In every spiritual state on the spiritual levels, there is the Inner Light and the Surrounding Light. But in our state, as long as we do not attain restriction and a Masach (screen), we can be assisted only by the Surrounding Light.

The force of the Surrounding Light depends on how much we value it, on our appreciation of the upper, of the next level, which means the Creator. But we cannot value Him. We were only given a couple of means by which we can develop an inner feeling of the greatness of the upper. The upper for us is the group, the teacher, and the books, meaning the study that tells us about the spiritual world and the Creator hidden behind all these means.

We begin to value the upper who is external to us by using all these means: the group, the teacher, the books, and the intention of attaining equivalence of form with the Creator in order to bring Him contentment. Although we don’t feel it for the time being, even if we just talk about it trying to feel it from time to time, we raise the greatness of the upper in us by that. Then at a certain point He becomes so important that He allows us to feel His presence next to us.

It’s because everything that is external to a person is the Holy Shechina, the Godly presence. But everything depends on how much we value Him. All the other rules of behavior in the group as to how we should speak, what to demand of it, and how to treat it, stem from this condition, from the need to value the upper.

Accordingly, the Surrounding Light shines upon a person. It is the real upper Light, but in the meantime it operates on the lower as the Light that Reforms, which means that it brings about changes in us by gradually bringing us closer to bestowal. Then finally it will give us the “restriction” and the Masach, which means the ability to work spiritually.

Then we will begin to understand where we are and what is happening to us, but at the same time, we have to work in faith above reason and value the upper despite all the problems the upper sends us and all the reasons for an opposite attitude. This is our work that is based on our great appreciation of the upper until we adhere to the posterior of the upper as if it were His face. Then we will see that it was never His posterior, but that He has always turned His face full of light to us. Thus we leave exile and reach redemption.

At first it was as if you were unconscious, but then you begin to feel that you are in exile, so, step by step, you begin to get closer to redemption and finally you leave exile and come into the Light. These are the levels of ascent according to your appreciation of the upper, and later your adhesion to Him.

We have all the means, all the roads are open, and everything depends on us. There is nothing else that we need. The Creator has given us every possible opportunity and everything else is up to the person. We will not be forgiven and there are no concessions from Above if we don’t do our work, since otherwise we will not build our spiritual vessels.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/13

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 13: This is so because in His Eternalness, past, present, and future are as one… On the contrary, that equivalence of form, destined to be revealed at the end of correction, appeared instantly in the Infinite.

About this it says, “First think, then act.” The final form already exists and what is more, there is no other form but it. What we go through is the process of recognition of that final form, from our nature to the Creator’s nature. Thus, gradually, the distance between us turns into the attainment of the Creator above the created being.

By that we gain twice: On the one hand, we remain created beings, and on the other hand, we reach the same status as the Creator. It’s because we cannot be created beings if we don’t have our attributes, but at the same time, we acquire the Creator’s attribute and reach His wholeness.

Question: In what way do the Creator and the created being differ in this wholeness?

Answer: Their adhesion is an equivalence of form. On the whole, adhesion includes two sides that are adhered according to their intentions and are separate according to the “matter” of the created being. The “matter” of the created being has to be different from the Creator so as to enable the created being to feel that he is independent.

Thus, the feeling of adhesion itself indicates the initial difference, because in order to feel it, we have to feel its deficiency. So the created being has to go through a development process and to gather all the Reshimot (spiritual genes) of all the states and then reach adhesion.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/13, ”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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We are in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). But in the world of Ein Sof there is a very small Light: Nefesh of Nefesh that created the created being as “something from nothing,” as a tiny grain of the desire to receive. This is the first phase, the “root phase” of the world of Ein Sof. So why is it called infinite?

It is because there is nothing but the tiny spark of Light and the tiny speck of matter. Everything else comes on the account of the greatness of the Light in the feelings of the speck of the created being, by the great respect towards the Light that has created it and which takes care of it. From the recognition of this greatness comes the feeling of the world of Ein Sof.

Then this speck begins to develop and become increasingly more independent, and whole worlds are born in its feelings. First it happens instinctively, under the influence of the Light. But eventually its development reaches the point we are in now. If now, from this state, we rise back by using all the preparations that were made for us, we will reach the true recognition of the Light.

But we can call it real only conditionally since it is impossible to attain the Creator’s real essence and height with regard to the created being. But when we rise again, we discover the Light of NRNHY, the extent to which the Creator allows us to attain Him called “adhesion.” To that extent, according to His will, we have to be like Him.

It says, “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust” (Psalm 113). But we don’t demand that He should raise us from the dust in order to be rich, but rather, we want to rise only so that we will respect and praise the Creator. This is the only reason that we ask Him to raise us from the dust: in order to attain His greatness and not in order to improve our own condition.

This ascent is in order to understand who created us and who has taken care of us. The matter itself can remain in absolute poverty since what is important for us is to join the upper Light, the attribute of bestowal, not for our own sake but in order to bring the Creator contentment. This is our only hope. Thus we bring ourselves to perfectly match the picture, the image, that is in the world of Ein Sof: a speck of matter next to the spark of Light, and everything else is the infinite greatness of the Creator.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/13

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Question: On the whole, our mission is to change our intention from in order to receive to in order to bestow. Can we teach people to do that? Can we turn this into a habit by using pedagogical methods?

Answer: This is actually what integral education is about, about changing our intentions. On the whole, education should deal only with intentions and should leave the desires untouched. Educating means to teach the art of bestowal, which is the art of placing an intention of bestowal on top of every desire

Question: But don’t we cultivate values in the form of different desires in children?

Answer: Children learn only by examples. They perceive and copy everything, including the way they walk and gesture. So education is about setting examples. The children reflect you, so you must first pay attention to yourself.

What is more, by your external examples, you convey and “transmit” your intentions to them. There is simply no other method to convey intentions. There is a connection that is erroneous since it is a connection in words. But external actions are for the benefit of the other; even if they are false and insincere, they still summon a response and a desire to repay goodness.

It says, “The hearts are attracted by actions,” which means the desires. We can get children to become used to it: At first I didn’t know, I didn’t think, I didn’t want to, but then I was taught and educated and now I cannot be any other way. Our parents taught us different habits in the same way, and these last for life. The body doesn’t understand and doesn’t accept other methods. “A habit becomes a second nature,” both for children and for grownups.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How can we deserve to feel the holiday of Purim internally?

Answer: It’s very simple. Don’t we feel it? When we try to work on the connection with each other we constantly have some problems; suddenly we begin to criticize each other, etc. Or we arrive at a convention and everything seems fine. We invest our efforts as much as we can and after it, we suddenly feel a descent such as we have never experienced before.

As a result, we begin to understand that these are necessary states of cause and effect. Of course, this doesn’t make feel us better. But we can’t get away from them in any way because we still don’t have the Light of Hassadim, a clear intention to bestow.

When we acquire this intention, we have nothing to fear. No matter what happens to me, I am still in the property of bestowal; I rise above my world, above egoism, above what I have; nothing is important to me, I am afraid of nothing. I need nothing but to correct and pull the world to the same state, and in this case a person does not fall.

Sometimes, he is a little tired of his work, but he meets this extra load with gratitude, with an understanding that it’s necessary because it’s advancement. It can’t be otherwise because this is “joyful suffering,” the suffering of love, when we strive to fulfill all the conditions in order to unite.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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Rabash, “And He Shall Cogitate in His Torah (Teachings)”: And so we read in the Megillah “and after all this the king raised Haman.” Literally it is hard to understand, after all, after what Mordecai did, which was good for the king, the king should raise Mordecai and not Haman, and this needs to be explained…

When a person cannot see the true face of his evil, which means the true form of Haman, then a person cannot pray to the Creator, so that He should save him from evil. Only when a person sees the greatness of Haman, who wants to kill and to destroy all the Jews, which means that Haman wanted to destroy everything that belonged to Judaism, which doesn’t let him do anything that is related to Holiness, then he can raise a true prayer. Then the verse “the Creator helps him” is fulfilled.

Only if we yearn for unity like Mordecai who evoked the yearning for unity by discovering the plot against the unity and killing it (two of the king’s courtiers who betrayed him), then Haman is evoked. The evil inclination faces the good inclination, the desire to receive rises facing the desire to bestow, and a struggle between them begins inside a person.

Only by raising and empowering the good force does the evil force grow, and then we raise the good again and evil also grows. This process continues until we reach a state in which we have to make a decision in this struggle. We cannot ask the good inclination, since it doesn’t need anything, it doesn’t want anything, but only to bestow every chance it gets. So we always ask the evil inclination, and then we do the opposite.

This is called working in faith above reason. We know how our desire to receive feels and follow faith above reason. Otherwise we have no way of imagining what the spiritual world is, what it means to be above myself, what it means to bestow. But we know that it is opposite from our egoistic desire to receive, which we know very well.

So when the desire to bestow grows, we have to raise the desire to receive and to ask it what it thinks should be done, and then do the opposite! That’s the way it works.

It is because we don’t see the image of the good; we don’t have an image by which we can resemble the Creator. The only way is to form it as an opposite image of the desire to receive. Therefore we were given an environment that should help us turn the desire to receive, which means the intention to receive into an intention to bestow. This is called “to repent,” to return to the Creator, the rising of Malchut to Bina.

We have no idea what the image of the good is but only that is it the opposite of evil.
[101340]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13

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Rabash, “Revelation and Concealment”: The matter of concealment refers to the fact that a person wants to see and to understand, and does not see or understand. Then we should say that it is concealed from him, what is more, the level of concealment is measured according to his need to know, and so if a person doesn’t need to know something, there is no point in saying that he suffers from concealment.

For example, if a person has to work in a certain place for only half an hour a day and he receives his pay once a month, then he should believe that he will be paid although he has not seen anyone who has already received his pay, so he believes in the company although it is concealed from him as to whether and how the company will pay him, since no one knows the company in which he wishes to work. And if he wants to work more than half an hour, he has a greater need to know that the company pays on time, so if he hears any evil gossip about the company, he suffers more because of the concealment, and if he wants to work day and night, of course he feels greater concealment, since he has a greater need to know, whether he will receive his pay as promised.

And since the Kingdom of Heaven is above reason, everyone suffers from the concealment, but those who want to work for the sake of Heaven, have the greatest concealment, since they have the greatest need to know, since the body asks over and over again “What is this work that you do.” It turns out that this question is constantly ready, according to what a person wants to be totally for the sake of Heaven, and the answer to this question is “blunt his teeth.”

We should accept the fact that we never see the payment in advance. On the contrary, as we advance, we see opposite pictures, that there is no payment and that there will not be any. All this is in order to raise us above reason.

The less we know and understand, the less sure we are, and the less proof we have, the more chances it gives to build a network of support and confidence above reason. Then this confidence is revealed not in our vessels of receiving, but only in bestowal, above reason, without any proof, since “in Him our hearts shall rejoice.” This means that not in us, not in our ego, but Above, in the Creator or in the group, in the connection in which we discover the upper force.

So no one is going to receive any actual payment. Whoever doesn’t accept this can leave right away and look for pay in the ordinary corporeal life. In the spiritual life, however, the payment is in giving it up, in the feeling of importance of whom I am working for.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/13

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The same process repeats on every level. Symbolic of this are the holidays that repeat every year, every new cycle. All this is revealed according to the Reshimot (spiritual genes) relative to those who receive, who clarify their Lights, sparks, and vessels and so go through these phases. So a person goes through 49 “gates of impurity” and reaches the 50^th gate of Bina. Then everything that seemed terrible to him changes. The upper level seemed impossible to reach and awful, but he is ready to accept it above reason in every way possible

Thus, by his efforts he goes through the 49 gates, and each time it seems that he cannot go through, but he somehow overcomes the obstacle and passes. The 50^th gate stops him, he cannot go through it, and then a prayer is born in him which helps him do that.

Esther symbolizes the double concealment of both the vessels of receiving and the vessels of bestowal. The corrections that Mordecai made all seem to lead to an opposite result which is meant to be of the special Light “Mor –Dror ” (pure myrrh). Thus we reach Purim in which the worst state of helplessness is revealed, but we try to attribute it to the Creator and are ready to work in bestowal, above the worst states, in order to flip them by rising above them and by revealing the opposite state. The Light dresses in all that and then the help from Above is revealed.

We should understand that it all depends on a person, while there is no action on the part of the upper. All the upper system already exists, but we awaken it: Partzufim, Abba, Ima, Arich Anpin, by raising our prayer, MAN, to ZON of Atzilut.

And when there is an “awakening from Above,” it is only if it is its turn in the cycle of our mutual actions according to our awakening below.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We must understand that the future is on our hands. We are the ones who determine it. If we sit idly, nothing good will happen. We mustn’t think about ourselves; we must worry about how to bring the method of correction to people and begin fulfilling it.

The dissemination, itself, is actually the fulfillment. It is because a person changes—his thoughts and desires change, and his attitude to the world—and so, he already bestows. It isn’t the physical actions that are so important here, but the inner changes that affect the spiritual system that manages the world.

So, I invite everyone who is with us to come closer, and what is most important is to invest in dissemination. Today, it concerns Israel first. We can “sweeten” the economic situation and the state of security without waiting for disasters to happen.

In fact, even viewing our lessons has an impact. After all, by that a person “absorbs” the idea of Baal HaSulam and the entire chain of Kabbalists that descends to him from the upper force. He learns about the system of creation and the principles that it operates and is operated by, and thus participates in the process of his own freewill to some extent, and this is his investment.

Question: There are many influential people today among the viewers of our TV channel in Israel, people who are among the decision makers in the country.

Answer: They actually don’t decide anything. The decisions come entirely from the Creator, from the Light, but we can be incorporated there to some extent and make an impact.

In any case, no one determines anything in this world. The plan is very simple. We, humans, are below and above us is the source of Light that brings us bestowal. We can bestow upon the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form (∾). Then the Light that comes makes a turn and already is felt differently by us. We raise MAN and ask the Creator to give us the preparation and the readiness to receive His Light and to be compatible with Him.

The Light is the giver and I am the one who receives. I ask that He will let me bestow a little. If I cannot really bestow, then I want the minimal adaptability, at least, so that there will be a connection between us, so that we will not be opposite from one another.

This is the request for correction that I raise. Then, we begin to act, to connect. Thus, we cooperate with the Light.

However, when we don’t raise MAN, the Light brings us suffering and turns to darkness and terrible sufferings.

There is no other force but the Light, but it operates on us through the front or by its posterior. This means that everything depends on how we receive it. Our action is in preparing ourselves to receive it correctly. It depends on a person and to the extent that he understands, feels, and is ready to advance. Eventually, our awareness must grow.

I do hope that more people will listen to us and will learn what we have to say. Our Internet sites and our TV channel may do the work, and we will not need to look for other channels in order to reach people.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: Can we say that the miracle of Purim symbolizes a certain exception to the absolute rules?

Answer: The slight illumination that appears in the image of Mordecai summons and leads to a great Light; we must first understand that the clarification is by the Light of Hochma and not by the Light of Hassadim. It is the Light of Hochma that separates the items “cutting off” one from the other like a knife: this is good and this is bad, this is one way and that is the other way.

Without Haman, this clarification would be impossible. But Haman has to come by Mordecai. Just as a flashlight is not enough in the dark, it must first be focused on the right spot, which means to prepare the deficiency in advance; Haman must be added to Mordecai so that it will be possible to manage him correctly.

As for the miracle of Purim, it is like the miracle of the exodus from Egypt; if there is no great Light that shines, we cannot connect the vessels. There has never been such a great Light as in Purim, a Light that connects all the ends into the “middle line” and then raises them to the first restriction.

Question: Why was it necessary to kill Haman?

Answer: Haman symbolizes the intention of “in order to receive.” Is it possible to leave this intention alive?

After all, it isn’t about the vessels of receiving which are eternal, but rather about the intention, about how to use Malchut: whether in an egoistic way or an altruistic way, with the intention of in order to receive or in order to bestow. Who will manage the King’s treasure, all of Malchut, in the King’s favor, Mordecai or Haman?

First all my vessels, all my desires, are egoistic “in order to receive” (↓). All this is called “Haman.” On the other hand, “Mordecai” is the intention of only in order to bestow (↑). So we have to change our vessels from one intention to another intention. By that we kill “Haman” and raise “Mordecai.”

At the same time the vessels remain the same, and we only change the “cover,” the “hat,” the intention, which is called the head of the Partzuf. The treasures, Malchut with all its 127 states, remain, but we pass only on the control from Haman to Mordecai.

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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/13, Shamati # 37 “An Article for Purim”

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