The Book of Zohar talks about the connections between us because there is nothing else to talk about in all of reality. Reality is one. We are inside of the Light, the Creator, the Maker, and we have to reveal our true state.

To the extent that we make attempts to reveal it, we are given the sensation of internal darkness, which we can disperse, cast off, with the help of mutual efforts in the connection between us. With these mutual efforts, we help the Light to become revealed.

This is exactly what we have to do. There is nothing besides our efforts, desire, concern, request, and aspiration to the state of revelation. So what’s the problem? The problem is that desiring this revelation means desiring the state that’s opposite to us. We find ourselves between two aspirations: the natural pull toward ourselves, and the artificial aspiration outwards, outside of us.

Therefore, through different efforts, by any means possible, I have to be inspired by the environment and attain a state where the aspiration outwards will become more important to me than the natural pull toward myself.

If I am able to acquire this importance with the help of the efforts and the request for the Light, for it to become revealed and help me, that means I am able to reveal the connection between us. And to the degree I reveal this connection, I reveal the Light, the Creator. That’s because the Light becomes revealed inside of our connection, but I cannot reveal it—I lack the detector.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/11, “The Zohar”

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Thanks to our Kabbalah studies, we finally understand that the Creator performed, performs, and will perform all actions. And all that is asked of us is a request that constitutes our freedom of choice. That is, we have to want the Creator to correct us.

Everything that the Creator did with us before did not require our consent; we obeyed the direct order of our nature, and thus we had nothing to ask. We simply followed our natural instinct, satisfying our growing desire in all its manifestations. However, in order to give us an opportunity to develop on our own, to acquire self-knowledge, and to reveal the Creator and His actions, at a certain moment, the Creator begins to act against our nature.

This turning point occurs in our generation. The Creator does not follow us, pushing us forward, but stands in front of us and demands that we get closer to Him by our own will. In fact, this is our job: to mobilize within ourselves forces, desires, and the understanding that we must come closer to Him. And we cannot do that ourselves; we can only request, demand from Him that He brings us closer.

To do this, we need to come and work together to discover within ourselves the desire for mutual bestowal. We must recreate within ourselves the desired form of the Creator, the perfect property of bestowal. We have to aspire within our group to achieve such relationships between us that the force, existing there in concealment, becomes revealed. This means to reveal the Creator, to know Him, in order to cleave to Him.

Then, we will advance and govern ourselves. But just as before we unquestionably obeyed our egoistic desire without even thinking about it, so now we want to obey the Creator with the same devotion. After all the issues, challenges, and scrutiny, in spite of our objections and resistance, we want to be fully managed by Him and become His faithful workers, as it is said: “Love covers all sins.”

And the key in this process is to find the point of addressing the Creator, the request to change and correct ourselves each time. We shouldn’t look within ourselves for the forces and means of becoming “righteous,” doing “good deeds.”

Clearly, it is impossible to reach true prayer at once, and we have to go through much scrutiny on the way to it. But the main obstacle is a person’s thoughts that he is the master of his actions and should correct himself and his environment by his own forces. He forgets that he is merely clay in the Master’s hands, and that “there is none else besides Him,” the only One who performed, performs, and will perform all actions. And our freedom of choice, given to us to get closer to perfect bestowal, is only to ask it from that property, that force, which will reign between us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/2011, Shamati #50

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Question: What sentence can I write in front of me in capital letters so that every time I get distracted and my thoughts wander, I could come back to it and refocus again?

Answer: Imagine a state that is worth constantly aspiring to, and describe it so this sentence would immediately remind you that you perceive reality as divided and broken up into different parts only because you are inside of egoism.

As soon as you discard this view through your ego, everything becomes a single whole. It’s like you are looking at reality through a curtain that has small holes in it and what you see seems to be made up of separate parts. But then you remove this curtain from your eyes and all of reality turns out to be one.
From the 2dn part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/11, The Zohar
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Question: We received a letter from a friend in the tent city in Tel Aviv that is part of the fight to lower housing prices. He writes, “I don’t study Kabbalah, but we understand that we have tried everything and we understand that we have to unite and consolidate.” They are sitting there now and writing a proclamation, but they don’t know how to make it acceptable for everyone. They heard that Kabbalah has practical solutions. What can we offer them?

Answer: There is a notion known as “the prayer of many.” They should ask on behalf of everyone, including themselves. If they act this way, they will achieve success. This is the right form of unification. And if they don’t do that, then nothing will work.

Today the integral force already reigns in the world and is becoming revealed more and more all the time, and all the systems are shifting to this new work regime.
Besides, I would recommend that they read at least a few of our books in their free time. We cannot hand out our materials to them because then people will suspect that we are doing this out of selfish motives. But if they wish, we would be happy to give them any materials, and by reading them they will understand what we mean and how they should act. This will give them the assistance of the upper force, and then they will see with their own eyes how their power and success grow.

This will happen in actuality. Let’s try it out.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/11, “The Peace”

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The reading of The Zohar can be compared to a long awaited meeting with a person you love, someone you wished to be closer to. When the two of you finally meet, it doesn’t matter to you what exactly he is saying. The most important thing is that while being next to him and hearing his voice, you feel your closeness. The actual words are not important. Let him talk. You don’t even listen to them that closely. Through the words, you want to feel how you come closer to him and feel him more.

And it’s the same with The Book of Zohar. All the different words and stories that are written in it seem to confuse us, but then, we understand why this is written there: It is because all of it are names of our connections. But I don’t care about what is written in the book exactly, what it is talking about. What matters is that I am close to it at this time. Because I rejoice at being connected with it, I don’t really pay attention to its words. The most important thing is that we are close.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/11, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “Arvut”: “A holy nation” is the reward in its final form of Dvekut [adhesion] with Him, which includes all the rewards that can even be conceived.

There is a part of humanity that receives spiritual awakening—the group (Bnei Baruch). These people are obligated to carry out the correction inside of them, to acquire the force of the mutual guarantee, and by virtue of that force, to begin bestowing to everyone else.

Besides, they have to observe the law that is described by the verse, “You will be a kingdom of priests unto Me.” Stated differently, this is talking about the state of Hafetz Hesed: Priests do not have their own property. Like Bina, they aspire only to bestowal. This is the quality we must acquire as well.

As for the quality of “the holy nation,” this is already a receiving desire that we use and raise to the level of holiness. Thus, it acquires an intention for the sake of bestowal and reaches adhesion.

This unity, this force, or this state has to reign in the group. There are no other possibilities here. We are talking about the laws of nature. If we don’t want to carry them out the good way, we will be forced to do it the bad way—through suffering. There are no compromises here, but a program that becomes realized with just one parameter of free choice: You can accelerate your development before you are obligated to this by the special, systematic force.

At every phase, this obligatory force descends to us and begins advancing us forward. However, we can move faster than it, and in that case we will reach the goal by the good and fast path, without blows from behind.

Thus, we have two possibilities to choose the means of advancement. But the advancement itself is immutable because in the final state, the program of development is already realized in full. The two phases of this realization are “the kingdom of priests” and “a holy nation.” They demand for us to attain mutual bestowal, love for the neighbor as oneself, and thereby, adhesion with the upper Light, the Creator.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/11, “Arvut”

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There are different levels inside of our will to enjoy, which are desires that haven’t yet formed completely for egoistic reception on the last, 4th degree. They are on the degrees 0, 1, 2, and 3. Inside of them we feel various opportunities to enjoy something. These are our egoistic “first nine Sefirot.” After that, the last stage is me, Malchut, wishing to enjoy through them.

However, in the will to bestow, other opportunities arise before me—to enjoy for the sake of bestowal rather than reception. If I make a restriction on my will to enjoy and start thinking about how I can bestow to the neighbor, then in front of me I see all sorts of possibilities of bestowal in relation to the egoistic desire I have restricted.

Therefore, I feel that I am built out of the “first nine Sefirot” and Malchut, and I begin to work practically in order to realize myself through the opportunities of bestowal that become revealed to me. That means that Malchut works with the first nine Sefirot.

If we examine the connection between us, then every one of us is Malchut, while the “first nine Sefirot” is what connects me to others. The distance between me and the friend becomes revealed to me as the “first nine Sefirot” if I want to bestow to him. And to the extent I can realize them inside of me in order to give these nine Sefirot the force of bestowal, to that degree I attach my Malchut to them. That way I turn the distance between them from the “head” (the Rosh of the Partzuf, from the calculation) into its inner part (Toch, where the Light is revealed).

This is determined by the extent to which I was able to raise my desire and attach it to the connection between us in order to practically realize these first nine Sefirot. Now the “inner body” of my spiritual Partzuf forms between us. And its “ending” is my desires, which have remained under restriction, which I cannot use yet.

After that the conditions change and I once again work the same way. That is how I go through 125 levels until I use my entire desire on its entire depth. The main principle here is that only my desire works, while the “first nine Sefirot” change according to it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/11, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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Baal HaSulam, “Arvut ”: It is written, “You shall be My treasure from among all peoples.” This means that you will be My treasure [a special quality, Segula], and sparks of purification shall pass through you onto all the peoples and the nations of the world.

Segula is a special action by which we correct our egoistic intention to an altruistic one. I do not know exactly how this action is actualized, but it enables me to change, to acquire a second nature, to enter the next dimension, a reality that lies above my current self. And I don’t know exactly how this occurs.

That is why the exodus from Egypt is called a “miracle” and why the force of correction, the Light that reforms, which is contained in the Torah is called “a special quality”—Segula. I don’t have any idea about how it works. I only see the results, as if a certain “illumination” effuses upon me or a certain force works on me, and I become different.

Thus, even though I don’t understand how Segula works, I activate it by carrying out the conditions I am told about. “Do this,” write the Kabbalists, “And you will receive that.” I cannot trace this connection. It is not within my power. I simply know that specific actions on my part will bring about a specific reaction, although the cause and effect chain remains unclear to me. That’s because it originates from the Light, from the Giver, while I am still in the egoistic desire and do not see or feel Him. The contact with Him is still unclear to me, just as I don’t understand the mechanism of the return connection by which the Giver influences me and changes something inside of me.

That is why this kind of action is called “special.” A child has this same “special means” while playing and growing in our world. What actually causes his growth? We are so used to seeing how children develop by playing that we don’t notice how it happens. What force is activated by a child’s contact with a toy, with pictures in a book, with animals he sees, or with the cars that pass by him on the street? How do the images of the big world that he wants to come closer to, form something new inside of him? To us this is the regular routine, but in essence, this is the same “special means” at work.

A child wants to grow and is drawn to all sorts of forms of the adult world, and that’s how he really grows. Likewise, if we want to advance, we have to carry out several actions in order to activate the upper force that raises us. In a child the yearning to grow is instilled naturally, while we have freedom of choice: We have to organize an environment, the study, and ourselves, and attach the intention. That is how we develop.

Thus, “Segula” is the result of certain actions a person makes, even though he does not know exactly what he activates and how he is activated in response. With us this is expressed in our relationship with the upper Light, while in children—in their relationships with the surrounding world. The same principle operates in the interactions between the “nations of the world,” meaning all those who do not aspire to the Creator, and “Israel,” meaning those who do aspire to Him. Our relationship with the Creator is similar to their relationship to us. After all, they do not have a spark, a connection with Him, an aspiration for Him, or a desire to reveal Him. Only troubles push them to search for something better. That is why we bring them the science of Kabbalah in an adapted, accessible form.

The invitation to reveal the Creator does not say anything to them. They need a good life here and now, and nothing more. Accordingly, we reveal our message gradually to them, in the appropriate form, and they use us as a “special means,” as a “treasure from among all peoples.”

By being connected to us, they “suddenly” start acquiring forces, understanding, and desires that they did not have before. These “sparks” come from Infinity, from the Creator—through us to them. As a result, the “special quality” operates on all the levels.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/11, “Arvut”

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Question: What is the reason for the fact that when we read The Book of Zohar and keep a very tangible intention, it suddenly disappears, and we understand that it has disappeared only once we remember about it?

Answer: That’s obvious! This is given to us so we would demand the sensation. We are unable to keep two thoughts in our mind. What can be better than attuning myself correctly before reading The Book of Zohar, together with the friends, in a circle, and inside of it desiring to reveal what we are reading?

However, what happens is that I attune myself and start reading, and suddenly I become immersed in the text slightly more deeply. Then I no longer use it as “Segula” – the special quality of the Light, wishing to reveal it in the connection between us. Instead, I switch my attention to the text itself, aspiring to understand it and to attain it, the way I read regular books, wishing to find out what they’re talking about. I don’t perceive what is written there as something that happens inside of me, between us, inside of us, but as something that exists outside of me. I immediately shift to the external picture.

After that, all kinds of alien thoughts come to me and I start “traveling” in these fantasies and calculations.

This happens until a person sees that he is unable to come out of this and it deprives him of the right approach where he would literally be able to “latch on by the teeth” in order to hold on to the right attitude to the reading.

What should he do? Eventually he reaches a demand that he needs the sensation—not to get to know the text or hear it, but to enter this picture, to attain it. He wants this to happen, for this picture to become clear to him. Just as he is in this earthly reality now, so he has to find himself inside of that spiritual reality.

Therefore, this entire confusion, all of these states have to bring us to such despair that we will desire only the sensation, while clearly realizing that we are incapable of anything on our own, even of keeping the intention. But nevertheless, we will clearly discern exactly what we do need.

Then, on one hand you understand that there is nothing you could do and there’s no point even in opening up the book. You reach total despair. But on the other hand, you know that you are unable to leave this path because your entire life is in it. And then, you receive it….

This point is truly critical because from it, you can enter the spiritual world. And that is what really happens.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/11, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: The degree which an individual caused by his actions, whether large or small, ultimately joins the future in shifting the world to a scale of merit, since his share has been added and joins the shift.

Every person has to carry out his own work, and by doing that every person works not for himself, but for others. That is our interconnection. A person does not have his own desire. His desire is in all other people. He does not have his personal work, which he can complete alone. He works until he corrects his inclusion into everyone else.

As a result we reveal a certain “holographic picture”: I am included in everything and everyone is included in me. Right now it is concealed from us because otherwise we would not be able to move from where we stand. Really, what do I have to give to others? I do not want to be occupied by their problems and do not want to do anything for them. I am unable to carry out work unless all of its fruits are consumed by others.

Therefore, it’s as if we have a veil over our eyes and we are living a lie: as if every person acts for the sake of his own interests and takes care of himself. Thanks to this, at this stage we can at least move in the egoistic intention of Lo Lishma. But later, in the altruistic intention of Lishma, we will discover that there is nothing private here and everything belongs to the common whole. Every person is included in everyone and every person’s work shifts to everyone, to their common account.

Therefore, no matter what the calculation may be, positive or negative, we make it only in relation to the common whole and evaluate a person’s actions only in relation to others. It’s impossible to say that his action was  good or bad unless we evaluate the results by the influence on others: whether he brought them closer to the goal of creation or on the contrary, separated them from it.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/11, “The Arvut”

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