The path to revelation consists of implementing all conditions, again and again, on each degree, until a person comes to the limitless, endless revelation, a perfect adhesion. He reaches adhesion on each degree. Each degree is similar to the next one, the difference is only in the quality and quantity of the details that get accumulated there and make us perceive a degree as a new world every time.

“Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one” derives from the fact that initially, we are in the world of Infinity, fully merged with the force of the Creator, the force of Light. There, there is no difference between the vessel and the Light, and thus there is no Israel, meaning someone who aspires to the Creator. The created being becomes Israel only under condition that it is separated from the Creator but nevertheless aspires to adhere to Him and to reach adhesion, still remaining independent.

Two opposite conditions are needed: From one side, separation from the Creator, and from the other, adhesion. That is, one needs to remain independent—this is the entire meaning of creation.

Israel, the Torah, and the Creator have to connect for us all the time in their final form—as much as we are able to imagine this for now. The creature is equal to the Creator to the extent that it can envision the Creator’s image, His properties that have already been dressed onto the creature. We imagine ourselves as being at the end of the path already, meaning having completed our current degree, because we are unable to think of something beyond our current degree.

But we aspire at least for this, meaning we wish to become Israel and to reach full adhesion with the force of bestowal and love for the wicked and for the righteous, for the enemies and friends alike—till the end of correction. Although in reality, this is only our current degree. After all, everything that we can only imagine to ourselves, the entire creation from end to end, exists within this framework, this very tiniest Sefira, which is being revealed for us now, for the meantime. And still, we must imagine to ourselves that we want to reveal everything, correct everything, and to adhere to the Creator in everything. We want to do it so that the entire world becomes my soul, and all the properties are corrected to bestowal and love.

We picture ourselves corrected in this way, to aspire for this, we study and perform all the necessary actions for this in order to attain this final state: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” But along the path towards attaining this goal, it’s necessary for us to fulfill the Creator’s commands, meaning to study all types of bestowal, which is what we do in the group. Most important is love for the friends in which all these notions are being clarified.

Having received such instruments out of love of friends, the vessels of Galgalta ve Eynaim, with their help you will be able to correct the receiving vessels, AHP, of that very degree, meaning those who are outside the framework of the group, to the degree when we start relating to everyone in exactly the same way. We relate to the group as to the place of our inner work and the source of strength. Yet, the real place of work is the AHP, meaning the entire world.

GE are created so as to take care of AHP. The breaking occurred namely for this reason, and the sparks of bestowal from GE penetrated into AHP. This way, the rudiments of correction were created in AHP. After all, without it, AHP has no hope for correction.

For this reason we need to always prepare ourselves in our GE, in the group, the studies, our connection, a friendly hug, and seminars, and afterward come out to work with the desires of AHP. The true realization is carried out in AHP, while preparation is in GE.

Although it seems to us as if we correct ourselves while working between ourselves in the group, essentially it is only the work of preparation.

Our work is called the “work of the Creator.” We do not act ourselves, the Light does. Meanwhile, each time, we need to reveal the area in which the Light will be able to work, as it is said: “Open the tip of the needle….” Our request, rising upwards as a prayer, MAN, opens the sluice to the Light, into which it enters and operates. The Creator carries out His work, and we need to only open the entrance for Him. This is called revealing the world: Each time we come to a new world.
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From Preparation for the Lesson 9/11/2013

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The soul is the desire that was created by the Light, the Creator, which eventually must reach similarity to the Creator.

The Light (represented by the plus sign on image 1) creates an equal desire (the minus sign). However, once it enters the desire, they nullify one another. The desire does not perceive Light as pleasure because they are opposite.

However, as the desire acquires the quality of the Light, it gradually begins to transform into its opposite. It intends to make a restriction (Tzimtzum) and only work with the Reflected Light, in other words, to receive and enjoy only when it feels that it bestows to the one who gives it pleasure. In this way, it attains equality with the Creator.

In other words, Light comes to me with the desire to give me pleasure, but I accept it only under the condition that I feel equivalent to the Creator, as in the example with the Host and the guest.

The Host wishes to please the guest, give him everything there is (arrow marked “a,”representing the pleasure traveling and entering the desire). However, the guest only agrees to accept it under the condition that they are equal (arrow marked “b,” intention or Kavana).

If the intention of my action is to return what I receive from the Host, then as a guest, I can accept the pleasure. In other words, I only do actions that bring me closer to the Host, the Creator, that make me equivalent to Him.

In our world, we live in the action of receiving for our own sake. We wish to receive as much as possible. Nothing else interests us.

This is why we reach a state where we exhaust our possibilities; in other words, the correlation between the plus (what we receive from the Host) and the minus (which exists in us) disappears and we stop perceiving pleasure. In this way, nature, the Creator, pushes us to begin working on a second level in a state of similarity to the Creator. [Read more →]

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Question: During one of the morning lessons you said that a person who attends the lessons, participates in the group duties, and works in dissemination does not necessarily exist in the system. On the other hand, you have said that for the time when we grow we have to attend the lessons, work in dissemination, participate in the group duties, and take responsibility for them. How can we align these statements?

Answer: On its own the system of nature is corrected. We are talking only about my conscious participation and my desire to follow its laws. This is the essence of our entire work: to get to know the laws of nature and follow them. Therefore, if a person is physically among us it does not mean that he participates in the system yet. Perhaps he performs all the actions, but a “commandment without the intention is like a body without the soul.” The main thing is the desire to perform it, meaning the intention. However, is it sufficient only to have an intention for a person who has an opportunity to physically carry out an action? If he does not perform an action that he is capable to do, no. This only points out that he does not have the intention.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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There are two types of prayer. The first prayer (MAN) is in order to be incorporated in the AHP of the upper, which is the group that is connected in one whole. GE of the lower are incorporated in the upper when I enter the group, as if in a womb, and it operates on me and provides me all the care that I need, making me feel that there is nothing that I lack.

There are systems that take care of me inside this womb. I don’t need to think about anything except for how to be absorbed inside this womb. The 3 days of conception are the main thing.

By my desire to be incorporated in the upper, I evoke it and force it to attain greatness. I turn to the whole group and thus understand that there is no way I can succeed by myself. So I evoke the group and call it: Let’s receive the Light, the force, the corrections from the Creator, that will be revealed in us. But He will be revealed in order to establish the connection between us and to develop this connection. It’s as if we operate our incubator, and I ask for it together with all the others.

The first MAN is my private prayer by which I am incorporated in the group. The second MAN (prayer) is the general MAN, when we turn to the Creator as a group and the Creator already begins to reveal Himself. The response for the second MAN is immediate—MAD.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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In the wisdom of Kabbalah, the concept of “love” is common and very important. Since the days of Abraham, who wrote The Book of Creation, love accompanied the teaching that was given as the Torah to Moses. Secretly, it accompanied the following eras of the prophets and the scriptures, was reflected in The Book of Zohar, and came the entire way. Later, the concept migrated to Hassidism from Kabbalah even before it began to be revealed to the world as science.

However, it is still unclear to us because it is completely related to bestowal or rather, to mutual inclusion, to unity. In this way, the receiving desire annuls itself, obtains the ability to feel the desire of the other, and then it can work in a new way: fulfilling the desires of the other.

To make the friend’s desire my own, I need to be cleansed, that is, to transfer part of my desire to the state of Hafetz Hesed (HH) and subject everything else to self-annulment, the first restriction (Tzimzum Aleph – TA). In this case, I really include the friend’s desire into myself and can correct him. To do this, I raise our collective desire and request such a force that will allow me to satisfy his needs.

In this situation, I am called the “first-born who takes twice.” After all, I have a double request (x2). I request the force of fulfillment, sufficient to fulfill him as well.

It is possible to imagine this scheme differently in the form of three steps. Being in the middle, I go down (1), adopt the friend’s desires (2), raise his and my desires (1 + 2) upward (3), and get a response (4), the force produces a Zivug, and I give the friend what is necessary (5).

This is the “revolution” that we are realizing today: We address a wide audience, assimilate people’s desires, raise them in the center of the group, and from there to the upper upper one, and then we get a response which we use for bestowal.

So, these actions of mutual inclusion in each other are called “love.”

How does it differ from the state of Hafetz Hesed? In this state, I do not “interfere” with the other;  let him remain the way he is. I don’t make the slightest movement toward him. Like a gentlemen, I just follow the principle, “Do not do to others what is hated by you.”

On the other hand, love means that I want to give him fulfillment. By being included into him, I want to benefit him. With all my heart, I want to bestow to him so he will feel good.

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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MAN is a prayer, an act, that comes from desire not from the mind. It is born by the desire of Bina and Malchut acting together. We need to raise this prayer, that is, decide that this is the most important for us. This is called “raising.”

After all, the entire scale of measurement is inside me. Plenty of various demands—desires, which I somehow sort by priorities, considering some more important and some less important—live within me. However, above all, there should the force of unity within which I want to reveal the Creator to bring Him joy.

If I arrange all my actions, desires, and impulses so that this unity has become the most important, this means that I raise MAN. That is, I put the need for unity, correction, and revelation of the Creator (for His pleasure) as the most important, above all. This is called an “ascent.”

I do not send this requirement by mail or via SMS to a distant star. All the worlds are inside a person. There, everything starts, is realized, and ends in his consciousness. That is why I need to organize myself so as to arrange all my desires along one line, according to the clear scale of priorities, strictly material: food, sex, family, wealth, honor, and knowledge, and those that are slightly disconnected from this world. At the very top of this ladder of priorities, there must be my desire to bring pleasure to the Creator through our connection by giving Him the opportunity to be revealed in us now.

MAN is “Mei Nukvin” (female waters). Water is Bina and the woman, Nukva is Malchut. Thus, I join Bina and Malchut in a prayer; in other words, I glue the desires together, parts of Malchut, with the water, mercy (Hesed), the property of Bina. I want it to exist in this form together. I raise this request and want to become connected with others through the property of mercy, Bina, the property of bestowal.

That is why my request is called female waters, MAN. I raise it. That is, I consider it above all in importance, and, if I try to keep this desire in my heart by all means to awaken it in its very depth, then it is called a prayer, raising MAN.

To the extent of my efforts to accomplish this, the Light that Reforms affects me and awakens various states in me: thoughts and feelings in favor of connection and against it, in favor of bestowal and against it. In this way, they try to shake me and navigate me through various states so that I understand, feel more, gain experience. Thus, I gradually become aware what the true prayer, MAN, is.

On this path, I must go through frustration, impatience, fear of not succeeding, and failure to understand what kind of success I am waiting for: for myself or to please the Creator. Here it helps to imagine, the entire universe—all of still, vegetative, and animal nature, and people—as my own desires that broke away from me due to the shattering and have fallen from my consciousness.

Now, they appear in front of me and I must attach them to myself through my own efforts although it seems to me as if they are outside. I must try to relate to them as if they exist within me. Then, my efforts also will be called the prayer, MAN.

Thus, working on my correct perception of reality and connecting all its parts together by means of the property of mercy, I increasingly return the common vessel to its original form, in other words, to the corrected state as a whole.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/13, The Zohar

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An extract from the book The Light of the Sun: …and what is more, when Israel are untied and engage in the Torah, they overcome all those who rise against them by that.

We conquer and neutralize all the forces of evil by keeping the unity between us. They are no longer necessary because all the forces belong to one force: There is none else besides Him, the good that does good. But it is felt as good only if a person yearns for the good according to his level and his ability.

If he doesn’t yearn for that, the same force operates in an opposite manner. Its action is still good and benevolent to the sinners and to the righteous, of course, but a person who is inclined oppositely from the good and the benevolent feels this force as evil. This evil is revealed in different manners according to the attributes and desires that he has to correct by the same Light that Reforms. So it is in this Light that he feels darkness, like a bat that is blinded by the sunlight, in contrast to a rooster that gladly receives the dawn.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13

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As soon as you are led to the group from above, immediately it starts increasing the value of the goal in order to enhance what is given to you as your first spark. In fact, only by way of this value do you outweigh lies and purchase the truth. And if you don’t receive this value from the group, you will either return to the lies or you will sit idle unable to leave eating yourself up.

But advancing on the path of the truth is possible only when receiving an inspiration from the importance of the goal and the environment. To the degree of this importance, you will be willing to suffer, your ego suffers and the truth grows. After all, it is very painful.

Besides, the group helps me understand that to achieve something is possible only through prayer. A prayer is a plea to transform the desire from receiving to bestowal, from separation and hate to unity and love. I remember how when I was taking a walk with Rabash in the grove near Beit Shemen and I was telling him about all my problems, complaining and screaming for about ten minutes and he quietly listened till he suddenly said: “But why didn’t you ask (Him)?”

We do not have enough of the request: “Why didn’t you ask?” Frankly, our nature doesn’t allow us to come to it, to just ask. Neither our mind nor our heart comprehends that we just need to arrange a plea for correction. And people suffer months and years unable to ask, to raise MAN.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why is it so hard for us to ask for correction if we know that everything depends on it? It would seem that it’s so natural for a person to ask.

Answer: Yes, it is natural to ask, but here we need to find out exactly: What do we need to ask for, how do we ask, and who is the one that will give us the answer? A prayer is not just a cry, and if it’s put into words, they should be born in the heart not read from a book.

If a person feels bad, he doesn’t choose beautiful words. Our problem is that a prayer doesn’t come from the depth of our hearts.

Only the environment can lead us to such a prayer; if it wants it, you will ask. Why does it seem to us that we all want it and are trying to influence each other but something doesn’t work? The main thing we are lacking is the depth of desire, the truth which is in it. We lack clarification of what is important to me, and that it is secondary to stop being confused between the two desires: material and spiritual.

We have to learn to cast two entirely separate views at the material and the spiritual without mixing them together! Here is this world, egoistic, I’m forced to live in it in the meantime. And there is the world of bestowal and I wish I could begin to live in it. That determines my prayer.

We are still unable to distinguish one from the other, although we can see a lot of progress in it since the last congress.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Even while under the domination of the egoistic forces, the shells (Klipot), we can awaken the upper. Only those in whom the point in the heart has awakened have the potential of connecting with the Creator, but with an intention that is still for oneself. A person turns to the Creator with intentions that are still for himself and therefore is considered to be at the mercy of the impure forces.

The greater the strength one has to turn to the Creator yet while doing it for himself, the greater the egoism (Klipa). Therefore, as it is written, “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than his.” The great wicked, the enormous forces of egoism, that the Torah speaks about—Balaam, Balak, Pharaoh (the general shell), Haman, Ahaseurus, and the seven nations that occupy the Land of Israel before the arrival of the Jews—all these attributes are awakened in a person according to his level. The greater the shell a person is in, the greater Holiness he is awarded in contrast to it.

The ascent begins when the point in the heart awakens in a person while it is in the captivity of the egoistic force, Klipot, and in the intention to receive for oneself. Despite the egoistic intention of in order to receive in which the point in the heart is, not by choice, it raises a prayer (MAN). Although the prayer is egoistic, in order to receive, it is still a prayer of the lower, of the shell that awakens the upper level to act. Then, the upper begins to work on this prayer and raises it from one level to another until Ein Sof (infinity). However, we learn only about three levels: the lower, the upper, and the uppermost. All the other levels operate in the same way.

This trio constantly operates: the lower, the upper, and the uppermost. The lower is in egoism, and the upper, which feels the sorrow of the lower and knows how to properly translate it, processes the lower’s corrupt prayer to a corrected prayer and raises it to the upper upper that is in holiness, disconnected from the corrupt lower. So, in the upper upper, there is already all the Light and power necessary to take care of the lower.

The upper raises itself to the upper upper with a double prayer: the prayer of the lower and its response to it. So, the upper upper gives it double the greatness that it needs in order to take care of the lower. When it reaches greatness, it can already take care of the corrupt lower. Thus, it turns out that the “first born” that is called the upper Partzuf receives double from the uppermost, its part and the part for the corrupt lower. This is how the chain operates.

This is the only action in our correction and it takes us out of the Klipot. So, the first condition is the prayer. All our spiritual work, all the reality that we feel, is arranged and ready to help raise a prayer to the upper. There is nothing but our request. This is because we cannot perform any actions except for the chance to ask. This is actually what we forget.

We eventually will understand that there is none else besides Him and that the Creator is good and benevolent, that there is one force that operates in reality, about which it is written: “I am the first, and I am the last.” All this is meant to help us discover our request at any given moment.

The request of the lower must be arranged correctly in order to bestow. If we ask for ourselves, we are in the Klipot under the domination of impure, egoistic forces. If we continue to ask for ourselves, we find ourselves more deeply in this egoism.

All of our requests, all the deficiencies—even from the most disgraceful states—still rise upward. The only question is in which form. If the requests are not in equivalence of form with the upper, they still are accepted and still influence the system and its development. But in this case, the forces compel us to torture ourselves and see the world growing more strongly evil and dark. We advance but by the path of suffering, in its time.

If our requests are according to the desire of the upper, they awaken all the levels of correction to rise up to Ein Sof and bring us down the new Light that will clarify, correct, and fill our vessels in order to bestow. Then, we will advance by the path of “I shall hasten it.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/13

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