A question I received: How can I express my love of friends if I don’t yet exist in the spiritual world?

My Answer: You have to show everybody how keenly you perceive everything, how firm you are in your aspiration to attain spirituality, how willingly you participate in the work and Kabbalah dissemination, how ready you are to unite with the friends and love them, that is, how much effort you put into it.

You have you set an example openly, and this will awaken the others. This is how we behave with our children in this world: We constantly set an example for them, and it prompts them to act. If we want an infant to smile at us, we smile at him.

This is how we should act in relation to a friend as well. If I do something for him, the next moment I get inspired by his reaction. Even if I faked my inspiration by spirituality, it set him on fire, and he awakened. Meanwhile, his inspiration awakens me in truth.

I started with deception and through it became truly inspired. I build the environment for myself precisely in order to assume its desires as a law for myself. I influence the environment all the time, demonstrating my love of friends, the importance of the goal, and readiness to annul myself. In response, I receive from it all the components that help me achieve the Creator. I receive as many times more of these components as there are people in the group. The group supplies me with the corrected forces that I myself lack.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

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Article, “Concerning Love of Friends:”

1. Why do I need love of friends?

Love of friends is the connection among souls.

“I” is my soul, a “friend” is a different soul, but love is the kind of connection between us whereby he becomes more important to me than I am to myself, and, accordingly, I’m more important to him than he is to himself. I have to feel his desires as closer than my own. This is called loving the other as you love yourself.

However, loving the other does not mean feeling the material desires of our world and serving them; rather, it means uniting our desires to attain the Creator. I am building a totally new spiritual construction, the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which has never existed before and which is above all corporeality.

2. Why did I choose these particular friends, and why did they choose me?

Did I really pick these friends? The force from Above has led me to this group. So where does my free will begin? We build our free choice every day, constantly checking why we need to unite with friends:

a.) Do I see in them, and they in me, the point in the heart, that is, the desire to unite and achieve adhesion with the Creator?

b.) What connection should be established in order to discover Him among us according to the law of the equivalence of form?

3. Should each friend openly express his love or it is enough that it is concealed in his heart?

Every one must openly express his love for the group. By doing so, he will increase the love in his friends’ hearts and will be impressed by them. If previously he had only his individual power of love for friends, now he will receive the powers from all the friends in the group.

One must always remember the purpose of the group which is to merge with the Creator.

A Kabbalistic group is founded on love of friends because it is the springboard for attaining the love of the Creator. That is why we must show each other examples of love of another.

4. Is it necessary to know what each friend lacks in order to fill him, or is it enough to love friends in general?

It is enough to love friends in general so as to assure that a friend does not lack motivation, support on the path, inspiration, and the feeling of how important the Creator and the group are, and to provide him with all this to the best of one’s ability.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

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A Kabbalistic group unites around one goal: reaching love for one’s neighbor and through it, love for the Creator. This means loving the property of love and bestowal. Every person, who agrees with this goal, adds his small force to the group, the point in the heart that was given to him from Above.

None of us is able to enter the spiritual using only his own strength; we can only do it through combining our strength, in other words, joining with a group and canceling ourselves, our egoism. Joining a group and canceling our egoism with the purpose of receiving the force of bestowal from it is the first step towards spirituality. Work in a group is the work on transitioning from corporeality into spirituality through the opening created by the group.

The group is the means. It is not the group that fixes you like a screwdriver or a wrench, but you yourself must use the group for work. The group is the spiritual model before you. It is given to you in a corporeal form, but we turn it into a spiritual form by relating to it as to a collection of souls and not a group of bodies.

We build a spiritual space inside our group. We build a spiritual vessel, the Kli, by canceling ourselves and connecting our points in the heart to the collection of all the other points. I only add my single small force to the group, but I receive "620" times more from it. Spirituality becomes revealed to me as a more inner degree in the exact place where I find this connection and our common force.

We cancel our material nature, our animate egoism. All our "donkeys" (donkey, Hamor, which comes from the word Homer – matter) stay beneath, but we rise above them and unite. So we acquire a single, big force, which is "620" times greater than the previous one, and this force will definitely let every person defeat the animal within. In this way we create a new spiritual vessel, which did not exist before the breaking of the souls. Inside this vessel, among us, we reveal the common property of bestowal within which we reveal the Creator.

I add my single force and receive 620 times more by rising to the first spiritual degree. And now I add this big force to the group and receive 620 times more as I rise to the new degree. It turns out that my initial point of the soul swells 620 times its initial size, and this way then it grows bigger and bigger as it ascends step by step. The group becomes Malchut, Shechina.

This is why the group needs to be united with a single opinion: a desire to reach bestowal, adhesion with the Creator. This creates the "head" (Rosh) of the spiritual Partzuf. Our common spiritual vessel is the spiritual world, but every person experiences it in their own way, according to their essential, primary point of the soul; the soul does not disappear, instead it grows 620х620х620… times. This is how we build the spiritual world within, where the Creator becomes revealed. There is no other place.

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

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In the article “The Purpose of Society,” Rabash writes that man is born as loving only himself, and hence he can’t make the tiniest move without serving himself. Yet without renouncing egoistical love in us, it is impossible to reach the adhesion with the Creator, the equivalence of His properties.

Therefore, the group is necessary for in it the desires and strengths of each add to one another. Everyone is then able to use this immense common force in order to renounce the egoistical desire that prevents him from fulfilling the purpose he is born for. This group must consist of people who have a common purpose. Then together, they will comprise one huge force that enables each of them to struggle with himself.

In order to receive the collective power from the group, everyone must contribute his strength to it and renounce himself, that is, only see his friends’ strengths instead of their weaknesses. If he considers himself just a little higher than them, he cannot unite with them, bring in his force, and receive the collective one.

Plan

1. Human nature – love of self.
2. The purpose of creation – adhesion with the Creator through the equivalence of properties with Him.
3. It is impossible to fulfill the purpose of the creation on one’s own, but only within the group and through its power.
4. In the group, all must be equal in the purpose, means, and one’s own annulment. Annulment is only possible by exalting the friends.
5. The greatness of the environment is reached in words and actions.

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

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Man is born loving only himself. This is our nature, and we can’t do anything about it. We always live inside it and cannot step out of it. All our actions are only for our own sake; otherwise, it is impossible to move forward. Therefore, I need a foreign force which would act against my nature and change it.

All my thinking and energy keep working for the purpose of filling and comforting myself. But there is one point in me that is pushing me to step outside of my nature, rise from the animate level, and reach the Creator, that is, to attain the human level. Only this point in me belongs to the human level, the level of the Creator since “man” is similar to the Creator.

I belong to the material world entirely, but this one point in me belongs to the spiritual one. If it doesn’t awaken, a human being lives solely in this world and doesn’t suspect anything more; he is satisfied with this materialistic life. If, however, this point is awakened in his heart, he feels uncomfortable in this world and strives to rise from it. He is influenced by two forces: One pushes him from behind out of the material world, and the other pulls him from the front, from the spiritual world.

Without renouncing oneself (one’s egoism) and rising above one’s nature, it is impossible to reach adhesion with the Creator. I have to decide which nature I wish to be related to: to the nature of the Creator or that of the creature, that is, to choose bestowal or reception.

Since giving is opposite to our nature, there is only one means to move from the material to the spiritual: a Kabbalistic group. The group has immense power because we work together and everyone annuls the egoistical desire that prevents him from fulfilling the purpose for which man is born. The purpose is to become similar to the Creator. The Creator is the force of bestowal, love, and annulment of self. This is why I need the group as an external foreign force that works as a lever which allows me to turn my nature around.

In order for this force to be great and invigorating, the group must be united and strong within itself and burn with the desire to fulfill the spiritual purpose. Then, everyone in it can use this power and step out of the enslavement of egoistic love.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article “The Purpose of the Association –2”

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As we analyze our desires we need to penetrate deeply into them in order to understand that they, along with their egoistic intention, come from the Creator. We need to reach the uttermost depth of the recognition of the desire and from its root attain where this desire comes from.

When we reveal that the desire itself and its egoistic intention are sent to us by the Creator, we’ll understand that there’s no choice. We have no one else to turn to with a plea to correct it except the Creator. Otherwise, a person doesn’t need the Torah as he doesn’t scream out or appeal to the Creator. He doesn’t yet perceive himself as a creature governed by the Upper Force to which he may appeal.

Our egoistic origin is the same angel that brings us closer to the Creator. We receive blows, and consequently, we understand that they have a purpose and that they are sent by someone higher than us. We can reach this conclusion through suffering, and we can also reach it through the studies, the environment, and spiritual development.

“A sage sees the future”; he sees the arousal of a state before it is reached and he has the ability to change it. Physical suffering of this world turns into the suffering of love when I draw a little bit of the Upper Light and feel my state in relation to it. Then I begin to suffer from the fact that I have no love for the neighbor or love for the Creator. Herein lies the point of our free choice.

It is essential to get to the root of the suffering and understand that it is purposely sent to us from Above. If we understand that there is no choice and begin to scream out to the Creator, it signifies that we have reached the greatest depth. However, if we still attribute our suffering to various reasons in this world and to ourselves, we haven’t reached the very bottom.

I delve deeper and deeper into the suffering by its degrees of Aleph, Bet, and Gimel (inanimate, vegetative, and animate) and I think that I’m receiving a blow from nature. However, when I reach its last stage, Behina Dalet, I reveal there that its source is above nature, that it’s in the Creator, and is as if the Creator’s pointing a finger. Then, I scream out to Him.

Is it possible to speed up this process? Yes, it is. For this reason, we’re given the Torah in order to advance by a quick and simple path according to our own will rather than by the path of suffering. I can organize a group around myself and draw the Light from Above through the studies (for example, by studying The Zohar) and I quickly reach the same result. This is called the path of the Torah. The difference between the two paths consists of thousands of years of suffering.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/10, “What is the Preparation for Receiving the Torah?”

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The Surrounding Light influences a person only to the extent of his desire for spirituality. He receives this desire from a Kabbalistic group. The group is his environment which exists on the same level with him; from it he absorbs everything, like a seed planted in the ground.

The seed itself is dead. It comes alive only when the seed is introduced into suitable soil. The enlivening happens only as a result of the environment. Without a proper environment the seed is merely a lifeless informational gene. In the appropriate environment where it begins to be influenced by the sun and other forces of nature, the seed comes to life.

The seed must interact with the environment in order for the general Upper Force to operate on it. The same holds true for a person. A person is influenced by his or her environment, just like a seed will grow and thrive only when planted in the appropriate soil with favorable surrounding conditions.  If a person does not place himself in the right environment, he shouldn’t expect any spiritual advancement.

This is a fact that ought to be clear to everybody. Only to the degree that a person absorbs from his environment does he receive the "sun" and "oxygen," (the requisite forces) which begin to cultivate him into a "tree." Then this force will be felt inside him even by those who are unable to clearly see it with their physical eyes. Since we are all connected within a single general system, other people will feel that within us lives a true and clearly felt spiritual charge: the Light within the vessel.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/10, Article “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend”

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A question I received: How can we come to feel shame and make a restriction on our ego?

My Answer: Shame is a very exalted sensation, which does not come at the beginning of our path. This shame is with respect to the Creator, the Giver. It is precisely because He is the Giver and I am the receiver.

In our world we always restrict our reception in order to avoid feeling shame. We must justify receiving; we are compelled to preserve the feeling of self-dignity as our “I” is even more important than life itself. In fact, we are prepared to die if doing so would stave off humiliation. This is the basis of our nature. People are willing to face death in order to bolster their “I,” their self-esteem.

Shame is when I feel my “I” annul and disappear. If I lose my desire and fulfillment, I don’t feel that I cease to exist. A person dies and doesn’t feel that he completely disappears from reality. He only feels that he loses some part of himself as if shedding something from his past.

However, when the sensation of shame comes to me, it cancels my spiritual existence. It is a kind of inner feeling as though nothing of me remains. It is above our life and death, that is how deep it is. And it is impossible to withstand. Man is willing to commit suicide in order to save the point of his “I.” The body is merely an animal, and we’re not particularly afraid of losing it. We see how people risk their lives.

The Creator continuously plays a game with us by consistently and methodically offending the point of our “I,” and we are left without a choice but to take measures so as to preserve our individuality. The feeling that I must rise above this life, above death, helps me to acquire a second nature. I am prepared to accept it. I am told to bestow, and I am willing to do it. Do I need to lose myself as of today? Sure, I am ready! As long as the point of my “I” is preserved.

This sensation can only be granted by the Light that Reforms. The Light affects us and awakens in us this point that lies at our very core, the initial point called “Esh Mi Ayin” (created from nothing – existence from absence). This is not the material of the desire to enjoy, but something even deeper.

The only way to attain it is through the study of Kabbalah in a Kabbalistic group. In the group we endeavor to build a model of spiritual unity similar to what exists in the World of Infinity. By studying in the conditions of this unity, we draw the Light that elevates us to that very state. There are no other means besides the group and the study in the group.

Shame is a terrible sensation, but it is precisely shame which brings us salvation.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Morning Lesson 5/14/10, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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When we read The Zohar, we should expect salvation. Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 155:  “Indeed, there is a great and marvelous quality concealed in Kabbalistic books, worthy of being publicized.” In other words, by studying The Zohar we can unite with the Source, the Creator, Who exists in other dimensions.

We exist in our dimension, in separation from Him, while The Zohar creates a connection between us and Him, the higher dimension. From there, to the extent of our aspiration, we receive the Light, the remedy that flows into us one drop at a time, like an infusion.

The Torah does not demand anything unrealistic. After all, the Upper One knows us better than we know ourselves; what is expected of us is measured according to the way we’re created. One is told: “Sit down with a book. You must connect with your environment because that is your spiritual form.”

Currently a person is on his or her own level. One is an egoist and doesn’t care for anyone, wanting nothing except egoistic pleasure. A person doesn’t even know what exactly is wanted, but the Upper One knows it well. It is He who creates these desires, even the most disgusting qualities in a person. And only occasionally do we slightly feel what He does.

Having created all of this in within us, the Creator expects just one thing: “Try to unite with Me just a little bit, based on all the things given to you from Above.” A person has to reveal the present state, and just wish to become like the Upper One.

However, in order to become like the Upper One, one needs to imagine the state when he and the group are together in a state of mutual bestowal, mutual guarantee. Imagining our self and them as one whole means we want to feel this state of the Light already operating between us in a single whole. We want to feel that we’re together and the Light is fulfilling us because we become like the Light to the extent of our unity. This is the state that we need to imagine.

It is clear that we are not together or connected with one another, but we are trying to connect, which means we want to grow spiritually and become like the Upper degree. Thus, to the extent of one’s aspiration, The Zohar creates a connection between that person and the Upper degree, injecting this infusion, which are drops of Light called “drops of luck” (Mazalot) that flow towards him.

There is no other difference between a person and the Upper degree, aside from the fact that one is better connected with others on the Upper degree. Try to imagine this upper state, the inner connection of mutual bestowal with everyone, which is called the “Upper Light.” This force, the Surrounding Light that rears a person like an infant, influences from that same state that one imagines, dreams of, and aspires to.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 5/13/10

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What is the difference between the World of Infinity and our world? In the World of Infinity everything exists inside one closed space, where we are all together, everything is shared, everything belongs to all and to every person, and there is no difference between myself and others, or between what belongs to me and to others. Everything exists without any boundaries.

In our world everything is the opposite. Everything is absolutely divided and a person is always guarding his boundaries whether he wants to or not. He has to break down these boundaries in order to come close to another person even slightly. Then he once again closes himself off inside as if nature is pulling him back. And then he once again wants to come closer to others and after that he escapes inside himself again.

Therefore, as long as we don’t attain Infinity, there is a very important principle for our spiritual work. It is the same principle that guides the functioning of an oscillatory circuit which consists of a condenser and an induction spring connected into an electrical chain.

If we supply energy to the circuit it first passes through the condenser, then through the spring, and then it again enters the condenser, and then once again the spring. That is how it oscillates between them.

This principle operates elsewhere as well besides electrical chains because whatever takes place in one of nature’s mechanisms also works in all of nature and all of its parts. However, it takes place in different forms depending on the type of system it is (whether physical, biological, or social, meaning a person’s relationship with society).

Therefore, my relationship with the group must be built on the same principle: When I feel inspiration and the importance of the goal, I have to pass them on to the group; and when I feel empty, I receive inspiration from the group which I contributed to it before. It becomes multiplied by the might of the group. That is how we take turns working within a closed chain.

From the 9th lesson of the World Zohar Convention 5/9/10

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