Question: How do I know whether I am learning altruistically (Lishma, for Her Name) or egoistically (Lo Lishma, not for Her Name)?

Answer: It all depends on the goal that I am trying to achieve. If my goal is to annul myself before the group so I may receive from it the correct spiritual gene (Reshimo) and realize it, then this studying is correct.

With my point in the heart, I come into the group and become its part. In that case, the group plants in my “point in the heart” its own Reshimo. I didn’t have the kind of Reshimo that the group possesses. This Reshimo is new for me, from the previous connection and separation (breaking). If I agree with the opinion of the environment and place myself under its influence, I accept this Reshimo as primary. It becomes mine, and I raise it in the request to have it corrected.

It turns out that I act through my connection with the group and wish for this connection to come true. In other words, I correct the breaking of the collective soul and with my action draw the Upper Light since the breaking responds only to it. On my part, I raise the correct request (MAN, Mayin Nukvin or Female Waters) and receive the corresponding Light, the Light of correction (MAD, Mayin Duchin or Male Waters).

Therefore, if I act in the group and annul myself before the importance of the spiritual goal and connection that the group demonstrates to me, it means I advance correctly. No other criteria exist. I may know everything that is written in the books perfectly and work hard in the group and in Kabbalah circulation, but my spiritual advancement depends solely on the conscious correction of the connection between us. There is nothing else for us to do in this world.

Everything is evaluated only according to whether or not some movement toward unity occurred. There are people who have been studying Kabbalah for decades but don’t even think about unification. But if that is the case, a person should not be scorned; it simply means that he hasn’t ripened yet. Either way, he is advancing in some way, and it is better than doing nothing.

Yet, until a person has started to realize this point in the heart, he hasn’t stepped onto the spiritual path.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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We should always do a realistic, pragmatic check without any illusions to see what nourishes our desires and what means we have at our disposal, while also being aware of their flawed nature and their ability to be corrected. When we have this attitude to reality, we discover that we are between two givens: "I am the first and I am the last," and in the middle we have the opportunity to make a free choice – to attract the force of correction.

We attract it according to the principle "we will do and we will hear," or in other words, we unite in the group and during the study in order to evoke the Light that Reforms. Thus we discover that all our states are programmed from Above from the beginning, from the plan of creation, from the adhesion that is planned for the future. The Light causes these states to reach our desire for pleasure and to act inside it in a specific order, from easiest to most difficult. However, we always have the opportunity to choose.

Sometimes it is concealed from us that there is none else besides Him. Sometimes we are even in total concealment; whereas, at other times, we choose this concealment for ourselves. That is how we advance: from Him who is the first, through ourselves, and to Him who is the last.

At the same time we have to understand that everything takes place only inside the connection or unity of souls. That is where the breaking occurred, and it is also where the Creator awakens the appropriate Reshimot. We have to aim our correction only at this place of disconnection in order to reveal unity precisely there.

Thus, I am always doing practical work, trying to unite with the friends and to evoke the general unity. I thereby bring myself and the whole world toward goodness. The first impulse toward this was given to me by the Creator, but afterward, the Light comes and performs the action to the degree I make efforts, revealing the First and the Last in the same point of unity that we attain.

It turns out that the goal of our efforts is to love our neighbor as ourselves, and the last step on this path raises us to the degree of love for the Creator. Love for others is the preparation of the Kli, whereas love for the Creator means that He comes last and completes the action.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/10, “I Am the First and I Am the Last”

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It is not important where we begin to read The Zohar from, what item, or what part of it. Even if a person listens to the lesson for the first time, it is absolutely unimportant. “There is no time in spirituality”; the Torah speaks of spiritual states, all of which occur within us, but we do not perceive it yet.

It is completely irrelevant, though. We need to awaken the Light inside The Book of Zohar, the most exalted, true, and powerful source. No book even comes near to The Book of Zohar‘s influence on the soul.

The only way to draw its Light upon us, for it to have an effect on us, is by obtaining qualities similar to it. Therefore, we are reading The Book of Zohar together. In other words, each of us has to prepare himself to be in connection with the others from the beginning, even before we open The Book of Zohar.

This is what is said about the giving of the Torah: If you agree (obviously, that we cannot do it, but we agree nonetheless) to become “as one man in one heart,” to achieve brotherly love (in the future), then you will receive the Torah, meaning the method of correction by way of the Light that Reforms. Then, that Light will return you to the Source, to the good, to equivalence with the Creator.

That is why when we are reading The Zohar, we have to always strive to meet this condition: Be ready to unite so that the Light will influence us, unite us, and we will reveal the Creator in our unity as in one common soul. An individual soul, after all, can only feel our present reality, the one that we are currently perceiving.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, The Zohar

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The Book of Zohar influences us with the Light that’s concealed inside it. If we desire to use that Light for our correction, then the only place needing to be corrected is the connection between us.

Therefore, each of us should try to imagine where exactly he needs to make corrections. However, we don’t even fully feel yet that our relationships are founded on unfounded hatred and repulsion instead of brotherly love.

This quality must transform back to love, and the power of The Book of Zohar is able to accomplish this. Then, inside the renewed connection between us, we will reveal the entire Upper World.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, The Zohar

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The Zohar and The Study of the Ten Sefirot describe the different levels of correction of the common system and the way it operates. I now reveal myself in a particular state, like Malchut of the World of Atzilut because spiritual perception begins from the moment I incorporate myself in it. I reveal that Malchut exists in a small state (Katnut) or a big state (Gadlut) and then goes through seven states as she gradually approaches her final correction.

While each of the seven stages is divided into a multitude of private states, this is the only thing that the Book tells us about: how to keep revealing a more perfect, connected, and unified system every step of the way. And in this system I reveal everything: myself, the World of Infinity, and the Creator, and all my future states!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The wisdom of Kabbalah talks about the correction of the relationship between the broken, egoistic souls and us needing to restore the connection between them and lift the souls from the ruin. Obviously, all of this is taking place inside a person, as “everyone measures the world according to his own flaws.”

But only we, being uncorrected, see the ruin. It is similar to modern physicists who claim that by looking at the universe we change the processes taking place within it. Physicists are starting to discover that we influence reality even with what we see or think.

One might think: “How can something possibly change only by looking at it?” It is a typical response, similar to when we break something and say: “I didn’t do anything, but look what happened.” Essentially this means that physics has acknowledged that “everyone measures the world according to his own flaws,” just as the wisdom of Kabbalah says that we don’t see the world as perfect because we ourselves are flawed.

To the degree of the breaking, we see only ruins around us, but to the degree that we become perfect, we see perfection. Hence, all concealments originate in us, inside the breaking which conceals the World of Infinity from us. And the wisdom of Kabbalah explains our advanced states to us: how to correct ourselves and see an increasingly perfect world.

The more you correct yourself, the more perfect the world in front of you will become.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: When reading The Zohar, is “to receive the force of bestowal” the correct intention?

Answer: We do not need anything but the force of bestowal. There are only two forces in the entire reality: reception and bestowal. We do not lack the force of receiving. When we correctly prepare ourselves by working in the group and studying Kabbalah, the force of reception, our evil inclination, becomes revealed to us.

However, if I have not yet begun to arrange myself with the group or the study, I do not reveal the egoism against the Creator in me as something that hurts me, as evil. At first I need to reveal my evil. If I do not see the evil in me, I have nothing to begin correction with.

But when I reveal the evil in me, I reveal it in the group, and for this reason I already have the Light to correct it. After all, it is where I reveal my rejection of friends that I find the strength to overcome this rejection.

Question: If I do not feel the need to read The Zohar, do I still need to do it?

Answer: A person beginning to study Kabbalah needs to know that it is specifically the reading of The Zohar that helps him go through the stages of the revelation of his evil and its correction. The evil will keep being revealed, while he will keep rising above it until he reveals the entire altitude of evil, the entire 125 degrees between our world and the World of Infinity.

He will rise high, above the evil being revealed, to the top of the mountain as if he were on a funicular. This is why he needs both: the mountain, the evil that is being revealed, and the funicular, the force of the Light that lifts him to the top.

This is the reason we need to study Kabbalah, which reveals the evil to us. This is called “I created the evil inclination,” and then we need the force of correction, which is called “and I gave the Torah for its correction because the Light in it Reforms,” that brings me to the top of the mountain.

This is why in the beginning the Creator told Abraham: “Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own,” meaning that they will be under the influence of the egoism, but they will leave with great wealth (egoism), and they will need its correction: the reception of the Torah, the method of correction with the force of the Creator, the Light. Having stopped using egoism (Egypt) and having turned it into a “desert,” they will then use it for the sake of bestowal and turn it into the “Land of Israel.”

There is only one desire, but the gradual changes of the intention over this desire turns the desire into “Egypt” (in Hebrew “Mits-Raim,” “the concentration of evil”), then into the Sinai desert (in Hebrew “Sinai,” hatred), until it turns it into good, the “Land of Israel” (in Hebrew “Eretz Yisrael,” desire towards the Creator). That is, one goes through the stages of the evil inclination – “Egypt,” then “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” – “the Sinai desert,” and then “reception for the sake of bestowal” – “the land of Israel.”

The desire to receive pleasure remains the same, you only determine your attitude toward it, which becomes increasingly corrected every time.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, The Zohar

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Question: Looking at our world I see that there are seven billion people who are still uncorrected. So what are we doing wrong in the process of studying The Zohar? If we are talking about correction, then can’t it happen at any moment?

Answer: Imagine a moving herd. It has strong leaders that understand where to go, how to avoid falling into pits, how to climb hills and squeeze through narrow gorges, and how to guard oneself against robbers on the road or predatory beasts. On the other hand, the weaker ones have to be on the inside.

The main mass is always weak, but you cannot get rid of it because you have to achieve the general correction. You have to protect them, therefore you place them inside as the most important part.

That’s because the thing you depend on becomes the most important thing to you. For example, you hide a baby inside. The weak are not killed off like in Sparta. A society that does this is doomed to perish.

Therefore, those who are strongest always walk at the outer edge. The others walk on the inside, surrounded by the strong from all sides. There is a group surrounding all humanity and all humanity may be doing nothing besides advancing inside the group even without realizing it, like children.

That is why the seven billion people do not have any spiritual force despite their quantity. The science of Kabbalah informs us that all of the inanimate nature is equal to one plant, and all the plants are equal to one animal, and all the animals to one person. The same thing is true of the human species.

Therefore, the majority of the people will receive everything only from those who really change the world.
[23487]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, The Zohar

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Question: We are speaking about collective correction. But there are people with a lot of experience in the group who have already been studying Kabbalah for 10-15 years and also those who are just joining it now. How can new members compensate for this enormous distance created by years of studying in order to unite into one group with the advanced students?

Answer: Every person, when he comes to the group, receives from it as much as he invests into it. If we had here Rabbi Shimon with his students who have attained the final correction, you would also receive from them only to the extent of the efforts you apply.

This does not depend on the level of your friends in the group, but on your attitude. You cannot drink from the source of infinite heights since what you receive from it corresponds precisely to the similarity of your properties to it!

Infinity is always right in front of you, but how much do you receive from it? You receive one drop at a time through a tiny opening. Why is that so? It is because you are unable to make a bigger opening (Nekev), you lack the desire (Nekeyva) for it.

This is why the level of the group does not matter. Two hundred years from now, when the world will be closer to the end of correction, will it really be easier for a person joining the group? No, it will not. The Creator, the upper system of governance, cannot forgo even man’s smallest effort because he will lack this effort in the final corrected desire, and it will be incomplete.

Every person will have to complete all the corrections. His time of awakening depends on the order of the correction of souls in the common system. But everyone does the same work.

Subsequently, from the state of Infinity, you will perceive the perfection of calculations of every state for every soul, in absolute equality among everyone, regardless of the part of the common soul of Adam they belong to. This is because every soul attains the entire common soul of Adam.
[22736]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Being”

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The Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 660: This is so because the Torah is elucidated in thirteen qualities, thirteen qualities of Rachamim that extend from the thirteen corrections of Dikna de AA. And it is all one, for there is no separation there. They extend from above downwards in unification, from the thirteen corrections of Dikna de AA, from there to the thirteen of Bina, from there to the thirteen of ZA, and up to the place that stands on the separation, the Nukva.

The Zohar speaks of an extremely important part in the Upper system of governance called “the thirteen corrections of Dikna.” There is a special Partzuf, a system called Arich Anpin. Through it, the Light trickles downward and descends on us in droplets. We are unable to perceive the Light as a direct flow, but only drop by drop.

In Hebrew, “drip” is “Nozel,” so receiving a trickling of fulfillment is called “drops of luck” (Mazalot). Hence, there is a saying: “It all depends on luck,” which means it all depends on these droplets of the Lights trickling down.

This system is very exalted and profound; it determines everything that occurs with every person and all of us together in this world and even above it, until the very final correction. Therefore, when we read about this system and wish for the corrections, the Lights, and help to come from it, it is a very unique and effective state that can bring tangible results.

The entire Zohar was written by its authors from the height of this Upper system, Partzuf Arich Anpin or Zeir Anpin (ZA). ZA is a subsystem of Arich Anpin that influences us. If we desire to be awakened by the Light, the system works on us. The Zohar speaks solely about that.

A question arises: Why then do we need twenty volumes of The Zohar? Isn’t one standard book enough? Could we not keep reading the same book over again? What difference does it make? The difference is that with each page of The Zohar, we awaken a new manifestation of the Light.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, The Zohar

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