By joining the desires of others to himself in order to fill those desires, a person creates his soul. This is how he realizes the desire to become similar to the Creator.

Some time ago, Abraham gathered such people in ancient Babylon and created a group which was called “Isra-el,” which means “directly to the Creator.” However, the quality of bestowal is now gone, and instead of love for the neighbor, unfounded hatred is revealed between us. I hate others just because they are not me and for having their own desires.

I am built in such a way that everyone else is absolutely not included in my sphere of interests unless I am able to benefit from them. I hate others because they are separate from me.

On the other hand, if we were united and felt others’ desires within us, we would love them. Therefore, hatred can be revealed only in contrast to love. We always learn from opposites – “the advantage of the Light is learned from darkness.” This is why by striving to love my neighbor, I discover hatred within myself in regards to him.

The students of Rabbi Akiva, who existed in the quality of love for the neighbor, descended from this love into unfounded hatred. They were blown in different directions by the explosion of egoism within them.

If a person rises along the spiritual degrees, if he wishes to achieve bestowal, love, and similarity to the Creator, then he discovers time and time again that his nature is unfounded hatred, and that by revealing the sinner within himself, he corrects himself and becomes righteous.

(From a lesson on “Introduction to the Book ‘From the Mouth of a Sage,’” 11.06.2009)

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The Creator is an all-encompassing law of the universe. By demanding correction, we are not addressing someone, but we are preparing our desire for change from an egoistic desire to receive, to an altruistic desire to bestow.

As soon as we desire this, it will change! This will happen due to the Creator, the general law of the universe, immediately influencing our desire. The Creator is a spiritual field of bestowal and love in which we shift as the desire in us changes.  The Creator, however, is at a specific point in this field, relative to us. Initially we are opposite to it, and because of this, we are situated in the most external circle of this field, which is called “this world.”

To the extent that we desire to move closer to the center, towards the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal, we cause this field to influence us, and it is able to move us. We can see that the Creator does not act on a whim, and we have no reason to wait for special treatment from Him.

My respect for the law of gravity will not change its effect on my body. In the same manner, if we follow the spiritual laws, we enter the spiritual world, and if not, we remain outside.

There is no protection, and it is useless to play up to and fawn over the Creator. The Creator is a force which reads my innermost desires rather than listening to my words. I advance to the extent that I correspond to this force.

The science of Kabbalah examines the laws of the spiritual world. It is spiritual physics, not lyrics. We exist in Nature; the Creator is Nature, and His laws are the laws of Nature.

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A question I received: The science of Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to the created beings in this world. But how can we reveal the Creator?

My Answer: Suppose I want to explain quantum physics to a little child. I will have to begin the explanation from the simplest things and the most basic laws. And it will take many years for the child to learn all the formulas and definitions. We advance in the science of Kabbalah in the same manner, step by step, gradually moving through the degrees of the worlds, which are concealments that hide that which can harm us for the time being. Layer by layer, we reveal what is to our benefit to the extent that we are able to learn it.

It is impossible to enter the spiritual world without knowing its laws, just like in our world we could not survive without knowing the laws of this world. In fact, we are taught about the laws of this world for the first 15-20 years of our lives. Likewise, a person can only enter the spiritual world once he has all the necessary knowledge about the soul’s existence in it.

This is why there is a period of preparation, which we are now going through. The next stage of our development will be revealed to us as soon as we are ready for it.

Therefore, when we feel bad all of a sudden, when we experience difficulties and feel like we don’t understand things, when we are overcome by “darkness” and disappointment, we have to see this as help from Above. Like children, we should rejoice about the game that the “Adult” is playing with us.

Each person is bound to attain the Upper World in this life. All we have to do is go through the right preparation to be able to feel it and live in it.

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A question I received: What is bestowal?

My Answer: Bestowal is love. However, love is an attitude, whereas bestowal is an action expressing love.

What we normally call love in our world is an aspiration to fulfill our ego. But what is real love between us? I have a desire, and you have another desire. If I am able to attach your desire to mine and make your desire more important, then my desire will serve yours; it will be aimed at fulfilling your desire. That will mean that I love you. Furthermore, when I fulfill your desire in this way, this is called an action of bestowal.

We were all created as one desire. But afterwards, this desire was broken into many pieces and we separated from each other. The ego emerged between us, making us feel distant from one another. Now we have to apply efforts towards building a connection among us above our egos. We shouldn’t destroy the ego, but use the ego to make our connection stronger!

As a result, the unity we achieve will be 613 times greater than the original whole desire created by the Creator. We will then feel similar to the Creator, because we won’t be filled by the original Light of Nefesh, but by the supreme Light of NaRaNHY – the Light of love and bestowal!

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Questions I received regarding finding our importance, interest in life outside Kabbalah, and freedom of choice:

Question: I only want to say that in my search for meaning, it seems as though everything leads to the wisdom of Kabbalah . I know there is something I must do, and I do not know what it is. How can the wisdom of Kabbalah help me to discover what my importance or role in life might be?

My Answer: Everything is revealed through revelation of the Creator, because there is nothing else besides the Creator and man. While everything around me is part of me, thus far, I just perceive everything as being external to me.

Question: After a few months of studying Kabbalah, I find it hard to find pleasure in ordinary things that I did before. Whatever I try to do, I hit the barrier of my ego. Either I decide not to do anything, or I break it, but afterward I feel shame.

Therefore I am losing interest in everything besides studying and my job, which I have to do. How can I justify the Creator if there is nothing to look forward to or nothing to take pleasure in?

My Answer: You lack a society that is going towards the Goal with you.

Question: One recurring question many people have who are new to Kabbalah, myself included, is this: Do we have any free will other than the choice between Kabbalah and the path of suffering?

My Answer: No.

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The entire material of creation is desire created by the Creator, who also sends the Light that fulfills the desire. Man is the correct correlation between the Light and the desire, and since man’s actions most always come from desire, his actions are therefore determined by the Creator.

However, if we aspire to reach connection between us by helping each other, acting “against the Creator” who created this separation between us, it truly becomes our own action.

The quality which the creature acquires by this action is called “a soul.” This soul doesn’t initially exist in us, and the Creator cannot give us a soul. Rather, a soul is created by our desire to connect above our egoism.

All states descending from the World of Infinity to our world (the last stage) exist in us in the form of records, which can be realized only by our efforts towards unification. Our descent resulted in separation, and our ascension is the action of moving towards unification.

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A question I received: Why did the Creator give us egoism if we have to unite and get rid of it sooner or later?

My Answer: People learn about the world by comparing opposites, such as hot and cold, black and white, and so on. We feel one thing on the background of the other. If everything were only white or only black, then we wouldn’t feel a thing. We always need contrast, such as the difference between colors, sensations and places. What we actually feel is the gap between things and not each thing on its own.

The Creator is the pure quality of bestowal. However, I cannot feel this quality of bestowal unless I am opposite to it. Then I will have two “inhabitants” living inside me: a monster named the Evil Inclination, and opposite to it – the beautiful Creator, the Good Inclination. The inner opposition between them will enable me to differentiate one from the other.

Before I discover the evil inclination within myself, I can only have a tiny sensation of this world, the smallest possible feeling. But by revealing that inclination, I can also discover the Creator, who stands opposite my egoism.

This is why we need egoism, in order to be our “helper” from the opposite side. Because it is opposite to the Creator, it helps us attain and perceive Him.

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The speed of one’s spiritual advancement depends on how attentively one relates to everything that happens to him in life and whether he doesn’t let a single moment go by without connecting it to spirituality. One has to be restless like a child and use every single moment. In this regard, the environment is very important. The environment speeds up a person’s development by giving him the right direction and always pushing him forward.

With the help of the environment, a person can discover that even the calmest moments have great content. It is particularly during those moments that one discovers the Creator’s passionate attitude toward him. It’s like discovering a whole world deep beneath the still surface of water.

Don’t let life pass you by. We shouldn’t miss a single moment, since each moment is an opportunity to connect to the Creator. This is called returning life to its Source. We have to understand what He wants to tell us through each circumstance He gives us. Our whole life is a conversation between us and the Creator, but because we let moments slip by, we don’t hear Him! If we only listen, we will hear the Creator’s voice at each moment.

That is how we will connect the material time with spirituality. They will unite as one and we will see the spiritual picture. If a person perceives time as a number of actions, then he is ready to view his life as a spiritual process. However, only the environment is capable of attuning us to this attitude to life.

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A question I received: What is “the revelation of the Creator to creation?”

My Answer: It means that creation, the desire to enjoy, acquires the quality of the Creator, who is Bestowing. When creation attains this goal, it acquires the force, desire and intention, which is overall called “bestowal.” That is the meaning of the creation revealing the Creator.

The revelation of the Creator, the quality of bestowal, takes place inside of creation. It means that creation receives a new program of governance, a new program that sets it in motion. Previously its desire to enjoy was driven by pleasures it felt within, in the present or the future. But now its desire to enjoy is controlled by pleasures that it feels and reveals inside others.

This is called the revelation of the Creator inside creation. The objective of the science of Kabbalah is to facilitate this revelation, to upgrade our inner program (the program that governs our desire and our matter) from reception to bestowal. The revelation of the quality of bestowal inside man is called the revelation of the Creator.
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Kabbalah is a science, and Kabbalists are scientists who realistically reveal the concealed, Upper World and the Unified Force, the Creator. The revelation happens by correcting one’s nature and transforming it to the nature of the Upper World.

There have been Kabbalists who revealed the concealment (Tzimtzum Alef and Tzimtzum Bet) of the Worlds of Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya and even the World of Adam Kadmon and the World of Infinity, along with the governance by one and three lines, and so on. Each Kabbalist made a revelation to the degree of his correction.

But as long as the souls are fine (not very egoistic), Kabbalists are unable to reveal very much, since they lack a big enough instrument. The Reflected Light (Ohr Hozer) is weak and does not reach the higher levels. Therefore, the Kabbalists of the past revealed creation in general, without the particular details.

As time went by, the same souls went through many reincarnations and accumulated additional egoism (Aviut) and desires. Thus, they became able to work with a more corrupted material, which is why they conducted a deeper research of the matter of creation, the Creator’s work (Avodat HaShem).

This research is similar to research in any other science. However, the external science provides an external knowledge and attainment, meaning only about our world. It doesn’t change us. Kabbalah, on the other hand, gives us a higher mind and sensations, correcting man himself. This is why we find our way into a new world. It’s because we change and the world changes as well.

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