My Favorite Grain Of Sand In The Creator’s Universe

Question: In his letter No. 29, Baal HaSulam writes that “prohibition is the same as permission, since the key that is good for locking is also good for unlocking.” What kind of “key” does he mean?

Answer: The key is the Light of Hassadim, the intention to bestow. On one hand, we can lock ourselves with this key and thus bar the Light from entering our egoistic desires. On the other hand, we can open ourselves for the Light that dresses in the intention to bestow. Under this condition, the Light is allowed to enter the desire to receive. Bina refuses to receive; therefore, Bina is against the Light ofHochma. How does it open itself for the Light of Hochma after restriction occurs? It turns itself into a “garment for the Light,” into a condition. We are ready to receive treats from the Host’s table under the condition that He allows us to think about Him, rather than our stomachs.

If we keep thinking of the Creator while we continue receiving pleasures, if we feel Him and understand that He enjoys us, then our sensations become a million times bigger than those that we get from a direct self-indulgence. We multiply the pleasure because we understand the significance of the Host and feel love for Him. And that is how we become ready to accept the treats.

So, Bina blocks only a small amount of the Light (Nefesh de Nefesh) that it could have received directly in the desire to receive. It opens itself to the Light of NRNHY, the infinite Light of the Creator. It implies that the key that locks the door also unlocks it. As it is said: “Open a tiny space the size of an eye of a needle for Me and I will open gates through which carts and chariots enter.”

We can’t receive directly more than a thin ray of Light that supports life in all of us and revives the entire world. The intention to bestow multiplies a tiny live spark and expands it to the size of the Creator if we strive to bestow to Him.

We “use” the Creator as a magnifying glass and amplify a thin ray that formed all of creation, all of matter. We increase both the matter and the pleasure proportionately to the greatness of the Creator in our eyes. This opportunity is granted to us by a “tool” that is called “the intention to bestow.”

It is called “bestowal,” but due to it we receive the opportunity and acquire the ability to increase our desire to receive that was shaped by the Creator “out of nothing.” It’s similar to a tiny grain of sand, a tip of the needle that we can multiply proportionately to the Creator’s “scale” so that it can be filled with the Light that is as powerful as the Creator Himself.

It happens because we begin working in bestowal “on the tip of a needle,” on a “tiny grain of sand,” of a desire to receive that was created by Him. We receive one gram of delight and simply cannot “fit” more into this small desire that is as little as a grain of sand. However, if we manage to expand it for the sake of bestowal, it is crucially important for whose sake we do it. Thus, we multiply our desire and the delight proportionately to the scale of His love for us, as an infant who smiles at his mother and thus causes huge joy in her.

It’s the “patent” we use, a miraculous opportunity granted to us by the Creator. We use its power and strength of His love for us by expanding ourselves with its help. Otherwise, we would be the lowest creatures in the world. All other levels of nature (inanimate, vegetative, and animate) fulfill themselves directly, whereas by the mere fact that we are born as people, we go through all prior levels (inanimate, vegetative, and animate) and there is only one thing left for us, a point in the heart that is completely empty of any fulfillment.

Because we are so unhappy, a tiny spark awakens in us. It’s a desire to receive pleasure at the speaking level that now still remains empty in us. If we fail to receive the Creator’s power and won’t take “advantage” of His love and His kind attitude toward us by using it to “magnify” ourselves by this quality, we’ll be left with a scanty and hollow desire. Even death is better than such kind of life…

Luckily, we are given a chance to receive the power of the Creator if we treat each other in a correct way. That’s why the shattering and all other kinds of preparations from Above happened, so that people can feel a need to love or at least realize the necessity to unite.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 29”

Finding The Truth

Question: How should I work on my inner states? Accept them? Rise above them? Ask for something? Demand?

Answer: It depends on your level.

We gradually begin to enjoy the fact that we can be above our states; It isn’t masochism or blind detachment; we are aware of our feelings, we calculate things, and at the same time detach ourselves from them. It is the next stage in creating theMasach (screen): A person tries to be detached from good and evil and to really be objective and independent of the feeling of his body.

Question: How can we hold on to this level, allowing the pleasant and the unpleasant feeling do their work in the vessel, and at the same time observe this from the outside?

Answer: In the Book of Proverbs, it says, “Acquire truth and don’t sell it.” We cannot discern this externally. There are many layers in a person’s calculations and it is impossible to remain at one point all the time until the upper Light makes it “stable.”

But if a person makes efforts and tries, he really wants this to happen. First he is given a feeling that he can “hold on to this standard.” Then, of course, he is sent a feeling of failure and powerlessness. Then it turns out that he cannot even think about it, and then he holds on to this thought, but cannot fulfill it. This is how the four phases typical of this process develop.

But in any case, in the whole scale of feelings, from maximal negativity to maximal positivity, I have to try to hold myself at this point and focus on the goal. No matter what happens, it makes no difference to me. Although the feelings can tear me apart, I rely on one thing only and “lock” myself on the goal.

All this is possible only at “the center of the group“. It isn’t beyond the horizon nor above the clouds; it is only in the center of the group that I find and discover the spiritual world. By working with the group, I begin to discover that I am not surrounded by coincidental faces but by special people who were chosen from Above. Together they make up a whole network, and if I am incorporated in the group, if I am ready and assist it with all my powers, then I am included in Malchut, in the Shechina.

In addition, I get to know the force that sustains it and that is revealed in it, and I want to identify with that force. I influence the friends from below and it influences me from Above, and there, in the group, we finally meet in order to unite. Then it turns out that the group is our common “baby”….
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Meet Reinforcements With Joy

Question: Do we have enough Haman (egoism) rising in us to keep the group in the heart and to act in order to bring pleasure to the Creator?

Answer: No, it is not enough. We still need to add a lot of egoism to ourselves. It will be added to the extent of how we are engaged in connection between us and in dissemination, but mostly in connection.

After all, the egoism that we need now is the egoism which we will be able to reveal between ourselves, sitting at a round table, that will act between us in such a way that we will want to reject each other. We will not want to participate in joint activities; we will disagree with each other; perhaps, we will become estranged from each other. We need precisely this egoism.

It has yet to grow. But it will increase only if we understand how to deal with it and will meet it with joy.
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From the Fundamentals Lesson 2/24/13

The Light Of Hassadim In The Group

Question: What is the Light of Hassadim in the group?

Answer: The Light of Hassadim in the group is when everyone is included in the others and does not require anything for himself but to be included in the others: forgetting about himself, getting out of himself, and falling into the others.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

Help Me Put The Puzzle Of Creation Together

We always have to be connected and try to see the Torah in the connection between us and how we fulfill it. What does a certain connection stand for, where between us is Haman, where is Mordecai, where is Esther, who is Ahasuerus, what happened to the ten sons of Haman and his wife?

If we ignore the physical characters of ourselves and the friends and speak about forces, about attributes, about discernments and not about bodies that are perceived by the five senses, if we raise ourselves to the level of the network of the forces of creation, then it means that we are fulfilling the Torah in the relations between us. Then we already begin to see them and to learn this. This is called implementation, getting closer to correction, and building the image of Adam, man. Then you will see how necessary each of the friends is and that even all the negative forces have to exist so that you will not agree with such behavior, will keep away from them, and decide not to use them internally.

We don’t apply enough constant efforts to get closer and to connect on the level of the forces, intentions, and not on the level of the physical bodies. We have to penetrate a bit deeper and to begin to draw away from the usual corporeal picture in order to see the network that we are building between us, or more accurately, to discover it.

Everyone has to try to imagine that he is in the system of forces and not between physical bodies of this world and all its trash. We have to finally see and imagine this world correctly. It’s impossible to mention this all the time. A person has to change his thoughts. In order to do that, we have to support one another and we need mutual guarantee when everyone thinks in the same way.

Then you begin to notice and to identify that all the friends are in such inner relations, in such an intention, in such actions, that you realize that they are not performing external actions, but that everyone is trying to build and put this puzzle together to connect everyone. Everyone will feel that his efforts determine whether this puzzle will be put together, whether everyone will connect and how in the picture that is gradually being completed, that  reveals the general force of bestowal called the Creator with all its details and special features.

This is already a sign that the Torah is being revealed to us, that the upper Light is starting to illuminate and to explain its rules, its nature. Thus we begin to live on that level.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

An Additional Awakening

All our work comes down to revealing a deficiency within us. It is because even before we begin to do something, the Creator has already prepared everything and is in a state of absolute rest. On His part there is always the readiness. He is only waiting for every opportunity a person gives Him, which means when he reveals an additional deficiency that is attained by his own powers, and not that which the Creator has evoked in him.

Therefore, there must be some addition to our response that is our own. But where can this response come from if we exist in the Godly system that the Creator has arranged for us? Where can I add something of my own in response? How?

The only way I can add something of my own is to exert myself on my level—not on a level above me—by connecting and by somehow spurring one another. Only due to the fact that I can awaken the others by physical actions and they awaken me can we create an additional awakening towards the upper on our part. By that we are actually correcting the shattering, correcting the gaps between us, by influencing the spiritual level from the corporeal level.

On the spiritual level, the Creator performs the correction, but we only have to start the work of connection and then the Creator completes it. In the corrected, connected vessel, we begin to discover Him.

Thus we rise, each time requiring a stronger connection under conditions that become more special, more difficult, and toward a higher sense of unity. Therefore, it says that all our freewill is in choosing the environment. By such actions a person is evoked and evokes internally more qualitative passion and desire towards the attribute of bestowal. Each time he discovers a clarion from Above that comes from the Creator calling him and summoning him to connect and to ascend. Therefore, by building a collective vessel, a person is rewarded with the revelation of the attribute of bestowal in this vessel, which is called the revelation of the Creator that is dressed and revealed in the created being.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Straight Are The Ways Of The Righteous

Rabash, “The Torah is One Holy Name”: Therefore, when the evil inclination brings a person alien thoughts, then it is the right time to take these thoughts and to raise them “above reason.”

And a person can do that regarding anything his heart desires, and he should not say that now he is repulsed by the work, but rather that he was given desires and thoughts from Above, so that he will be able to bring them into Holiness. So he is actually being brought closer from Above, and therefore he was sent this kind of work.

And about this it was said: “Straight are the ways of the Lord, the righteous will follow them and the sinners will fail in them,” which means that if a person is rewarded, he can ascend by that and if he isn’t (rewarded), he descends by that spiritually.

It turns out that there isn’t a moment in our lives when the Light is not revealed to us by revealing an additional thickness in us in different manners. It summons in us different feelings and thoughts that are evoked in the mind and heart, and we have to respond.

This additional desire can lead to a bad mood or to an egoistic ascent; it can lead to thoughts that are closer to spirituality or further away from it, to criticism of the environment, and to everything that is related to the spiritual path. All this happens, of course, only by the revelation of the new Reshimot (spiritual genes). If a person is in the right environment and adhered to the teacher, the books and the group, to all the efforts that stabilize his path, then he will not forget this. Then he will not miss any opportunity that is given to him and will constantly respond.

The response itself may seem to be good and successful or not very good and successful; it makes no difference. What’s important is that he fulfills the current moment, the given Reshimo and moves on.

But if a person doesn’t hold on to the teacher, the Torah, and the group, then he has no chance to fulfill that moment, and so life passes without a purpose. He thinks that he is advancing, but in fact he is simply accumulating wisdom. This means that he doesn’t advance in fulfilling the new Reshimot but only in developing his egoistic mind. We have to be very careful of that since a person cannot see the exact border between advancing in fulfilling the new Reshimot and the development of his egoistic mind.

Therefore, it says, “Straight are the ways of the Lord.” If a person relates to this correctly, then he will go through them like a “righteous.” If he doesn’t, then he will descend and leave the spiritual path. The main thing is to check whether you can attribute every moment to the fulfillment of the goal, which means to attain the attribute of bestowal above reason.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/13

Fate Changes As You Advance

Fate changes very much as we advance. Each one is given his or her own difficulties, but you should not envy others. There are such internal problems that are not visible from the outside and it may seem that a person has all the best, that his life is successful, and that he has never had any problems with money. However, we do not know what internal or external obstacles, invisible to the external eye, he overcomes. No one gets favors in this.

The more internal the correction, the more qualitative it is, and, thus, it is more powerful in its strength than correction by external problems. It is similar to a worker who needs to labor an entire week to earn the same amount a specialist can earn for a day or even an hour of work. It depends on the root of the soul.

We are engaged in the most important work. It is low, dirty work to correct the world at its most insignificant degree where it is now, and this work is the most special and honorable. We need to feel this, understand it, and give thanks.

We work on our own vessel. All the problems that become revealed to us are the means for correcting the broken unity. Every day I repeat that dissemination is necessary for your own good; that it is your own vessel and you aren’t doing anyone any favors. TheCreator does not need your work. You, yourselves, need it first. Otherwise, in what vessels will you get revelation?

However, if a person is stuck inside the breaking and wants to perceive the world from there—not correcting himself—then he is like a child who does not want to grow but demands to be given at the age of two the same things that grownups have. This means that he is delayed in his development and does not use the opportunities that he gets.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam