If a person correctly organizes the three inner qualities—the “candle,” the “oil,” and the “wick”—within themselves, they come to a state called Hanukkah (from the words “ḥanu ko,” “they stopped here”), meaning a short respite in the middle of the path.

“Oil” is our material, the desire to enjoy; it is the content of the vessel (Kli). It is not capable of igniting itself from the light that we draw from outside; it is only with the help of the wick.

The wick must be immersed in the oil and also protrude from it. It symbolizes the screen that we build outside the egoistic desire (outside the oil). That part of the egoistic desire that we are able to include within the screen, that is, the oil that has soaked into the wick, only that can shine and come in contact with the upper light.

But this is only on the condition that the oil cannot merely penetrate inside the wick, but also rise above the level of the oil, the egoism, toward Bina, toward the light, toward bestowal. Only then can it shine!

The light emerges from the upper edge of the wick, where it comes out and loses its connection with the oil, with egoism.

The reflected light, the flame rising from below upward, reaches Keter in the ten Sefirot of reflected light, and there the connection between the reflected light and the force of the receiving desire, the egoism, from which the force of burning comes, almost breaks.

The oil rises upward along the wick, and only there is contact achieved, a similarity of properties between the oil in the wick and the light. Only together can they shine. The light cannot be revealed until it connects with the wick and the oil within it.

By imagining a burning candle, we can understand the inner work of a person: what we must do with ourselves so that our soul attains similarity to the light, to the Creator.

The desire does not disappear; all of it must join the screen, the wick. From it we create our middle line to the extent that we are able to bring the oil, desire, into the wick.

Only a small part of the desire can be included in the screen. The wick symbolizes that core, that thin thread by which the correspondence of our desire to the light is measured.

The screen, the middle line, is built from these two forces oil and wick, left and right. The right line is bestowal, light, and the left is reception, oil.

The middle line, which we create from the two higher qualities of reception and bestowal, is called the soul.
[6599]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 12/13/09, Rabash, Letter 43

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Question: In “The Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” a system is described that seems external to humans. How can I imagine it as relating to me, within myself?

Answer: There is no soul in my animal body, no ten Sefirot of the soul. I only have a point from which I have to build them.

It arose in my egoistic desires. If I can connect to other points in the heart with my egoism, then my ego will give me material desires, and connection with other people will create a structure of nine Sefirot within me.

I myself turn into the point of Malchut, into the tenth Sefirot, and my first nine Sefirot are my attitude toward other people. All other souls, everything in front of them, the whole world, and everything around them are my nine Sefirot (Tet Rishonot).

And if I connect them to myself with love and understanding that we are one, and rise above my egoism, if I can rise above my Malchut in order to bestow, then I will connect these external properties of giving, and my soul will arise in me, a complete Partzuf of ten Sefirot.

Where do I reveal the Creator? In the very desires that I have acquired by bestowing to others.
Everything that is around a person is his own soul structure. But after the shattering, the fall into egoism, I want to use these parts of myself egoistically to get everything that is in them.

Now I need to return to bestowing to them, to connect them to myself with love, and I will reveal the light of my soul in them. In myself, in Malchut, I will never reveal the light, because the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) cannot be canceled.

Therefore everything depends on how I get out of myself and connect with other souls, how I feel their desires as if they were my own. In this common desire, I will reveal the Creator.
[4835]
From the Kabbalah Lesson, 9/8/2009, Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Sulam [Ladder] Commentary,”

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Question: On what basis do I choose which states to keep and which to discard for the sake of adhesion with the Creator? What do I rely on?

Answer: On what you have already experienced. Now you have reached at a state in which you already possess a certain part of the path, when, as it is said, “the Knower of secrets testifies about him that he will never again return to folly.” That is, the Creator guarantees this state to you.
[350736]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/25, Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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A “day” is not when there is sunlight, but when spiritual light is revealed to a person. This may happen once in several months, once in a lifetime, or every single moment.

And each time a person attains a revelation, it must be complete and perfect. Therefore, one is obligated to say: Hear, O Israel, the Creator is our God, the Creator is One!

This means that he has attained “One,” that is, the understanding of the one, unified force of nature.

“Hear” means the degree of Bina (hearing, ear). “Israel” means one who aspires “straight to the Creator,” Malchut rising into Zeir Anpin, and together with it ascending to Bina. The Creator is our God; the Creator is One means that everything unites in Bina into a single whole.

The souls that unite together in Malchut join Zeir Anpin, then Bina, and all together are included in the word “One.”

The word “One” sums up all the corrections a person has made, arriving at the state “He and His revelation are One” (Hu veShmo Echad). Therefore, the prayer Hear, O Israel, the Creator is our God, the Creator is One is a sign of the correction of the degree and its fulfillment.

This is how we must reveal our state at every degree, i.e., every “day.” “To say” means not only to attain, but also to be able to express what has been attained.
[12182]
Preparation for the Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/10, The Book of Zohar, “VaYakhel“

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It is impossible to understand what faith above reason means until a person attains this sensation, this revelation. And the revelation of faith above reason comes simultaneously with knowledge. Right now, we do not know what our mind truly is; it instinctively, subconsciously always strives toward good states and distances itself from bad ones.

I do not have the power to investigate, see, understand, or feel why I act precisely the way I do. Such behavior is already embedded in my nature in advance even before it reaches my sensation, comprehension, or conscious calculation. This is my nature.

It is written: “And He separated the light from the darkness.” This refers precisely to the state when a person begins to feel that his mind is fully governed in everything. Yet he is already able to look at this governance from the side. And from this observation-point, he sees another approach beginning to form within him and preparing to develop.

This means he acquires new desires (spiritual vessels) in which he can separate himself from his initial nature. There he exists together with other souls, together with the Creator, and there operates a different, so-called integral calculation that includes the interests of all to the extent that it has been revealed to a person.

From this zero point, these two directions, reason and faith above reason, begin to develop together: as much the one, so much the other, until we reach the end of correction in both. The reason is the development of my natural, inherent egoistic desire. And above reason is the development of the desire to bestow.

And what separates them from each other is the light. One is always built at the expense of the other. Therefore, the meaning of receiving is to be for the sake of bestowal even though these words seem incompatible and contradictory. But only if reason develops, above it faith above reason develops correspondingly.

The sensation that one is being separated from the other is called the salvation of the Creator. From that moment onward, a person begins to feel new spiritual vessels, new desires, within himself.

This requires a sensory understanding, because the matter being discussed is desire, and reason comes even later.

As long as we are merely trying to attain the desire to bestow, applying effort in the study and in the group, it is considered the time of preparation. We still do not possess spiritual desires, and therefore, we have not yet reached that zero point from which the two branches reason and faith above reason begin to grow. It is precisely from there that we begin to work with faith above reason, not during the preparation stage.

Then we constantly move from one to the other: from reason we rise into above reason, and then fall back. One must sink completely into reason in order to rise from within it to faith above reason. Reason is necessary in order to rise above it.

The only thing we have is the desire to receive pleasure. And it must be revealed in order for us to learn how to work with it in reverse form.
[50257]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/2/11, Baal HaSulam, Shamati 207 ”Receiving In Order to Bestow”

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Question: Is there any parallel between the development of the spiritual embryo and the embryo in our world?

Answer: The development of a spiritual embryo occurs in the same way as in a human in our world.

Question: As a rule, an embryo has stages of development according to a pattern. For example, a cell is formed on the first day, then the pregnancy develops further strictly according to days an hours including the attachment to the uterus and other processes.

Why do they occur exactly this way and what do they reflect? Is it possible to convey something through this by studying this process?

Answer: I do not understand what does “to convey” mean? To whom and what? I know that I have to define a higher instrument, property, object, desire relative to myself; it doesn’t matter what I call it. I have to attach myself to it.

When I begin to attach myself, I form myself relative to it, I create a cell from myself that is built over the course of three so-called spiritual days: the right, the left, and the middle line. I finished, created a cell, and that’s it, I’ve attached to the upper.

And then I begin to develop. My egoism grows and I am above it, opposite to it, as I am attached to the upper. The ego pulls me back into desires to receive, and I, by annulling them, attach to the altruistic desires of the upper. This is how I struggle with these two forces and build myself between them on the middle line.

Question: Does this whole process take place in the womb?

Answer: “In the womb” means annulling oneself in relation to the qualities of the upper, the qualities of bestowal and love.

Question: And then the fetus grows. At about five weeks all the systems begin to form, and by three months, the entire embryo. If you take any animal, absolutely everything in the world is built according to this principle. And is this exactly the same as the birth of a person in spirituality, his point in the heart?

Answer: Of course.

Question: But ultimately, birth occurs. This is about crossing the Machsom?

Answer: Yes.

Question: A person transitions into a new reality after passing this entire path in the womb?

Answer: Yes, from a closed space he transitions into an open one.

Question: Does this happen within the same physical parameters, meaning he comes out from the mother’s belly?

Answer: This is a completely different attachment to the upper. He becomes independently higher, and therefore feels himself differently.
[350626]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Birth and Death” 9/18/10

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Question: Recently, in the ten, we increasingly feel unity and even the presence of the Creator. Can it be said that we are transitioning to the degree of the revelation of His face? Does this transition occur gradually or is it a leap after which it will become clear to us that we will never again return to our foolishness?

Answer: It happens gradually until it becomes the revelation of the Creator. And then a person understands where he is now.

Question: Must the entire ten track this revelation together?

Answer: Not necessarily, but everyone must strive for it.
[350729]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 12/11/25, Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What stage of the path is it when a person moves from ascent to ascent?

Answer: A person approaches a state in which he fully feels himself as being within the Creator.

Question: I thought that the greatest descents occur before Gmar Tikkun, like with the Baal Shem Tov or with Shimon “from the market.” But here it turns out that there is a stage of ascent after ascent, without descents. I want to understand where this stage of work is.

Answer: Let us look at where a person begins. He begins with the desire to draw closer to the Creator, to draw Him into his life, to not detach from this, and to constantly dwell in adhesion with this state.

What must he do for this? He must sense his states, choose from them those in which he can rise to the Creator, and by this strengthen himself and cling to the Creator. This is what it means that he strives to make the Creator a witness so that the Creator will testify about him.
[350732]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 12/11/25, Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: Let’s say a person is studying Kabbalah. But in the world around him all kinds of negative actions, hatred, intimidation, etc. are happening. You say: “It does not have any effect. Follow a clear path toward the goal. And everything that happens is, as it were, special effects that distract you; they simply divert you from the main path.”

But what for? If a person does not pay attention to these “special effects” and focuses on the goal, why are they needed?

Answer: It is in order to work them through. You must rise above them and connect with the goal. These “special effects” and everything that is created in the world are needed to direct you toward the goal, to lift you up, to sharpen your movement, and to accelerate it. Only for this! It is in order to more sharply orient you on the goal and accelerate the movement toward it. Nothing else.

Comment: So if someone puts a knife to your throat, you say, “Excuse me, I have to run to the lesson now”; or something else. And you say: “Don’t be afraid, it is all for your own good.”

Answer: Yes, this is how everything is arranged. And this is felt when a person works on himself in order to somehow create the image of the Creator within himself. He sees that from all these images that are created by him, before him, inside him, and outside of him are all so that he can correctly form the image of the Creator within himself.

Image means qualities, not some visual image, but, let’s say, character. The character of the quality of bestowal and love.
[350747]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. External factors or why does everyone hate Jews?” 9/14/10

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Question: The Creator testifies about a person. Does this occur at the beginning of the degree of reward and punishment, or is it when he has completed this measure of effort and passed this degree?

Answer: It occurs at the beginning.

Question: Does a person work with the correction of desires in direct connection with the Creator, meaning that he sees the result of his actions?

Answer: Yes.

Question: If a person has been rewarded with the revelation of the face, then from this point onward, what does his freedom of choice consist of?

Answer: He must constantly raise himself to a level that is above his personal desires. That is all.
[350722]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/25, Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot“

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