“The prayer of the poor” is exactly what we need if we want to go to such an action like the convention in the desert: to look for the right deficiency, for the necessity. After all, we don’t need anything besides the deficiency. We exist in the Light of Ein Sof, in the Creator’s desire to bestow. But we don’t have a vessel that can receive this bestowal.

But this is what we need. How can we know for sure what the Creator wants to bestow upon us? What should we ask for? In the Torah it says about the beginning of the spiritual path: “And a certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying: ‘What seekest thou?’ And he said: ‘I seek my brethren.’”—the connection with others. How can we reach this connection if everyone feels hatred towards others and they don’t know where they are, they don’t understand that they are preserving their beastliness, going out to the field to hunt or to herd, while the one who wants to resemble the Creator is looking for a human (that resembles the Creator) and wants to see that “human” part in another?

As a result a person begins to discover the exile, Pharaoh, and the need to leave his control. It is all revealed in the connection among people.

Therefore, if we want to go out “to a field that God has blessed,” in order to do this kind of work and to feel that we are in the desert and should reach connection, then in that connection we can reveal that we hate one another and that Pharaoh, the snake, is among us. And this will evoke us to ask for the Creator’s help. Let’s hope for this to happen.
[68420]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
With Whom Should We Make Our Attack?
Not An Ordeal But No Picnic
The Void Before The Revelation

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: Should we get rid of all our corporeal desires in order to reach the level of the “poor man?”

Answer: We shouldn’t get rid of any desire. We should only ask for correction, and nothing more. The upper Light knows what to do better than we do. I don’t have to get rid of anything. Even if I see my worst attributes, I mustn’t get rid of them because it’s as if I would be cutting off my arms and legs. I don’t correct myself; it’s the Light that should correct me.

If I come to you, and attack you, shout at you, and insult you, I mustn’t “shut myself up.” I have to pray for the upper Light to perform this correction because that will be a real correction and not something that is done under pressure. This is a huge difference.

Baal HaSulam says that if you suppress something by that you are destroying this part in the world, and due to that the world will never be corrected. It will require much more effort to bring it back to the way it was and to correct it.

Similarly, we sometimes use medicines in order to suppress an illness and to conceal it inside, and this is even worse than if an illness is seen clearly and thus can be cured. This is how a snake operates: It hides inside and you don’t see it, but then it crawls out.

Therefore our attitude to transgressions, to quarrels between people and to different conflicts is totally different: Let them be as they are, yet above them we should build the correction because now is the best time to correct them.

If a person wants to cover up the negative revelations and to hide them, it’s the worst thing. There are people who are afraid of quarrels and conflicts, they are afraid of such revelations, and it’s bad because that isn’t aimed at correction.
[68417]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Don’t Psychoanalyze Yourself
Don’t Get In The Way Of The Creator’s Work!
The Bridge Over The Abyss Of Ego

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: How can we protect ourselves at the time of the Creator’s revelation if our Reshimot (informational genes) and desires change and are being renewed at every given level?

Answer: This is true, but we shouldn’t overlook the initial principle that states that the only thing we have to do is work on our desires and demands; the result will come from Above. It doesn’t make a difference if we face even a thousand confusing situations. All we do is prepare a desire for each state.

There is total confusion around us; we cannot trace internal connections and don’t understand a thing. We don’t have to understand: All we have to do is to want. We are not obligated to comprehend the situation and assemble fragments of the whole picture into one. Our task is to want to connect them together with the help of the Light that reforms. The more confusion there is, the better.

If we regard our work incorrectly, it seems that we don’t advance at all. We get more and more confused and frustrated; looking back, we are frightened by events in recent years, and looking forward, we don’t see even a glimmer of hope. Rabash once told me: “If at the time you leave a lesson you don’t feel more empty than the day before, it means that the lesson was unsuccessful.”

The lesson should end with a sensation that we don’t have anything. “What do I do?!”—I cry out. My cry has to resound.
[67852]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Get Well Soon!
Just Wish For It – And It Will Come True!
My Objective Is To Desire

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What is a good indicator that we are on our way?

Answer: A good indicator is one’s discovery of the deficiency from which the spiritual Kli (vessel) is constructed. As it is written, “God will complete for my sake.” This means that, in response to this deficiency, the attribute of bestowal will truly arrive. Through it, our spiritual Kli will be filled.

We were given the initial Kli, HaVaYaH, about which it is said, “I the Lord do not change (Ani HaVaYaH lo Shiniti),” “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey,” or the four stages of the direct Light. We can broaden it only by attaining the root through the tip of the “Yod” through which all of the HaVaYaH is filled to the same extent to which we open to Her the place of fulfillment, our deficiency.

The fulfillment is measured by the extent of bestowal that is acquired by this HaVaYaH (Yesod of Neshama – foundation of the soul). The soul (Neshama) is filled with the letters: “Yod-Vav-Dalet” (the complete spelling of the letter “Yod”), “Vav-Yod-Vav” (the complete spelling of the letter “Vav”), “Hey-Yod” (the spelling of the letter ”Hey”), and so on.

How can the Kli of HaVaYaH, the “skeleton” of the soul, be filled with letters? After all, the letters are also Kelim. Does that mean that I seemingly fill a pail with empty cups? Is that called filling? I wanted to be filled by the Light! The bestowal that the Kli acquires is specifically called the Light. It fills it, and it doesn’t need anything else.

Therefore, the acquiring of deficiency for the desire to bestow is the essential preparation of the person himself. When the desire to bestow arrives, it will fill the Kli with longing for bestowal, for love. There is no other filling: only this!

When a person is filled with the attribute of bestowal, he studies the Creator, the upper force, and becomes like Him. It is especially in this that he feels the fulfillment, that is to say, the filling is the Masach (screen) and the returning Light.

This is what we need to long for, to prepare for. All the work is just for this purpose. The main problem is not to become confused and not to replace the real fulfillment from bestowal, from the desire to bestow, the desire to love, with other fillings. No other fulfillment is able to give us more from this corporeal life than the very “small candle” and the awakening to spiritual life, meaning a kind of weak luminescence that stimulates the desire to receive and forces it to search for real fulfillment.

Therefore, all of our work is to search for the correct deficiency, and thanks to it, we become familiar with the Creator. That is what we can add to His work.

The Creator created the desire to receive, and we add to this desire our new correct form. We take this raw material and sculpt from it what seems to us as good and correct. Thus, we complete the creation.
[68034]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
One Gram Of Desire
100% Bestowal Already Today!
The Miracle Of Creation

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

If I feel indifference toward the friends and nothing disturbs me, it is a sign that I haven’t begun to discover hate and certainly not love. However, if I already feel repelled by them, it is the influence of the upper light that is shining on me to show me my evil, my ego.

Not everyone is ready for this kind of work: It is possible that a person may connect with others and feel good; it’s pleasant, it’s interesting to go to the desert with everyone with all that hugging, and he doesn’t feel any hate. Hate can only be revealed by the Light that reforms.

Does it surprise you that this is the way It reforms you? Yes, this is the way to Him.

It is important not to despair that you have discovered hate that repels you. Don’t shout, “Where is my advancement? What kind of reward is this for my efforts?”

If you continue despite everything, if you want to connect with the friends because there is no other choice and Kabbalists advise you to do so, if you annul yourself, then you will understand that it is possible to reach bestowal and the revelation of the Creator only through connection. But you see that by yourself, you cannot connect and then you realize that connection is only possible with the help of the Surrounding Light.

The hatred towards the friends also comes from the Light, but this happens without our request. It is the revelation of evil. In order to correct it, a person must relate to the upper force purposefully and ask It to be revealed so that we will have the opportunity to connect with others.

There are many ascents and descents, disappointments, and a long period of helplessness on this path when you can’t annul yourself or turn either way. We are purposefully being exhausted this way until eventually the Light from Above comes to help us, and we begin to appreciate the friends. Here too you should check whether you appreciate them for no reason or whether you appreciate them because you appreciate the Creator.

Israel, the Torah, and the Creator should always be joined into one, and then this aims you in the right direction. Israel (you) is full of hate; the Torah (the upper Light) reforms you, helping you build the love on top of the hate. And then in the middle line, when you correctly connect the right and the left, you reveal the Creator and it all merges together into one.

This is the focus of our work.
[68192]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Asking To Love
Indifference Is Worse Than Hate
Bring Your Hatred To The Light

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

How can I determine whether I advance towards the Creator with the intention of in order to bestow or for some other self-benefit? There are many people who are ready to “die as martyrs,” but how can you tell whether it is the greatest egoism or whether it is truly bestowal and self-sacrifice?

How can I check myself, daily, every moment, whether I am desiring to bestow upon the friends, life, myself, and the Creator or in order to somehow profit from them?

How can I test this? After all, without such examination, I don’t know where I am. It could be that I have been going along for twenty years but I actually went in the opposite direction from the goal: instead of bestowal to receiving. And I could complain that I haven’t reached revelation yet and that I am now powerless. But it could be that I went backward, as it is written, “It is better to sit and do nothing,” than to go in the wrong direction.

The examination is very sharp and simple: I have to yearn for what I hate: It is very simple. If I hate someone and want to feel bestowal towards him, then I have to love him without annulling my hate.

But if I don’t feel hate towards someone, I cannot check in what kind of a relationship we are: whether it is in order to receive or in order to bestow. If I build a relationship with someone, and I begin to think less of him than before, it is a good sign. It is a sign that I discover my ego. And I decide that I continue to reinforce our connection and turn the one I hate in to a loved friend, above my power, against my will, when I oblige myself to love him.

If I don’t succeed in that, I ask for it during the lesson and do all kinds of tricks in order to love him. This is because it is clear to me that the love must ride on top of the previous hate and that these two feelings have to coexist, as the right and left lines. I connect them and build the middle line without annulling either of them: not the right one and not the left one, as it written: “Love covers all sins.”

This means that the sins are necessary, so that above them there will be love. Then I look at our relationship differently. Hate is revealed? Never mind! It is a sign that now love will be revealed!

So I try to feel it and see that it doesn’t work out. I go through ascents and descents and different problems, and it is all in order to need help from Above. Then I cry out to the Creator: “Help!” The Creator is the middle line, Keter, from which the two lines come to me: the right line and the left line. If I am below, in the middle line (in the Sefira of Da’at), I ask and receive help from Him.

This means that these two opposing forces: the bestowal and the receiving, which come from Him, are needed only in order to stabilize me in accordance with Him and to focus me on Him. Thanks to them I feel and understand what Keter is. Actually they are what stabilize my reality.
[68201]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Indifference Is Worse Than Hate
Self-Sacrifice Above Love And Hate
Freedom Is Born From Love

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

We must constantly ask ourselves whether each day we better understand: what the need for redemption is, the preparation for it, and the spiritual vessel we have to prepare in order to go out to the desert. Do we have a deficiency for that?

The deficiency should be made of two parts: Malchut and Keter. Malchut is the deficiency, it is what I lack, and Keter is the respect I have for this deficiency, it is my assessment of this desire having the greatest importance..

We need a Masach and the returning Light, in other words, the ability to bestow. After all, the Masach itself isn’t bestowal yet, and neither is the returning Light; they are only the conditions. But we need them, because other than that, nothing is required of the spiritual vessel. The filling will come according to the Masach and the returning Light,

It is called a filling because the Creator, the Light of Hochma, is dressed in the filling afterward; it will be the direct result of the correction of the vessel.

The Masach and the returning Light are built on the desires and cannot exist without its depth and strength (Aviut). Therefore, love cannot exist without hate, without a strong, deep desire it is impossible to overcome it. This is how it should be built: one inside the other.

Therefore, when we are about attack, we have to see whether we’ve actually revealed our egoism, which we should attack now. Who are we attacking? There is nothing but the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, and we have to clarify this before we attack.
[68292]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12

Related Material:
With Whom Should We Make Our Attack?
A Storm In The Desert
Indifference Is Worse Than Hate

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

How can we imagine the upper state in which the Creator reveals to you that He loves all those that hate you and hates all those that love you, including yourself? It seems that it brings you no good and that there is nothing worse than that. Before you are Pharaoh, Bilam, Balak, Amalek and Hitler all in one and you know how to overcome this because this also comes to you from the Creator, although indirectly.

The more we advance towards love, the greater the obstacles we come across. You overcome them and the “angel of death” becomes the “holy angel” in your eyes.

Question: I don’t understand this state. After all, the Creator is still perceived as good and benevolent. Do I see it together with the suffering of others and my own suffering in the past?

Answer: You see all the suffering that is in reality. This is a horrible picture: monstrous suffering, not one gram of pleasure, not a day of rest, only pain and suffering for thousands of light years. The suffering is everywhere. There is total emptiness in the desire to receive, not here and there, not from time to time, but one hundred percent suffering.

This state is called the illumination of the Shechina, and above it, you reveal the good and the benevolent. Otherwise, how would it be possible to discover Him? If the Creator just brings you goodness, then you discover Him in egoistic vessels. But if you discover Him in the full depth of the black abyss that is in front of you, then He is discovered in your vessels of bestowal that are aimed at bestowal.

Furthermore, you will see that He is good only towards those who are as bad as He is, and bad towards those that are good, in contrast to Him. This is how it will seem to you.

Our work is only in rising above the vessels of reception. If you see that the Creator’s actions do not match bestowal, it appears to you intentionally as an obstacle on the way, above which you have to rise.

Question: And what do I discover after this ascent?

Answer: The desire to receive, the general vessel of Malchut of Ein Sof, in a totally empty form: darkness, despair, worry, and fear, the dreadful trials of Job, and you fill it with the Light of Hassadim and with love.

Question: That means that after having corrected myself I feel good, no matter how much darkness is revealed to me. And now I look at the past and what do I see? Have I suffered or not?

Answer: This is already the next level, which you have to determine. In Gmar Tikkun (End of Correction) you don’t see that you’ve suffered of course.

Question: And what is the suffering that I feel now?

Answer: Now you are not the same person who will attain Gmar Tikkun. Eventually you will not recognize yourself in your present state. The feelings that were left behind are not you.

Question: So what am I now?

Answer: Something virtual.

Question: So what do we need all the present states for?

Answer: You feel them in order to prepare yourself, when you do everything that is in your power. It says: “I have exerted and I found.” You are getting ready until you find, until you rise above the Machsom (barrier), until then, the real “you” doesn’t exist.
[68061]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
From Your Actions We Shall Know You
The Joy Of Waking Up The World
Discover The Creator’s Goodness, Not His Presents

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Suffering - No Comments →

Question: In the “Introduction to the Study of The Ten Sefirot“ Baal HaSulam says that a person can enslave and force himself to keep the 612 Mitzvot. What does that mean? What is the action he speaks about?

Answer: After a person reveals his 612 desires in all the 125 degrees of his desire, in all the forms and the incorporations, he tries to work in them with the intention of in order to bestow. This effort is in asking for a Masach, which he receives and tries to bestow with it. Then a person fulfills all the desires of others that are revealed to him.

Thanks to this correction he reaches the 613th desire, the final desire of love that is the incorporation of all the other desires. The general, comprehensive desire is revealed to a person, not as one of 613, but as the combination of all of them, the whole spiritual vessel, a totally new and unfamiliar desire that cannot be attained in any other way. In it a person discovers the Creator.

He sees the great vessel, which he filled when he acted with the intention of in order to bestow and that he treated like the Creator. Then a person suddenly understands the Creator, not his actions, but the Creator Himself. It is written, “From Your actions we shall know You.” Now a person understands not only the goodness with which the Creator fills all of us, but the Creator Himself.

We don’t know what this is. It isn’t about the Creator’s attitude towards us, but the Creator Himself, in a pure form, without regard to us. I have attained an equivalence of form with Him.  Now I see what it means to bestow, and from these actions I attain Him, I attain the upper half of Keter.

This is what the Creator wants from His created being. The whole creation exists for this peak up there. This is where I attain the Creator disconnected from the creation.
[68056]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
The Joy Of Waking Up The World
The Creator Is Known By His Actions
612 Components Of The Upper Love

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Can I oblige myself to change internally? Is there such an action? For example, if I constantly think and worry about the friends’ intentions and set an alarm clock to remind me to do that, will I be able to measure the result of these efforts?

Answer: I don’t know the result. I exert myself and I don’t know what I will find.

Question: How can I examine things this way? What is the purpose of such a study?

Answer: Carrying it out. If you did it, the result will be positive. All other questions and claims come from the ego, “What do I get from this? Do I lose anything?”

Try to detach yourself as much as you can: There is a mission and I don’t need anything else. The alarm clock rings and I think about the friends. Then they disappear from my sight until the next ring. That’s all.

We can succeed. The problem is the inner weakness: You don’t have enough audacity. After all, audacity towards Heaven opens up the doors for you.

At the moment you see things intelligently and without attracting attention you are trying to turn the doorknob quietly and slip inside. But no, you should pound on the door so that it will swing open.

Question: How can I acquire this audacity towards Heaven?

Answer: Audacity is not when I doubt things indecisively: “Is it worth it? Perhaps we are not worthy of it yet? Perhaps we should first accumulate power and knowledge….” Audacity is when I demand although I know that I don’t deserve it. I know it and I demand it as if the Creator owes me.

And this is justified. I understand that I cannot exit my ego, that the Creator has created me this way so that I cannot really connect with the friends. I know that I am standing in front of a wall because I have discovered this after the efforts I have made. I have already tried many things and I have already attained certain things, but all my achievements are futile in front of this wall. Each time the evil inclination overtakes me and tells me: “Wait a while, you still have to finish what you haven’t had a chance to. Perhaps in a month or two, maybe brush up on Shamati, and accumulate power… but now you are not ready yet. Let the others try.”

There must be audacity here, but very serious and thorough audacity: “I deserve it and that’s it.” This isn’t a senseless attack but a careful calculation. I bring the efforts I made with me; I don’t simply demand things, and I do it together with the friends. It makes no difference whether we look like a gang of criminals and not a consolidated group, we demand decisively, as brave people who will not give up.
[68053]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
We Demand Light!
Be More Insolent With The Creator
Born To Become Human

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →