The beginning of this post is in: Passover Is A Reminder Of The Future

The maturation of the attribute of Moses in a person and in the nation leads us to a direct confrontation with Pharaoh. The Torah describes these states as the ten plagues of Egypt, the ten plagues of the ego, with the demand: “Let my people go.” They develop on the background of powerlessness and, at the same time, a desperate need to break free.

The Haggadah tells us about this internal night: “How is this night different from all the other nights?” In Egypt we had to exit the quagmire of self-love and we turn and move quickly upward without any power to unite as yet but with the power to escape.

Everyone tries to escape the persecutions, the internal disputes and conflicts. Thus we find ourselves further away from Egypt until we reach Mt. Sinai where we can complete what we have started.

This is how Pharaoh, the ego, pushes us to a new level of love. Eventually, all of humanity will have to rise to this level, but we are the first to do so. It is the lab of the Jewish nation, an essential phase in its formation.
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Question: A person should feel the darkness of Egypt as an intolerable state so that he would want to exit it. What should he do so as not to simply escape the unpleasant feeling but to accept the domination of the Creator?

Answer: According to our nature we are not able to remain in an unpleasant state, unless we have no choice: if someone pressures me and holds me. I want to run away but can’t, so I remain in the unpleasant condition. This can be physical when someone holds me to give me an injection, for example, like we do with babies. Or society can put pressure on me, and then having no choice I do what is required of me. That is, I am in a condition that I suffer, but I am being pressured and cannot escape.

By nature I run away from anything that I don’t like. This is the desire to enjoy. If I feel even “one gram” of discomfort, I want to get away from it. However, there are different compelling circumstances, problems, and calculations that force me to continue to suffer, having no choice not because I wish to, but because of the pressure that is put on me. This pressure is called exile; I am under pressure and remain in that state and suffer.

You are asking is the opposite: How can I feel greater suffering so I could feel I am in the Egyptian darkness, in such great evil, so I will want to exit it? Then it seems to be no problem if I put myself into a state of suffering.

But I can’t bring myself to such a state of suffering; it must be justified somehow: by public pressure or a cause that illuminates from afar, like a gift or reward. If I am a desire to receive, I cannot cause myself harm unless I will receive a reward that exceeds the pressure I experience or the efforts I make in return. How can I bring myself to feel the exile in Egypt?

First, I bring myself to the exile in Egypt in different ways that are not related to spirituality. This means that I don’t inflict pain upon myself or live a hard life. I cannot do that. Egypt must be a very special state for me in which I suffer because I cannot connect with the other shattered parts of the one soul because Pharaoh dominates us. This state pressures me and there is nothing I can do. I cannot get rid of its presence in the connection between us despite all my efforts. This is called Egypt when I am ready to give anything to kill Pharaoh, to get him out of my system, or to rise above him.

There are many inner discernments here: inside him, outside him, why does it say “Let my people go,” why is it impossible to be free in Egypt, how do we come out of Egypt, and why do we take the vessels with us and only Pharaoh remains in Egypt? Indeed, nothing remains in Egypt except Pharaoh. Everything else is taken out of Egypt. These desires die there or are taken out.

All these definitions have nothing to do with earthly sufferings, but are about one thing only, the connection between us, in order to discover the Creator in it and thus delight Him. After all, the Creator wants us to discover Him. Therefore, we must work continuously on this point in the group and feel that the only thing we lack is connection. If you simply want to exit your ego (and perhaps this is indeed what you want), it is only because it brings you many troubles. Then, you try to switch the small ego to a bigger, more sophisticated ego, but you still want to work for Pharaoh.

Working outside Pharaoh is possible only if you yearn for connection in order to discover the Creator’s attribute and thus delight Him when you take on His form and wish to resemble Him. You must examine this point carefully.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/14, The Zohar

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The Torah, “Leviticus” 1:1 – 1:2: And He called to Moses, and the Lord spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying, 

Speak to the children of Israel, and say unto them: When a man from [among] you brings a sacrifice to the Lord; from animals, from cattle or from the flock you shall bring your sacrifice.

We need to supply all the desires (still, vegetative, animate, and speaking) for the benefit of the society in a completely altruistic way, without any bestowal to ourselves, directing all our goals and thoughts to concern for others, in the same way that a mother thinks only about the welfare of her child.

If a person can direct himself in such a way, then he partially transfers his desire from the side of receiving to the side of bestowing. However, this is very lengthly work in a society, in a group, with the studying of the system that attracts the Light of correction.

Let’s suppose that I have desires within me with which I previously had tried to receive self-benefit by taking advantage of others, and now with these desires I am working with a certain system where the Light bestows on me and changes these desires from being receiving (egoistic) to being for the benefit of bestowing (altruistic). However, this isn’t the altruism of our world, even though that’s what we call it because we don’t have other words.

Actually, it is absolute bestowal and love toward others without any benefit for self. When a person begins to work on this level, then he “sacrifices,” which means he detaches parts from his egoistic desire and transfers them to the altruistic service of others.

Desires of all the levels participate in this: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. In addition, the levels of still, vegetative, and animate serve man, as in our world, and those of the speaking level (man) serve the Creator. Within man are all the desires of still, vegetative, and animate, and he raises them in his work to complete bestowing and love, without Egypt and not in order to receive a reward.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/13/13

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Question: How can we acquire the force called Moses? After all, you say that it doesn’t exist in nature.

Answer: Moses (from the Hebrew word “Moshech” –  to pull) is the attribute that awakens in us and raises us from the bottom of Mt. Sinai to its summit, to the peak of the general hatred. When a person climbs above it, he attains the Creator who is at the peak.

It is impossible to bypass this mountain; we must climb it. This is the way for the entire world. Today, all of humanity is at the foot of Mt. Sinai, surrounded by the enormous hate that separates us. But at the same time, the method called the Torah is revealed. The Torah is the Light that Reforms at the summit of the mountain.

We don’t have to make any special efforts, and there is nothing to fear. When we acquire the enormous hatred, we are at the bottom of the mountain where we receive the method by which we gradually can ascend by mutually complementing and helping one another.

Then, Mt Sinai becomes the temple mount, at the top of which there is the temple, the place where the Creator is revealed.

This is basically the essence of Pesach (Passover). This is the reason that the calendar of the nation, of the new humanity, begins on this holiday.

Before the receiving of the Torah, mankind developed like animals, but from that moment onward, there was a connection with the Creator, with the force that can raise us continuously above the ego and help us climb the mountain of hatred by getting closer to one another.

At the same time, we attain the Creator to a greater degree, because two forces already appear in us, the egoistic force and the altruistic force. When we build ourselves from these two forces a state called the attainment of the Creator or the soul appears between them.

The two forces descend from above, and we make efforts not to mutually annul them but to connect them by placing our resistance between them, trying to recreate the harmony between them by connecting and adding all the disconnected parts. Then this harmony creates our soul, our upper existence.

This is the reason that we consider Pesach to be the major and most important holiday, because symbolizes the beginning of the creation of man, Adam, (from the Hebrew “Domeh” – to resemble the Creator).

There are, of course, many subtleties, laws, and different nuances that only speak of how to properly cover the ego with the attribute of love, and that’s all. Everything comes down only to this!

We can study this holiday down to the smallest detail, about why eating certain things is allowed and why eating other things is forbidden, about why Pesach is seven days, why we drink four glasses of wine, and why there are other customs that are described in the Haggadah.

However, these are merely actions that we must perform on every level to create the right connection between plus and minus, which are the attributes of receiving and bestowal, hate and love. We cover the hate with love, and together they will give us the sense of attainment, adhesion to the Creator.

Thus, we don’t simply come out of a small ego to love, but from our world to a perfect eternal world. This is the reason that Pesach is indeed a special holiday.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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The beginning of this post can be found in: Passover Is A Reminder Of The Future

Abraham’s group moved to Canaan.The ego then grew from one generation to the next, but the main thing was to keep the general connection, the spiritual brotherhood.

Later, the disputes and conflicts grew to such an extent that even Jacob’s sons, the brothers, couldn’t overcome them. This process is described in the Torah as the beginning of the famine. The brothers sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt, (Mitzrayim), which symbolizes one’s evil nature (Yetzer-Ra). When they fell from the level of brotherly love, they found themselves under the domination of the ego, Pharaoh.

At first this domination was good: Pharaoh raised Joseph and life was full of different pleasures, but then things changed and people began to feel that corporeal benefits and pleasures were not everything in life.

They felt a deficiency for a spiritual connection, which Pharaoh, of course, objected to and resisted. Now all the ego’s efforts were not to allow them to maintain even one bit of inner unity.

It seemed as if there was no way out, but it is actually the despair that generated the force that pulled them to unity—Moses. He was brought up in Pharaoh’s home, the ego, and was therefore ready to confront the king of Egypt. This spark that kept the essence of the Jewish soul lives in each of us. It is the general, inclusive perspective of a united world in which there is no room for separation.
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The beginning of this post can be found in: Passover Is A Reminder Of The Future.

Pesach symbolizes the birth of the Israeli nation, which was born out of unity and despite repulsion. As long as we are divided and separated, we are not a nation, but are in exile. Only the good connection and unity between us makes us one community, which is rightly called “Israel.”

When we prepare for this ascent, we clean our homes and we break away from disputes and from being divided. The Seder symbolizes the order of the renewal of our corrupt mutual connections.

When we rid ourselves of this egoistic sourdough, we eat Matzo (unleavened bread) for seven days as a symbol of our ascent to the level of mutual bestowal, which in Egypt was perceived as tasteless. We start off along this path as slaves of separation, as slaves of our nature, and we end the journey as free people, freeborn, and as one nation.

It isn’t at all surprising that we have to relinquish our worship of the values that separate us, no matter where we live. Every such urge becomes a phase of the exodus from Egypt, since Pesach symbolizes our “step over” (Passover) the dispute and the separation towards the level of love.
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Question: The Jewish nation has gone through a special transformation, the transition from slavery to freedom, to which the feast of Pesach (Passover) is dedicated. What is the meaning of this transformation?

Answer: The meaning of liberation from slavery is acquiring the power of love due to exiting from one’s egoism. We are under the control of the system that advances us, especially given under the power of our egoism, which is called Pharaoh.

First, we feel good in this bondage, but then realize that we are in exile and are slaves to the egoism that rules over us absolutely. We do not agree with this authority and wish to escape from it, from the bad attitudes towards each other, because we see that in this form, it is impossible to move on and exist.

After many failed attempts, we become convinced that nothing can be done and only a miracle can save us. Indeed, egoism is killing us to the extent that we do not see success in anything in our lives in any way. In this way, Pharaoh’s rule between us is manifested.

That is the situation we see today in Israel. There are 23 political parties in a little country, huge gaps between different layers of the population, crisis in the education system, an increasing divorce rate, and growing use of drugs. Half of the citizens would be willing to move to another country if given the chance.

Our unkind attitude to each other can be seen from the behavior on the roads and elsewhere. We are divided by indifference to others and pride. Egoism reigns within us and makes us act in this way. It is not our fault, but it is our nature that plays with us.

One must realize that our nature is the evil inclination, which enslaves us. If we do not get out of it, then our lives will be over and we will not leave behind anything good for our children. Life will become worse and they will not have even those crumbs of happiness that we once had.

This is slavery, and the Passover Haggadah tells us how to escape it to reach freedom. But above all, we need to understand that we are in slavery. After all, while you see yourself in the darkness of egoism that separates us through mutual hatred, it is impossible to understand the reality of freedom from this angel of death.

We have to desire to become a free people in our own country, independent of our desire. We need to wish to achieve love, connection, mutual guarantee, and unity between everyone above our egoistic nature.

The people of Israel once escaped its egoism and rose to a height of unity and love, which is called the building of the Temple. But then we were not able to remain at that height and fell from it.

Rabbi Akiva taught that you cannot leave the principle of love for others as oneself; otherwise, we will again fall back to unfounded hatred. Egypt is the state of causeless hatred between us. After the destruction of the Second Temple 2,000 year ago, we returned to this state of hatred, which is called Egypt.

After thousands of years of living in unity and connection, the Jewish people again went to Egypt, to unfounded hatred. But today the whole world must realize that we are in Egypt.

Once, a small group led by Abraham left Babylon and became united into the people of Israel. But then it went back to Babylon and mingled with all the Babylonians. Today, we again find ourselves facing the same Tower of Babel and are confronted with hatred towards each other and the unwillingness to know and understand others. This is called a confusion of the tongues.

Once again, we have to make the same action as was once performed in ancient Babylon. It is said that acts of the fathers are an example for their sons. Today, we once more need to exit from Egypt, but this will be the last exile before the final liberation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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Question: Was there ever a miracle that the Red Sea parted and the Israeli people went through it when they fled from Pharaoh?

Answer: The Torah doesn’t talk about events of our material world. It talks only about what happens between our souls. In this sense, we pass through an inner spiritual state called “Crossing the Red Sea.”

The exodus from Egypt and the freedom from the slavery of Egypt is freedom from the control of our ego, from the “Angel of Death.” In principle, on the way to this freedom, we move through some kind of passage called crossing the Red Sea. It symbolizes the end of Egypt, the end of our ego, after which we can become a free people.

A unique force of unity is hidden within nature that is called the Creator. When we invest in efforts to unite, to get closer to each other against our desire, then through these efforts the higher power creates a state where “splitting the Red Sea” will be discovered. It moves us from the egoistic nature to a nature of bestowal and love.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 3/15/15

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Question: The celebration of Passover is a special opportunity to learn something new about oneself, about our people, about our society, and make a qualitative change in our relationships to each other.

Rav Kook wrote that if the people of Israel once had not made this transition from slavery to freedom, the whole world would have never been able to make such a change. Is it true that the people of Israel affect the whole world so much?

Answer: The people of Israel are a special group of people that were selected from the entire world and came out from ancient Babylon in order to unite.

Today, the whole world is in the same mutual hatred, which once was revealed only between the Jews during the destruction of the Temple. Due to this hatred, Jews fell from the height of unity to the level of this world, and that means going into exile.

Today, the Jewish people are mixed with the entire world, and we all are in the same state, which is called Egypt or the slavery of mutual hatred.

Since the Jews have already exited this slavery, we have memories, the genes (Reshimot) of that previous state. This is why we must lead everyone else in exiting this terrible state the whole of humanity exists in now and in setting an example to everyone, meaning, being “a light to the nations of the world.”

Now this task is for the people of Israel who are living in the land of Israel. This is why we were able to come back here. We must realize our mission for the benefit of the whole world. After all, the purpose of creation is that all of humanity become one people, one family, as it is written in the Prophets.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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Question: Why is it that only the wisdom of Kabbalah has an answer about the meaning of life?

Answer: We look for answers in a clear, scientific manner and don’t believe what someone has written in some books. I have to attain the answer by myself. The wisdom of Kabbalah is based on accurate attainment, as it is said, “a judge only has what his eyes can see.” Attainment is the clearest understanding a person can have. That’s the way it should be.

Therefore, when we engage in the Kabbalistic method, we acquire scientific research tools and discover everything until we have no doubts remaining. It is through the wisdom of Kabbalah that I discover the tools, opportunities, and attributes inside me, by which I can reveal the Creator, the network that connects all of creation and the upper world.

I live in two worlds. My body lives in this world and at the same time I feel an upper reality. But only I feel it since only I attain it. Anyone who wishes to feel the same thing has to undergo the same path of study and exercises, and then he will gradually reach the revelation of the upper reality.

Question: You always talk about revelation, the revelation of the force that surrounds everything, the one force that operates in nature. Does that mean that there is something that exists now but I simply don’t feel it?  What does it mean to reveal?

Answer: There are many phenomena that you are not aware of and that you don’t detect. Do you perceive or receive radio waves? No. There are many phenomena taking place around us, but we don’t perceive or receive them. We have simply built different instruments by which we can detect such phenomena. But according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we cannot build external devices. We are the ones who have to change internally; because our perception, our mind and our feelings are limited, we have to expand them. Because we have to discover the general force of nature that is called the Creator, which stands for Bo-re, (come and see), we have to attain the state in which we will see Him, which means to reveal Him and reach attainment.

Question: What do I have to do when I attain the revelation of the upper reality?

Answer: The revelation itself obliges you just as any revelation in this world that obliges you to behave differently, because you actually change according to it. It is then that new knowledge and feelings fill you.

Question: But how does the revelation of the upper reality, of the Creator, fill me?

Answer: You feel that you are filled with love of others. It is an immense change a person undergoes. It is because love thy friend as thyself, the law of mutual guarantee, is the general law of the upper reality, and we have to ascend all the way to it and exist within it.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 1/18/15

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