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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Question: What is a name?

Answer: A name is what we call a certain phenomenon in the most appropriate way. There is the Light and a vessel, two factors that are revealed by each other, and their common appearance leads to the expression called “name.” We don’t know what the Light is; we don’t understand or feel it. We only feel the action of the vessel which is opposite to its nature: The vessel, the desire to receive is suddenly revealed in the form of a desire to bestow, and thus we see bestowal on top of receiving.

These two opposite forces create a certain form by connecting in a certain manner, which is called a name. The form itself is the name, although in our world, in my mind, in my computer, the name is already written in a different form according to my software, according to my codes. The form itself is actually the name of the state that is created by the mutual cooperation between the Light and the vessel.

The name is with regard to those who receive, which means that I have to adapt to a certain phenomenon in a certain way and then according to the form that is adapted to the phenomenon I call the phenomenon by name. I don’t know the name of the general phenomenon, but I can thus call part of it according to my vessel, according to my name. So when I say something about someone, it is not talking about me or him but about the extent of my attainment of it.

We should take this into account. We never learn the actual phenomenon itself but only with regard to the person who attains it. So when I attain something, I don’t say that it is something specific but that I attain the phenomenon because my attainment is always according to my vessels, according to the equivalence of form with some part of the general phenomenon that isn’t familiar to me.

We exist in a universe, but now we begin to attain that there are infinite other universes. We, however, attain only part of it and we call it a universe. So the name is never the actual phenomenon but only the part which I attain.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How do you justify the Creator? What is included in this process?

Answer: Justifying the Creator means calibrating yourself correctly in the direction of the real perception of reality. Although we don’t see or feel that way, we do want to feel it.

Let’s suppose that I have a crooked ruler and I constantly measure everything in this crooked manner. Now I want to straighten this ruler by force so that all my measurements and my calculations would be according to a straight ruler.

The straight ruler is the condition that the Creator is good and benevolent and that everything that I see is the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), a wonderful ideal world that is the best world there can be. Whatever I see differently is an indication of the difference between my corrupt and fictitious perception and the right perception, which I still lack. But if I make an effort to attain the right picture, the revelation of the infinite force of the good and the benevolent, that there is none else besides Him, I perform a correction in my senses; I calibrate them so that I can perceive reality correctly.

Then I suddenly see a totally different picture! I was simply cross-eyed and so the world seemed distorted, and now I see its real form. I calibrate my tool that is not calibrated in order to see that the Creator is good and benevolent. The whole distortion was only in my senses and not in the Creator whom I thought had created a bad world. It is because of my corruptions that I saw that the perfect world of Ein Sof is so corrupted. But thanks to the correction, I come closer to the truth and reach adhesion with the Creator, in agreement with Him.

This is the only thing we should do: correct our perception. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings in this world, but how can you reveal Him in this world? We think that this world is where we are until we die. This isn’t exactly so, but actually a much deeper concept.

The revelation of the Creator in this world means that we should discover and see the world of Ein Sof above the picture of this world. This revelation is a result of our efforts: the moment we really want to see the Creator as the absolute good and benevolent, He will be revealed, since then we will be asking for our correction and so the Light will come and fix everything.

Question: A person usually understands that everything comes from the Creator, but thinks that it is impossible to understand and to justify Him.

Answer: No, we actually come to understand the Creator, to justify, reveal, measure, and attain the whole perception and wisdom. This is actually what we call the revelation of the Creator to the created beings which should fill all of a person’s cells, both the emotional and the mental ones.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/07/14

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In the News (from Nature): “A manuscript that lay unnoticed by scientists for decades has revealed that Albert Einstein once dabbled with an alternative to what we now know as the Big Bang theory, proposing instead that the Universe expanded steadily and eternally. The recently uncovered work [It had been stored in plain sight at the Albert Einstein Archives in Jerusalem] written in 1931, is reminiscent of a theory championed by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle nearly 20 years later. Einstein soon abandoned the idea, but the manuscript reveals his continued hesitance to accept that the Universe was created during a single explosive event. …

“The manuscript was probably ‘a rough draft commenced with excitement over a neat idea and soon abandoned as the author realized he was fooling himself,’ says cosmologist James Peebles of Princeton University in New Jersey. There seems to be no record of Einstein ever mentioning these calculations again.

“But the fact that Einstein experimented with the steady-state concept demonstrates his continued resistance to the idea of a Big Bang, which he at first found ‘abominable,’ even though other theoreticians had shown it to be a natural consequence of his general theory of relativity.”

My Comment: Although in my lectures I constantly mention the Big Bang as a starting point of the beginning of our world, all that we study is viewed only in relation to man, an observer, who, in this case, feels and perceives what is felt “in himself,” in his properties, and therefore it is necessary to speak not about the world around us and its changes, but about the change of our “perception within ourselves” and its changes, as new Reshimot are manifested in us. See the perception of reality in “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar“.
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Opinion (Alan Lightman, American physicist, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams):  “If the amount of dark energy in our universe were only a little bit different than what it actually is, then life could never have emerged. A little larger, and the universe would have accelerated so rapidly that matter in the young universe could never have pulled itself together to form stars and hence complex atoms made in stars. And, going into negative values of dark energy, a little smaller and the universe would have decelerated so rapidly that it would have recollapsed before there was time to form even the simplest atoms.

“Out of all the possible amounts of dark energy that our universe might have, the actual amount lies in the tiny sliver of the range that allows life. There is little argument on this point. It does not depend on assumptions about whether we need liquid water for life or oxygen or particular biochemistries. It depends only on the requirement of atoms. As before, one is compelled to ask the question: Why does such fine-tuning occur? And the answer many physicists now believe: the multiverse. A vast number of universes may exist, with many different values of the amount of dark energy. Our particular universe is one of the universes with a small value, permitting the emergence of life. We are here, so our universe must be such a universe. We are an accident. From the cosmic lottery hat containing zillions of universes, we happened to draw a universe that allowed life. But then again, if we had not drawn such a ticket, we would not be here to ponder the odds.”

My Comment: Why does one need to invent many universes, randomness, etc. if every day we become more convinced that “God does not roll dice,” and everything is logical and interconnected.
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Question: How do we establish the state of the embryo and the womb it needs by the connection between us?

Answer: It is a new phase in our development that has begun as a result of our progress. The stronger the connection between us, the more that can be revealed to you. After all, what I reveal to you is only for the sake of our future work.

We see that the world is made of two forces, two halves: the internal part, which is me, and the external part, which is the group. Then the group becomes the internal part and the whole world becomes the external part. These waves spread and draw further and further away from the center. Thus you can establish more and more advanced forms of the spiritual embryo and the spiritual womb each time.

First I was an embryo and the group was my womb. Then I and the group connect into one whole and become the embryo while everything that is around us becomes a womb, which is the greater group, which is all of humanity.

The terms internal and external constantly expand. First I was considered the internal part and the group was the external part, then both the group and I became the internal part and all of humanity became the external part. It’s like levels that fold into one another. The whole world is divided into two parts: an internal part and an external part. The internal part is called Israel and the external part is called the nations of the world.

We have to constantly think about how to establish these concepts. We have to even establish the concept of humanity since now it has no form. If we reach a state in which we become a group, we become an embryo with regard to humanity that is supposed to be our womb, and we start to work with it.

The spiritual embryo builds the womb by itself! After all, we ascend from the bottom up and establish the upper level by ourselves. Therefore, the Creator is called Bore, is called “come and see” (Bo-Re). We have to establish both the form of humanity and the Creator by our work from the bottom up.

We must constantly keep this picture of the world. It has to become our constant perception of reality, the image of life, our philosophy, the glasses through which we see the world. When I am in the group, I perceive myself with regard to the group. However, when I go out to disseminate, I perceive myself together with the group with regard to all of humanity.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2.13.14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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In Preparation for the Integral Convention

The Good Future of the World

The reality in which we are found is portrayed under the influence of the Light on the desire. We can change the relationship between the Light and desire, consciously or unconsciously, consistently, in stages, intelligently, with our own powers, through shared work, or as if by chance, as is written: “The Creator will accomplish that which concerneth me” (Psalm 138:8).

However, in every circumstance, the reality that we perceive, both the physical and the spiritual, is portrayed through the action of the Light on the desire. And when we reach the equivalence of the Light and the desire, complementing them, making peace between them, we bring peace to the whole world.

Therefore even people without a point in the heart who are not prepared to create a connection between the Light and the Kli and to equate their form by means of the Masach and Ohr Hozer, see the world differently. They don’t see it as the spiritual world because there are no spiritual components to their sensitivities. Yet since they also aspire to unity through various desires, whether speaking of a desire for money, security, education, honor, or control, they will be released from all the problems in their lives.

Of course, gradually other problems will be discovered in order to advance them further, but they will see that the world is coming closer to the good all the time. And this is already the good way, the path of Torah, and not the path of suffering. As a result of the unity from the unconscious influence of the Light upon them, they will see the changes for the better. They will discover the operating system of reality, meaning they will feel that thanks to good relations between them, the world is changing, changing their perception, their internal reaction to what is happening.

Will they be healthier? Yes. Will they discover other positive phenomena? Yes. Will there be fewer natural disasters? Yes. We will yet see how a person will activate the inner forces connected to the nature of the still, the vegetative, and the animate.

It’s up to us to understand that we have the strongest weapon that can be. All the forces of nature are for us, and even the Creator, in fact, wants to say to us: “Please use Me. Everything is in your hands.”

When we bring peace to the world, people will be involved only in a circular connection. Perhaps part of them will work about an hour per day; and with the rest of the time everyone will be involved with thoughts about how to resemble the Creator and will feel pleasure in doing so.

We still don’t understand how this could be, but that’s what will be. This will become the center of life. Besides the necessities, people will be involved only with connection to others, in bringing the connection between them to a greater depth, greater sensitivity, until the physical body and the material world are discovered as imaginary.

Another world will begin to unfold; connections beyond this world will be discovered, and we will see that all of these “spider webs” are interdependent. And as a result, people will begin to understand the wisdom, the thought of creation that is latent in all of its parts. This is called the glow of Divinity, the revelation of Divinity, meaning everything breathes, one thing depends upon another.
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Preparation for the Integral Convention, Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 8

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In the News (from the University of California, Santa Cruz): “Astronomers have discovered a distant quasar illuminating a vast nebula of diffuse gas, revealing for the first time part of the network of filaments thought to connect galaxies in a cosmic web. …

“The standard cosmological model of structure formation in the universe predicts that galaxies are embedded in a cosmic web of matter, most of which (about 84 percent) is invisible dark matter. This web is seen in the results from computer simulations of the evolution of structure in the universe, which show the distribution of dark matter on large scales, including the dark matter halos in which galaxies form and the cosmic web of filaments that connect them. Gravity causes ordinary matter to follow the distribution of dark matter, so filaments of diffuse, ionized gas are expected to trace a pattern similar to that seen in dark matter simulations.”

My Comment: With each passing day we become increasingly convinced that the whole of nature, our universe, the Earth, and we ourselves are elements of a single system that is permeated with all types of connections so that there is no distancing from one to another, but rather absolute interconnection is manifested.

Humanity, as part of nature, is obliged to bring itself into compliance with this universal law of nature that is increasingly manifested. Otherwise, we will constantly and progressively experience all the consequences of our incongruity with nature.
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