There are certain actions a person must carry out by changing his or her egoistic nature. After all, our nature forces us to love only ourselves, to gain at the expense of our neighbors, regardless of the suffering it causes to the other and even enjoying it.

In the same manner, we don’t take into account the Creator. If it weren’t for the fear of the upper force, we wouldn’t think of it at all. However, there is concealment, due to which I don’t know what will happen to my life, my children, those close to me, or myself. Will I still be alive in the next moment? What does the next day have in store for me? Therefore, I perform a calculation and decide to be good.

We think that the Creator has some obligations with respect to a person if he carries out his obligations with respect to the Creator. In other words, if a person behaves correctly, the Creator treats him well.

Yet there is another condition that obliges us to not only relate well to the Creator, but also to the whole world and the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and human. I need to treat the world that surrounds me like I treat myself. Hence it is written, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” My neighbor is anything within my environment.

Imagine that I treat everything outside of me with the same level of sensitivity, care, and love as I treat myself! I then stop feeling the difference between me and what is outside of me. The whole inanimate world, plants, animals, and people become like me.

I feel that I, the whole world, and the whole universe are as one pie in which I exist. There is no difference between what I have inside and what is outside. If we achieve this state, we thereby cancel all the boundaries and acquire an additional sense that allows us to feel what is outside of us. I have always felt the outside world through judging how beneficial something is for me. And now I cancel my egoism, my preconceived notion, and I just feel the outside world.

Suddenly I discover that the outside world and I merge into one, which is called the upper world, or the Garden of Eden. The world is full of light, energy, life, and pleasure. There is only the Upper Light, which exists in absolute rest and tranquility. There are no separations, limitations, or time.

I exit the limitations of this egoistic world and our egoistic perceptions and I reveal a new true reality, which is not bound by the boundaries of my egoism.

If I reach such a perception, when I feel the whole world as one whole, where the upper and lower worlds unite, I can feel all the Light that fills them, the only force of the Creator, then I reveal the truth, by which I exist in this world.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/17/15

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Question: Our lives are so primitive: working, going back home, eating dinner, and going to sleep, waking up in the morning and going back to work. And you talk about some kind of “upper world”!

I would like to see it, but when I look up, I see only the ceiling. Is it possible to change something in my life? Where is this upper world?

Answer: When talking about the upper world, which is located above our world, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t mean an ordinary height, as if it were a ceiling or stars in the sky; this is talking about inner and higher human characteristics. Sometimes we say: “What a tall person, he is above everyone,” but we don’t mean his height. Napoleon was a meter and a half tall, at the same time, he was a great personality. So it is first necessary to clarify, what “low” and “high” mean.

In Kabbalah, “higher” means “higher” according to characteristics. Higher characteristics are bestowal, love, connection, and unity. And if we indicate that a person is low and inferior, we are referring to his dismal characteristics, not height.

So we call the spiritual world the upper world because love and unity reside there. And to approach it is possible specifically thanks to connection and unity.

Why don’t we feel the Creator? Because there is no unity between us. If we want to feel the force that surrounds, envelops, and includes all of creation within it, we need to connect and to become as one.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that even if ten people connect and unite as one person, then they will feel the upper force, the upper world. It is specifically this connection that we try to implement in Kabbalistic groups.

And this is the essence of the method that is described in the original books of Kabbalah like The Book of Zohar and the original books by the Ari and Baal HaSulam.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 9/6/15

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Baal HaSulam, “Fruits of Wisdom,” “He who Shares the Public’s Grief”: “A person is measured to the extent that he measures,” that is, according to the size of the vessels, according to the container and its interior part. The same deficiency will always be full, no more no less.

Therefore, God’s servant who doesn’t share the public’s grief, but only feels his own private deficiency has a container for the abundance that isn’t big enough, and therefore will not be able to receive the general revelation of Godliness in the secret of the public’s consolation, because he has not prepared a vessel to receive this general phase but only his private phase.

But if he shares the public’s grief and feels the troubles of the general as his own private trouble, he is rewarded with seeing the complete phase of the revelation of the Shechina, meaning the consolation of all of Israel, because his deficiency is a general deficiency and therefore the abundance of holiness is also general.

You should thus understand the meaning of “the righteous have no rest,” which means that because the abundance is blessed according to the level of deficiency and the longings of the righteous, to the same extent, no more no less, they always make efforts to deepen and to expand their vessel because the one who bestows has no measure, only the one who receives. Thus, their only goal in life is to grow stronger and to yearn to make in them a vessel and thus cause contentment in expanding the borders of holiness.

The vessel of receiving is limited and the vessel of bestowal is unlimited. It all depends on a person. To the extent that he tries to expand his vessel of bestowal, he receives help from above. If he is really interested in correction and uses all the means he has, he can always increase the vessel, which means increasing his deficiency for bestowal. The Light that Reforms operates on him according to these efforts and corrects his vessel, prepares it, and then fills it. Therefore it is said “the righteous have no rest, neither in this world nor in the next world,” which means neither on the current level nor on the next level, and they will always be able to advance.

The key and the basis for advancement is to share the public’s grief, which means that the additional deficiencies and the need for bestowal can only be acquired from the environment. There is no other place; the environment is the only place where one can draw from it unlimitedly and advance as a result.

We can thus immediately assess how a person sees this advancement in the spiritual life. Today it already refers to everyone, both men and women. It depends if a person isolates himself and thinks that he will advance only thanks to his studies, or whether he participates in dissemination and in community life, connecting to the group with all his might. If he doesn’t do that, he cannot accumulate a deficiency for bestowal, of course, reach a prayer, and receive a readymade vessel. The Light is in abundance, and it will therefore immediately fill the vessel the moment it is ready.

Baal HaSulam wrote: “A person is measured to the extent that he measures.” After all, a person can only measure the extent that he yearns to be in the vessels of bestowal and to be filled with Light. Everything depends only on him, on the preparation of his vessel. Sharing the public’s grief is the key for the revelation of the Creator.

In his article “The Giving of the Torah,” Baal HaSulam wrote that when the children of Israel were in Egypt they became one nation that suffered the enslavement and the hard labor together the moment they began to mutually share their grief. Pharaoh brought the children of Israel closer to the Creator and enforced increasingly greater afflictions upon them, and as a result, forced them to connect.They realized that only thanks to the connection between them could they be saved and come out of Egypt. This is how a person receives the right deficiency.

It turns out that we have unlimited opportunities to advance because the whole world already needs correction. We will always have a chance to influence the public and to engage in dissemination more and more without limits; we will receive the deficiencies from people and advance before them each time in order to be their teachers and to serve them. This is how we will advance towards increasingly greater vessels of bestowal.

All the grief should be aimed at only one thing: how to absorb additional deficiencies from the close environment or from an increasingly wider environment, until the whole world is included in my vessel. This is the purpose of the shattering, which means the keeping of the commandments. Only building a deficiency for bestowal fulfills everything.

Nowadays we see that the whole world, including us, is already arranged for the revelation of the deficiency for mutual bestowal. This is how we build the place for the revelation of the Creator in order to cause Him contentment. All this will happen before our very eyes.
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From the Preparation for the Convention 2/25/14

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Question: Why does Baal HaSulam write that a person must give contentment to his Creator? Does each one have his own Creator?

Answer: Sometimes, we only say “Creator,” sometimes “your Creator,” and sometimes we say the plural, “Creators.” That is how the lower level perceives the higher. There are a multitude of higher Partzufim (Israel Saba ve Tvuna, Abba ve Ima), a multitude of forces that take care of the Tachtonim (Lower Ones). But all of them have one intention and one goal.

The person doesn’t turn to an abstract upper force but to that level to which he is directly connected now. So he can call these higher levels by the name, Creators.

The Creator has no defined image. It is forbidden in any way or manner to describe Him as something static that exists outside of us. There is no such thing, even though it is very difficult for a person to accept this. However, this is a problem that exists only in our uncorrected perception.

It is up to us to see ourselves as a property of reception. Who am I? I am this quality of reception, and the Creator is the quality of bestowal. There is nothing more than these two properties, and I want to become like the quality of bestowal.

A property is something abstract that has no physical image. The property receives a form only when it dresses in something concrete. So, the best way to protect oneself from making a mistake is to refrain from describing the upper force as some kind of permanent form or image. This is very important for clarification and the right attitude.

After all, what is the Elyon (Upper One)? This is something that is above that now fills me. A filling of reception is wanting only to receive everything, to feel good, to be healthy, to know, to understand, to attain, to control in some way. All of this belongs to the property of reception that is directed entirely toward self-benefit.

But there is an opposite property above me, meaning that I attribute it to spirituality and value it. It is above me and I want to attain it. If this higher property would clothe me, I would stop being concerned about myself, acting only for my personal benefit. But what would I think then? Would I think about anything? What kind of form will my property of bestowal have? How will it fill me instead of the property of reception that fills me now?

Therefore, we attain a Kli, the reason, the preparation for the property of bestowal, a place in which it must be clothed. To do this, we must prepare Arvut (Mutual Guarantee), the attitude toward your neighbor in which bestowal is clothed.

This is very practical, and it is up to us to try to bring them into our sensations. If everyone thinks about this, if there is general agreement, general thought, if we are ready to pay attention to this for a long time and not just a few minutes from time to time, then we will be strongly influenced by each other in the best way and we precisely clarify this attitude toward the Creator. This is our only work: to try to more clearly imagine His property and focus on the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/14, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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The Torah, “Leviticus,” 23:33 – 23:36: And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD. On the first day shall be a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of servile work.

Seven days ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD; on the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD; it is a day of solemn assembly; ye shall do no manner of servile work.

The Sukkot holiday continues for seven days; in each one of them an ascent is carried out to the spiritual levels of Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut.

And on the eighth day a special gathering happens when a person receives filling by the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), the light of love, friendship, happiness, compassion, partnership, and mercy. This is called “embracing from the right side,” as it is said: “His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me” (Song of Songs 8:3).

This means that Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are “His left hand should be under my head,” and Sukkot is “and his right hand should embrace me.” And on the last day, on the eighth day of the Sukkot holiday, a partial coupling of the male and female parts of the Kli happens.

At this time, the desire of the person transmits illumination through the Upper Light, and so throughout all the days of the festival, the revelation of the greatness of the Light of Hassadim and great adhesion of the male and female parts of the desire to “embrace” one are expected.

So every day of the festival of Sukkot is important, those that are spent in a Sukkah that is specially built under the dome of heaven where a sacred gathering and feast are arranged.

A person who is in a Sukkah for seven days seemingly receives all the corrected Ohrot Ha Makifim (Surrounding Lights), filling and pushing him toward discovery, connection, and contact with the Creator.

And this happens on the eighth day upon leaving the Sukkah, so the eighth day is called Simcha Torah. Torah is the Light that corrects the person and fills him with happiness.

Comment: It is thought that every evening members of the Ushpizin (guests), visitors, arrive at the Sukkah according to the order: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David.

Answer: All of these visitors symbolize the Lights of correction in seven spiritual levels. They are not historical figures but spiritual states. Each one of the levels possesses a unique character, and only when a person passes through them, meaning that he corrects himself in seven different states, does he become ready for the revelation of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/18/15

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Question: Nine years ago, you suggested that we don’t talk about our states. We have grown gradually, and now we are allowed to speak about them in workshops.

Answer: But I think you will talk only about what is beneficial for the group and not just spill out all of your states. After all, you have to be responsible for the group and raise it, even contrarily to what you feel at that specific time.

You can come to the group and ask your friends to sit with you, “Guys, I feel bad, but I don’t understand why.” The group is like a doctor. It can help you clarify things inside you, It must include you inside it and diagnose you and why you feel bad. There should be no secrets. No one is asking us to share intimate details. We are talking about spiritual details, and we are leaving all the corporeality aside.

When we advance neither the corporeal problems nor the spiritual ones affect our spiritual advancement. In that case, we must discuss them with the friends. We must clarify this so that we can be connected on a spiritual level.

You don’t have to tell others what is deep in your heart. You keep that only for the Creator. But you can discuss certain doubts, problems and descents in the group, and the friends will support you, cheer you up, awaken and raise you.

When the friends feel that you are not in a very good state, they must carry you in their arms like a child, rock you a little, calm you down, give you some pacifier, sit together and talk.

Your states are not yours. You must feel the state that the group is in and whether you are in it with the group. Align in this direction, according to this inclination, and don’t think about anything else. Try to worry about the group and think about it all day long. How are they getting along? Are they holding on to one another? Can I help them in any way? Should I call them? Should I do something? Try to get used to this state of worrying about the group as a mother worries about her children.

This is how you remove all the negative influences from yourself. Why should the Creator send them to you for you to uncover the ego if you are ahead of the ego looking for a way to be more connected to the friends? After all, the ego awakens in us only with regard to greater cooperation and stronger connection with the group, and you are headed toward such a connection and cooperation anyway. So, you never will feel any negative influences. You are looking for it yourself like an old man bent over who dropped something in the street.

Try to cultivate this state among you and you will see how suddenly everything goes smoothly. Turn you head away from all the other problems as much as you can and begin engaging only in this one worry, and 99% of your problems will be solved.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

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Question: What does compliance with the 613 Mitzvot mean?

Answer: There exist 613 egoistic desires in every person, which must be corrected for goodness and love.

Question: Do I need to constantly count them by myself?

Answer: No. The desires that can be corrected will arise automatically in a person in succession and in particular connections. It is enough for me to think that I must nullify myself towards others and connect with them.

This must be my only permanent movement, so that everything, one way or another, will approach realization of the general rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And this is called performing the 613 Mitzvot.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/13/15

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The Torah, “Numbers,” 15:32 – 15:36: When the children were in the desert, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood presented him before Moses and Aaron and before the entire congregation. They put him under guard, since it was not specified what was done to him. The Lord said to Moses, “The man shall surely be put to death; the entire congregation shall pelt him with stones outside the camp.” So the entire congregation took him outside the camp, and they pelted him to death with stones, as the Lord had commanded Moses.”

A person who has risen to a level in which the Sabbath exists for him is not an ordinary person. And to gather sticks is to search within yourself for characteristics that can be used as fuel. This means that it is a conscious sin against the highest level of unity, the Sabbath. And so the correction of the person is in killing his beastly state on the level of the still through stones.

This is the stony heart (Lev HaEven) that must be killed. But in the next incarnation he will overcome this state and correct it. That is what is written in the Torah, that a person must kill himself through his stony heart. On the other hand, “Even” (stone) is derived from the word, “Havnah,” (understanding, awareness). So stoning with stones is greater consciousness, without which he could not approach spiritual actions.

Gathering sticks on the Sabbath is a desire of the person to find fuel so that he will have warmth and Light, (the right and left lines). But because he wants to rise to the level of the Sabbath with prohibited acts, he is put to “death.” And if he wants, he could ascend as he should on Shabbat (the Sabbath), by nullifying himself. The idea is that throughout the week a person prepares fuel, sticks, firewrood, oil for lamps for warmth, and after that uses them on Shabbat. But if he kindles the sticks within him, meaning that he creates something on Shabbat, with this he detaches from the Creator who works for him on this day.

The Sabbath is the last day of the week when the partnership of Malchut is revealed. Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod are the six Sefirot with which we work for six days. The last Sefira Malchut doesn’t do anything by itself. It only activates the previous six Sefirot that act with its help, and on the Sabbath it receives what was revealed in them.

If a person wants to work on the Sabbath as he did on the previous days, with this he limits his ascent. He cannot receive anything from the first six Sefirot and move to the next level, to the next week. And so in the next week he is like someone who died. The six days of the week are six states in which we correct the characteristic of Malchut to resemble the six higher characteristics: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod. And then on the seventh day, on the Sabbath, they all connect together and ennoble Malchut through correction. The person no longer participates in this; he cannot work with Malchut but only higher than it, above it, in the six upper Sefirot.

So work is forbidden on the Sabbath. It is said that someone who worked before the Sabbath harvests the fruit of his labor on the Sabbath. For when the first six Sefirot are integrated together and illuminate Malchut, the person is then elevated and feels the flow of the Creator, His revelation to him. And if not, then for the entire week there is no meaning for him. Through his heart of stone he kills himself and “kills” his soul, meaning the possibility of adhesion with the Creator on the Sabbath.

So his correction is in killing that level to which he could not ascend, killing it through that stony heart and starting all over. There is nothing terrible here; this is one of those ordinary crimes that we sometimes commit on the spiritual path.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 13/5/15

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The Torah, “Numbers,” 15:37 – 15:41: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them that they shall make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments, throughout their generations, and they shall affix a thread of sky blue [wool] on the fringe of each corner. This shall be fringes for you, and when you see it, you will remember all the commandments of the Lord to perform them, and you shall not wander after your hearts and after your eyes after which you are going astray. So that you shall remember and perform all My commandments and you shall be holy to your God. I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the Lord, your God.

There have to be special fringes that are tied in a special way in all the four corners of every garment and every piece of clothing. These fringes symbolize the four parts of the spiritual vessel: Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut, which should all be corrected and added. This means that they are studied and absorbed by the help of 613 commandments, 613 desires a person has, so that he will always be aware of their correction.

A person covers himself with these clothes only during the day and it is called a “prayer shawl” because when he is in the Creator’s Light he has to constantly remember how to be adapted to the Light, to constantly yearn for it, and resemble it, but not at night.

The blanket with which we cover ourselves has to have fringes in its corners that have to be tied. If they are not tied, they have to be cut with scissors into one small end so that it can be rounded. All the corners of the rectangle (Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut) where the Parsa goes through from Malchut to Bina, symbolize the spiritual vessel that has to be fully adapted to the Creator’s attributes, which means to be totally corrected in all its 613 desires.

A person has to constantly see them before him as the place for his correction. Therefore the knots on his clothes remind him that he has to constantly be subordinate to them so that he will look at these fringes each time and think about his 613 desires. On the level of our world these are only physical actions, of course, while in the spiritual world they symbolize that a person is corrected. Being under the prayer shawl refers to a spiritual person.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/13/15

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Question: How will my life change when I attain a sixth sense? What will I feel?

Answer: The sixth sense is the attribute of bestowal that also is divided into five types of senses. We feel this world through five physical senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

The wisdom of Kabbalah, on the other hand, enables us to develop an additional sense that also is divided into sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, but on a spiritual level.

This additional sense enables me to feel the upper reality, a broader scope surrounding our world. Then, I can feel how I mutually participate with the upper force and understand the reason for everything that happens in our world.

I understand why the upper force turns to me or to others, and how I should respond to it properly in order to avoid the negative development of events and even to change things for the better and correct them.

By using the sixth sense, the attribute of bestowal, I discover the root of different phenomena that dress in matter before they reach our world.

Question: Will I become a different person then? How will it affect the life of my children and my nearby environment?

Answer: I can explain that by giving an example from our world. Suppose you are a psychologist, but you are also a mother and have a family and children. You understand people’s behavior and all the calculations and actions they make and the reason for the relationships among the family members.

In that case, you respond to what is happening not like an ordinary woman, but you can explain many things, understand, and justify them. This means that you feel life on a much deeper level.

This is exactly how a Kabbalist feels life, but much more deeply. Besides that, unlike a psychologist who only can explain the reason for what happens, a Kabbalist also actually can change our lives.

A Kabbalist sees the deepest reasons for what happens in our lives that are above time, motion, and place that stem from beyond the framework of our world.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM 8/16/15

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