The First Glimpse Of Light

Question: Baal HaSulam writes in “The Freedom” that the method of Kabbalah is intended for the purification of Israel, and this refers to the recognition of evil. How is one connected to the other?

Answer: Do you really achieve something good by recognizing your own evil? Of course, because this has led you to purification, you have become better, more receptive; you feel more, understand more, you permeate the matter of your desire. Before it would come down to good or bad sensations, and you had no knowledge of anything else. You would simply respond to stimuli like a very primitive animal. Just like a frog’s leg automatically contracts under the influence of an electric impulse.

Now you have questions: “Why do I do this? Who does this come from? What is it for? Is it for the good or the bad?” You rise above your nature by analyzing the situation, and in some way it’s the same as coming out of your nature. Like a worm in an apple, you start making your way towards the light.

Imagine a red, juicy apple, and you’re inside of it. And an opening leading to the exterior appears. Even if you haven’t yet gone through it, you already begin to distinguish that there is light there, and it is dark here. Differentiating between them becomes your recognition of evil.

This is an enormous achievement amid the size of creation, which serves as our “apple”…..
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12 “The Freedom”

Grateful Clay In The Good Hands Of The Sculptor

We start from the shattering. Without it we would be just like the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature that act by obeying the one force that motivate and operate them from within. But because of the shattering, spiritual attributes have penetrated the desire to receive for oneself in their opposite form.

All of creation advances under the direct influence of the Light, but man advances under its opposite influence. All this is so that he will be able to understand that he needs to adapt to the force that motivates him by himself.

The more he advances, the more he feels the pressure upon him. Eventually he has to fully “format” himself, it order to get the right form. In the meantime, he gradually grows in his desire, in an opposite way from the desired form.

It takes a long time until a person finally begins to feel the pressure inside him in different directions, which molds him like raw material. If he tries to raise his sensitivity, he feels how the Creator works on him. No matter what external activities he has, there is an internal life in which he constantly tries to feel how the Creator pressures him in every direction through different feelings.

It is like a mother who is constantly by her son’s side, telling him what he should or shouldn’t do, correcting his every action. In the same way a person constantly feels internally how the Creator operates on him, as if he is some soft piece of clay in the hands of a sculptor pushing him gently, but firmly letting him feel his pressure. But he has to want this pressure.

It is somewhat difficult and unpleasant, but on the other hand, a person understands that the work that is being done on him cannot be stopped and he wants it to continue. This is the initial feeling of a person who begins to feel inside himself the actual work of the Creator on him.

We can feel this bestowal inside us because after the shattering there are different forces and different influences inside us, as a copy of the spiritual actions. These are potential actions that exist in the general soul that wanted to perform them in order to bestow. But after the shattering it all became “in order to receive,” and now it exists is in us in an opposite, egoistic, form. But it is thanks to this that we can identify the Creator’s work on us.

This is why a person’s behavior becomes opposite from the Creator’s actions. There is a conflict: a resistance on the side of a person, on the side of his clay, and the pressure on the side of the Creator. Thus they beat each other and a person feels the pressure and the beating as the Creator tries to show him what is wrong with him.

Eventually he begins to justify the internal pressure and goes along with the Creator’s actions, wanting them, like a horse that obeys his rider. He feels the leadership as a revelation of love and justifies it. Thus he acquires faith and connects to the Creator. He moves to the sculptor’s side. Although he still feels sufferings, they are felt in the clay, whereas he already identifies with the intention, with the one who creates all the different forms in him.

He connects to the hands of the craftsman that creates and sculpts him. He actually wants the craftsman to affect him so, and increasingly yearns for him, until he adheres to the actions of the upper one. They adhere in the same motion, the same intention, and the suffering becomes a pleasure.

All the sufferings that the clay felt disappear and a person finds himself above it, in his intention, and sees that the clay is meaningless. He agrees with the Creator’s work on him and understands that “only good and grace shall pursue me.” He rises above his feelings and adheres to the intention of the Maker, to the attitude of the Creator, and reaches complete adhesion with Him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, Writings of Rabash

A New Paradigm Of The Universe

Today’s development of humanity brings us to a very interesting conclusion: If previously we dedicated at least ten hours a day to work, today our attitude towards that must change at its very root. We shouldn’t look for work. Each person has to work only to the extent required to secure a normal and dignified quality of life.

That isn’t some bare minimum, but precisely a standard accepted as necessary. We don’t strive to procure above this level, understanding that this is the only way to enter into equilibrium with the surrounding nature. A balance between the force of reception and the force of bestowal—the amount each receives from society is the amount he gives back to it—balances us, our entire human community, in relation to nature.

As a consequence, a large amount of a person’s time will get freed up. The resulting void has to be filled through achievement of this very harmony. A person has to develop by interacting and uniting with other people. And the fact that seven-to-eight hours of people’s time a day will become freed up and remain unfilled is something that’s been set in motion in advance by nature’s program. It’s not accidental that we have developed our technology, communications, and international trades and services to such an extent that we can, while working literally two hours a day, supply ourselves with all that is necessary.

This is set by nature, and we have to view it as objective reality. The freed time is specifically intended for us to bring ourselves into the necessary balance. Then we will reveal an entirely new level of existence in nature: the level of its plan, the upper governance. We will start feeling the mechanics that governs the entire universe, including us.

We must explain this to people and for some amount of time to lead them towards the new outlook on life. This is the modern paradigm that people need to understand and get used to. They need to change absolutely all of their thoughts, plans, and attitude towards life, the world, and everything else. In other words, the most important ideal, the most supreme value should be “we”—the achievement of unity between us and balance with nature.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

Inseparable Friends With Very Sharp Teeth

Question: Which desires are we supposed to reveal when we connect? Why do I need to see the desires to receive (AHP) if I am not able to use them?

Answer: Every one of us is like a cogwheel—saw-toothed. My desires to bestow, Galgalta ve Eynaim, are inside the wheel, and the teeth on the outside are my desires to receive, AHP. I connect with others through these desires to receive.

I only desire bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, within my Galgalta ve Eynaim. In other words, I need nothing, and there is nothing I could do with it.

The Galgalta ve Eynaim is the condition of my presence in the system without causing it any harm. I possess this power of resistance against my egoistic desire.

The Galgalta ve Eynaim are not just small desires of small power, (Aviut 0, 1, 2). They represent the fact that I can provide all of my 620 desires with an intention for the sake of bestowal, like Bina. I do not work with these desires, and I do not wish to use them for my own sake.

When I make a calculation for my entire vessel, desire, without wishing to receive for my own sake, I place a screen, Masach, in front of me. This refers to being inside the desires to bestow, Galgalta ve Eynaim.

This is not a restriction. This is because I simply refuse to receive during a restriction. Here, I feel my 620 desires, and I say “no” in response to every desire because I would rather unite with the upper one. Connection and the group, through which I will attain the Creator, are more important to me. However, I feel all these desires, and this means being inside the Galgalta ve Eynaim.

If I also can work with these desires and connect to the upper one even more strongly, to employ these desires to receive the AHP, the teeth, and use them to grab on and connect with someone, instead of simply not getting in anyone’s way, this means that I work with the receiving Kelim, the AHP.
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From a Lesson 12/23/11, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

My Present Self And My Desired Self

Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam wrote that nature punishes man if he doesn’t implement its laws. But man is born egoistic and is not able to implement them!

Answer: There are many ways to word this question. First all of, what kind of Creator is there if he created us with so many defects and still punishes us for them? How can such a thing be? Isn’t it like beating a baby who was just born with some defect? Did He do this on purpose so that He would have an opportunity to punish us? Is the meaning of this to enjoy our despicableness and sufferings?

It is here we need to understand that the Creator doesn’t correspond with our present logic. The Creator gives us the possibility to complete ourselves. He created us at the level of beast. I am called, “man,” a name from my future state, and not a name from my present state.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah everything is named according to “future achievements.” For example, we are called, “Kabbalists” even though we have not yet received the upper Light with the intention for bestowal and we still are not in the spiritual worlds. But we are attracted to this, and work for this, and already now call ourselves with this future “title.”

This being so, why do we suffer from lack of self-completeness? It is because otherwise we wouldn’t complete it.

The Creator created us at the low, animal level, and we need to add to this the level of man, similar to the Creator. We need to do this by ourselves, through achieving, recognizing the quality, and valuing this status. This has been imposed specifically on us. Since if from the beginning, the Creator created everything by Himself, then there wouldn’t be any benefit from this creation. What reason is there to create a world where He controls everything and His creatures have no free choice in anything? That would be like doing nothing.

The Creator intentionally created us as we are: We are not complete; we need to feel that, to deeply sense that. Afterwards, we need to understand by what means we can complete ourselves, what we are really missing in order to add the Creator’s nature to ours? And then the animal in us is not taken into account and remains only as a basis that can be turned to. Afterwards, with the acquisition of the form of man, it disappears, and man detaches from it. The benefit is found within this entanglement in order to grow, and then afterwards to exit it and no longer be in need of it. Thus we are in need of the physical world, for this “bubble,” as long as we grow. And when we have grown, the physical world will disappear.

But we need to acquire the attribute of the Creator by ourselves. For this we need feelings; thus, gradually the level of the evil inclination is strengthened in me, the recognition of evil. I feel sufferings, aspirations, and pressures. All of this is in order to awaken me to the spiritual work. Together with this, the Creator does not punish me, but gradually, bit by bit, He shows me that I still haven’t received His form.

Let’s suppose, now, according to my plan of development, I should have already gotten 10% of the attribute of bestowal from the Creator, meaning exiting from the Egypt in me, detaching from egoism, rising above it in restriction, and beginning to process 10% of my desires for bestowal. But since I have not done that, these unexecuted assignments of mine press on me and I feel them as suffering.

It is not the Creator who puts pressure on me, but those forces that are found between the “I” of now and the desired “I,” the person I should already be. The gap between these two, gives me the feeling of the crisis, the feeling of suffering. The Creator only provides the creature with the initial push, from the beginning to the end. And I understand this process as a temporary space where I move from one end to the other in the process of my receiving the form of the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

A New Control

Question: When we look at our life, we see that we have no control over it. How should we relate to this reality?

Answer: Actually we do have control. It all depends on our approach.

In this world, I am in a kind of a “bubble.” I keep the laws in this world and try to fulfill my desires. Eventually I work out the relations with the world. I have studied it in depth, I have created many technologies, and I feel that everything is fine. Apparently I should be satisfied with the world because after ages of development, I control it.

Suddenly something new comes up: New forces arrive and I discover that I cannot succeed in anything. I have built many systems in this world: family, work, education, science, etc. Everything “ticked like clockwork,” everything seemed perfect, and suddenly it seems that everything has become bad.

What happened? It doesn’t make sense. We know so much; we have the brains; we have been through so much, so what’s the problem? Are we really so foolish that we don’t learn from past experience? Are we destroying our future? Why are we getting divorced without thinking about our kids? Why aren’t we aspiring to advance? Why are we ready to destroy everyone around us only so that our neighbors will be worse off than we are? What is going on?

It is simple. We are not to blame. Today another form of control is being revealed, a new sphere of another nature that controls us. If it weren’t for this new control, we could live a wonderful life. But it has been revealed, and now we have a problem. We are not opposite from the laws of this world but from the laws of the upper world. They influence us and we are miserable, unable to escape it.

In our world we always managed somehow and we aspired to advance, to know more, to understand more, to feel more, and to develop. Eventually we meant to subdue this whole world. But today we discover something that we don’t know and that we have no control over. Like kids, we face this uncertainty afraid to move so that things won’t get any worse. We see this in the world’s leaders and decision makers who don’t know what to do. For every problem there are endless opinions and no one has a solution.

The reason is that a new leadership has been revealed. How will we manage with it? How will we manage with its forces? We are perplexed and we feel bad.

This feeling doesn’t come from the Creator, but from our lack of adapting to the laws of the upper nature. Today we have to harmonize with them. We have grown for a long time and have finally reached the beginning of the Machsom (the barrier). The crisis is the beginning of the Machsom for the whole world.

In the group, we transcend it a bit sooner from our own will, aspiring forward. We have a “point in the heart” (*), we understand and feel that there is something else and we want to break into it.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

It Is Always Darkest Before The Dawn

There are different materials, for example dough, clay or marble, and there is what we make of it. In “Safra Detzniuta” there is an example of a farmer who comes to town and is surprised to see in the market rolls, pretzels, cookies, and other baked goods made from the same flour he produces.

According to evolution, the contact with the upper Light brings about many different forms, but the material that takes on these forms stays the same, and that is the desire to receive. So there are never any restrictions on the desire itself. We don’t do anything at all with it; our actions are only with regard to the forms.

Now our desire has an egotistic form that is aimed against the goal of creation. So we have to restrict this form, but not the desire. Only in this way will it receive a new correct form and we will be able to use it as we please.

Another problem is that we have to agree with the fact that we receive bad and corrupt forms. It is written, “a man’s heart is evil from his youth.” The Creator on his part, created the evil inclination, and we have to demand to advance to goodness.

Thus we have to show great restraint, to be tolerant toward all the forms through which the correction is performed. Some forms are even worse than the previous ones, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Impatience, outbursts, negative feelings, hate—can reveal things we’ve never encountered before on our way to the goal. Baal HaSulam brings the example of a fruit, which as it ripens goes through stages that are opposite from its final form. It becomes more sour, more bitter, less attractive, and only in the last stage does it begin to take its final form. A month before it ripens it can be poisonous. This is just as the darkness becomes thicker before dawn.

So we have to be very patient with the intermediate forms; they serve the development, although they may seem awful. We appreciate a person for his efforts, whether he does as much as he can do or not. The main point is that he shouldn’t be harmful and critical and as for the rest we can wait.

All our studying, all our advancement, all the understanding and the feeling do not appear in the material, but in its forms. This is what we study all the time. The desire is irrelevant. I look at the forms and at the differences between them.

These forms come to us from the Creator, from the Light, but they can appear in us as positive or negative. We are between the two contrasting forms: the angel of life and the angel of death. These two angels are the first nine Sefirot, and the material of our desire is Malchut. We receive the positive forms from them in our desire and the negative ones out of necessity and so we advance.

One cannot exist without the other. Every form should include the two forces that operate on the neutral matter of the desire to receive, meaning the two opposite changes that influence the data.

The desire was created as “something from nothing,” and we study everything that is in it, everything it goes through by the principle of formal education, of knowing the forms that come from the Creator, from the Light. We never study and explore the Light itself, but the forms of the Light on the material, on the desire; just as we don’t feel electricity by itself, but what it brings about, which can be measured and studied.

Eventually, we never attain the phenomenon itself, and we don’t know what the desire to receive is in itself. We only attain its reactions to the Light, and thus learn about the influence of the Light on the desire, when we deduce one from the other.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/11, “The Freedom”

The Masters Of The World

For some reason we are afraid that if we give up our egoism, our desire will cease to develop. But in fact, it’s quite the opposite; it’s now that we don’t develop it and rather, we use it in its lowest form. This destroys man and the world. The global elite have developed this approach on purpose so that a person will obey and agree to the infinite chase. Everything is arranged so that a person feels satisfied and considers it a “good life.” The top percentile of society fools people and turns them into slaves. A person is told, “What a good boy you are. Work more and you’ll get a bonus.” And he gladly continues the forced labor.

A person doesn’t understand how he is manipulated by society, education, the media…it isn’t by chance that the elite don’t want to change these mechanisms. They want you to remain a fool. Actually the whole world works for them.

When people wake up they’ll understand that they have been cheated and that their life is worse than a beast’s life. Beasts obey nature, even unconsciously, but directly.

But you are being manipulated by that one percent of humanity, and you smile happily as you’re turning on this “skewer.” You don’t even suspect that you are carrying out their orders that have been inserted into your head for decades through the TV screen, newspapers, and other channels. You are in a worse position than a trained dog.

Look at how they oblige you to buy and with what entertainment they feed you. And you obey their orders faithfully from morning to night. You are not free at all. There is a program in your head that totally enslaves you.

Until the elite feel that they are on the verge of collapse, it’ll be very hard for us to bring something to the world. They know what they are doing. They are holding all the strings that sustain humanity. They throw democracy at you like a bone, so that you will play with it by your “kennel.” These “masters of the world” are so proud that they don’t understand that they are destroying themselves this way.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, “The Freedom”

Ordering My Own Development

All our work can be summed up as clarifications and thought by which we come to the Creator and try to demand from Him new desires that are totally unsuitable for our ego, our nature.

So I check how I am managed from Above, and I can feel to some extent this operating force. From the side, I analyze the actions of the Creator in me that motivate me. Thus, I begin to see the source, His actions—that is, me, and the power that controls me—and understanding how it works.

These three components: an appeal to the Creator, the source, His action inside me, and its result—are all called the Creator’s work, because it is the Creator who does it. My participation is only in asking Him to perform this work. In this way, we become partners.

As a result, from a small beast that performs actions blindly, who doesn’t even understand that it is being managed and thinks that it lives freely, whichever way it feels like—I become an active assistant manager, and so I reach adhesion with Him. I understand my desirable development and its final form and try to promote this plan even before it is fulfilled by the Creator.

I order my development, and this is called “hastening time,” instead of the natural flow (in its time). This is how I attain it, by the power of thought, and I begin to walk hand in hand with the Creator in every step, and try to learn and to accelrate my development.

As Baal Hasulam says in his article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before”: the movement of the horse becomes one with the movement of the rider and this is their adhesion. The Creator waits for me to ask Him and helps me by evoking me and shows me by sufferings or by other clues the places where I have to pay attention to His leadership. And so we advance until full adhesion.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/11, Writings of Rabash

Everything Will Be Clarified In The Thought

We have a desire and a thought. If we only had a desire, we would perform everything blindly with no self-control, just like inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature in which the only thought is how to fulfill the desire.

A person who has developed to the inanimate, vegetative, and the animate levels thinks only about how to attain what he wants. There are different types of people: smart, energetic, violent, shy, brave, etc.—but each one wants to fulfill his desires, from a tiny baby to an elderly person who hides his desires. In each one there is the thought of how to fulfill his desire in every possible way.

This is how we develop in feeling and in mind, like a beast, until the point in the heart is revealed in us and begins to ask: What is all this for? Why? From that moment on, real science begins; when I begin to ask about the essence of my desire: What do I need it for?

This isn’t simple. People come to study, they become a group, but years may pass until they begin to ask this question, that is, that they want to know the desires they feel: where they come from? They begin to look for the reason, the root, the source.

Then they understand that the thought was given to them in order to reach the Creator by studying their desires. If I, through thought, correctly perceive the desires, I can reach the source from which they come, will understand who is sending them and why, what he wants from me, and how I should regard Him.

Through the group and even directly, I begin to demand from Him to change my desire: “You gave me such a desire, but I am asking for another desire!” then I will really be able to change it. The thought is given to us so that thanks to it we will be able to know our desires and demand new desires.

The thought exists so that I can check and prove to myself that I can’t do anything with my desires! Even when I seem to overcome, it isn’t that but simply changing one desire for another, which is also egotistic: for respect, for control, and pride. I simply find another desire that beats the first one and change values.

As a result of my thoughts, or under the influence of the environment, I begin to imagine that another desire is more important than the one I just had. And so I decide to change it to another. It is the game of egoism. This way I can change any desire I have.

But I can truly change the desire only with the influence of the environment that will give me other values. Then, as a result of its influence, I will demand from the Creator to change my desires. These desires can already be super-natural for me, meaning against my ego.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/11, Writings of Rabash

Bring The Dead Time To Life

It is possible to control your desire through action. That is why we need to force ourselves into action. The speed of our development depends on it. People are asking: “Well, where is the spiritual world? When will it be revealed? What else can I do to get closer to it?”

They do not understand that every day we aimlessly lose a lot of hours. It turns out that what could have been done throughout a day stretches out for the whole month and even more. We don’t care about shortening all of our opportunities in order for each moment to become focused on reaching the goal—at least in the material external action if it is not possible to do it in the desire and intention, not directly, but indirectly, through other actions, which I perform for the world, dissemination, the group.

Very often and for long periods of time we are in a state when we have no desire, but the time keeps passing by and we do not know what to do with it. We are simply waiting for when it will change on its own, but nothing will change on its own.

This dead time is given precisely so that we invest action into it, and by the means of the action to change our desires, to quickly wake up and begin to move forward towards the goal. Until I get to feel that the group, the world, and the whole of reality is, in essence, me, myself, and it depends on me, I need to use all of this in order to reach the realization of the goal.

I should not wait until the awakening will come from the outside. There is a quantity and quality of efforts, which a person must exert only in action without any intention and desire! And even though in our generation we are spoiled, weak, and not ready to suffer the way the previous generations did who were closer to the condition of the Kabbalists of antiquity: “Live on bread with salt and drink water….” However, we need to understand that without the feeling of the suffering for the whole world, we will not be able to become connected into it.

Here, the mind and the feeling must supplement each other so that I would not have to suffer like everyone in the world and humanity as a whole does. By the means of the mind, I can increase my participation in the suffering of the world and to connect to one big vessel-desire.

And to the extent of that, my actions for the benefit of the world will increase, and this way I will move from action to desire and thought, I will attain the perfect vessel, worthy for correction and fulfillment. So this will be the correction and fulfillment for the whole world.

Integral Education Is A Quick Process

Comment: There is no force in society now that is interested in education because it is a very long process, and politicians are elected for four to five years….

Response: Integral education is a very quick process. Until now education has been perceived as the acquisition of knowledge, which really takes many years. But in addition to theoretical knowledge, what is needed nowadays is first and foremost practical application. We are talking about how to convey the idea about the structure of the world in a suitable way for the general population.

The first part of the course will take no more than two or three months. Afterwards, a person will understand that he has to act differently so as not to harm himself. Even after the first week or two, he will already understand that the world isn’t what he thought it was.

A person will see that today’s world is global and integral. He will see that he is mutually connected to the rest of the world and so he must change the principles of his behavior. He will understand that the will of nature motivates history, that evolution has a goal, and that we simply must accept the laws of the integral system. Only a comprehensive connection will allow us to live a good, balanced life.

Besides, a person will change his attitude to unemployment, to employment, and to the consumerist society that has gone too far with its enthusiasm. He will understand that we need sensible balanced consumerism. He will understand that the problem isn’t the fact that there aren’t enough jobs, but that there will be no more jobs. It isn’t that we are reluctant, but that we are simply not mutually connected and so we are opposite from nature. This understanding obliges us.

And so a person already begins to perceive what he has to do both personally and by incorporating with the society. It turns out that it does not depend on the government. He cannot demand like a small child: “Give me the benefits that I lost!” You will not have them, no matter how hard you cry. The government has no hidden ace up its sleeve. Even if you change the government and put it on trial, you will get nothing.

The correction can only come through education. Period!

The world is advancing towards harmony and balance, and this balance has nothing to do with over-production and over-consumption. The integral education is effective in a very short period of time. It helps a person change his attitude towards what is happening and he immediately changes according to the new form.

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