The song “For You Have Saved My Soul” (Ki Hilatsta Nafshi) is a song of gratitude of a person as he has ascended to the level on which he was created, above our world, and who has finally found the answer to the meaning of life.

Our soul is formed on the upper levels of knowledge, just like the body of an embryo inside its mother’s womb. The soul is gradually formed and begins to descend and to become coarser, dressed in attires that are increasingly closer to matter until it enters the corporeal body.

Spiritual attainment is ascending to the same levels where the formation of your soul began. You begin to attain its root there, the basis, and discover why you have a certain fate, what has been prepared for you not only in this life but in a whole series of lives, until you fulfill your spiritual potential to the fullest and bring your soul to the state that was predetermined.

Attaining the root of the soul provides a person with an answer to the question of how he should live. This is very important, especially today, when we are totally lost, and don’t know what to do with our lives.

This is a song of gratitude to the Creator for having raised you to the root of your soul and for allowing you to attain your soul.

This song is about getting closer to the upper force, to the root of the soul, to the upper attainment, when a person begins a dialog with the Creator and hears the Creator calling him: “Come close to me.”
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 2/09/14

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Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “There is None Else Besides Him”: It is written, “there is none else besides Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world that has the ability to do anything against Him. This is the one and only force that decides and implements everything, and there is nothing outside of Him.

And what man sees, that there are things in the world that deny the higher household, the reason is that this is His will, in order to confuse the person, giving him a feeling that there are several causes, several forces.

And it is done this way intentionally so that through this confusion, through the dissipation, a person can direct himself precisely towards this force, as it is with a viewfinder. At first, the focus is diffuse so that afterwards it gradually becomes directed precisely. It is the same thing here.

Specifically, if we begin to feel a few forces, a few causes, a few sources for our lives, ultimately we reach a decision that all of this is being done by one force which intends to confuse us from all sides so that we will correct our vision, our perception, and in all kinds of situations happening to us, we will be focused more on it.

The method of the Creator is to confuse us, and precisely through this confusion we must discover Him, in order to understand Him more, to connect with Him more, to break through this blurred vision called, the left rejects and the right adducts.

The Creator acts in two directions: On the one hand, He rejects us, confuses us, gives us all kinds of exercises, as if we are going the wrong way, not towards Him, that this is not Him, and our friends are not our friends, and our teacher is not a teacher, and this is unnecessary. Instead it is the opposite.

All of this is so that we will scrutinize the truth and acquire it. Then it will already be ours and we won’t be confused any more.

Meaning that which the left rejects, confusing us, is considered correction. This means that there are things in the world, all kinds of situations, which to begin with, aim to confuse us, to divert a person from the right way, and by which he is rejected from Sanctity. And from this, to understand Him and get closer to the friends, the study, the understanding, and feeling.

It is precisely from this that we start the right way. We begin to feel and identify the direction of the right way. But our goal is not in this. If, with the help of these rejections, we become wiser, more understanding, and advanced, then in total, we would become wiser and more sophisticated beasts and no more than this. But we don’t need to attain the state in which we are wise and understand what is happening and how the Creator is giving us exercises. No, we must attain His level.

And so the Creator brings us to these confused, very difficult and unpleasant states, to exhaustion, from which there is apparently no possible way out, so that we will truly feel that without Him we have no chance of attaining the goal of creation, the goal of all life, and so that we require Him.

If we make a demand to Him, shout at Him so that He will come and help, so that He will connect us, so that He will correct our perception, so that He will rescue us, then this is a most happy state in His eyes. This is because then He can approach us, carry out these corrections, and we will be together.

This is the goal of all the rejections.
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From the Convention In New Jersey “Day Two” 8/09/14, Lesson 4

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We have to apply maximum effort to reach the goal we aspire to and in doing so get prove that we are unable to reach it. Then, we have to check if we are going in the right direction and whether we can possibly ever get the chance to attain it; then by employing our intellect and sensations we will realize that we will never be able to achieve this goal on our own and need the Creator’s assistance.

We should accept the fact that only the Creator is able to give our entry into the spiritual world, to realize our spiritual birth, to transition us from our mother’s womb where we are separated to the state of connectedness. During birth, we pass through the narrowest place that connects one world with another; that’s the place of the initial connection among us that happens at the minimal spiritual level. Are we able to achieve this or not?

If the answer is “yes,” then let’s do it, if the answer is “no,” let’s demand the Creator to do it, one of the two. Let’s make an immediate decision and execute it quickly rather than waste time!

As a rule, the evil inclination whispers into our ears with “promises” of tremendous success waiting for us “next time”; it tells us that we haven’t yet achieved all that we were capable of, we haven’t read enough or learned everything that we could have, and thus there are plenty of things that we still have to take care of.

This is how we acted for many years; we acknowledge that as a result of the influence of the group we began to realize that we are incapable of breaking into the spiritual world and we call for the Creator’s help.

This is the time when we start to scream and ask Him for His help, and this is the right direction because we do not possess the power of bestowal but only retain the force of receiving.

The group’s influence will provide everybody with the understanding that only the Creator is able to build a system of connection among us and unite us. We demand that it happens and strongly disagree with our egoism that invites us to continue working independently. There is no reason to continue acting the old way; our environment can influence us in a way that we will arrive at such a decision.
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From the lesson 11/12/10, “Letter 57,” Baal HaSulam

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Question: What needs to go into this decision other than our desire?

Answer: The decision that we need to come to includes our disappointment in our ability to unite on our own, as well as in our individual or joint ability to break through the barrier and reveal the spiritual world.

What feeling am I to use to reveal if I do not perceive it? This feeling needs to form between us as an additional, new phenomenon that we aren’t familiar with yet.

I have five senses, and I am trying to use them like radar in order to locate the spiritual world. What is it and where do I find it? I try, but I fail to find it because the Kli where the spiritual world can be perceived is not within me. It is between us. So, how do I create it?

I am not able to do this on my own because I do not feel the others. It is as if they do not exist. What do I use to connect with them if I lack this sensitivity?

Only the upper force can help me connect with them; it intentionally created the dividers between us by placing each one of us in a separate cell, like bees in a hive.

We are not able to break the barriers, so where will we perceive spirituality? We will perceive it in our common desire, which can only be attained with the Creator’s help; He will remove the dividers between us!

This was deliberately arranged so that we would reveal Him because the breaking of the dividers builds the Kli for revealing the property of bestowal, which is inherent of the Creator.

It appears that my need for a new Kli brings me to this decision. This is called an effort, and we must do it together, helping one another in raising the importance of our expectations. As soon as we come to a joint decision to unite and break the Machsom with this sensation, this happens, because we really want the revelation of the Creator as the force and and everyone’s property of bestowal that exists between us. This is the spiritual world.
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From the lesson 11/12/10, “Letter 57,” Baal HaSulam 

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Question: What are the precise actions needed to attain unity and the property of bestowal?

Answer: Our only free action is to connect with the group, and the tighter, the better.

However, the physical actions are not unity. This needs to be an inner unity, “What am I doing this for?”

When trying to unite, I constantly need to keep turning to the Creator, “Help me attain unity!”

I drag Him with me to the lesson, the gathering of friends. I always want Him to be near me. I demand for the Creator to do this to me, and I do not let Him go for even a minute.

The upper force must carry out my request because this is what He, Himself, wants, just like an adult wants to create conditions for the development of a child. However, there is no worse condition than when a child does not want to develop, and this is our situation. We do not care for our state, but the Creator wants us always to keep demanding!

So, I need to know that my work is to connect with the group and find the spiritual world in this connection.

I do this work together with the Creator. I keep constantly pulling Him, as it is written, “Come unto Pharaoh.” I do not need anything but this!

So, what are we lacking? First, it is disappointment in our own abilities. Second, it is confidence that the Creator can help us. Third, it is asking Him to complete the action.

He always performs the action. This is why our work is called Avodat HaShem (the work of the Creator). What a paradox. I work, the effort is mine, but the work is called the Creator’s work. I only evoke it!

However, I need to work very hard in order to find out what exactly He needs to do. The Light does the action, but I need to be in the right place and say, “Act here!” He acts if I find the place.

Besides, it does not matter where I am and what I am doing, whether I am with the group, at the lesson, at home, at work, or traveling. I am always doing this. This is our practical work.
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From the lesson 11/12/10, “Letter 57” Baal HaSulam 

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Question: Should I try to distinguish in the events and people around me things like the right and left lines?

Answer: No, this only applies to inner work. Only when a person attains the forces of his soul and begins to work with them, does he begin to distinguish which of them apply to the right line, and which ones to the left, as it is written: “The left rejects, and the right adducts.” Those things that reject me from spirituality refer to the left line, and those things that attract me refer to the right line. I need to base my advancement on the two forces, otherwise what am I to rise above?

The left line is represented as Mount Sinai (hatred), and it determines the height of the steps on the ladder of spiritual ascent. My egoistic desire, the left foot, which rejects all the other people, gradually becomes revealed, step-by-step on this ladder, to the extent of my readiness to correct it with the force of the right line, the right foot, the property of bestowal. Thus I ascend the steps of (Jacob’s) ladder.

It is when I can classify my inner forces—whether they are for or against the connection between them—but I cannot classify the surrounding people or events.

You can say that according to the perception of reality, the entire world is within you because man is a small world; everything he sees outside of him is inside him. So why can he not regard his inner and outer parts the same way? Once you begin to perceive inside you the things that are outside of you, then you will add them either to the right or the left side!

But until then you can only work in relation to your friends, adding them to yourself as parts of your soul. If we want to be as one man with one heart, then our desire includes everyone, and it does not differentiate between you, me, and others, just like when one, two, or three drops of water merge to form one big drop.

When we have a common desire like that, we will be able to regard its inner structure the same way we regard the three lines.
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From KabTV’s “Weekly Portion” 11/12/2010

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The Torah, “Leviticus” (Metzora), 14:36:… After this, the Cohen shall come to look at the house.

A person who rises to the level of a Cohen (priest) and is able to correct his desires, no longer checks his body and his clothes since these desires already have been purified and he is in a corrected state in them, but the house is his external desires.

The more external a desire is, the easier it is to correct it. However, on the other hand, the easier it is to correct it, the more it stands out as an interruption.

Here there is an inverse relationship: It is easier to correct 1000 kilograms than 100 kilograms, and it is easier to correct 100 kilograms than 10 kilograms. So, on the whole, these values are interrelated.

This means that the light desires are everywhere, like bacteria, for example. There are so many that you need to protect yourself from them. There are such terrible desires inside you, like viruses, and you must correct them. It is a different kind of work, which is more internal. But there are fewer of these desires.

These are the bricks by which we later must build ourselves.

There are billions of different viruses and bacteria in our world that constantly attack us. They keep a general balance: homeostasis. It is impossible to live without them.

Of course, we can dismiss this, but, if we want to find meaning in life and understand who we are and what we are, we cannot do it without knowing a person’s inner attributes.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/5/14

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Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence, by fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about all of reality, and it is revealed to individuals throughout history and in general at the end of our history.

The abundance comes from above and below, there is the desire, a burning need. They cannot touch each other because there is an insulating obstacle between them, an essential precondition of adaptability. This is the main thing that we should know. This is the subject of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

There are many details, but this is what we need first and foremost: knowing how to adapt and make ourselves suitable for the perception of the Creator, for the perception of the abundance.

Accordingly, the Creator is revealed to the full depth of the desire in all its five levels.

As for the roots, we discover them according to Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction) and the Masach (screen), and creating the necessary adaptability.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How do we ask for the Light to change us if we don’t perceive it?

Answer: It’s true, first you must have the desire, and only then can you turn to the Light.

If I wrote on a piece of paper: “I need to ask the Light!” and read it a hundred times, nothing would happen. This would become a habit; I would keep repeating these words like a broken record and nothing more.

But we are given the opportunity to change our desire with the help of our environment. After all, we exist among other people and not alone.

When I listen to them and watch them through a prism of envy, lust, and honor, all these properties that are part of my desire to receive pleasure, then I want to receive all the good things that they have, and rise even higher than them.

If they want to become thieves, then I want to become the most important, powerful, and successful thief, because they respect this.

When my environment deems it important to attain the property of bestowal, then naturally I will want to succeed in it the most, because this will become important to me.

So I can change my heart’s desire through the environment. And so it is written: “We shall do and we shall hear” because I am able to do such things that as a consequence I will suddenly desire something that was not in me initially, such as bestowing to others, deeming this to be important, somehow egoistically wishing to bestow.

After all, I exist in an egoistic society, and if this society starts convincing me that it is worth it to bestow, naturally I, just like all my friends, will begin to think that it is really worthwhile to bestow.

But at the same time, I think that this will benefit me, that I will become important in their eyes, I will be great, I will attain the Upper World, and the Creator will be mine. So bestowing it is; what matters is for me to profit. This is called Lo Lishma.

When driven by this aspiration, I still want the Light to come to me and change me, it begins to change me, and I suddenly catch a “virus” of some sort; I acquire something I did not have before, something I did not want, and I did not intend to get. I suddenly really begin to think that bestowal is something special, good, and sublime.

Where does this come from? This appears like an illness that you really did not want to have. I seriously begin to think that it is a good thing to think about others instead of thinking about me, without any kind of benefit or reward in it for me.

Naturally, I go through a sequence of changes here. First of all, I think that I should pull away from my egoistic desire to receive pleasure and that this will make me feel better and freer.

Then I begin to think that I should bestow to others, because in this way I will still acquire some kind of superiority, because in the end I will become close to the Creator, and this is also worth something.

And so on, until the Light gradually influences me in such a way that I attain a pure intention called Lishma, exclusively “for the sake of bestowal” without receiving anything in return. And I feel it; I check that I do not receive anything in return.
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From the lesson 11/26/2010, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence, by fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.

We live in a certain reality and sense ourselves and things that surround us. We instinctively want to know what these things are. In essence, people are just egoistic desires to fulfill themselves. Naturally, awareness of our place in the universe helps us find out which things are useful for us and lets us avoid harmful influences, and allow us to achieve the most beneficial results.

We spend a certain amount of time in this reality and wonder about what was and what will be. We strive to be impervious and live in the best possible conditions to enjoy perfection and eternity. We are pushed to this need by our desires.

Thus, each one of us has a natural craving for reaching the authentic reality in which we all dwell.

At this time, we are not masters of our fate. We have no idea what will happen to us in a second and generally speaking we are unable to decide anything on our own.

This upsets us and as a result we build “lines of defense” to protect ourselves from heat and cold, robbers and wild animals, from everything that is bad for us: We construct houses and yards creating a distance between us and others. We always care about being in the safest situation. It stems from our desire to receive.

Therefore, a person wants to know exactly what is going on with him, where one is at each given moment, what reality one lives in. People develop sciences to be able to experience pleasant sensations every single moment of their lives.

At the same time, we toss aside everything away that doesn’t bring us pleasure, for example, space exploration. Previously, it was of great interest; however, nowadays we see that it is not worth investing heavily in this. Calculations have demonstrated that this program will not generate any gain. Where there is no profit, there is no reason. Likewise, we don’t pay as much attention to exploring the depths of the sea or the Earth anymore. People care about things that are close to their hearts.

However, if we view the whole picture, we’ll see that we lack knowledge of the system we are in. We see that everything in the system is in constant movement; everything is planned; everything is interconnected, including us; but we don’t know the essence of what is happening to and around us. Thus, the knowledge overall system is the most important thing. From it we learn everything.

Our attempts to develop a systematic approach have never reached any tangible success. We become disappointed with earthly sciences since they don’t provide us with clear knowledge that would allow us to control our destiny, our lives, nor do they allow us to correctly fulfill our existence or go beyond it.

This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah, the most ancient science, steps in. Before Adam, very few people possessed knowledge about nature. Their knowledge was based on their direct contacts with nature. Adam discovered the wisdom of Kabbalah; as a result, he caused the entire wisdom to be revealed.

We don’t require more knowledge. If we understand how to correctly influence the system that governs us and all other worlds, the entire universe, we won’t feel a need for the minor additions of physics, chemistry, etc. They don’t make any sense since the wisdom of Kabbalah encompasses everything. It teaches us what is worth doing in various spheres of life and what’s useless. We don’t need to go into details of molecular and atomic structures or comprehend the laws of the inanimate, vegetative, or animate world. When we feel the entire system as a whole, we sense each of its details and realize what our relationship with them should be so that it works to the best of our interests.

It means that all scientific disciplines can be explored through the wisdom of Kabbalah to their full depth, up to their final stage.

Baal HaSulam states that the wisdom of Kabbalah is the general knowledge that covers everything. It is revealed as a complete knowledge to all of us at the end of human development. And, the wisdom was opened to a chain of individuals beginning with Adam and further to his successors.

The ARI wrote that after the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, there appeared a man (Adam.) He had some similarity with a higher, new stage. However, later there showed up a genuine Man (Adam) who revealed and started to explore the system in which he appeared. That’s why his name is Adam HaRishon (the first Man).

Adam HaRishon’s perception and attainment is beyond others. He is the one from whom we trace from those called “Adam”—the chain of Kabbalists from ancient times till nowadays. The words “You are (named) a Man” is about them, whereas all the rest of us are still at the “animate” level.

And yet, at the end, all of humanity will have to reveal the level of Man and fully realize the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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