Question: When does faith turn into attainment?

Answer: If it is faith above reason, then it becomes a vessel or Kli for attainment. After all, faith is a name for the Light of Hassadim.

Faith above reason is the quality of bestowal that rules over the desire to enjoy. The desire to enjoy with the intention of bestowal becomes a vessel or Kli for the Light of Hochma.

Then the Light of Hochma, clothed into the Light of Hassadim, starts to rule inside the desire to enjoy, and that is attainment.

The fulfillment of the Light of Hassadim by the Light of Hochma is called “total or complete faith” (Emuna Shlema).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar

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Question: How can we reach revelation so we would see the spiritual world as realistically as we now see our reality?

Answer: I don’t know whether the things I’m seeing now are reality or not. What if I am dreaming and cannot wake up?

It seems to me that I am now inside of a certain reality, but how do I really know whether or not this reality is just a dream compared to the next reality? Maybe there such a level of wakefulness is awaiting me that everything I felt in the past will seem like a dream?

Inside my current reality there are also periods when I tune out from it and go to sleep. So how do I know: Maybe I am sleeping now as well?

In other words, I have to discern how to go from one state to the next and acquire a new consciousness. And that is why Kabbalists have given us a means.

Until you acquire that new consciousness, you will remain inside a dream and you won’t even find out that it is possible to wake up and start living! We all understand what it means to dream. I was sleeping, I woke up, and now I am considered awake. And that is exactly how we exist in relation to the spiritual world, the world to come.

There are many states like this, one above the other. Kabbalah gives us the means to keep ascending from one state to the next. If you correctly use the means given to you in your current state, then you will be able to ascend to a state that is called “life” in relation to your current state, and what you feel today will be called a “dream.” It is written, “We were as dreamers.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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Question: How do we acquire the ability to advance “above reason”?

Answer: “Above reason” is above our “matter,” the will to enjoy; in other words, “above reason” is inside the quality of bestowal. We are unable to rise above our egoism ourselves. This is possible only with the help of the Upper Light, Ohr Makif.

“Reason” means my desire. Inside of my desire I am able to feel, see, and make calculations depending on the probable benefit or harm, or on whether it’s worthwhile for me to use a certain desire or not. As a result of these calculations I reach certain conclusions and then realize my desires. I do not have any problem in this regard. That is how I live in this world.

I am certain about part of these calculations and I have doubts about another part of them. In our earthly sciences we also use the theory of probability whenever we do not have reliable information. However, in any case we have something we can rely on.

On the other hand, “faith above reason” or “above knowledge” is when I don’t have any instruments or means of perceiving. In addition, I don’t even know what “higher” is. If it were simply opposite to reason, then I might be able to calculate how I should act according to my reason and then I would act exactly in the opposite manner. Yet, this would also be a rational calculation.

However, I don’t have the slightest idea of what “faith above reason” is; I don’t know what reason it follows, what sensation and calculation it entails, and in relation to what. It is a certain approach, tendency, or paradigm that does not exist inside me.

Therefore, only the Light can come and give us this approach because “above reason” means “for the sake of bestowal,” meaning not according to the calculation inside the Kli, the desire to enjoy. But if it’s not inside the desire, then I don’t know what it is. How can I find out? I don’t know. And inside what desire?

Kabbalists say: If you start to perceive the desire of your neighbor as your own, if you can make a calculation in relation to his desire, one that is for his good, then that will be above your current knowledge. However, to do that I have to receive super powers that I don’t have. If I receive them, I will be able to go “above reason.” However, for now you cannot jump higher than yourself.

Only the Light that created us can change us. Therefore we have to use the “miraculous means” (Segulot) and perform various actions that awaken the Light so it will influence us. That is how our success will be measured. The mind and the sensations that you accumulate inside your desire to enjoy for now are unable to help you. They can only help you in the opposite form. If you make a daily assessment of what you have attained in spirituality, you will see that in reality you haven’t attained anything even though you put in many efforts.

And the same thing will happen tomorrow. On the day after that, you will get confused in addition. Another day later you will suddenly feel confident that you have become smart. And so on. Every day you add more negative phenomena due to the fact that you reside inside the desire to enjoy for your own sake and you think that only the Light can help you, but it does not come and does not help you.

So what should you do? Start waging war against reason, as it is written about the Egyptian exile.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar

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We are inside an ocean of Light; all we need is a Kli (a vessel or instrument) in order to reveal it. It’s like cosmic space that seems absolutely dark to us. I enter outer space and there is nothing blocking the sun from me any longer. So why don’t I feel the light; why do I see everything around me as being black?

It’s because the light does not have anything to collide with; it does not come across any boundary. There has to be something that stands against it; then we will feel it. If you put a boundary next to you in outer space, then the light will collide with it and you will suddenly see that it is there!

If you take the boundary away, then there won’t be any light once again. That’s because the light is not felt in any way by itself – not even material light! If it weren’t for the atmosphere around the earth with all its particles of air, we would not see the light. We would be surrounded by darkness just like on the moon because there would be nothing to stop the photons, the particles of light.

Therefore, the only thing we need is a Kli for revealing the Light. First of all it must be opposite to the Light, meaning that it has to be a desire to receive because the nature of the Light is the desire to bestow. Besides that, it must match the Light according to the type of action – it has to be “for the sake of bestowal.”

When our desire to receive acquires the intention “for the sake of bestowal,” it will become a vessel for revealing the Upper Light.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Question: Is there anything eternal inside us?

Answer: In every aspect relating to the material body, we are mere animals, although more developed,  endowed with feelings and a mind. Nevertheless, every animate body is mortal.

There is a second nature, the desire to bestow, which is called the spiritual world, the soul, or the “part of divinity from Above.” Besides it, everything else belongs to egoism, the animate level, or the material world. Therefore, for now there is nothing connecting us to eternity besides one point that belongs to infinity, This point has to organize an environment for itself as a means to develop.

I am not talking about the animate soul that enlivens the body, which is the “vital force” present in all creatures still, vegetative, and animate. Besides it, man has one real point of the root which he has to develop. It is because of this point that he is called “human” – “Adam,” “similar” (Domeh) to the Creator, whose level he can attain.

A regular person contains nothing besides this point that is spiritual and eternal. Just as his animate body lives, so it dies – and nothing remains! And what about that point, do we get to keep it at least? Well, was it ever present inside the body? No, it does not belong to the body. We will never be able to transplant it to another person together with some other organ.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, “Body and Soul”

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Question: The material reality is described by Einstein’s famous formula in the theory of relativity: E=mc², which relates mass to speed. Is there an analogous formula in the spiritual world relating the will to receive to the will to bestow?

Answer: I don’t think Einstein’s formula can be applied to the spiritual reality because it talks about the limited nature of our material world, about what we can maximally extract from matter with all its manifestations (mass, speed, and energy).

Any formula indicates a limitation, but spirituality is not limited by anything. In spirituality we attain the maximum limit that is described by the formula: “He and His name are one.”

That is to say, we connect the entire will to enjoy with the entire force of the Light together with all the corrections, and we attain such unity among them that everything unites into one whole. The result is Infinity.

This is the maximum realization in spirituality. The material formula of the theory of relativity is about the boundaries of time, motion, space, energy, mass, and speed, but in the spiritual world these boundaries do not exist! That’s because you connect to the Upper Force, the Creator, and you become infinite like Him, without any boundaries!

In spirituality there is no formula because any formula compares conditions on one side to conditions on the other side, assessing how they can be in balance on account of one another. Energy cannot be greater than mass multiplied by the speed squared. But in spirituality that is not so! By completing opposites, we attain infinity. It’s as if we take the integral sum of all the forces of the universe, from zero until infinity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, “Body and Soul”

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Question: Where may the prayer for our unity and correction come from? How do I start asking for it?

Answer: We cry and beg for correction, but it is a pretense and falsehood. We, ourselves, don’t even realize that it is just lip service.

However, if I am working in the group and allow it to influence me, thereby exercising my only free choice, then it passes to me its enthusiasm and motivates me toward spirituality. At that point, it isn’t a lie since I am inspired by the friends. Even though I tried to connect to the group artificially, when they worked on me, I started to take it seriously.

This is how I am made: I am a particle in the collective system which has been functioning this way since the beginning of creation. That is why I cannot escape being affected by the environment, try as I might.

However, in this case, it was my wish to be influenced by the friends, and I made an effort to achieve it. If I now turn to the Creator with the desire received from the group, I will immediately receive an answer to it, a response. After all, this desire has a unique nature: the will to unite.

When I try to unite with them on my own or cry to the Creator to get this wish granted, it is a false demand. It isn’t regarded as a true prayer (MAN or Mayin Nukvin, Female Waters), but a lie. Although it is also beneficial, I will eventually see that it doesn’t work.

However, when I turn to the group, exalting it and reducing my own importance, and receive from it a new desire, a request that I further raise to the Creator, this is called MAN. As a result, there will be an answer from Above called MAD (Mayin Duchrin, Male Waters), which will truly connect me with the group, and there, inside it, I will find the Creator.

Inasmuch as I contribute myself to the group upon my own request, to that measure, the Creator will be revealed to me. However, no altruistic desire or action can come directly from me.

The group stands between me and the Creator, and we meet inside it. I raise my prayer to the Creator through the group. In response, He channels the answer to me through the group, with the help of which I may now rise to the group and find the Creator in it.

Between the Creator and me, there has to be the group. That’s why it is called the “place” and so is the Creator because there, He and I meet.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Question: People often ask me what is Kabbalah and I try to explain its essence and purpose. In response many people admit, “Yeah, I also feel that way. Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.” So does this mean they have a point in the heart? How do the people who have this point differ from other people who are also looking for something?

Answer: The point in the heart is a part of the Creator. When it becomes revealed in you, you hear a “call sign” calling you to Him.

We recognize the point in the heart when it brings a person to the science of Kabbalah, to the place or the net where all our points come from. Kabbalah is not the books, but the wisdom and the program of the common system. Kabbalah books bring you the force of this program and you use it to enact the first spiritual impulse.

In reality you have never left this “system of governance.” You are always inside it, connected to others, and your common body is alive. It is Malchut of the World of Infinity, which really exists, although you do not feel how you belong to it.

Instead of feeling its main window, you feel yourself as being in a completely different “window.” You are in the same place, but you perceive a different world, devoid of the common interconnection. There are two windows: one is the natural, correct, true, and deep one, and the other is virtual. Right now my screen is occupied by our illusory world, but alongside it there is also an inner screen where we are all in the state of Infinity. This is what the Kabbalists talk about.

I aspire to it with my point in the heart, wanting to go from the virtual screen to the real one, to the place where I am connected to everyone. If my point really has awakened, I find myself in the group. I open up books that talk about this inner screen, and while reading them I evoke Light from there that begins to advance me.

However, if a person does not care about Kabbalistic books and unity in the group, if he does not feel the inner need for this, then he does not have a point in the heart. He imagines all sorts of things and looks for spirituality in India, or in different religions and faiths, in meditation, in New Age, and so on. In contrast to this, a person with a point in the heart is unable to leave the path any longer. He can “take a break” due to various problems, but he will never exchange his point for anything else.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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In our world the surrounding environment automatically influences a seed that is placed in the soil and the seed begins to grow. That is how everything on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature interacts with the environment, with no freedom of will.

However, our spiritual development does not work the same way. We have to awaken the environment so it will influence us, so there will be appropriate “temperature, moisture, minerals, and sunlight. We have to create these conditions on our own, and that is called raising MAN. Our environment is the Creator. And if you think that you are influenced by the friends, the sun, the moon, or a sudden change in mood, in fact all of it is the Creator.

On the inside there is my self, my point in the heart, and everything else is the Creator, even though He exists around me in various forms. At the end of the day I awaken Him.

Can the friends really influence me even if they yell and demand? What force of influence do they have? After all, I have to receive the force of spiritual influence. Thus, the environment only seems this way to me, while in reality it is the Creator. That is how I awaken Him, reveal Him, and speak to Him.

Therefore, if we don’t awaken this external influence, how can we grow? We are unable to advance by any other way besides “awakening from below” (Itaruta De Letata). There must first be a MAN, a request, or a demand coming from us. It is written, “A person made efforts and found.” If you don’t make efforts, you won’t find.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Body and Soul”

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Aviut from the side of the Kli is lack of its fulfilment, Hissaron, hunger, or appetite. On the other hand, Aviut that comes from the side of the Light is the realization of the Creator’s importance, the revelation of His greatness.

The Light descends and expands your Kli, making the One who Gives Light appear higher in your eyes. It’s best to advance precisely by virtue of this Aviut.

Suppose someone invites me to their house and wants to treat me to tea and cookies. I don’t see anything special about this. However, if I were to suddenly find out that this person is very important and influential, the visit would acquire a totally different meaning for me! The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Benjamin Disraeli wrote in his memoirs that the Queen once invited him to her palace for tea. Prior to that he had conversed with her many times, but this “cup of tea” meant a lot more to him.

In other words, a person is always impressed by whom he receives from, rather than what he receives. By praising the Creator, you expand your spiritual vessels. You come closer to Him by admitting His importance and greatness. The illumination that comes from Him increases in your eyes and this creates additional Kelim inside you.
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From the lesson on Shamati on 11/19/10

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