Egoism, which is rooted in our nature, is the reason for our suffering. Since nature is inescapable, people attempt to limit the use of egoism by reaching all sorts of  agreements, realizing that otherwise egoism will lead to confrontation and war. Countries make all possible efforts to sign treaties while at the same time they realize such treaties won’t radically change the situation, yet they understand that it is necessary to counter-oppose the power and the egoism, to curb it by force.

If only people knew that it is possible to correct our nature, that evil reveals itself through us specifically so that it could be corrected and bring us to something great and supreme! If only we knew that we can escape hardship, rise above death, and attain eternal and perfect life!

This is the knowledge that we try to bring to others, since merely understanding it will bring humanity tremendous relief. No one knows how much time it will take since nowadays time accelerates exponentially. This is why we have to keep working and not despair; we will see the fruit of our work in the nearest future.

We have to explain to the people why everything happens (for our correction), what the goal is (eternal and perfect life), and the good path to it (how to realize the goal with the Light’s help). Then people will understand what real life is, that it’s not just something we perceive at a given moment in our limited egoistic desires.

We sense transition from one Partzuf to another as death and the loss of everything there is. But if we perceived the world through the desire to bestow, this transition wouldn’t be felt as a loss since we would sense a larger, general system. Upon losing one’s Partzuf, a person still stays within the system and enters a new Partzuf. If one connects other people to his desire, he feels the eternal flow in everything that he undergoes.

Today, we don’t perceive eternity and it seems a disaster for us to lose our Partzuf and the ten Sefirot that we envision as “this life.” We don’t know anything except it.

It’s not so hard to explain this. Any person gains so much from listening to this information that he would want to know more. Ultimately, everybody dreams of eternity and perfection.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, Article “The Peace”

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Until now, our egoism was developed by the force driving this world. This force increased our egoism from one generation to the next over the course of millennia. But now it’s finished and our ego no longer sees anywhere to keep going. It has reached the final boundary of the sphere in which it grew and has filled it all up.

We are being treated in a new way that shows us how interconnected we are with one another within the egoistic sphere. This force of compression will constantly push us closer together, closing us inside and showing us how incapable we are of hiding from one another.

Nature is now exhibiting a completely new attitude toward us, and therefore we will feel worse with every passing year. This is why all the countries and governments are in dismay and don’t know what to do with the world. The only way to correct the world is to attract a force that will correct us, which will happen to the extent we desire it. So, we have to desire it!

Every person will be forced to connect with others via a connection of kindness. This will either happen coercively or through the realization that it is necessary. By studying, gathering together, singing, and having a Kabbalah TV channel, we connect to the system from which this force comes to us and corrects us.

Every person has to find out about this and reveal the Creator. In the same way that we now feel ourselves, the world, people and nature, we will have to reveal one more level of reality, one more world.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/10, “Matan Torah”

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A question I received: What is essentially the gist of the method that you want to convey to the whole world?

My Answer: It’s the method of how to properly organize human society. Right now society is broken and feels the need to unite. However, it doesn’t have the method to attain unity.

Everyone understands that our egoism is destroying us and we have nowhere left to go. There are no other methods left. Our entire history and the entire path we have gone through have brought us to the understanding that we cannot do anything to affect human nature. All research shows that we are complete egoists and every person thinks only about himself.

However, we cannot keep advancing in this manner. The ego is constantly growing while the world we live in forces everyone to be interconnected. Nature has pushed us into this tight connection, yet we are striving to do the opposite, to separate as much as we can. We have no way to balance these two forces that are opposite to one another: our ego, which separates us from each other, and the force of nature, which pressures us and locks us all together like in prison.

We find ourselves in one small room where we all hate each other. The situation is becoming unbearable and we don’t understand: What should we do next?

Humanity is gradually revealing this state of affairs. On the other hand, the science of Kabbalah is being revealed, which is a method offering a way to resolve the contradiction and transform it to perfection. It is possible only with the help of an external, Upper Force, which does not exist within the plane of our reality.

This seems unrealistic to you because the force that can correct our state does not come from our world. Yet, we can discover it and use it just like the other forces of nature that we did not know in the past, but we learned about them and now use them.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/10, “Matan Torah”

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A question I received: What does it practically mean “To value the inner part of me more than the external part?” Baal HaSulam writes that this is necessary in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

My Answer: To value the inner part of you means to respect your mission and responsibility to attain mutual bestowal and to unite together “as one man with one heart” through brotherly love, for the sake of revealing the Creator, the general force of bestowal and love that rules in nature. This has to be the most important thing to a person. We are talking about the Upper Force of bestowal, which fills everything, but which we don’t feel because we nullify its manifestation with our egoism. The right intention for us to have is for this force to become revealed within us to the fullest extent.

I make a simple calculation: that this is the only thing that is important to me in this life. This is why I was born and what I live for. This is what I have to achieve as long as I live in this world. In addition, all of humanity depends on the work I do in this regard, because we are all connected together inside one net.

Baal HaSulam writes that “a person from the nation of Israel,” meaning a person who has a point in the heart (Isra-El means the aspiration to the Creator) determines the direction and state of the whole world with his intention. He can say, “I don’t want anything right now. I’m in a state of descent so leave me alone. I don’t want to hear about spiritual work. I’m going to rest!” In that case, where is his responsibility and the understanding that there are millions and billions of people who depend on him? He is now determining their fate and how they will advance toward correction – whether through painful blows or through realization and goodness.

If these people depend on you, then you have a very strict responsibility to make the right choice because you are leading everyone, be it in a good direction or a bad one. You have no choice about the matter; this is how the worldwide network is built and this is the place you have been allotted in it. Therefore, you must always be in a state of upper fear and remember that you decide what will happen to the whole world.

Later you will reveal that all the people are your children, the closest thing to you! But you have to think this way even now, by faith above reason. Everything that you do is not being done to you, but to the whole world!

How important we deem spirituality directly determines the fate of all humanity. What’s important for us will be important for everyone else. That is the structure of this entire system, in which we are connected with strict connections. A person without a point in the heart does not have the ability to change anything. Only you do, who are called “Isra-El,” or “Li-Rosh” (I am the head).

From the Independence Day lecture 04/20/10, “Preface to the Book of Zohar”

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The Zohar. Chapter “VaYaera (And the Lord Appeared),” Item 424. …The fruit of the actions of the Creator is from that river that stretches out of Eden, meaning ZA and the souls of the righteous. In other words, its deed is the souls of the righteous. And this is the fortune from which all good blessings and timely rains pour out, as it is written, “To water the garden.” It trickles and waters from above downwards because sons depend on this fortune and on no other place….

All our degrees of ascension and correction depend on “fortune” (Mazal) – the Lights that come from above “in drops,” one after another, and seep through the beard of Arich Anpin from his head. And since they come in intervals, we have an opportunity to correct ourselves.

Corrections occur to us step by step, time after time, due to the fact that the Upper Light comes to us in small portions, since a person is incapable of freeing himself from his egoism immediately, in one leap. This is impossible, since egoism is our whole nature!

Therefore, heaviness of the heart comes to us, we overcome it, then it comes again, and we overcome it again, and so on; “drop by drop” we receive correction. All this is due to the revelation of the drops of the Light of Hochma, which are delivered to us by the stream (Zeir Anpin) that flows out of Eden (Bina) and irrigates our souls.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/10, The Zohar

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Some stars are so condensed that light cannot escape from their field. We also are inside our egoism as in a black hole, and cannot break out of it, neither in our feeling nor perception.

My feeling that I am contracted and enclosed within myself and sense all of reality only within me, that is, my feeling that I don’t sense the Creator and external world yet I need Him desperately, is a necessary preparation (Kli) for revealing the spirituality. This happens on every state and in every degree.

First, I have to reveal what I’m lacking, that is, I start with revealing negativity. I gradually raise within myself the sensation of deficiency and desire for the next degree. Initially, I simply think that I could get something from it for my current degree. Then I begin to think that the next degree is itself superior. This degree becomes so important to me that I am willing to forget about benefits that I can get for my current degree and I become disinterested in it.

I want to be at and inside the next degree so I completely reject my current degree and all its profits. I am prepared to trade anything to get to the Upper degree. This is how I shift my values from the lower to the Upper World, and if I really want it, I then ascend and enter it.

From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter 13, 1925, pg. 25

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The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” Item 118: A firstborn is considered Hochma, and “All the firstborn” indicates that even the higher and lower degrees were broken from their dominion… ” Item 119: “From the first-born of Pharaoh that sits upon his throne…even unto the first-born of the maid-servant…."

A firstborn is GAR, the head of the Partzuf, and it needs to subside in Egypt. Everything that was perceived in the desire to receive pleasure as a stable basis of life, which supposedly could be achieved egoistically, is now being destroyed: "From the firstborn of Pharaoh unto the firstborn of the maid servant and the firstborn of the cattle."

Egoism grows, the Light cannot fill it, and Egyptian darkness comes about. It seems to us that the attitude of the Upper Governance with regard to us changes, but in reality the Light exists in absolute rest while the desire to receive pleasure in us increases constantly. If we don’t correct it in time, we feel greater and greater darkness and suffering within it.
At the end of the Egyptian slavery our desire increases through a leap, and it is revealed with a new force on the next level. It is there that a person feels Egyptian darkness, the ten plagues, which is egoism revealed in all of its ten Sefirot, meaning in a complete desire displaying darkness and evil. The desire has grown, and we have stopped feeling even that minor illumination within it which we had experienced before.

The ceasing of the former Light in the new, great desire to receive pleasure is called the execution of all the firstborns in the dark night, "from the firstborn of Pharaoh unto the firstborn of the maid servant and the firstborn of the cattle." This means that the Light has been concealed and is no longer revealed.

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After the destruction of the second Temple (the destruction of the quality of bestowal and love of the level of Neshama), people stopped feeling spirituality (the quality of bestowal). Then instead of performing actions of bestowal and love (commandments), all that was left for them were corporeal traditions, the copies of the spiritual actions. From the time of the destruction of the second Temple, people have continued to follow these traditions.

Kabbalists, who were leaders throughout these generations, supported following these traditions and customs in the nation. Gradually, as egoism grew and there was a descent of the generations, people lost the understanding of the connection between the traditions and their desired spiritual execution. They simply carried out mechanical actions, thinking that this was what the Creator demands from a person. They were promised a reward for this in this world and in the other world.

It is written in the Talmud that if there is no connection between the corporeal and spiritual performance, the corporeal actions are lifeless and they kill a person. The corporeal actions that are not connected to spirituality distance a person even more from spirituality and from the Creator because they satisfy the person. It is also written in the Talmud that “the Creator does not care how an animal is killed (meaning, whether or not it is done correctly according to rituals) since the commandments are given in order for a person to be corrected through them.”

If a person seeks a connection between his material actions and their spiritual roots, then when he performs these actions, he reminds himself about spirituality, and in this case it pays for him to perform them. However, if this connection is not there, then carrying out mechanical actions can distance a person from spiritual development, since he becomes satisfied by corporeal actions, “commandments,” and does not feel that anything is lacking in them.

Without the connection to spirituality, the Torah will become a deadly poison for a person. Instead of loving his neighbors, he will feel that he is perfect and will become full of pride in regard to others, thinking that everyone owes him, and this is the poison of spiritual death.

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Every person in this world is governed from within by two forces: egoism and altruism. The egoistic force pulls everything inside a person, making him the center of the universe, while the altruistic force enables him to give to the outside, to other people.

However, even though this force is called altruistic, it’s clear that with the boundaries of this world, it, too, can only act egoistically. Thus, even if I give to another person, it is not a selfless act; I still expect to receive something in return. I don’t have any possibility of giving without compensation being the motivation or “fuel” for my act.

This is how man is built: he’s a machine that can only work on egoistic fuel, the benefit he expects to receive. I cannot work as an eternal engine, Perpetuum Mobile, without receiving any energy and satisfaction from outside. I have to receive energy from outside because I’m not the sun that shines with its own light.

Only the Creator possesses the true quality of bestowal since this is His nature. In order for creation to be able to bestow selflessly, it has to receive fuel from the Creator in the form of the sensation of the Creator’s greatness. This is the only opportunity to attain bestowal – to use the Creator as the source of the driving energy.

This constitutes the whole problem of the communists, socialists, kibbutzniks, and altruists of all kinds who desire to correct the world: they don’t understand that man does not have the energy to bestow. He does not have the fuel to implement this idea. Not one person will object to the fact that life will be better if everyone becomes altruists. But the problem is, no one knows how to make this happen; no one besides Kabbalists, that is, because they have access to the Source of energy!

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The science of Kabbalah is the order of descent of the Upper Forces directed to the revelation of the Upper Governing Force (the Creator) to a person.

The law of the particular: Even before the common revelation of the Upper Force to the whole of humanity, there are a few chosen individuals who are able to reach this state.

The law of the general: At the end of its development, the whole of humanity must come to the revelation of the Upper Governing Force, and completely attain it. Studying a path of attaining the Creator, Kabbalah explores “the order of descent of the worlds” from above downwards, that is, from the World of Infinity to this world, as well as “attainment of the Upper Force” from below upwards, by climbing the steps that were formed by the descent of the worlds.

Attainment of the Governing Force is gradual and sensed in our feelings, depending on correction of egoism. The Upper Force has to be gradually attained according to the laws established by its descent from above downward.

Kabbalah studies the world we can’t feel. A Kabbalist first senses this world, and then takes on the cognition of it. Those who don’t feel the Upper World think that Kabbalah studies something abstract and detached from reality. But it’s the opposite: Kabbalah describes only a real, attainable reality.

Everything is revealed from above downwards in the parallel worlds, and these worlds differ only in their material, a quality of desire. However, the objects and forms are the same as an imprint of a seal. All the details of the Upper World (roots) are reflected in our world (branches). A root controls its branch in everything.

The language of branches: The language of branches was created by Kabbalists based on the connection of each branch in our world with its root in the Upper World. However, this language can be understood only by those who feel the root. Aspiration to attain the Upper Force causes the Light to shine from the root to the branch, thus correcting the branch to the degree of the root.

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