The Creator begot the creature from the desire to receive pleasure. But He had to instill sparks of bestowal into it so that the creature could exist and develop. In addition to receiving, the creature should also bestow since the force of life consists of these two parts: consuming and giving.

Life amounts to clarifying what is bad and good for you, to rejecting the bad and attracting the good. Any living creature – of vegetative, animate, and spiritual or speaking levels – acts in this way, according to its state and degree.

To enliven creation, the desire for bestowal has to be added into all of its elements except for its initial material, the desire to receive pleasure. Otherwise, it would be dead, lifeless dust. To make a living creature out of dust, a spark of Light, the property of bestowal, needs to be introduced into the desire to receive.

The intermixing of properties of reception and bestowal occurs in every “atom” of creation in the process of the soul’s breaking. Until the breaking of the vessels and the state of the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), Malchut receives the Light because the Creator gives her such a power, and not because she herself possesses it.

Only starting from the World of Atzilut and onwards, does Malchut mix with Bina and start acting herself, wanting to unite with Bina, to rise to it and become like it. This is the work of the creature itself. Until that moment, everything occurs by the power from Above.

For this reason the receiving desire became able to perform acts of bestowal only after the breaking of the vessels (desires) whereby the sparks of bestowal penetrated the desire to receive pleasure. It then also revealed how opposite it is to the Light. The breaking of the vessels is actually the revelation of the true nature of the creature, the desire to receive pleasure, in relation to the Light.

Their oppositeness, the egoistic desires property to feel and care only about itself becomes revealed. So does the Light of bestowal and love. Then the creature realizes its oppositeness to the Creator and what it wants to be like. It attracts the Light from Above in order to become similar to the Creator. Thus the work of the creature commences.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/10, The Zohar

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Shamati #197 “Book, Author, Story”
A Kabbalistic book is a revelation I make within myself when I attain similarity of qualities with its author.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 246
A thought doesn’t exist independently. Any given thought is based on a feeling and is there to serve it.
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 79, Lesson 27
On the way to correction one must thoroughly sense the breaking and reveal his inability to attain unity, similar to the way Malchut can’t merge with Bina.
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Article, “The Freedom,” Page 206, Lesson 2 
Contact with the surroundings is a contact with my Kelim, which for the time being I perceive as something external. That is the place of the breaking, as well as a platform for analysis and correction.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 228
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A question I received: What should I do if after the lesson, I am unable to stay focused on spirituality throughout the day?

My Answer: Each person goes through different time periods. There is a time when we want to study Kabbalah for hours and can’t get enough of it. Other times, we distance ourselves and stop striving toward it.

However, in the long run we see that everything is organized in the best possible way for each of us, and if we use our free time correctly, the Creator arranges more hours that can be utilized for the realization of what we studied. We encounter all sorts of problems: distractions with our work, problems with our boss, unsympathetic surroundings, as well as distractions in our thoughts and desires. Yet we feel that in spite of all these troubles, we have to stay connected with spirituality.

After the class ends, we have to go back to the “big world” that erases the impressions that we got from spirituality and confuses us, but these are the most effective circumstances for our advancement. We have to try to stay tuned with the spiritual world and to keep in mind the source of all these troubles and why they were sent to us. As well, we are to remember what we are supposed to adhere to and why, meaning that “There is none else beside Him, Who is Good and does good.”  We have to constantly feel our inner connection with the Creator as if staying in touch with someone we love and cherish.

Try to retain this state throughout the day. You’ll start to feel that all those unfortunate circumstances are brought to you by the Creator within some imaginary world which gives you a chance to seek connection with Him through all the hassles and illusions you get.

You’ll see that this world is “invented,” and that it is just an outer shell; you’ll sense that the troubles simply constitute the shapes of your desires that convert within you all the time. Those are the desires that you have to “link” to the Creator; if you do, they will turn into their spiritual forms.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/10, The Zohar

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While reading The Zohar we imagine, like on a screen, a picture of this world detailing various subjects and images, material words and actions. This is because our desire remains solely material.

We demand that The Zohar bring us the Light which illuminates a deeper screen similar to a computer screen where different windows are hidden behind each other. We have to try to see the spiritual property behind each word to the best of our abilities.

When we obtain spiritual sight, we naturally start to see a totally different picture behind the words we read: forces, connections, relations, properties, and qualities. This new picture is absolutely disconnected from what we used to see before. The prior form disappears and transitions to a more “inner” screen which is holding our sensations, sensibilities, and our whole life. We have to strive to attain this state.

In other words, I wait for the Light, the force that I attract while reading The Zohar, to get me more deeply involved in the screen that hides behind the others. By shifting from one display to another, I start to live through a new screen. That’s where my sensations and reason “reside;” it becomes my life.

When that happens, everything obtains a new essence. I previously thought that I grasped the meaning behind the words in The Zohar, and attached them to various subjects and actions of this world. Yet when I transition to a deeper screen, I see that the prior display barred a totally different meaning of a much more internal nature, for example, my inner properties. That’s the change that we have to expect from The Zohar.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: The whole nation existed in spiritual attainment during the First and the Second Temples. Why wasn’t it possible to go through the destruction of the Temples only in spirituality and to reach the Third Temple without the material manifestation of destruction?

My Answer: All descents and ascents of the souls have to be reflected on the lowest inanimate level – our world. Up until the end of correction, ups and downs of the souls have to go through all layers of the desire to receive, through its entire depth, ending in this material world.

Therefore, we have no possibility to escape events that occur in this world, meaning in our egoistic desire which we feel as “this world.” Our big or not so big successes in the spiritual world, in our relations with the Creator, will always be felt as events happening in this world.

It is impossible to separate occurrences in the spiritual and material worlds because they are the same. A desire to receive with its different layers of Aviut (coarseness) covers the entire depth from this world to the World of Infinity.

A person who is at the bottom of the spiritual ladder raises his MAN to the World of Infinity. Thereby he determines the Light which descends from the uppermost level through all layers (worlds) of the desire to receive pleasure to his rung and further below. When a person exists somewhere in the middle of the spiritual ladder, the entirety of the Aviut of the desire below him is included in his MAN. Then the Light that comes as a response to the prayer goes through a person and spreads out further below to the very end. This is why every person has an impact on the entire thickness of Malchut of the World of Infinity.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/10, The Zohar

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Shamati #39 “And They Sewed Fig-Leaves”
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 42
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 178
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The Zohar, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 59: The Creator never left Israel in exile, before He came to place His Divinity with them.
It is even more so with Jacob, that when he went down to exile, the Creator and His Divinity and the upper holy ones and the Merkavot, all came down with Jacob… This is the conduct of the Creator in all the exiles….

What does it mean that “Divinity went down to exile with the nation of Israel“? We think that there exists something, in which the Creator does not take part. However, the only one Force that acts in the whole creation and in us is the Creator or the Light.

Exile is a special state of the creature (the desire He created), which the Light purposely creates in it in order to lower and distance the creature from Himself, to create a desire for Him in it. The Light measures out very precisely all the states of exile, all the problems, emptiness, and misfortunes that will be revealed in the will to receive pleasure. The reverse side of the Light or the Creator, acts in exile, as it is written, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart (Exodus 10:1).” (The Creator was also clothed within the great flood, and so on.)

“There is none else beside Him.” The exile is a form of the Creator’s, the Light’s influence in its oppositeness or reverse side. This influence is precisely measured in all the gradations of qualities, against every desire of every soul, and in all the connections between them.

Therefore, the Creator, the Light surely exists together with the people in exile, constantly influencing and supporting us. He creates this exile Himself, with His reverse, shadowy side, as King David wrote, “Thou hast beset me behind and before (with Light and with darkness) (Psalms 139:5).”

When the Light no longer needs to act from the reverse side, that is, through darkness, when the Creator stirs up and rouses the desire (Kli) to a sufficient extent, and it will truly aspire to the front side of the Light or bestowal, then He pulls the Kli out of exile, to liberation. However, the Light is the only acting force, which influences us from either the reverse or front side. Therefore, the exile is Him preparing us for our liberation.

From the 1st part of the Daily Morning Lesson 4/12/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 163
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Preparation to the Lesson, Shamati #144 “There Is A Certain People”
Everyone must sense that without unity there’s no life. This sensation can only be created by my surroundings, where everyone convinces me and I convince them in return.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 137
The Light is boundless, and that’s why everything depends on the greatness of our desires for our Kli.
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 72, Lesson 26
A spiritual “embryo” is a certain degree of similarity to the Upper.
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Article, “The Freedom,” Page 206, Lesson 1 
A person strives to break free from subjection to others, but he should be trying to free himself from subjugation to his own egoism for the sake of others.
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