When we are born in the world of bestowal, we first make an acquaintance with it, just like a person who starts a new job and is given some time to adjust and to get to know the new place of work. During this time he is only taught what should be done and he only learns and doesn’t produce anything.

It is also like a small child who is only required to listen and to learn, to watch and to experience things. It doesn’t matter if he makes mistakes or acts foolishly. He will be corrected. This means that in the spiritual world we are first treated like small children are treated.

But all this comes after great efforts that we make in order to transcend the Machsom (the barrier), to be born in the new world and to start living in the world of bestowal. With regards to all our previous work, the time after our birth is called “parking,” and Chanukah symbolizes this (“Chanu –kah”—parked so). A person reaches a comfortable situation. He still makes efforts, but they are of another kind—in order to know the good world.

He stubbornly works against his ego. It is similar to the wandering in the desert, about which the Torah tells us, a time that is meant for preparation and which ends upon entering the Land of Israel.

Chanukah is working with the Light of Chasadim, in the state of smallness. We have to learn to connect the desire to receive that is being revealed now to forces of bestowal.

In bestowal in order to bestow, we don’t use the full depth of this desire, but still it exists in us. It is like a baby: He already has legs, although he can’t walk yet; he has a brain although he hasn’t learned to think like a grown up. A newborn infant cannot see or hear anything, but he still has eyes and ears.

A baby has all the organs a grown up has. The only thing missing is the teeth. The teeth symbolize the power to clarify, which he hasn’t acquired yet. The “milk teeth” grow only after some time, and they are used only to clarify the Light of Chasadim (the milk symbolizes the Light of Chasadim) in the state of smallness.

When he grows up, he will have permanent teeth with which he will be able to chew and to clarify the filling for his vessel of reception, the Light of Hochma, and to feel the “flavors” of the Light.

Chanukah is the first part of our absorption into the spiritual world, the upper world, called the “world of bestowal.” This is bestowal in order to bestow in which we transfer all our desires to the level of mutual bestowal and learn how this system operates. We are incorporated in it like small children living in the big world who learn and do something together with the grown ups, playing with them.

This is called “parking,” because until now, during the time of preparation, a person worked hard against his egotistic desires. Afterwards, when he moves on from the level of “to bestow in order to bestow,” (Hafetz Chesed), to the next stage, to the level of love—the Land of Israel, he will start working with his vessels of reception again.

So Chanukah is a “spiritual” holiday and its symbols are the oil and the light.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Can we say that besides egoism, the Creator has imprinted another element in the desire: the point in the heart, which He will evoke at the right moment?

Answer: This point begins from the shattering.

Physicists admit that the more they penetrate matter, they “lose” particles. Each particle becomes a kind of a “cloud,” and these clouds mix up and together become very thick fog.

With the point in the heart things aren’t that simple either. It is a concept that contains all of the Light of Infinity, but in the opposite form. Thus it seems to us like a spark. It appears in its minimal form so that we will be able to hold on to this initial thread of connection.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/11, Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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Question: Judging by the sensations of the last few days, we are entering the next state after the convention and can already make a new attack. In the near future we are planning to concentrate internally, to unite together quietly, to enter the picture of the spiritual reality. What would you advise us to focus our efforts on?

Answer: There is the current state and the desirable one, and there is the transition between the two, which we have to overcome. The means to go from one state to the next can be similar to a convention: a focus of our efforts, hopes, forces, joy, actions, and events, where we are all together and we focus all our efforts over a few days and try to realize them non-stop.

But there are also other means that can help us go from one state to another. Kabbalists used them mainly for more internal concentration, which they attained by making external actions only in order to concentrate everything in the inner actions.

That is to say, they assembled together, preparing all of the external conditions so they would not interfere and would help them focus, such as by meeting in a cave, an isolated, quiet place, away from all possible external disturbances, and in a special state of day or night, which also influence a person. In short, they arranged everything so the friends could unite with one another internally, with the help of inner, more spiritual efforts.

Obviously, we must also make actions like that. But for that we need preparation and the realization of the great importance of this event, so we don’t end up with something boring or useless, something that doesn’t provide fulfillment.

Every person must understand that progress is possible only by virtue of efforts, that “penny by penny adds up to a great capital,” and that in the sum of these efforts, in the efforts to unite them together, in one place, in one Kli or vessel, we attain the common might that is called a cry, a demand—and then the gates open up to us.

We carried out a great preparation in Israel and in the whole world during the convention, and now we must perform several opposite actions—in more internal concentration, in humility. Let’s try to do this. How effective this will be is up to us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/11, The Book of Zohar

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From our life and from lessons of Kabbalists, we learn that there is no other force in the world except for the Creator ruling everything. The difference between us and the Creator is huge. He is absolutely opposite to us.

We fully consist of the desire to receive for ourselves, to enjoy and attract everything possible to ourselves—this is our nature. He, to the contrary, is a desire to bestow, to please others—this is His nature. And the purpose of creation established by Him is to bring us to His state—the highest eternal state of perfection.

The relationship between a person and the Creator is like that between an infant and a parent. If a parent wants to teach a child to walk, he shows the child how to do that: He puts the child on the floor, supports him to stand strongly on his feet, and then lets him go. A child stands in the middle of the room—he can stand, but he can’t walk yet! So he cries and doesn’t know what to do.

He gets confused and frightened that everyone left him. And he doesn’t understand that he was left alone to make a step forward! Regardless of everything, we have to do that in such way, because the child wouldn’t learn to walk without that.

And he takes one step forward—and we catch him right away. Just make one step! He almost falls forward, but before he falls, we catch him, put him on his feet and let go. And he wobbles again and doesn’t know what to do, but there is no other way—either he falls in the same spot or takes a step almost falling forward and we catch him again. Thus time after time, he learns to take steps on his own, holding onto something at first, and walking little by little afterwards.

Our world is a snapshot of the spiritual world. It is made inside of our egoism, but all the actions reflect the actions in the spiritual world, but in a reversed form. Thus through this example, we can realize what happens to us in this life and in what ways the upper force which stands in front of us all the time, teaches us to move forward to overcome the distance separating us from the Creator.

On one hand, the distance is huge. And every time we feel as an infant who doesn’t understand what’s going on and why this happened to him—where is his support and why he was left alone. Why after a good state comes such a bad state?

But if we perceive the Creator’s behavior in the right way and know how to use Him properly, we accept these not very pleasant states with love and happiness realizing that we grow through to them.
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From Lesson 4, The World Arvut Convention 12/7/11

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It is written, “There is none else beside Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world (there is no other power, beside the one Upper Force, neither in the smallest of deeds, nor in the entire universe in general), that has the ability to do anything against Him. And what man sees, that there are things in the world that deny the Higher Household, (the Creator’s power over me), the reason is that this is His will.

We become confused when we supposedly think that there are friends, a group, people, a big world with its supposed “rulers,” and even I, who makes decisions. The Upper Force wishes for me to think this way, to think that I control things, and that there are other people and another power beside Him.

And it is deemed a correction, called “the left rejects and the right adducts,” meaning that which the left rejects is considered correction. In other words, also the things which appear bad to us—rejection from the spiritual, the path, and the group, when I forget about the goal and do not want it, when I think that the group does not want me—all of these problems come only from one force, which rules over everything, regardless of whether I can see it. The Creator controls the external world and inside of me, all my thoughts and desires.

I want to advance, join a group and to attain the Upper Force through it, I want to reveal Him, cling to my friends and reveal the Upper Light within them, the quality of bestowal. But even when I strive towards this in the most direct and sincere form, with my whole heart, I still experience descents and confusion in the most sincere point, which I rarely manage to attain through hard work. I suddenly fall from my very direct path.

I could understand it if I were to go in some wrong direction and I were being returned to the direct path. But no, it is when I am already standing on the very direct path that I deviate and fall.

A person is pushed away from the goal and the group, suddenly becomes confused and loses the desire. He thinks that his friends are no good, the path is wrong, and the entire system does not work, and it is unclear who has ever reached and attained the spiritual world. But it is this kind of rejection that helps him acquire an absolute desire. Next….

And this is exactly what we need. Right now I have a small desire for spirituality, but I do not feel that it is not enough. Everyone thinks that his heart is about to explode and that he is ready for anything! But in reality, in order to achieve spiritual power, we need a much stronger inner pressure, inner desire, and thirst.

And we become rejected in order to increase our aspiration to the sufficient level—to acquire a complete desire and understand that there is nothing we can do without the Creator’s help.

We need to reach a state when our scream passes through our unity, our connection, and is directed towards the Creator—with the request for the upper force, the Light which returns to the source, the common force of bestowal, which encompasses all of nature, to help us! Let it correct my only egoistic part in nature and pull it forward.

Otherwise I see that I am doomed. In other words I must reach a state where I see that I have done the most I could for the sake of my connection inside the group, that I have put all my effort into attaining unity, a connection with friends, those with who I wanted to reach the connection with the Creator, to reveal the power of bestowal, so it would reign in us and fill us with this unique quality.

And here we lack a common cry to the Creator, the upper force. We must feel lost so that a single scream of ours would be enough. But it must really come from a state of despair, when we see that we will never achieve success without His aid.
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From Lesson 4, The World Arvut Convention 12/7/11

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The law of loving thy neighbor is based on observing 612 commandments, correcting 612 desires that become revealed in our spiritual structure. By observing them, we reach the general rule: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

612 commandments are our 612 desires that pursue the egoistic intention to please oneself. None of us can observe these 612 commandments on his own, but only by connecting with others and beginning to examine our mutual relations with one another. This is the only way to reveal all these desires.

Not a single person has the ability to observe a single commandment. This is because a commandment stems from the principle of love thy neighbor. The egoistic connection between us is called a transgression, and the altruistic connection is called a commandment. This is why one neither commits crimes nor observes commandments before he begins to connect with others. He just leads a simple beastly life, which we are not talking about here.

And egoistic desires that connect him with others only become revealed in him under the condition that he wishes to connect with them in order to use them to attain bestowal. Only then can we speak about corruption and correction.

The defect referred to as “I created the evil inclination” is a very advanced stage, when one reveals part of his 612 vices that pertain to the connection with others. And then he attains the realization of evil whereby he understands that he must correct his egoistic attitude towards others. This means to reach repentance, the “Days of Awe,” when he understands that he uses his neighbor egoistically. And then a switch happens in him, referred to as the beginning of the new year, Rosh Hashanah, which is the beginning of a new journey, when he wishes to turn his evil into its opposite.

And this is after spending a long time working in the group and understanding the need for correction. And then he gradually turns 613 transgressions into 613 commandments.

But without beginning to work in the group, he will never reveal any of his 613 transgressions. This is because all of them relate to the same principle of love thy neighbor and do not exist outside of the connection with others. This common rule includes all individual details. This is why all the types of connection that exist between us come out of the principle of love thy neighbor and pertain to our 612 actions in relation to each other, the qualities we need to correct.

We reach the common rule of loving the created beings by making individual corrections, and through it we reach love for the Creator. By correcting my 612 desires from egoism to bestowal, I reach absolute connection together with everyone, where the common rule of love thy neighbor becomes revealed. This is the preparation for the revelation of the “unifying factor,” the Creator, the so called “plus 1,” inside it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Once you said that it is forbidden to recall the previous states, whatever they were, and look back….

Answer: And we do not look back. We want to return to the point of unity in our new egoistic state. This is no longer the return to the past. We do not want to be in the past!

Today we wish to return to that state, which we left, in our grown egoism. And when we return to it with our real egoism, it is a new, stronger, clearer state.

Otherwise, there is nothing. The whole difference between spiritual steps is only in the added egoism.
[63443]
From the Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/11

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We began to study Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” which appears to me as his most important introduction among all the others. Partly, it includes the excerpts from The Book of Oracles by the ARI, written by his disciple Chaim Vital. In fact, this introduction contains the entire path that we need to go through in order to reach the goal.

Although we have plenty of other materials, nothing explains the path along which we should advance and change as consistently, step by step, methodically, and deliberately. Other articles and introductions give us a general view of the wisdom of Kabbalah or view it from some particular angles.

But this introduction selects a very narrow, aimed line to show the person, either religious or secular, who starts with the question about the meaning of his life, how to achieve his ultimate realization with all the difficulties and scrutinies on this path.

This is why this introduction is unusually deep and not easy for beginners. It takes years to begin to assimilate, understand, and find oneself in it. It needs to be studied in small portions, carefully, until a person grows and might be able to reveal more. We must understand that this introduction was written by the man who stood at the head of a new era, the last stage of human development, which was to go from unconscious to conscious development.

Now we need to rise to a new level from the stage at which we could not even be called human beings but only highly developed animals acting in accordance with instincts and fully managed by the forces of nature. Something designed to be similar to the Creator begins to develop inside this creature.

We need to understand the man who was at the beginning of this process, his approach and view, and try to emulate him.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What does it mean to be like the Creator?

Answer: It is written: “Just as He is loving and merciful, so shalt thou be loving and merciful.” We have to gradually reveal the connection between us, which means to be like the Creator. We don’t have any other examples of how to be like Him. The Creator does not let us sense Him, He does not send us pictures, images, or documentary films of Himself. We can only imagine Him based on our lives.

Those that have attained the Creator tell us that His example in our lives and the form closest to Him is the connection with the group of friends, and the articles about the group lead us to this very special bond.
[63383]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, Writings of Rabash

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A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
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