Question: Can a scrooge reach bestowal?

Answer: There is no person who wouldn’t be able to change, provided he is mentally sound. We are all “sinners” and “transgressors.” This is why we turn to the wisdom of Kabbalah: We want the Light to correct us so that we will merit it, will become similar to it.

Nothing in a person can become an insurmountable obstacle. Everybody has an opportunity to correct himself if he avoids quibbling with and scorning spiritual work.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/10, The Zohar, Introduction, “The Rose”

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Question: What is “a rose that has thirteen petals”?

Answer: Numbers in Kabbalah characterize a state. In general, we study the states of our desire relative to the Creator. There are only two players in this game: the desire to enjoy and the Light, the Creator. Kabbalists describe their interrelationships to us.

There are different ways to do it. One of the options is numeric characteristics. Numbers do not designate a numeric value; rather, they point to characteristics of the states. Each number carries a specific inner essence and symbolizes something.

Th number 13 indicates addition, meaning the additional Sefirot HaGaT. All other numbers and their numeric value (Gematria) are calculated according to the same principle.

In general, there are no colors, distances, noises, or forms in spirituality. Whatever the Kabbalists describe to us, they always point to the character of the interaction between desire and the Light. Everything comes down to a single parameter: to what measure desire becomes similar to the Light in all of its properties.

Each desire consists of 10 Sefirot or 613 parts. Hence, each desire can be considered to be a certain totality or volume; it is not a singular stroke, but a set of multitude details of perception. As a result, we attribute it a name, characterize it with a certain light, sound, and form. But ultimately, we always compare desire with the Light.

Similarly, all objects of our world, from solid ones to gases, can be pictured in the form of waves of a certain length, which draw images in our consciousness.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/10, The Zohar, Introduction, “The Rose”

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We exist inside a system of forces, in the only place that the Creator created – Malchut of Infinity, which is in a completely corrected state (Gmar Tikkun). We are opposite to it and are in concealment behind 125 levels that conceal this true state from us. I do not feel the true state I am in, and because of my sensation I am behind 125 degrees of concealment, filters that lower everything, placing me inside fog and confusion.

I have to remove these concealments and do it in such a way that I will absorb them inside, turning them into revelations. I have to do this with every state, every veil, and every degree.

After going through all of these concealments I became completely opposite to the true state due to the opposition of my inner qualities. Yet, if I take this concealment upon myself and desire to ascend above it with the help of the Light, then all of the concealment transforms to knowledge, sensation, revelation, and attainment.

That is how we advance from total detachment (with the exception of the spiritual spark that awakens in us) until the highest level. However, the concealments do not become revealed to me from within this world. I have to leave this world completely. These concealments become revealed between myself and the Light, or between me and the Creator.

That is why Kabbalists say, “Leave this world alone, don’t correct it! It is not subject to correction!” You have to correct only your attitude to the Upper One, the Creator. You have to turn the disturbance you see between you into revelation. This disturbance is a layer of matter, your ego, separating the two of you. That is why we do not correct this world and, in fact, we do not have to do anything to it. The more you work on your connection with the Creator, the more the Light will shine for you and you will see a different, reverse world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/10, The Zohar

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Question: What does it mean to be above disturbances?

Answer: Above disturbances means that I take them, process them, keep them, and stay above them as if I am atop the waves.

I don’t erase them. They remain inside me and by ascending above them I come in touch with the Light, the Creator, the One who bestows to me. He gives me these disturbances so that above them I would come closer to Him.

The disturbances are a language. The Creator awakens my inner qualities that are opposite to Him. If I ascend above these opposite qualities, then I come in touch with Him.

For now this contact is not felt very much, yet nevertheless through it I begin to feel His attitude. I begin to value these disturbances because precisely they bring me contact with the Creator. Without them I would never come in touch with Him.

The disturbances show me what separates us, what prevents us from coming in touch with each other. If I ascend above them, then I overcome the obstacle and acquire a certain connection with the Creator.

Therefore, we have to be grateful for all the disturbances; we have to process them correctly and treat them as an obstacle that we have to ascend over in order to attain a connection with the Creator.

The quality that separates me from the Creator becomes the quality that connects us if I ascend above it. In spite of the thing that seems like a disturbance to me, I perceive it not as a disturbance, but as a means to create a connection with the Creator.

If I cancel myself and desire to be above the disturbances, then I “swim” above them as a wooden chip on waves, constantly being in touch with the air. Therefore, I don’t erase the disturbances, but am above them. I need them in order to ascend above them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “The Rose (Shoshanah),” Item 3, Lesson 3
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 1, Lesson 1
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Question: What can we do to force the Upper Light to elevate us to the first spiritual degree?

Answer: There is only one answer: Keep on trying to check: Are really turning to the Upper Light or its source, the Creator? Are you binding all the factors together? Because if you are not, then you are straying off the path; you are not turning to the right place and are not bringing in the broken vessel (Kli) of your soul, saying: “Please fix it for me here!”

Suppose you take a leaking bucket, come to a blacksmith, and say: “Look, there is a hole here. I want you to fix it.” Then, as per your request, he sees the hole and stops it up.

The same happens in spirituality. You have to bring your vessel (desire) with the place of the breaking and say what needs to be done, what it means for you to be corrected. Then the Light will surely make it happen.

The Light must carry it out; it is the action itself. Your job is to prepare the intention for this action. The Light instantly glues, mends, or puts a patch. It is done by the Light. But it’s up to you to do everything else.

On the higher spiritual degrees you have to bring the Kli knowing precisely the measure to which it is broken and how it can be fixed. At that point, you take the example of correction from the Upper One; you agree with him completely or partially. You analyze not just intention, but types of correction.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, The Zohar

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The four exiles described in The Zohar are our “inner philosophers” who force us to work “within reason,” in the desire to receive pleasure, and to follow all of its commands. To exit them means to rise above the mind, above the desire, with the help of the Light that Reforms.

So, if I feel that I am submerged in my mind and sensations and work only within them, am I in the exile or not? Do I agree with my state? Perhaps I even love my mind and feelings, have faith in them, study, understand, and accumulate more knowledge and sensations every day?

On one hand, it is good. However, if a person does not see that all of this is a means to reach spirituality, it is bad since he does not achieve anything by this. He only obtains the false confidence that some day this approach will bring him to spirituality. But it will never happen since one does not study by his mind. No matter how much you know, you will not become closer to spirituality even by an inch.

Then what should we do? We should make a calculation. This is called “and they cried from this work.” A person sees that by using all his strength during the “seven years of plenty,” by attaining within his mind and feelings, and understanding what was written in all articles, he has not achieved anything. The printed text on paper has become imprinted in his brain cells, but this is all he has now….

Then he makes another calculation: “I only need the Light that Reforms! Whatever I have inside me and I myself, all of it has nothing to do with spirituality.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar, Introduction, “Among All the Sages of the Nations Of the World, There Are None Like You”

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The Zohar, Chapter “The Rose (Shoshana)“: Rabbi Hizkiya began [his speech]: “It is written, ‘As a rose among the thorns.’”…

The rose is Malchut and it includes all the souls that desire to reject their egoism and unite. This is possible only with the help of the Light that Reforms. Every person who aspires to attain the Upper World, to reveal the Creator, essentially aspires to the general unification inside Malchut. She is the place where the Creator becomes revealed.

The Book of Zohar talks about how this place becomes built from desires that are aimed at revelation, from the spiritual aspirations of people who are ready to unite on the path to the goal. We understand that we are unable to do this. However, the Light acts inside Malchut, inside “the rose,” despite the thorns that stand in the way of unity. Whoever desires to reveal the Creator is willing to live with these “prickles” and to make his way through them towards “the rose.”

This is what our efforts should be aimed at in spite of the egoism that pushes us away from the goal over and over again. We must nevertheless overcome the thorns surrounding the rose and unite all our desires into one.

We will thereby evoke the Light that Reforms and reveal the Upper One.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/10, The Zohar

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When we build ourselves in the middle line, we must connect the property of bestowal, Bina, the right line, and the property of reception, Malchut, the left line, correctly. Their unification forms a Kli (vessel) called a “cave,” and this cave is double (Machpelah). In the “earth,” Malchut, there is space suitable for living, while life is Bina.

But before Bina can enter Malchut, a reverse action has to take place: Malchut has to enter Bina for Bina to know how to accommodate Malchut and for Malchut to know how to demand Bina’s participation. As a result, mutual penetration of Malchut and Bina or a “double cave” gets formed, and it is the foundation of the general correction of the created being.

Since this is the place of correction, the forefathers, the desires corrected by the intention to bestow, reside in it. They had attained the correct connection of Bina and Malchut: They receive in Malchut and bestow to Bina, meaning that they work with reception and bestowal.

But what gets buried? We bury the intention to receive that envelops the desire like a shell (Klipa), thereby turning it into the evil inclination. Therefore, burial is regarded as the act of correction.

We don’t touch desires: The greater they are, the better. But at each degree, or in each generation, we bury the “intention to receive for self gratification” and get corrected by establishing balance between reception and bestowal.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 10/29/10

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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “The Rose (Shoshanah),” Item 2, Lesson 13
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Tzav (Command),” Item 144
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