The Zohar: The Creator said: “Here are a united people,” since they were joined as one and will therefore succeed at anything they do.

This is why the degrees were dispersed, each in a separate direction, and therefore all of these nations below were also dispersed, since they were the branches of those degrees.

It is written: “The Creator dispersed them from that place,” the Creator carried out judgment in their upper roots, and the branches followed.

If people collectively choose the wrong path and unite their worst qualities, they can achieve temporary success, since any kind of unity leads to the nullification of one’s ego for the sake of others. This is one way to implement spiritual properties because it is a step towards unity, towards bestowal among each other for the sake of the collective egoism. Even though this unity is done in order to harm anyone who is “outside” – the Creator, nevertheless the act of unity itself brings them partial success.

We have witnessed the experiments of trying to build socialism in Russia and in Israeli kibbutzim. Why didn’t they succeed if the ideas behind them were so good? It was because they were doing “good things” as a means to build their “unified, egoistic tower, reaching to heaven, but against the Creator.” The goal was still “against” someone, instead of a complete destruction of egoism in order to attain the properties of bestowal and love. It was merely a partial unity among members of a group, or among all the people against the Creator.

This is why the full scale of the ego, which is in need of correction, was not discovered initially; only a part of it was known. That’s what led to the idea that we can cope with everything on our own, without the Creator. However, it soon became clear that their ego was bigger than they thought and so they continued to forcefully “correct” it until their civilization collapsed.

Our time is the time of individual egoism. Even two egoists are unable to form a natural unity, a family, not to mention any other types of union. Everything simply disintegrates. We see that no matter how much we want to unite various countries and diverse groups of people, or to have them act together in order to do good in the world, all our attempts fail. And they will continue to fail.

The Zohar gives us advance warning about this, telling us that when we start our spiritual journey we have to establish the right goal: to attain similar properties with the Creator in order to unite with Him.

If, from the very beginning, our goal is to build then it’s no surprise that our unity will only hurt us and we will not succeed. We have already seen examples of this in our world. Let’s hope that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past, like the “wise men” who meet at international conferences such as the “G20 summits” and the climate summit, aiming to bring prosperity to the world. They won’t succeed. The only question is: how many towers will they have to build and see ruined before they understand the reason for their failures?

If we don’t pursue the right goal, then any attempt at unity in our world will fail and bring more harm.

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Why did the Creator disperse the builders of the Tower of Babel? After all, they wanted to unite and build a city for themselves, so why did this result in an explosion of enmity between them? The answer is that this had to be revealed.

Even though they were able to unite, their unity could only endure for a short while because they weren’t connected to the goal, to their next degree. They took advantage of their present degree for all it was worth, just like Soviet Russia, which garnered its share of success for a period of history. It even began competing with America, but then the collapse began. Why did it happen? It’s because they had used up all the opportunities of their degree, and then they had nowhere to go.

The next step would have been to ascend upward, out of their state of forced unification and onto the next degree – unification by thought and by choice. But they did not have the strength or the means to do this. They had no way to compensate for the mature ego, the egoistic development within that system.

As people grow, the motivations of the past are no longer enough. They no longer face the evil that once forced them to unite in times of sorrow. This is why a new phase sets in and all of the past unity comes crumbling down.

This is the same thing as what once transpired in ancient Babylon. There is no future for Russia other than to attain immediate correction by utilizing the method of correction. This country is especially able to attain the goal, and it can do so faster than any other nation if only its people would adopt the goal and method of Kabbalah as their national idea.

If that were to happen, then over the course of a single generation they would succeed in building a spiritual and material empire! Theoretically, this opportunity is available to them. Otherwise, we will witness a complete collapse and disintegration of the Russian Tower of Babel.

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All beliefs that go beyond the limits of the most primitive beliefs about the forces of nature, came to us from the science of Kabbalah. The science of Kabbalah itself originated from the revelation of the Upper Force by Abraham, who recognized the relationship between the Creator and all the levels of desire.

On the lowest level of desire, this is expressed as the “gifts” that Abraham gave to the children of his concubines and whom he then sent to the East. This is the origin of the Eastern religions, which are very close to nature and man’s body.

A different method operates on the highest, most egoistic, fourth level of desire. This is the method Abraham taught to his group of students, who later turned into the nation of Israel (where Isra-el means “straight to the Creator”). When his students (the nation of Israel) fell from their spiritual level of bestowal and love for the neighbor, into egoism and mutual hatred (known as the fall of the Second Temple), then in order to replace Kabbalah – “life with the Creator,” people came up with the religion of Judaism, which is life without the sensation of the Creator.

When people’s desire was corrected and used for bestowal and love, the people felt the Creator and the Upper Life within that desire. But when that same desire fell from bestowal into reception, into the egoistic intention of “for myself,” people began to feel just this world. That is when Kabbalah (sensation, attainment, and revelation) was replaced by religion (faith, mysticism, and tradition).

Thus, the religion of Judaism is an imprint of the science of Kabbalah and the desire to bestow, within the broken desire to receive (the fourth layer of desire). The sparks of this breaking fell into other layers of desire; that is how the third layer formed Christianity and the second one – Islam. These religions were created according to how people understood Kabbalah’s imprint within their egoistic desire. This also makes it clear that according to the Creator’s plan, humanity must go through these phases of egoistic development in order to realize its opposition to the Creator, following the principle, “The value of the Light comes from the darkness.”

All the religions, beliefs, and faiths (which add up to about 3800 in the whole world) come from different ways of imagining the Creator within the egoistic desire, in all of its different forms. This is why there are so many different religious approaches in the world and none of them understand one another. It’s because they all come from Kabbalah’s division into different religions – the shift from the sensation of unity to the sensation of disunity.

In the past, the breaking of the Upper Level (the fall of the Second Temple) brought about egoistic social relations, an egoistic attitude of the common desire toward the Creator, which caused all the religions and beliefs to emerge. However, if we, those who have a point in the heart, now correct the connection among us on that higher level, then we will be able to correct all the religions and faiths. Then, everything will become part of the unity with the Creator.

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The only thing that our world needs is the revelation of the Creator. Then, our world will become the spiritual world, and all the forces of the spiritual world point to only one thing – their Master.

Even in our world, light and darkness, as well as all their different shades and any other pictures we see – everything depends on and comes from the sun. Without the sun, there would be nothing but utter darkness.

The same is true for the spiritual world. Essentially a person reveals only one thing in addition to this world – the Upper Force, “There is none else beside Him.” But this force shows us all kinds of pictures and qualities of the Upper World.

What we reveal is not the actual Upper Force, but its manifestation and governance over the network that binds all the souls. That is why we never speak of the Creator’s essence, but only of His giving quality.

However, a giver must have someone to give to; He must be in a place where His giving can be revealed. He cannot reveal Himself, but only His actions with respect to someone else. Therefore, the Creator can only be revealed where He acts and governs – in matter, the desire that He created, which is the souls that are connected to one another. And the stronger their connection, the greater is the Creator’s revelation.

He created our matter and resides within it. On our part, we are brought to a Kabbalistic group where we must reveal unity. Once we reveal that unity, within it we will reveal the Creator, the force that unites us.

There is nothing else for us to reveal. We can never attain the force in and of itself, but only its manifestations – the matter and form of bestowal that it assumes. It’s similar to how in our world we only attain matter – the desire to enjoy and the form it assumes.

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A question I received: I read all the time that we need to reveal love for the Creator, but instead I reveal hatred within myself. What should I do?

My Answer: This is a wonderful discovery! But, in truth, it hasn’t forced you to scream yet; the situation does not seem unbearable to you yet. At times, you are shown how good you are, and sometimes hatred toward others makes you feel hatred towards yourself.

There is still the missing realization of the fact that your whole future depends on reaching this unbearable situation. You lack the feeling that the Creator is concealed precisely in the interaction between us.

The Creator says to Moses, “Let’s go to Pharaoh.” This means that we need to step up against our evil inclination (Pharaoh) and demand that it become subject to the good inclination (the Creator).

After we come out of our egoism (from Egypt) in order to reveal the Creator, we find ourselves feeling the necessity to unite and become like one man with one heart. This means that we find ourselves around Mount Sinai (mutual hatred) where we must unite and reveal the Creator, reaching a higher dimension through our unification.

Now everyone must to go to Pharaoh and demand of him to allow each person to unite with the others, since it is only in this unification that the Creator is revealed.

“Let My People Go”

When Israel was in Egypt’s land
Let my people go
Oppressed so hard, they could not stand
Let my people go

Go down
Moses
Way down in Egypt’s land
Tell ol’
Pharaoh
Let my people go

Thus said the Lord, bold Moses said
Let my people go
If not, I’ll smite your first-born dead
Let my people go

Go down
Moses
Way down in Egypt’s land
Tell ol’
Pharaoh
Let my people go

Your foes shall not before you stand,
Let My people go!
And you’ll possess fair Canaan’s land,
Let My people go!

Go down
Moses
Way down in Egypt’s land
Tell ol’
Pharaoh
Let my people go

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A question I received: What is bestowal?

My Answer: Bestowal is love. However, love is an attitude, whereas bestowal is an action expressing love.

What we normally call love in our world is an aspiration to fulfill our ego. But what is real love between us? I have a desire, and you have another desire. If I am able to attach your desire to mine and make your desire more important, then my desire will serve yours; it will be aimed at fulfilling your desire. That will mean that I love you. Furthermore, when I fulfill your desire in this way, this is called an action of bestowal.

We were all created as one desire. But afterwards, this desire was broken into many pieces and we separated from each other. The ego emerged between us, making us feel distant from one another. Now we have to apply efforts towards building a connection among us above our egos. We shouldn’t destroy the ego, but use the ego to make our connection stronger!

As a result, the unity we achieve will be 613 times greater than the original whole desire created by the Creator. We will then feel similar to the Creator, because we won’t be filled by the original Light of Nefesh, but by the supreme Light of NaRaNHY – the Light of love and bestowal!

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The entire material of creation is desire created by the Creator, who also sends the Light that fulfills the desire. Man is the correct correlation between the Light and the desire, and since man’s actions most always come from desire, his actions are therefore determined by the Creator.

However, if we aspire to reach connection between us by helping each other, acting “against the Creator” who created this separation between us, it truly becomes our own action.

The quality which the creature acquires by this action is called “a soul.” This soul doesn’t initially exist in us, and the Creator cannot give us a soul. Rather, a soul is created by our desire to connect above our egoism.

All states descending from the World of Infinity to our world (the last stage) exist in us in the form of records, which can be realized only by our efforts towards unification. Our descent resulted in separation, and our ascension is the action of moving towards unification.

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Presently, all of humanity has reached the state of being the broken vessel (Kli) of the common soul. This was not always the case; in previous generations, we were individualists and everyone was on their own, scattered and remote from each other.  It is this separation and lack of connection, which does not allow the formation of a spiritual vessel.

When these disconnected parts try, but are unable, to unite the fragments (individual souls) into a vessel in order to form a common soul (Adam), everything falls apart. This is known as a broken Kli, and is the revelation of egoism. It is then that we reveal what is broken as well as what exactly must be done to correct and repair what is broken.

In other words, until a person tries to tune into the group, he does not see the egoism, through which he will see the Upper World, once he is able to correct it.

This is precisely what has been happening recently. The Upper Force is arranging us in such a way that as the egoism grows, we begin to see that we exist in one global vessel. This vessel is broken, and the Light that wishes to correct it flows out through the cracks between us, through our broken connections.

Therefore, humanity must quickly be brought to a realization that our salvation lies in our unification.

(From a lesson on “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 10.28.2009)

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If we start precisely from what was broken in the whole of creation – connection between its parts (us, the souls), then by restoring that connection, we will feel the quality of bestowal, the Light, the Creator. We have been created separate in order to give us an opportunity to discover the concept of unity, and eventually to attain eternity and perfection inside the white Upper Light, the Creator. It takes a small effort to accomplish this, but the effort has to be directed in the right way.

The condition of unifying the broken creature into one whole is not difficult to realize if one knows where to apply one’s weak efforts. If you have the lever, you can turn the Earth upside down. Our problem is that we scatter our thoughts and desires, not knowing how to focus them in one direction.

Success lies not in the magnitude of the effort, but in uniting all of the small efforts together. If they unite, the common effort will be directed at the quality of bestowal, the Creator. This is enough in order to be born into the Upper World.

Therefore, our only aspiration should be to unite our desires into one whole. Then, inside the common desire, we’ll reveal the higher quality – the Creator.

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We need to try to create such a state of unity, above all the discrepancies and differences between us, so that a common critical effort will emerge and draw the Light. This is like a nuclear reaction, where two parts unite through a blow in spite of the forces of opposition, starting a chain reaction of connection. In our case, the unification between us leads to a revelation of the Upper Light, which is revealed as the quality of bestowal and the feeling that we have achieved life on a higher plane.

A new reality is perceived to the extent that we are similar to it. If we try to attune our hearts and minds to our similarity to the spiritual world, then we will gradually begin to feel it and our joint effort will become apparent.

Crossing over into the spiritual world is like labor contractions. When powerful forces move a person from front to back, he is pushed back and becomes determined to reject his egoistic image. If he doesn’t despair and continues on with determination, the contractions will end with his birth.

(From the Lessons at the Eurasian Congress  10.23.09)

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