We must change in order to attain the Creator since we attain Him in new vessels of perception, in new desires. Obviously, the desires themselves are not new, but they connect within us in a new way.

We have the desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow. In order to reveal the Creator, we must create such a connection between these desires within ourselves that would enable us to recognize Him. The Creator has 125 consecutive forms of revelation, when He reveals Himself to us closer and closer, sharper and sharper. It is 125 degrees, along which we ascend and become able to see and feel Him more and more.

How do we find the Creator? As soon as we create a connection between our desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow, where the will to bestow would rule over the will to receive at the first spiritual degree by giving it a form similar to the Creator, we instantly see the Creator through these desires and their unity.

In other words, I must create within me a common property between the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow so that it becomes identical, equal, and adequate to the Creator at the first, the smallest degree of His revelation. In that case, I will see, understand, and feel Him.

In our world, there are various phenomena as well. To understand them, I have to become more intelligent, acquire additional sense, and study some more. Then, I will start sensing what is going on, in what way, and what these phenomena are.

The same happens in the wisdom of Kabbalah. In order to arouse a merger, a mutual permeation of the desire to receive and the desire to bestow in each of us at the first spiritual degree and further on, at all 125 degrees, I need the Light which would make this change in me. I, myself, am unable to perform it since while I am at the lowest degree; I do not have the slightest idea of what I must become at the next one, like a baby that doesn’t know how it will look when it is one year old.

This is why we are given the studies. We must sit and learn from the authentic sources, and the most powerful source from which to draw the Light is The Book of Zohar. When we study this book together, it is regarded as “faith above reason” if while doing so, everyone thinks about how he will unify with the others. This is because in the connection between us, we create the Creator’s form, the correct pairing between the will to receive and the will to bestow so that the desire to bestow rules over the desire to receive, thereby giving it the right form.

If I wish for it to occur during the studies, it is sufficient. There isn’t a greater commandment, and there is nothing more vital. In that case, I draw the Light so that it would align these desires for me.

It is the Light that performs it. I don’t need to know anything else. So does a small child wish to grow, and that’s why he runs, plays, and does whatever he may. So do I, like a child, do whatever it takes only to get the Light to come, reform me, and bring me back to the source, to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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There is a state when the will to receive and the will to bestow unite, fill each other, and remain in each other to such an extent that it is impossible to tell them apart. This state is called the “world of Infinity,” and it is the original state of existence.

And then there is a descent, a “step by step corruption,” when from the state of unity, they begin to withdraw from the state of oneness, and through an expanding cone, descend downward, distancing themselves from each other.

At a certain stage of their separation a special status was formed, and they discovered an opportunity to reunite. However, when they attempted to do so, it resulted in a breaking. These desires not only stand on opposite sides, with one on the right and the other on the left, but now each of them must also include the other. That is the cause of their breaking: Once desiring to unite again, as in the world of Infinity, they failed and broke. In other words, the failure in unifying resulted in their absorbing each other’s properties.

After this, evolution continued down along the expanding cone, moving them even farther away from each other. But at this point, the force of bestowal, that is, the primary force, the Creator, is completely permeated by the properties of the will to receive, the force of the creation, while the creature is totally imbued with the properties of the Creator, the will to bestow.

The Creator is filled with the force of bestowal, while the receiving force is included in and is subordinate to it. Whereas with creation it is the other way around: The creature is filled with the force of reception, and the force of bestowal is subordinate to it, internal and concealed.

And then they descend into our corporeal world. At this point, the creature, the force of reception, begins to evolve. In the beginning it doesn’t feel anything at all, what and who it is. It is automatically governed by internal forces and evolves by way of their influence. What forces are they? They are the creature’s basic force, the desire to receive pleasure, and hiding within it is the internal force, the desire to enjoy bestowing pleasure.

The will to receive evolves, while the desire to give is practically not felt. It manifests solely to the extent of maintaining the desire for pleasure, by supplying life force to it, and creating all types of communication between the forms of its matter.

When the Big Bang lay ground to processes in the still nature, its entire development derived from the will to bestow instilled in matter. After all, the will to receive, in itself, doesn’t move; it simply wants to enjoy and remains stationary while simply keeping its “mouth” open. What changes and gives it the force of life is namely the will to bestow that is hidden in it.

Thus, these two forces evolve: The giving desire, despite its being concealed, drives the receiving one and pushes it forth. In this way, our entire universe had developed, followed by Earth, based on the interaction of the two opposing forces: cold and heat, attraction and rejection, and so on. In nature, everything we see is comprised of these opposites which are actually included in one another.

All the changes occurring in the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature are caused by inter-inclusion of these two forces: the desire to receive and desire to bestow. They blend together in various combinations, while the giving desire manifests, prevails, and rules over the receiving one more and more. And the will to receive goes along with it because this development brings benefit to it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, Writings of Rabash

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We read The Zohar and understand none of it. And it’s true, there is nothing for us to understand there. After all, it is for the people who already attained spirituality and feel the spiritual world.

They are already in the state where the force of bestowal, not the force of the will to receive, defines their internal life. In their case, the mind works differently; they have a different kind of sight; they see the spiritual world, and hence, understand what the Book is describing.

In fact, the Book is written for those who live in spirituality, and therefore, a person who enters it can understand it. And someone who lives only in the material world cannot since it describes a completely different world that I know nothing about, haven’t heard of or seen. And hence, these words don’t tell me anything.

What do I do? I can only desire to enter that world, not to understand it intellectually. If while reading The Zohar I constantly think about how to make it effect me and that is my sole desire, it is enough! It is regarded as “Segula” (a “miraculous remedy”). When after all these efforts I will suddenly receive the force of the Light and start sensing what is happening in the spiritual world, I will read or listen to the Book and understand what it is describing.

Then, I will engage my mind as well since at that point I will sense the spiritual world. Using my awareness, I will start working on the sensation. But if I don’t experience a certain phenomenon, how can I work on it mindfully? After all, awareness results from a feeling. In the mind, we only connect the phenomena that fall into the field of our vision and sensation.

Therefore, before anything else, we must start sensing the spiritual world and only afterward start studying it. As a matter of fact, until then we have nothing to feel. Do we have any idea what stands behind each word of The Zohar and what each of them points to: an “ox,” a “whole ox,” a “throne,” and so on? What ox and what throne? These are spiritual forces that carry such names. But it means nothing to me.

The entire spiritual world is the world of forces. The whole material world is a picture that these forces draw on my material screen. Therefore, we should think solely about how to experience what we are reading about. I must ask to feel rather than to understand. And that is possible only if we are together, create one desire between us, and strive for the Light to affect this desire and project a picture onto it.

The integral desire is like a computer screen, while the Light is like an electromagnetic force that draws an image on this screen. I want it to happen! And this is regarded as revealing the Creator to the created being.

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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Rabash, Shlavey HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), Article “What Is a True Act of Kindness in the Work”: One should begin his work in “true kindness,” which means without any reward, so that everything he does may serve not one’s personal benefit but to delight the Creator.

We are born with the desire that acts in a certain way: “for one’s own sake,” “in order to receive.”  Each of us feels that before and outside of him there is a world that includes four evolutionary degrees: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. Additionally, we ourselves wish to only enjoy this entire external world in order to feel pleasure.

We could reverse it and say that man will feel good if he uses the world in a certain manner: for self-gratification. In general, all these things are quite relative since we are unable to see anything opposite to them.

But later on, man falls into despair from this tendency to seek pleasure. And then, a new desire, a new approach, awakens in him: “I must treat the entire reality differently. All of it is mine and is similar to me. I can’t enjoy it on my own, but only together with the others.” Obviously, this impulse does not come from man. The desire created by the Creator along with its Reshimot (informational genes) “keep rolling” further and further, unfolding to the person who feels it in this way.

By using the method of correction in the right way, a person starts showing a different attitude to the reality he feels within. In his 613 desires, he discovers that the parts he used to see as external are, in fact, related to him. To the degree that he is able to change his attitude to them and recognize them not as “foreigners” but as “relatives,” “kinsmen,” to the same degree he advances in a different type of perception of reality: a global, all embracing one. It turns out that everything is him.

In that case, when a person begins to link his own perception into the unified desire unbroken into individual parts, he alters the picture of his reality. Nothing is external: neither rocks, nor plants, nor beasts, nor humans. They are all parts of his desires.

A person changes his attitude. In other words, he arranges the unified desire, and thereby reveals the “additional element” as well, a unified force that fulfills this desire, regarded as the Creator. Thus, due to the correction of the desires, a person merits a new attainment and merges with the Source.

This is what is called the “true kindness.” If a person works on his will to receive and corrects himself, his attitude, and perception of reality, he merits a great “addition”: revelation of the Creator and adhesion with Him.

And that is why there is work in kindness, which means correction of the Kelim (vessels), and there is true grace, receiving in order to bestow, when a person reveals reality that includes the One who begot it: the Creator. Thereby, from correction of the created being, we reach its purpose.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If Kabbalah is the basis of all the sciences, then should we first give a child knowledge of this science and only then start teaching him all the other sciences?

Answer: At first a child has to get acquainted with his world. However, from a young age, from about six years or even earlier, it is possible to start explaining the notions of the science of Kabbalah to him.

Children can perceive this wisdom parallel to the sciences of our world just as naturally as they are easily able to remember several languages. In the same way, we can explain these two languages of perception of reality to them: inner and outer. They will easily learn this and it will become part of the foundation of their perception like a habit ingrained from childhood.

The explanation has to be that there are two forces in the world. And everything we see with our material eyes are pictures emerging inside our senses as a result of the interaction between these two forces. Then the child will be able to understand the inner essence of every phenomenon he observes.

Every object, such as a table, chair, a person, a car, or a plane can ultimately be laid out as a combination of these two forces: reception and bestowal, and it is possible to discern why this special combination of these two forces creates precisely this image of the material object inside of us. Then he will understand what he can receive from it and how he can use it in order to attain certain material or spiritual acquisitions. That’s because he will know that object’s place in all of reality, and that is very important.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The science of Kabbalah talks about the spiritual world and the forces operating in nature. These forces influence the matter of our world, creating various images in it, which results in an entire universe with everything filling it: still objects, vegetation, animals, and people. But we see all of this on the screen in the reverse part of our brain, and that is why it seems to us that this is in front of us. That is how we imagine reality.

That is why the science of Kabbalah is separated from this entire false picture, even though this picture is what helps us to attain the depth of creation, its intentions, and the Creator’s character. Yet in essence, the science of Kabbalah teaches us how to go from this external picture to the inner, true state where only two forces remain—the force of the Creator and the force of creation.

Of course, each of them divides into many more parts, particular forces and actions. But in essence it is talking only about forces: the will to receive, the will to enjoy, and what happens between them. This makes up all science.

If a science talks about the interaction of these two fundamental forces, then we have the science of Kabbalah. And if it talks about various results from them on different levels of matter—still, vegetative, animate, and human, then we have the sciences of this world.

Of course, these sciences are true because they give us knowledge about the external behavior through which the action of these two inner forces is expressed. But these sciences are very limited and we can only rely on them within the boundaries of our narrow world.

It turns out that the science of Kabbalah, which explains the two fundamental forces operating in nature, is the basis for all other sciences. And that does not include just the natural sciences that study nature and the external world, such as physics, chemistry, biology, and zoology, but also those belonging to man directly, such as music, dance, and art.

All of this is also part of the “seven fundamental external sciences” because it gives us knowledge about man’s abilities to perceive and sense his world.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Writings of Rabash, Article 29, “Marrying a Virgin”: Every time a person receives a wife, he will receive a virgin who has never had a husband. In other words, he has never used this Malchut and she must always be a new wife. In spiritual work Malchut is called “the kingdom of heaven” which a person must take upon himself every day anew. He has to imagine that he is now starting spiritual work and does not care about anything that came before.

The Creator created creation and exists in adhesion and unity with it. We call this the first state or the world of Infinity. However, creation does not perceive itself in this state. It was simply created this way, but it is not permeated by any details of perception besides one sensation. Therefore, it is like the still degree, a drop of semen which does not have any self-perception.

The Creator’s desire is to bring creation to the realization of who He is so it would become similar and equal to Him. Therefore the true state is concealed from creation and it instead begins to perceive itself in the opposite state. This phase, in turn, divides into several: creation perceives itself as existing at the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels.

You and I feel our existence on the human degree of this world. Yet we don’t feel that we developed from the still level. We do not feel our past life cycles on the human level, but simply experience ourselves as existing here and now.

The matter is that every analysis has to happen by itself. A person in this world discerns adhesion, connection with the Creator, and develops to a level where he begins to express his part in creation, his attitude to the Creator.

The Creator brings him to this, giving him the sensation of emptiness in life, but on the other hand motivating him to connect to Him and become similar to Him. Thereby the Creator awakens a person’s desire in the first spiritual point. If a person properly realizes this desire by means of the method of correction, meaning the science of Kabbalah, if he increases his small desire with the help of the group, raising the importance of becoming similar to the Creator and uniting with Him, if he eventually makes his desire similar to the Creator, then he acquires a new degree. The initial point in him grows to become Malchut.

In Hebrew Malchut means kingdom. It is also called “the kingdom of heaven” because a person makes it similar to Bina, the heavens. That is how the first connection between Malchut and Bina, between creation and the Creator, is made.

Then, in order to give a person the opportunity to develop further, everything he had before becomes erased and he receives the next part of the egoistic desire that has to be corrected and made similar to the Creator. This part has to be brought to adhesion so he would become a person on a higher degree. Then no trace of the previous state is left.

Thus, if a person works correctly, then he continuously receives “a virgin for a wife.” Then he once against corrects his desire for the sake of bestowal, making it similar to the Creator and acquiring greater equivalence and closeness with Him. When he completes this phase, the adhesion once again disappears in him and a person again receives a new, corrupted desire that he once again has to work with by means of the group, raising the importance of the goal, increasing his desire, and uniting it with other souls. That is how a person advances.

He continuously receives a new part of Malchut, a “new wife.” If he works for the sake of bestowal, wishing to become similar to the Creator, then in the new state everything that occurred before becomes erased completely and he does not have anything to rely on from past experience. This is indeed a new degree, “virginity.”
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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We never reveal true reality; everything happens in our desires. The Creator created the desire which essentially is the entire material of creation. We feel whatever is happening within it.

Sensations in the desire divide into internal and external, in other words, perception of oneself and the environment. In turn, these segments of perception also divide into a multitude of layers, degrees, parts, and forms.

However, all of this is inside the desire that was created by the Creator. We are not able to imagine anything that exists outside of this desire even hypothetically. There is no other “place” that exists somewhere outside; the entire “space” is confined within the desire.

And this is why everything we perceive depends upon the changes in the desire. All of Kabbalah speaks about the nature of the created desire, the changes it can acquire, and the things it will feel in accordance with these changes. The formula is simple: You enter certain changes into the initial desire and receive a certain sensation in it as a consequence.

The general spectrum consists of a multitude of shades. Different impulses can be revealed at the same time in one desire; we perceive different events, actions in every private desire. Man’s desire divides into 613 parts where he experiences all the different impressions and reactions. And all of them add up to form his image of the world.

The parts of the receiving desire that pertain to the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels shape the contours of reality for us. We can keep opening the desire wider and wider as we keep revealing new parts in it, and then our common world expands.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The Zohar, “Ki Tissa [When You Take],” Item 31: “As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.” The Creator wished to make Israel similar to what is above, so there would be one lily in the earth [in Israel] that is like the lily above, Malchut. And the fragrant lily, better than all the lilies in the world is only one who has grown among the thorns. This one smells as it should.

Thorns become revealed to a person to the degree he is able to overcome them. If he correctly prepares all of the inclinations, all the forces present and operating between him and the environment, if he can continually awaken and raise the importance of the Creator, unity, and love for the neighbor as himself above everything that surfaces in his thoughts and desires, then he makes the right analysis and “blunts the teeth” of the evil inclination.

Rabash writes, “When you answer egoism, ‘blunt its teeth.’” This means that you shouldn’t argue with it, but should use force and overcome it. I reveal the environment, which lies between myself and others, egoistically, looking for a chance to use my connection with it, to get as much as I can out of them.

Looking at reality from a material perspective, I see everything outside of me, instead of inside myself. I do not think that I am the one responsible for the distance, the hatred, and the repulsion that become revealed. All of this appears external to me and not my own. I don’t think that these are my Kelim, my perception of realty, my vision, or the revelation of the upper reality inside of me.

Therefore, I must give myself “a blow to the teeth” over and over again in order to correct my attitude to the picture that is depicted before my eyes. In this picture I am separated from the neighbor by a distance that does not seem like my own corrupted desires (Kelim) to me. Instead if seems like something foreign, something I have to reject.

But I act on the contrary: I blunt the force of this illusion with my analysis since I understand that everything becoming revealed to me is myself. And I do not correct my soul unless I attribute to myself the whole world, all of reality, all of the people, all of the souls, and all the levels in general—the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking degrees. I have to treat them all as an inseparable part of me.

Then I see that the perception of reality, love for the creatures, and the revelation of the Creator lie in the same thoughts and desires that determine my attitude to the neighbor, to that which is outside. In reality there is nothing beyond desire. And when I feel that this desire comes out of me toward others, I have to “strike it in the teeth” the right way. That is how I turn it into a connecting link between myself and the other part of me. The neighbor will become a part of me and the Creator will become mine. That is how I will include all of reality inside of me, and thereby the breaking will be corrected.

Then, in that same place, in the same desires and thoughts that stood between myself and the neighbor, I will begin to feel the Light’s presence, the quality of bestowal and love.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/11, Writings of Rabash

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The question that just won’t be silenced and has to be answered with a “blow to the jaw” is the question of who’s more important: me or the Creator? Me or the neighbor? The force of bestowal or the force of reception?

If this question stands clearly before me and I understand that whether I will progress or get into a fiasco depends on my getting a clear answer, then the need for the constant support of the environment becomes obvious to me. But on the other hand, what is that environment? And what kind of support does it give me? In essence I receive my own Kelim, desires, to the degree I want to bring them closer to me. After all, all of reality is me.

By working with the environment, I raise it in my eyes and in it I find the importance of the Creator. In essence I have been given the force of the breaking so it would help me work on myself in this way.

My “I,” which includes all of reality, divides into two parts:

1. the part that I experience as myself
2. the part that I experience as the world, other people, and everything that is outside of me.

Why did the creator break me in two? It was in order to make it easier for me to correct the part that is outside. I raise its importance in my eyes by awakening the importance of the friends and motivating them to work on me as if they have freedom of choice or more independence than I attribute to them.

We have to understand that the force of the breaking acts for our own good. The part called “the neighbor,” meaning everything that is outside of me, will be corrected by me if I treat it precisely as the neighbor. I correct these desires which seem foreign to me by placing myself in front of them and wishing to unite with them.

My “self” is just the point in the heart, while “the neighbor” is my entire Kli, the entire vessel of the soul. If I weren’t divided into these two parts, then I would not have the opportunity to correct the “external” desires. I would never be able to analyze, check, and sort them, or to demand the forces to work with them.

However, I am located outside of them and correct my attitude to them. This is the illusion I get—as if I correct my attitude to the neighbor by the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself.” And I do not yet perceive, understand, or feel that in essence, this is my soul. I was given the force of the breaking, which depicts a deceptive picture of “others” in my eyes. But that is exactly how I can start correcting my Kelim, working against the force of repulsion by striking it, blow by blow.

Thus, it is possible to imagine our work this way: A person initially receives all of creation in the capacity of his soul and understands that all the forces of disunity are a fantasy intended to confuse him. In actuality, reality is not cut off from him at all. That is why a person strikes and “blunts the teeth” of this force of the breaking, this illusion. He should see this as the entire work that he has to carry out.

And he keeps going until he knocks out all the teeth, plucks out all the weeds so the rose growing among them, so Malchut would bloom in its real form, full force. This is the Shechina, the common soul.

It is in this light that I have to see the environment, the friends, and the Creator. Everything that seems external to me is an inseparable part of me. The force separating me from the only thought and desire, from the Only One, is the force of disunity that I must break.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/11, Writings of Rabash

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