We are in a state where precisely the “prayer of the pauper” can save us. This means that a person has nothing and he does not need anything, besides one thing – to revive his soul. He does not ask for anything beyond this.

We are going out to the desert, which reflects our inner state, because the desert is poverty. And we don’t desire anything, other than to acquire the point of contact with the Creator, to revive our soul.
In return we can receive all the benefits of our current level, instead of the drop of unity with the higher level, which is always called the Creator for the lower level, creation.

We lack desire for the higher level, a desire just to unite with the upper one, to feel that we are inside of Him like a drop of semen that begins to develop.

This should be our intention while reading The Book of Zohar.
[68865]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/12, The Zohar

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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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“The prayer of the poor” is exactly what we need if we want to go to such an action like the convention in the desert: to look for the right deficiency, for the necessity. After all, we don’t need anything besides the deficiency. We exist in the Light of Ein Sof, in the Creator’s desire to bestow. But we don’t have a vessel that can receive this bestowal.

But this is what we need. How can we know for sure what the Creator wants to bestow upon us? What should we ask for? In the Torah it says about the beginning of the spiritual path: “And a certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying: ‘What seekest thou?’ And he said: ‘I seek my brethren.’”—the connection with others. How can we reach this connection if everyone feels hatred towards others and they don’t know where they are, they don’t understand that they are preserving their beastliness, going out to the field to hunt or to herd, while the one who wants to resemble the Creator is looking for a human (that resembles the Creator) and wants to see that “human” part in another?

As a result a person begins to discover the exile, Pharaoh, and the need to leave his control. It is all revealed in the connection among people.

Therefore, if we want to go out “to a field that God has blessed,” in order to do this kind of work and to feel that we are in the desert and should reach connection, then in that connection we can reveal that we hate one another and that Pharaoh, the snake, is among us. And this will evoke us to ask for the Creator’s help. Let’s hope for this to happen.
[68420]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, The Zohar

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Question: Should we get rid of all our corporeal desires in order to reach the level of the “poor man?”

Answer: We shouldn’t get rid of any desire. We should only ask for correction, and nothing more. The upper Light knows what to do better than we do. I don’t have to get rid of anything. Even if I see my worst attributes, I mustn’t get rid of them because it’s as if I would be cutting off my arms and legs. I don’t correct myself; it’s the Light that should correct me.

If I come to you, and attack you, shout at you, and insult you, I mustn’t “shut myself up.” I have to pray for the upper Light to perform this correction because that will be a real correction and not something that is done under pressure. This is a huge difference.

Baal HaSulam says that if you suppress something by that you are destroying this part in the world, and due to that the world will never be corrected. It will require much more effort to bring it back to the way it was and to correct it.

Similarly, we sometimes use medicines in order to suppress an illness and to conceal it inside, and this is even worse than if an illness is seen clearly and thus can be cured. This is how a snake operates: It hides inside and you don’t see it, but then it crawls out.

Therefore our attitude to transgressions, to quarrels between people and to different conflicts is totally different: Let them be as they are, yet above them we should build the correction because now is the best time to correct them.

If a person wants to cover up the negative revelations and to hide them, it’s the worst thing. There are people who are afraid of quarrels and conflicts, they are afraid of such revelations, and it’s bad because that isn’t aimed at correction.
[68417]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/12, The Zohar

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Question: How can we protect ourselves at the time of the Creator’s revelation if our Reshimot (informational genes) and desires change and are being renewed at every given level?

Answer: This is true, but we shouldn’t overlook the initial principle that states that the only thing we have to do is work on our desires and demands; the result will come from Above. It doesn’t make a difference if we face even a thousand confusing situations. All we do is prepare a desire for each state.

There is total confusion around us; we cannot trace internal connections and don’t understand a thing. We don’t have to understand: All we have to do is to want. We are not obligated to comprehend the situation and assemble fragments of the whole picture into one. Our task is to want to connect them together with the help of the Light that reforms. The more confusion there is, the better.

If we regard our work incorrectly, it seems that we don’t advance at all. We get more and more confused and frustrated; looking back, we are frightened by events in recent years, and looking forward, we don’t see even a glimmer of hope. Rabash once told me: “If at the time you leave a lesson you don’t feel more empty than the day before, it means that the lesson was unsuccessful.”

The lesson should end with a sensation that we don’t have anything. “What do I do?!”—I cry out. My cry has to resound.
[67852]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What is a good indicator that we are on our way?

Answer: A good indicator is one’s discovery of the deficiency from which the spiritual Kli (vessel) is constructed. As it is written, “God will complete for my sake.” This means that, in response to this deficiency, the attribute of bestowal will truly arrive. Through it, our spiritual Kli will be filled.

We were given the initial Kli, HaVaYaH, about which it is said, “I the Lord do not change (Ani HaVaYaH lo Shiniti),” “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey,” or the four stages of the direct Light. We can broaden it only by attaining the root through the tip of the “Yod” through which all of the HaVaYaH is filled to the same extent to which we open to Her the place of fulfillment, our deficiency.

The fulfillment is measured by the extent of bestowal that is acquired by this HaVaYaH (Yesod of Neshama – foundation of the soul). The soul (Neshama) is filled with the letters: “Yod-Vav-Dalet” (the complete spelling of the letter “Yod”), “Vav-Yod-Vav” (the complete spelling of the letter “Vav”), “Hey-Yod” (the spelling of the letter ”Hey”), and so on.

How can the Kli of HaVaYaH, the “skeleton” of the soul, be filled with letters? After all, the letters are also Kelim. Does that mean that I seemingly fill a pail with empty cups? Is that called filling? I wanted to be filled by the Light! The bestowal that the Kli acquires is specifically called the Light. It fills it, and it doesn’t need anything else.

Therefore, the acquiring of deficiency for the desire to bestow is the essential preparation of the person himself. When the desire to bestow arrives, it will fill the Kli with longing for bestowal, for love. There is no other filling: only this!

When a person is filled with the attribute of bestowal, he studies the Creator, the upper force, and becomes like Him. It is especially in this that he feels the fulfillment, that is to say, the filling is the Masach (screen) and the returning Light.

This is what we need to long for, to prepare for. All the work is just for this purpose. The main problem is not to become confused and not to replace the real fulfillment from bestowal, from the desire to bestow, the desire to love, with other fillings. No other fulfillment is able to give us more from this corporeal life than the very “small candle” and the awakening to spiritual life, meaning a kind of weak luminescence that stimulates the desire to receive and forces it to search for real fulfillment.

Therefore, all of our work is to search for the correct deficiency, and thanks to it, we become familiar with the Creator. That is what we can add to His work.

The Creator created the desire to receive, and we add to this desire our new correct form. We take this raw material and sculpt from it what seems to us as good and correct. Thus, we complete the creation.
[68034]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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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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How can I determine whether I advance towards the Creator with the intention of in order to bestow or for some other self-benefit? There are many people who are ready to “die as martyrs,” but how can you tell whether it is the greatest egoism or whether it is truly bestowal and self-sacrifice?

How can I check myself, daily, every moment, whether I am desiring to bestow upon the friends, life, myself, and the Creator or in order to somehow profit from them?

How can I test this? After all, without such examination, I don’t know where I am. It could be that I have been going along for twenty years but I actually went in the opposite direction from the goal: instead of bestowal to receiving. And I could complain that I haven’t reached revelation yet and that I am now powerless. But it could be that I went backward, as it is written, “It is better to sit and do nothing,” than to go in the wrong direction.

The examination is very sharp and simple: I have to yearn for what I hate: It is very simple. If I hate someone and want to feel bestowal towards him, then I have to love him without annulling my hate.

But if I don’t feel hate towards someone, I cannot check in what kind of a relationship we are: whether it is in order to receive or in order to bestow. If I build a relationship with someone, and I begin to think less of him than before, it is a good sign. It is a sign that I discover my ego. And I decide that I continue to reinforce our connection and turn the one I hate in to a loved friend, above my power, against my will, when I oblige myself to love him.

If I don’t succeed in that, I ask for it during the lesson and do all kinds of tricks in order to love him. This is because it is clear to me that the love must ride on top of the previous hate and that these two feelings have to coexist, as the right and left lines. I connect them and build the middle line without annulling either of them: not the right one and not the left one, as it written: “Love covers all sins.”

This means that the sins are necessary, so that above them there will be love. Then I look at our relationship differently. Hate is revealed? Never mind! It is a sign that now love will be revealed!

So I try to feel it and see that it doesn’t work out. I go through ascents and descents and different problems, and it is all in order to need help from Above. Then I cry out to the Creator: “Help!” The Creator is the middle line, Keter, from which the two lines come to me: the right line and the left line. If I am below, in the middle line (in the Sefira of Da’at), I ask and receive help from Him.

This means that these two opposing forces: the bestowal and the receiving, which come from Him, are needed only in order to stabilize me in accordance with Him and to focus me on Him. Thanks to them I feel and understand what Keter is. Actually they are what stabilize my reality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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We must constantly ask ourselves whether each day we better understand: what the need for redemption is, the preparation for it, and the spiritual vessel we have to prepare in order to go out to the desert. Do we have a deficiency for that?

The deficiency should be made of two parts: Malchut and Keter. Malchut is the deficiency, it is what I lack, and Keter is the respect I have for this deficiency, it is my assessment of this desire having the greatest importance..

We need a Masach and the returning Light, in other words, the ability to bestow. After all, the Masach itself isn’t bestowal yet, and neither is the returning Light; they are only the conditions. But we need them, because other than that, nothing is required of the spiritual vessel. The filling will come according to the Masach and the returning Light,

It is called a filling because the Creator, the Light of Hochma, is dressed in the filling afterward; it will be the direct result of the correction of the vessel.

The Masach and the returning Light are built on the desires and cannot exist without its depth and strength (Aviut). Therefore, love cannot exist without hate, without a strong, deep desire it is impossible to overcome it. This is how it should be built: one inside the other.

Therefore, when we are about attack, we have to see whether we’ve actually revealed our egoism, which we should attack now. Who are we attacking? There is nothing but the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, and we have to clarify this before we attack.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12

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How can we imagine the upper state in which the Creator reveals to you that He loves all those that hate you and hates all those that love you, including yourself? It seems that it brings you no good and that there is nothing worse than that. Before you are Pharaoh, Bilam, Balak, Amalek and Hitler all in one and you know how to overcome this because this also comes to you from the Creator, although indirectly.

The more we advance towards love, the greater the obstacles we come across. You overcome them and the “angel of death” becomes the “holy angel” in your eyes.

Question: I don’t understand this state. After all, the Creator is still perceived as good and benevolent. Do I see it together with the suffering of others and my own suffering in the past?

Answer: You see all the suffering that is in reality. This is a horrible picture: monstrous suffering, not one gram of pleasure, not a day of rest, only pain and suffering for thousands of light years. The suffering is everywhere. There is total emptiness in the desire to receive, not here and there, not from time to time, but one hundred percent suffering.

This state is called the illumination of the Shechina, and above it, you reveal the good and the benevolent. Otherwise, how would it be possible to discover Him? If the Creator just brings you goodness, then you discover Him in egoistic vessels. But if you discover Him in the full depth of the black abyss that is in front of you, then He is discovered in your vessels of bestowal that are aimed at bestowal.

Furthermore, you will see that He is good only towards those who are as bad as He is, and bad towards those that are good, in contrast to Him. This is how it will seem to you.

Our work is only in rising above the vessels of reception. If you see that the Creator’s actions do not match bestowal, it appears to you intentionally as an obstacle on the way, above which you have to rise.

Question: And what do I discover after this ascent?

Answer: The desire to receive, the general vessel of Malchut of Ein Sof, in a totally empty form: darkness, despair, worry, and fear, the dreadful trials of Job, and you fill it with the Light of Hassadim and with love.

Question: That means that after having corrected myself I feel good, no matter how much darkness is revealed to me. And now I look at the past and what do I see? Have I suffered or not?

Answer: This is already the next level, which you have to determine. In Gmar Tikkun (End of Correction) you don’t see that you’ve suffered of course.

Question: And what is the suffering that I feel now?

Answer: Now you are not the same person who will attain Gmar Tikkun. Eventually you will not recognize yourself in your present state. The feelings that were left behind are not you.

Question: So what am I now?

Answer: Something virtual.

Question: So what do we need all the present states for?

Answer: You feel them in order to prepare yourself, when you do everything that is in your power. It says: “I have exerted and I found.” You are getting ready until you find, until you rise above the Machsom (barrier), until then, the real “you” doesn’t exist.
[68061]
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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