thoughts, our desires, and our emotions are managed and shaped by the Creator. On the contrary, we think we are independent.

Some feeling, action, or thought that is exceptional and does not meet my expectations is sufficient for me to no longer be ready to link the event to the Creator. I can maintain the connection with Him only if I think well of Him, and conversely, the moment that I think ill of Him, this separates us; so I think about another force and attribute this to other people, to myself, to nature, but not to the one and only Source.

However, later I again return to thinking about the only power that acts within everything. This is how we learn to connect all states and everything to the Creator. He awakens various unpleasant states within us so that, despite or above the separation, we connect ourselves to Him so that we will not be dependent on our feelings, our understanding, but will want to connect to His emotion and power.

A person has no other correction, but to attribute all moments through which he now passes and in the future directly to the Creator. In this way, he justifies the creation because all worlds and all times were created only to give form within him to a feeling of the Creator. Everything is designed only to direct us toward discovery of the Creator.

We suppose that the present reality conceals the Creator from us. However, this is not so, for if we relate correctly to all that is happening, instead of a reality that conceals, we see a reality that reveals. Everything depends specifically on our relationship to this. It is precisely through the help of the powers of repulsion that we can advance.

Accordingly, the wisdom of Kabbalah divides people into the “wicked” and the “righteous.” Wherever the wicked one rejects, there the righteous one advances because he wants to justify that everything that happens to him is done for his advancement.

The main goal of a person is to reach the feeling of the reality of the Creator who fills everything, the single force that acts in the whole system, in the entire reality. It is up to a person to invest all his energy in this without involvement in anything else, without being confused by other goals.

To feel the Creator means to acquire the force of bestowal. So, it is not worthwhile to think about anything else because the reward for all of our efforts throughout life is that at every moment in this reality we will be privileged to be with the power of bestowal through which we begin to understand and feel the Creator. We see Him as the bestower.

In order for a person to approach this question correctly, he doesn’t exist alone. Instead, he is found within the framework of social systems that will help him. It is no accident that, throughout history, people gathered in villages, cities, and nations; and today are mixed in certain social units.

However, there exists one type of connection that we must build artificially. Unlike the other forms, it is not derived from the natural evolutionary process, yet without it, advancement is impossible. This is speaking of a unique society or group that, specifically within it, we need to see the changes through which we pass on the way to the Creator.

In addition to this, Rabash writes that, even though I see the faces of people around me, I must believe that, behind them, stands the Creator who does all these actions, compelling them to do what I am seeing. Someone smiles, cries, screams at me or laughs at me; it is not important. It is up to me to see the Creator in all this, presenting Himself to me in this form. In normal life, through the environment, I must penetrate through them to the source that runs them.

The Creator does everything, writes Rabash, but the person judges according to what his eyes see, according to behavior, according to faces, according to the laws of nature, and so on, and not according to his belief.

Being among billions of people, I must understand that everything that is happening, from the world news to the smallest events around me, are a presentation of the Creator toward me. That is what I need to understand and accept, to try to discover the good will behind the “curtains,” to bring me closer to Him, to discover Him in spite of all this “theater.”

Rabash continues and says that someone who sees the face of his friend is, in fact, seeing the Creator. Outside his body, only the Creator exists. So, accordingly, the person is a true created being.

Specifically, I am the created being and everything else is a part of the Creator who wants me to feel detached from His reality through this. However, besides me, only He fills everything. In this form, I see before me the Creator, the upper Light, and all the forms that He receives are drawn by my ego, dividing Him into parts with various shapes and sizes. In the end, they portray before me the various parts of nature: the still, the vegetative, the animate, or humans.

Other than this, the Creator fills everything, and, therefore, if I am lying to a friend, I am lying to the Creator. If I hurt a friend, I hurt the Creator. If I relate to the friends substantively, I can advance quickly to a correct comprehension. The entire world will be seen by me as whole, perfect and subject to the one higher guidance, that everything is directed toward bringing me to the Root.

If it is so, then there aren’t really any other people in the entire reality. There is only me and the Creator. All the other components act in the capacity of a transition link, a “buffer,” an adapter between us.

Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that, before every action, I must say to myself that I am acting independently and success depends on me, and after the deed, I must realize and account for what happened. I must try to understand that everything was constructed from the start by the Creator. The result was known from the start. Therefore, it is up to me to accept everything wholeheartedly, for it was established this way from the start.

However, it is forbidden to declare that everything was known from the start and that there is no need to do anything. If we accept the conduct of the Creator without carrying out actions only because it is possible to attribute them to Him, then we don’t change. So, we see the same result in a different form, for if I am not changed, I sit with my hands folded or do something without connection to my independence and follow the “redirect” of the Creator, following, then I advance through suffering and blows.

However, if on the background of the conduct of the Creator, I dedicate time to acting on my own, and after that, I bring all that back to the “supreme authority,” to the Creator, if I act in order to equalize my participation to His participation, then in this way, I am changed. In a leap, I raise myself to a new level by the way of “I will hasten it.”

This is the entire difference. The world endures much suffering because it wants to change something on its own. The change is necessary, but the other half is lacking, and this is what we want to explain to humanity.
[107339]
From the Convention in New Jersey 5/11/13, Lesson 3

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The topic of the first lesson of the convention in St. Petersburg is “There is None Else Besides Him.” This is the main topic that we always study.

In principle, we are in a special reality called the “Creator” and have to reveal Him. The “Creator” (Boreh) means to “come and see” (Bo-reh in Hebrew). If we already dwell in Him, in the upper white Light, then only He acts and there is none else besides Him. Only He “outlines,” forms us; He is the first and He is the last. All our thoughts and deeds stem from the actions of this upper Light. Nothing exists but Him.

We observe still, vegetative, and animate forms in which the Creator acts wholly, obliging them to make any movement. They have no freedom of will at all; they are entirely under His direct influence.

On the other hand, we ourselves have a certain point, created by Him, existing seemingly outside of Him. This point gives us the opportunity to know the Creator—the only one who affects us. In fact, in this way we do not go somewhere outside, do not become distant from Him, and do not violate any of His actions. The reality remains the same: There is no one else besides the Creator. However, due to this point that seems to be abstracted from Him, I can analyze myself and Him, I can deliberately and consciously lead myself to the only existing state in which there is none else besides Him.

I attain the Creator due to this work. I attribute every fragment of reality to His oneness, and thus I attain all His deeds, all the steps, direct and opposite Him, that He undertakes. So, returning to the state of unity and oneness of the Creator, I stand in all the power that He has given me and realize that really there is none else besides Him.

Thus, I bring Him pleasure, and this is the greatest pleasure that I can bring Him, and this means myself. After all, there is none else besides Him.

So now we need, against our desire, to reasonably and deliberately become included in the concept: “There is none else besides Him.”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/13, Preparation the St. Petersburg Convention, Lesson 1

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Our every action must be directed toward the final correction. Otherwise, this action is imperfect. We always seek the end and on this basis consider all the states.

In his time, Abraham sent envoys to eastern countries. The forefathers had to deal with Hagar and Ishmael (representing the right line), with Esau (representing the left line), and with Laban and other characters (symbolizing various properties). All this was necessary to introduce specific details of perception that will be manifested at the end of the generations. The wars with Amalek, with the nations who lived in the land of Israel, were not limited by that “place,”—that is, part of the desire—above which it was necessary to rise and overcome at that time. No, everything was initially aimed at the final correction. All the efforts are gradually accumulated and added to the overall total.

The forefathers realized the necessary preparations to receive the Torah, and then the preparation continued by the way of correction of the people of Israel, with the same intention, to be ready to correct the world.

There are more calculations it seems. All the stages through which Israel has gone are caused not only by the needs of its development, but also by its purpose: to become the means of correction for the world. These people received the Torah not only to correct themselves, but also to be ready to help the world later.

Baal HaSulam writes about this in his articles, “The Giving of the Torah” and “The Mutual Guarantee.” Everything is interconnected and the end of action is inherent in the original plan, and that is why we must keep the course at Infinity (Ein Sof).

After all, at every rung of the spiritual ladder, at an increasingly higher resolution with higher definition, we attain the world of Infinity, a round, integral, analog system in which everything is interconnected. Be it a fetus in the mother’s womb, an infant, a child, or adult, we always are talking about a perfect system that has all the necessary parts. It’s only that some of them are incorporated in the potential for further development, while others already have been formed.

It does not really matter what is before us, a “spiritual gene” (Reshimo) in which the world is hidden or the entire world itself. They are one and the same. It’s just that first we attain the Reshimo, and then it opens in our perception.

So, the system is always perfect. It is the same Infinity. It only is revealed depending on the one who attains it. That is why in wanting to attain spirituality, I must imagine it completely corrected. Otherwise, I do not reach it through my desire, I do not intend bestowal.

The calculation is as follows: In the corrected state, I bestow upon the Creator. For this, I must prepare the receiving vessels, that is, the “nations of the world.” For this, I must prepare myself in order to be connected with them. Thus, stretching the thread from the end to the beginning, I proceed to any action.

Conversely, if in my every action I do not intend the correction of the world in order to bring it to the Creator, if I forget that He is revealed and enjoys precisely in the desire of the world, if I do not pervade my actions fully with bestowal, then I do nothing. Then I am like a plug that obstructs the path for everyone and represent the forces of impurity.

With every step, we must create this mental picture, this calculation, constantly adding to it and expanding it. At first, I calculate to benefit myself, then my family, then my city, then my country, and, in the end, all of humanity. As Baal HaSulam writes, today we are all one family. So, could I isolate myself from the world? In that case, I am not going toward bestowal.

So, every time, to the extent of my strength, I need to imagine the entire chain to the end. That is enough to become similar to the Light and draw it for correction.
[109099]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/4/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Creator is revealed as the one force that operates in all of our reality inside a person and on the outside. This leaves us—those in whom the point in the heart has awakened—a point of freewill from which we can study and understand the Creator who operates on us and who surrounds us on all sides. All the other people who think that they are independent simply don’t notice that they are operated by nature or the Creator (which are the same thing) in every step they make, every thought, every word, and every action.

When we think about the meaning of life, about the cause, the source; our questions stem from our dissatisfaction with life. This is how the Creator awakens us and pushes us to search. Therefore, in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” item 42, Baal HaSulam says that the reason for all the suffering in this world is our lack of understanding of the upper Providence. “…And I tell you that that preliminary reason is none other than the ‘lack of our understanding in His Providence over His creations,’ that we do not understand Him properly.”

We don’t understand the Creator, and the blows come in order to awaken us to search for Him, discover Him, and see that He is the only one who operates on us. Thus, we rise to the same level where He is revealed to us, where he controls all of reality.

From this perspective, we begin to understand what He does. Our entire history opens up before us, the entire “map,” the entire process that each of us goes through for many reincarnations. We see where we come from, where we are headed, and why everything is arranged the way it is. Everything opens up before us, and although we can point at the past, the future, and the present, we feel that it is the same thing. It is as if we look at the picture of reality that is spread before us in order to raise us and bring us to the full feeling of the Creator.

If a person feels this way toward everything that happens to him—if he understands that everything comes from the only force so that he will discover, understand, and feel Him so that he will be able to see all of reality like Him—then he relates to all the events in his life practically and doesn’t confuse anything personal with what he feels. Something else is important to him: To correctly understand why the Creator sends him the states he goes through and what the benefit in them is.

In the article “There is None Else Besides Him” in the book Shamati, Baal HaSulam says that there is no other force but the Creator. However, in the meantime, a person sees different opposite forces. There are forces that threaten him and forces that support him. The former are friendly and the latter are enemies.

On the whole, I perceive everything that happens as good or bad. It is as if I am between the good force and the evil force since that’s how they are depicted in my imagination.

However, I must know that everything comes from one force that intentionally shows me two sides and wants to bestow upon us by two opposite forms: the rejecting force and the attracting force. If I rise above it and understand that the rejecting force also can spur me to connection, it isn’t felt as good or bad anymore. After all, I ask myself why I feel rejection and I gather my powers to overcome it. The good force, however, can confuse and weaken me, and repulse me from the desire to connect, to advance, and to keep the inner intention.

Thus, I can measure the Creator’s bestowal according to my good and bad feelings or according to my understanding of the role He plays in rejecting me and bringing me closer. These two parameters can be opposite from one another.

The Creator bestows upon us by these four forces in order to confuse us so that we will not understand where we are and what is happening to us, like a child who is lost and confused. Then, like children, we need a grownup, the upper. We need His help and we need to hold his hand to discover Him and to force Him to take care of us since otherwise we feel that we are lost. This is actually the best state we can be in.

Here, we need a good supportive environment so that we will not escape and go off-track because of our confusion and so that we won’t begin looking for other methods that allow us to find peace and security. We don’t need such means since we reach the Creator differently: A person remains confused, helpless, and doesn’t understand what is going on, and still doesn’t leave. Only by this path does he reach the right outcry when he demands that the Creator be revealed to him and that He should take care of him. Then, he finally discovers that there is none else besides Him. That one force has created all these states for him. This is exactly what we do with our kids so that they will feel that they need us.

This one force controls all of the reality that He has created. He has created us so that we will become entangled in the complexities of this world and through that come close to Him and need Him. He bestows upon us by revelation and concealment through which all of creation advances back to this force: first man and then the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature. They all are incorporated in man and they all reach the same one root from which they came.

Whoever is rewarded with this revelation immediately sees the future of all of reality. You haven’t reached it yet, but you will be able to see everything from the root. When I drive, I don’t see what is hundreds of kilometers ahead, but I can clearly see the entire road network from a satellite. We must only rise and then everything appears before us.

My connection with the future depends on the height of this ascent so that if I am totally adhered to the Creator, the future and the present become the same for me. I feel the states I must go through and the final state, and so I advance.

Then, I discover that all the concealments were meant only to reveal the Creator. He conceals Himself on purpose in different states, behind evil actions and scary states, behind great confusion, so that I will hold onto Him and won’t let go, like a child for whom the father’s hand is the protection from all the troubles. This is how we also must imagine our relationship with the Creator.

When we unite with Him, we reach Ibur (gestation). We want to be in Him first because of fear, because we want to hide. Later, when we grow in Him a little, He begins to teach us His wisdom, His knowledge, and how He actually operates.

Thus, we grow during the nine months of the spiritual Ibur, until we are born into the world. Then, we go through the states of Yenika (suckling), smallness, and greatness when we already understand all of creation from the beginning to the end. We have not discovered it yet, but we are going to.

This revelation comes only out of helplessness. Otherwise, we will never want to come close to the Creator in our egoistic desire. On the contrary, we create such conditions for ourselves that will help us hide from the upper force. Everything that we do in life is meant to protect us from the Creator: a home, money, insurance, a pension fund, a health care system. Thus, we create the protective shield so that we will not need anyone. We do need social services, a state, and humanity, but not the upper force. Thanks to such systems, we have abandoned the different religions since we don’t feel that we need them anymore. A person doesn’t feel so weak anymore that he must pray to someone and depend on someone.

What does the Creator do? He sends us troubles. After we build such a strong, comfortable and safe world, hoping for eternal prosperity, we suddenly see that everything falls apart and nothing is safe, and that not only tomorrow but even the next moment is doubtful. The Creator evokes these negative forces in the form of terror, plagues, natural disasters, the breakup of the family, of society, of economy, and so on.

All this is so that we will rely less on our own powers and will feel how weak we are to a greater extent. It turns out that we have no control over our lives. If we begin to discover the upper force, we fill all our deficiencies by Him. Then, our corporal life also works out since we don’t need the negative external stimuli anymore if we see the importance of the good force and yearn for it.

So, the wisdom of Kabbalah turns to all of humanity, either in its original form or as the method of integral education, and explains that we should come closer to the force of nature that operates in all of reality. The word “Creator” equals the word “Nature” in Gematria. In the future, we will suffer even more, and no technological, scientific, or economic progress or in any other area for that matter will help us. We are very weak.

It turns out that the Creator is the only force that operates in reality. It is like a huge field that covers all of reality on all sides. Our main work is to discover this network that manages everything.
[107259]
From the Convention in New Jersey 5/11/13, Lesson 3

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The true reality is the Creator because He exists on His own, independent of any additional force. He just exists and that’s all! However, the existence of any other reality except the Creator depends on two opposing forces.

None of them alone can provide this existence. Only due to their connection, they produce grains of our temporary, artificial, short-lived reality, which is called creation (Beria) because it is outside (Bar), outside of the Creator, and exists only under certain conditions. This artificial reality is our life today.

However, the Creator has given us the opportunity to understand and connect creation from below upward with the help of two opposing forces: bestowal and reception. Thus, we complete the universe, which was created by the propagation of these two forces from above to below, adding to it our own consent from below to above. It turns out that we seemingly bring to life the artificial creation that was created by the Creator, making it real.

By our consent, accepting the Creator’s thought in order to assemble ourselves from two opposing forces at every step from below to above, we give creation the real force, being the Creator’s partners as equals, on the same degree. After all, we take His mind, His direction, and His attitude, and we add this upper divine mind and attitude to the forms that spread from above to below, due to which they seemingly rise from below to above.

The two forms, receiving and bestowal, come to us already prepared. We are not responsible for the evil, egoistic nature and, moreover, for the kind nature of bestowal. However, due to our yearning for good properties, we make our own contribution, achieving understanding, knowledge, adding our personal attitude that is becoming united with the Creator.

What matters is not the two forces themselves, receiving and bestowal, but their connection—consequence, “derivative”—the notion of unity that is born out of the work of the mind and heart.
[107568]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we say at any given moment, in spite of any problems, that “There is none else besides Him” and that “He is good and benevolent” if I feel the opposite at the moment? Do I have to combine the feelings with words?

Answer: We begin to work from a state of total uncertainty. We only hear and read that “There is none else besides Him.” This is how the first article in Shamati begins: “It is written: There is none else besides Him.” This is what Kabbalists say! But these are only words for me that have no meaning. So how do I develop them?

I try to turn these words into actions that will impress me. So I find a group in this world that claims that “There is none else besides Him,” and I am incorporated in it so that it will influence me and convince me that indeed there is nothing else but the upper force. At least they speak about what Kabbalists say.

I connect to that group and subdue myself before them, raising my friends above me, so that the principle of “There is none else beside Him” will be heard more loudly and so that I will feel how important it is. I try to be under the impression of this slogan, which in the meantime exists only on paper for me.

But if I work with my friends, I begin to receive the Light that Reforms through them. This Light is in their words, and to the extent that I exert myself in the group and subdue myself before it by serving my friends, the Light changes this slogan. The Light is dressed in these words and brings them to life. I begin to feel the life in the letters that make up the words “There is none else besides Him.”

I begin to feel the letters as live vessels that are full of Light, and then the vessels, my desires, begin to move together with these letters according to the Light that goes through them. It isn’t just a Light, but rather a “formatted” Light that has taken on the form of these letters. It turns out that I am impressed in different ways by the sentence “There is none else besides Him” and begin to see, to understand, and to feel how it’s expressed in different states and manners. I learn to work with it.

The sentence that used to be dead for me, just a written slogan, gradually begins to come to life. Accordingly I try to fulfill it in different states, the good and the bad. I hold on to it especially in the bad states, since in the meantime I am an egoist. If the uniqueness of the Creator, “There is none else besides Him” and “good and benevolent” is revealed to me in unpleasant ways, it means that I am acquiring vessels of bestowal and that I rise above this pain. I advance towards the state of: “Don’t do unto your friend what is hateful for you.” I hate this state and want to rise above it. I don’t think that the Creator has caused me all these troubles, but rather, I attribute them to my ego. Thus I acquire the attribute of Bina, “to bestow in order to bestow.”

Then, in very unpleasant states, I begin to receive pleasant states, which is much more difficult, since I have to rise above them. It’s already faith above reason on the second level, not only above the desire to bestow, but also above the desire to receive. I already work with AHP.

It’s as if I work against the good and the benevolent, which means that I receive both the good and the evil equally, as the same thing. Thus I reach love, about which it says: “Love thy friend as thyself,” and then “Love thy Lord,” the highest level of this state, Keter.

All this work is done in “faith above reason.” The moon stands for Malchut, which “sanctifies” itself in its darkest state, and by that begins to illuminate with the Returning Light. It has nothing of its own, and it doesn’t need anything of its own either. It says to the sun that it wants to be like it. The more the moon becomes like the sun, the more the earth determines all the appearances of the moon, to the extent that Malchut is adapted to Keter.
[106075]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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In the article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before” we learn how the rider and the horse move in perfect accord. We, like all of creation, play the role of the horse, and the rider is the Creator, who manages it fully and naturally. There is not one movement that the horse makes without the influence of the rider. But the horse itself wants to go along with the rider in accordance with his desire to understand and to predict the desire of his owner to such an extent that the horse will act even before the rider influences it. This means that we have to reach such a level of connection with the Creator, that we act in His place, thinking and feeling in His place; this is how strongly we should be connected and adhered to Him.

Here we attain the next level, the next problem: What are we doing this for? We do so in order to bring the Creator contentment and not so that we will feel good. If I do things for myself, I detach myself from Him because of the difference in attributes. So we have to think about the fact that we don’t just want the revelation of the Creator, but want to do so in order to bring Him contentment.

Then we begin to feel how He wants to be revealed to us, in order to bring us joy, in order to tell us about everything, and to draw us to His world of eternity and wholeness. Our world, which conceals it, that is between us and Him, and our bodies and everything that surrounds us will gradually disappear. Then we will see only the one force that manages the world and that we are in it. In fact, scientists also begin to speak about this today.

So we have to start feeling pain and joy as a result of our intention. Why do we want to reveal Him, for our sake or for His sake? Here is the last work our ego has to do. Once again we demand from the Creator to give us the intention that everything is from Him and everything is for Him. All the questions, all the demands, all the requests, the prayers , all the complaints, everything is to Him.

Don’t ever try to find the slightest movement inside you. If there is a problem, turn straight to Him, no matter what it is, and operate with Him. If you focus yourselves correctly on this force, you will see how everything works out. This means that I want to reveal this force because there is only Him in the world and only so that all of us will connect in order to become “one below Him,” to unite as one single “horse.”

We have to feel joy for being in contact with Him, no matter if this contact is good or bad. If I feel the contact with Him in the worst feeling, it’s a sign that it’s a good state, if I don’t remember Him in the best feeling, it’s a sign that it is a bad state.

We have to value the states according to the intensity of our contact with the Creator. Then we will gradually move from feelings in our desires of receiving to feelings in the desires of bestowal. This means that all our joy, all our yearning, is already aimed at Him in order to bring Him contentment, and then in the intention to bring Him contentment, we begin to receive the upper Light that fills us. The Creator in His entirety enters us and we begin to feel that we are one whole with Him, as two lovers that connect.
[105501]
From the European Convention 3/23/13, Lesson 3

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How do we examine our relationship at the beginning and at the end of the work? Where do we begin and what must we reach in the end? A person has to remember always that “There is none else besides Him” and strive not to leave the authority of the one, higher power.

You have to check as to what exactly influences you, in which states there are foreign thoughts and emotions that awaken in you, weakening your feeling of the uniqueness of the upper governance, and you have to work with these states. This is to say that it is forbidden for you to “accidentally” depart from the state of “There is none else besides Him.”

Even if you go to a marketplace or a doctor, it is up to you to know in which part of your grasp of reality you now intend to correct your lack of adherence with the Creator Who “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before,” Who  controls  you directly and indirectly. The Creator prepared this entire state from the start, but you need to complete it with your attitude.

When your desires are corrected, then the past, present, and future will be connected for you into a single whole. This means that you make an effort physically and mentally in order to connect the behavior of the Creator with yourself, with your mind and heart, so that at all times, in all places, and in all deeds these will be joined together.

This doesn’t mean that you have to ignore the control  of the Creator as if He were not looking out for you. Rather, you have to clarify within yourself, in your private world, the place where you feel an opportunity to add something of yourself and do it yourself. You feel that not all of your actions are done according to the desire of the guiding hand of the Creator. Instead, you feel that this is not the Creator Who acts in you, but you yourself. This is what you need to correct. It is up to you to address cases like this, a desire like this, an area like this.

The work is to invest maximal effort and ultimately reach the decision that “There is none else besides Him.” If you are doing the right action through your connection with the group and self-annulment, by connecting yourself (Israel), the Light that Reforms (the Torah), and the Creator, then you also are connecting all of these states to the Creator and become convinced that “There is none else besides Him.” This means that you are bringing all these states back to holiness.
[105042]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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