Question: We know that the difference between the path of suffering and the short path is that during the acceleration I am not only pushed from behind but am also pulled forward by myself…

Answer: That’s the main idea, to be pulled forward. A little push from behind is enough to wake you to take more work upon yourself. It says that the Creator puts a person’s hand on the good fate, which means that He directs a person. Then you do the work.

Question: But in order to be drawn forward I must first hold on to something. After all, I will not climb up in the air. What can I hold to up there above my head in order to be drawn upward?

Answer: It’s hard to say. Every person has an “angel” that guides him. It’s a special force, aimed at connection, at participating in the life of the general system. On the whole, a person advances not knowing where and why, by urges that he doesn’t understand.

These are not urges of the “steamroller of evolution” that come from behind, but rather “signals from the future,” that pull me somewhere, saying something, and on the whole creating different opportunities. Suddenly I see and hear something, come across someone, find a book…this is how my “angel” operates.

So in the meantime there is no clear cut answer to your question. Later you will see that these are all the forces of our evolution about which we study in The Study of the Ten Sefirot. Soon, we will approach them and will start speaking the language of this book…
[103331]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: We want to change our intention. Does that mean that we change our thoughts?

Answer: You differentiate the thought from the desire, but in spirituality it’s the opposite, we connect the two. It’s because the thought is actually a result of the desire. The action stems from the desire and the intention that is dressed in the desire is called a thought. In this world the mind operates the feelings, the brain influences the heart, but they are separate. In spirituality a desire is the heart and an intention is the mind and they are mutually connected.

[103325]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Rabash, “What is Because of Impatience and Hard Work in the Work”: We need to work hard because it is only the sufferings of hard work that make us cry out to the Creator with a whole desire that the Creator will save us from the dominance of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. This means that it is from a state of lowliness that a person senses that he feels worse than all the other people and this pushes him to cry out to the Creator with all his heart so that He will help him. But he believes that the Creator hears his prayer since He has revealed his evil to him and so He will surely help him and take him out of the evil too, which is called redemption. This means that he believes that the Creator let him understand that he is in exile and He will surely take him out of exile afterward.

We advance by two forces, but for those who don’t know where to go, there is only one force that pushes them from behind and forces them to move forward. They are constantly trying to escape from it, trying to be saved from the “roller of evolution” that catches up with them from behind and pushes them to advance.

But the path of the Torah is different from the path of suffering. A person is given the wisdom of Kabbalah so that he will build up the force that will illuminate before him and will pull him, in the hope for a better future, with great hopes, positive examples, a feeling of awe that is felt by the connection and spiritual elation.

The goal must be as glowing and as attractive as possible, and depicted as wonderful and good. Although the advancement is by the ego, which we must constantly reject, we have to try to use this method: to draw the Light that Reforms, so that it will do all the work. The approach here requires subtlety, like in anything. If you know how to enter it, then it is very easy for you to do it. Someone who doesn’t know this feels great difficulties and constantly runs into a wall.

We have to arrange the right environment in which you will soon begin to suffer because of the lack of connection and because of your envy, lust, and desire for respect. You will see that others are more successful than you. You will envy others that succeed in connecting so strongly and you will also want to attain that.

The envy forces you to demand your change. You already know how to evoke the Light that Reforms, you begin to change under the influence of the Light, and thus advance. The main thing is to develop the drawing force that is called “I shall hasten it.” It is because the troubles, the sufferings, the natural force of evolution “in its time,” is not up to you. We should understand that the sufferings come to a person in order to wake him up; we need to develop the pangs of love by ourselves instead of corporeal sufferings so that instead of the evil that catches up with us, the goodness will illuminate in front of us.

Instead of the natural course in the grip of time, we should rise above time in order to determine the pace of our advancement by ourselves. This means that it is all in your hands! We have to feel elation and a sense of awakening since it all depends only on us! If we want it today, it will be today! If we really want it now, it will be now! Everything that we want to attain by the path of the Torah can be promoted and achieved.

It is very important to emphasize this in the work: to operate and integrate all the components, all the means that we have in the way of “I shall hasten it” that will help us advance. We have to develop all the means and to connect them correctly in order to see that there is certain method here instead of following the path of suffering by developing under the pressure of our nature. A person can advance by rising above nature in order to advance before it and to open the gates for it.
[103267]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/13

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Saturday (Shabbat) is a special day that signifies an association of Zeir Anpin (the sun) and Malchut (the Earth). Saturday is about connection between the Earth and the sun that happens when the sun completely fulfills the Earth at the end of a six-day cycle.

The moon also participates in the connection between them because the sun and the moon, the so-called “two great heavenly bodies,” are equally important, although the moon shines by reflected sunlight. Between them there is the Earth that covers the moon from the sun and so we see the phases of the moon that represent the relationship between the moon and the Earth, and the sun reflects the magnitude of their pairing and connection.

“Six days” stand for the pairing of Zeir Anpin and Malchut. When Malchut, the Earth, reaches a state of a complete saturation, then on the seventh day it rests. It applies to Malchut, the Earth, to all human beings and even to animals, to the entire world.

But this doesn’t mean that a person should rest because Saturday is the most intense time in our spiritual work. After six days of Malchut’s correction (during which she tries to become similar to Zeir Anpin) they unite, merge, and couple. “Saturday” denotes love and connection, which is described in the “Song of Songs,” a complete merging of the creation with the Creator.

“Six days of work” stand for six days of “pumping” and preparation for merging. Each of us rotates in phases of their own as the sun and the moon: We get up in the morning and go to bed in the evening. On the seventh day, we are ready to merge since the seventh stage is about love; it’s the stage of a complete correction for the sake of achieving similarity with the Creator.

So, the first five days of the week are working days; the sixth day is a combination of the first five days together into one, and the seventh day finalizes the entire work and demonstrates its result, completely a non-working day.

As all of this comes only from a comparison between the right and the left lines, the seventh day was immediately accepted by Abraham’s group (the Jewish people) as a day of rest. Other nations followed this example and also established days off for themselves; that was done through their religions, which derived from Kabbalah.

Taking into consideration that Saturday is affiliated with the middle line, Muslims (the right line) picked up the sixth day of the week as their day off, whereas Christians (the left line) chose to have a day off on the first day of the week. This discrepancy will stay intact until all of them meet and unite in the middle line. If it doesn’t happen, we won’t attain the Creator. This explains that the purpose of all religions is to make people realize that they have to rise above these deviations and connect in one single point that has nothing to do with religions at all, but rather with Kabbalah.
[102492]
From KabTV’s “The Mysteries of the Eternal Book” 2/4/13

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Question: You say that “spirituality” is when the other is more important to me than myself. How can a person want that? Isn’t there anything else to it?

Answer: Yes. This is indeed spirituality. What’s more, you are given everything that you want except bestowal upon others, and you constantly choose only that.

The whole point here is the clarification of the vessels, desires. No one is asking us to do something that is above our nature. We are simply changing, and then we discover that the attribute of bestowal is important for us, not in the egoistic sense anymore, but in itself.

You are not taking into account the actions of the Light that Reforms, but in the meantime it influences a person and so a person changes. What’s more, he changes in such a way that he doesn’t have the same mind and feelings he had before; everything changes and becomes new.

So we have to allow the Light to operate. Let it do its job, open yourself to the action of the Light; it’s on the outside, surrounding us, so let it touch you; let it touch your desires, which you now cover from the Light. The moment it starts to operate, you will see how everything changes.

It’s because we are in a world that is on the lowest level, restricted, “specific”; we are limited in time, motion and space. It’s simply awful, but we don’t understand what is going on. Great distances separate us and are between our understanding, our feeling, and our attainment. They were created as a result of our desires, as each one is focused on its self-benefit.

On the other hand, desires that are in bestowal are incorporated in one another. If we all want to bestow only goodness unto one another, we are incorporated in one point, where there are no distances between us, where we annul this world. Imagine a world without distances, without time, as the Light operates on all sides. According to Einstein, if you move at the speed of light, you don’t see what is before you anymore, it’s as if the light comes to you from all sides, and the concepts of time and motion disappear…

Today we simply don’t understand that we are living in a tiny meaningless dimension, we live and die not knowing where our mind and feelings are, sunken in the bottom, in lowliness. So let the Light influence you a little. You cannot even imagine its attributes. It isn’t just “bestowal,” it’s a different dimension in which the importance of others is not a source of confusion and embarrassment. Expect the Light to save you.
[103097]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: What is the difference between spiritual shame and the shame that we feel in our daily life?

Answer: Corporeal shame is egoistic shame since I don’t want my pride hurt. Spiritual shame occurs after the restriction, when I don’t worry about myself and am not ashamed of my natural attributes anymore. I worry about something that is totally different.

I must feel shame! I actually look for it in my spiritual growth since it gives me great powers. If you were ashamed now, just imagine how enthusiastic you would become, and what powers it would give to move. You would not sit so calmly and doze in your seat like you do now. You would start moving until this shame subsides. You would continue worrying about this shame for a week before you finally calmed down.

You would be ready to do anything just to neutralize the reason for the shame and would not calm down until everything got back to the way it was before. If a certain person shames you, you would do anything to get revenge. Some people are more hot-tempered and some less, but everyone experiences the same emotions more or less.

The question is whether I will be able to attain a state that will not affect me personally, but one in which I will feel shame because I don’t contribute to the society, don’t participate in it, and don’t add what I have to add or even more. This is the only thing of which I am ashamed.

If we say to someone, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” it’s as if we showed him that he is inconsiderate of others. This is the point where I begin my correction.

So my personal attributes are totally irrelevant because they are part of my animal character. Have you even seen an animal that is ashamed of anything? Have you ever met a cat that blushed because it stole some cream and got caught?

An animal has nothing to be ashamed of. But the human being in us that we begin to build feels shame. The shame is related to him, to the person who worries whether he gives to others, adds for the benefit of others, and fulfills his duty in the general system.
[103039]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/13, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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In our world, the egoistic nature immediately extinguishes the feeling of shame. It usually finds justification for our actions: we use others, steal, and attribute different things to ourselves. We usually don’t even pay attention to the fact that we calculate everything egoistically and treat others egoistically, looking at everything and evaluating everything from the perspective of personal interest.

We don’t feel any shame because of that. If we could be more sensitive with regard to the attribute of receiving and bestowal, and if we could check where we really receive and where we bestow and according to which principle we look at the world, then we would simply burn because of terrible shame.

If the attribute of bestowal were revealed to me in all its supremacy, I could see myself in my true form, like a tiny black insect that only worries about food aspiring to grab as much as possible and swallow everything it sees. Then the shame would burn me because of the feeling of my nothingness compared to the real attribute of bestowal.

A person may even find it scary to think that this can suddenly be revealed to everyone, to all of humanity. We may say, well what can we do? After all he is just a human being, a created being that acts according to his nature over which he has no control. But still he would be terribly ashamed. He would rather die than feel such shame.

There are no greater sufferings than shame since it is at the basis of the whole desire to receive. The first restriction was a result of shame, since shame erases the concept of Adam (a human being). Phase four annuls itself if it feels shame, since phase four is the feeling of an independent person who is ready to carry out his decisions. Shame, however, is actually the totally opposite feeling and so it annuls a person’s personality.

However, we speak about our current state in the meantime, when there is no Adam yet, but only a tiny animal that isn’t even responsible for its actions. It received all these attributes from the upper, from the Creator, and so “go to the craftsman who made me,” go to the one who has created this created being. But if we begin to discover the attribute of bestowal that resides in this world, the Creator, and value ourselves according to Him, then such a great disparity will be revealed between us, in every sense, that we previously couldn’t even imagine.

Shame is so powerful that only thanks to it do we have chance to stand against our ego and correct it, just as in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), Malchut gave up everything because of the shame. It wasn’t a feeling of shame because it received and was opposite from the Creator and was ashamed of its attributes, but it was ashamed because it couldn’t bestow like He does. This is a totally different shame, shame on the level of the end of correction compared to us.

We, on the other hand, discover our ego gradually. First, I am ashamed that I was taught to steal, that my lie has been revealed, that I want to use everyone, and to harm others. The revelation of shame helps me place myself in the right position so that I won’t hide like I do now, like a frightened animal that is afraid of being shamed. On the contrary, I will be ready to reveal all my evil and to shame myself in order to get out of this force of resistance, to overcome and defeat the ego and to build a Masach (screen) against the ego.

I need a Masach, not in order to extinguish my shame, but in order to change my attributes from receiving to bestowal. Unless this happens, I can stand the shame since it only opens my heart and spills out all the truth.

So adhesion is inseparable from shame and correction. We shouldn’t be afraid of shame; instead we have to feel it and understand that the main thing is to rise above what we have in order to work with this attribute that can bring us to correction.
[103035]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/13, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 19: …And all this agony is felt only by the Klipa of our body, created only to be perished and buried. This teaches us that the will to receive for oneself was created only to be eradicated, to be abolished from the world and to be turned into a will to bestow. And the pains we suffer are but discoveries of its nothingness and the harm in it.

We are confined to a “cage” called this world that is all affliction. On the other hand, all 125 spiritual steps on which we continually obtain an altruistic intention (Lishma) by working in three lines reveal “the Good who doeth Good” to us. Consequently, our current state and this world are “non-existent” in the spiritual sense of the word, since genuine “existence” means similarity with the Creator, the intention to bestow. When we annul the boundaries of this world and rise above it, we enter the realm where there is “the Good who doeth Good.”

It goes without saying that this work contains multiple “surprises” that are of a very unpleasant nature. Each time, we suddenly find wicked things in ourselves. It so happens because it gives us a chance to correct the evil inside us. Our path is all about the correction of broken vessels.

However, in this world we don’t correct anything; rather it is a preparation period. Only after it’s over do we approach a real correction and find answers to our questions: “Why,” “what for,” and “how” should we implement this knowledge? However, we won’t understand the answers with our current intellect, since at the spiritual plane, all clarifications are done in a reverse order…
[102523]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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The shattering of the vessels isn’t just a shattering, but is the revelation of the places in which previously there were flaws that were concealed. Now, however, when the flaw has been revealed, it is possible to clarify it, to examine it to its full depth, and to correct it by completing what is missing in it.

So a much stronger and more sublime state is created after we put all the parts together again. It only looked whole before, but inside there were many cracks. It’s the illumination that is added in the final third phase of creation that was lacking in the vessel of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) in phase one.
[102937]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/13, Shamati #38

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