Question: Humanity cannot connect the ecological catastrophes to the correction of egoism. How can we explain this connection to people?

Answer: We have to look for ways to do it and try to write articles and formulate explanations precisely during times of disaster in order to convey the essence: All of this is happening because we are not corrected.

The external world is a mold of our inner state. Therefore, in reality we are talking about inner catastrophes that we only perceive as external. All the nations are parts of one soul, but in our sensations they are divided parts that seem foreign.

It’s as if I have been given an injection of  local anesthesia and now I don’t feel how my leg is burning or how my arm is being cut off. Right now it sounds funny, but that is what is happening.

Therefore, I want the sensation of belonging to gradually come back to me. I want to feel the “external” parts as my own. I hope to receive the opportunity to correct my state, my attitude to others.

If the external reality really will become a part of me, then I will feel a horrible sensation. Therefore, together with the discovery of the illness I have to receive the medicine, the opportunity to improve my state. This is what I am asking for: the medicine together with the illness that becomes revealed. Then I will be able to correct the flaws in myself, and as a result, the “external” cataclysms will settle down.

This is what we have to do: Ask for inner correction which will evoke the correction that seems external. Then we will see all the problems in ourselves and will correct them in us. These desires (Kelim) will unite with us, will become inner, and all the natural disasters evoked by our inner lack of correction will cease.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbaalh Lesson 3/13/11

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The picture of the “external world,” as Baal HaSulam writes, is created by the “camera” in the reverse side of our brain, which projects my qualities onto what seems like the external screen, with those qualities being flawed or corrected to various degrees. Inside of me they exist in the form of different forces. By combining or dividing in different ways, they form the vessel of my soul.

However, I am unable to distinguish these forces because they are projected onto the screen of my consciousness in a way that enables me to see them. Therefore, I see various forms of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels. All of these forms are in motion, undergoing changes, and this is what enables be to maintain a connection with my inner forces.

How, then, can I attain the right state? It can be done by the principle of loving your neighbor as yourself. You have to make all of the “external” reality become yours. After all, it really is you, but in your deceptive perception it appears as something external. So come back to yourself, return this external picture inside, turn your view from the projection to the “camera.” How can you do that? By bringing your parts closer to you and feeling them as yours.

For now we perceive the world’s problems as disasters happening to other people. In contrast to this, Rabash was very worried in these cases because he felt that the disaster was happening to him. A person who moves towards equivalence with the Creator inclines the whole world toward the cup of judgment or the cup of justification. Therein lies the solution to the problem.

Thus, due to the spiritual breaking my perception divides into internality and externality, myself and the world. By correcting myself, I bring all of the reality which seems external to me closer to myself in order to feel it inside of me. Then I shift to a spiritual perception of the world: There is nothing on the outside. Everything is inside of me and takes place inside of me. There is nothing outside of me. I live in my Kli and only a “camera” creates the external picture for me.

Based on this we must decide once and for all that precisely the people who have received an awakening from above, a drive to become corrected, are the ones able to change the world by changing its perception in their sensations. Everything depends on how much they try to bring the whole world closer to them in order to feel it as an inseparable part of them. This is the realization of the principle of loving the neighbor as yourself. We have to bring all the levels that appear external to us, including the still, vegetative, animate and human levels, closer to ourselves and see them as an inseparable part of us.

Therefore, our attitude to all of reality must be at least the same as to ourselves, although Baal HaSulam explains that I must elevate the desires of others above my own desires. Being an egoist, I think about myself instead of my neighbors. But when I am an altruist, I have to think about others inside of myself.

That is why the world’s correction depends precisely on the people who have received from above a call to correct themselves, to the truth. No one else felt this awakening and therefore they have nothing to demand.

That means we must feel responsible for all the disasters of humanity. And it is in our power to correct them—and not just after the fact, but even before all the bad occurrences take place. We have to make sure that this won’t happen on the still level as well as all the other levels, until the human degree.

For now the catastrophes are manifesting in the form of natural disasters on the still and vegetative levels (such as tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and fires), as well as in human society in the form of the economic crisis and so on. However, other forms are also not exempt, similar to the Egyptian plagues which were very unpleasant, much more dangerous, and horrible to the sensations than those occurring now.

It is incumbent on us to perform corrections and prevent the world’s problems. Baal HaSulam writes about this for us in the end of the "Introduction to the Book of Zohar." All of the world’s suffering is caused by the fact that Israel does not correct itself in time, with “Israel” (which means straight to the Creator) being every person, regardless of origin, who has the opportunity to correct himself because he has been awakened from above. And it doesn’t matter what level he is on.

This way, every one of us and all of us together are responsible for what is happening.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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Question from Japan: What are the reasons for the disaster that is happening to us? According to the forecasts there are more quakes ahead for us. Can all of us prevent these events here and in the whole world?

Answer: In order to answer this question we must first understand where we are. We are in a “round” world. This is what the science of Kabbalah explains to us in its section on “perception of reality.”

Let’s not wait for painful proofs of this fact to become expressed in our world. By way of painful experience we are discovering that we are all interconnected, that the world is global and integral in which there is a butterfly effect, and so on. Let’s not have to learn the lessons from disasters that will constantly occur in order to convince us of this. Let’s instead learn from the science of Kabbalah.

By the time our life experience starts working, it may be too late. How many more tsunamis, earthquakes, and other disasters have to happen for us to get smarter? Let’s instead turn to science and wisdom. It is written, “The one who learns is wise.” So what does the wise person learn?

We know from the science of Kabbalah that all of reality is felt inside of us because it is inside of us. My perception divides into five levels. Three of the levels are my inner sensations: root, soul, and body. They “clothe” into me from inside. Besides this, there are external details of perception which I perceive on the outside, outside of me: clothing and castle. This is the entire world outside of me. Clothing is everything inside the area that my body or senses can reach, while castle are the far away, unattainable things, or in other words, the things not subject to my control.

That is how reality is divided. Its inner part is called Galgalta ve Eynaim while the external part is called AHP. This division was caused by the spiritual destruction, which is the reason why we only slightly feel the Galgalta ve Eynaim inside of us and have no sensation at all that AHP is also part of us. That is how we will divide our reality until the very end of correction when Galgalta ve Eynaim will unite with AHP into the whole ten Sefirot.

From here we must draw the following conclusion: We feel everything inside of our Kelim. These may be a tsunami, the earth, or the universe with all its stars and galaxies. Everything is inside of me, in my egoistic desire. That is how my desire is built so in it I perceive reality divided in two: “me” and “outside of me.” “Me” is Galgalta ve Eynaim, the root, soul, and body, while “outside of me” is AHP, clothing and castle, the two external categories of perception.

Various changes take place in my inner and outer Kelim. Looking at natural disasters, it is very difficult to understand why these painful events are taking place in the external Kelim rather than the inner Kelim. Why do these changes influence a specific part of my soul today, called “the Japanese people”? Why did the catastrophe befall them of all people?

My soul also includes others parts which I perceive as my friends. In reality, they do not exist by themselves, but as parts of me in my eyes. It will be so until I complete my perception and then everything will unite into one whole, into a single desire, welded and entirely aimed at bestowal. This is the corrected form.

Without viewing reality from these positions, we will never be able to correctly perceive what is happening, including wars, catastrophes, corruption, or anything else. We will never be able to justify the Creator or understand how everything is moving in the direction of correction.

However, we won’t be able to manage without having the right perspective of things, without having a picture of the “round” world that is inside a person and depends on his correction. There is nothing outside of me. Everything is me. This is my earth, my earthquake, my Japan, my Libya, my Israel, my planet, and my universe. And all of it reflects my qualities, which are not corrected yet.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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Our entire work is in revealing an inner ability to perceive the true reality where we exist. Reality is permanent and eternal, and the only thing we lack are the senses to recognize, feel, imagine, and reveal it.

But to do this, one needs to possess the proper desires, the spiritual vessels (Kelim), he himself has prepared within. And the preparation happens in two stages: The appeal for the correction of desire, the prayer (MAN), comes first, followed by the reception of Light from Above (MAD), the upper force that comes and corrects us.

We need to sense within both the prayer (MAN) and the response to it (MAD) in all their actions because they specifically build the organs of perception within us that will enable us to reveal the Upper Light, the Creator. This is why it is written: “It is impossible to attain anything without the force of a prayer.” This is because we need to consciously go through this process, with our own desire preceding it.

But the question is where do we get the proper desire for the revelation of the Upper Light, the Creator, an opposite quality that we are absolutely not prepared for? How do we ask for and want something like this?

We already seem to want spiritual development and to search for a way to advance, but in most cases, we discover ourselves to be in absolute darkness and fog, as if we have waken early in the morning and were unable to understand what is happening to us: Where do we come from, what is our purpose, and what we are to think and want? I open the book or listen to the lesson, and nothing responds within. How am I to prepare and direct myself in the right way, at what expense? After all, a prayer must be suffered, it must be my true desire, coming from the very depth of my heart.

And here we need to understand that our entire work consists of preparing the conditions for a fast emergence of Reshimot (informational genes). To do this, one needs to try to create proper conditions for him: organize the study, participate in dissemination, have a connection with the group, receive the influence from the environment. This is because only a strong influence of the environment will help accelerate the emergence of Reshimot from concealment, from the breaking.

When we join an environment like this, we attract the general Light through it, and it begins to influence us, like the ground influences the grain in it. And when this grain feels the ground’s influence on it, it begins to awaken to life.

Our grain is already planted in the ground and all the necessary Reshimot, their entire chain, are implanted in us. Our objective is only to awaken this ground around us so it will start influencing us. The only thing expected of us is to properly and intensely operate, taking advantage of all the opportunities.

It turns out that my prayer is not directed straight at the Creator; it is as if there is no one to pray to since I don’t know who He is. A prayer begins with properly placing oneself under the influence of the given conditions. And once I am in this environment, I, together with everyone else and my aspiration for spiritual development (my Reshimo), turn to the force that influences the “grain” from the “ground,” meaning my Reshimo through the environment.

This is the force that I want to awaken, and my proper prayer is directed towards it. And remember that the Upper Light, the environment, and the Creator are in an immutable state and at rest. A person activates all these means and uses his desire to launch this entire system so it will start working with him. Otherwise, it will remain in a frozen state of anticipation.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/2011, What is Prayer?

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Question: Where do the measures of time originate from: seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, and months?

Answer: They originate from astronomy, from the movement of the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon with relation to one another. However, the upper roots lie in Zeir Anpin which is divided into six parts. Twelve Partzufim times two correspond to the 24 hour day. The Book of Zohar writes about this.

Humanity has instinctively established a time scale that corresponds to the spiritual root. Baal HaSulam gives a similar example about a peasant in ancient times who saw a mountain and called it the Mount of Olives. This name has a spiritual meaning, but he simply thought that it would be a good place for growing olive trees. This is the way the spiritual root works in a person.

The same applies to the measures of time. Their origins stem from the revolving of Zeir Anpin and Malchut, from 24 Partzufim, from six Sefirot, where each of them is ten, which corresponds to 60 seconds in one minute and 60 minutes in one hour. The upper system is reflected in our world in the form of the interaction between the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth.

This is also the origin of the division of time into months and years as well as the measures that do not have equivalents in astronomy, like a week, the seventh year, the fiftieth year, and so on. Everything comes from the spiritual world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/11 on Time

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Question: When the authors of The Book of Zohar Rabbi Shimon and his disciples studied together in the cave and later on when there were small Kabbalistic groups, they were very well aware that one depends on the other in thoughts, desires, and intentions. They were the only ones in the world. But today we study along with hundreds of people whom we see on the computer screens and thousands of others whom we don’t know at all….

Answer: I perceive the entire world as parts of my soul. Obviously, I don’t see the world this way, but I should visualize it so and treat it accordingly. And despite the fact that the world is full of rivals, foes, and what have you, all of it is my internal properties. If they were reformed, I would see a perfect world before me, the world of Infinity.

Hence, I have to treat everything around me as sent to me to correct my perception of reality and finally experience myself in the perfect desire filled with the infinite Light. To do so, I am provided with the environment, a relatively small group. And although it may contain a few million folks from around the world, I still must strive to feel all of them since they are my desires, the parts of my soul, which wake up to spiritually.

I can collect them, unite them within into a single force, and with their help, reform the other parts of my soul. After all, the whole world is my single soul. This is the way I should view reality.

Therefore,  Rabbi Shimon’s disciples, students of the Ari, and we perceive reality in a relatively similar way. The world is still the same, as are the attitude and the method. There are differences in terms of technology, a more developed connection between us, and in the global approach to the primary sources and the awakening of the world. But personal work and the attitude remain the same.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Our world started with a tiny spark of Light that broke into the void and embarked on its evolution. Thereby, the Light made, begot, created, produced (the four stages of the Direct Light, corresponding to the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature) everything there is in our Universe.

And the further development suggests that man, meaning all of us, must reach the root from where this initial spark once came. Now we are passing through the last stage of evolution so we may rise to this spark all together, and break through the tiny opening in our system into the place where our root is.

This return is possible only by way of our unification: We must come so tightly together that we may become as small as this spark. Therefore, people who attained the spiritual world strove to tell about the necessity of reaching oneness, the unification of sparks that reside in everyone into one spark.

This development has continued since the time of Adam HaRishon, up to Abraham in ancient Babylon, followed by the exodus from Egypt and further on; until two thousand years ago, we hadn’t come to an undesirable state. In truth, Kabbalists who lived throughout those times, starting with Abraham, lost their spiritual root and fell from brotherly love to unfounded hatred. This fall occurred in the time of Rabbi Akiva.

The region of the Dead Sea, Qumran and the nearing areas, is the place where people used to flee, unwilling to succumb to the descent that occurred in Jerusalem when even the post of the High Priest could be bought and everything had taken a low, despicable form. This remote place remained the last sanctuary for those who desired to keep unity and love between them in order not to lose spiritual connection with one another. So they fled there since they felt that they could stay together, far away from all those relations that were coming in force in Jerusalem.

That is why, almost two thousand years later, we have gathered here in order to continue this process. After all, there is no time in spirituality! We came from a sacred state where we were all bonded and felt the spiritual world, spiritual life, and another dimension, but then lost our awareness as if we were hit on the head and stopped sensing the spiritual world in which we lived. Today, we wish to return to that reality.

To achieve this, all we need to do is arrange the same kind of society that existed years ago since the spiritual laws haven’t changed. As we did then, so do we now need to become as one man with one heart and achieve brotherly love and oneness in accord with the laws that the Light and desire obey in the spiritual world. And then we will find ourselves in it!

Our corporeal bodies have to accompany us until we attain the spiritual world fully. But for the time being, we have to reside in these bodies; after all, we haven’t received the right to live in spirituality permanently and must remain the permanent residents of this material world. As to the spiritual one, we will ascend to and descend from there until we have established ourselves in it for good.

At that point, we won’t have to live in these corporeal bodies, and they will dissolve from our perception. This world regarded as “illusory” will dissipate as well, and we will start living in the new reality eternally.
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From Lesson 2 Metzoke Dragot Congress 2/25/2011

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The Creator is playing a game with us by hiding and revealing Himself, and hiding again—all in order to awaken us. At first, it is just material sensations when we feel either good or bad, until all these changes help us grow up.

In the meantime, our desire to receive pleasure grows not only quantitatively but also qualitatively, and undergoes four levels of development: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. In the end, it becomes aware of itself and understands the reasons why it feels good or bad, where these changes come from and why.

At this point we learn to discern not only good and bad states but also truth and lie, the reason and purpose of the occurring changes, Who sends them, and how to connect this all together, meaning to actualize it in a perfect form. So we advance in our development.

Kabbalah helps us understand the causes and reasons of the states we are being made to experience, and then we start arranging a different picture for ourselves. It isn’t the Creator who changes, hides, and shows up to play with us, but rather these transformations occur in us, in our desire to enjoy, against the eternal invariability of the upper Light, the Creator, who remains at absolute rest and informs: “I did not change my HaVaYaH.”

All modifications occur in the created being, in the one who receives. It is the created being that undergoes various internal states, good and bad, and that’s why it thinks that the Beloved abandons it and keeps revealing or concealing Himself.

At that point, we start seeing everything in a more authentic light and begin to understand that we stand against the constant, eternal, and perfect upper force. All the changes occur solely in us, and they are what we should be asking mercy for so we may use them correctly. First of all, we must learn not to depend on these changes and then to use them to bestow, as the upper force does.

Thus, we arrive at the state described as: “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me” when the Creator’s concealment is viewed as a blessing, as coming close to and merging with Him. It all depends only on us, on our perception of reality.

We no longer rely on luck, but rather start seeing cause and effect, the logic behind changes. First, we learn that all these transformations occur in us, and everything depends on our getting corrected. Later on, we realize that these corrections are needed not just to feel good, but to come to the truth.

And it all concludes with the state when the created being stands against the eternal and perfect, immutable Creator and evokes a greater sensibility in itself, in order to approach the Creator’s eternal and complete form of bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, Writings of Rabash

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“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Explanation of the Division of the Fourteen Commandments into Ten Utterances”:  Fourth utterance: “And God said, ‘Let the waters be gathered.’” The third commandment is to know that there is a great God who rules over the whole world, and to unify him daily with a proper unification, the unification of “Hear O Israel,” called “the upper unification.” This is extension of VAK of the three previous utterances into ZA, VAK de Gadlut, Vav de HaVaYaH.

Everything exists in an unchanging state, and all the changes occur only in man’s perception. By correcting his properties, a person attains degree after degree, and “utterances,” “commandments,” or “days of the beginning of creation” change for him. All of it was divided and now changes in his eyes since a person himself, his inner desire, gets reformed.

Desire within us undergoes transformations. They occur gradually, layer after layer, passing through all levels of their Aviut (thickness, coarseness): Shoresh (root), Aleph (1), Bet (2), Gimel (3), and Dalet (4) at each degree.

As we correct our desire, we begin to reveal the Lights, the sources: where this influence comes from, what correction it performs in my soul, what Light becomes revealed, where it originates from, with Whom I connect, Who the Upper One whom I reveal is.

This is a gradual correction of the soul performed by a person. Parallel to it, The Zohar describes what desires (Kelim) enter correction, what Lights become revealed out of a full set of ten utterances, 14 commandments, or seven days of the beginning of creation, meaning seven degrees of Zeir Anpin (ZA), until Nukva and ZA reach a state of the two great lights, the full correction (Gmar Tikkun). Ultimately, we are talking about the stages of our advancement.

The Torah describes the entire process of our correction. In the beginning of the chapter “Beresheet” (Genesis), all these utterances are presented as a summary of everything that subsequently occurs in the entire Torah. And then, from this chapter, as from the initial point of the letter “Yod,” all other parts toward a full HaVaYaH evolve, until the entire narrative of the Torah ends with the word “Israel.”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/3/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Only two elements exist in reality: the Creator and the creature. Ultimately, the creature feels the abundance the Creator gives to it. And if the creature changes, it happens because the Creator changes it whether for the best or the worst, in all different forms, depending on subjective sensations.

We give different names to the Creator’s influence upon the creature: “judgment” and “mercy,” “good” and “evil,” according to what is being revealed to us. One way or another, all these definitions do not go beyond good and evil because they are conditioned by our desire to receive pleasure.

There are simply many forms of good and evil since the desire for pleasure consists of different levels. The Light has imprinted different forms in it with its influence. This is why we divide the Creator’s influence into three types:

• the Light that reveals the vessels;
• the Light that corrects the vessels;
• the Light that fulfills the vessels.

This is the order: revelation, correction, fulfillment. This process consists of many stages inherent to every desire and groups of desires that are included in one another. They are all distinguished according to their level of Aviut (coarseness) in depth and power, and their mixing evokes thousands and thousands of responses in us.

For example, a part of my desire is in the stage of revelation, another part is going through correction, and the third part already might be fulfilled. Correlations of desires are so diverse and change so much that we experience a countless amount of reactions and sensations. They form the image of the world where we exist.

In the end, we only perceive the manifestation of the force of desire, broken into many pieces in our perception. Naturally, we are unable to control desires, their groups and combinations, and especially the stages that we experience. This is why in our advancement we only need to strive toward the greatest closeness to the Creator, the property of love and bestowal, toward unity.

We evoke the Light, its strength, and its manifestation through this aspiration. As it approaches us, we go through the stages of revelation, correction, and fulfillment in our desires.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/1/2011, Writings of Rabash

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