Question: Is a Tzimtzum our first activity without which it is impossible to go out into the spiritual world?

Answer: A Tzimtzum (restriction) is the first condition that differentiates this world from the upper world and differentiates an intention in order to receive and an intention in order to bestow.

In this way I go out from a perception of the physical reality I am now, like all of humanity, and break through the Machsom (barrier) that is placed before me in order to begin to feel and live on its other side.

The Tzimtzum determines on which side of the border of the spiritual world I am found. A Machsom is a potential obstacle, a potential level, above which it’s necessary to leap in order to enter into the new dimension, the new world. And it’s possible to do this through a Tzimtzum of desires. A Tzimtzum requires gradual preparation and a great effort with a great need to move towards the perception of a new life, where I only want to be directed from myself outward, beyond my nature.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/14, Shamati #141

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Question: What changes after crossing the Machsom (barrier)? If I didn’t have an income, does it suddenly appear after the Machsom?

Answer: It doesn’t appear. Nothing changes after the Machsom except for the authority that rules over you. You agree with all that is happening, and this means that you rise to the vessels of bestowal. And so your world becomes the spiritual world.

Question: So why does Baal HaSulam write that after the Machsom the whole world seems good, the sick become healthy, and the poor become rich?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation.” It’s because I change my properties and that is how I see things. Nothing is changed except for my perception.

I take off my glasses, look around, and see that everything is terribly vague and blurry. After that, I put the glasses on and see a nice, wonderful world. I correct only myself, and through my corrected vision, intellect, and sensation I suddenly see that I am in Malchut of Infinity.

This material world doesn’t exist. Everything is absolutely perfect. And it wasn’t like this before? Certainly it was, only I didn’t see it. The whole world is within me.

But this world with its stores and the need to get bread by the sweat of our brows will remain until the last stage of the end of correction. This is because it’s impossible to correct even the highest level if this world doesn’t exist. For this, there must be a whole Partzuf, from end to end.

Afterwards, this world will disappear since in the entire system, the whole integral correction will be finished and matter will no longer remain in the sensation of this physical level. Even before this, we already begin to lose its Aviut (thickness).

We need this world so that by existing outside of spirituality, outside of the truth, we can enter the true world through our free choice and climb the spiritual ladder. But this world is imaginary, it exists like in a dream only for us to switch, like from neutral gear to the spiritual gear.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/14,Writings of Rabash

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We don’t have to imagine that spirituality is somewhere far away. It is said that we rise gradually through the first, second, third levels, etc. But these are potential levels, stages of our feelings and understanding.

The spiritual world is really here, but I see it according to the glasses I wear, according to my sensitivity. Suppose that I come to a lesson half asleep, but I begin to wake up. I can already hear a little of what they are talking about, so I open my eyes, and after this begin to wake up and become even more and more lively in all of my senses.

These are the spiritual levels: We awaken, become more sensitive, use all the tools more, and involve more perception of desires (Kelim). But in the Kelim (desires) nothing changes, so we need to appreciate the state we are in now. We need to sharpen our senses only slightly, and then we will feel the spiritual world.

We are in concealment and must dispel it. That is all! The problem is only in that it is against our ego, because it compels us to connect with others and work against our personal instinctive desires. If we grasp this principle, then it will become clear that this is very simple, concise, and specific.
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/14

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Question: How does this fit together, that on the one hand, the world is the still and imaginary and on the other hand, it’s necessary to act within it, exerting, disseminating?

Answer: It seems to you that through going out to the wider public you are becoming included and weighed down by their desires. But these are not their problems, these are your problems, you are only hearing about them through someone else.

You are included in the parts of your soul. You will not hear anything from the world that is irrelevant to you. There cannot be something like this! They are all in you: the still, vegetative, animate, and especially human beings. They seem to you as if they are outside; you hear them, you carry out all kinds of activities with them in order to bring them back into yourself.

You will never hear something from them that is not relevant to you. They are like cells that need to return to your vessel, but  now they seem to be outside. They only seem external to you because of your clouded perception.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/14, Writings of Rabash

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A person who studies and is involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah, with the method of correction, must understand that he is learning wisdom. There exists a completely new approach to comprehending this wisdom because it is received in the new Kelim, organs of perception, of the person.

We are in some kind of reality that is filled with infinite colors, sounds, and influences that are not limited by distance and time and includes within it billions of forms of bestowal. We are inserted into this reality, but we comprehend only a small part of it according to our limited senses. It is here and we don’t feel it.

All of this will be changed within our sensations. The absorptive media will be changed and we will feel ourselves in a new reality. This works only in this way.

People think that what they read in articles and what they hear in lessons must come to them from the outside. Nothing will come! The change must happen within me and it happens only to the degree of my efforts, and then I will feel that I am in a new place. I will create for myself and imagine some kind of new form of the entire Olam Ein Sof (world of Infinity).

This means that I expect that the change will happen in me and not outside of me. This imaginary world is the still, because in it, things seemingly change around us. In the spiritual world there is nothing like this “around us.” There I immediately feel that everything depends upon me, my characteristics and what happens in them.

This means that I feel how my Kelim are changed, and according to this, the comprehension within these Kelim. I research, test, and learn both this and that, and from this, the wisdom of Kabbalah appears.

So, it is necessary to expect inner changes, and not that something will happen from the outside. There is nothing to expect from the outside but only within the person. This is very important. This is because we can wait for the state to change, to be corrected, but if we are not concerned about our inner changes, then we remain with what there is.

A person must always explain to himself that there are no other changes besides inner changes and that there is no new world, but only a new comprehension within himself according to the new characteristics that he acquires.
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From the 4^th part of the  Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/08/14, Writings of Rabash

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The point this question is asked from is very important. A question symbolizes your connection to a phenomenon and your ability to clarify its source. I don’t think that you are in a state where you can find the right answer to a certain question. This cannot be below the Machsom.

All of reality descends from Above and it is all above the Machsom. Below the Machsom, there is the fictitious world. What we see here is a corrupt and distorted replica of the spiritual world according to which it is impossible to understand anything. This is your perception at the moment, just like all the other people who yearn to fill their corporeal desires for food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge.

On the other hand, you learn that bestowal is a good thing. On one hand, you ask a question and, on the other hand, you want to find an answer. This won’t work until this picture is stabilized as a unified picture: either on this side of the Machsom or on the other side of the Machsom, but it is impossible to ask on one side about what happens on the other side. So it is impossible to answer such questions.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/14, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Beresheet” (Genesis), Item 379: In the passage “and the Almighty created the firmament” refers to the highest firmament Atzilut. However, what is established in Atzilut is formed and spreads down in all the levels of BYA, down to the bottom of the lower sea.

Question: What is the firmament?

Answer: The firmament is a boundary to which the creation can rise and merge with the Upper, not above it. Above the firmament are vessels (Kelim) that the creation can receive, but we live in the space between the sky and the earth, in AHP.

Question: By reaching the complete justification of the Creator, one achieves a state called “complete righteous” and becomes the firmament that connects the upper world with the lower one. Is that so?

Answer: The righteous is the one who is at the level of the firmament. He reveals bestowal that flows through him.

Question: Is the Creator a property of bestowal?

Answer: Yes. That’s why it is called “Bo-Re” (Come and See). As soon as you reveal the property of bestowal, it means that you reveal the Creator.

Question: Does it mean that the Creator is a force that the righteous reveals by reaching the property of the firmament”?

Answer: Yes, it is true. The Creator can be revealed only when He dresses in a human being. A man who attains equivalence of properties with the Creator is called righteous.

The Creator is a property of bestowal that fills someone to the degree of the correction of one’s vessels, desires, Kelim. A screen and the reflected light are called a vessel, i.e., a measure of one’s aspiration towards reaching unity with one’s neighbor through which one can become similar to the Creator, to the Light, thus revealing the Light of bestowal in one. A place where one reveals the Light of bestowal is called a vessel.

When one wants to convey the property of bestowal to another, it means that the Light runs through me so it will act on them.

Question: Do we perceive all this inside ourselves? Are all the people, that is, all the vessels, desires, that look external to us in fact our internal desires?

Answer: Everything is inside a person. There is nothing external. At the same time, we observe the picture of this world and have to relate to it correctly: as to something that is going on outside us and at the same time is internal to us. We have to attain a state at which both realities exist simultaneously without erasing one another. If we think that everything we see is true, it means that we live only in this world. If we consider everything to be parts of our soul, if we think that everything is inside us and that all there is around us is our own parts, we as if cross out this world. We have to be present in both worlds at the same time.

Until one reaches the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), the structure of this world won’t disappear and it is prohibited to forcefully reject it.

Question: Is the final correction (Gmar Tikkun) a state that happens at the end of each step when a righteous achieves the level of the Creator?

Answer: You can ask your question in a different way: When does one sense something that looks like the final correction to him? It happens when one completes a current step. However, it is not the real final correction but some sensation of completion of one more level. In other words, it happens when one reaches complete correction within the vessels that one was working with. However, you should keep in mind that the final correction is always partial since one never involves all vessels in the process, and we never know which particular part is excluded. After all, some of the vessels belong to Malchut of the world of Infinity. From the whole Malchut of the world of Infinity, we have a tiny Kli, ten Sefirot that are open to us, and from them we cut off certain portions from them to the extent of our ability to work with them.

It turns out that there are three parts: a Kli in which we work; a Kli in which we cannot work (you can say that it is GE and AHP or Ramach and Shasa, i.e., imperative and prohibitive commandments. They all total to ten Sefirot; besides, the Kelim that represent the entire reality, the rest of Malchut of the world of Infinity is something that we are still unable to correct.

Question: If I correct ten Sefirot, does it mean that I connect them and make them as one?

Answer: No, that’s wrong. The spiritual system is analog in which each part is connected with others by myriad connections. You cannot say: “Now I am here in my ten Sefirot and later I will grow up to ten even bigger Sefirot, and so on and so forth…” No, it’s not true. It’s as if you are “spread” throughout the entire system.

Even though you are very tiny, you are still connected to everyone and “spread” over all. When you advance, you grow all of your properties little by little. You are not the one who defines which properties to expand, but rather it’s a system, the root of your soul that is responsible for this choice. That’s how we progress.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah lesson 11/20/13, The Zohar

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Exodus (Tetzaveh), “Light and Sun”: It says in the Midrash and Rashi says (about Amalek), whom you met on your way, which stems from the word “coldness,” which means that they put out the fire of their love and cooled it, since initially they were warm and enthusiastic in their love for one another.

And how did they cool them? By arrogance and pride, because Amalek in means arrogance, condescension, and pride. The main thing that brings one to love his friend is when each one sees that he is low and despised, always finding flaws in everything that he does and seeing the righteousness of his friend and of his actions and that he is great in his eyes, and so he loves his friend and is united with him.

But if he thinks that he is great and feels proud, he sees the flaws of his friend by that and thus hates him, since his friend seems very low to him. Amalek cooled the warmth and the enthusiasm Israel felt before, in loving one another.

The outstanding characteristic of the desire to receive that is immediately revealed is pride. Anger and arrogance are additional attributes. But pride is special because it can even be revealed in an opposite manner, when a person is proud that he has humiliated himself. So pride is the main sign of the desire to receive.

Pride is not feeling that I am greater, higher, and stronger than others, but thinking that in any of the states that I encounter in life, it’s someone else who has to change and not me, which means that something that is external to me has to change not myself. It turns out that if I see something negative, I attribute this deficiency to the Creator since only He exists except for me.

If a person has an urge or an inclination to change something on the outside, it’s called pride and it signifies the desire to receive. We can learn a lot from this since there is something to filter and to clarify on every level.

It’s a split perception: The way it seems to me and the way it seems to others, as if I exist and they exist and around me there is a big world full of people. But in fact I communicate with my own attributes and not with others. This is where there is an opening to another level of perception. So the illumination of Amalek, which is in order to receive, that is most clearly revealed as Haman, on its ultimate level, is a great holiday for the Jews, meaning for those who want to reach unity, to unite as one nation, because it’s the last obstacle in reaching unity of all the shattered parts of the soul.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14

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