Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 8: This matter is like a rich man who took a man from the market and fed him and gave him gold and silver and all desirables every day. And each day he showered him with more gifts than the day before. Finally, the rich man asked, “Do tell me, have all your wishes been fulfilled?” And he replied, “Not all of my wishes have been fulfilled, for how good and how pleasant it would be if all those possessions and precious things came to me through my own work, as they have come to you, and I would not be receiving the charity of your hand.” Then the rich man told him: “In this case, there has never been born a person who could fulfill your wishes.”

It is impossible to shake off the feeling of shame by some external actions. The only way to do so is to receive in order to bestow.

Question: Doesn’t the state of Hafetz Hesed neutralize the shame? After all what do I have to be ashamed of if I only want to bestow?

Answer: Suppose you brought me a present and I say:

– “You know that I really don’t need this. I don’t like it. And why did you give it to me in the first place if I don’t need anything? I don’t want your presents.”

– ” But I tried so hard, I have looked for so long, I wanted to please you and to express my love so much…”

– “But I don’t need anything, you didn’t have to come.”

Either, I outright reject the person, hate him, or there is no connection between us and I feel no urge to correct anything. This means that it isn’t a state of Hafetz Hesed at all.

In fact, it is about my desire and not about signs of love that people around me show me. When I am in a state of Hafetz Hesed it means that all I want is to bestow; I am ready to receive the whole world from you. Bring it to me; I have the right vessels. I will gladly receive everything with love and infinite delight and at the same time I will remain Hafetz Hesed.

It is about my vessels and not about the revelation of the connection with others. I may not need your present or I may really want it, but I ascend and receive it not because I want it. I ascend to the level of Hafetz Hesed and even higher and receive it in the vessels of bestowal in order to bestow pleasure back unto you.

We are always in the desire to receive; we either enjoy or suffer. Therefore, the state of Hafetz Hesed is not a lifeless wall that rejects any receiving. It is a level of correction of my desires to receive and it doesn’t forbid me from receiving what I want at all.

Question: But I dedicate myself to the goal of creation…

Answer: Yes, in this state you don’t need anything and you still receive a present and still want only Hassadim. It is the same state but in addition to it you work with additional desires and constantly add new forms.

This is the spiritual work, it is varied and multi-layered.
[91187]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 7: One who eats and enjoys the labor of one’s friend is afraid to look at his face because by doing so he becomes increasingly humiliated until he loses his human form. And because that which extends from His wholeness cannot be deficient, He gave us room to earn our exaltedness by ourselves, through our work in Torah and Mitzvot.

The creation is opposite from the Creator in its internal attribute, in the egoist desire of “I shall rule.” The only thing that can stand opposite it is the shame that stems from the defect in your own “self.”

In fact, these two discernments merge into one, and it is quite sufficient in order to bring the created being to correction. This is because a person is ready to do anything so that he won’t have to feel the defect of shame in his desire to receive. We can stand shame only if it is possible to cover the desire to receive so that it won’t actually be hurt. Even if the desire to receive may be hurt on the first levels, we cannot accept it on the fourth level, since then it will immediately force a person to put an end to the current state and to stop the feeling of shame immediately in every way he can.

Usually we compensate for the defects by learning from our environment. The whole system is built that way, so that in the opposite three lines we will somehow cope with the shame. But in fact, it is a great feeling that was prepared for high souls.

Question: How is shame related to adhesion, which we have to attain?

Answer: Shame and adhesion, fears and anxieties, whatever you want, are all components of adhesions. In adhesion each of them participates fully in the highest, most open way.
[91103]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: You always say that The Book of Zohar can sometimes be a cure and sometimes poison, what does that mean?

Answer: Kabbalists describe this dilemma by using the allegory of choosing between the elixir of life and the potion of death, or by bringing the example of the rooster and the bat. Everything depends on a person’s intention: Is it the urge for the goal that drives him? This doesn’t mean that by opening a Kabbalah book he necessarily has to focus himself on the true goal because otherwise he will receive the potion of death. It is impossible to demand such things. So the Creator gives a person the right intentions, just like a baby who is under the full supervision of a grown up.

Even if a person comes to study without any basic knowledge and thinks about anything he feels like, it isn’t actually he who thinks and who is operating. From Above he is provided with constant supervision and care. If you could see this from the side, you would see that a person is like a newborn baby, that he has nothing of his own. It is simply a system, a “body” that functions according to a plan. He is equipped with everything that he needs, absorbing and emitting what he has to and thus grows. At this point a person has no freewill and no discernments.

Gradually, however, he grows and begins to move independently. At first he doesn’t feel responsible for what is going on, but later he begins to consciously perceive something and to shout intentionally at something, etc. Gradually he begins to understand what is good and what is bad and under which circumstances he feels good or bad. Accordingly he is played with and shown what he does correctly and what he doesn’t.

There are those who hear better and there are those who hear less, it depends on your innate attributes and on your upbringing. Generally speaking, it is about a huge system called Shechina that takes care of every one and brings everyone to the end of correction.

So, I cannot tell you when a Kabbalah book gives life and when it brings death. First a person is taught all this and after several years he understands that only in a group can he fulfill himself and move on from a corporeal connection with the friends to an internal, spiritual connection.

And then it his choice to reach for the opening of the spiritual network between the friends. It may be concealed from them, but he wants to reveal it. This means that he is attracted to life since this network is totally filled with bestowal.
[91015]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12, The Zohar

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Question: What should I do when I try to hold on to the intention and then the opposite happens and something draws me to the side?

Answer: This is wonderful. The moment you try to hold on to an intention, it evades you or is extinguished by something so that you will hold on to it more strongly. Then by different interruptions, you will be able to differentiate the corrections that you make by carrying on. The Creator shows them to you.

Today it is as if everything is blurred by different problems, but in fact it isn’t so, it is always a kind of help, and it guides you more accurately towards the goal. You aim at it, and suddenly it seems blurry, so that you will “aim” more sensitively and more accurately. And that’s how it is all the time.

Eventually you will be able to recognize the state of the next level from your current state. By the revelation of the ten Sefirot you see reality from end to end and then you are allowed to ascend higher.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/12, The Zohar

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Question: How can I check whether there is love between friends in the group?

Answer: The love between friends in the group can be checked by how much during the day I am in the awareness of the way, how much the friends, due to our connection and mutual guarantee, take care that none of us falls down, keeping us in constant yearning for the goal, towards the center of the group.

Within such caring for one another and mutual aid, love is revealed.
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Question: What should happen so that I will finally be able to understand something in The Study of the Ten Sefirot?

Answer: In order to understand what The Study of the Ten Sefirot is about, I have to feel these phenomena inside me. They don’t take place somewhere on the moon or in outer space. It isn’t about some external systems. All of reality is inside us, in me, and in me I have to feel all of reality. If I imagine it to myself, I think about how to perceive it and about how I can change it, about how the upper force comes to me and changes me. Thus I divide all of reality into myself and to the source that created me, that designed me, and that influences me, which means the Creator.

In me there is a desire to receive, and in Him there is a desire to bestow. His desire bestows upon my desire, and my desire can evoke His desire in response. Thus we begin to work together like partners.

There is nothing else but that. So it turns out that the friends are inside me. These are the attributes that are closest to me, to the part of the desire that I feel as myself. They make up that part of the desire in me, together with me, from which I can turn to the Creator and manage my fate. I also have to correct all my other desires and add them to this part until I am totally incorporated in the mutual work with the Creator.

This will happen when I receive the right desire for it and want for all of us to constantly feel this. I won’t separate myself from the world externally anymore, thinking that the world is somewhere outside myself, in the form of different countries, nations, and friends; I have to constantly imagine that everything is inside me according to the right perception of reality. Then I will begin to gradually approach that perception.

At the beginning, the world will remain in duality for me and I will see it outside of me, but imagine inside. However, gradually, thanks to the Returning Light, I will start to connect these two approaches into one picture. It won’t be the kind of split like schizophrenia. I will begin to feel the goodness and the indivisible unity of the picture. A person reaches his perception gradually due to obtaining the middle line.
[90915]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What does it mean to draw the Light that Reforms?

Answer: When I read The Zohar, I want to see changes inside me, as if a stream of energy enters my internal system, a light, powers, new discernments, new attributes. Something influences me, and I want to feel what it is that influences me and performs changes in me. I want to know this and to feel the flavors and see how these changes take place in me and where inside me I can imagine everything that I read about in The Zohar so that it will not just be imagination, but that I will really feel it in my attributes. This is what I expect, the changes in my desire to receive.

We have to make collective efforts, in mutual help, and then the Light that Reforms will be much stronger than when it influences a single person. Then it is much easier to achieve something. But this is only if a person works with others, in connection with them. By that, he approaches the Light since his desires for the Light are not egoistic any more, but are similar to it in some way.

Of course it is still for himself, but a person tries to resemble the Light in some way and to seemingly become equal to it. This is called a “game.” Of course, I am asking for myself, but to some extent it is like the real and correct attribute of bestowal.

In what way is it similar? Several thousand egoists come together, all of them want to bestow, although deep in their soul everyone wants for himself and disrespects everyone else, but they make collective efforts, as if connecting, as if yearning, as if for the Creator, for bestowal—this “as if” is called a “game.” They “brainwash” each other’s minds as if it is really something great and important. In fact there is nothing real here, but this is what should be done in order to attain the upper level. This is because there is an abyss between the levels, and you cannot be in an upper level before you ascend to it, and in order to ascend you play it.

So we have to connect more strongly and to want to feel that that Light changes us. In the meantime it just changes us, but later our intention will be more accurate, so that it will change us in our connection, in unity, but this will come later. Now at least we have to aim at the influence of the Light.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Zohar

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Question: For many years, you have been warning people that there are two ways of development, one of which is the path of suffering. Can a person hear this? Should we talk about this?

Answer: I feel as a parent with respect to children about this. Even if they do not hear, you must tell them about this. You must do your duty, your mission. It is not up to you to decide when this works. Try to do this by any means. Always look for new opportunities. This is what I think because I have no other choice. Maybe I sound boring, constantly repeating the same thing, which everyone wants to dismiss, maybe it is true. But I do not think so, at least not according to the response I see.

Perhaps, there was a time when my words seemed strange, but not now. Now, at least, people see that if they enter current websites that address these problems, they suddenly find themselves on my Internet sites, where I talked about this 10-15 years ago.
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From KabTV’s “Building a Social Environment” 9/25/12

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Question: Yesterday during the seminar, we really felt that we wanted to achieve the goal very much and were completely unable to do so. But then the aftertaste of despair remained: there are no count to these states.

Answer: True. It was what the sons of Israel felt in Egypt, a threat to remain forever under the rule of Pharaoh.

Question: In real life, if a person wants to achieve something, to learn something, he needs to pass the crucial exam. And he comes to the exam in despair because he cannot know everything.

Answer: Our examination is not based on knowledge. The task is not that you give the correct answers, but the fact of what you ask for.

Imagine that I am an examiner. Do not tell me about your positive and negative potential, accumulated during the training. Do not try to soften me with your confusion. You need to act differently here: If you really see that that there is no alternative, then bring the awareness of your own helplessness and the willingness to be changed. No more, just these two things: “I cannot” and “I have to,” and they both must be of equal strength.

So far, you haven’t obtained from the group either the sufficient demand or sufficient frustration. But they are opposite each other and depend on each other: If you do not crave the goal, you will not discover its unattainability. Both poles lack power so far. Yes, both of them have already emerged due to our workshops; however, the matter is how you fill the time between the workshops.

Question: And yet, in this world, there is a date of the exam, which I know in advance.

Answer: The time of the spiritual examination comes when you are able to pass it. Do you want it today? Please. Once you are ready, there is nothing that can prevent you.
[90918]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: What does the concept “One” mean?

Answer: “One” means that there is one form which governs and connects everyone together, unites and compliments all based on the infinite number of internal properties that are opposite one another in all possible senses.

Such a connection is called “One.” It points at the infinite number of the individual parts included in Him, their form of connection and everyone’s uniqueness in Him. All of these are included in the notion of One.

One includes the entire reality: When He was one whole, but then divided into many parts, and went through all corrections. Everything that has been attained during these corrections, all of these, is called One. This means that He includes absolutely everyone within Himself. He is not simply One, but rather He is One since everything is included within Him.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/12, The Zohar

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