A question I received: In the spiritual world, a day, a month, and a year are not our calendar days. How can I reject the egoistic desires if the seven days can last for years according to our calendar time?

My Answer: In our world, we live according to the regular astronomical calendar that corresponds to the revolutions of Earth, Moon, and Sun. This defines our whole life.

Kabbalists, on the other hand, tell us what happens “inside” a man with our self-awareness and awareness of the world. A spiritual year, week, or day is in no way related to astronomical time. A person can pass a spiritual year in a few minutes or be in the state of Shabbat (Saturday), symbolizing the end of correction, in the middle of a week. Passover, when a person comes out of Egypt, can happen to him at any time.

There are spiritual roots and there are their consequences, the material branches are reflected in processes happening in nature. It is written, “Israel is above the stars and signs of fate.” A person that aspires toward the Creator (Isra-El means “straight to the Creator” in Hebrew) is above all these considerations in his spiritual development. This is why he advances without any relation to the astronomic calendar.

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Baal Hasulam Article: “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”- Lesson 4

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In every state, there are two lines: the Creator and the creature, or bestowal and reception. These two lines are opposite to one another; there is absolutely no link to be found between them. In addition, the more we advance, the more these lines diverge. The middle line that runs between them is not exactly a point of contact. These two lines descend all the way down, while the middle line begins above, in the upper degree.

I’ll never be able to unite these two lines in my current state, but only if I connect to the Upper One by canceling myself before it and ascending to the next degree. Once I am there, the two lines that I felt at my previous degree unite into one. They no longer oppose one another even though, before, they were polar opposites.

The middle line is always above the other two and it’s attained by rising above reason – that’s the definition of the “next degree.” There, the contradiction disappears.

We’re given these contradictions purposefully. As we are unable to deal with them, the contradictions force us to ascend upward.

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Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Faith above Reason”

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The Creator’s goal is to raise man to His level. What does this mean? We perceive our lives within the will to enjoy, which was created by the Creator. This quality is the only thing that exists outside of Him, which is why we always feel lack of fulfillment. We always lack something and aspire to some kind of pleasure. But the Light that comes to the will to enjoy immediately disappears. It nullifies the desire, and the desire does not feel fulfillment.

Therefore, because we perceive our life inside the desire for pleasure, our life is perceived as temporary and transient, where everything disappears. Every moment goes by and disappears, instead of remaining and becoming supplemented by every subsequent moment. On one hand there is the desire, and on the other hand – the pleasure. When the two meet, they are neutralized, even if the pleasure is minimal.

That is why our entire life is built out of these tiny point encounters between the desire (Kli) and the Light, which immediately disappear. And this continues until our life comes to an end. For example, suppose you have a quota of desire – several million small portions of the will to enjoy, which become revealed one after the other. Opposite each one of these portions, there is Light which brings that portion fulfillment. Then they meet – and disappear. Once you exhaust your quota, your life is over, and your whole existence along with it.

However, if over the course of these encounters of the desire and the Light, you were able to attain a state where the Light and the desire “catch” each other and remain together, then you begin to feel Light that is perceived inside the desire as eternal, endless life. That’s because the previous moment stays with you as well. You then ascend above the sensation of time. You stop the moment and acquire eternal existence! This is the entire patent of spiritual life, which is eternal and perfect. This is what one can attain by applying the wisdom of Kabbalah.

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A question I received: Is it possible to raise MAN before despair sets in?

My Answer: Then it wouldn’t be called MAN. MAN is Mayin Nukvin (waters of Nukva). It is the cry of our desire, which is incapable of achieving anything by itself. Thus it has to ascend to Bina, the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

MAN is a double interpenetration between Malchut and Bina. The Hebrew word “Maim” (water – singular form of Mayin) consists of two Hebrew letters “Mem” (“Mem – Mem”) and the word “Nukvin” is composed of the two Hebrew letters “Nun” (“Nun – Nun”). There is a connection between Malchut and Bina because during the breaking of the Kelim Bina included Malchut in herself and part of Malchut was included in Bina. Due to this connection between Malchut and Bina, we can raise our requests to the Creator.

This can be illustrated with the analogy of a child crying and demanding from his mother. His mother responds to his demands. Why is it that another woman would not be as receptive to his requests?  The child has a strong connection with his mother that does not exist between him and any other woman. The child was inside the mother, he has a “place” in her; she is his root. She has a part of the child in her. The child, too, has a part of the mother since he was connected to her through an umbilical cord. This connection between them cannot be severed. The child, when he has a demand, cries to his mother, his root.

The demand you make to the Creator called MAN flows through the connection between Malchut and Bina. Your demand stems from the realization that you are utterly powerless; it brings you to the kind of cry that we could really call MAN. MAN is your correct desire, which is necessarily answered by the Upper One. The Upper One waits for you to desire the state that He has prepared for you.

These degrees, your future states, are already prepared because you’ve descended from them into this world. Now you need to ascend back up through the same degrees. Your next degree is already waiting for you. You only need to desire that which is found there waiting for you. This desire is what is called MAN. If you don’t desire the same thing that awaits you, then you won’t receive it. There must be similarity and equivalence between the degree and the desire. If you desire something else other than the awaiting spiritual degree, then wait until the right desire forms within you. This is how we advance.

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Today humanity has reached such extreme growth of egoism that we can’t even dream about kind and altruistic human beings anymore. Some time ago, we still had hope of our capability of educating and cultivating such caring people. The 20th century has put an end to these dreams. Now, we understand that the human being is simply incapable of altruism. This is a great realization, since it is already recognition of our evil.

However, now we are facing the question: Can people continue to exist in this world if we don’t become more altruistic? Today, we are realizing that we are in a common, global system – a global “village” where everyone is interconnected. With such a recognized interconnection, will we be able to survive if we don’t become altruists?

It is clear that we will not be able to exist this way much longer. We are becoming torn apart. For humanity to survive, we must bestow to each other and become like one man with one heart. Yet as we have seen historically, we have no chance to achieve this with our own strength; it is simply impossible!

But we can reveal that there exists a third force – the Creator, who can do this. We can reach the point of making this revelation and clarification by way of horrible suffering, wars, and epidemics, which would force us to reveal the need for the Creator who will “establish peace between us.” However, this path of natural development is very lengthy and difficult.

There is an alternative. If we study the science of Kabbalah, if we understand the states that we need to go through and the decision that we need to reveal, if we disseminate this knowledge all over the world and draw the Upper Light, then the Light will correct us. It will give us the quality of bestowal, which we are unable to achieve on our own through our nature. This alternative allows us to reach correction through a short and pleasant path by “accelerating time.”

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Who is He, the Creator? The Creator is my internal sensation of my next exalted state to the extent that I am able to imagine it. Every time I change, I picture the Creator in the new way. This is why He is called    Bo-reh (come and see).

We have to understand that there is nothing absolute and unchangeable here. Everything depends on a person’s understanding, perception, and attainment. In reality there is no eternal or unchangeable truth. We need to be ready for these changing perceptions. Something that was black will become white and vice versa. The entire attitude, evaluation, and view of things will change.

It seems to us that this is a somewhat precarious system that doesn’t have a firm base. On the other hand, it does give us a new, completely unique foundation, which is called faith above reason. In other words, in the egoistic desires, it is impossible to receive any concrete knowledge that could be set in stone and would never change.

This fluctuating truth actually pushes a person forward to search for solid ground. And the search leads one to find that the only unwavering truth is revealed in the spiritual world. The solid ground is found to be in faith, in the force of bestowal, rather than in the force of receiving. It is revealed in facts that are above my mind and sensation – at the level of bestowal, Bina.

Suddenly it becomes clear there that there are no things which negate each other, no things which are in opposition to each other. Rather, it is revealed that by connecting and complementing one another, all become parts of the single, perfect wholeness. One sees that Pharaoh, the Creator, the person himself, and the serpent are all part of a singular whole. This perfection becomes revealed to a person as a rigid and unchanging basis for all his actions.

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When we read The Zohar, we need to connect everything there is into one reality that already exists within our soul. The soul is what we call the Malchut of the World of Infinity (Atzilut), meaning all the worlds incorporated together, “I” or “the whole world and I.” All that belongs to my soul since my soul is a tool of perception.

Who is the Creator? It is the inner power that acts within my soul; it is the reason for my existence, the cause that forces me to pursue revelation of the universe and the Creator as the source of my life.

The Zohar tells us about the soul and its various parts as well as the states and processes it goes through. Because of my desire to learn more about the soul’s states and processes, the soul is revealed; I find the tools of perception with which I feel the actual world I live in, but which has, thus far, been concealed from me. Kabbalah is called a “hidden” wisdom since it is the study of the concealed world and the process to reveal it.

In addition to the study of Kabbalah, the group is given to us to help us disclose this world. The parts of reality which I call the “Kabbalah group” or my “fellow-group-mates” can help me with this task. They are the active parts of reality, the only active parts of reality. I can feel the group and want to connect them with me. Together with them, I can work to bring them closer to me.

I can’t work with the rest of reality this way because I don’t sense the same kind of feedback that I can get from the group. These active parts of reality are given to me by the Creator so that by working through them I can bring myself closer to the rest of reality as parts of my own soul.

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A question I received: What does it mean to “receive from the Creator in order to delight Him”? What is this referring to?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam explains this through the example of a guest and a host in “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.” The guest comes to the host. The host sets the table for the guest because he loves the guest with selfless love, without any calculations, and the host really wants to give pleasure to the guest.

The guest feels how much the host loves and wants to give pleasure to him. The host knows ahead of time and prepares exactly the dishes the guest likes in precisely the proportions the guest would like. He has done everything exactly according to the guest’s desires – in quantity and in quality. Realizing this, the guest feels shame. What is he to do?

The guest refuses to accept the food, saying “I don’t wish to be a receiver! I wish to be a giver like you! You have shown me your love, and I feel it. How can I give the same in return to you?” The guest continues to think and recognizes, “But if I don’t receive anything, I am disregarding the host. Is this my response to his love?! What can I do?”

Accordingly, he finds the solution: “I will receive only for the sake of the host. Since the host has a desire to give, and he wants me to receive, I first need to enter his desire, so that this will become the goal for me. If I enter his desire, feel how much he loves me, how much he wants me to receive, and how much he suffers from the fact that I don’t accept his refreshments; I can work with his desire and think only about how to fulfill him. While I am inside his desire, striving to fulfill only him, I discover an opportunity to do this in me – by accepting the food and receiving pleasure from it. After all, I can bring delight to the host only through the pleasure that I feel. I must receive delight immeasurably, since I feel how I can fulfill him through this.”

In this manner everyone works with the desires of the other. The host thinks about how the guest will receive from him and experience pleasure. And the guest thinks about how he will receive and experience pleasure in order to fulfill the host’s desire to give him pleasure. Each uses his desires to fulfill the other’s desires. Meanwhile, each gains double, and even more than that; each comes out of himself, and in doing so, he feels infinite and boundless pleasure.

This patent seems very simple. However, if we begin to think about it, it appears difficult to achieve. Yet ideally if we understand it, we see this is our only opportunity to fulfill ourselves with infinite pleasure, since I use the desires of others outside of myself.

The Creator is an infinite desire, and I am merely a little point. However, if I begin to adjoin and connect to Him, I thereby acquire an infinite desire which I can fulfill. I begin to feel how I fulfill Him, and I feel how this desire is experiencing pleasure. It turns out that by treating Him with love, I receive infinite desires, an infinite life, eternity, and perfection. This happens if I treat the Creator as the goal which I must fulfill. Therefore, the science of Kabbalah is truly a science of reception (the word “Kabbalah” in Hebrew means “reception”), a science of how to receive and how to delight without limitation.

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A question I received: What are the rules of the “game” the Creator “plays” with a person to advance one to spirituality?

My Answer: The only rule of the “game” is that the Creator has a singular intention: to bring us closer to Him. In this “game,” the Creator presents us with different circumstances all with the aim of drawing us closer to Him.

The Creator purposefully grows our egoistic desires. At this point, we start to feel “merciless,” confused, and hard-hearted. We feel that the whole world is against us, that everybody around us hates us, and wants to get in our way. We feel tired, bewildered, and even sick. In other words, we sense a lot of “obstacles” that are both inner and outer in nature. Yet, in fact, these obstacles are the additions of egoistic desires; we’re simply receiving additional desires to receive pleasure for ourselves through which we obtain further opportunities to become closer to the Creator.

Usually, these opportunities come to us along with unexpected complications and problems. Typically, they are accompanied by inexplicable fears. We become scared of the people around us and/or of the authorities. The Creator is clothed in these situations and images that look like the realms of our world. People interpret these situations like children who are afraid of the whole world around them. In these circumstances, it is crucial to use the books, lessons, and our environment and group to strengthen ourselves.

We have to always keep one thought in mind: “There is none else besides Him” and “He is good that does good.” It is challenging to maintain this thought. The Creator’s game is far too artful and skillful for us to “out play” Him. He knows how to confuse us at our level to such an extent that we need to apply a lot of effort in order to stay on our Path and to rid ourselves of any thought that there is any other force beside Him in this world.

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We cannot abide without the wisdom of Kabbalah that puts us directly across from the Creator. It explains how to study Him, how to build an incubator for our development, and how to employ the data from nature. We need this wisdom because we can’t create something from nothing; rather, we have to organize the forces given to us by nature.

If we don’t do it on our own the Creator helps us. If we don’t build the environment (the incubator for our development) using certain forces as we need to, the Creator shows us, but He does so from the opposite side. In this way, He demonstrates to us that our relationships with these forces are deceptive and false.

The Creator builds an incubator for us, but from our perspective, it looks broken. As we start to reveal its structure, we see that it is our attitude that is broken, not the incubator. The incubator is fine. As soon as we change our attitude, it begins to work; it takes good care of us and provides us the chance to become future “nestlings.” Its operation depends on our participation. This state is opposite to prior inanimate, vegetative and animate stages during which nature worked, not us.

At this time, we have to make our own investigations and research and voluntarily launch this system. In other words, we build a mechanism that replaces the Creator! If we succeed, we become similar to Him! We continue the work that He purposefully left unfinished for us to finish. I construct this machine with the help of the forces He gave us; I am the one who builds the Creator and thus becomes more knowledgeable and understanding, similar to Him.

The Creator (the Light that Reforms), the surroundings, the teacher, and the Kabbalah books (anything that enhances our spiritual development) become our spiritual incubator. It should be optimally organized to let the Creator take care of us and bring us to the perfect state, which means that He alters us to become similar to Him. This process becomes an incubator for spiritual nestlings; this is how we should treat our souls.

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