Between Heaven And Earth

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” (abridged version): The purpose of Creation lies on the shoulders of the whole of the human race. But because of the descent of human nature to the lowest degree, which is the self-love that unrestrictedly rules over all of humanity, there was no way to negotiate with them and persuade them to agree to take upon themselves, to exit their narrow world into the wide spaces of the love of others.

The exception was the Israeli nation because they were enslaved in the savage kingdom of Egypt. Because of these two forewords, they were qualified for it, as it is written, “and there Israel camped before the mountain,” as “one man in one heart. This is because each and every person from the nation completely detached himself from self-love, and wanted only to benefit his friend, for only then were they qualified to receive the Light that Reforms.

The correction of the world is done gradually. It cannot take place in one person, but must be divided among many souls. It cannot be realized in one time, in one generation, but rather in a sequence of generations. The correction cannot take place if everyone is the same. On the contrary, there should be different kinds of people. All these conditions were intended to ease the way.

The correction is always done by two forces: The force of suffering pushes us from behind, and the force of the Light pulls us forward. It makes no difference what kind of people are involved. Thus, we can understand why the souls are not the same. Some begin the correction first—they are called Israel, meaning those who aspire “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-El). They correct themselves before all the other souls join the process.

People who belong to the category of Israel feel the evil of their growing egoism, which is called “the Egyptian bondage.” They want to acquire the spiritual world, but encounter resistance: They are thrown backward, and weights are tied to their feet, which prevent them from rising. It is namely Israel who feel many interruptions on their spiritual pathway.

Accordingly, they are given a burning spark of the spiritual desire. Eventually, they find themselves between two opposing forces that pull them forward and backward, practically tearing them in two. On the one hand, they feel a pull upward and, on the other, the Egyptian exile.

This contrast is accompanied by difficult conditions in a difficult historical process, in hostile relationships on the part of the world, and so forth. However, all this helps us fulfill the correction faster than others and then help them. If it weren’t for the final goal, to perform the Creator’s actions in our world, one could only pity us. We can justify this way only if we understand the mission we have been given.

There are forces that push us forward, and there are other forces that won’t let us advance. We experience a very unpleasant development, “between the hammer and the anvil,” but we must understand that we are actually in the center of the corrections, and it all depends on us. Humanity already needs us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Do You Like Seeing Others As Higher Than Yourself?

If I have a small child whom I’m going to send to a preschool because staying at home is no longer enough for his development, I try to place him in a group of slightly older children rather than younger ones so that he can learn from the older children. In other words, the higher my environment, the more opportunities I have to advance with it. And conversely, if I get into a company of primitive people, they relegate me to the level of their values. Everything depends on the environment.

We follow this principle when we make choices in our lives, seeing that “your environment today is you tomorrow.” For a person interested in growing, it is useful to be among great people. However, he has to realize that he has come there in order to grow. If he simply comes and sits among people not of his level, then the greater they are, the more he is annoyed by that. He wants to put them down.

However, if he comes with the purpose of growing in the environment of such people, the greater they are, the happier he is. His only lacks are the hatred and fire burning inside from the feeling of being so much lower than they are. But he is glad about such feelings because they spur him on and urge him to move forward.

Thus, everything depends on a person’s intention, on what he wants from his environment. A person can evaluate an external society by its values and interests, such as whether they like music and art, or whether they are educated and intelligent people. There are criteria with which the society can be tested.

But there are no criteria for such tests in a Kabbalistic environment. The only people who gather there are those whose point in the heart was awakened and they simply want to develop it. All of them go through constant ups and downs. No one knows on which degree he really is, not to speak of his friend’s degree.

Everything solely depends on how a person perceives the group, like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma who valued his small and simple students to such an extent that he was not able to advance without them.

Thus, it is very important to understand that the group, the environment, is something the person perceives inside by valuing the friends brought to him by the Creator, Who gave them the same desire toward spirituality. Now, I can create an environment for myself according to the height and values that are required for my advancement, according to how and where I want to advance.

Apart from that, now, I can study myself. The extent that I like seeing them as great is a sign of my really being willing to advance. After all, it is possible to advance only due to my environment. My wanting to see them as lower than myself means that I am looking for a way to satisfy my pride, not to advance.

Through our attitude toward our environment we can accurately measure our spiritual state. Am I aspiring toward the goal of creation, or am I looking for a nice feeling, filling my egoism with a sense of self-importance?
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

In Disagreement With Oneself

Desire is the creature’s substance, the place where we feel alive and reveal the reality within and around us. The Light works with desire and develops it according to its program. At first, the Light develops desire directly in order to shape it. Then, inside the created desire, the fourth phase of the world of Infinity, the Light begins to create the conditions for its correction.

After all, this desire is still raw material. It does not feel, understand, or have freedom of will. It only operates according to the orders of the Light, which control it. This way the Light creates different forms of desire called worlds or concealments. The Light reveals and conceals itself a little, and the desire goes through changes, until it absorbs all qualities of the Light.

The further the Light distances the desire from itself, the more I begin to feel who and what I am, even though the desire does not yet have any freedom or independent development. Everything happens because of the Light. The desire, being an innate substance, acts according to set laws, and it does not have any choice in its reactions. A desire, a natural material that acts in accordance with established laws, has no choice but to respond.

In this way, development reaches a special structure called “man” who receives the choice either to act within his reason or above it. “Within reason” is an action that corresponds with the Light’s action—the matter’s natural reaction. But it is possible to achieve a reaction above your desire, which does not conform to the natural laws of nature—it is possible to create an ability to react in a way that is opposite to the reaction to the Light’s orders.

This opposite reaction is called “man” namely because it is similar to the Light. After all, when he follows the Light’s orders inside his desire, he is called a created being. However, when he doesn’t follow the Light’s orders but wishes to rise above the level of matter, to rise to the degree of the Light and become like it, then he must have an opposite reaction. In accordance with this reaction, he is called “man” or Adam, which means “similar” (Dome) to the Light.

Thus, matter receives the name of “man” and its new development begins there. It has a variety of forms imprinted on it by the Light during the period of natural growth. However, now, this desire begins to work on its own. It strives to become like the Light. In other words, it constantly strives to have a different reaction to what the Light awakens within it.

The Light awakens reactions within him that are opposite to the Light’s behavior, but man must accept this game and, above it, become like the Light. This is referred to as work by “faith above reason.”

This work can have different forms. The Light sometimes reveals or conceals itself. Sometimes, it awakens bigger or smaller desires in man. Through these influences, it keeps awakening new reactions in matter. This way, matter learns through its reactions. It studies itself and the Light, which is an example for it. Gradually, it becomes closer to the Light in its qualities, until it completely merges with it.

It is clear that on this path, the desire collects understanding and sensations of itself and the Light. It learns the Light’s program and learns the Creator’s attitude toward the creature by the way the Light treats it. And to the contrary, it learns to overcome its own nature and become like the Light. In this way, desire’s substance gradually attains the degree of the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

From Opposition To Perfection

Baal HaSulam “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)” (abridged version): Why didn’t the Creator create a person with all the perfection that’s needed to obtain adhesion to Him? The reason for this is that we need to earn an ascent through applying our own effort.

The Creator granted us the opportunity to earn greatness on our own. We apply our own effort to come to Him without shame.

Why did He create shame and put upon us the burden of having to apply our own effort? Why did He conceal Himself from us? All of this was done in order to give us the opportunity to understand the general system. And the only way to understand it is to go from an uncorrected state to a corrected one. One can understand perfection if he has seen its opposite. This is why the Creator broke us apart and thus gave us an opportunity to correct ourselves and to recreate a perfect system. By doing this we’ll comprehend all of Nature, which is the Creator.

There’s no other choice. This is the only way we can know creation in all its depth. All the actions and states that we go through along this path are necessary because thanks to them and to the corrections that result from them, we include in ourselves all the vessels and the Lights, thereby becoming perfect like the Creator. There is no other way to reach this state.

Nevertheless, why weren’t we created perfect to begin with? After all, isn’t the Creator almighty? Here we must understand that creating something on His level, in the same state as He, wouldn’t be considered omnipotence. This would be as if He didn’t create anything at all. If He is truly creating something, then that creation has to be opposite to Him. And then we are left with no choice but to come to similarity to Him from our opposition.

The “created being” is someone who possess qualities that are opposite to those of the Creator and yet is in adhesion with Him due to his correction. This is why the created being must go through all the states along the path in this manner, revealing the entire depth of the abyss that lays between him and the Creator. After all, by doing so the created being rises to His degree.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

The Key To The Connection With The Creator

Question: What should I do when I feel elevated and awakened during the reading of The Book of Zohar? How can one request correction in this state?

Answer: During the reading of The Book of Zohar and any other authentic source (the articles, letters, and The Study of The Ten Sefirot), I first of all need to build the correct picture of where I am. The picture of the reality I exist in arises in my senses, in my desires. It is the Light that forms me so that I feel and think that this is reality: me and my world. This way I have a connection with the Light, with the upper force, that wants to teach me to identify exactly where I am. This is because from the beginning, I don’t know or see anything. I am like a baby that has just been born.

Therefore, I need to first of all design this picture correctly. There is the desire and the Light operates in it, which wants to awaken the desire within and to become revealed in it according to the law of equivalence of form. The Light is within the desire, not outside of it. In its relation to this desire, it is called the surrounding, inner, external, distant, circle, line, and so forth. These are the forms of the Light that are revealed in relation to the desire. After all, we are talking about everything from the side of the desire.

If I understand that the entire world, all of reality, all the worlds, all the Light, is in me, then I now need to rearrange myself correctly. That is, I need to clarify how and in which way do I act in order to arrive at the maximum understanding and consciousness possible in my present state, and each time to discover more.

Thus, when I read the various authentic sources, I want to perceive the picture of reality and discover it in its most true, correct, and powerful form. And it’s not important which sources to read and in which styles. If these are the books that awaken the forces of my soul from the side of the desire and also from the side of its fulfillment, then it doesn’t matter. It can be The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Zohar, the letters, or the articles. The essence is to awaken my development.

And then I understand the importance of my involvement in the Torah: the Light in it reforms, that is, it brings me closer to the revelation of the real picture of reality, where I reach adhesion with the Creator—a state that is concealed from me.

Thus, we first of all design the picture: There’s me, and everything is concealed within me. I must awaken the forces of my soul and in them discover the real reality in which the Creator and I merge into one.

After I have molded myself in this form, I work on the next step: How do I awaken myself through the studies? And then everything that I read speaks to me about my advanced states. They can be distant from or close to me, it doesn’t matter. What is important is that with the help of the story that I read, I try to identify these forces within me, these forms.

And I don’t forget that it talks only about my desires, about my soul’s inner forces: reception and bestowal. It isn’t important if they are called strange names or names that are familiar with my present reality. I constantly think: How do I discover all these forces as components of my connection with the Creator?
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, The Zohar

The World Depends On Those Who Reach Upward

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” (abridged version): The role of the people of Israel is to prepare the world to a particular purification so that it could accept the principle of love towards the fellow man, similar to Israel. Everyone makes a contribution to this, and thus, each of the people of Israel brings the whole world to good.

The correction of Malchut of Infinity occurs in stages. Some of its parts are more “transparent” and others more “coarse,” as there are more and less important organs in the body. This difference is characteristic of the period of corruption, while after correction more corrupted parts may reach a greater height.

Now, we do not see the real situation. For example, the nations of the world are the most “coarse” vessels; however, after being corrected last, they will rise above the rest. And vice versa, the vessels that are starting correction today are simply purer, and that is why they wake up first. On the other hand, they are “coarser” than previous generations.

Thus, the process goes in stages. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that corrections are carried out from light to heavy, and they are started by those who came to this need, in other words, by Israel, which means “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-El).

If in the general desire there is an impulse to move forward, the point in the heart (•) that feels this calling, then this layer of desires is called “Israel.” The next layer feels pains in life and suffers from the lack of the meaning of life (?), but it still does not feel enough aspiration to reveal the purpose of creation. Finally, there is a layer that simply suffers, albeit perhaps not a lot, and that can be satisfied with little.

In essence, it all depends on the upper layer: If it corrects itself, the Light comes from it to others because AHP can be corrected only by connecting with the carriers of the upper force, with those who have the vessels of bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Only One Desire? That’s Not Enough…

Question: How can we explain to the friends that it is impossible to attain correction by oneself and that we need a group?

Answer: This is what our sources say. I only have a shattered vessel, so what should I do with it? I have to absorb my friends’ desires in order to draw the Light that Reforms.

Together with the friends we raise a common payer, and as a result we receive the force of correction. I will not be able to receive this force if I am alone. At least ten people are required in order to attain it. Only then will we begin to connect to each other and to build the common vessel between us.

It seems that we are together now, but actually it isn’t so. So how can we unite? We activate the force of the mutual prayer for that. No one operates on his own. The common desire to correct ourselves connects us, and in it we want to reveal the special force that will dwell between us, to reveal the Light, the Creator. When He is revealed, we each will disappear as an isolated entity, and one desire filled with one Light will arise.

Can I reveal the force of bestowal by myself? What or to whom will I be able to bestow? I must simply have someone else there too. My point in the heart (•) is my first urge for correction, in other words, for connecting with someone. This means that I have to absorb his desire. Then I have two desires: a desire to draw away from egoism and a desire to draw closer to bestowal.

So I have to receive my friend’s spiritual desire and to attach it to mine. Without this I will not really want to bestow. This is the only way I can raise MAN, a request for correction.

“The minimal multitude is two,” but actually, two is not enough. The more friends there are around me, the more chances I will have to be impressed, to attach their powers to me, and to demand correction. By that, I demand namely the connection with them. I supply the “territory” in which the connection will be realized, my wishes about what needs to take place here, and our common force. In short, I have to prepare the most possibly correct “mold.” It can be done only together. All our work takes place in the group.

Besides, women also support this group, and human society surrounds it on the outside. These factors also have either a positive or negative effect in pushing us towards connection.

Question: What does one feel when the Light fills our desire?

Answer: One of the points is me. All of us together is we. The yellow part in the drawing symbolizes our connection, and the red color symbolizes the upper force, the Creator. We have to unite Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one, and this has to be revealed in our feeling. The Creator is the upper force, the source. The Torah is unity, the vessel. And we are the parts moving toward unity.

Let’s hope we will succeed in this.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

The Picture Of Reality On A Scale Of 1:125

Question: How can we bring our common prayer into the study?

Answer: Everything that we study is revealed in the connection between us. We reveal the picture of our connection, the one soul.

The soul is the connection between all of the parts, which we can only imagine. The soul is everything that was created, all of creation together, the whole of reality, including our world. Even though our world is “imaginary,” it is also part of the same unified soul.

There is nothing except this one soul, which is the vessel that the Creator, the Light, created. But we can imagine this soul and discover its inner power only by connecting all of the parts and turning it into a living organism.

The Light is the life animating force. To feel life, we must connect all the internal parts into one body, putting each part in its place: the brain, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the legs, the arms, and so on. If a person is able to perceive all of them as one body, even in the simplest form where most of the organs still do not function, but all of it connects properly, then the spiritual picture on the first degree is revealed to him.

We cannot discover half or a quarter of the soul. In the spiritual world this does not exist. There is no “partial” in spirituality, but only a whole structure of ten complete Sefirot, not nine and not eleven. So I must reveal the full picture.

In this complete picture I reveal every part of reality that I see before me. I see the place of all nations and the entire universe, all the first ten Sefirot, what belongs where, and what force operates everything. I see all this within myself. I discover myself and nothing besides that.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the study, the discovery of oneself. In this way, I reveal reality. All of creation is me.

Through the study, we need to accept this picture and imagine it correctly. Then it will become clear to us that Kabbalists write about what’s going on inside them. After all, a person is the whole world. Everything you see now is portrayed from within, and it is only an optical illusion that it exists outside.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, TES

The Spiritual Body In The Form Of Sefirot

The level that a person is at totally determines his thoughts and feelings. We cannot think about, understand, feel, and plan something, or yearn for something outside this level. It’s all determined by our state, the height we’ve reached.

The desire to receive operates according to the amount of Light that is revealed within it: from the maximum amount in the world of Infinity to one of the 125 degrees that descend from it, in which the Light diminishes and so affects the desire to receive less and less. As the Light diminishes, the desire gradually becomes more murky, corrupt, and distant from the Light in its attributes.

As the Light shines less upon the desire, the desire discovers its own attribute: egoism. It all depends upon the force of the Light that bestows upon the desire.

So we shouldn’t focus on our physiological body or our thoughts, but only worry about the desires that have to be corrected by the Light. Since the state of the desire is totally dependent upon the Light that shines on it and keeps it at a certain height, we have to think only about the influence the Light has on us: How we can constantly try to place ourselves under the influence of the Light in the maximal and most optimal way.

I don’t know how the Light will affect me and where it comes from. I only need to do what Kabbalists advise us and to perform actions that will uncover the way to the Light and will allow it to influence me—and then I will change. If I don’t do that, I will not change.

The main advice is to connect with my environment and the books according to the teacher’s instructions. Thus, I open myself to the influence of the Light, and all the rest depends on it. The Light will influence the desire, and the new desire will bring new thoughts, understanding, and sensations and will reveal the world to me anew. We have to feel all that in our desire.

A person’s desires, his heart, totally depends on the Light’s influence. A person’s connection with the Sefirot is determined by the degree that the Light reaches him and corrects his desire. This determines the height of his spiritual ladder. The Sefirot are the attributes of the Light in which it dresses when it goes through the worlds in order to bestow upon a person’s general desire.

The Light goes through filters that have certain attributes, and under the influence of the Light the desire begins to change. Instead of the ordinary desire to receive, which lacks any character and direction, there is a concrete desire that belongs to a certain height and resembles the Light.

These desires can already be called by the names of the Sefirot because they “shine” when they want to accurately repeat the actions of the Light. This means that the Sefirotare dressed in the desire and a person begins to acquire the form of the Sefirot, the form of the spiritual body, and thus becomes similar to the Light.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, Shamati #68

600,000 Is The Height Of The Final Correction

Question: Does the amount of men necessarily have to reach 600,000 in order for them to come to connection, like the number of men at Mt Sinai when they received the Torah?

Answer: It isn’t about quantity. It says that there were 600,000 men at the foot of Mt Sinai and around them, women and children, a total of three million people. The number 600,000, however, doesn’t stand for quantity, but rather for the intention to reach Gmar Tikkun (the final correction).

Six is the number of Sefirot in Zeir Anpin, VAK. 1000 stands for Hochma (Wisdom), and 600,000 stands for the height of Arich Anpin.

If all the shattered souls discover that they want to reach mutual guarantee together, they express their request in a cry that they raise to Malchut, to the Sechina. This demand rises from Malchut to Zeir Anpin, in which there are six Sefirot (VAK), and in each one there are ten Sefirot. Because of the desire of the lower one, the six Sefirot of Zeir Anpinrise to a level that is 600,000 times greater than the original one.

It means that the souls want to reach a connection that corresponds to Arich Anpin, the end of correction. They themselves don’t know what the meaning of this connection is, but they want it. So they are considered to be 600,000, and this refers to their desire, not quantity. In spirituality the intensity of the desire is taken into account, and not its quantity.

It can even be two people, after all, it says that two people is a minimal group. And where are all the women, men, and the cattle they took from Egypt, all the vessels they took from Egypt? It is all inside a person!

Each person should feel as if he came out of Egypt and is standing at the foot of Mt Sinai. But where are all these 600,000 people? How can I count them? They are all inside you.

The Torah tells us about what actually happens inside a person, and not about the number of people that took part in some historical event. It talks only about our inner changes.

On the other hand, there is a law according to which every spiritual root has to expand all the way down and to touch its corporeal branch at least once. So there probably were 600,000 men at the foot of Mt Sinai.

I feel the inner meaning of this concept, and so I can only imagine how it was revealed externally. But you shouldn’t worry that what existed in the past still obliges us today. Once there were the First and Second Temples, the Egyptian exile, but you don’t plan on going back to Egypt, do you?…

Don’t think that there actually have to be 600,000 people at our big convention in December. In spirituality quality is much more important than quantity, although quantity is also important because today the whole world has to start the process of correction. But don’t think that we have to bring 600,000 people together, not to speak of three million.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/2011, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”