Question: What can we learn from Pharaoh?

Answer: We can learn from Pharaoh loyalty to the Creator. He carries out his task to the letter, faithfully and diligently. He is a true Creator’s serf like no other.

In fact, we are dealing with a mechanical force hidden in nature. On each path and at each degree, in every molecule and atom, in every combination and relation, it calculates how to take possession of everything it can possibly have. It is a unique internal program that works in every particle of creation, every system, and every combination.

That’s what “Pharaoh” is: something common, omnipotent, and present in every desire, in all of created reality. It doesn’t leave any particle of creation alone for a second. Amid the stars and galaxies, in our world and all others, there is this universal, integral program. And this is what we have to learn from Pharaoh: a persistent, compromise-free approach to our responsibilities.

Moreover, instead of the old program, we must make sure to install the new one. Besides, this upgrade pertains to Pharaoh: We employ him and by no means delete him for uselessness. Spiritual upgrades are always installed over the already existent program support. We work on Pharaoh, on our receiving desire, replacing the egoistic intention with the altruistic one, while Pharaoh’s desire as such remains.

We have the intention and desire to receive, which is a pre-set, active system; that is what exists. And then, we switch this intention to bestowal, while keeping the desire to receive. Thus, we come out into the spiritual reality, the one that will be.

Below there is Pharaoh, above there is the Creator, and they oppose each other. And the transition is made by way of the Light.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Only through unification can we attain the Creator’s revelation and spiritual life. But without the environment, I can never correctly envision spirituality: as bestowal and love toward others.

I need to build an environment for myself which will develop in me this “artificial,” unnatural desire: a yearning to unite with others. Indeed, this is a lie to my ego which doesn’t see any self-benefit in this action. And when the environment begins to cultivate in me this new desire and new values, only then will I discover that there is a force that opposes this unification: Pharaoh.

Before this I couldn’t even imagine that uniting was this difficult. I didn’t desire it all that much; rather, I was kind of neutral to it. But the more my environment inspired me with this idea, as a good advertisement does, to aspire to this artificial objective which I couldn’t even feel before, the more I began to sense the obstacle in my way, the special force that impedes this unification.

This force is willing to offer anything I want, all the pleasures of life in this world. It appeals to me: “Tell me what you want! Money, honor, power, knowledge, traveling, any pleasure your heart desires!”

Consider the infinite new ways humanity has found to fulfill itself in recent years, which hadn’t existed in all the centuries of our history. Today we manufacture 30-40 times more of all kinds of goods that serve no practical purpose. Every six months to a year I am forced to replace all of my stuff with new models: computers, furniture, clothes, and so on. These things obscure the real picture, and it’s all Pharaoh’s work, only at the corporeal, beastly level.

But when we reach the desire to unite, the true, unrelenting Pharaoh reveals himself, draining us of all our efforts and turning them to his benefit. This force reveals itself, willing to give me anything I want, anything except unity!

And here we begin to understand Pharaoh’s goal and why he is so staunchly against unification in particular. Firstly, he wants us to truly feel the need for the Creator, the upper force, to help us. And secondly, he wants our desire to unite to grow to its full, ultimate potential, which will raise us to the heights of the Creator Himself.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 10: Pharaoh sucks up all the Light that starts descending for Israel (those who aspire to the Creator), and so it is said that “there wasn’t a slave who was able to escape from Egypt.”

Our advancement seems to be “negative” since we put forth a lot of effort and think that we are advancing and achieving a certain success on this path, while suddenly everything disappears. Pharaoh sucks up “all the Light” for himself and everything disappears in the ego, leaving nothing of our efforts.

This is a cumulative process, and our frustration keeps accumulating and growing until a person begins to feel that he can’t work for his egoism any longer, which sucks all achievement from him. As soon as he experiences a little inspiration, awakening, connection with the friends, and willingness to walk this path and rise above this whole meaningless, vain life, the next day he doesn’t feel any progress. Where does it all go?

Upon rising in the morning, why must I start from zero yet again, or even below it? Why must I climb from the animate state, barely able to comprehend where I am, wake myself up physically and emotionally, and start working on the importance of the goal all over again so that I may understand where I’ve ended up, what for, and what’s going on here? This is the work in Pharaoh’s bondage.

There is nothing “accidental” in spirituality, nor are there some “blind acts of nature.” Nature is the Creator’s combination of forces: either on the side of His Face or the opposite side, meaning the Creator and Pharaoh. But it is still one and the same force: “There is none else besides Him,” and we are always present between its two influences. There is nothing accidental or meaningless in what is happening with us. It is simply a shift in balance between these two forces, in order to give us a chance to exert effort.

The Creator intentionally made it so that Pharaoh completely enslaved us, erased all our efforts, and showed us our despicable nature and total hopelessness in ever reaching the goal. And then, thanks to Pharaoh, we will start needing the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 10

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 10: “If a student goes into exile, his teacher is exiled with him.” But how can egoistic claims overwhelm the student in his studies and work so much that he would stray off the spiritual path, despite his connection with the authentic Kabbalist teacher?

It is all due to the fact that during the descent the student thinks that his Teacher is also in descent. And it is truly so since he can receive help from the Teacher only in the extent that he values his teacher’s greatness.

Therefore, his teacher is presently low and weak, according to how the student views him, and this means that the Teacher falls together with the student. The beginning of the Egyptian exile starts with that “a new king rises over Egypt, who didn’t know Joseph”—a new power in the mind of everyone who fell from his previous degree (and so did the teacher with them).

Hence, they “don’t know Joseph (the righteous man)” and imagine him being similar to themselves. And this is the beginning of bondage since otherwise, the righteous man would protect them from slavery and exile.

This passage doesn’t discuss historical events, but rather a person who is living his “spiritual history” right now. From the moment he starts seeking the purpose of life, he is led to a place where he can grow spiritually and realize his life’s purpose, unveil its secret, meaning that he finds a Kabbalistic group and the teacher.

And then, everything depends upon how much he values what he received: the group, Kabbalistic texts, and the teacher. And his “Egyptian bondage,” the exile, unfolding of his ego, starts with his ignoring the teacher.

After all, the teacher shows him the way. Otherwise, a person of this world would never attain the truth that is hidden from us; there is no chance to find it on one’s own. All souls are arranged according to the chain: AHP of the upper one descend into GE of the lower one, and only by cleaving to the former can we advance.

Hence, the Egyptian exile begins when the student ignores the teacher, which is a natural development that he must undergo. First, he doesn’t feel what happened at all and that he is veering off the path. He thinks that he is totally all right: He is advancing, understands and feels more, and can make his own decisions and judge, knowing what steps he is making.

In other words, he has an opinion about everything based upon “common sense” and “logic,” while he forgets that it’s all well and good only in regard to his personal egoism and not in relation to the “teacher, the books, and the group,” where one should always progress by way of “faith above reason.”

It is said that they no longer felt Joseph (the righteous one within), meaning that a person no longer registers his point in the heart which previously linked him to advancement, the spiritual path, and bestowal to a certain degree. And he severs the ties with spiritual progress completely since he has nothing to lean on if the teacher who was leading his way is gone.

A person thinks that he continues to evolve, while this development only pushes him deeper into the bondage that he is yet to discover. There is nothing we can do; these are the necessary stages one has to pass through.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 10

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The Zohar, Chapter “Bo (Come unto Pharaoh),” Item 196: The Egyptians would come and see the bones that the dogs were carrying from place to place and breaking them, and they would put them in the ground so the dogs would not find them. This is the greatest canceling of idolatry on their part …when they hid the bones of their gods in the ground.

Question: What is implied under “the Egyptians hid the bones of their gods in the ground”?

Answer: Usually, a person wants to “bury” his efforts which he views as unsuccessful and to forget all about them. We, however, must resist this failure: “I’ve succumbed to the evil; I couldn’t handle it and failed. True! And now, based on this evil, I do good yet again.”

If I know that I don’t bury anything of my efforts, I merit the support of the group and the Creator in order to go on. Otherwise, I return to the zero point again, and only out of necessity, having found nothing good in this world, prefer to stay in the group. In other words, what really does motivate us? What is the level where a person makes his calculation? It is always at the level of the corporeal world. And that’s why he doesn’t move ahead.

But we should always make calculations based upon the constantly growing evil. Despite the fact that I lost to it and see all the miasma of my ego, all my evil, I keep going forth. But how can I go on? That’s when I need the group, its support, the Creator, so He would give me strength.

Thus, with each new step, a person advances. Otherwise, he stays in the same place as if he just descended into Egypt. We must strive to feel all these inner states, properties, and desires. I know from my own experience: It’s impossible to come out of Egypt if you haven’t recognized, been in, and lived them yourself.

You don’t need to be a smart aleck to do this. Just yearn for unity with the others, mutual bestowal, support, and guarantee, to all of these signs of oneness. In response to these efforts, we will obtain the correct internal meanings.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: Do all our intentions go straight into Pharaoh’s mouth, feeding him?

Answer: It all depends on what these intentions are. Pharaoh is a special force, the ego that unfolds against the Light. It is a reserve of egoism, the desire to receive, which we must construct.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is no “Pharaoh” without “Israel,” meaning the strive toward the Creator within man who works in order to unify with the others and come to bestowal. Thus, in the degree of his aspiration toward bestowal, a person builds Pharaoh, cultivates his desires (Kelim) within, from which he later flees and which he afterward corrects, getting rewarded thereby.

The entire work in Egypt lies in arranging Pharaoh and making him great, powerful, and wealthy, meaning in growing our ego from the tiny point of our natural egoism to the Creator’s status. After all, what does this whole egoism give us? It gives us the desires for food, sex, money, fame, and knowledge, a tiny ego of our world, a corporeal ego, which has nothing to do with spirituality. This earthly ego doesn’t even require correction.

Beginning to work on our unification, we discover resentment, alienation, indifference to our oneness. Essentially, this is the revelation of evil, but only if a person sees it as such. After all, he can say that he can’t unite with the others and that this work isn’t for him, before he even starts it. And some do start but get weakened, fall, and “die in the land of Egypt.”

But there are those who do bear it, thanks to the understanding that there is no option. They keep at it, over and over again, although they see that they continue to lose. And try as they might to unite with the friends, strengthen the group, regardless of their efforts, they see that nothing works. On the contrary, they experience a desire to criticize the friends and remove them from their sight all together. And once more, they overcome this flash of egoism.

Thus, time after time, all that a person earned, all his efforts are consumed by his ego, Pharaoh, which grows and rejoices. A person himself builds all these properties within, but through his own efforts. Afterwards, he arrives at the state when he can’t stand his ego any longer. And that is when he receives all Pharaoh’s vessels (Kelim), desires.

In other words, Egyptian exile starts solely with the person’s work toward unification with the friends. In fact, what does Israel merit after they flee from Egypt, when the Creator frees them from it? They merit unification at Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred), all as “one man with one heart,” if only for an instant, until they sculpt the “golden calf” and fall yet again. But those downfalls are of a different nature now, into the gold that they carried out of Egypt, the “Egyptian vessels” they took with them, in order to retrieve them from it and reform.

But still, what did they want during all those years of exile? They wished to create oneness between them that they finally reached at Mount Sinai. And without these moment to moment efforts to withstand Mount Sinai, the “400 years of Egyptian exile” will not have passed for you.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: In the light of the upcoming Moscow convention, you said that it’s time we got used to virtual congresses and felt an even greater connection sitting behind computer screens. What does it mean?

Answer: Conventions are a leap forth. But in addition to them, we must maintain the connection between us daily and constantly enhance it. Thanks to the conventions, we create impulses to unification, and during the intervals in between it is vital to sustain a permanent connection and strengthen it day by day.

There isn’t another choice; we must reach a “round,” global, integral world. It isn’t mere words. We can’t break the connection after the three days of convention; the connection must underlie the world’s daily agenda. This is what’s required of us.

Hence, we have to cultivate such relations between us that will let us maintain the connection even virtually, without our seeing and hearing one another. That’s why the Internet emerged in the first place: It is meant to help the entire world link in a wholesome interconnection and move on from the corporeal, virtual unity to the spiritual one. And we are to employ this medium.

Therefore, I suggest that our future conventions should be small, for about a thousand or two thousand friends who gather in the same region. And the rest will participate in them virtually, which won’t spoil anything for them at all. On the contrary, everybody lives in one collective state, and the “virtual” participants don’t feel any slightest weakness in uniting with the participants at the physical site.

It will allow us to have many conventions a year; besides, we will be able to maintain an unbreakable link every day of the year. Let’s stop spending much money on two huge conventions a year, after which we still experience a downfall and descend into the previous state. I wish to transfer emphasis from the physical to internal convention, and from the latter to the daily inner interconnection. It is extremely important. Otherwise, we won’t be able to build the place of the Creator’s revelation between us.

[40975]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 10

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #1 “There’s None Else Besides Him,” Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1, Item 1, Lesson 1
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Baal HaSulam, “Disclosing A Portion, Covering Two”
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