A Person Who Is Loved Is Always Beautiful!

Question: The holy books often refer to the beauty of a woman, whether to her appearance, her character, her motherhood, etc. But there is no detailed description of a woman’s perfection like in the “Song of Songs.” What does King Solomon want to teach us?

Answer: He wants to say that our reality: the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature is beautiful, good, and perfect and it is only my personal correction which determines whether I will be able to relate to it with absolute love.

It is about our attitude towards nature as a whole and the correction of man: to what extent I have completed and covered my evil inclination with this love. Then I see that there is no flaw in reality and that it is all like a beautiful woman.

We have no other words to express love, including the right kind of love. It is because we understand loving someone only as using that person. It is the kind of love in which I am willing to give and to fill to the extent that I receive pleasure.

Here on the other hand, it is an opposite love: I give and fill another person because I want to do good to him or her. But I need the evil inclination in order to test my attitude towards that person: Do I operate above hate, detachment, and repulsion?

Can I do that? This is how I check whether it is true and real love that stems from the good inclination and not an egoistic love that stems from the evil inclination. This type of love is called independent love. What is it independent of? Of receiving, since it is based on bestowal. Where does the name of the book the “Song of Songs” stem from? In an ordinary song we usually speak about pleasure: “I love you and I want to enjoy you.” In the “Song of Songs.” on the other hand, it means that I want to do good to others.

Question: We see that there are reference to beauty throughout this book. What is expressed by the concept of beauty? Why does the world seem beautiful to a person in love?

Answer: This is called “love will cover all sins.” Have you ever seen how a mother picks up her baby and shows you: “Look how beautiful he is!” She is proud of him and that is perfectly natural. A person who is loved is always beautiful, and therefore we have no standard for beauty.

If I want to fill the other and I enjoy this desire, the more he lacks, the more I can fill and complete him, the more I love him as a result of my concern, and the more beautiful he is in my eyes. Then everything about him becomes beautiful. Parents of adopted children love them no less and sometimes even more than their own biological kids. They try to give them more in order to attain their love, to fill them more, and thus they love them even more.

It says: “love will cover all sins.” Love cannot appear unless there is a dispute that precedes it. There has to be a feeling of detachment, conflict, resistance, and above that there is connection, embrace and love. Then the beauty appears as a result: A person who is loved seems beautiful just like a baby is in his mother’s eyes.

Question: King Solomon says: “One is my dove, my precious.” What is the meaning of the expression “one?”

Answer: There is nothing but that. It is one creation, one perfect system. It is actually thanks to the completion of all the positive and negative attributes existing together that the beauty appears. Beauty is wholeness. The wholeness appears when I see that good and bad things complement one another and cannot exist independently. Goodness cannot exist without evil and evil is the basis for the revelation of goodness.

Now we discover only the evil in this woman, which means in all of creation, since we look at things only from our evil inclination and cannot see anything good. But this is an essential phase since until the “Song of Songs,” a person has to discover all the flaws, all the sins, and only then can he reveal love on top of that.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/28/14

Your Reward For Keeping The Commandments

Question: Do you consider the Commandments that Moses gave to the Jews the key to inner peace, that is, balance between altruism and egoism?

Answer: Of course. The most important of them, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is the foundation of the entire Torah, which is a handbook on how to achieve this condition. Unfortunately, those who consider themselves adherents and believers by observing the Torah do not always pursue this goal.

Question: The commandments, which Moses passed on, included only good deeds and warned not to commit the bad ones. But there was nothing said about how it would be rewarded.

Answer: No compensation should be asked for fulfilling the commandments. If you want to love your neighbor and treat him well, you must do it absolutely unconditionally. Then the inner satisfaction that you receive from it will be your reward.
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From a program “A Special Opinion” 8/17/14

Prayer At The End Of All Efforts

Rabash Letter No. 57: “I did not tell you this truth but in order that you will not leave and not despair from mercy. And although you don’t see anything, even at time that the measure of efforts is complete, this is the time of prayer.”

Question: Is prayer a part of the effort or does it come separately?

Answer: Prayer is the result of all efforts. When you give a complete effort and the measure is complete, then the prayer is born. You need to do all that is in your hands and strength, and after that you will understand that only the Creator is able to implement His plan. And then you will turn to Him!

Question: What does it mean, to finish your measurement of effort?

Answer: It means to finish all kinds of attempts to connect with friends in order to bestow to the Creator. And you despair from truly not attaining the real quality of bestowal, and then you burst with a prayer.

In the beginning you just hear that it is good to come to bestowal, but you need to come to a state that you want to be the one that bestows; you beg for bestowal, as if you can’t live without it.

You can’t measure your vessel, and judging by the fact that is is empty, you decide you have finished your measurement of effort. From a state that is forced on you bursts a prayer, for which you immediately receive an answer, then the change happens. According to these changes you understand that you finished the measure of effort.

The prayer comes after man checks himself and sees that it is impossible to change something by himself; rather, everything is in the hands of the Creator. And this brings him to adhesion with the Creator.

You are not required to create this prayer artificially. But naturally from inside of you will burst your cry, which will be your prayer. Prayer is the work of the heart.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

In The Same Place After A Few Thousand Years

Question: You say that only the Jews are ready to help the world in the conditions of the global crisis. How exactly?

Answer: It is according to the method that was discovered by Abraham. Specifically, he understood why the ego is constantly growing and that human development is summoned in this way. During this process, more and more disasters are experienced.

For together with all of the successes and achievements, the ego pushes us further and further into an abyss, makes life difficult and fills it with unavoidable tension. More than this, in our day, the ego is growing exponentially, not linearly.

So by discovering all of this, Abraham also discovered a further unique power in nature, which is the power of bestowal and love. We can derive that from nature and through this positive force, dominate our egoistic negativity.

How is this done? It is done through connection and unification with each other. Through our convergence, we discover this power of unification between us that can cover our entire ego. Then we feel as if we are under a safe umbrella. Nature doesn’t bother us anymore and we are not threatened by any harm. We don’t lose anything, we have no need for competition and we don’t need to devour each other. Everywhere there is absolute abundance, peace, and tranquility throughout the world.

This is what Abraham discovered and taught his students with whom he disengaged from Babylon and went to the land of Israel.

We are the owners of this wisdom. And the nations of the world feel this, especially at this time of the global crisis. It is expanding and we don’t see an end to it. There will be further pauses, but the trend is moving us towards an abyss. Under such conditions, the nations of the world understand that we have a solution. This is because they are like the ancient Babylonians from whom we once branched out in a different way.

At that time, Abraham said to everyone, “Much later you will still have to face the facts and understand that this method of counteracting evil, the ego, with good, the power of altruistic love, is compulsory. You don’t want to realize this now? So you will realize it in another few thousand years.” There is no choice, and this period has been like a moment in our reality.

And now thousands of years have passed. Today we are already close to the end of the process. Ultimately all of humanity must be aware of this, that the same wisdom of Kabbalah that was given to the Jews and which they have themselves forgotten, is imperative for this. It is necessary to counteract the ego that is killing humanity and devouring itself, like a cancer that devours the body.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/25/14

Kabbalah For Everyone

Comment: I was introduced to a new book, Why Ones Are Loved, and Others – Not, And How to Make Oneself to Be Loved. It addresses issues of what a man and woman need from each other in order to maintain peace and harmony in their relationship for a long time, whether they should marry, what, in fact, love between them is?

The book says all that will be clarified if they observe each other a little and reflect on what is happening, using the ancient knowledge of the science of Kabbalah.

Answer: Kabbalah is a very high science. It is close to me like biocybernetics, which studies the management of biological systems. But in principle, it is impossible to talk to an average person from this height.

However, when you begin to explain to people those fragments of life that they cannot balance, the relationship between themselves, for example, men and women, parents andchildren, an employee and employer, roommates, or neighbors, etc., it turns out that Kabbalah can be explained in simple terms.

Therefore, we publish such manuals and books that are popular precisely because people feel that it could be useful for them. They do not understand lofty matters.

These books are written in simple language and although it seems that they are very far from Kabbalah, they are based on its ideas because it studies the homeostasis of the control systems between us: balance of the human internal system and relationships between people.

In principle, the wisdom of Kabbalah can be defined as a system of knowledge that helps to balance our relationships so that harmony between reception and bestowal of everyone to everyone else is manifested so that we become connected like cogwheels in a single mechanism. After all, we represent a complete closed integral system.

Uniting in such a system, people start to feel inner harmony within it, which manifests itself in a person and gives him a sense of the next level of existence.
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From KabTV’s “A Special Opinion” 8/17/14

Like Fish Caught In A Net

Question: How is it that a person is able to annul oneself before the environment?

Answer: A person despairs of how much time has passed and so much effort has been applied, and still there’s no result. But if one nevertheless is in the group and continues to attend, in the end one’s desire changes.

I remember once I came to Rabash’s lesson during a terrible rainstorm. Nobody had a car except for me, so we waited for a long time, but nobody came. Then I began to call and ask why people didn’t come, and then offered a ride. And the reply was: “What can I do if there’s such a flood outside?”

And then another student showed up all soaking wet. When we asked him how he was able to walk in such a downpour, he replied: “What could I do if there’s a lesson?”

It turns out that one sits at home and says, “What could I do?” “How could I go out in this rain?” And another came completely drenched and also said, “What could I do, there’s a lesson, and I couldn’t stay home?”

Everything depends on a person’s attitude towards any given condition. Every moment you are being asked about your attitude. If you don’t forget that everything comes from above especially for you so that you work with it, then you have no choice, and you act accordingly.

Question: How can I, with every given possibility, persuade myself to take a step towards the group?

Answer: It is written: “Whatever the mind doesn’t do, time does.” And indeed it’s true. If there’s no quality, quantity will work. In any case, you realize that one day, due to the influence of the Light, nothing will help you. You won’t accomplish anything by addressing the Creator directly, since it doesn’t work like that.

Then you despair and decide that you’re required to connect yourself with the environment. You’ll want to connect your threads with everyone else’s, and everyone else wants to connect with you, like you’re a fish caught in a net. Only in this form will you have the opportunity to do something about yourself, and most importantly, let friends work on you.

You are bound to feel disillusioned to the point where you doubt your own abilities in order to agree to submit yourself to the environment, to become entangled in the net with one hope that friends will affect you. You believe that they have the power to do so. You have no connection with the Creator on your own, and He doesn’t want to influence and change you.

After all, you see that many years have passed, but nothing helps. There’s nothing else to do, and then you make your decision. This requires a lot of effort, time, perseverance, and persistence. There shouldn’t be a day where you miss a lesson.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14 Writings of Rabash

Life Is Perceiving What Seems Non-Existent

Opinion (John Assaraf,spiritual entrepreneur, philanthropist and teacher): “Nobel Prize winning physicists have proven beyond doubt that the physical world is one large sea of energy that flashes into and out of being in milliseconds, over and over again.

“Nothing is solid.

“This is the world of Quantum Physics.

“They have proven that thoughts are what put together and hold together this ever-changing energy field into the ‘objects’ that we see.

“So why do we see a person instead of a flashing cluster of energy?

“Think of a movie reel. A movie is a collection of about 24 frames a second. Each frame is separated by a gap. However, because of the speed at which one frame replaces another, our eyes get cheated into thinking that we see a continuous and moving picture.

“Think of television. A TV tube is simply a tube with heaps of electrons hitting the screen in a certain way, creating the illusion of form and motion.

“This is what all objects are anyway. You have 5 physical senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste).

“Each of these senses has a specific spectrum (for example, a dog hears a different range of sound than you do; a snake sees a different spectrum of light than you do; and so on).

“In other words, your set of senses perceives the sea of energy from a certain limited standpoint and makes up an image from that. It is not complete, nor is it accurate. It is just an interpretation.

“All of our interpretations are solely based on the ‘internal map’ of reality that we have, and not the real truth. Our ‘map’ is a result of our personal life’s collective experiences.

“Our thoughts are linked to this invisible energy and they determine what the energy forms. Your thoughts literally shift the universe on a particle-by-particle basis to create your physical life.

“Look around you. Everything you see in our physical world started as an idea, an idea that grew as it was shared and expressed, until it grew enough into a physical object through a number of steps.

“You literally become what you think about most. Your life becomes what you have imagined and believed in most.

“Quantum physics shows us that the world is not the hard and unchangeable thing it may appear to be. Instead, it is a very fluid place continuously built up using our individual and collective thoughts.

“What we think is true is really an illusion, almost like a magic trick. Fortunately we have begun to uncover the illusion and most importantly, how to change it.

“What is your body made of? Nine systems comprise the human body including Circulatory, Digestive, Endocrine, Muscular, Nervous, Reproductive, Respiratory, Skeletal, and Urinary.

“What we think is true is really an illusion, almost like a magic trick. Fortunately we have begun to uncover the illusion and most importantly, how to change it.

“What is your body made of?

Nine systems comprise the human body including Circulatory, Digestive, Endocrine, Muscular, Nervous, Reproductive, Respiratory, Skeletal, and Urinary. What are those made up of? Tissues and organs. What are tissues and organs made of? Cells. What are cells made of? Molecules. What are molecules made of? Atoms. What are atoms made of? Sub-atomic particles. What are subatomic particles made of? Energy!

“You and I are pure energy – light in its most beautiful and intelligent configuration. Energy that is constantly changing beneath the surface and you control it all with your powerful mind.

“Quantum physics tells us that it is the act of observing an object that causes it to be there where and how we observe it.

“An object does not exist independently of its observer! So, as you can see, your observation, your attention to something, and your intention, literally creates that thing.”

My Comment: At present, physicists are almost able to realize the process of creation of the world through our feelings. For nearly 6,000 years, Kabbalah has spoken about the world as existing only in our sensations, and no more. See Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” about the photographic machine that is our consciousness.

We Are Already In Contact With The Creator

Question: I don’t know how I will hold on for the three hours of thelesson because I feel tired, heavy, and lack energy; my body feels as if it is full of lead. Is there some kind of quick solution to overcome the heaviness of heart?

Answer: It is known that the whole reason for heaviness in the work is that a person doesn’t feel the Creator. So it is simply necessary for me to be conscious all the time and to try and remember that the Creator portrays all the feelings of my reality: everything I see, hear and perceive through my five senses, including my perception of myself and the world. I get everything from Him.

It is the Creator who is making this feeling of heaviness for me, since everything that I feel comes from Him. If I don’t forget this, then I will be looking for how to deal with the state that I receive from the Creator. The main thing is not to forget that in each and every moment, through feeling myself and the surrounding world, I have contact with the Creator.

I have contact with the Creator now! And so I must constantly think, “How is He bestowing to me and how am I bestowing to Him? How do I obtain equivalence with Him, His revelation, and pass from this feeling of concealment that doesn’t let me clearly feel that we are connected together and adherent to each other?”

Even before my characteristics begin to reach equivalence of form with the Creator, by feeling this world (Olam), which symbolizes hiding (Alama), or concealment; meaning when I am feeling my body and the environment, I am constantly in connection with the Creator. We must try to be in such a sensation that passes through the skin, through the body, the emotion and intellect, the thoughts, and everything there is. All that I feel reaches me from the Creator, as well as the thoughts and desires that are changing within me.

This is because I never lose contact with the Creator. Then, I will be able to look for how it is possible to be connected even more strongly with Him and how to establish reciprocal connection, love, and mutual bestowal.
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From the Preparation to Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/7/14

Look For The Creator Wherever He Is Found

Question: How does a person succeed in understanding that he depends on the environment?

Answer: Blows “straighten” the desire to enjoy, give it shape, like kneading dough and sometimes beating it. A person cannot reach the same result by himself because the protective power of the ego will not let a person suffer.

He doesn’t want to bow, not even to diminish himself a little bit. He will twist himself in every possible way; the main thing is not to allow a change in his form, which is advantageous for the ego.

It is said that there is no happier moment in a person’s life than when he discovers the failure of his own power and that only a prayer remains for him. And that prayer must pass through the environment, through the society; you have no other way. The Creator is found within the environment, within the group, within the whole, the people. So when you turn to the Creator, you must turn by way of the collective Kli.

You must be included in the same Kli in which the Creator is found. There is no Light without a Kli, so if you want to turn to the Creator, you must turn to the same Kli He is found in.

I need electricity, so how can I get it? You don’t catch lightning from the sky; instead you connect to a battery or an outlet where electricity is found. You must connect to it wherever it is and get the electricity from it through an instrument.

You cannot turn to the Creator directly, egoistically, the way you wanted to and thought of doing before. Rather now you understand that the Creator is found within a society. Although you reached this awareness through blows, you can spare yourself from blows and save time through speaking and reading about it, ultimately shortening the time through this influence.

The result is still the same, but you have already begun to search for Him within theKli where He is found. All souls are searching for how to connect to Malchut de Atzilut, for that is where the Creator is revealed.

Zeir Anpin is disconnected from us and we don’t know what it is. We get a copy of it and its influence through Malchut. Through our efforts, Malchut clings to Zeir Anpin and receives Light from it according to our deficiencies. We work by way of the Kelim. Even fulfillments are our Kelim.

In every circumstance in our lives we never measure the power itself but only its influence on something. This is because we are creatures.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14, Writing of Rabash

Heart To Heart

Question: What do you expect of the coming convention?

Answer: First we need to regard the convention seriously and to spend every minute and every hour of the convention in a collective inclination to connect in order to reveal our collective attribute of bestowal in which we will discover the Creator.

At the same time we shouldn’t forget all the groups and all our friends who are not able to be with us in person for various reasons. We will not forget anyone.

We will also not forget the whole Israeli nation or the whole world as well.

We will constantly try to implement the inner impulse each of us has for connection during all the activities and the events in the convention in order to feel the hearts of the friends as one heart.

This is the feeling we should have as a result of the convention and we should try to hold on to it and keep it during the weekdays. In a couple of weeks we will have another convention and once again we will see to what extent our efforts in connecting help us advance.

If everyone is serious about his task of his contributions, we will really be able to achieve something.

Everyone should show others how serious he is and his readiness to attain the goal, to attain connection. He should show others that he works with an open heart with regard to others and to what extent he is attracted to the connection between them, to actually be connected heart to heart. This is the impression and the inspiration we should receive from everyone. Everyone has to set an example as to how much they want and yearn to be connected and how much they want to shatter all the partitions between us.

We must get closer and closer to one another so that everyone will see to what extent he annuls the shell (Klipot) of his body (Guf). It is our obligation to continue these efforts.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Don’t Let Disappointment Be The Result Of Your Efforts

Question: How can a person still annul oneself?

Answer: One does this out of desperation and hopelessness. This takes place on the condition that the person doesn’t run away. If one comes to class twice a week instead of seven times and doesn’t become included in the group, one prolongs time. Of course, nothing is ever lost, and even the smallest exertion still counts. But the question still stands, how big is this contribution?

Put together a clear schedule for yourself, such as group work and dissemination, and then begin to implement it without any desire. The heart is where the deeds are. That’s the way our world is, and it’s a good thing that it’s been designed this way. After all, we can awaken our hearts with the help of deeds.

People adopt someone else’s child, put forth efforts and begin to love this child. At first, they don’t have any natural love towards it, but later this child becomes more loved by them than a biological child. The point is that this requires a lot of effort.

We’ve put a lot of effort into our spiritual development as well. But it still needs to be analyzed to find out what it gave us. We fall into despair, and this is very good! The disappointment shouldn’t throw us back home—in the place where the children of Israel cried out from the hard work.

A man is obliged to embark on the next level of work, but one escapes it, since after all, one gets disappointed. A person thinks that the result is obvious, and can’t comprehend that disappointment is this result. This should be a desired and correct result at a person’s current level.

While a person thinks that no results were ever achieved and there was no success, he accuses the group, the teacher himself, and decides to quit. The only one thing to blame here is the misunderstanding of the revelation to a person that one does not have the power to get closer to the Creator. What could be better than such a state?

There should be no happier moments in life than when all of the attempts of a person fail. We see that the friends who were with us for years didn’t understand this and left. Each one of us can be in their place, as it is said “Do not believe in yourself until the day you die,” that is, until death of egoism and complete correction of your desire.

In this state, it is necessary to drag yourself to the lesson by force and try to wake yourself up, engage with the group and get the group’s strength. This is where the work is.

There’s nothing particularly to enjoy when you wake up and feel inspired right off the bat. But if you wake up with an effort and drag yourself by force and start to awaken and force yourself to work, then you really do the job. You must love this work by which you awaken yourself from the state of unconsciousness.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14, Writings of Rabash

Contact In A Force Field

Question: Do you feel the students sitting in front of you as one entity, as one breath? Or can you feel almost everyone?

Answer: No, I usually don’t tune into each person. I do it very rarely, only if the person has a special internal movement, and one really wants to cling to me.

There are some people who need it. Then I act so that one feels that this phrase is for him alone. By doing so I hug this person or put my arm around him, transferring something of mine into him. This happens very rarely.

Comment: Many people who watch you on TV or even sit during the lesson experience a feeling that your words are addressed specifically to them. They supposedly get answers to their questions.

Answer: This is actually the case.

But now I’m talking about a purely internal contact with a particular student in one’s particular state.

It’s not important for a student to sit in front of me. Imagine a huge meadow covered with flowers of different heights, as though in a movie, where the flowers sing to the music while coming out of the ground and going back. You take care of this flower bed by cheering this one on, and by petting the other one a little. It doesn’t matter where they are. A job is a job.

This is just a field where the young plants grow. Thus, my physical and external contact with a person in this world has no meaning. Maybe one hasn’t been born yet, and will watch this TV program only twenty years from now once born and grown up. Contact occurs in a force field, and in any case will reach him.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/2/14

Don’t Deceive Yourself

The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:13: Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.

A person should not play sophisticated tricks on other people under any circumstances. He has to be honest and truthful as much as possible since otherwise the attribute of love and bestowal doesn’t work.

When we ascend above our corporeal state in the group, we understand that there is nothing we can do since we were created this way and all the problems are above our corporeal creature, in the unity among us in mutual love and bestowal. We reach a state in which there can be no lies. Otherwise a person deceives himself because he doesn’t establish a connection with the other parts of his soul.

It is because together we make up one unique soul, which is one for everyone and all are incorporated in this general soul. Then it is your incorporation, your soul, from your perspective. So, who can you deceive if it is actually you? Who can you lie to, and who can you cheat, or steal from, detract in your giving, or leave what you can do today for tomorrow? This means that it isn’t bestowal anymore. Therefore it says: “… nor rob him (thy neighbor),” since he is actually a part of you.

The Creator performs the whole correction in us. Part of the correction is fulfilled by our evident efforts and part of it stems from efforts that are not evident.

You suddenly discover that you don’t work in order to bestow but in order to receive, by feeling that all this is yours. This means that you justify your being a thief since you are also allowed to do what others are allowed to do.

There was a popular movie in Russia in the past called Be Careful of the Car in which the leading character used to steal cars only from thieves. He used to sell the stolen cars and give the money to orphanages. This is being your own judge. This is where the problem is, when a person believes that he is doing the right thing and that he doesn’t steal.

This means that he should be made aware of what is going on and it can only be done after he steals. There is nothing else we can do and therefore we go through many different phases.

It says that there is no righteous in the land that does good and hasn’t sinned. It is impossible to skip these phases.

“The wages of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until the morning,” means that when you have to give you have to do so immediately. If you stall, you turn into one who receives instead of one who bestows, even if you don’t profit from it at all. Thus, whole worlds are revealed in a person with regard to his connection with other people and to the same extent with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/26/14

A Court Without Prejudice

The Torah, “Leviticus” 19:15: Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor favor the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. The Torah warns us not to corrupt our feelings and that we must not treat people as the unmerciful ego dictates.

Each of us is a judge. You should judge a person without prejudice and without looking at him. He can be black or yellow, ugly or handsome, or he may speak in an amazing manner and move you to tears and so on.

How can a judge make sure that he can conduct a trial without prejudice? In order to do so, he has to judge himself. After all, if you judge another person according to a perspective that is free of prejudice, which means that you dress into the Creator on their level, and the verdict is wrong, then you must assume the guilt for the accused and pay for his debt to all of society, to the whole general soul.

If you send a thief to prison and after serving his time he is free and steals again, it means that you have to be imprisoned instead of him because this sentence was incorrect. If he didn’t reform for different reasons while in prison and steals again, it means that you are to blame, not him, since you and society should have corrected him and you did not do so.

Thus when he goes free, you face the problem of what to do with him, while we know exactly what to do with you: we put you in prison or resort to other forms of correction.

Comment: If we followed this principle, all the judges would be in prison by now, but as we all know, prison does not reform.

Answer: There is no mention of prisons in the Torah. Indeed, prison doesn’t reform and we see that according to what happens today. The sages knew this 5,000 years ago.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/2/14

Turn Obstacles Into A Degree of Elevation

The Torah “Leviticus” (Kedoshim) 19:14: You shall not curse a deaf person. You shall not place a stumbling block before a blind person, and you shall fear your God. I am the Lord.

If we translate the language of the earth into very simple spiritual laws, then hearing is Bina, and vision is Hochma.

The deaf are people who don’t possess the level of Bina, the quality of bestowal, and the blind are those who don’t have the level of Hochma. Therefore it is said, do not put obstacles in front of the blind for one will stumble since there are no sensors, no internal device to see, to analyze, and to determine what is good and what is bad at these levels.

An obstacle is everything that you can’t properly use during the spiritual path. If you would have the sight, you would define it not as an obstacle but as an opportunity to overcome and rise to a higher level. After a blind person faces a step when it’s invisible, he stumbles and falls, but the one who sees the step rises higher and higher. Everything depends on whether you are able to cope with this obstacle, turn it into a lever for lifting along the spiritual ladder.

It turns out that the deaf isn’t able to climb to the level of Bina with the help of obstacles, and the blind isn’t able to do the same at the level of Hochma. Therefore, you should feel the level of the other person, what is for his benefit and what isn’t, and lead him gently, as a small child, so he would start studying, ascending, descending, but not falling. This is how you should treat any neighbor, following the rule of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

We educate children through soft teachings and morals in our world. A serious analysis and ascertainment take place in the spiritual world of whether it is possible to turn obstacles into a level of ascent.

This is why you have to act so that there will be obstacles in front of others, by which they would ascend. You must enter the other person, understand at what level he is, and even help this person to find an obstacle that he can overcome it.

This is the mutual aid, when all merge into one common cause, on one hand, reveal obstacles to each other, and on the other hand, help to overcome them. And so mutually supporting each other, people rise up like mountain climbers.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/2/14

Hatred – Is The Lack Of Love

Question: The story of Job captures the essence of human suffering. When a series of fatal misfortunes befalls him, the Creator tells Job: “Where were you when I founded the earth?” What does this question mean?

Answer: Feel that you are a human being, you are greater than everything, and therefore obligated to take development into your own hands, to rule the world. Job simply does not want to look at anything except what he has. Thus, of course, he continues to suffer.

Question: It turns out that the Creator says to Job: “You don’t understand how nature is controlled; how can you understand what happened to you?” So, what does a person have to learn: the Creator, Satan (evil inclination), or both?

Answer: This is the same thing: the two opposing forms of the same force acting in the world. Only the force of love acts in the world, so all of nature is connected, kind, and harmonious, except for a small area, which is called human nature.

This force is missing in us intentionally so that we ourselves, consciously, by our own hands and actions, create it between ourselves. Then we will be similar (Domeh) to the Creator, similar to all of nature, and will be called Adam (Man).

Question: What will happen to Satan? Will he disappear?

Answer: He does not exist! The evil inclination, i.e., hatred, is manifested in us because of the lack of love. Hatred does not have its own existence; it is the lack of love, connection, cooperation, and mutual guarantee. If we fill this place, then there will be only good. This is what the story of Job depicts.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/28/14

The Engine Of Progress Is Dead

Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: And humanity has already thrown itself to the extreme right, as with Germany, or to the extreme left, as with Russia. But not only did they not ease the situation for themselves, they have worsened the malady and agony, and the voices rise up to the sky, as we all know. 

Today all the means that were useful in the past are invalid. It makes no difference how we choose to advance, what plans we make, or what recommendations or innovations we come up with. Eventually all this will only deepen the crisis we are in, force us to waste our powers in vain, and increase pain and suffering.

So what can we do? A wise man tries to identify the whole process in advance from beginning to end in regards to a predetermined goal. If we do this, we will certainly save ourselves pain and follow the way that will still bring us to the same outcome.

On the other hand, as long as we keep postponing the only possible correction, the unpleasant phases will only be stretched out and prolonged. If we continue to advance along the corporeal egoistic plane, we raise our ego each time and overcome the bad states that are revealed. Our ego keeps on growing and we invent more and more new sophisticated innovations in technology, means of communication, or legislation.

Instead of a king, we have a parliament; we save money in bank accounts and give priority to private enterprises. Why is this so? In order to give people different opportunities to fulfill the egoistic desire and thus keep advancing. We are in perpetual motion, and on each level we discover its worthlessness the moment when we cannot satisfy the demands of our developing desire by ourselves and it forces us to keep on developing.

Today, the desire has reached a certain level of satiation and now we can decide what to do with it. It doesn’t matter what means we try, nothing is successful. Matter, the desire to receive, which has been the basis for the development of human society for thousands of years, is no longer fruitful. Competition can no longer be the engine of progress.

We are in search of new directions, trying to understand what else we can do. But we find nothing. There are no more opportunities in industry, commerce, or science. We have fulfilled and exhausted ourselves.

Of course, we would rather believe that this is a temporary dead end before a new breakthrough, but there is a fundamental problem here: We have developed society only in order to use the power of our ego. Today the ego doesn’t work anymore.

Therefore, we mustn’t continue our advancement in the directions that we have developed so far. The egoistic force, the basis of our progress has exhausted itself. We can already see that it has begun to consume itself.

In the past, a person wanted to have a family, bring up his children, build a home, and become rich. Only a decade or two ago, these goals and demands were clearly understood. But today, many people are not attracted to it. The old values are suddenly gone. It is therefore better to sit and smoke a joint, which has become practically legal, and that’s it.

Humanity has lost the hold and supporting pillar of the ego, which has been our engine of progress throughout history. Although governments and the media still manage to blur reality, there is actually nowhere else to which we can advance.

If we continue to hold on to the peak and keep on delving deeper into the diminishing pool of opportunities, the troubles will only increase. The more we continue to advance along this path, the quicker our negative development will be. The wrong use of the ego and its overuse in our times will eventually show us that it doesn’t work anymore. The uselessness of self-love is now becoming evident.

We already see behavioral mutations in the relations between people and countries. Many don’t even want to think rationally as to whether it is good or bad for them, but simply act out of their impulses and prefer not to think about the outcomes. Thus the ordinary egoistic behavior is gradually changing.

This is a very dangerous phase since it can lead to an outburst in any possible direction. Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed, and although it is seemingly an artificial thing, unnatural for us, it is actually the right and natural thing.

If we have already exhausted our human egoistic impulse to advance and develop, then there is only one thing left to do: ascend to the next level that is above self-love. There is another force in the world besides the force of receiving, which is the force of bestowal. So why don’t we establish a new humanity on the basis of this attribute? Why don’t we establish our relationships upon it? Let’s use the second force in nature. We mustn’t continue to ignore bestowal. It has always been at our disposal, but we didn’t feel a need for it because the ego pushed us forward and considered the force of bestowal redundant.

The force of receiving burnt in us more and more and we didn’t even think that bestowal provides us with greater opportunities to advance. It is because with the help of bestowal we use the external vessels of the environment, which are the desires, the attainments, the connections and the great mind, the great force that is on the outside. We never even thought that we could develop along the positive path with the help of the force of bestowal.

Bestowal is based on mutual benefit. It opens up infinite perspectives because humanity can finally unite powers instead of wasting them on inner struggles, because it is actually the separation that weakens us. It is just like a rich couple who gets divorced and their lawyers get all their money. Eventually the two sides are left with nothing compared to what they had before.

On the whole, competition and ambitiousness help us advance only if we don’t directly compete with one another on the basis of mutual hate, but instead, we do this on the conceptual level, for the sake of humanity. Today the competition between us is who is better and whose merchandise is better. In this kind of struggle each one wants to wipe out the competition, which is a destructive state not a constructive one. In such cases it isn’t the general wellbeing that wins and it is therefore harmful to all of us.

We have now begun a period of destructive competition. As a result, the ego begins to consume itself and becomes an illness that destroys people. In the past the ego was the developing force, but now it has become a destructive force.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Well For A Thirsty Humanity

Question: The Torah tells us that Isaac found two wells in the land of Grar that had been dug in Abraham’s time and had been covered afterwards. These wells caused many quarrels with the local shepherds and after a while a new well was dug that caused no disputes.

Then Avimelech, the king of Grar, offered Isaac a treaty. Why did the nations of the world become so nice all of the sudden and want to make a treaty with the Jews?

Answer: It is because Isaac had begun his corrections.

A well is a hole in the ground, in a land that is full of water. A hole that is full of the water of life is called a well of life. Water is the essence of the attribute of bestowal that is hidden in the land, which means in the desire. In other words, your desire begins to flow so that you receive the water of life through it, which is the attribute of bestowal that brings life to everyone.

Basically, the story of the wells shows us that if we begin to fulfill our mission to organize the Israeli nation in order to correct the world, it is enough. We actually don’t have to correct the world, but only correct ourselves.

In chapters 66-67 in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam says that the moment the Israeli nation begins to correct itself, which means it adapts itself according to the Creator, the Light will immediately begin to flow from it like water from a well, and this Light will correct all the other nations. This way the whole world will become a better place. After all, the world cannot correct itself nor can it do anything.

Just imagine there is a nation that totally controls and manages the world and the other nations cannot do anything and simply wait for this nation to do something.

The problem is in the way it is revealed, and the interruptions can be great. At the moment, we can still somehow escape those who oppose Israel. But what if this picture is revealed and suddenly everyone would see that there are seven billion people in the world and there are about ten million on whom everything depends?

I would say that the seven billion are like a body that runs on life software, and this software is the Jewish people. Its mass doesn’t belong to the actual body of the world, but rather to the software, and it operates on a different level.

On the whole, the actual software is merely a virtual component with regard to the matter. It is a schema, a system. We can say that the software of the protein material is Israel and the actual protein material is the nations of the world. If this software is incorrect, just imagine what diseases and problems are caused in the material!

The whole history of mankind is basically the continuous cooperation between the world and the Israeli nation, just like two coils in the DNA chain. The nations of the world and the Israeli nation are in continuous communication, contact, and effort between them. Israel wouldn’t be able to reach the state of the third well without the pressure of the nations of the world upon it. There are those who dig the desire and others who cover it up. This development is necessary in order to reach the water of life, the attribute of Bina.

The first well basically refers to Abraham, the second to Isaac, and the third to Jacob. When Jacob connects, he becomes the middle line and then we reach the water of life.

Question: What does that have to do with life today? Do we have to discover this well now, this water of life?

Answer: Yes. We begin to spill out the bestowal, and this depends only on the connection between us. The unity of the Israeli nation is the key to everything. It is the only thing that can dig a well for the world.

To dig a well means to delve into our desires. They are negative, bad, and they reveal all the negativity that is concealed within a person, his nature, and his distance from the Creator. But we have to do it. We have to create strong feelings of the deficiency of the Light within us, the attributes of love and bestowal. This is called an empty well or a hole. By the way, there is a difference between these two concepts. What a person looks for depends only on the person himself.

When we dig a well, we attain the state, the depth in which we feel the greatest pain with regard to love, bestowal, and connection. Then the water that is the source of life appears.

Just like animals who feel where there is water, so did people in those times feel where they had to dig and how deep in order to find water. By the way, there is plenty of water in the desert because there are huge subterranean lakes. We only need to know where to dig and there is nothing to fear. You can go anywhere since you will always find water.

Question: Is this self-search the closeness and the connection between us?

Answer: Yes. It exists to the extent that we make efforts in order to discover the attribute of bestowal called water.
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From KabTV’s “Weekly Torah Portion” 11/14/14