The wisdom of Kabbalah only speaks of inner work, correction of the soul, revealing the Creator to the created, and all the images in its stories constitute different types of desire through which we view the world. The desire to bestow is called Israel, (Yashar-El, straight to the Creator). “Israel in exile” is the desire to bestow with an intention of self-benefit. “Nations of the world” are the egoistic desire to receive.

If the desire “Israel” is in exile, its intent becomes egoistic, meaning it becomes bestowal with the intent of “in order to receive.” Hence, Israel in exile can gain much greater benefit than the “Egyptians,” than the regular desires to receive. That is why it has been said that after the sons of Israel descended to Egypt, they multiplied, became rich, fattened, became important, and had plenty of onions, garlic, meat, and fish.

In other words, all desires received the filling they wanted. After all, they were working in bestowal in order to receive: They used the force of bestowal to benefit egoistically. And of course, they succeed more than “the nations of the world.” As it written, the nation of Israel mingled with the other nations, learned their ways, and achieved greater success because they know how to use bestowal even in order to receive.

That is why it is very difficult to exit the ego; it requires special work. A unique force is required to extract the egoistic desire to bestow from Egypt, the desire which is so advantageous to Pharaoh who can’t receive the same from his own people:  the simple, egoistic will to receive.

Israel on the other hand, work for their own benefit, using the spiritual force to fill their corporeal desires. Surely, the ego doesn’t want to lose them; they become the primary means for receiving its fulfillment, which can’t be received from anything else. Nothing can provide such great fulfillment.

And so, how can Israel’s desires become disconnected from the ego? They have to undergo two corrections because they work in bestowal with the intention of in order to receive, not just the Egyptians (the desire to receive), rather the will to bestow, which learned from them, hence, it fell even lower than Egypt. Egypt doesn’t have the option of using the force of bestowal for egoistic fulfillment.

Everything begins from the moment the Egyptian king dies and those desires that worked in bestowal for self-benefit suddenly stopped feeling fulfillment in that way. There’s nothing to work for any more; our king died, disappeared! That means, I stop feeling why I’m studying and working. I don’t see the reward any longer. And then, “And Israel cried out from the work.”

At first, we knew the purpose of our work; we worked hard and gained egoistically. We were faithful slaves of the ego and wanted nothing beyond that. And now, all of a sudden, hard work begins without the clarity of knowing why.  We don’t feel the purpose in egoistic bestowal: That is help arriving to us from Above. The development reaches a state in which we’re incapable of enjoying that, we cry out in desperation and then begin to search.

Indeed, if there’s nothing to enjoy, “This life is worse than death.” There’s no life, no sense of fulfillment. And if there’s no pleasure, a person is prepared to commit suicide, rather than feel the emptiness. Then the work of exiting Egypt begins, which lasts “many days.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/12, Shamati #159

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Question: What does it mean, “to rise above egoism?” How do you do it: through thoughts?

Answer: To rise means to work with your egoism in a sensible manner. When you are under the influence of society and the society seems to be to your right, while egoism is to the left, you become close to the society and merge with it as you invest yourself in it as much as you can and treat egoism as matter that you must use in order to make a person, to give it a human form.

This is the difference between our method and all the other methods, which are based on the destruction and suppression of egoism, its maximum concealment, leveling. But not here! Here it is easily revealed. And since it is one of the two forces of nature, as I reveal the second force, I begin to see in an absolutely objective manner how both forces can be used, and neither applies to me!

Today I identify myself with my egoism; I exist in it inseparably. But here I sort of come out of it and regard my body, myself, and those around me objectively; I separate every person from their inner egoistic essence. In this way, I start seeing people, not necessarily in their egoistic matter, but outside of their egoistic matter, outside of their egoism, outside of matter, the way they should be if they were to properly use these two forces, the right and the left. The left force is egoism, and the right is the surrounding environment, which demonstrates altruistic qualities to me that are opposite to egoism.

Question: I do not fully understand, what is the right line?

Answer: The right line is power. It is the idea that I need to transform my left line: all my egoistic desires, intentions, everything there is. Let us say I have 600 or 800 of them, it does not matter whatever number becomes revealed, even 10 or 20 different desires and thoughts. Under the influence of the society and the environment, I must transform all my egoistic qualities, desires, and thoughts, which are my egoistic heart and mind, into their opposite: altruistic. It is like putting an altruistic shirt over egoism.

Question: Let us use an example to make it clear. Let us say that I have a new desire to sing. I like singing, but I am bad at it.

Answer: This is not egoism. Egoism is when you wish to use something, which will hurt others and will supposedly benefit you. But even if we use the singing example, if you were to sing in front of your mother who loves you, your singing would please her, despite the quality of your voice and your ability to carry a tune. If you were to sing outside, people might not be very pleased to hear you. Thus everything depends on the degree of participation, love, and connection between you and your listeners.

Question: How do you turn an egoistic action into its opposite?

Answer: Introduce love in the connection between us.

Imagine a scientist, for example, a doctor that operated on a person who had a problem with his voice, and the surgeon gave the patient the ability to speak. Now, this person, completely out of tune and wheezing, sings. Imagine what pleasure the doctor is experiencing hearing the results of his work!

Here everything depends on the connection between the people, and not the correct reproduction. If your actions are making others happy, go ahead do it. All the doors are open before you.

The main thing is to have a proper connection with others when you perceive each other with love. Then your new relationship is in charge. You begin to perfectly and instinctively understand which qualities you can use. Just as before you wanted to instinctively and openly use egoism for your benefit, now you openly and sincerely use it in the opposite direction.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #7, 12/14/11

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If I feel indifference toward the friends and nothing disturbs me, it is a sign that I haven’t begun to discover hate and certainly not love. However, if I already feel repelled by them, it is the influence of the upper light that is shining on me to show me my evil, my ego.

Not everyone is ready for this kind of work: It is possible that a person may connect with others and feel good; it’s pleasant, it’s interesting to go to the desert with everyone with all that hugging, and he doesn’t feel any hate. Hate can only be revealed by the Light that reforms.

Does it surprise you that this is the way It reforms you? Yes, this is the way to Him.

It is important not to despair that you have discovered hate that repels you. Don’t shout, “Where is my advancement? What kind of reward is this for my efforts?”

If you continue despite everything, if you want to connect with the friends because there is no other choice and Kabbalists advise you to do so, if you annul yourself, then you will understand that it is possible to reach bestowal and the revelation of the Creator only through connection. But you see that by yourself, you cannot connect and then you realize that connection is only possible with the help of the Surrounding Light.

The hatred towards the friends also comes from the Light, but this happens without our request. It is the revelation of evil. In order to correct it, a person must relate to the upper force purposefully and ask It to be revealed so that we will have the opportunity to connect with others.

There are many ascents and descents, disappointments, and a long period of helplessness on this path when you can’t annul yourself or turn either way. We are purposefully being exhausted this way until eventually the Light from Above comes to help us, and we begin to appreciate the friends. Here too you should check whether you appreciate them for no reason or whether you appreciate them because you appreciate the Creator.

Israel, the Torah, and the Creator should always be joined into one, and then this aims you in the right direction. Israel (you) is full of hate; the Torah (the upper Light) reforms you, helping you build the love on top of the hate. And then in the middle line, when you correctly connect the right and the left, you reveal the Creator and it all merges together into one.

This is the focus of our work.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Can I oblige myself to change internally? Is there such an action? For example, if I constantly think and worry about the friends’ intentions and set an alarm clock to remind me to do that, will I be able to measure the result of these efforts?

Answer: I don’t know the result. I exert myself and I don’t know what I will find.

Question: How can I examine things this way? What is the purpose of such a study?

Answer: Carrying it out. If you did it, the result will be positive. All other questions and claims come from the ego, “What do I get from this? Do I lose anything?”

Try to detach yourself as much as you can: There is a mission and I don’t need anything else. The alarm clock rings and I think about the friends. Then they disappear from my sight until the next ring. That’s all.

We can succeed. The problem is the inner weakness: You don’t have enough audacity. After all, audacity towards Heaven opens up the doors for you.

At the moment you see things intelligently and without attracting attention you are trying to turn the doorknob quietly and slip inside. But no, you should pound on the door so that it will swing open.

Question: How can I acquire this audacity towards Heaven?

Answer: Audacity is not when I doubt things indecisively: “Is it worth it? Perhaps we are not worthy of it yet? Perhaps we should first accumulate power and knowledge….” Audacity is when I demand although I know that I don’t deserve it. I know it and I demand it as if the Creator owes me.

And this is justified. I understand that I cannot exit my ego, that the Creator has created me this way so that I cannot really connect with the friends. I know that I am standing in front of a wall because I have discovered this after the efforts I have made. I have already tried many things and I have already attained certain things, but all my achievements are futile in front of this wall. Each time the evil inclination overtakes me and tells me: “Wait a while, you still have to finish what you haven’t had a chance to. Perhaps in a month or two, maybe brush up on Shamati, and accumulate power… but now you are not ready yet. Let the others try.”

There must be audacity here, but very serious and thorough audacity: “I deserve it and that’s it.” This isn’t a senseless attack but a careful calculation. I bring the efforts I made with me; I don’t simply demand things, and I do it together with the friends. It makes no difference whether we look like a gang of criminals and not a consolidated group, we demand decisively, as brave people who will not give up.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What should be the result of the Arava convention?

Answer: The word “result” in itself indicates that we are going there for some profit and that we want to get something. The truth is that I have to rise above myself, to lose myself and to feel “we” instead.

That’s all we need—to acquire the first spiritual vessel. This vessel in essence is a desire, a deficiency, and not an egoistic property. The desire to be with others in particular is revealed here, to connect to others. If it is constantly in me, it means that I have acquired that vessel.

But you expect to feel good as a result of our connection, that is, you expect to get an egoistic fulfillment. Start thinking and looking for the differences. There are many details here and it is good if you are confused by them, then you try to find out the truth.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Lo Lishma (not for Her name) is when I agree to be partners with the Creator. I have no other choice since after all I want to attain everything that exists in the world. This is the way I begin, like an egoist, like all of us.

But afterward, I despair at acquiring what is desired. If they were corporal acquisitions, I would apply more effort since I know this does the trick, or I would go study at a university if knowledge were needed, or I would steal it, but one way or another I would attain what I wanted.

But if my goal is above this world and I want to reach the root of my soul, to discover the goal of my life, where it comes from and what the plan for it is, then I will not be able to find that in this world. And it is here that we see that we have no choice, and we can’t manage through our own forces, and thus we reach the wisdom of Kabbalah.

And here I am told, “Do you want to attain that? It’s possible, but in order to do that you need to bestow to the Creator.” And then I perceive the Creator as a partner, like the taxing authority, where I think I can gain for myself on the condition that I allocate to Him the percentage He deserves.

If this is His system, He created the world, and I am in this world as a worker, as an implementer, then it’s clear to me what the Owner requests. As it is written: “The shop is open
and the owner gives credit. The book is open
 and the hand writes.
 And whoever wishes to borrow 
may borrow.” Thus subconsciously, I feel that the Creator is my partner Who will ask for His part.

Lo Lishma, is my partnership agreement with the Creator. In truth, I would like to gain everything for myself and not share with anyone; I would like spirituality to continue like corporeality, with the same conditions. But there is no choice, I am forced to share: “Tell me how much You need, I agree.”

Even if it were 99%, but if the one percent that remains is dear to me, then I am prepared to work for it. The worker in the factory works for pay of 1,000 dollars a month, while the owner of the factory can make millions. Here, it is the same thing. Therefore, I agree to a partnership deal with the Creator, and this is what each one of us does. We don’t have to lie to ourselves. Our ego doesn’t understand another way.

And here is the key point: How should I relate to this partnership? Do I bring my egoism to this partnership and divide: That’s mine and that’s Yours?

Sometimes I want to take everything for myself. Sometimes I actually agree to give everything to Him, but of course, that’s on condition that I also get something from it. Subconsciously I mean it, in my agreeing to give everything, in all of this there should be some gain in it for myself.

In as much as my state of Lo Lishma seems to me as a perfect state, when I want to give everything to the Creator, I see myself in my imagination as adhered to the Creator, and thus everything that He receives will be mine. Thus I am prepared to give to Him like to my baby, where I am not sorry for anything that I give Him since nature obligates me to feel that it’s mine. It’s as if it is I, myself, and even more important than myself.

Whether I want it or not, I have no choice other than to be situated in this kind of unconscious partnership, that is beneficial to the ego, like with income tax. And if it’s possible to somehow conceal the taxes, then it’s clear that it won’t work with the Creator.

Thus, if we are on our own, our desires to reach bestowal to the Creator is egoistic, it’s a ‘fixed’ game from the beginning. We can agree to bestow only from desperation, a lack of choice, or from the expectation of receiving payment. Everyone wants such a powerful partner who controls everything; it’s a very profitable alliance. This is the basis for all religions.

But our goal is to recognize the egoistic alliance in this point, and to correct it. Since it is especially in this point that we battle: if my relationship to the Creator will become my “potion of death” or the “elixir of life.” Will I go from Lo Lishma to Lishma or stay completely within the deadly ego? Here is the critical point.
[67036]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can I keep myself in the group although I feel that I hate them?

Answer: It isn’t terrible. Everyone experiences this hatred. See what it says about Rabbi Shimon’s students: such great people and what hatred was revealed among them. We need to look at it as a doctor treating an illness, and to treat it as a given fact not blaming anyone.

We have to accept the hatred as natural and essential, and we have to live with it. We have to know our nature and at the same time try to rise above it and build the spiritual relationships between us.

Wherever our mutual work with the help of the Light takes place above our ego, this is where we treat the hatred as a doctor treats a patient. When a doctor examines a patient, he doesn’t take his personality into account, but rather examines the illness and cures it. This is how we should act.

The ego is given to us from Above so that with its help, above it, we will build this connection with one another. If you don’t feel the hatred of friends inside you—you simply haven’t discovered it yet.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/12, Writings of Rabash

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In the News (from Daily Mail Online): “Anonymous baby drop boxes have been introduced for the first time in Russia.

“The Krasnodar Territory in south Russia bought five of the so-called baby drop boxes in the beginning of November so mothers could drop off unwanted children anonymously.

“The first three were installed in Sochi, Novorossiysk and Armavir, and by the end of the month one child had already been left.

“The move was aimed at providing sanitary conditions for unwanted children, instead of ‘having them left in garbage containers’, health officials told Ria Novosti.

“The move mirrors steps taken in South Africa, where anonymous ‘baby safes’ were introduced by a children’s charity in Spring last year.”

My Comment: As the prophets predict, in the future, unless we correct our nature, we will reach a state when we will “utilize” the newborns, up to consuming them as a healthy product for food. This is what our developed egoism will bring us to.
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Question: Does the notion of “egoism” imply a certain desire or the realization of this desire? For example, I wish to take something from someone—this is my desire, I can work with it. But it is a whole other thing if I actually take it from them.

Answer: We are not talking about the action, but the actual intention. When you wish to take something from someone, realize something at the expense of another, and receive pleasure from it, for your own sake, to the detriment of others, this is egoism. But simply enjoying something is not egoism.

Egoism is when our actions are directed at pleasing ourselves and hurting others by doing it: people, nature—no matter whom or what.

Virtually any action that we perform is egoistic. It is always either realized in balance with nature, society, and people or against them since we do not exist on our own like in a vacuum, but in the surrounding environment.

I must always think about my kind attitude towards others, and this primarily comes during the upbringing process. My attitude towards the animate, vegetative, and the still world, my attitude towards all of nature, and the entire Universe becomes completely different: benevolent, compassionate.

We begin to understand and perceive forces and layers that are concealed from us in the past, in nature, and in the surrounding space. We reveal the matrix, the design of nature, its inner meaning, its plan, where we exist and develop against our will. A person reaches the level of realization of his own participation, fate, destiny, and purpose.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #7, 12/14/11

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of The Ten Sefirot“: One concealment means that he believes in the Providence of reward and punishment. Yet, because of the accumulation of the suffering, he sometimes comes to thoughts of transgression.

The egoistic desire pressures a person and the slight revelation of the Creator’s posterior isn’t enough for him. But he still restrains himself as much as he can.

This is because even though he believes that the suffering came to him as a punishment, he is still like one who sees his friend from behind, and might doubt and mistake him for another. And these sins are only mistakes, since, as a whole, he does believe in Providence of reward and punishment.

So what are these states? Suppose a person’s egoistic desire weighs 100 kg and the Light gives him only 50 kg of power of resistance. If we subtract the 100 kg of evil from the 50 kg of the power of the Light, the result will be minus 50 kg. These 50 kg of the ego operate inside a person and lower him to the level of mistakes. If all the 100kg of the ego were set loose in us, a person could find himself on the level of sins.

If I am totally under the control of my egoistic desire, it is the level of sins. Here all my vessels, the ones that receive and ones that bestow, operate with the intention of in order to receive. But if some of my vessels can restrain themselves fearlessly, then I am on the level of mistakes. It all depends on the revelation of the Creator, on the way He appears to me.

This mechanism doesn’t work in our world. Here only the threat of a blow to the ego restrains us: whether it is the feeling of shame, or whether our pride may be hurt, or even physical harm. On the other hand, in the spiritual world the punishment is the inability to bestow. The threat of the inability to bestow restrains a person.

On the whole, it all depends on how much the Light influences me, in how many of my vessels I want It to bestow. Accordingly I am on the level of a “righteous” or an “evil person.”

Do I have free will here? It depends on whether I can demand that the Light will influence me as much as possible.

For example, I have a “cruel” egoistic desire that weighs 100 kg and I am ready to correct it only by 10 kg because I simply cannot ask for a greater correction; I can’t resist all the pleasures and put them under the intention of bestowal. Even when I am incorporated in the group, I am not ready to get rid of all my egoism. At the most, I am ready to “cut the edges,” to get rid of the “excess fat,” and not more than that; that’s all I can ask for. So what’s next? Will my request be accepted in such an egoistic manner?

Everyone should try and answer this question by himself.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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