In Kabbalah, as compared to other sciences, it isn’t enough for a person to simply study and understand the studied material, even if he feels it in a regular, commonly accepted manner. The uniqueness of the wisdom of Kabbalah is that a person feels internal changes in it. Actually, he changes the foundations of his desire, mind, and heart. A new desire is revealed to him, consisting of 613 desires and 613 connected and corresponding thoughts enabling the realization of the desired. In general, these desires and thoughts comprise the person’s soul. That is what the studies reveal to us.

Before that, a person only had a point, the smallest Reshimo (informational gene) existing in him from previous stages of development, which we’ll attain afterward. In all our work, the only thing that can facilitate our self-development is drawing and increasing the force of the Light influencing the point concealed within us to the maximum, developing it as quickly as possible.

That doesn’t mean we can just turn on the faucet so the Light will flow more quickly. In order to hasten our development, we need to be prepared to change.

We don’t hold a knob in our hands, which regulates the Light coming from the Creator to the Menorah. I can only turn that knob from within the point in my heart. Try to discern if the point in your heart is connected to the switch. You don’t control it, and the only option is to be included in a group. That is because in this system, comprehensive and abstract Light from Infinity flows. Thus, in order to regulate it, there must be a total (∑), integral (∫) of efforts, reaching infinity. Only by being included in all the friends further and further, will I be able to turn the switch and increase the Light in accordance with the law of equivalence of form.

What is that law? I’m not in equivalence of form with the switch, the absolute force of the Creator. However, at my degree, I can operate it to a certain extent. The difference (∆) between us remains, and some sort of adaptation or equivalence exists in all.

Question: Is this switch personal for each one or common to all?

Answer: Common. What operates is only the prayer of many, the common desire.

Question: How can we create a permanent connection between the point and the switch?

Answer: It’s impossible. Because being permanent symbolizes lack of motion, in such a case you won’t develop. You will always be driven away from the path by evil desires.

In the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 17, Baal HaSulam brings the words of the Talmud: “If thou cometh across this villain, pull him to the Beit Midrash (seminary),” to a place where we all demand the Creator, meaning a group, the collective force concealed amongst the friends.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can I ask for help if I don’t feel where it can be requested?

Answer: That’s true. But does the baby who has just been born and cries feel whom he’s calling? He just screams.

That’s called concealment. I am situated in the upper Light. This upper Light doesn’t depict any image of reality to me, as yet. Imagine a baby who has just now emerged from his mother’s womb: He is simply content or not. Besides that, he doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t feel the reality surrounding him.

That’s how we are: We’re content or not. From where and why, that we don’t feel. Afterward, we begin to recognize this world, become familiar with it, and respond to it; hence, we begin to develop.

In spirituality, we develop in the same manner in our relationship with the Creator. Now, I don’t feel it, understand it, or know anything about it, whether it exists or not. Yet, the Kabbalists tell me: Pay attention to what’s taking place behind the scene of this world before you. Indeed, this world is situated before you in order to begin to develop the connection with the Creator through it. The Creator created you in such a way so you’d cling less to this imaginary reality. It is imaginary, because instead of the Creator, instead of the upper force, you depict something inside you in the meantime. Different waves of liquids paint the image of reality for you, like in a dream. That’s why it has been said about this world: “We were as dreamers.” Indeed, a dream also seems true to you. It’s the same thing now, as well.

Hence, in order to awaken and emerge from this dream, this bubble, we need the reforming Light, the spiritual force. Does it exist or not altogether? I don’t know, I don’t feel it. I’m told: “Would you like to try? Be my guest, you have the opportunity; you have been given this world along with the means through which you’ll be able to begin to feel something above this world. Would you like to use this means? Go ahead! You don’t? Try to turn down receiving it. Just like you reached this means against your will, with no choice, out of pressure of all sorts of physical or emotional misery, that is how you can also attempt to escape.”

However, we see how all of humanity is gradually advancing and can’t escape. Why? What is this crisis? It’s being revealed to humanity that there is no choice other than revealing the comprehensive system, the force governing and activating all, the upper force.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, The Zohar

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It doesn’t matter how much a person understands where he is or in what state; those states also continuously change according to his degree. The higher we ascend, the more frequently the states shift, and within each one of us there are also ascensions, descents, and different fluctuations in equivalence with the degree in which we’re situated.

That’s why it doesn’t matter in what state or degree or instance we’re in; rather, it’s important to request assistance. That is because all the changes arrive only through the reforming Light. I can be like a baby who doesn’t understand anything and has no perception of what’s being done to me: They perform all kinds of surgery, actions, and treatments upon me, give me a little food, and force me to do something. In general, those are confusing and unpleasant states, in which there are more questions than answers. Yet, the reforming Light must give me an answer for everything. I have nowhere else to turn, no one to ask for anything, only It.

This Light is concealed in our bond, in the center of the unity of people longing for the Light. It is amongst them. To the extent they want to be included in that Light that exists amongst them, they reveal It.

That’s why we’re going out to the desert, secluded far from the rest of the world, and want to attain internal concentration.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/12, The Zohar

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Hochma and Bina can be in four states (as well as Partzufim Aba and Ima in the world of Nekudim):

1. Back to back (Achor be-Achor): no Light of Hochma and no need (from downward or upward) for Hochma and Bina to be connected.

2. Face to back (Panim be-Achor): there is Hochma in Aba, but Ima has no need to receive it;

3. Back to face (Achor be-Panim): Ima needs the Light of Hochma while Aba doesn’t have it.

4. Face to face: (Panim be-Panim): Aba desires to bestow, and Ima desires to receive the Light of Hochma in order to pass it to the lower ones.

The state “Face” means handing over the Light of Hochma; “Back” means connection solely in Hassadim or the lack of connection.

Face to back is a constant state in the world of Nekudim, when there is Hochma in Aba but Ima is unwilling to receive it. This state can be permanent since it doesn’t result in breaking. This state can continue in the world of Atzilut, like during the preparation stage, in the state of anticipation (standby mode).

The system is ready, and as soon as a desire to be corrected is raised by the broken souls, Aba and Ima’s adhesion (Zivug) immediately occurs, thereby passing down the Light from Above. But MAN, a plea, the prayer of the lower ones, is mandatory. It serves as an agent opening the so-called faucet holding back the flow of the Light, and it starts streaming downward.

This can be likened to a transistor to which the appropriate voltage is applied (MAN), and then the electric current flows. No matter what systems we are discussing, be they mechanical or electronic, thoughts or desires, the principle remains.

A state in which the system stands by is regarded as face to back. Aba turns its face to Ima, who turns its back. But as soon as MAN, the lower one’s desire, rises up, it affects Ima, which turns to Aba, followed by their adhesion (Zivug) in the state of face to face, and the Light of Hochma passes downward to the souls.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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We are in a state where precisely the “prayer of the pauper” can save us. This means that a person has nothing and he does not need anything, besides one thing – to revive his soul. He does not ask for anything beyond this.

We are going out to the desert, which reflects our inner state, because the desert is poverty. And we don’t desire anything, other than to acquire the point of contact with the Creator, to revive our soul.
In return we can receive all the benefits of our current level, instead of the drop of unity with the higher level, which is always called the Creator for the lower level, creation.

We lack desire for the higher level, a desire just to unite with the upper one, to feel that we are inside of Him like a drop of semen that begins to develop.

This should be our intention while reading The Book of Zohar.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/12, The Zohar

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The wisdom of Kabbalah only speaks of inner work, correction of the soul, revealing the Creator to the created, and all the images in its stories constitute different types of desire through which we view the world. The desire to bestow is called Israel, (Yashar-El, straight to the Creator). “Israel in exile” is the desire to bestow with an intention of self-benefit. “Nations of the world” are the egoistic desire to receive.

If the desire “Israel” is in exile, its intent becomes egoistic, meaning it becomes bestowal with the intent of “in order to receive.” Hence, Israel in exile can gain much greater benefit than the “Egyptians,” than the regular desires to receive. That is why it has been said that after the sons of Israel descended to Egypt, they multiplied, became rich, fattened, became important, and had plenty of onions, garlic, meat, and fish.

In other words, all desires received the filling they wanted. After all, they were working in bestowal in order to receive: They used the force of bestowal to benefit egoistically. And of course, they succeed more than “the nations of the world.” As it written, the nation of Israel mingled with the other nations, learned their ways, and achieved greater success because they know how to use bestowal even in order to receive.

That is why it is very difficult to exit the ego; it requires special work. A unique force is required to extract the egoistic desire to bestow from Egypt, the desire which is so advantageous to Pharaoh who can’t receive the same from his own people:  the simple, egoistic will to receive.

Israel on the other hand, work for their own benefit, using the spiritual force to fill their corporeal desires. Surely, the ego doesn’t want to lose them; they become the primary means for receiving its fulfillment, which can’t be received from anything else. Nothing can provide such great fulfillment.

And so, how can Israel’s desires become disconnected from the ego? They have to undergo two corrections because they work in bestowal with the intention of in order to receive, not just the Egyptians (the desire to receive), rather the will to bestow, which learned from them, hence, it fell even lower than Egypt. Egypt doesn’t have the option of using the force of bestowal for egoistic fulfillment.

Everything begins from the moment the Egyptian king dies and those desires that worked in bestowal for self-benefit suddenly stopped feeling fulfillment in that way. There’s nothing to work for any more; our king died, disappeared! That means, I stop feeling why I’m studying and working. I don’t see the reward any longer. And then, “And Israel cried out from the work.”

At first, we knew the purpose of our work; we worked hard and gained egoistically. We were faithful slaves of the ego and wanted nothing beyond that. And now, all of a sudden, hard work begins without the clarity of knowing why.  We don’t feel the purpose in egoistic bestowal: That is help arriving to us from Above. The development reaches a state in which we’re incapable of enjoying that, we cry out in desperation and then begin to search.

Indeed, if there’s nothing to enjoy, “This life is worse than death.” There’s no life, no sense of fulfillment. And if there’s no pleasure, a person is prepared to commit suicide, rather than feel the emptiness. Then the work of exiting Egypt begins, which lasts “many days.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12, Shamati #159

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“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.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, The Zohar

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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.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, The Zohar

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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.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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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.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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