At the lessons, among other things, we learn about the structure and the interconnection of the spiritual worlds, Partzufim, and Sefirot. A question arises: Why do I need to learn this? After all, I only need to attract the Light that reforms upon myself?

Even if no Kabbalistic books have been published in my own language, I can sit in the lesson and listen to the reading of The Book of Zohar without understanding the words. This is truly enough. Baal HaSulam, for example, had a few students who did not know Yiddish, the language in which he taught.

However, something else is being concealed here. As we advance, we begin to feel, to discern, various spiritual phenomena inside of ourselves. So, what do we do with this? This is why a person studies the wisdom of Kabbalah in the form of his internal, spiritual psychology. Thanks to it, everything joins together into one picture.

Of course, it does not happen right away, but still, a person gradually discovers within himself what he has studied in the lessons. In the same way that a child studies a language, he remembers words, associates them with objects and events, and then brings meaning to each word, including a wide spectrum of shades, details, and perceptions.

That is why we have to know the material and to study the language of the science of Kabbalah that describes our deep psychology. As Baal HaSulam says, it is very important to enter into Kabbalah from the side of materialistic psychology as well. This is how we study ourselves, starting with the animate level and proceeding to the human one.

Clearly, we do not need a university course on psychology. This would only add to the confusion. However, when we come to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is worth it to search within ourselves for those details of perception that it talks about.
[61752]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/2011, “Preface to The Book of Zohar”

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A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
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The Creator is the force of bestowal that dominates all of reality. The force of bestowal can glow from a distance. No matter who we are and of what matter we are made, its bestowal upon us can make us resemble it: turn us into the ones who bestow.

In order to connect to this force, those who have attained it describe the different revelations of the force of bestowal, the Creator. They tell us about the mechanism of His system of bestowal upon us, and thus we can connect to Him. Indeed, we can never say anything about a person himself. We can speak only about how his actions are revealed to us. Baal HaSulam writes that we never can know the “essence,” but only the actions of the essence.

It is the same with the Creator. It is written: “By Your actions, we will know You.” By His actions, we gradually perceive His correct image. This is because His actions are imprinted within us in different forms. From them we begin to understand, ponder about, clarify, and arrange the Creator’s actions, and then we can create His image. It all stems from our impressions, and this is how we reach recognition.

The revelation, recognition, and understanding that we reach is called “imaginative cognition.” It is imaginative because on one hand, our matter remains the same: the desire to enjoy. There is no other matter. On the other hand, the form that dresses in this matter is the desire to bestow, the attribute of the one Who bestows, His image, by which I am impressed.

In order to be impressed by that image, by the Creator, I am impressed by the group. Thus, I come closer to perceiving Him. Reading The Book of Zohar is special because while we read it, we want to be impressed by the different forms of the Creator’s bestowal that were revealed to those who were able to attain His forms. These forms come to us, but they are hidden, and we don’t feel them, we cannot describe how we sense them. We don’t have a clear feeling of the forms, of their various types, manifestations, or attributes, whereby I would feel any inner changes.

Kabbalists describe all these forms and give us a whole picture as to how this understanding is formed within a person, how it changes and develops in him from a very small form: the point in the heart. Starting from this tiny point, every stage develops first in a negative direction that is opposite to the Creator, and then in a positive direction that resembles Him. Then again, development is in a negative direction, in another attribute that is opposite to the Creator, and then in a positive direction that is like Him. Thus it continues: left, right, left, right. This is how our understanding develops, from the smallest to the greatest.

The states where we are opposite to the Creator are called the “evil inclination,” and the states where we receive attributes like His are called the “good inclination.” In other words, the “inclination,” the desire, remains, but we call it “bad” if it is opposite in form to the Creator, and we call it “good” if we receive attributes that resemble Him.

We are actually talking about ourselves in relation to the attribute of love. This is the Creator’s attitude toward the created beings. So, in every step that we take, we advance from hatred to love, then again from hatred to love. When we feel hatred, in some way, we feel the notion of “Mount Sinai,” a mountain of hatred. Then, when we feel love, we feel the Light that Reforms, the revelation of the Torah.

When we read The Book of Zohar that tells us about all the states, good and bad, the negative forces and the positive ones that operate mutually and equally in order to attain the goal, we have to try and connect to the great Kabbalists who felt all these states and adhered to them. Now, I want to be part of Rabbi Shimon’s group that includes Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and all the great Kabbalists.

This is all one mechanism, one system, the corrected part of the whole vessel of the soul that has been corrected. There, in these desires, are the great souls that feel and have attained the Creator, that have the same attributes that He has. They talk to us about this mechanism just as parents talk to their children. Although the child doesn’t understand everything he is told, he still has to try to.
[62053]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, The Zohar

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Question: I am trying to imagine 72 hours at the convention. How will this process bring me to the One, Unique, and Unified?

Answer: I enter the convention hall like a holy pool (Mikveh), a place that will purify and correct me. This is a place filled with holy water, the quality of Bina, the mother’s womb that I become included in and grow in. I don’t need to do anything besides settling in there like a drop of semen inside the womb. I must only cleave to it, and everything else will be done by others. I must simply become part of what is happening.

It is written, “The Creator dwells inside of his nation,” where “inside of the nation” means the place where everyone gathers and each person annuls his egoism as much as he can for the sake of uniting together. Then we reveal that there, inside of this unity, the upper one is present—Malchut, the Shechina. And inside of it—the Shochen, the Creator.

We don’t need anything else! Just come there and don’t be a smart alec. Lose your “I”: You come in and dissolve. Someone asks you to do something, so do it. Just connect to it, without any clarifications. The most important thing is to go with the common flow.

That is why the convention is appropriate for everyone, for every person. If a person can just come there, then a powerful force will arise there that will take us over and will spin us all in one whirlpool, like one whole. And we don’t need anything else. We won’t need a special mind or lengthy studies, but just that force. With it, you will already receive an impression of the upper one, of the upper level. So come!

You came there and you’re singing, dancing, eating, and preparing food, and you annul yourself before what is happening as much as you can. This will bring you to the upper level because it is there, inside, in the connection between people.

The tradition to hold mutual meals, to sing songs, and dance was established by Kabbalists. All of this leads to unity, and without unity, it’s impossible. Abraham once invited guests to his tent and first of all, he sat them down at a common meal, while explaining that it is necessary to unite and love the neighbor.

We won’t manage anything without unity. I understand that our egoism, our nature is against it. I was also opposed to unity once, and even more than you are. But that doesn’t scare me: For any egoism, there is a force capable of defeating it. Most importantly, try to be as determined as you can and set your mind to coming there and losing yourself.

Get lost in some unknown place, like a wallet that you had and is now gone. There’s just nothing you can do about it: It was there, and now it’s gone! Try it!
[62141]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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In the News: (from psyfactor.org): “A modern man lives in the era when, having everything, he feels miserable.

“According to scientists, the paradox of misery lies in the fact that people now do not lack goods.

“Humankind has long sought to get rid of any deprivation and then found that without restrictions, there will be no desire. As a consequence, man will feel unhappy.

“’Young people who suffer from psychological disorders come to see psychoanalysts. They are embarrassed that they have everything they want. What they lack is shortage,’ said Claude Schauder, psychologist and psychoanalyst, The University of Strasbourg.

“According to Serge Lesourd, head of Psychology Department at The University of Strasbourg, in our modern society, where people can have everything they want, they miss namely the things that have no value, for instance love.

“’Sigmund Freud said that nothing can be so harsh as a series of cloudless days. Happiness is the difference between the state when we were unhappy and the state when we are happy. And achieving personal happiness is the goal of every human life,’ emphasized Lesourd.”

My Comment: Since happiness can be felt only in the process of fulfilling the desire, one should feel a desire (lack) and its fulfilment constantly, which is impossible in our world. To reach this state, it is necessary to always combine within oneself two qualities: the desire and fulfillment. This is what Kabbalah, the science of fulfillment, teaches.
[61552]

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A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
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Question: In the post “I Do Not Want To Be A Mountain Climber” you write: “When the system becomes completely revealed, we will see that it is global, integral, and all its parts are completely binding, like an enormous live organism. Its individual parts do not have any freedom of will to do whatever they wish to do because this does not exist in nature. Everything abides by the law of determinism.”

I don’t agree with what you say about determinism. There are certain things out of our control, but still there is some choice too. For examples, cells can become cancerous….

Answer: Freedom of will is specifically in being either a healthy/giving or cancerous/receiving cell.

Question: How do we stop cursing emptiness in our heart and embrace it with gladness as part of the path? Or should we always expect some part of us to disagree with bestowal?

Answer: Don’t curse emptiness, but fill it with any of our fulfillments, although you will feel it from time to time.
[61350]

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Question: Why do we need the desires of the animate level if we don’t correct them? What’s their use?

Answer: We need these desires to exist outside of the spiritual world. They give us the opportunity to ascend without being dependent on the spiritual world, without being bribed by it.

This allows us to live without “spiritual favors.” We continuously decide whether or not we should unite with our neighbors, the group. Sometimes we want to drop everything and leave, and we really do have that opportunity.

On the other hand, if we only had desires related to the group, we would be similar to, say, ants. Without having anything else, we would live the life of society involuntarily, and would again be on the animate, bodily level.

However, I live in my body and can aspire to spirituality or not aspire to it. This allows me to be a spiritual person because I reach the form of bestowal on my own, in spite of my natural, initial desire. The Creator made the evil inclination in me so that by overcoming it, I would become a free person. And I decide whether I want this or not by my own free choice.

Otherwise I would live in the spiritual world, but on the animate level. I would be an “angel”—a “spiritual animal” that instinctively loves everyone.
[61539]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/11, “Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: In the post “Clearing the Darkness” you talk about the need to explain to the world what is happening. People simply need a method! Do you have a method that you can explain in simple words? I didn’t hear it yet, but maybe you or your students can explain it to me like to a five year old? What is this method practically?

Now the lessons are split in lots of small parts that barely connect. It’s very confusing what you are offering.

Answer: I hope that your friends will help you find simple explanations from my lessons—sometimes I don’t succeed in this. But we do not explain this to the world at all because it wants only egoistic fulfillments it can understand.

Question: If the Creator is pure bestowal and has no will to receive, how can He want anything? A want signifies deficiency, which violates “there is none else besides Him.” So to talk about what He wants from us is nonsense since He has everything, there is no deficiency!

Answer: In relation to us, the upper one is perceived as the force that wishes to bestow, fill, and love, as the force that created everything and guides everything towards a set goal. Since it wants to bestow, it means that it feels a lack of such opportunity, senses a deficiency, as it said: “More than the calf wants to suckle the cow wants to feed.”
[60025]

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Question: We have pledged to take care of one another in order to uphold the standard we achieved in the Arava and to keep moving further. But what should a person do if he suddenly discovers that he has “fallen out of the loop”? Should he feel that he is drilling a hole in the common boat?

Answer: Of course. And this should be a source of great distress for him. First of all, it’s not simple to reach the sensation of unity, but he should at least regret the fact that he is separated from it. Secondly, let him feel bad from knowing that all the friends are already there. Thirdly, his absence harms others, and this entire harm is recorded in his account.

This way, he misses out on much more than his personal concern because his part is idle in every one of the friends and does not complete each one of them. It turns out that his harm is multiplied by the number of members in the group.

Until now we talked about the egoistic calculation, but now let’s look at the problem from the other side. A person does not support his friends with mutual guarantee, does not become similar to the Creator, and does not attain bestowal to Him by working in the group. This spiritual damage is not as obvious, but we have to remember about it as well.

Question: Can we say that by doing so a person shifts not only the whole group, but also the whole world to evil?

Answer: If you have received the opportunity to enter mutual guarantee with your friends, then by participating in the common work, obviously you shift the world to goodness. After all, every person is part of the common network and we are its central part. Therefore, by strengthening the group, I strengthen the whole world in its spiritual ascent. And the opposite is also true.
[61337]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/11, “Mutual Guarantee”

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