Question: What is the meaning of the miracle that the holiday of Chanukah celebrates in the inner work?

Answer: There are several miracles that occur in the inner work. The first miracle is the exodus from Egypt. The second miracle occurs on Hanukkah, and the third—on Purim.

A miracle is a revolution in one’s perception of reality. The actual reality I am in is unchanging, it is the world of Infinity. But such revolutionary changes take place inside of me that I receive a new perception, a new nature, such a drastic change that I see the whole world in a different way.

This is similar to a baby that comes out of the mother into a great, light, world, which is signified by his birth. And this is a miracle because it is not a simple continuation of the regular growth of the fetus, but it signifies a total revolution and an exit to a new level of perception. This transformation can only happen by virtue of the Light’s influence upon us.

When the Light finishes raising my desires to the first ten Sefirot, I am born on the new level in the new ten Sefirot, on the next level.

There are several revolutions like this: the first is when we go from the period of preparation into the new world, through the Machsom, and begin to work in the small spiritual state. Then, after this miracle of coming out of Egypt, there is a gradual ascent, the state by Mount Sinai and the revelation of the upper force, the miracle of Chanukah. All of this seems to be one process, beginning from the passage of the Red Sea and on. A revolution in a person’s perception of reality takes place, and all of this occurs by virtue of a change in his desires under the Light’s influence.

A miracle is when all of my previous desires undergo instant change, a total revolution.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Sometimes when I read The Zohar, I feel something pulsate in me. Is The Zohar a live system, and are we able to absorb spiritual models through its words?

Answer: Kabbalists describe the system of connections between us. This altruistic connection between everyone’s private desires forms us into the image of the Creator (since the entire system of desires is exactly like the force of Light which created it, the Creator).

Kabbalists reveal this system to us—each one according to his degree, his nature, and the root of his soul. They explain the way it works, how our actions evoke corresponding reactions—MAN (appeal) and MAD (response).

They reveal Nature and nothing else. When you reveal it—as if you were looking at a 3D picture without concentrating on its superficial image, but with your eyes unfocused, confusing them—you will begin to see the picture inside.

You become free from the power of your corporeal mind and feelings, you will abandon your egoism—and then this picture can carry you deep inside it. You enter it and discover an entire world: still, vegetative, animate, and human levels, which lead their own lives.

This is what The Zohar reveals. You read it and imagine a regular picture of this world. But The Zohar reveals the inner picture to you. You will see this inner picture when you defocus your corporeal “vision” by rising above your egoistic desires and qualities of perception—towards bestowal.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/11, Zohar for All

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What is my “self?” I exist, feel, live, and perceive reality…. But I don’t know what the “self” is. I only know that it’s the way in which I feel myself: There is the “self” and there is my environment. Where does this feeling come from? It comes from my desire to receive. I feel all kinds of pleasures and deficiencies one way or another, and they are part of my perception, feeling, cognition, and understanding.

On the whole, my vessels make up the desire to receive. To some extent they are full and to some extent empty. The desire that is divided into five levels of development (the still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and the root) makes up the feeling of my personal body, my life, my “self,” and the environment. Eventually I have to attain the essence of my desire with everything that is within it. What is this desire? What does it mean to feel it?

I am in it, and it radiates the feeling of itself and of external reality. The feeling of the self is my body. The feeling of external life is made up of many people and of the whole universe. All of this is depicted and presented inside my desire.

These things should be clarified in the light of free will: How can I use them? Which way should I direct them? Can I do anything that I want with these feelings? Or can I use them only if I turn in a certain direction? Do I have to find the right “frequency,” the right range of frequencies in which I’ll see the whole picture and the way to the goal? In such a case, all the other ways are closed. They’re not for me.

A very delicate approach is needed here, the only approach that will enable me to see the picture in the right light. All the other paths provide me with false and distorted pictures, and I will pay dearly for their falsity. The main point here is to understand what I should do and where to go. In order to do that, I tune myself to the desirable range of frequencies, choose the correct “crack,” in order to look at my internal and external reality. Such approach brings me to the only possible action I should perform—that of a free choice.

Everything else is irrelevant. Even if I don’t know anything else, it makes no difference. The main point is that I know this. My whole life and future depend upon this. By fulfilling this “subtle” principle, I can also change everything else, and extremely so. I should deal with what’s important and not with anything else because then I will only mess things up.

Thus, free will should protect me from false and harmful actions that will take great efforts to correct. I need to reach the essence in the shortest way possible and to realize it.

For that Baal HaSulam explains that every state I am in is divided into four parts. If I know myself, I am under their control. These are the factors:

• The source;
• The unchanging conduct of cause and effect;
• The internal conduct of cause and effect;
• The conduct of cause and effect of alien things.

The source is the unchanging nature, the essence, which I received even before I felt myself here and now. One may ask about it questions like, why, and what for, but it won’t change reality. You are what you are, and you advance on a one way street, from the beginning to the end. The distance you have traveled is the past, and there is no point complaining about it. All you have to do is find out how to make the future better.

As for the conduct of cause and effect, here too, as Baal HaSulam says, there is nothing you can do. Of course, wheat will grow from a grain of wheat, and rice will grow from a grain of rice. These changes are additions to the source, they dress upon it. Besides the initial data that exist in the Reshimo, in the “particle of information” which contains everything, there is also the rest of the development, the second factor, which is also predetermined. And this means that one should look for free will in the third or fourth factors.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “The Freedom of Will”

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Everything we now reveal in our world is a corrupted form of connection between us. In reality there are no cars or houses, no still, vegetative, or animate nature, there are no people—none of this exists.

There are only five phases inside the soul and its connections with other souls, and these connections are corrupted. These corrupted connections give us the form of this corrupted world. And because the world cannot exist in this form (since ultimately, it is corrected), it is called an artificial world, which for now exists in our uncorrected qualities.

As soon as we begin to correct it, we immediately see a corrected world and a corrected state instead of the corrupt state or the corrupt world, until it becomes the world of Infinity where there are no limits for the distribution of Light and everything is corrected.

In the end, we either exist within the single structure of the collective soul, or we are there as if broken into a multitude of interconnected pieces. When this structure is unified, we refer to it as whole—this is Infinity. And when it is as if it were divided inside into a multitude of pieces and is not perceived as a unified whole, we refer to it as the “world,” a certain concealment of Infinity. And then we see the same Infinity as if in lesser resolution, in a much worse form. These are the worlds, the worlds of concealment. But we always only see the connection between us.

And in our world we build different, seemingly artificial things: houses, cars, and so on, and all these things are also forms of connection between us. In order to make up for the separation, distance, and the breaking between us, we have to build different artificial connections. Instead of correcting ourselves, we are busy with this entire external cover. And this is why our world keeps getting more corrupt on one hand, and full of unnecessary things on the other.

If we were to correct ourselves, we would not need any of this technology. But we must exist in this world in the way it is organized in order to reveal the end, the breaking, the crisis, and the lack of purpose in it and then move on to the inner correction. This is the revolution that is happening in our generation—the change of a paradigm.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, The Zohar

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The help from outside from the friends, group, teacher, and books are the necessary conditions, which you need to view as external forces, belonging to your soul. Everything outside a person is his soul.

If you connect to these forces, ask their help so they pull you out of yourself, out of your ego, you see that in your entire soul, existing around you, there are no closer to you and more important parts than your friends. Only these external forces can pull a person out of his prison cell, from the shackles of his ego.

Now it is clear why the group and love of friends are so important. After all, they are the closest to you, special parts of your soul, given to you by the Creator so that with their help you break out from yourself.

The closer I become to them, the more I draw them towards myself and seek them: I do not do to others what is hateful to me and I love the friends like myself. This way I acquire the vessel of my soul (the property of bestowal), which belongs to me.

According to the perception of reality, everything that a person sees he sees within himself. His eyesight and feelings are divided into internal and external, but this is just his impression. And then, at the end of correction all is connected into one. But for the time being, this division is present in all the elements, and its correct use is a springboard into the spiritual world.

That is why Baal HaSulam writes in “Preface to The Book of Zohar” how thankful we should be to the Creator that He divided our reality into internal and external in such a way that we see the world around us, although it is all inside. It seems external to us, and although it is an illusion, it helps us psychologically treat it as strange, external forces and use it to exit our ego and reach bestowal.

I was given the illusion that all my reality is divided into myself and what is outside me, which is not mine. In this form, I can imagine the ego, in which I exist, and the intention to bestow, in which I do not exist yet, in the example of this imaginary reality divided into an internal and external part. And then I can work with it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: However, when we examine the acts of an individual, we shall find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice.

We are the desire to receive created by the Creator. This desire responds only to pleasure or its lack, which is pain. Thus, we can experience either positive or negative feelings.

In the first case, a person feels good and comfortable, so he wants to remain in this state. What fills us exactly, and where do we feel the pleasure? After all, we are not just talking about a glass that we fill with water.

Pleasure comforts, and this is especially evident in children: If we make a baby feel good, he’ll become tranquil. This is the response of the desire to receive, and at that  moment it doesn’t need to change. In fact, it can’t change because the pleasure completely fills the desire.

When we feel pain, it is exactly opposite. A person can climb the walls and not find a place to rest.

There are deep-rooted reasons for these responses. Peace and pleasure are like a copy of the Light, the Creator, embodied by the mother. They bring appeasement—and the baby becomes tranquil.

So, we respond to two things only: pleasure or pain. However, in addition to the desire to receive, internal processes take place through four phases of development. Combined, these phases create a kind of internal volume, where input and output are compared: what enters me, how do I respond, and what ultimately comes out.

As a result, a person’s mind develops. The Light enters and evokes either positive or negative feelings, as well as positive or negative realization. Here everything depends on the “input and output module” from this “box” of the four phases, which checks whether the input signal corresponds with the goal.

Thus, besides the pleasure and pain in its pure form, we have the opportunity to study and accumulate experience. Consequently, we build a scale of “true or false” and understand that a good feeling can be false, while a bad one can be true. It enables us to hold on to the truth and if necessary, to change the input signal from minus to plus or from plus to minus.

This is the role of the four phases, through which the response of our desire moves toward awareness and understanding. It overcomes distance, divided into four parts according to the structure of HaVaYaH, and this provides us the opportunity to  compare the input and output.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, “The Freedom”

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Our development is a result of an unwinding chain of Reshimot (the informational genes). Each Reshimo is a whole world. After all, it is what gives me my perception of the world. Everything I feel now is caused by the Reshimo that awoke in me.

Every second several dozen or more Reshimot are replaced in me, like the frames of film on the reel. Any of its scenes shows me a picture of the world through the five senses, and there is a particular speed for each sense: The frequency at which the scenes change is much higher for vision than for hearing, and the frequency for hearing greatly exceeds the frequency for smell, taste, and touch.

Thus each passing Reshimo includes a great number of personal Reshimot that illustrate the details of my perception. In the end, it is precisely the Reshimo that we feel at every given instant.

Question: Reshimot could be positive and negative. What does it depend on?

Answer: It depends on you, on whether you are ready for the Reshimo that is revealed in you now. After all, it is revealed in your desires. Is the picture that it depicts pleasant to you or to the contrary? Are you prepared? Do you accept that the Creator is “good and does good to the good and the bad”? Have you risen above yourself? Do you accept any turn as a revelation from Above that comes to benefit you?

If so, you’re okay, you’re corrected. In other words, you have risen above the ego with faith above reason and acquired the force of bestowal that exceeds the force of reception. In this case, you rejoice in everything that is revealed to you, realizing that everything is for the best.

The Reshimot switch in you by a chain to the very end of correction, and this chain does not depend on how much you have prepared yourself. It draws out in its own due course. The Reshimot originated from the breaking of  the vessels, when desires to give and desires to receive got intermixed according to their size and thickness, traits and quality and consequently created a multifaceted conglomerate.

However, as a whole, we should accept each “picture” as the next step on the path, a step that is optimal, best, and the only one possible.

Thus a question arises: How do we prepare ourselves to this approach? For this we need a restriction, a screen and the reflected Light. Then a new Reshimo falls into fertile soil, like a baby born in my desire that is already prepared in such a way that everything benefits the newborn. Ideally, precisely like a baby, a Reshimo should be revealed in a vessel that is ready for it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, “The Freedom”

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In articles like “The Essence of Religion and its Purpose,” Baal HaSulam refers to more sublime things than a certain religion. “Religion” in this case is one’s attitude to life, the perception and the feeling of reality. How is reality depicted to me: externally or internally? Can I see the difference between the two?

Can I be certain about what I feel? Can I rely on my mind and emotions? Do I perceive the situation correctly, or am I trapped in blurred feelings? Could it be that everything isn’t really as I see and feel it? How can I check the credibility of my image of reality? How can I understand the phenomena I perceive in this picture? How can I use them correctly? Where do I find these criteria? How can I look at myself from the side, objectively? All these questions and many more are part of the concept called “religion.”

In our ordinary life, religion is our attitude towards a certain concept that we have created for ourselves by ourselves. Almost every person in the world wants to believe in something that he doesn’t know or feel, something that he cannot test logically.

It’s convenient from the egoistic point of view to make up theories that will help one sweeten his life a bit. The answers cannot be tested, no one knows whether they are true, and each one has a theory of his own. At the same time, a person feels good with it, he suffers less and feels that what will be will be. After all, we cannot ascend above our realty and actually check and analyze it.

We need another science, another concept that comes from Above, from outside our nature. I don’t know what it means to be really objective because no matter how you look at it, I am always in my own desire, in my mind and my emotions. How objective can you be? If we take all the options into account, all the desires and the thoughts, all the sciences in the world, we will still not reach objectivity.

So in our present situation we will never be able to determine the right approach, the right outlook of life. This is why we cannot answer questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives. We shouldn’t be ashamed of these questions, but we cannot answer them because we are in a very limited position.

We don’t know how the universe was created and what preceded it. We don’t know how it develops and what drives the natural evolution of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature on earth. We don’t know anything about the process we are going through and how it will end. So, no matter how much we discuss it and the assumptions we make, it’s all worthless. No one can prove that it’s the truth. People can say that, but no one actually has any facts.

This means that we don’t need another system, but a true revelation of the upper force that operates reality. Until we discover it, we should not rely on anything.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Many Baal HaSulam articles are dedicated to one topic: man’s attitude towards the world, how we reveal the true reality. This also raises the question of who we are. We are a certain type of energy that assumes a form in our sensations that we are accustomed to, and this form is comprised of hard, live, and warm bodies that assume a place and this is known as space. This is how we perceive ourselves.

Is this the proper sensation? And is there an objective criterion? Maybe everything is relative, and everyone sees his own picture, depending on his senses? Rabash gives the following example: Whatever we see as a table is something else in an angel’s eyes. Everyone discovers the world according to his or her instruments of perception.

In general, thanks to Baal HaSulam’s articles, we are approaching a certain objective perception. With this purpose we rise over our desire to receive and acquire the desire to bestow. In other words, we form the desire to bestow out of the desire to receive in us, and then we reveal the reality that created us.

A special force created me in the form of the desire to enjoy. When in return I turn it into the desire to please another, then it’s as if I assumed the form of the One who created me. It’s in this way that a person assumes the form of “Man,” meaning similar to the Creator.

I reveal a greater desire to enjoy in me and can turn myself into my opposite, until I work out everything that exists in me. In this way I will fully reveal my Maker according to the principle of “we will now You by Your actions.” This is because I am His action. And when I turn myself into my opposite, I reveal Him. Moreover, as it is written, I reveal everything within me, as it is said, “come and see” (Bo and Reh). This is the Creator (Boreh).

This is our course, this is how we come to His revelation and the revelation of reality in general. In other words, in reality the entire enormous multitude of its parts is the creature, or I myself. And I must turn myself into the intention for the sake of bestowal.

Some of my parts I perceive as my own body, and other parts I perceive as the others. However, they also are my desires. I perceive that other desires are further from me, and in the end, they form my image of the world. All of this I must turn into bestowal. The final fruit of this work will become my Creator. He created me, and I create, formulate Him, reconstructing the seal by the imprint.

At first it seems to us that a multitude of unconnected forces operate in the world. Then we discover that this is not really the way it is—there nevertheless is a connection. Rain and wind, heat and cold, myself and my family, friends and enemies… There are many forces, and I am indifferent to some of them, while others have a greater or a lesser meaning to me.

Then I divide them into generally good and bad, and then all the good ones I relate to one good force, and all the bad ones, to one bad force. In this way mythology and a host of gods appeared, which with time have been cut down to three, two, or one….

And today the entire world is uniting into one whole before our eyes. An integrated nature, undivided into fragments, similar to sciences, is being revealed to me. Human society, ecology, everything is becoming one. We are changing our perception of reality.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/2011, “The Peace”

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Question: If spirituality does not become revealed to my “I,” how can I demand something at the convention? How can I demand for the Creator to change me if in principle, “I” do not exist?

Answer: You work on your own until you unite with your friends: You participate in group life, unity, and dissemination. On the other hand, the spiritual vessel we’ll create will be a common vessel. I can only experience certainty and spiritual sensations when in adhesion with others. I can only discover the fulfillment of the vessel of bestowal together with my neighbor, only united.

It is in this way that I make individual actions to raise myself towards unity. And at the convention I don’t see anyone separately: Instead of seeing faces of my friends I want to see a single desire. Together we create something unified over us, a “spiritual vessel,” where we wish to reveal the upper force.

Question: If I experience something similar at the end of the convention, how can I be sure that I have really attained the goal?

Answer: It will manifest as a fact: Either you know that it’s so or you don’t. This is because we attain the spiritual world in actual sensations.

Spiritual attainment is a billion times higher and stronger than your current perception. Right now it’s limited by a central black point of all the worlds, in which we don’t have any spiritual traits. We don’t know the cause or its consequences; we don’t know where our sensations come from and how our desires change. Why does every moment of my life differ from the previous moments? This is unknown to me. Sensations change, thoughts jump, desires alternate, factors of influence are discovered, and I have no knowledge about this process and the outcomes of my states. I exist in a black point.

Only after I enter the spiritual level, rise above my point, and expand the circle of my perception, only then I begin to perceive the cause of all the things that happen to me. I understand how I am to act, I see and attain, I know that I exist in a state shared by everybody. So how do I strengthen it? How do I strengthen the connection between us? After all, its strength determines the strength of my perception of life, the strength of my certainty, understanding, and attainment.

It is in this way that I begin to ascend higher and higher. When I enter the notion of “we,” when I submerge myself in our common desire and sensation, our common thought, I stop perceiving the material life to the point that the death of my flesh does not seem to me as my own death. Only the body dies because it remains only in one central point of all the worlds, the blackest and darkest one, while I have already risen at least to the following circle.
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From Preparatory Lesson, The World Arvut Convention 2011

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