Question: In his letter No. 29, Baal HaSulam writes that “prohibition is the same as permission, since the key that is good for locking is also good for unlocking.” What kind of “key” does he mean?

Answer: The key is the Light of Hassadim, the intention to bestow. On one hand, we can lock ourselves with this key and thus bar the Light from entering our egoistic desires. On the other hand, we can open ourselves for the Light that dresses in the intention to bestow. Under this condition, the Light is allowed to enter the desire to receive. Bina refuses to receive; therefore, Bina is against the Light of Hochma. How does it open itself for the Light of Hochma after restriction occurs? It turns itself into a “garment for the Light,” into a condition. We are ready to receive treats from the Host’s table under the condition that He allows us to think about Him, rather than our stomachs.

If we keep thinking of the Creator while we continue receiving pleasures, if we feel Him and understand that He enjoys us, then our sensations become a million times bigger than those that we get from direct self-indulgence. We multiply the pleasure because we understand the significance of the Host and feel love for Him. And that is how we become ready to accept the treats.

So, Bina blocks only a small amount of the Light (Nefesh de Nefesh) that it could have received directly in the desire to receive. It opens itself to the Light of NRNHY, the infinite Light of the Creator. This implies that the key that locks the door also unlocks it. As it is said: “Open a tiny space the size of an eye of a needle for Me and I will open gates through which carts and chariots enter.”

We can’t receive directly more than a thin ray of Light that supports life in all of us and revives the entire world. The intention to bestow multiplies a tiny live spark and expands it to the size of the Creator if we strive to bestow to Him.

We “use” the Creator as a magnifying glass and amplify a thin ray that formed all of creation, all of matter. We increase both the matter and the pleasure proportionately to the greatness of the Creator in our eyes. This opportunity is granted to us by a “tool” that is called “the intention to bestow.”

It is called “bestowal,” but due to it we receive the opportunity and acquire the ability to increase our desire to receive that was shaped by the Creator “out of nothing.” It’s similar to a tiny grain of sand, a tip of the needle that we can multiply proportionately to the Creator’s “scale” so that it can be filled with the Light that is as powerful as the Creator Himself.

It happens because we begin working in bestowal “on the tip of a needle,” on a “tiny grain of sand” of a desire to receive that was created by Him. We receive one gram of delight and simply cannot “fit” more into this small desire that is as little as a grain of sand. However, if we manage to expand it for the sake of bestowal, it is crucially important for whose sake we do it. Thus, we multiply our desire and the delight proportionately to the scale of His love for us, as an infant who smiles at his mother and thus causes huge joy in her.

It’s the “patent” we use, a miraculous opportunity granted to us by the Creator. We use its power and the strength of His love for us by expanding ourselves with its help. Otherwise, we would be the lowest creatures in the world. All other levels of nature (inanimate, vegetative, and animate) fulfill themselves directly, whereas by the mere fact that we are born as people, we go through all prior levels (inanimate, vegetative, and animate) and there is only one thing left for us: a point in the heart that is completely empty of any fulfillment.

Because we are so unhappy, a tiny spark awakens in us. It’s a desire to receive pleasure at the speaking level that now still remains empty in us. If we fail to receive the Creator’s power and won’t take “advantage” of His love and His kind attitude toward us by using it to “magnify” ourselves by this quality, we’ll be left with a scanty and hollow desire. Even death is better than such kind of life…

Luckily, we are given a chance to receive the power of the Creator if we treat each other in a correct way. That’s why the shattering and all other kinds of preparations from Above happened, so that people can feel a need to love or at least realize the necessity to unite.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 29”

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We advance from concealment to revelation and discover what already exists. “There is nothing new under the sun,” there is nothing that was not created and nothing just suddenly appears out of nowhere, except for the revelations which we constantly add by our efforts according to our advancement. We open wider the picture that already exists and discover more and more of it.

It is as if it were dark and I gradually turn on the light by slowly twisting the dimmer knob. It gets brighter and brighter and I can see better and understand all the details in the picture.

It isn’t a simple light, but the light of the mind, the light of our feelings. It allows me to penetrate this picture and to discover it, to connect more strongly to it, and to influence it. I discover the system that connects to me. I suddenly see that I am in it, incorporated in it, and not simply observing it from the outside like an independent researcher. I live in it!

We discover that all of the upper world already exists; this is all our work: to discover the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) as the fixed, eternal, true state. Everything else is only its concealments that we have to get rid of by rising above them. All the concealments are necessary, only so that we will be able to gradually, from one level to another, adjust ourselves to the world of Ein Sof.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot 

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Question: What is the concealment made of?

Answer: The concealment was made of our corrupt feelings and mind. It is as if I am trying to understand something but do not succeed. I make efforts, “breaking my head”, trying to approach it from one direction and from another direction, but I cannot understand this. I find different points to hold on to, but I cannot penetrate it so that it will make sense to me. The reason for that is lack of connection, which means lack of vessels of perception.

It is like a puzzle that has to be put together so that each bulge will perfectly match the designated dent. It is the same thing here, I lack the right dents in my deficiency so that the part of the puzzle will enter me and connect with me. And then I will understand, realize and feel, and the picture will suddenly be revealed to me.

I remember that when I was Rabash’s student, I came complaining indignantly to him that the concealment lasts for so long. But the concealment stems from lack of equivalence, from lack of compatibility between your inner attributes and deficiencies and the world that has to enter you. For the time being, your deficiency cannot perceive this form, so what can be done here? You are like a child who is trying forcefully to put a cube through a round hole. But the child does not understand that he will not succeed and so he keeps on pushing the cube and crying.

We too don’t understand the need for compatibility here, and that it is attained by observation and by efforts. It is hard and we see how a kid cannot stand this situation. It is the same with us as the reason is always incompatibility, lack of equivalence. Whole and perfect pictures come from Above, but we have to become compatible to them.

So every event in your life, every situation that is not felt as totally perfect, like the Creator’s image, indicates a lack of vessels of perception, some kind of your incompatibility with the upper.

First, be thankful for the feeling of deficiency; it is already a revelation. You don’t need to calm and to silence this feeling, but rather work with it purposefully. Rejoice that the evils are being revealed and start correcting them.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 241, “Call ye upon Him While He is Near,” (Isaiah 55:6): We must understand what “while He is near” means, since “the whole earth is full of His glory”! Thus, He is always near, so what does “while He is near” mean? It would seem that there is a time when He is not near.

Similarly, one who has lost the good way and entered a bad place, and has already accustomed himself to live among beasts, from the perspective of the will to receive, it would never occur to him that he should return to a place of reason and Sanctity. Yet, when he hears the voice calling him, he awakens to repent.

Hence, when the Creator wishes to bring him out of the dense forest, He shows him a remote Light, and the person gathers the remains of his strength to walk on the path that the Light shows him, in order to attain it.

But if one does not ascribe the Light to the Creator, and does not say that the Creator is calling him, then the Light is lost from him, and he remains standing in the forest…

Everything depends on our preparation, to the extent that we yearn to discover the attribute of bestowal, which is called to discover the Creator. To this extent, we begin to hear the Creator’s voice calling us and inviting us to Him, giving us different signs of His coming near us. However, a person only can feel them when he imagines the goal that he wants to attain correctly, the attribute of bestowal that is above his attribute of receiving, and not something else. This is called having “faith above reason.”

However, if a person has not corrected himself yet, he cannot feel or believe that it is the Creator calling him and he thinks that these are coincidental occurrences or that he simply has awakened by himself. He doesn’t understand that it is the Creator’s voice calling him by pulling him toward the attribute of bestowal.

Everything is determined by a person’s preparation. If the preparation was correct and sufficient, if a person has exerted himself enough and has filled his measure, then he begins to feel how the Creator invites him in every opportunity he encounters.

If a person makes efforts, then, eventually, he sees that the Creator is waiting for him around every corner, inviting that person to Him through giving different signs and clues. Thus, the connections between them are formed, and the person becomes the Creator’s partner. To the extent that the Creator is attracted to the person, that person also is attracted to the Creator, to mutual bestowal, until they meet and embrace one another.

Here, everything depends on a person’s preparation. At first, a person doesn’t even feel that he is lost in the dark forest. He is looking for the wrong place and thinks that he can break through by himself and attain what he desires by himself. Or, he simply may wait for someone to come and save him—there is also this phase along the way. It takes time until he manages to identify the Creator’s voice and understand that it is really the Creator calling him.

Then, they connect, and the Creator saves the person because the person already understands what true salvation is.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13

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We must discover all the deficiencies since the good is revealed only in its opposite. So, we must rejoice when we discover the negative form; it is the first level of revelation after which there is already a correction and fulfillment.

So, we must understand that if a person follows the right path, then there is no room for despair and disappointment. A person who advances correctly always should be happy since he goes through all the phases along the way, justifying them as he understands that they are necessary for the revelation of wholeness.

Corruption is, above all, my disagreement with my state—feeling reluctant to justify it and to accept it as necessary—that must be revealed. All the states already are imprinted in the root of my soul in my nature.

The states are revealed from lighter to the more difficult: Ibur (gestation), Yenika (suckling) and Mochin (adulthood). First, I am only a tiny embryo who lacks all self-awareness. Then, I am born, which means that the awareness is born within me, the understanding. Before that I simply felt something without knowing where I was and what was going on. Then, I begin to feel pleasant and unpleasant feelings, different changes of states. Next, I begin to come to know the Upper a little, who He is, and how He manages and changes me.

I am connected to Him. He seems to be cunning since He hides from me while I look for Him and chase Him, not knowing where He is. I am told that I can discover Him through the environment, but I don’t want this environment. However, it turns out that this is to the same extent that I don’t want Him since it is the same thing.

This means that I must go through many states before I understand and reach the recognition, Mochin, which is the last level of our evolution that comes after Ibur and Yenika. It is natural since I cannot understand anything unless I have enough experience and attain the reasons for what is going on, the connection between them, and begin tying one with the other. Thus, the states begin to illuminate for me a little from within, and I understand what is derived from what. Through the connection between the events, I discover their source, which is actually external, outside the actions that I feel.

Therefore it is very difficult for a person to advance since one cannot justify the actions that one feels, which seem coincidental. One doesn’t even understand their order. He would like to see who is working on him, but he doesn’t. It is a hard way since we don’t attribute everything that happens to us to the One—that there is none else besides Him and we don’t acknowledge the fact that this One is good and benevolent.

Because we don’t try to trust this one, good force, we don’t discover anything on the way. There is even a phase during our development when a person fears any new discoveries and prefers that nothing new will happen. He simply feels the physical pain because the revelation is discovered so painfully that everything within him is an unpleasant feeling.

If a person were to expect more revelations, he could make efforts in order to attain them and not just for the sake of acting externally while lying to himself that he is working, but actually fearing to take a step forward.

Only if he has a good and strong environment—which means that he overcomes his ego and turns to the environment—he annuls his ego that comes between him and his independent vessels that seem to be external. Then, he retrieves these vessels and these means, and through them, he can discover the next states with joy and bring them near. It is possible only to the extent that he annuls his ego before the society, understanding that it is not the external society, but his internal attributes.
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From the 1^st part of Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: People have differing sensitivity. Is there a chance that someone will not be able to integrate into unity that emerges during the workshops?

Answer: It is almost impossible because people who are sitting in a circle together become infected by each other. And that is why the most insensitive of them gets gentleness, tenderness, and sensitivity from the others, and the most sensitive one becomes balanced by others. Everything reaches a common denominator.

They do not have anything personal because everything changes into the collective. You say that some of them feel in this way and someone else in a different way. There is no longer “someone”—each of them includes all the others into himself.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/8/13

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 1: When we examine ourselves, we find that we are as corrupted and as low as can be. And when we examine the operator who has made us, we are compelled to be at the highest degree, for there is none so praiseworthy as Him. For it is necessary that only perfect operations will stem from a perfect operator.

Indeed we see that nature is perfect and that everything in it is arranged much more successfully than in our lives. A person’s attitude to others comes down to a desire to rape, kill, eat, abuse, and beat others in any way possible. We see that such an approach is bad and harmful. In order to lead a normal life, it would be better if we existed nicely on the basis of the principles of mutuality, preserving nature, and watching over one another. We teach our children not to fight, to be generous, and to play together. But it appears that children can’t do this and neither can adults. It turns out that our nature is evil. This is what we discover when we look at ourselves.

On the other hand, in nature everything is built wonderfully. Numerous studies are more clearly depicting the picture of this harmonious balance and mutual cooperation. In the end nature created life which requires coordination between delicate and complex mechanisms working together. We see how versatile and complex the world is and how wisely it was created. Where does all that come from? From some tiny “atom” that was created as a result of the Big Bang?

One way or the other, the accurate, complex versatility that we see impresses us, but when we look at man who is the “crown of creation” we see one inclination: to destroy everything. This makes one to consider how that can be; that the most complex part, the “best” part, is also the worst part.

An ant or a cockroach doesn’t harm anyone, they only act according to nature’s orders and help others in the general system that is mutually connected. In it, everyone lives in order to sustain the others and each one has its own niche and sustains itself in order to be connected with thousands of other creatures. Together they all make up a perfect jigsaw puzzle, an inseparable combination of the lines of the general picture. If you take out one item, everything will immediately become distorted, and the perfection will be destroyed.

In the meantime, on the whole, this is what man does. His actions are in contrast to the perfection of nature. All the animals and plants, everything, exists in perfect agreement, and most importantly in mutual completion; everyone is connected, and everyone depends on everyone, needs one another. In nature everything is based on balance where you can’t take out one link and move it to another place; it’s one whole jigsaw puzzle. And along comes man and destroys it until the world gradually approaches disaster. Up until now we didn’t understand that other than us all of nature is perfect and things that seem to us as imperfect are an indication of the “distorted mirror” of our perception or as a result of our destructive participation.

Man can’t be incorporated into the wholeness since he is corrupt. He is the only creature that is opposite from nature and this shows that the key for the correction is actually within us.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/26/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

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Question: Can we assess the balance of power in our world according to the balance of spiritual forces in the story of Purim? How are integral education and the science of Kabbalah reflected in this story?

Answer: Let’s have a look at the characters of Purim: The king, Mordecai, Haman, and Esther who ties them. All the threads are woven in her.

This is how a person’s inclinations are presented: the three lines and the Creator above, that is, knowledge and the aspiration for Keter above reason in the middle line. But in reality, all this is manifested due to the work on unification. That is why the events of Purim take place during the Babylonian exile.

Purim is the most important symbol.

The group of Abraham came from Babylon, realized a series of corrections, and then fell from its degree and descended to Babylon again to reveal the ultimate method of correction there.

With this method, the group builds a spiritual vessel again; however, it cannot stay in it because this vessel is much weaker than the previous one. It has a lot more limitations than the previous one because now the whole world needs to be corrected.

Then again, mixing takes place, but already on the basis of this vessel corrected in Babylon and adapted to the world.

And then the sons of Israel go out into the world to be together with it, and in our days they come to the same Babylon, to the same situation with Haman, Mordecai, and Ahasuerus.

Today, everything is ready, but we want to advance along a good path, above reason, and that is why we have to explain to everyone that salvation is in unity.

At the time, Haman wanted to use the state of the “sleep” of the sons of Israel: They did not maintain the correct connection between them and it provided an opportunity to destroy them, that is, to destroy spiritual aspiration and to make them work egoistically.

On the other hand, integral education tells us, no, we must begin to unite because in it lies the salvation of the world, both material and spiritual. We have no other option.

In the current conditions, we seemingly stand against the entire world, calling for reasonable consumption according to basic needs, for equality, for fair distribution, etc. We explain that the inflated banking sector and excessive production have no place in the world. Gradually understanding how we have to live in new conditions, humanity will get rid of all those invented activities, leaving only what is really necessary for normal existence.

This does not mean that we move back or reverse history. Of course, we can continue to develop various technologies but in a way so they are not frills, but real necessities for life.

For example, if production is automated, people will not have to work for even an hour a day. Well, let them be engaged in the main activity of their life—spiritual development. Let them do internal work on themselves.

We do not understand yet that the cutting-edge technologies create a new “virtual” world in which the desire to receive will exist quietly on the “animal” level because, after having risen to the human degree, you will cease to feel the “flavor” of previous desires. Similarly, we do not feel how our hair and nails grow, and how we trim them.

The feeling of this world will start to “fade,” and all our actions, all the connections, all the existence will be felt only in the relations between people. Only these relations will be based, not on the principle of “give and take,” not only in the physical interaction and not through exchange of goods, this level will recede to the background and disappear from perception, instead of it, we will increasingly feel the inner essence of what is happening, our true, deep relationships.

So, in our perception, we will move on to the next level, which does not exist in our world because it consists of the still, vegetative, and animate levels, and the human degree does not belong to it. If you attain it, all the other degrees are included in it and disappear as such. Then, our perception is suddenly transported in the world of forces, not the world of matter. It turns out that “matter” is the desire to receive, and not material images, like shadows, projected on the mirror of our consciousness.

Modern technologies provide good support to this perception. In the coming years we will see how people lose their usual activities and as if are left with nothing. Then, why are we needed at all?

We are needed, but not in the form of bodies. After all, the “I” is something eternal, immutable, and we rise to this degree by means of integral education, which allows us to move forward smoothly and comfortably and not under the barrage of blows that leave no other choice.

We cannot despair on this path. After all, our small spiritual effort many times exceeds all the material efforts. If we think a little bit more, “push” a little more in spiritual development, no bombs and missiles will be able to resist this, millions of haters will be powerless before this.

We have to be aware of the difference of potentials between the spiritual force and the material force. As Baal HaSulam writes that all the representatives of the “animate” level are equal one representative of the human degree. In essence, there is nothing to compare because the power between the degrees differs so much. We only need to go deeper inside, and you will see how we come to Purim…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “Revelation and Concealment”: The matter of concealment refers to the fact that a person wants to see and to understand, and does not see or understand. Then we should say that it is concealed from him, what is more, the level of concealment is measured according to his need to know, and so if a person doesn’t need to know something, there is no point in saying that he suffers from concealment.

For example, if a person has to work in a certain place for only half an hour a day and he receives his pay once a month, then he should believe that he will be paid although he has not seen anyone who has already received his pay, so he believes in the company although it is concealed from him as to whether and how the company will pay him, since no one knows the company in which he wishes to work. And if he wants to work more than half an hour, he has a greater need to know that the company pays on time, so if he hears any evil gossip about the company, he suffers more because of the concealment, and if he wants to work day and night, of course he feels greater concealment, since he has a greater need to know, whether he will receive his pay as promised.

And since the Kingdom of Heaven is above reason, everyone suffers from the concealment, but those who want to work for the sake of Heaven, have the greatest concealment, since they have the greatest need to know, since the body asks over and over again “What is this work that you do.” It turns out that this question is constantly ready, according to what a person wants to be totally for the sake of Heaven, and the answer to this question is “blunt his teeth.”

We should accept the fact that we never see the payment in advance. On the contrary, as we advance, we see opposite pictures, that there is no payment and that there will not be any. All this is in order to raise us above reason.

The less we know and understand, the less sure we are, and the less proof we have, the more chances it gives to build a network of support and confidence above reason. Then this confidence is revealed not in our vessels of receiving, but only in bestowal, above reason, without any proof, since “in Him our hearts shall rejoice.” This means that not in us, not in our ego, but Above, in the Creator or in the group, in the connection in which we discover the upper force.

So no one is going to receive any actual payment. Whoever doesn’t accept this can leave right away and look for pay in the ordinary corporeal life. In the spiritual life, however, the payment is in giving it up, in the feeling of importance of whom I am working for.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/13

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The same process repeats on every level. Symbolic of this are the holidays that repeat every year, every new cycle. All this is revealed according to the Reshimot (spiritual genes) relative to those who receive, who clarify their Lights, sparks, and vessels and so go through these phases. So a person goes through 49 “gates of impurity” and reaches the 50^th gate of Bina. Then everything that seemed terrible to him changes. The upper level seemed impossible to reach and awful, but he is ready to accept it above reason in every way possible

Thus, by his efforts he goes through the 49 gates, and each time it seems that he cannot go through, but he somehow overcomes the obstacle and passes. The 50^th gate stops him, he cannot go through it, and then a prayer is born in him which helps him do that.

Esther symbolizes the double concealment of both the vessels of receiving and the vessels of bestowal. The corrections that Mordecai made all seem to lead to an opposite result which is meant to be of the special Light “Mor –Dror ” (pure myrrh). Thus we reach Purim in which the worst state of helplessness is revealed, but we try to attribute it to the Creator and are ready to work in bestowal, above the worst states, in order to flip them by rising above them and by revealing the opposite state. The Light dresses in all that and then the help from Above is revealed.

We should understand that it all depends on a person, while there is no action on the part of the upper. All the upper system already exists, but we awaken it: Partzufim, Abba, Ima, Arich Anpin, by raising our prayer, MAN, to ZON of Atzilut.

And when there is an “awakening from Above,” it is only if it is its turn in the cycle of our mutual actions according to our awakening below.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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