Question: Why are Egyptian plagues necessary if a person has already chosen the spiritual path?

Answer: Are you sure he has? In an instant, he will be attracted by something else. Is it possible to rely on one’s desire? With only a slight push, without thought, he will begin chasing new bait.

Our sages say: “Do not trust yourself until the day you die.” Do not trust yourself until you have undergone the ten Egyptian plagues and decided that you must get out of Egypt. Do not trust until the Pharaoh within you will not hear: “Let My people go so they may serve Me!” Do not trust until you have risen above your desire.

Until then, a person is a machine controlled by the desire from within and by the pleasure outside. From the description of the Torah, we see how much one has to go through.

In the beginning, Jacob’s sons resist Joseph, who collects (Osef) them together for a special job. In Egypt, seven years of plenty give way to seven years of famine. Then the Pharaoh’s oppression begins, followed by plagues, that is, disasters running over egoism. Only then does a person stop identifying with egoism, breaks away from it, and builds a screen.

The plagues disconnect us from our desire, and we get a chance to look at it from aside. In fact, a person naturally withdraws from what makes him suffer. But before the Egyptian plagues arrive, he doesn’t yet feel that his desire and he himself are not the same thing.

It is not just about the troubles being implied. It is written: “Come to Pharaoh.” The Creator appears next to you and says: “Side with Me rather than with your desire, and together we will go to Pharaoh.” You step out of your desire and rise above it, and this is what the exodus from Egypt is all about: time after time, plague after plague, until all ten Sefirot have been worked out.

I can’t break away from egoism until I realize that it is evil. Only then can I start breaking free from its embrace and more clearly see how alien, evil, and opposite it is to me. And I finally come to a complete darkness, the darkness of Egypt.

Desire no longer appeals to me. How do I live now? I have turned myself off, renounced everything I used to be and lived by, all qualities, ideas, and desires. Rising up, I look at it all and don’t understand what I should do now. This is the threshold of breaking free, fleeing from Egypt in the night.

After this, we acquire the power of the Torah and begin consistently working with the lights, correcting the desire. And then, into our intention, we receive the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), clothed in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy). In other words, we enter the land of Israel.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “Perfection in Life”

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Question: Can we say that renewal is an indication of a person’s advancement? And if he isn’t renewed, then he doesn’t advance?

Answer: Of course! A new sky is a new degree of Bina, bestowal, and a new earth is desire, Malchut. A new firmanent is a new screen. That is how a person evaluates himself. After all, we cannot measure efforts. We evaluate ourselves only by the speed of the renewal of Reshimot (informational data).

It is written that at every moment Nukva (Malchut of the world of Atzilut) becomes a virgin again, meaning a new desire or Kli. This determines the speed of your advancement. A new Reshimo becomes revealed every time, a new Kli or desire, and you have to start correcting it and advancing.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/10, The Zohar

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Question: I haven’t realized all my material desires yet, but I have already come to Kabbalah. What does it mean?

Answer: It isn’t a problem, continue [with your studies]. As the Torah states, and as Baal HaSulam explains in the “Introduction to TES,” a person need not abstain. Our path is not the one of deprivation; we advance only by way of the Light that Reforms. By working in the group and arranging the intention correctly during the studies, we draw the Light, and it reforms us.

Our body has nothing to do with it; there is no need to torment and deprive it, or submit life to strict limitations. The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t demand of a person anything but to study with intention. Everything will work out, despite our evil, inclinations, lust, and irrelevant thoughts. Let the Light work it out and do your best not to stand in its way.

When we feel “smart,” we tend to act independently, inventing artificial restrictions, as if we know what is good or bad for spiritual attainment. It is a completely incorrect approach. If we give the mind absolute power, nothing will be achieved. In truth, your mind always derives from egoism, the corrupted desire. How can it unilaterally define the next step of its correction?

Hence, we only arrange correct conditions for the Light to work on us. This is what the method is all about. Nothing else is needed. Don’t interfere with the Light; on the contrary, assist it to the best of your ability to affect you.

Use anything that evokes the Light’s influence: the group, unification, gatherings of friends, dissemination, the studies, events, and meetings. After all, the Light pours only on the unity of souls from where it departed during the breaking and whereto it returns if the souls make an effort to reunite.

First and foremost, you should be doing inner work on the background of external actions, with all the fibers of your soul, and keep trying to unite with the friends, anticipating the Light that will come and unify us for certain. This is the source of correction.

In our world, there are no other means, neither inside nor outside of a person. Only this will allow you to reform yourself and the entire world that is sinking into a global crisis.

Today, everything we have achieved in thousands of years begins falling apart, demonstrating to us that the Kli (vessel) is an empty desire which we have to do something about. Nowadays, emptiness has become the common fate.

Therefore, we need to reveal the correct method which is based on unity. We need to find the place of the breaking and draw the Light that Reforms, that is, that unifies us and brings us back to the collective soul. Only the Upper Light that appears in our unity will endow us with the sensation of an authentic life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/10, “Perfection in Life”

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The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 2, Chapter 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words” and Part 2, “Inner Reflection”:

35) What is Keter? (Part 2, Chapter 1, Ohr Pnimi, Item 200)
The impact of the Shoresh on a degree is called Keter (Crown). It comes from the word Machtir (Crowning), meaning surrounding. Because it is purer than the entire degree, it orbits around and above the entire Partzuf.

29) What is Hochma? (Part 2, Chapter 1, Ohr Pnimi, Item 200)
Knowing the definite result of every detail in the entire reality is called Hochma (lit. wisdom).

7) What is Bina? (Part 2, Chapter 1, Ohr Pnimi, Item 200)
Contemplating the conduct of cause and consequence in order to examine all the consequences that stem from something is called Bina.

24) What is Zeir Anpin? (Part 2, Histaklut Pnimit [Inner Reflection], Item 13)
Zeir Anpin means “Small Face.” Ohr Hochma is called Ohr Panim, as it says, “A man’s wisdom maketh his face to shine.” That is why the general Partzuf of Keter in Olam Atzilut is called Arich Anpin, meaning “Great Face” for it consists primarily of Ohr Hochma.

Therefore, Behina Gimel (the third phase), whose essence is only the Ohr Hassadim (bestowal, mercy) that extends from Bina, but which also has He’arat Hochma (wisdom), though its essence is not of Hochma, is called “Diminished Face.” In other words, it is called Zeir Anpin, because the Light of its Panim is diminished and decreased compared to Behina Aleph (first phase).

39) What is Malchut? (Part 2, Chapter 1, Ohr Pnimi, Item 200)
The last Behina is called Malchut because the authority that extends from it is firm and in full control, as is the fear of the King.
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Question: When you are “being stewed in the same juice” with the group, you start feeling hate toward the friends. How do I apply a “spiritual mind” to this specific point in order to rise above hate? What exactly should I do?

Answer: You wish to find a solution to the issue at the level where you are and don’t understand that the problem emerged in order to drag you to another place. Do you wish to resolve it or get rid of it? You have to move yourself to another place until you discover hate and resentment once more, and you will have to move yourself from that point as well.

In the end, in order to rid ourselves of hate, we have to correct our mutual connection each time. Sometimes, it can be done with the help of a shared meal, a joint action, some artificial change, and, at other times, by studying together; or, perhaps, time will accomplish this.

However, the most reliable means is a prayer. When you are in a state of inspiration, when you feel hate and simultaneously realize that you must rise above it, try to write a prayer, and let the group read it every day as an act of unity. It will work.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10., “Come unto Pharaoh – 2″

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Question: An absolute majority of psychologists and psychiatrists state that sexual orientation is not something a person chooses, nor can it be adjusted. All attempts to alter sexual orientation have been unsuccessful.

Does a gay person have to re-define his or her sexual inclination in accordance with Kabbalah’s requirements? Does he have a choice?

Answer: Kabbalah doesn’t ask a person to make any changes on the material level. If the intention of a person is “to love his neighbor,” that is, to correct his egoism, then all his worldly actions will be right.
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Question: How can concentration of thought bring a person to the revelation of the spiritual world?

Answer: Everything is clarified in the thought. We are not talking about our mind which was artificially “pumped up” in a university so that we would become “smart.” The mind is the power of analysis and synthesis, the power of the connection of opposite opinions in one person.

Bina, which we consider to be the desire to bestow, is thought. Thought is Malchut de Hochma,, while Malchut that receives from Hochma is Bina. The collective Malchut which rises to Bina and becomes its Nukva is also Nukva de Hochma since it desires to reach Hochma, not Bina.

In other words, thought is fundamental. Thought is my ability to perceive in Malchut the higher qualities of Hochma and Bina and to work with them. The mind is my ability to build equivalence to the Creator. The universal connection that I reveal is the mind, wisdom, the network [of interconnected souls].

Our brain is arranged in the same, exact manner. The intellect or the mind is the measure of life force, the ability to understand, control, activate, and perceive.

Where does it come from? It is a consequence of two forces: the force of Bina (the desire to correspond to the Creator) and the force of the Creator (who clothes the creature to the extent of this correspondence). This is the mind of the creature: the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) clothed in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy).

Therefore, if we try to attain this network, to understand what connections exist in it and according to what laws it operates, and if we want to know how to reveal and recognize the connection that already exists between us, we achieve what is called “the creating mind,” the Creator, and attain Him. As it is written, “From Your actions, we know You.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/10, “Come unto Pharaoh – 2″

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What is A Big or Small Sin in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “You Are Partners With Me,” Item 61, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 35, Lesson 20
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy,” Lesson 1
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Loving another as I love myself implies that I become imbued with the desires of another as my own and even more as with my own. Like Bina, I “absorb” his desires with my AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh) in order to provide him with everything he desires.

This is what love is. This is how a mother loves her child. To love like that, I need to reach the spiritual degree of Bina, having undergone the degree of Hafetz Hesed (exiting, rising above my desires). In the beginning, when a point in the heart awakens in me, I acquire free will, enter the group, and study while remaining in the egoistic intention, Lo Lishma (not for Her Name).

Then, I ascend to the first level of altruistic intention, Lishma (for Her Name), which is regarded as Hafetz Hesed. At this degree of Bina, I first obtain the desire to bestow, GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim), followed by the desire to receive in order to bestow, AHP. I rise above the mountain of egoism of the zero, first, and second degrees (GE) and afterwards, over the mountain of egoism of the third and fourth degrees (AHP).

Finally, I engage my AHP in order to relate to others as Bina relates to Malchut. At this point, it is a complete intention of Lishma, the spiritual degree of love. Why love? It is love because I am mutually included in the others, absorb their desires, and fulfill them.

This is how we start loving others. In this love, we find love for the Creator which signifies the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, "The Need for Love of Friends"

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Question: If I am entirely the will to enjoy, then can I really desire to do anything for the Creator selflessly?

Answer: No, I cannot. I am only ready to do something that will give pleasure to my desire. This is my nature and I cannot come out of it on my own. I act only if it is profitable for me. That is how the Creator made me and nothing can be done about that.

In the language of Kabbalah this state is called "this world." But there is also another state, "the world to come" or "the upper world" where I will exist if I don’t make my calculations based on the egoistic desire for pleasure, but on the altruistic desire of bestowal.

However, I don’t have that desire and I don’t even want it to appear! That’s true, but you are offered help:

1. Your point in the heart is awakened and you start to think about this.
2. You are brought to the group where you can be strengthened with the help of the friends.
3. You are given books and a teacher, who accompanies you on the spiritual path if you desire it.

This way, you are provided with all the necessary means and an explanation of the fact that besides your own nature, there also exists a higher nature, the Creator’s nature, which operates by the calculation of bestowal. The beginning is set: You have a spark, an environment, and books. This is the starting point, the "drop of semen" from which you can develop your future self.

All the other conditions depend on you. The ball is in your court. If you use the means you have correctly, then you will acquire a second nature. Meanwhile, you receive an explanation that this is beneficial for you, that you will feel much better "there," that you will have eternity, triumph, perfection, and so on. You receive an explanation that is clear to your egoism.

However, in reality the spiritual world will not be revealed in your current desire because it will be transformed in the process. It’s similar to how in our world kids grow up on "promises." "If you read this book you will get a soccer ball," I tell my son. He picks up the book hoping to get the ball, but as he reads it, he gradually changes and now he no longer needs a ball, but a bicycle.

After swallowing the initial "bait," a person unawarely enters the path of development and demands an increasingly "progressive" reward even though he does not yet see the final goal. We too should confuse our egoism in this way in order to participate in the life of the group and gradually be "permeated" by the higher state.

We have to become masters of "swindling" our egoism. A person in this world is an intelligent animal and we have to use the ego, throwing it bait so it helps us on the path, all the way until entering the spiritual world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/10, Writings of Rabash

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