Question: We know from experience that there are ascents and descents on the spiritual path. What can help me avoid running away from the “battlefield”?

Answer: “Running away” does not mean falling off the face of the earth. Instead, you continue to sit at the lessons, you are friendly and good-natured toward your friends, you carry out all the rules of the group, take part in the duties, and pay Maaser, but in essence you have escaped to another place a long time ago with your thoughts and feelings. Or maybe the habit of being in the group has become second nature for you. This is running away.

You are in the right place physically, yet we don’t assess things by bodies, but by desires and intentions, which may have withdrawn far, far away a long time ago. And that means you are not here. In other words, you do not apply your mind and feeling, desires and thoughts during the study in order to merit the Light that Reforms. So it turns out that you have escaped.

You sit here for several years wearing out your pants, and later you ask, “So where’s my reward?” That means your egoistic notions about reward have not changed one bit.

Therefore, a person has to check: Is he escaping or not? This work has to be done ceaselessly, every moment. As Baal HaSulam writes in Item 18 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” it’s important not to get distracted from the most important thing: the Light that Reforms, which is concealed in the Torah.

First and foremost, this has to be done during the study. Even if a person has prepared, he might be running away from the goal in his thoughts at the lesson. If you kept the intention for five minutes and then lost it, then all three hours were wasted.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/11, Writings of Rabash

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From above downwards we are sent all of the influences that govern us: forces and material resources (for example, natural resources and the forces to develop them). From below upwards, besides actions there is a reaction coming from us, which makes additional corrections on the still, vegetative, animate and human levels; for example, mechanical engineering, agriculture, animal husbandry, the food manufacturing industry, and everything else. And at the end of it all, there are the inner corrections which are made by studying Kabbalah.

All of this is our addition from below and it unites into one pyramid in order to join the intention. Man stands at the top of the pyramid with his intention. Then the whole world becomes attached to man, who created an intention.

The fact is that man desires to erase the limitations that are imposed by time, motion, and space. Therein lies the source of the driving force that makes us search for things by which to supplement this reality of ours. We have to view time, movement, space, and the existence of reality not as disturbances that bother us, but as help!

After I perform all of the actions in order to fill myself by virtue of time, motion, and space, inventing all sorts of means for this, I reach the existence of reality. That is when I have to take hold of it, and this is the reason why the need to attain the Creator arises in me, the question about the meaning of life, about life’s source.

Conclusion: Everything descends to us in the form of Direct Light (Ohr Yashar) from above. We have to dress what descends to us from the upper level (Ohr Yashar) into the Reflected Light (Ohr Makif) from below. This is our addition.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels it is expressed in the form of all of our efforts to create a comfortable environment, in the production of artificial articles and technologies. That is why there are so many artificial processes and products that appear next to man in our world, having no direct analogues in the Upper World. On the human level, which we are reaching today, what we add to the upper influence is the screen and intention (Ohr Makif).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: What is the significance of the group in forming the desire that can reveal the Tabernacle?

Answer: A person does not have any desires aimed at the Creator! I cannot independently aspire to the Creator. This cannot be! The Creator is among the particular souls, among the particular desires of society. “I dwell among My people.” These are not just pretty words. The Creator is the net of connection between us and that is where I have to look for Him.

If I look for a desire that I have to correct, then I have to aspire toward you, see how much I hate and repel you, how much I don’t care about you, and then I reveal the evil, the evil desire—how much I don’t accept you. I see the breaking: the souls between which the connection is destroyed.

If I reveal this with the help of the teacher, books, and environment, if I regret the fact that I am not connected with others “as one man with one heart,” in mutual guarantee and total unity, then this regret is called MAN: a prayer or request. I ask for “Mey Nukvin”: the female waters, the force of Bina, bestowal, unification. Then the MAN ascends into Malchut, from Malchut through Zeir Anpin into Bina, and into the world of Infinity.

It’s impossible for me to correct something and to sacrifice something of my own unless it is aimed toward the neighbor, toward the environment in which I exist. That is where realization takes place. That is where the place of our work is. That is why the place for the Tabernacle and the Temple, the Menorah, and the table, the way they are placed in relation to one another, in what form, at what height and width, are all indications of our common Kli that is called the soul. Besides this Kli there is nothing! The soul is the combination of our desires, and the right depiction of these desires, particular souls, is called the courtyard, the Tabernacle, the Tent. All of this is common to all of us and exists among us or inside of us.

Question: Do the forms of the Tabernacle change depending on the level that the soul is on? Will different people in the group see different forms of it?

Answer: They will see it more or less clearly, with a different degree of resolution and clarity, like viewing with glasses or without. Every person will see it slightly differently, according to his level, his form, and the special qualities of the soul, but at the same time everyone will see the same thing and will be able to talk about the same thing.
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From the lesson on the weekly Torah portion on 2/4/11

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Question: Are we now making the right offering for the Tabernacle, or is the Creator putting it together piece by piece? Who is the architect?

Answer: Of course, we do not understand anything about our work just like a two-year-old child grows without knowing what he should become like when reaching three years. He does not plan the process of his growth and does not form himself at the age of three years. In the same way, we make a Menorah (a seven-branched candelabrum) by throwing a piece of gold into the fire and then having it emerge by itself. But how does it happen “by itself”?

The matter is that you cannot do anything yourself. If you prepare your intention (not the action, but only the intention!), if you build it in the middle line, then the Light will turn your matter precisely into the form that this matter has to assume. This matter cannot take on any other form! In other words, it already has this form, and you must only reveal it by having your intention reveal this picture to you.

You enter a world that is ready ahead of time! When you reveal the “ball and the flower," “the Menorah,” “the table,” "the onyx and other stones,” you are revealing what already exists. You are the one renewing your perception. You reveal it; it becomes revealed to you and inside of you. You build your vision, perception, understanding, and agreement. According to the extent of your agreement, you don’t see the external form, but you see that everything is inside of you. Your vision becomes internal.

Right now what you see seems external to you, but in spirituality you see that everything is inside. Then your perception is authentic. You no longer have the illusion you are in now where it seems to you that the world exists outside of you, that there is you and the world. In spirituality this lie does not exist. You feel that everything is inside of you, inside of the soul with which you identify yourself.
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From the lesson on the weekly Torah portion on 2/4/11

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The weekly Torah portion “Truma” (Offering) is not talking about our false reality in this illusory world, which we perceive in our desire. Why is it illusory? It is because we have been given this form of our unconscious state where it seems to us that we exist.

There are movies showing how everyone sleeps a deep, somnambulant sleep and everything takes place in the dream. This is the state we are in today because we are separated from the true reality. Our reality is a kind of dream, which is why it is written, “We were like in a dream.”

It seems to us that we exist in reality, like the horse driver who went to heaven and to compensate for the suffering he endured, he received the reality he had in the earthly world: a wife, children, a home, a carriage, and a good horse. This means that a person receives what he desires. It says in The Book of Zohar that a person in the world to come is asked, “What did you want?” Of course, no one asks anyone about anything and nothing of the sort takes place, but in the end a person receives what he aspired to.

The same is true in our reality. Right now we exist in an imaginary world, but when we start independently building the true reality, we have to build it the way it says in this Torah portion. When I work on my desire, if I gradually transform my egoistic intention into the intention of bestowal, then I attain a new Kli in which I reveal a new reality. I build the Tabernacle and in the process I reveal the spiritual world more and more, until it becomes fully revealed.
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From the lesson on the weekly Torah portion on 2/4/11

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Shamati #1, And only if that person has a true desire will he receive help from Above. And he is constantly shown how he is at fault in his present state.

What is the help from Above? It is that you are constantly pushed into your own inner filth, into your egoism, and are shown your own insignificance. This is what the Creator does: He constantly shows a person a huge, black darkness inside of himself, a garbage dump in his thoughts, desires, intentions, and calculations.

Why? It is only in order for him to come to need the Creator, to bring him to a state where he will no longer be able to stand his own stench. To do this, it is necessary to constantly pull him out of this feeling and to show him a different existence—one that is slightly higher, lighter, and higher than his egoism. Then he once again has to be shoved face-first into his own egoism: Look at yourself, see who you are. And then he once again has to be slightly pulled out of that swamp, and then once again thrust head down.

That is how everything happens until a person comes to feel that he really does not have any “holiness” or spiritual purity, and that everything comes only from his personal, small, egoistic being that was created in him and in which he was created.

Although he occasionally receives awakening from Above, which momentarily revives him, but soon after he falls into the place of baseness.

Of course, all of these are the Creator’s actions. But that doesn’t matter because a person feels them upon himself and inside himself. All we are is the sensation. There is nothing else in us besides sensation and we realize only what we feel. The mind only accompanies the feeling.

However, this is what causes him to come to [finally] realize that only the Creator can help and really bring him closer [to perfection]. This need or demand for perfection gradually ripens inside us precisely from these opposite states.
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From the 4th lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Shamati #1, “There is none else beside Him” Not only does he not progress in his [spiritual] work [and does not see any clearance ahead], but [it seems to him that] he regresses, that is, he lacks the strength to observe [the Creator’s will] even “for his own sake,” [while it is the Creator who pushes him forward].

We don’t create a real egoistic desire that is able to overcome anything. Instead, we start experiencing weakness, indifference, and our operation by automatic pilot. “Let happen whatever will.” We just go with the flow. Sometimes things are a bit better and sometimes a bit worse.

That only by genuinely overcoming all the obstacles, above reason, can he [advance forward]. What does “genuinely overcoming above reason” mean? It’s when in spite of one’s desire and thoughts, without having any predisposition to do so, a person begins to connect to the teacher, the group, and the books. Altogether this is all called “the environment” or the surroundings.

But even in this case, when he begins to connect to them, he is still thrown about, up and down and in relation to the teacher, the group, and the sources or books. Sometimes he wants to and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he believes it and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he’s sick and tired of it, and sometimes he strives forward, and so on.

As the difficulties mount, a person starts to feel that there is nothing attractive or special on this path, and nothing motivates him to advance. There is no spark, nothing really worth giving up his life, career, and success for.

As a result, a person falls. His fall is serious, real, deep, and pretty lengthy. Thus, he reaches the final decision that not the group, nor the teacher, nor the books, nor exertion—nothing will help him in the world besides the only governing force, the Creator.

All the times that a person fell and rose, all the states that passed over him were all in order for him to feel total and absolute dependence on no one but the Creator. Imagine how much a person has to be beaten from all sides, shaken up, pushed away and attracted, and shown the existence of a great number of forces and various causes for his states so that in the end he would become convinced that there is nothing besides the one, single Force. If it doesn’t help me, then no one will. Only it will come to my rescue if I demand it.

That is when the following need arises in a person: for the Creator to definitely help him. The formation of this demand is also very not simple. It does not happen in one moment, but it gradually surges up in a person, becoming vividly expressed, fierce, and persistent. Like a child who demands what he wants no matter what—just give him what he wants, and you can’t convince him any other way. That is the kind of state we must reach. And in this state the Creator really does help us.

Only those people who truly want to draw near the Creator, so they will not settle for little, meaning remain as senseless children, they are therefore given help from Above, so they will not be able to say that I have everything and what else do I need?
From the 4th lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Kabbalah, the method of attaining the upper world, includes two parts:

1. The first part tells us about how to unite with each other, or how to try to connect and unite;
2. The second part tells us about how to evoke the influence or effect of the upper Light upon us.

Before we begin to study we have to be perforated by the aspiration to unite our desires. Then every person will have a much greater desire than his own. He will begin to be permeated by thoughts, qualities, and desires of other people who also aspire to the same result and the same goal as he. This should be our main intention before the study.

A person who hasn’t prepared for the study in this way misses practically everything because the influence of the upper Light does not come upon the desire of each person, but upon the aspiration that each of us has toward others, meaning on our mutual aspirations to unite with one another, with everyone all together into one common desire.

If I imagine this one common desire and wish to be included in it “as one man,”as before the breaking of Adam into separate souls, then my aspiration receives the influence of the upper Light. Then I really gain spiritual attainment as a result of these efforts.

However, if I come there and listen without these efforts, without making attempts to be included in the common desire, then the upper Light does not have anything it can influence inside of me. I did not provide a surface or basis that it can influence and therefore all of my actions will only elicit purely formal knowledge. That is, I will hear and memorize what is written in the book, but no more.

Therefore, it must be crystal clear to us that the upper Light comes only to our mutual efforts. They have to be mutual! Therefore, the condition for attracting the Light to us is the same condition as was required during the reception of the Torah: “To be as one man with one heart.” Only in this case does the Light come.

So let us try to think this way.
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From the 3rd lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

What Is a Prayer?

When concealment [of spirituality, the thought about bestowal and love of others] overpowers one and he comes to a state where the work [attainment of the property of bestowal and love of others] becomes tasteless, and he cannot picture and feel any love [of the Creator, the single property of love] and fear [that he won’t be able to respond to Him with the same love that he receives from Him], and he cannot do anything in holiness [reach it by his own strength], then his only counsel [this is how it becomes revealed to him] is to cry to the Creator to take pity on him [since he can no longer further it in any way himself] and remove the screen [the shield of his egoism] from his eyes and heart.

The issue of crying is a very important one. It is as our sages write: “All the gates were locked except for the gate of tears.” The world asks about that: If the gate of tears is not locked, what is the need for all other gates at all? [Why can’t one enter the upper world right through the gate of tears?] He said that it is like a person who asks his friend for some necessary object. This object touches his heart, and he asks and begs of him in every manner of prayer and plea. Yet, his friend pays no heed to all that. And when one sees that there is no longer reason for prayers and pleas [and sees no other solution], he then raises his voice in weeping [out of hopelessness and despair, despair because he desperately wants to reach the desired and hopelessness because he became convinced that it is beyond his power].

It is said about that: “All the gates were locked except for the gate of tears.” Thus, when was the gate of tears not locked? Precisely when all the gates [that one has tried in the attempts to enter the upper world] were locked [he became personally convinced of their uselessness]. It is then [he personally sees] that there is room for the gate of tears and then one sees that it was not locked [for him and only then is he able to use them, meaning to truly plea for redemption from egoism and acquiring the property of bestowal].

However, when the gate of prayer is open, the gate of tears and weeping is irrelevant. This is the meaning of the gate of tears being locked. Thus, when is the gate of tears not locked? Precisely when all the gates are locked, the gate of tears is open. This is because one still has the counsel of prayer and plea.

This is the meaning of “My soul shall weep in secret,” meaning when one comes to a state of concealment, then “My soul shall weep” because one has no other option.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 18, “What Is My Soul Shall Weep In Secret”
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

What Is a Prayer?

We should understand what our sages said, “One does not find himself in debt” (Shabbat, 119). Accordingly, one cannot correct his actions, for he will never see that his actions are corrupt and require correction. Thus, one must always remain corrupt.

The thing is that it is known that man was created with a nature of wanting only to delight himself. Therefore, in everything he learns, he wishes to learn how he can enjoy. Thus, if a person wishes to enjoy, he will naturally avoid learning things other than what his heart desires, for this is his nature.

For this reason, one who wishes to draw near to the Creator and to learn things that show ways by which to bestow upon the Creator, must pray to the Creator to give him a different heart, as it is written, “Create for me a pure heart, O God.” This means that when he has another heart, when the desire in the heart is a desire to bestow, then in everything he learns, he will naturally see ways that show only how to bestow upon the Creator.

However, he will never see against the heart. It is said about that, “And I will remove the stony heart from within you, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”
– Rabash, Steps of the Ladder, “One Learns Only where One’s Heart Desires”

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