Spiritual work is the fulfillment of man’s egoistic nature in order to attain the upper goal: unity with others and, through it, unity with the Creator.

Every level of his desires belongs to that, including the level of still nature. This is the reason that if I yearn for the attainment of the goal of creation, for the revelation of my movement toward the Creator, I first must focus myself in all my desires on the initial level, on level zero.

I must see myself as a total zero and constantly maintain and hold on to that level. This means that I make a restriction (Tzimtzum) on myself and exhibit the initial standard.

Then, the Creator begins to work with me by continuously changing different parameters, conditions, and relations in me, and I must hold on and maintain this standard.

When I hold on for a while under these conditions, I can begin to change myself by myself and move on to the level of the vegetative without waiting for Him to throw and rock me from one side to side. At the same time, I must hold on to the right intentions. Now, I change the different conditions inside me by myself in order to advance.

In other words, I can advance not according to speed, but according to its derivative, acceleration, by transcending by myself to a higher order level, which is multiplied by ten.

The level of still nature is the level on which I keep myself totally focused on the goal of creation, no matter what external parameters influence me. This is where everything begins, as it is said, everything grows from the earth.

A person grows from the earth. If I don’t want to be an egoist anymore in my mutual relations with the environment, this is the level of the still nature because I hold on to it by determining quality through it. No matter what is done with me, I hold on to my line.

My friend and I, for example, continuously maintain good and unchanging relationships despite the global human storms, family tragedies, and social changes we undergo. What is more, these changes can be on different levels: still, vegetative, animate, or speaking.

We must hold on to it despite the impact of different external factors that keep us apart: slander, plotting, and so on. Love covers all our problems.

This is the level of still nature in which we encounter all the interruptions of the levels of still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature. However, despite all the kinds of interruptions, we still remain permanently connected, and, thanks to them, we ascend and complete our work in the world of Assiya.

It isn’t simple. A person is strongly affected on all sides, but he constantly must work on raising the greatness of the goal since otherwise he will not be able to hold on to it. The states that he must confront will throw him from one side to the other.

Question: Does this mean that I present myself as a total zero and say to the Creator, “You cannot force me to accept more than this level. I can take only 20%”?

Answer: No, I cannot take anything. The earth doesn’t accept anything, except for cases in which something must grow from it. This is the next level already, the vegetative level that belongs to the earth.

Here, we face a dilemma. Do I correct the earth so that it would produce the level of the vegetative, or do I want to work on the level of the vegetative, and therefore use the earth?

I am either in the world of Assiya using the world of Yetzira for the sake of the world of Assiya, or in the world of Yetzira using the world of Assiya in order to ascend above it. Baal HaSulam speaks about that in the Introduction to The Book of Zohar.

This is what our work with the earth, with the level of the still nature, is about.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/16/14

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The laws of a person’s behavior are examined in the Torah under the condition of his correct integration in general nature. After all, a person isn’t subordinate to nature, he has freewill. His hesitations bring about imbalance not only in society, but also in nature that surrounds him.

Since human society is the most important part of nature, a person’s improper behavior affects nature by disrupting the focus and the meaning of its evolution.

This is the reason that the Torah gives us the major laws of proper behavior of human society, thanks to which it must be integrated harmoniously with the environment that surrounds it: the still, vegetative, and animate nature. This is the only way that the system can reach the ultimate state that initially was planned.

Human desire is made of four levels of the ego. Their correction is called working with the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature in a person. Therefore, the initial work is to relate to the level of the still nature properly.

The level of still nature is characterized by working with the category of the land because even the name Adam stems from the Hebrew word “Adama – earth.” Everything stems from the land.

When a person works on this level, he must include everything else in it because the four levels in us don’t operate by themselves but only in mutual connection with the others, just like all of nature. Therefore, when we work even on the lowest level with the earth, we also operate the levels of the vegetative, animate, and speaking in us.

Baal HaSulam tells us about this in the Introduction to The Book of Zohar, emphasizing that even in the world of Assiya, which is the level of the still nature in itself, we perform actions by drawing all the other types of Light.

It isn’t only the Light of Nefesh but also the Lights of Ruach, Haya, and Yechida that are dressed in the world of Assiya, but only temporarily. Only the Light of Nefesh operates permanently in the level of the world of Assiya, the level of the still nature.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/16/14

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The soul is a desire to love and to bestow, which a person develops within himself. In this way, he begins to feel the spiritual world.

We now only have a desire to receive and to enjoy, pulling toward ourselves everything that seems to us as good, whereas the desire for bestowal indicates that I include the desires of other people and begin to fulfill them.

With this, I acquire my soul, for the soul is found outside of my body and not within it. I don’t identify myself with this world, but with my desire to bestow. I come out of myself and feel the external reality. In this manner I begin to perceive the spiritual reality, the next level.

Baal HaSulam writes in Pri Hacham (The Sages Fruit), “The Emanation of the Soul”: Every person was not created but to attain a complete and enlightened soul from the Creator, be He blessed, worthy of constant and eternal adhesion.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/1/15

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The Zohar, Sulam Commentary, Chapter “BaHar,” Item 69: Abraham repented and shattered the idols of paganism and the food that had been placed before them.

Everything that is considered holy and sublime on the previous level that was worth living for, working for, and dedicating myself to, needs to be shattered. All the actions that are performed in our world for the sake of our ego, for our children, for humanity, and for nature belong to that.

Unfortunately, we live simply in order to survive, saying, “Let us live the years that we were given from Above in peace, and I don’t care what may happen afterward.” This is what everyone thinks, not realizing that they deceive themselves that way. Such an attitude is harmful and destructive.

Abraham believed that our world wasn’t created in order to appease the idols—our work, our studies, our children, and the good life, after which we can lay down and die in peace—but that our world was created so that we would reach the next world in this lifetime.

Noah was the first who broke away from the past. He built an ark and hid in it. He realized that he had to be saved from this world and he created his own protection, a shelter from the thoughts and the temptations that surrounded him, and sailed away from them. Therefore, all his egoistic feelings, thoughts, and desires died during the flood.

The point is that we need to perceive the still, vegetative, and animate natures, and mankind as one unique whole. Only a part of this whole, called Noah, survived the flood, which means that this part had been corrected under the influence of the Surrounding Light (the ark is the Light of Hassadim). The part that couldn’t be corrected that way died. However, later it undergoes its own correction in a different manner and is reborn in a new form.

The same thing happened to Abraham. The parts that couldn’t be corrected remained in Babylon, while Abraham shattered, burned, and threw away all the idols and left Babylon. He had a higher understanding than Noah: that everything that belonged to his egoistic state was on the level of still nature and that there was no Upper Light in it. He discerned and distinguished the higher level from the lower and cut off the layer of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and the human level that are inside his soul. He could not be free of the domination of Nimrod (the ego), and so he left.

We see that here, too, the general soul distinguishes and sets aside a certain part that cannot be corrected and follows its own way. Just as Noah detached himself from the entire world, Abraham also detached himself from it. The part of the Babylonians remained and developed following a different path.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/18/15

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Question: What happens if we perform actions that are not directed towards the Creator?

Answer: If we don’t direct our actions towards the Creator, then we lock ourselves into the smallest circle. Then the Creator is not in any of the circles of this world and we live on this Earth: the same nations, the same people, the still, vegetative, and animate nature, the same universe, and we don’t see anything except this.

We don’t see the reason that we are alive. And this is our central problem. We don’t know what this life is for, where it comes from, and where it is leading us. What happens before our birth and after death? We are compressed into a very limited framework.

Animals also don’t know anything about their lives. A person comes to them, wants to kill and eat them, but they don’t suspect anything and live according to what is allocated to them. If we don’t aspire to break out from the framework of this world, then our attitude towards life and reality is no different in any way. We simply live and continue to live and constantly search for what is better for us, just like animals.

An animal behaves in order to find a place that is most comfortable for it at each moment in life. We also constantly search for where things will be better for us and don’t think beyond that. We cannot rise above this, so we are also found on the level of the animal except within a more developed system of clarification. I search for where things will be better for me according to many criteria; it is important to me what others say about me, what is now in fashion.

With animals everything is simpler, and with humans everything is much more complex and complicated. But basically, it is the same primitive approach: An aspiration for maximal material enjoyment of life, and that is all.

Everyone is managed by the same approach except for those people who receive a desire to open their eyes and break out of their physical boundaries. Then another focus of all the senses is required for them directed outside instead of inside.

And this is what we learn: how it is possible to be detached from the previous focus, to stop concentrating and focusing on the material, to remove these egoistic glasses and see the world differently, as the causes for everything that happens.
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From the Convention in France, Day Two, 5/11/14, Lesson 4

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The individual and the group need to behave as if they are in a constant dialogue with the Creator. This is to such a degree that any dialogue with any person in the world is not important to me since they are all managed by a higher force and basically don’t determine anything.

I gradually cleanse the world of all illusory influences. I am in a world, in a natural environment, and with people, a multitude of forces and various factors that influence me: government, neighbors, family, enemies, and friends. But I begin to think: No, there is a Creator above who arranges everything.

He determines all the influences of the forces of nature upon us because I see that people are unable to manage them. The Creator controls all of this: the rain, the sun, earthquakes, and tsunamis.

After that, I attribute the next circle to the Creator: the government. I understand that the government basically doesn’t decide anything and is managed by the Creator. For the Creator influences us through the government, as it is said: “The hearts of princes and kings are in the hands of the Creator.”

Then I also attribute to the Creator all my colleagues at work, all of the people in my city, my family, and how my wife and children behave towards me; I can say that all of this comes from the Creator.

And after that, I also move to the group. I gradually advance from above to below; I attain such a state where the entire world (Olam) disappears. All of the concealment (Alam) disappears and I see the Creator everywhere in the world.

And everything that filled this world: nature, the government, people who are familiar and who are strangers to me, my family and friends, all become one vessel in the place where the Creator is revealed, which is called Divinity. Instead of this world, I see the Upper Light that fills all of reality.

Nothing more is left. I only see the Light clothing the world. Where are my friends, where is my family, where is the government, where is all of nature? There is nothing! Everything disappears, and I find myself face to face with the Creator.

So this is the key principle: at every moment to settle accounts only with the Creator and to clarify that everything comes from Him. He first wants me to understand that everything that happens in front of me is the Creator turning towards me at a given moment so that now in these circumstances I will come to adhesion. And there is more and more adhesion every second until I attain a state of wholeness.
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From the Convention in France, Day Two, 5/11/14, Lesson 4

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Maimonides, a great 12^th century Kabbalist, philosopher, physician, and astronomer, dedicated quite a few medical articles to meals and the need for nourishment. In particular, he wrote, “The food must be chewed thoroughly to receive pleasure,” otherwise the food will be harmful, “and thank the Creator for this.”

In the spiritual world, food is the Upper Light that we need to receive in order to bestow, meaning for pleasure and not because we want to satisfy hunger, and we have no other choice.

It is said (even among those who were not Kabbalists) that in order to chew food, it is necessary to chew 72 (Ayin-Bet) times with the teeth. From the spiritual point of view, the teeth chew Ohr Hochma, dividing the desire into a multitude of fragments, so that it will be possible to mix them with Ohr Hassadim. And in the physical world this is expressed in the mixing of food with saliva when one chews.

It is necessary to eat quietly among friends or family (it is desirable not to eat alone), so that at every moment we feel thanks.

That is how it was with my teacher Rabash; the meal went on in total silence; nobody said a word. We were even very careful with our movements so as not to disturb others remaining within their inner thoughts.

In general, with our current education, we are used to talking during a meal. People gather in a coffee house or in a restaurant for conversation between them, to connect and so forth. And here everything is completely different; everything is done in silence, working within yourself but in relation to others. So Rambam writes that it is “necessary to eat in quiet among friends or family, and to feel thanks at every moment.”

I hope that eventually we will get to have meals like this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #173: “He said about saying L’Chaim (to life) when drinking wine, that it is as our sages said, “Wine and life according to the sages and their disciples.” This is perplexing: why specifically according to our sages? Why not according to the uneducated?

The thing is that saying “L’Chaim” implies higher life. When we drink wine, we should remember that wine has its spiritual source, which implies “the wine of Torah,” the Light that comes as a reward, and so we say, “L’Chaim!,” a reminder that we should extend the Light of Torah, called “life.”

The corporeal life, however, is called by our sages, “The wicked, in their lives, are called ‘dead.’” Hence, it is specifically our sages who can say, “wine and life.” This means that only they are qualified to extend spiritual life. Uneducated people, however, have no desire for it or the tools to extend it.

Wine symbolizes Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom), which I want to receive in order to bestow (with Ohr Hassadim). If I can keep the Ohr Hochma with Ohr Hassadim (Light of Mercy) and not violate the accommodation between them to feel life, then this energy enters into us in a positive way.

But if I don’t have enough Ohr Hassadim, then Shevirat HaKelim (the shattering of the vessels) happens and I fall again into the egoistic desire. So I seemingly analyze whether I have enough Ohr Hassadim for receiving the Ohr Hochma so that one Light can be clothed in the other. And then Ohr Hochma is revealed, and the next level is revealed in me.

An analysis like this is called L’Chaim, to bestowal with faith above reason. Receiving for the sake of bestowal is a process of eating that is expressed in the word, “L’Chaim,” meaning that I am doing this for the sake of spiritual life.

I transmit the Light that I receive from above through me by conveying it to others, otherwise it doesn’t enter me. This is the law of the upper world. When I receive in order to bestow, by conveying it through me to others, and they in turn do the same thing by conveying it through me, is called, “L’Chaim.”

So when we drink wine, we say, “L’Chaim!” which means that we remember that it is necessary to be concerned about the right reception of the Light of life in order to attain the higher level.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: In the transition from the five senses of this world to the five senses for feeling the Upper World, where is there a place to “bring a sacrifice”?

Answer: In the beginning a person has nothing. We begin to bring sacrifices during the exodus from Egypt when the Creator seems to demand the bringing of sacrifices, building the tabernacle for the “tablets of the covenant” and so on.

If a person is already found at a particular degree of attainment, it is as if they tell him: “This desire of yours is egoistic to this degree, and another desire – to another degree. It is necessary to cut it to this degree here, and from there – to another degree.” This means that they show him how, to what extent, and with what accommodation to the other desires he can use each one of his desires with an intention for the sake of bestowal.

When a person clearly feels that he is passing from one world to another, he begins to feel a kind of detachment from this world. This is already apparent to some degree in people who come to study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

After that a clear desire for the next state is revealed, the discovery of the Creator. But the person doesn’t yet understand what the Creator is, what kind of characteristic this is—bestowal and love, and what he must sacrifice to discover the Creator, which he wants very much after all.

Of course, a person needs a group in order to develop correctly, to look at the others and maintain his envy and craving within him, his aspiration to move forward. He needs to feel that he is not alone.

He makes a Tzimtzum (restriction) on himself, and strives forward on every level. And problems are constantly awakened within him, which apparently pull him backward: withdrawal, indifference, and excuses. After this he makes a leap forward; he goes through difficult experiences in the form of the plagues of Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea, the wilderness, and so on.

But the main thing is that only then does he receive instruction and guidance about what to do. After all, he doesn’t immediately receive instruction about how to bring sacrifices.

First of all, we understand the importance of detachment from this world in which only our physical body exists. And we, with our desires, intentions, and hopes move towards attainment of the upper world, the characteristic of bestowal and connection between everyone.

As serious investigators we want to discover how the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature are connected, where the forces that exist between them are.

We gradually discover all of this in two stages. In the first stage we don’t want anything for ourselves, we try to be completely detached from the receptive characteristic, and in this way we acquire a characteristic called “Hassadim” (mercy).

In the second stage we fully rise to the level of the Hassadim, to the level of Bina, after we make a correction on our desires, when they are found in total separation from reception and any fulfillment. After this we begin to transform those desires into characteristics of bestowal and love. This is where the place for sacrifice is revealed. In other words, we must clarify how to sanctify each one of our desires, everything that is within us: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.
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From KabTV”s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/20/13

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Question: What is the connection between us through which we left Egypt?

Answer: From Egypt only desires that want to connect leave, meaning only Israel. All the rest of the parts of the desire to receive that don’t feel an attraction to connection die in Egypt, they are the army of Pharaoh.

We work on the connection between us in a group; but we discover that we are not ready to reach it, so “…and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage….” (Exodus 2:23). This means that we cry out to the Creator and ask Him to connect us.

Question: So what is our work? Must we work on prayer?

Answer: The prayer cannot be artificial, for prayer is the work of the heart. At the end of all my efforts, after I have become convinced that nothing depends on me, I break out into prayer.

It is impossible to pray by the clock, this is not called prayer. Prayer must be adjusted to the feeling in the heart. So at this moment you can be in a state of “Yom Kippur” and in a few more hours be in a state of “Passover.” This is not talking about time but about states.

So why is there great significance to the Passover holiday that is marked on the calendar? It is because the Upper Lights that come down to us from the “end of correction,” through all the steps of the ladder, reach our world and even create a small illumination in it. And we want to connect this illumination with all the Upper Lights of bestowal and love of others, which we yearn to reach, to connect them together to world of Infinity. So also in our world, in the physical branches, we celebrate this state and want to be like it even on the physical level. This is particularly relevant to the Passover holiday.

All the rest of the holidays are very high: Rosh HaShanah (embracing the right) and Sukkot (embracing the left) are great Surrounding Lights. But everything begins with Passover. Therefore it is called the “head” of all the months. The exodus from Egypt is the birth of spirituality, so this spiritual source is the closest to us, found right above our heads. All the rest of the holidays are much higher.

We want to approach this source, meaning to begin to actively connect as much as possible. The symbol of the exodus from Egypt is the first connection between us, and after that we add more and more “meat,” more desires, to that point of connection.

But the first contact is the exodus from Egypt, which is why it is called the “birth” of man—that which we have succeeded in accumulating from the shattered parts through leaping above our ego and the connection between us. This is called a true “miracle.” We receive this opportunity thanks to the influence of the Light; otherwise, it is impossible.

We must seriously prepare for this state because we spend a lot of time together at meals and in lessons with all the groups in the world and try to actively reach a connection. We hope we will succeed in implementing this; we still have time. There is no time in spirituality and we can carry this out very quickly, at least temporarily reaching this state and descending again. And there is also a second “Passover” in another week. Someone who doesn’t succeed in realizing this in the first Passover will get a second opportunity.

Question: What is connecting actively?

Answer: All of our hearts must contact each other in a single point, reaching a point of contact. It is not enough just to want it; rather, we must actively carry this out. The prayer is awakened in a person only at the necessary time that comes as a result of the action in the physical world. If I do something and absolutely suffer from failure, from this point the prayer breaks forth.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/14, The Zohar

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