“Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Night of the Bride,” Item 132: When this happened to King David, fear enveloped him. Right then, Duma ascended before the Creator, and said: “Master of the world, it says in the Torah (VaYikra, 20:10): ‘And the man that commits adultery with another man’s wife…’ David broke his covenant, is it not so?” The Creator replied to him: “David is righteous, and his holy covenant remains pure, for it is known to Me that Bat Sheva was destined for him since the creation of the world.

You are not allowed to bring death upon him….” Then Duma immediately gave up his complaints, and returned, despondent, to his place.”

Question: Why did the angel Duma want King David to die so much that he “returned, despondent, to his place” when this was unsuccessful?

Answer: Duma only helps in making clarifications. He is an angel of the Creator, he is a spiritual force.

It is written that Duma “returned, despondent, to his place” because a Klipa (shell) must also grow to be in balance with Kedusha (sanctity). Otherwise we won’t have free choice or the power of clarification. How can I clarify something if facing me is nothing that opposes me, not even someone who is as wise and strong as I am and who has nothing against me?

Duma acts against Uriah and not against David. While thanks to both of them, David clarifies his true state.

Everything that Kedusha receives, Klipa can suck and extract from it afterward. The benefit here is enormous. Thanks to this, we clarify more and more new Shevirot (shatterings). So we are compelled to perform transgressions thanks to which the Kli, vessel, the desire, is revealed to a greater depth, greater density.

This is somewhat like a well full of water. This water is Ohr Hassidim (Light of Mercy), Hesed (mercy), and the well is the Kli, the desire. As long as the desire is full of Hassadim, we don’t see it.

But when we err, we are performing a transgression and the Hassadim disappear, meaning that the water leaks out of the well, and then we see its walls. And it turns out that there are still other cracks through which we are drawn to a greater depth. The water streams even further away and you sink more deeply into desire and that is how the Kli is discovered and that is how you become familiar with it.

It is impossible to investigate the Kli while it is full of Hassadim. For Hassadim is Hesed, mercy. So the entire desire is full of Hassadim and everything is wonderful. The Hassadim cover everything like the water and don’t make it possible to carry out clarifications. Even love can be blind.

So transgressions specifically help in examining our desires. We see this in particular in regard to the wanderings of the people of Israel in the desert where they committed transgressions every step of the way. They hauled these transgressions from Egypt because they took the Egyptian vessels from there.

If your sack is full of silver and gold vessels, then you discover one vessel after another, another bad desire, and yet another. The discovery of an egoistic desire is called a transgression, yet then it becomes possible to correct it.

So the angel Duma carries out very good and great work by revealing the desires. We need to understand that “there is no cruelty in the palace of the king”; rather, all help and support each another. Yet without the understanding of Kabbalah it is impossible to understand this story that happened with King David, who seems like a criminal since he murdered a husband in order to take possession of the man’s wife.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/14, The Zohar

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Question: It isn’t easy to live in the present modern reality which gallops along at great speed and constantly keeps us under pressure. How is it possible to withstand a life like this in which changes are taking place at every moment?

Answer: Everything depends upon how people perceive this reality. If he thinks that it is very important for him  and he needs to have time to be successful, he wants to exploit everything that is happening and be more successful than others, to be the first in society, in science, in achievements, in the eyes of people. And so it is understandable that this wretch is in competition with others all the time without a moment of rest, and he never has enough time.

But there are people who are not included in this competition. And this is not because they are lazy; rather, they simply understand that all these successes are subjective. I don’t want to run in order to be the first among those who always lack the time. In general I want to rise above time, motion, and space and exist not within this phenomenon called “life,” but within that force called the source of life. And so I am already searching for how to rise to the source of life.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/17/14

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“Introduction to The Book of Zohar, “Night of the Bride,” Item 131: And so it says, ‘And several myriads of angels of destruction are with him. And he (the angel Domeh) stands by the door of Gehinnom. This is because the thoughts that he brings to a person are several myriad without end. And all of these are by the door of Gehinnom.’

Question: What types of desires are called “angels of destruction”?

Answer: The angels of destruction are the desires that remove me from the environment. After all, I have no other work. The choice of the person, all of his work, is only to arrange an environment and invest as much as possible in it so that the environment will help him to give contentment to the Creator. This is mutual work and is expressed in his praying for the friends so that they will be able to give contentment to the Creator through his efforts.

This means that a closed system is created. The prayer is from him and the Kelim (vessels) are theirs. This puts him in a position where he is greater than they are since he is responsible for them, their “father and mother.” So he reaches repentance first, for this truly raises him to the level of Abba ve Ima (AVI) (father and mother ) in regard to ZON (which is the Kli, vessel, the deficiency of the others, of the environment).

And this is how each one must act: In his deficiency in regard to others, he should feel himself as small, like a mother who bows down towards her baby to feel what he is lacking. Her deficiency must be greater so that she will be able to feel his particular deficiency in her general deficiency. She must then be greater in order to bestow to him. This is how we work.

From here it follows that we don’t have anything more important than work with the collective, with the public.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/14, The Zohar

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In our time, other than the Kabbalists, nobody remembers the principle that once proclaimed the essential rule of the Torah, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” Among the people of Israel, this principle disappeared in the days of the destruction of the second Beit HaMikdash (temple), which is in fact the destruction of this principle.

Going into exile means departing from the general rule of, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” to indifference and even unfounded hatred. But in our day, when we come to the period of correction, all those who belong to the descendants of Israel must return to it again along with all the others who feel within them an inclination towards correction of the world. This is a sign that spiritual Reshimot (genes) have already been clarified in them.

In ancient Babylon they appeared in only a small portion of the Babylonians, five thousand people out of three million. But today these Reshimot are awakened and clarified more and more.

For both these and the others, both Israel and the nations of the world, have become mixed together since then. They have developed and become perfected, and by passing through many different states, they have reached the recognition of evil and also some of the recognition of good. So today they are ready for correction.

Now in our state, that inclination, that Shevirah (breaking), that once was only in Babylon is appearing. Only toda.has Babylon spread over all of humanity. We need to pass through correction, and it is specifically Israel that must begin it.

So in the Book of Zohar it is written, “Happy are Israel among all the nations of the world.” This is because someone who receives an awakening has a wonderful opportunity to give contentment to the Creator. While for others who are not with this inclination, it will eventually come to them also.

The uniqueness of the people of Israel is that first they must begin the correction. They accept upon themselves the most difficult work, but they are happy about it and thank the Creator for having chosen them for the difficult task of being pioneers and going forward with correction of the world.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/14

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The Book of Zohar says that there is a general rule: similar to the ten upper Sefirot of faith there are ten Sefirot of dirty witchcraft below. All animals on the face of earth belong to either of these two parts.

The Scriptures allow us to consume animals that belong to the ten Sefirot of sanctity and prohibits eating those animals that are a part of the ten Sefirot of wickedness.

Naturally, we are not talking about witchcraft in this world since anything that is considered witchcraft here is just a psychological impact on people and nothing but that. A prohibition to consume certain types of animals stems from the spiritual roots.

The spiritual roots bear both egoistic and altruistic sides. The egoistic part is called impure or harmful, i.e., it is not cleaned of the egoistic filth. At the same time, inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking properties that are based on bestowal and love of our neighbors are called pure and corrected and are suitable for further use.

In corporeality, only certain types of imprints of the upper qualities are considered impure. However, all of them are just conditional. Let’s say it is prohibited to eat pork or camel meat because they are impure. This fact can be explained by the notion that the upper forces that correspond to these animals are of an egoistic nature.

Other upper forces that resemble, for example, a chicken, a goat, or a cow are altruistic. These animals have special signs that work as imprints of spirituality in them.

In the upper world, in order to turn a desire (Malchut, the property of reception) into an altruistic quality, this desire has to be attached to Bina (the intention to bestow).

That’s why digestive systems of the majority of ruminants symbolize receiving for the sake of bestowal. Intestinal tracts of these animals and the way they consume food consists of chewing-burping, chewing-burping. It is similar to “Malchut-Bina, Malchut-Bina.”

Obviously, there is nothing spiritual in these ruminants, but their way of food consumption is a physical consequence that stems out of the upper properties. This is the first point.

Secondly, the intention to bestow and the will to receive exist separately and represent the right and left lines. Our reception is limited to the amount of the intention to bestow we have. That’s why the cloven hooves of these animals represent a splitting of the right and left lines.

This explains why only those animals who have cloven hoofs and a specific type of digestive system are considered kosher in this world.

As to water animals, only fish that have fins and scales that symbolize the screen are considered kosher. There are certain restrictions on consumption of birds, and they also derive from the upper roots.

The Torah concretely lists the fauna representatives that carry a so-called “Godly seal” on them. It is said: “Know that I created them; I created nothing of the same type. You will never find it.”

Interestingly, the Torah is three thousand years old and whenever we try to find anything that is not mentioned in it, we do not succeed. Such a thing has never been found so far.

All inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking desires of the spiritual realm materialize in this world through physical objects or phenomena. Each of these levels is accompanied by specific requirements that are enhanced from level to level.

At the inanimate level, it is possible to consume anything at all. Practically, all that is used at this level is salt, water, and soil (there are certain types of soil that are suitable for consumption).

At the vegetative level, there also is a special type of Kashrut. Kashrut stands for the suitability of the products that symbolize different types of desires. Practically every plant is considered edible. However, there is a rule that prohibits eating fruit for three years after a tree begins to bear fruit. Only after three consecutive years of fruit bearing are people allowed to eat the fruit. Unripe or overripe fruit are prohibited to consume, etc.

The biggest restrictions apply to the animate level. It is extremely important to correctly drain blood out of animals and cut off the parts that are not good for eating. Next, it is essential to cook meat in a certain way and to a certain degree, not more, but not less. Everything is clearly explained in the Scriptures.

By the way, these rules are very good for establishing normal digestion in humans. The great Kabbalist Rambam, who attained the roots of these phenomena, wrote a cook book that is based on these rules. If we lived in accordance with these laws, our existence would be compatible with the upper world, the upper laws. Thus, we would benefit from everything around and so would our corporeal body.

If we put the above in Kabbalistic terms, everything is based on the connection between Malchut and Bina. Malchut is the property of reception, whereas Bina is the intention to bestow. When correctly connected, they represent receiving for the sake of bestowal. This type of food consumption is called kosher, since it means for the sake of bestowal, through the environment to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/18/13

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Question: How can I connect in thought with the friends when reading The Book of Zohar if I don’t feel their thoughts and emotions but only feel myself?

Answer: We need to try to do this, and, as a result of our persistence, Kelim (vessels) gradually will begin to be arranged in us. There is nothing else to be done. Everyone begins from a lack of feeling, and the feelings come through habit.

It is as if you come to a new workplace and they ask you to do something. However, you have never have done this, and you don’t have any skills. So, you try doing it one way or another, and gather experience. Through repeating the same work again and again, suddenly, a new intelligence and new emotions come to you. You begin to feel the material, that your human observations and scrutinies are relevant to the still, vegetative, animate, and human.

This is derived from your connection. Everything that you see in this great world is a part of your soul; it only seems to be external. So, you receive impressions from them.

It is like an artist or a professional who talks about the material with which he works as if it were a living being. He incorporates this material into himself and attributes all of his characteristics to it.

So, I begin to think more and more about the group, about the friends. It is not important if they are far from me and not next to me. However, through permanent and constant thoughts about them, I sharpen and develop my senses.

This is a law of nature. In our world, there is no other possible way to advance besides returning to these thoughts time after time. This is the difference between someone who learns after 100 times or after 101 times.

This does not mean that I must learn an article by heart. Rather, the investment in learning brings a new feeling.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/14, The Zohar

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Question: How do I zero out this expansion of egoistic desires with which I am inflated and convey everything to the Creator?

Answer: It is necessary to go through this by way of the point of the Tzimtzum. Rabash writes that a person must make as many zeroes out of himself regarding the friend that he considers to be one and put these zeroes after him, and that is how he will grow: 10, 100 …

This is all of our work. But if he considers himself to be one and the others to be zero, with this he reduces himself: 0.1, 0.01, ….

Man is sent all kinds of signs of advancement and success, but he must attribute all of this to the Creator. He must feel himself as a conduit that transfers everything and in himself nothing is left. There is entry, exit, and in the middle there is just a conduit.

If the person makes a conduit of himself like this, this indicates that he is approaching the Creator.

Question: When I succeed in some activity, then I swell with pride, like an inflated balloon. And I look for a pin to make a hole in the balloon and bring a contribution to the group, spiritual benefit, to attain connection with the Creator, but I cannot find it.

Answer: You will not find this pin by yourself; you must ask! This is what is called making a sacrifice after success is attained, meaning that you approach the Creator after your success, in the face of this swelling with pride.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/14, Shamati #53 “A Matter of Limitation”

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The Book of Zohar, Introduction to the Book of Zohar, Article “The Night of the Bride,” section 138: This stems from the fact that man cannot perceive obvious evil from the Creator, as this would greatly undermine the creatures’ perception of the great and perfect Creator, for the Perfect one cannot create evil.

Therefore, to the extent that man feels bad and evil, and denies the Divine Providence, a veil immediately falls over him, and the sensation of the Creator’s existence disappears. This is the worst punishment in the world!

Hence, the sensation of good and evil in the Creator’s governance gives us a feeling of reward and punishment. This is because he who exerts efforts not to lose faith in the Creator‘s existence and governance, even if he tastes evil in His governance, is rewarded with finding strength to not lose faith in the governance and good purpose of the Creator’s “evil” influence. But if he had not yet merited the opportunity to exert efforts in believing that the Creator pursues a definite purpose by sending him unpleasant sensations, he is punished with remoteness from faith in the Creator and the sensation of His existence.

From here it is clear where reward and punishment and concealment and revelation come from, what the conditions are for a person to merit to this, and how he builds himself when confronting a bad feeling, a feeling of suffering.

It is impossible to cry and say, “Thank you very much.” To the degree that you are not accommodated to the Light, you feel concealment and so condemn the Creator. It follows that we have no choice; if we want to approach the Creator and bless Him, we must reach revelation.

From concealment, whether we want it or not, we are always compelled to curse Him. So only the Kabbalists, who attain the correct intention and transform darkness into Light, bless the higher power. And to that extent, they are in adherence with Him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/01/14, The Book of Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 71: And then, each and every one of us will be rewarded with intensifying his own internality, meaning the Israel within us, which is the needs of the soul over our own externality, which is the nations of the world within us, that is, the needs of the body.

That force will come to the whole of Israel, until the nations of the world within us recognize and acknowledge the merit of the great sages of Israel over them, and will listen to them and obey them.

Also, the internality of the nations of the world, the righteous of the nations of the world, will overpower and submit their externality, which are the destructors.

And the internality of the world, too, which are Israel, shall rise in all their merit and virtue over the externality of the world, which are the nations.

Then, all the nations of the world will recognize and acknowledge Israel’s merit over them.

From here it follows that everyone who yearns to discover the Creator and is called the internality of the world, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), must know that even through his work within the group, he influences the external desires. If he goes out to the general public, then he discovers and receives an even greater imperative to connect with the inner part.

So even though it seems to us that our going out is required in order to connect the external public to us, essentially this is designed to strengthen the inner connection and unity. In this way, we attract more Light, which through the inner part of the group reaches the external public. But in fact we did it in order to connect with the Light. Here all the time is this mutual work.

It is said that “Someone who saves one soul of Israel is as if he saves the entire world,” since through the shattering, mutual integration of all in all is maintained, and in every person among the seven billion there is his own part and parts of all seven billion.

The truth is that this is not seven billion but many more, for this is about the integration of all the generations, all the incarnations of the souls who already finished their correction and those who have not yet begun their correction, of everyone totally. The mutual integration works above time, because this is talking about the structure of the soul.

So the person must say that the world was created for him, and he should be concerned about correction in this form. And this correction cannot be individual, rather it must be related to all according to the structure of the soul. So every moment one must act exactly according to this principle: “What am I thinking about, what is it that I yearn for? Is my yearning spiritual or completely egoistic if I don’t take into account the integral picture of the entire world?”

Here the work of scrutiny is very important, that in principle, the entire world is found in each one of us, and each one, in order to correct himself, must take into account the entire world. It is necessary for you to pay attention that the awakening that is given to you is not for yourself but in order to submerge yourself in the world, in all the others.

Through your doing the work with your influence on the entire world, in that, you aspire to bring the whole world to correction and to discover the Creator within it; you prepare your individual vessel for giving contentment to the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Where can we get 500 billion dollars for advertising the method of connection?

Answer: We must discuss this question seriously and clarify how to do this. But it is clear that we don’t have a choice, and everyone in our group or in the world in general who wants to perceive the Creator, must be involved in advertising Him.

This is precisely what we are doing; we want to advertise the Creator. If we require 500 billion dollars for this, we must find it. We must advertise the Creator: His plan, His purpose, His goal.

Besides this, it is not written anywhere that we must convince people. We don’t need to convince anyone and it is also impossible. We only need to open up the Light that Reforms for them and it will return them to the good!

But you are thinking about how to be wiser and more eloquent to convince them through argument. There is no need for this at all! It is only necessary to open up this infusion with the Light so that it will begin to drip into them through a workshop or some additional activities. You will see how they will begin to wait for this.

Question: Am I interpreting this correctly, that the Light that Reforms is a feeling of warmth, love, and trust within the connection between us?

Answer: This is the Upper Light, everything is in it. We don’t know how it acts. We only know that it reforms. This is a higher force that influences the person in a manner that he doesn’t understand and which changes him.

We pay attention, sometimes we are also changed. A period of confusion comes in which I don’t understand and I feel that I am in a fog, in some kind of blurry state; and after that suddenly it begins to become clear to me and an understanding is revealed, a new feeling.

I work it, live in it for some time, and after that I am again confused and in a fog so that I can again rise to an even higher state, to understand and to feel even more and to connect things even more, to see how everything works. That is how the influence of the Light that Reforms is discovered.

Question: But we are talking about a science.

Answer: This is not an abstract theory; rather, this is a true science and wisdom of life that explains how it is necessary to live and through this, to rise higher and higher all the time.

Question: When I work as a guide for people and open the faucet with Light, do I have some kind of criterion according to which I can evaluate my success?

Answer: The criterion for success is that you begin to understand and feel more. You understand that a stronger connection with others is required for you. You see the realization of the goal of creation in the whole world and in the general public more and more.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/14, Writing of Baal HaSulam

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