Question: If the Torah is the book of instructions telling us about the spiritual path, how can we follow them if we don’t feel anything but this world?

Answer: First we have to rise. The Torah wasn’t written for people who are below the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). Even when it tells us about different events such as the Egyptian exile, the forefathers, or Babel, the real meaning of what is said there can only be revealed by those who are already engaged in the spiritual work, beyond the Machsom.

Everything depends on the level of revelation of the spiritual concepts. The Book of Zohar, for example, explains the word Beresheet (Genesis) in a way that includes the whole path, from the beginning to the end.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/2012, Writings of Rabash

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Shemini” Selected Excerpts
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Tazria and Metzura” Selected Excerpts
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The attribute of bestowal is attained in the group, in society, under special conditions that are described by Kabbalists from the state that was prepared for us by the shattering of First Man (Adam HaRishon), the general soul. If we use the small environment that was given to us correctly, and in it, try to reach mutual bestowal, we will discover that we are in exile in Egypt.

We discover that there is no way we can attain spirituality, the Creator, the attribute of bestowal, if we don’t reach the love of friends first. But all our attempts to reach connection and love of friends end in complete failure, as it is written, “the Children of Israel cried from the work,” because we discovered that we built poor cities, Pithom and Ramses for Pharaoh, which means that we only increased our desire to receive.

Although we despair from this work, we don’t leave it and we shout: “Save us!” After all, our ego, Pharaoh, doesn’t let us connect, and if this goes on this way it will never let us leave the exile and attain the connection with the upper force.

This is really a cry of despair from the bottom of the heart. Then a special, general force called “Moses” is revealed. It is revealed in the group and goes through many changes. Once it is revealed and once it is concealed, until we stabilize this collective force and place it against our ego.

When we are ready to fight our collective ego that disturbs us from connecting by placing the collective force of connection called “Moses” against it, the life or death struggle begins. We support this force as much as we can and even above our power! Here we discover in our general collective point the help from Above. At this point, the Creator says: “Come to Pharaoh, let’s fight him together!” this means that He agrees to connect with our collective point, and so he takes us out of Egypt.

On the way different phenomena occur, which the Haggadah tells us about, and we have to go through all this. It refers only to our attempts to reach connection and to somehow fulfill it. Eventually we come out of this state, of our inability to connect, and attain what we wanted. The method of connection called Torah is revealed to us against the ego and the hatred.

Now the system we can use appears. It is called Torah, the Reforming Light that gradually begins to influence us in order to correct us. There is Mt. Sinai that separates us, the collective ego that stands in the way of the connection among us. When the Light corrects the hatred into connection, this mountain becomes the “mountain of Holiness.”

This is what the holiday of Pesach is about (from the Hebrew word meaning “to skip”), which symbolizes the transitions from exile to freedom. Exile is my inability to connect. I don’t know how to do it, but I yearn for it and demand it.

Redemption symbolizes the fact that I was given a chance, a system, a method that enables me to correct the evil in me and to turn it into good. Good means mutual guarantee, love of friends, in which I discover the force that enables me to fulfill this attitude and adhere to the Creator. After all, He is the goal I yearned for from the start.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/12, Shamati #41

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All of creation is a desire to receive that seems to be divided into four levels: the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking. We have to connect all of them and to bring them to adhesion with the upper force that created these desires. The adhesion is attained by equivalence of form, by changing the manner in which we use our desire. We can’t change the intention in the desire on the levels of the inanimate, vegetative, or animate because they’re not developed enough. It can only be done on the level of the speaking.

When a person develops, he reaches a state in which he feels that he must correct his matter, his desires. He simply doesn’t see any other way out of the crisis he’s in: the personal crisis, the general crisis, or both of them together, which is a result of the development of the desire. He reaches full recognition of evil and then he understands that it isn’t in his power to change his own nature and that he needs external help, “treatment.”

Among the people there is the group that attains this from the study and that must explain this to the whole world. Without the group, humanity would advance towards the recognition of the evil of its ego without being able to correct it, through terrible suffering.

The hard part is in revealing the upper force and in understanding that only it can help us. We see how hard it is to recognize in difficult situations that all the evil comes from the Creator and that the correction can only come from Him and that “There is none else besides Him”; only He brings us the suffering and only He can bring us the good. We’ll be able to reach the good only if we know Him and ask for His help only for a particular purpose.

This is the long process of learning how to advance; it’s very difficult to reach Him and to pay for it by suffering. Therefore, a group of people was chosen from all of humanity who can wake up and advance towards this attainment of their own will and to look for the answer to the question “What is the point of my life?” when they are not pushed by suffering on the beastly level but on the “human” level. From Adam HaRishon (the first man) such people appeared in the world. They need to pass on the Torah, the “instruction,” the method for correcting the ego, to all of humanity according to the necessity that each of them feels.

This is what has happened throughout history with anyone who thought about the meaning of life; today this epidemic is spreading to all of humanity, and everyone will begin to ask: “What is the meaning of our lives?” Although this question has two sides, the special ones ask, “What is the meaning of my life if I don’t know the purpose of creation and its source? If I don’t attain it, then my life will be worse than death.” The rest of humanity asks about the meaning of life as it sees that it suffers and we are slipping lower and lower. A person always checks himself relative to others, to the previous day, and to what is expected the next day.

So eventually everyone will reach the need to correct their nature. But this is only possible with the help of the upper force, with the help of the Reforming Light called the “Torah.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/12, Shamati #6

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People who are not engaged in spiritual work took a different Torah, which one can understand, carry out, demand rewards, even arrange exams, and count the memorized pages. And a person who aspires to spiritual development is always facing the unknown, impossible, contrary to his will and reason, and thus he needs faith, that is, the force of bestowal, which is higher than the force of reception.

This is called faith above reason. Thus, spiritual advancement happens, and it is said: “The opinion of the Torah is opposite to the opinion of the landlords.”

This is the path for everyone who has found the “Book.” But there are many friends who wander in the desert, suffering from their unhappy existence, and who would like to improve their conditions. They do not seek spiritual attainment and ascent to the next higher degree, but merely want to improve their lives on the degree where they are now. And they should be treated as the Rambam writes: “Women, slaves, children, and old people are taught gradually, until they gain wisdom.”

They will also advance, and some day, a spark, which is now hidden deep inside, will break through. And in the meantime, they should be taught to the extent of their desire, for the sake of the goals that they understand before they come closer.

They will think that they act to fulfill their egoism. But since we teach them, and the concealed Light that Reforms passes through us to them, wisdom will gradually come to them, and slowly secrets will be revealed to them. In this way, the whole humanity will advance towards the goal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, “The Last Generation”

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The Babylonian Talmud, Treatise Taanit 7: He who engages in the Torah for its sake, the Torah becomes the potion of life for him, and he who engages in the Torah not for its sake, it becomes the potion of death for him.

If there is such great danger concealed in the Torah, perhaps it’s better not to engage in it? After all, if you study correctly, you “rise to heaven,” and if you don’t, “you sink into the ground,” into the abyss.

The problem is that if you don’t study correctly, the Light concealed in the Torah puts you into states that are opposite from the truth, but you don’t even notice that. The Torah doesn’t bring you death, but rather “the potion of death,” when you don’t feel that you are dead. You can study the Torah day and night, memorize page after page by heart, and at the same time be dead, meaning not understand that this is totally opposite from the goal for which the Torah was given.

The Torah was given to us so that we will reach the love of others. It says: “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice because the Light in it reforms.” What does it mean that it reforms? It’s the “great law of the Torah”—”love thy friend as thyself,” or in other words, the general goal of everything that we do according to the Torah.

In every precept we perform, in every detail, we must advance towards the love of others. Only through the love of others will we reach the final goal, the love of the Creator and adhesion with Him, according to the equivalence of form between a person and the Creator.

Therefore, before the study, we have to prepare ourselves and keep all the necessary conditions so that the study of the Torah will bring us the desired goal: adhesion, that is, the correction of our intentions from egoistic to altruistic. This work is clarified only in the group, where we can check ourselves practically.

Each time we will discover hate among us and will get a chance to rise above it towards love. To do that, we need to organize ourselves correctly: We want to connect in order to reach adhesion and to discover the Creator in it, thereby bringing Him contentment. It’s possible to discover the Creator only in our collective vessel of bestowal. It’s necessary that we prepare ourselves for the lesson in this way so that we’ll approach the study correctly.

Question: If the potion of death doesn’t let me feel that I am dead, does the potion of life enable me to feel death?

Answer: I feel that I am living from the “potion.” It isn’t an ordinary existence anymore. In the intention of in order to bestow, above my nature, I attain life. The potion has the effect of making me lie to my egoistic desire and not to myself. On the other hand, the potion of death drowns me in the lie, which I don’t notice, and then I see myself as “righteous,” although I haven’t even entered the rank of “wicked.”

Question: How can the wisdom of Kabbalah save a person from the potion of death?

Answer: It can do it by the Light that Reforms. If you arrange all the conditions for yourself correctly, if you enter the group and disseminate, which is an inseparable part of the preparation these days, and if you participate in everything that the group experiences in order to reveal the connection, then you are preparing correctly for the study, and your intention during the study is not to read yet another paragraph, but to receive the Light that Reforms. It isn’t by chance that Baal HaSulam wrote in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 18: “…that while practicing Torah, they did not set their minds and hearts to draw the Light in the Torah….”

Everything is solved by the preparation. The right study is the study that you have prepared yourself for correctly. Then you read the text correctly, with the right intention, in the right group, with all the necessary conditions. And what do you get from the study? You get the chance to work and to rise: the feeling of hate and rejection of the friends….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2012, “Introduction to TES”

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “HaShavua, KiTisa” Selected Excerpts
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Question: Since I came to the convention I am talking with the “Pharaoh” in me; I ask him questions and he answers me. He says: “whatever you do, you are enjoying it.” I go to work in the kitchen, Pharaoh says: “it doesn’t matter, you are still enjoying it.” If I clean the toilets, I enjoy that too. Finally I say to Pharaoh that I have one goal for which I came to the convention, another goal to reach the state in which everyone is connected. Pharaoh in me says that even this connection I am waiting for, is eventually for me. If so, what should I do?

Answer: Enjoy! I say this seriously. If I can do different things for the society, both physical and mental, to think about them all the time and to enjoy it, that’s wonderful. Who says that we have to suffer?

But after several such actions, you will suddenly see that you don’t enjoy it anymore. Suddenly you will ask: “What do I need all this for, why?” and so on. Then “Pharaoh” is revealed.

At first there are the “seven years of satiation,” everything is nice in an egoistic manner. Indeed, your Pharaoh is right, he says that whatever you do, you do it for him. So do it for him, like in Egypt in the first seven years of satiation where everyone works doing everything for Pharaoh and then eventually discover that it is the force of evil.

Why does the evil Pharaoh suddenly appear instead of the good Pharaoh? It is because we advance toward the Creator. As we advance, the desire that previously looked good begins to seem evil. The group is good, the study is good, the friends are good, I want to be with them and to be on duty, to clean the toilets, to work in the kitchen, everything is nice and I enjoy every minute that I am in this society—this is how every beginner who comes to the group feels. Then suddenly he begins to feel disrespect, to explode, not to care about anything, he doesn’t feel like doing things and doesn’t want anything: “What duties? What for?”

Why? This is because the “seven years of hunger” begin. What is hunger? A person doesn’t feel pleasure in being in the group, in being with the friends—and this is advancement.

Everything is revealed according to the order of the degrees. We should be happy and serious and follow that line carefully, and accept whatever is revealed along the way. The Torah tells us about it; after all, the Torah is an instruction (they have the same root in Hebrew); it tells us where you will get stuck and what you should do on the way to the revelation of Godliness.

So you have no choice, you have to enter Egypt, you have to do this kind of work, and you have to come out. Only then do you receive the Torah, the instruction of how to advance more clearly.

This is because the Torah is only about the correction of the desires. You correct your 613 desires from the intention of “in order to receive” to the intention of “in order to bestow,” and then you discover the Creator.
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From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #2, 2/23/12

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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “HaShavua,” Selected Excerpts
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