The attribute of mercy (Hesed) accompanying the entire process of evolution is attained from all the bitter, opposite states experienced by the created being. These states are exactly what compel us to rise above ourselves and embrace mercy and judgment, bestowal and reception.

The creature is an accumulation of an infinite range of shades that lie between reception and bestowal; with their help the creature reveals the Upper force that preceded and created it. To be a creature independent from and similar to the Creator, to attain Him in full, it must contain its own system and that of the Creator, in a way that both of these systems completely coincide with each other.

The creature is a complex mechanism, but its complexity is the result of its imperfection. Perfection lies in simplicity. The Upper Light is simple; it is the pure quality of bestowal. However, the creature itself cannot be equal to the Creator except in its outer form, while within, it remains the desire to be filled.
[23292]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Matter of Mercy”

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Question: Are we building the Creator’s image within ourselves, or does the Creator Himself form His image in us?

Answer: We need to find the Creator’s image within ourselves every time. Baal HaSulam gives an example of a servant chosen as the head of the King’s ministers. To reach the desired, he had to fight his cruel opponents twice (even though they were faking), in order to first reach the property or degree of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” and then the degree of “receiving for the sake of bestowal.”

Without a fight within, it is impossible to see and attain all the forces and properties, to absorb them into ourselves, and understand what it means to be a “minister,” that is, to be similar to the Creator.
[23289]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Matter of Mercy”

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Question: If I walk in faith above reason, does it mean that I am moved by the mind of the group?

Answer: There is no group outside of me. The group is “painted” within me like all the other realities. The notion of the group should be understood as something given from Above. In this way, the Creator is letting me see the friends so that by arranging my relationships with them, I would be able to construct my relationship with Him.

First of all, I yearn for the Creator. But He seems to be placing a condition before me: “Do you want to find a connection with me? Then please be pleasant and close to those who are close to Me. These people, the group I brought you to, are my family. Do you want to do something nice for Me? I will accept nothing from you, but watch how you treat them, what presents you give them, and how kind you are to them. Demonstrate your love to My family, and then you will become close and dear to Me.”

From this, it becomes clear whether you truly desire unconditional closeness with the Creator or act based on egoistic calculations. If you treat the friends well regardless of how you view them and become close with them, then you wish to be close with the Creator indeed. However, if you are unable to be close with them, then it is an egoistic motive which pushes you toward the Creator, and since it is not good for the Creator, you remain outside.

This is how we should view the entire world. The Creator offers us reality as a means to assist our correction and bring us into total equivalence with Him.
[23056]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, “The Matter of Above Reason”

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Question: How do we perceive the Creator: like other people outside of us or differently somehow?

Answer: The difference between perceiving the Creator and perceiving other people can be likened to perceiving the general and the particular. Due to truly beginning to feel people, I reach the perception of the general which includes everything and is called the Creator.

However, there is a difference between the particular and the general. After all, the general is the root, the initial cause of everything. It is not just a few people or many together, individuals or the entire totality. The general implies attainment of the root of creation. This is a qualitative addition.

The difference is not in drinking from a hundred separate glasses or from one big glass with all one hundred portions poured together. I attain the cause of creation, the process that includes everything and its goal. The root encompasses everything, and other people cannot provide such attainment, only the Creator can.

The goal of the Creator is to bring us precisely to this point! And prior to it, our state is still imperfect.
[23604]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: The purpose of creation is to feel the Creator in the same way that you feel a person near you. But is it really possible to feel the Creator this way?

Answer: We are building the spiritual senses (vessels) in us that would enable us to feel the Creator as clearly as we feel a friend. The ability to distinguish the difference, the dissimilarity between myself and someone else is the property that forms within me the ability to feel something outside of me, which is the Creator.

I am put in a state where I can learn what I am as well as what is outside of me. And all of these people are not given to me so I would use them egoistically and find myself a better place in this world. On the contrary, they are given to me so I would use them purposefully: I can bestow to them, thereby learning what bestowal is.

I begin to recognize that other people bear their own reality which is separate from me, and that their purpose is not only in serving me. I attain all these subtleties of perception (what I and another mean), and through this I become capable to feel the Creator.

This is how I justify creation which is created in such a way as to be able to begin attaining reality from the lowest, miserable point (this world), but on the other hand, it is absolutely independent and separate from the spiritual space. This allows me to receive my independence, and from this point I can start attaining reality.

I make restrictions on it by cutting “I” away from me and others, and in the end I establish myself as an independent entity, in the “middle third of Tifferet.” This is when everything is outside of me: good, evil, the Creator, and the created beings. Meanwhile, I lift myself above “me” and become a freely suspended point. After all, I was able to balance all the forces that influence me so they would remain in absolute balance while my “I” was in the middle, soaring in the air!

I remain in the middle absolutely independent and free because the forces that influence me from above and below balance each other. And I made this myself! So I can determine what I myself want while being in this free middle point, the so called “middle line,” the middle third of Tifferet, without tilting either way. I decide that I want the spiritual, the Creator, Who is outside of this entire system. He is the source of everything, and I desire Him.
[23607]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: What does it mean to act solely for the sake of the Creator? It greatly disturbs me since it feels as if I am forced to slave away for someone.

Answer: This “someone” is the absolute law of Nature, the unifying force that contains the entire creation and you in it. Beside this law, there is nothing else! And when you “bestow,” you do it not “for somebody’s sake,” but in order to establish this law over all creation so that it is revealed to all.

The Creator doesn’t need it, He doesn’t receive anything; He is the desire to bestow, which cannot receive. He Himself is not perceived within you; rather, what you perceive is your own impressions of Him. The law of bestowal is similar to a wall: It feels nothing, you may consider it to be still. This law of nature is the absolute law of bestowal, which you experience reactions to within yourself.

You don’t do Him favors! He doesn’t require that you cleave to Him and love Him; He doesn’t feel our work as we do. We can’t even discuss His essence for it is unknowable. Everything we discuss about Him is our personal impressions, our perceptions of Him in our broken or corrected desires. Therefore, I can’t say that I am working for Him. Expressions “cleave to the Creator” or “love your Creator” speak about me and my correction, after which I will attain love.

That is why we were given a group, in relation to which we have to work, instead of working with some abstract principle or a force that cannot be sensed or with the factor that everyone can turn as he pleases. Take, for instance, the science of Kabbalah. It is a program of how you should treat human society. Build your attitude to it according with this program and by doing so, you will reach your full correction.

Love for the created beings that you will experience with the help of the Light that Reforms will be your attitude to the Creator indeed. Instead of acting in relation to the Light that cannot be perceived, the soul broke apart, and its parts now interact with each other instead of interacting with the Light. Therefore, they have an opportunity to connect with each other, act, and examine things together, which they cannot accomplish if paired with the abstract force.
[22836]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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The Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 675: Zebulun was rewarded with preceding Issachar in the blessings because he took bread out of his mouth and gave it to Issachar’s mouth. Thus, one who provides for one with Torah receives blessings from above and from below. Moreover, he is rewarded with two tables, with which no other person is rewarded. He is rewarded with wealth—blessed in this world—and with having a share in the next world.

The Zohar speaks of the types of connections existing between the souls for only this is concealed from us, and this is what we need to reveal. In the connection between the souls, which we reveal, we clarify the picture of forces (desires) of bestowal, the web of connections between them that manifest the degree of their bestowal to one another above the egoistic forces of each particular soul. The connections between the souls are the forces of bestowal, the desires to bestow, while every soul is an egoistic desire to enjoy.

It follows that if we work, everyone in his desire, so as to actualize it in bestowal to others, this means we are working with the right desire (Kli) equipped with a screen so as to be connected in mutual bestowal with everybody. This is the way the system of desires (Partzufim) of every soul works with respect to other souls (Partzufim). Mutual bestowal and its general force, the Creator, become revealed in the connection between them, while within every soul there remains its inherent desire to enjoy.

The Zohar speaks not of the desire to enjoy embedded in each of us, but of what happens between us, where we reveal the web that connects us. Initially, this web is called the world of Assiya, then Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the World of Infinity, where the connection between us has no end or limits. As we strengthen our connection, we reveal the Creator, the Light, inside it.

Therefore, when we read The Book of Zohar we must think of what The Zohar speaks of: the connection between us wherein the Creator is revealed.
[23083]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, The Zohar

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In our work, every step is measured by our intention. Each new action demands a new, sharper intention. Actions themselves may take various forms, but the key is to know what outcome I wish to receive as a result of my efforts.

Here is where we have to measure ourselves: How much do I care for the reward and what kind of reward is it? We speak not about corporeal rewards, but of more exalted values of a spiritual nature although they may have different vectors: for the sake of reception or for the sake of bestowal.

If a person demands a reward for his work in his Kli, then his intention is aimed at reception. He wants to feel, understand, attain, ascend, and so on. In other words, it doesn’t matter what exactly my desire is. If the goal is related to me and examination is taking place in my desires, then my calculation, despite being spiritual, is still egoistic.

Even if I wish to attain brotherly love, love of others, and love for the Creator, I still need to dig deeper and examine how I define these terms: What is their content, impurity or sanctity? Thus, essentially, a person examines the results of his work: either in his own Kli or in the Creator.

One might think: “Can I really place a reading device in the Creator and verify whether I have pleased Him? And what’s after that? If the result is positive, will I myself feel good and warm in my soul? Or is my intention aimed solely at Him, without any contact with myself?”

All such verifications may be accomplished only if we are doing genuine work, meaning revealing the Creator in the group. The love of friends serves as some type of purifier for intentions and desires, with the help of which I get purified from egoistic calculation and don’t err in my examination of who I am, what the group is, and to what degree I am loyal to it and not to myself.

As a result, I realize that I am incapable of even the tiniest act of bestowal. It is beyond my capacity. So, I turn to the group because the friends gave me a sensation of Arvut (mutual guarantee) and they can provide me with the strength to bestow.

The greatness of the friends and the group supply the fuel to me, which continues up to a certain level, until I build my Kli. Having completed its correction, I wish to use it, and that’s when in the group I discover the Creator, to whom I had initially aspired. Only now, I turn to Him together with the friends, from our common desire, to ask for the force of faith. Thereby, we attain adhesion with Him.
[23192]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/10, “Who Testifies Upon the Person”

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Freedom of will is the most important topic because it poses the main question of our lives: Are we absolutely controlled from Above like any other part of nature? We see that everything operates under the governance from Above, meaning the governance of Nature (the Creator). There is nothing beyond Nature. We can discern the governing force in some actions, but in others, their governing force is concealed from us.

When we are young, we think we master our own lives, but as we mature and acquire life experience, we come to understand that it is life that controls us, and not the other way around. Indeed, where is the possibility for freedom of will when we discover strict and constant laws operating on all levels of nature: physical, chemical, and biological? And if there is a place where we do not see a law, it means that we haven’t yet revealed it as opposed to there being no law that operates with absolute certainty.

How can there remain an uncontrolled part of nature that wouldn’t be affected by any law? This is simply impossible! In all places where we reveal nature, we discover a strict regularity.

Then what is freedom of choice? Is it a possibility to do as I please without being subject to a deterministic law of nature? Where can freedom of choice come from? Can there be a white spot in nature that doesn’t comply?

It turns out that all of our apparent freedom is an illusion of a small child left to play in his room under strict supervision, yet thinking that he is free. That is, free will is explained only by our ignorance. And is this what we call freedom? Then what is man? Another part of nature completely controlled from Above without even being aware of it? If we are nothing but puppets, then we neither do good nor bad. What can be expected of me when everything I do follows the law?

All the things I suddenly wish to do are natural instincts that manipulate and control me from both inside and outside. There can neither be reward nor punishment if we are just ordinary “cogwheels” in creation. But what is the meaning of it all, if the entire existence is a prepackaged game?

It means first and foremost that we need to figure out whether we still have any freedom of will, and where it lies. After all, if there really is a choice here, then it is possible to either score very well or lose everything.

Therefore, freedom of will is the main theme in Kabbalah because it is the beginning of the next stage: whether we have freedom, and if so, how and where can I use it to the maximum benefit.
[23021]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: What is the purpose of creation? Is it to become an independent Kli (vessel), which receives pleasure from the Creator? Or is there some other purpose?

Answer: The purpose of all corrections is to unite with the Creator into a single system. I am the Kli, He is the Light, and together we unite with each other. For the time being, this is our goal: the final correction.

At the moment of creation we were united by the Creator’s force, but then He broke the unity that He had created in order to give us the opportunity to put it together on our own. Once we complete the “mosaic” with His help, we will become like Him, we will understand the program, the purpose, and the Creator in regard to our creation: what He wants from us and what His attitude towards us is.

“Creator” (Boreh) means “come and see” (Bo – Reh). I come and I see, I reveal what He is and who He is. This is what the end of corrections is.

What happens after? We do not know. Kabbalists give us clues, but it is impossible to understand them since we cannot even imagine the final correction. What does it mean to be like the Creator, to be on the same level, beyond time, movement, and space and perceive the endless reality? I do not perceive the other part of reality to speculate about it.

From the moment of final correction, we will be ready for something higher since we will be a corrected mechanism. What is it that we will be ready for? That is unknown. A little patience and we will know once we get there.
[22996]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, Shamati #161

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