Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Histaklut Pnimit (Inner Reflection),” Item 36: The will to receive is the substance of the essence. … We name the first form in the essence by the name “the first substance in the essence” since we have no attainment or perception whatsoever in any substance.

There are five types of sensations: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. To feel an object as a material one is to touch it. Only by touching it can I be sure that it exists and is material.

The most reliable reality is that which can be touched and taken into the hands. I name something as substance if it reveals itself to me by touch, but in reality, this is not substance. It is simply that I have five organs of perception, and the influence of the Light on my sense of touch creates the illusion of substance in me. If I had no body with nerve receptors on my skin and if I could not perceive the reality I am in through them, I could not feel the material world which I sense today.

What is smell? The influence of the Light on my smell receptors gives me the perception of smell, and the influence on the taste receptors gives me the perception of taste. The same is true for sight and hearing. All of my sensations come through the nerve endings which are located either behind the ear drum or inside the eye.

So, all that we have are the five organs of perception. In the end, they draw for us all of reality: our body and the entire world in front of us. I perceive substance through my sense of touch, while the rest of my senses—smell, taste, hearing, and sight—draw the additional qualities of the alleged “reality” that I and the surrounding world are part of.

The Light draws this entire picture for me. In reality, there is nothing except simple desire, which is being influenced by the Light, giving birth to all of these forms. That is why it seems to me that we all exist as physical bodies.

This is why Baal HaSulam says that “the will to receive is the first form in the essence,” and that we define the first form as “substance” because we have no attainment of the essence. So, there exist matter, form clothed in matter, abstract form, and the essence. Matter is the will to enjoy perceived by us through the organs of touch which are being helped by our other organs of perception.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: During the preparation for the Moscow convention, many of us focused on the thought that the convention had already started, and we truly felt that we were already there. Should we constantly concentrate on the state of the convention?

Answer: If don’t see ourselves living at the next, higher, spiritual degree, we will never ascend to it. We should do what little children do which, for us, is an example of how to study the spiritual level while being on the physical one. If we don’t yearn to grow up, we won’t. Therefore, visualizing unity as an ongoing, permanent convention is undoubtedly useful.

Concerning the group, we should do the same. In my imagination, the group resides in the corrected state. The only wicked, uncorrected egoist is me. Thus, I am supposed to strive to be with them, visualize that I am already part of them, and clarify what I need in order to be included.

Our entire world is imaginary. However we see it, that’s what it is. Nothing is real. All of this is merely a figment of my imagination.

Put everything in its place. Give everyone, be it a group, person, or quality, a certain value, a specific degree, and you will see that thereby you are tuning the world like a musical instrument to make it fit you.

Everything depends on how you will tune it. What will be higher and lower for you will determine the direction in which you will move: either to evil or good, to stealing and drug abuse or to love and bestowal. It is all up to you as to what kind of world you will create for yourself. The world as it is doesn’t have any form. It all depends on how you attune yourself to it.
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From the Lesson in Moscow 6/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Opinion: Thomas L. Friedman (From nytimes.com): “You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century—when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all—and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?”

The only answer is that it is difficult, even if it is necessary, to change our view of life. We are destroying vital reserves, consuming our own future.

We exploit natural resources and pollute the earth with our waste to such an extent that it exceeds the planet’s capacity for self-restoration. We cannot change ourselves at will, and, hence, we will be reformed by the crisis, quickly and radically. Over the course of a few decades, we will have completely reformed the economy, the power industry, and transportation.

“We will realize that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less.”

“We are heading for a crisis-driven choice,” Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, says. “We either allow collapse to overtake us or develop a new sustainable economic model. We will choose the latter. We may be slow, but we’re not stupid.”
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Question: What does it mean to do inner work?

Answer: A person is supposed to do inner work 24 hours a day. It may be that one is so absorbed in it that having come to the lesson, he doesn’t see a word written in the book, but that doesn’t matter. The key is what is happening in him.

You shouldn’t blame yourself. Inner work is when you keep trying to hold yourself in adhesion with the internal essence of the group. As a result, when you open the book, what you see there is not some external knowledge, but rather the information describing the types of unification with the friends in the group and, more than that, in the integral soul.

You begin to realize that The Study of The Ten Sefirot, The Book of Zohar, and other Kabbalists’ writings describe only various types of connection between you and the others. If you honestly desire to have this connection clarified, you are studying the Torah indeed (the word “Torah” in Hebrew derives from the words “Ohr,” Light, and “Oraa,” instruction).

Question: So, my work is in finding this inner network between us, does it? However, how do I utilize the corporeal world for this?

Answer: Our entire world is the same kind of network between the people, but is its most external manifestation. This is why we experience it as corrupted.

As to our internal network of connection, we experience 125 consecutive degrees of greater bond, integral unification between us. Yet, our existing state in the external world is mandatory: This is where we start and exist so that we may delve into this connection deeper and deeper.

We need a foundation that doesn’t pertain to moving inward, and this is what the external network of connection between us is, where we exist in the corporeal world. It’s only now that it becomes revealed how truly corrupted this connection is, while previously we simply didn’t think about it. That is what obligates us to perform corrections.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Parable about a King”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, “Truma (Donation), ‘The Song of Songs, Which Is Solomon’s,’” Item 313, Lesson 13
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 1 “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words,” Item 32, Lesson 31
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 15, Lesson 10
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“Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 9, Lesson 6
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Today, the entire world is in crisis, and we are slowly approaching even greater problems everywhere and in every area of life. All we have done in this world was done poorly because we grew under the rule of our egoism. We cannot expect good from anywhere because we have always worked just for the sake of our ego.

Now, evil is gradually revealed, drop by drop, at different locations and at any opportunity so as to prevent us from being withdrawn into our own pain. If the pain becomes too strong, we will not be able to think about anything else except how to get rid of it. We will no longer be interested in its cause and effect; we will want only to stop this pain.

However, if the pain comes in waves and all the time either subsides or becomes more severe, leaving me enough time to reflect on it, then I start seeking from where and why it comes and how to get rid of it. The Creator plays such a game with us, and as a result, we find a solution.

First of all, we need to study the cause, and it is in the oppositeness of our nature. Our properties are opposite to the Creator, and therefore, as He gets closer, we feel bad! And the closer He approaches, the worse we feel! It is like in the case of the thief whom it is better to keep away from the treasury and not to give him an opportunity to commit a crime. The same is with us.

Therefore, especially now, in our time, the Creator is revealed very slowly and gradually, in order to give us time to think. He is revealed slightly, and we feel bad. For example, a couple of years ago, a crisis erupted, and now people say that it is allegedly over. But it did not pass; we are simply given time to think and explore! Soon, another blow will strike, at several levels and of several types. And then a period of calm will take place.

Thus, the Creator teaches us and gives us opportunities to look for reasons so that ultimately, we would reveal Him as the source of all that happens. And in relation to our egoism, He appears as the source of all evil. Then, we will understand why we feel bad: It’s because of our oppositeness to the Creator.

What can we do to feel good? The Creator is perfect, and we have to change only ourselves. Thus, gradually, we will realize that we must correct ourselves. Humankind will certainly arrive to this under the methodical, periodic blows that will come in all forms to any nation, to any person, teaching us thereby.

However, we have to reveal the method to people so that they learn sooner from where and why these blows come. By this, we will facilitate the development of entire humanity. This is called “bringing the Light to the nations,” that is, to people who still do not understand why they get hit.

To develop consciously, people need to discover the cause, necessity, and purpose of the blows. As a result, the whole course of development changes very much. Those who possess the method of correction must do this for the entire world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah World 6/24/2011, Shamati #241

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Comment: In our age of satiation I know in advance that I need not exert effort to buy a Mercedes because in a month or two the charm will evaporate and I’ll begin to want something else.…

Answer: That’s true, but we’re talking about a spiritual goal now, not a Mercedes. If there’s something more important for you than the goal, then you will stray off the path. That’s obvious.

Comment: But the spiritual goal itself isn’t clear to me. I don’t even know what it is.

Answer: This begs a question: Does that prompt you to search for the truth? If it doesn’t, then you’re not advancing. Every day you need to conduct an inner calculation: “What do I have on the one hand, and what do I lack on the other? And when will I obtain that which I lack?”

Otherwise, if you’re missing the direction and the pressure, how will you advance to achieve your desire? If you don’t set a goal before yourself at every moment, you will not achieve it. Or do you presume you’re riding in a train with a paid ticket?

In other words, you’re being lazy like the others, waiting until suffering starts spur you forward and convincing yourself that simply putting in the time will have an effect. Is that it?

Comment: Naturally. But how do I compel myself to conduct these daily checks? It’s not like I have power of my thoughts.

Answer: Ask your friends to egg you on. They are one thousand degrees above you, so why aren’t you jealous of them? Why aren’t you ashamed before them?

There are people around you who have crossed the Machsom. Granted, you don’t know what that is, though you’ve heard the word before. These people sense spirituality, to a small measure, but still. And what about you?

But you don’t see this and that is why you aren’t jealous of them. That is correct. But you don’t see it because the intention to bestow reigns in them. If they were to reveal it to you even a little, you would run right back to your Mercedes. And that is why they don’t reveal themselves. Still, try to be jealous of their attainment somehow. You simply must.

The Creator is ready to give us Infinity, but we’re unable to receive anything but the thinnest illumination that He sends to sustain our present existence. You need to think about how to achieve shame, and for that you need exercises between you and the group. Otherwise nothing will happen.

Until you build a system of relationships with the group as you would want to have with the Creator, nothing will happen or will be revealed to you. It’s like you were given a construction kit with lots of little pieces to put together into a certain structure. If you do it, you’ll be given a more grown-up challenge.

But without it there is no advancement, for better or worse.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Question: It is said: “Do good.” But how can we do good if only evil is created, and we still know nothing about good?

Answer: Evil is purposely created in our sensations so that we turn it into good. In reality, there is no evil. Our perception is turned inwards, and because of that everything good that we receive appears to us as evil. Everything that is perceived inside us is felt as evil because we compare ourselves with what exists outside of us. That is, evil is the division between me and others.

Evil does not exist on its own. Namely this paradigm, this method of egoistic fulfillment, this inward direction is evil. As soon as we change it, it immediately disappears and so does our sense of all evil in the world.
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From the Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah 6/19/2011

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Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words”: Question 18. What is Hochma? This Light is the basis of the life of the emanated being.

From the perspective of the emanated being, the upper Light which has created the desire to enjoy is divided into two forms because two types of attitudes arise in the emanated being: 1) the attitude toward fulfillment and 2) the attitude toward the Giver of this fulfillment. Therefore, when speaking about the Light which has created the desire to enjoy, fills the desire, and cares for it, this Light is called Hochma (Wisdom). And when we are talking about the Light of correction which fills the emanated being with the quality of bestowal, it is called the Light of Hassadim (Mercy).

In truth, the Light outside of the emanated being is uniform. The upper Light always remains at absolute rest. And all the qualities and phenomena in it, such as the “round Light” and a “line” or “Inner” and “Surrounding” Lights, are nothing but the creature’s impressions from the influence of that same Light.

When referring to the life of the emanated being, this Light is called the Light of Hochma, and when speak of our bestowal to the Creator, it is called the Light of Hassadim. These are the two main types of Light, which further divide into many sub-types.

In conclusion, the Light that acts through the creature’s desire to enjoy is called the Light of Hochma.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Torah, the method of correction, was revealed in ancient Babylon where desires emerged, both related and not related to correction. Since then, this method of correction has existed in humanity.

Why did only a small part of humanity learn it? In Babylon, it was absorbed by those who were drawn to it originally, those who by the law of equivalence of form felt that it was for them. Others took “a detour.”

The question here is not about any given nation, but about the entire world. Why doesn’t everyone find this method? Why don’t desires and intentions directed to correction manifest in all people?

To find the answer, we have to turn to the breaking of the vessels and see why everything happened that way. Some vessels relate to the receiving desires and others contain more of the giving desires. They were intermixed with each other, and as result, let’s say, 99 percent of all the vessels are unable to aspire to correction themselves. They demand the point directed straight to the Creator to pull them forward, to become the connecting link between them and the Light that Reforms.

Similarly, people with the point in the heart also need the connecting link: the books through which the Light is drawn. A “book” means revelation in Kabbalah. The book helps attract the Light to the group, meaning to the desire that needs to be united. Thus, on the spiritual path, the role of an “adaptor” is played by the teacher, the group, and the books. However, people without the preparatory base only suffer and need to be connected with those who by now are ready for development.

This order is the result of the breaking of the vessels. The fact is that the receiving vessels cannot correct themselves before the giving vessels, the Light of Bina, connect with them, meaning with Malchut. Only this combination between Bina and Malchut allows them to rise.

Some of the giving vessels are related to the world of Atzilut, to Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE). However, the vessels of the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya are related to AHP (Awzen-Hotem-Peh). Because of the breaking, GE fell into AHP. By making corrections, we raise GE back up, and AHP rises if it adheres to GE. First, only the vessels of Galgalta ve Eynaim rise because Israel corrects itself. Then, it corrects AHP as well.

This is the order of correction. Initially, it is intended for AHP, and the goal is to correct it.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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