Question: When my daughter was ten years old she crossed the street before a vehicle and I felt like I wanted to die. Can you call that true love?

Answer: It is a natural instinctive feeling you didn’t work for.

Question: But I have invested in her and raised her.

Answer: Every animal does the same. One way or another, this feeling comes without a purposeful exertion on your part. Therefore it isn’t true love of others. In your perception your daughter is not another but actually part of your own body; your connection and attitude to her remains on the corporeal level, on the animate level, and has nothing to do with the human level: man (Adam).

Question: So what is the human level? Do I have to love all of humanity like my own children?

Answer: No, not like that. First you have to check to what extent you love yourself, in every detail and in every situation. Then accordingly, you have to convey this love to humanity in every detail and in every situation.

Question: To be honest, I don’t only dislike them but I actually can’t stand them, and you speak about such love…

Answer: Yes, on top of this suffering you will learn to what extent you love yourself. Comparing to them, you will learn about your self-love.

Question: Today, the opposite is true: When I heard on the news that a certain leading politician would be going to jail I rejoiced and celebrated this. It seems odd that one can be glad to hear that someone else is about to suffer in the next six or seven years. I even felt pain as a result of my mercilessness. After all, what do I care if he goes to prison and sits behind bars?

Answer: The more others suffer, the better you feel. A person always examines himself compared to those around him. If you are in a place where people receive half a kilo of bread and a liter of water a day, a simple sandwich will make you feel superior to others. Now you don’t even look at it, but in that situation it would be very precious to you. Everything is relative.

Question: Does this mean that when someone goes to jail I should really hurt as a result?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Is this the love we speak about?

Answer: Yes, you should hurt as if you have been locked behind bars.

Question: Is that possible?

Answer: If you wish to feel that, the Light will do it for you. Then you will feel that you suffer with the whole world and then you will also be able to correct the whole world. Otherwise, you won’t be able to.
[135121]
From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Unconditional Love
There Are No Two Loves That Are Alike
Know Yourself

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The Torah has existed for thousands of years and we must understand what it represents. Basically, there is a means in our world through whose help it is possible to attain the goal of creation. But what is the goal of creation? Come, let’s clarify this.

In front of me is a universe, stars, the sun, and the moon. Under my feet is the earth and on it all of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and humans. All of this exists. Why does this exist? Where does this come from? What is it for? For what purpose does it exist?

The Torah explains all of this to me. It is designed to inform me why and for what I live, the reasons for my existence and what the result is, where I am going. In short, the Torah can teach me about everything without leaving any space or location empty.

So how does one acquire this knowledge? How does one penetrate into this vast and wonderful wisdom that is found above our reality and extends to the spiritual worlds?

It is possible to reach this by means of defined general rules that seem to me very far from nature and its laws, like: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Zoology, and other fields of natural science. Instead of bringing me scientific facts, they say: “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

This is not at all clear to me. Give me precise formulas! Love is a simplistic idea. Nobody knows what to do with it; each one pulls it towards himself in whatever way he likes, and “rolls” it out from one end to the other. Ultimately, we don’t grant any seriousness, stability, or real power to this characteristic.

However, if a person undergoes suffering, things become serious; this we understand. Whereas, love lacks all power in our eyes, it lacks clarity; it doesn’t underlie the foundation of the world. And therefore it is very difficult for us to internalize the concept that is called a “great general rule of the Torah.” We cannot seriously relate to it.

But in reality, an approach that moves through love possesses greater weight and cannot be destroyed. This is an “iron rule” from which it is impossible to deviate; it requires us to pass through all of the restrictions, all of the threats, through everything, so that we will attain that concept of “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” Specifically through attaining the characteristic of love, we explore the whole world, understand it, and attain all of reality.

And so true love is different from what we imagine to ourselves; yet we have a problem with this when we relate to this concept with the utmost seriousness and begin to realize it.

Once, many years ago I was present at the funeral of a young couple that were killed in an accident right before their wedding. While reciting the Kaddish the chief Rabbi of the city, a person who understood the wisdom of Kabbalah, then said with tears in his eyes that what we lack is love, that only thanks to that can we correct all crimes and defects.

I didn’t understand him then and I thought that probably this is how it is customary to say a eulogy. And only much later, after I studied for some time, I understood what he meant. Yet all the other people related to his words the way I did in the beginning, even though there were many spiritual people there…
[135124]
From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
One Rule With 612 Commentaries
Love As The Law Of Nature
Learning How To Work With Egoism

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: Will whoever comes to the congress find his soul and begin spiritual life?

Answer: He will try to do this. Perhaps, it will be accomplished not at one go, but he certainly will move in the right direction.

Therefore, Kabbalists invite many people from everywhere to their congress in order to unite together. We sing, dance, listen to talks, lectures, hold workshops in circles, and have  assemblies of friends (Yeshivat Haverim). Thousands of people gather from all over the world, from the most remote locations, such as Australia, New Zealand, South America, Japan, and China.

Kabbalists gather all these people together and teach them how to connect with each other in accordance with the same method, which was founded by our forefather Abraham.

So, we increase the power of our connection with each convention. Gradually we come to such a connection, which will be enough to reveal our next state, the higher degree, the spiritual world. This is the goal of Kabbalistic conventions.
[154119]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 2/8/15

Related Material:
The Convention Will Revive Our Collective Soul
Kabbalah Convention Is The Most Powerful Accelerator Of Growth
A Miracle That Is About To Occur

Filed under: Collective Soul, Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

I don’t need to change my desires. I don’t need to limit, break, or suppress them but only direct them properly towards the right goal.

It is written: The Torah, “Leviticus,” 21:5: They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shall they shave the edge of their beard, nor shall they make cuts in their flesh.

First I choose two desires and find out how I can connect them so that together they will attain the next level by uniting on this level into one whole. Then on the next level, they will find more desires that can also connect and unite in order to attain a whole union on the that level. This continues according to a hierarchy, until the one uppermost desire connects all the other desires to such an extent that the Creator can be revealed.

Although the desires are connected and are focused on unity, they are different. The outcome is a mosaic in which each part complements the others until they reach perfection. On the one hand, the perfection is revealed in it, but, on the other hand, we see different parts, colors, and shapes.

We can read this mosaic and understand its unity since is it made of many parts. If it were the simple revelation and clarity of unity in the form of one white Light, it would be much more difficult for us to grasp it. But when a mosaic of desires plays a whole rainbow of colors, we perceive it as a melody.

Question: Doesn’t this colorfulness change into one color later?

Answer: It is perceived as one whole, but it is actually made of many shades. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to feel anything.

We hear the harmony in music, and although there are thousands of sounds and different transitions, we perceive it all as general harmony, as unity. But if we simply spread out the system of notes (the score) into its components, it would seem as if there is no unity.

It is actually for this reason that when people from different nationalities, mentalities, and professions get together, they can reach the one single goal, the one desire. The more we ascend towards unity, the greater the difference we will feel among us so that we can achieve it.
[153718]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/23/14

Related Material:
Purification By The Light Of Hassadim
A Stormy Desire Towards The Light
Where Is The Door?

Filed under: Group Work, Spiritual Work, Torah, Unity - No Comments →

Writings of Rabash, Vol. 2, “Igrot” (Letters), #42: How could they be as one man with one heart? After all, what the sages said is well-known, “Just as their faces are dissimilar, so their opinions are dissimilar” (Talmud Yerushalmi Berachot Chapter 9, Column3, Halachah 1). So how could they be as one man with one heart?

If we are saying that each and every one is concerned about his own needs, we find that it is impossible to be as one man. Certainly they are not like each other. Whereas, if they all nullify their own domains, and all of them are concerned only for the benefit of the Creator, then their opinions are no longer individual, since all individuality has been nullified, and all of them enter into the private domain.

And this is the idea of what was written, “the knowledge of the inhabitants is opposite the knowledge of the Torah.” This is because knowledge of the Torah is the nullification of private domains, as the sages said, “The Torah isn’t sustained except for someone who kills himself over it.” When he kills himself over it, this is for his own good, and everything that he does is only for the sake of heaven. And this is called a preparation for receiving the Torah.

We sense reality within our vessel, which is called the desire for pleasure. Each one serves this vessel that he gets from the start, and he does everything to fill it. I always make a calculation: how much effort to make for the expected benefit, is it worthwhile or not worthwhile for me to do it. How much do I need to invest to see fulfillment within my vessel? That is how we exist from moment to moment.

My dependence upon my vessel can be nullified only if we connect with each other, and if we agree to that, we begin to find new spaces in the connection between us that we didn’t feel before.

After all, we look at everything from the point of view of our egoistic desire that dominates all matter in the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels. In this way, we get impressions from our inner reality, yet it seems to us to be an external reality. In fact, this is my inner world that is stamped into my personal desire for pleasure.

The still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature are the levels—0, 1, 2, 3, 4—the levels of my desire to receive where I feel my reality. My ego is found between me and others, separating us and causing me to feel myself only.

If I try to nullify this tendency so that I can reach connection with the Creator through this nullification, I discover that there is another space that is different from the space of the egoistic desire to receive. I begin to feel that I am in a new space, in a sea of forces of bestowal.

All of these forces that are discovered in the nullification of the ego bring a sense of the Creator to me, and, even though I get a slight impression of this, in order to truly discover Him, I need a stronger means. After all, I can only nullify the ego and use it for the sake of bestowal through the higher force. I discover that I have no chance, no possibility, of reaching self-nullification through my own powers and understanding.

So it is written, “The Torah isn’t sustained except for someone who kills himself over it.” However, in order to kill myself for the sake of Torah, in other words, for the sake of correction, I require a higher force. As it is written, “And the rule of landlords is opposite from the rule of Torah.” When a person begins to get observations through the power of the Light, both his emotions and his intellect are made new and completely different.

Then, he understands that all of the contradictions that he had were only like stimuli for finding solutions. However, to resolve them is really only possible through the Upper Light.

According to branch and root, we are at the beginning of the Shavuot holiday, the holiday of the giving of the Torah. The Shavuot holiday begins in the evening and is divided into day and night. Night symbolizes the days of exile that are gathered for the night of Shavuot, so we learn on the night of Shavuot because we want to finish the exile and reach its end.

After that, we decide that we probably have already invested enough in self-nullification, and then we arrive at the day and that night, the same Kelim transform into Kelim of revelation. That is how we reach the festival of Shavuot, the festival of the giving of the Torah, and from then on we gradually can advance and constantly correct all the defects and learn how much we can be like the Creator when we discover how different we are from Him.

This difference between the truth and the image gives us depth in understanding the Creator, and then from this depth we reach adhesion.
[136403]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/1/14

Related Material:
A Place That Has Been Blessed By The Creator
Giving And Receiving
A Narrow Bridge Into The Creator’s Domain

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: If every person who leaves us is making a hole in our connection, isn’t our boat full of holes?

Answer: No, these people didn’t participate in the connection and didn’t intend to be integrated into it. So, we throw them away from us; simply throw them into the sea, into our collective egoistic sea called Malchut.

Question: Who is in this boat?

Answer: On the boat are those who want to be on the ship. The ship is the Masach (screen) that connects us, that joins us together. This ship is the beginning of the Kli, the first condition for our being on the ship so as not to drown in the great sea of our impure forces (Sitra Achra).

In the boat are the “points in the heart,” and under it is the great sea of our ego. And the ship is used as a protective Masach, like a raft on which we connect with our points in the heart and don’t sink. And around us the surging waves of the stormy sea of the Sitra Achra rage.
[136502]
From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/14 Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
A Patch
Guarantees Against Leaks In The Boat
The Light From The Top Of The Mountain

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Mutual Guarantee, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Psalms 86:1 – 86:2: A prayer of David. O Lord, incline Your ear; answer me for I am poor and needy.

Watch my soul for I am a pious man; save Your servant-You, my God – who trusts in You.

A pious (Hassid) is one  who asks for one thing: not to be separated from the Creator. So all the songs of Psalms, all the requests and prayers speak only about this—not losing confidence that the Creator is the only power that manages and sustains a person and everything that is found within him, but which is portrayed for him as an external world and changing reality that passes through incarnations in front of him and within him.

All of this comes from the one higher power, and the person wants to permanently adhere to this fact until he discovers this with all of his strength, thus attaining constant adhesion with the Creator in all desires and thoughts, in heart and mind. He becomes a Hassid who wants only to adhere to the higher guidance above all disturbances and problems. So he awakens the disturbances in himself to bring to light all of his abilities and be in adhesion with the Creator.

The person asks for only one thing: help for him not to be separated from the thought that “There is none else beside Him” and the recognition he must be involved only with the one Higher Power. And this is not because he is concerned about himself and wants to feel better but because through this he wants to give contentment to the Creator.
[135104]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/14

Related Material:
Healing The Point Of Disconnection
Under The Protection Of Wings
“Seek The Lord Where He Is”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We need to construct a line between the Light and the Kli, between the desire and the Creator. We do this gradually, according to 125 levels, building the right intention to realize ourselves only in order to bestow to others or the Creator.

To do this, I receive the power of correction from the Light that Reforms. It corrects me and gives me all that is necessary. But it is up to me to find a yearning for the goal within myself. I must be the initiating factor; otherwise, there is no creation. After all, if I want the Light to do everything for me, it is as if I don’t really exist.

Initially the Creator created the desire. It belongs to Him. I am that desire that rushes for Light according to the way it shines. A game is conducted with me from above, as was said allegorically by the Kabbalists , the Creator plays with the Leviathan that He created. With the Light, He plays—wherever it shines, that is where the Leviathan turns. But this still doesn’t mean that I truly exist, since for now I am completely managed.

Even though I understand and feel that my entire life is like a chase after bait, this awareness did not come on my account as a result of my efforts. I’m given the feeling that I am running after bait and that I’m not different from the still, vegetative, and animate nature.

But in addition, I am given a Reshimo (reminiscence) that arouses questions in me: “Why am I running? What is the benefit? What is the goal?” And then they give me one additional question, which is “What is the purpose of life?” And this is done so that I will now begin to work on my own.

As long as I haven’t asked the question, “What for?” I could run after various pleasures all my life, which is what the whole world does. We consider people who are prominent experts or famous scientists to be smart, even though they are chasing the lures like everyone else. This is not their addition since they really aren’t doing anything and have no freedom of choice. Look at the world through the filter of intentions and you will see emptiness. There is no nature of the still, vegetative, and animate and there aren’t seven billion people, instead everything is pure. There is no additional place that a creature must make by himself. Only in a few, in whom the true question about the meaning of life has awakened can produce an independent desire. Even this desire was given to them from above, but they need to “work” with it through working in a group.

So where do we get the power for this? Where do we find the method? How do we even know what is required of us?

That is why there was the Shevira HaKelim (shattering of the vessels). If there had been one creature, he would have had nothing to do; he would not have been able to do anything. It is no accident that Adam HaRishon (the First Man) was called an “angel,” because he belonged to the animate level. But when there are other people beside myself who ask the same question, then we can support each other through the connection of our questions. If we overcome our ego, then each one of us inserts his yearnings into everyone, his addition, the meaning of a life directed towards giving. And this makes it possible for us to advance.

That is how I use the desires that the Creator awakens in my friends. Even though these desires are not ours, we internalize them within each one in the group and this already becomes our work thanks to which we build an even greater desire, an “added value” in each one. Essentially, this is the way we realize the work of the Creator. It is clear that the Light is what realizes it, but we organize it.

That is how we reproduce the operation that the Creator was doing in Ein Sof (Infinity), producing a desire. Even though this is not a new and unusual creative act, in spite of it all, it is a true addition. The Creator began the creation and ultimately we complete it….
[110815]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/13, The Zohar

Related Material:
Attainment Here And Now
Change The Rules Of The Game
When Everything Is To Our Benefit

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Question: The sons of the great priest Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, died because they skipped the level they had to go through. These are the kind of mistakes that happen all the time.

Answer: A person wants to sacrifice himself; he yearns unknowingly and without understanding that the spiritual action he performs is beyond his powers.

But this action is necessary so he can see the limits of his powers, so that his yearning forward will die, which means shatter; it disappears due to the unprepared form he made. But later he will be able to perform it as a result of many small actions.

Try to jump three meters high! The sons of Aaron wanted to take this level of in order to bestow for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of the whole nation, but it was beyond human powers, beyond the level they were on. Therefore, eventually the attribute of judgment was revealed, the rigidity, fire that can be both good and bad. In this case it swallowed them.

Question: But they did it with the right intention.

Answer: Their intentions were not justified. How can you go on such a mission if you don’t have the Creator’s clear support? All your attributes, all your actions of bestowal, stem only from the power you receive from Above.

You are nothing but a small egoist. Some new egoistic attributes are revealed in you, while you have to receive altruistic attributes, to connect them and to reveal the middle line on which you should work. This is called sanctifying a property, the attribute of bestowal, when you attract your ego, correct it by the altruistic attribute of the Light, and keep on advancing.

But if you don’t do that you have no right to use only the left line, no way!!

This is especially true on the level of the sons, since this is a small level. But Nadav and Avihu took the great egoistic potential that was revealed, which wasn’t prepared for them at all. It is like a youth who takes upon himself what even an adult cannot do since the adult understands that it isn’t in his power to do, while the youth thinks that he will be able to perform the mission he is given. But things aren’t that simple.

A the saying goes: “If youth knew; if old age could.” Therefore, old people realize that they cannot do something and don’t do it, while the foolish youth think that they can handle a task and gets so fired  up that he gets burnt.
[136728]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/15/13

Related Material:
Unintentional Errors That Become Merits
Bitter Experience That Is Not Lost In Vain
An Eternal Day

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: It says that “the desire is in the hearts of the children of Israel at any moment, and if they had really asked, they would have been rewarded with the presence of Divinity.” What does it mean, “If they had really asked”?

Answer: A strong desire means that we only want a certain thing and nothing else: only to be incorporated in one another and in everyone so that there will be no room for anyone in the connection among us, and actually a spiritual vacuum is formed. We have a great passion that only the Creator will be able to appear in that empty space.

Such a place is revealed among us, which doesn’t belong to any of us and at the same time belongs to everyone. There is nothing of our ego there. We discover an upper dimension in the connection between us.

Our ego is on the outside and we gather inside so that in the center there is an empty space that didn’t exist before. There is no such thing as an empty space, but here it is created and we feel that there is nothing there, not even the Creator.

We have created such an area by throwing our ego aside, and our passion to be incorporated in one another are connected in a pure intention, in our reluctance to regard the ego. Therefore, this place becomes empty and already belongs to another dimension.

The space in which we are belongs to the animate level and the empty zone is the place for the formation of man. This is where the Creator is revealed: the first ten Sefirot, which are us, the ones who are included on this connection.
[136613]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/14, Shamati #66

Related Material:
Very Easy To Live Together
In One “Slice” Of Desire
A Strong Desire

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →