Question: If all the stages of my path are predetermined, can I change a certain event in my life by freewill? How will my life be different with the wisdom of Kabbalah and without it?

Answer: It is a huge difference.

Suppose I don’t want to go to school and so I am “beaten” by my parents. It is the same here: I break a leg, my country is at war, there are natural disasters; the “parental attitude” is felt but more realistically. By these problems I will still do what I am required to do. What is more, if I sometimes managed to escape punishment at school, here there are no discounts, there is nowhere to run.

I am between the “path of the Torah” and the “path of suffering” and this choice changes my life. In fact it is a matter of life or death, although we feel it as different kinds of sufferings. If someone wanted to win a million dollars in the lottery but won only a hundred thousand and someone else is bedridden for 15 years, both cases are felt as sufferings.

Question: But still, do I actually have to break a leg?

Answer: If this is the only thing that will change your attitude toward the goal of creation, then yes. But you can follow the path of “hastening time” and correct your attitude and then you won’t have to break a leg, since you will transcend the sufferings from the animal level to the level of the speaking.

The Lights and the vessels need to be opposite one another. On the animal level it is expressed, let’s say, by breaking a leg or losing one’s salary, or a fire, a serious illness, etc. But if you raise the sufferings to the level of the speaking, if you experience it and feel sorry about the fact that you cannot bestow now, it is your problem and this is what you suffer from. The Light that Reforms gives you this feeling and then there is no need for corporeal disasters any more.

Furthermore, many more corporeal troubles are required than spiritual ones. For example, to be sick for a thousand years without getting out of bed is like experiencing a moment of pangs of love: “Why don’t I love the Creator?” This is the difference between the levels, what can a small child do compared to a grown up if the lights go out at home? It is incomparable.

See how the crisis is spreading: No one is protected and safe from it. The world is threatened by terrible sufferings that are meant to break man, just to put a small switch through his common sense. Then, after a third world war he will discover that he is under the influence of nature. Then the fourth world war will replace another tiny switch: “Ahh, I have to be balanced with nature.” A fifth world war will show him the necessity of bestowal upon others, in order to reach harmony with nature, and so on.

Monstrous disasters, years of troubles, will only help to switch on what the Light could switch on in a couple of months. Through correct studies, a person could understand in a month that there is no other choice. So we have to bring our message to the world as quickly as possible.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah“

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In the News (from Infinite Insight): “A global poll of perceived hunger shows that 12% of the world say there was a time during the last 12 months when they did not have enough to eat. Among them are 3% who report acute hunger and say that they often did not have enough to eat. According to the latest findings on felt-Hunger, 88% of the world claims to be free from felt-Hunger.

“If these percentages are projected on a global population of 7 billion persons a shockingly large population numbering approximately 840 million world-wide suffer from felt-Hunger. …

“It was expected that very Rich and Rich group of countries would suffer less from felt-Hunger, compared to the group of low income countries. However the survey finds no such relationship. The level of felt-Hunger in all three groups is almost identical. …

“Only 14 of the 57 countries claimed to be 95% free from felt Hunger. The data show that some countries with very high per capita income score quite low on the index of ‘freedom from felt hunger’. Conversely some of the poorer countries score quite high.

“Tunisia tops the list of countries which despite low income score high on freedom from felt-Hunger. It is followed by Vietnam and Azerbaijan. The national income of all three is less than ten thousand US dollars. Tunisia scores 99%, while Vietnam and Azerbaijan score 96%.

“The United States tops the list of countries which have failed to provide freedom from felt-Hunger despite high national income. Despite its annual per capita of over 45,000 US dollars it scores only 78% on freedom from felt-Hunger, meaning that 22% of its population claims it did not have enough to eat on occasions during the last one year.”

My Comment: This is the state in 2011. But nature will force us to unite, and hunger will also. It influences us together with all the negative effects on our desires: food, sex, family, wealth, fame, and knowledge. These are our main types of desires. All the other desires are included in them. Food (hunger) is the most effective, and perhaps we will soon feel the punishment for disobedience to unity, especially by it.
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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot:” Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? Or even more precisely, whom do I delight?

Humanity is suffering, everyone is suffering; this whole life is an ongoing suffering. Only sometimes are we allowed to rest for several years, but the rest of the time we have to carry on an endless war of survival—this is the life that nature has designated for us. So what is life about? Does it really have to be that way? Can we make it better? So far we haven’t found a way to make our life better and happier. Baal HaSulam isn’t talking about a perfect eternal life above this corporeal life, or about the Creator and the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). In the meantime he is referring to the changes in our ordinary life in this world and how we can improve it.

He doesn’t start by lofty ideas, but rather from the simplest thing: Do we all suffer? Yes we do! Do you want to suffer less? Yes, we do! The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t steal your Torah and the joy of life from you; it doesn’t cut you off from life and doesn’t interfere with your corporeal actions; it only wants to add a bit a joy to your life, some taste, so that you will feel better! It’s a very gentle approach. Baal HaSulam identifies with human suffering and explains that it is possible to bring more joy to our lives.

After all, all our life is an eternal escape from suffering and today is the same as yesterday. But life can be happy, full, and good for you and for your environment, living in mutual concern for one another, feeling completely secure. Otherwise we sentence ourselves to an existence that is worse than an animal’s. After all, the greater our desires, the emptier we feel life and the more we suffer.

No one enjoys the life we are living and no one delights others, so it turns out that we suffer both ways. We simply cannot fill anyone because of our egoistic nature and cannot receive anything from anyone. So everyone is in mutual conflict and in an eternal struggle, making this life hard and terrible. Our egoistic nature destroys our life, making it a difficult experience. For example, the world we live in today with all the technological advancement could be paradise, but instead we have made it into a true hell.

We could live in a happy family in a prosperous society, free of any troubles, having everything that we need: health, security, a respectable job, freedom. Everyone could fill himself the moment he wanted to, working several hours a day and spending the rest of the time on some hobby. However, instead we kill ourselves at work, destroying the environment and the last resources we have left. Our egoistic nature doesn’t let us enjoy nor delight others, and eventually makes everything sink into darkness, bringing us to a dead end.

All we can do is hope that this crisis will teach us as gently as possible and will force humanity to recognize its egoistic nature, with which we can no longer exist. We will not survive if we don’t change our nature, but it’s impossible to change it just like that—it can only be done with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Until a person reaches this conclusion, he will have to suffer much more.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The giving of the Torah, meaning the method of correction, is not a one-time event, but a constant process; each one who feels a need for correction receives the method of correction. It was said, “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice for it.” The criterion is simple. If a person wants to correct himself and discovers that his desire is bad, that it is the evil inclination, then an inner outcry directed at correction is born within him that is aimed at the need for correction for deliverance from the evil.

We naturally tend to always get rid of the bad that is within us. The whole point here is whether a person really feels this? Is he willing to bear the bad feeling, despite the countless possibilities to neutralize this feeling and avoid the demand for correction?

And it can be vice versa, to sweeten the situation by evading it, saying, “After all, this isn’t so bad. I’m not worse than others. And why do I care about it at all?” There are a lot of “diversionary paths” that help one escape from the bad feeling. This is because it is very unpleasant and involves great emotional pain to reveal how evil I am.

Therefore a person needs support, great help, which will provide him with secure support. He reaches the real recognition of evil through this; he will scream from lack of choice, and along with it, he doesn’t escape from the path. And then he is really in need of the Torah.

How can one reach such a state where we are really “shackled” and can’t escape from the suffering so strongly that we receive the Light that Reforms from Above? This can be accomplished through very great agony through the path of development called “In due time,” the path of suffering. These sufferings come from a corporeal level and obligate us to spiritual work. The gap between these two levels is so big that suffering is many times more powerful than on the path of hastening which allows one to recognize the necessity for the Torah in the spiritual work.

In this spiritual work, we begin to use the Light that Reforms and examine ourselves from the spiritual degree. We recognize the necessity for correction not because we have a bad life, but because we ourselves yearn for it. Accordingly, the suffering has a different form: spiritual and not corporeal. Therefore according to this, their quality is much higher, their pain is much deeper, and the intensity is such that the person is capable of tolerating it.

The uniqueness of the wisdom of Kabbalah is that it explains how to progress on the path very quickly, by feeling a little suffering quantitatively, but great qualitatively. Thus we can shorten the path; we can divide the suffering with the friends and pass it to them in small quantities. There are many advantages in following the path of Torah compared to the path of suffering. It allows us to ascend to a different qualitative level of progress.

Today, when the whole world is sinking under the troubles of the path of suffering, we want to show to people and ourselves how to advance on the path of Torah. We are at the head, as owners of the method, and they after us, until we all come to the beautiful goal.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: Can you describe in a few words what one should expect in the spiritual world?

Answer: It is impossible to describe the feeling of the spiritual world in words. How can the feeling of infinity, the ascent above time—when two opposite poles connect and the past, present, and future merge in one point—be conveyed to a person who perceives the world only thorough his current corporeal senses?

If you change one millimeter in the angle of your vision in this space, you will see a totally different world. If you change it by another millimeter, you will see another new world. It all depends on your position regarding the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). You choose the angle of vision by yourself, and then another section of an infinite reality is immediately revealed to you.

However, it is impossible to explain that since these pictures do not include the visual images we are used to. It is possible to teach a person the spiritual mechanics, to explain how the transition from one state to another occurs and how to perform different actions, but it is impossible to convey what he will feel then. In order to do so, he must be ready for a spiritual sensation.

On every spiritual level, there is the expansion of the mind and an exceptional feeling that cannot be compared to anything in this world. There is no way to express this, not even in music or in colors.

No matter how hard artists have tried to approach this in the late phases of the history of painting, in impressionism, this whole stream stopped, having reached a dead end. A person has no other greater means to express his inner world.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 9/7/12

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Question: Our dissemination is like a medication for a disease. But pills are usually bitter, and if a person doesn’t feel that he is ill, he won’t take them. Can we disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah like a sweet liquid medicine?

Answer: If people don’t suffer at all, you have to give them something sweet for egoism, and this is impossible. It’s because then they will perceive your message in the religious light: “Add a little and you will earn for yourself the world to come. Everything is good with you even now, but if you exert a bit, it will simply be terrific…..” Such promises have been developed by religions and they are suitable for addressing everybody—such a pleasant, sweet additive.

However, we talk about corrections, and they are possible only out of the recognition of evil. After all, their meaning is that I’m corrupted and have to correct myself. How can we make it clear for people? Actually, we don’t realize that today only the smallest flaws are being revealed in humanity. In comparison to spirituality, they are simply meager. It’s because we are at the lowest, most filthy step of the ladder, in this world. There are 125 such steps in total, and they lead us to the world of Infinity (∞).

The particularity of our degree is that suffering here is imaginary, like the entire world. In truth, this is not suffering, but little “bites,” although they seem to us like tremendous problems that often determine our life and death. All of them are tiny in comparison to what happens in the five spiritual worlds. Big desires and great suffering lie there in particular. The negativity (-) is huge there as is pain related to it. An now we are receiving “injections,” which make up all the suffering of this world.

The aim is for us to acquire a screen and enter the spiritual world where we will be able to endure spiritual deficiencies and problems that are a million times greater than what is happening here. There we will be able to evaluate them in the Reflected Light, in the restriction, in rejection, feeling them in front of us and not inside.

The spiritual vessels and unfilled desires are hideously big, and it’s impossible to endure them. And for this reason, I hold them before me, feel them in “rejection,” evaluate them in my mind and feeling from a distance. Then I’m able to recognize the greatness of this suffering brought about by my irresponsibility, helplessness, and guilt before the entire world. And this allows me to transition from the left line to the right one.

Possibly, this will help you understand why we need the vessels of bestowal at all. The fact is that it’s simply impossible to go through such degrees, such fluctuations of negativity and positivity in the vessels of reception. It’s far beyond our ideas about life and death. This is darkness that can be managed only if I learn to distance myself from it and acquire a screen, bestowal, love. Only then will I be able to endure it and to transform it from evil into goodness.

Each of us has to feel responsibility much greater than that at home or in general, in one’s personal life. Only then will a person advance along the spiritual path. A person has to realize correctly his current state in particular. Bestowal begins now: Although in his egoistic desire, a person feels no harm to oneself, nevertheless, he must feel it in the bestowing desire. Let him work on it, let him care about it, let him implement it artificially, putting in all the effort. Whoever doesn’t do it creates a problem for themselves and also for all of us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2012, “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress” 

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Baal HaSulam, “A Handmaid Is Heir to Her Mistress”: The Higher Roots, called “Externality,” as we have explained above, are generally called “handmaid” and “slave.” This aims to show that they do not intend to harm at all, as it may seem in superficial observation. Instead, they serve the internality, like the slave and the handmaid who serve their masters.

It seems that the world is full of conflicts, wars, hatred, and troubles, and although we could really manage among us by cooperation and mutuality, eventually everything is aimed at one thing: Even in the current situation everyone is serving one another. It is very hard to accept this and yet that’s the way it is. The relations among us may seem unpleasant and awful, but still everyone serves others.

Of course, we cannot accept this form of fulfillment; on the contrary, we can sustain the same thing in a faster, better, and more comfortable manner. Still we have to accept the upper Providence: no matter what happens, everything happens for the purpose of mutual correction.

Question: Today I hear on the news that the Iranian leaders want to destroy Israel. Do I have to say to myself: “That’s good, it serves us?”

Answer: There is no doubt that it serves us, but we could accept the current phase of our development in a more pleasant and comfortable way if we related to what is happening correctly. The problem is in us, in the Jewish people and so we summon upon ourselves specifically this form of external pressure instead of a friendly attitude.

The forces of development are expressed this way since we are not preparing ourselves to accept them correctly. Who else is to blame for that but us? This is where all the accusations of the Jews stem from.

After all, the initiative is in our hands, we have the method and around us are desires that cry out: “Why aren’t you coming with the correction?!” Instead of with presents and signs of love, they approach us with threats since we don’t give them what they need.

On the whole, the world is balanced, and that is the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). If we make it lose its balance by not judging the world to the scale of merit, the scale of guilt rises, of not fulfilling our obligation. Rav Kook writes about it: If it is impossible to blow a kosher Shofar of redemption, the enemies of Israel come, Amalek, Hitler, etc. and blow in our ears…and evoke the redemption. He says that Amalek Hitler, etc, evoke the redemption.

Further on he says: Nationality is also part of the rod of the “Jews’ troubles,” here too we see the redemption, but you cannot bless this Shofar.

“You cannot bless,” but it is also a Shofar…

The whole point is that we are in the world of Ein Sof, and we are the ones who determine how it will appear to us, which of its parts will seem “white” to us and which will seem “black.” So there is nothing to cry about. Ahmadinejad awakens us to reach the correction faster. In addition to that the global crisis pushes us. If it began in some distant place and has reached us, it means that we are lagging behind in our development, in our ability to present the method of correction to the nations of the world.

What is worse is that we subconsciously hope that as a result of the troubles they will understand us instead of having to run to them to explain in every possible way the solution to the problem. We don’t worry about it the way we should. There is a lot we have to do, but we act irresponsibly, not feeling that we are guilty of what is happening, and so the troubles are nearing us. It won’t be as people threaten, it will be much worse than that.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/12, “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress”

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Question: What should I do if I feel glad that there are crises, since they show that we are right?

Answer: We are right in saying that the world doesn’t see a solution to the crisis, but if we could explain what is happening to the general public, there would be no need for the blows. People would reach a much deeper and wider understanding of the current events, and they know what should be done.

Today people are just suffering from shock. But, we can sweeten his troubles by explaining things, by corrections and mutual incorporation. Now the same level of relief that we could convey to him turns into hatred towards us. People don’t know why they hate us, and the point is that the time has come for the general public to be corrected, especially in Israel and to some extent all over the world. On the whole we feel the blows upon ourselves.

So let’s see if you feel happy when your negligence and inattention will hit you like a boomerang. By the way, it refers to each of us.

Baal HaSulam says in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” item 71: In such a generation, all the destructors among the Nations of the World raise their heads and wish primarily to destroy and to kill the Children of Israel, as it is written (Yevamot 63), “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.” This means, as it is written in the above corrections, that they cause poverty, ruin, robbery, killing, and destruction in the whole world.

A person rejoices in all the troubles in the world: “I have told you that things will be bad, now you see that I was right!” What kind of stinking ego can that be. Of course it is in each of us, but we mustn’t let it hold the reins and agree that this slogan will be inscribed on our flag. We mustn’t sit and do nothing and see how people suffer. Can we treat the world this way? Is there room for such a person among our friends?
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/12, Article “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress”

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When a person looks at his history, at the several decades that he has lived, he sees how the Creator has led him to his current state by gradually bringing the person closer to Him, by putting him through so many states that seemed unnecessary, ridiculous, and utterly pointless situations, periods of life that seemed absolutely unnecessary.

Actually when a person accepts everything, even if he doesn’t understand why he had to go through all that yet, the gratitude for the fact that the Creator has brought him to his current state along this path and for the fact that he is beginning to reveal the Creator now, in his gratitude by justifying the past, he comes to the right intention, to the correct state in the present.

“Article 26” in the book Shamati, “One’s Future Depends On and Is Tied to His Gratitude for the Past,” also speaks about how impossible it is to relate to the future correctly if you don’t justify your past states by totally accepting the fact that it all comes from “There is none else besides Him.” If this happens, it is a sign that everything had to happen the way it did until the present, and a person must not regret anything that happened one way or the other.

Only starting from the current state, when all the previous accounts are over, can a person be thankful in advance for the future and be in a state of free bestowal, free movement towards the Creator, when there is nothing negative in their past relations. By the correction of a person’s attitude regarding the past he prepares himself for the future.

The Creator puts us through all sorts of different twists and turns and metamorphoses intentionally, and retains a negative memory of these events in us. We actually don’t remember the positive moments; we only remember the negative ones because the ego remembers the moments when it didn’t receive, where it was cheated, where it could have won but lost, etc. If I justify the Creator’s Providence in the past, it doesn’t count as the past, but rather is transferred to the future. Thus I build a vessel, the correct attitude to the future, and so I am ready to move forward.

So it is impossible to start from the current moment simply by erasing the past. It was given to us so that now, at this moment, we will be able to look at the future correctly and to relate to the Creator correctly.

If I am totally reconciled and gratefully accept everything that I felt as negative with regard to myself, the world, my relatives, and more distant people, to the Creator and everything that He did to me, if I understand that by that I went through my path, and now thanks to rising above it, despite my ego, despite my egoistic criticism, I can transform all my previous feelings to gratitude, to adhesion to the Creator. It isn’t that I simply forgive Him, but rather understand, perceive, and feel that I am given the chance now to start a connection with Him, so I am ready to reveal Him.

Therefore, a person’s future depends and is tied to his gratitude for the past. If we correct our attitude regarding the past from criticism to gratitude, from sorrow and disappointment to joy, we create the correct vessel for the revelation of the Creator.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/19/12, Workshop 7

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We love the Creator as the source from which we derive pleasure. Clearly, this is egoistic and conditional love. If the Creator sent us affliction instead, we would certainly reply to Him with hatred.

But when a person, called “a worker of the Creator,” doing spiritual work suffers, he associates the affliction with his egoism and tries to relate to the Creator with love. It means that he divides himself into two parts, the part that receives and the one that bestows. In the receiving part, he feels suffering, but he desires to transcend above it. And then, he relates to his sufferings as a “check” that his love does indeed cover all of transgressions and that he can rise above all the states that give him pain.

Then, he understands, sees, and knows for sure that his attitude to the Creator is independent of his ego. Otherwise, he has no means or criteria for testing.

Therefore, the relationship with the Creator is based on the fact that he annuls himself for the sake of bestowal, that he perceives his original egoism as worse than death. But only under this condition can he be sure that his love for the Creator is unconditional and perfect.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/12  

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