Stay Afloat

We see the entire world as being full of evil, but we understand that this is not true because this is how it seems only because of our egoism. Therefore, we rise above it and adhere to the Creatorwho is good and does good. After that, we can develop our sensations, mind, and heart in order to see the world as evil and nevertheless be above this evil inside the force that is good and does good.

We need to arrange ourselves so that as more or less evil is revealed in the world, we will  always remain in adhesion with the good who does good, as it is written: “They have eyes and see not; they have ears and hear not.” We sense evil within our egoistic desires and we always establish ourselves in order to remain afloat, like a buoy on the surface of the water. The more evil that is revealed, the more we amplify the good who does good, and as such maintain ourselves above in faith above reason.

Knowledge reveals more and more evil; Malchut of the world of infinity opens more and more, as it is said that toward the end of correction, impudence will multiply. All the while we constantly keep afloat by clinging to the good, to the upper one. This is how we want to spend every day and every second of our life.

It is clear that a strong inclusion in the group is needed. We live always on this border, afloat, in the point of balance between the two worlds. Then it turns into the middle line where we ourselves awaken darkness and attract the light. Yet, for now, all we have to do is try to float on the surface of this evil, constantly adhering to the good.¹

My buoy is the ten. I build this buoy by annulling myself before the ten. I do not drown because I care for the friends, for their benefit, not my own. This lets me stay afloat, otherwise I will drown in the water. The nine friends are the nine points in the heart that remain afloat in the feeling that “There is none else beside the Creator,” and I support them and hold onto them.

I am not just grabbing them like a drowning person, I am trying to keep them from drowning, and therefore, I am afloat too. I annul myself before the buoy to absolute zero.²

First of all, you need to annul yourself before the ten in order to surrender yourself to it—this is the very first stage of spiritual work. I can then be sure that I am included in the ten. No matter how high I am, like in the example of Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma, by annulling myself before the friends, I perform the first spiritual action. After all, the ten will always be higher than me. I can be the greatest, but if there is a ten next to me, it will always be higher than I am. Therefore, my first spiritual step is to annul myself before it.

After I annul myself, above this self-annulment I can already perform all kinds of actions within the ten through my inclusion in it. I must find out what my friends want and fully use myself to fulfill their desire. The ten on a spiritual degree is my tool for communication with the Creator. Alone I have no opportunity to contact Him, I have no one before whom I can annul myself and in relation to whom I can develop my desire on the spiritual degree.

I reveal the evil and the darkness in me and I want to grasp the light, but this is only possible through the ten by annulling myself before it like Malchut annuls itself before the first nine Sefirot or like the lower one annuls itself before the dark Malchut of the upper. I must then make every effort to support the friends, that is, to pass my qualities that are corrected from reception to bestowal to the ten. In this way, I begin to belong to the higher, already-spiritual degree, and all this an expansion of faith above reason.

I am already preparing for the next revelation of evil. I am changing all the time, and therefore, I cannot create any support within myself, any safety belt against the impudent egoism when it erupts in me. Therefore, I tie myself to the group. If today I invest in the group as much as possible, elevate the friends, serve them, annul myself, then with this I create insurance for myself for the future.

The group is my protective buffer, the battery, the first nine Sefirot that will later support my Malchut. The investment in the friends, the mutual guarantee, is necessary for advancement because later they will feel that they are obliged to save me, to free me from prison.

The group works like a pump. I adhere to it, receiving more strength from it, and then I receive additional egoism that throws me away from the friends. The friends return me back to them but only through the efforts that I invested previously. This is how I work all the time, like a piston in a pump.³

The ten is a spiritual structure, not a corporeal one. This is not a burden or difficult duty for me, but my lifeline. To be more exact, it is a system for the revelation of the Creator. It seems that I work with ten corporeal people with whom I do not feel any connection. Yet, gradually, thanks to the reforming light, I begin to feel an inner connection between us in which the Creator’s revelation is manifested.

It is between us that the Creator is revealed. Within our relations and bestowal to each other, new sensations are revealed, a network that makes it possible to feel the upper force. This network is woven from the qualities of the friends: from bestowal and love within which we begin to reveal the Creator. These properties of the network allow the upper light to reveal itself in them.

Then the ten, from a burden, from the ten corporeal bodies, turns into a mechanism of connection, into a detector for the revelation of the Creator. The group becomes the vessel of my soul.⁴
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/19, “The Absolute Zero”