"Isra-El" Is Responsible For The Whole World

A question I received: What does it practically mean “To value the inner part of me more than the external part?” Baal HaSulam writes that this is necessary in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

My Answer: To value the inner part of you means to respect your mission and responsibility to attain mutual bestowal and to unite together “as one man with one heart” through brotherly love, for the sake of revealing the Creator, the general force of bestowal and love that rules in nature. This has to be the most important thing to a person. We are talking about the Upper Force of bestowal, which fills everything, but which we don’t feel because we nullify its manifestation with our egoism. The right intention for us to have is for this force to become revealed within us to the fullest extent.

I make a simple calculation: that this is the only thing that is important to me in this life. This is why I was born and what I live for. This is what I have to achieve as long as I live in this world. In addition, all of humanity depends on the work I do in this regard, because we are all connected together inside one net.

Baal HaSulam writes that “a person from the nation of Israel,” meaning a person who has a point in the heart (Isra-El means the aspiration to the Creator) determines the direction and state of the whole world with his intention. He can say, “I don’t want anything right now. I’m in a state of descent so leave me alone. I don’t want to hear about spiritual work. I’m going to rest!” In that case, where is his responsibility and the understanding that there are millions and billions of people who depend on him? He is now determining their fate and how they will advance toward correction – whether through painful blows or through realization and goodness.

If these people depend on you, then you have a very strict responsibility to make the right choice because you are leading everyone, be it in a good direction or a bad one. You have no choice about the matter; this is how the worldwide network is built and this is the place you have been allotted in it. Therefore, you must always be in a state of upper fear and remember that you decide what will happen to the whole world.

Later you will reveal that all the people are your children, the closest thing to you! But you have to think this way even now, by faith above reason. Everything that you do is not being done to you, but to the whole world!

How important we deem spirituality directly determines the fate of all humanity. What’s important for us will be important for everyone else. That is the structure of this entire system, in which we are connected with strict connections. A person without a point in the heart does not have the ability to change anything. Only you do, who are called “Isra-El,” or “Li-Rosh” (I am the head).

From the Independence Day lecture 04/20/10, “Preface to the Book of Zohar”

You’re Responsible For Seven Billion Children

A question I received: How will people as a whole develop the desire to unite? Other than suffering, what will rouse this desire in them?

My Answer: We are in an absolute and inseparable connection with each other, in a complete mutual guarantee. This state is designed by nature without our consent, and we have no choice.

Imagine that you have bought an apartment in a building with 50 neighbors, and when you signed the contract, you were unaware that you agreed to be in a mutual guarantee with all the neighbors. Now you are responsible for everything that happens in these 50 families.

This means that if one of them commits an offense, you will be held responsible and taken to jail instead of him. You will be held responsible for everyone. This is the reality of a mutual guarantee.

Humanity must realize that this agreement for an absolute and complete mutual guarantee is currently pressuring us and that every person is responsible for the whole planet. What can we do against this extremely difficult and irrevocable agreement? After all, being responsible for everyone is unbearable! People will feel that there is no choice other than through their own will to connect to others in the correct, good way. However, the whole problem is that we will not be allowed to do this.

Even when we develop the understanding of the need and the desire to unite, and all the governments consent to this at some meeting (like the G20), even then every person individually, as well as entire nations, will discover their inability to unite. Although everyone will seem to realize the hopelessness of the present state, at the same time there will be no opportunities to unite. This is the revelation of a foreign force over us.

It is as though someone from above is purposely building obstacles, tripping us, and not allowing us to achieve what we desire, in spite of all of our efforts and against all logic. And then “they will cry out from this work.” When this occurs, the third force will be revealed: one who wishes to come out of this state must use the Light from the Source in order to replace the hatred in him with love and to begin to love that which he hated previously.

We don’t even realize how much we hate the Creator currently, how distant we are from Him and opposite in our qualities. It is hard to believe that love for Him is even possible. After all, it is He who created everything bad in this world and placed us in the lowest state.

We hate Him specifically and no one else, since “There is None Else Beside Him.” And from precisely this point that every person needs to reach in his personal development, we need to completely turn everything in the opposite direction, and begin to love.

Feelings By Calculation

Question: Why does the egoism in our world keep the mind and feelings from connecting?

Answer: It is an obvious fact that when we are very worried about something, the mind vanishes into thin air. And when we try to understand or examine something, then feelings disappear. These two different approaches, sensory and rational, cancel each other out.

This is a consequence of the breaking. Our root is in the breaking, when the screen that used to connect the mind and the heart, calculation and pleasure, disappeared. That is why in our world, we are unable to make a correct calculation based on feelings. And the more we can leave our feelings behind, the faster we can look at them from aside. The more we move away from our feelings, the more we are able to make a sound calculation in the place which has been freed up, on that same interval that is not filled by feelings.

It appears to us that we are able to connect the mind and the heart, but in reality we cannot. If I were 100 percent inside my sensation but started coming out of it by 30 percent, I would be able to work with my mind in the place that is 30 percent free from feelings.

In our world, feelings and the mind cannot work together. If the mind and feelings were connected, it would be the Reflected Light, a spiritual action. Before this occurs the Restriction (Tzimtzum) must happen, the reception of the Light that Reforms, the merger with the upper one by faith above reason so as to acquire the mind and the heart of the upper one, or to work above one’s feelings with the help of a higher reason.

This already relates to spiritual work. It’s exactly the purpose of the screen: to connect the sensation and the mind, “The Torah and the work.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/2011, Shamati #45

What To Do If You Have Fallen

Question: If I have fallen down, what do I need to do in order to move forward?

Answer: When you have fallen, you are first of all sorry about it, and you want to come out of the fallen state, to rise above your nature, which you can no longer bear. You are even justifying this fall and you understand that “There is none else but the Creator.”

And then, gradually, you forget about this and you return to your usual state, thinking that there is nothing scary about that and that all kinds of things happen. And so it goes on until the next blow.

How many blows like this will be needed depends on the extent to which you connect your mind to it and work on your falls with the help of the group. The group must become your store-room, accumulating the whole of your mind at the time when you are completely under the control of your feelings, in order to balance it.

And on the contrary, when you fall under the control of the cold, dry reason, and when you do not even know how to awaken feelings inside of yourself in order to be inspired by spirituality, then you receive the impression in terms of feelings from the group.

But you will never be able to possess both, the feeling and the mind. That is why the connection to the group is so necessary for us; it can compensate for the lacking opposite and in a way connect both of them. Under the condition that you lower yourself in front of the group and are ready to accept its sorrow. Then you can connect the heart and the mind inside of yourself somehow.

Although, in reality, they do not really connect, because you are not yet really connecting to the group, but still it influences you from afar. And this indirect “surrounding” influence allows you to somehow connect the two opposites inside of yourself. And this is already helping you to understand a little bit about what the spiritual is and what the connection of these two poles means, when you feel and understand the spiritual simultaneously at the same one place.

This is an absolutely special feeling, in which there is understanding. Such things are almost non-existent in our world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/11, Shamati

When The Wall Between Us Falls

You are revealing the evil that does not let you enter the spiritual world as a wall that stands in front of you. Also, you cannot break through it alone, only together.

To do this, we have to unite in a group, which is the only free action that we are able to perform. Having gathered together, we have to draw the power of the Creator to us and break the wall with it!

Now I stand before the same egoistic wall, but I am no longer alone; I stand as manypoints in the heart connected together and called a “Kabbalah group.” This is a huge force that can easily break the wall. We reveal the Creator inside our connection because without the Creator, we are unable to connect!

I ask the Creator and He connects me with the others. The others ask the Creator for the same thing and they also get connected. By this we introduce the force of the Creator between us. He unites us, and with the same force we break the wall. It’s because the wall isn’t outside of us, it’s between us. By working on your connection with others, you are basically preparing yourself for a breakthrough.

What does it mean that the people of Israel exited Egypt? They united with such a force that the wall collapsed; they ascended above their egoism. This is what escaping from Egypt means.

There are no walls outside. The wall is revealed to show us that we don’t want to connect with each other; it’s a revelation of the wall between us. Now bring the Creator so that He will break it. That’s it, nothing else is required!

We should continue on without being too smart. Our main work is done in concealment, unconsciously; this is the preparation period. Thus, it’s important to follow the methodology even if we don’t fully understand it, just as a child doesn’t understand how he grows up. The wall is between us and our only free action is directed against it.

One can work on this connection even if he watches the lessons at home on TV because our connection is not physical; we do not connect to each other with handcuffs or iron chains, only by inner desire. Therefore, even if I’m far from a center, I can still join as if I’m in the center itself. The distance doesn’t matter; it’s only the desire and devotion to the goal that do.

The same wall that we feel between us right now will turn into glue that will bond us together in the end. The same Pharaoh that stands between us will become the Creator. This means that we run from Pharaoh and come to the revelation of the Creator.

We don’t move anywhere; this is done within the group, but instead of feeling the breaking and rejection, we reveal the glue and connection. This is purely a psychological problem that we’ll overcome, and then suddenly the difficulty will turn to the power of connection, the angel of death into the angel of holiness, and the grave into the mother’s womb.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

Only Together Will We Succeed

A question I received: When we work on uniting with others, do we reveal the common ego or our personal egos?

My Answer: We all work on uniting in order to achieve a common desire to reveal the Creator, the quality of bestowal. There is no separation between the personal ego and the collective one. I depend on you, you depend on me, and everyone depends on everyone. If one person drills a hole in our collective boat, everyone will drown.

Therefore, the individual and the group are united as one (Echad). If we are marching into battle together to reach a goal, then does it really matter if it’s an individual or a group? It is like a team: either we win together or we die together. A society has all that an individual has and vice-versa. Therefore, the concept of “the individual” disappears and it becomes irrelevant whether I succeed or someone else does. It is everyone’s success or failure that matters. The group and I are the same thing.

This is called a mutual guarantee. The fact is that we are unable to achieve it on our own, but it’s what the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif) wants for us. We are given a condition: to unite as one man with one heart. However, we are unable to do this. We reveal our inability to bond, which is known as “the broken Tablets.” We understand that we are incapable of this since we are opposite to the Torah.

Unity is not what I imagined spirituality to be. I imagined it as something I can acquire using my ego. However, when it comes down to it, I don’t want spirituality because it is opposite to everything I ever imagined it to be. This is true evil being revealed in me: the fact that I don’t want unity and I am unable to achieve it. This is called the “Golden Calf,” where the Upper Force makes a calf for me. It is done by Aaron, the quality of kindness (Chesed), and this revelation occurs inside a person as a result of tremendous effort.

The Whole World Is On A Small Raft

The entire creation is divided into the four levels of development: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. And human development also follows the same four stages.

On the still level, a person does not hesitate to agree with everything the upper governance does with him. On the vegetative level, he acquires his own desire, agreement and disagreement.

To rise to the animate level means to have one’s own character and destiny, direction and individuality, that is, to perform a special purpose in creation, posses an active force within a general, large machine of nature, and turn its gears correctly, according to the actions of the Creator, but with one’s own hand.

When a person himself becomes like this enormous machine, he is called a human, Adam. That is, he encompasses all this mechanism of nature and manages it instead of the Creator; he becomes included in the general program of creation. This means to rise to the human level.

Nowadays, humanity begins to awaken to rise above the still to the vegetative level. That is why we feel discomfort and the loss of direction; we do not know where to go and why. And in the coming years, many such events will be manifested, which will puzzle people and deprive them of understanding how to go on.

This will involve the simplest, seemingly clear things and not high principles. Suddenly, the basis of life will disappear: The economy will stop functioning; relationships between people will disintegrate; confusion will overwhelm the power structures. It’s as if a fog falls and everything becomes unclear.

Everyone who came to Kabbalah began to study because at some point, he felt that he had entered such a fog. In other worlds, a person no longer feels that he is the master of his life with everything following a clear order. Here, an obscure factor appears that confuses him.

The protective function of the body starts operating, which wants to feel confident and secure, to stand firmly on the ground, to hold control in its hands, and to know that one has a job, money, health, and pension. But suddenly you see that all this as if disappears in a fog.

The entire humanity will feel this condition. And when, instead of being someone’s personal state, it will start to happen on a great scale, it will be frightening. But this will push us to the next level, will force us to seek protection, a new foundation, and will bring us to the vegetative level.

On the vegetative level, people will be compelled to look for how to hold onto each other, that is, how to achieve global and integral connection voluntarily, consciously, and with the understanding that they cannot survive without this.

It’s as if we are all standing on a raft floating on the water. Imagine that everyone makes uncoordinated movements that rock the raft in opposite directions. In order not to topple the raft, we must hold onto each other and maintain balance all the time; otherwise, we will drown! This feeling will reign in the world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/2011, Shamati #115

All The Difference Is In Intention

Question: Two forces act in the world: the force of bestowal and the force of the desire to receive, created as existence from absence. What is my “I,” my intention? Where does it come from?

Answer: We do not feel the Creator because we are in one desire: the desire to enjoy. Even if I want to give, it is just for fun. In reality, I am confused in intention and action. My action can be either reception or bestowal. And it can be accompanied by the intention to receive for myself or the intention to give to the other. There is nothing else, and this is our whole life.

In our world, there is an action to receive and an action to give to the other, as well as the intention to receive for oneself. But the intention to give to the other is not there; this is what I am not capable of. I can give something to somebody or receive something from somebody, but my intention is directed exclusively at receiving for myself, whereas the intention to bestow to the other belongs to the spiritual world, but I cannot reach it. It is not my fault: I am created like that.

There is no confusion here at all: My entire routine is aimed at self-enjoyment.

What I need is an intention, and it is the most important thing for me (!), regardless of what action I perform: giving or receiving. I perform bestowal to my child, to those whom I love, to friends, and even to my employer because I receive a reward in a natural way or in money, in the form of respect, power, and so on.

The key here is the intention, according to which I operate. How can I achieve the intention for the sake of bestowal to fellow human beings? And what will it give me?

This is where the problem occurs. If all of reality exists outside of me, then what I currently receive inside is only its tiny part called “this world.” It is terribly small, tight, limited in time, space, and everything else, but by crossing to the other side, I will get rid of any limitations.

This is the difference between the intentions. If my intention is aimed at myself, I will not be able to feel anything greater than I perceive today. If my intention is directed at unity with the other, to be in him, then I save myself from this horrible life with its fatal end and ascend to the next degree of life; I live outside the body. The only difference is in intention.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/2011, “One Commandment”

Nature Does Not Tolerate Imbalance

We are moving toward balance with nature. It aspires to bring all of its parts to balance. The difference between temperatures gets balanced out, the wind balances out the difference in air pressure, an object that is thrown falls down, toward the place where it will find balance with the force of gravity. The process is aimed at a balanced state everywhere and in every regard. In any area, be it chemistry, physics, biology, and so on, everything is built upon this principle. Everything aspires to equilibrium, to a relief of pressure. Everything submits to the law of entropy. Nature wishes to become appeased. It does not tolerate differences and fluctuations in any parameters.

Eventually, everything has to reach balance. And now the law of nature is demanding balance in human society. We see outbursts and disorder, and this is nature’s way of demanding balance. The still, vegetative, and animate levels have already had their turn, and now it’s the human level’s turn. The desire for balance is emerging within us, but becoming balanced among us means becoming “as one man with one heart.” We might all be different, but there is one criterion: We are all obligated to mutually support one another.

And there is nothing to be done about that: Whether we want it or not, nature will win because it is a tremendous force.

A question arises: Why won’t we disappear, like the mammoths and dinosaurs? Why don’t we just leave the stage like a part that doesn’t fit? After all, our discord with nature is much greater than that of the extinct dinosaurs. However, unlike them, we have a mission, a predestination, a goal: We have to correct ourselves and transform our initial nature. They were unable to do that and they disappeared with the natural course of evolution, whereas we are obligated to bring ourselves into balance with the current phase of development.

That is why we are brought to states where our lack of harmony with nature will become expressed in the gravest forms, but it won’t get to total extinction. 90% of the world might disappear, but some people will remain nevertheless in order to change human nature and reach the necessary balance.

This is the goal and we have no other way to go.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/11, “The Nation”

Why Do I Envy The Creator?

Question: How is it possible to envy the Creator?

Answer: I envy the Creator for being the one who bestows. After all, I learn these qualities from Him, and how else can I learn?

The problem is that for us envy is directly connected to egoism. And if I envy someone, it is like I don’t want him to have something good. This is bad envy.

Good envy is when I wish to become like the one I envy. The problem with our perception is that we don’t see the difference between the qualities themselves, which are not good or bad on their own, and their implementation, which determines everything. We assign our egoistic desire to these qualities from the start because we have gotten used to working in such a way that all qualities, all “9 first Sefirot” clothe onto the egoistic desire, the corrupted Malchut.

However, if we imagine these qualities as clothed onto corrected Malchut, then envy, lust, and honor will seem beneficial qualities that help us come out of this world and rise higher. Everything depends on whether we use them to reach bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/2011, Shamati #9

Preparation Is The Most Important Time

Only the Light can reveal the truth to you; you cannot do anything on your own. The advice that Kabbalists give you is: Try to achieve love for your neighbor. As a reward for your effort, you will feel that you hate everyone!

And an even greater reward given is realizing your own evil. Following that, yet another, higher reward will come: You will understand that you are able to act in order for the Upper Light to correct you. We need to go through all such stages and it is impossible to do this alone. This is why we are brought into a Kabbalistic group. After all, we are able to feel all of these things only in the connection with others, by practicing mutual bestowal.

This initial stage of realizing one’s evil is the most important and difficult stage. Everything else, after the realization of evil, is carried out very quickly and relatively simply.

Therefore, the greatest challenge is to overcome the first degree. It is written that “a thousand begin to study and only one comes out toward the Light.” Everyone stumbles on this first degree; they fall, leave, run away, and are thrown off the spiritual path.The most difficult time is the time of preparation because this specific degree of preparation readies us for the rest of the path.

Right now, while we are in this world we are unaware that we are preparing ourselves for the degrees that will come later on, after a thousand different actions. And later when a person has attained high spiritual degrees, he receives freedom of will specifically by virtue of going through the preparation. It provides the foundation for all the other actions and gives us the ability to make those actions freely.

It is impossible for us to have freedom otherwise, while being on the degree of reception for the sake of bestowal.

It is only when we reveal the “transgressions” of the past – from the period of preparation – that we gain the opportunity to feel separate from the Creator, and therefore, free. This is an exceptionally high state where you are situated completely within Him, but in spite of this, you have the opportunity to say, “I can still be independent!” This is why our preparation today is so important.

To Precede Desire With Intention

Question: How is it that even in the spiritual world intention and desire don’t merge into a single whole, but remain two separate things?

My Answer: We must always be concerned with the intention. The desire will be revealed in compliance with the intention, but no more. The desire is revealed in accordance with the screen and the Reflected Light.

Indeed, my desire is very big – it is Malchut of the world of Infinity. But my screens can be different: from the smallest to the largest. The size of the screen is split into 125 “portions,” and if I reveal the desire along with them, then I am always in balance in that I have one intention.

Every one of us contains Malchut of Infinity, unbounded with all its Reshimot. Only a restriction is placed on it, and now it gradually reveals itself to us, but only in accordance with the size of the screen, or the intention.

Our behavior must be similar: Our whole work is done in the intentions, which determine the revelation of our desires. If the desires are revealed before the intentions, then we suffer. And conversely, if we care to develop the intentions first, then we walk the good path. In other words, if I cultivate the intention, then I walk the path of the Torah. But if the desire is revealed before the intention, then I develop by the path of suffering.

Our destiny lies between these two opportunities.