Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Thus, because of the above necessity, the Torah was given specifically to the Israeli nation, solely to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for it was inconceivable that any stranger would take part in it. Because of that, the Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over.

It isn’t just about one of the nations that was suddenly given the Torah. The “Israeli nation” is a collection of people who left ancient Babylon. They connected under the leadership of Abraham who taught them to connect through ties of love above hatred. Of course, they didn’t want that, just like all the other Babylonians, but they accepted Abraham’s method. Thanks to the “spark” that is concealed in them, they understood that it is actually a method of correction and that the egoistic nature, the hatred, was given so that we will unite above it and build a group in which there will be these two discernments, one opposite the other: hatred below and love above. Thus they arrived at “Mt. Sinai,” at the state in which we reveal the upper force.

When they connected, they began to work through the connection according to Abraham’s method and then Isaac’s, and then Jacob’s, which means in “three lines.” In this process they received a growing “hardening of the heart” and in their work they went through the phases of HBD, HGT, NHY, including the exile in Egypt. This means that they felt the difficult internal states and overcame them by rising above their ego and reaching the necessity for adhesion. The ego separated them extremely, and they still tried to hold on, as much as they could, by at least keeping their inclination for connection.

Eventually, the necessary tension among them was created—on one hand, the ego that erupted in the form of the “ten plagues of Egypt” and the inaccessible “Pharaoh” on the inside, and on the other hand, the recognition of the necessity of the connection, which they built above them. They were even ready to go to the desert without any reward, just to have a chance to serve the Creator. This is what they demanded from Pharaoh when Moses gave him the Creator’s message: “Let my people go, so that they shall serve me.”

Then they reached the state in which they could receive the Torah, which means the Light that Reforms. There was enough tension between the ego that was revealed and the pressure aimed at connection. They were given the condition—to become “one man with one heart,” to “love thy friend as thyself,” and they accepted it by saying: “We shall do and we shall hear.” Then the revelation of Light that Reforms began, which means that they received the Torah.

Thus they became a nation. Now they had a collective infrastructure that united them: the Light united them. Without the Light, there is no connection among them, which means that there is no nation. Therefore, Baal HaSulam says that Israel in exile is not a nation but “a bag of nuts.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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When we aspire directly to the Creator, we study Torah. In other words, we study the actions of the Light, which corrects us.

With regard to that it is said, “From Your actions I will know You.” When we study the Creator’s actions, we begin to understand and attain Him. As a result we come to adhesion with Him.

To study Torah means to study that what the Light is doing within us. Ultimately, when a person reads, he should feel right away as the Light performs changes within him. A transformation comes out from every word, from every letter. After all, these letters, these symbols of spiritual properties, are built by Kabbalists.

When a person reads them, he can see how within they act and correct him from receiving to bestowal. With every word, the person notices changes within himself. This is the way he reveals the actions of the Creator and from these actions the Creator Himself becomes revealed to him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/10, The Zohar

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Question: If the forefathers were corrected and the sons reached mutual guarantee, for whom was the Torah, the method, actually given? For whom is it intended, Israel or the nations of the world?

Answer: The Torah was undoubtedly meant for the nations of the world. It says that the Creator turned to seventy nations and offered them the Torah, but none of these egoistic desires—ones that don’t have the spiritual spark, that aren’t able to correct themselves by keeping in contact with the Light, and that cannot respond to it correctly—were able to receive it. The “matter” of the desire to receive cannot understand the process of the ascent and the change brought about by the Light if it doesn’t have that spark.

So, how can the spark be inserted? For that, there is another system called “the people of Israel,” without which it is impossible to turn to the egoistic desire and start working with it. Even billions of years of evolution will not help if there is no spark of the Light inside the ego. The inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature cannot rise; they are kinds of desire that cannot do it.

However, there is one kind of desire Israel that desires to be Yashar El (straight to the Creator). The entire world recognizes the fact that it is different and hates it without even knowing why.

The children of Israel, in their turn, discover that they are different, although they try to be like everyone else. There are even those who believe that it is another race, and there is a grain of truth in this assumption, although it is on a different level.

Our entire history proves that there is something special here, a special, natural phenomenon. Accordingly, the hatred that the nations of the world feel is also a natural phenomenon, and there is nothing we can do about it. Even those who have never been in contact with the Jews hate them. It comes from the inside. Even a person who has never heard about the cause of his repulsion simply feels that it is different.

This hate is rooted in religions, which only hasten the process by externally emphasizing the difference between the groups. It all stems from the difference between the general desire to receive and the part in which the Light dresses, which has to be the link for others. This is its only role.

Therefore, as it is written, “The Lord thy God has chosen thee.” Do whatever you want, He chose you, and that’s it. No matter how you regard your mission, you will fulfill it anyway because it is His Choice.

There is nothing special about you, but it is simply that, after the division into the “people of Israel” and the “nations of the world,” everyone has his role, his job, his free will. All this is predetermined from Above, and no one is better than another.

So, the children of Israel must teach the method of correction to others. Actually, how else can you bring contentment to the Creator if He initially turned to the nations of the world? The Creator wants to correct the basic desire to receive, but He has to build a system through which the entire process will go. Thus, Israel is the system, so do what you have to do.

Of course, this big desire to receive has to be revealed in the vessels of the nations of the world, but there should be no difference between us and them since it is one, whole vessel. Eventually, everything is revealed in the collective vessel as all its parts connect. As it is written, “He is One and His name is One.” In the general vessel, everything becomes “round,” inseparable.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/04/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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From Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” (text of the article in bold):

And you evidently find that the giving of the Torah, to a person, had to be delayed until they came out of Egypt, which means until he escapes his ego and decides that he doesn’t want to be connected to it any more.

Only then do they became a nation of their own. Now a person is ready to connect with all the friends in order to develop above the ego.

Then all their needs were provided for by themselves without dependence on others. The group wants to establish itself in a way that only the attribute of bestowal will reside among the friends in order to create and to stabilize the force in order to bestow upon the Creator.

This qualified them to receive the above Arvut, and then they were given the Torah. By that they qualify themselves to the connection called “mutual guarantee,” that is stabilized and revealed to them by the Light that Reforms, called the “Torah.”

It turns out that even after the reception of the Torah, if a handful from Israel betray and return to the filth of self-love… This means that it isn’t speaking about the final success, since they can always return and fall and leave the mutual guarantee. …without consideration of their friends, that same amount of need that is put in the hands of those few would burden Israel with the need to provide for it themselves. This is because those few will not pity them at all. If every member in the group doesn’t invest all his powers and add to the mutual guarantee, to the general mutual connection, or if he completely leaves the way, his power is lacking in the whole system and because of such people everyone descends.

Hence, the fulfillment of the Mitzva of loving one’s friend will be prevented from the whole of Israel. The vessel is called “mutual guarantee,” and the Light, the feeling that fills them, is called “love.”

Thus, these rebels cause those who keep the Torah to remain in their filth of self-love. The “keepers of the Torah” are those who constantly worry about connection and for that draw the Light that Reforms so that their connection will be compatible with the Light and will grow in intensity towards a greater connection with the Creator, such people constantly hold on to the Torah and the Mitzvot (commandments), which means to corrections and connections which are increasingly greater and more complicated.

…for they will not be able to engage in the Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself,” and complete their love for others without their help. It is necessary to constantly reinforce the mutual guarantee, the connection among them, and it is there that the Light of love is revealed in an increasingly growing intensity.

As a result, all of Israel are responsible for one another, both on the positive side and on the negative side. “Israel,” which is the yearning for Yashar- El (straight to the Creator) is possible only by mutual guarantee. On the other hand, without mutual guarantee there is no Israel, which means that they are not called “Israel” if there is no mutual guarantee among them.

“Israel” and “mutual guarantee” are synonyms that symbolize the spiritual vessel in which the Light is revealed.

On the positive side, if they keep the Arvut until each cares and satisfies the needs of his friends… A person worries about the whole general vessel, so that he will be in mutual guarantee and in connection on all sides, in a whole integral system.

They can fully keep the Torah and Mitzvot. They constantly add corrections to what is revealed to them. Of course, corruptions are revealed to them, as it was with the children of Israel in the desert. Here the Torah is needed, which means the study and instruction that shows them how to correct the corruptions that are revealed after the exodus from Egypt. By rising above their “Egypt”, the children of Israel begin to stabilize the nation of Israel, by drawing the Light called the Torah and by being constantly on guard, ready to learn how to do that. This action, this process, is the “nation of Israel,” that advances straight to the Creator.

They can fully keep the Torah and Mitzvot, meaning bring contentment to their Maker. And this is actually the goal and the reason for this whole work. Only two states can be here—either mutual guarantee or self-love, it cannot be somewhere in between.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/03/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 138: Yet, you should know that the distance between the dresses of the Torah in this world and the dresses of the Torah in the world of Atzilut is immeasurable. …

“Dresses of the Torah” stand for imaginary pictures. In fact, there are no dresses whatsoever, but rather there exists the Light and a vessel that portrays its own “reality” against the Light to the degree of their similarity. The Light stands for absolute bestowal, and the sensation of the vessel depends on the level of its correspondence to the Light.

This is what is meant by dresses of the Torah, the wrappers that conceal the Light from the vessel, from the person. And of course, at the level of this world where one is maximally corrupt, these screens that cover the Light happen to be the greatest possible cover-ups.

Yet, the Torah itself, meaning the Light within the dresses, is unchanged at all between the Torah of Atzilut and the Torah of this world, as it is written, “I the Lord change not” (Malachi 3:6).

The Light constantly remains in complete rest; however, it descends to a person depending on one’s level. It goes through the “dresses,” which are intended to help in a way that a person acquires them, and covers his ego, and by doing so reveals the Light, since he manages to change the type of dresses from obscuring to revealing.

This is so because the concealment is the reason for the disclosure. After its correction, during the disclosure, the concealment is to the disclosure as a wick is to the light that grips it. The greater the concealment, the greater Light will cling to it when it is corrected. Thus, all these crude dresses that the Torah is clothed in, in this world, their value is not at all inferior to the Light that clothes it, but quite the contrary.

Let’s mark the Light with red and the dresses with blue. The lower we descend through the worlds of Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya (ABYA), the more dresses we find. The Light of Infinity is constant; everything depends on the place where the receiving person is. Of course, major dresses of the world of Assiya finally disclose the most powerful Light to a person. It is called “the opposite order of the Lights and vessels.”

Answer: Concealing screens. In spirituality, there is a law of similarity of properties: If you possess a certain negative potential (-), the Light will manifest itself negatively (-) so that there is equality between them (=). Otherwise, you are unable to stay alive.

The Light has to diminish itself to your degree. That’s why the system of worlds (Olamot) exists—the system of concealments (Alamot): The Light decreases to the extent that you can tolerate it.

Question: What turns concealing dresses into revealing?

Answer: A person does. By rising above reason, one makes a decision to create a dress and demands that it hide his egoism; at the same time, he strives to be above his ego and to rise to the level of bestowal. This is how a person acquires a screen and starts working “on top” of it.

In the same way, the fire clings to the wick: The depth of our desires, our separation from the Creator, and our aspirations eventually transcend into the Light. There is no Light on its own. Our efforts enhance the thickness of the desire, and the darkness starts to illuminate. Without the wick there is no fire since fire cannot burn in a void; it needs fuel, which will shine and illuminate as the Light.

Question: What do we need for that?

Answer: We need to accept concealment as the biggest help that allows us to gradually move on and approach the giving force.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Kabbalists wrote their books for two groups of people: For the group called “the level of the forefathers,” people like them who have attained spirituality and who will be enriched by these texts and connect so that they can perform corrections in the general system, thus preparing our ascent, and they also wrote for “the level of the sons,” which is us, in order to give us something to hold on to by which we can draw the Reforming Light.

We are in the same system, but we cannot evoke its influence upon us by ourselves. In the meantime it influences us by itself, and we advance by sufferings. But if we evoke the Lights, we hasten time and begin to advance more quickly by making the way easier.

How can we do that? According to the advice of Kabbalists, we perform different actions that are similar in quality to this advice. Their attribute is bestowal and so according to the level and the state we are in, we need to express our readiness to bestow. We give each other “presents,” we connect, we speak about it during the lessons, and we clarify the words of the Kabbalists. Then our inclinations, desires, and efforts become adapted to the system that they describe. We want to know what we study; we want it to be revealed in us, and then the Lights come to us; they are still unrevealed, but “surround,” and bring us closer to the revelation.

So all our work, all our life, and all our existence has to be aimed at evoking the Reforming Light. This is called “to study the Torah.” It says: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice for it, since the Light hidden in it returns a person to the Source.” We operate according to this formula. We must examine all its components to properly use them to reform every component and the formula as a whole.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” p. 137: From the aforementioned, you will learn that the Holy Torah, whose Height is endless, did not emanate or emerge from before Him as it appears to us here in this world, since it is known that “The Torah and the Creator are one,” and this is not at all apparent in the Torah of our world.

Question: If the Creator is completely concealed, how can we talk about the real Torah? After all, the “Torah” is correction.

Answer: That is why we are talking about the Torah of our world. The “Torah” is essence, connection with the Creator. The “Creator” is the general Light, but the “Torah” is partial lights that reveal the desire, correct and fill it.

In our world, there is a means that allows us to reach the Light, the Creator. We aren’t locked in desires; we are activated by a slight illumination. Suppose, I am drinking tea and enjoying it; in other words, there is a light, corresponding to my desire, and I work with it: I want or don’t want, accept or reject. We are talking about micro-portions of the Light that can be obtained in the egoistic desires of our world.

Besides that, there is a degree, preceding the spiritual world. This is something completely different, the state Lo Lishma, when in despair, I start using my material, egoistic desires to achieve bestowal. And although my motives are questionable, this is already connection, a possibility to apply efforts on the way.

Thus, I was given the end of the thread. As if Kabbalists left me a “note,” and if I use it as intended, follow their advice, then I establish connection with them, and they help me as the grown-ups help a child.

I was given an initial desire, the point in the heart or troubles, from which I need to escape. I was awakened, and I am not just an “animal”; the mind and desire, Reshimot, inner states and external situation, fear for the future of the world, and my own future wake up in me. The foundation has been laid.

And afterward, no matter what, at some time I will need so-called the help from Above. And searching will help me find the truth—the Light that Reforms.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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We need to try to imagine that all of reality is within one person and that the Torah tells us about him. Thus, all advancement takes place within one desire, one man, starting from that same moment that he begins to know himself until he attaches himself to the Creator, to the path that leads to the revelation of the upper force. On the way, he goes through all kinds of states. He needs to try to categorize these states, to define them as “Babylon,” “Canaan,” the levels of “Abraham,” “Isaac,” and “Jacob,” the entrance into Egypt, and slavery in Egypt.

All of this happens inside one desire, within one man, and only the attitude of the states in which he finds himself changes. He begins at the level of Jacob in which he begins to discover the evil inclination, the work of the “left line.” Against it, he begins to work with the “right line.”

This means that the preparation made from Above that is called “fathers” has ended, and the period of the “sons” begins when the person begins to develop himself. He becomes acquainted with his ego more and more until he reaches the sensation and the recognition that he is in slavery to the ego.

Then, he begins to work against it, and he asks the Light for correction. A person undergoes these two forms of development, the work with the two lines and the stage that precedes that even before entering the spiritual world, before beginning to work for the sake of bestowal (Lishma). 
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From the first part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, April 23, 2012, Writings of Rabash 

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