Our job is to begin the work of our correction, but we shouldn’t worry about its completion. This doesn’t mean we should leave the work in the middle, but rather, we must always consider the result as being the right one, because it comes from the Creator.

It only seems to us that we know how everything has to develop. But in reality, all of a sudden something opposite happens. We are influenced by the Upper Light and the environment, and therefore we are changing. That’s why we see that the work we started turns out to be completely wrong. And then we begin everything anew.

This is our work of correcting ourselves, “the correction of mistakes,” which the Creator completes for us. We always have to start from the beginning, without despair, trying to break through toward Him (toward the quality of bestowal in us).

We have to make every effort to complete the action, even though the result will be absolutely different from what we expected. This happens because the Light turns us into the opposite. That is why we go through so many changes in the process of the spiritual work.

The fact is that we don’t know what the outcome should be. We don’t know what the attribute of bestowal is, and that’s why we have no clue what will be the result of any step we take. If our efforts result in something opposite to what we thought, this may actually be a good sign that we are coming closer to the truth.

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A question I received: What will be the place of innovation in the future society? Will all acts of creativity and inspiration be dismissed as excessive or surplus because they are innovations and as such, are frowned upon, or is there a place for innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and even creativity in the future society?

I give you the example of the mobile phone, an innovation no more than 25 years old. Would the attempts to create a similar product such as the mobile phone in the future society be seen as excessive or as a good thing? The reason for my asking is that my grandfather believes that the mobile phone is not necessary, while I could not live without one.

The elders of a future society could forbid the development of wonderful products and innovations based on their views of what is excessive, and possibly cause a state of oppression.

My Answer: In the future, only spiritual elevation will be a person’s primary work, since there currently is nothing for 90% of the world’s population to do.  All they do is make up occupations for themselves and pollute the world. Aspiration towards the Creator will by itself determine what professions will remain and how one will care for oneself within necessity.

Either everyone will work for an hour or two a day, or only some will work and the rest will be busy attracting the Upper Light for the benefit of everyone.

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A question I received: What should I do if I want to ask the Upper Light which created me with the will to receive to also give me the quality of bestowal, if I don’t know how to ask for this – I don’t know whom to ask and what to ask for?

My Answer: Our development always follows a chain of causes and effects: cause -> action -> outcome, which then becomes the cause -> for the next action -> and so on. So, a person who reaches a true realization that he needs help from Above knows how to ask and what to ask for!

The problem is that we spend a long time in a state where we “seem” to strive toward something that “seems” spiritual, and it “seems” like we really want it with a burning desire. However, for now, it all just “seems” to be this way. This is why we don’t know how to ask and of whom to ask it. But in essence, we don’t know how to open up the Kabbalah book and find the Light that Reforms there.

This can be exemplified with a three-dimensional image. If you look at the picture superficially, as you would at any other picture, then you won’t see anything. But if you defocus your vision, then you will penetrate into the image.

The same applies in our spiritual work of revealing the Upper World. As a result of making many efforts, your vision will be refocused in a new way. You will be looking at this world, and all of a sudden you will penetrate into it. This should come as a result -> of all your previous actions.

However, as to your current complaints: “Why am I screaming and being ignored!?” It’s simply because you are not really screaming yet. When your pleas turn into a real cry, it will immediately become the cause that leads to the outcome -> the revelation of the spiritual world.

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If a person engages in spiritual work, then he doesn’t feel overwhelmed by material troubles, because the sensation of corporeality becomes pacified and balanced when influenced by the spiritual sensation. Our world is a result of spiritual forces, which descend from the spiritual world to our world. Everything that exists in our world is governed by forces from Above. If we bring these Upper Forces to balance, then everything will work out in our world as well.

If we begin building the right connection among us – one that’s similar to the spiritual connection, then our entire world, including our earthly life, will start being balanced out. On the other hand, by acting on the level of our world, we won’t be able to correct or improve anything in our earthly lives, because our world is governed by forces from Above.

So, only when we work on our correction, on becoming similar to the Upper Forces, will the forces descending from Above bring our entire world to harmony. And we will immediately feel this.

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When a person wants to work for the sake of bestowal, his egoism puts up a fight. It takes a lot of different actions to divide a person’s general desire into two camps: that which a person can do for the sake of bestowal, and that which he can’t.

One has to “give gifts” to his egoism in order to make it calm down and understand that it wins out by taking part in your path – bestowal. We can’t just completely cut off our desire to receive pleasure. Rather, we constantly have to awaken this desire in order to receive new desires from it, which we could then correct and thus ascend toward the goal.

This is why it is not enough to simply restrict your egoism. Instead, you have to nourish it: give it gifts, hug it, and tell it, “We are brothers!” We have to be like Jacob who went to meet Esau bearing gifts.

We will still have much more use for the will to enjoy! However, as long as we’re unable to work with it, we have to nourish it and show it that all our spiritual work is for its benefit. After all, it doesn’t know that you are planning to correct yourself for the sake of bestowal.

You have to treat it as a foreign, alien body, which remains uncorrected for now. And you have to nourish it in order to be able to build the middle line. It’s like the mafia, which comes to you the minute you want to open up some great business, and it tells you: “We are allowing you to start your business, but every month you have to give us a part of the profits.”

This is exactly how we have to work with our egoism, but we have to be much more cunning. Every time we lie to it, we extract new parts of desire from it which can be corrected, while assuring the ego that it’s all done for its own good.

We continue nourishing it so it will allows us to work even more, very much like the mafia which is happy about the fact that your business is growing: “Do whatever you want as long as you pay!” This is how we trick our egoism. The desire to receive pleasure is the matter of creation, and we can’t neglect or extinguish it. We have to sustain its life, hoping that one day we can bring it to complete correction.

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A question I received: When a politician comes to power in our world, then even if he is motivated by compassionate goals such as a desire to do good for the society, he still can’t avoid getting mixed up in political power struggles and petty troubles that make him forget about the compassionate goals he had. On our spiritual path, how can we make sure that we don’t stray from the goal and fall for the tricks our egoism plays on us?

My Answer: Indeed, when we are doing spiritual work, we have to lie to our egoism. We are standing opposite the Creator whether we want to or not, and He is the one setting up all the forces that come our way, all the disturbances and all our inner discernments.

As soon as you forget about Him and veer off the path leading directly to Him, you start to feel suffering. And this suffering eventually brings you back to the right calculation: that all the forces must unite together into a single aspiration toward the Creator. This is how things work in spirituality, because the Creator controls everything that happens to a person.

The Creator is above and a person with the point in the heart is below, and there is a system of two forces between them: the right line and the left line. You advance from below upwards, toward the goal, which is the middle line. As soon as you deviate away from it in any direction, you start being affected by a force that brings you back, because only being in the middle line allows you to feel unity with the Creator, where unity is balance.

Yet, as soon as you attain balance, you immediately shift to a higher level. Then, the search for balance on that higher level once again forces you to research all the parts of the system and to ask for help from Above. After all, it is only by correcting your matter – your desires, that you ascend above them and perceive the new world in those corrected desires.

All of these forces come from Above in order to help you advance upwards. It’s impossible for anything to get “mixed up” here. The only thing that depends on you is whether to advance toward the goal by the short path or the long path. This is up to you!

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It is written: “No bread, no Torah.” This means that our life here, in this world, precedes everything. Before I do anything else, I have to secure my existence on the corporeal level.

Therefore, a person has to work and do everything that is necessary in this life, without turning away from it. The science of Kabbalah considers this condition mandatory for one’s correction on a higher level.

I have to take care of everything that is necessary for my normal existence. This is a very important condition in the science of Kabbalah, and it differentiates it from all other spiritual methods, which try to disconnect a person from this life.

The science of Kabbalah says the opposite: it is precisely while you are living this life, where you work, study, and give birth to children, that you must reach the general balance with Nature. And under no circumstances should you run away from this world.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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A question I received: Why did so many Kabbalists burn their manuscripts?

My Answer: To Kabbalists, it is sometimes enough for the revelation of the concealed to be written down or said out loud. It may even be enough for a Kabbalist to just think something, since he corrects creation with his thoughts and desires.

This is why they don’t feel bad about burning their texts after writing them. Kabbalists only keep their manuscripts if the generation is able to use them correctly. This is the reason why many Kabbalists, including Baal HaSulam, burned their books and manuscripts. And there were great Kabbalists, like Baal Shem Tov, who didn’t even write down a single word their whole lives.

In addition, a Kabbalist immediately sees the consequence of his correction in the souls. This is very different from how people in our material world do something “good” for their neighbor, and it later turns into evil. If a person doesn’t correct what he is supposed to on his own and we do it for him, it is as though we rob him. And we also go against the Creator.

If a person’s life is not going right, then this is purposefully done by the Creator in order to force him to correct his attitude to the people around him. But instead of correcting the problems by fixing the connection between us, we try to make up for it through charity in the material world. As a result, the world just rolls downhill and reaches even graver states than before.

Therefore, Kabbalists perform truly great corrections through their spiritual work, while all other actions only cause the opposite effect. We have yet to reveal this.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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It is written, “A person is like a tree in the field.” A tree can be planted in a field that is blessed by the Creator, where it will be watered by rain and warmed by the sun whenever it needs. Or the tree – the person – can be planted in infertile, dry land, where the person will not be able to grow. Or, even if he  grows, he is like a wild tree that does not bear fruit.

When it comes to spiritual development, a person determines his own place. His attitude to the books, the teacher, and the friends is able to change the soil and the sun, the moisture conditions, and all the other conditions needed for his growth.

A person starts by receiving a “point in the heart” – a spiritual seed, and he must then decide where to plant it and how to absorb the force from the environment needed to grow his seed into a tree. If he chooses the right environment, he will be able to demand from it the force of bestowal – “rain.” This force will allow him to grow from the material world upward. His intentions of bestowal will sprout“from the soil up.”

We have to care for our “tree,” which means that we must choose desires that can be corrected, and then organize them properly so they will grow and shape us into the right form – one that’s similar to the Creator. This is all of our work.

So, on one hand, it appears as if the tree grows on its own. However, starting from the time it is a seed, there are many actions that depend on us. The tree cannot grow independent of us, but only in virtue of our desire.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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A question I received: If a person is happy and proud of the fact that he is controlled from Above, then where is the bestowal in this?

My Answer: The bestowal lies in the fact that the person reveals the Upper Governance. We don’t do anything except reveal this. Our whole work consists of revealing the system of the universe where the Creator governs. Each one of us has to reveal this on his own.

I exist in the concealment of the only state created by the Creator. I am already in it. As soon as the Creator desired to create it, it emerged immediately. I simply reveal this state, which is already prepared. I don’t do anything with the state itself – with the Light and Kli which exist in it. I only work in order to reveal it for myself.

We are talking about degrees, or states of our revelation. These are the degrees of the worlds. We don’t build anything new. We just develop an inner perception of the reality that exists from the start.

Therefore, everything is revealed in regard to me. New states arise in me from the existing Nature.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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