Question: If we have to view the group only as its inner, corrected state, how then does it differ from the rest of the world that also seems only to be uncorrected?

Answer: There is no difference in the inner meaning. But when you look at the group, you can’t help but notice that their aspiration to spirituality manifests externally, that they come to the lesson every day. This means they strive to reach spirituality but haven’t yet.

You have an external screen where you see how they yearn for bestowal while currently remaining in the egoistic system that intends to consume everything for self gratification. However, they already know, somewhat understand, and even feel that there is a chance to come to a different attitude to the world: to replace consumption with bestowal.

They know that there are two forms of experiencing life in the universe:

1. A life where I instinctively try to gobble up everything because I was born this way, which is regarded as “the evil inclination” we are born with.
2. And there is another attitude to life: bestowal, stepping outside oneself, when my “self” per se doesn’t exist unless it is included into all others. And this second approach is the one we wish to achieve.

It turns out that we already have two approaches. Everybody is living according to the 1st principle so far by consuming everything into oneself. This is what we are presently perceiving, “this world.” But we dream to reach another outlook on life and see the spiritual reality which exists in bestowal.

What will happen with the corporeal reality then? Will it disappear? No, it won’t. It will remain for as long as you need it, to the extent it needs to be employed as a necessary component.

So, now you should be able to understand what your material body is: It is a necessary measure that you have to preserve in order to keep consuming for your own benefit and not to bestow. But in reality, there is no body. Yet, to the extent that you need to be present in the egoistic consumption, you continue to exist in this material reality. And to the extent that you step outside of yourself, you enter the spiritual world.
[31024]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/10, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Article “You Are Partners with Me”

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All of the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks solely about the acts of bestowal that are realized in our mutual connection. The entire reality except this world exists in bestowal. This world appears before us in the opposite property, where everyone receives for himself as much as possible. In this tendency to “consume into oneself” we experience our corporeal reality.

Imagine tiny little desires scattered on a flat surface. If each of them intends to make maximal profit by taking advantage of all the others, they create a mutual connection that is regarded as “this world,” in all forms of its matter. In this case, people get tied by hierarchy, marry, bare children, unite, and all of it happens according to their intention to derive pleasure from the others. And this is the way they settle among themselves.

This is what we call “our world,” “this reality,” at all of its levels: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking (human). We see the others as close or distant, depend on them to a greater or lesser degree, but all of it is according to our intention to feel pleasure.

We build this reality ourselves, with our intentions to enjoy whatever there is. But if someone says: “No! I wish to relate to the others with the intention to bestow, not to receive,” he will experience his new attitude to the same reality as spiritual world. It is described as: “I saw a reverse world.”

Everything is determined by intention. To switch from the intention “for myself” to the intention to bestow means to cross the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). In this intention of bestowal, there are 125 degrees, until we reach a perfect intention, absolute bestowal.

The reality we perceive right now in the intention for self gratification is imaginary. It is given to us solely so that we may use it as a stepping stone to the true perception of reality.

We received this egoistic attitude to others on purpose so that we could work on ourselves starting with it and further on, transition to the property of bestowal, and by ascending the 125 spiritual degrees, explore the connection between us ever more, that is, climb the rungs of the spiritual worlds. Only our intention determines what we experience, this or the upper world.
[31030]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/10, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Article “You Are Partners with Me”

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Question: I sit in the lesson reading The Zohar and exert effort along with the others. Can it be regarded as “sacrificing desire”?

Answer: No, it can’t. How do I know what you are reading? Perhaps you are simply enjoying what The Zohar explains in such easy, attractive, and exciting language.

Why does it excite us, and what does it wish to explain? The Zohar explains that if I wish to be connected with you, I will undergo the states it describes. It’s that simple! What do the author’s of The Zohar say? “We gather while feeling hate for each other; we are separated by a total abyss. And then we start trying to unite.”

At that time, there was no Book of Zohar in front of them; they were just about to write it themselves. What do they write then? They begin mutual work and start searching: “How do we get closer to one another? What can we do to experience any closeness at all?

How can we find connection between us, the network tying us together, which already exists? What relations define this connection and what are its stages? Which internal forces within us are at work: envy, lust, hate, strife for recognition, the right, left, and middle lines? If we correct it, make a restriction, then a screen, and if we rise above our will to receive pleasure (desire), how do we achieve anything? I reject this and that, act this way or the other….”

And so, they started writing The Book of Zohar based on what they underwent in their mutual connection, until they reached such exalted spiritual degrees that each degree was ten times higher than the previous one: from ones to tens, followed by hundreds, then by thousands, and tens of thousands (Ribo). Do you see what levels they reach?! This is the power of their unification. And that is what they wrote about.

Therefore, if you wish to imagine yourself in the same state, then everything they have described will affect you so that you, too, get closer with the others and in your connection with them undergo the same states, until you reach the state where the perfect Kli (desire) is filled with the infinite Light.
[30913]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/10, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “You Are Partners with Me”

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Does It Mean that the Creation of the World was in Donation”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “Yitro (Jethro),” Item 1, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 40, Lesson 23
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy,” Lesson 4
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “VaYera,” Selected Excerpts
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Question: What is a “flood” for the group?

Answer: If the group as a whole is unable to overcome its increasing desire, if the friends reach hatred and cannot overcome it, it means they are drowning in the waters of the flood.

When they sense the approaching flood and the forces that overcome them (Gevurot), they must put forth mutual efforts to build an Ark, meaning to express mutual bestowal in order to be saved from every person’s individual egoism and the common hatred. That is exactly how the authors of The Book of Zohar sat down to study, feeling hatred for one another, and then revealed love.

Everything depends on whether or not the friends use the Torah as it was intended, whether they build the Ark, the common Kli of mutual bestowal, unity, and mutual guarantee in which they will be saved from the flood.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If I am always thinking about how to unite with friends while reading The Book of Zohar, then at a specific stage this turns into a “mantra” that repeats by itself and I do not feel the true intention inside me. Should I continue in this manner anyway?

Answer: The fact that your intention isn’t true is natural. After all, we live inside the will to enjoy; that is our nature. We do not have to lie to ourselves, thinking that we are already angels floating up in the sky.

However, from our current state I am trying to do everything in my power to attain something called the quality of bestowal, as it is written, “We shall do and we shall hear.” You should imagine this quality as much as you can. By making efforts you grow like a child who wants to learn from adults and tries with everything he’s got. That is how we always learn and grow.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, The Zohar

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Writings of Rabash, “What is the Flood Water in the Work”: We have to take it upon ourselves to believe in the sages….

Suppose I am ready to believe the words of wisdom, but what does that mean? Do I understand the words of the sages? What is their message?

First of all, we do not work on bodies in the science of Kabbalah. There are no bodies, but only souls. The bodies that appear before us are images of an illusory world.

I am in a desire that manifests as different forms: still, vegetative, animate, and human. “The sages” are the corrected souls that are in the broken system of Adam HaRishon. They can help me and give me support; they can be my mentors and instructors for my broken soul.

Accordingly, that is how we should accept their advice. For example, The Book of Zohar tells us about ten sages of Rabbi Shimon’s group, as well as the prophet Eliyahu, Moses, Aaron, King David, King Solomon, and so on. We shouldn’t perceive them as people living in our world, but as corrected desires or souls. They are in a broken system, which is gradually starting to be restored back to life. These souls are already corrected, partially or in full, and they participate in the correction of the entire system.

In The Book of Zohar I read things like, “Rabbi Shimon said…Rabbi Abba said….” For me they aren’t people who attain the upper world and tell me about it, but rather, these are names of levels of attainment. Through these words I study the ladder of the spiritual degrees: on one degree reality appears this way and another degree that way. It seems as if Kabbalists are telling me about this, but for me they are actually forces or vessels of perception.

For me every sage represents a spiritual notion, might, force, or quality. I don’t look at the names of historical protagonists, but names of spiritual phenomena and levels. That is the “faith in the sages”: I want to attain the same bestowal as the one that’s present on the degrees that I read about. “Faith” is bestowal.

At the lesson a person has to tune into this and aspire to understand how this will influence him. No matter what the book narrates about, I want to penetrate inside the spiritual essence of every word. This means that I believe the words of the sages.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, Writings of Rabash

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Question: You say that we have to develop our sensitivity. Can you explain why this is necessary and how to do it?

Answer: The path of spiritual attainment lies in raising our sensitivity. Habit becomes second nature. We develop such qualities and abilities in us that we did not use previously and did not even understand the possibilities were present in us to feel phenomena that we did not perceive until now. They are present in nature around us because the upper world is here. But where is it? It exists at a different frequency, in a different quality that does not exist inside me, which is why I do not recognize it.

Therefore, everything depends on how much we will increase our sensitivity to the quality of bestowal. According to that, instead of perceiving the net of absorbing inside me that operates between the creatures on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, I will perceive the net of bestowal operating between the souls on the human or “speaking” level. This is what we have to attain. Therefore, everything depends on our sensitivity.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, The Zohar

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Just reading The Zohar brings many results; it evokes various phenomena and changes in a person. A person does not understand what he reads, but he tries to understand it, driven by his nature, even though from the point of view of Kabbalah this is not necessary at all. He may read it with the right intention or one that is not so correct.

In any case, the book works on him, influencing him so he advances. He cannot avoid feeling the changes inside. He should only keep returning to this book as often as possible, read it every chance he gets, and stay connected to it in some way.

Then he will see that this book is built in such a way that it creates for him a picture of reality parallel to his current reality, and he starts to slightly shift between them. Instead of the superficial story he imagines something beyond this reality. That is how The Zohar works inside a person, creating new qualities of perception inside him.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, The Zohar

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