The Zohar, Chapter “VaYikra (The Lord Called),” Item 324: Happy are the righteous, for the Creator teaches them profound secrets of above and below, and it is all for the Torah, since anyone who engages in the Torah is crowned in the crowns of His Holy Name. This is so because the Torah is the Holy Name and one who engages in it is registered and crowned in the Holy Name, and then he knows the hidden ways and deep secrets of above and below, and he never fears.

There is no other way to connect with the Creator, with the true Upper reality (which we want to reveal, enter, and exist in), but with the help of the Light. It can shine upon us only if we cultivate the desire for it.

We can only develop this desire with the help of the group. A person only has a point in the heart, and in order to attract the Light that Reforms, he needs additional strength, which he can receive only from the group. The desire one receives from the group already has the intention to bestow, and with this force, he will have a connection with the Upper Light. In order to acquire a connection with his group, a person must lower himself before it and raise the importance of the goal.

In other words, he needs to work against his own desire to receive pleasure, against his ego. Therefore, when a person works with the group, he can appeal to the Light that Reforms so it will grant him a connection with the properties of bestowal, with the spiritual world.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/10, The Zohar

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We exist in a system called the only creation, Soul, or Adam. This system was created by the Creator. We are connected within it by permanent ties like the organs are in a body. Our mutual connection is filled with the life of this system: Light. The system is called the World of Infinity because everything in it is boundless and perfect.

In the World of Infinity, all of its parts are bound by love and filled with Infinite Light. However, the Creator covers this infinite world with reductive filters, one after another, as if spoiling everything. It is similar to drawing a beautiful picture and then placing a dirty, plastic film over it which mars the view of the picture. Then, with additional, successive layers, through 125 layers of plastic wrap, the original picture looks even dirtier. These are the 125 layers of reducing the properties of bestowal and love that connect us in the system of the World of Infinity.

We are located in the outermost layer and don’t perceive the preceding ones at all. Thus, within our layer, the system of connection is completely ruined. Instead of feeling love that binds us in the World of Infinity, we hate each other, don’t perceive our mutual connection, and are separated, divided, and broken. From this lowest state, the Creator wishes to bring us back to the very first, which is illuminated and good, so that through all these layers, filters, and worlds (“world” in Hebrew is Olam, concealment) we return to Infinity.

Therefore, the Creator calls and awakens us. Previously, He developed us through egoism so that we could understand and feel more, and manage our lives better. However, when we reach a certain maturity, the Creator begins to advance us qualitatively. It isn’t enough for us to evolve by increasing our egoism anymore. Now we have to become similar to the Creator in our attributes, to receive an equivalent type and form of desire, and not just cultivating it as during our previous history. This is why our current state of development is so special.

By making an effort to align ourselves with the innermost layer, by becoming strongly connected to each other, we draw the Light of the Creator, which shines on us from afar as the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif). We become corrected in it in order for love and bestowal to reign among us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/10, Shamati #16

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A question I received: Many people in the world now suffer from depression; they don’t leave their homes for months, and require psychological help. What can help them?

My Answer: Depression is the most common illness in the world today. Only one remedy can be advised for it: the Light that Reforms. No psychologist can help in this regard for it is due to the Creator being revealed to us in the opposite form that is prompting rampant depression.

Once each of us felt that he or she was one little person around which the world was revealed in different layers of our egoism: 1, 2, 3. As our ego grew bigger and bigger, we developed in accordance with it by creating a new environment: a world of new technology and social relations. This is how we developed over the course of our entire history, stage by stage, 1 – 2 – 3, toward wealth, honor, and knowledge.

However, today we have come to the fourth level, which is a special one. At this level, what is becoming revealed is the Creator, the quality of “bestowal,” and not our developing ego, our property of “receiving.” This is the fundamental difference of our epoch, which is the epoch of revealing the Creator.

Previously, nature (the Creator) forced us to develop, that is, to grow and become smarter, more knowledgeable, understanding, and powerful. But now human beings have completed their development at the level of this world. People are recognizing the pointlessness of new discoveries, and everything gradually fades, the development of science, space research, and so on. We have completely depleted ourselves.

Today, in contrast to this, the Creator – a new nature – is revealed. And here we need to proceed in a different manner. We cannot enter a new stage with our egoism; we will only harm ourselves. We need to realize that a completely new approach has begun, and neither our strength, nor advanced technologies and scientific discoveries can help us.

Suddenly we will discover that all the systems that we built in this world have stopped working. All the former goals (money, power, knowledge, family, education, and culture) have lost their value. Darkness and despair are coming into the world, but this is because the Creator, the Force of bestowal is being revealed in it. We don’t want it, since it cancels out our egoism, our nature, and all our desires!

It is like a child who ran around wanting to play, and suddenly he is told “That’s enough. Now you have to give and to love. Go play with your little sister.” This is contrary to his nature, and hence his life becomes dark; he immediately loses all his energy.

Therefore, we can understand why people are sitting around depressed, unable to leave their homes for months at a time. Antidepressants are the most popular medicine today. However, I can advise that the Surrounding Light is the only medicine.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/10, Shamati #16

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A question I received: Is bestowal an act or a desire to give?

My Answer: What can you give to the Creator if He doesn’t lack anything except your attitude toward Him? He doesn’t need even this. The only thing He lacks is for you to become like Him. This will delight Him. Why? It’s because, then, you’ll exist in the most comfortable state. “But I don’t want to be in the most comfortable state. I want to think only about bestowal!” If you’re thinking about bestowal, you’re thinking about how to attain the most comfortable state.

What motivates you is essential. If it is to give to the Creator,  for this sake you attain the perfect state, or if  you desire this state because it’s the best and giving to the Creator looks like a reward? What are you working for?

You can’t have the will to bestow without realizing it. If you have this desire, you must fulfill it. The act of bestowal and the desire to bestow are the same. In the spiritual world, there aren’t physical actions. To attain the will to bestow is our entire work. Indeed, what can we give to the Creator? It is the will to bestow onto Him.

We discover the Light of Hochma. In regard to whom must we uncover this Light, the creature or the Creator? The Light of Hochma fills the entire system. You only discover yourself or your own perception by sensing that you enjoy, bestow, and become infinite. Your will (Kli) is the only thing that changes.

“I am bestowing onto the Creator.”  What are you bestowing?  Did He really lack Light before and now He’s got it? You’re giving Him your attitude. Your attitude to Him is called action. Your will is already an act. However, this will must be complete. Otherwise, it isn’t considered a will.

The desire has to evolve through all four stages. Then, undoubtedly, from the 4th stage, its Reflected Light reaches Keter, and this is bestowal. However, where is bestowal in Keter? One feels the he is bestowing onto the Creator, and this is enough. The Creator has no desires (Kelim) for either reception or bestowal. He has nothing.

Yet, when you perceive that you are bestowing to the Creator, it is His pleasure because He’s within you. You allow the Light to shine.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: Why is the spiritual system so complicated:  The creature asks for one thing and receives something entirely different?

My Answer: First of all, this is incorrect. The Creator and the creature can understand each other, work together, and have no disagreement provided they become partners. Then the creature receives what it asks for: The Creator knows in advance what the creature will ask for, gives it all that it needs, and there are no problems.

A problem arises only when the creature is not asking according to the order of the degrees, meaning it is asking for the sake of self-gratification. Then the creature naturally receives a burdening of the heart and suffering, in order for it to see that its state is not good and the aim is incorrect.

Therefore, it is only by incorrect communication between the creature and the Creator that makes it seem to the creature that the Creator doesn’t understand it, doesn’t do for it what is needed. With the incorrect aim, the creature presents numerous claims to the Creator: “So where is everything that I’m entitled to, why are you not correcting me, why are you not filling me?” However, as soon as the creature acquires the connection with the Creator, it knows exactly what portion of Light it is receiving, why, where to work by means of faith above reason, where by means of personal strength, and so on.

The Creator is interested in our getting to know Him and walking along His side. But where are we in communication with the Creator? In faith above reason. The creature desires to be in communication with the Creator under the Machsom, within the desire to receive, but the Creator tells him: “No, rise up to Bina, attain the qualities of bestowal. There we will understand each other, there you will have no problems with me!”

It is written, “The Creator created man to be direct, but people invent numerous calculations.” Numerous calculations are within the desire to enjoy, because there are a huge amount of all kinds of desires. However, if we cover all these desires with only an intention to bestow, then there are no longer numerous calculations. There is only one calculation, one destination.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/10, The Zohar

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A question I received: What does it mean that the Upper One supplies me with the Light of Hassadim, the properties of bestowal?

My Answer: It means that instead of problems, suffering, darkness, and evil, I begin to perceive goodness, light, abundance, love, kindness, and mercy. Why has it changed? It is because my perception and my desires are beginning to change. My desires become corrected, and suddenly I see the very same darkness as goodness. I understand that bestowal is good. It isn’t darkness, but quite the opposite. It’s a new life that I hadn’t previously known. I perceived it as death, but it turns out to be the land of real life.

This happens to a person who unites with the others and wishes to connect to them, who does everything he can, but discovers that it’s not within his power. So, he asks the Creator to work with him and help him annul himself before the group. Thus, the Creator becomes his partner and all three unite: the person, the Creator, and the group. A person can’t enter the society without the Creator. He must invite the Creator to participate.

When I prepare my desires this way, I suddenly feel that bestowal is not darkness but life. The Light works on me so that subconsciously I begin to avoid reception and to value bestowal. My attitude to the others suddenly changes.

It seems to me as though this intrinsic change occurs in me on its own. I don’t yet understand how the Light has effected this change in me. First, I start to appreciate and honor this quality of bestowal from afar, as it were. However, soon, I desire it and yearn for it so much I simply crave it, and the Light grants my demand and reforms me.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, "Preface to the Sulam Commentary"

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A “friend” is not just any person; he is a companion who stands opposite me. I gradually acquire love for him in order to reach love of the Creator. This formula is rigid and doesn’t change. First I appeal to the Creator, and in order to connect to Him, I have to unite with my friends.

I labor in love of friends because that is the necessary condition for attaining love of the Creator. A friend and the Creator are linked because with respect to my desire to receive pleasure, they are equal. The Creator and my friend are equally distant from me, and I relate to them in the same way.

The Creator is pure bestowal. I hate my friend as much as I hate bestowal, and therefore, I reject them both. If I don’t achieve this attitude and view my friend and the Creator in the same way, then I can’t work properly. It is similar to aligning one’s eye to aim at a target. If my aim is more toward the Creator, or more toward my friend, then it is no longer precise. I must aim precisely at the target, so that he who aspires for the Creator (Isra-El – straight to the Creator) and the Creator (the Light of correction) merge into a single whole.

A Kabbalistic group is a spiritual vessel, a system of souls, while the Creator is the One who fills it. The vessel becomes just like the Light. Then I realize that it is one and the same since there is no Light without a vessel (Kli).

Everything merges into one. The group becomes the model of the Creator for me. In my attitude toward them, I learn how to relate to Him, whether to love or to hate him. Certainly the only way to relate to the Creator is with bestowal. So, I am presented with the group to test how much I can bestow. My ego is what creates the distance, the disparity of form between the Creator and the group. If it weren’t for my ego, then there would be no difference between them.

So why do I feel a difference now? It is only because I receive pleasure from the Creator and nothing from the group. That is the only difference.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, Article, “What does ‘Love Thyself as Thy Friend’ Give Us?”

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We are created from matter which cannot receive Light. Therefore, the only way for us to exist is to enter Bina, the Creator. Bina works on us and raises us up to Her. Her lower part (AHP) descends to us and seems as darkness, which feels undesirable to us. She shines on us with the Light of Bestowal and Mercy (Hassadim), but since we don’t wish to bestow, we perceive it as darkness.

We prepare ourselves to view bestowal as desirable with the help of the Surrounding Light when we work together. Gradually we begin to recognize that there is the Upper One within us. We realize that He is truly the Upper One and we begin to value the quality of bestowal as spiritual. Then, we are prepared to unite with Him and annul ourselves. We are willing to forget about our egoistic desires and attach ourselves to the Upper One like a drop of semen in a mother’s womb.

Then, the Upper One can bring us up; can raise our desires that are ready to adhere to Him. Up where? In the spiritual world is there some other place, higher or lower? No; it is here within us where He begins to cultivate the qualities of bestowal more and more.

This means He is raising us up because we view the quality of bestowal as ascension. Every step we complete results from our more closely uniting with one another and building a system from ourselves that we can present to the Upper One for correction. In this way, we ascend to Bina, and the Light contained in Her expands downward to this world.

Thus, the desires that attach to the Upper One are now not only able to annul themselves, but also to receive and realize the quality of bestowal, to absorb and use it. Obviously, the will remains as receiving, but it changes its intent. So does our world, which is created from the will to receive pleasure; it also begins to gradually receive Effulgence from Above—since the will to bestow appears in it.

From the 2nd Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, “The Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

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In order for me to cancel myself before the group, I need to see my friend’s merits and not his flaws. I need to see the spiritual, divine point in him:

1. Indeed, the Creator wants him!

2. He is special and great because there is a part of the Creator within him.

3. He has been chosen to be my partner on the spiritual path. When the Creator created him, He knew that I would be able to attain Him only with this friend.

Everyone’s flaws are the “donkey” (matter) that remains down below. But my friend’s flaws don’t matter to me because he works on canceling his evil inclination in the same way as I cancel mine. Only his point in the heart matters to him. All the other corporeal qualities were made by the Creator, and we want to rise with our point in the heart above the desires of the entire heart, our entire “donkey.”

All other qualities of my friend don’t interest me and seem to not exist; I only see this spiritual point within him. It is specifically with this point that I need to unite and not with his “donkey.” It is the same for him with respect to me. This is why we can’t have any problems with each others’ egoism; we simply don’t take it into consideration nor do we work with it. We are building a net using only our points in the heart.

Those who see themselves above others will not be able to unite with them. And how can it be that someone is above others, when everyone only has a point in the heart and nothing else? Our “donkeys” can differ from one another, for example, one is stronger, another is weaker. But the points can’t have any differences; all the elements are equally important in the spiritual because perfection can’t exist without each and every one of them.

I am looking at my friend and I see his corporeal body, his “donkey,” but there is a point in the heart within him. It is not an internal organ; it is a divine part from Above! There is a part of the Creator in you, and I strive towards Him with such might I want to grab on to Him and feel Him!  And all of this is within you. There is no single other place where I could meet with the Creator. Only through creating a connection with these points inside my friends can I meet with the Creator.

I don’t have another opportunity to contact Him. He will only reveal Himself if I grab on to your point in the heart, and his, and his, and…. When I hang on to these points in the heart and cancel myself before them, it means that I am canceling myself before the Creator.

It doesn’t matter that you yourself have not yet been corrected and that you are an egoist. When I cancel myself before your point in the heart, I unite with the element of bestowal, the authentic part of the Creator within you. Thus I unite with the Creator.

The spiritual is right here, between us, and not in some other place, some other world. I can clearly feel this spiritual Kli; the fact that we don’t feel it is our psychological problem.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article, “Purpose of Society”

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The entire evil has been prepared for us from Above during the breaking of the vessels. So how can we say that the creature sins if this is the Creator’s making, the result of His actions? Anything man does will always be the consequence of the Creator’s actions. We can always point at the source from which everything comes. Even He acknowledges creating evil and nothing but evil: “I created the evil inclination” (“Barati Yetzer Ara“).

The only freedom of will that allows us to choose between good and evil and demand the correction of evil within us is realized with the help of the environment. As a person turns to the group, he discovers an “empty space,” Klipat Noga, which belongs neither to the Creator nor to the creature. Good or evil there is determined only by one’s free choice.

As you work with the group you begin to see that the Creator has left you something where you can make a decision. This is a special point of your independence. If you begin to create the Creator’s image from this “white,” free point, and decide that you want to become like Him, you will be referred to as “human.”

However, you still need to reveal this point. So far the Reshimo(recollection) of the breaking is being revealed in you. This point is a rudiment of a screen, which you need to build from the Reshimo. It is revealed through our work with the group.

We clear away the accumulation of the shell (Klipot) and different habits with our inner efforts to suddenly discover something that does not belong to the Creator beneath them. This really is a miracle. In this point a person has to say: “The entire world depends on me. Every moment I direct it either toward good or toward evil with my decision.” Then a person spends his entire time like a tightrope walker on a tight wire; every moment he has make a new decision in the direction of good to make sure he does not fall off the tight wire. This means that every moment he chooses to walk the path of truth.

This is why Baal HaSulam says that the path towards the Creator is a very thin thread, and the person walking it must be very careful to make sure he does not bear right or left. Yet all of this happens under the condition that a person discovers the point where the rope starts: his freedom of will in his work with the environment. All of the following points on which he walks are the points of his proper connection with the environment, which he chooses as he realizes his freedom of will.

A person constructs his own rope with the points that he discovers. He himself walks through them, as every time he directs himself and the entire world towards good. Actually, nothing exists before him, neither the point that he discovers nor the rope made with these points, the path straight to the Creator.

The path does not stretch out from the Creator toward us. We only receive the Reshimot, which remain on every degree from the above-downward descent. The rope does not exist, but we build it ourselves from below-upward. At the end, this is precisely what we call “human.”

All the Partzufim that we reconstruct from below-upward are not the same Partzufim that exist during the descent from above-downward. This is because when we climb the degrees, we reveal every degree 620 times greater than it was during the descent. This is a completely different degree, which we build ourselves.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, The Zohar

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