Subjugation—The Main Spiritual Action

Subjugation is the main spiritual action until the very end of correction, the basis of all spiritual work. The more we look for opportunities to subjugate ourselves, the faster the speed of our spiritual advancement. We should not wait for the opportunity to subjugate our egoism to come up by itself and crown the Creator as the one who builds the entire universe, controls all reality, and sends us all the states, from the best to the worst ones.

I myself seek out the opportunity to subjugate myself: “I awaken the dawn and the dawn does not awaken me.” Therefore, we need to prepare ourselves to be in subjugation, accepting everything by faith above reason, as coming from the Creator. No matter what happens, this is an exercise, a game the Creator plays with me. There is none else besides the Creator who places all sorts of obstacles in front of me, which I must accept not as obstacles on the way, but as an opportunity to connect with Him.

All these obstacles, my mistakes and transgressions, turn into Mitzvot when I decide that there is none else besides the Creator and that everything is done by Him. The transgression is being under the power of a disturbance and not seeing anything besides it. After all, there is no doubt that the disturbance is sent by the Creator by virtue of His absolute love, not to weaken me, but for my advancement.

Usually, after a great success after a congress, we feel a vague state and fatigue. But fatigue does not exist in spirituality, there is only a lack of fuel that we need to fill up as a result of the growing desire.

First, the Creator sends small disturbances, burdening of the heart, misunderstanding, confusion, and fatigue. Then come more serious problems that cannot be resolved by one sentence: “There is none else besides Him,” but require a whole process of work. It is no longer “two plus two” but a more complex formula. No matter what happens, we move on the path of subjugation, wanting to crown the Creator to rule over everything that happens so that He is the sole ruler, one source, and reason beside which there is nothing. This is our constant work.

If at some moment I do not see that the Creator rules in my whole world, it means I have come out of sanctity and no longer belong to the spiritual system. Therefore, I must immediately return to the state “There is none else besides Him” and get strengthened by attracting the whole group to this.¹

If in the ten, we fall into the state of the sons of Jacob, the brothers who do not want to unite, then we feel hunger in the land of Israel because of the inability to advance in spirituality—a lack of spiritual fulfillment. Therefore, we have to start working with our desire to enjoy: descend into Egypt, into slavery to Pharaoh.²

The preparatory work begins with Abraham, Isaac, and ends at Jacob, in the middle line, where the unity of the sons of Jacob, his followers, takes place, where the formation of a group is already taking place. At first, this group does not want to unite, but it is forced to subjugate by famine, the feeling of lack of results from all their attempts to work with their desire to enjoy that divides them.

They have no choice but to descend into Egypt, into slavery to Pharaoh. The work in the Egyptian slavery is work on unification during the seven years of satiation and seven years of famine. They come to the realization that they will never be able to unite without revealing the Creator, they need help from above.

Therefore, they receive the Torah and unite “as one man with one heart” in Arvut (mutual guarantee). This group continues to unite, each time revealing an increasingly strong desire to enjoy between them and subjugating themselves more and more. Acquiring the steps of subjugation ends upon completing all the work in the desert, which allows them to achieve the right connection and build the Temple. The Temple is a spiritual vessel, a group, within which the Creator is able to dwell and reveal Himself to everyone to the extent of similarity of properties.

This is the path of spiritual development, the path of Torah. We must pass such states by faith above reason, in subjugation, in order to get to the Temple.³
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/19, Lesson on the Topic “Surrender (Subjugation)”