Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 59: Hence, when one is granted repentance from fear… now he evidently sees that there is Providence of reward and punishment. It is clear to him that all the suffering he had ever felt was a punishment from His Providence for the sins he had committed.

Why is Providence being revealed to us? It is because it cannot spoil us. Each time we get an adequate measure of concealment that prevents us from blaming the Creator and His Providence within our desires that were initially destroyed and by doing so, we descend even more.

The step that is good for us is being concealed from us for our own protection. Just like parents who “diminish” their love to their children and start demanding more from them. They demonstrate “cruelty, insolence and stubbornness” to the extent that the wellbeing of the child requires. They regret that they have to “limit” their love, but there is no other way. This is called “suffering of Shechina” which has to be concealed from the lower ones.

However, when a person reveals His Providence, which is based on reward and punishment, he rids himself of any limitations. Now, he can misbehave like a child who suddenly realizes that his parents love him unconditionally and endlessly and that’s why he drops all barriers.

Kabbalists wrote a lot about this situation. As it is said, “The one who spares the rod hates his offspring.” It is essential to use rigidness and perseverance while constantly balancing between judgment and mercy.

The Creator has to conceal Himself from those who have receiving desires. He can open Himself only to bestowing desires, although, it is true only in regards to His Providence rather than to the Lights. By all means, it is also the Light, but it deals with intelligence rather than with feelings.

This stage is the starting point of human development. It should be clear to us that we advance only while acquiring the correct screens and powers. Thanks to them, if the Creator manifests Himself as absolute goodness and is ready to fulfill all of our desires, we won’t lose our independence. At the time of concealment we protect ourselves, and even more so.

When we were in concealment, we had nothing to “steal”; now, we have something to steal and should hold back from doing so. While in concealment, we don’t regard the Creator as good and benevolent. Our duty is to prevent ourselves from being spoiled by this sensation. It’s prohibited to undermine one’s fear because of the Creator’s abundance and our attitude towards the Creator. On the contrary, our fear has to continue growing: “Will we be able to give to the Creator at such a high level? Are we capable of rising above everything that is being revealed to us?”

Revelation of the Creator weakens us greatly since it compliments desire. It’s as if the Creator tells us: “Do whatever you want. There are no restrictions. You are welcome to have half of the kingdom or the whole kingdom.” This is where the problem lies: Are we capable of avoiding such confusion?

The most important thing is not pleasure, but rather illusion and complete disarray. All of a sudden we soared into the skies: “Everything is fine; we can do whatever we want; it’s easy! Previously, we didn’t realize that everything came directly from the Creator and was permeated with love. Moreover, we are in complete agreement with Him and He indulges us in our caprices…” That’s where we can get into trouble.

That’s why we have to constantly work on our desires until we reach the level of bestowal. When the Creator reveals Himself to us, we still carry on our path. However, this completely wide-open revelation” is only a trick, an invitation to the wrong side to us to continue expanding the screen and using ingenuity against the evil inclination, against Pharaoh.

It’s as if the Creator and Pharaoh approached us together as in the “Scroll of Esther,” where it is even harder to tell who the Creator is and who the Ahasuerus (the king) is. The king supports Haman, while Mordechai sits at the gates in the street, and we don’t know for sure which of them is right.

At times like this, we cannot endure without the right environment that evokes us to life.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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At certain moments we are able to feel a yearning for bestowal, for giving, for closeness, for embracing, for the unity of the hearts, but the next moment we cool down. This is because we are not corrected, and our impression comes from the ego.

The ego agrees to give in for a moment and adhere to another egoistically to feel the connection. Then, I feel proud that I managed to connect, and this is what holds me. However, a minute later a new Reshimo (reminiscence) cools down my enthusiasm.

Sometimes, a person is ready to jump off the tenth floor. For a moment, he is ready to do anything due to the despair he feels in his broken heart, but the next second he already regrets it and begins to think logically. It happens this way because it stems from the one and only egoistic desire a person has.

How can we be in the corrected state for a longer period of time, both in mind and heart, and not regret the decision we took, even though it is higher than us and against our nature? How can we consciously throw ourselves as if we were stepping out of the tenth floor into open air, and, while hanging in the air, know what is happening to us, be ready for it and want it to happen?

This isn’t a rash, crazy step coming from the despair of a broken heart, but from a clear, rational decision. This can only be done if you have another force, the force of bestowal, acting against the force of receiving. The Light that influences a person enables him to hold himself this way and to reach an informed decision.

A spiritual action never takes place according to the heart’s desire alone; it should be deliberate, calculated in both the heart and the mind. The more the upper Light operates and shines upon a person, the more he is able to make the right decision, giving his own life, his soul, and, at the same time, sticking to the decision for a long time, until he completes that level and rises to the next level.

With regard to the present level, he will never change his decision. When the next level comes and a desire grows, he will fall and rise again to the next state. The sign for such advancement is a constant feeling of happiness.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/12, Writings of Rabash

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Hate is inseparable from love. This principle should be engrained in me so that it becomes my program in relation to the world, through which I look at everything. In this form, I always will be in the middle line, in the middle third of Tifferet, Klipat Noga, in the point of my free choice.

Otherwise, I cannot orient myself and do not know where I am: in the area of bestowal or reception, or in a complete fog. Until I form two opposite lines, I am not in the world, which can be a reality.

So we go through so many ups and downs until we begin to understand the weakness of being only in the right or only in the left line. To be just in the right or just in the left is an egoistic state, Klipah Ishmael or Esau.

And if I am in the right and in the left line in order to connect them and rise above them so that the right line is always a bit higher than the left one (as there is always an inclination to the right), then I build the middle line.

But they both are present and support each other. Through this system of two lines, it is possible to see the importance of bestowal, in comparison to reception. And if there is no reception, how can we check?

Therefore, hatred and rejection must exist. A person, who is not in close contact with his friends, does not want to connect, and stays on the sidelines, might have excellent relations with others, might be a good friend, quiet, and calm, but not be involved in the work.

On the other hand, someone, who is argumentative and volatile and who cannot get along with anyone, may be able to establish inner contact with friends. Not only do we need to consider this criterion check judged by such outward appearances, but everyone needs to examine oneself inside.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“: “Naturally, one who is imparted this open Providence is certain that he will not sin again, as one is certain that he will not cut into his own flesh and cause himself terrible suffering. In addition, one is certain that he will not neglect a Mitzva without performing it the instant it comes to his hand, as much as one is certain that he will not neglect any worldly pleasure or a great profit that comes into his hand.“

We don’t understand this. What does “open Providence” mean? If I reveal the good and the benevolent, it seems that I am free of all my worries, lying in the arms of the Creator like a baby lying in his mother’s arms. Does he try to solve anything, to understand anything?—no, he is simply wrapped with love.

Does this love weaken us? Doesn’t it make us lose our power of self-preservation?

This is the problem. Parents’ love spoils the children. If they treat them only with love, the children have no limits and eventually begin to hate the parents.

Baal HaSulam writes about parental love (in Letter 2): “Come and see a wonderful custom in this love, where apparently if the son is an only child of his father and his mother, he is obliged to love his father and mother more, because they show greater love to him than parents who have many sons.

But it isn’t so in reality, but rather the opposite, that if parents are strongly connected to their sons by their love then the value of loving the sons is minimized, until sometimes the sons feel that “any feeling of love in their heart is extinguished” which is nature’s law that is in the world.

And the simple reason is, that a father’s love to his son is natural…and the son doesn’t fear at all that this love may diminish, and he doesn’t hope that his love will grow, which is called “absolute love,” and then gradually the son grows lazy in showing his father good deeds…and it becomes his second nature, close to hatred…”

Children need two forces; they can’t hold on to one force only. Every person needs two “reins”: the force of receiving and the force of bestowal; a “shell” on the side of receiving and a “shell” on the side of bestowal. Only this provides us with some “coordinate system” and places us somewhere.

But if everyone treats me lovingly, it will confuse and irritate me. I have to decide, to settle down somewhere. My brain can’t stand this and so it may finally come to hatred.

How can I guard myself when the Creator is revealed, so that I can handle the revelation of His love? How can I create borders around me, limits, so as not to lose my independence, my “self”? How can I establish my attitude towards Him too?

After all, I mustn’t conceal myself from the Creator’s love. He wants to reveal it to me to the fullest, and I seem to object; “No, that’s enough. I already see that you are treating me well.” This would be showing contempt to Him.

So the revelation of the Creator brings about many more problems than His concealment. A person has to establish internal systems that will enable him to manage himself under much stricter limitations. This is an ascent up the spiritual levels: stricter limitations, in order to work above the egoism and to build greater Masachim (screens).

At the same time, the stronger the desire is, the stronger the love is. In our world too, we love naughty children more than quiet children. The absolute love is actually perceived in “bad” desires and vessels. It is there that it is felt as positive or negative and from there, eventually it receives a response from the Creator. Eventually when a person’s worst vessels are corrected, he can return the same absolute love for the Creator…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Modern economy is based on the waste of resources. If we begin to save, many people will be unemployed. Will this be a right step towards the goal?

Answer: First, I don’t think we should call these people “unemployed.” We are in a new era now in which we are experiencing a change in the evolutionary paradigm. Today we have to see what is happening as a return or an ascent to the world that should exist in this way according to nature.

In this world we only live in bodies and everything besides the body’s basic necessities should be aimed at the correction of the soul. Accordingly, the concern for corporeal needs should amount to living a normal, comfortable life and not more than that. Of course, there is no need to return to the caves. A person needs a place to live, heating, food, a health system, security and everything that is related to desires like: food, sex, and family. Yet we should understand that all this is only the essential corporeal basis for the primary mission. The body exists so that we can develop the soul.

We turn to the whole world: The poverty line should become the baseline above which we should raise everyone. What for? So a person will be freed from worrying about their daily bread and will start dealing with the development of the soul. Anything beyond the necessities no longer applies to our world anymore, only the correction of the soul.

This should be our approach, although it’s still impossible to explain it in these words. If we approach things this way, we won’t produce surpluses, but will focus all the forces and the extra resources above necessity at integral education, meaning the system of correction. Accordingly, we place culture, education and science at the service of the development of the soul. After all, there is nothing else to live for in this world. We will finish with the soul and this world will disappear.

We should understand that the technology we develop should also provide us with free time for the main goal and not for entertainment and pampering. Ages ago, prehistoric man used to hunt for two or three hours a day. Only later, the growing ego brought certain people to control others and force them to work all day.

So we have to return to our natural state. Therefore, we mustn’t call people who don’t work in the traditional sense “unemployed.” They are not slackers, they were simply freed to deal with the main thing, they are returning to normal life. They can be employed for a few hours a day, and all the rest of the time they need to be working in the human field, above the beastly level, in a place that a person learns to be human.

We need the integral study in order to understand how to connect to one another. Thus we’ll reach a state of balance with nature and be rid of all troubles no matter what they are, whether in ecology or finances. Everything will calm down thanks to the balance.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/12, “The Freedom”

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A person goes through phases of concealment and revelation on his spiritual path. Yet concealment is not an easy thing. Who is actually concealed? Where did He disappear to and where is He? After all, concealment is part of the revelation.

If I feel that someone is concealed, it means that I know him, I know who he is and how he should be revealed. In this case we already have something to talk about regarding concealment: After all, I already have an understanding, an attainment, a certain feeling, but they are the opposite of revelation.

So how can it be attained? First, I have to understand that at the moment I am detached in a state of unconsciousness. Then I probably have to feel that something is concealed from me. This is already a step forward. Then I go through a double concealment and a single concealment, followed by partial revelation and complete revelation.

So how do I go through all these phases? It all depends on the how the Creator is revealed to me. The question is: How can I hasten His appearance?

He wants to be revealed before the created being, and we too, at the moment, seem to want to reveal Him. But then it turns out that we actually don’t want that at all, because to reveal the Creator is to reveal the attribute of bestowal that rules the world, and to become one who totally bestows. This means that I become restricted; I lose myself, and totally forget about myself. My “self” ceases to exist. I can’t even think about this. So do I want the revelation of the Creator?

Here we begin to understand that it isn’t that simple, it involves very serious things, and they are all concealed inside a person. According to our nature, we hate the revelation of the Creator. After all, it is in contrast to the egoistic pleasures that we want. His gradual revelation is depicted as something awful to me: It is as if I rule the whole world and suddenly some monster begins to cut off pieces from it, one piece after another, until there is nothing left and it also swallows me. What’s more, I have to agree to that, to want it, to look for it, to beg for it.

So we see that the chain of these events isn’t revealed to us directly; we have to go through a preparation process that is not simple. First I enjoy the revelations, which may be pleasant or unpleasant for my egoism. Then I have to acquire a feeling that is above egoism, and then I see the opposite picture, that I am no longer being guided by the feelings of bitter and sweet, but by the criteria of truth and false.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Creator doesn’t hide from us; rather, it is our ego that hides Him. Our opposite nature is what separates us from Him. So how can we take on the Creator’s form? How can we reach Him according to the law of equivalence of form? How can we discover Him and find out that He is in us?

In order to do that, we have to perform certain actions. Who performs these actions, us or Him? There is probably a need for cooperation here. We can’t advance without the upper Light. By “rocking” us, It demands our cooperation, which is called “free will.” This cooperation is all of our work. There are no restrictions here. It is open to everyone and is implemented by the correct studying of Kabbalistic books.

These sources can be the “elixir of life” or the “potion of death.” It all depends on our approach.

• If I intend to discover my evil inclination and to correct it, I can succeed, and the wisdom of Kabbalah will be the “elixir of life” for me. I will discover “death,” my ego, inside me and will want to correct it in order to come to life.
• But if I study to attain egoistic achievements, if I am looking for knowledge, power, respect, control, etc., then the studying only reinforces the egoism in me and my success is opposite to bestowal and I am not even aware of it. Such a study becomes the “potion of death.”

Thus we go through the stages of the Creator’s concealment. The concealment is divided into single and double concealment; the revelation first reveals to us the governance as reward and punishment and then the revelation of His eternal Providence.

Actually it all depends on my desires, on my vessels. With regard to the Creator, there are no restrictions. He doesn’t hide and is not concealed. It is my desires, my vessels, that hide Him, and if I work with them properly, they are gradually corrected, and according to their correction, I discover the Creator. One way or another, I am the one who hides Him from myself. [Read more →]

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In the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” Baal HaSualm explains that the part of our brain responsible for our perception of reality is built like a photographic machine through which I see the world divided. I feel myself as a kind of body and see everything else that exists as outside of me. So all of reality is divided into two parts.

This, of course, is a lie and there is no such division. But the point is that there is a Creator and a created being, and the created being should attain the Creator as a result of his development. Attaining the Creator is possible only by observing Him from the outside, and so the created being has to feel that he exists separately from the Creator, standing opposite to Him.

Then by comparing the two opposites, the created being checks and understands the inverse attributes, realizes that he is opposite to the Creator, realizes that he is evil and that he needs correction to become similar to the Creator and to reach adhesion with Him. Thus he raises the level of “human” in him.

In order to allow a person to assess all these attributes, understand, get to know, clarify, and correct his perception—reality is divided into two so that it seems to a person that he and the external world exist separately.

This, of course, isn’t even close to the truth. The assumption that a person exists and the Creator is outside Him, outside the world of Ein Sof, is also not true. But such a feeling is necessary so that we will add our exertion to building our vessel and attaining the understanding and revelation. Then it will be a “human” who built all this out of his free will.

It is like giving a child challenging games and puzzles so that he will work and thanks to that grow, understand, see, try, make efforts, and build himself. The same happens to us with the dual perception that makes us sense ourselves and outside of us, the world.

All our work is to make efforts to connect the two parts into one whole picture called “there is none else besides Him” and “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one.” This means to sense myself and the external world as one, and to understand that first I have to care about the external world and only then care about myself. After all, I will have to provide only what is necessary for the existence of my beastly body, and I have to try and see all the rest, all the external world, as most precious, my soul.

Then I will reveal that the external world is also me. It is because I treated it as something opposite to me that I hated, rejected and tried to stay away from it, that enabled me to learn about myself, about my nature, and about the “evil inclination.” I had a chance to fight all its fine attributes, the unperceivable, the coarse, and cruel attributes and by that to attain the Creator.

After all, in every incidence of hate towards the external world, there is a need for the Creator’s help in some way. So my rejection of the external world and my decision to connect to it, the power I receive for that from the Creator, and the unity I attain, all bring me to adhesion with the Creator.

So it turns out that there are actions of connection with the external world and there is the acceptance of this world, the feeling of unity or the Creator. By the creation of this division of me and the external world and the “neutral zone” (“Klipat Noga“) between us, I get help from the Creator—a state that is already partially prepared to attain the connection with Him because of this false perception.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, Shamati #36

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: However, when he achieves the aim of Creation and the Creator receives pleasure from him, since His will is done, man’s essence, which clothes in His contentment, is granted complete eternity, like Him. Thus, he has been rewarded with freedom from the angel of death.

Baal HaSulam explains freedom in the context of the perception of reality. We live in a world of forces. There is no matter; it is only depicted to us under the influence of different forces that stabilize this feeling for us.

I perceive the inanimate nature in all its forms and manners and also the vegetative, animate and human levels of nature. These four categories that fill my field of feeling are forces that are depicted in my desire and that draw, like on a screen, the picture of the three-dimensional, varied world.

This happens because my desire to receive divides the general bestowal, called Light, into many types and degrees of internal reactions. On the whole, it makes up the picture of the world in which I feel and see of all these actions.

So from the start, I was given a feeling for which I don’t have to prepare myself. I already have the desire to receive and in it, I feel the world. Besides that I see large-scale processes in inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature and also in between these levels. Actually it is about our internal world, but we take the names of the objects and the phenomena in it from the lowest level according to the principle of a branch and a root.

The higher I rise, the closer I get to the Light through the layers of my desire. In the lowest place I see the picture of this world. Then I rise to the next level, to the desires that are closer to the Light, and these forces are before me in the form of Partzufim, worlds, and Sefirot. Then I see the connection between the branch and the root in everything, and accordingly I call the forms that I feel as desires and the relations between the forces by parallel names from our world. Thus the language of the branches is formed. [Read more →]

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We start off from the lowest, furthest point. There is nothing further away from the Creator than man.

The Creator’s attribute is bestowal, while the created being’s attribute belongs to the inanimate level. There is hardly any difference between the two, except for the fact that the inanimate level is under the absolute control of the Creator and is in 100% self-denial, as it has nothing of its own.

Then the levels of the vegetative and animate appear. They are somewhat different from the inanimate level, not in their intentions and desires but in their motion that seems to be opposite from the Creator.

The levels of the vegetative and animate grow, move, and develop, and thus grow further from the Creator. They still don’t leave His control, but the Creator simply “allows” them to be incorporated into the two forces and to develop by being under His control. This is why all these levels are called nature.

Then the level of man appears and it also goes through the stages of the: inanimate, vegetative, and animate and the speaking. It is in this last level that free will begins.

Freedom is a relative concept and it depends on the observed object. We don’t judge stones or trees, but we judge animals, which enables us to train them and thus to use them. Man can already be judged in the full sense.

Eventually man finds himself furthest from the Creator; it is so far apart that we call this nature “the evil inclination,” while the previous stages are called nature, meaning under the Creator’s control.

So the question is: If most people belong to the natural level of development, how will they advance? After all, we all begin from the inanimate level.

In order to do that, there is a special tool: suffering. This tool operates on us and advances us. We associate suffering with a bad feeling, but we should understand that it isn’t just a tool but a whole system that initiates development. Through it, everything develops towards wholeness.

So in the next stages, our development is in that direction too, further away from the Creator, according to our free will. In our nature, in the evil inclination, we grow farther away from the Creator, and so we have to draw closer to Him with the help of the intention. Starting from a certain point called “Lishma” (for His sake), we begin to draw closer to the Creator and to enter Him.

It is in this initial point of the altruistic intention that we first acquire the real free will, while previously we only had the egoistic substitute.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/12, “The Freedom”

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