If you don’t see a strong yearning for spirituality in your friends, if you don’t get impressed by the environment, or get inspired to bestow, it means that you don’t invest yourself into the environment. Start investing into the friends and you will see how they influence you in return.

The formula is very simple: I connect to a group and together with everybody achieve the state whereby we start influencing each other. Our circle turns into the spiritual vessel (Kli). All of our desires for spirituality, our points in the heart, unite in it, and above them, we build an anti-egoistic screen, our mutual bestowal.

Now that we influence each other, we have to examine whether or not we do so for the sake of bestowing to the Creator. If yes, then we have a screen and the Reflected Light. The Upper Force becomes immediately revealed to us, according to the equivalence of form. The formula is very simple: “I” –> group –> soul!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

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Moving into a new unexplored state that we have yet to discover, create, and select the correct actions, is called a game. Playing, nonetheless, is a serious activity, which carries the element of the unknown. While playing, we study our capacities, inclinations, and goals, along with their outcomes. With each iteration, a person moves forward to an unknown state.

How does one advance into the unknown? If we know the beginning and the final states, it means that the program is already within us and we are merely implementing it as we move from state to state. However, in this way we are not growing. Moving toward a known state doesn’t translate into acquiring a new one, but is only an accumulation of experience. If a person knows what the next state should be, then it is within him, he is already in it.

“Growth” on the other hand, means that one acquires a totally new state and becomes the person they are not yet today. How can we accomplish this in the most rational, mature, and correct way if not with the help of a game, a simulation? Nature itself pushes us relentlessly to learn by playing.

The same process can be observed at the still, vegetative, and animate levels. In order to continuously advance, a plant employs similar processes within itself, just like a game. If we study the plant during its growth, it appears identical to ours on the animate and human levels.

A person has to imagine correctly the next state within oneself, so much so as to receive the force of growth from within it. Therefore, the Creator’s presence in each creature is mandatory. One can make a step forward only if it already exists in him. A person must consciously and purposefully draw the Creator’s Light, which comes from his hidden higher “half.”

Therefore, a person constructs a model of a more advanced state using the group, which is a simulator of the World of Infinity, spiritual states, and mutual bestowal. When a person performs various actions, one expects the Light to act upon him and to let him know that the most correct possible state has been found. When does it occur? When the Light clothes in it.

The Light remains in absolute rest. We only need to find our similarity to it. Out of all possible forms, as soon as we pick the form similar to the Creator, He immediately fills us and we become united with one another. This is called the next state. In this way, we advance.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: Why do we constantly talk only about the connection among us, and say nothing about the connection with the Creator?

My Answer: Right now we are talking about realizing our goal at hand, and this is why we devote so much attention to the connection among us. The final goal is adhesion with the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form, which means that we need to become “Human,” Adam (“similar” to the Creator).

First, we need to prepare our spiritual vessel (Kli) by making it similar to the Upper One. This is one vessel  for everyone; all of its parts should unite as one man with one heart. All our hatred, envy, ambition, pride, and thirst for power become included within it; we need to rise above it all and unite in order to become similar to the Creator, and thereby attain adhesion with Him.

It seems to us as though the Creator is somewhere outside of us, but in fact, He is revealed inside that common spiritual vessel which we build among us. Therefore, to have a correct perspective, we need to perceive everything as if it exists in one place. We build this space for the revelation of the Creator!

It is precisely there where we unite with each other above our egoism. Our egoism remains below, and above it, we build the connections among us. And if our connection is solid, based upon the force of the Light that Reforms, then in the connection, we will reveal the Creator (Boreh), which means “come and see” (Bo-Re).

This is different than picturing that He is somewhere high in the clouds and I am doing something here, below, in order to reveal Him in the sky. I reveal Him precisely in the connection between souls, between the organs of the spiritual body, as the inner Light that fills it.

Meanwhile, people think that when we speak only about uniting with each other that the Creator is separate from this. This is because internally they are not willing to agree that there is a connection between our work – the studies, dissemination, and unification with each other – and the Creator.

Each person perceives the Creator as something elevated and is willing to unite with Him, but we are unwilling to unite with another person. They don’t understand that this is the same thing. A more inner connection among people is called the “Creator,” the quality of bestowal, but the nature of man does not permit one to agree with this.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/10, Article “Arvut (The Bond)”

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Rabash’s article, "The Purpose of the Association:" We have met today to establish an association of those interested in following the path and method of the author of the “Sulam” (Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag), the path of ascension from the level of an animal to the level of man.

We have to deduce the fundamental principles from this article:

1. What does it mean "to assemble"?

2. What is "the method of Baal HaSulam"?

3. What is "the human level"?

4. Was man created to experience pleasure or fear before the Creator?

5. The condition for attaining all of this is equivalence of form with the Creator.

6. The will to enjoy by itself is not bad. It is the matter of all creation. The evil inclination (Yetzer Ra) is our unwillingness to unite and to correct the breaking of the common soul into parts, our individual souls.

7. We must not destroy the egoistic desire, but only correct its intention from "for myself" to the intention of bestowal, "for others." Inside our desire to receive, we are always opposite to the Creator, but inside the intention to bestow, we join Him.

8. Adhesion with the Creator takes place through equivalence of form with Him. The way to attain the intention to bestow is by working with the group. This task is achievable and verifiable, and the common desire to bestow that we create together is our common soul, which the Creator fulfills.

9. Any state we are in consists of two opposite states, and as we advance, the gap between them increases. On one hand, I continually reveal how insignificant I am, and at the same time, I continually reveal the greatness of the goal.

I have to unite all of this inside one point. Thus, I will feel the breaking between the souls which will force the Upper Light to correct me. Then bestowal will reign between myself and other people.

This is called "the giving of the Torah, the Light of Correction." After that the One Who Gives the Torah becomes revealed as well inside our corrected attitude to our neighbor, inside the common spiritual vessel (Kli).

From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/10, "The Purpose of the Association – 1"

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When we read The Zohar, we should expect salvation. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 155:  “Indeed, there is a great and marvelous quality concealed in Kabbalistic books, worthy of being publicized.” In other words, by studying The Zohar we can unite with the Source, the Creator, Who exists in other dimensions.

We exist in our dimension, in separation from Him, while The Zohar creates a connection between us and Him, the higher dimension. From there, to the extent of our aspiration, we receive the Light, the remedy that flows into us one drop at a time, like an infusion.

The Torah does not demand anything unrealistic. After all, the Upper One knows us better than we know ourselves; what is expected of us is measured according to the way we’re created. One is told: “Sit down with a book. You must connect with your environment because that is your spiritual form.”

Currently a person is on his or her own level. One is an egoist and doesn’t care for anyone, wanting nothing except egoistic pleasure. A person doesn’t even know what exactly is wanted, but the Upper One knows it well. It is He who creates these desires, even the most disgusting qualities in a person. And only occasionally do we slightly feel what He does.

Having created all of this in within us, the Creator expects just one thing: “Try to unite with Me just a little bit, based on all the things given to you from Above.” A person has to reveal the present state, and just wish to become like the Upper One.

However, in order to become like the Upper One, one needs to imagine the state when he and the group are together in a state of mutual bestowal, mutual guarantee. Imagining our self and them as one whole means we want to feel this state of the Light already operating between us in a single whole. We want to feel that we’re together and the Light is fulfilling us because we become like the Light to the extent of our unity. This is the state that we need to imagine.

It is clear that we are not together or connected with one another, but we are trying to connect, which means we want to grow spiritually and become like the Upper degree. Thus, to the extent of one’s aspiration, The Zohar creates a connection between that person and the Upper degree, injecting this infusion, which are drops of Light called “drops of luck” (Mazalot) that flow towards him.

There is no other difference between a person and the Upper degree, aside from the fact that one is better connected with others on the Upper degree. Try to imagine this upper state, the inner connection of mutual bestowal with everyone, which is called the “Upper Light.” This force, the Surrounding Light that rears a person like an infant, influences from that same state that one imagines, dreams of, and aspires to.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 5/13/10

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A Question I Received: How can we feel a deficiency for bestowal if this deficiency did not exist in the Creator?

My Answer: The Creator’s desire to bestow comes from perfection. However, if we wish to remain creatures and to differ from the Creator, bestowal within us cannot come from perfection. Therefore, our need for bestowal should come from a feeling of deficiency.

Yet the need to love based on a feeling of a deficiency is not good since then it seems that I wish to love Him for the sake of creating a better situation for myself. Therefore, we have to build within ourselves a need not based on deficiency, but rather to be above our nature for the sake of bestowal. Thus the desire to receive has to remain in me, but above it I have to build the desire to bestow.

The Creator is perfect and His love comes from perfection. The creature’s love cannot come from perfection, so what kind of love is this? A person needs to achieve a feeling of “a deficiency without a deficiency,” meaning a “double vessel (desire),” so that likewise, our love would seemingly come from perfection. Then our love would be truly pure.

The whole process is already determined by the final state – the only state that exists and was created by the Creator.  However, in relation to us, it unwinds in a sequence of states, like a carpet being rolled down the stairs toward us.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/10, Article “Matan Torah”

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A question I received: Why does the desire to receive pleasure have to suffer and go through so many blows in order to become the desire to bestow? If I feel that bestowal is a good quality, then why is it so difficult to give up the desire to receive?

My Answer: You feel the blows and difficulties because you identify with the desire to receive pleasure and don’t see that it doesn’t belong to you. Both the desire to receive and the desire to bestow are angels; they are Creator’s forces that are sent to you. They are two lines that come to you from Above. You need to identify with the middle line which consists of both of the lines. The middle line doesn’t belong to either of the two lines; it is when you start feeling a new reality that is totally separate from them, that is above them.

The lines are there to help you, like two distant magnets exerting force on an iron bar from two opposite sides. You are connected to these forces so that you can build a middle line as a result of their influence. You do not identify with either of them, not with the desire to receive pleasure or the desire to bestow.

The desire to receive pleasure was created by the Creator as “existence from absence,” while the desire to bestow, the Creator Himself, already “existed.” You are not connected to either of them, otherwise you couldn’t become independent. Your independence comes from building your “I” out of both of them.

So why do you feel bad? It is what causes you to leave the desire to receive pleasure, to stop identifying with it, and to be above it. First, the blows come in the form of shame and humiliation to push you away from the desire to receive because it makes you suffer. After that, the opposite is true: a person wants to grow a bigger desire to receive because he builds himself above it, like above a magnet.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/10, The Zohar

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The Creator is a pure desire to bestow. He receives pleasure from bestowal. He creates the creature, the desire to receive, so as to bestow to it. Does the Creator feel pleasure from bestowal? He does! Does He bestow in order to feel pleasure? No! He receives pleasure from the very fact that He wants to bestow. We say that He suffers because of our reluctance to receive His pleasure, but it’s purely our limited perception whereby we perceive His “suffering” relative to ourselves.

We, on the other hand, are the desire to receive, and our joy lies solely in reception. This desire cannot be erased within us; it only needs to be corrected. The corrected desire will take pleasure in being fulfilled, but its fulfillment will come in fulfilling another.

How is it possible? Will I be fulfilling myself? Yes, but only on account of fulfilling somebody else, and in so doing I will feel as though I’m fulfilling myself. I’ll be like a mother that fulfills her child and takes pleasure in that very act. But a mother loves her child, and so it follows that I too need to acquire this love. If I manage to love the desire of another, then everything it receives will be my fulfillment as well. Love will unite our desire into one. Moreover, love will make the desire of another more important to me than my own, inherent desire.

Therefore, all that I need is the power of love. And this power can only be received from the Creator, for He is the one Who loves. Love is His inherent quality. Ask Him and He will share it with you. You will be able to love as well, as love will rise over all of your hatred.

Herein lies the giving of the Torah (Kabbalah): a power comes from Above, unites your desire with those of others, and you begin to love them like yourself. “Like yourself” means even more than yourself. Your love is so great that it obligates you to care for others before even caring for yourself. You become like a mother who’s prepared to give her child everything in the world.

On the animate level such behavior is compelled by nature (the Creator). But on the human level, we must reach this state on our own.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/10, Article “Matan Torah”

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Everyone asks the same question: if the Creator is omnipotent, why does He put us through the suffering of this whole life that sometimes is worse than death? If He treats us with love, then why does He plunge us into such horrible states? If there is none else beside Him, then how can He do this? Why did He have to create in us an evil nature and demand that we come to goodness through such a long path of suffering?

The fact of the matter is that there’s no deficiency in the Creator, and we need to bring ourselves to a feeling of deficiency on our own. This is impossible without hard work. We are not working hard in order to receive fulfillment, but in order to feel a deficiency. This constitutes the whole process that we go through.

It seems to us that we try to fill ourselves, but this is not the case. We only work on building a giving “Kli,” a desire to bestow within us. The higher we rise, the greater is the deficiency of bestowal, the need to bestow. When we reach Infinity, this will be an infinite, empty vessel (Kli) with an infinite sensation of a lack of bestowal. This is the ultimate achievement of the creature.

From this, we understand that we cannot complete the process in any other way. There’s no deficiency in the Creator to begin with; the very concept of the Creator lacking anything is nonexistent. It is we who need to reach a sensation of a deficiency and particularly of bestowal.

Yet, isn’t His desire to please the creatures a deficiency? No, it’s not. This desire of the Creator comes from perfection. We’re unable to understand this since our desire is a consequence of deficiency. The Creator and I are standing opposite to each other, mutually bestowing to each other with equal desires, but our desires are from completely different roots. His desire comes from perfection since He is initially perfect, and my desire comes from deficiency which I have developed within myself on my own.

Therefore, this deficiency isn’t to my detriment; it’s my virtue and I have reached it myself. I’ve built love for Him within me as the lack of bestowal or the desire to bestow, is, in fact, love.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/10, Article “Matan Torah”

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Our entire problem in spiritual advancement is that we approach Kabbalah, the revelation of the Upper World, as if it were a scientific theory that we must attain with our mind and actualize with our own forces. However, Kabbalah offers us something completely atypical – the chance to acquire new qualities. And as long as a person does not acquire them, he will not find out what Kabbalah talks about.

All of Kabbalah is the method of developing a new quality in a person, the quality of “love for one’s neighbor.” It is also called “the Creator.” Thus, Kabbalah is the method of going from a total negation of Him to His full revelation. Our initial “earthly” feelings and mind do not bear any relation to the revelation of the Creator. The revelation of the Creator is the creation of His quality inside a person. Kabbalah is the method to form the quality of bestowal within us, the state of the Creator.

Our entire reality consists of two components: feelings and mind. When a person creates the image of the Creator within himself, he acquires a new mind and a new feeling instead of the previous ones. That is how he goes from the perception (or sensation) of this world to the perception (or sensation) of the Upper World.

The new sensation inside a person is called the Creator, “Boreh,” which means “come and see.” It is also called the soul.

The main challenge for a person who begins to study Kabbalah is the inability to connect all of his development with the Light that has to change him, with the force that has to bring him a new mind and feelings. We cling to external forms and aspire to perceive the text that was written by Kabbalists with our earthly feelings and mind. We try to adapt spirituality to our earthly existence. However, in all the books of Kabbalah, not a word speaks about our world. Our state is necessary only in order to attract the Light that Reforms through studying in a group. Our task is to expect for the birth of new feelings and a new mind within us, which will give us the perception of the new reality.

Our entire battle with our nature amounts to finding new instruments of perceiving the world, and then perceiving and attaining through them.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/10, “Matan Torah”

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