Question: If a person must be ready to remain in a state of “smallness,” where can he get the desire and the motivation to advance?

Answer: But I want to advance in order to be more like the Creator! The Creator is an example of humility for us. I must reach a state in which I feel as if I don’t exist, just as the Creator does not exist for me now. Thus, I become like Him.

It seems that I really must fight myself in order to attain this, but this a wonderful war since in it, I need the Creator so that He will fight in my place. If I fought this war by myself, I would be in a critical situation.

However, since I need the Creator’s help, it makes me extremely happy. It is because, now, I have the reason to turn to Him.
[99607]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: At that time you will achieve equivalence of form with the Creator—as all His actions are to bestow and to benefit others, so you, all your actions will be only to bestow and to benefit others. This is the complete Dvekut.

Question: What is equivalence of form? How can I be equal in form if I am a desire to receive?

Answer: Suppose you want to resemble me. I play with you, I present myself to you in some form, and then you try to be like me: You do what I do, think like me and talk like me. The next day I present to you an upgraded form and you have to adapt yourself to me even more, both in your speech and in your actions and thoughts. I give you examples and you have to follow them; this is called an equivalence of form.

Here you may ask: “But how can I resemble the Creator if I don’t see Him?” It says: ‘Return to the Lord, your God.’ How can I return to Him, how can I become increasingly more like Him? At least, give me some example…”

Ask. Ask the Creator to give you an example, to show you who He is and what He is, so that you could be like Him. If you don’t ask, it means that you don’t want to be like Him. When all you really need is an example, you will receive it.

Question: I have a cat, I can teach it everything that I know, but will it eventually be like me?

Answer: A cat doesn’t have a point in the heart. You cannot teach it, you can only tame it. You can make something out of it, but you cannot make a human being out of it, since a human being,  Adam, means “Domeh – similar” to the Creator. A cat doesn’t have the starting point for that, it doesn’t have the initial spark; it doesn’t have a point in the heart.

If it weren’t for the point in the heart that entered the desire to receive during the shattering of the vessels, then we too would develop up to the level of the animate. But when we complete this phase, the point of the speaking level erupts in us. This is what is happening today to humanity: It has reached the end of its development on the “animate” level.

Everything began from scratch, from chaos. Then the level of the still nature appeared, then the level of the vegetative, and then the level of the animate. If there weren’t the point of the speaking in the animate level, the human being that belongs to the level of the speaking, then there would be nowhere to develop to, everything would end here.

This is the surprise and problem in our world: People don’t understand that they are facing a new level. They don’t understand because they don’t see it; it isn’t tangible, it is spiritual. All the previous levels were concrete, while the level of the speaking is not.

If I am on the level of still nature, I cannot identify levels that are higher than mine: the vegetative and the animate levels. There is a connection between them that is visible both to the lower and the upper, but I have no idea what the human level is, and to rise to it is a big mystery for me. What can I do, if I have no way to hold on to it, no examples, but only one great unknown?

This is the reason that the whole world doesn’t understand what is going on and cannot accept the message of the future ascent.

Initially, the desire created by the Creator was the part that serves as the point in the heart (•), Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE). This is called “Israel” which means “Yashar-El” (straight to the Creator). Abraham took the people who belong to this part out of ancient Babel, while the other Babylonians without a point in the heart remained.

Then by the shattering, the destruction, the points of Israel fell and were mixed with the matter of the desire. This is the exile of the people of Israel, the mutual incorporation of the attributes resulting in every person having a point in the heart today.

Still, it is very hard for people to see that there is another phase in their development before them, another level that is of a higher quality and is more essential and powerful than the “animate” level. Imagine that you could only see plants on the surface of the earth. How different would this picture be from the next level, with the animals, birds, fish, and people with their civilization.

Now, when we are facing a new level, no one understands it and no one can perceive the need to rise to it.

Question: If the point in the heart determines everything, can I be compared to Pinocchio today?

Answer: Without the point in the heart you would be a “log,” but in this log there is something else, and so when Geppetto begins to cut it with his axe, it cries out; this is “the point in the heart” that raises the voice of man. Everything else in us is indeed only a “log.”

The next level cannot be formed from nothing. So the people who feel a need to develop come to us, to Bnei Baruch, in order to advance by love, with an inclination upward. Others will have to develop by the path of suffering in order to reach this level.

If the point in the heart doesn’t stand out and doesn’t remind people that it exists, only sufferings will push them forward. The point draws people forward while the sufferings push them from behind. It is like a dipole and everything depends on what moves you—whether it is Torah or suffering.

[99418]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: How can I understand which corrections I go through from day to day? I don’t understand at all what is happening with me.

Answer: The understanding arrives as a result of clarifying my Kelim (vessels, desires). And the Light is what purifies, corrects, and fills my Kli, not you yourself. Our work is to be inspired to pull this Light upon us. Except for that there is nothing else, and this is the entire Torah, “The Reforming Light.”

You don’t know, don’t understand, and don’t feel the spiritual world. Simply some kind of unknown longing leads you, but you really don’t know exactly what it leads to. This is the correct and good state that even exists on higher spiritual levels.

We only need to imagine the optimal conditions: In what state, what situation, in what way will I enter into the maximum influence of the Light? It is as if I go on the roof in order to sunbathe a little. After all I wouldn’t sit in the shade, but I would put the chair directly in the sun and turn towards it, in order to place myself constantly under its rays. I constantly adjust myself to catch the maximum rays of the sun.

Similarly, we need to clarify the conditions under which we will be able to pull the maximum Light that Reforms. And we need not just to place ourselves under its influence, but to pull it to ourselves. After all, here everything depends on how strongly I want the Light to come and affect me.

And one needs to think about this all day: How can I hold myself in the correct thought and desire; what needs to control my heart and mind in order to invite the influence of the Light? Under what conditions does the Light influence me in the greatest way? How should I turn my heart and mind in order to position myself under the influence of the Light?

As a result of that, all the rest will come. Even without reading the letters of Baal HaSulam, you discover what is written there. The matter is not in learning a few pages of text and acquiring knowledge. But we need to read these texts because during the time of studies we direct ourselves to greater influence of the Light. For example, the reading of Kabbalistic texts is one of the conditions of the correct intention towards the Light. But we don’t read them just for understanding, but with the thought to pull towards us the influence of the Light. This is the whole issue. Thus, it is said, “Not the wise one learns.”
[99100]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: I don’t understand how a person can despair of his own powers and cry out if I simply feel tired of everything and throw it all aside when things get tough? Where should I stop and feel despair?

Answer: We don’t know in advance where we should stop. If the outcry is planned, then it isn’t a cry of despair. A cry of despair has to come from inside you without any prior planning as one sees that he has no other choice. If you feel confused and are too tired and don’t know which way to go, it is an indication that you don’t feel that the goal is important.

Now the goal doesn’t seem important to you, and you don’t understand why you are making such efforts. Once you were full of energy and chased different pleasures and wasted your powers. What nonsense does a person do during his lifetime and all just to feel some fleeting pleasure? Sometimes you lie on the couch and don’t want to get up since there is nothing to get up for, and sometimes you get up and run, losing your head, ready to do anything.

It all depends on how important you feel the goal is, which is the main thing we should attain. The importance of the goal is the importance of bestowal, the importance of actions that are far from self-interest, which I cannot perform since I am not motivated to and have no fuel to perform them. How can I do something in which there is nothing for me? My body cannot move in such a case. Our whole world works only on the energy of the desire to receive, that receives a filling, pleasure, reward. But if I don’t see a reward, I cannot do anything.

Thus the Creator gets close to me and takes away my last powers to do anything. The attribute of bestowal comes close to me, and I don’t feel that I am motivated to do something, I actually cannot move.

Fortunately the attribute of bestowal doesn’t dress in the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature; otherwise, all the electrons, all the molecules, all the protein matter would stop and my body would freeze and become motionless; it would die, and disappear. Luckily the attribute of bestowal gradually comes closer and is dressed only in the “speaking” level in me.

But the moment it gets close to my shattered egoistic desire, I immediately feel that I am losing my energy, the fuel, the power, the motivation. So what can I do? The Creator’s getting closer at this point is meant to deprive me of the egoistic motivation and to force me, having no choice, to turn to the group. From it I will receive the impression as to the importance of connection, advancement, the greatness and the importance of the goal. I will be able to work by using the group’s fuel.

All this is necessary in order to help me adhere to the group and start bestowing upon it. By such actions I am incorporated in the group and I receive its values. I want to be with everyone because I respect them and see them as my group. They help me and they seem great and important. A person submits to the environment and has to make special efforts to be incorporated in it.

To the extent that I am incorporated in the environment, I receive a unique quality. It is a special chance that doesn’t exist in any method except the wisdom of Kabbalah. A miracle happens, a special power that influences me as a result of my preparation, and it corrects the shattered vessels in me.

These shattered vessels symbolize my readiness for correction. The Light that operates and influences them corrects them. This is called a healing action, like it says: “a remedy for one’s flesh.” Then I really begin to respect and to value bestowal, I suddenly discover in me respect and appreciation for this attribute and want it to be dressed in me. I want to annul myself and to connect with others. Suddenly I have such thoughts and desires that are not typical of my nature at all. But now I suddenly feel such an unnatural yearning and I understand that it is a result of the influence of the Light on me. So we advance.

Without a group, there is no way to receive the Light that Reforms, since it comes from the upper system, through the teacher, through the group, through the books until it reaches a person. There has to be a chain.

The group is not in the spiritual world yet or may be partly in it. The teacher is in contact with the souls of the Kabbalists that preceded him, with his teachers, and a person connects to the group through the books, dissemination, and working together, and thus connects to the goal by ensuring himself a connection with the source of the Light.
[99021]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: There are moments during the reading of The Zohar when it’s difficult to perceive the text and then it’s easier to stay in intention. But what can I do in a different state, when during my studies I feel excitement and joy?

Answer: We are going through various states until we form the correct request. It includes a variety of components. It’s possible to compare it with a delicious dish that has dozens of ingredients.

We don’t need to keep all these components in our head, our mind, because they accumulate and line up in us, and what has been built is in you. You shouldn’t worry about it; you take care of other things, as a chef preparing a dish who automatically knows what to add and what needs his attention.

Since our vessel, Kli, is a desire, not reason, then a habit becomes second nature. So, you are not worried about what is already included in the desire, but rise above it to other, more advanced concerns.
[99030]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, The Zohar

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Rabash, “What Is a Ladder that is on the Ground and Its Head Reaches Heaven”: A person should know that the Creator hears his prayer. This means that we have to clearly acknowledge the fact that each of our requests or desires is incorporated in the general system, and all our feelings are a result of the general system. If we make an effort, then it naturally influences the whole system, since everything is connected. But this connection is concealed from us so we have to attain information about it and the feeling that all of reality is connected to one upper system that is called the “Creator” or “There is none else besides Him.”

This system receives all the signals that come from us: both our natural instinctive evolution and the additional influences of society that are above our natural development. Everything is included in the system, and it responds to this appeal: “the Creator hears a person’s prayer.”

And what he sees is that now he is in a worse state than when he didn’t pray to overcome the desire to receive, which is an answer from Above to his prayer. We cannot properly determine when in fact we really are asking from Above and when we receive a response. While it may seem to us that we are praying and asking, it’s not we who are praying and asking. We were simply given such a desire from Above, and we feel how it goes through us. This prayer is not on our account.

So a person shouldn’t say that the Creator doesn’t listen to his prayer. He should rather say that the answer came from Above, and is not what a person prepares, but what is prepared for him from Above, which is for his own good, and he should know that. It is clear from Above when to answer a person and what to give him: which thoughts or desires. He has no freewill here.

Which means that a person should know how far he is from bestowal, and that every part of his body is against it. And a person asks the Creator for something that there is not one part in his body that agrees to what he is asking of the Creator. So how can he ask for that? And then a person sees something new, which he didn’t know before he began to ask from the Creator, that he should be given the power to overcome his body, so that he would be able to act only in favor of the Creator and not for his own sake. A person sees that there is no point in these requests. …and the new recognition that a person attains is that he sees that the body doesn’t agree to pray for the annulment of the desire to receive for its own sake.

So the question is why a person sometimes does want to annul his desire to receive, which means that a person often sees that while he is asking the Creator to give him vessels of bestowal, his whole body rejects it and what he prays for is only lip service, which means empty words. In any case he sees that there are times when he can pray from the bottom of his heart. The answer is that this is already the answer to his prayer, which means that the Creator gives him the power to pray about that from the bottom of his heart. Therefore a person has to be hopeful that the Creator will bring him close to Him.

In the meantime we can’t know when we receive a desire to pray from Above and when we pray out of our own will, below. All this will be revealed later. This is done on purpose, in order to confuse a person and to let him feel disoriented in the egoistic desire, so that he will begin to ask for forces of bestowal, a desire to bestow. It’s only by the force of bestowal, the force against him, that a person can be critical of himself and see the truth.

But if a person has only one force, then it’s either an angel, when it’s only the force of bestowal, or an ordinary animal that belongs to the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and which have only the force of receiving. But it’s when a person is confused and has doubts, when he can’t find himself in these states of confusion, that he is simply torn apart, that he can find the connection between the two parts of creation: the Creator and the created being who is above his limited mind and feelings. He should rise above his request, above the actual prayer, and the answer for it, like Malchut that rises to Keter, which is called a true “prayer.” The Creator is the answer to the prayer, and then the two connect in the full adhesion of a person and the Creator.

And so a person has to be hopeful that the Creator will bring him close to Him. Since we are constantly nourished from Above, we only have to be aware of the bestowal that comes from Above and goes through us and then back up. We have to be grateful for that, to acknowledge the greatness of the goal, that “there is none else besides Him,” and that He is good and benevolent, and to yearn for connection in every situation. If we constantly try to stabilize this in the true form, and not as it seems to us in our concealment and exile, then it will be a true prayer.
[98939]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/13

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Question: How can the desire to receive work in order to bestow?

Answer: It can if it has an intention of in order to bestow. In that case it gets a desire from someone else and that enables it to bestow.

Keter created the desire to receive, Hochma. At the end of this phase the desire felt a spark of bestowal, made it is main part, and now wants only to bestow.

Thus Bina was created, and its first three Sefirot (GAR of Bina) are similar to Keter. Just as in Keter, the red point (in the drawing) determines the essence of Keter so does bestowal determine the essence of Bina. As a result, the created being becomes similar to the Creator and follows His examples: Keter created Hochma, so Bina, too, took its lower half, the seven lower Sefirot (ZAT of Bina) from Hochma.

The question is whether it is receiving or bestowing when the lower part of Bina receives the Light of Hochma.

On the whole, it is about the action of the point itself, which feels bestowal by this action.

The upper part of Bina is a desire to bestow that is aimed at the Creator: It wants to bestow like Him (↑), and in order to do that it receives (↓). Its bestowal is actually in the filling of the seven lower Sefirot.

In the same way a mother feeds her baby and is happy for him, which means that it is possible to fill the vessels of receiving and by that to bestow.

Question: So how do the vessels of receiving in our case turn into vessels of bestowal?

Answer: After they are “restricted,” they are filled with the Light of Hassadim, this is already to bestow in order to bestow, Lishma (for Her Name). Then we can use them even to receive in order to bestow. Thus they become vessels of bestowal, since to receive in order to bestow is pure bestowal. This is the only way the created being can bestow.

On the other hand, to bestow in order to bestow doesn’t mean that it is real bestowal. It is only the preparation for actual bestowal, and this is the process of the correction of the vessels.
[98825]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How do I make a covenant with the Creator if I don’t know Him?

Answer: The question is: Why is it only the groom who signs the wedding agreement (Ketubah) and not the bride? Is there a kind of one-sided commitment here? The same happens when a person signs an agreement with the group or with the Creator.

This means that my signature on this contract is enough since the agreement of the other side is certain. So, only the one who hesitates and is unsure has to sign, and thus, he is obligated to sign the commitment.

There is an upper force, and in order to reveal it, there must be a lower force. The force of the upper is bestowal and the force of the lower is receiving. The force of the lower must attain wholeness in its deficiency in order to connect to the upper force that is eternally whole.

Wholeness is attained in the lower force by the connection of 10 people, for example, then of 100, and then of 1000. We always add another zero.

Unless I connect with 10 people, I cannot be called a spiritual “unit,” and, unless I connect with 100 people, I cannot be called a second spiritual “unit,” which means to rise to the second spiritual level. The counter only counts the additional zeros, and this is considered a leap to the next level.

In order to be adapted to the whole upper force, I at least must attain the connection of the first 10. This means that I must connect to 10 people since according to our inner nature, we attain the first, minimal measure of bestowal, #1, by the connection of ten people as one heart and one mind. Now, I have the first force of bestowal.

If I can connect to 100 people in a similar way as one heart and one mind by totally annulling myself, I attain the second force of bestowal, the second spiritual level. Thusly, I must go through 125 levels.

In order to connect with them, I sign a mutual contract. We must be connected so that each one will forget about himself and connect with everyone as one whole. It is impossible to do this alone and we must help one another. We must provide everyone with the greatness of the goal, connection, warmth, and positive examples. In order to do that, we sign a contract, and this is called a covenant.

Each of us goes through states of “+” and “-,” and we need the minus in order to rise to the plus, to “straighten” ourselves. This is possible if, while I am in a state of “minus,” the society intensifies my intention. My minus grows and the plus also grows; they constantly increase. After a small plus, there is a big minus, and after a big plus there is a minus that is twice as large.

This is why I never can overcome the minus that I receive and it always knocks me to the ground. I may be totally thrown off track, and I may continue to work, but without any inspiration and thought. When I fall into such a state, into such a minus, the society has to intensify my intention.

It is a good thing that I have received such a minus since I need a greater minus; I must reach its full measure to fill my measure. The question is how to turn it into a plus. In order to do that, I need an intention! If my deficiency and the society’s intention connect, I can change the minus to the plus each time and, thus, constantly rise. This is called making a covenant.
[98828]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Is the prayer our aspiration toward the Creator every moment? A prayer is not words, is it?

Answer: Certainly not. Why do we need words if the Creator exists in my heart, forms it, and demands from it a conscious response, a reaction to Him?

He exists at the very depths of my heart. I sense what He is doing within me and I have to respond to it right there in the heart. The group, humanity, the world, my family, and everything else exist only so that in the depth of my heart where He is saying something to me, I will respond to it.

Thus, there is no need for words here. However, my correct reaction to what He is initiating within me means connecting and merging with Him.

I form my response to the Creator through the group, through humanity, through everything that happens to us.

Therefore, the world is called “concealment” (Olam). It will start being revealed when my properties become completely similar to His, when I start acting together with Him at the level where He awakens me. As it is said “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me.”
[95739]
Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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Question: How can we turn a person’s intention into the intention of many, into the “prayer of many“?

Answer: There is a big difference. If I think about society, trying to connect with them in order to convey the Light that they expect, it’s called a “prayer of many,” a “public prayer.”

If every individual in the group acts this way, we form the area of the collective general deficiency where everyone, by being included in everyone, already forms a spiritual progression. I think about everyone, you think about everyone, and so does the whole group. Then each one multiplies his intensity by the number of the people for whom he wants to ask for a filling. It turns out that this prayer already becomes a spiritual vessel. The spiritual vessel is a result of the connection. If I pray for you and you pray for me, then each of us includes the other inside him. Then our desires that include one another connect and create a spiritual vessel among them.

This means that the parts of our desires in which I pray for you and you pray for me connect. Their connection becomes a spiritual vessel. The parts in which each one is for oneself remain below.

It turns out that you influence the Light only by your mutual inclusion with each other, where you include him inside you and he includes you inside him. So one person doesn’t operate in spirituality, there have to be at least two, as it says: “The minimum of many is two.” As well, “Either together or death,” which means that either you have a friend with whom you perform a spiritual action or you are dead, and have no chance to draw the Light that Reforms.
[98663]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, The Zohar

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