Question: During the preparation for the Moscow convention, many of us focused on the thought that the convention had already started, and we truly felt that we were already there. Should we constantly concentrate on the state of the convention?

Answer: If don’t see ourselves living at the next, higher, spiritual degree, we will never ascend to it. We should do what little children do which, for us, is an example of how to study the spiritual level while being on the physical one. If we don’t yearn to grow up, we won’t. Therefore, visualizing unity as an ongoing, permanent convention is undoubtedly useful.

Concerning the group, we should do the same. In my imagination, the group resides in the corrected state. The only wicked, uncorrected egoist is me. Thus, I am supposed to strive to be with them, visualize that I am already part of them, and clarify what I need in order to be included.

Our entire world is imaginary. However we see it, that’s what it is. Nothing is real. All of this is merely a figment of my imagination.

Put everything in its place. Give everyone, be it a group, person, or quality, a certain value, a specific degree, and you will see that thereby you are tuning the world like a musical instrument to make it fit you.

Everything depends on how you will tune it. What will be higher and lower for you will determine the direction in which you will move: either to evil or good, to stealing and drug abuse or to love and bestowal. It is all up to you as to what kind of world you will create for yourself. The world as it is doesn’t have any form. It all depends on how you attune yourself to it.
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From the Lesson in Moscow 6/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: It is said: “Do good.” But how can we do good if only evil is created, and we still know nothing about good?

Answer: Evil is purposely created in our sensations so that we turn it into good. In reality, there is no evil. Our perception is turned inwards, and because of that everything good that we receive appears to us as evil. Everything that is perceived inside us is felt as evil because we compare ourselves with what exists outside of us. That is, evil is the division between me and others.

Evil does not exist on its own. Namely this paradigm, this method of egoistic fulfillment, this inward direction is evil. As soon as we change it, it immediately disappears and so does our sense of all evil in the world.
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From the Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah 6/19/2011

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Question: Life in our world appears as one endless heartache, with small breaks to give a person time to get back up on his feet after a blow, just to receive the next one. This is human history and the life of a separate person. What kind of progress is that and where are the gifts that the Creator gives to creation?

Answer: Imagine that I am in a faraway galaxy where I gaze at infinite reaches of space and look for something in that infinity. I accelerate to the speed of light and slowly move through billions of light years, coming closer to our galaxy, our solar system, and our earth. I land on the earth’s surface, and here I discover people.

It’s difficult to imagine the scale upon which I could compare such different proportions. Analogously, we do not understand what kind of system we are in. We know how to make measurements and to do research on our own scale, according to our proportions. We compare weight to how much we can lift, distance to how far we can see, good and evil—with what is good or bad for us. Our entire spectrum is a tiny fragment of the enormous total scale and our distinctions are miniscule.

However, now we are talking about the spiritual system in which our entire universe is imperceptibly small. We are talking about mechanisms that are enormous due to their qualitative characteristics. Compared to them, our entire world is in one quality—a small egoistic desire that is enlivened by a small spark of Light. The matter of this desire is created as “something from nothing” by the Light that broke through to here, outlining an exact projection of the spiritual creation.

And now, from this state, you are speculating about the suffering of all of humanity. True, that is how we feel. Every person negates things according to this own imperfection and judges according to what his eyes see. But what can you do? That is how we have to advance, and right now we are unable to perceive anything more. There is a gigantic canvas unraveled before you, but you cannot make it out.

We are only able to slightly catch on to the simple fact that there is a lack of desires, a lack of vessels. The questions abound, “Can the unchanging Creator change? Can He create a stone that He can’t lift? Why did He initially make us imperfect?” But all of these riddles are useless.

We have to understand one principle from our lives: We have to go through opposite states. Only from these opposites, by recognizing the advantage of the Light from the darkness, do we form the vessels for a higher, more elevated sensation. When I acquire the vessels that are ready for it, the world will open up to me. Nothing is hiding from me behind a stone wall. I must simply build the vessels inside of me in order to see reality.

This development is necessary and the Creator cannot make it happen ahead of time. Why? For now, I do not know why. I can make certain conjectures, but that won’t give me anything. I will brush everything aside, saying, “I don’t believe it! He could do it!” And there are no other facts in front of you.

Yet there is a rule: The advantage of the Light is attained from the darkness. Any thing is evaluated only from its opposite. That is why we must go through these states step by step, forming the vessels for revealing the reality we are in.

We are in the world of Infinity, but you do not feel that. So develop your vessels. You have been given the opportunity to develop them, or stated otherwise, to correct them. You were deliberately given broken desires that are opposite to the corrected ones. What for? So you would grow and collect them, understanding and revealing the world.

There is no other way to go. And later you will justify the creation. The lengthy process, lasting several thousand years throughout which we suffer, is the truth on our scale. However, in reality we do not realize what kind of proportions we are in. Besides this tiny “room,” there is an entire world our there that you have never seen. You are like a worm living in a radish—this is the example Baal HaSulam gives.

Question: But why is this worm told about the Giver and His love?

Answer: In order to aspire to this, in order to let him understand that there is a goal for which it’s worthwhile to climb out of the radish. Moreover, not only do you receive the understanding of this, but also the means to do it. We are all like worms in a radish, but if each one of us starts to push the others toward the outside, we really will come out.

Therefore, there is a solution. As long as you were satisfied by life in this world, no one offered it to you. But now you are being placed in a new, global system and given the solution.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: What happens “behind the scenes” of my actions when during the reading of The Book of Zohar I make repeated efforts to return to the intention, but they seem futile to me?

Answer: Your efforts determine your qualities of perception, your sensitivity, and then you make the revelation. Everything is in front of you, but your lack of sensitivity does not allow you to reveal the system of connection between the souls that The Zohar tells you about. Your efforts and prayer build the instruments of perception inside of you in order to feel that picture.

Question: I repeatedly keep trying to build my intention anew, but it seems like I make the same efforts and feel the same thing I did a week ago, as if nothing changed….

Answer: Suppose I am among musicians. Looking at them, I see how they listen to every sound and discern the combination of different sounds, and I see how important this is to them. As I look at them, I learn about how to treat sounds. Then, as a result of my efforts, I become more sensitive and begin feeling them.

Then I ask the musicians questions and they explain things to me, but I don’t understand their explanations. “A fourth,” “a fifth,” “glissando, “forte”—these words don’t say anything to me, just like the unintelligible terminology in The Book of Zohar.

But I want to learn them! That is why I try to become a bit more sensitive to them and to feel them. Then, because we are in a special system, according to my efforts, desire, and aspiration, I begin to feel. That is how a child develops as well: He wants to become big and is always running around, never tiring and researching everything around.

We wonder: How can children watch the same cartoon or listen to the same story a thousand times over? However, it’s a thousand times to us because we don’t develop any longer. But a child lives in that story. When he listens to the tale about Little Red Riding Hood today, to him this is a completely new story, not like yesterday. You look at him and think, “Fine, I’ll tell him the story. Let him sit quietly, calm down, and enjoy it….” But he hears this story anew every time! And even though he also knows it by heart, when he repeats it together with you, he relives it all over again. It’s similar to how you have to eat today even though you ate yesterday. That’s what happens to him too!

Therefore, our entire work is to develop the sensitivity to acquire new qualities of perception.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/11, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Truma [Donation],” Item 217: The soul of every living thing” is a soul that exits the One who lives forever, Yesod de ZA. And because he is His, for all the blessings come forth from Him and are in Him, and He waters and blesses below, toward Malchut, this soul that comes forth from Him has permission to bless this place, Malchut.

Malchut is the desire that every time takes on new forms in its intention to bestow, and then it feels that it becomes filled by Yesod. This means that Malchut becomes similar to Yesod according to the law of equivalence of form. In reality, it becomes like the first nine Sefirot because Yesod comprises all of the nine Sefirot.

When Malchut resembles the first nine Sefirot, it signifies that the creature becomes similar to the Creator to some degree. To the extent of similarity between them, to the extent to their similar properties, Malchut obtains the same form as the first nine Sefirot and exists in adhesion and oneness with them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/11, The Book of Zohar

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Question: Why didn’t the Creator create the will to enjoy that would be able to bestow right away? Why didn’t He create only bestowal without reception? Why should we reveal this property of bestowal ourselves, exercising our free will? Why do we need this “dual” attitude toward the creature where the matter itself, the will to enjoy, is egoistic and evil, and the form that it should acquire is good?

Answer: If I treat these two opposite forms properly, it is thanks to them that I set a correct attitude toward the Host. The correct attitude cannot appear if I do not contrast one against the other, meaning the desire to bestow that I can develop within myself against the desire to receive that is embedded in me in the negative form opposite to bestowal.

Thus, I give thanks for the negative quality as for the positive one, for the bad state as for the good one. After all, the negative form is necessary and correct, and together they combine into one form and lead to one goal.

We see in the corporeal world that atoms are built with a combination of two opposite charges, the minus and the plus, and with neutral particles. Thus, connections occur between different, opposite elements.

Then, atoms combine in various structures, molecules, and crystals. Chemical elements become connected according to their valence, that is, the number of electrons (the negative particles) existing on the orbit that are free to make a connection.

All life is based on unification and separation, on connection to all kinds of forms. All these are manifestations of the desire to enjoy. If a molecule has two electrons that are free to make a connection with others, that indicates its ability to connect. We always talk about desire which we measure either by the number of free electrons or relative to forces or some other qualities, such as the forces of attraction and repulsion.

As a result, it is always about desire. Yellow and green lights, different sounds, water, and the sky are various kinds of desires. We are inside this desire. Nothing but desire was created.

However, inside this desire, I have a sensation of self and the outside world: the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels, or in terms of the spiritual qualities: “root, soul, body, clothes, palace,” which are also desires. I have to unite and manage all of them so that I can bestow with their help.

The entire picture of reality, the billions of people, the universe, and the spiritual worlds revealed in the connection between us are forms of desire. I cannot do anything besides revealing more and more of what is inside this system, this sphere. It is revealed to me depending on how much I am able to bestow with the help of all these forms of desire.

We live in our sensations, and that is why we do not understand what desire itself is. Rather, we understand: “I feel, I want.” Desire does not exist separately, but only as I sense it. The perceived desire is already “I.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/11, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Kabbalah talks about desire. There is no time, motion, or space, but only a state of being. Then how about the past and the future? And how about the spiritual worlds? I don’t feel them.

So are there other states in existence besides the current one, besides our world? I don’t know because I have not experienced them. I don’t have sensations or Reshimot from there. I cannot reach them now and confirm their authenticity.

A person judges everything by what he sees. This is not just an axiom, but the result of what the desire feels when it has developed to the level of being where it is aware of itself and understands what it feels. Otherwise we become detached from reality and go off into fantasies.

I don’t talk about the higher dimension myself. I am told about it by Kabbalists, whom I trust. I consider their words true when they tell me that it is possible to exist in different states. “Aspire to them, ascend to them,” the Kabbalists tell me. “They are better than what you now feel.” Then I move from one state to the next in my desire by correcting and improving it. By revealing it as giving, I reveal new states in it.

In our times all of humanity is crossing this vertical axis in order to move from below upwards. We have completed the horizontal axis of history and there is nowhere to keep moving on it. From here on, our path is upwards.

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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 11: Now you can understand the real difference between spirituality and corporeality: Anything that contains a complete desire to receive, in all its aspects, which is Behina Dalet, is considered “corporeal.” This is what exists in all the elements of reality before us in this world. Conversely, anything above this great measure of desire to receive is considered “spirituality.” These are the worlds ABYA—Above this world—and the whole reality within them.

There, where the desire to enjoy, the intention to receive for oneself, reigns, where personal gain exists, where I look at reality, myself, the world, and the others through the egoistic paradigm, through the intention of “what can I get from this?” that is inherent in me, there, I see the corporeal world. I was born and grew up like this, and I cannot look at anything differently.

I recognize only what appears good to me and useful or dangerous and harmful. In short, I see only what my desire to enjoy can get pleasure from or what it should move away from to avoid suffering. I do not notice to whom I can give, and I see only from whom I can receive. This picture presented before me is called “this world.”

If I change my paradigm, my perception of reality, and wish to look from the point of view of to whom and how much I can give, then I already see the future world, above our world. Then, of course, I see other forms, different relationships, which I imagine in spirituality. This is called the spiritual world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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