The Attainment of the Purpose of Creation Rests Upon the Whole of Mankind
Questions about the post “Kabbalists On The Purpose Of Creation,” Part 7

Question: Will I be better off if everybody else is well?

My Answer: Yes, because you are part of everybody else, the only way you will truly be well is if all others are well.

Question: How can I stop wishing others well egoistically, and start wishing them well altruistically?

My Answer: Only the Upper Light can do it!

Question: Why is the Creator so selective toward the creations? Why are certain people or nations chosen? Why didn’t He create everybody equal?

My Answer: Precisely so we could help one another to attain Him.

Question: What is mutual bestowal to the Creator?

My Answer: From everyone according to his ability.

Question: I feel that the World Kli has long been trying to unite for the Creator’s work. If this is the purpose of creation, why doesn’t this infinite fulfillment for His sake take place?

My Answer: We are in the process of forming this unified desire.

Question: Quote: “According to Rambam, we see that everybody must come to the state of Lishma, the only difference being the time when it happens.” Why time, and not effort? Why are these types of “mistakes” not entirely uncommon in the Kabbalistic texts?

My Answer: Because effort refers to actions, whereas time refers to the realization of these actions, their result.

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A question I received: If we did not have the works of Baal HaSulam, would we be able to draw the Light of correction from other sources?

My Answer: No, we would have no contact with the Light. We need a system that allows us to establish a connection with the Light. We have to thank the Kabbalists for this. Every generation should prepare themselves as a foundation for the next generation. It is similar to layers of culture that are discovered during archeological excavations. In the same way, we constantly add layer upon layer of preparation for future generations. Without it, we are unable to grow.

Before Baal HaSulam, Kabbalah was dispersed throughout various sources. However, he collected and organized everything into one system. A system that is not just a book that is comfortable to read, but an inner system in which we can now receive Light. It is a correction much like the one performed by the Kabbalists at the time of the Talmud about which it is written: “Eat bread with salt and drink regular water.” They united all the souls in such a way that through the general system we can receive Light sufficient for our correction and no longer need to subject our bodies to suffering.

Baal HaSulam performed the same kind of correction. He did not just write books with detailed explanations for us. After all, we read them and don’t understand anything. However, through his compositions, he made it possible for us to unite with the spiritual system and to draw the Light that Reforms. This constituted his special mission. Without it we are unable to do anything.

The Light needs to pass through the system that he built; only then is it appropriate for our souls. We receive surrounding Light through Talmud Eser Sefirot and “The Preface to the Sulam Commentary.” It would not be possible to do this through other works since they lack the order and the system that Baal HaSulam organized for us.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/10, Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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A question I received: What is the point that emerges in the heart, in the empty desire of this world?

My Answer: All of a person’s desires are called his heart. The point in the heart is the connection that the heart previously had with other hearts, and which has remained from the breaking between us. Once we were all connected through our desires and hearts together into one system of Adam. But these mutual connections among us have disappeared and only the broken shards remain.

When we were connected together, we constituted a spiritual vessel, a unified desire filled with Light. When the connection among us was severed, the Light disappeared. The Light that disappeared has to return and restore the previous connection, making us bestow to one another, “returning us to the Source.” This is why it is called “The Light that returns to the source,” to goodness. It returns us to a mutual connection which is called goodness.

This connection is the Creator. He is present in the connections among us, while the desire itself (the heart) is just the matter of creation. It does not change. It can be great or small, but regardless, our state depends on the degree of the connection among us.

For now not everyone feels this point in the heart. Our egoistic desire has to develop to a specific level in order for the point in the heart to surface in it. At first the desire feels emptiness from this world, and then it reveals an inner aspiration for a different fulfillment. This fulfillment or Light is not present in the desire, but shines upon it from afar. That is why it is called the Surrounding Light.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/10,  Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 129:  When the firmaments and the animals, meaning the Nukva, are corrected so that everything is one Merkava for this man, ZA, it is written, “And Joseph prepared his Merkava [chariot/structure], and went up to meet Israel, his father, to Goshen.” This is a Tzadik [righteous], Yesod de ZA, called “the righteous Joseph,” who tied and united his Merkava, the Nukva, with the firmaments and the animals.

Here The Zohar speaks about the desire created by the Creator, which begins to resemble Him, His actions. The Creator is the source that shows the desire to enjoy (that He created) His actions upon it. The Creator influences the desire to enjoy in a variety of ways, and, by perceiving these forms, the desire starts developing from them.

The desire perceives the Creator’s actions in six different directions (four directions of the world and up-down) as well as through a variety of colors, tastes, smells, temperatures, and so on. In essence, the Light emanating from the Creator affects the desire to enjoy and it receives certain impressions.

In accordance with the sensations experienced, the desire ascribes different names to these impressions and defines them by various forms. These phenomena do not exist outside of the desire to enjoy since we are unable to perceive anything outside of our desire. For example, we can say that there is simple Surrounding Light; however, we can only talk about certain phenomena when they’re already within the desire, when the desire already senses them in one way or another.

The Zohar explains the structure of the systems, that is, it clarifies how the desire to enjoy is impressed by the Light and how this determines the desire’s structure. Each time the desire receives an impression from the Light, it acquires a specific shape, which is how the Light leaves various imprints on it. The desire to enjoy is like a living sculpture with a myriad of internal and external forms and systems.

That is why the creature represents an extremely complex system that originates from the influence of the Light upon it. The direct influence of the Creator on the creature means that the creature goes through all His actions and acquires forms in accordance with the system “from Above to below,” that is, directly from the Creator.

There is also an opposite action when the creature says: “Stop! From here on I will operate the system on my own. I want to be similar to You. It’s enough. I’ve already received all the impressions and Reshimot, and now I want to work independently. I want to operate the system that You imprinted in me, in the way You do it. I want to become as giving as You are. I want to bestow to You!”  This is called “work from below to Above.”

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/9/10

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A question I received: How do I know that I am advancing by the path of Light and not the path of suffering?

My Answer: The sign of following the path of Light is joy. It is written that “joy is the outcome of good deeds.” If I am connected with the others, I am always a part of a healthy common body and receive from it strength and inspiration. They are constantly circulating in our collective organism, flowing from one to the other; hence, I never fall or get disappointed. I don’t even feel tired! Granted, I can sometimes feel sore in my corporeal body, but I never feel tired mentally.

I keep receiving new desires and their fulfillment from the others, which flow from them to me and vice versa non-stop. So, in this condition a person ceases to feel ups and downs. For him, everything is one whole.

In fact, the day begins in the evening, but I don’t perceive it as a dark night. I feel that this is my preparation for the next spiritual step. I now need to gain more of an appetite and get hungry in order to become more receptive to perceiving spirituality.

This night is not the darkness we imagine. This is the darkness within egoism. It is the time of the construction of the vessel (Kli). In our earthly life we go to bed at night; however, in the spiritual one, we labor diligently in the night. We are making, creating, and building ourselves. It is as if at night we are assembling our car, and in the morning we drive it. Don’t think that in spirituality “night” is a dream separated from reality. We break off the previous reality in order to attain a new one. And we build it with faith above reason.

At “midnight,” the merging (Zivug) of Abba ve Ima takes place to create new desires (Kelim). I need to work in the dark because darkness conceals the old desires from me (since I don’t need them any more and must ascend to a new spiritual step). It also hides from me the new desires so that I can find them, connect them to myself, and understand where they are and why.

It’s similar as to how we play with our children. We first prepare a game for them, but later, they have to play by themselves. We pick a toy that consists of different parts (for example, cubes), not a toy with a single piece because we want the child to put it together by himself. Our spiritual work at “night” is the same.

Therefore, a person who is closely knitted into the environment doesn’t feel separation from the spiritual path when he falls. On the contrary, he sees that he is given an opportunity to work and experience a new adventure, like a child, whom nature pushes to grow. So, he loves such games of building and putting together.

Additionally, if the environment pushes us to this game, like nature does a child, we will feel as if we are on a wondrous journey. But if the environment doesn’t provide such inspiration, we don’t want to play as if we are a sick child who didn’t receive such a desire from nature and lags behind in his development.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/10, Shamati #50

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A question I received: What kind of game is it?  Is it to perceive the friends as the greatest?

My Answer: It is not a game; it is breaking through the concealment. My egoism conceals me from the others and the others from me: It doesn’t allow me to see the entire World of Infinity. Right now I am in the World of Infinity, but what I see is quite a gloomy picture. My egoism paints a picture of ugly, stupid, lazy, lying people. But in reality, it is all wrong; this picture resides in me within my egoism. If my own children, whom I love dearly, were next to me right now, how would I view them? They would look perfect to me because “love redeems all sins.” I would still love them with all their flaws.

Only my ego is to blame; I see nothing beyond it. In the back of my brain, I have a screen. I seem to view the world through my eyes, but it enters through the prism of my egoism and is projected on the screen in my brain. Everything depends on my attitude, and how I attune myself to see it. So, I have to attune myself to the group in such a way that I see them all as the greatest people of this generation, completely corrected.

Is it a game? No, it is simply annulling the deception of the ego. It is a rational act. Beyond me, there is the World of Infinity, and I already reside in it, right now. If you peel off all the shells (Klipot), which distort the World of Infinity to this mediocre, inverted state, you will perceive Infinity.

First, try to pretend. Let’s make an effort. Try to see us as fully corrected, big, and united. Through this action, we will draw a very strong Surrounding Light, and it will correct our nature. Instead of egoism, we will attain bestowal. This is a very simple principle, and it is absolutely real; there is no mysticism here. We are trying, through our own effort, to see ourselves in the corrected state, and in that degree, we will receive an inner strength, which is contained in this corrected system. Our desire pushes it to act. These are the practical actions toward correction.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/10, “The Importance of the Association

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According to the Kabbalists, The Zohar is the most effective part of the entire Torah and of all Kabbalah books. Why? These books are called holy (the property of Bina) because they are written from the heights of spiritual attainment. Therefore, by reading them, we can attract upon ourselves the Light that brings us back to the Creator (to similarity to Him).

However, we can correct the desire to receive only by the desire to correct ourselves for there is no Light, no fulfillment without a desire. Hence, we have to demand for the Light to act upon and transform us. This Light is called the “Surrounding Light” because it shines on us from afar. Under the influence of the Light, our “evil intention” turns into a good one. Then, to the measure to which the desire resembles the Light, the Light fills it.

Hence to prepare for the study of the Torah means to acquire the desire for correction. This desire is preceded by realizing that our nature is evil (for us). The evil in our nature is our inability to unite with each other! Our unification is precisely the vessel where our Upper, spiritual life can be revealed.

For this reason, we have to try to establish a connection with each other and to unite together. This is described in the writings when Israel stood at the foot of  Mount Sinai: “as one man with one heart,” “all of Israel are friends,” and  “love thy neighbor as you love thyself.” After we discover our inability to unite and start feeling what prevents us from achieving our good state, then MAN, a true prayer, the wish to become corrected, will emerge within us.

That is, preparation for studying the Torah amounts to our efforts to unite, feeling how incapable we are of doing it, and realizing this state as evil, as an obstacle on the path toward good. That is, the Torah study comes after the correct preparation; MAN emerges itself.

We can think and clarify all of it already while we read The Book of the Zohar. Meanwhile, the Light will help us in our work.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/9/10, The Zohar

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There is no Light without a vessel, and no fulfillment without a desire. The Upper Light is in a state of complete rest; it fills and surrounds creation entirely. Everything depends solely on our desire, our vessels of perception. If we yearn for this particular fulfillment, we will perceive it. However, if our desire does not correspond precisely to the frequency or quality of the fulfillment (meaning there is no equivalence of properties between the desire and what fills it), then we don’t feel fulfillment. Multiple examples of the corporeal world attest to this.

We have to bring our desire to the Upper Light to be filled. To do this correctly, the desire has to correspond to the Light, that is, to be in bestowal. How are we going to acquire this force of bestowal? Kabbalists say that the power of bestowal exists in every person, but is very small and remains this way in the person alone.

It can grow only if a person unites with the others. If he wishes to attain bestowal and is willing to do whatever it takes in order to receive from the group and the friends their desires to bestow, then he acquires from them many such desires. He does so in the degree in which he annuls himself and exalts the friends in his own eyes. In this way he is able to receive from them a greater desire to bestow, in both quality and quantity. And if a person possesses the desire to bestow, then the Light during the reading of The Zohar will work on him; it will begin to organize his desire and fill it.

Therefore, preparation to reading The Zohar should take place in the group, in the mutual “incorporation” into each other, in order to form a strong desire. In this case, we will succeed. We can accelerate time and shorten it, without the need to submerge ourselves in prolonged corporeal suffering. We can transform earthly suffering into the torments of love, which means suffering from not having the qualities of bestowal, from not having the desire to give that we must attain. We can work with the group and friends, and in doing so acquire such a will.

As we see, everything is in our hands. We can actually condense time to zero. The Creator created only the point “existence from absence.” The rest He handed to us, so that we increase our desire from the size of the point in the heart to the expanse of Malchut of Infinity. This is only possible if we unite. Therefore we only have a single opportunity to attain the desire for the Light: to strive to be together within our small desires to bestow.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/10, The Zohar

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In order to understand and feel where we are, we have to grow spiritually. In the material world, a drop of semen starts to grow in the mother’s womb and then, after coming out into this world, continues to live in a larger space, ultimately becoming a human being. Similar processes take place in our internal spiritual development.

At a certain stage of our earthly lives we begin to sense a drop of spiritual semen that is called “the point in heart,” a desire toward spiritual development. This means that the point has unwrapped itself. We didn’t exist in this world before our parents gave birth to us. Similarly, we are brought to spiritual birth by our father and mother (also called “Abba ve Ima” in Kabbalah).

Spiritual growth happens under the influence of a force called the Upper Light. It leads us through concealments and revelations of the Light. It “shakes” us by revealing itself and showing us reality and then hiding it from us again. It plays with us and  increases and decreases our aspiration toward it. The Light influences us by altering the states we go through: good and bad, and in clarity and confusion. If our reaction is right, we develop: one more moment, one more day, and one more week.

Our development can last for thousands of years or we can complete it in a year or two. Everything depends upon the individual. All we need to know is how to react to the force that triggers our development, and to start connecting everything to one source: “There is None Else Besides Him.” He hides behind our visible wrapping of reality.

I start to discern Him and dig deeper into this reality. I do this in order to feel this power and understand how it works through all the “coverings” of this world including: close friends, strangers, nature, and even myself when it changes me internally.

With the internal changes, I begin to sense myself as a black box that understands and feels to a small degree the influences it undergoes. I begin to understand that my only task is to react to what’s happening to me. Impulses come from a visible reality, from those who are close to me, from strangers, friends and enemies; all of them are shadows that block the Upper Force from me.

If I manage to connect with the Creator through this concealment, it is called “a shade of holiness” since I build my relationship with the Creator through the resistance of concealment. At this point I begin to understand the show He is playing for me, and through it, I attain Him.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/4/10, Shamati #8

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A question I received: How can a person check how much he has advanced from lesson to lesson?

My Answer: I must actively work on making clarifications about my advancement, in fact advancement depends on these inner scrutinies. What do I want? Is it for my sake or for the sake of bestowal? Do I have connection with the friends in this regard? Do I need them or not? Do I work from an egoistic desire or an intention to bestow, from the side of the Creator or the creature, above my egoism or within it? The whole advancement is based on such self-analysis.

It’s possible that after a good lesson, these clarifications will reveal my bad state to me, but they will be more precise, and this means that I am advancing! Every day should give me a simple result: I should come to the next lesson tomorrow with a more clarified desire. Whether or not I have a desire is irrelevant, because it is given from Above. However, does this state become better defined?

Possibly, this analysis will lead me to a dead end where everything becomes unclear and foggy. But this too indicates greater clarity and clarification. The Light that comes to me during the lesson provides me with definitions; whether they are positive or negative is irrelevant. These definitions allow me to perform a more refined and precise analysis in order to evaluate myself, my state, in regard to the Creator or the goal – in all the directions.

In this manner, the Light affects the desire: When it illuminates it, I see more in it. Even if I stop discerning anything, and suddenly I  become completely confused and foggy, this too is called seeing “more.” These situations also offer degrees of understanding.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/10, The Zohar

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