Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

Three Steps to the Creator

528.03We are in a state called “this world.” The reason for us being in this world is to rise, through our own efforts, to the level of similarity to the Creator, to reach His level, as it is said: “You will see your world during your lifetime.”

The science of Kabbalah is a method of revealing the Creator to creation in this world. How do we reveal Him? By becoming similar to Him. Only if I acquire a desire like the light, my spiritual vessel, will I be able to reveal the light, the Creator, in it.

How can I make myself into a vessel for revealing the light so it would fill me? We have been given two tools for this. The first is the material, the desire I acquire to the extent of absorbing outside desires, desires of other people.

There is only a point in me, which wants to move toward spirituality, although I do not know what it is. I just feel that something is missing. It is only a point of desire. I have no volume at this point, no top, bottom, right or left sides.

I cannot feel anything there, except an unquenchable desire–I want something, but I do not know exactly what. I can try to imagine spirituality, but no matter what I come up with, it is all fantasy from the realm of this world, not true reality.

How can I add volume to this point? I have to connect with a special, whole, perfect organism, with a great desire created by the Creator: Malchut of infinity. For me, it is a group, but in fact, it is the whole of humanity. But since I do not know what the whole of humanity is, a group is enough for me. This is the first component.

If I try to connect with a group and am able to connect with some part of it, as if cutting off a certain area from it, it becomes mine. It turns out that I am already gaining volume, and this volume is my desire. If I already have such a big desire, and not a point, I can start to feel something in it. What am I missing then? I am lacking this desire to be like the light. That is, the first stage is the acquisition of desire, the second is the correction of desire, and the third is the fulfillment of desire. That is it!

To obtain the desire, I have to annul myself before the group, before their unity, be connected to them like a drop of semen stuck to the wall of the uterus. This is the first stage.

The second stage is being with my friends, I must try to make my entry into the group, my connection with them, for the sake of giving so the desire I am now gaining is similar to the light.

I achieve this by using surrounding light (O”M), the light that returns to the source, what is called the “Light of Torah.”

After that, the desire becomes filled with the light of Hochma.

Therefore, when reading a source such as The Book of Zohar, which has great power, we must: feel ourselves in a common desire and want for our common desire to be corrected, to become as giving as the light.

In order to bring about such a correction, we must expect it while reading The Book of Zohar so that our desires, our union, would be for the sake of bestowal, so we would feel like a single whole and truly become a Shechina, a “place” where the upper light, the Creator, is revealed. If we correct this “place” for the sake of giving at least to some extent, to this extent the Creator will be revealed in it.

That is, I connect with the group as one whole, in mutual giving, mutual guarantee, unity, with the help of light that returns to the source, giving us all a sense of a common integral connection. Then, to the extent of unity between us, we reveal the quality of bestowal, the light of the Creator reigning in us.

Therefore, let us try not to forget about this task and realize that constantly remaining in these efforts to build such a picture for myself is my inner work, which I am now going to do as we read The Book of Zohar. After all, during the reading of The Zohar, a great light comes. Are we preparing the right desire for it so that it corrects and fills it?
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/11, The Book of The Zohar “Mishpatim”

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The Possibility of Acquiring the Quality of Bestowal

608.02Question: It is said that first we attain the quality of bestowal and only then do we receive goodness and delight. But what can we bestow if we have not yet received anything?

Answer: It does not matter what we can or cannot bestow. We are speaking about the possibility of acquiring the quality of bestowal.

Then, based on the forces I draw and wish to combine so that they alone will exist within me, I come closer to the qualities of bestowal, until they influence me to the point where I am in complete alignment with them. In this way, I will begin to act in the quality of bestowal.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/25, “Subjugating the Heart”

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Work in Relation to the Friends

530Question: I enter into the desires of the people with whom I try to unite, and I feel that I envy their Kelim. How should I work in this situation: Should I simply connect everything to the Creator? Is that the correction or is there some other way to work with envy?

Answer: The work is only in relation to your circle, your friends with whom you are going through this entire path. If you annul yourself more and more in relation to them, then you advance forward and receive more from the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/25, “Subjugating the Heart”

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The Light of Good Deeds

276.01This is so because it is a natural law for any being that anything outside one’s own body is regarded as unreal and empty.

And any movement that a person makes to love another is performed with a reflected light and some reward that will eventually return to him and serve him for his own benefit. Thus, such an act cannot be considered “love of others” because it is judged by its end. It is like rent that pays off only in the end.

However, the act of renting is not considered love of another.

But making any movement only as a result of love for others, without any spark of reflected light or hope for any kind of reward in return is completely impossible by nature (Baal HaSulam, Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]).

This means that one should not try to perform supposed “good deeds” toward one another. If we do this without drawing the light that returns to the source, it is still the same egoism and does not bring us any closer to correction.

First of all, we must take care to draw the light, and only then, precisely with its help and power, to act. If I act without the light, then I am guided by my egoism and only entangle myself further, and I veer off the straight path that leads toward correction.

Question: If I want to do something for the benefit of another, what is the difference whether there is light in it or not?

Answer: If you act simply from yourself, it is the result of your egoism. Even though such an action may appear from the outside to be very good and kind (you may be helping everyone and handing out gifts), you must still put in effort and invest energy. This means that you must receive compensation; otherwise, you will not be able to do anything.

By the law of conservation of energy, you must replenish what you have spent. This replenishment of energy is called the reward that you receive for doing good to others.

For example, you gave out candies and in return you received honor from them. Honor is more valuable to you than the candies, which is why you do good deeds, and you receive a nice bonus for which it is worth working. Such is the calculation made within one’s desire to enjoy.

But if you perform a good deed through the power of the Torah, the light, then you do not consider yourself at all, but only how much it contributes to the correction of the world, for this is the Creator’s desire. Therefore you do everything in order to correct the world.

Then you may be allowed to see the benefit from your actions, that is, the pleasure they have brought to the Creator. You will be permitted to see this on the condition that you do not derive any egoistic enjoyment from it, but rather place a screen over this knowledge and hold the intention for the sake of bestowal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/15, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah” [The Giving of the Torah]

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Test Ourselves

942Question: You said that all spiritual models should be imagined within oneself. Suppose I come to a seminar and imagine that I am bestowing, answering questions. But as a result, I experience bliss, pleasure, and enjoyment. In that case am I working to give for the sake of receiving, or am I working to bestow and simply receiving a reward?

Answer: It depends on you. You must examine yourself and act so that your response to what the Creator does to you is correct, that is, so that it advances you toward sensing the true forces, their intention, and their goal, and so that you can influence them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/25, “Subjugating the Heart”

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How Can You Awaken Prayer from the Heart?

947Question: How can we make the words of a prayer awaken a prayer from the heart, preferably from the common heart?

Answer: That is indeed a real question. It would seem that each of us has some kind of Hisaron (deficiency). But what is missing so that our individual sensations of exile in that disconnection from the Creator could merge into one common desire? This is not simple at all.

What are desires the group cannot fulfill? These are desires that unite with the desires of other groups, and together they reveal a more complete, more perfect request, one to which the Creator will surely respond.

Beyond that, I can’t really explain in words, because this is something you feel only in the heart. The problem is that when we speak, the words themselves tend to erase the feeling that lies beneath them. The foundation disappears, and the words become dead.

You might have prepared them in advance, maybe even thought deeply about them, but the moment you say them, you suddenly feel there is nothing there. They are empty, completely empty. And there is nothing in them that could truly shake the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/2025, “First Demand and Ask”

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If There Is Burdening of The Heart

533.02Question: The Creator is burdening my heart. I am in a very low state, and at the same time a glimmer remains where I feel that my friend also has a heaviness of the heart. For whose heart should my prayer be directed first?

Answer: This is not a simple question. But if we reduce it to an ordinary question, then a person who is under the rule of egoism decides for himself what he should start fighting with and what exactly he must humble.

Therefore, in general, the question always comes down who do  I obey in this state.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/6/25, “Correction of The Heart “

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The Fifteenth of Av

284.07It is written in the Mishnah (Taanit, p 26b): “Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel said, ‘No days were better for Israel than the fifteenth of Av [11th Hebrew month], and Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement], when the daughters of Jerusalem would come out dressed in borrowed white garments, so as not to shame those who do not have.

The daughters of Jerusalem would come out and dance in the vineyards. What would they say? ‘Young man, lift up your eyes and see what you choose for yourself.

Do not cast your eyes on beauty; cast your eyes on family.’” (And on page 31) “Those who did not have wives went there. Our sages taught, ‘What would the beauties among them say? ‘Turn your eyes to beauty, for a woman is only for beauty.

’What would the wellborn among them say? ‘Cast your eyes on family, for a woman is only for sons.’ In The Eye of Jacob he adds, ‘The wealthy among them say,

‘Cast your eyes on the wealthy.’ What would the unsightly ones among them say? ‘Take what you take for the Creator, as long as you crown us with gold coins.’” (Rabash, “The Fifthteenth of Av”)

“The unsightly Daughters of Jerusalem” is the final stage of Malchut, Dalet de Dalet, called “poor and wretched.”

A person runs away from such work; he has no motivation or desire for it because all of this work is in faith above reason.

One must understand that this is arranged deliberately, precisely to help a person attain the spiritual world!

He must see that exactly where his egoistic desire does not function, where there is no desire, where beauty and fulfillment do not attract, that is the sign he needs a different kind of fuel.

He is given the opportunity to picture a state in which he is not bribed by his egoism, and if he works in such a state, it will be for the sake of bestowal.

But where will he get such “anti-fuel,” the ability to work without energy, without filling his ego?

It is precisely in such a state that he realizes he needs the Creator’s help. If he does not receive the force called “the light” from above, he cannot move from his place.

If I desire only to bestow without wishing to receive any compensation, neither wealth, nor beauty, nor nobility, and I choose a “poor and wretched wife” in the evaluation of my egoism, and choose only the ability to bestow without any conditions, then I arrive at the day of joy, the Day (quality and light) of Love (the 15th of Av).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/26/10, Writings of Rabash “The Fifteenth of Av”

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Work On the Restoration of The Soul

544Comment: In order to implement the method of Kabbalah, three components are necessary: a group of like-minded individuals, original sources, and an instructor. Work in a group of like-minded individuals is the work of coming closer to one another to reveal the goal that Kabbalah speaks of: the revelation of the Creator.

My Response: Our world is intended for us to carry out the work called the restoration of the soul. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Creator created a system of a single common soul called “Adam.” This system, in its original state, consisted of egoistic desires that were connected together and worked toward one goal: to support one another.

Then a shattering occurred, and the entire structure broke apart into a vast number of inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human elements, which are now in a state of relative connection with one another. Relative because their relations to one another imply only mutual complementation, that is, using each other, and on the other hand, a desire to constantly develop at the expense of others, to absorb one another. This is the egoistic principle of existence of the entire system.

Now we must return it to its original state, in which all its parts will relate to each other, not egotistically from a purely consumerist standpoint for themselves, but with the understanding that it is necessary to work for the entire system as a whole, for the sake of all. Therefore, every mature, sound element of the system must attain the state of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Only under this condition will all the elements unite above their initial egoism and form a single, unified, integral system that will be able to exist properly and be filled with a special force called the Creator.

This work we must carry out here in this world, now in our generation. We are those who understand the significance of this work, the conditions that nature or the Creator provides us with, the importance of our mission, and who feel such a drive and responsibility for it.

That is why we gather in a group to unite in mutual help, mutual efforts, and to connect all our ties together in similarity to the global force of the Creator. The Creator represents the force of bestowal, connection, love, and mutual complementation. And we must generate this force between us in such a way as to become similar to Him in our relationships.

We cannot do this by ourselves because we are initially opposite to one another. Each of us is an egoist and cannot think of others. But we can ask Him to change us. And then, in the group, we will be able to realize this idea.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 12/25/18

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The Impact of the Force of Correction

234Question: How does the force of correction that comes during the lesson affect me?

Answer: It affects you only to the extent you want it to.

Here we are not under the authority of the Creator. He keeps us in a state where we can determine for ourselves who we are, our feelings toward Him, and what we would like to change.
He adds and subtracts all these urges, desires, and forces, and as a result, we feel what is happening to us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/25, “Subjugating the Heart”

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