Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 14: Thus, we have thoroughly clarified that the worlds, the generation, the changes, and the number of degrees, and so on were said only with respect to the Kelim (vessels) that give to the souls, conceal, and measure for them so they can gradually receive from the Light of Ein Sof in them. But they do not affect the Light of Ein Sof itself in any way since no coverings affect the one who is covered, but only the other, who wishes to feel it and receive from it, as said in the allegory.

Baal HaSulam explains also in “Preface to The Book of Zohar” that the entire perception of reality occurs only relatively to the receiver, person, observer. Everything is relative; it all depends on a person’s properties, and according to them, he or she perceives everything as if existing outside of him or her.

Is there reality outside of man? We don’t know that. It’s known from the wisdom of Kabbalah that the simple Surrounding Light exists outside of us. We don’t have any possibility of sensing it from the outside. We are sensible creatures, meaning that we sense what is perceived inside of us. If I sense that something exists outside, I perceive it in all my senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). However, I perceive it inside my sense organ, and if deprived of it, I don’t perceive what exists outside of me.

Our aggregate sense organ is called the “will to enjoy.” It’s divided into five parts, according to the levels of Aviut (thickness) of desire. These levels (Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet or 0,1,2,3,4 accordingly) can be called spiritual or earthly sense organs: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

That is, our desire consists of five parts or five forms of perception: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch as in our world. I perceive something that within me acquires the form of desire, vessel.

This is like “manna” that nourished the people of Israel in the desert. I take this “manna” and taste “barbecue”; the other tastes fish, the third salad, the fourth chicken or cereal. Each receives according to his desires. However, all this is called “manna.”

What is “manna”? It’s something from the sky that has no properties. Who perceives these properties? The receiver does. As soon as I absorb this “manna,” desiring to taste steak, I taste steak. I want tea and taste tea. I want saltier food, and the food becomes saltier instantly. I want it spicier, and it becomes spicier. It’s good, isn’t it? “Make your desire like His,” and then “He will make your desire like His.”

The upper Light existing outside us doesn’t have any form; it has only the desire to bestow. If you want to derive pleasure from it the correct way, He will give you this sensation at once, without problems. Therefore, everything depends on the creature. The form of reality depends on our desires, vessels of perception. That is why we have nobody to pray to, nobody to ask, nobody to turn to, but only to ourselves, to the extent of our corruptness and the ability to become a little bit more corrected.

We’ll feel better to the extent we correct ourselves. In essence, this is the entire process we experience.
[43576]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: How do I connect everything written in The Book of Zohar with myself and the environment? How can I relate to this text through the environment?

Answer: Everything I read in The Zohar has to be revealed in the connection between us. There is nothing in the entire reality except the state called “one soul.” This soul is filled with the property of bestowal, the upper Light, the Light of love.

We exist in a confused, foggy, unclear condition, behind all the concealments (worlds) and must reveal a single, perfect state. All the other states appear only in our unconscious state, where we are unaware of spirituality. It’s as though I was stunned by a blow on the head, lost consciousness, and now gradually come back to my senses by my own effort.

Kabbalists teach me what efforts can help me return to spiritual awareness. The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the only state there is. The Zohar tells us about the states on our spiritual path, which are corrected more than those we exist in. It tells me about the degree where perfection will be revealed. The authors of The Zohar went through all 125 degrees, from our world to the world of Infinity, and from the height of these degrees they wrote this composition, in which they revealed the unity between us.

We are reading, and the Light shines upon us to the extent of our aspiration for this exalted state. This is how we become corrected, by approaching the Light. Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, one needs only to yearn for this higher state and value it.

Thus, if together we aspire to reveal the spiritual state The Zohar is telling us about, although we don’t understand it because we have no connection with spirituality, but since we desire to reveal it, we awaken the Surrounding Lights which correct and move us closer to revelation.
[43205′]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/2011, The Zohar

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Question: Does The Zohar talk about our one common soul or about separate souls?

Answer: The Zohar talks about the soul of one person. That’s because there is nothing else in all of reality besides one man, one soul, one creation, Malchut – it doesn’t matter what you call it.

And if it seems to us that there are many people, many desires that are separate and foreign, all of that comes from the lack of the right perception of reality.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/11, The Zohar

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Question: Does a prayer for the society always mean that I pray to complement them to perfection?

Answer: Yes, but you have to complement them only in your eyes. Society does not lack anything. Except for you, everything else is corrected. Everyone judges according to their own flaws. A person sees the world through the prism of his defects. If you were corrected now, you would see that the entire world is corrected.

Hence, a prayer for the society is a prayer for your society which exists within you. This is the place of your Shechina, the “place” where you reveal the Creator. This is what your society is. After all, you never see anything outside; rather, within your desire, you see your broken vessel, desire.

“I pray for the society!” Except for you, nobody needs your prayer or all the beautiful words falling from your mouth: “I work for the sake of the society!” All of it only seems like work.

You don’t even know how much you are closed inside yourself. You have to correct only your inner desire. This is called “society,” “world.” It is all within you, as it is said: “A person is a small world.”
[42671]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/2011, The Zohar

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Question: How is it possible to attain the true reality if a “researcher” and all his measuring tools keep on changing?

Answer: What difference does it make whether I investigate the world which is changing all the time, while I am not, or the world which is constant, while I am always changing? If neither changes, I will be unable to tell anything about the world since I won’t have the means for measuring it. After all, measurement is only possible between two changing parameters, on the basis of their relationship to each other.

I determine a relationship between them, and it becomes a unit of measurement for me. I use this unit to measure all the rest. There are two parameters unequal to each other, two points in space. I measure their relationship, which determines the difference between them, and accept it as a unit of measurement: for example, a degree of temperature or ten centimeters. Then I use this unit of measurement to measure all other occurrences.

I begin by saying that I found some sort of distinction. Now using it as a basis, I am going to measure all other distinctions between properties, forces, places in space, and desires. It doesn’t matter between what and what, but I always measure the difference, the changes. If there are no changes, nothing can be measured; I simply lose all sensations.

If no changes were happening now, the world would appear still to me. It would die, and I would lose all understanding, awareness, and sensation, as if nothing existed.

Our life is not an experience of some state, but a sensation of change from one state to another. And if the changes between states are called life, it turns out that I can have two forms of life: One is when life changes outside of me, and the other is when life changes inside of me.

If I assume that life goes on and changes outside of me, this is called life in this world. Life that changes inside of me is called spiritual life, the life of the future world. Life always means change; everything depends on where I notice it.
[42693]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: When I work in the group and search for the connection with the common net, I use my senses. Would making the senses more sensitive facilitate the formation of a sixth, spiritual sense?

Answer: We perceive the world with our animal senses in order for us to be free of spirituality, both in its positive and negative manifestations. Indeed, the evil inclination is just as spiritual as the good inclination. All of this is the Creator’s forces. The situation is intentionally arranged in a way that allows us to be free from spirituality and develop independently.

This is the preparation phase, intended for us to prepare an independent point. Afterwards, when we ascend above the Machsom into the spiritual space, this independence will manifest in us taking on the Creator’s quality, His form. This is why man is called “similar” to the Creator.

As for our present perception in the animal senses, it is merely the preparation to ensure that we become independent from the Creator. Upon revealing in practice that everything comes from Him, we can oppose it and sway ourselves on our own volition, and not because nature forces us.

It is written: “No matter how high one rises above others, the evil inclination rises above him.” We are always given an additional desire to resist, balk, and stubbornly hold our position before the Creator. Otherwise, we would simply “melt away,” having lost our very essence in spirituality.
[42895]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2011, “Peace in the World”

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The wisdom of Kabbalah is the physics of the integral world. What this integral world is all about, we don’t know. We attain only a tiny piece of it which we are able to perceive through the sensory organs of our physical world, similarly to all other animals.

On the other hand, unlike them, we have a more capable mind, greater desire, and hence we fit into the world a little bit better than regular beasts, while trying to take the most advantage of it. Yet, our sensory perception as based on our five sensory organs: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch is much worse than theirs. They are quite better at sensing nature than we are.

Only our mind and ego are more advanced, and that is why we are greater than beasts and are more cruel and perverted. We can take advantage of this world that they are also aware of. However, in any case, we are able to perceive but a small part of reality.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us our entire existence, the attainment of authentic reality. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the major difference between our limited perception of this tiny piece of reality and the ability to see a broader reality, as if to soar out of this narrow cage of our closed little world to the enormous and beautiful outer world, lies in knowing how not to make ourselves dependent on all kinds of changes, forces, and acts, but rather perceive one single force.

As soon as we start pulling this infinite number of forces, actions, chances, and thoughts, all of this surrounding mess, into one unified force more and more, it signifies that we are climbing the ladder of the worlds, until we reach the world of Infinity where there is, indeed, only one force and where all thoughts, desires, perceptions, predicaments, and actions, absolutely everything that was so confusing to me before, become unified. That’s when we attain that “there is none else besides Him,” this singular force, the Creator.
[42437]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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We are separated from the Creator only by a tiny black point within the infinite Light, which is regarded as “existence from absence” (Yesh Mi Ain). This is, in fact, the very basis of the entire creation, the new reality “from absence.” The rest of it is “from existence,” from the Creator.

This point is created by the Creator, while all “existence” (Yesh), which is added to this point, must come from us, our own effort. Hence, in the end, we attain similarity to the Creator, adhesion, the level equal to His.

First of all, this point of creation evolves in four stages of the expansion of the Direct Light, whereby these four degrees of bestowal instill into the point “from absence” all the basics. On the part of the Light, no more actions are necessary; it’s enough. The rest emerges as the reaction of this point that received an impression from the Light, absorbed its properties, and is able to act on its own thereby.

Thus, from the world of Infinity, from the state where it merged with the Light, it begins to withdraw into our world through the ten “Sefirot of concealment” (Sefirot Blima) that absorb (Bolim) the Light inward, inside the creature. Due to this, the creature grows from the point opposite to the Creator, reaching the utmost possible distance from Him, which is regarded as “this world.”

This withdrawal (both qualitative and quantitative) encompasses all properties and locations. As a result, the created being has no quality that would match the Creator’s to the smallest degree. We think that this means a downfall, a descent, withdrawal, darkness, but it is quite the opposite. It is the unfolding of our nature, the very black point created by the Creator!

This development is necessary to reveal how much this point from “absence” is opposite to existence, to that which “exists.” It is what we attain from this entire descent, albeit not all at once, but with time, descending deeper and deeper, after we reach “this world” and experience the development of our egoism, meaning realize our being opposite to the Creator. Thereby, we pass through the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, until we reach the lowest one, “human.”

A human becomes aware of being far from and opposite to the Creator and concludes that it is evil. From the awareness of evil, he continues to study himself and the Creator even more, as the “advantage of Light coming from darkness,” and understands that it is necessary to become corrected. Thereby, he reaches true opposition to the Creator.

When he begins his correction, on one hand, he starts ascending back to the world of Infinity by equalizing himself with the Creator. On the other, even while doing so, he attains how opposite he is to the Creator ever more.

Only in the very end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), when he returns to the initial point, Malchut of Infinity, he gains complete understanding, awareness, and experience of what existence (Yesh), the property of the Creator, means.
[42526]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/2011, “All Who Suffer for the Public”

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Question: How does attainment differ in the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, and Beria?

Answer: There is a tremendous difference, which is truly impossible to explain. It is the same as to live in Israel or some other countries, in the Temple or outside of it, or to be a great priest or a regular person.

The tiniest changes, a small ascent in the worlds, evoke tremendous transformations within our souls. The worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya are internal desires of our souls. We are always present in the three worlds of BYA and cannot disappear from them.

They serve as the “wrappers” around our souls. Just like now, I reside in this world and cannot escape anywhere from it since my body belongs to this world. I live, grow, mature, and die, while still remaining in this world. My body’s entire matter is part of the material world, whether I am alive or dead and disintegrate and return to the earth.

Similarly, a soul, regardless of the state it is in, always remains in the worlds of BYA. In the meantime, we reside only there, where we ask for correction and draw the Surrounding Light. It can pass down to us and illuminate downward, beneath the Parsa, from the world of Atzilut, although the Parsa doesn’t let the Light through. But this is the “surrounding” Light, and it illuminates from afar, awakening and calling us as if from a distance: “Come and see what I’ve got!”

Then I wake up and ascend along with the worlds of BYA above the Parsa. But I can’t rise without them since I am tightly connected with them: They are the closest “to my skin,” clothing me like a dress. I live in the world, but I am wearing “clothes”—they are the very worlds of BYA. And in them, I ascend to the world of Atzilut, which is regarded as “the ascension of the worlds.”

But as soon as I ascend to Atzilut and force the worlds of BYA to rise to it with me, I thereby receive a volume, an enormous empty vessel that I fill with the Inner Light of Atzilut. This signifies that my soul has been filled with the Light.

Desire has let the Light, the Creator, in and is experiencing Him now! Hence, the Creator and I are together, merging one with the other in the degree of our equivalence of form. This is all; there is nothing else in all of creation.

And all of a sudden, I discover where all the friends, other people, the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and this entire universe are. Everything is contained within this very desire; nothing vanished, but rather acquired a different form.

All that I used to see as rocks, plants, beasts, and humans turns out to be my desires that previously seemed material objects to me, which I could touch with my hands. But in truth, they are desires from which the universe is made. And beyond it, there is nothing else.

So it goes that a person ascending to the world of Atzilut with the worlds of BYA starts revealing the true image of reality. He as if gets to see what was hidden inside the computer, behind all those images he was shown on the screen. That’s what is called revelation!
[42443]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, “Explanation of the Article, ‘Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah’”

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Question: What is joy in the work?

Answer: I constantly experience certain obstacles, pricks, and thoughts that are sent to me, and I am still happy receiving them! After all, I am constantly studying myself with this help from the Creator, the Light, who evokes these sensations in me. He seems to be pricking me in one point here, another point there, with a thought, a desire, an attitude, and demonstrates to me what is wrong in me.

Question: But how do we bring the “earned income home,” to our source of existence, unless we know where we are supposed to go? A ship on the sea can navigate by stars, a car on the road by the road signs, but in spirituality, there aren’t any signs. So how do we find our way to it?

Answer: In the instant when you prepare the correct desire within yourself, you will suddenly feel that you already are in the right place! You will suddenly reveal that you don’t need to go anywhere. Just find the right desire and you will see that you are already home.
[42355]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, Writings of Rabash

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