A Sign Of A Solid Covenant

Question: What is special about a person’s work in preparing himself for a descent; what helps him to keep the covenant he has made prior to the descent?

Answer: I depend on the Light that Reforms that must take care of me. So I need to have an absolute whole desire for this Light to sustain my complete dependence on it.

I want to be above my discernments and my feelings, but at the same time keep my eyes open. There is a certain duplicity here, a paradox. On the one hand, I want to understand, to know, and to feel everything in my reality, in my state, all the discernments in that state, and on the other hand, no matter what happens in this state and no matter how much I clarify and connect all my discernments, I have to eventually adhere to the Creator on top of this data.

This means that I want to grow above my understanding, my feeling, and see everything through my ego: above it, below it, and in it, in three discernments. I only ask that all this will not break our covenant, that I will attain devotion for the Creator despite everything, and will be filled with gladness; gladness is the right sign of our solid covenant.

If I don’t burst with such gladness, then it means that I don’t have a covenant with the Creator.
[107679]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/13, Writings of Rabash

The Circles Of Life

The connection between us is where we will find everything. We begin to discover the idea of “connection” according to our advancement and we see that everything concentrates in it and depends only on it, including our private life, our health, our success, family welfare, the entire world, and our spiritual attainment. Everything depends only on the connection in the group that advances by the power of faith, by mutual bestowal.

There is no other means by which we can change anything in our reality except for making greater efforts to connect. Then, everyone receives everyone else’s power (of the whole group of ten) and thus acquires the general force of bestowal as one whole by which he can advance.

We must reinforce the connection in the spiritual cell that is made of ten people in order to ascend to the second level, and we need a greater connection with the external circle for that. Thanks to the connection with the external circle, you can “squeeze” the inner circle of friends even more and thus reach the second level, the Light of Ruach, in order to advance even further.

The quality and the quantity complement one another and allow a person to advance. Everything concentrates in the center of the group and depends only on it. The main thing is to reach the first feeling, and then you will not be able to break away from it anymore, but rather will be attracted to it like to a source of life.

In the meantime, however, we must act artificially as we play. Soon it actually will be revealed, and then you will see that it is really so. Then, you will discover that, instead of greater efforts to connect and to squeeze, you will have to do the opposite kind of work and try not to hurt or harm others.

The Creator will give us opposite exercises. When you are in the ego, you enjoy the fact that the others suffer a little and that they feel bad, and if it is your enemy, you actually enjoy the fact that you can harm him and beat him. However, now you are ready to give up everything for people that you didn’t love before and by whom you even were repulsed and hated, as long as they feel good. You are amazed at your previous attitude since everything turns the other way around.
[107748]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/13

What Can We Expect When We Are Blindfolded?

Question: Why do we speak so little about good things and so much about problems and hardships that we encounter along the spiritual path?

Answer: I think that the problems we encounter are a good thing. In our case, we wouldn’t turn to find the Creator if it weren’t for these “troubles” as we call them.

I feel that such troubles are sweet since otherwise my “animal” would never turn in the Creator’s direction. They can indeed scare me and worry me and can even be a threat to my life, but it all comes in order to direct me to Him.

If so, what is wrong with that? Your corporeal body is what experiences the unpleasant feelings, so don’t identify with it, start forming the human being in you that “rides” the corporeal animal.

On the whole, the spiritual world is based on overcoming the evil inclination. It’s impossible to escape from it. Humanity has tried to do so throughout history with the help of various religions, beliefs, social structures, law codex, science and technology.

All this was actually an attempt to escape, a search for other means to improve our lives and abandon the path to the Creator. But these means bring about an even greater flaw, and eventually we will be left with nothing. For example, a few days ago the UN recommended using insects for food in order to fight hunger. Here it is—the future of the world….

In short, only by the revelation of evil can we be directed towards the goal since this is how we can choose what to consider as evil.  I may feel bad when my self love “complains” out of discomfort, or I may feel bad since I haven’t acquired my soul yet, the connection with others, and with the Creator as part of it. This is exactly where our free will lies.

It’s impossible to escape that, no matter what arguments you bring. The upper Providence operates without asking for my consent. Now I have to accept it and later I will understand it.

In any case spirituality is built on the corrupt desire for pleasure. So we cannot avoid speaking about it; after all, it is said: “I have created the evil inclination.”  ”Torah,” meaning the method of correction, is needed exactly for this reason and this is precisely when a little bit of evil is revealed between us, when we already want to unite, but still don’t know: in what form, in what principle, that will “glue” us together, and how to fulfill this unity.

Thus we demand the Torah manifested in opposition to the evil that is revealed, but it is “sweet” evil. We begin to understand that we don’t have the power to face it by ourselves, that we need the help of the upper force, and that the evil is in the tear of the connection between us. We simply must; we want to strive to connect, “as one man in one heart.” We may call what is happening “evil,” but in fact it isn’t evil at all, it’s the oppositeness of the Creator, His “posterior.” It’s all Him.

This means that we don’t struggle between the grips of evil and the Creator at all, since I feel that the good and the bad are both Him and are the faces of His attitude. A father also sometimes smiles at his son and sometimes gives him a tough look thus evoking different reactions in the child as he forms his perception.

Question: Still, on the one hand, I am shown the negative side, and on the other hand, I am not shown what I will receive at the end….

Answer: You will pass the breaking point, the shattering, as a result of which you will suddenly feel pleasure in bestowal. The Light will come and awaken you to love others. Then you will bestow upon them and will feel infinite pleasure.

After all, it’s your ego that limits you and that is stopping you by saying: “This is as far as you can go and not further than that.” You struggle with it in order to expand the limits of bestowal. If there were no ego, you would engage in bestowal in the same manner that you engage in receiving now, simply because you find that bestowal is pleasant.

So to make sure that it is real love and that it’s not artificial, it’s built on the desire to receive, so that you can be neutral, free of receiving and of bestowal. Then you actually work, you actually control the filling of all of humanity and you perform the Creator’s mission, taking nothing for yourself, having no contact with the negativity that you have to escape from or the positivity that could bring you pleasure. This is the moment of eternity in a person, the midpoint on the scale of good and evil.

Question: What does it mean “to bring us pleasure?”

Answer: It’s a different meaning, a new one. I choose the pleasure so that it will not depend on me and I will not depend on it.

It’s impossible to explain, to illustrate, or to draw. It’s about a feeling, and if you try to touch it with your current mind, it’s the wrong approach. After all, you don’t allow your heart to open wide.

It isn’t by chance that we speak about a game as the major tool for our advancement. If you put yourself out of the game, then you are left only with complaints. You can diminish the value of everything in life by a disrespectful attitude, and what’s next?

We need to unite, and in order to do that we work in groups. Why groups? Because this is how we allow the Light to influence us at least a little. We may underestimate the connection between the friends and what it can draw. But by our mutual efforts, we give it importance and appeal, and again prompt drawing a bit of Light that Reforms by that.

Who actually needs bestowal? No one. But yet, we speak about it and the Surrounding Light responds to that, and is ready to accept our “lie.”

This is how we develop and there is no other way. It’s always from an egoistic state of Lo Lishma (not for its own sake) that we reach the altruistic intention of Lishma (for its own sake).  It’s impossible to form the created being in any other way.

As for the complaints, the ego always plays the role of the accuser, but the sufferings will eventually break it. You will not be able to dictate your conditions to the Creator. He aggravates you on purpose in order to spur you on and there is only one answer for that: to subdue yourself before the group.

You must understand that your ego is totally “square” and that you will achieve nothing by its help. As long as you look at reality through the prism of self-love you will see nothing. All the worlds are concealed from you; the upper Providence system is out of your sight. What can  be opened for you if your ego filters all His calls? Can you claim the demonstration of anything when in front of you is an impervious blindfold?

This is why Kabbalists give us advice about how to act in this state. If we don’t use their advice, the troubles will help us grow wise.

There is no point in feeling resentment that something is concealed from you. You have no means to see the truth; it’s only in unity that we can see the Creator’s leadership and to be aware of what is going on.

But it’s on condition that this understanding and this feeling will not throw you off track. After all, when you finally get this chance, you will actually not want to feel and understand in order to avoid a “bribe.”

You will say to the Creator, “Don’t reveal anything to me.” Otherwise I will lose my free will and will turn into an “angel” and descend to the “animal” level. I would rather be a human being that struggles and makes mistakes than a “holy animal” that has no free will at all. Only on the human level can I express my attitude and only there do I exist.

You will want to place Masachim (screens) over the Light, fearing that you will not resist its temptations. After all, the guards that don’t let you get into the King’s palace keep you away not by sufferings but by blows of abundance which are much stronger and are revealed to you as love that drives you crazy. It’s much more difficult to put a Masachover it than over the troubles of the evil inclination.

Today it actually helps you in contacting the Creator. The sufferings focus you on the goal. Therefore, it says, that Pharaoh brings the children of Israel closer to the Creator. Then there will be other obstacles and I will understand your complaints. After all, the blows of the Light are much harder. But no matter what happens, you will always want the struggle between these two opposite forces since only between them can you determine your independence.
[107732]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/13, The Zohar – Introduction

Installing New Programs Within Oneself

Question: At the lessons, lectures, and in books, you talk about some balanced state of humanity. But, at the same time you emphasize that the whole world is found within a person. How is it possible to combine these things for someone who, for example, doesn’t study with you and has no possibility of receiving an explanation from you?

Answer: When we delve into the world from the viewpoint of high-level psychology and physics, we begin to see that it works quite differently .

On the Internet, there is a vast amount of material about this subject. Scientists, psychologists, and sociologists are already beginning to understand this. People understand that this world is not what we see in our minds, in our five senses, but it is something else. So what is it? It is possible to feel by changing our organs of perception, our program of thinking?

And, it is not necessary to be born anew for this. It is enough to stay the same person. Like we can install a few programs in our computer, so is it also possible to install a few programs in us. For this, however, we need to study. If a person wants to come to me as a student and become included in our framework of studies, then he will gradually acquire this system.
[107666]
From KabTV’s “The Global Crisis” 3/19/13

One Stone Against The Other

Rabash, Letter 40: And should you ask, “What can one do if he feels that he has a heart of stone toward his friend…”

The advice is very simple: The nature of fire is that when rubbing stones against each other, a fire starts… And only when both of them intend for a gift and not for charity, through the wearing out of the hearts, even of the strongest ones, each will bring out warmth from the walls of his heart, and the warmth will ignite the sparks of love until a clothing of love will form. Then, both of them will be covered under one blanket, meaning a single love will surround and envelop the two of them, as it is known that Dvekut[adhesion] unites two into one.

When a person begins to work in a group he doesn’t feel repulsed by others. But as soon as he feels the need to connect with the friends, as it is the means for attaining the goal, the vessel for the revelation of the Creator and through this connection one attains bestowal and adhesion, and only after that are the others called “friends” and not before. This is where the problems start. These people don’t seem like strangers anymore: everyone takes on a certain color, a form, and becomes versatile and full of different emotions.

The friends summon in him very complex emotions and it isn’t easy to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to hug them and to sit at the same table with them for a meal or to dance together.  Different evil thoughts overcome him with regard to his relations with others and he begins to feel that it’s very difficult to connect with them.

The more he understands the need to connect, the more distant and unrealistic it seems to him. New interruptions are increasingly evoked. It’s about this kind of work that the Torah tells us first in the story of Abraham and Isaac and then about Jacob, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Eventually, this work becomes the exile in Egypt, when a person feels such terrible distance from others that it’s impossible to ignore it and it’s impossible to connect.

The more a person tries to overcome his ego and to connect with others, the less he succeeds. He experiences “seven years of satiety” and “seven years of hunger,” with regard to the connection since the whole war against the evil inclination is only over the connection. Then there are the plagues of Egypt, the plagues of Pharaoh, that force a person to finally understand that only the upper Light can help him.

He decides that he cannot live without absolute love anymore, that will break his heart and the shards of his heart will penetrate the hearts of his friends. This is the only thing he wants and nothing but it. Thus he begins to work on the love that doesn’t immediately turn into true love, but starts from some preliminary connections, but this is at least a certain connection.
[107551]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13

Egoistic Fuel For An Altruistic Purpose

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Because the Torah was not given to them before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the Mitzva(precept) of loving others in the full measure, expressed in the words: “Love thy friend as thyself” (as explained in Items 2 and 3, examine it thoroughly there). This means that each and every one in Israel would take it upon himself to care and work for each member of the nation, and to satisfy all their every needs, no less than the measure imprinted in him to care for his own needs.

This condition seems clear, yet in fact, all of reality is concealed here, all that life can give us. And since there is only one condition that stands before us which must be maintained, “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” so everything that happens in my personal life, in relationship with myself, with my family, with the environment near and far, with humanity, with the world, everything that has happened to me up until this moment, must be directed towards only one goal. And at every moment I must check, have I lived it to reach love for others?

If I begin to evaluate myself in this way, then understandably, at every moment there will be many questions for me: “Why? What for? How is one thing connected to another? What do I get out of this?” and so forth. Rejection and resistance will grow, but if I truly want to clarify what must be clarified and corrected, then everything will be considered according to only one criterion, according to that phrase, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

It’s written that this is a major rule in the Torah, in other words, this is the principle that includes all of reality, includes all of my incarnations, and in general, everything that has been. Therefore, someone who is ready to accept this principle as a basis, as a measuring rod for his life, he is ready to accept the Torah, the method of correction. You see, the whole Torah is designed only to realize this principle.

And conversely, someone who doesn’t direct himself towards this, he doesn’t need the Torah. He can read it, be interested in it as a historian, or use it in some other way. Throughout history, everyone has wandered through it as they saw fit. That said, the true Torah is revealed to me, moves me, and opens the way before me only on condition that I aspire to “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

In this way I begin from a distance, from the greatest resistance, from an absolute lack of understanding, from the furthest place, until I gradually begin to understand that this is important, that this is connected to the entire reality, to the world, to all other people and my ego. I begin to be interested in this principle at least in an egoistic form, with the hope of somehow gaining from this. And so I have something to hold on to already; this expression becomes important in my eyes because I see this as a means for receiving pleasure, knowledge of self, an opportunity to get something new. And even if this connection is not arranged as I would like it, and passes through the reverse side, this is still a connection, and it’s very important.

A state like this is called “Lo Lishma,” and it’s a high level where I am already holding onto the principle of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” and through it, love for the Creator, Who is to be found in the other, in the community, as is written, “I live among My own people.” Therefore, everything is in order for me except the intention.

First, from my “healthy,” materialistic, egoistic desire, I grasp this principle strongly; then it’s possible to speak about intention. First of all, it’s necessary to build a healthy relationship, as is written: “Educate the youth according to his way.” And the more ruthless his desire to fulfill himself, the better because then you can open the way before him and explain to him upon what progress depends.

In general, all the steps leading to both purity and impurity are subject to the same dependency and are found in the same way. Only the relationship is different. About this it is written: “The Creator made this opposite to that” (Ecclesiastes 7). We use the sameKelim for both egoistic and altruistic actions; and only in intention are these actions opposing.

Before me is the system of my relationships with the group. I give myself over to it and through it to the Creator, Who is within it. I want to adhere to Him and thereby fill myself with all the Light of Infinity. This is the desired, worthwhile and imperative approach.

If I begin to confuse myself with superfluous considerations, I only reduce my desire even before it grows, so that I will have something to correct. A person corrects only what is discovered in him, and one should not be ashamed or be timid because of his egoistic spiritual aspirations. This is normal. The main thing is to be clear, that specifically in the system called a “group” I will reveal the Creator.

In general, this system includes all of reality, and even though it now seems to me to be divided, later I will see that everything is included within it. So, it’s important to see the real state, even if at this stage it’s for my own benefit.

This is the beginning of self-nullification; this puts me in front of the perpetual questions: “How can I be incorporated into the system? How do I enjoy it?” And then the Reforming Light works on me. The system is built such that the posterior side of the upper is found in the front side of the lower, and therefore, even if I think about ascent egoistically, the upper perfects my defect and gives me a remedy for my ego. After all, this ego is directed towards “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”
[105963]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

Integral Force And Its Expressions

Question: There are four fundamental interactions known in physics: strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. Is it possible to say that these four interactions are the individual expressions of the integral force (interaction)?

Answer: Yes, at the level of inanimate matter these are expressions of the integral force, which summarizes them at the inanimate level. It’s Keter (Malchut) with regard to the rest of the Sefirot.

Question: You are talking about the four levels: matter, energy, information, and interaction (in the spiritual form, meaning in the form of mutual bestowal, love). At what level does the integral force act?

Answer: The integral force, the Creator, is clothed in your single (summarized) integral desire. You built it from your individual egoistic desires by annulling your individual egoistic desires through the aspiration to the mutual guarantee in order to attain the revelation of the Creator in it.
[107096]

The Pictures Of Reality That Come To Life

The true reality is the Creator because He exists on His own, independent of any additional force. He just exists and that’s all! However, the existence of any other reality except the Creator depends on two opposing forces.

None of them alone can provide this existence. Only due to their connection, they produce grains of our temporary, artificial, short-lived reality, which is called creation (Beria) because it is outside (Bar), outside of the Creator, and exists only under certain conditions. This artificial reality is our life today.

However, the Creator has given us the opportunity to understand and connect creation from below upward with the help of two opposing forces: bestowal and reception. Thus, we complete the universe, which was created by the propagation of these two forces from above to below, adding to it our own consent from below to above. It turns out that we seemingly bring to life the artificial creation that was created by the Creator, making it real.

By our consent, accepting the Creator’s thought in order to assemble ourselves from two opposing forces at every step from below to above, we give creation the real force, being the Creator’s partners as equals, on the same degree. After all, we take His mind, His direction, and His attitude, and we add this upper divine mind and attitude to the forms that spread from above to below, due to which they seemingly rise from below to above.

The two forms, receiving and bestowal, come to us already prepared. We are not responsible for the evil, egoistic nature and, moreover, for the kind nature of bestowal. However, due to our yearning for good properties, we make our own contribution, achieving understanding, knowledge, adding our personal attitude that is becoming united with the Creator.

What matters is not the two forces themselves, receiving and bestowal, but their connection—consequence, “derivative”—the notion of unity that is born out of the work of the mind and heart.
[107568]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13, Writings of Rabash