How Can I Measure How Close I Am To The Teacher?

Question: One student may think that he is close to the teacher but may not be close and it can also be the other way around; one may think that he is far from the teacher but in fact is close to him. How can we measure that?

Answer: We don’t measure this according to what a student thinks but according to the opportunities that he had to subdue himself against his will and to the efforts he made in doing so. Closeness, just like other things, is measured according to the effort that is made above our ego.

We can only measure things by our ego. Measure is determined by how much do I have: how I can take my desires and weigh them like weights on a scale.

Everything depends on self-annulment. Don’t expect to reach some tough static system that has been stabilized once and already exists. The work we have to do is continuous, constant, according to three states: submission, differentiation, and sweetening, which is the constant work of the lower with regard to the upper, of a person with regard to thegroup, of a group with regard to the teacher.

Question: Is it true that if a person fails to connect to his teacher when the teacher is alive, it will be very difficult for him to do so afterward?

Answer: I don’t think it’s even possible to do so afterward. Try to connect to Baal HaSulam now or to any other great Kabbalist! This world was created in order to enable us to reach a corporeal connection, so that we will be able to perceive the upper in some way. If we have no corporeal contact with the upper, how can you hold on to Him? Now there is the seemingly corporeal form of the teacher before you, some corporeal representation with which you can come in contact. You can already connect to this image, bestow upon him, and serve him. Thus, you acquire a place by him according to your efforts. It says that if the groom is a great man and he receives a ring as a present from his bride, it’s as if he has given it to her. If you really want to serve and to bestow, you feel that you receive. The same relations should be among the friends, and each one should feel this way with regards to the others.

Question: When do I connect to the teacher, is it before transcending the Machsom(barrier) or afterward?

Answer: You will not transcend the Machsom if you don’t annul yourself before the teacher. We are here in order to establish a system that will take on a form above theMachsom. If this system isn’t made of the relations that are necessary above theMachsom, how can you transcend it? You don’t transcend the border to the spiritual world by marching along, but by the connections between us, by overcoming the Machsom that separates us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”