Each Spiritual Level Is A Rebirth

Our correction occurs at two stages: fear and love. These two stages become realized within us if the Light corrects our desires. This means that we have to aspire toward corrections but we don’t actualize them on our own. Such an approach differs drastically from what we’re used to in this world. In our world it’s up to me to search out the strength and the knowledge that’s needed to realize my plans. For spirituality, however, I have to search out the strength and the knowledge with which I’ll be ready for what the Light is going to realize within me.

On the spiritual path, all of our preparation is aimed at our creation. At each new level we prepare our selves for a rebirth, thereby getting to know the Creator’s actions and working with Him as His partner. We prepare ourselves for birth and He begets us over and over again. Through this process and through His actions we get to know Him better.

Clearly, on this path we don’t attain the essence of the action that begets us. Possibly by the end of all corrections and after attaining a perfect degree we’ll understand how the Creator operates.

But for now our work consists of preparation. This preparation allows us to better sense and attain the Creator and His work; however, from this encounter we must draw exactly what is necessary for our preparation for the next birth. This is how we advance from one level to the next and this is the only thing that should concern us.
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

When Childhood Ends

The world treats us more harshly, persistently, seriously, and tenaciously with each passing day. Willingly or unwillingly, people feel that something has to happen or is already happening. The religious attribute this to a higher force; the secular blame it on nature. One way or another, we are under strong pressure that forces us to focus our attention and start acting.

Kabbalah teaches us that there is a way to optimize and accelerate our development. For that, we have to recognize what’s going on and observe the process as a whole. At each given moment we have to choose how to continue growing. It is not about being right or wrong, but rather whether our progress complies with the program of nature. The closer we are to the program, the faster we progress. Everything depends on our understanding, grasp, and attainment of, and agreement with the algorithm that nature demands of us.

How do we know about this? Today, we can arrive at this conclusion from our own experience.

Scientists, psychologist, and philosophers repeat in unison that we are developing by two forces: good and evil. Good brings us goodness and evil, evil. We have no doubt about this, since each of us can interpret good and evil.

The impact of a good force is especially felt in childhood when we are cared for, loved, and protected while we are growing. Nature (or the Creator) elicits a good attitude and love in parents, immediate family, and even in the distant environment towards children. It doesn’t matter if the child misbehaves or breaks things. He is excused for doing things that an adult would never be forgiven for. Everyone pampers a child and he uses their good attitude.

As soon as a child grows up, that kind and indulgent attitude stops abruptly. From now on he becomes the one who has to take care of himself and others; he begins to “owe” others and is held responsible for his actions. To make it short, demands replaces love.

Why does this happen? We are not questioning childhood, but why is nature so demanding of adulthood, why does it stop being as kind as it previously was? Why does it start to apply a negative attitude towards us?

It is essential to understand that it has nothing to do with negativity, but rather about giving us incentive to grow. If we develop correctly, then instead of feeling bad influences, we sense benevolence. Thus, we have to realize that the whole of nature, life, and the world treats us according to our compliance with the world. If the world treats us problematically, it means that the problem is rooted in our own incorrect and imbalanced attitudes towards the world. When we adapt to the world, we begin to re-evaluate the forces that we previously considered bad to good.

What is the reason we don’t feel that negative force instigating our self-correction? If we re-connect with that force, life will again seem just like it was in childhood when everyday promised to bring something good.

Everything depends on our preparedness and upbringing. If from our early years we were brought up correctly and trained to ensure that as adults we matured with the understanding of how to correctly interact with the environment to elicit positive responses and how to correctly interact with nature, society, family, and ourselves, then our lives would have continued perfectly, without any problems.

But we do not get correct directives in childhood regarding our adulthood. It is easy to talk about these issues by using the Kabbalists’ words, but what can we do if we are not familiar with the wisdom of Kabbalah? Can we find precise directions by listening to nature’s hints? Can we form the proper attitude to everything that surrounds us? Humanity faces the problem of finding a way to avoid suffering and is trying to discover how to relate to life in order to experience the least amount of distress. Even now we continue to suffer and we will suffer more because we haven’t yet found the answer to this question.

The contradiction between what we want and what we actually possess in reality pushes adults to search further. As a result, throughout history we have developed several approaches to this problem. Baal HaSulam writes about them in his article “The Peace”; pointing out that if we honestly and realistically view nature, humanity, and life, we will arrive at the same results that the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us.

The main thing is to not be bribed by our egoism, but rather to rise above it to an objective level at which we do not depend on our existing sensations, inclinations, and notions. If we could rise above ourselves as independent researchers, we would detect some data that is contained in Kabbalah.

This is what the wisdom does: It raises a person up to a level where he can take a look at reality without the prism of his ego. If we could remove these “lenses” of egoism, we would easily attain the wisdom of Kabbalah. According to Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Peace,” this is scientific research with an experimental, experiential, and practical basis that works for everybody without exception and that allows each and everyone to discover the need to bestow to our neighbor.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/11, “The Peace”

How Can You Resist Love?

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“:“Naturally, one who is imparted this open Providence is certain that he will not sin again, as one is certain that he will not cut into his own flesh and cause himself terrible suffering. In addition, one is certain that he will not neglect a Mitzva without performing it the instant it comes to his hand, as much as one is certain that he will not neglect any worldly pleasure or a great profit that comes into his hand.“

We don’t understand this. What does “open Providence” mean? If I reveal the good and the benevolent, it seems that I am free of all my worries, lying in the arms of the Creator like a baby lying in his mother’s arms. Does he try to solve anything, to understand anything?—no, he is simply wrapped with love.

Does this love weaken us? Doesn’t it make us lose our power of self-preservation?

This is the problem. Parents’ love spoils the children. If they treat them only with love, the children have no limits and eventually begin to hate the parents.

Baal HaSulam writes about parental love (in Letter 2): “Come and see a wonderful custom in this love, where apparently if the son is an only child of his father and his mother, he is obliged to love his father and mother more, because they show greater love to him than parents who have many sons.

But it isn’t so in reality, but rather the opposite, that if parents are strongly connected to their sons by their love then the value of loving the sons is minimized, until sometimes the sons feel that “any feeling of love in their heart is extinguished” which is nature’s law that is in the world.

And the simple reason is, that a father’s love to his son is natural…and the son doesn’t fear at all that this love may diminish, and he doesn’t hope that his love will grow, which is called “absolute love,” and then gradually the son grows lazy in showing his father good deeds…and it becomes his second nature, close to hatred…”

Children need two forces; they can’t hold on to one force only. Every person needs two “reins”: the force of receiving and the force of bestowal; a “shell” on the side of receiving and a “shell” on the side of bestowal. Only this provides us with some “coordinate system” and places us somewhere.

But if everyone treats me lovingly, it will confuse and irritate me. I have to decide, to settle down somewhere. My brain can’t stand this and so it may finally come to hatred.

How can I guard myself when the Creator is revealed, so that I can handle the revelation of His love? How can I create borders around me, limits, so as not to lose my independence, my “self”? How can I establish my attitude towards Him too?

After all, I mustn’t conceal myself from the Creator’s love. He wants to reveal it to me to the fullest, and I seem to object; “No, that’s enough. I already see that you are treating me well.” This would be showing contempt to Him.

So the revelation of the Creator brings about many more problems than His concealment. A person has to establish internal systems that will enable him to manage himself under much stricter limitations. This is an ascent up the spiritual levels: stricter limitations, in order to work above the egoism and to build greater Masachim (screens).

At the same time, the stronger the desire is, the stronger the love is. In our world too, we love naughty children more than quiet children. The absolute love is actually perceived in “bad” desires and vessels. It is there that it is felt as positive or negative and from there, eventually it receives a response from the Creator. Eventually when a person’s worst vessels are corrected, he can return the same absolute love for the Creator…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

From Within Separation One Gains Completeness

Question: How do we awaken envy in the group towards the writers of The Zohar in order to want to be similar to them, to reach their level?

Answer: It is difficult. They are very remote and incomprehensible to us. Additionally, we totally cannot understand what it is for a man to understand all of creation and to be in a place that is full of Light where the laws that manage the entire creation are revealed to him beyond the limits of our world, and to have understanding and feeling for the inclusive nature, of the great mind, the great thought, that operates everything, and that knows the same harmony that connects all the parts of creation to each other.

It is especially from this that all our pleasure comes. In spite of our thinking that pleasure is something emotional, and the desire to receive, as it were, only understands the language of feelings and emotional enthusiasm, it is not exactly so since we receive the emotional enthusiasm from the Light of Hochma (wisdom).

This slightly confuses us and we don’t completely understand what this is. But real pleasure is from obtaining the system of the upper providence and governance, where the Creator is revealed. We don’t obtain the abstract form and the essence but the form clothed in substance, the form of bestowal clothed in our substance, the substance of reception.

Thus the Creator (Boreh) is called Come and See (Bo – Reh) since we come and then see, come and attain. But we attain the Light of Hochma, how it clothes the entire system and manages all its parts from one end to the other. We see how different and distanced the parts are from each other by their egos, by the differences in their attributes, and how connected they are through these forms, the revelation and the completeness. We can’t even imagine that it could connect or complete them. It is especially the connection between the contradictions that gives great joy and the attainment of completeness.

It is that way with everything in our lives. Let’s suppose you see a movie or a certain incident. You are especially impressed that in the beginning the people were separated, opposing each other and suffering, and suddenly reconciliation and completeness appears. This is what most inspires a person. Let’s suppose there is some injustice, and then justice wins, or other situations similar to this; on this is built all creativity.

It is derived from the same upper root:In the beginning we see and obtain the great separation that exists between all the parts of the system, and then afterward, we obtain its completeness. From the separation we obtain the completeness, as it is said, “Cover all transgressions with love,” and the attainment comes from this, the understanding and appreciation of the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, The Zohar

Without A Steering Wheel

Question: What will help us not forget about one another?

Answer: The need for spiritual work, the realization of the importance of the goal. I don’t forget about what is important to me.

If the spiritual goal is not important to me, then I have to gain its importance from the friends. But what if they don’t value it? It turns out that we are swimming across the ocean together without a steering wheel. There are many people on board, but they don’t have a direction. A few sailors on deck are yelling that we have to get to dry land, but the others are just having fun and don’t have a care in the world….
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Unlimited Perception Of Information

Question: What quantity of information is actually useful to a person, and what information could cause him or her harm?

Answer: If we teach a person a correct perspective of the world and nature, he will easily absorb any information because he will always attribute it to the general, global picture of the world. Consequently, he will have no problems with the stream of information.

Let’s say that today from morning to night I am reading and consuming a truly enormous amount of information on different topics related to the problems of modern society, science, finances, and the like. As I do it, my main task is to integrate that information into one integrated picture of the world.

How can I discern in all of that a manifestation of one single law—the aspiration of all possible egoistic forces towards unification into a single altruistic force in similarity to nature? How are today’s society and individual being transformed as they involuntarily move towards integration under the influence of negative forces, referred to in our world as the crisis? In reality, the crisis is kindness unto us.

This worldview gives a person an opportunity to pass enormous flows of information through himself or herself, which supplement within him this overall picture and enter into the general harmony.

This is similar to listening to some symphony and sensing that some musical instruments are missing from the orchestra. Being an expert, you perceive that something is lacking; you don’t feel quite right, and then suddenly the missing element, harmony, appears.

Therefore there are no problems here. A person can truly be a walking encyclopedia, he is capable of absorbing all information that exists in nature. The most important thing is that all of it gets woven in him into a single picture. And then the more information he will receive, the more desirable it will be for him, and the easier he will be able to absorb it. He will complete those blank spaces that he sensed inside him as a lack, as an absence of perfection.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

Spiritual Energy Charge For The Whole Day

Question: During a convention or the friends’ meetings it’s easy to attain the feeling of love towards the friends and the connection. But why does the opposite sometimes happen during the lesson?

Answer: The morning lesson isn’t meant to fill the student. The lesson should shake him strongly and put him in his place, so that afterwards he will be able to choose the direction correctly, to exert himself during the lesson and also afterwards, and to continue living in it the whole day.

The morning lesson is the minimal daily portion that everyone receives and continues to process the whole day. From it he chooses several principles for his internal work and for dissemination. I remember that when I studied, I never missed a lesson except for one time when I was very ill. If you spend the morning without a lesson, you will only feel your corporeal body the whole day and will serve it the whole day.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, Writings of Rabash

How To Renounce Destructive Desires

Question: If a person goes down the wrong path, say, plunges into alcoholism, then as a rule he either hits rock bottom, or destroys himself, or some inner transformation takes place. Essentially, the entire humanity is going down this path right now. Our task in the integral education courses is to provide a person with a tool that would keep him from destroying himself, from breaking his life into pieces. Can a turning point occur in the middle of the process and not in its end?

Answer: One of man’s qualities is empathy. If we show someone who is setting out on a vicious path (say, of drug abuse) another individual whose life hangs by a thread due to these very drugs, I think it will have a strong impact on him, regardless of whether or not he wants to quit.

If we take people through a hospital’s cancer ward, they will see what smoking does. Personally, I smoke, quite moderately, in my opinion, but nevertheless I do. So I know for myself that had I walked through such places in my time, it would have affected me strongly. And if I found myself in an environment that disdains smoking and expresses its contempt towards smokers, I would naturally have a sensation that would force me to realize the vice of this action.

That is why everything depends on the extent to which I can absorb from my environment the missing quantity of the realization of evil that I’m lacking in order to break from the transitional state, where I am still receiving pleasure and still haven’t fully destroyed myself.

For that I need a serious environment, community, group, or a class in which I study. We know that if the public opinion of a group of people follows a certain trend or adheres to some special principles, everyone is involuntarily obliged to follow that. The herd instinct is inherent in people because a person evaluates himself or herself only relative to others. One cannot allow oneself to be better or worse than the rest. What matters to people is their importance in the eyes of society, but whether this importance is positive or negative makes no difference to them. Therefore, if we create a certain social standard, all people will be obliged to obey it—this is how we are created.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

A New Profession: Human

Our attitude towards nature, towards that one law which obliges us to connect with each other into one whole, is manifested within the environment. That’s why our attitude towards the environment, building it on the basis of this law, is more important than the attitude towards Nature itself. The main thing is to build one’s environment.

It’s not for nothing that thousands and millions of people are forced to leave their jobs and become unemployed; we need to open courses for teachers, educators, and facilitators. In fact, in this work, each of us is a teacher, an educator, and an assistant in relation to others. Therefore, everyone will have to go through this learning process and acquire a new “profession,” meaning to become a “Human Being” in a new society. Each of us should rise to a level where we’ll be able to understand what happens in Nature, and what is going on inside of us, what forms of relationships we can build with each other.

According to research, if a person finds himself in an environment where there is mutual influence, he can’t escape. This compels him, envelops him, and unwittingly or not, he changes. We see how the environment raises our children just by examples. The environment educates us, and in our life, we acquire new forms of behavior, relationships, and a new scale of values.

That’s why we don’t even count our desires, be they the desires for food, sex, family, money, power, knowledge, or hundreds of other things. We should look not at how to use these desires, but at their direction (and this is the most important!). In other words, the most important thing is solely my intention in the use of my “I” with all of my desires. I must transform the use of all my abilities for the benefit of society, and then my “I” will turn into “we.” And from the notion of “we,” which is like the gathering of individuals, we will arrive at the concept of “One.” And this “One” is already in balance, in unity with the only Law that governs us.

Then, a person becomes a Human Being, and begins to understand his nature and general Nature. On this path, he studies a lot of inner laws, the laws of psychology and the universe, and he absorbs everything that exists in nature, reaching its highest degree, the degree of that single force that affects us, and in the form which today we perceive as the crisis, it invites us to approach It. This course is designed to teach a person how to become a Human, how to reach the best, safest, and most comfortable, healthy state. Therefore, we should be thankful to this situation that leads us to a new era, to the world full of goodness.

However today, we have not yet begun this process and are not yet aware of it; our lives seem pointless; we are fearful of what awaits our children and grandchildren. So people don’t want to bear children and don’t even understand their place in this world. But everything is just the opposite! In the real sense of this word, “crisis” means a new birth, the threshold of a new humanity. The realization of our greatest hopes lies ahead of us.

We have to begin to realize this single law, and in a very short time, within a few weeks, we’ll feel how much it works, how “habit becomes second nature,” how much we can’t live without showing a good attitude towards each other. And if by chance we forget about it, we must remind each other while we’re together, united, when everyone feels the others, what a warm and desired state this is so that we want to return there again.

Let’s hope that due to our mutual support, we’ll be able to come to this state where a game, a habit, will help us achieve the good nature of love.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode #4, 1/1/12

A Wonderful Cake With Spiritual Filling

Question: Can I feel something towards the Creator without any fulfillment?

Answer: There cannot be a relationship between the “guest” and the “host” without fulfillment. If I totally restrict myself, I detach myself from receiving, but I cannot respond to the treatment of the Creator either. My relationship with Him is possible only through the fulfillment that I receive from Him.

If I receive from Him, from His huge table laden with delicacies, even “a tiny slice of cake,” in this cake I feel His attitude towards me. It is for this reason that I take it, after I restrict myself internally, in order to feel only His attitude towards me in that cake.

Otherwise I can’t perceive how He treats me. I feel love and concern in the Light that comes to me. Then I take a piece of that cake in order to feel all that, not to simply enjoy it since that would be a Klipa (shell), egoism, but rather in order to build my attitude towards the Creator from it, in order to reach equivalence of form with Him, in order to reach a state of balance. This state in nature is called homeostasis, harmony with nature.

If I am in such a state with respect to the Creator, a certain relationship is established between us. This means that I am already on some spiritual level: 1, 2, or 3….

But the question is: Where do we go from here? After all, this harmonious system relaxes me, and I cannot reveal more than I’ve already revealed. I received from the host, I gave back to him, we’ve established a relationship of equality between us, and through the refreshments we make each other feel good and bring each other pleasure. But what’s next?

If I don’t feel an additional deficiency, I won’t be able to move. What’s important is: What will I have a new deficiency for: the refreshments or for the host, for strengthening our relationship, for greater connection with Him?

Here, according to my preparation, a new deficiency is revealed in me. After all, I want to feel the deficiency for a stronger connection with the host. In order to discover the right deficiency for the host, I must have an appetite for the refreshments.

But it could be that the deficiency for the refreshments is revealed before the yearning for the host. Here it depends on if I approach the development from the side of sanctity or from the side of impurity.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/12, Shamati #174

Work To Want

Baal HaSulam, “The Inheritance of the Land”: Indeed it is said in the books that it is impossible for the souls to receive the good reward for which the Creator created them and the world, without the vessel prepared to receive, and a person cannot attain that vessel without exertion and the efforts to keep the Mitzvot; under pressure and war, a person fights with the evil inclination with many obstacles and concerns. The sorrow and exertion in the Torah provides a vessel for the soul so that it is ready to receive all the pleasure and goodness for which He created for the created beings.”

We can’t receive goodness and pleasure without hard work. Why? Because it is the hard work that stabilizes and builds the right desires in us for the fulfillment the Creator has prepared. It is impossible to manage without these desires, without the burden, without hard work and real sufferings. It is said: “You shall eat bread with salt, and drink water sparingly, sleep on the ground, live a life of sorrow, and in the Torah you shall work.” On the whole, all of humanity is going through a path of great sufferings, much worse than death.

Why does that happen? Why is it only in this way that we can clarify the deficiency that is aimed at the goal? Indeed, without acquiring this deficiency first, we will not feel the goal, and will not be incorporated in it. Perhaps we have already reached the goal but can’t feel it because we lack the experience.

So a lot of hard work is needed until we finally reach the leap, and it is revealed to us as the proper yearning. As we work, we make more and more efforts, and it becomes constantly harder to justify the way until we finally do not escape from Egypt. And the next step isn’t simple.

Kabbalists don’t hide this from us. On the contrary, they want to explain to us that our work is hard and that it is constantly growing harder. Don’t wait for everything to happen tomorrow, unless you are really able to add the wonderful tomorrow to the present. Here everything depends on you.

So we have to “keep the Torah and the Mitzvot,” which means to correct ourselves by drawing the reforming Light, whose influence connects us. The method of Kabbalah is meant to connect us. It is said: “I’ve created the evil inclination and I’ve created the Torah as a spice.” The Torah corrects the evil inclination, meaning the separation, and it corrects it by unity and love. So “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the great rule of the Torah. We have to discover the hatred among us and the unity to correct it. We cannot escape it; we must unite as one.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/12, Baal HaSulam, “The Inheritance of the Land”