Man’s Birthday

The beginning of the year, “Rosh HaShana” is a special day when we are born as “humans.” A human is called “Ben Adam,” meaning the “son” of the level called Adam (similar to the Creator). This level begins with restriction, with the “loyalty of the soul” (Mesirut Nefesh).

Nefesh (soul) is the first and weakest Light that we attain. To do this, we have to place it above our material lives, meaning give up all the possible types of fulfillment for the sake of spiritual adhesion, connection with one another, mutual awakening and guarantee. “I am willing to give up all the material things to attain bestowal”; this is where man begins.

From this point on, he starts rising up the levels, working on perfecting the quality of bestowal inside of him and constantly trying to remain merged with it. To do this, a person builds the appropriate environment for himself, which influences him. This work is called the Creator’s work. It is work on one’s similarity to the Creator and adhesion with him.

This environment includes: the Kabbalistic group, the teacher or instructor, the books, and the study, meaning all of the boundaries that a person is in. Accordingly, one must always check himself: Are you acting correctly and doing enough to arrange your life the right way, and how should you divide your time, the forces of thought and intention in order to effectively discern your desires? This is how we judge ourselves before the beginning of the new year during the period called “repentance.”

One must cleave to the group in order to receive from it the force of real loyalty and, as it is written, “give one’s entire soul” (Mesirat Nefesh), like when blowing into the horn or during Isaac’s sacrifice. It is necessary to achieve this state at every level.

For now we aren’t required to make such a great sacrifice as Abraham, who sacrificed his beloved child. It’s enough for us to blow into the horn (Shofar). This is how our levels are differentiated: the forefathers belong to the level of HBD, and we to NHY. But in essence, this is the same sacrificial offering that every person must make on every new level of the will to enjoy that becomes revealed inside of him.

After that we continuously increase the importance (the beauty, Shufra) of the quality of bestowal by virtue of our willingness to attain total devotion of the soul. Everything begins with the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) and after that, the ascent of our will to enjoy. This is where man begins, and this is the meaning of the New Year, the day when we begin to grow.

Even though it seems like there are many fictional stories devoted to the beginning of the year, we must try to penetrate inside them and there, see the plan of creation to delight the creatures, the desire to be fulfilled, and its work—to once again start with the initial point and, holding on to this fundamental thread, to understand the inner meaning of the text.

After all, there are different languages of narration, and even Kabbalists write in such a way that every person understands what is written to the extent of his own degree. But even when a person perceives these stories as a children’s fairytale, he nevertheless advances and grows, and that means he has to go through these levels.

Although they might seem like fairy-tales, they conceal infinite depth inside, as high as all the spiritual levels, and we must try to attain the deeper, innermost level and from there take examples for our own correction in order to become human and start the New Year this way.
[55894]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/11, Writings of Rabash

Only By Studying Others One Can Understand Himself

Question: How can a person use his inherent qualities for bestowal?

Answer: There’s no need to think about it because it happens automatically. I don’t have to work against my inherent qualities and inclinations or try to change or “correct” them. After all, I wouldn’t have a clue as to what to do with myself.

All of our work consists of including ourselves in the correct environment and having it influence us as much as possible. Surely, I must first check and determine that this is the environment I need. But after I’ve checked and entered into it, then all I want is for this environment to influence me.

I don’t know how the strength that I receive from my environment will effect my inherent qualities and inclinations. I don’t hypothesize about what will come from this connection. My only choice and clarification is in determining whether this environment measures up to my understanding and sensation of an exalted and unique society aimed towards bestowal and revelation of the Creator.

However, how it affects me and my qualities and how one influences the other is something unknown to me at the moment. This is something I will find out about later, when I’ll begin revealing spiritual levels and understanding how things really work. More so, this won’t come to me at my current level. Only after ascending to the next level and looking down to where I was, will I be able to observe and understand this process.

The whole of spiritual work is in faith above reason, it is in attaining the force of bestowal above the force of reception. Until this system is built within me, my perception will not allow me to perceive, attain, and understand what is truly happening.

Chaining our inherent qualities isn’t our goal. While one is in bestowal for the sake of bestowal, he has no ability to attain the purpose of his inherent qualities and the influence of the environment. Only when he begins connecting with other souls and receives for the sake of bestowal, only then, due to this connection, he starts learning about himself.

I will never learn anything about myself unless I begin bestowing to others. Then, in relation to them and through my attitude towards them, I’ll begin to understand myself. They will become a reference point in relation to which I can measure. After all, we always need two points in order to measure something. If I’m alone, in relation to what will I measure?

This is why when I establish a correct connection with others and study them, I also study myself.
[55513]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

Patience Is The Most Important Quality

The most important quality that is necessary on the spiritual path is patience, the willingness to suffer, confidence in success. Having patience means being willing to pass through all the phases that await me on the path so that neither my current corporeal sensations nor my reason would throw me off or set the truth for me.

From the start I accept faith in the sages (Kabbalists) who have already traversed this path and advise me on how to act. And I follow their instructions and actualize them. This is not at all about self-denigration, as it may first appear to an outsider. Just the opposite: I intend to attain everything in sensation and reason at every phase of the way.

I realize that I am distant and must achieve closeness, and above these two states I always receive a higher state, a new sensation and understanding, and that is how I advance. The result of all this wavering back and forth is clarification, which I make in sensation and reason, attaining a new state and constantly adding to it.

On the other hand, the process I undergo always involves the bending of my ego. I distance and feel myself in darkness and worthlessness. And that is when I must gather up my pride and say that I feel so distant precisely because I received independence. It follows that I can be proud of being against it and lacking the desire; I can be proud of being distant from the Creator. Indeed, I am lost and in a bad state, but thereby I acquire a new desire.

And now I begin to work on this new desire and draw closer to the Creator, and I begin to fill this period of distancing, confusion, darkness, and unpleasant sensations with the Light and insight, new attainments that aren’t egoistic but are above the ego. And that is how I achieve a new degree.
[55582]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/2011, Shamati #121

We Need A New Beginning!

Holidays and special days described in Kabbalah are not dates on the regular calendar, but the attainment of one’s own, special, personal state where a person makes a fundamental inner calculation with himself. If a person reaches this calculation, it means he really has a new beginning, called the new year, Rosh HaShana. And accordingly, he attains the holiday prayer.

Every holiday is a spiritual calculation and a prayer because there is nothing besides the correction of our desires. But the beginning of the new year is special because it comes after many discernments. It comes only once a person has checked himself completely, discerning all of the desires that become revealed to him, because every higher level includes all of the previous ones as a tiny part of it.

However, when a person makes a calculation with all of his actions and thoughts, he sees that he did not attain success, that he does not advance because he wasn’t created for spiritual ascension at all. He is then overcome by burdensome thoughts about spirituality and by doubt and envy toward others. He wants to be above them and thinks, “Why them and not me?”

After many calculations like this, having become completely lost in them, he finally feels that he needs a new beginning. There is no way out because all of these calculations, discernments, criticism, envy, and hatred do not change for years. And the only thing left for him is prayer, a cry for help because only the upper force can help. This inner cry is called the prayer of Rosh HaShana, the new beginning.

Before this happens, a person seems himself as completely lost. He sees that the whole world disagrees with what he is doing and he himself also does not understand what it happening to him or what this path is. All of this criticism comes from his egoism.

That is why the prayer talks about reminders, the need to analyze all of one’s desires and actions, and about blowing into the horn (Shofar) because we have to elevate our spiritual path regardless of anything (in Aramaic, Shufra means beauty). That is when one has to turn to the primary sources in order to advance.

There are many opinions and people in the world influencing a person and imbuing him with their thoughts, pulling him in different directions. Yet one has to place a strict judge above himself and constantly verify himself with the primary sources to the extent one understands what is written there. In spite of one’s ego, one’s desire to rise, profit, and become higher than others, one should strive for the opposite, wishing to acquire only the force of bestowal and to dissolve in the nation within which the Creator dwells.
[55785]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/26/11, Writings of Rabash

The World Will Not Bend On Its Own

Question: People still are far from being able to understand that the environment plays a key role in influencing a person.

Answer: It’s not that they are far from it. They simply don’t have what it takes. After all, this remedy applies solely to correction, whereas people have nothing related to correction, no notion of the external system of influence thanks to which we change. They are certain that it is they who reform the world, while they should be constructing a world that would change them.

Question: How can we convey a sense of mutual responsibility to them, responsibility for the world?

Answer: This exactly is the aim of our dissemination. We need to build a system of education and create our own media. We have to build everything anew on the Internet, as well as on our television and radio channels.

If we do it all correctly, then after the first few blows, people will realize that we have a solution. It is we who are supposed to bring them a “candy” to sweeten up the first “spankings” so that they may see it right away: This offers a solution, hope, and salvation.

This work is entrusted to us; there is no one else to count on. People are unable to hear the message of spiritual ascent. They are in another realm and simply do not understand what we want. When they do begin to understand, they won’t be able to implement it. Correction will come only from us, and our job is to explain to them the necessity thereof.

Systemic corrections occur in a ready-made form from the part of Galgalta ve Eynaim, and the rest should just agree with them, accept them. In addition, we should be quite crafty at disseminating so that the masses will come to want it, so that they would accept this idea and realize that it benefits them.

People cannot change by themselves; 99% of the people are unable to do it. So, at the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam writes that the upper wisdom will flow through Israel (from the words “Yashar-El” or “straight to the Creator”) to the nations of the world. It will flow from the inside out. The masses will not rise to seek it. At best, they will open their hearts to its pouring stream. God willing, they will do so, and we will have something to pour for them.

It will happen if we begin working with them together in the most intense manner. In our dissemination, we can demand nothing from them but the awareness of the current situation. Even if they do not understand everything, we’ll create a connection. By way of dissemination, we, on our part, will find common ground with them.

We can’t demand anything from an infant. It is we who must provide it with milk, bottles, pacifiers, and diapers. Moreover, we don’t expect a meaningful response from him. That will come later when he has grown up a bit.
[55379]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/2011, “The Nation”

Old Folk Lost In The New World

The whole problem is in the approach. If I’m trying to correct this crisis using my old means, looking for solutions and trying to fix the economic systems I have built, this is called Amalek (the greatest, most ferocious will to receive in us), our main enemy.

But I have to realize that this revelation comes to me from nature. There’s nothing that can be done using the old methods as this change is happening inside human nature. This change is not in each of us individually, but in our relationships, in the connections between people. I didn’t want this to happen, but it has.

We have to begin seeing this and to understand that each one of us is an egoist and will remain an egoist. At the same time, the connection between us has grown stronger and is different than before. I will not be able to establish this connection according to my ego’s demands.

For the time being, we are all like marbles inside one system, and each marble is an egoist. However, the connections between us aren’t egoistic anymore. They are not the way we built them in the old economic system, which was a direct imprint of our old ego, an accurate demonstration of the egoistic relationships.

But nowadays, a different kind of connection is revealing itself, and that’s why we’re unable to control the network we have built. This is called the revelation of the Creator, and we’re not treating it appropriately. We don’t understand that we must include ourselves in the new nature.

We’re egoists, but the connections between us are not egoistic; they are changing. We have to be more sensitive to these changes and always adapt ourselves to them, to agree with this new connection. By doing this, we will “obliterate the memory of Amalek,” our worst enemy.

This way, we erase our indifference, disregard, and carelessness. We overcome our careless attitude toward the changes and start to examine what is going on here. Then, we’ll need the wisdom of Kabbalah because otherwise, we can throw all the powers we have, all the scientists, and all the means in the world into an analysis and still not draw a single correct conclusion.

It’s because we would remain like impenetrable marbles, everyone inside their old egoism. Now, we have to receive the instruction (the word “Torah” comes from the word “Oraa” or the instruction manual) that will teach us how to act correctly in order to perform such actions down here, and this will give rise to changes Above.

The Creator Himself reveals the new network, the new connection between all of us. To us, however, this means a crisis because we have built a certain system and He is imprinting a different one over it.

There’s nothing we can do with this new system. All we can do is change ourselves according to this newly revealed system, to adjust these marbles to this new connection between us. This means that I must raise a prayer, meaning that I have to ask for a change in myself, to ask for something that’s missing from me, that’s preventing me from connecting with this new network properly.

This new network will keep revealing itself more and more; this cloud will keep coming down lower and lower. Our work is in trying to recognize this network and to desire to adjust ourselves to it by our practical actions. Thus, we will invoke an influence from Above that will realize this within us.

The change will not be in the system, but in us. We will change in accord with it.
[54349]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Rabash’s article

The Way To Mutual Guarantee

It is important to explain in our round table discussions that mutual guarantee isn’t attained by itself, but rather as a result of serious study of nature’s system of mutual dependence, in order to introduce man into it as an integral component. Only a connection between nature and all people, when everybody is in perfect balance, that is, when a person gives and receives in human society in perfect harmony, as it is done among the cells of the body, only such connection is called mutual guarantee.

But first we have to study the elements: mutual guarantee, mutual yielding and connection, above all the differences that separate us, which the ego purposefully presents to us. We should see the differences between us as exercises above which we have to ascend and thus grow namely in this way, just as children grow as a result of the games they play. This is the essence of our progress towards the state of mutual guarantee—the full mutual connection, just like in one healthy body.

This is the purpose of the entire creation, and therefore, to the extent that we reach this connection, we feel mutual bestowal, love, participation, the merger of our desires, the joining of whatever used to stand in our way. Nothing disappears. All the differences remain, and it is above them that we build our relationships.

We have to patiently explain this method of connection despite all contradictions. Then, people’s consciousness will gradually evolve, to the extent that they master the general mutual connection above the contradictions that manifest.

It is a long way of restoring the broken ties among us. We advance this way and reach the end of correction of humanity and its connection with nature into one.

This is how we reach Malchut of the world of Infinity, where all the differences and contradictions come together: utmost egoism and above it, utmost altruism—and the recognition of the Thought of Creation is revealed in us.

The Group Is My Sail

We cannot make a beeline for the goal, but we can build an environment that will exert an influence upon us from both the positive and negative sides. With regard to the positive side, it means that the environment reveals additional desires within a person, jealousy, and the urge to reach what others have attained.

As for the negative side, the environment shows a person how much less than others he is, how unable he is to be together with them, and how against everyone he is, torturing a person with the feeling of his insignificance and anxiety about his future.

This is how the environment pushes a person both from the positive to negative sides, moving him forward in a “zigzag” path against the wind in the direction of the goal. It is how he reveals the additional urge to the original desire instilled in him from the side of creation in the informational genes (Reshimot), awakened in him by the Creator. This is how he advances.

For the most part, this work consists of building the environment that influences the person. As it turns out, he is the one building this influence, and to that extent, he opens himself up to it. If he doesn’t invest his strength into the group, he will not open up to it.

This can be seen in the example of a person who is taking care of his children or pets. The more we invest in someone, the closer and more loved they become to us. And that is why we begin to react more sensitively to his feedback, opening ourselves up for love and connection.

The same thing happens to the environment. The more we invest in it, the more valuable it becomes to us. And then we open ourselves to the influence of the environment, having built the means that moves us forward on a zigzag path against our egoism towards the purpose of creation.

With this, we complete our efforts to the full extent, about which it is said “I labored and did not find, do not believe.”
[55280]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/2011, Shamati #232

The Only Way To Peace Of Mind

Question: How can we be sure that if we now connect, then we will immediately see improvement in life? Maybe it will suddenly get even worse?

Answer: To the extent that we try to join together, we receive a greater revelation in feeling and understanding and the alleviation of all our states, including the corporeal ones. It all depends only on our efforts.

Even the Ari, before his death, said to his students that if they really wanted to advance, he wouldn’t be taken from them and wouldn’t have died. And now he has deceased from the world because there is no need for him. He wasn’t necessary to them. They shouted: “How could that be, we need you so much!” But actually, they didn’t need him, and he died, no longer manifesting though a physical body.

However, if we had a desire to advance in the direction of giving and uniting, we would immediately see positive results. Surely, we would not be able to measure them according to egoistic gains for otherwise, we would never be able to exit our egoism. We see them in bestowal, in our ability to connect, in the same yearning that we discover. It is called the Reflected Light, inside of which the Direct Light is revealed. After all, I wanted to be in bestowal, in unity, and now I discover that I am able to. I see my advancement in bestowal, that’s my reward.

And if I am in bestowal, I will see see improvement for the better in the corporeal life as well: a normal life. This is the law of nature: Success is promised to you. There are people who have no problems with money or health, but they are not satisfied with their lives. While you reach a state where you will be satisfied from everything. And really you will have everything! The Creator, the force of Light, doesn’t lack anything. He could print dollars for you infinitely.

The moment the direction is changed, we immediately, almost instantly, see the results. If the entire nation began to approach mutual guarantee, we would see how everything would begin to calm down: The rockets would cease to fall on us; the inflation would stop; there will be less road accidents—all our daily life would be normalized. I am saying this in complete seriousness.

We only need to match ourselves to the law of mutual guarantee, to change our direction, each one according to his understanding. Nothing more is asked of us. In his article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam wrote that if we accepted this law, then within just a few years we would reach full prosperity in all areas: health, the standard of living, children education, state management, the nation’s relation to the government, and security.

After all, all of our problems originate only from the lack of compatibility to nature. There is no other law than the balance of nature, equivalence of form. The Creator created the desire to receive and said: “He must be similar and equal to me!” And since then, everything revolves around only that. There is nothing else, starting from the First Restriction and the decision to transform into being similar to Him. This is called the law of equivalence of form. If we don’t implement it, we will suffer only to agree to implement it at the end of the day.

The only freedom we have is to choose how we want to advance: by stick of carrot. The choice is yours.
[54603]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Rabash’s letter

Pray For The Internal Power Of Bestowal

Question: What does it mean to ask the Creator? Do I have to acquire His attributes for that?

Answer: To ask is to search, demand, and even ask for my own transformation. After all, I have to express my own desire for it. I sentence myself (this is the meaning of to “pray” or “Lehitpalel” in Hebrew), I investigate which attributes I lack and how I can attain the force of bestowal.

This force exists inside the society. Therefore, if I enter the society, develop a desire to “clothe” in my friends with all my heart and soul, and connect with them internally so as to totally dissolve in this connection, then I will find the power of bestowal there. This is exactly what I pray for.

I pray to reach such a state in which I will see that everyone is perfect and connected. This situation is called Shechina (Divinity), the general gathering of souls (Knesset Israel). I want to be there, and I pray for the connection that brings together all the souls yearning for “Yashar-El” (straight to the Creator) to be realized in me.

I don’t turn to some external power or desire that exists independently, or to some imaginary figure. All the prayers are aimed at Malchut (of the world of Atzilut or the world of Infinity), to the connection between us, in which we discover mutual bestowal. I want this state to be revealed to me, and this is what is ask for.

This is a very delicate point, and we have to be careful not to start imagining some statue or figure, but only the state in which we are connected and incorporated in each other, tied together in completer bestowal. More correctly, it should be called an attribute and not a force because a force may seem as something distant, while an attribute is what I intend to acquire myself. These are very slight differences, but they determine the cleanliness of my attitude, and hence they are so crucial.

It says: “There is none else besides Him,” however, we have to imagine this as our state in a perfect system. Then we can be sure that we won’t be mistaken.
[55348]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/2011, Shamati $#240