Question: Why is the Creator so uncompromising with the created being by setting tough, immutable laws for him? Why can’t He be more merciful, like a father with his son?

Answer: A child can never justify his father’s toughness. He cannot understand the father with his childish mind and see the future results and the benefit that his father’s education will bring him. The child wants to play from morning to night, to eat only sweets, and to watch TV. He cannot justify the parents’ constant demands and so he listens to them reluctantly since he feels his dependence on them and not because he justifies them.

In spirituality everything is much more complicated since we don’t feel to what extent the upper Providence treats us gently. In a child’s world, his oppositeness is not an indication of what he is about to become; if a child is obedient and does his homework and cleans up the messes he makes, the parents cannot come complaining to him since there is nothing more they can demand from him.

In the spiritual world, however, it is different: There you are always a criminal, since you arrive there with shattered vessels to begin with. You are treated kindly and are taught the method of correction; a group is organized for you, just like a kindergarten with a caretaker and with different toys. This is huge help from Above and mercy; all your sins are forgiven and you are given support in every way, just so that you will be able to reach correction and understanding to some extent.

In our world, we understand “education” as coercion directed at the child. But in the spiritual world, coercion is impossible. I can see that a student doesn’t change for years, repeating the same mistakes, falling into the same pits, and I cannot say a thing. I was the same way and it lasts throughout the entire path.

This is our path and there is nothing we can do. Unless a person determines the lesson, the method, his Torah by himself, he will not be able to advance. There cannot be coercion here, only recognition.

Therefore, we cannot complain that we are under the dominance of a cruel father despite all the terrible events of our history. We cannot justify them but later we will see that all the actions of the upper Providence stemmed from love. Although we cannot justify this in our current state, since we are too far from that, when we discover the truth, we will see what great correction it brought about.

“He has given a law that cannot be broken,” means that there is one law. There is a Light and a vessel which are opposite from each other, and this is the law. Later, when they are incorporated in one another, the law of evolution appears by this incorporation, called the law of equivalence of form. It all stems from one thought as one law.

Eventually I have to reach a state in which I want to keep this law by my own will, by myself, as if there is no one else, as if there is no Creator. When I become like the same creator looking at his creation determining the law according to which it should exist, it will mean that I have reached an equivalence of form with the Creator.
[102143]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The problem is that we need an inner connection between the friends and the teacher so that the external forms of the interruptions that are purposefully sent to us will not weaken, but rather, will strengthen this connection. It is indeed very difficult, since our ego depicts everything in an ugly external way and forces us to blame one another.

We cannot rise above the obstacles and external conditions that the Creator places us in so that we would overcome them by ourselves. The external corporeal picture strongly influences us and we cannot leap over it and rise in different states of conflicts, disrespect, feeling distant from others or when it comes to different corporeal accounts.

All this draws a person further from the goal, and it doesn’t just repulse him, but also causes him such harm that he will need to work for a long time in order to repair his past mistakes.

Baal HaSulam tells us in his letter that as long as a student yearns to get closer to his teacher and climbs the hill, the desire burns in him. But the moment he gets physically close to the teacher, his yearning diminishes gradually, until it is totally lost. Therefore, it is much easier to be distant than to be near. We all know that important people try to keep the crowds distant in order to increase the people’s interest in them.

A person creates a kind of image of a friend, the teacher, and the Creator, and doesn’t want to know the truth. He feels good living in the fantasy that he has created for himself and it is hard for him to get away from it, to erase it, in order to accept something new. If this picture is closer to the real picture, then, on the whole, it is less pleasant and more obligating.

So a person who sometimes hears the voice of the Creator and receives an invitation to stroll in His garden for a while, eventually doesn’t attain anything. It is because he doesn’t try to rise above his nature, above the inclination to reject his friends and his teacher and to imagine them as he sees fit instead of seeing the real picture so that the physical closeness or distance will not make a difference and also so that the spiritual closeness or distance will not lead to any changes in his relations with the friends, the teacher, and the Creator.

We have to try to rise as much as we can above our corporeal attributes and to be more objective. This means to judge above reason and to enter the collective vessel, outside one’s self.
[102132]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The more one advances, the closer he approaches simplicity – the plain explanation (Pshat), that is, the original and genuine desire to be pleased. All insubstantial, complicated and confusing forms we observe at this time will be simplified.

As if we just completed a puzzle, the picture becomes more clear and smooth. No longer are there thousands of tangled and obscure details without connection due to missing pieces.

Each complication and confusion results from the “evil force,” rather than deriving from our advancement. To the degree of our development, everything around us becomes included into the upper Light. We attain simplicity through a multiplicity of particular details. Reciprocal connection between the opposites is what makes a difference.
[101683]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The main thing is to correct our attitude to reality and to understand that all of reality is the Shechina, the revelation of the Creator. Now, however, it is revealed to me as still nature, the vegetative and the animate levels, as human beings, and the whole world that surrounds me that I believe to be external to me. In fact, all this is the revelation of the Creator who, in the meantime, is concealed in the opposite form of what we should see.

This whole opposite picture is explained only by the oppositeness of our attributes. It is possible to correct it only if we try hard to see this reality through the teacher, the group, the books, and dissemination by trying to perceive it as the whole reality, to look for what we lack in order to attain such an attitude and to be strengthened by the environment. Then gradually, by the efforts that we make, as “many pennies add up to a big account,” we begin to feel that we only need to correct ourselves and that everything which is external to us is the Holy Shechina or the soul.

Every moment we have an opportunity to work on our evil thoughts and on our criticism of reality, of the upper Providence, and even of myself, of my attributes, of the inner incompleteness or the external incompleteness, in order to clarify them, to overcome the criticism, and to judge everything to the scale of merit. Then the true, whole reality will be revealed.

Then we will see that all the deviations from wholeness—all the deficiencies that we constantly feel, the self-corruption and the corruption of the external world—were merely forces that were meant to strengthen and increase a person’s connection with the Creator. Reality is now revealed to us as an illuminated field glowing in the Light of many rays, in different discernments of wholeness. Thus a person meets the goal of creation.
[102091]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/13

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Question: How can we change our negative attitude to reality if this is how we feel it?

Answer: This negative feeling is given to us on purpose. Everything is measured accurately according to the relations between the Light and the vessels. The Creator measures it according to the created being in the shattered system so that we will exert ourselves in order to correct ourselves and thus attain bestowal. Then we will feel the good correct state.

If we didn’t have negative feelings now, we would never feel the state we are in. Our vessels of perception are vessels of assessment: I feel only what I assess as good or bad.

If I see something, then it is a sign that it is important for me: I am either afraid of it or love it, want to get close to it or draw away from it. I feel only what I care about. The attribute of bestowal doesn’t interest us at all, and so it doesn’t exist in our world, and we are all only in the attribute of receiving.

But if, according to nature’s program, we have to reach the attribute of bestowal, then we are given a chance to bring ourselves to it from the attribute of receiving, meaning from the corrupted attribute opposite to bestowal. This is called the “shattering.” There was a good program that worked well but then it broke down. Now we have to learn how to move from the corrupt state to the corrected state.

Thus we will learn the program itself, so as not to exist in it like angels. When I correct the program myself and see all the evil and the corruptions in it, understanding how good it can be if it operates correctly in the system, in its opposite form, then I discover the actual essence of the program, the program planner, and I get to know His thoughts towards the created beings, which is called the “thought of creation.” I am actively incorporated in this program and I acquire the Creator’s nature that is dressed in me. He begins to operate in me, forcing my muscles, my bones, and my brain to move. At the same time, I feel that it is the Creator who is dressed in me, not some unknown force.

First I was operated by my ego but didn’t realize it. Then there was the inner split when I discovered that the ego operates me, that there are two: I and the ego with disparity between them. Then I wanted the attribute of bestowal to manage me instead of the ego. Then, in the attribute of bestowal, I felt the upper root that created both the ego and the good force, and thus I reach adhesion.
[102084]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: When do I begin to bring contentment to the Creator consciously?

Answer: At the stage of spiritual maturity (13 years), when I already have vessels of receiving that are ready for correction in which I can receive the Light with the intention of in order to bestow; to the extent that I receive, I actually bring contentment to the Creator.

Until then there is only the preparation, the state of “smallness” in which we are not required to do “mature” things yet and are treated forgivingly. We demand from a child because we want to educate him and not because he must. He doesn’t have to fill all the requirements.

Question: How many years does it take to reach maturity?

Answer: There is no time in spirituality. “13 years” is a level and we really yearn for it, really want to enter the state of Ibur (gestation), to enter the upper system, and to feel it as a womb, a friendly environment, an environment in which my friends think only about how to help me and the teacher guides us towards the goal. I adhere to them and through them, like through the umbilical cord, am “nourished” by the Lights that influence me. This environment is a womb for me, something round, whole, a round sphere that I am in. I am also like a sphere and I don’t limit anything, but constantly restrict myself in order to adhere, nothing more than that.

I value the wholeness of the external environment, the friends and the teacher, and they reflect and project the right attributes on me. Then my “piece of flesh,” my desire, begins to take on the form of Adam, a human being. The environment imprints its form on me, not the environment that I see today, but a different environment that I value more and more.

Thus I develop like an embryo, constantly adhering to the environment, although I am constantly sent different interruptions and complaints regarding the whole group or each of the friends. I accept everything in “faith above reason” and continue working not towards the Creator but rather towards the environment, the friends among whom I already identify the inner essence.

Then, after I feel them, I want to receive their imprint, their impression. I wait for their bestowal because I discover wholeness in them. I want them to “imprint” themselves in me forcefully. I am ready for that and I make efforts so that it will happen. I actually match myself to them and ask that they don’t leave, that they will work with me and imprint themselves in me.

Everything depends on the Ibur, it is the most dangerous stage in our development. If it is successful, then the rest is much easier. Every time I receive a greater defending force, a stronger force of inner overcoming that allows me to overcome all the negative things I see in the group. It is because I look at the desire to bestow of the friends through my ego and I discover terrible things.

But I continue to rise in faith above reason and tell them to continue working on me, to process me, to continue imprinting me with their stamp. I want it! I lower my head before them and I am ready in advance to accept everything that comes from them.

If a person really wants that, he receives a full imprint and then he is ready to be born.

Question: But, at the same time, I still don’t reach an equivalence of form with the environment.

Answer: True, but not more is required at this stage. It is as if I am standing before a puzzle in which one piece is missing—my part. And I shove my piece of clay in the gap so that its shape corresponds to the contours of the other parts.

How do you do that? I ask the friends to push me on all sides, to squeeze me, to knead me, and to push me into the group until I take  the right form. This form is the right “me” together with all the Sefirot and Partzufim, with all the right components.

The Creator is revealed in this puzzle when it is whole. We design the correct desire, build the corrected Malchut, and in it we discover the Creator according to the principle of “come and see,” Bo-re (Creator in Hebrew). There is no other way; we can only do it together, only if we put together at least one piece of the human puzzle. The bigger this piece is, the greater the revelation will be.

Question: How important is it that I enter this puzzle consciously?

Answer: You must agree that the group will imprint itself, its external form, in you. In order to do that you have to agree with the friends on every issue that is related to spirituality, value them as the greatest in our generation, ask them to influence you, and lower your head before them since the Creator lives in them.

Question: But if I see something that is totally opposite…

Answer: This is exactly our work. The egoistic desire remains (in black), but on the outside, it takes on a form, the form of bestowal (in red). This is our spiritual education, which is a “formative” education. Simple matter that is a desire to receive isn’t enough. Everything depends on the form; when two different types of matter make different forms, we receive an education which means that we begin to understand reality.

Question: Why is it so hard for us to be incorporated in the spiritual environment?

Answer: Because here the evil inclination is increasingly revealed to me. Each time new “thorns” are revealed and I have to take on a new form each time, to give in, to annul myself, and to look at all these problems in faith above reason.

Only yesterday everything was fine but today it isn’t anymore, and I have to work on myself again in order to see, in the obstacles, the right forms that belong to the embryo’s body. The next day, the hardships increase and demand that I change my attitude. Thus I constantly rise above the interruptions in faith above reason and correct myself.

[102033]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How do you suggest we prepare for the convention in Germany at the end of the month?

Answer: We should understand that on the first level we are in now we are operating in the framework of time, motion, and place. These are corporeal limitations against which we are powerless for the time being and are under their strong influence.

When we get to the spiritual levels it will be much easier and we will not have to feel the corporeal presence. We will already live in a different reality; the spiritual life will be part of the corporeal life.

In the meantime I don’t see any way of leaping over time and distance. This problem is only on the current level of preparation.

The first spiritual level already brings us together internally, totally freeing us from corporeal limitations. But in order to break through to the spiritual world, we have to work on this current level and to connect as if time and place do not exist.

It is exactly for this reason that we have workshops and conventions, which unite us, connect us physically, and strengthen the ties between us. There is no other choice since this physical feeling still operates on us. It isn’t by chance that this world was created, and it isn’t by chance that we feel this first level in it. Without any contact between the shattered desires, without being able to feel one another, we wouldn’t be able to advance.

It is just like a corporeal couple in which a man and a woman have to be together, not just next to one another, but actually enter one another. We have to learn from these corporeal examples that the new continuity is born of this close connection.

So we have to come to the convention and reach this strong embrace. It doesn’t matter if we actually embrace one another or not, what’s important is that we will actually feel the closeness by sitting next to each other, by studying together, by eating, singing, dancing, and having discussions. There has to be a physical contact of at least two or three days a year or every couple of months. This already leaves an impression that enables us to later feel it over and over again as and to feel one another better.

If we never see each other, we don’t use the means we were given. It is impossible to advance without it. Kabbalists were always together. Baal HaSulam brought equipment for tanning hides to Israel and wanted to open a small plant for tanning in Jerusalem. He thought that his students would work on these machines, make a living, and also study there.

Tanning is a dirty work accompanied by a terrible stench. It is impossible to be near a tanner because of this smell; Baal HaSulam wanted to open this plant so that people would keep away from his group. Usually such plants are far from the living quarters of a city.

He worked as a rabbinical judge in Warsaw, but he decided to deal with this dirty work because he dreamed of a close Kabbalistic group.

This means that it is impossible to succeed without physical contact. I cannot imagine a student who refuses to come to the convention and meet with me although he can. If a person has a will, then he will be ready to walk for a month if he has no money for a plane or train ticket. I remember that many times on the way to Rehovot (where I used to live) my car would get breakdown since it had a problem with the carburetor. Then I would leave the car on the side of the road, hitchhike to a certain point, and then walk the rest of the way. All this is also part of one’s exertion.

But without physical contact, without sitting next to each other at the table during the lesson or in a workshop, singing together or dancing, it is impossible to advance.
[102023]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The correction that we need to make is divided into many acts, small parts, and gradual changes that create the feeling of time for us. Time is created as a result of this; time is due to the fact that we work today and we expect to get paid tomorrow. If this is the way a person feels, then that is actually a corruption.

The correction is to imagine to oneself that right now you already exist in a corrected and complete state where there is complete abundance. What is missing is the clothing on the Light, our attitude, intention, and the attribute of bestowal. If you acquire it, then you discover that the concealment was only towards you and that you always were in the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) but you weren’t able to feel and understand it.

And all of this is because you didn’t appreciate the attribute of bestowal. You didn’t think it was worth anything or even less than that. Thus, you didn’t feel it or you even felt the opposite attribute: instead of altruism and bestowal, you felt the attribute of reception, the ego.

Thus, all of our work is to transform the work itself into the reward. And every moment the opportunity is given to us to make an effort that allows us to draw more Light that reforms, and thus to attain even more attributes of bestowal and be thankful for the evil that is revealed. The evil indicates the place where the correction is needed, where, for us, bestowal is lacking.
[102020]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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According to the Creator’s part, you are always in a corrected state. But according to how you see it and understand things, it appears very different and this is the flaw. Absolute good comes from the Creator, but He has to hide it and reduce His bestowal upon you so that it will not seem so bad. It is because you are opposite from Him and you receive everything in an opposite manner.

So the Creator cannot pour infinite bestowal upon you since you would feel an infinite minus and would not be able to bear this horrible state. Therefore, the Creator has to diminish Himself, by reducing Himself to practically zero level, leaving only a tiny spark to sustain life, a tiny drop of Light. And even this minimal Light is perceived by you as a cruel world full of evil and pain.

Gradually, through the study and the influence of the friends and the teacher, according to your efforts, the Light comes, reforms you, and changes begin to occur in you. Then you gradually find out that you are actually in a good state and that you feel it as bad because of your uncorrected attributes. Then you begin to work in order to change yourself by using all the means you have: the group, the study, dissemination, and the teacher.

If you work correctly and make efforts in order to see yourself in a state of bestowal, love, and connection, through the teacher, the study, and by yearning for the Creator, then it operates on you. It is not immediate of course, but gradually you discover that bestowal and love, the best attitude, surround you; finally you understand, feel, and interpret this correctly.

Thus you rise to your first spiritual level. You agree with the Creator and see that all the powers you have invested were for the correction of your perception, for the correction of your vessels. You didn’t have to pay anyone, but you corrected yourself. Thus you have corrected the vessel of perception and now you feel a whole state.

You have to feel the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), the perfection in the current state without changing anything in it, except for your inner attitude. If you don’t feel that, it is a sign that you are cursing the Creator instead of thanking Him and blessing Him.

We can say that about every state, no matter how terrible it is. Nothing changes in reality, except for our attitude, which is called the correction of the vessel of perception.
[102017]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Happiness is a feeling of the fulfillment of desire. It is possible only when there is a desire, hunger, passion, and it is fulfilled, realized. But as soon as a desire has been fulfilled and realized, the feeling of happiness gradually disappears. Thus, two constants are needed for happiness: a) desire, b) fulfillment.

In order for fulfillment not to cancel the desire, they need to be separated, to be in two objects. For example, a mother and a baby; a mother can endlessly enjoy a baby because she fills the object outside of herself.

If we create a connection above our mutual rejection, we will be able to fulfill each other and enjoy our actions indefinitely. There is only a purely psychological problem of understanding that the goal of creation is in pleasure and that the means to achieve the eternal and infinite pleasure is in “love thy neighbor as thyself.” This state is called the upper world. When we feel it, the sensation of our temporary flawed world—what is felt only in oneself—disappears.
[102039]

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