Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”: This is the source of Rav Baal Shem Tov’s mistake: he interpreted the Guide for the Perplexed according to the wisdom of Kabbalah… Of course, the Guide for the Perplexed did not refer at all to what Rav Baal Shem Tov interpreted, and he did not see how…

Question: Does it mean that Kabbalists make mistakes?

Answer: Of course they do; the same as scientists do. As an example, I can mention the world-renowned Stephen Hawking who publicly admitted his mistake several years ago. His confession makes him really great. He said: “You believed me, but I was wrong.” My teacher, Rabash, made notes on book margins; then he crossed them out and wrote “Wrong!” on top of them, and then made new comments over and over again.

It’s a science, a researcher’s study. A Kabbalist is a person who develops his vessels,desires, to the extent that he starts perceiving the Divine. Kabbalists divulge the upper world to the degree their vessels are advanced. If they have not completed certain stages, their vision of some phenomena is quite remote and it’s possible that they make mistakes. Things that are closer to them are clearer, whereas things that are farther are blurred and vague.

A Kabbalist is a researcher. For example in his book, Gatehouse of Intentions, Baal HaSulam seriously criticizes Rashash (Rabbi Shalom Sharabi) , who was a great Kabbalist. Yet, he failed to reveal and understand some things. I have no ability to judge at a level this high, but possibly Rashash didn’t realize what exactly he was overlooking. It happens.

There is a hidden part in the wisdom of Kabbalah that is still vague. Many issues are intentionally veiled because of some specific conditions. At very high levels (mainly in the world of Atzilut) these things are very numerous, same as in any other science.

We have to understand that we do not directly attain the Creator, but rather we know Him from His actions to the degree of our correspondence to and similarity with Him. Only at the end of correction “everybody will know Him, from the least of them unto the greatest of them…;” then, “nobody will teach one’s neighbor.” When all vessels will be corrected, we will fully reveal Him. However, even at this point, our revelation of Him will be limited to the desire He made.

One way or the other, our vessels will be filled to the degree of their correctness. The Upper Light is in a state of absolute tranquility. The power of bestowal rules the world. The rest depends on us. If you know how to use it, please do so! If you can’t, then don’t. You should not artificially apply superfluous “initiative” or “enterprise” to the upper force. You should get rid of these stereotypes.

There is a good force that does good to both the virtuous and wicked. It’s ready to act in accordance with the properties of each of us. There is a potential, a “rope” that we can pull on, a “socket” that we can use. Unless we are connected to it, we won’t know what it is exactly.

Let’s say you turn on your oven. You will come to the conclusion that a socket that is connected to it is a “heating force.” If we plug a refrigerator into the same socket, it will turn into a “freezing force.” So, is it warming or cooling? Neither: We are the ones who warm or cool.

Let’s summarize what we should always keep in mind:

1. Kabbalah is a science.
2. A Kabbalist is a researcher who conducts empirical studies and reveals the Creator from His actions.
3. The Goal of the Creator is to have everybody know Him.
4. “Faith” is not a blind belief, but the power of bestowal. The degree of our attainment always matches the level of our faith. If we don’t expand our faith, we will achieve nothing.
5. The Creator is absolutely good and does good. The absolute never changes. We are the ones who change.

This approach has to be utterly clear. However, humanity refuses to hear this information since it means that it’s we who have started working. It obligates us to modify ourselves instead of altering Him. We cannot “toss a coin” and wait for a positive reaction from Above. It’s all about actual self-restructuring.

However, the current epoch forces us to acknowledge and clarify the path that we have already traversed. People are changing, even religions are rapidly transforming. Humanity is growing.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: If the Creator lacks any desire to receive, why did He create us?

Answer: The Creator delights in us. He does have the desire, although not the receiving one.

Let’s call His desire a “force,” and everything will fall into places. We always associate any desire with ourselves: It’s always “I” who wants something. While we regard the notion of “force” as completely neutral: It is something that has potential to act.  In this case, it is not just a force but the desire to bestow, a force that wants to perform an act of bestowal.

Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” that the Creator is absolute good. How did he come to this conclusion? Regrettably, other people have never witnessed anything like that. Sometimes, we experience positive sensations, but it’s usually because the amount of negative sensations goes down. Something we call the “good” is only a way to escape the evil. We wish we could use “absolute good” the way we want….

HaSulam continues “… it is utterly impossible that He would ever cause any sorrow to any person.” The Creator is Good that does only Good. This fact contradicts our sensations. If we admit that the upper force exists and yet we often feel bad, it means that the reason for our negative situations must be the upper force. Can we really accuse anybody around us of being the source of our bad feelings?

Why then does Baal HaSulam describe the Creator’s absolute benevolence as the initial axiom that doesn’t originate from anything else? He writes: “…our common sense clearly shows that the basis for any evil-doing in the world stems only from the will to receive. That means that the eagerness to benefit ourselves makes us harm our fellow persons, due to our will to receive self-gratification.”

In other words, we realize our desire to receive not only in order to benefit ourselves, but also to harm others, and preferably do it in one shot. It is called “theft”: A person steals from the other to benefit himself, and it is called a double profit. If for any reason we are unable to steal from the other, then we at least “give a present” to oneself. Otherwise we are unable to satisfy our needs. We desperately need it; this urge is instilled in us. It’s similar to how a child is driven by a rampant impulse that makes him run, jump, break things, etc. Our egoistic desire is eager to fulfill itself by harming others.

Baal HaSulam continues: “Thus, if no being would find contentment in favoring itself, no being would ever harm another.” So, the desire to receive is the cause for all the evil in the world. Because it is totally in the Creator’s hands, we don’t have the slightest chance to do something with ourselves without His assistance.

“And if we sometimes find some being that harms another, without any will to receive self-gratification, it does that only because of an old habit that originated in the will to receive, which now rids it of the need to find a new reason.” Let me reiterate: A cycle of repeated actions that were originated by a desire that used to “burn” in us automatically continues these actions. Pure “mechanics” becomes our second nature even though it is not accompanied by any intentions or thoughts, nor it is driven by actual necessity. Deficiency no longer exists, but in the meantime we acquired a desire that grew on the basis on “mechanical body movements,” and now we need them.

As a result, even if there is no need to steal, a person continues to steal. Why? What for? One has no idea, it’s a habit.… This is exactly what happened with Shura Balaganov, a character from “The Little Golden Calf”: Right after Shura received a big sum of money as a present, he was arrested for pick-pocketing. He simply couldn’t resist stealing since it had become part of his nature.

Frankly, we don’t even realize that we are “stealing”; that is, we perform actions that are not beneficial to us anymore. At some point in the future, each one of us will “catch” oneself and notice how many mechanical actions one makes during a day. Quite often, there is no chance to stop these actions since our habits are extremely durable.

“And because we realize that the Creator is, in and of Himself, complete and needs no one to help Him to completion, since He precedes everything, it is therefore clear that He does not have any will to receive.” The One who precedes everything cannot have any desire to receive whatsoever. He is primordial and original. Who can He receive from? “And because He has no will to receive, He is fundamentally devoid of a desire to harm anyone; it is as simple as that.”

The Creator is not at all the desire to receive or the need for self-gratification. He is perfect. The question is: Can the Perfect One also be the absolute good with external actions addressed to the creation that He made?

Baal HaSulam defines this aspect as “basic,” meaning not subject to any analysis and beyond the initial agreement; it’s the attribute of the precursor of everything. So, “…it is completely agreeable to our mind as the first concept, that He possesses a desire to bestow goodness upon others, meaning to His creatures.”

Let’s return to the current, actual picture of the reality in which we don’t see anything like that. Our world is full of affliction; it’s as if our universe works tirelessly to “swell” desperation, and yet Baal HaSulam explains that everything is quite opposite.

The fact of the matter is that we lack objectivity and common sense; we are bound by our current primitive egoistic intellect and are unable to conduct a “pure” investigation. For years, even I could not agree with many Kabbalistic postulates.

Only after we become corrected, we start thinking differently, by using our widened mind. Then everything takes its place, but not because of habit or a forced consent; rather, it is based on a true, logical, rational, uncompromising analysis. New vessels-desires open within you, and on their basis, you state the facts.
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From the 4th part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 24: And since the essence of the soul is but a desire to bestow, and all its manifestations and possessions are fulfillments of that desire to bestow, which already exists in the eternal first state, as well as in the future third state, it is immortal and irreplaceable. Rather, it and all its possessions are eternal and exist forever. Absence does not affect whatsoever at the departure of the body.

“The death of the body” refers to the death of the egoistic desire to receive. The moment it gets rid of the intention of in order to receive, it means that it becomes the body for the soul.

Each and every part of the egoistic desire to receive in order to receive is called a corrupt and impure body. When it makes a restriction (Tzimtzum) on itself, it “dies,” and then it receives the power and acquires the intention of in order to bestow. When the intention of in order to bestow “rides” on the desire to receive, it fills it with the Upper Light and gives it the power of bestowal, the Returning Light (Ohr Hozer).

Then the Returning Light and the Direct Light, which meet in the corrected desire that has the right intention, fill it with life. Then the desire is in equivalence of form with the Light and becomes the body of the soul or the Partzuf. The Light that fills it is called the Light of life that is in it. There is nothing other than that; there is no Heaven or Hell after the corporeal body dies, as it seems to us.

In fact, this body doesn’t exist at all. The world that we see is merely a hologram. The truth is that the desire to receive with the intention of in order to receive doesn’t exist. It’s only depicted to us this way as a fictitious picture with which we have to work and learn to change our intention to in order to bestow.

In our current state in this world, we are detached from the spiritual ladder so that we will enter each spiritual level from a neutral state that is external to spiritually. Thus we acquire the spiritual world by ourselves. This is why this world is important and this is why we were given this fictitious state. Without it we wouldn’t be able to enter spirituality. But still, this world remains external to the real categories of our existence.

The whole system of the shells, which brings so many troubles, problems, and death doesn’t exist either. It only exists as a replica, the opposite side, the oppositeness, of the Creator. In fact, the system of the shells is not more than a reflection, a shadow; it exists only when there is a flaw, a barrier, that blocks the Light.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Book of Zohar, “VaYikahel,” Item 141: Therefore, it is forbidden to kindle a man’s voice during prayer, so that the upper voice, ZA, will be in it, since the speech rises to Malchut and unites with ZA through the Malchut, receiving a voice that is mitigated from ZA. Then the prayer is fit for reception of the abundance, and the speech of the upper world need not be heard through a man’s voice.

There is a rule, “there is no vessel without the Light.” Everything is done by the Light only, while we only exert ourselves, which is the precondition for every action. Every single action is done only by the Light that works on the vessel.

We are only required to exert ourselves; we don’t do anything but only increase the intensity of the deficiency. This is the reason we are in our world, since this is the only place where we can perform different experiments and actions, which from a spiritual perspective are not considered actions. They only bring us to a state in which we can ask for the correction of the vessels and for their filling.

This is why our world is so special. If we didn’t exist in this reality we wouldn’t be able to influence our spiritual ascent in any way, since all the actions are performed only by the Light. So how can I, being on a certain spiritual level, influence something that is higher than that level? By which means can I do this? I have to be detached from the spiritual world in order to ask to be raised from one state to another, from one level of clarification and new correction to another.

There has to be a reality that is detached from the spiritual ladder, which is where I am, in which I can always prepare for the prayer before a prayer. This is the reason that the corporeal actions in our world are so beneficial to reach a certain state and to ask for the Light that Reforms. We shouldn’t think that we don’t need our world, that we can do nothing but simply connect internally and that this would be enough.

This isn’t enough. On the contrary, the more a person does in practice, the more desire, pressure, and experience he builds up inside him as a result of all his actions, which eventually add up to a cry, to a prayer before a prayer. The prayer before a prayer is addressed to the Light with a request to form the vessel, the desire. The prayer itself is addressed to the Light so that it will fill the vessels, which means that it will actually allow us to bestow.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/14, The Zohar

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Question: I can imagine the great responsibility toward the friends in a sinking submarine. How can I feel this anxiety and this tension during the workshops when there isn’t such drama going on around us?

Answer: Listen, no one is asking you to do any tricks like a magician and pull a rabbit out of a hat. There is no need to perform any tricks, but simply try to tie your demand, your deficiency, with the upper force, and that’s all. Try to demand, to ask for anything. The moment you lack something for your spiritual advancement, turn to the Creator immediately with any request that you have. If you manage to tie it correctly to the Creator, you will have no problems.

Your work is to be the link, the adaptor, between the deficiencies and the source. No one is asking you to be the source of energy and not even to be the user of this energy, which means doing something by yourself. Your work is passive: simply to nag and keep on asking for what you want from the Creator. However, you should ask wisely. You should clarify accurately what it is that you exactly want, and then ask for it. You should understand that the Creator arranges difficulties for you precisely so that you should nag Him and, by that, learn from Him, and thus advance.

The problem is that you are leaving the Creator. Baal HaSulam says that the greatest sin a person can commit in this world is to forget the Creator and to be detached from Him. So, don’t be detached and keep nagging Him with your requests. That’s the only thing you are required to do.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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We must constantly be concerned with the unity that is attained, the “raspberry ball.” For a moment, we are able to hold our own, looking for ways to change, to renew our unity. But this is possible only for a brief moment that is enough in order to understand that we must have an external factor here. This external factor is the entirety of humanity. If we want to keep the raspberry ball, our connection with the Creator, we must extend outside to the external world.

There is a story that the Baal Shem Tov got this answer from Above to the question, “When will the Messiah come?”: “When your teaching spreads outward.” In other words, our entire mission is to hold our connection with the Creator and we require outsiders, not in order to hold and keep the raspberry ball, our unity, but we need this raspberry ball and ourselves in order to serve all people. That is, we don’t use the outer community in order to hold onto the raspberry ball; rather, we hold onto the raspberry ball and ourselves in order to serve the people.

These are very important observations. The words seem simple, understandable, and quite close, yet in fact, this is not so simple. That is how we gradually begin to see the integrality, the global interface, the connections, the unity, the Arvut (mutual guarantee) that dwells in all of nature.

We discover that all of the levels of the physical world: the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate, which we didn’t take into account before, are in fact included in one indivisible whole. The entire universe, the entire perceived reality, our entire inner world, and our contact with the Creator are connected in one system. That is how we reach an understanding of the integral world.

In this fourth stage of the path, we are beginning to clarify and determine how much we need the general public, that without it we cannot satisfy the Creator, and how much the Creator doesn’t want us but specifically that outer circle of the general public, all of humanity. That is how we attain our function and our mission. We must disappear; this is the role of the “kingdom of priests”; we don’t exist on our own; rather, we serve the general public, all of humanity, and the Creator. And in this we see our exalted role. We have no part in this or in that; rather, we only connect between them like a conduit. And this is good, for with this we truly can be closest to the nature of the Creator.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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There is a single state: adhesion between the Creator and the created being. It happened in the beginning. The final correction emerged immediately with the plan. The Creator does not require time for additional actions. After all, everything is manifested immediately in thought, without any need to be in matter.

However, in reality, this perfection has not been manifested, is not clear, not recognized in feelings, although the main thing is that the created being becomes aware of it, to feel his adhesion with the Creator.

Therefore, it was divided into parts. After all, for the created beings to attain, to understand, who and what He is, above all, there should be plenty.

Little egoists, fighting at the very bottom in the muddy sediment of the universe, reveal more and more egoism—more cruelty, glorify themselves in seeing how much they are opposed to each other—and gradually they approach the turning point in order to turn a descent into an ascent in it. They must think about bestowal, of course, in helplessness due to the emerging Reshimot. However, they can add their own efforts to this. So, they advance.

The most important thing from their side is to turn to the Creator. They connect, work together, organize workshops, and many other events, and, after that, turn to Him.

This appeal forms the spiritual vessel. It is what did not exist before. Only the created being can turn to the Creator for help, and this is what he lacks. It is not about our friendly relations, not in saying “pretty words” between us, but that we find the need to turn to Him. First, we must do this, and then we want just that and nothing else.

Then, I act not to get something from the Creator but so I have the opportunity to turn to Him. This is a reward for me. It cannot be conveyed in words, but in principle. We are talking about the similarity of qualities. Just as He turns to me, so I turn to Him. I have no better state than if I am capable of this. I work for this, no longer for myself.

So, the all-powerful Creator cannot artificially cause the created being to turn to Him. That is why He needed the “revolution” to the uncorrected creatures—so that the created being turns to Him.

Question: However, do I have a connection with the Creator inside me presently?

Answer: And yet it exists, there, inside the numerous “wrappers.” Otherwise, you would not have even heard what we are talking about now.

Question: What is an appeal to the Creator?

Answer: There are many appeals: “Give me, help me,” or vice versa, “Deliver, protect, save…”

Of course, an appeal to the Creator is always an appeal for something, please give something. The question only is what to give. I ask for strength to act to bring Him pleasure. This addition of spiritual vessels brings us the Light, NRNHY.

In the original state, in Infinity, we had only the minimal Light, Nefesh de Nefesh. Then, the created being did not participate in what happened, could not live and breathe the endless reality. The desire to receive, even perfection, remained insignificant, ephemeral, and only an appeal to the Creator breathes life into it.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The moment we attain the first point of unity and the first point of adherence, then already in the next moment we feel our powerlessness and despair. Indeed, it appears that we are a just a drop of semen.

This entire raspberry ball, our cherished goal, our lofty dream, is in fact only one specific point. This means that we have brought this entire world to one initial point, to the first level of the spiritual ladder.

So what else do we do with this one small point? We need to grow it, but with what, because we have already done everything that was possible in the connection between us. And now the next stage is presented before us, the fourth stage of advancement within which all of humanity is gradually included, circle after circle.

We have now reached the state of a “nation of priests.” Each one of us has already played his part as a “first priest” (Cohen) for the friends; that is, a “priest” symbolizes that he has nothing of his own and has no thought of himself. For his entire inheritance is the Creator. The priests have no inheritance and no property, but only work in the Holy Temple. This Holy Temple is the level of Bina, meaning everything is for the sake of bestowal.

That is how we begin to understand the significance of the rest of humanity. Up until now, perhaps we thought that besides the group we don’t need anything. But now we begin to understand that if we don’t join and include within us all of their external deficiencies, then we won’t have anything with which to turn to the Creator. As it’s written: “For you are the smallest of all nations”; in other words, we have no more deficiencies. And therefore it says “smallest,” for this refers to the quality and not the quantity. Our desires are very small.

It follows that we need to increase the significance of the goal relative to all of humanity, to begin working with the public. For this we must study the history of mankind: clarify why we have gone through this entire way. Understand that the goal of creation includes within it each and every person and even the nature of the still, vegetative, and the animate. But the moment that we correct the relationships between people, with this we also correct the entire world of the still, vegetative, and the animate, the whole environment, and the climate. We only need to begin to work with humanity correctly.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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If we yearn to attain a state of Arvut, we must portray this goal somehow as a general state in which we are connected, to describe for ourselves what being “together” means. That is how we reach the concept of the “center of the group,” the unity that is produced between us and is stabilized as our common asset.

We become partners in building this commonality of “House, Kli, and vessel.” Each one must bring the most essential and valuable part of his heart, the “point in the heart,” and thus from ten “points in the heart” we build this Kli. From the “I” + “I” + “I” + “I” that are connected together, the “We” emerges. And after that, this “We” also melts and becomes “One.”

This is a psychological problem. In the meantime we don’t feel and understand how this is possible, but that is how it happens. Certainly everything is realized only through the influence of the Light, but it’s according to our efforts. And then we reach the concept of the “raspberry ball.” This is not a Kabbalistic term, but that is what we are calling it. Like children who are playing with a ball, that is how, in the meantime, we play with unity.

In this manner we reach the third section on the way, the raspberry ball, and we must clarify what this is. A raspberry ball is our unity, the connection between us, within which everyone disappears. Each one comes out of his “I” to all of us, and afterwards this “all of us” becomes one.

To forget myself and to connect together is possible in regular life also, like sports teams, criminal gangs, or pirates. This is very easy when everyone has a common egoistic goal: to rob a bank or sail in a submarine. There was an incident where a submarine began to sink and part of the crew could have escaped. But when it became known to them that the other half wouldn’t be able to get out of the submarine, they returned because they couldn’t abandon their friends, and they drowned with them. This special work they took upon themselves made it so that one could understand how it would be possible to live without the other. The connection became dearer to them than life. But this is still an egoistic approach in the framework of this world, even though this was a very special deed.

A raspberry ball is special in this because we need to understand how to connect. We are still learning how to unite. In the meantime, these are attempts and not practical actions, even though we are completely serious about working on them.

This is education. And after this, we must lay out that knowledge to our students in integral courses and explain what is happening with us and with all of humanity and what must happen if we want our continued evolution to advance in a good way, in the way of “I will hasten it.” And if not, then we must advance by the way of suffering through the same stages, but in total confusion without understanding our development and not feeling anything except evil.

Imagine the immense difference in advancing through explanations, mutual help, and the influence of the Light, or escaping from the blows; how much suffering we will pass! The difference between the way of suffering and the way of Light is immense.

Therefore, the first stage is to understand Arvut (mutual guarantee). The second stage is what is it composed from. The third stage is the raspberry ball: How from the concept of “We” we become “One.” This is possible on condition that within this oneness we begin to feel the Creator, to understand Him. The feeling that we are searching for Him together, like a team of commandos, brings us to true unity, to a perfected whole.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14,, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 17: Therefore, one must not wonder at how it was that the choice had been taken from us, since we must be completed and come to the third state, since it is already present in the first.

The first state and the third state are both wholeness, but we don’t exist in the first state yet, and we have no understanding, no feeling, and no self attainment. There is no human being (Adam) as such created and that stands out in his existence. He is still in theory, in the discernments that we still have yet to acquire.

It’s like a drop of semen that is not a human being yet. So where does he begin? We still don’t know when exactly an embryo in its mother’s womb can be called a human being that has a body and a life of its own. Perhaps it’s from the first division of one cell into two, or perhaps it’s the moment when the embryo begins to feel. But this doesn’t solve all the problems. Humanity is still very far from determining or defining what a free independent human being is. Yet, in the first phases of our existence in the world of Infinity we do not exist independently.

So when do we really begin to feel ourselves and become ourselves? Was it when we climbed down from the trees and evolved into a creature that is a bit more than an ape? Can we call this whole historic evolution the process of becoming a human being? The ego simply pushed us forward and demanded that we benefit at the expense of others. Did anyone really know what he was doing? If everyone is driven by the instincts of the desire to receive, where is the real us? In the meantime, we speak of creatures who are constantly operated by different factors. Yes, we suffer a little, but the pain itself is not a sign of independence yet.

The human being in us actually begins to develop from the point of connection, and even a little in the preparation for it. If we return to the example of the embryo: The father’s drop of semen enters the mother’s womb and adheres to the wall of the womb and begins to multiply due to the connection between mother and father. A common cell begins to develop between the whiteness of the father and the redness of the mother and this is a connection. The whiteness of the father is the Creator and the redness of the mother is the created being, and now there is contact between them.

Thus Bina works with Malchut and we have to accept this form of development. The moment I can annul myself and another can annul himself, we connect, or I can connect to the group, and that moment is the beginning of a human being in me.

Of course, everything is in the first state, in the world of Infinity, and we reach all that in practice in the third state. But the second state is the necessary middle state so we can have freewill, so that we will develop and understand what the secret of our development is. By going through the sequence of these states we learn about the system called the Creator, about His attributes and His actions. We learn about creation which is something we couldn’t do before.
[125021]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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