Where did all these books come from that talk about the influence of the signs of the Zodiac on people’s fate, fortunetelling using a person’s hand, dream interpretation, and all other kinds of spiritual practices and meditations? All of this came to us from Abraham. The book Midrash Raba talks about how he gave these gifts to the sons of his concubines, with each gift matching the personality of the son, and then he sent them off to the East. This is why we see so many different spiritual teachings and beliefs in the world today.

We have to be very careful with these teachings, lest we get confused. After all, it might seem that they speak about working with one’s egoism in a similar way to Kabbalah. The Book of Zohar (Vaera, Items 80 – 90) gives an example of how a sage came to a city where he met many people who seemed to be doing spiritual work and who studied many wise books. But upon a deeper inquiry, he found that these books did not have the Light of Correction.

There are many beautiful methods that originated from Abraham’s method and that speak about love and bestowal. But it is impossible to develop the quality of bestowal within you using them. To do this, one has to work in three lines: one has to work with the left line (one’s egoism), and correctly combine the quality of reception with the quality of bestowal. This produces a third line called Isra-El (straight to the Creator). This approach does not exist anywhere besides Kabbalah.

However, all the Eastern methods came from the “raw” form of Abraham’s method and they all use just the right line, the quality of mercy. Despite all their beautiful words about love, we cannot implement them today, since we now have enormous egoism.

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Bina contains the entire Light of Hochma, but only in order to prefer the Light of Hassadim over it. In other words, it prefers bestowal over fulfillment. What does this mean?

It’s when I don’t want anything except to bestow! Someone gives me a million dollars, but I refuse to take it. They can give me 100 million or a billion, but I’ll still refuse it. This is called preferring Hassadim – bestowal – over reception.

It’s impossible to measure bestowal; it has no bounds. The only way to measure something is when it is inside the desires of reception. If I am able to receive a billion dollars and I want this money, but I prefer bestowal, then this is the measure of my desire to bestow. However, if I don’t have a desire to receive, then I don’t have anything with which to measure the desire to bestow.

These two opposite desires must come together: I need a great desire and a sensation of a great pleasure that I can receive, and at the same time, a screen over the desire. That way, I will prefer bestowal over anything else. But how can we possibly attain this correction?

Only the Light – Ohr Makif – is able to grant us this correction. When I prefer the Light of Hassadim and reject the Light of Hochma, then according to this, I measure the height of the Light of Hassadim, even though it expands outwards. The Light of Hochma, on the other hand, expands vertically, from Above downwards.

In and of itself, Bina has no height. If you want to bestow, go ahead. You shouldn’t care how much you bestow and to whom. But the height of bestowal is measured by the desires of reception, which are opposed to bestowal and can be overcome by it.

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A question I received: What should I do if I have difficulty continuing my studies and it feels like I’m being pushed away?

My Answer: When you feel a burdening of the heart, disappointment, and egoistic complaints, these are feelings you receive from Above. What should you do? Lower your demands: if you’re lying on the ground, you have nowhere left to fall.

And if you decide that you don’t need anything except to be in the state of bestowal, then it will be impossible to throw you out of this state. It’s because you will reject your Malchut (egoistic desires) and cleave to Bina (bestowal).

You are then like an embryo inside a mother’s womb, ready to have the Upper Level do anything It wishes to you! And then the Upper Level begins to develop a greater quality of bestowal inside you, until you are born into the spiritual world.

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A question I received: Why doesn’t the Creator awaken all the souls simultaneously and give everyone equal freedom of choice?

My Answer: Every soul receives freedom of choice according to its root. When each person corrects himself, he will see that he has nothing to complain about and that everyone is equal in the general corrected system of souls.

However, everyone differs by their individual correction; some souls are higher and others are lower. However, all the differences fade when everyone unites in love and mutual bestowal at the end of correction. In the meantime, however, during the process of advancement, there are differences between us, and they are necessary because there would be no movement otherwise.

Creation advances because people build a higher system within. We build our similarity to the Creator, and this can only be done as long as there is a difference among the inner parts, the souls.

The Creator created 613 desires with the help of 613 Lights. This means that right from the start, creation includes a multitude of different qualities. Otherwise, inside our egoistic material, it would be impossible for us to attain bestowal, love, and a feeling that the Creator’s quality is important.

At the end of correction, we will connect all the individual souls or qualities, and we will then reveal one perfect system – the Creator (HaVaYaH). However, the reason we are able to attain this one system is precisely in virtue of all the numerous clarifications that led up to it.

Within this One, there are no longer any differences between the parts of Malchut. The differences were necessary only to comprehend Him and become like Him.

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Our problem is that when it comes to our spiritual development, we can stand still for a long time before taking the next step forward. It may seem as though we are going through a lot of states, but actually we are just treading over the same spot, shifting from right to left, leaning forward or back, unable to take a step forward by making spirituality be the dominant force in us.

We can’t yet focus all of our strength to actually annul ourselves (our egoism) for the sake of the quality of bestowal, which we have to attain on the next degree. After all, every step we take brings us closer to the quality of bestowal, which begins to reign within us. The question is whether we are ready to make all the necessary preparations: to annul our egoism, to sense the importance of the goal and focus all our thoughts and desires on it, having made a final decision that this is the only thing we need and nothing else.

If a person has a chance to take even one step toward bestowal, the Creator, without hoping for a reward, even while lacking the forces to do this, but simply wishing to cleave to the quality of bestowal in just one point, and to be satisfied with this despite all the great desires he has, then he reaches perfection (Malchut in Bina).

Thus, he enters the state of perfection (the attribute of bestowal) through one point (Tzimzum Bet). All that remains for him to do is just to develop this point. It is written: “Make Me an opening as the eye of a needle and I will deliver you.”

If you hold on to that point of bestowal in spite of all the doubts, questions and disturbances, then the desires that emerge in you (your Reshimot) will pull you deeper and deeper inside, like a thread through the needle’s eye, pulling you into the spiritual attribute of bestowal. Then, through your desires, you will see the Upper World.

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In order to enter the spiritual world, one has to perform a “restriction” (Tzimtzum) on one’s egoistic desires. Malchut (the quality of reception) has to become completely incorporated in Bina (the quality of bestowal) and submit to its power.

There are no obstructive barriers or curtains separating the permitted from the forbidden. There is no coercion in spirituality. There are no walls or “No entry!” signs, or situations where you want something and someone on the outside is forbidding you from it.

We cannot crush any of our desires or forbid ourselves from wanting. What we need is an inner correction within the desire itself.

The desire remains, but at the same time, we gain a new feeling that it is important not to use it egoistically. We realize that there is an opportunity to put the desire to a higher use, for the sake of bestowal, in order to benefit others.

Although the desire was created as desiring fulfillment, it can be corrected so it won’t receive anything besides what it naturally needs to consume, because it feels the importance of bestowal. For instance, have you seen a trained lion in a circus? Why is it that instead of gobbling up the trainer, the lion obediently opens its mouth and allows a person to put his arm or even his head inside? Doesn’t the lion want to bite it off? Yes, it does! However, the lion feels that this person is very important because he feeds it. Therefore, the lion suppresses its natural desire.

In the same manner, we preserve our desire to receive pleasure. It just begins to feel the importance of the quality of bestowal, and therefore, it wants bestowal to govern over it.

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If a person isn’t joyful, then he is not in the spiritual state. In spirituality, if you want to go on to the following state, you have to complete your present state. That means you have to attain joy in the present and agree with it, as if you’re putting a seal on it. Then you will ascend to the next, higher level.

If you don’t attain joy in the present state, then you will never complete it, and you might even slide lower down. Even if you have already begun to awaken to and feel the spiritual state, if you don’t reach the sensation of joy about it, then you will be thrown back down, to a place where you did not feel any spirituality.

The sign that you have completed your current state is the feeling of emptiness in your egoistic desires, and the feeling that you want to be above them, in a state of greater bestowal. And if you are joyful, this means that you really desire bestowal – the next level. You are then ready to receive an additional desire.

It doesn’t matter what is happening to you on the path of correction – ascents or descents. You should always be happy, like a small child who tries to do something and is happy regardless of whether he succeeds at it or not. The most important thing is the efforts he makes. This is what enables him to grow.

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Sukkoth is a holiday that is very symbolic of our spiritual work. It arrives after the realization of evil that happens on Yom Kippur. That is to say, on Yom Kippur, a person understands the full extent to which his will to enjoy, his egoism, his entire nature – is evil, and that he has no chance to escape it. But this realization comes as a result of great preliminary work.

On Rosh Hashanah (the New Year), a person decides to start a new life, to rise above his own nature no matter what and to ascend to the next level. On Yom Kippur, however, he reveals that he does not have the ability to attain this, because his Kelim (desires) are unfit for it. But then he comes to understand that spirituality and corporeality are inseparable, that every Upper Level is built and based upon the previous level. It’s not that there is some ready-made spiritual world waiting for you somewhere, and all you have to do is “get there” from this world. Rather, you have to take everything you have in the current state and rearrange it in a new way. That is how you will build your new level.

We have very important possessions on our current level, including all the corporeal and all the spiritual things. However, the spiritual things don’t seem important to us yet, since we still cannot enjoy them. Bestowal, care for one’s neighbor, and love for the Creator are all things that appear unneeded, like garbage.

We do agree to do spiritual work, but only if it’s for the sake of gaining more knowledge and understanding or in order to receive a reward for the work. And we don’t understand that it is precisely in virtue of the “unimportant” things, the “garbage” which we raise above us and use it to build a canopy or covering, that we create a new Kli.

That is when these things, which my desire to enjoy deems unnecessary, work to cover or conceal my egoism, to pacify it by creating a shade over it. If I am willing and happy to remain in this shade and to build the desire to bestow inside me, then the Light of the Sukkoth Holiday comes to me.

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There is a stage in the revelation of the Upper Force when one encounters two opposites and needs to make a special discernment.

On one hand, he exists in the world with the understanding that he is that entire world. On the other hand, he is incapable of relating to this world as an integral part of himself and to connect it to himself.

It is the Upper Force, the Creator, that is preventing him from doing just that. Until one attains Him (the complete quality of bestowal), he cannot connect all the different parts of the world within himself.

An additional force is revealed, one that governs over his nature. At this point he wants to connect and change the world for the better, but is unable to do so, since he is unable to change himself!

In order to change, one needs to ascend to a higher degree. By connecting with these external parts, which he now sees as parts of himself, he can no longer remain egoistic.

It’s not the same as finding out that your long-time enemy is actually your close relative. When this happens, all that’s left is regret for the bad relationship you had prior to the discovery.

However, this kind of correction is not enough, since the hatred in him vanishes and is replaced by love. In reality this isn’t so. Instead, the hatred remains and love is built on top of it!

A person comes to this new degree with all of his prior egoism, which doesn’t vanish, and there is nothing to be done with it.

Sometimes a situation comes up when a person must have a good attitude towards someone, but cannot force himself to do so. No matter how hard he tries, he will still only feel hatred and repulsion toward another person.

So what can one do? The only option is to exert an additional effort so as to build a new relationship over the existing dislike and hatred.

This attitude is called a new intention for the sake of bestowal over the previous state of egoistic desire.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Person Is An Entire World
Laitman.com Post: Shame Brings Us Closer To The Creator
Laitman.com Post: The Spiritual World Is An Integral System (Advanced)
Laitman.com Post: Changing The World Starts With Changing Yourself
Kabbalah for the Student: “Concerning Love of Friends”
Rabash Article: “They Helped Every One His Friend”

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A question I received: Where does the Upper Light reside?

My Answer: The Kli is filled with the Light of Hassadim (love and mercy), the force of bestowal, which contains the Light of Hochma (wisdom). The Upper Light is the Light of Hochma clothed in the Light of Hassadim. This is the Light that is always working.

We are always turning to Malchut of the World of Infinity, for that is the only existing state. The substance of Malchut of Infinity is the will to receive. The creature imparts to this desire an intention “for the sake of bestowal.” At that point the Creator’s Upper Light clothes in the creature’s intention to bestow.

That is how the Creator’s love and the creature’s love are revealed together, inside of our desire. This state is called the World of Infinity. This state already exists, and we only have to apply our efforts to reveal it! This cannot be done individually, but only through our collective efforts, by uniting all the spiritual sparks (points in the heart).

Our collective effort awakens the Light that fills the World of Infinity, and draws It to us in the form of the Surrounding Light, which shines on us from afar. The Surrounding Light, in turn, makes us similar to Malchut of the World of Infinity.

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