Our task is to raise up all the sparks left from the breaking. They seem foreign to us now, as though they don’t pertain to us, but we need to choose them, bring them all together, and raise the collection of all souls or sparks to Malchut of the world of Atzilut. We join all of them to ourselves, since “every person is a small world.”

Due to such unification with friends, the world, and all the occurrences and events, we all unite and raise Adam HaRishon, the first man, to a single bestowal for the sake of the Creator, like it was before the sin. And then one great MAN, prayer, is formed, which is the final action of “Zivug Rav Palim UMikabtziel” (universal adhesion) that leads to the final correction.

We just need to collect all our actions, thoughts, and scrutiny for the sake of turning to Him with a prayer. This whole process occurs within us, but we don’t feel it or understand it now. This is our state until we enter the spiritual world and begin to raise MAN consciously, with understanding, feeling these spiritual acts, and making calculations.

In the spiritual world a person already uses the screen and engages in practical Kabbalah, working actively with the desire to receive, the screen, and the sparks. One knows precisely what he elucidates, to what degree he plans to rise, what types of Light affect him, and which forms of desires he puts into force. Talmud Eser Sefirot becomes a real instruction book for him.

We may think that compared to that state, our present state is completely unimportant. However, this is not true at all! In actuality, these preparatory states that go by unconsciously are the most important. It is like a child who grows most rapidly during his earliest stages of life. While he is a baby, certain changes occur in him every day. Then he begins to change from month to month, then year to year, until he stops growing completely.

Much the same way, while we work unconsciously, we go through the greatest stages of changes; we just are unable to recognize them. Therefore, we need to place great importance on our state in spite of anything, understanding the enormous benefit of each thought, action, and word that is directed toward the goal, and in particular, those that are performed for the sake of the studies, unification, and dissemination. Consequently, we will reach a conscious prayer.

A prayer, request, or a desire is our only action. Everything else is done by the Light. And if we wish to reach bestowal so that the “guest” would give to the “Host,” we only need to desire this! How able or unable we are doesn’t matter; the most important thing is for our actions to be directed properly.

Therefore, it is written that a person has no other work except prayer. All the strength and fulfillment come from Above, while all the demands and requests come from below.
[52514]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/11, “Shamati“

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[52552]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/11, The Book of Zohar

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Man begins with the unity of our thoughts and desires into the smallest possible vessel. And then it keeps growing larger as a result of the addition of newer and newer parts. In this way, he becomes man, Adam, stretched to the ends of the universe. And his connection, his mind and heart, is being built from all the broken pieces contained in each of us because each piece contains the mind and the heart inside of it.

The connection of these forces is similar to how matter forms in our world throughout the whole of the evolution on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Matter started to unite in the same form. And when we start to unite our parts, we also go through the same steps, the still, vegetative, and animate, in the unity between people. These are called the spiritual states: embryo – nurturing – maturing (Ibur – Yenika – Mochin).

That is why all of our work depends on for the sake of what we are uniting—for the sake of the quality of bestowal to rule in us, meaning for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of His pleasure, or for the sake of ourselves in order to make it better for ourselves when we only think of our own condition in this world and about our bodies. Meaning that we are concerned with our bodily existence and not about gathering the image of man from our pieces.

That is why the “prayer of the 18 blessings” describes the spiritual path so well, the direction, the intention, the urge towards the next step, onto which the world, the human society has to rise to now. That is why the necessity for unity is being revealed. The only question is: For what sake does it happen?

And here, humanity divides into two parts. Those, who understand that unity is necessary for reaching the human level, the image of man. They are actively building this image. And the rest are related to the desire, and unite for the sake of a good life in this world.

This is the way they divide: the screen is called Israel and the desire is called all of the people who only need to connect to those who will do the work that is laid upon Israel.
[52557]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/11, Shamati

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Question: If there was a restriction on reception, why don’t we feel shame raising requests and prayers (MAN) above?

My Answer: We don’t feel shame because we ask for help for us to achieve bestowal, and not for our own sake. That’s nothing to be ashamed of!

You can counter, “but the entire correction occurs because of the shame felt by Malchut of the world of Infinity!” However, I don’t feel shame raising this request because I don’t demand for myself; rather, for myself I ask only the bare necessities, so that I could bestow the rest!

There is no shame in this. Just the opposite, there is honor here for me, because I will be able to bestow to others what no one else can give them! Everybody has such unique abilities in that the work performed by a particular individual cannot be performed by anyone else. That is because everyone has their own personal root in the common soul.

Therefore, it is allowed to ask for strength to live and be healthy, to receive knowledge and abilities—if these things are needed to carry out actions of bestowal. This is precisely what “life” is in the world of truth.

Such is my existence: My life is possible only to the extent that I can bestow. My actions are exclusively bestowal. And the spirit that flows through me sustains my existence, which is intended for bestowal. This is what is called a spiritual state.
[52522]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/11, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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Today we are finding ourselves in a special state where we are discovering that we won’t survive unless we attain the force of unity. But at the same time, we have to discern: Why do we need this force?

Is it in order to make our lives more comfortable on the level of this world, so instead of the evil force that rules over us, we would arm ourselves with the force of goodness and achieve balance on our current level? Or do we want to rise high to the force of bestowal so it would rule over us and reveal the greatness of that bestowal in and of itself?

Perhaps we aspire to the force of bestowal in order to simply use it to balance the force of reception and peacefully live in this world. In that case, we want to use the force of bestowal to help the force of egoism, which is called bestowal for the sake of reception. Or, do we want to attain reception for the sake of bestowal?

This is the question: Do we want the quality of bestowal to rule, or the egoistic quality? Therein lies our entire freedom of choice. This is described in the prayer called “the prayer of 18 blessings”—which mercy do I ask for?

Do I want to rise to the level of bestowal and give pleasure to the Creator, attain faith above reason, use all of my desires for the sake of bestowal, and even to receive for its sake so my entire desire would work for bestowal? Or do I talk only about life in this world and want to make it better?

This makes all the difference: Will I exist on the animate level or the human one? The difference between them is one of quality. On the animate level we perceive our life as the life of the body and feel this world the way we do today: our body and the surrounding world with everything taking place in it.

We live for the sake of this body’s existence, each person for himself. That is why we are willing to balance our lives with the force of bestowal in order to attain a more pleasant, comfortable, and peaceful existence. Or, do we rise to the human degree and obtain an eternal existence, above the world of matter?

Matter ends lower down, on the levels of still, vegetative, and animate. In our world there is no other degree, no human level. A human is a degree that includes the mind and the heart, meaning desire and thought, analysis.

This is what grows from our mind and heart, but not the bodily ones. Informational genes (Reshimot), data from the breaking, unite together: all of the hearts, all of the desires unite into one heart, like one man, and all of our intentions, meaning thoughts and the mind, unite as well. This unity creates the image of man—a certain virtual being that does not exist in matter, that does not consists of electrons and molecules that unite into a body.

We create it ourselves, uniting all of our thoughts and desires. That is how we start to exist on a higher level, called the human degree (Adam), which means “similar” (Domeh) to the Creator. Then all of our desires and intentions begin to operate as a spiritual vessel, with a desire inside and a screen above the desire.

This is the meaning of being human, or “prehuman” (Adam Kadmon), the man of the world of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. But our body is not called human. We call it human because we anticipate the future, expecting it to bring us to the state when we will become human.

This is what the prayer is about: to help us unite our hearts together, meaning our desires, thoughts, and intentions, so we would compile the complete image of man out of them, of an independent individual.
[52560]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/11, Shamati

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The end of correction, which Kabbalists describe in their writings, has to be realized in our world, in matter, in all our vilest, most “materialistic” relationships. This is the correction where “the darkness shines as Light” (Psalms 139:12) and “his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives” (Zechariah 14:4).

The animate part of me remains the same. My body does not start working for the sake of bestowal. Besides, it operates that way initially. The whole of nature, besides man, works for bestowal. We just don’t see that since we evaluate everything by our standards.

We think that animals only devour each other, but in reality, this is not true. We simply cannot attribute the intention to bestow to them because we do not feel or understand them. But in fact, nature rules over them directing them toward bestowal, and they obey its orders. However, the same cannot be said about man. He carries out the orders of his egoism, which is aimed at reception, and moreover, he mires nature by judging it according to his own faults.

When man corrects himself, he takes on the global form and sees the global picture. Simultaneously, we say that the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature become corrected as well, but what that means is that they become corrected in our new perception. Animals do not actually have to be corrected. It is you who will see that the wolf and sheep live in peace, just like today your eyes see that one eats the other.

In the article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” Baal HaSulam writes that you see wars and strife in the world because you are like that yourself.
[51696]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/11, “The Nation”

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Rather than existing in this tiny part of reality, when a person wishes to break through to its second part, the eternal and perfect part, then he has several means to do it: teacher, group, and books. The teacher explains that such an opportunity exists. He explains that it can be realized with the help of a group where everyone strives toward the perception of the true, perfect reality, and with the books that speak of the same perfect reality.

When we try to be together, it’s as though every person comes out of himself, out of his ego, because he must feel that he exists in the others. Then, when he tries to be above himself, in the others, connected with them, and he reads about the perception of reality in bestowal, this is the way he makes himself similar to the future state, as if he were already there.

To the extent of his aspiration, he evokes the second force from there that exists in reality, the force of bestowal, besides the small force of reception given to him from nature. Then, the force of bestowal comes and makes the changes in him.

A person can perceive these changes as an additional force of reception that comes to him, instead of the force of bestowal that changes him, and this type of perception is also correct. However, besides that, he attains the same force of bestowal. In this way, man advances, sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, but driven by the same force of bestowal.

He must attain this force of bestowal together with the force of reception. These two forces begin to be revealed to man as two lines, the right and the left. Then, man advances, sometimes in a state of descent and sometimes in a state of ascent. He does not know yet what descent and ascent are exactly, and so far, he identifies them by his current sensations.

However, as time goes by, he begins to feel that he needs to use these two lines by being between them. In this way, he takes control of them and begins to combine them in the middle line.

Essentially, our entire work consists of studying together, wishing to connect with one another in our hearts, and aspiring toward unity above all the disagreements and differences because all of these things only concern our animate existence, which stays here in this world. We want to connect together in our desires, our points in the heart, above these things.

When we read The Zohar with this intention, the book speaks of our corrected states, about the way we reveal the quality of bestowal in the connection between us which is the same as the Creator, the Light, the spiritual world, the upper world. For this reason, every person must imagine this state when reading The Zohar.
[51054]
From the lesson on 8/12/11, The Zohar

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Question: What is “practical Kabbalah”?

Answer: “Practical Kabbalah” is when you act in practice and not just inside of yourself. However, inner work is also called practical Kabbalah, when you create an intention, adhesion (Zivug), and reception of Light for the sake of bestowal. It’s when you don’t just read about it in a book, but attain the instrument of bestowal called “a screen” and can use it to perform practical actions.

You have matter which you have to work on. And this work is only possible with the help of a screen. You receive a screen by virtue of the Light that reforms. All of this is called practical Kabbalah. There are no other practical actions besides giving matter the form of bestowal. The will to enjoy has to acquire the intention for the sake of bestowal. This is the only action operating in the world.

Besides the science of Kabbalah, nothing can bring this about because this science talks about how the general system operates and how we have to operate inside of it. If I take this entire science and start realizing it, this is called “practical Kabbalah.”

It’s similar to how there is theoretical physics and practical, applied physics. In the theoretical part of it, you can think about things and you may understand them or not, but then you come to the practical realization where you stage all kinds of experiments, study and measure things, and check whether they’re one way or another. It’s similar to children who play in order to grow, and once they become adults, they perform these actions correctly in real life. This is what the scientific experiment is intended for.

The actual practice is already the realization of the scientific achievements in life. And the same thing is true in the science of Kabbalah. If you study in order to realize it in practice, that means you are already at the threshold of practical Kabbalah, even though it might take you a lot more time to acquire a screen and start carrying out these actions. Still, according to your direction and goal, you are already considered to be dealing with practical Kabbalah.

The only practical action that exists in reality is adhesion with the Light (Zivug de Hakaa), the degree of equivalence of form that we attain.
[51493]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/11, “The Nation”

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Question: When will I find out that I bestow and don’t receive?

Answer: You will know that you bestow when you feel that all of this is being done by the force of the Light that dresses into you and the Creator is acting through you, while you are an instrument in the hands of the force that has dressed into you. Then you really will be bestowing.

You bestow when you feel that you are happily outside of yourself, that you are in others, and there you perform upper actions. The Light operates within you. There is an inner spirit that pushes you and directs you. This is a sensation that cannot be mistaken for anything else!

But it comes as a result of all of the previous actions, which you make against your will. The most important is to desire bestowal! It’s as if you are trying to start up a car, again and again, until it finally starts working!
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/11, Shamati

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes in the newspaper “The Nation” that it is inadmissible to miss the right time. What does this mean in the context of the current protest movement in Israel?

Answer: This means that we have to disseminate the message of unity, but first of all, to unite among one another. We cannot forget about this since otherwise our appearances will turn into a regular concert.

When speaking to people and making appearances before them, you have to understand that you are together with us and you want to transmit the inner, spiritual charge of our interconnection to them. Only this will allow them to feel that unity is the salvation.
[51249]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/11, “The Nation”

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