Before you enter the group, you have the freedom of choice to enter it. After you enter it, you have just one choice: to strengthen your connection with the group. You must decide for yourself that this is your free choice, and you must always continue doing this. Therein lies your freedom!

Freedom is not when I do something I want, but when I continuously add my efforts to this connection. We don’t have any freedom of will in any other regard; everything else will happen automatically.

This is a very important principle. I don’t have any freedom in my entire life. I am a complete puppet. There is freedom of choice only in one regard: After the Creator brings me to the group and gives me a spark in my heart, I have one single freedom: to include myself in the group, to grab onto it with my hands and teeth as much as possible.

Once you "latch on" to the group correctly, you depend on it, on the influence of the environment, and you don’t have freedom in this regard. So where are you free? You are free inasmuch as you add your own effort to strengthen your connection with the environment in spite of your egoism. You thereby increase your dependence on the environment and its influence on you. There is no other freedom but this!

This is the mutual guarantee and we must always add more and more principles to it including love for friends, love for the neighbor, and your justifying them by faith above reason. Everything is inside this freedom of will, this approach by which I attain the goal.

The rest of my life unfolds according to a specific "script." You can even go to a fortuneteller who will be able to tell your future. You can predict everything in advance besides the one thing that belongs to your freedom of will. Everything else is driven by "blind" faith.

It is forbidden to predict the future because then a person might think that he has freedom of will in his regular life. However, if you know that there are no free actions, then the future becomes revealed to you. Yet, you can never reveal the future that relates to your freedom of choice because it depends on you.
[23360]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/12/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Before us, there lies an enormous creation. We neither feel nor understand it, and cannot comprehend its magnitude. This is why Kabbalists were instructed by the Creator (Nature) to keep communication with us in a specific manner. These special souls have already performed correction through various methods, almost without the assistance of the environment, and now, before the term expires, they are turning to us and offering the method of correction.

They explain how to arrange a correct environment, and we certainly should use their advice since if we choose the path of natural development, every stage will be lengthy and require enormous strength. Similar to the teachers of a kindergarten group, Kabbalists inform us about rules and conditions and teach us games and exercises. Their advice should be taken as a vital necessity. I must obey them since otherwise, I won’t advance. One shouldn’t deceive oneself, hoping to find some side roads.

Check and see whether you are truly participating if you open the book, but don’t realize it. Let’s see if you will still have complaints after that.

“It’s in your power to build an environment,” Kabbalists say. Yes, you can, but you are lazy in arranging such an environment that will give you confidence, raise the importance of the goal (adhesion with the Creator) and the means for its attainment (unity with the friends). In fact, only working in this environment that you have created will you find everything you need to feel the spiritual world.

It is okay if the environment looks external to you. In truth, these are all your inner Kelim (vessels) that came out due to the breaking. Do you want to correct the brokenness and enter spiritual reality? No problem: accept them and start loving them as you love yourself. When you do, all these external Kelim will unify with the inner ones, and you will return to the correct perception, you will see spirituality instead of corporeality. Everything has been written and explained, so realization of the method lies in our hands.
[22625]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Llesson 10/5/10, “What to Look for in the Assembly of Friends”

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The group is my copy, my shadow, just as I am the Creator’s shadow. I receive much more from my friends than what I put into them. It doesn’t depend on them or their behavior, but only on my attitude to them. This environment is also the Creator. It is the opportunity He gave me to work with Him, having created an illusion for me as if something exists outside of me while, in fact, only the Creator exists outside of me.

That is why we must always awaken the environment until we attain the state where the environment influences me so I desire to unite with it in order to unite with the Creator through it. I cannot attain the Creator without the environment because the environment is an external means through which I will see the image of the Creator.

If I don’t desire to unite with the group, then I am not aiming at the goal, the Creator at all. After all, who is my neighbor? The force of the breaking that took place in spirituality divided me into two parts: me and my neighbor. What for? It was in order for me to discern what I lack in order to unite with the Creator.

As soon as I can bring this environment closer to me even though it seems foreign to me, the more I am able to come closer to the Creator. I was deliberately endowed with a dual perception so I would see a part of me as alien and hateful.

That is why “love your neighbor as yourself” is the main rule of the Torah. This is the only thing the Light corrects, and there is nothing to correct but this. If you don’t ask for this correction, then all your efforts are wasted. Everything else is useless cries into the wilderness.
[22633]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/10, The Zohar

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It is very hard to sense spiritual exile. For this, one needs to sense the opposite state of spiritual redemption. And for that to happen, one has to feel the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), an implicit sensation of the property of bestowal.

What does “Shechina (Divinity) in exile” mean? How should I grieve for her, lament the absence of the place of the Creator’s revelation? Or rather, how should I grieve my inadequacy and inability to find Him instead of feeling bad that I can’t see Him?

Certainly, everybody wants to see the Creator. But only a person who has received Ohr Makif can suffer from being inadequate to Him. Nobody feels the need for the Shechina. If the Creator exists, let Him reveal Himself to me since, surely, it’s for the better! However, nobody feels grief over the place this revelation should occur.

There is a huge difference. The revelation of the Creator is perceived egoistically as reception. However, the place of His revelation must be built from our yearning to egoistically reveal the Creator by turning the desire to find Him into intention to do so for “His sake.” This is the preparation of the place whose property will allow the Creator to reveal Himself to us.

It is similar in our world: Everything that emerges in me does so according to my properties. Only after I have adjusted my perception to the outside influence can I recognize it to the degree that our properties (its organ of exposure and my organ of perception) are the same. It all depends on correction of the tools of perception.

Shechina is the place we have to create from the sum of our aspirations to the Creator and correct it in our intention for bestowal. First of all, a person needs tremendous desire to reveal the Creator for his own benefit (Lo Lishma, for Her name). Only later does he understand the necessity of correction, which happens as he uses the environment and draws the Light that Reforms by studying together with the group.

That’s when he begins to realize that success lies solely in the equivalence of form or intention for bestowal which will allow him to adapt to the revelation of the Creator, the property of bestowal. Now that he has something to correct, the phase of correction begins.
[22048]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “What in the Work, is Israel Who Exiled Divinity, is with Them”

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It seems so easy to just let the force of the Light come and correct us, making us love our neighbor! So why is the process of correction so difficult? The difficulty comes from the fact that this entire process is concealed, and that is in order to give us the freedom of will.

To be free means to go against my desire and understanding, when I don’t want it directly! My animalistic body does not aspire to this and my egoism does not help me do this. I have to find a new motivation to advance, which does not stem from my qualities. Otherwise I would just be increasing my animate egoism.

The reason for my advancement must be outside of me, in the environment. In order to advance, I have to use something that does not belong to the egoistic desire, and therein lies the entire difficulty. If not for this, every person would aspire to correction. Who wouldn’t want to receive perfection and eternity, feel the Creator, see all of his fate from beginning to end, and control it!?

Any person would agree to exchange this temporary world for an eternal one. However, people feel that this is too exalted, too difficult, and unattainable. And it’s all because we have to reveal the point of our free choice, called "the middle third of Tifferet."

We understand what love is and what hate is, but it’s not clear what a neutral state is, "the middle third of Tifferet." On every degree we have to make our choice while in that state. Otherwise we won’t be independent of the Creator.

What’s the point of creating a miserable creature that suffers in this world, and then giving it the knowledge that there is a perfect state and one must only use a means called the Torah to go from a bad state to a good one? In fact, any machine could do the same thing if there is good and evil, and a means to go from evil to good. There is no free choice here.

Religions operate according to this scheme of two lines. The difference between Kabbalah and religion is free will, the third line. A person has to find the point where he can carry out actions independently of himself and his earthly choice, so he won’t look for self-benefit.

If we find this point and act based on it, it means we freely build ourselves and are independent of our previous nature. We cut ourselves off from it and give birth to ourselves, instead of having the Creator do it.

This point of independence poses the difficulty. It constantly confuses us and erases everything we understood and felt a moment ago, immersing us into a "fog" all over again. But it is happening because we are being led into a completely different dimension of life where we will reveal the true reality instead of the unconscious state we are in today.
[22062]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: Can despair extinguish my spark of spiritual desire?

Answer: Of course it can. I’ve already given way to despair in this world, and I’m no longer consumed with the earthly desires. Meanwhile, there is a “spark” that shines within me. It’s the awakening from Above that brings me to a teacher and a group.

Between my despair and the spark emerges a tension, a vector, a force of desire that is caused by their difference. I don’t know where it is directed exactly, but it is already a subconscious direction towards bestowal.

This Kli is already aimed upwards like a dipole (a pair of charges with opposite signs). To use my desire correctly, I place it in the “magnetic” field of the group. In this case, the group’s forces aim my dipole and move it in the direction of the goal, the quality of bestowal and love.

The environment, the group, has powerful poles: a big disappointment with this world and the importance of bestowal. To the extent of my connection with this field, a common desire, it influences me and carries me along to the goal.

Particles (dipoles, charges, particular desires) are powerless by themselves. To empower and accelerate them, we build accelerators. In the same way, the group (the common desire) blows up my spark of desire into a big fire. The principle is simple: I join the community and make my road to the goal quicker and easier by means of the common desire.

When I join the group, I am taught how to become absorbed into this field, this common desire of bestowal and love. I receive more than just a desire from the environment because I’m not in a regular egoistic society, but I am surrounded by Kabbalists that want to reveal the Creator in their common field of desire of the Creator.

I draw closer not only to the group, but to the Upper Giving Force that is concealed in our common desire. This is why in return for my efforts to unite, I receive from the environment the power of the Creator: the Light that Reforms.

The environment that one builds responds to his efforts with the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif, OM).

[21668]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/10, “Who Testifies for Man”

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Question: How do I change my values? How do I place the importance of the Upper Force which constantly defines and forms me and my world above all material, animate, physical, and even human desires? How do I use the group, the environment, to raise it above everything that is important to the egoistic desire?

Answer: It is specifically the importance that differentiates the egoistic desire from the spiritual desire to bestow. On the corporal level, it is concentrated on the Kli (vessel), while on the spiritual level, it is focused on the Creator.

That is, what matters is where you focus your attention: on what you receive or from Whom you receive it.

Importance can be switched over. For example, from a mother’s perspective, a child is more important than her. However, how do I follow her example regarding other people in such a diverse world? How do I convince myself to transfer the importance from my life to a certain force that paints this world for me?

It’s worth remembering that I reveal this force by making an effort to examine it. I acquire the vessel of revelation. Now, the force is also present, but I am not focused on perceiving it. So, how do I focus my attention on it?

Everything depends on importance. When it is focused on the Creator, I feel Him and live in Him. I can finally discern the things I did not notice before. The Creator Himself does not change. He remains at absolute rest. It is only the constantly operating Reshimot (reminisences, the spiritual genes) that make me make an effort. And later, I myself need to look for a way to focus these efforts on whatever really matters.

This is where the environment comes to the rescue. Like glasses, it focuses my eyes on the essence. We unite, raise the importance of spirituality in our eyes, and focus our common efforts on a tiny point through which I begin to see the Creator.
[21600]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/10, “The Greatness of a Person Depends on His Faith in the Future”

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The Upper One exposes to us its lower part, Malchut, as a black void, promising nothing good. The “Upper World” (the spiritual world) is presented to us so unattractive on purpose. Meanwhile, in “this world” that we feel in the Keter of the lower one, we find at least some pleasure.

I exist in such state that even this world doesn’t attract me, and the state of the Upper One seems to be even worse. Actually, I am not even filled in my egoistic, receiving desires, but the Upper One loads some more on me by suggesting: “You wanted to be in bestowal!” I don’t have anything, and yet the Upper One is telling me: “Come on, share what you have with the others!”

Hence, I can accept what the Upper One suggests solely without thinking, without any conditions, and not through my own efforts. I can do it only by the force of the Light, without making any plans and having hopes to fill my egoism and receive some benefit in “this world.”

Most important for a person is to reach the state of bestowal. And then, he will have everything, but only after he rejects it! He will receive fulfillment (satisfaction), yet not through reception, but through bestowal.

This is how we should view the month of Elul before the beginning of the New Year, the start of one’s spiritual journey. ELUL, as an acronym, means “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me.” The Upper One hands down these hopeless conditions to me so that with their help I may break free from my egoistic state. In fact, if He promised me something good, I would never be able to tear away from my egoism, as I am chained to it by pleasure.

It is written: “The Creator places man’s hand on a good fate” by submerging his life into darkness and void but, on the other hand, reveals to man a tiny beam of Light to show the way out of the dark. This beam of Light is not an egoistic, material gain. The Creator provides me with the help on my spiritual path: He brings me to a Kabbalistic group, where I can exercise my free will and choose the correct environment.

The Light “illuminates” a bit, meaning that it gives me a sensation that bestowal in particular is the Light. It makes me feel that the Light is ascent above my egoism when it doesn’t matter whether it’s filled or empty since what counts is Whom I’m connected with.

The Creator lets me know the following: You suffer in the corporeal state, so don’t seek material fulfillment. Rather, being in this state, look upward: Think about what other life may exist, in other values, in bestowal, in another dimension (of happiness).

This means that a beam of Light is shining onto me through the cracks in the wall that separates me from the Upper World, the world of peace (rest from my egoism and worry about filling it) and perfection (aspiration to bestowal and love).

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/10, Shamati #42

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Question: How do you reconcile the notion of Private Providence and one’s individual prayer with the notion of general spiritual laws that every person must comply with?

Answer: You will not understand this until you stop separating yourself from the general system. The “particular” is a type of connection between you and the system of souls, which stems from your state. Meanwhile, the “general” is the basic condition of the group.

A person can never receive anything for himself. Indeed, on his own he has no capacity in which to receive spirituality. A person’s individual spiritual capacity exists outside of him. It is in the desires of others that he is able to attach to himself with the help of the Upper Light, like a mother who lives within her child’s desires.

Aside from the desires of others, every one of us has only a “point,” their individual root. What can you do with a point? Only connect it to all the other parts of its soul: the desires of others.

This matter of connecting yourself to the general Kli is what we call Private Providence. The notion of “myself” as an individual (a point) does not exist in reality! This point feels itself only with respect to the environment, whether egoistically (our world) or altruistically (the spiritual world). Without the environment it cannot feel anything, even itself.

Therefore, our development relates exclusively to the environment, and our freedom of will lies only in choosing a better environment. After all, my environment today will be me tomorrow.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/10, “What is the Matter of My Making A Pact in the Work”

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Question: How can I help a friend acquire the right intention?

Answer: When a beginner first comes to Kabbalah, he does not see, hear, or feel what it is talking about. He is immersed in his own thoughts and desires. He sits down and studies together with everyone like a baby who was just born and does not perceive anything or understand what kind of world he is in. Or it can be compared to a sick person who has lost consciousness.

I remember myself after a car accident when I lay in bed unconscious. Sometimes I would slightly regain consciousness and hear voices on the outside. Sometimes I could even reply to them, but I did not see anything or react in any way. This is similar to a person who comes to study Kabbalah: He is present and not present. He needs time and care from others, the way people take care of someone who is seriously sick or a baby. This kind of care can help him to advance slightly.

If the assistance does not help, then the person has to be left alone and given time to gradually make order for himself. This may take him several months or years until he begins to hear Kabbalah rather than himself.

When does a person really start to hear for the first time? It’s when he feels that unity with others opens up spiritual sensations for him and that this is exactly where the entrance to the spiritual world lies.

Therefore, the bigger and stronger the environment, the more it accelerates a person’s development and influences him, forcing him to move faster on his own.

From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/10, The Zohar

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